535 thoughts to “Open Thread Non Petroleum- Dec 22, 2016”
Coach Lloyd Brings You: NEWS FROM THE FRONT!
The Ground War in Asia Continues!
QUAGMIRE!
Dozens killed!
Thousands Wounded! Millions Bored by the Endless Re-hash!
First a news article! Then an interpretation!
Then a dog pile that leads to an argument about the validity of the model or the reputation of the author of the reference!
440 replies. Word count of 73,000.
And yet the greased pig slips away again.
Javier complains of this place being an echo chamber; if so, it is one of his making. The constant replay of tiny areas of the discussion and the disregard for the general consensus- that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real- plays to the side of Climate Change Denial.
As I said in the last post: Why are we here?
Javier is playing to a larger audience: he is not really talking to us. “I guess I am the only one here defending a point of view in a debate that is clearly divisive and according to polls is heavily populated at both sides. So if I have to answer to a lot of people, I have to use a lot of words.” (Emphasis mine.)
And yet we give personal responses about tiny edge cases that he doesn’t care about (because they don’t stop him from defending his central thesis.) By constantly spreading doubt, he makes his thesis seem to be more viable and supported than it is. Javier can loose all of these (as he does) and still win by his terms: we give him a forum, and legitimacy by proxy.
Javier uses VOLUME of postings to control the discussion.
His agenda is to make everything seem to be contested. The fact is that almost all of the regular posters believe in Anthropogenic Climate Change. The appearance to casual readers is that half (or more) of the postings deny Climate Change.
So Javier gets the attention he wants, and wins by his terms.
“Winning” individual postings is not really winning, if the impression left is that they are still contested. And Javier always broadens his discussion at the end, so full refutation is impossible without writing a book and/or continuing endlessly. Some examples:
“Peter Clark’s group has a bad reputation for lack of rigor with the conclusions that they extract from difficult to interpret proxy data.”
“If it hasn’t happened in 800,000 years we shouldn’t worry too much that it is going to happen over the next century.”
“It should be a lot easier to imagine the Northern Continents with a several kms thick ice sheet, because it is a lot more probable that it will happen in the future.”
“In a hundred years the atmosphere could go down easily by 50-100 ppm provided temperatures don’t fall by much.”
“Watch for the fun when the consensus dissolves.”
Has anyone seen an iota of change in Javier’s general position? Anybody?
Our individual responses are drowned out, and yet we continue to behave like our telling him he’s full of it at the end of 5 exchanges actually matters.
And Javier continues to get what he wants.
So let’s talk about something else other than THAT topic and that individual. Enough already!
How about the impact of the continually falling price of PV?
NREL Report Shows U.S. Solar Photovoltaic Costs Continuing to Fall in 2016
Fair warning on that one: Tesla’s retail price for the Powerwall 2 is half what Lazard assumes for residential battery storage, so their estimates are way too high for that category. Lazard is *also* already out of date.
Pretty cynical: it points out that it’s all about the money… and explains why solar is taking over, and why China is dominating it.
Interesting documentary. I found much in it that was not cynical at all but rather pragmatic and even hopeful.
But as far as the venture capital behind a lot of this, I go back to Douglas Rushkoff. “It’s the OS stupid!” We are still running on a 13th century OS designed by monarchs to subvert the new found means of peer to peer prosperity of the nouveau bourgeoisie business class, that was starting to produce wealth and prosperity in the middle ages and thereby making the nobility and the ruling class redundant and pretty much unnecessary and therefore obsolete.
They’ve had a pretty good run since then and it is past time to be putting up with a system where 57 individuals control 50% of all planetary resources.
We need to end the monopolies and centralized distribution systems of the fossil fuel and energy generation industries.
Or better yet, let’s revisit something I brought up at the tail end of the last thread.
You, Fred made this post quoting from Alex Steffen’s recent essay, .outlining what the strategies of high carbon industries might look like and the rational for such strategies.
HuntingtonBeach, from a different source, quoted a slightly shorter portion of the same essay in a post near the end of the thread.
I wrote a reply in which I pointed to a story I would have waited and posted on this thread had I known Dennis was going to put this up at the time he did.
I posted the link to the article because I think it illustrates why the FF lobby is fighting so hard. The story I am posting again here near the beginning of this thread, is about a company I had highlighted in another post in the previous thread that I think has a real chance at significantly reducing the cost of solar PV cells.
The wafers were produced with 1366’s current production furnaces in Bedford, MA, and the cell fabrication was completed at Hanwha Q CELLS’ Center for Technology Innovation and Quality in Thalheim, Germany.
“This year we’ve been focused on mass production trials and, together with Hanwha Q CELLS, we’ve continued to push the performance limits of multi-crystalline cells while dramatically reducing their costs,” said Frank van Mierlo.
“These latest results demonstrate the further potential of the Direct Wafer and Q.ANTUM cell technologies that can break the technical limitations of conventional wafer and cell making processes,” said Kai Petter, Senior Manager, R&D Silicon of Hanwha Q CELLS.
I want to repeat the conclusion of my previous post because, I think it bears repeating:
So, here’s the kicker! IMO this is a game changer. If this factory gets built in upstate New York, a state of the art facility will be producing fairly efficient solar PV cells (multi-crystaline), at a very low cost, with very little waste, using mostly clean hydro power for energy. These cells will probably be the lowest cost multi-crystaline PV cells in the world! Now, things are at a critical juncture and if Trump and his goons take an anti-renewables stance and somehow stymie this project, does anybody think this technology is going to disappear? IMO the South Koreans or the Chinese will be only too happy to host a factory that is going to make the lowest cost PV cells in the world and the South Koreans already have a foot in the door through the investment by Hanwha Q CELLS. Bear in mind that Solar City has built their own PV module Gigafactory in upstate New York and there is the prospect that they could also benefit from the low cost PV wafer production by 1366.
This is precisely what some people here seem to be worried about. Trump and his goons could scare away new technology, clean energy growth industries and the jobs and prosperity that go with them, leaving the US with what most of us here see as industries heading for geriatric care. Grab your popcorn folks!
Now, there are two sets of folks that are “worried”, the folks who fear the US will get left behind as other countries grasp the opportunities offered by new clean energy industries and the folks who fear their lifeblood will be sucked out of them by the new clean energy industries. What the latter set of folks may be failing to realize is that they are screwed any way you look at it. They will either be made irrelevant by industries operating in the US and employing US citizens primarily or they will be made irrelevant by companies with no US ownership and very few if any US employees. My message to them? “Pick you poison! Home grown or imported?” I will be following the fortunes of 1366 Technologies very closely!
I am hoping that no matter what the US does, renewable energy will expand globally. If the US is left behind, so be it. If the US is left behind on the next energy technology, it will also be left behind in terms of overall global influence.
I keep wondering when the smart money in fossil fuels (if there is that) will be transferring their money out of fossil fuels into either safer investments or faster growing investments.
Maybe they are already doing so, but don’t want to publicize it to avoid steep declines in their stocks.
Also, I would think that some of the industry types Trump is appointing do know the future of fossil fuels even if they say something else to the public.
Anybody here a REALLY good cartoonist or can point one my way? There is a cartoon I would like to get circulating.
NAOM
Really good is subjective, but if you send your idea my way I can see if I can do anything good with it. you can email me rajabobnickson via the google mail. Non disclosure to other parties assured on my side.
“I keep wondering when the smart money in fossil fuels (if there is that) will be transferring their money out of fossil fuels into either safer investments or faster growing investments.
Maybe they are already doing so, but don’t want to publicize it to avoid steep declines in their stocks.”
Yes, they are. Google “Colby College divestment”. Despite an active divestment movement, they stayed absolutely silent until they’d divested completely and then didn’t announce that either.
This is happening. A lot.
The Rockefeller Family Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Foundation — run by the family who should know the oil business better than anyone — divested quite publicly and with some fanfare, and IIRC they still announced *after* they’d sold their biggest holdings. Most foundations will divest quietly.
We still need to understand that real disruption must happen at a systems level. To me this is where capitalism has failed and why ideas like communism are totally irrelevant in the 21st century.
We need a total systems reset or upgrade so to say. Disruption needs to happen at a fundamental level. The current economic paradigm with it’s financial institutions, banks and venture capitalists and pushers of infinite growth to repay created debt and parasitic shareholders won’t work long term.
We need to reinvent a peer to peer barter based economy that can use digital technology such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies to bypass the existing financial system and produce real prosperity without the need for infinite growth.
If anyone thinks there is strong resistance against renewables from the fossil fuel interests imagine the push back from the current holders of financial power via capital as this kind of disruption puts them permanently out of business…
Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin/Dark Wallet) is mentioned on the Permaea manifesto draft as written some years ago, but there are serious doubts, including, but not limited to, their resilience, overcomplexities and dependencies on the status-quo and certain complex levels of working technology and infrastructure, as well as their best-before dates.
Money in general is a problem, so there needs to be more investigation in the concept of a gift (and other forms of) economy, as well as honest and realistic appraisals of them.
Also, the term ‘disruption’ seems problematic a term and to suggest, for example, a kind of orientation– still– to the current pseudoeconomic model… I don’t want something to disrupt anything per se, or anyone, but, rather, in Permaea’s case, have it be a fork/branch and creation of a different system entirely. That said, however, disruption may likely be what inevitably occurs, but part of the whole point behind Permaea is as a safety-net. Disruption will come anyway, whether through the behaviors of the status-quo, or through how nature reacts to it.
FYI, I did not even mention ‘Bitcoin’, I was talking about blockchain technology. While bitcoin is built on blockchain it isn’t the only cryptocurrency out there. There is a lot happening. BTW, ‘Disruption’ isn’t only about technology and it has very little to do with what anyone wants. Think more along the lines of an earthquake or tsunami…
I put Bitcoin/Dark Wallet in parentheses because it is mentioned in the manifesto, not because it is the only cryptocurrency out there.
From what was understood at the time of writing, Bitcoin is a protocol, or more like one, that ‘apps’ such as Dark Wallet can be built upon.
And my comment also suggests precisely that; that ‘disruption’ isn’t only about technology, etc..
That said– which should also go without saying– hedge your bets accordingly.
From what was understood at the time of writing, Bitcoin is a protocol, or more like one, that ‘apps’ such as Dark Wallet can be built upon.
You seem to be confusing blockchain with Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology.
A network of nodes
A network of so-called computing “nodes” make up the blockchain.
What is Blockchain Technology? A step-by-step guide than anyone can understand
Node
(computer connected to the blockchain network using a client that performs the task of validating and relaying transactions) gets a copy of the blockchain, which gets downloaded automatically upon joining the blockchain network.
Together they create a powerful second-level network, a wholly different vision for how the internet can function.
Every node is an “administrator” of the blockchain, and joins the network voluntarily (in this sense, the network is decentralized). However, each one has an incentive for participating in the network: the chance of winning Bitcoins.
Nodes are said to be “mining” Bitcoin, but the term is something of a misnomer. In fact, each one is competing to win Bitcoins by solving computational puzzles. Bitcoin was the raison d’etre of the blockchain as it was originally conceived. It’s now recognized to be only the first of many potential applications of the technology.
There are an estimated 700 Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies (exchangeable value tokens) already available. As well, a range of other potential adaptations of the original blockchain concept are currently active, or in development.
While I’ve read stuff about blockchain, etc., some time ago, my interest is elsewhere at the moment, but thanks for the quote just the same.
Nevertheless, if you would like to approach the technology in a kind of synthesis/evaluation of it over time– run it through a ‘model’ or ‘thought-experiment’, and report back on any ideas, significant findings, caveats, potential problems and the like, it would be appreciated.
There have been capitalist periods in history before.
When the debt gets too large and can’t be paid, they tend to turn into feudal systems.
The alternative is the “jubilee”, basically cancelling the debts and starting fresh every so often.
Progressive taxation and welfare is a sort of rolling jubilee, but sadly the overclass got too greedy and got rid of this in the US. They still have it in parts of Scandanavia.
Good morning Island Boy,
There is a NON ZERO ( sarcasm INTENDED) chance that Trump and his administration will not do anything directly to harm the solar and wind industries, if you consider the reduction or termination of production tax credits to be indirect, and cutting off most of the dedicated research money to be indirect. I am using the word direct to indicate actually outlawing new solar and wind farms by way of encouraging the adoption of laws that will prevent them from being built due to zoning , or writing tax laws that prevent them from being built.
Now as to whether top management and the big owners ( not Granny with a hundred shares! ) understand that the FF industries are on the way out, I think that most of them understand very well that this is true, that their time is maybe not just yet, but that they can see it coming, like a middle aged guy sees old age coming at him.
Of course there are dummies and denialists in every corner of society, lol. There are sure to be a few managers and owners who are in denial, or who simply DON’T understand physical realities such as depletion.One of the most successful automobile mechanics I ever met, who has fixed literally thousands of cars, has the most outlandish ideas you could imagine as to how an automobile engine actually works, in terms of physical principles. But somehow, as wrong as he is, they still run after he works on them!!!!
Likewise, although it is more easily understood, a preacher is GROSSLY and TOTALLY mistaken in every respect about the nature of physical reality, the physical world, can still be an EXCELLENT personal counselor, giving VERY practical and workable advice to those who ask him for it.The management team at the local furniture plant where I once had a part time maintenance job is HIGHLY competent, as evidenced by the fact the plant is still open. But nobody on it knows doo doo from apple butter about physical reality, in terms of the big picture. All of them believe there’s oil enough to last for generations, at the very least, coal enough to last hundreds of years, etc. The point I am making is that ignorance in some respects is not a reliable indicator of incompetence on other areas. Flip side, we ought not assume that just because some young man or woman with a hot body and or heavenly voice is good looking or can sing like an angel, he or she knows doo doo from apple butter about any thing other than show biz. Most of us apparently don’t understand that pro sports are just part of the show biz biz, lol.
And for the actual WORKERS in such industries, they see DOOM, short term economic ruin, staring them in the face. Management and owners have resources in abundance, money and transferable skills. Workers don’t.
In either case it’s easy to see why both workers and management are fighting the most determined and viscous defense and rear guard actions they can.
And while they ARE fighting the GOOD FIGHT, from their perspective, I can say with complete assurance, from talking to many older men in such industries, that they generally DO recognize their industries are on their way out, and they don’t want their own children joining their industries, because they have come to believe their kids will be far better off, long term, safer, healthier, and more prosperous, etc, earning their livings other ways.
What I actually expect to happen is that the awesomely cynical right wing press will now take credit for the recent boom in American oil production, and pretend it’s all to Trumps credit it happened, on Obama’s time frame, lol.
And with some luck, that same press, after doing what it could for years and years to make sure the NEXT BIG THING, namely renewable energy, belonged to GERMANY , CHINA, SOUTH KOREA, and other countries, friend, foe and indifferent, will be claiming that the success of the wind and solar industries here in YANKEE LAND are to be credited to mainly to Trump, with a nod to the free market.
I agree with all the regulars who say it’s too late to put the renewable genie back in his bottle.
But the Trump administration will probably figure out ways to slow down his work and hold up the transition to renewable energy a few years.
Let us all pray to the Sky Daddies and Sky Mommies and Snakes and Waterfalls of our personal choice that Trump does not manage to slow down the growth of renewable energy enough to prevent the transition from happening.
Over the last three or four years I have become increasingly confident that transition IS technically and economically feasible, IF we get with the program, and don’t dawdle away the opportunity.
The window of opportunity won’t be open forever. There’ s a time coming when fossil fuels, and other resources, are going to be in short enough supply that it will not be possible, from the technical, political, and economic perspectives.
Right now, one reason we Yankees can still compete with the Germans in manufacturing is that we have lots of cheap domestically produced fossil fuels.
The time is coming when we WILL NOT have cheap fossil fuels. How well will we compete THEN, when Germany will be running mostly on wind and solar power, and we are looking like fools, with some of the worlds finest and most bountiful wind and solar resources, going to waste, unused????
Javier is a spam troll, full stop. The only true answer is ‘Bloody Viking’. We must not try to convince him (DC note). It is impossible as that is not his appointed task. We need to supply short, sharp responses to the THIRD PARTY with links to the details. No long explanations (OFM note), bang, bang, done.
NAOM
Hi Lloyd,
Certainly, environmental degradation or ‘change’ is not limited to climate, nor is fossil fuel use necessary for environmental degradation or social unrest, war or collapse.
There’s far more to it– holistic, systems and contextual thinking and all that, right?
The rebranding/greenwashing of BAU, and/or implicit and explicit calls for its continuation, with some important exclusions, and assorted transgressions (i.e., personal attacks) along the way, is just another form of a kind of denial and/or ignorance, wilful or otherwise, and therefore not exclusive to what others here are suggesting, hypocritically, of Javier.
“Izabella Kaminska has been an Uber skeptic for some time (see Why Uber’s capital costs will creep ever higher and The taxi unicorn’s new clothes). In this video, she signs up as a gig economy worker and uses her experience to explore what she argues is a new form of feudalism…”
Hi Caelan.
The purpose of Coach Lloyd is not to address these things.
The purpose of Coach Lloyd is to avoid the hijacking of this site and due to manipulation of the number of opposing voices and/or comments due to deliberate action by trolls, paid or otherwise.
I am informing the other commenters of how the entire blog appears, and how their individual contributions to the gestalt may be made to appear contrary to their intentions. After all, almost all of us are too old to have studied Media Literacy. Consider this a refresher course.
It is about the process of media manipulation, not the actual content.
-Lloyd
Fair enough Coach Lloyd, and thanks for the clarification.
Hi Lloyd,
While I read your comments with great interest, and recognize that you know a few things about media, maybe more than I do, I disagree about driving Javier out of this forum.
As a practical matter, this is not a sound bite forum. A lot of the better commentsrun into hundreds of words, and the articles and graphs etc, generally run into the thousands.
Anybody who show up here, and sticks long enough to read the forum, even once, is not a sound bite person, excepting the occasional troll, and the occasional political partisan who may stick in a short comment in favor of Trump and fossil fuel economics, such as TT.
People who want to know, but DON’T yet, are going to actually read what Javier has to say, and what Fred Maygar and his sort have to say. A hot discussion is almost always an EXCELLENT tool with which to engage a newbie into a controversial issue.
Incidentally anybody who really believes all the people who do not believe in the current climate science consensus are fools, or republicans, or whatever else strikes them as undesirable, is a fool himself. There are tens of millions of people who lack any technical education at all, and tens of millions more who lack anything beyond what is taught ( ineffectively in all too many cases ) in second class public schools. There are tens of millions more who have degrees from respected colleges and universites who have taken at the most one single course, and at that maybe a survey course, in a hard science, often decades ago, in which they learned virtually NOTHING.
Such people are not stupid, nor are they necessarily redneck republicans, etc.
They do their thinking the same way DR LLOYD does his, using whatever data is available to them to come to such conclusions as seem reasonable to THEM.
Since they know nothing or next to nothing about SCIENCE IN GENERAL, and since they are quite used to being lied to by bankers, economists lawyers, politicians, car salesmen, so called journalists, preachers, cops, robbers, businessmen of every sort and stripe, and often enough by their own spouses and children, WHY should anybody expect them to believe in what climate scientists tell them????????????
???????
If you want them on board the environmental bus, the last thing you should do is slam the door shut in their face.
Unless you really do want an echo chamber, you have to allow people in who disagree, and although I disagree with Javier about how serious a problem forced climate change is, he does have something to say that is relevant and insightful at times.
You might like it better not seeing any contrarian content, but on the other hand, any new reader- who is not yet a member of the ( scientifically correct) church of forced climate change – who finds there is no discussion of the matter allowed will simply go elsewhere, if he is looking to broaden his understanding of climate.
If he is on the other hand really interested in the fossil fuel depletion versus renewable energy transition issue, he will find plenty here with which to charge up his memory banks, so as to use his own CPU between the ears to come to his own conclusions.
Hi Mac. While I read your comments with great interest, and recognize that you know a few things about media, maybe more than I do, I disagree about driving Javier out of this forum.
You and I use this forum in different ways, and ask different things of it. I look at it as a place to “talk” with a few dozen smart people on a shared topic of interest. The fact that other people not involved in the conversation read it is not particularly important to me.
Until the point it makes the conversation less fun for me.
When people like Nancy try and re-frame the discussion as political rather than fact-based, or Javier tries to make the entire blog about his particular variety of denial by posting one-sixth of a very long thread, that’s when I care.
I do not see it as important to change others over to my viewpoint: we are still on track for the Club of Rome’s middle scenario, and if the Meadows couldn’t do it with global publicity and a 40 year head start, it is unlikely that my voice will have a huge effect.
You might like it better not seeing any contrarian content, but on the other hand, any new reader- who is not yet a member of the ( scientifically correct) church of forced climate change – who finds there is no discussion of the matter allowed will simply go elsewhere, if he is looking to broaden his understanding of climate.
We are not, and cannot be, all things to all people. The things that will appeal to long-time commenters, and keep them engaged, are unlikely to be topics that will appeal to a newbie (or will require that newbie to do some background research.) As I have said, I see the educational aspect of this blog, with regards to passive readers, as secondary. The problem of much of current media is that they require an adversarial duality- a hard right, hard left point-counter point discussion. I don’t think we need that here (especially as Javier plays by different rules.) I don’t mind if it seems dry to an outsider, and there are others who agree with me (at least as far as not reading or responding to Javier.)
I noted at the beginning of the Coach Lloyd comments that I view Javier and Fernando as special cases. That said, I do not think we should give them a pass just because they have been here for a while. Javier has been using the good manners and usual behaviour of the other commenters in a subversive way. I don’t like it, and I’m not alone.
I have no real power here. I can offer suggestions, and tell people what I think is happening with regards to how their views can be interpreted due to the context in which they appear. That’s all. If it happens that people agree with my arguments and do not give him as much attention, that’s not “driving him out.”
Most of us go through periods when we post less or read less here, depending on our personal lives and whether we know anything about, or wish to discuss, something. I post lots of comments that dead-end. It doesn’t mean that the group is driving me out: it means that no one wanted to discuss or add to my topic. We don’t have to engage with Javier, and not engaging is not driving him out or censoring him.
I see no credible scientific reasons to discuss Javier’s crap, and I find the drive-by “climate scientists are in it for the money” morons an annoyance.
These people have an agenda outside the group, and have no real interest in the group or the discussions we have.
And I want no part of them.
You can disagree if you want.
-Lloyd
PS. I have noted what Fred said upthread, and my own general thoughts about re-hashing. I won’t post as Coach Lloyd just to have a post in each thread. I’ll keep it to anomalies and teachable moments.
-L
Keep going, I believe that trolls will get worse.
NAOM
I’ve never seen Javier say anything insightful. And I have seen him repeatedly engage in abusive rhetorical techniques. You know, the ones which are taught in rhetoric class as “off limits” and “not kosher” and “fundamentally dishonest” (and then used by politicians and preachers…)
We don’t need that here, do we?
As far as I’m concerned, the P-Tr extinction (which any casual reader can look up in wikipedia) is sufficient proof that human-induced global warming and ocean acidification is a clear and present danger to the survival of humanity. (Any casual reader can also look up ocean acidification in wikipedia, and I think it’s interesting that there are very few ocean acidification deniers: the fossil fuel industry hasn’t bothered to come up with a propaganda campaign to deny it because it’s less well-known than global warming.) The rest of the mountain of evidence is just supporting evidence.
I haven’t heard Javier come up with a single reasonable argument that I’m wrong about this, but I *have* seen him do an awful lot of misdirection, changing the topic, diversion, Gish Gallops, cherry-picking, etc. etc. etc. Disinformation tactics.
While I often disagree with Caelan about technology and sometimes politics, I do respect him, personally, for being consistent, and I also understand that he says some things that make great sense, so long as you don’t read them literally.
Conventional thinkers think of fuedalism in historical terms, as it used to exist hundreds of years ago, and thus fail to recognize that a whole lot of modern economic theory and dogma CAN BE and ought to be ( for purposes of nuance, of gaining a DEEP understanding of society and economics) discussed as fuedalism.
I am old enough to have known old people in my own family, when I was a child, who experienced the life of sharecroppers first hand, as children, and who did some farming on shares themselves, as adults.I listened to their stories, and they were very happy to repeat them for a child who brightened their day visiting. Enlightenment plus a got a hog’s share of home made pies and cakes is a pretty good deal, lol!
( There is a big difference between being an actual sharecropper totally at the mercy of the landlord and markets, and having some land and a home and some other resources of your own, and raising some crops on shares with people who have land to rent out, on a cash free basis.)
It’s useful to think of share croppers as being in effect defacto slave, except share cropping is arguably a much better deal for the landlord that owning slaves is for a farmer or planter. Even the worst of slave owners generally felt compelled to provide some medical care, food in bad times, and some other things for their slaves. They did the same for their mules, doing this much is simple good business.
When the slaves were freed, it didn’t take them long to figure out that you can just run off a sharecropper who gets hurt, or sick, or old. There was almost always a ready supply of replacement workers, and they actually had to work harder than slaves at times, in order to avoid starvation or eviction and the consequences of being homeless and jobless without salable skills.
I don’t have any problem at all thinking of people who rent their homes because they can’t afford to buy homes of their own as economic slaves, actual slavery in this country being replaced by share cropping on big southern farms, and people who ought to be able to buy homes being victimized by ” the system” prevented from doing so, with their ever evolving fuedal masters passing thru the slave owning stage, then into the owners of farms tended by share croppers, and more recently into landlords who extract profits from the labor of tenants who work OFF the property, instead of on it.
Incidentally, for any body who is interested in a fairly safe and potentially hugely profitable long term investment, it is rather easy to buy a house in a lot of rural areas close enough to town to get a good tenant who will commute- a house on a fair sized piece of land, sometimes as much as twenty or thirty acres in my part of the country. The land can be producing timber, or rented for hayland, or if it’s already fenced, rented to a small local farmer to run a few beef cows, etc.
The population is still growing, and will be for another couple of generations, and so far I don’t hear anything coming out of Silicon Valley about inventing new land, or where it might be PUT in case somebody pulls off that trick, lol.
For what it’s worth , my opinion is that privacy and acreage are already amony the most prestigious of prestige and status oriented possessions, and that in the future, privacy and acreage will be more valuable than ever.
Ya don’t need to even THINK about putting your contemplated personal pv system on the roof if you plan on building on five or ten acres someday. 😉 You can bet your last can of beans that in most parts of the country a well and septic system will cost you a hell of a lot less than a PERMANENT water and sewer system bill, a bill that will go up every few years, until you finally die. ETC.
And with electric cars getting cheaper fast, and solar electricity getting cheaper fast, and electric cars hopefully lasting like Mack trucks, pretty soon it may really be possible to more or less FORGET ABOUT what it costs to commute round trip for sixty or eighty or even a hundred miles.
To paraphrase Twain and Ron Patterson, the death of rural living has been greatly exaggerated. Ditto the death of the suburbs, even if it does cost twice as much to put your pv panels on the roof as it does on the ground. 😉
And here’s another odd but happy thought. If you live ten or twenty miles out of town, and own a self driving automobile, and need to get to a hospital fast, you will probably be able to preprogram your car to take you there, if you are able to get to the car. The car will most likely get you to the ER entrance within thirty minutes. Sometimes it takes that long NOW to get an ambulance to your house or apartment.
The car will also be able to continuously relay it’s location to an ambulance on the way, and pull over for the ambulance, lol.
“To paraphrase Twain and Ron Patterson, the death of rural living has been greatly exaggerated. Ditto the death of the suburbs, even if it does cost twice as much to put your pv panels on the roof as it does on the ground. ”
Good thoughts Old Farmer Mac, glad to see another person understands.
The fundamental problem with rural living is road (and other infrastructure) maintenance. The current pattern of American settlement is made possible by gutting the cities to allow cars to come in from the suburbs, while subsidizing the suburban infrastructure from taxes collected in the cities. Amazingly, cities have played along with this for decades.
Most city governments in the US have started resisting this. The political cards are stacked against them, but the have economics on their side — the state and federal funds to build roads no longer suffice to maintain suburban and rural roads, so they will continue to crumble.
Is there climate change? bla bla bla…
Is it anthropogenic? bla bla bla…
Can anything be done? No. Who wants to hungrily freeze in the dark while sitting on a coal mine?
Robert, can anything be done? Yes.
On average, each square mile of the planet receives 6,000 barrels worth of energy every day. Free for the taking.
So all the useful energy of oil worldwide can be replaced with a square of PV 116 miles on a side. That would cost 4 trillion dollars to get more than 30 years of energy.
Oil costs about 2 trillion per year, so 2 years of oil cost to pay for the PV.
At a 15 to 1 ratio I think a huge mistake is being made.
It is a well-known fact that cold, even when moderate, advances the death of a much larger part of the population than warm. And this is true even for countries with moderate climates at mid to low latitudes. A larger part of the population dies over the winter months compared to the rest of the year, while the opposite is true. A smaller part of the population dies over the summer months.
This book (full text available) leaves very clear that this has been happening and is known since at least 2000 years ago.
About a month and a half ago Roger Andrews published an article at blog Energy Matters with the title “Death and Climate Change.” My contribution was precisely to point to this simple fact.
The conclusions are not exactly what the alarmists like to read:
“Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths, corresponding to 7·71% of mortality in the selected countries within the study period. Most of this mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7·29%), compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0·42%). Furthermore, most deaths were caused by exposure to moderately hot and cold temperatures, and the contribution of extreme days was comparatively low, despite increased RRs (Relative Risks). The study was based on the largest dataset ever collected to assess temperature–health associations, and included more than 74 million deaths from 13 countries.”
Curiously the results are solid even for tropical countries like Brazil, where moderate cold conditions kill far more people than heat.
This has a deep logic beneath. The human species has two very extreme characteristics for being a mammal. It is one of the surface mammals with the least hair cover, and it is the mammal with a highest density of sweat glands. We are probably the mammal with the highest capacity for losing heat. Clearly a tropical species. Probably we were designed for endurance running under hot conditions that lead to rapid over-heating of our prey.
Global warming has been hugely beneficial to humans, specially in temperate and cold climates, saving hundreds of thousands, probably millions of lives. There is no reason to think that this trend is going to reverse in the future. During the Little Ice Age mortality reached double digits percent several times in northern countries (the Ill Years of Scotland, the Great 1696 Famine of Finland and the Baltic Republics).
They show how excess winter mortality has been going down in parallel to global warming. Of course the reduction is multifactorial, as advances in house heating and insulation, increased prosperity, and influenza vaccination have all played a role.
But regretfully progress seems to have stopped at the same time as the pause in global warming stablished in the 21st century (see figure below).
Excess summer mortality does not exist, therefore it is futile to claim that global warming is killing a lot of people. Quite the contrary it is saving and prolonging human lives. Something that has been known since long ago, and it is behind the increased longevity in the US population due to old people moving South. Until old people start to move North to prolong their lives global warming will be beneficial to people’s lives.
Yes, influenza, pneumonia and other diseases increase dramatically when cold weather occurs due to people being indoors and school starting. Note: EWM is excess winter mortality
“A study by Healy (2003) showed that excess winter mortality (EWM) varied widely within Europe. The results show that countries with low winter temperatures in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, such as Finland and Germany, had very low rates of EWM. ”
“Although EWM is associated with low temperatures, conditions directly relating to cold, such as hypothermia, are not the main cause of EWM. The majority of additional winter deaths are caused by cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease and respiratory diseases. Although cancer causes more than a quarter of all deaths annually, previous research by Johnson and Griffiths (2003) (97.4 Kb Pdf) found that there was no clear seasonal pattern for these deaths.”
Let’s quote a little bit more extensively, shall we?
“Causes of excess winter mortality
A study by Healy (2003) showed that excess winter mortality (EWM) varied widely within Europe. The results show that countries with low winter temperatures in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, such as Finland and Germany, had very low rates of EWM. Conversely, countries with very mild winter temperatures in Southern Europe such as Portugal and Spain had very high rates of EWM. England and Wales both have higher than average EWM and exhibit high variation in seasonal mortality. These results were echoed in a more recent study by Fowler et al (2014).
There are many reasons why countries with milder winter climates have such a high level of winter mortality. For example, people who live in countries with warmer winters tend to take fewer precautions against the cold. The Eurowinter group (1997) reported that compared with people living in countries with cold winters, those from warmer countries were less likely to wear warm protective clothing in cold weather.
Countries with milder winters also tend to have homes with poorer thermal efficiency (for example, fewer homes have cavity wall insulation and double glazing), which makes it harder to keep homes warm during the winter (Healy, 2003). It has been shown that low indoor temperature is associated with higher EWM from cardiovascular disease in England (Wilkinson et al., 2001).
Although EWM is associated with low temperatures, conditions directly relating to cold, such as hypothermia, are not the main cause of EWM. The majority of additional winter deaths are caused by cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease and respiratory diseases. Although cancer causes more than a quarter of all deaths annually, previous research by Johnson and Griffiths (2003) (97.4 Kb Pdf) found that there was no clear seasonal pattern for these deaths.
The cold can have various physiological effects, which may lead to death in vulnerable people. Woodhouse et al (1993) reported that colder home temperature was associated with increased blood pressure in older people. The Eurowinter group (1997) noted that cold causes haemoconcentration, which leads to thrombosis, and that cold can also lower the immune system’s resistance to respiratory infections. Additionally, the level of influenza circulating in the population increases in winter. In vulnerable groups, for example in the elderly or those with pre-existing health problems, influenza can lead to life-threatening complications, such as bronchitis or secondary bacterial pneumonia (Public Health England, 2014b).
Previous research has shown that although mortality does increase as it gets colder, temperature only explains a small amount of the variance in winter mortality, and high levels of EWM can occur during relatively mild winters Brown et al, 2010 (293 Kb Pdf) . Curwen and Devis (1988) showed that both temperature and levels of influenza were important predictors of excess winter mortality. The relationship between temperature, influenza and winter mortality is complex.”
The reasons why moderate cold is a bigger killer than strong cold are social. People protect less against moderate cold and are therefore more vulnerable to its deathly effect. It is the same explanation as to why France is unusually susceptible to heat waves that cause less trouble to Southern countries that experience even higher temperatures during those heat waves, like Spain or Italy. It is called adaptation and can be such simple measures as avoiding being outside in the central hours of the day, staying in the shade, and drinking a lot of water.
But it is very clear that those excessive winter deaths are in big part due to the effects of lower than ideal temperatures on susceptible people. Cold affects negatively a lot of human diseases, while heat has a negative effect on very few.
Global warming, saving human lives since 1850.
Vitamin D, saving human lives since like, forever!
One can count on disease vectors moving northward with increased temperatures.
Extreme heat and extremely warm nights.
“Globally, extremely warm nights that used to come once in 20 years now occur every 10 years.12 And extremely hot summers, those more than three standard deviations above the historic average, are now observed in about 10% of the global land area, compared to 0.1-0.2% for the period 1951-1980.13
These trends cannot be explained by natural variation alone. Only with the inclusion of human influences can computer models of the climate reproduce the observed changes. These changes include an increase in the number of warm nights, unusually hot days, and heat waves, as well as warming of the warmest night of the year, warming of the coldest nights and days of the year, and warming of the hottest day of the year” https://www.climatecommunication.org/new/features/heat-waves-and-climate-change/heat-waves-the-details/
These trends cannot be explained by natural variation alone.
I don’t see why not. If we live in a warmer world it is obvious that all warm-related statistics should be higher, regardless of the cause of warming.
Only with the inclusion of human influences can computer models of the climate reproduce the observed changes.
That is a shortcoming of computer models, that have been built, parameterized, and tuned to anthropogenic forcings.
Let’s remember the “Principles governing IPCC work
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.” https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf
Natural climate change needs not apply.
It is clear that if the science is funded to find human-induced climate change, and models are built to reproduce human-induced climate change, that is what they will find and reproduce. But that is a proof of nothing except bias.
You do seem to view the world of climate science as a grand conspiracy.
“Even so, that means more than one in five Americans with postgraduate degrees show a high predisposition for conspiratorial belief. As an educator, I find this disturbing.
Other factors are at work in creating a conspiratorial mind. Uscinski and Parent note that in laboratory experiments “researchers have found that inducing anxiety or loss of control triggers respondents to see nonexistent patterns and evoke conspiratorial explanations” and that in the real world “there is evidence that disasters (e.g., earthquakes) and other high-stress situations (e.g., job uncertainty) prompt people to concoct, embrace, and repeat conspiracy theories.”
You do seem to view the world of climate science as a grand conspiracy.
Not at all, but the times when scientists decided on their own what to research are long gone. The science that gets researched is the science that gets funded. It is as simple as that. Funding bodies decide how they assign the money and therefore what gets researched and what doesn’t. Political directives are one of the ways the society decides what gets researched.
What you think is a conspiratorial belief is actually knowledge of how science takes place. Scientists in general do their best, but they are paid workers. Politicians are actually in charge and many times they don’t do their best.
But since much of the science is at universities there would have to be some method to control each one in place and some larger conspiracy at work. Since much of the results go against the political and corporate desires, I see no central ruling force at work. I do hear people who believe there is a greater conspiracy at work.
This would have to be a worldwide conspiracy too. So I do not think that your assessment is within the realm of reality.
Hi Javier,
There are many nations that have had the political establishment against climate science, supporting their fossil fuel masters. Also the fossil fuel industry can support their own research to find “the truth”.
Many scientists will pursue those avenues of research they think are most fruitful.
Did you base your research solely on what could get the most lucrative funding?
Not all scientists are motivated solely by money, if they are, they work in the private sector rather than at academic institutions.
The main responsibility of a principal investigator is to have his/her research group adequately funded. Without that he cannot pay salaries, pay for the research or attract students.
To do that the PI has to be successful at grant applications. Past proven success shown by publications is paramount, but knowing or guessing what is likely to get funded by the funding body where applying is as important.
If working on climate research presenting an application on human induced climate change is several times more likely to get funded than the opposite. And if you get a reputation of disagreeing with consensus or providing ammunition to skeptics you can forget about publishing in a lot of journals and getting money from a lot of places.
Perhaps you have forgotten about climategate emails, where it was shown how Mann, Briffa, Jones, … engaged in gatekeeping to have contrarian papers rejected from several journals.
Just to cite one:
Jones to Mann Mar 31, 2004
Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Hi Javier,
Mann, Jones etc don’t supply the funding, that comes from governments and corporations.
Take off the tin hat 🙂
Dennis,
No. What Jones, and Mann, and others in collusion with them do is to control the editorial policies about climate change in quite a few journals.
We have seen with surprise how the publication of some contrarian articles has resulted in the publicized resignation of journal editors, like in the Soon & Baliunas 2003 paper, the Spencer & Braswell 2011 paper, or the Akasofu 2013 paper. This is unprecedented in science where scientific debates are everyday business and good and bad papers are published also everyday by all sides. It results in a lot of pressure being brought on journals and editors to not accept contrarian articles, and the pressure originates in the consensus scientific elite to which Jones and Mann belong, as their emails demonstrate. Different means towards the same end. Let the other side starve from lack of funds, lack of publications, public victimization by activist groups and the media, and lack of career progress. Scientists are not stupid. Those holding a contrarian point of view will hide it.
Suppression of the contrarian point of view by such questionable methods is strong indication that the consensus of experts is probably wrong. When the science is right there is no need to go to those extremes.
WHY HASN’T JAVIER BEEN BANNED YET?
I am tired of scrolling past his inane garbage.
I believe Javier still has not explained why he believes that carbonic acid does not increase the ocean’s acidity, or why he believes that acidifying the ocean is harmless to creatures which form calcium carbonate shells, or why he denies the consensus of geologists on the causes of the P-Tr extinction. He’s just propagandizing at this point.
Michael F. Holick, MD, PhD of the Boston University School of Medicine might be interested in those statistics but, I’m sure he’d want to investigate links to something other than temperature, UV exposure and vitamin D deficiency to be exact.
GF’s post above suggests that EWM has less to do with temperature and I’m pretty sure Dr. Holick would suggest a link to decreased levels of vitamin D in the winter months. Of course such ideas run afoul of another giant, very profitable, multinational industry, the pharmaceuticals but, that’s a whole other story.
Eating organ meats during the winter will keep up the levels of essential minerals and vitamins.
On a lighter note: (Have a good holiday, mates. Remember, a happy Christmas dinner means no talking about politics, including AGW.)
Racial Profiling?
I was standing at the bar of Terminal 3 in the International Airport when this small Chinese
guy comes in, stands next to me, and starts drinking a beer.
I asked him, “Do you know any of those martial arts things, like Kung-Fu, Karate, or Ju-Jitsu?”
He says “No, why the hell would you ask me that? Is it because I am Chinese?”
“No”, I said, “It’s because you’re drinking my beer, you little prick.”
Good one Paulo. Have a Merry Christmas.
LOL!
And Happy Holidays to all with best wishes for good health, cheer and happiness with family and good friends in the coming New Year.
+1
I’ve been so impressed with Tesla, they have proven you can build an EV that is better than an equivalent ICE based car. With Tesla being such a hit, there are a bunch of new companies trying to copy them. They all are opening offices in California. Who knows, maybe California will soon be producing more cars than they do in Detroit.
The first two are doing high end sedans like the Model S, the second two are more like the roadster – at least for now.
Lucid has a partnership with Samsung to supply the batteries (hopefully they are not the galaxy x7 batteries) they are planning a 150kWh EV with over 400 miles of range.
LeEco is a Chinese company mainly targeting the Chinese market; the owner is overextended. Faraday Future is a mess full of vaporware, promises, and a high cash burn rate, and is funded by *the same guy as LeEco*, who has brought in the team from LeEco to try to straighten them out. NextEV I know less about but seems both underfunded and pretentious. Lucid has a solid chance but it still underfunded.
NASA/USGS Provide Global View of Speed of Ice
“”We are now able to map how the skin of ice is moving,” said Ted Scambos, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Colorado lead for the GoLIVE project. He and his colleagues are releasing new results from the project at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco. “From now on, we’re going to be able to track all of the different types of changes in glaciers — there’s so much science to extract from the data.”
With a near-real-time view of how glaciers and ice sheets are moving, researchers can integrate information about atmosphere and ocean conditions to determine what causes these ice sheets to change — and what that means for how much ice is flowing into the ocean. That could help provide critical information to coastal communities that will be most impacted by rising oceans. ” http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6698
There was some discussion in a previous thread of atmospheric carbon dioxide not explaining much of the warming since 1850. I used Berkeley Earth Annual Land Ocean Global Temperature data (link below)
A ordinary least squares linear regression of the natural log of atmospheric CO2 vs global temperature (BEST) was performed to find the “C” model (C=carbon).
The model (C) and data (BEST) are compared in the chart below. The R squared for the regression is 82% and the correlation coefficient is 92%. The transient climate response (TCR) of the “model” is 2.3 C. The ECS (after the ocean warms) would be higher, at least 3 C (and probably higher, maybe 3.4 C).
Dennis,
And your claim is that model C reproduces 1910-1945 warming and 1950-1975 cooling?
I would argue quite strongly that it doesn’t. It is actually a quite beautiful demonstration that CO2 cannot explain past temperature record. It is barely rising in 1910-1945, and going opposite to temperatures in 1945-1975.
The Shrinkage
Javier (Costanza) has been making cold claims for years.
“A glacier may be losing mass for two reasons — it may be from melt or it may be getting less snow,” Rupper said. “Remote sensing can give you the net change but not the cause. The power is when you can couple that with on the ground information to put that into perspective.”
bang, bang, done
Hi Javier,
Read carefully. The oversimplified “model” explains 82% (R squared)of the variation in temperature from 1850 to 2015, without atmospheric CO2 it is difficult to explain the overall temperature trend. Note that the slope of the trendlines are the same, there are two trendlines on top of each other, one for the “C” model, and one for the data.
We can add AMO (Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation) data to the “model” do a linear model with temperature depending on ln(CO2) and AMO, call it the “camo” model.
In that case R-squared is 91% and the correlation coefficient is 96%.
Again this “model” is way too simple, but shows that most of the temperature trend is explained by the change in the natural log of atmospheric CO2 (82%) with another 9% explained by AMO, we could also add ENSO, aerosols, solar variability etc.
I will repeat that natural variability is assumed and explains why temperature does not track precisely with the natural log of CO2, this is fairly straightforward.
Yes, Dennis,
You can do models and they should fit past temperatures.
Bill Illis made a model in 2008 for AMO, ENSO, solar, volcanic and CO2. It reproduces quite well past temperatures, and due to the lag in ENSO it also predicts for 3-4 months in advance.
Using HadCrut or GISS it gives 1.85°C per doubling of CO2.
Using RSS it gives only 0.7°C per doubling of CO2.
The curious thing is when he posted his graph early in September I thought there is no way temperatures are going to fall by that much when there is no or very weak La Niña. However the model was right and we have seen that huge fall in temperature anomaly.
At least this model does predictions and they turn out to be correct.
Javier,
Webhubbletelescope has done similar models, but without AMO, solar can be left out as it adds little to the model as can aerosols. Note that the 1.85 C per doubling is a transient climate response estimate. It takes quite a while for the ocean to warm due to the high heat capacity of water, roughly 75 years to raise the top 700 meters of ocean by 3 C if no heat was transferred to the deeper ocean. Clearly this is not the case. If all of the ocean was an average depth of 3700 meters, it would take about 390 years to raise all of the ocean by 3 C, the ocean mixing rate is probably slower than this so reality would be between 75 and 400 years, maybe 250 years or so. In any case equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) reflects the warming after the ocean has warmed and will be higher than transient climate response, by about 1 to 1.5C.
The 1.85 C TCR estimate is similar to my very simple “CAMO” model with a TCR of 1.76C for a regression on 1866-2000 data. The R squared for 1958-2015 annual data is 94% and the correlation coefficient is 97%.
These simple models do not give an estimate of ECS, only TCR. They are consistent with IPCC estimates of TCR.
Thank you Dennis, and is there a reason you haven’t banned Javier yet? It is boring scrolling past his nonsense to try to find comments from sane people.
Dennis,
But observe that the model can be made to fit any temperature dataset, including satellite, even though they are quite divergent. In fact using satellite it gives a value of only 0.7°C per doubling.
The point being made is that the ability of models to reproduce past warming tells you nothing about the future, and more importantly tells you nothing about climate sensitivity values, that clearly should not be derived from models.
Hi Javier,
RSS data is available for only 45 years, far too short to tell us much, it is also based on “models” which you generally distrust, so you should distrust this data as well.
Why do you choose to trust this data? The surface temperature data based on weather station data is far better in the view of many scientists and is available for a much longer period (about 165 years).
If you would prefer to use paleoclimate data to estimate Earth System Sensitivity (including albedo change from ice sheet melting and vegetation changes over time), we can do that.
Temperature increased about 3.6 C globally from LGM to HCO based on Shakun et al 2012, atmospheric CO2 increased from about 180 ppm to 260 ppm.
ESS=3.6/(ln(260/180))*ln(2)=6.8 C.
An alternative estimate uses 278 ppm for Holocene average atmospheric CO2 and 180 ppm for LGM and a temperature change of about 3.4 C from LGM to average Holocene temperature.
ESS=3.4/(ln(278/180))*ln(2)=5.4 C.
Hansen estimates about half of this change in temperature is due to increased greenhouse gases(GHG), if we treat increases in GHG as a feed back to increased CO2, then ECS would be about 2.7 C. If the rest of the temperature change is due to changes in ice sheet area (affecting mostly albedo), this would be about 2.7 C as well.
Most of the changes in ice sheet area have been in the Northern hemisphere for the past 800,000 years. Currently Northern hemisphere ice sheet area is about one tenth the size of the LGM, so currently the ESS due to albedo change might be as low as 0.27 C, though lower snow cover extent as temperatures warm might increase this by 0.15 C, so ESS might be about 3.1 C, if melting permafrost and carbon release from soil due to warming are not significant.
I believe these might be significant and increase ESS to as much 4 C.
The mid Pliocene had Global Temperature at about 1.7 C above 1961-1990 mean and atmospheric CO2 about 400 ppm. Based on this, ESS=1.7/ln(400/278)*ln(2)=3.2C.
We will see atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm and it is difficult to predict the result, uncharted territory. ESS of 3.9C or even 4.2 C is a distinct possibility, but we just don’t know. Assuming everything will be ok strikes me as Pollyannaish.
Note that the climate models (rather than the simple linear regressions which are not true models) are based on physical principles and are a very good basis for estimating Equilibrium climate sensitivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MhTuTnJJlY
FM16 Press Conference: Attributing mountain glacier retreat to climate change
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting 2016
Kaboom! Kaboom! annihilated…
If you took the previous hundred million years as a normal, the globe right now is in an historically cool time period. Otherwise, if you took the time period since the last remaining continental glaciers melted away, global temperatures have averaged warmer, although they have been colder at times as well. In any case, the concept of there being this sort of ideal climate that the entirety of humanity has the power to set in stone belies reason and logic.
Hi Charles Van Vleet,
Most humans prefer a climate that humans are well adapted to, so the climate of the past 250,000 years is much more relevant, homo sapiens sapiens, aka modern humans, are thought to have evolved approximately 250,000 years BP.
Hi Charles,
The nature of modern industrially based civilization is such that we are adapted not just to the climate that has mostly dominated for the last few thousand years, as Dennis points out, we are ECONOMICALLY and geographically adapted to the various climates that have prevailed for the last two to three HUNDRED years, since that’s about how long it’s been since the Industrial Revolution really got rolling.
Since then our population is up by a factor of roughly twenty, iIrc, maybe I ought to check that number. Seven billion of us are now concentrated mostly in the spots that have the most pleasant and productive climates.
If the climate were to shift noticeably , over a very large area, such as the central USA, or California , or the Indian subcontinent, or in any major bread basket, there will be hell to pay.
We know that such shifts do occur naturally, as evidenced by the drought that forced the cliff dwellers out of our southwest, etc.
The thing is, Charles, we also know that we are forcing climate to change in ways that are going to result in far more harm than good, for dead sure.
If you have trouble understanding WHY this is so, consider monkeying around with the adjustments of any sort of machine you are acquainted with, changing them at random. The odds of IMPROVING the adjustments, which were already correct , are so slim as to be for practical purposes the same as zero.
And given that we have adjusted our very LIVES to the climatic conditions that prevail now, and have prevailed for the last few centuries……….. we DON’T want to be monkeying around with the adjustments.
And they have neve experienced CO2 levels this high.
In fact, none of the Great Apes have.
Possibly earlier primates may have, but even that is questionable.
Hi Duncan,
Primates have been around for a long time lemurs for example around 75 million years, 3.2 Million years ago atmospheric CO2 is estimated to have been about 400 ppm, human like apes were around 5 million years ago, according to Wikipedia.
Hominina (humans and biped ancestors) and Panina (chimps) separated about 7.5 million years ago to 5.6 million years ago.[3]
Nobody has ever demonstrated that those high levels of CO2 are an important problem.
There are a lot of things that are at levels never seen before. Metals, organic compounds, byproducts of our industries. It doesn’t mean they are necessarily dangerous. The planet can cope with a lot of changes. Levels of CO2 were very high in the distant past. CO2 is part of the cycle of life.
Javier- “The planet can cope with a lot of changes. Levels of CO2 were very high in the distant past. CO2 is part of the cycle of life.”
That is very true, similar to defecating in your water supply. Cholera is a very unpleasant way to die, but the ‘planet copes’.
Hi Javier,
Likewise nobody has proven that it is not a problem, most biologists think that and increase in radiative forcing to 7.4 W/m^2 (which is about 1120 ppm of atmospheric CO2 and assumes the relationship is linear, reality is likely to be higher).
Over millions of years the flora and fauna can adapt and/or evolve, over a few millennia perhaps not. Humans may find there is a lack of food supply if crops are poorly adapted to a much warmer World.
One can claim that everything will be ok, and be wrong.
The concern over global cooling reflects a poor understanding of the carbon cycle. Global temperatures (30 year averages) will be above the Holocene average for 100,000 years if 1000 Pg of carbon( from fossil fuel burning, cement production and land use change) are emitted from 1750 CE to 100,000 CE.
P – Tr extinction is sufficient to demonstrate the problem with high levels of CO2.
And why hasn’t Javier been banned yet for blatant lies?
Hi Nathanael,
Do we really know what caused the Permian Triassic Extinction?
Solstice Trivia
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016, 3:23 PM: The Arctic has been suffering bizarre weather extremes as of late, and even the start of Winter hasn’t cooled things down, as North Pole temperatures have climbed to 30 degrees C hotter than normal for this time of year. Graphs show the temperature has climbed to the freezing mark and above a few times since Sept., however none of those events represents such a marked contrast to the temperatures that we should be seeing at the time.
Next up: perihelion, on Jan. 4, 2017 at 14:18 UTC!
If you haven’t seen today’s XKCD comic yet, head over thither.
A tribute to ol’ Sleipnir; who’d ‘a thunk it?
Happy Christmas to you all.
Much to the chagrin of the renewable enthusiasts, the economy will remain fossil fuel based into the distant future. Fossil fuels will power the economy while renewables wag the tail.
The carbon economy ain’t ending anytime soon. All scheduled flights usually arrive on time. The private jets will be parked at Dulles during the inauguration and the party that follows will be like it’s 1999.
Remove jet fuel, diesel, gasoline, you have biofuels derived by fossil fuels… and mayhem.
You’re going to starve in a hurry. Chaos won’t be just a word. Carbon drives the entire machine.
Except in Germany, Norway, France…. They now have a huge economic advantage since they no longer need to fight over supplies of dwindling fossil fuels.
R Walter:
“Remove jet fuel, diesel, gasoline, you have biofuels derived by fossil fuels… and mayhem.”
That statement shows a breathtaking, profound lack of knowledge and imagination.
Much to the chagrin of the renewable enthusiasts, the economy will remain fossil fuel based into the distant future. Fossil fuels will power the economy while renewables wag the tail.
Sorry, but not buying that tired old line anymore.
Dare to be ambitious in 2017
by Bertrand Piccard Solar Impulse
The problems we face in terms of health, poverty, education, pollution, climate change, bad governance are the result of old ways of thinking, which are no longer valid in a globalized world. In this 21st century, exploration needs to be taken to another level. Not to go back to the moon, as this has already been done, but rather to improve the quality of life on Earth.
The first dogma we need to throw over board is the need to burn fossil fuel in order to grow our economy. Today, people are beginning to realize not only that it is possible to get rid of this dependency, but also that it makes a lot of sense: not only to protect the environment and save natural resources, but also to create jobs, generate profits and boost the economy.
Hi Fred, I am fully on board with you as usual, and believe that with good luck and good management we can transition to an economy based on renewable energy and recycling etc, while still enjoying a modern, dignified , and healthy life style.
But even though I have often said RW is our forum’s royal jester, and not to be taken literally, I have to agree with him once in a while, when he says something that can be interpreted only one way.
When he says” the economy will remain fossil fuel based into the distant future” I am afraid I must agree with him, depending on how I interpret “distant future”.
My own guess is that most richer Western countries will still be using at least fifty percent fossil fuel energy in 2050, with maybe Germany and a few other smaller and highly advanced nations doing better.
The odds my making it till 2050 are pretty close to zero, but still…… most people probably think of 2050 as being quite a long time off.
So – in your personal opinion or estimation, how long do you think it will be before most advanced economies are less than fifty percent dependent on fossil fuels ??
Ironically I think a bunch of the more backward ( less economically developed ) nations with the fewest natural resources are apt to manage the transition a lot faster than countries such as the USA, since such nations will likely be able to develop domestic renewables industries more easily than they can earn money to pay for imported fossil fuels.
The time needed for a complete transition doesn’t seem critical to me, because as I see it, once we pass fifty percent or thereabouts, we can probably manage the remaining fifty percent, over another generation or so, without much risk of economic collapse.
But Sky Daddy help us , if we were to experience a major short fall in fossil fuel supplies within the next twenty years……….. Transition in that event might be politically and economically impossible.
That is about half of energy from fossil fuel using very conservative estimates.
My scenario assumed no further decreases in Energy intensity (energy used to produce a dollar of real GDP) after 2050, which is not likely. I also assumed a very gradual growth rate in renewable output after 2050.
If we assume renewable energy grows by 7%/year (similar to fossil fuel growth rates from 1920 to 1973) from 2031 to 2048 and then at 6% per year until fossil fuels are replaced, then 50% of energy demand is provided by non-fossil fuels by 2045 and fossil fuels are replaced by 2057, in 2050 70% of energy demand is met by non-fossil fuels. Chart below shows percentage of energy demand provided by non-fossil fuels in this scenario. This scenario results in about 900 Pg of carbon emissions from all sources (fossil fuels, cement production and land use change).
Hi Dennis,
Thanks. My opinion for what it’s worth is that your future scenarios are as good as anybody else’s, bar none.
So long as some random event or positive feed back effect doesn’t upset the business as usual apple cart.
And while some other regulars seem to overlook the fact that you DO point out your assumptions about business as usual , I don’t .
Now Fred is a guy who has his head on straight, and he frequently talks about positive technical change, and disruption, so I am hoping to add his opinion or guess to others I have filed away.
Hi OFM.
I too am interested in Fred’s opinion. He is aware of some of the cutting edge stuff going on, but smart enough not to be taken in too much by hype. He follows the cutting edge stuff much more closely than me.
OFM & Dennis, Thank you for your votes of confidence. While I certainly do not have a crystal ball and therefore have no idea how our future will unfold. I do have a gut feeling that we may be reaching a perfect storm of tipping points on multiple fronts. Perhaps there may be change afoot and that will happen much quicker than many of us believe.
I have sort of made a career of being a generalist.
As such, at a very early age long before the internet was a major force in our lives, I spent a considerable amount of time doing research in libraries about a very wide range of technical and scientific topics.
We live today in an age when anyone who so desires has access to incredible amounts of information. I have continued to explore widely throughout this fantastic smorgasbord of knowledge. I have become reasonably proficient at reading writing on walls, connecting dots and synthesizing what I witness.
Here’s a slightly different perspective… an essay from the biomimicry point of view on how super organisms might select a leader…
Why do we persist with political parties and the electoral college, superdelegates, gerrymandered political districts, and a single president, chosen by only a quarter of the people, many of them infected by the parasitic spores of false news? The answer is tradition and entrenched interests—complex systems fiercely resisting change. But radical change occurs when ordered systems approach the edge of chaos, and it seems we are approaching that now. It is doubtful the next generation of digital natives will have much patience for parties and presidents. Press the right leverage points, and watch the thing flip on a dime. Revolutions surprise us, and change is sudden and unexpected. The water boils, and we don’t see it coming. The networked way of life works, and failures are fossils (as Janine Benyus says). The ants thrive, and the dinosaurs are no more.
No leader can know everything in this complex and changing world, and the more uncertain the future, the less one single vision is likely to be the right one. Ant scouts wander, junebugs blunder—they don’t know what they don’t know, and they can’t afford to limit the possibilities.
Collective intelligence and distributed leadership are evolutionarily proven strategies for success. Diversity and independence, networked by transparent and truthful transactions, allow the wisdom of the crowd to go to work. With flat networks, we can innovate better, make more accurate decisions, and enjoy far greater resilience. We can respond to change much faster. Stop boiling the frog, and sense the local details.
It’s time to jump out of the water.</I.
About the Author
Dr. Woolley-Barker is an Evolutionary Biologist and pioneer in the emerging discipline of Biomimicry. She serves as an independent ‘Biologist at the Design Table’ with organizations like Biomimicry 3.8, providing biologically inspired innovation for a global clientele. Her book TEEMING: How Superorganism Work
As usual, well said Fred. Of course I agree with you. Speaking of intelligence, here’s a random (and off topic) tidbit for you.
GIANT CELL BLOB CAN LEARN AND TEACH, STUDY SHOWS
It isn’t an animal, a plant, or a fungus. The slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) is a strange, creeping, bloblike organism made up of one giant cell. Though it has no brain, it can learn from experience, as biologists have demonstrated. Now the same team of scientists has gone a step further, proving that a slime mold can transmit what it has learned to a fellow slime mold when the two combine.
Published on Oct 10, 2012
Tokyo railway optimal path design and slime mould…. A single celled organism can do ‘optimization’ as good as hundreds of engineering minds put together… amazing video and amazing creature… just fascinating….
Looks good Dennis, let’s do what we can and keep our fingers crossed.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all.
Hi Gone Fishing,
You have sais in the past this will not happen automatically, I emphatically agree. We need to do all we can to make it a reality.
I think it is possible, perhaps even moderately likely (higher than 50% probability). that a transition to non-fossil fuels will happen by 2070, the scenario I painted above is quite optimistic, with maybe a 15% probability that close to zero fossil fuels are consumed for energy use in 2057.
2015: solar produced 0.6% of US electricity.
Annual growth rate has been between 41% and 48%. Using the more conservative 41% growth rate, it doubles every two years. In 16 years — 2031 — solar will be producing at least 153% of today’s electricity usage in the US. Electric car adoption only increases demand by ~10%. Other sources of demand have been flat in recent years due to efficiency increases; heating wil increase demand, but you get the point.
Other countries are following similar curves. China is faster. Europe is mostly starting further ahead. Africa is starting with less electricity — it has very little fossil fuel base to replace. The US is actually a laggard, along with all the other major oil-producing countries apart from Norway.
This is ignoring the growth in wind power or the retention of hydropower.
World car sales in 2015: 88.7 million. Electric and plug-in hybrid electric car sales: 550K. Tesla doubles production yearly, on average. Others will have to keep up if they want to survive. In about 8 years — 2023 — all new cars will have a plug, and it’ll take another 10 years or so for the old cars to be replaced, so 2033.
Stationary batteries are moving down in price more slowly, but they’re only needed for nighttime when the wind isn’t blowing, which is already less than 50% of energy usage. Many are already being installed for other purposes like frequency regulation but they will cut down on the need for “backup nighttime fossil fuel burning”. Batteries probably displace “backup fossil fuel burning” for utility company new-build plants within 2 years, and they replace old natgas plants when natgas prices go up too high (I haven’t calculated how high, but somewhere less than $6).
That leaves heating. The heat pump is the big technology here and it’s already cheaper to operate than any form of heating except natural gas heating, or wood you chopped yourself. And costs about the same as a boiler. And they, too, get better every year. Natgas at $6 makes the heat pump cheaper to operate *in the winter in the snowbelt*; it’s already cheaper in warm climates. People are slow to replace heating systems so I hesitate to guess the years on this one.
The US will most definitely *not* be using 50% fossil fuels by 2050. No chance whatsoever. I realize many US people are highly ignorant, but at some point they’ll be convinced to save money.
This documentary is on point. The key point is that solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and heat pumps all follow *manufacturing economics*, not resource economics. (The raw materials for them all are incredibly abundant, cheap, and *not destroyed* — they can all be recycled.)
Anyway, it’s an interesting coincidence how many of my projections are coming in in the 2030-2035 timeframe. If we manage to have a serious oil crisis before roughly 2030, that would be very troublesome.
That’s a whole 14 years from now. I think we probably will. I’m trying to switch off of oil before the oil crisis causes a panicked run on solar panels and batteries and electric cars and causes the prices to be bid way up (and the companies selling them to make lots of money).
Hi Nathanael.
Assuming that a 48% exponential growth rate will continue for more than a couple of years is pretty silly in my opinion.
Hi Dennis,
Please tell us anything you can about the nature of the so called S curve flattening out as a new technology matures and the market for it is getting to the point that the manufacturers, distributors, and individual people in the industry come to realize that the fast growth phase is over, and that the industry will be settling down to steady business with maybe a small annual increase in revenues.
It’s obvious this will eventually happen to the wind and solar industries, if they continue to grow long enough.
But it’s hard for me to visualize how many years ahead a major manufacturer might decide that building another new production facility would be a bad move, because there are too many variables involved. If management thinks the price of the product will fall too fast either to new tech or slowing sales, the plant won’t get built, etc.
But I can’t model this scenario, since I lack the necessary skills.
Can you create a graph or chart that shows the point at which management will stop investing in new capacity, based on assumptions that prices will be thus and so, and sales volume thus and so, for so many years from the date the new production plant will be ready?
Maybe I am asking too much, lol, because I don’ know how much work this involves.
Coming up with an answer for one combination of prices, quantity of sales, years of sales, etc, versus the cost of a new plant is easy enough. The decision would be straight forward. If the estimated quantity to be sold, and the prices obtained high enough, for enough years, etc, the plant should get built. Otherwise, it should not be built.
I am guessing that new investment in renewable energy will fall off very fast indeed not less than about five to ten years before industry leaders estimate the fast growth days are over- unless maybe the management of a given company believes it has new tech that will enable the company to undercut the competition in a slow market.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
I will have to think a bit on that. Basically one would ignore prices and just assume a certain demand growth for energy depending on population growth and economic growth primarily and making assumptions about changes in energy intensity. Businesses that produce wind or solar would look at installed capacity and the rate that this capacity will need to be replaced as it ages or becomes obsolete as technology improves. As the industry matures investment will be for upgrading plant and equipment and there is likely to be excess capacity, just like the current auto industry.
Also population is likely to peak and eventually demand for energy will fall so over the very long term the industry would contract as population declines in the 22nd century and beyond. Eventually, if humans get things right, population will stabilize at some sustainable level maybe 1 billion or so in the 23rd or 24th century CE.
“The first dogma we need to throw over board is the need to burn fossil fuel in order to grow our economy.”
In mature economies we can generate economic growth with reduction of energy use for at least one generation.
Banks should not be controlling the money or the economy. If they can’t exist in a replacement economy, we will find other ways to move our money around.
The banks had better have a plan B.
700 different cryptocurrencies are functioning right now. My bet is peer to peer exchange of values, will sooner or later completely destroy the top down centralized monopoly of the banking system. Good riddance!
You seriously think the banks will allow that?
NAOM
The banks are looking at using blockchain tech to secure their systems (I’ve seen the job ads.)
My guess is that we’ll see blockchain used for a lot of things, but probably not as a replacement for money.
-Lloyd
Naolig Llawen, Feliz Navidad
Maybe the banks will use it but they are not going to let go of their control over money.
NAOM
Banks like any other system or organization can be disrupted and it can happen whether they ‘Allow’ it or not. What is really at stake is finding a way to end the control of resources by the 57 individuals who hold over 50% of the world’s wealth.
BTW, blockchain, is just a technology that makes peer to peer exchanges of value very difficult to hack or corrupt. Think all kinds of contracts and even democratic elections.
Out of the 700 or so existing crypto currencies you gotta love these two: Titcoin and Potcoin… 😉
Anyone following the news about all the die-offs in the Pacific Ocean? More and more people are suspecting Fukushima, I’m hoping they are wrong and it’s just a wacky theory, but something may be happening.
There are lots more, but maybe it’s just the high temps from global warming.
Another thing they are reporting is missing insects all across the US. Especially missing are fly’s and mosquitoes (the meat eaters). I can report in San Francisco we were getting more and more mosquitoes as the temps warmed, 2015 was crazy (most widows here don’t even have screens since it wasn’t a problem long ago) but this year was warm but no mosquitoes. But truckers, etc are saying it’s everywhere, really?
Thanks rw, that is a much more reasonable analysis. Yes,the cesium has contaminated the whole pacific, but the ocean is huge and it sounds like we still have more cesium left over from the atomic tests then we do from Fukushima. Soo much misinformation out there…
The EIA released their latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly today. I’ll start with the interesting stuff, capacity additions. In October for the third time this year virtually no FF capacity additions occurred (0.46% NG) with solar and wind, combined making up slightly more than 95% of new capacity! Batteries actually made up slightly more than 3% of capacity additions. If these trends were to become the norm, the Koch Brothers et al should be somewhat concerned. See chart below.
These trends WILL become the norm. Critical price thresholds are being crossed as solar, wind, and batteries get cheaper… and fossil fuels don’t.
I am hearing that petrol (gasoline for the USAnians) prices, down here, will be going up 20% in the new year. This seems to be supported by a sudden shortage ie holding onto supplies until the price goes up.
NAOM
Big queues to fill up today, enjoyed passing those frustrated motorists on my bici.
NAOM
They say you should never discuss politics at family gatherings and on holidays, etc, but it’s still ok to read about politics.
Here’s a Christmas present for all the regulars here. I guarantee ya all a BUNCH of belly laughs.
Just go to quora dot com, and type Trump jokes into the search window.
Be careful not to spit up too much coffee or beer or whatever and ruin your keyboard laughing!!!
Here’s one of the better ones.
One day, Donald Trump visited an elementary school, to tell the children about his success, and to show off his ‘intelligence’.
The schoolchildren were learning vocabulary, specifically the word ‘tragedy’, when the famous businessman stormed into the classroom.
Trump decided to help the children learn the word ‘tragedy’, and asked the following question to them:
“What would be a tragedy, kids?”
A bespectacled boy nervously answers:
“If my best friend died of pneumonia, that would be a tragedy.”
“No, that would be a great loss,” Trump corrects him.
Another shy young child answers:
“If my uncle got hit by a train, that would be a tragedy.”
“No, no, that would be an accident,” Trump replies.
A young girl raises her hand. The wealthy businessman asks her if she’d like to give an example of a tragedy. The girl nods, and says:
“If Mr. Trump was in his private jet, and a missile hit the jet, that would be a tragedy.”
“Yes, that would be a tragedy for sure. Can you tell me why?” The businessman asks.
“Well, it definitely wasn’t a great loss, and I’m not sure if it was an accident, either,”
answers the young girl.
Another:
El Chapo has offered $100 million dollars for Trump’s body, dead or alive. I guess that finally answers the question about how much Donald Trump is actually worth.
Another:
On Friday, an elementary school teacher poses her students a challenge….
“If you can tell me who said the following quote, they don’t have to come to school on Monday: ‘We have nothing to fear, but fear itself'”
A hand shoots up and little Billy Tran says “Franklin Delano Roosevelt”.
“Correct, Billy. You can have next Monday off” the teacher replies.
“I’m Vietnamese, we value education I’ll be here Monday”.
“Ok” says the teacher “Lets try another one: ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.'”
This time the hand of little Susie Hou rises.
“Abraham Lincoln”
“Correct Susie.” the teacher asserts “Enjoy your day off”
Susie says “Oh no ma’am. I’m Chinese, we also value education I’ll be here early on Monday morning”.
“Fucking immigrants!” a voice says from the back.
“Who said that?!” the teacher snaps.
“Donald Trump…” says little Johnny “…I’ll see ya Tuesday”
Another
“Let me say this about Donald Trump. I love Donald Trump, all comedians love Donald Trump. If God gave comedians the power to invent people, the first person we would invent is Donald Trump. … God’s gift to comedy.”—Jerry Seinfeld
One more.
A Mexican doctor comes illegally in the US and sets up shop in NY.
He can’t practice due to lack of papers so write a note outside the door: “we cure any disease for 50 dollars, if we fail we give you 100 dollars”. Donald Trump walks by and wants to show how smart he is. Goes in and says “ I have lost my taste buds, I can’t taste anything anymore “. Doctor tells the nurse “get preparation 21 for me”. He asks Trump to stick his tongue out and puts a few drops. “puah, this is disgusting, you gave me shit!”. Doctor : “Good, you are cured, give me 50 dollars!!”
Trump is pissed, thinks about it and comes back the following day:” I seem to have lost my memory, I can’t remember anything “. “no problem“ says the doctor, “nurse get me preparation 31.”. Same scene, the doctor drops a few drops on Trump ‘s tongue. “puah this is disgusting, it is the same shit you gave me yesterday “. I see you are cured, you owe me another 50 dollars!!
Now Trump is fuming, the New York Times maybe reporting on this, he is mad. Comes back the following day and says: “I can’t really see, my eyesight is gone. “ same scene as before, doctor puts 3 more drops of shit on Trump’s tongue but Donald doesn’t speak a word. The doctor says “I’m sorry Mr. Trump it looks like I can’t cure you” . Trump is estactic and puts out his hand. The doctor hands him only a 10-dollar bill and says “here is your 100 dollars as promised “. Trump yells “you Mexican bastard, it is only 10 dollars, not 100 dollars”. Doctor : “good you are cured, you can see again, you owe me another 50 dollars.”
That doctor one was good.
Hi Dennis,
You or Ron, either or both of you, may think these jokes are inappropriate, since I am posting so many of them.
It won’t hurt my feelings at all if you delete the lot of them, but give the guys a chance to read them first, and Merry Christmas!
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
They are pretty funny to me, though Trump fans may not like them.
On the last day of Barack’s presidency, he and Donald Trump go to the same barbershop to get their hair done.
Barbers decide not to talk about politics, and everybody ends up not talking at all. The air is so tense. it could be almost cut with the barber’s knife.
Barack and Donald decide to get haircuts while in conference, to save a little time.
Donald’s hair gets finished first, and when the barber tries to apply some cologne to it, Donald goes nuts “Are you out of your mind? I can’t go to my house smelling like I’ve been in a brothel. Melania would go crazy”.
Right at that point the other barber finishes doing Barack’s hair and goes, “So Mr. President, I guess you won’t like cologne either?”
“I don’t have a problem with that”, says Barack with half smile on his face; “Michelle doesn’t know what a brothel smells like.”
It’s going to be a long 4 years, thanks
‘Brothel”- thats very funny!
You might enjoy this as well-
North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
“In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly-free, democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.
Indeed Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project. ”
This is the second and third sentence of the article:
The state where the outgoing governor signed a law stripping his successor of certain powers scored 58/100 in the 2016 election, according to the Electoral Integrity Project, a joint effort between Harvard University and the University of Sydney. That places the state alongside the likes of Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone.
“North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.
READ THE THIRD SENTENCE.
People will believe what they WANT to believe, and if they want to believe North Carolina has a third world country equivalent government, well no amount of evidence would will ever convince them otherwise.
When a Trumpster says something totally out of line with reality, every body gets his shorts in a bunch, displaying his indignation about the Trumpsters making mountains out of mole hills, using one percent truth and ninety nine percent bullshit to construct their slanders.
“That places the state alongside the likes of Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. ”
Cuba has not even HAD a fucking election since Castro took power. Trump himself couldn’t do any better job twisting the actual truth into a pretzel.
“North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.”
I live just across the state line , and know a hell of a lot about NC politics, I know lots of people there. I read a couple of NC papers, off and on. I know some local kids, two of them relatives, that are pretty liberal, who attend NC colleges and universities. They aren’t bent out of shape about anybody not being allowed to vote, Met the rest of them at a Sanders function. . They ARE pissed about bathroom laws, etc. I was in the mythical NC town of Mayberry, on election day, and there were quite a lot of black and brown voters. None of them displayed the slightest hint of worry about being turned away from the polling place I visited for no more reason than that I had business in the immediate neighborhood and stopped to bs with an old acquaintance I saw coming out of the building. I have never heard personally of any person with a valid North Carolina address being denied the right to register to vote. If blocking voter registration were all that common a practice, I would have heard of it, from local people, when it happened to local people.
I don’t know much about Iranian politics, but any body who compares NC politics to Venezuelan politics, and says NC is as bad or worse is as bad a cynical partisan liar as as Trump himself.
IF there is ANY dirty trick the current Venezuelan government has not pulled recently, somebody please tell me WHICH dirty trick the Maduro regime overlooked.
I’ll send him a memo, explaining that by using it he might be able to maintain his farcical authoritarian government another few weeks.
For Sky Daddy’s sake , how could any body take this level of bullshit partisanship reporting seriously? Think about the effect accusing Tar Heels of living in a state , and liking it, with a government as corrupt as Cuba’s.
This is as good a way to make sure Tar Heels continue to hold the liberal establishment aka the D party in contempt as you could come up with if you tried.
Is NC gerry mandered ? Sure. Most states are to some extent. D’s are apparently about as good at it as R’s , when they have the opportunity. NC may be the current USA champion.
The older PEOPLE of the state of NC are heavily inclined towards the older more traditional ( much despised by younger more liberal voters) cultural values that prevailed over most of this country up until the last two or three decades. NC state politics reflect this cultural bias, which is to be expected.
I am not so much trying do DEFEND NC, as I am trying to point out partisan bullshit rhetoric wherever I run across it.
Politicians of both parties pull the same sort of trick the NC guv just pulled.
Obama just pulled one that is supposed to permanently ban any drilling in American Arctic waters. Now I happen to be ok with that, but the thought HAS crossed my mind that he did it to restrict the powers of the incoming R president.
Whoda thunk it?
A D prez on his way out doing something to restrict the powers of an incoming R prez????????
But I’m glad he did. 😉
We’re going to need all the fish we can get from up that way once the waters down this way get to warm for the fish. I posted links just a few days back about the more desirable species moving north, out of UK waters, and less desirable warm water species such as squid moving in.
“People will believe what they WANT to believe” yes they will.
“Obama just pulled one that is supposed to permanently ban any drilling in American Arctic waters. Now I happen to be ok with that, but the thought HAS crossed my mind that he did it to restrict the powers of the incoming R president. ”
Perhaps he saw a danger to the both the republic and the environment and took precautions. Our government is based on limited power and checks and balances. Lately the line has been crossed too many times, some of them permanently. Is that the direction you think we should head toward?
Hi GF,
Merry Christmas!
I SAID I was ok with Obama’s banning Arctic waters oil drilling.
You say ” Our government is based on limited power and checks and balances. Lately the line has been crossed too many times, some of them permanently. Is that the direction you think we should head toward?”
I totally agree.
My whole point is or was that political discourse in this country has descended to the level of people screaming insults and lies at each other, and I don’t like it.
For Sky Daddy’s sake, if a professor of law, etc, at a respected major university, one known to be a pretty liberal institution, talks like a Trump mouth piece……. and this is the case in this case……. maybe we have already passed the point of no return, and doomed to sinking ever lower into the muck, where we will eventually drown like elephants and mules that venture into water covering too much soft sucking mud.
There isn’t anybody around to pull us out, the way we have pulled other much smaller and poorer countries out of jams, here and there over the years.
As a general rule, I do not believe in justifying the means because the end is for a ( perceived ) good cause, except in rare instances when something really really critical is being protected or saved, or some extraordinary risk avoided.
And in both the Obama case, and the NC case, it MUST be pointed out that these actions were taken IN ACCORDANCE with existing law. Neither the the prez nor the NC guv and legislature broke the law. Both of them bent the spirit of it, maybe, but they remained within the rules. Note all the D partisans gave HRC a free pass on twisting the spirit of security law into a pretzel with her emails etc.
The whole issue in terms of the coverage, is bullshit partisan editorializing, rather than honest reporting.
Notice that there is seldom any mention of what was actually DONE, because mentioning it puts it into perspective, and perspective is the last thing this whatchamacall it organization wants, in the case of NC. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find it shares LOTS of connections with the D party and the Clinton Foundation, etc, not that I really give a shit.
Overall , it seems likely that the organization does good useful work.
Break the rules too often, and the end result is that there ARE no rules. Whoever has control of the levers of power can and generally does to suit himself.
I have always said that Obama is a fairly decent prez, especially considering what he is has been up against, and he’s looking better by the day, in hindsight, lol.
The state of the world in general, and the USA in particular, is getting a little more problematic every year, and things look as if they will continue to go down hill, regardless of who occupies the WH.
The truth is that most of what happens in the world, and here in the USA as well, is mostly beyond the president’s control. A lot of things are entirely beyond his control, even domestically.
A certain number of important to critical events, processes, industries, etc, are subject to being STEERED to some extent by the president and congress.
Obama steered us towards renewables. Trump will steer us back towards fossil fuels.
But in the end…….. depletion will rule.
Anybody who really understands the world and politics knows this is true. Unfortunately we tend to think and vote as if we believe presidents have powers they don’t, for the most part.
Now just as a person who is getting old and has a major chronic illness can and does occasionally rally and do a lot better for a while, so can this country, overall, economically.
The thought of better times cheers me up, but the thought of Trump getting credit for them pisses me off, although I do recognize that he may do some things to make the economy perform better , short term.
My doctor tells me he COULD prescribe all sorts of pills that would make me feel GREAT, for a little while. He won’t , because in the medium and long term, they would do me a lot of harm, maybe even kill me.
Trump and the R controlled congress might do some things that will temporarily goose up the economy, but if so, I’m confident and afraid the longer term effects of this goosing will be BAD.
Clinton and a D congress would have resorted to the goosing medicine, this being SOP, but they would have exercised more restraint and better judgement about the long term consequences.
In either case, their partisan fans would give credit to them for things that would mostly have happened ANYWAY if the other party had been in power. The out party likewise makes a habit of blaming any unfortunate events and economic troubles on the party in power.
This business of goosing the economy ( in order to make it lay more eggs faster, short term, causing it to go off it’s feed, and lay a lot less eggs LATER) is one of the biggest reasons we have boom and bust economic cycles.
Everything Hitler did was completely legal, too.
Apparently North Carolina makes it a little too easy to change the basic constitutional structure of the state. In normal states they wouldn’t be able to do what they did in NC; it would require a constitutional amendment which would require a referendum.
Most perniciously, the specific powers they stripped from the governor are the powers to oversee elections; they are making damn sure that the elections remain just as crooked and dishonest as they were last time. This is really deliberate anti-democratic sabotage, sorry to say.
Perhaps it is partisan on my part but putting in place an environmental protection on a single issue is a different kettle of fish from significantly reducing the scope of responsibility of a chief executive for purely partisan reasons.
This act fits in the same catagory as denying the president the power to appoint a Supreme Court justice solely to enable, hopefully, an appointment from your own party.
Democracy isn’t only about staying legal. A democracy can only stand when the traditions of democracy are respected. The Repubs have, consciously as a party, chosen to trample on those traditions.
Agree, Thank you
Read it more carefully, Mac. They rated North Carolina on a number of specific characteristics, then computed an overall score (which is always a questionable thing to do).
On the overall score, North Carolina rated alongside Cuba (yes, Cuba does have elections, quite regularly), Indonesia, and Sierra Leone. An artifact of averaging better scores in some areas with awful scores in others.
On one specific category — gerrymandering — North Carolina is the worst in the entire world.
On another specific category (legal framework and voter registration) North Carolina is in the same category as Iran and Venezuela. (And you must admit people are still registering and voting in Venezuela.)
They PRETEND to have elections in CUBA , and in North Korea too, unless I am mistaken. They PRETENDED to have elections in the old USSR.
Once I have caught a person or organization in such an obvious and blatant distortion of the facts, with the distortion being so bad as being equivalent to the worst sort of barefaced lie, I don’t ordinarily take that person or organization seriously, there after.
North Carolina may actually be the world champion when it comes to the gerrymander, but I will not personally take THIS organization’s word for it. You wouldn’t either, unless you either WANT to believe it, or unless you are ……. well I can’t think of a polite way to say it, but anybody who believes any body who has twisted the truth so into such pretzels as this outfit in one respect is telling the truth in another is NAIVE at best, or to put it bluntly… Well, I won’t actually say it.
You’re a decent guy , and I mostly agree with your comments, but in this case, you are displaying a little too much of a tendency to support your in group at the expense of looking ……….. naive, or cynical, at best.
I personally refuse to go along with the “pretend” games that are so popular with both the right and left wings. I point out bullshit where ever I run across it.
You can BET that R politicians will be reading this particular bullshit at R political gatherings large and small in the Tar Heel state for the next few years, and the people there who hear it will be reinforced in their contempt for the D party, because they KNOW who the libel is aimed at, and middle of the road voters who hear it, and who like the state of NC pretty well, as evidenced that they LIVE THERE rather than elsewhere, aren’t going to be thrilled with joy , exactly, when they hear it.
One really really bad mistake the liberal establishment keeps on making, over and over, is assuming conservative voters are not only ignorant, but that they are also STUPID, and that they don’t have internet, cable tv, and even a newspaper in their homes.
You don’t make friends and allies out of the people of a whole fucking state by accusing them of literally being the moral equivalent of a Castro or Hitler.
This sort of bullshit is great when it is used as the basis for a sermon by the D party leadership to the D party choir. But when it posted on the internet………. well, I know a guy very well who can’t read more than maybe a thousand common words, who can’t write much more than his own name, who cannot balance a checkbook, etc, who has been adjudged ( correctly imo) as having the mental capacity of a small child……… who can work his Iphone faster than I can work my keyboard, and carry on conversations with half a dozen different girls over the course of an hour. ( He lucked out on looks, girls think he is HOT stuff. )
The point is that anything on the net is going to be seen and discussed by people who DON’T like it, even if they are the sort of people that “nose in the air , holier than thou, I’m smarter than you ” people habitually look down on, even as they preach about tolerance in the same breath.
Those who don’t like that sort of snobbery and moralizing outnumber those who do, in the Tar Heel state, and are reinforced in their intentions to vote for “anybody but Clinton”, even if the only other candidate with a shot at winning is Trump.
MY point, when I comment about this sort of issue, is to get the D party to understand that when it’s shooting at the R party establishment, it OUGHT to be careful about shooting off its own toes.
After rereading the article and going to the actual site, I look upon the Electoral Integrity Project as a real service to the nation. North Carolina did not score bottom overall, fairly far down on the list but it had an extremely low score in one area.
It is watchdog organizations like this that point out the flaws in the democratic system and the abuses that can grow. We should be thanking them for warning us and investigating the claims, not bulldogging them and calling them left or right.
Much like a garden or a farm, democracy has to be carefully tended and watched over. It can become just as pest ridden as any plant.
Yep. This is bad stuff.
The federal government is supposed to step in in cases like this and force North Carolina to hold honest elections — there’s a constitutional clause, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” and they don’t mean government by the Republican Party.
Of course the federal government is broken.
She Went To Alaska To Photograph Polar Bears In Snow, But Found No Snow
Heterotroph – An organism that is unable to synthesize its own organic carbon-based compounds from inorganic sources, hence, feeds on organic matter produced by, or available in, other organisms.
Humans are using, feeding on, organic carbon-based compounds all of the time. Tertiary consumers, top of the food chain. That includes all and any sundry that takes us there and gets us there.
Going to continue as such, the human condition, no escaping a carbon economy. It rules.
Let it snow, but remember it melts too.
“Thick sea ice covered with snow can reflect as much as 90% of the incoming solar radiation. After the snow begins to melt, and because shallow melt ponds have an albedo (or reflectivity) of approximately 0.2 to 0.4, the surface albedo drops to about 0.75. As melt ponds grow and deepen, the surface albedo can drop to 0.15, while the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest.
As Professor Peter Wadhams, University of Cambridge, once calculated, a collapse of the sea ice would go hand in hand with dramatic loss of snow and ice cover on land in the Arctic. The albedo change resulting from the snowline retreat on land is similarly large as the retreat of sea ice, so the combined impact could be well over 2 W/sq m. To put this in context, albedo changes in the Arctic alone could more than double the net radiative forcing resulting from the emissions caused by all people of the world, estimated by the IPCC to be 1.6 W/sq m in 2007 and 2.29 W/sq m in 2013.
Thick sea ice covered with snow can reflect as much as 90% of the incoming solar radiation. After the snow begins to melt, and because shallow melt ponds have an albedo (or reflectivity) of approximately 0.2 to 0.4, the surface albedo drops to about 0.75. As melt ponds grow and deepen, the surface albedo can drop to 0.15, while the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest.”
As Professor Peter Wadhams, University of Cambridge, once calculated, a collapse of the sea ice would go hand in hand with dramatic loss of snow and ice cover on land in the Arctic.
Prof. Peter Wadhams is a crackpot. He is such outlandish alarmist that not even alarmists dare to cite him anymore. Here are some examples:
“Professor Peter Wadhams insists three scientists may have been murdered. Seymour Laxon died after a fall while Tim Boyd was struck by lightning. Katharine Giles was crushed to death by a truck while cycling in London. Prof Wadhams believes they were killed by oil lobby workers.”
That appears to be the nature of our scientists-alarmists.
Now the real question is why the media publishes articles on his predictions every year, saying he is an expert scientist. Common people like GoneFishing then believe this short of bullshit and repeat it as if it was the gospel.
Is there a reason Javier hasn’t been banned yet? Seriously?
GF has pointed out data in his 10:51 comment that ought to scare the living hell out of anybody who really does appreciate the nature of non linear change, the sort of change that can be brought about by runaway positive feed backs.
I’m damned glad my little place is high enough up that at least it will never be threatened by rising seas. 😉
If I were a young man, I would be looking at some property a thousand miles farther north, and at least a couple of thousand feet above sea level.. It may well get hot enough, on average , that living in such a place will be roughly equivalent to living where I am NOW, in terms of average weather.
Maybe it will cool off enough in Florida that people will be able to enjoy some sunbathing and swimming on cool mid winter days. I guess the rest of the time they can come out at night,if they MUST, like small desert dwelling animals.
Don’t be in such a rush to move north Old Farmer ( I know you are not), it might turn out to be bad for a while if the AMOC shuts down or severely slows. It could get quite cold in certain northerly regions, mostly northern Europe but some effects in the North American region too. Don’t ask me the timing or probability of that change in currents. Still it would be quite disappointing to set up in New England only to find the temperature there dropping, while other areas further north and inland increase in temperature.
You can’t depend on the weather. Although altitude is the better guarantee of average cooling, I wouldn’t go further north than Northern Pennsylvania in the hills. If the AMOC starts fluctuating parts of Europe will be very difficult and parts of NA will become harsh compared to present.
Lots of wood for heating though in the hills of Pa and NY.
The key thing is that the Great Lakes basin has a huge supply of fresh water, which is going to be rarer and rarer. And the weather patterns mean that even if you’re not quite in the Great Lakes basin… we’ll still have lots of rainfall up here. Drought predicted in much of the southern part of the country…
I have an excellent idea what an actual super eruption would mean. WWII might look like a rained on picnic by comparison, depending on where the eruption occurs. Yellowstone could wipe out half the USA as effectively as a thousand atom bombs.
The question is this.
Are there any publicly released estimates of what the odds are of a super sized eruption, based on the current indications described in this link??
Would you care to share a wild ass guess of your own?
People who don’t care about volcanoes might not realize that just because a volcano IS capable of a super eruption, it still has smaller, more ordinary sized ones as well, sometimes.
Javier pooh poohed the one that this volcano had most recently , in the 1800’s , but he wouldn’t be poo pooing a super eruption. He might not even live over it, or the aftermath, depending on where he lives.
Hi Mac,
“Are there any publicly released estimates of what the odds are of a super sized eruption, based on the current indications described in this link??”
Yes. The yearly probability of a caldera-forming Yellowstone eruption has been approximated by the USGS as one in 730,000 (0.00014%). This is based on averaging the two intervals between the three major past eruptions — hardly enough to make a critical judgment. This probability is similar to that of a large asteroid hitting Earth. Of course catastrophic geologic events are neither regular nor predictable. Yellowstone has only had three truly enormous eruptions in history: one 2.1 million years ago, one 1.3 million years ago, and one 664,000 years ago. BTW Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia is the only supervolcano that is sometimes described as Yellowstone’s “big” sister. About 74,000 years ago, Toba erupted and ejected several thousand times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens.
Mt . Toba has erupted four times: 1.2 million years ago, at 840,000 years ago, 500,000 years ago and then again around 74,000 years ago. The last eruption is considered as the biggest known eruption ever on Earth. The Toba catastrophe theory relating to this eruption suggests the event caused a decade-long global volcanic winter that was possibly followed by 1,000 years of cooling. This blast was 100 times greater than the largest volcanic eruption in recent history, Mt Tambora in 1815.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL.
Hi Doug,
Here’s hoping you are surrounded today by old friends and family, and enjoying the traditional celebrations on which the festivities and rituals of such latecomers as Baptists are based.
From Wikipedia
xxxxxx
How we inherited Christmas from
THE VIKING YULE
The celebration of Yule in Scandinavia predates the Christian holiday by thousands of years
Winter Solstice, the time of the year when the days get longer and the sun begins to return was truly a cause for celebration among our ancestors in Scandinavia. Their Midwinter Feast lasted at least twelve days. So there are the twelve days of Christmas.
Most Christmas traditions are rooted deep in ancient Yule rituals, many coming from the Vikings. Historic evidence indicates that Jesus was not born on December 25, but in the Spring. Why is then Christmas celebrated on December 25? A common theory is that the Christian church designated this date as the day of Christ’s birth to coincide with the Nordic Midvinter Solstice celebrations, as well as with a Roman midwinder fest called Saturnalia, in order to “facilitate” the conversion of “heathens” to Christianity.
At Midwinter, or Solstice, the Vikings honored their Asa Gods with religious rituals and feasting. They sacrificed a wild boar to Frey, the God of fertility and farming, to assure a good growing season in the coming year. The meat was then cooked and eaten at the feast. This is the origin of today’s Christmas ham in Scandinavia.
During the festivities they burned a giant Sunwheel, which was put on fire and rolled down a hill to entice the Sun to return. According to one theory, this is the origin of the Christmas wreath.
Another Viking tradition was the Yulelog, a large oak log decorated with sprigs of fir, holly or yew. They carved runes on it, asking the Gods to protect them from misfortune. A piece of the log was saved to protect the home during the coming year and light next year’s fire. Today, most know the Yulelog as a cake or cheese log rolled in nuts.
Even the Christmas tree goes back to pre-Christian times. The Vikings decorated evergreen trees with pieces of food and clothes, small statues of the Gods, carved runes, etc., to entice the tree spirits to come back in the spring.
Ancient myths surround the Mistletoe. The Vikings believed it could resurrect the dead, a belief based on a legend about the resurrection of Balder, God of Light and Goodness, who was killed by a mistletoe arrow but resurrected when tears of his mother Frigga turned the red mistletoe berries white.
The Yule Goat, (Swedish julbock, Finnish joulupukki, Norwegian julebukk) is one of the oldest Scandinavian Christmas symbols. Its origin is the legend about the Thundergod Thor who rode in the sky in a wagon pulled by two goats. An old custom was for young people to dress up in goat skins and go from house to house and sing and perform simple plays. They were rewarded with food and drink. The Yule Goat at one time also brought Yule gifts. This character was later replaced with “jultomten” (Santa Claus).
Our pre-Christian ancestors would dress up someone to represent Old Man Winter, who was welcomed into homes to join the festivities. Dressed in a hooded fur coat, Father Christmas traveled either by foot or on a giant white horse. Some think that this horse may have been Odin’s horse Sleipnir and that Father Christmas was originally Odin, who was often depicted with a long beard. When the Vikings conquered Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries, he was introduced there and became the English Father Christmas.
Today, Viking Yule is celebrated in reconstructed Viking Villages such as Foteviken in Skåne and Jörvik in England, where visitors in December can make Christmas decorations with the Vikings, listen to Viking legends and hang their wishes in Odin’s Yule Tree. Viking Yule is also celebrated by Asatruers, who revive the old Nordic religion, called Asatru.
Of course, our Scandinavian forefathers were not alone in celebrating the Winter Solstice. All over the world, and throughout history, people have celebrated the sun’s return after the winter with a wide diversity of rituals and traditions. And still are.
Links: Yule in the Old Norse Religion – Thor’s Goats – Yule around the World and in History
xxxxxx
About that volcano–I’m sure the odds of a super eruption are very slim indeed. The guys at the USGS are pretty sharp.
But the odds of a more typical, smaller eruption of the sort that commonly happens at least once a century or so,still big enough to be a BIG problem locally, somewhere in the world, may actually be as high as one or two percent annually over the next few decades. The local area is densely populated, and even a modest eruption would be catastrophic for anybody living within a few miles.
Do you know of any estimates on the likelihood of an ordinary eruption, given the known prevailing conditions?
Here is a website that monitors the volcanic region with deformation and gas graphs. Use your favorite translator if you don’t read Italian.
This article states that the next Camp Flegrei explosion can be less than 100 years away.
“The scientists then created a long-term temporal probability model based on the available eruptive record to study the clustering pattern of Campi Flegrei. Under the assumption that the Monte Nuovo eruption represents the beginning of a new eruptive epoch, model results, on average, estimate that the next eruption in the Campi Flegrei caldera is likely to occur within 100–120 years. The models indicate that the eruption could occur as soon as 4–5 years from now or as distant as 400–500 years from now (corresponding to the 5th and 95th percentile bounds of the model variability). However, such time estimates increase significantly, up to even more than 1000 years, if Monte Nuovo is not assumed to be the beginning of a new eruptive epoch and/or only western side activity is considered.” https://eos.org/research-spotlights/when-might-the-campi-flegrei-caldera-erupt-again
Thanks GF,
This is exactly the sort of data I was looking for.
Check out my nice comment about Trump.
The models indicate that the eruption could occur as soon as 4–5 years from now or as distant as 400–500 years from now
Pretty useless models I would say.
Now, is it You-l or is it U-lay?
I’ve been puzzling over this.
NAOM
Oldfarmermac,
Why is then Christmas celebrated on December 25? A common theory is that the Christian church designated this date as the day of Christ’s birth to coincide with the Nordic Midvinter Solstice celebrations, as well as with a Roman midwinder fest called Saturnalia, in order to “facilitate” the conversion of “heathens” to Christianity.
A common hypothesis but it is a false one. Christians arrived to their date independently, and prior to the establishment of the festivity of Sol invictus in Rome.
It starts with the incorrect dating of the death of Jesus Christ in the third century, and the interest by the Christians to find the date of the birth of Jesus.
The first clues were the dating of the Annunciation towards the end of March due to the conception of John the Baptist five and a half months earlier taking place during the Feast of Tabernacles in early October. The Annunciation festivity is celebrated the 25th of March.
The dating of Jesus death in Tertullian times was wrong. Tertullian wrote that Jesus was crucified on the eighth day before the Kalends of April during the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, or March 25, 29 C.E. We now know that the date is incorrect, but at the time it also made sense because it was the date of the Vernal equinox and the Jews believed the world was created by God on the Vernal equinox.
Since the Annunciation fell on about the same date of the year it also made sense according to another jewish belief. That Moses and other great prophets were born and died on the same day, having perfect lives because God completed their days.
Thus since Jesus died on March the 25th, and since He came to the world at the time of his conception that was also dated by the end of March, then he must have been conceived also on March the 25th and had been born nine months later, on December the 25th. That is the origin of the date for Christians.
Hippolytus of Rome (170-236) in his “Commentary on Daniel” (224) is the first to mention December 25 as the date of Jesus birth. “For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC].”
At the time, Saturnalia ended on December the 23rd. It was 50 years later when Aurelian instituted the unconquered sun (Sol invictus) festivity from a religion that was more recent in Rome than Christianity.
And Scandinavia was too far removed from the Roman Empire for their festivities to have any influence there.
As always we must remain skeptical of popular theories not based on evidence.
Hi Javier,
I have at times read a good bit about the ins and outs of Christian history, but too long ago to remember the details, and don’t really care anymore about particular details, except when major events turn on them.
I am however very much interested in understanding the course of history. You have a point about Scandinavia being too far removed from the old Roman empire to have had much effect on religion and traditions THERE, back then.
But Scandinavians played a truly MAJOR role in the history of most of what we refer to as Western Europe from the Viking era onward, and that’s when our religious traditions involving Christmas were evolving into modern forms, with a lot of Scandinavian influence.
And since most of the prevailing culture in the Western Hemisphere today is historically based on the prevailing cultures of Western Europe during the era of European colonization of the Americas……….
I am satisfied that our current day Western, Christian holiday traditions contain a heaping helping of Scandinavian elements.
You may well be right about some of the the details and whether they have been correctly interpreted. I have read more than enough history to know that historians make a lot of mistakes, and that depending on who they are, who they owe allegiance to, they are also prone to playing favorites.
Hi Oldmacfarmer,
I find religions fascinating. Another one of my many interests. With a religion humans give themselves from what to eat and how to eat it, to how to behave to other humans, whether related or not, from the same religion or from a different one. It is very clear that they have an adaptative role, a very big one. Every people in the past developed a religion. And groups that have kept their identity for long, like Jews or Amish, usually have in common a strong religious belief.
As a scientist I am non religious since I don’t believe on anything that cannot be demonstrated, but I see that most people feel the need to believe even if they are unaware of it. A lot of atheists display the same posture towards science than religious people towards their religion. They have an unshakable faith that progress will provide if we remain faithful to the true science. However history has already demonstrated that progress can stagnate for a millennium or even go backwards, and that science can lose its way for a generation or more following wrong ideas.
There are a lot of myths everywhere. Religions, History, Science. We humans love myths so we tend to create myths all around us, and propagate them if we like them, and what we do is we suspend our skepticism to accept a myth that we like. Anything that is not supported by hard evidence is susceptible of being a myth. The myth that Christians copied Jesus birthday from pagans was created out of thin air in mid 19th century and propagated and supported with all kind of logical reasoning based mainly on its coincidence with the winter solstice. Most people accept it without asking for evidence.
Something similar happens with the myth that we are going towards an apocalyptic climate Armageddon. It was created the day it was decided that the cooling period between 1945 and 1975 could be fully explained by cooling from contamination aerosols. Nobody knew by how much aerosols were capable of cooling the planet, but it was made big enough to prevent warming from growing CO2 emissions and cause all the cooling observed. A very strong aerosol pollution cooling allowed for a very strong CO2 warming. Obviously there is no evidence of that and we don’t know the cooling factor of contamination as we don’t know the warming factor of CO2 (climate sensitivity). This myth has been dressed with all sorts of logical arguments and the efforts of a lot of scientists are dedicated to defend it, while best scientific practices indicate that it should be attacked instead, since no hypothesis or theory can be demonstrated to be correct so we must settle for being unable to demonstrate that it is incorrect. As with any good myth that we like, nobody is asking for the evidence. How do we know that the promised apocalypse is real? We don’t. It is all a worse case scenario based on assumptions that nobody can demonstrate. At the same time Nature is telling us that it is not going that worse case path, but again most people simply ignore any evidence that doesn’t fit the myth, or only accept negative opinions on climate regardless of the evidence.
In 1988 we were told by Hansen that we were going to radically alter the climate of the planet if we didn’t change course. We not only didn’t change course, but increased our emissions by more than Hansen predicted, yet 30 years later we have only experienced a modest increase in temperatures. According to HadCrut4 anomaly last month was +0.524, only +0.325° C above 1988 value 30 years ago, and all the growth since 2003 has been due to an El Niño. Other than that humankind is doing proportionally better now than in 1988 in almost any measurable condition. The problems we have related to the incredible growth in our numbers are not climate related.
It should be clear by now to any impartial observer that the catastrophic anthropogenic CO2 climate change hypothesis cannot be correct without the need to wait 30 more years.
Backatcha Javier,
You certainly do display some real understanding of the way the collective mind of our naked ape species works.
As I said, you are right about some of the details of current day Christian dogmas, but the general statement that we have a lot of Scandinavain elements incorporated into our Christian religious traditions still stands true. It will be even more true, if we incorporate even more elements later on.
You can no more make grand sweeping statements about the observed DETAILS of a religion or culture than you can about climate, based on a very few observations.
I won’t be changing my mind about Scandinavian influences on Christmas traditions.
Actual traditions are obvious enough. Midwinter and mid summer religious or sacred rituals are known to have been observed well before we even have any written history.
Preachers and priests, salesmen and con artists, PR men of every stripe, are generally decades to centuries ahead of the egg head philosophers and anally retentive academics who do as best they can to explain these things to us.
The dumbest local horse trading hillbilly I know will latch onto any observation to make his case. There is ZERO doubt in my mind that early Christians not only could have but DID do whatever they could to insinuate their beliefs, piecemeal, into the prevailing dominant religions, and to incorporate bits and pieces of these dominant religions into Christianity, in order to better sell Christianity to the men and women of their day and time.
How do I know this? Because human nature changes but little, if at all, on the historical time scale, and I see it happening on a daily basis today. This sort of co option of elements of other people’s belief systems, for various reasons, good bad and indifferent, is the RULE, rather than the exception.
When it suits their agenda, for example, Republicans adopt the position Democrats have held longer and more consistently, in respect to public debts. The R’s used to scream about it, until they got in power, then they quit screaming and started running it up.
( This incidentally is one reason I do not consider big R republicans to be real or true conservatives, but rather opportunists using the term to paint themselves as wiser, more prudent, etc than “liberals”. Debt may NOT be a critical issue, so long as the measure of it is limited in relation to the size of the economy, but to say it just doesn’t matter is incontrovertible evidence of stupidity, in my estimation. How great that measure may be…………. now THAT’S something to worry about! I worry about it. )
I won’t be changing my mind about the reality of and the dangers associated with forced warming.
In human affairs of the every day sort, it is easily understood that a factor either good or ill can be present, and having a real, accumulating effect, for quite some time, before the result becomes obvious, even to the specific human involved.
My personal observations of the affairs of men, and natural events, on the grand scale, have lead me to the understanding that while change is inevitable, as the result of changing circumstances, the actual appearance of this inevitable change may be long delayed…. but that does not mean it won’t happen. Sometimes the ill effects of drinking a lot of alcohol are not apparent for a decades, but then all at once the alcoholic individual’s health nose dives.
I can add, or remove nutrients from the soil in a certain field, in modest increments, for quite some time, before the addition or loss of these nutrients becomes obvious over the noise introduced by natural variations in the weather, pest problems, etc, is overcome sufficiently for me to say that my yield is either up or down due to the nutrient profile.
Then at some point, either up or down, the yield may change DRAMATICALLY, with only a minor ADDITIONAL change in the nutrient profile.
No biologist, or professionally trained farmer, will argue that the productivity of a given plant or crop, such as corn, does not correlate in a well understood and pretty much invariable fashion with the quantities of available NPK and trace nutrients, EVERYTHING ELSE HELD EQUAL.
I do NOT have GREAT FAITH in the predictive powers of climate models, in terms of their accuracy, because there is not sufficient data available to refine them, the way we can refine the details of medical text books, or agricultural text books. Physicians have had the luxury of observing the progress of countless thousands of cases of any important disease, and the treatments tried for it, and thus can predict rather accurately that a man with a certain disease will or will not live five more years, or five more DAYS, etc, in the case of many well understood diseases.
Climate scientists don’t have the luxury of all these thousands of past observations carried thru to conclusions, but the physics involved are perfectly obvious, and the actual observed results, over time frames OTHER than the ones you choose to use, are rather obvious, unless one wishes to say the loss of Arctic sea ice over the last three decades is the result of natural variation, or the greening, which YOU have pointed out, in northern climes, is also the result of natural variation.
Bottom line, I am agnostic as to the SPECIFIC predictions of climate scientists, meaning by SPECIFIC the average temperature will rise by thus and so in thus and so many years. But the odds are VERY CLOSE to one hundred percent that rising green house gas concentrations will result in higher average temperature, and the odds are CLOSE to one hundred percent , in my estimation, that these rising temperatures will result in various positive feedbacks that will lead to FURTHER rises in the average temperature.
Maybe the increase will be less than the climate scientists as a group expect. Maybe it will be more. If anybody wants to place a modest long term bet, my money says it will be MORE than the middle of the road predictions.
My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that the odds are 99.9 percent plus that the overall climate will continue to heat up for the next few decades, and probably for the next few centuries.
The precautionary principle applies.
Beyond that……….
If you collect coins, and put aside a legal tender coin, it will never be worth less than it’s face value, no matter what happens in the collectible coin market.
Whatever we do to cut back on the use of fossil fuels, and to advance the growth of the renewable energy industries, and to promote energy conservation and efficiency……….
ALL such policies and actions will have a positive effect on our future collective well being, and the well being of the other living things with which we share this one planet.
The closest I can come to agreeing with you is to acknowledge that there is a non zero chance you are right. In my estimation, there is maybe one in a thousand chance you are right, in terms of a personal wild ass guess on my part.
People who know more about the specifics of climate science will likely estimate the odds of your being right at one in a million, or less.
But if they say ZERO, they are NOT sticking to good scientific practice, because there is a non zero chance some unknown negative feed back effect might prevent warming from happening.
Oldfarmermac,
I have not said that a good deal of Christmas traditions are coming from pagan beliefs predating Christianity. The Church has always allowed the incorporation of elements from other belief systems as long as they do not oppose dogma, and we have seen that as much in Scandinavia, as in Africa or the Americas. The celebrations for the day of the dead in Mexico are very peculiar and clearly tolerated because don’t run against dogma, but not encouraged either.
The Christmas tree is clearly not a Christian element, and poor Saint Nicklaus was probably co-opted to fill the role of some other figure in a more acceptable manner, before falling prey to Coca Cola advertisement.
But all this is likely to have happened after Northern Germany and Scandinavian Christianization, centuries after Christians decided they wanted to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, instead of only His death. this change took place at the second to third century transition as Christianity changed from an apocalyptic sect to a full fledged permanent religion.
So we can agree on that.
“I won’t be changing my mind about the reality of and the dangers associated with forced warming.”
I am fine with that. I’m not making converts but defending the right to an alternative explanation. There are lots of ifs and assumptions in the catastrophic interpretation, and lots of evidence don’t fit the narrative.
“a factor either good or ill can be present, and having a real, accumulating effect, for quite some time, before the result becomes obvious.”
I am prepared to accept that and discuss long term negative effects of increased CO2. The problem is that this is not what we are being sold. Catastrophe has been imminent for the past 30 years.
“But the odds are VERY CLOSE to one hundred percent that rising green house gas concentrations will result in higher average temperature, and the odds are CLOSE to one hundred percent , in my estimation, that these rising temperatures will result in various positive feedbacks that will lead to FURTHER rises in the average temperature.”
Well, you pulled those chances out of your hat, Olfarmermac. So I will ask you the same question I asked Dennis.
Since temperatures haven’t really raised since 2003 except for El Niño, would you still hold the same opinion if come 2030 the average temperature of the planet is still at the same level or below temperature average on 2003? If yes, why?
Dennis thinks that even if huge amounts of CO2 are emitted over 30 years, the current hypothesis can accommodate whether there is lots of warming or not warming at all. I find that preposterous, anti-science, and akin to a religious belief. What is your take?
Hi Javier,
You have completely misinterpreted what I think. I base what I think on the evidence that we have at present, which suggests the mean estimate of the IPCC matches the data.
I will reject the current hypothesis when a better alternative hypothesis explains the empirical evidence better.
I am still waiting for your alternative, the data supports a transient climate response similar to the CMIP5 ensemble mean.
Note that most of the change in temperature can be explained by the natural log of atmospheric CO2 over 67 year intervals from 1850 to 2015, over 80% of the variation in temperature is explained in this way. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will remain high for many millennia (about 100) and the ocean will warm by 2 C over 100 to 200 years under reasonable scenarios (1000 to 1200 Pg of anthropogenic carbon emissions).
Most of this is physics and chemistry.
Dennis,
“I am still waiting for your alternative, the data supports a transient climate response similar to the CMIP5 ensemble mean.”
My alternative is a ECS of about 1.65°C that is also supported by the data, as defended in multiple publications. The rest is natural-induced climate change.
The CO2 hypothesis can perfectly well accommodate such low climate sensitivity with the consequence that future warming would be much lower and essentially no damaging consequences would be seen for centuries.
A low climate sensitivity would go a long way to explain the pause, so it fits better the data.
Hi Nathanael.
Assuming that a 48% exponential growth rate will continue for more than a couple of years is pretty silly in my opinion.
Hi Javier,
Well the data supports a transient climate response of 1.75 C perhaps. You do realize it takes some time for the ocean to warm and that carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for quite some time (as the ice core evidence suggests a Tau for the remaining 45% of carbon dioxide that is not sequestered quickly of roughly 200,000 years to match the decline from 275 ppm to 180 ppm over roughly 80,000 years.)
So no, the evidence you point to is not agreed to by many climate scientists, but you can believe it if it makes you feel good.
Dennis,
“the ice core evidence suggests a Tau for the remaining 45% of carbon dioxide that is not sequestered quickly of roughly 200,000 years to match the decline from 275 ppm to 180 ppm over roughly 80,000 years.”
As I have already told you, the long CO2 delay observed in ice cores after an interglacial is assumed to correspond only to CO2 decay to yield those estimates.
This is clearly wrong. The slow descent of the planet into an interglacial has a corresponding decrease in the biosphere. Deserts expand, grassland substitutes forested areas, and rainforest decreases very much its extent. At the same time most animal species greatly reduce their numbers, as planet land becomes a lot more unproductive. These huge biosphere die off accompanies the descent in temperatures and precipitations and results in a huge amount of CO2 being released over time that slows the descent in CO2 levels.
Those calculations mean nothing as they don’t take this factor into account, and all we know is that CO2 probably has a much lower half life in the atmosphere than those calculations indicate.
Hi Javier,
There are off setting effects as the World gets colder. Carbon dioxide solubility increases as the ocean cools, and permafrost decreases the rate that microorgansms break down soil carbon and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The scientists that develop the carbon models are well aware of all the arguments you have given. In addition the bulk of carbon dioxide is removed by ocean processes and your argument primarily applies to land, most of the carbon on land is cycled from land to atmosphere and back.
Geophysics and Geochemistry principles lead to the very long life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A model of the ocean and seafloor carbon cycle is subjected to injection of new CO2 pulses of varying sizes to estimate the resident atmospheric fraction over the coming 100 kyr. The model is used to separate the processes of air-sea equilibrium, an ocean temperature feedback, CaCO3 compensation, and silicate weathering on the residual anthropogenic pCO2 in the atmosphere at 1, 10, and 100 kyr. The mean lifetime of anthropogenic CO2 is dominated by the long tail, resulting in a range of 30–35 kyr. The long lifetime of fossil fuel carbon release implies that the anthropogenic climate perturbation may have time to interact with ice sheets, methane clathrate deposits, and glacial/interglacial climate dynamics.
Is there a reason Javier hasn’t been banned yet? I’m tired of his dishonest spews clogging up the place. He doesn’t know jack shit and he insists on spewing lies.
Then ignore him, your choice.
All that ‘history’ is a fabrication, part of the indoctrination/brainwashing by the ‘church’.
And you know that for a fact because…
No, just opinion of course. Reading between the lines of history.
I think is funny when people claim to know the history of Joshua. Those with the franchise have made the man unrecognizable to himself.
Though I seldom post I have lurked here for many years and thank most of you for a great education. A Merry Christmas to all.
The numbers on energy return and payback time appear to be about as good as the most enthusiastic backers of solar power say they are.
I am wondering if and when any of the reputable and capable scientists and engineers who used to post stuff about the poor returns of pv will update their work.
When the dollar cost of a technology falls by as much as a factor of five, which is the case with pv in recent years, the energy returned on the energy invested just about HAS to have fallen by at least a factor of two or three, because energy prices have not fallen but so far, and energy is not the only cost involved.
If we bite the bullet, and do what has to be done in terms of building electrical storage infrastructure, we can be sure , for practical purposes, that our finite endowment of oil will last at least twice as long as it will under the current bau scenario, due to electrifying most or nearly all personal transportation, and some commercial transportation as well.
And if we have no other choice, we CAN build pumped storage to giterdone. The environmental lobby, and the nimby lobby will scream bloody murder, and the screaming will be justified in many cases. but the necessary pumped storage WILL be built anyway, if there is no other choice available, and we get started before it’s too late to build it.
Getting the juice hither and yon won’t be an insurmountable problem, because we are going to have to build lots of HVDC transmission lines anyway.
There must be at least a thousand places where pumped storage reservoirs CAN be built, from a technical pov, in the USA. It would be possible to build one within a mile or two of my home with a thousand foot head, and a hundred acre reservoir at least fifty feet deep on average. It could probably be twice that big, and might be cheaper on a unit capacity basis made bigger. There are already major transmission lines within thirty miles, and some fairly large ones within ten or fifteen miles.
There are probably half a dozen such places within thirty or forty miles.
Uncle Sam chased us hillbillies out of not far distant hills and hollows within the living memory to establish the Shenandoah National Park. He can and will do it again, if the situation calls for it, and it makes political sense to do it.
I wonder if pumped storage will be stifled because of environmental laws. Batteries are far worse for the environment, but since the pollution is mostly out of country they will go forward. Hydrogen storage is another energy storage medium, just not quite as efficient as pumped storage.
The economics of oil and it’s infrastructure system are quite bad, much more expensive than PV energy. It is a no brainer to switch away from oil as much as possible. However apparently obvious economics do not work well in the real world.
Happy Holidays GF,
Here is a pump storage operation that has been running in the U.S. for the last 30 years.
“Four generators are conventional turbines and another four are reversible turbines. With the four-reversible turbines, the dam can utilize pumped-storage hydroelectricity by pumping water that is discharged downstream back into the reservoir; essentially “reusing” water.[1]”
I used to work at the North Anna nukes on shutdown jobs, such as refueling or any shutdown due to needed unscheduled repairs -rare. Refueling is scheduled, and nearly all repair work is done during refueling shut downs.
The off peak juice produced at North Anna was used to recharge the upper reservoir at this pumped storage plant.
It was my understanding from talking to the engineers at the nukes that North Anna juice was used exclusively to pump the water back to the upper lake, but the wikipedia article says coal, nukes and other about where the juice comes from.
It does seem likely that some small amounts of coal fired and gas fired juice, maybe even a little hydro, would be used for pumping at times, since with fully modernized interconnections these days, the pumps can be used to help balance the grid to a nicety, thus avoiding the need to dial back the fires at fossil fuel plants, and ramp them up again.
But so far as I can tell, no other source of juice is as cheap to produce as off peak nuke juice. With the nuke already built, the little bit of extra fuel used to run flat out during the off peak hours is a trivial expense, and older nukes NEED to run flat out.
Most folks don’t realize it, but newer nuke designs can cycle up and down to a substantial extent without causing problems.
This is a good study of Solar PV EROEI, except for one thing.
It assumes 25 year lifespans. That’s now the WARRANTY PERIOD for new solar panels. Insiders believe they’ll last at least 30 years. 40-year-old solar panels are still working fine, so they may last 50 years or more.
The very long lifespan of solar panels means it’s probably correct to double the EREOIs estimated by this study.
Happy Newton’s Birthday!
(For the non theists)
Given that it is Christmas, and the Baptist interpretation of the season is peace, forgiveness, brotherhood, etc, except of course for infidels who are SUPPOSED to burn in hell, I have something good to say about Trump.
This whole comment is sarcasm, for those who can’t recognize it by the shovel full.
I fully expect the Trump administration to be the most transparent in history.
There will be a symbolic gold star and attaboy for the first person who figures out WHY.
I wish I could claim credit for this joke or cynical observation, but I can’t,and have no idea who thought of it first.
Merry-ecstatic Hallow Eastereen, everyone. Have a much richer nicer one, and for all the blessed world to know and cherish. Because peak oil salad dressing will recover with lime juice and of course KFC bucket.
Hi Caelan,
That’s one of the most depressing cartoons I have ever seen in my life, because it captures so much that has gone to hell in a handbasket, so much of what we have lost.
And hey , I do know that most of us ever had what is depicted in the left frame, but some of us, a lot of us, actually DID have that sort of family life, and community life.
Ritual is extraordinarily important, and preparing a holiday feast, and getting together as family and community to consume it, is one of the handful of things that makes life truly worthwhile.
Sky Daddy help us, but so many of us lead emotionally and intellectually barren lives these days……….
Personally I have been extraordinarily lucky to have experienced a close knit extended family and community life, and also in living in close contact with nature most of the time.
I wouldn’t even THINK about trading places with a one percenter living in a subdivision and working in an office park.
My work today took me out into the bottomlands on my farm, where I used my biggest big boys toy, a large backhoe, to uproot some trees in an overgrown old orchard that I’m converting to pasture.
A hundred feet up the hillside, and fifty yards horizontally from the happily burbling stream in the middle of the bottom, I dug out nice round boulders two feet in diameter. Creek rock, worn smooth and round by water carrying sand and gravel, maybe tumbling these boulders down from ten thousand feet or higher …..
My little stream must have at one time been a regular ripsnorter, with waterfalls and wild rapids, maybe a couple of hundred feet wide and fifty feet, or more, deep in flood.
The Blue Ridges used to be equal to the ALPS, but now they’re are mere shadows of what they once were, as my old Daddy is a mere shadow of the man he used to be.
King James Bible , Ecclesiastes 1;4
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
The people of the East, the old ones, know some things about the wheels of nature. Most of us Westerners don’t have a clue. I fear the modern day Asian man knows as little as the typical Western man, these days.
Life in even the nicest place in town, cut off from nature, to me would be like reading about being in love, as opposed to actually BEING in love.
Merry Christmas to Friends at the Peak Oil Barrel! I know I don’t post much, but I often read here many times a week and have learned a lot about energy industries. I would like to thank all the people who do post. May God bless you all with Wellness, Happiness and Prosperity now and into the New Year!
Sorry kids if you didn’t get your presents this year. Santa got a little hung up.
Hey, he should consider himself lucky he didn’t get burned to crisp by a CSP system…
Anyways he’ll be put out of business soon enough by AI drones, so it is fitting to see him hanging up his reindeer and sleigh. 😉
I don’t think that is really Santa, probably put up there by the anti-windmill people since their squawking about bird kills wasn’t working.
Will people have to build drone landing pads for deliveries? The Fed-Ex truck just uses the road.
Wonder how many delivery drones will get shot down or crashed by storms.
Wonder how many delivery drones will get shot down or crashed by storms.
Despite this being the first human fossil recovered from the North Sea – or indeed from any ocean in the world – many other fossils of extinct Ice Age fauna have been dredged up over the years, as have stone tools, reflecting a past era in the Pleistocene when sea levels were about 100m lower than the present day, and the current sea bed was dry land. this environment was capable of supporting a large suite of flora and fauna, in a geographical range extending from modern-day Britain, clear across to what we now know as the Netherlands and even parts of Scandinavia. Here’s a word from Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London…
‘This is a very significant discovery,’ said Professor Chris Stringer, human origins expert at the Natural History Museum, who directs the AHOB project. ‘The skull fragment represents the first ancient human found from below the sea – who knows what else we may find down there!’
‘For most of the last half-a-million years, sea levels were significantly lower than today, and at times, substantial areas of the current North Sea were dry land,’ says Stringer. ‘There were extensive river systems with wide river valleys, lakes and floodplains and these areas were rich habitats for large herds of herbivores and the animals that preyed on them, including early humans.’
‘Isotope analyses of this North Sea Neanderthal match other specimens in suggesting a diet dominated by meat.’ Stringer adds, ‘Woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, reindeer and other Pleistocene mammal fossils are brought ashore every year by the fishing industry and from other dredging operations, and some fishermen now concentrate on collecting fossils rather than fish.
It takes a Neanderthal to be swimming fifteen miles from shore. Probably looking for the lost unicorn. lol
Probably people just making stuff up, fake news, in the parlance of our times. Who would believe there was dry land where the North Sea is now? Nobody. Ya, we were out fishing and we drug up some bones from the bottom of the North Sea. Sure you did. Tell me another one.
You just can’t trust these scientists and their exaggerated claims of where things came from and what they are.
If the North Sea was once 100 meters lower, then it makes a good case for some nut building an ark out of gopher wood. Some stupid old man was stuck out in the middle of nowhere where no water could be found for miles around, then builds a giant boat to hold animals and few close kin to ride out the flood that was forecast by God himself. People would point and laugh, make a fool out of the old fool. Little did they know that Noah knew about some big sheet of ice about to melt.
But that was only 6,000 years ago when the earth was formed, not this old wives’ tale of the earth being 4.6 billion years old, who is going to believe such hyperbole? Balderdash, nonsense, no scientist with a sterling reputation on the line would make up such numbers. Just won’t happen in the real world. Next thing you know, some crackpot with some kooky idea will dream up a continent called Gondwana or something and some more nonsense about tectonic plates. All bunkum and bosh. We all know it is steady state geology with a more sensible number of years of earth’s existence, creation, of no more than 6.000 years.
Get with the program and pay attention. Scientists are more prone to getting it all wrong than getting it all right, most of the time, they’re all wrong, they just make stuff up, like always. Can’t argue with that.
Of course, it could be true that the earth actually is 4.6 billion years old. Just some more fake news there too. You can’t believe a word people say anymore. Evidence is a pigment of their wild imaginations.
Neanderthals could not swim. Probably because of their muscular heavy built they were prone to sinking. They never took on boating and didn’t even colonize Sardinia, that is clearly visible from the coast. Most probably they advanced when the seas retreated, and retreated when the seas advanced.
By the time Doggerland flooded, Neanderthals had been extinct for tens of thousands of years.
Neanderthals could not swim. Probably because of their muscular heavy built they were prone to sinking. They never took on boating and didn’t even colonize Sardinia, that is clearly visible from the coast. Most probably they advanced when the seas retreated, and retreated when the seas advanced.
Javier do you ever check any of the literature before you spout your ignorance? Where the heck do you get a ridiculous idea like, muscular heavy builds, equate with not being able to swim?! Have you ever taken a course in physiology, or evolutionary zoology? Let alone anthropology?
Evidence suggests Neanderthals took to boats before modern humans
(PhysOrg.com) — Neanderthals, considered either a sub-species of modern humans or a separate species altogether, lived from approximately 300,000 years ago to somewhere near 24,000 years ago, when they inexplicably disappeared, leaving behind traces of their DNA in some Middle Eastern people and artifacts strewn all across the southern part of Europe and extending into western Asia. Some of those artifacts, stone tools that are uniquely associated with them, have been found on islands in the Mediterranean Sea, suggesting, according to a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, by George Ferentinos and colleagues, that Neanderthals had figured out how to travel by boat. And if they did, it appears they did so before modern humans.
Fred,
Neanderthals lived for hundreds of thousands of years in Southern Europe, yet there is no convincing evidence that they inhabited the Mediterranean islands. Had they been capable of colonizing the islands they would have done so repeatedly, so we can conclude that they were not navigators.
You know a little bit of biology. Do you know the impact that the arrival of an apex predator has on an island fauna?
“It has been suggested that the islands of the Mediterranean were first settled during the Pleistocene. Attention has in particular been paid to recent claims that the occupation of Crete by hominins dates to the Middle Pleistocene. This paper examines what—if Lower Palaeolithic pre-modern hominins did indeed colonize the Mediterranean islands—environmental and evolutionary impacts this would have had, what forms these impacts would have taken, and what traces these forms would leave. Such impacts are modeled using information derived from island biogeography, historical ecology, and evolutionary biology. Probable outcomes of colonization scenarios—including turnover in insular faunas, ecological cascade events, and morphological changes in isolated populations of Homo—are compared to the palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental record for the Mediterranean islands. The absence of any obvious correlation casts doubt on large-scale and sustained colonization of the more remote Mediterranean islands during the Lower Palaeolithic, although this does not preclude the possibility of chance and short-lived colonizations by pre-modern hominins.
Conclusions: Crossing Deep Water in Deep Time
It is unlikely, based on the evidence for palaeoenvironmental dynamics, that there was sustained and deliberate colonization of the remote Mediterranean islands by archaic forms of Homo in the Lower Palaeolithic. Such colonization—as studies of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of colonizing taxa suggest—would have had transformative ecological impacts for which there is little evidence.
In contrast, on the Balearics, Cyprus, and the central Mediterranean islands (excepting Sicily and its satellites), there is strong evidence for the retention of biological endemism throughout the Pleistocene, militating against the likelihood of colonization on any noticeable scale.
It remains the case that our own species is the only apparent member of the genus Homo with the time and the inclination deliberately to aim for, arrive at, and survive upon remote islands. A Mediterranean awash with seagoing archaic hominins is, then, inherently unlikely.
This conclusion has implications for understanding hominin dispersal not only in the Mediterranean, but on a global scale. It is clear that anatomically modern humans have, since ~50 kya, possessed the cognitive and social apparatus to undertake deliberate, active colonization of distant landmasses. Conversely, there is little evidence that archaic forms of Homo behaved similarly.”
If it didn’t happen in hundreds of thousands of years, it was because it couldn’t happen. A few badly dated doubtfully attributed stone tools in some Aegean close to the cost islands does not change the fact that neanderthalensis was not an island colonizer.
The figure below shows when the level of endemism in the Mediterranean islands suffered a massive loss after the Last Glacial Maximum, when sapiens arrived.
Chimps are muscular and heavy boned,compared to humans, and probably close to Neanderthals in this respect. They seldom DO actually swim, but they can learn how, which is well documented by actual video footage.
I think it is very likely that Neanderthals could swim if they happened to live in places where they found it advangtageous to venture into deep enough water for swimming to be possible, and so learned how, by experiment forced by necessity. Collecting shellfish, or fishing with a spear would have been reasons for venturing into such waters.
But just because they could likely have LEARNED how to swim is no indication that they did, or that if they did, the knowledge was preserved and passed on.
We wore shoes and used ropes and bags to carry loose objects and rode horses , and used ropes to TIE horses for a very long time before the stirrup was invented. And given the above facts, the stirrup was such a SIMPLE invention……….
Neanderthals probably did not venture into water deep enough to swim if they could avoid it, because swimming would have been a LEARNED behavior , rather than an instinct, for them, as it is for us, and for chimps.
The observation of ONE individual drowning, or being pulled under by a shark maybe, would have been enough to thoroughly discourage any other individuals from entering deep water.
I do not doubt personally that they were capable of communicating well enough to pass along such observations to their fellows, and their children.
For the past decade Arctic sea ice has been stable despite a huge campaign to try to convince us that the Arctic has been melting rapidly.
For another year, September 2016 average sea ice extent was higher than 2007. Expert alarmists continue telling us that the Arctic will be ice-free soon, but sea-ice refuses to go. And sea-ice extent is not the only parameter that is improving:
– Summer ice survival for older than 1 year ice has also been increasing since 2007. The consequence is that there is more older age ice now than in 2007.
– The date of the summer ice minimum has also been taking place earlier since 2008, indicating that the melting season is getting shorter and shorter.
This all has taken place while 2015 was the warmest year on record and 2016 is likely to be even warmer. This pause in Arctic sea-ice melting was not predicted. In fact we were told that sea-ice melting was accelerating.
Since the media can no longer claim that there is less sea ice than in 2007, they have turned to report about sub-seasonal variability, like the November with less sea-ice, or out of the ordinary temperatures, to try to convince us that the Arctic is melting rapidly, when it is not.
Meanwhile polar bears are booming. Latest count has come the highest ever, at 25-30,000 individuals of this top predator. This numbers compare very favorably with the less than 15,000 estimated in the early 1960’s. It turns global warming has been very good to polar bears. Either that or hunting limitations, that would reveal who is the real enemy of polar bears.
“Published on Oct 28, 2016
Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years, it’s becoming younger and thinner as well. In this animation, where the ice cover almost looks gelatinous as it pulses through the seasons, cryospheric scientist Dr. Walt Meier of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describes how the sea ice has undergone fundamental changes during the era of satellite measurements.”
I mean if we can’t trust what the scientists at NASA tell us, who can we trust?
You, Javier?
Hahaha
Meanwhile polar bears are booming. Latest count has come the highest ever, at 25-30,000 individuals of this top predator. This numbers compare very favorably with the less than 15,000 estimated in the early 1960’s. It turns global warming has been very good to polar bears.
FM16 Press Conference: How animals will fare in a changing climate
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
I think I’ll trust scientists like Kristin Laidre, Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
Javier, eh, not so much…
Fred,
How animals will fare in a changing climate
“I think I’ll trust scientists like Kristin Laidre”
OK. You trust somebody that tells you what is going to happen, when it is the opposite of what is happening. I’m fine with that, but don’t call it science.
Chilyb,
Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years, it’s becoming younger and thinner as well.
Then why their own data says something different to what they say?
So what I am reporting is the official data by NASA. Don’t you trust the official data from NASA, Chilyb? Do you need somebody to interpret those numbers and graphs for you and to tell you that what is white is actually black?
Javier,
Use thirty years, not eight years.
Just because you say so. Those predicting the demise of Arctic sea ice since 2007 have been predicting it in much less than 30 years. The last 9 years have already disproved their claims without having to wait any longer.
Nobody knows how Arctic sea ice will be in 20 more years but it is evident that those defending that the Arctic sea ice is in a death-spiral are wrong. Already. Not in 20 years. 9 years without melting say so.
Javier,
Not just because I say so. Thirty years is a useful interval, widely used, that allows trend to be discerned within variation when viewing data recorded over decades.
Besides being a horrible indicator of actual sea ice amount, Arctic sea ice extent Sept area is 60 percent of what it was in 1980.
Volume is about 1/3 of what it was in 1980. Arctic sea ice Sept volume is 26% of it’s 1979 Sept volume. Sept volume 2016 is 36 percent of it’s 2005 Sept volume.
NSIDC and PIOMAS sources.
Yes, yes. But the situation is very similar, even better, than in 2007 when we were told by alarmists that Arctic sea ice was going to have disappeared by now.
Prof. Wieslaw Maslowski from Dept. Oceanography of the US Navy predicts an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer by 2013, and says that prediction is conservative. Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
So here we are, nine years later and with the same amount of Arctic sea-ice. Clearly they were wrong then. Why do they still think that they are right when they repeat the same doom predictions about Arctic sea ice only now a few years later?
Climate alarmism is baseless. We simply have no idea what is going to happen 10. 20. 30 years into the future, and the correlation with CO2 is really weak. Looking back 20 years, nothing of what was happened with the climate was predicted.
Happy Holidays Javier.
The facts still stand.
Happy Holidays GoneFishing, My best wishes to you and everybody else.
And yes, the facts are the only thing that stands. I agree 100% with you on that. We just have to be wary of our interpretation of the facts.
Javier, go away. Live in your little bubble of ignorance and denial of facts. Stop spewing your spew here where people want to talk about facts, since you wouldn’t know a fact if you stepped in one.
Dennis, help Javier out. Ban him.
My best wishes to you too, Nathanael.
Nath- I don’t agree w Javier’s analysis on climate, but I certainly don’t think he should be banned for having a different view on it (than you or I). As long as he is not being rude/racist.
Being a broken record on this (banning) is like a form of propaganda, one that trump used during his campaign. Ugly tactic. I suppose the same, and perhaps even more, could be said about Javiers stance on climate.
I am not a broken record. Only on this thread I have comments on Neanderthal navigation capabilities and Christian origin of Christmas tradition. Both are opinion comments based on scientific research in the first case and original third century sources in the second.
A lot of people simply post their personal two cents or at most base their opinion on mass media reports that cannot be trusted.
It is clear that what causes a conflict in my case is that I hold an unpopular view and support it on scientific literature. Some people like GoneFishing are posting continuously about climate without creating any conflict because his comments conform to the majority’s opinion on the issue.
That somebody is targeted personally for holding a minoritarian view speaks volumes about the tolerance of those supporting the majoritarian view.
Javier,
It only speaks volumes about the individual(s) doing the personal targeting.
Not everyone who aligns with the consensus is intolerant of thoughtful dissent.
I stand corrected, Bob
Only a vocal minority within the majority is intolerant. And there are as many intolerant people within the skeptic population. And those are the ones that should be shun by all sides.
We have given ourselves a system that permits the resolution of any disagreement. It is called democracy. Let the people decide on how to best tackle the climate issue and accept the result.
The idea that those with more knowledge should be the ones deciding for all is not democracy.
You just proved you can not read.
NAOM
Nathanael,
Stop spamming the thread with your demand like some kind of toddler throwing a tantrum. Everybody heard you the first time.
GF,
OK. You trust somebody that tells you what actually happened, when it is the opposite of what Javier is telling you is happening… I’m fine with that, but don’t call it science, just because the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the Polar Science Center are your sources.
What should I call it Fred?
I think you have your opposites reversed. Causality left the room.
Both maximum and minimum sea-ice extent for 2016 are above the values for 2007. This is a fact that goes against predictions made by experts since 2007, and despite 2015 and 2016 being warmest years on record. Clearly Arctic sea-ice is not behaving according to expectations, underscoring a fundamental lack of knowledge by experts. Predictions about the future of Arctic sea ice should be disregarded as unreliable.
Man! Are you going into the maraschino, glace or syrup cherry business with all those you are picking?
NAOM
Hi Javier,
I agree that those that predicted there would be an Arctic Sea Ice minimum of zero by 2013 were incorrect.
Picking a minimum and than suggesting that Arctic Sea Ice is on an increasing trend, is a classic case of cherry picking.
If it were me, I would be concerned that people would ignore what I have to say if I tried to pull such a cheap trick.
Post what you wish, just don’t expect you won’t be called on it.
Dennis,
There are scientific reports that convincingly link AMO to Arctic sea ice.
As AMO appears to have peaked, there is reason to believe Arctic sea ice melting might have peaked also. This is not cherry picking because there is a scientific reason to believe a change of trend is on the making. I am not the only one defending this. It has been defended in the scientific literature and accepted by referees and editors without saying they were trying to pull a cheap trick.
“We establish a signal of pervasive and persistent multidecadal (~60–90 year) fluctuations… Covariability between sea ice and Atlantic multidecadal variability as represented by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index is evident during the instrumental record. This observational evidence supports recent modeling studies that have suggested that Arctic sea ice is intrinsically linked to Atlantic multidecadal variability.
Given the demonstrated covariability between sea ice and the AMO, it follows that a change to a negative AMO phase in the coming decade(s) could —to some degree— temporarily ameliorate the strongly negative recent sea-ice trends.”
Wyatt, M. G., & Curry, J. A. (2014). Role for Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice in a secularly varying hemispheric climate signal during the 20th century. Climate dynamics, 42(9-10), 2763-2782. http://cdn.cnsnews.com/documents/Curry,%20Wyatt%20paper.pdf
“In recent decades, rapid changes in the Arctic have been documented. Most interpretations of the recent decline in Arctic sea ice extent have focused on the role of anthropogenic forcing, with some allowance for natural variability.
But according to stadium-wave projections, and according to our interpretation of stadium-wave evolution, this trend should reverse, under the condition that the stadium-wave hypothesis captures 20th century dynamics correctly. Rebound in WIE, followed by ArcSib should occur after the estimated 2006 minimum of WIE and maximum of AMO.”
So no, 30 years are not needed to detect a change of trend in Arctic sea ice. In fact the change of trend can actually be predicted, and when correctly predicted provides strong support to the hypothesis capable of such prediction.
Expect Arctic sea ice to continue being stable or even increase over the next couple of decades. That should give you some pause, right?
Hi Javier,
That is different from what your first chart (12/26 at 10:17 AM) was implying, as you said nothing in that comment about the AMO.
R squared for arctic sea ice minimum vs AMO is only 41% for 1980 to 2015, not much explanatory power.
No facts to be checked in that link. “There is indeed reason for concern, … and still, the risk is real, because…” As far as we know it has never happened before, even during the much warmer Eemian interglacial, or during Dansgaard-Oeschger events that warmed the North Atlantic by +8°C in just a few decades.
While we are still little children we must lean that just because we can imagine something bad doesn’t mean it is going to happen, and should not be scared without reason. Some scientists apparently didn’t learn it, or perhaps are trying to make a living out of scaring other children.
Dennis, again I ask, why hasn’t Javier been banned yet? You’ve documented his dishonest behavior repeatedly, but you’re still allowing him to clog up the threads with his garbage.
When a child throws a temper tantrum and starts screaming denials of reality, we give him a time out. Javier needs a time out. He needs to be sent to the corner and told that if he can’t recognize reality, he needsto shut up until he can.
Hi Nathanael,
Javier won’t be banned, but if someone annoys me enough they will be.
You are fast approaching that point.
Get it?
Atom-thick solution to energy storage conundrum
“With support from a research grant from the EU’s European Research Council (ERC), Prof. Feng has developed a new generation of 2D materials to get around this problem. By blending carbon with a range of metals and other heavy elements, Prof. Feng can tune the properties of the materials, causing them to behave like semiconductors.
A similar approach is being investigated by Professor Aurelio Mateo-Alonso at the POLYMAT Institute of the University of the Basque Country in Spain. He coordinates the 2D-INK project, funded under the EU’s Future and Emerging Technologies programme, in which a consortium of research centres and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are developing layers of graphene with nanoscopic holes inside them.
By fixing different atoms and molecules to the edge of the holes, 2D-INK partners can alter the properties of the graphene, thereby turning it into a semiconductor.
Prof. Mateo-Alonso said that porous graphene could provide key building blocks for a range of new energy technologies. In principle, its high surface area makes it an ideal electrode for more efficient supercapacitors, and its plasticity could be exploited to make flexible solar cells.”
“Prof. Mateo-Alonso said that porous graphene could provide key building blocks for a range of new energy technologies. In principle, its high surface area makes it an ideal electrode for more efficient supercapacitors, and its plasticity could be exploited to make flexible solar cells.
Incorporating nitrogen into porous graphene also creates highly reactive chemical traps that help split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction lies at the heart of hydrogen fuel-cell technologies. It usually requires the use of expensive metals to take place but porous graphene could perform the same task with affordable and environmentally friendly materials.”
‘Ideal’ energy storage material for electric vehicles developed
The goal of a polymer dielectric material with high energy density, high power density and excellent charge-discharge efficiency for electric and hybrid vehicle use has been achieved by a team of materials scientists.
“A comparison of BOPP and the sandwich structure nanocomposite, termed SSN-x, in which the x refers to the percentage of barium titanate nanocomposites in the central layer, shows that at 150 degrees C, SSN-x has essentially the same charge-discharge energy as BOPP at it typical operating temperature of 70 degrees C. However, SSN-x has several times the energy density of BOPP, which makes SSN-x highly preferable for electric vehicle and aerospace applications as an energy storage device due to the ability to reduce the size and weight of the electronics significantly while improving system performance and stability. The elimination of bulky and expensive cooling equipment required for BOPP is an additional bonus.”
“”Our next step is to work with a company or with more resources to do processability studies to see if the material can be produced at a larger scale at a reasonable cost,” Wang says. “We have demonstrated the materials performance in the lab. We are developing a number of state-of-the-art materials working with our theory colleague Long-Qing Chen in our department. Because we are dealing with a three-dimensional space, it is not just selecting the materials, but how we organize the multiple nanosized materials in specific locations. Theory helps us design materials in a rational fashion.””
Asha Sharma, Virendra Singh, Thomas L. Bougher & Baratunde A. Cola
AffiliationsContributionsCorresponding author
Nature Nanotechnology 10, 1027–1032 (2015) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.220
Received 26 May 2015 Accepted 24 August 2015 Published online 28 September 2015 Corrected online 09 October 2015
An optical rectenna—a device that directly converts free-propagating electromagnetic waves at optical frequencies to direct current—was first proposed over 40 years ago1, yet this concept has not been demonstrated experimentally due to fabrication challenges at the nanoscale2, 3. Realizing an optical rectenna requires that an antenna be coupled to a diode that operates on the order of 1 PHz (switching speed on the order of 1 fs). Diodes operating at these frequencies are feasible if their capacitance is on the order of a few attofarads3, 4, but they remain extremely difficult to fabricate and to reliably couple to a nanoscale antenna2. Here we demonstrate an optical rectenna by engineering metal–insulator–metal tunnel diodes, with a junction capacitance of ∼2 aF, at the tip of vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (∼10 nm in diameter), which act as the antenna5, 6. Upon irradiation with visible and infrared light, we measure a d.c. open-circuit voltage and a short-circuit current that appear to be due to a rectification process (we account for a very small but quantifiable contribution from thermal effects). In contrast to recent reports of photodetection based on hot electron decay in a plasmonic nanoscale antenna7, 8, a coherent optical antenna field appears to be rectified directly in our devices, consistent with rectenna theory4, 9, 10. Finally, power rectification is observed under simulated solar illumination, and there is no detectable change in diode performance after numerous current–voltage scans between 5 and 77 °C, indicating a potential for robust operation.
Still early on but the potential here is enormous in sensor and energy transformation applications. From converting waste heat to electric power to making an optical power source more efficient than PV solar panels.
Yup! Could be disruptive, though not sure if it is based on any ‘REAL’ science… More like magic 😉
Real science always looks like magic to the peasants. It probably looks like magic to the nobility and elite but they are too proud to admit it and much more interested in the profit and power it will bring them.
Made from tiny diamonds found in Arkansas petroleum, the finest wire ever made is only three atoms across sheathed in diamond.
“To make their nanowire the team used a singularly commonplace chemical: petroleum from Arkansas. Petroleum has a lot of impurities in it when it’s pulled from the ground, and what they are depends on the local geology. In this case the oil had molecule-sized fragments of diamond in it. In diamonds, the carbon atoms are arranged in box-like shapes. These “diamondoids” can then be chemically altered in the lab so that one of the carbon atoms is attached to a sulfur atom. Each one of these structures can only attach to others like it in a certain orientation because of their shape. This isn’t uncommon in nature; DNA molecules and receptors only link to certain molecules in a particular way. In addition, diamondoids form strong bonds with each other, making them perfect for the outside of the wire, and acting like a glue to link the building blocks together.
When the research team dropped the sulfur-linked diamondoid in a solution full of copper atoms, the copper would link to the sulfur atom. The sulfur atom, now linked to a diamondoid and a copper atom, would bump into another structure like it. Since the diamondoid-sulfur-copper structures only fit together one way, they form the wire, a string of copper and sulfur atoms surrounded by the diamond.”
Nice work, nice work. We’re going to need CO2 removal technologies… every one of these helps.
Obama—
He put up a good front. He seemed congenial and intelligent. But in the end, he appears to be a kind of stooge for the darker forces in America’s overgrown bureaucratic Deep State racketeering operation. Washington truly is a swamp that needs to be drained. Barack Obama was not one of the alligators in it, but he was some kind of bird with elegant plumage that sang a song of greeting at every sunrise to the reptiles who stirred in the mud. And now he is flying away.
JHK
That’s a beautiful paragraph.
I don’t fault Obama. He has been a voice of reason.
The bigger issue has been economists and politicians basing the future of the world on economic growth.
Most of us here don’t expect that, and we have entirely different expectations of the future.
Sanders was more radical than most politicians, but his financial projections were also based on a growing economy. The numbers his camp used to tout a single payer system were based on a rapidly growing US economy, and the taxes that would be collected as a result. They weren’t very likely to happen as projected.
The people who best understand the future, and are willing to talk about it, wouldn’t be electable.
I am very much in favor of renewable energy, but we will also need lifestyle changes to make it work. People don’t need to consume as much stuff and use as much energy as they currently do, but many don’t realize that, or don’t want to make the changes.
Back In 1990, George Michael Already Saw A Glaring Problem With The Modern Media
“a few years removed from his Wham! years and into his solo career, George Michael agreed to a rare interview with The New York Times to help publicize his newest album, “Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1.””
“While discussing “Praying for Time,” Michael’s first single off the album, which included the line “the rich declare themselves poor” and talked of people trying desperately to keep hold of their possessions, Michael expressed his fear that the modern media were making people paranoid of one another, rather than worried about one another.”
George Michael -“Because of the media, the way the world is perceived is as a place where resources and time are running out. We’re taught that you have to grab what you can before it’s gone. It’s almost as if there isn’t time for compassion.”
“a segment from “The O’Reilly Factor” last week, in which host Bill O’Reilly told his like-minded viewers that “the left wants power taken away from the white establishment.””
The generations are destroying themselves, resonating the pain forward into other generations. But not being happy with abusing their children and grandchildren plus killing each other piecemeal, they proceed to pollute the atmosphere, water and land until all are becoming ill. Then they build bombs and energy machines that could wipe life from the face of the earth. Not being happy with that they fight all change that will make things better.
An unhappy and dastardly lot, the hordes that are.
Ever pour a beer that is liquid in the can, then when you open it, it begins to freeze? The top has the slushy ice slosh, the bottom is the ice cold beer in liquid form. You can see the Arctic Ocean is much like an almost frozen beer from the can. If the Arctic Ocean were beer, it would be dry just like the Aral Sea. It’s like the super cooled ocean water in the Antarctic when it comes to the surface, it instantly freezes the wave, the same when you open the super cooled can of beer. har
We need a foundry, a place to process some raw materials to manufacture some steel, some copper, have to have a system. Can’t just go about things willy nilly like Mother Nature does from time to time.
Hotter than hell in the summer, colder than hell in the winter. Mother Nature doesn’t know if she is afoot or horseback. A whirling dervish to boot.
A cruel, heartless bitch from hell. Bleed her to death of oil and she will become even more heartless and cruel, ruthless. Not just an opinion, it will be a fact. She just doesn’t give two hoots about what happens. No concern to her at all.
I digress.
You gotta have clean water systems, infrastructure, so you aren’t running down the hall to the outhouse behind the apartment building where you live and have a horse pulling a cart to collect the human soil which is then dumped into the ocean three miles off shore like it used to be before oil and sanitation efforts and plumbing and sewage systems. In essence, modern living, not the old days of Old New York.
When life was at sustainable levels, the basics, the bare minimums.
Oil changed all of that. Oil has taken us a long ways down the road. It deserves some thanks, some appreciation.
It takes a lot of beer to write all of this mindless drivel.
Oil changed all of that. Oil has taken us a long ways down the road. It deserves some thanks, some appreciation.
Ok! Thank You Oil! Here’s your retirement present.
.
That’s lovely, Fred.
Happy New Year, RW
I find your mindless drivel more entertaining than ninety nine percent of what I could see on TV, and hope you will continue to contribute it, if not to this blog, then someplace else, and let us know where.
Beyond that , I read for insight, and your drivel has an occasional the little gold nugget of insight in it, like the gravel in stream bottoms.
We all NEED somebody to poke fun at us, and keep us from getting carried away.
I am all in favor of looking after the environment, but I’m also like the people John D McDonald described in his novels set in Florida. They all want just one more buddy to move down, and after that, they are all in favor of preserving what the moved there FOR.
I’m all in favor of getting away from oil, too, but not until after I wear out my current oil burning machinery, and after electric automobiles get as cheap as old conventional cars.
Personally I think we will be VERY lucky if we can use renewable electricity to power fifty percent of our overall transportation system within twenty years. And that would still leave construction and farm machinery running on oil or gas………..
If business or pleasure ever brings you to my corner of the former backwoods, which is now unfortunately morphing into a HOT DESTINATION, all the beer you can drink, any brand sold locally, is on me for a day or a week, if you want to drop in for while.
“I am all in favor of looking after the environment, but I’m also like the people John D McDonald described in his novels set in Florida. They all want just one more buddy to move down, and after that, they are all in favor of preserving what the moved there FOR. ”
Ha! I guess I’m rare in not being that type.
Hi Nathaniel,
Your situation may be a lot more desirable than my own, in material terms.
It could be that you don’t NEED any oil burning machinery.
I can assure you that I would be in a very tough situation without my pickup truck, tractors, chainsaw, and few other assorted oil burners, even though I am more or less retired.
And YOU my friend, unless you are a subsistence farmer or a hunter gatherer, would be in one HELL of a tough spot if I and my fellow farmers were forced to give up our oil burners, and the trucking industry were forced to give up oil burning engines. You would be dead of starvation within a matter of a few months at the longest, maybe within as little as three or four weeks.
And it could be that you live in a great spot where NATURE as such is still relatively unspoiled, and that you DON’T have any friends you would like to see move in as neighbors, before cutting off access to newcomers. But you don’t REALLY expect anybody to take you seriously when you say such things , do you?
Methinks you forgot to add a smiley face. 😉
I am now sorry I didn’t add a smile face myself. I should have, because my comment was intended to remind the reader that we are not altogether rational creatures. 😉
Most of us care about our fellows, but damned few of us care more about others collectively than we do ourselves as individuals.
I might have met a dozen or so people who really and truly put the welfare of others ahead of their own over the course of my life.
Heat loss through windows can be a costly loss in money and energy. Given 400 square feet of window, heat losses in my area can be 31.6 million BTU per heating season assuming no air leakage. That is equivalent to about 290 gallons of fuel oil per heating season. R2 windows. At $2 per gallon that is $580 per season,An equivalent 6 inch insulated wall area will use about 27 gallons of heating oil per season.
Heating oil?!? The most expensive possible way to heat your house.
Get an electric-powered air-source heat pump.
Yes, insulating the houses is paramount.
November 2016 Global Temperature Update
The 2016 meteorological year (December 2015 through November 2016), at +1.02C relative
to the 1951-80 mean, was easily the warmest year in the period of instrumental data. The
second and third warmest years were 2015 (+0.84C) and 2014 (+0.73C).
If you prefer the 1920 baseline, then add 0.3C to those numbers putting us at +1.32C for 2016. There is a lag between emissions and reaching a new stable temperature, we are definitely already past the 1.5C goal already and likely past the 2C as well. But what looks really bad, is it was going up 0.02C per year for 36 years but now over the last 2 years it has gone up 0.11C and 0.18C. Maybe it’s just el-nino, but maybe warming is accelerating rapidly.
It seems very likely to me that we will see more warming year after year, on average, for a long time to come, with the amount of warming experienced each year increasing as well.
Any two bit street wise punk who has seen a coin tossed that comes up either heads or tails ten or twelve times out of twelve tries knows the coin is a loaded coin.
It’s altogether possible there is a natural warming trend that is increasing the average temperature and has been for the last decade plus, but the problem with ” possible ” is that it is not the same thing as ” probable” unless good reasons can be found to attribute the warming to natural causes.
The evidence that a natural trend is responsible seems to be missing.
The evidence that the trend is correlated with green house gas concentrations is unmistakable , and the known physics principles or rules that apply to atmospheric conditions all point to CAUSATION, which explains the correlation.
Another way of putting the question is Where’s my cold years, dude ?
Who stole my cold years? (hat tip to the guys who composed the Who moved my cheese story!)
It seems very likely to me that we will see more warming year after year, on average, for a long time to come, with the amount of warming experienced each year increasing as well.
So what if it doesn’t happen? What if after 20 or 25 years there hasn’t been any warming at all? What do we do then?
Or we could look at a longer period such as 1970 to 2015 annual temperature data from Berkeley Earth (BEST).
Looking further back doesn’t change the fact that the hypothesis cannot account for 20-25 years of massive increase in CO2 and no temperature change. In a few years it is very possible that Nature could discredit the hypothesis quite thoroughly.
Oldmacfarmer places the odds at less than 1%, but looking at temperatures where we are presently only 0.1°C above the average for the entire 21st century I would say that the chances of looking at 20-25 years of massive increase in CO2 yet no warming are >1%.
Dennis, I repeat, why hasn’t Javier been banned yet? I realize it’s entertaining for you to post these time series, but we could do without Javier’s idiotic denialist babble.
Hi Nathanael,
I prefer not to have an echo chamber, if that is what you prefer you will need to look elsewhere.
Hi Javier,
I will repeat, there is natural variability which is difficult to explain precisely. The storage and release of heat stored in the ocean will affect global temperatures as changes in ocean currents change the rate of storage and release of heat in the ocean. A simple model that uses a linear regression of global land ocean temperature from Berkeley Earth (dependent variable) vs the natural log of atmospheric CO2, the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and ENSO over the period from 1861 to 1995 (134 years). The correlation coefficient over the longer period from 1850-2015 is 97%. This simple “CAMOS” model is compared with annual Berkeley Earth Global Land Ocean temperature in the chart below.
Dennis,
“The storage and release of heat stored in the ocean will affect global temperatures as changes in ocean currents change the rate of storage and release of heat in the ocean.”
The average temperature of the lower troposphere is something like 15°C, while the average temperature of the oceans is something like 3.9°C. We are told that the warming of the oceans is occurring not at the surface but at depths 0-700 m and even 700-2000 m. Water at those depths is much colder than at surface and has a huge thermal capacity. We simply do not know any mechanism by which that slightly less cold water could warm the surface. Simply put we are next to a huge heat sink that is at one of its coldest points for the past 550 million years. It would take many hundreds of thousands of years of global warming to heat the oceans to the temperature they had prior to the descent into the Quaternary Ice Age. That heat is gone for good, perhaps to be lost during the next glacial period.
And once more, that you can fit a model to the data with three or more variables says nothing about how correct the model is. All three variables might be wrongly factored as to give a good fit. In other words there are multiple ways of getting
ax + by + cz = 0.7
by using different combinations of a, b and c.
Hi Javier,
Of course. You do understand what a linear regression is, I hope.
The factors have taken the data which might potentially affect temperature and found the values which fit the empirical data best. There are good physical reasons to think that atmospheric CO2, AMO, and ENSO might affect global temperatures, aerosols and total solar irradiance have lower statistical significance than these other three variables over the 1850 to 2015 period.
The use of too many variables results in over fitting and does not improve the result.
How do we determine the “right” factors in your opinion?
How was the gravitational constant on Earth determined? It was the factor that fit the data observed. One could claim that it might be some other number, but typically scientists choose the factor that fits the data best.
Dennis,
“The factors have taken the data which might potentially affect temperature and found the values which fit the empirical data best.”
That would be the correct procedure, but empirical data has been adjusted to provide a better fit with one of the factors that might potentially affect temperatures at the expense of the others.
Of course Javier is repeating a roundly debunked denier talking point in the chart above.
Using data that cover the entire globe instead of cherry-picking a data set that covers only a few percent of it, the correlation would be reversed. CO2 is ANTI-correlated to global temperature adjustments,
That few percent is the part that has the best measurements for the longest time. Most of the globe was not measured prior to the 1980’s and big parts of it are not being measured even today. So all of that is the product of infilling and extrapolation. The raw data for the rest of the world, except some parts of Europe, cannot be trusted. It doesn’t mean anything what direction is adjusted.
But even today the adjustments for the entire globe are making the past colder and the present warmer.
Between 2008 and 2016, the difference between 1910 and 2000 went from 0.45°C in 2008 to 0.70°C in 2016 in GISS dataset. The question is that those temperatures come with a 90% confidence interval that every adjustment can violate by a huge amount. We are being sold that we have confidence on our temperature reconstruction when every adjustment demonstrates that the confidence is moot.
The true definition of man-made global warming is to be found in temperature datasets. Man is 100% responsible for all the warming that appears after every version change.
Hi Javier,
The data from Berkeley Earth is very good.
Do you have a specific objection to that data set for Global temperatures as that is what I have used rather than GISS?
Why do tou trust the RSS data when it is based on models that generally you think are not trustworthy?
Do you only believe models that confirm what you already believe?
Hi Dennis,
“The data from Berkeley Earth is very good.”
So you say.
“Do you have a specific objection to that data set for Global temperatures as that is what I have used rather than GISS?”
Yes, it uses very similar raw data homogenization and temperature infilling adjustments and produces essentially the same result as GISS.
We know UHI is a real phenomenon, yet they don’t find it in the data and so it is not adjusted for. This produces a ghost warming that is not real.
“Why do tou trust the RSS data when it is based on models that generally you think are not trustworthy?”
Satellite data has inherent advantages. It measures everywhere within the coverage. It measures over oceans exactly the same way as over land and with the same density. It cannot be biased by local effects or UHI. If you want a global average, satellites are clearly the way to go.
All models are wrong, some are useful. None should be trusted too much but some are to be distrusted completely. Climate models should be distrusted completely as they have been shown to be useful to learn how much we don’t know yet about climate.
Hi Javier,
Yes the Urban heat island affect is real, so data sets have been constructed without using data affected by that problem. The result, no change in global temperature of any significance.
Try reading the work at Berkeley Earth, most scientists would find it pretty convincing. Also they use more stations for the Land Temperature estimate.
See especially figure 5 on page 5 of the paper linked above.
Judith Curry is one of the authors (someone you seem to trust as being sufficiently skeptical).
Hi Javier,
There is a slim chance I will still be alive and rational in twenty five years. Maybe you will be too. If so, and there has been no significant warming, I will gladly point out that I was wrong, and that you were right.
It never bothers me when I am wrong in predicting bad news. The minor and soon forgotten loss of face associated with being wrong in this case would be trivial in comparison to living those years in a happier, more productive, more peaceful, safer world.
And I would also be in a position to point out that a substantial portion of any efforts devoted to PREVENTING warming would still have had some positive effects, thus offsetting some or maybe all of the costs of such efforts.
A carbon tax would for instance help speed up the adoption of new tech that improves energy efficiency, and thus help extend the life of our one time gift of nature fossil fuel endowment.
Tougher environmental regulations associated with burning coal would result in substantially improved public health , especially near the places where steel mills and power plants are located. ETC ETC
A million giant wind mills would not actually be GOOD for the environment, in the narrow sense of the cost of the land to site them, or the loss of birds they might kill.
BUT lots of wind farms would mean a LOT less strip mining, a lot less mountain top removal, a lot less less water pollution, etc. Ditto lots of solar farms.
Greater dependence on renewable energy, and lesser dependence on depleting fossil fuels that are necessarily imported at great cost in so many cases would mean less need for large military establishments necessary to defend the possession of coal, oil, and gas – or to SEIZE possession of the same in the case of dire need and inability to pay.
And then there’s that old precautionary principle to be considered. I have four separate fire insurance policies, at this very minute, and have had more at times over the years. But I have NEVER had a fire that resulted in my making a claim.
The closest I ever came to NEEDING fire insurance is that I once collected a couple of grand on a policy with me listed as a beneficiary, when an old house burned down, because the owner at the time of the fire pledged the house as security for a debt owed to me.
I have collected maybe five percent as much from insurance companies on my own property insurance policies as I have paid in premiums, overall.
But I still believe in fire insurance. 😉
Hi Preston,
If one uses data from Marcott et al 2013 and Mann et al 2008, then average Holocene temperatures from 11,000 BP to 1750 CE are about 0.2 C above the 1951-1980 Global mean temperature. So in 2016 we have temperature about 0.8 C above the pre-industrial Holocene global average temperature.
The CMIP3 models suggest temperatures would rise another 0.3 C above current temperatures with no further carbon emissions (not a realistic scenario of course). A 1000 Pg C emission scenario results in about 1.5 C above pre-industrial based on MAGICC 6.
If one uses data from Marcott et al 2013 and Mann et al 2008, then average Holocene temperatures from 11,000 BP to 1750 CE are about 0.2 C above the 1951-1980 Global mean temperature.
Marcott et al., 2013 are clearly wrong on that estimate. No way we are above Holocene Climate Optimum. Glaciers, biology, and marine sediments are very clear on that.
The proxy temperature data says otherwise. They are not clearly wrong, perhaps you are. Just because Curry writes something does not make it so. Most other estimates of the HCO are local estimates rather than Global. We are interested in Global temperatures.
In fact, if Curry writes anything about climate, it is best to examine it thoroughly:
“Judith Curry is a climatologist at Georgia Tech, infamous for flirting with the denier community on the basis that some of them have “good ideas” and can’t get their contrarian papers published. For instance, she has posted on Anthony Watts’ blog, as well as Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit. She has further embarrassed herself (and her university) by using refuted denier talking points and defending the Wegman Report, eventually admitting she hadn’t even read it in the first place.[1] This and other shenanigans led Tamino of Open Mind to say, “Judith, your credibility is now below zero.”[2] In short, she’s the Richard Lindzen of the South. Or maybe the Roy Spencer of Georgia, take your pick.
Perhaps what has sparked the most criticism, more than any other one thing, is that she has invited McIntyre to talk at Georgia Tech. No, really.[3] This makes her a massive enabler.
Some other stuff she’s been wrong about:
Maybe the Heartland Institute isn’t so bad after all![4]
The BEST team tried to “hide the decline,” because there has been “no warming since 1998.” (This was widely quoted in a Daily Mail article.)[5]
(From the same Daily Mail article) “The models are broken.” She later backed down about this on her blog, saying she was misquoted and “had no idea where it came from.”[6]
Murry Salby is right about CO2 and every other scientist is wrong.[7]
This list could actually go on for much longer — just go to her blog for more info.”
If you cannot combat the argument, try to discredit the person.
This might work in politics, but not in science, because the arguments are irrespective of who holds them.
Javier needs to be banned. NOW.
As noted above, Judith Curry defended a study she hadn’t *read* (then admitted she hadn’t read it and was defending it for no reason), provided quotes to the Daily Mail and then denied that she’d done so, etc. Just a record of intellectual dishonesty.
That DOES discredit her. Her work is not to be trusted.
Dennis,
Proxies are subject to selection and interpretation. Glaciers and biology are not. Glaciers, tree lines, species range, clearly indicate that we are not warmer than the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Even models disagree with Marcott et al., 2013 interpretation for the Tropical and Southern Hemisphere paleotemperatures.
Dennis, why hasn’t this liar been banned yet?
Nathanael, maybe it’s a free speech issue? And/or Dennis wants to debate Javier so people can see Javier’s points are contestable? Either way, the evidence is that neither Ron or Dennis want to ban Javier so the only choice is to skip his comments. Or engage.
While I disagree with Javier’s conclusions, he actually does bring something very useful to the discussion of climate here, namely his contrarian pov.
WITHOUT HIM, I would have read hundreds fewer comments here about the ins and outs,comments about the more subtle points involved in the warming issue.
Javier is thus in a very real sense contributing to my continuing education.
Gadflies are useful members in any forum that has as part of the goal the education of the readership.
I can’t contribute much at all, from the technical pov, about warming, because I am not a physicist, or statistician, or other professional capable of collecting, collating and interpreting the data.
But I can bring some professional expertise of another kind to the discussion, and say something useful about the CONSEQUENCES of warming, as they relate to food supplies, and in turn to other issues such as war.
If anybody wants to dispute or question what I have to say about agriculture in general, or wars, or politics, etc, then I will gladly do my best to explain my positions, hoping he will do the same, and that any body who reads our discussion will learn something useful.
Every time Javier says something, and Dennis or Fred hold his toes to the fire, pointing out how others come to opposite conclusions using the same or very similar data, I learn something.
Furthermore the preponderance of the evidence suggests that that Javier’s toes are made out of asbestos. He’s a big boy capable of holding his own in such a discussion, right or wrong.
Dennis and Fred don’t need any help either, they’re also big boys.
Mac, the crap Javier posts isn’t about the discussion. It’s about legitimizing a false narrative for the 90% of Americans that aren’t paying attention.
The same roll you played for Trump before the election.
HuntingtonBeach,
You said you skip my comments and it shows, because I am always supporting my pov on scientific literature, bringing citations, links to articles and articles’ figures to the discussions.
Have you read all those scientific articles that I linked you would have read several dozens of articles that do not support an alarmist view of climate and at the very least you would have gained some appreciation that the science is far from settled.
So whatever narrative you think the 90% of Americans that aren’t paying attention should be getting is guaranteed to be wrong.
Science is not about narratives, but evidence. And evidence for climate catastrophism is severely lacking.
Hi Javier,
So we should trust the models more than the data?
Is that what you are arguing? Glaciers are not a record of temperature, the HCO lasted for about 560 years based on the Marcott et al analysis (temperatures more than 0.4 C above the 1961-1990 mean). The HCO probably was warmer than the mean global temperature from 1966-2015, which was 0.33 C above the 1961-1990 global land ocean mean temperature. Based on the Marcott analysis, the HCO was warmer than the 1966-2015 mean by roughly 0.11 C from 7270 BP to 6710 BP (average temperature over that period was 0.44 C above 1961-1990 mean). There is quite a bit of smoothing of the data in Marcott so potentially temperatures might have been higher on decadal scales. It is also possible that temperatures more than 0.4 C above the 1961-1990 mean for 560 years would result in quite a bit of glacial melting, as well as changes in Northern hemisphere species and tree ranges due to higher summer insolation in the Northern hemisphere due to the Milankovitch cycle.
Again we are interested in the globe as a whole, rather than hemispheric changes.
Also note that the pre-industrial mean temperature I calculated was for the entire Holocene up to 1750 CE, the HCO was warmer than that mean by at least 0.22 C and perhaps as much as 0.48 C (using 2 sigma uncertainty from Marcott et al).
Dennis,
So we should trust the models more than the data?
We can trust the models when they agree with the data as presented in the 15 articles referenced in https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/global-holocene-climatic-optimum-temperatures1.pdf
Marcott shows cooling in the tropical area and this is unsupported both by multiples proxies and models. As the Tropical area constitutes 60% of the surface it skews significantly down the final result.
Is that what you are arguing? Glaciers are not a record of temperature
Not when considered individually, as they are affected by several factors, but as all but one are either local or regional, when considered globally they do constitute a record of global temperature.
“I constructed a temperature history for different parts of the world from 169 glacier length records. Using a first-order theory of glacier dynamics, I related changes in glacier length to changes in temperature. The derived temperature histories are fully independent of proxy and instrumental data used in earlier reconstructions. Moderate global warming started in the middle of the 19th century. The reconstructed warming in the first half of the 20th century is 0.5 kelvin. This warming was notably coherent over the globe. The warming signals from glaciers at low and high elevations appear to be very similar.”
See figure below.
Glaciers, and biology, and marine sediments all confirm that HCO was significantly warmer than present. Models agree. The only possibility is that Marcott is wrong.
Hi Javier,
Glacier length would not represent anything very well, it is glacier volume that matters, so I find the glacier length study unconvincing.
I disagree that Marcott was wrong. There are many papers citing Marcott et al 2013 about 396 papers according to Google.
It is possible all of these scientists are incorrect.
I find the evidence in the paper convincing and continue to disagree with your criticisms of that paper. I also suggested it is possible that HCO was warmer than the mean estimate of Marcott et al.
Their estimate is a better Global temperature estimate than most others for the Holocene from 11,500 BP to 1250 BP. The HCO was quite long (500 years or more) and a lot of glacial melting can occur over 500 years. Your chart says nothing about the HCO.
Good luck Dennis, I guess we all have to learn the hard way. I haven’t even read these comments but I know exactly how it goes and ends. You would be better off with a foot in a bear trap. Use this post as a get out of jail free and don’t make the mistake again.
Bang Bang Done
Dennis,
“Glacier length would not represent anything very well, it is glacier volume that matters, so I find the glacier length study unconvincing.”
It does provide a completely independent measurement from proxies and instruments.
“There are many papers citing Marcott et al 2013”
Citations do not provide confirmation as the great majority of those citing a work do not bother reviewing its data and procedures. Albeit wrong, Marcott et al., 2013 provides a popular message these days among alarmists. In fact an incorrect graph from Marcott et al., 2013 (admitted by themselves and still in the article) made a huge impact in the media, and is still being used. Not a good sign for rigorous science that an article makes the news based on an procedural artifact.
“Their estimate is a better Global temperature estimate than most others for the Holocene from 11,500 BP to 1250 BP.”
Their estimate is the best and the worst available, as it is the only one.
” The HCO was quite long (500 years or more) and a lot of glacial melting can occur over 500 years.”
Yes and that is why we also have data from small permanent ice patches. Over the last decades glaciers and small permanent ice patches have been releasing permanently buried organic materials radiocarbon dated to 3,000-6,000 BP, like Ötzi the ice man dated 5,150 BP. This is as good an indicator as any other that we have not reached HCO temperatures. Do you have a better explanation for such a clear evidence?
See:
Johannes Koch, John J Clague and Gerald Osborn: Alpine glaciers and permanent ice and snow patches in western Canada approach their smallest sizes since the mid-Holocene, consistent with global trends. The Holocene 2014 24: 1639 http://kochj.brandonu.ca/ho_2014.pdf
This is pretty solid evidence not a simple mash up of disparate proxies to produce a predetermined outcome. Of course you can deposit your faith at any Church of your choice.
Hi Javier,
Most people understand it takes many years to melt a large volume of ice, not really hard to understand. So 0.44 above the 1961-1990 mean temperature for over 500 years will melt a lot more ice than 0,33 C above the 1961-1990 mean for 50 years (which has been the case for the 1966-2015 period).
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with latent heat.
If glaciers were shaped like cylinders, perhaps glacier length would be relevant.
Do you believe that is the case?
Glacier length probably does not correspond with temperature very well,so such a study is an independent confirmation of glacier length and not much else.
Dennis,
I am familiar with latent heat. You have ignored the issue of small permanent ice patches. They have very little volume and can melt very fast. They are permanent because conditions remain so for thousands of years of being continuously frozen. Organic remains disappear almost as soon as they get exposed.
As the link above shows small permanent ice patches confirm the story that glaciers are saying. Global warming has reverted essentially 5000 years of glacier growth trend, but has not reached HCO conditions, and it might not do so for the rest of this interglacial.
Regarding the shape of the glaciers, when using 169 glaciers its importance gets greatly diminished by averaging.
I find it funny that everybody is using glaciers as a very good indicator of the seriousness of global warming, but as soon as I start pointing out what glaciers are really showing, then suddenly glaciers are not such good indicators of anything except glaciers themselves.
Hi Javier,
I have never commented that glaciers are a good indicator of global warming.
Perhaps there are regions that have not reached HCO conditions during the warmest parts of the year during the HCO.
I haven’t looked into the exact orbital configuration during the HCO, but my understanding is that Northern hemisphere summers were very warm, due to the earth’s orbit and orientation at that time. Whether every point on the globe is warmer than summer during the warmest years of the HCO is not the issue, it is global averages.
Seriously Javier,
If reason and facts from Dennis don’t sway you to stop kidding yourself, please remember once it gets too hot to grow corn in Iowa we are all doomed.
I can understand, if all the polar bears in the world need to die to keep us warm in the winter, well then, bye-bye polar bears. But it’s not just the polar bears, or the 2000 year old redwoods in California, or all the other species going extinct every day. Eventually, and likely sooner than many suspect, something humans need will get hit hard and there will be nothing Donald Trump or your sky god can do about it.
If we were voting, I’d go with Nathanael and support a ban. I just don’t have the patience to strike down all Javier’s nonsense, and I don’t think he’s reachable. But there may be others interested in the debate.
Seriously, Preston,
once it gets too hot to grow corn in Iowa we are all doomed.
Absolutely no evidence that it will ever get that hot. We are only experiencing a moderate warming.
if all the polar bears in the world need to die to keep us warm in the winter, well then, bye-bye polar bears.
There is more polar bears now that at any time during the past 55 years. Last count was the most numerous ever, with 25,000-30,000 bears which is a quite reasonable number for a top predator. I wish we had that many of a lot of other species.
all the other species going extinct every day.
If they are going extinct every day you surely will have no problem citing the names of a few of them, right? I mean if we are losing species that fast surely the body count must be awesome right? Does anybody know what species are those that we are losing? If not, how do we know we are losing them?
If you are going to talk seriously you should start by getting some facts correct instead of repeating #FakeNews.
What Javier is not telling you it that polar bear was heavily hunted in the twentieth century and it recovered population in some areas due to hunting restrictions. A number of populations are declining and threatened. Large areas that contain polar bears have no accurate estimates of population, so making claims outside the known areas is just trash talk. http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/population/
From the Russian Geographical Society:
“Conservation status:
Status of the polar bear in the IUCN Red list is Vulnerable A3c what means that the polar bear population decline by 30% in 3 generations (45 years).
Polar bear is listed in Appendices II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Appendices II includes species that are not necessarily threatened but can become in the future if trading of these animals for purposes incompatible with their survival is not strictly prohibited.
Conservation status in Russia (according to the Red book of Russia):
•The Kara – Barents seas population: category 4 – uncertain status.
•The Laptev Sea population: category 3 – rare.
•The Chukotka – Alaska population: category 5 – reestablishing.
•Killing of the polar bear in the Russian Arctic strictly prohibited since 1957”
I’ll bet those Trump boys have a couple. Right next to their stuffed lions.
Tks, GF,
I almost posted a response to his BS and Lah Di Dah idiocy that everything is just fine and dandy with global ecosystems. They aren’t! And the science and data and analysis is available from multiple converging fields of knowledge that the shit is hitting the fan.
To be clear, I’m not just talking about polar bears. Go dive any of our coral reefs. Take a trip to the Amazon. Go to Borneo. Take a hard look at the numbers of large mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and even insects that are seriously endangered due to human induced habitat loss.
And all we get from our contrarian denialist friends is inane comments, that the science doesn’t support our views and we should look at the science and the facts.
Well fuck that shit!! I have been looking at the science and the facts for a couple of decades now, I personally know plenty of biologists and especially ecologists who disagree very strongly with the kind of bullshit spewed here by these people.
They are highly intelligent, deeply caring individuals with advanced degrees and long careers studying biological ecosystems the world over. So based on that, I find the crap some people post here, to be deeply insulting to them and I take personal umbrage!
BTW, this kind of shit happens every day all over the world!
It’s the ‘Humans’ Stupid!
China Announces Its Largest-Ever Seizure Of Trafficked Pangolin Scales
All eight species of pangolin are facing extinction.
But go look at the facts, everything is just fine! There are still pangolins in the world.
It’s the ‘Humans’ Stupid!
Of course it is the humans stupid, but it is not climate change. I am a biologist and also know plenty of biologists that agree with me that climate change is a small factor in the damage we are doing to ecosystems.
Essentially it is the consequence of being 7.5 billion people on the planet and growing. We are taking everything for us and in the process contaminating and destroying a lot.
Climate change has little to do with this, or do you think that with 0.5°C less average global temperature ecosystems would be in a better condition?
We have to focus on conservation and forget this climate crisis nonsense. That is the best path forward to try to revert part of the damage done. That and limit our population growth before there is nothing left to save.
Hi Javier,
I agree lower rates of population growth would be great, by 2070 it may be that we reach peak population if total fertility ratios continue to fall as projected by some demographers.
It is possible that either depletion of fossil fuels or ramp up of non fossil fuel energy sources (or some combination) might limit total anthropogenic carbon emissions to less than 1000 Pg C after 1750 CE.
Some climate scientists think this might be enough to keep global warming to less than 2C above the pre-industrial Holocene average global temperature.
We can imagine that everything will be ok, but this is not known, only a WAG.
I prefer to be realistic.
For those who said they couldn’t remember Javier ever saying anything thought provoking, or his sharing any useful insights etc, I refer them to his twelve twenty nine eight twenty one am comment somewhere up thread.
Having said this much, my sympathies are with Fred Maygar, when it comes to Javier being so cocksure he is right, and that so many other scientists are wrong.
And yes, we have Dennis’s word for it that Javier has demonstrated his bonafides as a biologist, but does not want to comment using his own name, unless I am merely imagining reading a comment to this effect posted by Dennis himself.
Dennis,
Your realism is based on some assumptions that are likely and others that are unlikely.
Yes population is probable to peak in a few decades as every significant factor appears to work in that direction, and it is hard to envision unforeseen factors that could revert current trends. Unforeseen factors might actually accelerate population peak and corresponding descent.
Yes carbon emissions are likely to stop growing and start decreasing in a few years to a couple of decades if only from fossil fuel depletion and increasing dependence from non-fossil energy sources. It is also hard to envision unforeseen factors that will increase our emissions beyond what fossil fuel depletion might allow.
But that global warming can reach 2°C above pre-industrial average is based on shaky assumptions.
Most of the warming since pre-industrial times is natural. Essentially all warming between 1850 and 1950 is natural, and a part of the warming since 1950 is also natural.
You cannot assume that natural warming is going to continue in the future, as natural climate change is cyclical in nature, and post-LIA natural warming is likely to end sometime in the future and be substituted by natural cooling. That is what has happened always and the Holocene general trend is towards cooling and at some point it will resume.
If CO2 induced warming has to fight natural cooling we will see much less warming and it is very unlikely that we ever reach those +2°C that you talk about.
My opinion is that we are not going to see any more warming until about 2030 when global warming might resume. 30 years of no warming should make most alarmist scenarios highly implausible, and +2°C hard to reach in any significant time-frame.
Hi Old Farmer Mac.
Yes I have confirmed that Javier is a published scientist, you did not imagine that.
Hi Javier,
Some of the warming has been natural perhaps, but probably only 20% or so from 1850 to 2015, the rest is likely from CO2 increase and the feedbacks associated with the increased atmospheric CO2.
There is very likely to be at least 1000 Pg of carbon emissions and it could easily be 1500 Pg of carbon emissions (there is likely to be enough fossil fuel to accomplish this).
Now if one assumes that fossil fuels are very limited (my low scenario) and renewables ramp up quickly, we might be ok, if we also assume ECS=2.7 C and that 2 C of warming is not catastrophic.
Many believe that the four assumptions above are very shaky. I think they are possibly correct, but wouldn’t bet on it.
Well, that precisely is my point, GoneFishing. Polar bears are endangered because of us, not climate change. After all polar bears already survived the Eemian that was significantly warmer than the Holocene, and when most of the ice in Greenland melted, and probably Arctic sea ice reached ice free conditions every summer for thousands of years.
Megafaunal extinction took place during the last glacial period and early Holocene (and still continuing). It did not happen during any of the dozens of glacial periods that preceded the last one. The only new factor was that our species was around hunting all megafauna species.
Conservation efforts should focus on our effect on species, through over-hunting/fishing, land and resources appropriation and pollution. The effect of climate change on species survival is a minor factor. In fact many species are benefiting from climate change as a lot of ecosystems are becoming more productive with higher temperatures that extend growing season, and increased CO2 that fertilizes plants.
That we take resources from traditional conservation efforts to fight climate change is pure stupidity and likely to result in more species being lost from conservation neglect.
Javier said”There is more polar bears now that at any time during the past 55 years. Last count was the most numerous ever, with 25,000-30,000 bears which is a quite reasonable number for a top predator. I wish we had that many of a lot of other species.”
“Well, that precisely is my point, GoneFishing. Polar bears are endangered because of us…”
No it was not your point.
Slippery as an eel lubricated with snake oil. First the polar bears are doing fine, then they are not. You switch your tale faster than most politicians.
You can put it any way you want. The facts are stubborn. Climate change has not reduced polar bear numbers. The main factor reducing polar bear numbers was over-hunting and as soon as hunting limitations were introduced polar bear numbers have increased.
What should we all be alarmed of?
Slippery as an eel lubricated with snake oil. First the polar bears are doing fine, then they are not. You switch your tale faster than most politicians.
Yup!
And while we are on the topic of slithery creatures…
The ranges of rattlesnake species are likely to shift dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100. This is because the climate will change over 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, according to a newly published study by Indiana University (IU) scientists.
But everything is just fine!
Fred,
That’s also a non-news as it is not based on evidence.
“If climate change runs amok, then rattlesnakes will shift their ranges dramatically between now and 2100.”
What is the fact there? We don’t know how the climate is going to change in the future and this is just an opinion piece on how a hypothetical change might affect a species.
Again, what should we all be alarmed of?
Fred, if there was anywhere near a 6 degree rise in temperature this century, I am quite sure the rattlesnakes would be doing better than us, by far.
People have been the rattler’s biggest problem and climate change will stress people which will not bode well for any wild animal.
But if Clinton had won, it seems likely to me that some working people would have seen their jobs outsourced even faster than they will be under Trump.
( Wait a minute, OFM slaps self upside the head, wondering if he said something nice about Trump. I am not yet sure if Trump tells the truth about ANYTHING, but he may have told the truth about planning to do something to slow down the offshoring of jobs. )
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
As I have pointed out before, if Trump does more than jawboning to prevent jobs from moving overseas (like raising taxes for individuals through tax breaks for businesses) by restricting capital movement or creating trade barriers, then other nations will respond in kind, this is likely to create job losses for workers in industries that export goods. So jobs saved in one industry are more than offset by job losses in other industries. To add insult to injury everyone pays higher prices making everyone worse off.
This is very well known international economic theory and is called comparative advantage.
This is why the Republican support for free trade is the correct policy.
Sounds like Reaganomics. Reduce one tax, raise another, slip in another one. Public debt up by nearly three times during his terms. Borrow, borrow, borrow your way to success.
I think the churn rate is going to become a problem in the near future. We can’t have much real growth overall, so churn will take over, especially if the government is promoting the wrong businesses.
Hi Dennis,
This theory was taught to me in 201 221 and 231 Ag Econ ( which was a dual listed course taught in the econ department by an econ professor. Same book, same classroom, same hour as the econ majors.) just about as you describe it. The higher level ag econ courses were taught within the ag school, but I didn’t take more than one or two more.
AND in broad general terms, I agree with you, and with the textbook , and the professor.
But the devil is in the details, as usual. The Japanese want to sell us cars, but they don’t want my apples, or Washington state apples either, and put in protectionist measures disguised as environmental regs to prevent us selling to their consumers.
The Chinese put a hell of a dry involuntary xxxxing on American workers by way of paying wages that are a minor fraction of typical American industrial wages paid in non union southern mill towns.
So – Whether you are a winner, or a big loser, depends on who you are, even though it is true that the OVERALL economy of the country, and the world, is more vigorous with free trade. It is worth noting that a very large majority of all the liberal individuals I have ever known, excepting minorities, work in fields that are not threatened by globalization to any real extent, such as health care, police work, education, etc. The lack of essential paper work also protects such people from worries about losing their jobs to immigrants.
I make no bones about being a spokesman for the working class people who have been on the receiving end of the dry involuntary sex associated with offshoring American industries. The R party never gave a fuck about us ( yes, I am still one of this class at heart and by culture and upbringing although I have my degree, and property, and investment income, and a personal library, etc, and have held professional jobs and at times made six figure money, although I never made six figures in any given single year. I occasionally refer to myself as a capitalist piglet, which is true enough. The D party no longer gives a shit, in the opinion of most of the people who have either lost their jobs, or at risk of losing them.
Clinton was too arrogant, too stupid, to make a real effort in the states that cost her the election. She took the working people there for granted.
They sent her, and the D party, a message. They didn’t vote FOR Trump, they voted against Clinton, and her bankster globalist cronies, because they were , to put it in non PC terms , off the reservation, and on the warpath, figuratively.
The D party is also said in right wing circles to assume the minorities will always stay on the D plantation, being effectively OWNED by the D party. That ownership is beginning to show some signs of discontent as well, but I put it mostly to antipathy towards Clinton herself, rather than the party itself.
(If I were a black person, I would be a big D Democrat, no question, but I would also be raising hell about being taken for granted. Most of the black guys and girls I used to know socially in Richmond, back when I was hanging out around the university during my party years, were upwardly mobile, and most of them quietly left Richmond, usually for the surrounding counties, for the better schools,lower taxes, safer communities, etc. Those counties are R party strongholds. )
And while I agree that you, and my old textbook and professor were right, in general terms, even that depends on the size of the box in which you are doing your thinking.
If it weren’t for globalization, how far along do you think the Chinese would be, economically, today? How much trouble would we be having with terrorism spawned in sand country, if it weren’t for the international trade in oil?
If the world were twenty or thirty years behind, globally, economically, we would still be firmly in first place, along with the Germans and a few other Western countries, most likely, and the basic sciences would be almost as advanced as they are today. Peak oil, and global warming, would be problems ten or fifteen years farther down the road, and the technologies we will need to deal with these issues would be much farther advanced, in terms of the basic sciences, than they are now, in relation to the size of the problem.
If the industries we have lost to globalization were still located here, we would have far fewer, and far more easily solved domestic problems with broken families, drugs, welfare bums as opposed to truly unfortunate and needy people on assistance, far fewer problems with crime, etc.
So far as I am concerned, anybody who thinks cheap consumer junk is a good enough deal to have traded our industries for them is at best ill informed. If such a person really understands the workings of society, and still believes we Americans as a whole are better off, then my personal opinion is that he is a fool.
Cheap clothes, cheap appliances, cheap throw away tools are no bargain, when we could have the same stuff for maybe twice the money , but also with twice the quality, on average, WITHOUT having millions of people in deep economic trouble due to having lost their jobs via offshoring.
Some of the thousands and thousands of jailers, cops , and criminal lawyers could be and would be doing actual useful work, work that would contribute to our well being.
And yes, I know all about automation, and that it will destroy ever more jobs anyway. But that does not mean we should just wave our hands and say fuck the working people, because they are fucked anyway.
They got out their figurative pitchforks and torches, and chased Clinton out of town, replacing her with Trump- who is even worse of course.
Rebuttals are welcome. HOPED FOR.
But comments referring to working class people as stupid won’t advance the conversation. Ignorant, ill informed, they truly are , in some respects. But stupid they are not.
I am always glad to refine my opinions, and occasionally even change my mind about some key point, lol.
I think the industrial working class is screwed, mostly because of automation and partly because of globalization. Get into the renewable energy business, health, some trade such as plumbing or electrician. The fossil fuel industry is a an unknown, it looks like it may be on the strong decline within ten years but it also may find ways to keep going.
Bringing back the steel industry when steel use is being reduced is probably not the best option. Better to invest in new materials technology companies and get them up and running. Still we could use some more at home steel industry just to improve the quality.
We have a lot of high tech industries so jobs for laborers and operators are much fewer. Service industries are getting more automated, that is no cure.
When fossil fuels go up in price, upgrading homes with more insulation and sealing them could become a hot business and won’t need a huge amount of education or training.
There is a bright spot, renewables. Tesla and Panasonic will be building solar panels in Buffalo NY. 1400 jobs added with 500 in manufacturing.
Hi Gone fishing,
I agree there will be fewer manufacturing jobs due to automation. Those without a college degree will need to rely on trades jobs (carpentry, millwright, electrician, plumbing, roofing, etc).
The days of graduating high school and working at the local plant or mill and making a decent living are not going to last much longer.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
You seem to be missing the fact that there are plenty of workers in industries that will be affected badly by protectionist measures. The world changes.
A reading of history from 1900 to 1950 might disabuse you of your belief that isolationism is the best policy. I guess I am less tribal and am concerned about the welfare of humans in general. It is not all that clear to me that American made goods are the best quality, some of the worst cars I have ever owned were made by Chevrolet and the best were made by Toyota or Honda.
Now if you think isolationism would result in lower economic growth, I agree.
I also think lower economic growth might be a good thing.
Remember however that GDP is essentially the same as national income.
I think you would have trouble convincing the average man on the street that lower income is a good idea, but that is basically your argument.
Hey your income is 30k per year, how about 20k?
It’s a hard sell.
Protectionism works.
For some reason my longer comments didn’t go through, but the Archdruid Report has a very good piece on what’s wrong with Free Trade. Quite recently.
Also, comparative advantage isn’t a real thing; there’s no empirical evidence of it. There is strong empirical evidence of *absolute advantage*, but that’s quite different.
Hi Nathanael,
How well did protectionism work from 1910 to 1945?
Backatcha Dennis,
“You seem to be missing the fact that there are plenty of workers in industries that will be affected badly by protectionist measures. The world changes.”
I don’t. I do understand that a LOT of people earn excellent livings because we export large quantities of certain goods and services.
“A reading of history from 1900 to 1950 might disabuse you of your belief that isolationism is the best policy.”
But I have not actually said that I believe isolationism is the best policy, and I HAVE read as much history as just about anybody I have ever met, excepting historians or people who work in fields very closely associated with the study of history. I am fully aware that protectionist measures, and or isolationism as policy can and have resulted in races to the bottom that were in very large part responsible for both WWI and WWII, not to mention lots of other troubles.
Perhaps you failed to appreciate my pointed remarks to the effect that I am and have been speaking from a partisan pov, as a member of the working classes that have suffered from globalization here in the USA, and especially here in my part of the country. It follows that I am making MY CASE, and that you and other globalists are free to make yours. Mine is seldom ever articulated in a forum such as this one.
I am virtually alone here in pointing out the plight of a substantial number of my relatives, old school mates, and neighbors,and my extended community nation wide.
( Note I have also pointed out that I am moderately well off, short on CASH but LONG on hard assets, and that the last two generations of my family are well sprinkled with successful professional people including doctors, lawyers, teachers, and business men of various sorts. )
” I guess I am less tribal and am concerned about the welfare of humans in general.”
I understand, and feel the same way, in terms of the BIG PICTURE. I fully understand that a textile worker in Asia is in the natural scheme of things just as worthy of a job that means a modern life as my next door neighbor. I have already pointed out that I am making the partisan for not for isolation as such, but for protection of our working class, because nobody else is making it HERE, in this forum.
I have been doing my damnedest to get the hard core D folks here who seem to think Clinton had no faults to UNDERSTAND that she lost the election BECAUSE she was a lousy campaigner with a lousy track record in terms of trust and likability with the people of this country……… meaning the people taken as a whole.
Whether she IS colossally arrogant,whether she WAS colossally stupid in terms of thinking she could get away with such foolishness as the secret email system, whether she talked the working people’s talk, but walked the walk with the moneyed elites, etc etc etc may be debatable, in your opinion, and in the opinion of countless other observers.
But it is an indisputable fact that ENOUGH of the people of this country PERCEIVED her as having these shortcomings that she managed to lose to TRUMP, a man hated even by virtually ALL of the R party establishment, although the R establishment is now kissing his ass, which is what establishments do, that’s sop.
Trump was indisputably just about the worst possible candidate the R party could run, except for ONE thing. The infuriated electorate wanted CHANGE and Trump was smart enough to promise change, the same as Obama, and smart enough to capitalize on Clinton’s doofus identity politics and elitist campaign. This pissed off ENOUGH working class and socially conservative people who hold more traditional views and values that she lost what should have been a cakewalk election.
BUT hey, you and I at least are adults, and I just can’t imagine YOU blaming Trump or Rush Limbaugh or anybody else for pointing out Clinton’s shortcomings. SHE created the email system, SHE took the banksters money, bald faced , a quarter of a million bucks per secret little speech, and SHE was the one arrogant enough to think she would get away with doing so, and still win.
My political sympathies are with the working class. But in terms of the bigger picture, I am and have been a single issue environment voter for quite some time, even though I remain a conservative in some ways.
Protecting the environment is about as conservative a policy as can be imagined, if one understands what REAL conservatism is all about, but one must be technically literate to understand the technical CONSERVATIVE reasoning that leads to this conclusion.
Unfortunately way too many SO CALLED conservatives are conservatives in name only, and technically illiterate.
So even though HB may never believe it, I WANT the D party to run winning candidates , and winning campaigns.
“It is not all that clear to me that American made goods are the best quality, some of the worst cars I have ever owned were made by Chevrolet and the best were made by Toyota or Honda.”
I agree about the cars, in general, in respect to older models, but I put the difference down to complacency and lack of good management to the domestic manufacturers, more than any thing else.
But it’s also worth mentioning that the Japanese were ready to adopt new manufacturing technology at a time when the big three domestic producers were sitting on a vast fortune in serviceable but suddenly semi obsolete plants, and plagued by union rules that prevented management from doing a better job organizing production, etc.
The Japanese didn’t have this huge sunk investment, so they weren’t looking to preserve it, and were in a position to leapfrog Detroit, and did so. Nor were they hamstrung by union rules. ( I HAVE BEEN a union guy, and my farmer Daddy was a union man all his life, working a second shift job in town. I am telling it like it was. )
But our farm machinery industry, and heavy truck industry, the construction equipment industries are world class, as good as anybody’s and much superior to most other brands.My seventies vintage Ferguson tractors ( originally a Limey make ) have run twice as many hours without overhauls as some local examples of very popular new orange tractors built in Japan. Ditto my neighbor’s Fords.
I used to buy American made power tools that I expected to last at least couple of decades, without disappointment. Now American brand name power tools coming from Asia can be expected to last maybe four or five years at best, in regular use, but they ARE dirt cheap.
I have owned Nissans, Toyotas, Hondas, Chevrolets, Fords, Dodges and a few other makes over the years, even a couple of Porsche’s. My opinion for what it’s worth is that there is very little difference in the reliability or durability of American versus Japanese makes these days unless you buy one handful of the American lemon models. The Japanese seldom bring a lemon model to market. I am dead sure that given the difference in price between an older Chevy and an older Toyota pickup, everything else about equal in terms of condition, model year, etc, I would take the Chevy, because it will actually outlast the Toyota on the kind of jobs I do, and cost less to maintain. Chevy parts are cheap, compared to Toyota parts.
“Now if you think isolationism would result in lower economic growth, I agree.” Isolation does in my estimation result in slower economic growth, everything else held equal. But every thing else is NEVER equal, and sometimes an isolationist country can at least theoritically experience rapid growth.
I won’t take time to go into this point, except to say a country as large and diverse and well populated and as rich in a huge assortment of natural resources does not NEED international trade to anything like the same extent as smaller, less fortunate countries.
” I also think lower economic growth might be a good thing.”
I agree that slower economic growth MIGHT be a good thing, depending on context, on the size of the box in which we are talking and thinking.
Faster growth has obviously enough allowed faster population growth, historically, which is bad. BUT faster growth in actual fact has enabled women to become more independent, to get educations, etc, and the RESULT of THAT has been falling birth rates.
WHODA THUNK IT back in the days I was reading a new book titled The Population Bomb?
Economic growth allows for more scientific research, and faster growth means faster growth in the number of scientists, and their working budgets. That is obvious enough almost everybody will accept this argument at face value.
BUT – I also believe that if our economy had grown only fifty percent ( for example ) as much in the last twenty five years, the body of knowledge comprising the basic hard sciences would have grown MORE than fifty percent.
Less research means lesser results overall, but less research also means better targeted research, because researchers will pick and choose their projects with greater care. I hunt and fish ONLY in places where I think I will find game and fish, and the fewer days I have for these pastimes, the more careful I am to pick the most promising days and locations. When time is no object, I can afford to spend a few days on long shot locations.
“Remember however that GDP is essentially the same as national income.” I am tempted to say I would prefer to think about this a while before agreeing , but I will agree for present purposes.
“I think you would have trouble convincing the average man on the street that lower income is a good idea, but that is basically your argument.”
That is NOT my argument at all. MY PRIMARY argument is that tens of millions of working class people, who are incidentally mostly socially conservative people , socially and culturally, and more often than not politically conservative VOTERS , have been royally fucked over by the moneyed elites who have banked most of the profits earned as the result of the export of our industries.
My SECONDARY, following argument, is that they voted NOT FOR Trump , especially, but rather that they DIDN’T vote FOR Clinton, a few weeks back.
I do fully understand that MOST Americans are better off due to globalization, if you measure their situation solely in terms of their incomes or personal living standards. Globalization didn’t cost me anything when I was a teacher, or when I was renovating and selling old houses, or hanging around the university district with the young upwardly mobile liberal set, with papers in my pocket, namely a special grad student’s id, etc, proving my bonafides as a member in good standing. Globalization hasn’t cost my sister who is a professor and retired captain in the army anything. It didn’t cost my Daddy anything much as an orchardist , until the very last few years we kept the orchard going, when all at once we were competing with Chinese apple juice concentrates, etc. It doesn’t cost my second cousin the cop, or my first cousin the mail carrier ( recently retired) anything. If anything , it contributes to the cop’s job security.
BUT if we were still buying American made furniture, made in factories in my neighborhood, and American made clothing made in factories in my neighborhood, well then……….. they wouldn’t be in half as great need of food stamps, highly subsidized health care, or court appointed lawyers when they get caught dealing a little dope or peddling some stolen goods in order to make ends meet. We wouldn’t need nearly as many jailers or cops.
And these formerly proud and self respecting working people wouldn’t be TRUMP VOTERS, because except for their rage and fury, their utter contempt for the D and R establishments, Trump would still be in show biz , rather than the prez elect.
“Hey your income is 30k per year, how about 20k?” See above.
I am not buying the argument that we are materially better off, taken all around, due to globalization. Some of us are, no question,and on AVERAGE we probably are better off. Would I be better off with a twenty thousand dollar income, and no globalization is it has recently played out , or thirty thousand with it? Probably with the thirty, but suppose the real figures are thirty with it, and twenty seven five without it, and a lower tax bill, a safer community, more self reliant, more self respecting neighbors, less crime, fewer social workers, and a cleaner environment too?
Its hard to get laws passed toughening up environmental regulations, but it’s easy to enforce them, once passed.
So an American company is not so apt to dump nasty chemicals into the air as a Chinese company.
“It’s a hard sell.”
I am not so much trying to SELL it, as I am to get people to really see it and UNDERSTAND IT, hoping that this understanding will lead to our MY class being better treated, and better respected, and that it will also lead to the election of more real, traditional D politicians, rather than the newer variety that seems to have forgotten that there are many many times more working class people than there are rich people.
Control of the media, as Fred Maygar has pointed out upthread someplace is no longer a guarantee of control of the electoral process. Money can buy only so many votes. Slick ads and endorsements by newspaper editors won’t necessarily giterdone anymore.
Rebuttals and any comments pro or con are MORE than welcome. The comments I make here in this forum are working notes, and will be incorporated in large part into my book to be. Show me where I am going wrong, or point out things I have overlooked, and I will be grateful!!
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
I agree that many people wanted change and that Clinton was not well liked and made a number of mistakes.
An argument for keeping jobs in America, is essentially an argument for tariffs, this leads to tariffs all around and isolationism. There are no halfway measures for free trade, you have it or you don’t for the most part (though agriculture seems to be somewhat exceptional in this regard).
How do you propose we keep the clothing and furniture manufacturing in the US? Capitalism allows the free movement of capital, we would have to restrict the free movement of capital (or I suppose we could eliminate corporate taxes which might help a bit). Why is it a good idea to allow the free flow of goods and capital?
Economics suggests that this allows the largest quantity of goods to be produced at minimum cost, given the amount of resources and capital available.
So we get more stuff for lower prices and total national income is maximized, the reason income is the same as GDP is because when something is produced and sold it becomes income for someone.
So lets say we had chosen a policy where all of the furniture and clothing jobs had remained in the US. This only would have been accomplished with tariffs on other nations furniture and clothing. Other nations would then impose tariffs on Boeing Jets, GM and Ford cars, and GE wind turbines.
So the result would be we have more people employed making clothes, shoes, and furniture while having fewer people employed making jets, cars, and wind turbines.
There are workers employed in all of these industries, I wish them all well, but I think workers in general if the government does a minimum to interfere in the economy. Most government intervention should be in tax policy to combat income inequality and regulations and other policy support to reduce negative externalities(pollution) and increase positive externalities (such as public transportation).
It is not up to the government to decide which industries (furniture vs wind turbines) succeed or fail.
Workers in the US in general (looking at all industries rather than a select few) are helped rather than hurt by free trade.
Your economics professors were correct.
Back atcha one more time , Dennis
I just saw your last reply, and will post another in depth, of my own, later.
Personally, the only way to get coal going again in the US is to stifle natural gas, solar and wind power growth. Also efficiency changes would need to be stopped.
However, things did not look very good for coal back in 2009.
“Second, the map shows only in a very general way where coal was originally located. The map does not illustrate historical mining trends or demonstrate how people have dug out the coal during the past 150 years of industrial activity in the U.S. Sure, the map shows the coal-rich areas in a broad, arm-waving kind of way. But many of those areas, especially in the eastern and Appalachian region, are mined out near the surface. You need to understand that much of the shallow and easily obtained reserves are gone. The only way to get to the remaining coal is through complex stripping operations or deep and expensive shaft mines.
Coal uses 18 to 37 kwh per ton for stripping operations and 26 to 55 kwh per ton electricity for underground operations. Ignoring explosives and transport energy, coal produces 1927 kwh electricity per ton. Depreciation and maintenance of machinery and equipment also ignored.
So one ton of coal produces 35 tons to 107 tons of coal depending on strip mine overburden, coal type, and mine type.
Hi GF,
The fact that coal is on its last legs in the eastern USA is well known to folks in the industry, and to anybody who cares to investigate the question for even ten minutes, but it this well known fact is one of the ones most often deliberately overlooked by partisans on the political right. Even the miners themselves manage to over look it.
The local papers in Kentucky and West Virginia have published quite a few articles on the depletion of coal in the local region. I have read a number of these articles myself.
Sure OFM, a few years ago the governor of WV warned the coal workers that they would soon be looking for new jobs.
BREITBART EXPLAINS ARCTIC REINDEER WEIGHT LOSS
(has to do with coal)
Greenland melting history and current melting. The Eemian ice, Last Glacial period, Holocene formation and present. Presently large portions of Greenland are losing mass and sections are losing altitude. With altitude loss comes warmer temperatures. In the past, most of the ice sheet melted, with temperatures similar to the current temperature.
“Why are scientists out flying over Greenland, drilling into its ice, and monitoring it from space? The answer is that they see it as a bellwether of future Earth.
Scientists are sampling, drilling, and flying over this great island because they believe it may be a bellwether of future Earth. Greenland is two million square kilometers of land… 81% of which is covered by a giant central ice cap, the Inland Ice. Here is 2.8 million cubic kilometers of ice… layered and packed over the millennia. Its thickest points lie beneath two massive ridges… the northern at 3 kilometers thick, the southern at over 3.2 kilometers.
The Inland Ice basin is framed by parallel mountain ranges. Its bedrock basement floor is down near sea level… depressed by the weight of the ice above it. If this ice sheet were to melt, the land beneath would be underwater, dotted with small islands. Over time, with the weight lifted, it would gradually rise. Today, the sheer mass of the Inland Ice exerts a gravitational pull on surrounding oceans. This pull raises sea levels all around the island.
In the event of extreme melting, a recent study showed that sea levels would actually drop out to a distance of about 1000 kilometers. More distance shores, however, would experience an average global sea level rise of over 7 meters.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo8ym0kiddE&t=172s
Elevation changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
“NASA observations show the dynamism of Greenland’s Ice sheet in the changing elevation of its surfaces. Recent analysis of seven years of readings from NASA’s ICESat satellite and four years of laser and and ice-penetrating radar data from NASA’s airborne mission Operation IceBridge shows the changes taking place.
In the animation featured here, the colors shown on the surface of the ice sheet represent the accumulated change in elevation since 2003. The light yellow over the central region of the ice sheet indicates a slight thickening due to snow. This accumulation, along with the weight of the ice sheet, pushes ice toward the coast. Thinning near coastal regions, shown in green, blue and purple, has increased over time and now extends into the interior of the ice sheet where the bedrock topography permits. As a result, there has been an average loss of 300 cubic kilometers of ice per year between 2003 and 2012.
This animation portrays the changes occurring in the surface elevation of the ice sheet since 2003 in three drainage regions: the southeast, the northeast and the Jakobshavn regions. In each region, the time advances to show the accumulated change in elevation from 2003 through 2012.”
Not sure if this was up before, but it’s interesting.
Will we ever stop using fossil fuels?
Christopher Knittel
Not without a carbon tax, suggests a study by an MIT economist.
“This trend — in which cheaper renewables are outpaced by even cheaper fossil fuels — portends drastic climate problems, since fossil fuel use has helped produce record warm temperatures worldwide.
The study concludes that burning all available fossil fuels would raise global average temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100; burning oil shale and methane hydrates, two more potential sources of copious fossil fuels, would add another 1.5 to 6.2 degrees Fahrenheit to that.”
“To see how much better firms are at extracting fossil fuels from the Earth, consider this: The probability of an exploratory oil well being successful was 20 percent in 1949 and just 16 percent in the late 1960s, but by 2007 that figure had risen to 69 percent, and today it’s around 50 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As a result of these improved oil and gas extraction techniques, we have consistently had about 50 years’ worth of accessible oil and natural gas reserves in the ground over the last 30 years, the scholars note.
All told, global consumption of fossil fuels rose significantly from 2005 through 2014: about 7.5 percent for oil, 24 percent for coal, and 20 percent for natural gas. About 65 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are derived from fossil fuels, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Of those emissions, coal generates about 45 percent, oil around 35 percent, and natural gas about 20 percent.”
I don’t really believe much of it but it does bring up some points worth discussing. One is the cost of renewable energy is dependent upon the cost and availability of storage. The other is the true cost of EV’s are dependent upon the cost of the battery (and the implied rate of replacement).
Why does he think fossil fuels can get cheaper indefinitely?
This is the “peak oil” piece of the puzzle. Extraction costs for oil go up as the “Easy oil” is extracted and the companies have to move on to the “difficult oil”. Same with coal. Same with gas.
He’s already out of date on renewables costs. Tesla had battery pack costs below $190/kwh by the time that was published in February.
Of course we should have a carbon tax, but the price crossover point for solar and wind vs. natgas *has already happened*, the crossover for electric cars vs. gasoline has happened (nobody’s noticed because it’s hidden in Tesla’s humungous profit margins until they can ramp production up), and stationary batteries vs. gas should follow shortly.
Economists and their biggest fanboys are seldom very much interested in real facts and up to date data if such facts and data interfere with their soap box pronouncements. Soap boxes are useful in attracting publicity.
“They know just enough to be dangerous” is the way old hands on construction jobs express their opinion of brash new guys who know what can be done, if one disregards consideration of what can go wrong- often fatally.
But it’s hard to blame economists as individuals, because if you are actually in contact with them, instead of reading the bare bones of things they have said, you usually find they attach plenty of caveats to those bare bones.
The fault lies as much or more with today’s so called journalists as it does with the economics profession. Nobody would read such an economists actual lectures to undergrads, because the man on the street is not much interested in nuance and details, which are nevertheless ESSENTIAL to understanding any topic more complicated than tic tac toe.
Environmentalists who absolutely know better, and who often lecture everybody else about the impossibility of continuous growth in a finite environment as a general rule use such ridiculous pronouncements from economists to make the environmental case for laws and policies limiting the use of fossil fuels. They play right along in leading the public into believing the supply of fossil fuels is essentially unlimited, at least in relation to the longest time frame a man on the street is willing to give even a minute’s consideration- his own life span, plus the lifespan of his kids.
My personal belief is that the environmental message would sell a hell of a lot better if it consisted of fifty percent honest data about the depletion of fossil fuels and the associated risks involved in obtaining and using them, OTHER than straight up environmental problems. Fifty percent should be about depletion, resource wars, terrorism, the certainty that prices must go up as extraction costs go up, transportation costs go up, local taxes and local jobs and local control as pluses associated with renewable energy, etc.
The remaining fifty percent in my estimation should be about environmental issues such as global warming, ocean acidification, public health, habitat loss and species losses, etc.
“Economists and their biggest fanboys are seldom very much interested in real facts and up to date data if such facts and data interfere with their soap box pronouncements.”
Says the Truck Driver with a BS degree
HI Ya Mr Elitist HB,
I will gladly debate you anytime, face to face, the topic being hard science, history, culture, or politics, so long as the place and time are of my choosing, since you threw out the challenge.
I am not free to travel, so you will have to come to me.
I’m reasonably sure I have forgotten more biology, chemistry, and science in general than you have ever known, or ever will,judging by your comments or lack thereof in this respect in this forum, and I ‘m dead sure I can make you look childish in such a face to face encounter, unless you manage to bring along a hand picked audience.
I learned to drive an eight ton truck when I was twelve or thirteen years old on the farm, and I HAVE spent a few months behind the wheel of a big truck, from time to time, when it suited me to do so as a temporary source of income. It paid as well as teaching, with fewer hassles, and enabled me to organize my life as I pleased, for instance taking off a few months to live in my camper in my woods, coming out to go for groceries and books once a week or so but otherwise enjoying an extended random walk thru the libraries of the world.
I owned a big truck of my own sometimes, depending on what sort of projects I had going on. I have held a general contractors license, and I have thoroughly renovated a dozen houses as sole or part owner,and built a few new ones, as part of the crew.
I have read nearly the whole of Shakespeare, the KJB, and nearly all the works of Darwin and a considerable number of other scientists who have changed the course of history.
I took a full year course in economics in the same classroom, at the same hour, as the econ majors at my university, using the same text book.
I have even saved the lives of at least three people by sticking my nose into their business when they had a stroke in one case, a drug overdose in another, and an accident in the third, having some training in the medical sciences. I didn’t learn much in nursing school that I hadn’t already encountered in agricultural textbooks about the management of livestock, lol. I failed to graduate, as the oldest student ever enrolled at the school, dropping out in order to look after my parents who otherwise would have wound up in nursing homes, but nevertheless I still know enough nursing to carry on a pro level conversation with a physician.
Yep, I can drive a truck. I personally welded up nearly all of the stainless steel HEPA ductwork in the building wherein the state of Virginia placed the laboratories we will need in the event of a disease outbreak along the lines of ebola or worse. The lives of thousands and thousands of people will be at risk if that duct work leaks in actual use. It won’t. It has MY name on the paperwork.
I can carry on a meaningful pro level conversation with a professional forester, or agronomist, or etomologist, in respect to the best management practices of my timberland and farmland, having gotten the basics of these sciences as an ag major.
How many of these things can YOU say you have done, or can do??
Mac, if your a student of formal education, then I would think you would show some respect for the study of economics. What your comment shows is your ignorance of the subject.
As far as challenging me to a contest and than saying I need to come to you. I can’t take you seriously, but got a good laugh. If there is one thing I learned about truck drivers in my days of being a Mack salesperson. Was that drivers love to talk and have an opinion about most everything with every little education. I always figured it was because of all the lonely hours behind the wheel. But, when they did get an ear to listen. They never stopped talking.
Back in my Mack days. I had a CDL and pulled a couple of loads from LA to Vegas. I got 100% on my drivers test. I can back up a 53 footer.
Hi HB,
I somehow have gained the impression that the greatest heights you have scaled , intellectually, are those associated with selling trucks.
Any idiot can pass the tests associated with getting a CDL, if he can read the booklet. Neither of us have any grounds for bragging for having mastered this skill. OTOH, the possession of it is no indication whatsoever that a person hasn’t mastered countless other skills, some of them requiring substantial study and brain power.
I have met a large number of highly qualified professional people such as engineers, doctors, lawyers, some scientists, etc. Virtually all of them have at one time or another held an every day job such as clerking in a store, or driving a truck, the exceptions being the ones who lucked out in the parental lottery.
Laugh as much as you like, but every body who is reading our exchanges, with the exception of Clinton partisans blind to reality, is laughing at you, rather than at me.
The facts are on my side.
SO you say SO says the truck driver…….. and then you admit you have driven yourself……… as a matter of training to work at a level in the industry hardly any higher up the ladder than a driver? Most drivers probably make more money than most truck salesmen, judging from my experience talking to both.
And we can continue our little debates here, unless either Ron P or Dennis C. say otherwise.
“My personal belief is that the environmental message would sell a hell of a lot better if it consisted of fifty percent honest data about the depletion of fossil fuels and the associated risks involved in obtaining and using them, OTHER than straight up environmental problems. Fifty percent should be about depletion, resource wars, terrorism, the certainty that prices must go up as extraction costs go up, transportation costs go up, local taxes and local jobs and local control as pluses associated with renewable energy, etc. ”
Excellent Old Farmer Mac, you have one really good idea. Several of the organizations I belong to seem to do a good chunk of bringing the problems to light not just the end results.
Nathanael,
To play devil’s adequate on this one, I will calculate the battery cost of an EV versus the gallons of gasoline used by a Prius hybrid (not plug-in).
Looks like batteries are headed to the $100/kwh mark so I will use that. An 80 kwh battery would cost $8000. Given a 10 year life for the battery, that would cost $800 per year, just for battery replacement. Power cost of the EV to go 10,000 per year would be about $500. Total cost of energy plus battery depreciation is $1300/year.
Prius gets about 50 mpg, using 200 gallons per year for the 10,000 miles. Since the engine and most of the components last at least 200,000 miles or more I am not going to add any 10 year depreciation. At $2.50/gallon gasoline the cost per year for fuel would be $500.
So the yearly cost of the energy system in the EV is $1300 while the yearly cost of the Prius energy system is about $500. If one wants to add in oil changes at 5000 miles the yearly cost might go up to $560. In fact a 20 mpg car is equivalent in cost per year to an EV unless the battery can last the life of the car (over 200,000 miles).
The basis for this calculation is that cars can last well past 20 years (200,000 miles) which would entail at least one battery replacement if not two . More than likely the EV would be very outdated at 10 years time and sold off for scrap value or a very low price since it has a near dead battery or weak battery. The EV would be replaced with a much newer model. So the actual cost of the EV would be closer to $3500 per year plus power costs of $500 per year.
If batteries are treated very conservatively they might last the full life of the car, then the EV cost would come down to the Prius cost (except for the initial sales price). A difference in $10,000 in sales price is 20 years of gasoline at $2.50 per gallon.
In this analysis GoneF.. I think it would be reasonable to use something like 80-90% depreciation at 10 yrs for both cars. Don’t used cars sell at something like that?
Also, if it comes to replacement of worn parts- the EV should be much cheaper- except the battery replacement. The cost of battery replacement may be much cheaper as well in 10 yrs.
Also here in CA the electricity cost is closer to 1000$ for 10,000 miles. On the other hand, Gasoline will likely be much more expensive over the next ten yrs than $2.50.
Mixed bag- but I think your analysis is skewed in favor of ICE.
Lastly, if you have good solar on your roof and live in the one spot for ten years +, the analysis could shift strongly in favor the electric vehicle.
Hickory, I think you missed the point. ICE’s now often last past 250K miles with not much needed in repairs, just some typical maintenance. I had an ICE that ran to over 360K miles, engine and trans still great. No major work, just replaced brakes and bearings.
An EV would now need two battery replacements to get that far. That is the equivalent of replacing two engines and two transmissions in a car. Is it worth it, or is it worthless at the first battery replacement.
The car is worth it’s ability to move. After that it is scrap and parts. Loss of the battery, which is now estimated at 8 to 10 years, makes it scrap and spare parts until that is replaced and it may not be worth doing after only 8 or ten years. A decent ICE can last 200,000 miles without anything other than normal maintenance.
So using the standard depreciation without adding the additional costs of battery (and possibly computer) replacements is in error.
Forget the depreciation of the car, just count the costs to run and replace needed parts (like batteries). Even at a low cost of $100/kwh battery, a $35,000 vehicle ends up costing $51,000 plus energy costs -beyond the normal maintenance (bearings, shocks, brakes, control arms, etc.).
For example, listed cost of maintenance/repair of Honda Civic to 100k miles is $1500. The car lists at less than $20,000 and gets about 38 mpg. Life of car costs to 200,000 miles might be $26,000 plus fuel. Way below the plus $50,000 cost of the EV without even including normal maintenance/replacement of other parts.
The economics of the EV are not there yet. When batteries last the life of the car at least, then they will be competitive, especially if gasoline doubles in price.
Hi Gone Fishing,
There’s some actual battery performance data in this Electrek article:
Tesloop has over 200,000 miles on a Model S, and they aren’t easy on it. They Supercharge the battery to 100% capacity daily. They lost 6% of their range in that mileage.
I couldn’t readily find what size pack the car had, probably a P85, but let’s assume the worst and say it was a 100kWh pack that had lost 6kWh capacity over 200,000 miles. At your pricing, wouldn’t that be $600. of battery cost, or $30. of battery cost per 10,000 miles?
Tesla also has a battery, mentioned in the Electrek article, that they’ve put 500,000 simulated miles on, and it has lost 8% capacity.
If you start with an 80kWh pack, even at 10% decline for each 100,000 miles, over 20 years you would still have a car with ~192 miles of range per charge.
We will see how battery performance goes over the long haul, but so far, at least with Tesla, things look pretty good.
Also, I’m a lucky monkey, but in my little neck of the woods I pay $0.06 per kWh for green power, so using the cost of battery loss above, plus my cost for power, over 200,000 miles, my cost would be ~$4,600, or $230/year.
And any car with a combustion engine, plug-in hybrid or not, is still 100% dependent on fossil fuels to operate.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. Batteries are getting better fast and some have reported little loss after years of use. Not all but it is still early on. As batteries get better, EV’s less expensive up front and gasoline more expensive then EV’s will be the only sane choice economically. Right now they are the best choice overall if one has the money, economics aside.
I was playing devil’s advocate there, just showing one of the big weaknesses of the EV that people see right now. I do not believe that the oil situation will be plentiful 20 years from now, so ICE’s will be mostly gone by then. But I could be wrong and that might not happen for 30 or 40 years.
The lithium battery will probably not even be made ten or fifteen years from now, not for cars anyway. Other battery technology will have taken over.
Of course in the US, the other big weakness is the lack of charging points and battery switching points. On road charging for those who run out of power is not available yet, so it’s a major problem now.
When EV’s run 300 to 400 miles at highway speeds, charging points are common and roadside assistance is trained and prepared to deal with EV’s; then the EV avalanche will commence.
Right now battery life has been listed as 8 to 10 years by manufacturers. Probably in reality it is much longer, but also I have found instances where it is much shorter.
Battery life turns out largely to be determined by four things:
— allowing charge to go too high
— allowing charge to go too low
— allowing batteries to get too hot
— allowing batteries to get too cold
Tesla wraps their batteries in a pack which temperature-controls them, keeps a reserve at the bottom and a reserve at the top, and has very long durability. Nissan didn’t temperature-control its battery in the first-gen Leaf, and they all died fast.
Simple as that, really…
Yep, batteries can’t deal with the real environment yet. They will someday.
The advances are coming fast and furious and the technology has made fast leaps forward already. I expect batteries to be half the weight and twice the charge within a decade.
An interesting documentary on batteries from ABC’s (Australia) Catalyst series.
A confluence of circumstances have made the economic case for batteries in many parts of Australia quite convincing. Maybe Australia will do for batteries what Germany did for modules.
Wow Bob- great news on the battery longevity- hope it really works out that way for general use. Really a game changer for the economics of EV.
In what region are people so fortunate to be getting 6cents/kWh?
It’s a municipal power company.
But my cost per kWh is only half the story. My house has four apartments on one commercial meter, so although I pay an astonishing $0.04 kWh, plus $0.02 kWh green power premium, I also pay $8.04 per kW of grid demand charge. Last month our peak load was 3.6kW, so $28.90 just for the load. We used 415kWh. Once the distribution voltage charge, taxes, green power, and customer service charges are all added in, the bill was $110. So, all told we actually paid $0.265/kWh in reality.
You’ll note that this structure doesn’t really reward me for consumption frugality, but does ding me for the demand I put on the grid, and does undermine the economic benefits of an electric car. A Nissan Leaf has a 6.6kW on board charger. so right off the bat if I charge at the max rate at any time during the month, it will cost me ~$53 just for the grid load, plus whatever volume I use, and that is for a single car. One of my tenants has a Tesla Model 3 reserved, which would add another $72/month demand charge alone.
It may be that adding a second meter, specifically for the electric cars, would be more cost effective. I haven’t talked to the utility about it yet.
My calculations were based on $0.15 per kwh. $0.265/kwh puts the EV in a real economic hole.
$0.06/kwh! Yeeow. I pay the national average of $0.11/kwh… for 100% renewable power. And it’s still way cheaper than gasoline.
I will say that a plug-in hybrid (well, one which has a mode switch to force it into electric mode) can be run with an empty gas tank. People have done it.
Battery life is unknown — tech’s too new — but if you want to keep track of it, look at the Tesla Roadsters which were the first on the road to use lithium-ion. Some are replacing their batteries with newer, awesomer batteries, but *they don’t have to*. The batteries are just fine.
They’re likely to last 200,000 miles.
To me, the tip of the iceberg–which of course also is melting from massive global warming–as far as the libs are concerned starts out with a Carbon Tax. Let them force one of these job-destroying ideas unto us and the entire NWO the left desires will come about in no time, starting with a Freshwater Tax, a Sunshine Tax, and ending up with an Oxygen Tax! Every bit of it barging into your life via a lock-step “no tax is too much” agenda brought to you by your local neighborhood progressives.
Hmm, I wonder if we could impose a ‘Troll Tax’ on people like little Billy boy who only posts here with political, ideological and financial agendas. Dennis, you and Ron could make a freakin fortune!
Maybe you could require a basic bitcoin account of everyone who posts here with say an equivalent $10.00 in it and every time someone makes a post like the one above, you would automatically transfer value from their account into Peak Oil Barrel’s account… 😉
We got us a new troll!
This is, of course, a dialogue pair.
His comment is not in response to the article: the “Bill Franti” identity has seen the opportunity to insert canned conservative talking points into our discussion. It is an attempt to re-frame our discussion as political rather than fact-based.
There are a lot of incendiary adjectives, but no facts.
-Lloyd
Oooooh! I’m really scared now! And I don’t even live in the US (or Hawaii or Puerto Rico)!
Hold on! Wait! What am I talking about? I’ve already got 1600 W DC of solar PV on my roof, with another 1900 to go once I’ve sorted out all the red tape and fees mandated by my local “friendly” electricity supplier! Plus, as soon as a BEV I have in mind can be had on the used market in the UK for less than, say £7,000 I’ll start making moves to acquire one and ship it to my neck of the woods, assuming the guys in the government around here figure out that charging 12% more aggregate duties on a pure electric over a hybrid is the opposite of how it should be. I expect that the local grid is going to go increasingly “green” as the facts outlined in the video linked to by Nathanael sink in. So, I guess I don’t really have to be scared until they start talking about Mr Franti’s “Sunshine Tax”, by which time I will probably be dead or too old to give a shit.
On a related subject, the local utility is constructing a very high profile “solar carport” at their bill payment office along Half Way Tree Road, a very heavily traveled north-south thoroughfare, bisecting the middle section of the capital city. By high profile I mean that the location has been chosen to ensure that anybody passing by will surely notice the installation and probably be curious. This is to join an identical structure that I witnessed the inverter being taken out of the box for about a week ago, at the company’s head office in the New Kingston financial district. What I expect to be happening is that the utility is learning the costs of installing a solar carport, how easy it is to set up a 15 kW (60 module) ground mounted solar PV array in the form of a carport and how quickly one can add 30 kW to the grid. It could not have been more than two months ago that, I noticed the construction at the Half Way Tree location and I never noticed the New Kingston location at all until last week even though it shares a building with my bank!
The utility should also be learning how solar PV can be added to the grid in small “bite sized” chunks over time, lowering the hurdles for financing and environmental permitting etc. They should also be figuring out how solar PV can be distributed strategically to reduce peak daytime demand on the grid from the commercial/industrial sections of the island. Sooner or later they will probably figure out that strategically located grid scale batteries can help smooth out the late evening demands on their transmission/generating network as well at a lower cost than combustion turbine peaker plants.
Here’s to learning by doing! Whadayya think about that, Bill?
Here’s a pic of the BEV I’m following the price for on the UK used vehicle market. It seems it might be another year or twoi before they reach my target price, judging from the prices on the following page:
One might ask why not Japan if one is looking for right hand drive vehicles from markets around the world with easy shipping to Jamaica? It seems that BEVs are not depreciating as fast in Japan as they are in the UK or the US for some unknown reason.
With weather related disasters on the increase, the human toll is rising fast. The economic toll world wide is reaching 250 billion to 300 billion dollars per year.
“Asia accounts for the lion’s share of disaster impacts including 332,000 deaths and 3.7 billion people affected. The death toll in Asia included 138,000 deaths caused by Cyclone Nargis which struck Myanmar in 2008.
In total, an average of 335 weather-related disasters were recorded per year between 2005 and 2014, an increase of 14% from 1995-2004, and almost twice the level recorded during 1985-1995.
The extent of the toll taken by disasters on society is revealed by other statistics from CRED’s Emergency Events Data Base, or EM-DAT: 87 million homes were damaged or destroyed over the period of the survey.
Floods accounted for 47% of all weather-related disasters from 1995-2015, affecting 2.3 billion people and killing 157,000. Storms were the deadliest type of weather-related disaster, accounting for 242,000 deaths or 40% of the global weather-related deaths, with 89% of these deaths occurring in lower-income countries.
Overall, heatwaves accounted for 148,000 of the 164,000 lives lost due to extreme temperatures. 92% of heatwave deaths occurred in high-income countries, with Europe accounting for 90%.
Drought affects Africa more than any other continent, with EM-DAT recoding 136 events there between 1995 and 2015, including 77 droughts in East Africa alone. The report recommends that there needs to be improved data collection on indirect deaths from drought.” https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1253/report/OF11-1253.pdf
Just published paper indicating that highly-managed grass-finished
beef systems in the Upper Midwestern United States can
mitigate GHG emissions through SCS while contributing
to food provisioning.
Conclusions
The recent call for improved management of grazing
systems as part of an international climate change mitigation
strategy is critical, particularly in light of many existing
beef LCAs that have concluded that beef cattle produced
in grazing systems are a particularly large sources
of GHG emissions. To identify the best opportunities to
reduce GHG emissions from beef production, a systems
approach that considers the potential to increase soil C
and reduce ecosystem-level GHG emissions is essential.
Using a combination of on-farm collected data, literature
values, and IPCC Tier 1 methodology, we generated
an LCA that indicates highly-managed grass-finished
beef systems in the Upper Midwestern United States can
mitigate GHG emissions through SCS while contributing
to food provisioning at stocking rates as high as 2.5
AU ha-1. From this data, we conclude that well-managed
grazing and grass-finishing systems in environmentally
appropriate settings can positively contribute to reducing
the carbon footprint of beef cattle, while lowering
overall atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
If you have ever had the chance to ride an electric bike, you are probably like most people who have the thrill of feeling three times stronger than usual. It is a joy to power up hills you would have never tried.
Bikes are incredible even without a motor, but with one they are incredible plus.
I highly recommend finding a shop who will let you take one out for a test spin.
In places with safe bike lanes and a biking culture, this really opens the door for living in the days beyond cheap oil.
For those who aren’t familiar- most units come with pedal assist that senses your effort, and the harder you push, the more help you get from the motor. And the degree of help is adjustable. You don’t have to play around with a throttle. You just get on and pedal, and the bikes comes along for the ride. Seamless.
Here is the kind of machine you can purchase these days- https://electricbikereview.com/rad-power-bikes/radcity/
Trump’s ‘Victory’ Means Goodbye To Appalachian Trail
If Donald Trump has his way, those moments will be lost to another generation. According to Forbes, Trump and Rex Tillerson own shares in the pipeline which is about to sever the Appalachian Mountains and spread natural gas along the Appalachian Trail.
Virginia’s Governor, Terry McAuliffe, is a pipeline supporter. The 550-mile pipeline was proposed by Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources as well as Richmond-based Dominion one of McAuliffe’s biggest campaign donors.
The multi-billion ACP is part of the latest efforts to bring natural gas from the Marcellus Shale fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and northern West Virginia to markets in the Upper South.
So there aren’t already any pipelines or high-voltage power lines already in place along this trail? This pipeline will be the first piece of modern energy infrastructure to cross paths with the trail–therefore the entire trail is going to be destroyed? I bet you find that as hard to believe as I do.
To me, any efforts to oppose this pipeline are just one more leftist social justice effort meaning to deprive millions of people along the pipeline’s path the prosperity and optimism that comes from having access to an affordable and efficient energy source like natural gas. Besides, pipelines contribute to America’s goal of Energy Independence–something everybody should want irregardless of political or religious belief.
Energy Independence: yes. Fossil fuels: no.
To me, any efforts to oppose this pipeline are just one more leftist social justice effort meaning to deprive millions of people along the pipeline’s path the prosperity and optimism that comes from having access to an affordable and efficient energy source like natural gas.
Sorry Bill, solar and wind are already cheaper than natural gas! So your pushing fossil fuels must be a authoritarian right wing effort meaning to deprive millions of people of affordable and efficient clean energy sources like wind and solar!
Same as his previous post: a blatant attempt to re-frame the discussion as ideological.
No facts offered.
No references.
Only canned conservative talking points.
-Lloyd
Hello Coach, I’m tell’in you there is something about the HP articles that brings out the troll’s. It’s like flies on shit or Teabaggers for Trump. I remember the posters name. I wouldn’t be surprised if his first post was relayed to another HP post.
My personal opinion is that the best way to go, if we can manage it, would be to keep heavy metals and other similar contaminants out of the sewage systems up front, and use sewage directly as fertilizer wherever it is possible to do so. This is an expensive undertaking, to be sure, due to the cost of transportation of the sewage, so it won’t work in most places.
But processing it for fuel and fertilizer instead of just processing it to get rid of it means getting paid at both ends, in effect. You avoid some of the expense otherwise necessary for treatment, and gain some revenue from the sale of such oil and fertilizer.
Let’s hope this sort of technology proves to be profitable and scalable.
We’ve been unable to figure out how to keep heavy metals and other persistent contaminants out of the sewage system upfront. Been trying since the 1970s. It requires basically banning the household products which contain them, then waiting 20 years. Nobody’s had the political will.
If anybody wants to know why the world is up shit creek without a paddle, the fact that the lead article in my Google news feed for the last full day has been the death of an actress is all the explanation needed.
She was probably a great person, and she was most definitely talented, and hot too, although it is against the rules to say that, unless you are allowed to say it because you are …….. well, figuring out who is allowed to say a woman is or at least used to be hot, and who is not allowed to say so, and why, is another reason we are up that old shit creek.
“and hot too, although it is against the rules to say that, unless you are allowed to say it because you are …….. well, figuring out who is allowed to say a woman is or at least used to be hot, and who is not allowed to say so, and why, is another reason we are up that old shit creek.”
Mac, you must be personally preforming a Trump colonoscopy without any instruments. I handed you a lay up about the Appalachian Trail above. Which you could have contributed meaningful dialog, but instead you wrote this nonsense.
Hi HB,
I’m sorry, but I didn’t compose my comment was as a response to yours.
Hopefully the A T will survive Trump, and his homeboys. I expect it will. The situation with the trail shares a lot with the situation working people must endure, in respect to automation, which will continue to take their jobs.
Development will continue in areas close to the trail, and the views from it are inevitably going to suffer from this development. There has been a considerable amount of discussion of this issue in the outdoor press. There is a possibility that some parts of the trail will have to be rerouted, or even closed permanently, due to development.
T he construction of the proposed pipeline is unlikely to mean the demise of the trail, although it might well degrade the views in some spots.
I suppose my poor attempt at poking fun at those of us who are too full of themselves is not up to your standards.
But it’s a fact that depending on who you are, you can GUSH about how attractive a woman is, especially if she is in show biz, and get nothing but attaboys for your comments.
But SOME of us are not allowed by the thought police to say anything about a woman’s looks, without being taken to the metphorical woodshed for the sin of being a male who noticed.
Perhaps I can make my meaning a bit more transparent.
For twenty four hours or so, all my news feeds, Bing, Google, Yahoo, and some other major news sites I check any time I sit down for a rest break put the death of an ACTRESS for Sky Daddy’s sake in the prime spot, at a time when there are hot wars and hot wars threatening, when the cyrosphere is shrinking dramatically, when the domestic political situation is all about partisanship rather than citizenship, etc.
The death of an actress is the lead story because most us don’t know the difference between REAL news and show biz news.
This bothers me , a LOT.
“But SOME of us are not allowed by the thought police to say anything about a woman’s looks, without being taken to the metphorical woodshed for the sin of being a male who noticed.”
I guess it’s dammed if your straight or dammed if you are gay. I think it more about delivery. If you sound like a first time dog in heat. That’s not cool.
We are all part of nature
Steve Martin Deletes Carrie Fisher Tribute After Backlash
Martin was criticized for a sexist tweet following the actress’ death.
The news lead again at this moment is the death of another actress.
But I can’t blame Google, because the object there as a business is to get the maximum traffic possible.
This in my estimation reflects VERY poorly on us as a country and society.
Of course instead of making a sensible reply, your come up with some mindless pc drivel.
The women of show biz have been displaying more of their er um gifts of nature year after year for the last few decades, to the point that they now routinely appear almost nude, for all practical purposes.
About the only thing that can still elicit a faked gasp of shock and disapproval from the self appointed Holly Wood pc appearance police squad is the “accidental” display of a nipple or pubic hair, and I hear Miley Cyrus is out to free the nipple, lol.
I might be wrong, but I nevertheless sure that I have forgotten more real science, more real biology, physics, chemistry, psychology, and history than you have ever dreamed of knowing, in ADDITION to being a master level BULLSHITTER.
I ‘m a better bullshitter than you, and have a diploma displaying my credentials as a master bullshitter hanging on the garage wall to prove it, to go along with my real BS in ag science.
My BS bullshitting diploma cost me ten bucks at a place that creates them on nice looking paper, with your name and dates, etc, while you wait. Frame extra.
Just about any biologist will tell you that what we refer to as feminine physical beauty is actually the overt display of genetics indicating she has great potential as a mother, and of course this attracts the attention of men. Nature by way of evolution has PROGRAMMED men to notice and appreciate this display.
Nature also programmed us guys to run our yappers to more often and louder than strictly necessary.
Putting something , anything, on deliberate display, as a routine practice, especially in pursuit of money, attracts attention.
Then when these women in show biz get the attention they deliberately seek, by displaying their “natural assets” they and especially their less attractive sisters, and a few pc men go around acting outraged that other men notice.
Tell ya what. My opinion is that anything that is more or less perpetually advertised, at enormous expense, is fair game for comments indicating the target audience LIKES it.
The target audience is NOT other women, except to the extent the winners like to rub the losers noses in it.
You are entitled to your own opinion of course, just as you are entitled to believe it’s somebody else’s fault, rather than her own, that Clinton lost the election.
People who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and mistakes amuse me.
A woman appears on the red carpet doing every thing possible to look as much like a bitch in heat, figuratively speaking, as she can. Then when a man remarks on this behavior, HE deserves censure, for honestly stating that HIS reaction to HER display is PRECISELY the reaction she sought to elicit from him.
Please continue, you are providing me with lots of material.
If Carrie Fisher or this other I forget her name actress had been more typical women in terms of their physical sexual attributes, the odds are pretty high we would never have heard of either one of them.
Show biz has only a little use for ugly men, and even less use for women except the ones lucky enough to be physical beauties.
I will not apologize for pointing out obvious facts.
My original remark that started this exchange included a brief reference to this foolishness to put it into perspective ( example relevant to TODAY’s news ) in relation to a war that might conceivably break out between Israel and neighboring countries, which played second fiddle this morning to the death of another woman we would probably never have heard of, had she not been hot.
Methinks you miss the point AGAIN.
You appear to be exceptionally skillful when it comes to missing the point.
Perhaps you find it necessary to miss the point for a reason along the line so well expressed in this old saying.
” It’s impossible for a man to understand a thing, if his salary depends on his NOT understanding it”, paraphrased.
So long as you fervently believe everything a Baptist preacher tells you, so long as you believe in everything in the old KJB, you will never have to deal with facts such as geological time, or finding and transporting polar bears to the ARK, and having enough strawberries on hand to feed them for the duration of the flood, etc.
You just deny that such facts exist.
So long as you stick to your PC religion, you will never have to face up to the day to day realities of the world we live in.
Trump’s a low life, but he’s smart enough to have made a fool out of you, and people who think like you, because he recognized day to day realities for what they ARE, rather than pretending what they AREN’T.
Men SHOULDN’T make cat call comments about women on the street, unless the woman is doing all she can to attract such catcalls.
BUT
If she’s dressed like a hooker, she is deliberately asking for the cat calls, and ought to APPRECIATE them, rather than getting her undies in a bunch about it.
I will go even farther out on the non pc limb, and remark that SOME women who dress like hookers are dumb enough that they DON’T understand that the reason they dress like that way is that this look is precisely the one that attracts the most attention from men.
Facts are stubborn things, and reality is a harsh mistress.
Having said this much, I believe the evidence is clear that on average, women are smarter than men.
Here’s an old farm joke for anybody who got this far, a joke about sexual maturity, physical and mental.
Two bulls on a hill top, one very young, are looking at a valley full of newly arrived cows,and excitedly remarks, let’s run down there and do it with some of those cows.
His older companion companion replies, Let’s just walk down, and do it with them all.
Old Farmer Mac, up and down around the Denver area women hold free the nipple gatherings every now and then. One of my sons attended one of the free the nipple conventions last summer in Boulder. It was an eye-opening experience for him.
“Trump’s a low life, but he’s smart enough to have made a fool out of you, and people who think like you, because he recognized day to day realities for what they ARE, rather than pretending what they AREN’T.”
“Methinks you miss the point AGAIN.”
Mac, I’m a party man. An I don’t mean going out every night and drinking up a storm. I mean I pick the best ship sailing in the direction that’s best for humanity in general and get on board. It’s you who got side tracked and bought into all the hate Hillary talking points. Kind of like how you perceive Americans infatuation with move stars. When I need a flight to South Carolina to visit my lake property. I don’t pick it because of the pilot of the plane. I choose it because of the benefits the carrier supplies.
There is no doubt in my mind Republican policies today favor me personally over the Democrats. I have no children who need an education or who are going to have to deal with climate change. I’m not going to have a lady friend who needs an abortion. And even if I did. I have enough money to pay for a flight to make it happen. I’m not gay, so that Republican stupidity doesn’t affect me. I’m not a woman, so that Republican injustice hands me more power. I’m white and born in the USA, so repressing those with brown skin color gives me an advantage and cheap labor. I’m to old to go to war, so unless Trump gets us nuked. I’ll be fine. Oh, and let me add. My heavily oil balanced retirement stock portfolio is up almost 25% since November 8. You got to love those oil refineries. WNR 🙂
What I’m guilty of is believing that America would never elect a President with a personality of a poorly disciplined 6th grader and has a history of taking advantage of a lot of those who voted for him.
Maybe it’s just human nature and those Trump voters will have to learn the hard way. President elect Trump never conned me. He is the President the Republicans have been dreaming about since Ronny. The country should put it’s seat belt on. Because we are headed for a hard right turn, but if humanity is lucky. Some of those Trump voters will fall out of the car when the left hand door flies open.
Back atcha HB,
You just rose about an order of magnitude in terms of my personal respect for you, having said some things that indicate you are not a lost cause true believer, as I thought previously.
But methinks you are still missing MY point.
You have some very good ones, except your preferred candidate lost.
Back when the primaries were still going on, the D party had a chance to nominate a candidate who , going by the polls, was far more electable versus Trump.
My BASIC argument all along is that a voter or a party should never nominate it’s worst possible candidate, Clinton in this case, in terms of the broad mass of voters perceptions of that candidate, on a nation wide basis.
You will note that the R party did all it could, from the pov of the party establishment, to PREVENT the nomination of Trump, who did eventually win, due to being a better campaigner, with a better finger on the pulse of the collective voter.
Clinton had the smartest, most perceptive, most likable politician in the country on her side, the most brilliant man with the greatest common touch since Reagan, and maybe even better than Reagan in that respect, maybe the best ever, but she wouldn’t listen to Bill.
She would almost for sure have won if she had listened to him, and modified her campaign style, going into the Rust Belt like she MEANT IT.
But she took the Rust Belt for granted, like a man or woman taking his or her spouse for granted, and it cost her the WH.
Personally I do want gays and lesbians to be able to get together any way they please, and I don’t really give a crap if I have to share a restroom with a dyke or even a baboon, so long as it’s a PET baboon, lol. etc etc
But as a practical matter, the D’s would have done better if they campaigned less on this sort of stuff, and a hell of a lot more on working class issues, without giving the appearance of being in the vest pocket of big money interests, and coming across as such blatant hypocrites, as in embracing big money like a long lost child, after badmouthing the R’s for doing the same. etc etc
Folks who lack university educations also usually lack the technical chops to truly understand scientific issues, but they AREN’T STUPID.
They think and they come to good decisions, GIVEN THE DATA they have available to work with.
When the data they have consists in large part of seeing a politician do one thing, while saying another, they tend to vote for the opposition, everything else equal.
Let’s hope Trump is voted out next election, and that our collective luck holds, and that he won’t have an opportunity to put more than one hand picked new judge on the Supreme Court.
And let’s hope that no one person gains control of the D party apparatus next time around, so that there aren’t ANY established nationally known D ‘s willing to run against that person.
Most of the people in this country couldn’t have said for sure who Bernie Sanders WAS, a Senator, or a ball player, lol, two months before he started his campaign.
Clinton’s grip on the short hair of the party machinery was THAT TIGHT, so tight she literally scared EVERY nationally known D out of even TRYING for the nomination.
Trump never conned me either.
You may not wish to share it, but my personal conviction, based on my own seat of the pants conversations with a LOT of people who voted for him, is that at least one quarter of the votes he got were NOT FOR him, but AGAINST Clinton, pure and simple, for the simple reason that those voters personally DETESTED Clinton.
At least another quarter in my own seat of the pants opinion were cast for him because the voters were thoroughly pissed about the recent direction of both the D and R parties, and had a burning desire to send BOTH establishments an unmistakeable message, keeping in mind that Trump WAS NOT the choice of the party establishment, but for all practical purposes an outsider who successfully crashed the party’s party, so to speak.
I am hoping that at at least a handful of D people will hear what I have been saying, here, and in some other forums, and exert whatever influence they have, in the future, to ensure the nomination of a candidate more likely to win, next time around.
It’s about time to move on to another issue.
I have beaten this one black and blue.
“My BASIC argument all along is that a voter or a party should never nominate it’s worst possible candidate”
How could she be the “worst possible candidate” and get 2.84 million more votes than Trump? Your entitled to your opinion, but not the facts.
She lost.
Just about anybody else would have won, at the head of the D ticket.
As they say on the sports page, statistics are for losers.
Well, China burns about half of the coal, so about half of the carbon tax on coal will be paid for by China.
At ten dollars carbon tax per ton of coal, China would owe 350 billion dollars in carbon taxes to the taxman in one year. If you want to do it right, you go to the source of where most of those emissions come from, the origin of the emissions. Who needs to pay.
Goldman Sachs would be in charge of all carbon taxes collected.
A carbon tax on pre-mined and pre-burned coal could be collected in advance to help pay for debts of other nations. Can’t expect China to be burning all of that coal and not help pay for some of the money owed to JP Morgan, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank et al. Had they not been burning all of that coal, manufacturing would not have been as robust. China is going to burn it in the future, so collecting the tax in advance will help finance more debt, a win win for the entire planet.
Some of those profits enjoyed by China over the years can be socialized with a carbon tax levied on China and Chinese corporations. Who better to do the job of guarding those carbon taxes collected from China than Goldman Sachs? Can’t have Chinese banks collecting the tax, the money has to go to where it will be in the right hands and that would be Goldman Sachs’ hands.
Investment banks will do a better job. Besides, they’re too big to fail. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs will know what to do. Goldman Sachs does God’s work, so what can possibly go wrong?
A carbon tax will keep them solvent. In other words, China will keep them solvent.
Weren’t all of those Wall Street banksters insolvent back in October of 2008? Bear Stearns Lehman Brothers, that Wall Streeter who went to Congress and begged for 700 billion dollars, what was his name? Oh yeah, Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury.
We can rest assured that a carbon tax will be fairly distributed for the benefit of the few at the expense of the Great Unwashed.
You know, socialize costs and privatize profits. Just so the too big to fail crowd can continue to be too big to fail.
That’s what a carbon tax is for.
You don’t want those insolvent banks to be even more insolvent, do you? Do your part, contribute to the Goldman Sachs Relief Fund, aka, God’s Work, and you too will be doing God’s Work when you pay your carbon tax, it will be a relief, consolation.
It will be more like the Grinch who stole Christmas, but it will remain God’s Work.
Isn’t that like negative interest rates, a bail-in? Just be happy you will get to pay the carbon tax with no further fees. It will be mandated by Congress much like healthcare, you will have to pay the tax, regardless. You might not even own a car, you will still be mandated to pay the carbon tax. China will need help, can’t expect them to pay Goldman Sachs the carbon tax all by themselves, you will need to do your part.
A carbon tax will save the world. Never been a better opportunity to do God’s Work and a carbon tax will be the best way possible to keep the too big to fail Wall Street banksters solvent.
That’s what Trump means when he says he is going to build a wall. har
“Polluters will be charged for contributing to air, water and noise pollution, according to a copy of the legislation on the NPC’s official web site.
But CO2 did not make the list, which includes air and water pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and sulfite, taxed at rates beginning at 1.2 yuan ($0.17) and 1.4 yuan ($0.20) per unit respectively.”
So much for those that fear China is going to take leadership in the climate change fight. Acts speak a lot louder than words. They don’t believe climate change is a serious problem.
I just copied this from the Quartz site.
xxxx
Sanders, whose run for the Democratic presidential nomination this year emboldened the left wing of the Democratic party, has seen his cachet rise in a party looking for leadership following Hillary Clinton’s defeat in November. Amidst the recriminations and a messy race to head up the party’s national committee, it hasn’t been clear who would be the face of Democratic opposition to Trump. Now, we have an answer.
While Sanders’ harsh critique of the millionaire and billionaire class turned off professional Democrats who benefit from the global economy during his primary run, the election results have convinced party leaders that they need to better articulate how their economic policies will lead to broadly shared prosperity. Schumer, hailing from New York, is known as a voice for Wall Street in his party, but is also a pragmatist who once wrote a campaign book about how he sought to appeal to middle-class families on Long Island.
Both Schumer and Pelosi, prodigious fundraisers themselves, will have noted Sanders’ ability to raise money in large quantities from grassroots donors for progressive causes. A spokesperson told Quartz that left-over dollars from Sanders’s presidential campaign will go toward organizing the Jan. 15 rallies.
Read this carefully HB.
It jibes pretty well with everything I have had to say about why Clinton was at risk of losing to Trump, all thru the campaign season.
If any insiders in her campaign had been other than YES BOYS and YES GIRLS, and willing to point out what was WRONG with the campaign, and been listened to, she would most likely have carried the three big states that cost her the election.
But my money still says you will always believe it’s the fault of others that she lost, rather than the faults she brought to the race, and displayed as a candidate.
Evidence of any sort, no matter how good, makes about the same impression on true believers who don’t WANT to understand as rain water on a duck.It runs right off.
Duck feathers and true believer’s brains are water proof and evidence proof, respectively, lol.
In case nobody else has posted this link, it’s a handy one for keeping up with climate news.
Latest find comes after weeks of dead herring reported to be washing up along provincial shores
Graham Daborn, a professor emeritus at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., who studies ecology in the Bay of Fundy, told CBC’s Maritime Noon the ecological health of the Bay of Fundy is generally very good.
—
Now that so many different species are being found dead, Daborn said disease is unlikely to be the cause. He said it indicates something amiss in the environment.
“One would begin to think that there is something systematic about the water that is a problem. Is there enough oxygen there? Has the temperature changed suddenly?” he said.
I hope they solve this one, it could be key to a lot of future problems we will see.
Climate Heretic: Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues
“How to understand and reason about uncertainty in climate science is a topic that is receiving increasing attention in both the scientific and philosophical literature. This paper provides a perspective on exploring ways to understand, assess, and reason about uncertainty in climate science, including application to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. Uncertainty associated with climate science and the science–policy interface presents unique challenges owing to the complexity of the climate system itself, the potential for adverse socioeconomic impacts of climate change, and the politicization of proposed policies to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. The challenges to handling uncertainty at the science– policy interface are framed using the “monster” metaphor, whereby attempts to tame the monster are described. An uncertainty lexicon is provided that describes the natures and levels of uncertainty and ways of representing and reasoning about uncertainty. Uncertainty of climate models is interpreted in the context of model inadequacy, uncertainty in model parameter values, and initial condition uncertainty. This article examines the challenges of building confidence in climate models and, in particular, the issue of confidence in simulations of the twenty-first-century climate. The treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC assessment reports is examined, including the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report conclusion regarding the attribution of climate change in the latter half of the twentieth century. Ideas for monster-taming strategies are discussed for institutions, individual scientists, and communities.”
What turns Judith Curry into a climatic heretic is that she defends there is a lot of uncertainty that is not being properly accounted for.
It is an example of how little you need to disagree with the IPCC to be singled out, labeled, targeted, and attacked by the climate establishment, activist groups, and media.
“Before I start, let me say as clearly as possible that I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change. If science says something is true – according to most scientists, and consistent with the scientific method – I accept their verdict.
I realize that science can change its mind, of course. Saying something is “true” in a scientific sense always leaves open the option of later reassessing that view if new evidence comes to light. Something can be “true” according to science while simultaneously being completely wrong. Science allows that odd situation to exist, at least temporarily, while we crawl toward truth.
So when I say I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change, I’m endorsing the scientific consensus for the same reason I endorsed Hillary Clinton for the first part of the election – as a strategy to protect myself. I endorse the scientific consensus on climate change to protect my career and reputation. To do otherwise would be dumb, at least in my situation.
As regular readers of this blog already know, human brains did not evolve to understand reality in any deep way. If some of us survive and procreate, that’s good enough for evolution. It doesn’t matter that you live in a movie that says you will reincarnate after you die, while I live in a movie that says reality is a software simulation, and perhaps our mutual friend lives in a movie in which his prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse. Those are very different realities, but it doesn’t stop any of us from procreating. This lesson about the subjective nature of reality is one we learned from watching Trump’s march to the election. As the world looked on, everything they thought they understood about Trump’s chances dissolved in front of them. And yet the world still worked fine.
This perceptual change in humanity is happening as I predicted it would a year before Trump won. I told you he would change more than politics. I said he would open a crack in reality so you could view it through a new filter. That transformation is well underway. I’ll widen the crack a bit more today.
If you have been involved in any climate change debates online or in person, you know they always take the following trajectory: Climate science believers state that all the evidence, and 98% of scientists, are on the same side. Then skeptics provide links to credible-sounding articles that say the science is bunk, and why. How the heck can you – a non-expert – judge who is right?
You probably are not a scientist, and that means you can’t independently evaluate any of the climate science claims. You didn’t do the data collection or the experiments yourself. You could try to assess the credibility of the scientists using your common sense and experience, but let’s face it – you aren’t good at that. So what do you do?
You probably default to trusting whatever the majority of scientists tell you. And the majority says climate science is real and we need to do something about it. But how reliable are experts, even when they are mostly on the same side?
Ask the majority of polling experts who said Trump had only a 2% chance of becoming president. Ask the experts who said the government’s historical “food pyramid” was good science. Ask the experts who used to say marijuana was a gateway drug. Ask the experts who used to say sexual orientation is just a choice. Ask the experts who said alcoholism is a moral failure and not a matter of genetics.
There are plenty of examples where the majority of experts were wrong. What you really want to know is whether climate change looks more like the sort of thing that turns out to be right or the sort of thing that turns out to be wrong. Let’s dig into that question.
It seems to me that a majority of experts could be wrong whenever you have a pattern that looks like this:
1. A theory has been “adjusted” in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, “Global warming” evolved to “climate change” because the models didn’t show universal warming.
2. Prediction models are complicated. When things are complicated you have more room for error. Climate science models are complicated.
3. The models require human judgement to decide how variables should be treated. This allows humans to “tune” the output to a desired end. This is the case with climate science models.
4. There is a severe social or economic penalty for having the “wrong” opinion in the field. As I already said, I agree with the consensus of climate scientists because saying otherwise in public would be social and career suicide for me even as a cartoonist. Imagine how much worse the pressure would be if science was my career.
5. There are so many variables that can be measured – and so many that can be ignored – that you can produce any result you want by choosing what to measure and what to ignore. Our measurement sensors do not cover all locations on earth, from the upper atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean, so we have the option to use the measurements that fit our predictions while discounting the rest.
6. The argument from the other side looks disturbingly credible.
One of the things that always fascinated me about jury trials is that attorneys from both sides can sound so convincing even though the evidence points in only one direction. A defendant is either guilty or innocent, but good lawyers can make you see it either way. Climate science is similar. I’ve seen airtight arguments that say climate science is solid and true, and I’ve seen equally credible-looking arguments that say it is bunk. From my non-scientist perspective, I can’t tell the difference. Both sides look convincing to me.
As I have described in this blog before, I’m a trained hypnotist and I have studied the methods of persuasion for years. That gives me a bit of context that is different from the norm. In my experience, and based on my training, it is normal and routine for the “majority of experts” to be completely wrong about important stuff. But in the two-dimensional world where persuasion isn’t much of a thing, it probably looks to most of you that experts are usually right, especially when they are overwhelmingly on the same side and there is a mountain of confirming evidence.
We like to think we arrived at our decisions about climate science by using our common sense and good judgement to evaluate the credibility of experts. Some of you think you have superior sources of information as well. But both sides are wrong. No one is using reason, facts, or common sense to arrive at a decision about climate science. Here’s what you are using to arrive at your decision:
1. Fear
2. Unwarranted trust in experts
3. Pattern recognition
On the question of fear, if you believe that experts are good at predicting future doom, you are probably scared to death by climate change. But in my experience, any danger we humans see coming far in the future we always find a way to fix. We didn’t run out of food because of population growth. We didn’t run out of oil as predicted. We didn’t have a problem with the Year 2000 bug, and so on. I refer to this phenomenon as the Adams Law of Slow-Moving Disasters. When we see a disaster coming – as we do with climate science – we have an unbroken track record of avoiding doom. In the case of climate change danger, there are a number of technologies under development that can directly scrub the atmosphere if needed.
On the question of trusting experts, my frame of reference is the field of influence and persuasion. From my point of view – and given the examples of mass delusion that I have personally witnessed (including Trump’s election), I see experts as far less credible than most people assume.
And when it comes to pattern recognition, I see the climate science skeptics within the scientific community as being similar to Shy Trump Supporters. The fact that a majority of scientists agree with climate science either means the evidence is one-sided or the social/economic pressures are high. And as we can plainly see, the cost of disagreeing with climate science is unreasonably high if you are a scientist.
While it is true that a scientist can become famous and make a big difference by bucking conventional wisdom and proving a new theory, anything short of total certainty would make that a suicide mission. And climate science doesn’t provide the option of total certainty.
To put it another way, it would be easy for a physicist to buck the majority by showing that her math worked. Math is math. But if your science depends on human judgement to decide which measurements to include and which ones to “tune,” you don’t have that option. Being a rebel theoretical physicist is relatively easy if your numbers add up. But being a rebel climate scientist is just plain stupid. So don’t expect to see many of the latter. Scientists can often be wrong, but rarely are they stupid.
To strengthen my point today, and in celebration of my reopening of the blog commenting section, please provide your links to pro and con arguments about climate science. This might be the only place in the world you will see links to both sides. If you want to be amazed, see how persuasive BOTH sides of this debate are.
As I said above, I accept the consensus of climate science experts when they say that climate science is real and accurate. But I do that to protect my reputation and my income. I have no way to evaluate the work of scientists.
If you ask me how scared I am of climate changes ruining the planet, I have to say it is near the bottom of my worries. If science is right, and the danger is real, we’ll find ways to scrub the atmosphere as needed. We always find ways to avoid slow-moving dangers. And if the risk of climate change isn’t real, I will say I knew it all along because climate science matches all of the criteria for a mass hallucination by experts.”
Dogbert cartoon from 1990:
Wow, that sure convinced me. Didn’t you guys get convinced, especially the talking dogs with a tank and a funny hat. That was the real kicker that made me toss aside all reality and jump on the denier-contrarian bandwagon. Still, I might lapse unless a talking rat and dinosaur tells me that everything is OK, it’s all natural and there hasn’t been any problems nor will there be. Please tell Scott Adams to continue telling us it’s all just a bad dream, otherwise reality might just creep in again. Maybe there are pills we can all take, Dogbert probably sells them.
Well that guy may have had a few facts and dates wrong; but to his main point he is very convincing. You will never “stop” climate change as long as there is one beer and bag of doritios left in this world. Very Convincing.
I think he is preparing for the next glaciation rather than global warming. But that is contrarians.
Actually he has his facts in a fairly decent row, but he is obviously playing to the skeptics audience, and posing as being smarter than everybody else.
He doesn’t even mention the actual facts involved, he is talking about the way people as a whole think and act, and he has a very good grasp of how technically illiterate people think and talk. The vast majority of all people, including university graduates, are TECHNICALLY illiterate, meaning they have had NO SIGNIFICANT FORMAL TRAINING in the hard sciences.
Nobody should NEVER take anything a comedian says literally. This man , if he is the same as the one who writes the most hilarious sci fi since TWAIN , is a WORLD class comedian.
He has made a glaring mistake, and as a professional observer, he should have known better, but maybe he made it deliberately so as to avoid pissing off his regular followers, who are overwhelmingly educated and liberal.
The mistake is this. He says people who are unable to evaluate the evidence default to the prevailing scientific consensus, this being forced warming in this case.
This is one hell of a long way from the actual truth.
When we are unable to evaluate conflicting scientific evidence ( and there IS SOME evidence indicating warming is not a problem, but a hundred times more indicating it IS a problem) we do NOT default to the scientific consensus if the issue is a political or cultural hot button.
We DEFAULT to , we heartily ENDORSE, whichever interpretation of the evidence and issue is best aligned with the people we identify as friends and allies, as our peers, our IN GROUP, with near zero consideration given to the actual facts.
Even people with sound technical backgrounds, people who have studied chemistry, physics, math, etc, at the university level are prone to disregarding what they KNOW to be consistent with their professional training, and believing what they WANT to believe.
This is why I know some hard core Republicans with excellent technical educations who disregard the evidence that forced warming is real, and a real threat. They don’t want to believe it, whereas they DO want to be seen and known as members in good standing of the R coalition.
This is likewise why I know a couple of younger women who haven’t the faintest clue as to WHY you cannot burn water like gasoline, or why the sun appears to travel in some unexplained fashion across the sky day after day, ( OK, I am making the sexist joke here. If you can’t handle it , after I just pointed out that I know R males who are WELL educated technically who make the SAME mistake, tough titty to you! ) believe in forced warming without any doubt.
These women believe IN warming for the same reasons the above mentioned R engineer types do not. They are English majors, and TERRIFIED they will fail the ONE semester “survey ” science course they will eventually have to take, even though it will be watered down to the point there is no lab, no math, no outside reading, etc.
( No body who does the softball easy homework and shows up to class is any danger of failing such a course, unless she also fails basket weaving, or the history of art, lol. )
ALL of them believe what they WANT to believe, what is consistent with their desired status as members in good standing within their cultural peer group. The ladies believe because the D party and the liberal establishment which they are a part of believes.
I am sure Adams knows this to be true, but I also thinks he doesn’t want to actually say so, for reasons involving his OWN status as a public figure.
Incidentally I DO personally know enough science, and enough about the peer review process, etc, to know that in this particular case, the liberal / Dems are right, and the conservative ( so called ) / Republicans are wrong.
He also made a SECOND MAJOR mistake, saying:
” If science is right, and the danger is real, we’ll find ways to scrub the atmosphere as needed. We always find ways to avoid slow-moving dangers.”
Anybody who SERIOUSLY makes such a statement is either seriously ill informed, or playing a PR, a public relations game, insinuating he is cool with the skeptics at one point, cool with the liberal establishment at another, and cool with the people who believe in science and technology the same way a Baptist believes in Jesus, in his conclusion. Along the way, he implies he is also cool with the skeptics, cool with the Trump voters, etc. The man is trying to please EVERYBODY, and he is such a talented writer he is actually pretty successful at actually doing so.
If he actually knows anything about the FACTS associated with FIXING the warming problem, he would NEVER say anything indicating such a naive and arrogant belief in science and technology- unless of course he is playing the PR game.
This man makes his LIVING as an ENTERTAINER , for Sky Daddy’s sake.
Taking anything he says without a helping of salt is not to be recommend.
Having said this much about him, I also must say again that he is an incredibly talented comic writer, one in a million, and I can’t say enough about how much I have enjoyed reading his books.
Nothing personal, but I’m not taking my climate change advice from a guy without self control who doesn’t respect his own body and life.
I’m betting Trump voter and for sure Javier mentality.
I’m betting he will start his own party to run against Trump in 2020 and will win in a landslide!
But HB, I can’t believe you took that seriously. Seriously? Might as well listen to talking dogs in cartoon strips.
Sorry, there aren’t any talking dogs out there. But there are millions of “skeptics president”. I’ll admit I unfairly judge that good old southern country boy logic.
It was also to subvert Javier’s post following your lead and tie Javier to the video.
Well done. Maybe even Trump’s attention span would be able to watch it from start to finish.
Maybe the intelligence community might want to incorporate it into the Daily Briefing
ROFL
Wow, that sure convinced me.
It’s not supposed to convince you. It’s supposed to explain to you why some people believe in global warming catastrophe and why some don’t, and why it is almost impossible to convince anybody to change his mind about the issue.
It also explains why given the politicization of this debate and the level of pressure brought on scientists not conforming to the consensus, the scientific debate is being skewed by subduing and suppressing one side. And how that actually makes it more likely that the consensus of experts have it wrong. And we know the consensus of experts can be wrong because, well… it has been wrong many times before.
So a rational person can take any side of this debate as the science can support both an alarmist view or a non-alarmist view, and both sides should admit the possibility of being wrong because at this point we clearly don’t know who is right.
So a rational person can take any side of this debate as the science can support both an alarmist view or a non-alarmist view, and both sides should admit the possibility of being wrong because at this point we clearly don’t know who is right.
That is an absolute crock of shit!
Dara O’Briain: Science doesn’t know everything
Comedian Dara O’Briain sets the record straight about the public understanding of science.
I do have many hundreds of papers that support a non-alarmist view of climate change regardless of origin, and I have linked dozens of those papers here in peakoilbarrel.
The alarmist view requires a set of assumptions for which there is no evidence, like the amount of future emissions, the antropogenic nature of nearly all warming since 1950, the nature and balance of climate feedbacks known or unknown, the future behavior of CO2 sinks, the half life of a CO2 pulse, the existence of tipping points, the existence of warming already in the pipeline, and so on, so on. Nothing of that is properly known to the point of giving a low uncertainty.
The alarmist view is a worst case scenario, and worst case scenarios tend to not happen.
“The alarmist view is a worst case scenario, and worst case scenarios tend to not happen.”
It’s called Risk Management- (in business) the forecasting and evaluation of financial risks together with the identification of procedures to avoid or minimize their impact.
The insurance industry describe people with Javier attitude as going naked. In life, they call him dad.
The problem is that the agreed upon measures from Paris accords would have negligible impact on temperatures according to most experts. The policies that are proposed do not resist a minimum cost-benefit analysis.
Some people are already pointing out that adaptation is likely to be more effective in dealing with climate change.
Most people think your in denial and 97% scientist disagree with you
The alarmist view is a worst case scenario, and worst case scenarios tend to not happen..
If you say so Javier but there are plenty of examples from real life to contradict you. Macondo, Fukshima,The Challenger Disaster, just to name a few…
If the people like myself who disagree with you are wrong, the worst that will happen is we change the OS of our civilization and build a world that uses energy differently. That will happen regardless. However if you, and people who think like you, are wrong, then we are truly fucked and I’m just not willing to take that risk!
Appendix F – Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle SPACE SHIP EARTH
by R. P. Feynman slightly edited by Fred Magyar
Introduction
It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the
probability of a failure with loss of vehicle THE PLANET and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher
figures come from the working engineers climate scientists, atmospheric chemists physicists, biologists, ecologist, etc.. and the very low figures from management. The Fossil Fuel Interests and wealthy 1% ers who have interests in maintaining BAU, What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a Shuttle Space Ship Earth up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask “What is the cause of management’s. Fossil Fuel Interests and wealthy 1% ers who have interests in maintaining BAU fantastic faith in the machinery BAU?”
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Don’t feed the troll(s) Fred, it’s counterproductive. Besides, he doesn’t understand risk analysis.
I know Doug, my response is really not intended as a rebuttal to Mr. Contrarian, but rather as possible food for thought for the casual reader, who might still have an open mind.
Though frankly, at this point, I think Mr. Contrarian is getting paid to pretend he doesn’t understand risk analysis…
Not a good example. Climate change is progressive not explosive, and takes place over hundreds of years, not in an instant. The evidence is showing that global warming is taking place more slowly than initially anticipated. No reason to panic. Better to take the right measures tomorrow than the wrong measures today.
What? Hundreds of years IS explosive (an brief instant in human terms). Yes, you really are a moron – or a troll?
The evidence is showing that global warming is taking place more slowly than initially anticipated. No reason to panic.
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The risk is very asymmetrically distributed towards the cooling side as the Little Ice Age showed.
Warming so far has been beneficial.
Fred, the worst case is happening right now. We are well into the sixth extinction. There is only one place this can go unless the course changes dramatically.
The problem with people is they either don’t know to begin with or forget the horrors of the past that even happened within their own lifetimes. I remind people, they do not like it.
“Fred, the worst case is happening right now.” Ah yes, therein lies the rub.
Amen, I am a member of that choir already! 😉
GoneFishing, you are a victim of mass hysteria.
Anthropogenic global warming has added very little to the environmental problems that we were already causing by the time the warming started in the 1980’s. The increase in the environmental problems of the planet is due to the rapid growth we are experiencing, with 80 million new inhabitants every year. This is the equivalent to the entire population of Egypt every year.
Javier, you are more mentally challenged than usual. I did not mention climate change, yet you acted as if I did. Early Alzheimers? Maybe dementia? That would explain some of your emotional disruptions.
Hi Javier,
The case I give relies on the mean estimates by experts, which tends to be the most likely scenario.
I agree that does not mean it is certain, just that the scenario is more likely than most. If we limit carbon emissions to 1000 Pg of Carbon, Global average temperatures may remain below 1.7 C above the 11,000 BP to 200 BP Global mean land ocean temperature. There is a lot of uncertainty about Earth System Sensitivity, so long term temperatures (after 2200 CE) might be higher or lower, the 1.7 C estimate is to 2250 CE, based on CMIP3 models and 1000 Pg of total carbon emissions (fossil fuels, cement, and land use change).
O’Briain is great.
Hi Javier,
The mainstream view is not climate catastrophe, just a lot of warming if there are a lot of carbon emissions.
It is possible that there might only be 1000 Pg of carbon emissions, but there is enough fossil fuel that 2000 Pg of Carbon might be emitted, hopefully non-fossil fuel energy will develop quickly enough to keep carbon emissions at 1000 Pg or less.
So in what kind of way would anybody be able to prosecute when there are genuine climate experts out therewith evidence of man made climate change either no big problem as the untrustworthy mainstream media says or just isn’t real no way. Want to see the kind of experts I’m talking about, google names like Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Murry Salby…they have been doing deep research into climate change for years. Because they are respected investigators in their fields, they are getting more scientists to jump off the man made climate change bandwagon and question the work the grant funded scientists have done also. Anyway I guess my main point is yes we get droughts, severe thunderstorms, cold winters, warm winters, sleet, snow, hail, and so on…but that’s stuff that’s been going on since the start of time. There just wouldn’t be a big enough case with evidence to convict any company, business, or individual saying climate change isn’t real. Not in a civil or criminal courtroom.
How change occurred or how General Custer became a human pin cushion, what really happened.
Everybody makes mistakes.
General Custer: A scout has a certain look… Kit Carson, for example. You look like… a muleskinner!
Jack Crabb: Uh, General I don’t know anything about mules…
General Custer: Lieutenant, it’s amazing how I can guess the profession of a man just by looking at him! Notice the bandy legs, the powerful arms. This man has spent years with mules. Isn’t that right?
Jack Crabb: Uh, yes sir!
General Custer: Hire the muleskinner!
A little while later after Little Big Man attempts to kill Custer but fails…
Jack Crabb: You’re not going to hang me.
General Custer: Your miserable life is not worth the reversal of a Custer decision.
And then:
Jack Crabb: General, you go down there.
General Custer: You’re advising me to go into the Coulee?
Jack Crabb: Yes sir.
General Custer: There are no Indians there, I suppose.
Jack Crabb: I didn’t say that. There are thousands of Indians down there. And when they get done with you, there won’t be nothing left but a greasy spot. This ain’t the Washite River, General, and them ain’t helpless women and children waiting for you. They’re Cheyenne brave, and Sioux. You go down there, General, if you’ve got the nerve.
General Custer: Still trying to outsmart me, aren’t you, mule-skinner. You want me to think that you don’t want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really *don’t* want me to go down there!
Can’t we all just get along? Why all of this fussin’ and fightin’ over a one degree centigrade increase of global temperatures? What can it hurt?
Have a nice day!
“Can’t we all just get along? Why all of this fussin’ and fightin’ over a one degree centigrade increase of global temperatures? What can it hurt?”
Because if the Arctic melts any further the Blob gets loose and that will be the end of the polar bears. 🙂
We need to prosecute persecute climate change deniers, not just condemn them as stupid and ignorant, two heresies that are intolerable, no forgiveness, no mercy, throw them in jail and confiscate all their homes and belongings, enslave them for the rest of their born days.
Really no other way to handle the problem of climate change deniers. Off to some concentration camp in Siberia.
Arbeit Macht Frei
Or better yet and more appropriately , let’s burn them at the stake.
More ironic.
awe, boo hoo, do people sometime get angry at you when you post your denier BS? Sooo sad….
Meanwhile in the real world, real climate scientists are constantly getting death threats and other harassment. Many are now afraid to speak out or are so cautious in their outlook, they way underestimate the problem. But that’s the whole point isn’t it?
IT WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD. AGAIN
“In case it wasn’t clear, the clearest sign of climate change is heat. And this year had lots of it: hot Arctic, hot summer, hot water, and so it’s only fitting that the biggest climate milestone of the year (in a year that itself is a milestone) is record heat. Of course, that was the biggest story in 2014; and 2015 for that matter. This year marks the third year in a row of record-setting heat, an unprecedented run. It’s a reminder that we’ve entered a new era, where our actions have changed the world we call home. We also have the ability to decide what comes next.”
You are shotgunning everything in sight with your spew. Time to settle down and talk some physics if you want to be taken seriously.
WHT, I found this graph and as you can tell by the cold blue snake on the right hand side, we are in for lot’s of frozen water…
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From yesterday:
‘
Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences who has long questioned climate change orthodoxy, is skeptical that a sunnier outlook is upon us.
“I actually doubt that,” he said. Even if some of the roughly $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars currently spent on climate research across 13 different federal agencies now shifts to scientists less invested in the calamitous narrative, Lindzen believes groupthink has so corrupted the field that funding should be sharply curtailed rather than redirected.
“They should probably cut the funding by 80 to 90 percent until the field cleans up,” he said. “Climate science has been set back two generations, and they have destroyed its intellectual foundations.”
‘
Amazing the psychological projection of Lindzen. It is Lindzen that has set back generations of atmospheric science research with his deeply flawed model of stratospheric winds (see QBO). He missed a very simple derivation back in the 1960’s that could have set a nice “intellectual foundation” for the next 40+ years.
Yet instead he has occupied the fringe sciences of climatology with his bizarre theories. Scientists such as Ray Pierrehumbert have been on to him, e.g. “It’s okay to be wrong, and [Lindzen] is a smart person, but most people don’t really understand that one way of using your intelligence is to spin ever more clever ways of deceiving yourself, ever more clever ways of being wrong. And that’s okay because if you are wrong in an interesting way that advances the science, I think it’s great to be wrong, and he has made a career of being wrong in interesting ways about climate science.”. And you have Isaac Held, who says that he had studied under Lindzen and found him smart but highly contrarian and a fringe scientist.
“There’re people like [Lindzen] in every field of science. There are always people in the fringes. They’re attracted to the fringe . . . It may be as simple as, how do you prove you’re smarter than everyone else? You don’t do that by being part of the consensus,” Held says.
Maybe we could just turn it upside down?
Hi Javier,
Cherry picking again?
Talking about different things, Dennis.
You medium term warming of the planet, me short term non-warming of the planet. Both things compatible, but hardly alarming. Long term warming of the planet since 1850 is beneficial as all the evidence shows.
Unfortunately, anything NOAA or NASA says these days must absolutely be questioned for truthfulness. Furthermore, considering we’re in the waning days of the Obama Administration, the need is probably even greater. Previous years, when announcing temperatures the warmest ever, they actually re-calibrated/manipulated older temperature sets, meaning old years became colder and more recent years became warmer. Discounting these changes means 1934 should still be considered the warmest year in the modern record.
Anyone who has closely followed the climate debate is familiar with the “adjustments” to the raw temperature data. What most Average Joes don’t realize is that the adjustments are almost entirely done to accomplish one thing — cool the past and warm the present.
How did they do this? Scientists have “smoothed” regional temperatures to get better agreement between urban and rural data. But instead of adjusting city temperatures lower (because of urban heat effects) they raised rural temperatures. More recently, in order to get rid of the “pause” in temperatures, they adjusted the sea surface temperatures higher when they decided that mid-20th century temperatures taken in ship engine intakes are more accurate than the modern ocean buoys. That’s right, the technology of the 1950s with the ship engine heat influencing the data was determined to be better than the network of modern electronics uninfluenced by external heat sources. And these are only a few examples of what has been going on.
On a more local level, between 2011 and 2013, the NOAA data set lowered annual Maine temperatures between three to five degrees in the early 1900s…and made almost no changes to recent temperatures. That “adjustment” is more than three times the actual warming we have seen.
When you look at how temperatures have been manipulated you start to wonder if we have any idea what the global temperature is. Over the past decade or so, the keepers of the data have cooled temperatures in the pre-1910 period the equivalent of -0.52 degrees per century. They warmed temperatures from 1980 to the early part of this century by the equivalent of +0.11 degrees per century.
Who cares about your BS and fossil fuel propaganda! You’re out of touch with the future and you have already lost!
Watch this, it was previously posted by Nathanael. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmyrbKBZ6SU
The breakthrough in renewable energy (vpro backlight documentary)
And for the rest of us…
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We’re back up to at least two trolls!
This is another dialogue pair. It is not a response to the earlier comment, and exists solely to throw in conservative talking points.
Adds nothing to our discussion.
-Lloyd
Hi Fred…wrote while you were posting.
-L
…and exists solely to throw in conservative talking points.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that this entire anti climate science BS is a very concerted effort by fossil fuel interests to lull the average Joe into a false sense of security and keep them addicted to fossil fuels for as long as they can.
Why else would any even give a rat’s ass about climate science?!
Propaganda : information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Methods of climate denialists to maintain an appearance of legitimate controversy:
1.Conspiracy theories – Dismissing the data or observation by suggesting opponents are involved in “a conspiracy to suppress the truth”.
2.Cherry picking – Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers in order to make their opponents look as though they base their ideas on weak research.
3.False experts – Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility.
4.Moving the goalpost – Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence.
5.Other logical fallacies – Usually one or more of false analogy, appeal to consequences, straw man, or red herring.
I was responding to Doug Leighton’s post of 12/30/2016 at 12:48 pm about how the federal government is out to proclaim 2016 as the hottest year ever. I stayed on topic in providing evidence of how this is unlikely true, in light of the temperature adjusting NOAA and NASA have done previously. As I see it, you are the one going off topic. What do you make of the facts I have presented, especially the article from a mainstream publication that itself is starting to pick up on the problems with climate data?
May the baby Jesus save your soul from it’s earthly sins
What do you make of the facts I have presented, especially the article from a mainstream publication
ROFL!
Yo Jeff! This is the 21st century so I googled your buddy Michael Sununu…
Not exactly the most reputable of citizens IMHO!
Love New Hampshire, though, been there many times! ‘Live Free or Die’!
Most of the citizens there are against fascism.
Temps have been “manipulated” to make the warming look SMALLER, not larger, troll.
Why? Each change is to remove a bias due to older, less accurate instruments and methods for measuring temperature. Net result is that “raw” data show more global warming and “adjusted” data show less. The opposite of what you insinuate.
Hi Jeffrey,
In Manchester, New Hampshire they call that paper the “Union Misleader”. 🙂
Well the main thing is that we know why 2016 was so hot, and it wasn’t extra anthropogenic warming but good old El Niño, which is perfectly natural warming. We know there have been strong Niños since before CO2 started rising above pre-industrial levels, and nobody has shown any change of El Niño frequency with GHGs.
So all is fine and dandy as temperatures are going down quite fast towards their 21st century average. So it looks this could just be a blip in temperatures for a couple of years.
And the most important thing is that this El Niño has taken us +0.4°C above prior temperatures in a quick move and the main effect that we have seen from this increase has been a world record wheat crop. So the test actually has backfired in terms of alarmism. The world seems to be just fine with 0.4°C more.
Now I wonder what would happen if for the next three years we went back to the temperatures we had in 1972-75, or even 1903-06. I bet most people wouldn’t like that at all. In the mid seventies some people were worried that a new glaciation was already starting. Two scientists, George Kukla and Robert Matthews organized an international symposium, and reported it in Science on 1972, then they wrote to President Nixon, and the administration got worried enough to set the ad hoc Panel on the present interglacial.
So I don’t think we should be any more worried than before we had the 2015-16 El Niño. Soon we will be discussing if El Niño put an end to the pause or if it was just a pause of the pause.
Muir Glacier melt, Alaska
August 13, 1941 – August 31, 2004
The 1941 photograph shows the lower reaches of Muir Glacier and its tributary, Riggs Glacier. The two glaciers filled Muir Inlet. In the 2004 photograph, Muir Glacier, continuing a retreat nearly two centuries long, is located about 4 miles (7 kilometers) to the northwest, out of the field of view. Riggs Glacier has retreated some 0.4 miles (0.6 kilometers). Both glaciers have thinned substantially.
McCarty Glacier melt, Alaska
July 30, 1909 – August 11, 2004
The 1909 photograph shows the west side of the terminus of McCarty Glacier. In the 2004 image, the terminus has retreated about 9 miles (15 kilometers) to the north. The area in the foreground, which had been covered by glacial deposits, is now open ocean water, thanks to the melting of glacier ice under the sediment deposits. The former barren zone and adjacent hillside are now covered by dense vegetation.
Temperature will remain within a few tenths of a degree of the red curve defined by the logarithm of CO2 concentration – as in the picture below.
By 2025, the annual average will surpass the recent El Nino more than half the time.
By 2030, not even a strong La Nina will be enough to fall below 2016’s average temperature.
WHF,
That’s a good way to present the data. Do you have any comment on how important CO2e (i.e. including methane etc.) is compared with just using CO2? Possibly CO2e has been closely correlated with CO2 and therefore doesn’t modify the trend, but in recent years methane growth has accelerated and may continue to do so if some of the worse scenarios proposed for the permafrost in the high latitudes play out.
In the chart below – is the levelling out in 2075 possible given the recent findings of growing CO2 release from soils, or would there need to be actual extraction from the atmosphere as well?
A graphic assumption is still an assumption, and yours is incorrect, since 2015-16 is an outlier due to be El Niño years, and we know temperature is not correlated to CO2 on El Niño years.
A deceitful graphic indeed. You have no way of knowing if the graphic could be like the one below or any other of the infinite possibilities. Your temperature predictions for 2025 and 2030 are bonkers. They are not going to happen.
wehappyfew said”Temperature will remain within a few tenths of a degree of the red curve defined by the logarithm of CO2 concentration – as in the picture below.”
Only if GHG was the only source of extra heating, which it is not. The snow fields and icecaps are all reducing in albedo due to melt ponds, changes in formation, carbon deposits, and much earlier bare ground in the spring. Also the Arctic Ocean now has much more exposed water surface than before, decreasing albedo in the region.
All of that is increasing the heating in the northern regions as an additional source of radiative forcing. So the temperature will rise faster than the projected line.
Other short term forcings cause heat pulses to occur, increasing the melt and changes in snow reflectivity.
George and GoneFishing,
You are both right that CO2 is not the only forcing, but it is the largest by a good bit… 1.94 out of the 2.97 W/m^2 total for all the well-mixed green house gasses.
The increases in the other gasses are mostly well correlated to CO2, however, so this simple regression captures the effect of the other gasses. CO2 acts as a proxy for all the other GHGs.
Their correlation is not perfect, and recently the CFCs have been declining due to the effect of the Montreal Protocol. Methane was flat for a while, and has recently started increasing again. The HCFCs are increasing exponentially as they replace CFCs.
GF’s point about albedo is extremely important.
The regression I show above also captures any warming due to albedo changes up to now, but it cannot be expected to predict future albedo effects, as the change in summer snow and ice may be a highly non-linear function of temperature (and thus CO2 levels in the atmosphere).
So far, summer ice and snow have been declining steadily, but close to linearly, so the regression is not failing yet. I am not at all confident we can rely on that to continue much longer. So we should expect some deviation from the simple logarithmic curve of CO2 alone. It will climb above the red line if albedo feedbacks take off. It will fall below if we take vigorous action to control methane, NO2 and H/CFCs.
Another forcing not accounted for is human aerosols. Current warming is partially masked by dirty coal from China and India. As they clean up their energy production, there will be a one-off upward shift in temperatures relative to the predicted red line.
And, of course, the future is hard to predict, so George’s question about the effectiveness of soils and other current sinks is very important. I think it is the height of hubris to confidently continue emitting CO2 (and the other GHGs), expecting everything will be just fine.
There are so many possible feedbacks due to warming and sea level rise. When our most productive coastal and estuarine farmland and wetlands are under a few meters of rising seas, how much methane will they emit?
…
(… and DFTT …)
And to throw the big wrench in the works, the atmosphere controls 70 percent of the radiation into and out of the planet. A change in clouds and haze can overwhelm the effects of GHG gases in either direction.
Happy New Year, it only gets weirder from here. Enjoy it.
Humans could NEVER do anything to fuck up the atmosphere because it is just SOOO HUGE!!!
See than thin blue line? That is our atmosphere. Put a dime flat against a classroom globe, and you will see how very thin the layer of air that protects us from the intense cold and harsh radiation of space really is. From @astro_reid on the ISS this week.
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What a truly great message (and picture) to end the year with: you NEVER fail us Fred. Happy New Year!
Live long and prosper.
Right now the heat of fusion of ice melt is stifling the non-linearity. As the snow and ice disappears, then a new order of non-linearity will exhibit itself. The next few generations have a lot to look forward to.
If we allow market forces to continue replacing fossil fuels with cheaper and more abundant renewables, we might achieve the following path of CO2 and temperature – the red line predicts the temperature plus or minus a few tenths due to natural variations.
CO2 is assumed to continue accelerating until 2030, then deccelerate at twice the previous rate of acceleration, finally topping out at 506 ppm around 2075 (not shown, because it is silly to try to predict the actual trajectory that far out).
I view this as a best case scenario. It assumes the enormous vested interests of fossil fuel asset owners like Fox News and the Trump cronies are not very successful at propping up their oligarchic control of our current energy system by prevent competition from renewables.
Very little will be accomplished if the rate of fossil fuel use is slowed but the total is maximized, i.e. a mix of energies are continued as long as possible. It will merely extend the curve and possibly make the maximum temperature higher due to increasing natural feedbacks along with finding better ways to extract fossil fuels.
Record annual increase of carbon dioxide observed at Mauna Loa for 2015
“Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” Tans said. “It’s explosive compared to natural processes.”
Levels of the greenhouse gas were independently measured by NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In February 2016, the average global atmospheric CO2 level stood at 402.59 ppm. Prior to 1800, atmospheric CO2 averaged about 280 ppm.
The last time the Earth experienced such a sustained CO2 increase was between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago, when CO2 levels increased by 80 ppm. Today’s rate of increase is 200 times faster, said Tans.
I guess that’s just not fast enough, eh? Maybe we should wait until it’s 400 times as fast…
But Fred (I’m sure you know this) CO2 is just one greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases are one of many factors affecting climate. So, expecting a perfect correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is a common mistake because if there’s a major change in another climate forcing, such as Arctic albedo, correlations will be obscured — correlations will ALWAYS be obscured.
correlations will ALWAYS be obscured.
Hmm, I’m not so sure about that… 😉
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Doug, correlation through natural feedbacks. The warmer it gets the more humid the atmosphere. The warmer it gets the more CO2 from land and water sources back into the atmosphere.
So the apparent correlation is multi-factored. Methane gets in there too, but don’t tell anybody.
Humans may have kick started the process, but it’s going to be a long time before the process ends, long after we stop putting CO2 into the air.
Humans may have kick started the process
Unlikely since global warming started around 1850, long before emissions became significant.
It is possible that some warming was caused by forest reduction for agricultural use, the burning of coal which started in the 1600’s. It may not have been enough to compensate for the natural cooling. As for the 1800’s there is mixed results there due to a large amount of volcanic activity and the resulting warming after the aerosols dissipated. So I see you are starting the New Year off as usual.
“It assumes the enormous vested interests of fossil fuel asset owners like Fox News and the Trump cronies are not very successful at propping up their oligarchic control of our current energy system by prevent competition from renewables.”
This is what the election of 2016 was all about. Not emails or a wall, those were just tools to get to the objective. Teflon Don is just the lubricant used before it’s going to be stuck up your rectum . Now bend over.
Not every scientist is on board with climate change science, something has to be done and fast.
Ivar Giaevar, a Nobel laureate, says global warming is a hoax.
After listening to a climate change denier’s propaganda and lies for almost thirty minutes, it is easy to see how some folks can become climate change deniers themselves after a thorough brainwashing using the propaganda disseminated by the anti AGW educated knuckoheads.
You just can’t trust some scientists, you know how they lie all of the time.
Probably should be locked up for a long time. They’re too dangerous, a threat to all life on the planet.
A few years in a gulag, a re-education camp, should solve a lot of problems. It is for their own good and the good of humanity. Alexander Solzhenitsyn would agree. We need a special police force to identify and round up these scientists who are obviously deluded by their own findings and evidence to counter the incontrovertible evidence of climate science. A Stasi like network of informants needs to be organized.
The science is settled and any more new, dubious science challenging the incontrovertible evidence of climate change must be nipped in the bud.
Prison will work wonders on their brains. Their empty heads are filled with wrong facts discovered by the wrong evidence using the wrong data gathered from wrong observations drawing the wrong conclusions.
Really should force the knaves and fools of the Nobel Prize committee to fall in line or threaten incarceration for insubordination. There must be a price to pay, prosecution and imprisonment is really the only solution.
Yeah, right.
After listening to a climate change denier’s propaganda and lies for almost thirty minutes, it is easy to see how some folks can become climate change deniers themselves after a thorough brainwashing using the propaganda disseminated by the anti AGW educated knuckoheads.
Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources Site No Longer Says Humans Cause Climate Change
“The website of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources has been updated with new language and no longer says that humans and greenhouse emissions cause climate change. Instead, the site says that the causes of global warming “are being debated and researched by academic entities.”
Republican Gov. Scott Walker who took office in 2011 is an avowed climate skeptic.
Welcome to the New Dark Ages! In Wisconsin they also say they are still unsure why an apple fell on Newton’s head, as it is still being debated and researched by academic entities, Gravity is only one of many theories…
Maybe we can reduce global warming by putting a big sun shade over Wisconsin. Humans didn’t do it, it’s natural.
Done!
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Hey Fred, your going to need a cabana to cover the state of Florida. Your buddy Rick Scott doesn’t even allow the words “Climate Change” to be said.
Conservatives, one step forward, three step back
True, but at least the Mayor of Miami has been allocating funds to sea level rise mitigation. You can’t argue against sea level rise when Cthulhu’s scouts are swimming in your parking garages around the cars…
A bit late but…
It’s beginning to look a lot like fish-men
Watch out Fred, now that the sun shade is over Wisconsin, they will be headed your way.
Fortunately he will be dead of old age soon enough!
There you show the kind of person you are.
I’m just a realist and anyone in his nineties is not likely to be long for this world. But I readily admit I have a profound dislike of his ilk!
Sometimes the convincing force is just time itself and the human toll it takes, Kuhn said, using a quote from Max Planck: “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it
Thomas Khun on Paradigm shifts in Science
Hey, at least I’m willing to wait until the old fogey passes of natural causes and I don’t advocate blowing his brains out like some people, when talking about climate scientists…
IF
IF, mind you, meaning everybody,
IF ones steps back far enough from the mad house to truly come to appreciate and understand that humans really are just nekkid (deliberate spelling) apes under their clothes, the warming controversy makes sense instantly.
It’s not about facts, it’s about partisanship, it’s about “me your friend, that there guy over there him you enemy cause he heretic, he believe bad thing, cause you much trouble”
Me you , we know better, maybe we shut him up, heh? .
There are a FEW people who are serious students of climate who really do believe forced warming is minor, and will not be a serious problem. There are many times as many who have put in as much time as the members of the ” be happy don’t worry” camp who believe otherwise.
Then there are the trolls, the sort who don’t know anything but just post talking points or obviously ridiculous arguments , because they are conservatives, and hate liberals, and Democrats, and therefore believe forced warming is a hoax. I’m fairly sure hardly any of the ones who show up here get paid, because they don’t post enough to justify pay.
Then there are professional mouthpieces, who may actually know quite a lot, but post only such data as supports their position, and ignore all other evidence. They DO stick around. They may or may not be paid. Some of them are probably DONATING their time to defend their industries, and or their personal professional beliefs.
Except in the case of very simple ( relatively speaking ) problems, such as what happens in lab experiments, most real world events do happen in such a way that there are INDICATIONS ( evidence, or some things that can be interpreted as evidence) that the cause may be one thing, or another thing, or a combination of things, or simply an accident without any particular precipitating cause at all, or the consequence of a natural trend.
A term that has not so far as I have noticed been introduced into the discussion HERE in this forum is the “preponderance of evidence” principle that is used in reaching a decision in courts of law.
Now my personal opinion is that a forum such as this one has great or at least potentially great value as an educational resource. It is quite obvious that any undergrad who wants to write a research paper about fossil fuels or renewable energy can find LOTS of good solid data here, such as charts produced by various government agencies, or collected by the various industries, or gathered by the authors of the key posts here. There are tons of good links.
It’s also quite possible that some people who are truly open minded, or capable of critical thinking, are lurking here, and learning quite a bit by reading the exchanges between various forum members.
Those of us who believe that forced warming is a real problem and that it will get worse as time passes need to remind the new reader or long time lurker that in the case of laboratory work, you can talk in absolute terms.
But in observing REAL WORLD phenomena, the data are ALWAYS messy, and there will always be some observations made, some examples to be found, that do not mesh with any theory that explains ALL THE OTHER data, which in the case of warming is many times greater in volume.
It behooves us to mention the preponderance of the evidence rule when we comment, so as to better earn the respect and attention of readers who are not so well informed, technically , as fellows such as Fred or Doug or Dennis or WHT, etc.
Simply DENYING that Javier has SOME evidence supporting his position is a MISTAKE, in terms of earning the trust of a layman. Most likely, a FATAL mistake.
I am, if I say so myself, a little better informed than the average bear, and when I catch somebody in an obvious lie, or deliberately distorting facts to the point that he might as well be lying, he loses my trust, and getting it back is very hard to impossible.
When a layman hears a person say everything Javier has to say is bullshit, and he KNOWS that SOME things Javier says are true, he is more apt to trust Javier than the person who says Javier is NOTHING BUT a bullshitter. ( Whether he is, or is not, in fact nothing but a bullshitter is irrelevant to my point, which is that the impression made on the layman listening in will figure heavily in determining what the layman believes, and who he will more likely vote for, next election. )
Know one understands repeating bullshit better than the hate Hillary local leader. Repeat a lie enough times and 90% will believe it. Yes, you do know how it works.
I posted a comment a couple of days ago that I had just about beaten the Hillary horse to a pulp, and that it was time to move on.
My intention was to get on with a discussion of the future path and identity of the D party.
But if you WANT to insult me by going back………..
You probably can’t even drive car with a stick shift, never mind a real truck, and you certainly can’t win any sort of debate with me, because you are coming to a gun fight without even a rock, never mind a knife.
You need weapons in a fight, of any sort, and in this one, you need either wits or facts, or both, as weapons. You don’t have much in the way of either.
ANYBODY who is even REMOTELY interested in an accurate and impartial evaluation of this last election, as viewed by an outsider, in the sense of a knowledgeable observer of politics, or an athletic contest, must agree with me that Clinton was a badly flawed candidate, and that she ran a piss poor campaign, ignoring the working class voters in the three big Rust Belt states that cost her the election, etc.
I find I must retract my earlier comment that you went up in my personal estimation.
Keep your head buried in the sand, and run another D candidate , in 2020, who has negatives even two thirds as high as Clinton’s, going into the election, IF such a pathetic candidate can even be FOUND , and watch the R’s mop the floor with the D’s one more time.
You are simply too far gone a true believer to even CONSIDER the possibility that your heroine could ever have been wrong about any thing, or that she ever made any major political mistakes, or that she ever displayed a colossal lack of judgement and corresponding excess of arrogance.
Now why don’t you tell us why the R’s mopped the floor with the D’s so many times, in so many elections, from dog catcher to president, in recent years?
Is it because the people of this country, taken as a whole, are stupid, in your opinion?
I am SURE that in your opinion it has NOTHING to do with HRC’s overreaching in certain respects, such as doing her best to force thru major changes during Bill’s tenure in our health care system, with virtually all of the planning done SECRETLY.
You may have forgotten about that, but I can assure you that a LOT of people who either stayed home or voted for Trump remembered. Then they gave some additional thought to the secret email system. They apparently concluded that she likes in in the shadows, and that sort of scares most voters.
And OF COURSE it’s the R party’s fault she lost because the R’s emphasized what SHE did??
I am sure that in your opinion she never miscalculated concerning the views of many many tens of millions of American citizens who, whether YOU like it or not, are entitled to decide for themselves what their cultural and ethical values should be, and so lost just about all the country, excepting the places with large cities.
I am sure that in your opinion that one of my neighbors, who I just hired for the day, so he will have enough money to feed his kids this week, should be GRATEFUL for globalization, even though he was making sixteen bucks with excellent bennies on the first job he lost to globalization, and all the overtime he wanted, with excellent prospects for advancement, and then he lost a SECOND job, same reason, plant closed, work sent overseas, and believe it or not, a third one, same reason.
He may be a local record holder in this respect, I wouldn’t know, but he is a skilled mechanic, and went from one job to the next in the same industry, and one company after another moved out on him. He was good enough that he got hired TWICE by companies that were downsizing even as they hired him, given his sterling recommendations from his previous employers, do ya get it?
Hey, I know, he’s my nephew.
So now the best work he’s been able to find pays less than eleven bucks, with the possibility of a buck or so more soon, to be sure, but the bennies will never be very good.
Do you think he blamed this bad luck on TRUMP ( who is even worse than Clinton, but was at least NOT an office holder promoting globalization), or Clinton??
True believers never get it, and you never will.
But a very large fraction of the D party as a whole, after thinking it over for a while, GETS IT NOW, in the aftermath, and there is a real fight going on now for the soul of the party.
I was planning on moving on to that fight.
If you wish to continue discussing HRC, I’m ready.
You often post links to the Huffington Post , which I read quite often, although I do not agree with everything I read there.
Shall we start with a discussion of the contents of THIS link?
There are more, plenty more, along the same general lines at the HP. I’ve read them myself.
Are you going to accuse me of cherry picking right wing propaganda?
You probably would, except I have courteously prevented you from making such a stupid mistake by reminding you that you post stuff from the HP.
I am REALLY going to enjoy seeing just how long it will take you to figure out that by pointing at ME as the problem, when your CANDIDATE was the problem, you are doing the D party a disservice.
I fear I might die of old age first. 😉
You may have forgotten already, but I did what I could to help Sanders get the nomination, considering my personal situation.
You enjoy playing the nose in the air, I’m morally superior games, and you make fun of me for saying tongue in cheek dry humor style that I want to get away from oil, but not until I wear out my oil fired machinery…………
And then you tell us how proud you are that you have HIGHLY PROFITABLE INVESTMENTS in the oil industry.
Talk about talking the environmental talk, then walking the capital piglet’s walk!!!
( Full disclosure, I am a capital piglet myself, but I have never owned any stocks, or bonds, etc, except indirectly as part of a mandatory pension plan associated with a job or two I have held in the past. My money is in things that can’t be counterfeited, or easily substituted, or shipped overseas, or that might conceivably be made obsolete by new technology. )
WOW!
I don’ think you could make it any easier for me, but I am beginning to wonder.
“you are doing the D party a disservice.”
Oh Mr. Email Server, I’ll never match the crap you posted for a year before the election. 2020 is a long way off. Who says we will even make it there with captain fascist at the helm.
Let me know if you need to borrow some money for the repair of the clutch in your baby pickup. I enjoy doing charity loans.
I see you are reduced entirely to personal insults at this point.
You remind me of some BADLY spoiled children I have encountered from time to time.
In exchange for this insult, I am going to post a few paragraphs from the HP link I put in my earlier comment.
XXXX
They said they were facing an economic apocalypse, we offered “retraining” and complained about their white privilege. Is it any wonder we lost? One after another, the dispatches came back from the provinces. The coal mines are gone, the steel mills are closed, the drugs are rampant, the towns are decimated and everywhere you look depression, despair, fear. In the face of Trump’s willingness to boldly proclaim without facts or evidence that he would bring the good times back, we offered a tepid gallows logic. Well, those jobs are actually gone for good, we knowingly told them. And we offered a fantastical non-solution. We will retrain you for good jobs! Never mind that these “good jobs” didn’t exist in East Kentucky or Cleveland. And as a final insult, we lectured a struggling people watching their kids die of drug overdoses about their white privilege. Can you blame them for calling bullshit? All Trump could offer was white nationalism as protection against competing with black and brown people. It wasn’t a very compelling case, but it was vastly superior to a candidate who enthusiastically backed NAFTA, seems most at ease in a room of Goldman Sachs bankers and was almost certain to do nothing for these towns other than maybe setting up a local chapter of Rednecks Who Code. We bet that Trump’s manifest awfulness would be enough to let us eke out a win. We were dead wrong. Here’s my version of the Democratic Party autopsy because, make no mistake, the old ways of the Democratic party must die.
I’M having fun. HOW ‘BOUT YOU?
Post another personal insult, and I will post another paragraph.
Aw, I’m having so much fun I will just post another one anyway.
Note that this was written by a real big D Democrat.
xxxxx
Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings were obvious from the beginning to anyone who bothered to open their eyes. I wasn’t the only one who saw before she ever entered the race that a card-carrying member of the global elite who helped usher in this era of record-breaking inequality was hardly the best fit for the moment. It’s hard not to feel let down by people like Vice President Biden and Senator Warren who clearly saw the problems with Hillary but didn’t step up for their nation when they were called. Bernie did his level best but couldn’t compete against a party terrified of the modest radicalism that made him so appealing. I do believe that a different candidate would have led to a different outcome. But Hillary’s coronation is also proof that the problems in the Democratic Party run much deeper than just one candidate. There’s a reason why nearly the entire party rose up to stomp out the promise of Bernie Sanders candidacy.
xxxx
Hell’s bells, electrons are dirt cheap, and Dennis will probably post a new open thread soon, so maybe I better poke you in the eye with another sharp stick while the poking will still be in the best spot.
You don’t NEED the eye any way, metaphorically, because it’s clear enough you are blind, politically speaking.
xxxx
Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings were obvious from the beginning to anyone who bothered to open their eyes. I wasn’t the only one who saw before she ever entered the race that a card-carrying member of the global elite who helped usher in this era of record-breaking inequality was hardly the best fit for the moment. It’s hard not to feel let down by people like Vice President Biden and Senator Warren who clearly saw the problems with Hillary but didn’t step up for their nation when they were called. Bernie did his level best but couldn’t compete against a party terrified of the modest radicalism that made him so appealing. I do believe that a different candidate would have led to a different outcome. But Hillary’s coronation is also proof that the problems in the Democratic Party run much deeper than just one candidate. There’s a reason why nearly the entire party rose up to stomp out the promise of Bernie Sanders candidacy.
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Might as well get in ONE more, just for good measure, ’cause my old Daddy taught me to always deliver full measure , plus a little more, to any regular customer, in order to ensure good word of mouth and lots of repeat business.
You are the BEST customer I have, in terms of helping me get my arguments across about what the D’s need to do to WIN.
So here’s a few more apples for your basket!
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The slow drift in the Democratic Party was long in the making. It’s been many years since the Democratic Party decided to throw their lot in with the shiny world of corporate professionals, Wall Street financiers, and Silicon Valley gurus. We accepted the decline of unions as inevitable (it wasn’t), didn’t bother even trying to come up with an alternative source of worker power and embraced the new politics of money even as we talked out the other side of our mouths about oh how terrible all this flood of cash in politics is. If you just send in one more donation we’ll be able to get the money out! There was an incredibly revealing moment at the DNC. In an effort to rev up the crowd one of the speakers called out: “Who in this room works with their hands?” Silence. It was a lot more than one candidate who led us to this place.
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You want to play some more?
If I were willing to leave my old Daddy with a hired sitter,I could be out having a hell of a good time, it’s PARTY TIME tonight!
I might even get laid, there are some older women around who have indicated they are interested either in me or my farm, lol, I’m not sure which.
But Daddy doesn’t deal well anymore with people he hasn’t known for a LONG time, and I’m one of those ignorant deplorable types who thinks it’s cool to HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER , even though I am a fully committed Darwinist ( not the left wing definition of Darwinist, as equivalent to a slave trader, etc. )
I’m the sort of Darwinist who has actually read Darwin. I am beginning to think you haven’t read anything relating to politics that hasn’t passed muster with the Clinton team’s censors, other than my comments here in this forum.
You deny reading them, supposedly because they are too long ( indicating perhaps that you are either a slow reader, or have a rather limited attention span?) but you DO read them, as evidenced by the fact you keep on posting replies, lol.
“or have a rather limited attention span?”
OK, you got me. My head starts to nod when I read your posts.
“If you wish to continue discussing HRC, I’m ready.”
Bud, that ship has sailed. You need your next target.
He doesn’t even remember she won the popular vote, nor seems to care about the result. Keeps shooting the dead horse over and over.
I am damned surprised to read this comment, coming from you , GF.
She lost the fucking ELECTION, which is what actually MATTERS.
We can debate this forever, and so long as you and most other big D partisans insist on looking at it as being the fault of the opposition that Clinton lost, then there’s little prospect of the D party exhibiting brains enough NEXT time around to run a candidate with favorable poll numbers, a smidgen of charisma, a candidate without a dead fish stink reaching back to the earliest days, a candidate that bend the rules the rest of us are expected to follow into pretzels and then says it was merely for convenience she did so………. etc etc etc…….. a candidate who hardly even BOTHERED to talk a little working class talk, but STRUTTED the corporate elite walk, brazenly taking millions of dollars in in CHECKS made out to her name………
………… Oh that’s right, all that dead fish stink is a figment of right wingers imagination. Even if this happens to be the literal truth, the PERCEPTION of the same remained in the eyes of enough voters in enough places that Clinton lost.
And pardon me ever so much for saying so, but if you actually think I don’t CARE ABOUT THE RESULT, well, I am afraid you must have an intellectual blind spot comparable to that exhibited by HB.
You guys hang together in there , in your happy little lotus dream land, and shoot all the messengers who arrive with news or facts you would rather not deal with.
With friends like you, the D party doesn’t NEED any enemies.
Hmm, yelling and swearing, how pleasant.
No, I am not a Democrat but I don’t like people to be constantly crucified. To what purpose do you keep harping on about her? Is she bothering you personally?
Yes, it was the opposition that caused Hillary to lose, they kept pounding her with all kinds of allegations, got the FBI involved and ran her ragged. The same people that flaunt the Constitution on a regular basis. So it looks like 30 percent of the people don’t like the Constitution or the USA. They want it different, so they will get it different.
Sanders was a flop, so who else was there?
Keep on shooting at Hillary. The rest of us have moved on. We are now a neo-republican republic because about 29 percent of the voters voted for Trump. Trump is in, why not talk about him?
How about the Russian connection? How about the dismantling of health care? Lots of important things to talk about, rather than a personal vendetta against Clinton, who is no longer in the picture.
HuntingtonBeach frequently responds with insults and attacks to people that don’t think like he does. Surprisingly he seems to have a high concept of himself.
Just because there is variance in the data does not imply that the accepted science of climate and geophysics is wrong. Short term variations are interesting, local weather phenomenon like La Nina and El Nino are interesting, but not sources of energy or long term climate changing phenomenon.
What is apparent when deniers and contrarians present their alternative science, opinions and conclusions is a lack of understanding of basic physical phenomena.
The weakness in the case of climate change is the large number of variables involved and that weather is very variable by nature. This very variability can be used to the advantage of those who do not want to recognize that the planet is warming and that our actions were and are the initiator of that warming. Sadly as the temperature rises, the variability increases giving more opportunity to twist reality.
I have found horrendous errors of judgment in many of the contrarian scientific papers. It looks like science but it is not. One might accept them at the middle school and high school level, but once they are exposed by those at a higher level of knowledge, the conclusions and methods disintegrate.
One of the big errors of most scientists is they do not spend enough time examining and refuting those papers. Instead they spend most of their time trying to expand knowledge and make progress in understanding our world. Many scientists do lack a strong ability to communicate to the public, so they are at a disadvantage there also. They also do not like opinion or make claims not supported by evidence or the extrapolation of evidence.
Any real scientist realizes the error ranges and variations allow for other interpretations, but do not throw away the basic physical science behind natural phenomena. They do not throw out the baby with the bath water. To do so would mean most of what we have learned and done so far is wrong, and we know that is not true.
GoneFishing, you don’t seem to have a good understanding of the issue. Basic physics admits equally well a high climate sensitivity and a low climate sensitivity and our knowledge of the feedbacks involved is so poor that in some cases we don’t even know their sign.
Both catastrophic and moderate anthropogenic climate change are physically correct, and the evidence does not support the catastrophic interpretation.
This very variability can be used to the advantage of those who do not want to recognize that the planet is warming and that our actions were and are the initiator of that warming.
Almost nobody doubts that the planet has warmed. The evidence is very solid. But the warming started around 1850, so our actions could hardly have initiated it. One of the main problems with catastrophic alarmists is their efforts to rewrite the climate history of the planet so to make it look like there has never been any warming not caused by GHGs. Having to rewrite history to support your cause is a pretty good indicator that you are wrong.
Your premise that global warming started in 1850 is wrong. According to ice cores it started about 20,000 years ago. There had been a long term global cooling trend prior to the 1800’s. Actual warming in the early 1800’s is compromised by large volcanic eruptions causing cooling then warming after the aerosols dispersed.
As far as human activity is concerned they had been eradicating forests for agriculture for a very long time, had been burning coal since the 1600’s and the industrial revolution was well on it’s way by 1850.
Research indicates a long term involvement of successive volcanic eruptions causing global cooling up to 1800.
Abstract
The oceans mediate the response of global climate to natural and anthropogenic forcings. Yet for the past 2,000 years — a key interval for understanding the present and future climate response to these forcings — global sea surface temperature changes and the underlying driving mechanisms are poorly constrained. Here we present a global synthesis of sea surface temperatures for the Common Era (ce) derived from 57 individual marine reconstructions that meet strict quality control criteria. We observe a cooling trend from 1 to 1800 ce that is robust against explicit tests for potential biases in the reconstructions. Between 801 and 1800 ce, the surface cooling trend is qualitatively consistent with an independent synthesis of terrestrial temperature reconstructions, and with a sea surface temperature composite derived from an ensemble of climate model simulations using best estimates of past external radiative forcings. Climate simulations using single and cumulative forcings suggest that the ocean surface cooling trend from 801 to 1800 ce is not primarily a response to orbital forcing but arises from a high frequency of explosive volcanism. Our results show that repeated clusters of volcanic eruptions can induce a net negative radiative forcing that results in a centennial and global scale cooling trend via a decline in mixed-layer oceanic heat content. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n9/full/ngeo2510.html
text of the paper http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/23465/1/Ocean2k_LowResSSTpaper_45.pdf http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n9/full/ngeo2510.html
So you can see that the cooling trend was overcome by increasing GHG’s and that earlier warming had several components, including reduction of the volcanic aerosols and natural feedbacks related to them, as well as agricultural and forest reduction components.
One must understand all the factors involved in cooling and warming. Try it, it is illuminating.
But the warming started around 1850, so our actions could hardly have initiated it.
Oh yeah, the warming started in 1850 on March 14th at 2:15:38 PM… well, give or take a few seconds, their instruments weren’t very precise back then. So there is NO chance that anything humans did before 1850 had anything to do with changing the climate. And there is no such thing as a lag effect in any physical system. So when you put a kettle of water on the fire it goes poof, instant steam!
So even if you discount all the impacts of the 10,000 years or so of human agricultural development, on the environment and the climate, due to deforestation and burning of wood, you still have to accept that by the mid 1700’s coal was being burned and the industrial revolution was well on its way by 1850.
The steam engine was also integral to industrialization. In 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) developed the first practical steam engine (which was used primarily to pump water out of mines). By the 1770s, Scottish inventor James Watt (1736-1819) had improved on Newcomen’s work, and the steam engine went on to power machinery, locomotives and ships during the Industrial Revolution.
Furthermore science already understood the affects of burning cabon based fuels and the consequences of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere by the late 1800’s.
Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) was a Swedish scientist that was the first to claim in 1896 that fossil fuel combustion may eventually result in enhanced global warming. He proposed a relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature. He found that the average surface temperature of the earth is about 15C because of the infrared absorption capacity of water vapor and carbon dioxide. This is called the natural greenhouse effect. Arrhenius suggested a doubling of the CO2 concentration would lead to a 5C temperature rise. He and Thomas Chamberlin calculated that human activities could warm the earth by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This research was a by-product of research of whether carbon dioxide would explain the causes of the great Ice Ages. This was not actually verified until 1987.
The industrial revolution initially only affected a small percentage of the surface of the planet, and only a small population. It was not until after the second world war when most of the world industrialized. Prior to the Little Ice Age the general temperature trend of the Neoglacial period for the last 5000 years was downwards, despite rising GHGs.
Present global warming started around 1850 and was driven mainly by natural factors.
You can argue about the facts as much as you want, but they are stubborn.
The American West appears to be in a long term drought. flows of the Colorado river have been on the descent for over one hundred years. The variability and range of the flows also appears to be increasing. Climate change is pushing the trend toward lower flows. This would not normally be a major problem, as migration could occur away from severe drought areas. In modern times the very large populations in the deserts as well as the large agriculture/industrial use of water is quickly compounding the problem. The Colorado reservoir system holds about 4 times the annual flow of the river, yet it too has been stressed lately, reducing reservoirs to the point of being below the output pipe.
Upper Colorado River Basin
Flows and Paleohydrology
“Conclusions
The observed streamflow record at Lees Ferry provides over one hundred years of data
indicating a trend of decreasing annual flow from the Upper Colorado River Basin. However, this
dataset is not long enough to encompass the full range of variability in the system. A number of
tree-ring streamflow reconstructions have been able to extend the flow record as far back as
800 C.E. These models not only confirm that the 20th century was a particularly wet period, but
that past droughts in the 16th and 12th centuries have been much more severe and longer
lasting than in the observed streamflow record. Furthermore, general climate projections for the
southwest indicate warmer temperatures and drier conditions, with severe drought conditions
likely for the late 21st century.
In a watershed that is over allocated due to negotiations for the 1922 Colorado Compact based
on a wet period, with growing water demands for an increasing population as well as
management for conservation of freshwater ecosystems in the region, water resource managers
are faced with the challenges of balancing these competing water needs in a future that will
likely have scarcer water resources.”
There’s certainly a NON ZERO chance that the current trend toward a much more arid climate in the Southwest will reverse itself, and wetter conditions will return. Do you detect a bit of sarcasm in this statement? It’s intended to be there.
BUT the odds DO appear to be pretty good that the current drought will last quite a long time, with maybe a few minor wet spells along the way. The tone of THIS second sentence can be taken as sarcastic, but it’s intended to be read literally, and by pretty good,I mean two or maybe three to one, simply going on past indications.
( This comment is directed at the forum rather than just GF, past this point. )
It’s hard to imagine how those of us who do obviously know some real science can look at the many ominous trends involving the climate, and the obvious depletion of Mother Nature’s one time gift of fossil fuels, and never mention whether they believe in the precautionary principle, as a matter of their general philosophical beliefs , and if so, why they apparently believe we can safely ignore this same precautionary principle in respect to climate troubles and fossil fuel troubles.
I’m not a physician, but I know enough to know that a potential or actual health problem caught in time can often – most of the time, actually- be successfully treated, and at an affordable cost.
I AM a good mechanic, and can say with assurance that if you see green or yellow or orange liquids , which are invariably leaking coolant, or oil , on the ground under your car, you had best look into the problem IMMEDIATELY, because fixing a leak is cheap, whereas new engines and transmissions are VERY expensive.
Anybody who appreciates the day to day realities of environmental science, or public health, or personal finances, or any number of other subjects, knows that there are MANY problems that start small and can easily be ignored or overlooked altogether until it’s just plain flat TOO LATE to do anything but cry about the consequences.
I cried at the funeral of a very close friend of forty years a while back. He was a brilliant man, in many respects, but he chose to ignore what he knew to be true about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, and regularly indulged in both. The cancer that killed him is about three or four times as common among men who both smoke and drink as it is among non drinking non smoking men. It was detected too late to do more than extend his life a few months. If he had had a BETTER physician, it would have been detected MUCH sooner, because the signs were obvious, but the proper PRECAUTIONARY tests were not ordered.
LIFE ITSELF is a VERY messy business. ALMOST all of us, meaning everything alive, possibly excepting a few deep earth microbes that live on minerals and may not actually have any predators, spend just about all our energy trying to eat some other living creature, or avoiding being eaten , with whatever is left over devoted to reproduction.
Rats and mice don’t give a shit if there is any corn in my crib for ME, but they do shit in and on whatever they can’t eat themselves.
Step back far enough, and it’s obvious that all our human social institutions are also MESSY indeed, with those who are trying to game any given institution, agency, organization, etc being very numerous, meaning these same organizations, etc, spend a huge portion of their resources not on their primary goals, but simply on defending themselves and ensuring their own continued existence.
My point is that huge quantities of resources that are are in the considered opinion of SOME people going entirely to waste are in the opinions of OTHERS being used very wisely indeed.
Personally I have near zero interest in professional sports, but since I played a little baseball as a kid, I will watch a World Series game if invited over to a friends house and the game is on. But I consider it a near total waste of public resources to spend tax money subsidizing baseball or any other sport. The guys who build the stadiums will heartily disagree of course, as will the fans who pay rip off prices for tickets, but those same construction workers COULD be build something useful to EVERYBODY , rather than just the people who have skin in the business of the GAME and those watch the game.
Bitching about this use of tax money is not my object. I am simply trying to point out that nearly anything we do is done with a great part of the energy and effort being wasted, and with some of us winning, and some losing, depending on what is built , or what policy is implemented, etc.
Whatever we do to goose the growth of the renewable energy industries and slow down the rate at which we use fossil fuels will obviously mean people who work in the conventional energy industries will suffer some harm.
But if we FAIL to speed up the growth of the renewable energy industries, and slow down the consumption of fossil fuels, NOW, well………… by the time collectively realize we have a fossil fuel depletion cancer gnawing at the guts of the industrial economy, it may be too late to do anything about it.
The same argument applies to the climate issue, of course, but I’m working on refining and polishing arguments in favor of renewables, etc, that are likely to be favorably received by the typical man and woman on the street.
Any comments are much appreciated, especially those that point out ways I can make such arguments more effectively, or that point out anything I have overlooked.
Tipping a few tonight Old Farmer? As far as the drought goes, I will go with the science and scientists that the drought will get deeper over time. Of course there will be wet times, but the long downtrend is visible as are the burning forests .
There is a possibility that renewables will become lock-stepped to the reduction in fossil fuel production. As fossil fuel depletes or is phased out, renewables will grow. This could cause a very long fossil fuel tail.
Some countries will phase out early while others stay with fossil fuel for as long as possible. Short of a trade restriction on fossil fuels and fossil fueled transport, the industry will keep going for a long time. It won’t make sense, but it is the trend now and in the near past.
Free thought pretzels for everyone.
Imagine the USA (trump) wants to “take” the oil from some unlucky country.
Without a state owned oil company it would be difficult.
The govt could seize the assets of Exxon mobile.
Who would u want in ur cabinet if that was the plan?
Carl Icahn? Legendary corporate raider. Rex tillerson? Former Exxon ceo. General James Matt is who published a paper predicting peak oil.
Let’s not forget trump had said he will take iraqs oil and a Russian carrier group is in the Mediterranean Sea attempting to protect something.
Curious pattern.
Does it really matter ? It’s not like Trump has an Email Server in his bathroom or something.
Oh, we’re going to war. I mean escalate our current status of war. Just wait until someone bombs a Trump hotel. Then he’ll pick which countries oil he wants.
It’s time to start praying to the Baby Jesus
People with working brains who have tried praying generally like it, finding the effects of it on their minds to be very similar to the effects of meditation. As it is practiced in the church the observant members of my family attends, it’s organized around opening ones mind up to any and all courses of behavior that are consistent with the basic teachings of this particular church.
Maybe it’s just an extraordinarily unlikely cosmic accident, but these people are actually doing quite well for themselves, all things considered. They live longer than average, they have far fewer health problems associated with bad habits such as tobacco and alcohol, and they are extremely good at making a go of living well on modest amounts of money.
The large majority of them own houses by the time they are in their thirties that are nicer, more spacious, with larger lawns, garages, etc, than people in not so far distant Northern Virginia own , even though folks up that way are earn WAY WAY more than local folks, on average. Damned few of them rent long term, but a hell of a lot of them are long term landlords. Tons of successful people up DC way have zero equity in a home of their own, even when middle aged.
Folks who actually know a little, first hand, about religion know this:
Prayer changes people, and people change things.
The pastor of “my ” church, although I seldom ever attend a service, goes out of his way to encourage young people to attend any and every local college or university, no matter their intended major, including biology and medicine, and we all know all about those heretics who believe in evolution, right?
I have never personally heard of any local preacher saying climate science is fraudulent, or that there were never any dinosaurs, or that the world is only six thousand years old, or any of the claptrap that is leveled indiscriminately at all religious people, rather than the few who take it seriously.
The Seven Days of Creation story is taught as a parable, although if put on the spot, and forced to say one either believes it, or does not, group solidarity rules, and belief will be the answer.
As a matter of fact, a good many preachers, maybe most of them, are quite fond of quoting scientists, INCLUDING climate scientists, as further proof of the various prophecies of the world going to hell in a hand basket.
This comment is not so much to DEFEND religion as to point out that those who heap scorn on it are making a BIG mistake, in more ways than one.
For one thing, they are spreading misinformation about what most religious folks are really like these days, in terms of their day to day thinking, painting the community as equivalent to the most backward members of it.
Second, they could hardly do any thing more certain to ensure that observant Christians ( there are not a hell of a lot of adherents of other religions in this country, at least not yet ) are already irritated at best, and quite often seriously PISSED OFF, when the time comes to decide what their position will be in respect to any policy advocated by the D party, because most all of the folks who go around bad mouthing observant Christians are well educated liberal big D Democrats, by their own admission.
I do not wish to debate whether it is time to move on to a secular society. There are some very successful European societies that have made the transition, and I personally don’t take the dogma at all seriously. I do try to live according to the philosophy, in terms of doing unto others, etc.
Here is a VERY important observation, one that deserves real thought. I forget who said it first.
When people cease to believe in GOD, they do not henceforth believe in NOTHING.
Folks from other walks of life sometimes express this same concept by way of saying that nature abhors a vacuum.
It behooves us to think hard about what we wish for, because we may get it, and IT may not turn out to be what we expected and wished for.
Now here’s my last joke for the year.
This crabby old lady is sorting thru her junk, and tries to rub the tarnish off an old silver flask. Out comes the genie, and of course she gets the traditional three wishes.
So she thinks about it, and wishes to be young and beautiful again, and BAM, she is better looking that any starlet, and perpetually twenty years old. She wishes some more, and gets herself an isolated tropical island with every thing on it she ever wanted, and bam again, she’s THERE.
So she thinks some more , and tells the genie to fetch her old tomcat, because he is the ONLY creature in the world that loves her, and turn him into a handsome young man who will spend eternity with her on her island, just the two of them.
BAM, he’s there, but he folds his arms, and says I guess now you’re sorry you took me to the vet.
Happy new year everybody. You too , H B.
If you ever run into a genie that will grant you 3 wishes, make sure that your first wish is for an unlimited number of wishes.
The genies’s union back in the beginning got a clause inserted in the general agreement that this one particular wish is not allowed. It still stands. 😉
“but these people are actually doing quite well for themselves, all things considered. They live longer than average, they have far fewer health problems associated with bad habits such as tobacco and alcohol, and they are extremely good at making a go of living well on modest amounts of money.”
Who are you kidding ? Remember, I told you I had summer lake property in South Carolina. Just south of Smoky Mountains National Park. You know, where there is a cemetery and a baptist church at every cross road. Did you know the South has the highest obesity rates in the country and a Buick Road Master is a new car. And by the way, how does “living well on modest amounts of money” fit into your BS about the election being all about “jobs, there’s no jobs” ? Besides Walmart is always hiring.
I am honored by your special call out “You too , H B”. Well, you want to know the truth, your special to me too Mac.
Here’s another one, ” People with working brains “. What does that mean ? Why bother to write that ? I guess your creative juices were flowing of something.
Happy New Years from Smoke’n California Mac (where table dancing is required)
Obviously you have a hard time with nuance.
There are plenty of stupid people who pray, and a lot who are not necessarily stupid but do so as a matter of routine, without seriously getting into it, and thus don’t get the benefits, just as you won’t get the benefits of reading an involved novel with your attention mostly elsewhere. Achieving effective prayer is very much like achieving effective meditation, you have to put some effort and ritual into it, as a rule.
The stupid people still benefit, often to a very great extent, because it reinforces their committment to following all those stupid religious rules, such as honoring one’s parents, not committing adultery, not stealing, practicing charity, being kind to strangers, not eating foods that will potentially kill you ( that one’s now pretty much obsolete in well developed countries with food inspections ). You know, the same old rules, you anti religious types enjoy making fun off, by way of making fun of religion.
Not sleeping around, which does after all have quite a lot to do with preventing broken families, and preventing the spread of STD’s.
Living within your means , and setting aside something on a regular basis for tough times. Contributing back to the community, paying your taxes, refraining from murder, etc.
Now YOU may think I ‘m kidding, but anybody who actually knows and lives among folks who take their religion SERIOUSLY knows I am dead on the money, in respect to those who really do take the teachings of the Christian church seriously.
The original founding documents are prominently displayed on the wall in the church on the hilltop adjacent to our family farm , where most of the last three generations of my grand parents are buried. Those documents prohibit members from indulging in alcohol and tobacco, and while there are obviously quite a few members today who use both, the percentage is much less than in the overall population.
A discussion of the reasons we mostly make less money in this area than people who live up north will take quite a while, from my side, because I do believe in depth and nuance, whereas you are into sound bites.
Sure there are obese people who are serious Christians. But the ones who are really serious are far more apt to be eating at home rather than at KFC, for various reasons, sometimes including lack of a large discretionary income of course. If I see two random busloads of old folks get out at a large restaurant, I can usually pick the one from a Baptist church reliably on the basis of smaller waistlines. Smaller waistlines are well correlated with healthier life styles, and the church promotes a healthy lifestyle.
I live in the heart of a community that is far more observant than the average, even in the south, and my personal estimate is that even here, no more than maybe a quarter of the people are TRULY observant. Maybe half to two thirds observe most of the rules, most of the time.
Half of my local acquaintances never set foot in a church, except for funerals and weddings.
This does not mean however that it doesn’t really piss them off when somebody attacks the south and the traditional culture and values of the local people, and predispose them to vote AGAINST candidates such as HRC.
I don’t think you will EVER get it, because you don’t WANT to get it, but the nut of everything I have been talking about politically that has touched on HRC to any extent for the last year or two is about the D party WINNING elections, rather than losing them.
IF you WANT somebody to be your friend, if you WANT something from people, it behooves you to say as little as possible if you can’t say something nice about them.
Folks like you appear to be incapable of understanding this ever so simple concept, for some reason.
Now it may occur to some readers, but not to you, or you would have accused me of hypocrisy already, that I am constantly violating the very rules I am encouraging D’s to observe, by pointing out errors in Christian dogma, etc.
Why?
The portion of the audience here that consists of serious Christians is minuscule to non existent, whereas the remainder is my target audience, in respect to coaching them on how to win over middle of the road and conservative voters.
So in this forum, there is nothing to lose, but potentially a lot to be gained, in terms of my modest little educational campaign.
There are some things I really don’t like about the overall D party as it exists today, and the people it is nowadays beholden to, but it is still incontestably true that the D’s are decades ahead of the R’s on environmental issues, which (unfortunate word!) trump all other issues combined, in my estimation.
This link is to a current article in the Scientific American.
It behooves you, and everybody else who habitually makes fun of religious people to read it, and think hard about it.
IF you want to win elections.
Why are we trying to convince people anyway? Of what, that the Republicans have the answer or that climate change is caused by them? To what purpose?
Find common ground and build relationships from there.
As far as climate change and other footprint problems go, you don’t have to mention it, since economics will do the job and motivate that person to change their ways. I have convinced neighbors to insulate their homes using calculations that show how much money (or work in the case of firewood) they save.
Let the money do the talking now. Only the richest will really ignore the idea that they save money.
Some time ago I showed on this blog that putting PV on the roof not only saved money but there was no real loss at all to be recouped.
If it’s not practical and economically advantageous, only the already convinced and altruistic will do it anyway.
Hi GF,
I am generally with you all the way, and specifically working to convince people that you are right when you say this sort of thing.
“Find common ground and build relationships from there.”
This ought to be engraved in stone over academic and political doors.
“As far as climate change and other footprint problems go, you don’t have to mention it, since economics will do the job and motivate that person to change their ways. I have convinced neighbors to insulate their homes using calculations that show how much money (or work in the case of firewood) they save.”
But in this case, I fear you are a little too complacent, and that we need to do whatever we can to speed up the switch to renewables.
If we don’t move FAST ENOUGH, a successful transition may prove to be impossible.
I ‘m not at all comfortable placing all my bets on the Invisible Hand in this case.
The HAND has awesome trans-formative powers, no doubt about it, but the Hand will not necessarily giterdone fast enough.
So while I believe in the INVISIBLE HAND, I also believe in offering it all the reasonable assistance we can.
I agree that if we don’t move fast enough the transistion won’t be possible, at least without a lot of pain.
However I live in an area where most people have other things on their minds and could care less about climate change. But when I tell them how to save lots of money on heating and cooling their homes they perk up and listen, some even doing something about it. When we talk cars and I show them my SUV that gets 35 mpg on the highway and still has lots of cargo capacity, I get their attention. The thoughts get planted without sermonizing and arguing.
Lead by example, but don’t shove it down their throat. Let them have time to make it their own.
We have governments at the state level that are assisting the energy transistion. Up till now the federal government has been doing some things for energy transistion and efficiency. I think that is changing at the federal level.
As other states see how the transistion model is advantageous, they will come around, despite the negative propaganda stream.
I am not complacent, but I found that those people with strong opposing feelings or opinions about climate change and other predicaments are most easily approached and convinced by economic factors. The end result is the same. So why worry what they believe as long as the actions change?
What you want is to have everybody compliant and not defiant. You want to silence the opposition. You want it your way.
Good luck doing that. This isn’t Burger King, you don’t get it your way. Climate change deniers are going to remain climate change deniers, you are not going to convince them, it will be considered brainwashing by them. They don’t believe in climate change, they won’t listen. They’re stubborn ignoramuses, to be brutally frank. You can talk until you are blue in the face, they will look at you like you are stupid. You’re wrong, they’re right. End of story.
It is easy to see that anthropogenic causes are going to influence the climate, cause change, all of those emissions from coal and oil do pollute the air and other things, like land and water.
Runoff from ag land that is filled with pesticides does ruin the water in reservoirs for water supplies.
Fill a large building with about forty diesel engines, close all doors and vents, fire up the engines and observe what happens to the inside air of the building. There will be some changes in air quality. It is a simplified example, but you get the picture.
What is more distressing is nobody listens. Just don’t believe in climate change at all, and you’ll never convince them that is does happen.
Humans and their activities are going to cause atmospheric changes and different whether patterns, weather anybody accepts them or not. har
Today’s recommendation: mocco cakes.
RW said “What you want is to have everybody compliant and not defiant. You want to silence the opposition. You want it your way.
Good luck doing that. This isn’t Burger King, you don’t get it your way. ”
My way? RW, if I ever actually stated my way, you would quiver in terror. I just try to accept reality and hope for stepwise moderate change. If you did read my post you would understand the change does not depend on climate change beliefs but on economics. So even a thickhead can change.
Sure there will be some old curmudgeonly diehards who hold out no matter what, but they will be overridden soon by the younger generation. Even in backward America, the young generation is 58 percent for energy transistion.
But have it your way, it just will not match reality.
I can’t agree with your moca cakes either, no chocolate in them. So hardy har har and happy new year.
(I did like the play on words and the understatement about the diesel engine experiment).
Backatcha one more time, GF
What you are saying and doing is pretty much exactly what I have been advocating, and doing all along, personally, in working with people who are opposed to or suspicious of large D Democrats and liberal social policies.
It works, we both know this approach works.
But we still need the PUSH that comes from goosing efficiency standards, actively promoting renewable energy via subsidies, etc.
I don’t go around preaching runaway climate doom and gloom at all, when I am talking to individuals, or when I post in conservative forums. I do basically the same things as you are advocating, and I have been doing them for a LONG time.
If you go back to the old TOD archives, I believe you will find I was the first person there to post links to the military white papers advocating renewable energy, warning of peak oil, etc, known as the JOE reports.
It didn’t take me long at all to figure out once I learned about these JOE’s that they were excellent tools for use in converting hard core conservatives into renewable energy advocates.
I had one friend, now deceased, who once he fully digested the concept and the fact ( eventual) of peak oil advocated holding back on domestic production, to the extent possible, and burning everybody elses’ oil, and and not only that, but buying in on credit, on the assumption that when the hot resource wars arrived, we could honorably repudiate debts owed to enemy countries, lol.
Backatcha HB,
I forgot to mention that it’s pretty much accepted common wisdom that the two most successful liberal big D Democrats of recent times, namely Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have occasionally indulged.
And although I doubt Hillary is capable of loosening up enough these days to enjoy it, she did say she would work for legalization, if I remember correctly.
I’m personally too old to even climb up on a table, without risking a broken leg, but if the younger women are so inclined, I ‘m still interested in watching. 😉
And while I doubt you will take me up on this suggestion , you would broaden your intellectual horizons substantially by reading some Greek tragedies.
Paraphrased, they had a gem of a saying, which goes about like this.
He ( or she) whom the Gods would destroy, first they raise high.
That in a nutshell is the story of HRC.
“He ( or she) whom the Gods would destroy, first they raise high.”
So the Gods chose Trump? God bless America.
The ” Gods” may or may not have it in for Trump.
The tragedies are all about rising to great heights, and the crashing, and the principal characters usually bring the crash on themselves, by way of irritating the Gods.
Then he will do just fine, since the Gods seem to have a very sick sense of humor.
I have several articles on energy generation economics, but I don’t want to post them here because they will get buried in this mass of climate comments.
They aren’t specifically petroleum related, so I don’t know that they fit in the Texas update post.
Is there any chance that this forum can divide the non-petroleum posts into at least two separate posts: energy economics and climate?
Surely there are other readers like me who would prefer to skip over all the climate discussions, but do want to talk about the future of energy — petroleum and otherwise.
Consider posting them first or very early in the next non petroleum thread. They won’t get buried immediately.
That’s what I plan to do, but there hasn’t been a new non petroleum thread for more than a week.
If these non-petroleum threads are now primarily climate discussions, perhaps we can have some other options as well.
Hi Boomer.
This is, of course, the best argument for not responding to Javier’s comments: not only does it make the blog about climate denial all the time, it makes it not about anything else.
I do believe that, like the runs, Javier will pass (oops-that’s a mixed metaphor, but I like the double-poop reference, so I’m gonna leave it in.) I don’t know why he decided to plague us for the past two weeks, but I doubt he can keep it up forever.
How long not forever is, though, is hard to say. Maybe he goes back to work on the third.
We won’t know the point at which we hit peak Javier until after the fact.
-Lloyd
I don’t bother to read Javier’s posts, nor do I read the responses to his posts.
I’m just not interested in those climate debates. I accept the science, but I also believe the fastest way to reduce carbon is by changing the way we generate and consume energy. Those are the topics I want to explore.
I realize there are other places on the Internet to get that info and to discuss it. But I have liked the petroleum discussions here, so I’d like to continue to discuss the future of fossil fuels and the alternatives here.
Yair
Seeing as “Here in Halifax” doesn’t post any more is there anyone who knows about LED lighting? . . . I am not a happy camper.
Cheers.
Hi Scrub,
Happy New Year!
All I can say for sure is that they run cool and seem to last just about forever and save a hell of a lot of kilowatt hours for you.
I don’t know about the prices of them in the Australian boonies, but here you can get good name brand bulbs at big box stores for as little as two to three dollars apiece, by buying six at a time.
I am down to about four old CFL’s which refuse to die. When they do, the LED replacements are on hand.
LED’s are world class bargains for people who are on the grid. Sorry I don’t know about what they cost when you buy the ones made to run on different dc voltages.
The truckers are replacing all the lights except headlights on their trucks with led’s. They outlast the old conventional bulbs by a factor of at least five on trucks meaning less maintenance and less chance of getting an “improper equipment ” ticket aka court summons in an encounter with a cop whose wife has him sleeping on the sofa, lol.
Post a specific question in the next thread and see what happens.
NAOM
Surely there are other readers like me who would prefer to skip over all the climate discussions, but do want to talk about the future of energy — petroleum and otherwise.
Hey Boomer, I would gladly move on to other topics so as soon as we get a new thread please post what you have! Hopefully the trolls will not be interetsed.
BTW I just read: Google has announced its entire global business will be powered by renewable energy in 2017
I’d still like to wait for a new post. There are so many comments here that it is hard to find new info.
It’s just some numbers about non-fossil fuel use and also reasons why nuclear won’t be a solution.
Here’s my last question for the year, for anybody quick with a calculator, and skilled at finding the numbers needed.
How much would it cool the upper layer of the waters of the world ocean if all the floating and grounded ice were to break loose and float out into open warm waters and melt?
The calculation itself is simple enough, but I haven’t run across an estimate of the total mass all the ice that is either floating or grounded below sea level and thus could float, if it breaks away.
It takes so many calories or joules or whatever unit is handy, to melt a kilo of ice, times the estimated number of kilos. A kilo of water must be chilled so many degrees to yield up that much heat. Then we need the total area of all the oceans, and then we decide what is meant by upper layers. There seems to be some consensus that this means the top seven hundred ( ?) meters or so.
I can’t trust my dyslexic old eyes anymore when dealing with strings of digits.
And besides, I’m feeling too lazy to hunt up the needed data, but I’m betting somebody like Fred or Doug can come up with the answer in about sixty seconds, lol.
The calculation itself is simple enough, but I haven’t run across an estimate of the total mass all the ice that is either floating or grounded below sea level and thus could float, if it breaks away.
Found this nice table on a climate denier’s site and I did not double check the sources but I have no reason to think that they are wrong even if I disagree with his main conclusions about what is causing climate change. Perhaps they are a bit outdated.Though I guess for a rough back of the envelope calculation they might suffice.
Totals in cubic kilometers
Global Floating ice 620,000 Km^3
Global Grounded ice 29,340,000 km^3
Global Total ice 29,960,000 Km^3
Feeling too lazy to dig much further today 😉
Thanks Doug,
Thirty million cubic kilometers is good enough for conversational purposes. This is to be used only to illustrate that the world ocean is a super colossal heat sink, and that is the primary reason, so far as I can tell from extensive reading that the climate is not warming even faster, with the excess heat going into the sea.
Thanks for the links. They will go into my files.
If one were to want a real world answer, I realize dozens of pesky hard to measure and maybe even impossible to recognize or predict variables and feed backs would come into play, etc.
I can take it from here in a couple of minutes, if I can find my calculator. All I need now is to look up the phase change energy, which I once knew by heart fifty years ago, when I was a student, lol. And probably a new battery for the calculator.
I am going to have to hunt up a kid to straighten out my computer, because the TEN upgrade did not go all too well, and I am a world class computer klutz, and can’t get it right myself.
Email and internet works ok, but most everything else seems to be relocated under new names and new menus, and hidden with malice aforethought, so as to remind me I am an old fart, and about ready for the recycle bin.
Actually I don’t even need the calculator. I can still use scientific notation, which is fortunate, because I can’t read long strings of digits accurately, due to dyslexia.
Being an old fart certainly beats being dead, lol.
It was really sad in the recent past when the extraneous posts obliterated the oily ones. We have improved, thanks to the new system.
Yes, it has been helpful for the climate and political discussions to mostly end up in their own posts.
And I normally just skip over the non-petroleum posts entirely.
But with Trump coming into office, I want to discuss the economics of energy since I think many of them run counter to what he has said he wants to do. The question will be whether the economics will influence him or whether the push will be for more fossil fuels, even if increased FF turn out not to be a good economic, military, or, of course, environmental strategy.
My prediction. A cold January will bring on a critical natural gas situation in some locations. Trump will want to micro-manage. He will first push the “drill baby drill” mantra then find someone (Obama?) to blame.
Residential and commercial use of natural gas is running about the same as other years in December . Last year was exceptionally warm. Storage levels are still within the normal range. Residential/Commercial use is up less than 16.4 BCF/D compared to a total rise of 24.4 BCF/D, yoy. But R/C is still within normal demand range.
The increases over the years are in the electric power and industrial sectors.
Shale gas production is near an all time high. If we have trouble getting through a winter now, heaven help us in the future. I do notice that active rigs are low in number.
Yearly natural gas consumption. I believe that the changes before and after 1980 were at least partially due to price controls and their removal. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9140us2A.htm
The global temperature record shows a cooling trend from 500 AD to about 1900 AD where a very fast rise in temperature goes above the 500 AD to 1000 AD period by about 0.7 C. The drop seems to have initiated around 1400 AD and gone into the 1800’s.
The National Academy of Sciences and a lot of the main groups reconstructing temperatures over the past millennium disagree with what you say. The cooling trend did not extend to 1900. Global warming started about 1650, but due to the very cold relapse of about 1815 and a second one about 1840, the Little Ice Age did not end until about 1850, when global warming started to accelerate with little to no anthropogenic contribution. The need to rewrite climate history is a very bad sign.
“Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions yield a generally consistent picture of temperature trends during the preceding millennium, including relatively warm conditions centered around A.D. 1000 (identified by some as the “Medieval Warm Period”) and a relatively cold period (or “Little Ice Age”) centered around 1700. The existence of a Little Ice Age from roughly 1500 to 1850 is supported by a wide variety of evidence including ice cores, tree rings, borehole temperatures, glacier length records, and historical documents.” Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (2006)
The National Academy of Sciences. https://www.nap.edu/read/11676/chapter/2#2
That’s OK, they can disagree with NASA and NOAA all they want. The blue line on that graph of yours looks like it was hand drawn in, certainly does not run the average. Glacier lengths????
GoneFisher,
they can disagree with NASA and NOAA all they want.
??? Why should the National Academy of Sciences have to disagree with NASA and NOAA?
Don’t you know the attribution of the graph you posted? That’s from Mann et al., 2008. It is not only the National Academy of Sciences that disagrees with that article. It has been demonstrated that the famous hockey-stick is fake. The IPCC has even retired any mention of that paper from the Fifth Assessment Report, after having used that figure prominently in the previous one.
Too bad you rely on fake science that neither IPCC nor the National Academy of Sciences approve.
Javy, NASA is using that graph, adapted from Mann et al 2008, so I assume they agree with it. The so called hockey stick was never disproven, only climate deniers make up that crap.
Probably an old page that hasn’t been updated in years. that means nothing.
The hockey stick has been thoroughly debunked and is an example of fraudulent science. Michael Mann is discredited.
Based upon a relatively-cursory scan of the Wikipedia entry, Hockey Stick Controversy, that’s not the sense I’m getting….
Quotes of note from said article:
“Reconstructions have consistently shown that the rise in the instrumental temperature record of the past 150 years is not matched in earlier centuries, and the name ‘hockey stick graph’ was coined for figures showing a long-term decline followed by an abrupt rise in temperatures…
Arguments over the reconstructions have been taken up by fossil fuel industry funded lobbying groups attempting to cast doubt on climate science…
The use of proxy indicators to get quantitative estimates of the temperature record of past centuries was developed from the 1990s onwards, and found indications that recent warming was exceptional.
…New studies using different methods continued to extend the period covered by reconstructions. Ljungqvist’s 2,000 year extratropical Northern Hemisphere reconstruction generally agreed well with Mann et al. 2008…
Studies by Christiansen and Ljungqvist investigated previous underestimation of low-frequency variability, and reaffirmed Mann et al.’s conclusions… as did Ljungqvist et al. 2012 which used a larger network of proxies than previous studies. Marcott et al. 2013 used seafloor and lake bed sediment proxies to reconstruct global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, the last 1,000 years of which confirmed the original MBH99 hockey stick graph.
On the irregular occasions when I decide to investigate or ‘peer-review’ some aspects of your comments, Javier, they always seem to somehow fall apart.
Chart of the Day:
NSIDC monthly ice extent charts have been posted already.
This is relevant to our discussion of albedo, albedo feedbacks, and global warming.
The fact that Northern Hemisphere ice continues to decline in December is an important symptom of the Arctic amplification of global warming, but it does not contribute directly to albedo feedback because the ice is almost entirely dark – no reflection of sunlight as the sun does not shine in the winter at the poles.
The Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, has seen a plunge in sea ice at summer solstice – the maximum in solar insolation. To be clear, the experts attribute this almost entirely to changes in wind direction and strength, not warming.
But now we have a fine natural experiment. What effect will changing the albedo of 2 million square km of ice – reflecting 90% of sunlight – into open water reflecting only 5% ???
There are potential feedbacks here. Polar waters can be stratified by salinity rather than temperature (as is most common outside the poles). Solar energy can penetrate deeply into the clear water, but cannot escape through convection, being trapped by the salinity gradient. This reminds me of the solar ponds which were a brief fad a few decades ago before PV became so inexpensive. Cold fresh water at the surface traps warm salty water below, allowing solar heat to build up at depth.
This warm salty water is perfect for melting the base of ice shelves and grounded marine ice sheets like Pine Island, Thwaites, and Totten. More fresh water from this melting ice reinforces the salinity gradient… you get the picture.
Would help a lot to actually post the chart…
Happy New Year everyone!
I was waiting for a new top post to post the following but, this seems as good a point as any to interject.
I’ve been giving some thought to gloabal warming denial and why it is able to persist and a couple things have occured to me. I think one the reasons many here are frustrated by the persistent denialists is that, having studied the idea of Peak Oil for a while, we are well aquainted with a couple of concepts.
One is the concept of hysteresis, the lagging of reactions to events, oil price goes up, oil production is very rarely able to respond quickly in a very significant way. Oil price goes down and you have a fair amount of people who spent significant amunts of money expanding their capacity produce who are unwilling and maybe even unable to just turn the taps off and wait for better prices so, it takes a while for oil production to decline.
Another concept we understand is that of inevitability. One day global oil production will peak. Oil is a finite resource that took millions of years to “create” and the human race has gotten very good at finding, extracting and burning oil. There are signals aplenty that the best years of oil production are behind us so when people say “Those doomers have been prediciting Peak Oil since Hubbert in 56 and they’ve been wrong every time” they remind me of little kids on a long road trip who keep asking “are we there yet?”. Not to worry. As long as we keep heading down the road, we’re gonna get there.
A personal example of hysteresis that gives me cause for concern about global warming is the concrete roof of the apartment I live in. The concrete is about six inches thick and has poor thermal conductivity but, a fairly high thermal mass so on a cloud free summer evening the temperature of the lower surface of my roof continues to rise hours after the sun has gone down. Similarly when the morning sun atarts heating the upper surface of the roof, it takes a while for the temperature to go up on the lower surface. At one point I was logging the temperature of the ceiling so, I know this.
As a result, I find the idea that, the temperature increases being observed all over the globe are not caused by the significant increases in CO2 concentration to be preposterous. My elementary reasoning goes like this. Temperatures are going up. Hmm! What else is going up that could probably cause it? CO2? Bingo!
There is something that has IMO prevented the temperature increases from being worse that, frankly scares the shit out of me when I think about it and it is related to the comment which this reply followws. Ice. Everybody knows that if you have a pot of water with lots of ice in it, that water is going to be around 0°C even if there is a heat source trying to warm the pot. What will happen is that all that heat energy will go into melting the ice until all the ice is gone. Once the ice is gone, then the temperature of the water in the pot can start to rise in earnest. For that reason, I see melting of the ice in the arctic as an ominous sign. Any day we observe an ice free arctic ocean, we are going to be in really uncharterd waters!
When I add hysteresis to these thoughts, it gets really depressing because even if we cut global carbon emissions to zero today, the suggestion is that there is enough CO2 up there to continue the warming trend for decades, if not centuries. I fear that we are like a little kid who likes pushing buttons to see what they do. The problem is the response to the climate buttons takes a while to happen and while it is slowly happening the deniers are busy saying it wasn’t our pressing of the CO2 button that did it. When it becomes clear that we did press a button we shouldn’t have pressed, it will likely be too late to do much about it.
So what am I to do? Hope with all my being that Tony Seba’s projections are right and that renewables and EVs disrupt fossil fuel burners in short order. I also have to hope that some yet to be obsreved natural phenomenon kicks in and starts sequestering C02 at a rate that will help to keep the current mass extinction from turning out really badly.
“Any day we observe an ice free arctic ocean, we are going to be in really unchartered waters!”
Thank you. Great line and that is exactly the point. The little kid analogy is spot on too. Our only home, mother earth is experiencing changes by the likes of man that are unprecedented. There’s no do overs. Humans need to do everything that is reasonable to minimize our impact.
Happy New Years Islandboy
There are plenty of unprecedented changes in the pipeline…
I have been compiling a very long list of topics that I feel are not very generally on most people’s radars. I will be writing articles and posting on an international corporate and business blog next year.
I’m sorry to say that unless things change drastically, I think the current US administration by pushing its backward thinking fossil fuel agenda is going to be left in the dust, at least for now, in the energy sphere.
I do think there are still some very bright spots where the US is the defacto world leader.
I’ll post just two topics here for discussion now.
“Targeting bilateral trade balances is a fool’s errand. There are perfectly good reasons why we run trade surpluses with some countries and deficits with others, driven by supply chains, comparative advantage and other perfectly normal factors”
“We hear a lot about America’s trade deficits, both at the aggregate level and for individual countries like China, Mexico and Japan. But it’s an important, and usually overlooked point, that countries don’t trade, only people and businesses trade. And every international transaction by definition has a satisfied buyer and a satisfied seller, and those engaged in those mutually beneficial trades aren’t countries, but individuals and corporations. As we explain in the first week of an economics class, trade is always win-win, and the fact that there is a trade deficit from an accounting standpoint at the national level when imports exceed exports in no way changes the fact that what we call a trade deficit reflects hundreds of thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges over a certain period.”
“Despite alarming pollution levels, Delhi has seen a surge in private vehicles, while public transport is in decline…Government figures that show there are now about 10 million vehicles registered in Delhi – up from fewer than nine million a year ago. Meanwhile, public transport, such as bus fleets, has been found to be declining year after year.”
There are only 9.8 million people in Delhi. Nationwide the number of cars, taxis and jeeps registered is 28.6 million as of March 2015, with a total population of 1.25 billion.
If you look closely at that article, there are about 1 million registered cars in Delhi. Most of the vehicles in India are two-wheelers (154 million).
This is nowhere near the level of US car usage, they have to have about 33 times the number of cars in use now to get the number of cars per person the US has.
I don’t understand the pollution problem unless they don’t require any catalytic converters. The city has far more area than New York City and only about 10 percent more population. Maybe the two wheelers are all uncontrolled and producing the pollution. I suspect that other sources are also responsible such as industry, power plants and crop burning.
Coach Lloyd Brings You:
NEWS FROM THE FRONT!
The Ground War in Asia Continues!
QUAGMIRE!
Dozens killed!
Thousands Wounded!
Millions Bored by the Endless Re-hash!
First a news article!
Then an interpretation!
Then a dog pile that leads to an argument about the validity of the model or the reputation of the author of the reference!
440 replies. Word count of 73,000.
And yet the greased pig slips away again.
Javier complains of this place being an echo chamber; if so, it is one of his making. The constant replay of tiny areas of the discussion and the disregard for the general consensus- that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real- plays to the side of Climate Change Denial.
As I said in the last post: Why are we here?
Javier is playing to a larger audience: he is not really talking to us.
“I guess I am the only one here defending a point of view in a debate that is clearly divisive and according to polls is heavily populated at both sides. So if I have to answer to a lot of people, I have to use a lot of words.” (Emphasis mine.)
And yet we give personal responses about tiny edge cases that he doesn’t care about (because they don’t stop him from defending his central thesis.) By constantly spreading doubt, he makes his thesis seem to be more viable and supported than it is. Javier can loose all of these (as he does) and still win by his terms: we give him a forum, and legitimacy by proxy.
Javier uses VOLUME of postings to control the discussion.
His agenda is to make everything seem to be contested. The fact is that almost all of the regular posters believe in Anthropogenic Climate Change. The appearance to casual readers is that half (or more) of the postings deny Climate Change.
So Javier gets the attention he wants, and wins by his terms.
“Winning” individual postings is not really winning, if the impression left is that they are still contested. And Javier always broadens his discussion at the end, so full refutation is impossible without writing a book and/or continuing endlessly. Some examples:
“Peter Clark’s group has a bad reputation for lack of rigor with the conclusions that they extract from difficult to interpret proxy data.”
“If it hasn’t happened in 800,000 years we shouldn’t worry too much that it is going to happen over the next century.”
“It should be a lot easier to imagine the Northern Continents with a several kms thick ice sheet, because it is a lot more probable that it will happen in the future.”
“In a hundred years the atmosphere could go down easily by 50-100 ppm provided temperatures don’t fall by much.”
“Watch for the fun when the consensus dissolves.”
Has anyone seen an iota of change in Javier’s general position?
Anybody?
Our individual responses are drowned out, and yet we continue to behave like our telling him he’s full of it at the end of 5 exchanges actually matters.
And Javier continues to get what he wants.
So let’s talk about something else other than THAT topic and that individual. Enough already!
How about the impact of the continually falling price of PV?
NREL Report Shows U.S. Solar Photovoltaic Costs Continuing to Fall in 2016
http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2016/37745
NREL’s already out of date! Their last data point is Q1!
Seen Lazard’s new LCOE report (just last week)?
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-90/
Or their LCOS report?
https://www.lazard.com/media/438042/lazard-levelized-cost-of-storage-v20.pdf
Fair warning on that one: Tesla’s retail price for the Powerwall 2 is half what Lazard assumes for residential battery storage, so their estimates are way too high for that category. Lazard is *also* already out of date.
If any of you haven’t seen this documentary yet, you should:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmyrbKBZ6SU
Pretty cynical: it points out that it’s all about the money… and explains why solar is taking over, and why China is dominating it.
Interesting documentary. I found much in it that was not cynical at all but rather pragmatic and even hopeful.
But as far as the venture capital behind a lot of this, I go back to Douglas Rushkoff. “It’s the OS stupid!” We are still running on a 13th century OS designed by monarchs to subvert the new found means of peer to peer prosperity of the nouveau bourgeoisie business class, that was starting to produce wealth and prosperity in the middle ages and thereby making the nobility and the ruling class redundant and pretty much unnecessary and therefore obsolete.
They’ve had a pretty good run since then and it is past time to be putting up with a system where 57 individuals control 50% of all planetary resources.
We need to end the monopolies and centralized distribution systems of the fossil fuel and energy generation industries.
Douglas Rushkoff Deconstructs the Digital Economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TSoqnZass&t=2660s
Or better yet, let’s revisit something I brought up at the tail end of the last thread.
You, Fred made this post quoting from Alex Steffen’s recent essay, .outlining what the strategies of high carbon industries might look like and the rational for such strategies.
HuntingtonBeach, from a different source, quoted a slightly shorter portion of the same essay in a post near the end of the thread.
I wrote a reply in which I pointed to a story I would have waited and posted on this thread had I known Dennis was going to put this up at the time he did.
I posted the link to the article because I think it illustrates why the FF lobby is fighting so hard. The story I am posting again here near the beginning of this thread, is about a company I had highlighted in another post in the previous thread that I think has a real chance at significantly reducing the cost of solar PV cells.
1366 Technologies, Hanwha Q CELLS announce 19.6% solar cell efficiency using Direct Wafer and Q.ANTUM technologies
I want to repeat the conclusion of my previous post because, I think it bears repeating:
Now, there are two sets of folks that are “worried”, the folks who fear the US will get left behind as other countries grasp the opportunities offered by new clean energy industries and the folks who fear their lifeblood will be sucked out of them by the new clean energy industries. What the latter set of folks may be failing to realize is that they are screwed any way you look at it. They will either be made irrelevant by industries operating in the US and employing US citizens primarily or they will be made irrelevant by companies with no US ownership and very few if any US employees. My message to them? “Pick you poison! Home grown or imported?” I will be following the fortunes of 1366 Technologies very closely!
I am hoping that no matter what the US does, renewable energy will expand globally. If the US is left behind, so be it. If the US is left behind on the next energy technology, it will also be left behind in terms of overall global influence.
I keep wondering when the smart money in fossil fuels (if there is that) will be transferring their money out of fossil fuels into either safer investments or faster growing investments.
Maybe they are already doing so, but don’t want to publicize it to avoid steep declines in their stocks.
Also, I would think that some of the industry types Trump is appointing do know the future of fossil fuels even if they say something else to the public.
Anybody here a REALLY good cartoonist or can point one my way? There is a cartoon I would like to get circulating.
NAOM
Really good is subjective, but if you send your idea my way I can see if I can do anything good with it. you can email me rajabobnickson via the google mail. Non disclosure to other parties assured on my side.
“I keep wondering when the smart money in fossil fuels (if there is that) will be transferring their money out of fossil fuels into either safer investments or faster growing investments.
Maybe they are already doing so, but don’t want to publicize it to avoid steep declines in their stocks.”
Yes, they are. Google “Colby College divestment”. Despite an active divestment movement, they stayed absolutely silent until they’d divested completely and then didn’t announce that either.
This is happening. A lot.
The Rockefeller Family Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Foundation — run by the family who should know the oil business better than anyone — divested quite publicly and with some fanfare, and IIRC they still announced *after* they’d sold their biggest holdings. Most foundations will divest quietly.
We still need to understand that real disruption must happen at a systems level. To me this is where capitalism has failed and why ideas like communism are totally irrelevant in the 21st century.
We need a total systems reset or upgrade so to say. Disruption needs to happen at a fundamental level. The current economic paradigm with it’s financial institutions, banks and venture capitalists and pushers of infinite growth to repay created debt and parasitic shareholders won’t work long term.
We need to reinvent a peer to peer barter based economy that can use digital technology such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies to bypass the existing financial system and produce real prosperity without the need for infinite growth.
If anyone thinks there is strong resistance against renewables from the fossil fuel interests imagine the push back from the current holders of financial power via capital as this kind of disruption puts them permanently out of business…
Douglas Rushkoff, “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBrRvkPvvJg
Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin/Dark Wallet) is mentioned on the Permaea manifesto draft as written some years ago, but there are serious doubts, including, but not limited to, their resilience, overcomplexities and dependencies on the status-quo and certain complex levels of working technology and infrastructure, as well as their best-before dates.
Money in general is a problem, so there needs to be more investigation in the concept of a gift (and other forms of) economy, as well as honest and realistic appraisals of them.
Also, the term ‘disruption’ seems problematic a term and to suggest, for example, a kind of orientation– still– to the current pseudoeconomic model… I don’t want something to disrupt anything per se, or anyone, but, rather, in Permaea’s case, have it be a fork/branch and creation of a different system entirely. That said, however, disruption may likely be what inevitably occurs, but part of the whole point behind Permaea is as a safety-net. Disruption will come anyway, whether through the behaviors of the status-quo, or through how nature reacts to it.
FYI, I did not even mention ‘Bitcoin’, I was talking about blockchain technology. While bitcoin is built on blockchain it isn’t the only cryptocurrency out there. There is a lot happening. BTW, ‘Disruption’ isn’t only about technology and it has very little to do with what anyone wants. Think more along the lines of an earthquake or tsunami…
I put Bitcoin/Dark Wallet in parentheses because it is mentioned in the manifesto, not because it is the only cryptocurrency out there.
From what was understood at the time of writing, Bitcoin is a protocol, or more like one, that ‘apps’ such as Dark Wallet can be built upon.
And my comment also suggests precisely that; that ‘disruption’ isn’t only about technology, etc..
That said– which should also go without saying– hedge your bets accordingly.
From what was understood at the time of writing, Bitcoin is a protocol, or more like one, that ‘apps’ such as Dark Wallet can be built upon.
You seem to be confusing blockchain with Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology.
http://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-blockchain-technology/
A network of nodes
A network of so-called computing “nodes” make up the blockchain.
What is Blockchain Technology? A step-by-step guide than anyone can understand
Node
(computer connected to the blockchain network using a client that performs the task of validating and relaying transactions) gets a copy of the blockchain, which gets downloaded automatically upon joining the blockchain network.
Together they create a powerful second-level network, a wholly different vision for how the internet can function.
Every node is an “administrator” of the blockchain, and joins the network voluntarily (in this sense, the network is decentralized). However, each one has an incentive for participating in the network: the chance of winning Bitcoins.
Nodes are said to be “mining” Bitcoin, but the term is something of a misnomer. In fact, each one is competing to win Bitcoins by solving computational puzzles. Bitcoin was the raison d’etre of the blockchain as it was originally conceived. It’s now recognized to be only the first of many potential applications of the technology.
There are an estimated 700 Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies (exchangeable value tokens) already available. As well, a range of other potential adaptations of the original blockchain concept are currently active, or in development.
While I’ve read stuff about blockchain, etc., some time ago, my interest is elsewhere at the moment, but thanks for the quote just the same.
Nevertheless, if you would like to approach the technology in a kind of synthesis/evaluation of it over time– run it through a ‘model’ or ‘thought-experiment’, and report back on any ideas, significant findings, caveats, potential problems and the like, it would be appreciated.
There have been capitalist periods in history before.
When the debt gets too large and can’t be paid, they tend to turn into feudal systems.
The alternative is the “jubilee”, basically cancelling the debts and starting fresh every so often.
Progressive taxation and welfare is a sort of rolling jubilee, but sadly the overclass got too greedy and got rid of this in the US. They still have it in parts of Scandanavia.
Good morning Island Boy,
There is a NON ZERO ( sarcasm INTENDED) chance that Trump and his administration will not do anything directly to harm the solar and wind industries, if you consider the reduction or termination of production tax credits to be indirect, and cutting off most of the dedicated research money to be indirect. I am using the word direct to indicate actually outlawing new solar and wind farms by way of encouraging the adoption of laws that will prevent them from being built due to zoning , or writing tax laws that prevent them from being built.
Now as to whether top management and the big owners ( not Granny with a hundred shares! ) understand that the FF industries are on the way out, I think that most of them understand very well that this is true, that their time is maybe not just yet, but that they can see it coming, like a middle aged guy sees old age coming at him.
Of course there are dummies and denialists in every corner of society, lol. There are sure to be a few managers and owners who are in denial, or who simply DON’T understand physical realities such as depletion.One of the most successful automobile mechanics I ever met, who has fixed literally thousands of cars, has the most outlandish ideas you could imagine as to how an automobile engine actually works, in terms of physical principles. But somehow, as wrong as he is, they still run after he works on them!!!!
Likewise, although it is more easily understood, a preacher is GROSSLY and TOTALLY mistaken in every respect about the nature of physical reality, the physical world, can still be an EXCELLENT personal counselor, giving VERY practical and workable advice to those who ask him for it.The management team at the local furniture plant where I once had a part time maintenance job is HIGHLY competent, as evidenced by the fact the plant is still open. But nobody on it knows doo doo from apple butter about physical reality, in terms of the big picture. All of them believe there’s oil enough to last for generations, at the very least, coal enough to last hundreds of years, etc. The point I am making is that ignorance in some respects is not a reliable indicator of incompetence on other areas. Flip side, we ought not assume that just because some young man or woman with a hot body and or heavenly voice is good looking or can sing like an angel, he or she knows doo doo from apple butter about any thing other than show biz. Most of us apparently don’t understand that pro sports are just part of the show biz biz, lol.
And for the actual WORKERS in such industries, they see DOOM, short term economic ruin, staring them in the face. Management and owners have resources in abundance, money and transferable skills. Workers don’t.
In either case it’s easy to see why both workers and management are fighting the most determined and viscous defense and rear guard actions they can.
And while they ARE fighting the GOOD FIGHT, from their perspective, I can say with complete assurance, from talking to many older men in such industries, that they generally DO recognize their industries are on their way out, and they don’t want their own children joining their industries, because they have come to believe their kids will be far better off, long term, safer, healthier, and more prosperous, etc, earning their livings other ways.
What I actually expect to happen is that the awesomely cynical right wing press will now take credit for the recent boom in American oil production, and pretend it’s all to Trumps credit it happened, on Obama’s time frame, lol.
And with some luck, that same press, after doing what it could for years and years to make sure the NEXT BIG THING, namely renewable energy, belonged to GERMANY , CHINA, SOUTH KOREA, and other countries, friend, foe and indifferent, will be claiming that the success of the wind and solar industries here in YANKEE LAND are to be credited to mainly to Trump, with a nod to the free market.
I agree with all the regulars who say it’s too late to put the renewable genie back in his bottle.
But the Trump administration will probably figure out ways to slow down his work and hold up the transition to renewable energy a few years.
Let us all pray to the Sky Daddies and Sky Mommies and Snakes and Waterfalls of our personal choice that Trump does not manage to slow down the growth of renewable energy enough to prevent the transition from happening.
Over the last three or four years I have become increasingly confident that transition IS technically and economically feasible, IF we get with the program, and don’t dawdle away the opportunity.
The window of opportunity won’t be open forever. There’ s a time coming when fossil fuels, and other resources, are going to be in short enough supply that it will not be possible, from the technical, political, and economic perspectives.
Right now, one reason we Yankees can still compete with the Germans in manufacturing is that we have lots of cheap domestically produced fossil fuels.
The time is coming when we WILL NOT have cheap fossil fuels. How well will we compete THEN, when Germany will be running mostly on wind and solar power, and we are looking like fools, with some of the worlds finest and most bountiful wind and solar resources, going to waste, unused????
Javier is a spam troll, full stop. The only true answer is ‘Bloody Viking’. We must not try to convince him (DC note). It is impossible as that is not his appointed task. We need to supply short, sharp responses to the THIRD PARTY with links to the details. No long explanations (OFM note), bang, bang, done.
NAOM
Hi Lloyd,
Certainly, environmental degradation or ‘change’ is not limited to climate, nor is fossil fuel use necessary for environmental degradation or social unrest, war or collapse.
There’s far more to it– holistic, systems and contextual thinking and all that, right?
The rebranding/greenwashing of BAU, and/or implicit and explicit calls for its continuation, with some important exclusions, and assorted transgressions (i.e., personal attacks) along the way, is just another form of a kind of denial and/or ignorance, wilful or otherwise, and therefore not exclusive to what others here are suggesting, hypocritically, of Javier.
Uber, Gig Economy: “The Brutality of the System Is Being Lost on Those Who Actually Use These Apps”
Hi Caelan.
The purpose of Coach Lloyd is not to address these things.
The purpose of Coach Lloyd is to avoid the hijacking of this site and due to manipulation of the number of opposing voices and/or comments due to deliberate action by trolls, paid or otherwise.
I am informing the other commenters of how the entire blog appears, and how their individual contributions to the gestalt may be made to appear contrary to their intentions. After all, almost all of us are too old to have studied Media Literacy. Consider this a refresher course.
It is about the process of media manipulation, not the actual content.
-Lloyd
Fair enough Coach Lloyd, and thanks for the clarification.
Hi Lloyd,
While I read your comments with great interest, and recognize that you know a few things about media, maybe more than I do, I disagree about driving Javier out of this forum.
As a practical matter, this is not a sound bite forum. A lot of the better commentsrun into hundreds of words, and the articles and graphs etc, generally run into the thousands.
Anybody who show up here, and sticks long enough to read the forum, even once, is not a sound bite person, excepting the occasional troll, and the occasional political partisan who may stick in a short comment in favor of Trump and fossil fuel economics, such as TT.
People who want to know, but DON’T yet, are going to actually read what Javier has to say, and what Fred Maygar and his sort have to say. A hot discussion is almost always an EXCELLENT tool with which to engage a newbie into a controversial issue.
Incidentally anybody who really believes all the people who do not believe in the current climate science consensus are fools, or republicans, or whatever else strikes them as undesirable, is a fool himself. There are tens of millions of people who lack any technical education at all, and tens of millions more who lack anything beyond what is taught ( ineffectively in all too many cases ) in second class public schools. There are tens of millions more who have degrees from respected colleges and universites who have taken at the most one single course, and at that maybe a survey course, in a hard science, often decades ago, in which they learned virtually NOTHING.
Such people are not stupid, nor are they necessarily redneck republicans, etc.
They do their thinking the same way DR LLOYD does his, using whatever data is available to them to come to such conclusions as seem reasonable to THEM.
Since they know nothing or next to nothing about SCIENCE IN GENERAL, and since they are quite used to being lied to by bankers, economists lawyers, politicians, car salesmen, so called journalists, preachers, cops, robbers, businessmen of every sort and stripe, and often enough by their own spouses and children, WHY should anybody expect them to believe in what climate scientists tell them????????????
???????
If you want them on board the environmental bus, the last thing you should do is slam the door shut in their face.
Unless you really do want an echo chamber, you have to allow people in who disagree, and although I disagree with Javier about how serious a problem forced climate change is, he does have something to say that is relevant and insightful at times.
You might like it better not seeing any contrarian content, but on the other hand, any new reader- who is not yet a member of the ( scientifically correct) church of forced climate change – who finds there is no discussion of the matter allowed will simply go elsewhere, if he is looking to broaden his understanding of climate.
If he is on the other hand really interested in the fossil fuel depletion versus renewable energy transition issue, he will find plenty here with which to charge up his memory banks, so as to use his own CPU between the ears to come to his own conclusions.
Hi Mac.
While I read your comments with great interest, and recognize that you know a few things about media, maybe more than I do, I disagree about driving Javier out of this forum.
You and I use this forum in different ways, and ask different things of it. I look at it as a place to “talk” with a few dozen smart people on a shared topic of interest. The fact that other people not involved in the conversation read it is not particularly important to me.
Until the point it makes the conversation less fun for me.
When people like Nancy try and re-frame the discussion as political rather than fact-based, or Javier tries to make the entire blog about his particular variety of denial by posting one-sixth of a very long thread, that’s when I care.
I do not see it as important to change others over to my viewpoint: we are still on track for the Club of Rome’s middle scenario, and if the Meadows couldn’t do it with global publicity and a 40 year head start, it is unlikely that my voice will have a huge effect.
You might like it better not seeing any contrarian content, but on the other hand, any new reader- who is not yet a member of the ( scientifically correct) church of forced climate change – who finds there is no discussion of the matter allowed will simply go elsewhere, if he is looking to broaden his understanding of climate.
We are not, and cannot be, all things to all people. The things that will appeal to long-time commenters, and keep them engaged, are unlikely to be topics that will appeal to a newbie (or will require that newbie to do some background research.) As I have said, I see the educational aspect of this blog, with regards to passive readers, as secondary. The problem of much of current media is that they require an adversarial duality- a hard right, hard left point-counter point discussion. I don’t think we need that here (especially as Javier plays by different rules.) I don’t mind if it seems dry to an outsider, and there are others who agree with me (at least as far as not reading or responding to Javier.)
I noted at the beginning of the Coach Lloyd comments that I view Javier and Fernando as special cases. That said, I do not think we should give them a pass just because they have been here for a while. Javier has been using the good manners and usual behaviour of the other commenters in a subversive way. I don’t like it, and I’m not alone.
I have no real power here. I can offer suggestions, and tell people what I think is happening with regards to how their views can be interpreted due to the context in which they appear. That’s all. If it happens that people agree with my arguments and do not give him as much attention, that’s not “driving him out.”
Most of us go through periods when we post less or read less here, depending on our personal lives and whether we know anything about, or wish to discuss, something. I post lots of comments that dead-end. It doesn’t mean that the group is driving me out: it means that no one wanted to discuss or add to my topic. We don’t have to engage with Javier, and not engaging is not driving him out or censoring him.
I see no credible scientific reasons to discuss Javier’s crap, and I find the drive-by “climate scientists are in it for the money” morons an annoyance.
These people have an agenda outside the group, and have no real interest in the group or the discussions we have.
And I want no part of them.
You can disagree if you want.
-Lloyd
PS. I have noted what Fred said upthread, and my own general thoughts about re-hashing. I won’t post as Coach Lloyd just to have a post in each thread. I’ll keep it to anomalies and teachable moments.
-L
Keep going, I believe that trolls will get worse.
NAOM
I’ve never seen Javier say anything insightful. And I have seen him repeatedly engage in abusive rhetorical techniques. You know, the ones which are taught in rhetoric class as “off limits” and “not kosher” and “fundamentally dishonest” (and then used by politicians and preachers…)
We don’t need that here, do we?
As far as I’m concerned, the P-Tr extinction (which any casual reader can look up in wikipedia) is sufficient proof that human-induced global warming and ocean acidification is a clear and present danger to the survival of humanity. (Any casual reader can also look up ocean acidification in wikipedia, and I think it’s interesting that there are very few ocean acidification deniers: the fossil fuel industry hasn’t bothered to come up with a propaganda campaign to deny it because it’s less well-known than global warming.) The rest of the mountain of evidence is just supporting evidence.
I haven’t heard Javier come up with a single reasonable argument that I’m wrong about this, but I *have* seen him do an awful lot of misdirection, changing the topic, diversion, Gish Gallops, cherry-picking, etc. etc. etc. Disinformation tactics.
While I often disagree with Caelan about technology and sometimes politics, I do respect him, personally, for being consistent, and I also understand that he says some things that make great sense, so long as you don’t read them literally.
Conventional thinkers think of fuedalism in historical terms, as it used to exist hundreds of years ago, and thus fail to recognize that a whole lot of modern economic theory and dogma CAN BE and ought to be ( for purposes of nuance, of gaining a DEEP understanding of society and economics) discussed as fuedalism.
I am old enough to have known old people in my own family, when I was a child, who experienced the life of sharecroppers first hand, as children, and who did some farming on shares themselves, as adults.I listened to their stories, and they were very happy to repeat them for a child who brightened their day visiting. Enlightenment plus a got a hog’s share of home made pies and cakes is a pretty good deal, lol!
( There is a big difference between being an actual sharecropper totally at the mercy of the landlord and markets, and having some land and a home and some other resources of your own, and raising some crops on shares with people who have land to rent out, on a cash free basis.)
It’s useful to think of share croppers as being in effect defacto slave, except share cropping is arguably a much better deal for the landlord that owning slaves is for a farmer or planter. Even the worst of slave owners generally felt compelled to provide some medical care, food in bad times, and some other things for their slaves. They did the same for their mules, doing this much is simple good business.
When the slaves were freed, it didn’t take them long to figure out that you can just run off a sharecropper who gets hurt, or sick, or old. There was almost always a ready supply of replacement workers, and they actually had to work harder than slaves at times, in order to avoid starvation or eviction and the consequences of being homeless and jobless without salable skills.
I don’t have any problem at all thinking of people who rent their homes because they can’t afford to buy homes of their own as economic slaves, actual slavery in this country being replaced by share cropping on big southern farms, and people who ought to be able to buy homes being victimized by ” the system” prevented from doing so, with their ever evolving fuedal masters passing thru the slave owning stage, then into the owners of farms tended by share croppers, and more recently into landlords who extract profits from the labor of tenants who work OFF the property, instead of on it.
Incidentally, for any body who is interested in a fairly safe and potentially hugely profitable long term investment, it is rather easy to buy a house in a lot of rural areas close enough to town to get a good tenant who will commute- a house on a fair sized piece of land, sometimes as much as twenty or thirty acres in my part of the country. The land can be producing timber, or rented for hayland, or if it’s already fenced, rented to a small local farmer to run a few beef cows, etc.
The population is still growing, and will be for another couple of generations, and so far I don’t hear anything coming out of Silicon Valley about inventing new land, or where it might be PUT in case somebody pulls off that trick, lol.
For what it’s worth , my opinion is that privacy and acreage are already amony the most prestigious of prestige and status oriented possessions, and that in the future, privacy and acreage will be more valuable than ever.
Ya don’t need to even THINK about putting your contemplated personal pv system on the roof if you plan on building on five or ten acres someday. 😉 You can bet your last can of beans that in most parts of the country a well and septic system will cost you a hell of a lot less than a PERMANENT water and sewer system bill, a bill that will go up every few years, until you finally die. ETC.
And with electric cars getting cheaper fast, and solar electricity getting cheaper fast, and electric cars hopefully lasting like Mack trucks, pretty soon it may really be possible to more or less FORGET ABOUT what it costs to commute round trip for sixty or eighty or even a hundred miles.
To paraphrase Twain and Ron Patterson, the death of rural living has been greatly exaggerated. Ditto the death of the suburbs, even if it does cost twice as much to put your pv panels on the roof as it does on the ground. 😉
And here’s another odd but happy thought. If you live ten or twenty miles out of town, and own a self driving automobile, and need to get to a hospital fast, you will probably be able to preprogram your car to take you there, if you are able to get to the car. The car will most likely get you to the ER entrance within thirty minutes. Sometimes it takes that long NOW to get an ambulance to your house or apartment.
The car will also be able to continuously relay it’s location to an ambulance on the way, and pull over for the ambulance, lol.
“To paraphrase Twain and Ron Patterson, the death of rural living has been greatly exaggerated. Ditto the death of the suburbs, even if it does cost twice as much to put your pv panels on the roof as it does on the ground. ”
Good thoughts Old Farmer Mac, glad to see another person understands.
The fundamental problem with rural living is road (and other infrastructure) maintenance. The current pattern of American settlement is made possible by gutting the cities to allow cars to come in from the suburbs, while subsidizing the suburban infrastructure from taxes collected in the cities. Amazingly, cities have played along with this for decades.
Most city governments in the US have started resisting this. The political cards are stacked against them, but the have economics on their side — the state and federal funds to build roads no longer suffice to maintain suburban and rural roads, so they will continue to crumble.
Is there climate change? bla bla bla…
Is it anthropogenic? bla bla bla…
Can anything be done? No. Who wants to hungrily freeze in the dark while sitting on a coal mine?
Robert, can anything be done? Yes.
On average, each square mile of the planet receives 6,000 barrels worth of energy every day. Free for the taking.
So all the useful energy of oil worldwide can be replaced with a square of PV 116 miles on a side. That would cost 4 trillion dollars to get more than 30 years of energy.
Oil costs about 2 trillion per year, so 2 years of oil cost to pay for the PV.
At a 15 to 1 ratio I think a huge mistake is being made.
Of course not everyone believes the pseudo economics of oil and some have a different price for it, this time just for the US.
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
It is a well-known fact that cold, even when moderate, advances the death of a much larger part of the population than warm. And this is true even for countries with moderate climates at mid to low latitudes. A larger part of the population dies over the winter months compared to the rest of the year, while the opposite is true. A smaller part of the population dies over the summer months.
For example see:
Seasonality in human mortality: a demographic approach. R. Rau. 2007
This book (full text available) leaves very clear that this has been happening and is known since at least 2000 years ago.
About a month and a half ago Roger Andrews published an article at blog Energy Matters with the title “Death and Climate Change.” My contribution was precisely to point to this simple fact.
http://euanmearns.com/death-and-climate-change/#comment-24471
There is a wealth of data about when during the year people die for almost every country. See for example:
Gasparrini, A., et al. “Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study.” The Lancet 386, 9991 (2015): 369-375.
The conclusions are not exactly what the alarmists like to read:
“Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths, corresponding to 7·71% of mortality in the selected countries within the study period. Most of this mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7·29%), compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0·42%). Furthermore, most deaths were caused by exposure to moderately hot and cold temperatures, and the contribution of extreme days was comparatively low, despite increased RRs (Relative Risks). The study was based on the largest dataset ever collected to assess temperature–health associations, and included more than 74 million deaths from 13 countries.”
Curiously the results are solid even for tropical countries like Brazil, where moderate cold conditions kill far more people than heat.
This has a deep logic beneath. The human species has two very extreme characteristics for being a mammal. It is one of the surface mammals with the least hair cover, and it is the mammal with a highest density of sweat glands. We are probably the mammal with the highest capacity for losing heat. Clearly a tropical species. Probably we were designed for endurance running under hot conditions that lead to rapid over-heating of our prey.
Global warming has been hugely beneficial to humans, specially in temperate and cold climates, saving hundreds of thousands, probably millions of lives. There is no reason to think that this trend is going to reverse in the future. During the Little Ice Age mortality reached double digits percent several times in northern countries (the Ill Years of Scotland, the Great 1696 Famine of Finland and the Baltic Republics).
The statistics for Excess winter mortality for England and Wales are in this report:
Excess winter mortality in England and Wales: 2015/16 (provisional) and 2014/15 (final)
They show how excess winter mortality has been going down in parallel to global warming. Of course the reduction is multifactorial, as advances in house heating and insulation, increased prosperity, and influenza vaccination have all played a role.
But regretfully progress seems to have stopped at the same time as the pause in global warming stablished in the 21st century (see figure below).
Excess summer mortality does not exist, therefore it is futile to claim that global warming is killing a lot of people. Quite the contrary it is saving and prolonging human lives. Something that has been known since long ago, and it is behind the increased longevity in the US population due to old people moving South. Until old people start to move North to prolong their lives global warming will be beneficial to people’s lives.
A figure that highlights the phenomenon of seasonal mortality. From:
Falagas, Matthew E., et al. “Seasonality of mortality: the September phenomenon in Mediterranean countries.” Canadian Medical Association Journal 181.8 (2009): 484-486.
Yes, influenza, pneumonia and other diseases increase dramatically when cold weather occurs due to people being indoors and school starting. Note: EWM is excess winter mortality
“A study by Healy (2003) showed that excess winter mortality (EWM) varied widely within Europe. The results show that countries with low winter temperatures in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, such as Finland and Germany, had very low rates of EWM. ”
“Although EWM is associated with low temperatures, conditions directly relating to cold, such as hypothermia, are not the main cause of EWM. The majority of additional winter deaths are caused by cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease and respiratory diseases. Although cancer causes more than a quarter of all deaths annually, previous research by Johnson and Griffiths (2003) (97.4 Kb Pdf) found that there was no clear seasonal pattern for these deaths.”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/201415provisionaland201314final#causes-of-excess-winter-mortality
As to climate related deaths:
https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism
India in 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/22/brutal-heat-wave-in-india-puts-330-million-people-at-risk/?utm_term=.c142cefb34bb
India in 2015
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-heat-wave-kills-thousands
More twisted tales by Javier.
Let’s quote a little bit more extensively, shall we?
“Causes of excess winter mortality
A study by Healy (2003) showed that excess winter mortality (EWM) varied widely within Europe. The results show that countries with low winter temperatures in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, such as Finland and Germany, had very low rates of EWM. Conversely, countries with very mild winter temperatures in Southern Europe such as Portugal and Spain had very high rates of EWM. England and Wales both have higher than average EWM and exhibit high variation in seasonal mortality. These results were echoed in a more recent study by Fowler et al (2014).
There are many reasons why countries with milder winter climates have such a high level of winter mortality. For example, people who live in countries with warmer winters tend to take fewer precautions against the cold. The Eurowinter group (1997) reported that compared with people living in countries with cold winters, those from warmer countries were less likely to wear warm protective clothing in cold weather.
Countries with milder winters also tend to have homes with poorer thermal efficiency (for example, fewer homes have cavity wall insulation and double glazing), which makes it harder to keep homes warm during the winter (Healy, 2003). It has been shown that low indoor temperature is associated with higher EWM from cardiovascular disease in England (Wilkinson et al., 2001).
Although EWM is associated with low temperatures, conditions directly relating to cold, such as hypothermia, are not the main cause of EWM. The majority of additional winter deaths are caused by cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease and respiratory diseases. Although cancer causes more than a quarter of all deaths annually, previous research by Johnson and Griffiths (2003) (97.4 Kb Pdf) found that there was no clear seasonal pattern for these deaths.
The cold can have various physiological effects, which may lead to death in vulnerable people. Woodhouse et al (1993) reported that colder home temperature was associated with increased blood pressure in older people. The Eurowinter group (1997) noted that cold causes haemoconcentration, which leads to thrombosis, and that cold can also lower the immune system’s resistance to respiratory infections. Additionally, the level of influenza circulating in the population increases in winter. In vulnerable groups, for example in the elderly or those with pre-existing health problems, influenza can lead to life-threatening complications, such as bronchitis or secondary bacterial pneumonia (Public Health England, 2014b).
Previous research has shown that although mortality does increase as it gets colder, temperature only explains a small amount of the variance in winter mortality, and high levels of EWM can occur during relatively mild winters Brown et al, 2010 (293 Kb Pdf) . Curwen and Devis (1988) showed that both temperature and levels of influenza were important predictors of excess winter mortality. The relationship between temperature, influenza and winter mortality is complex.”
Source: Excess Winter Mortality in England and Wales : 2014/15 (Provisional) and 2013/14 (Final)
The reasons why moderate cold is a bigger killer than strong cold are social. People protect less against moderate cold and are therefore more vulnerable to its deathly effect. It is the same explanation as to why France is unusually susceptible to heat waves that cause less trouble to Southern countries that experience even higher temperatures during those heat waves, like Spain or Italy. It is called adaptation and can be such simple measures as avoiding being outside in the central hours of the day, staying in the shade, and drinking a lot of water.
But it is very clear that those excessive winter deaths are in big part due to the effects of lower than ideal temperatures on susceptible people. Cold affects negatively a lot of human diseases, while heat has a negative effect on very few.
Global warming, saving human lives since 1850.
Vitamin D, saving human lives since like, forever!
One can count on disease vectors moving northward with increased temperatures.
Extreme heat and extremely warm nights.
“Globally, extremely warm nights that used to come once in 20 years now occur every 10 years.12 And extremely hot summers, those more than three standard deviations above the historic average, are now observed in about 10% of the global land area, compared to 0.1-0.2% for the period 1951-1980.13
These trends cannot be explained by natural variation alone. Only with the inclusion of human influences can computer models of the climate reproduce the observed changes. These changes include an increase in the number of warm nights, unusually hot days, and heat waves, as well as warming of the warmest night of the year, warming of the coldest nights and days of the year, and warming of the hottest day of the year”
https://www.climatecommunication.org/new/features/heat-waves-and-climate-change/heat-waves-the-details/
I don’t see why not. If we live in a warmer world it is obvious that all warm-related statistics should be higher, regardless of the cause of warming.
That is a shortcoming of computer models, that have been built, parameterized, and tuned to anthropogenic forcings.
Let’s remember the
“Principles governing IPCC work
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf
Natural climate change needs not apply.
It is clear that if the science is funded to find human-induced climate change, and models are built to reproduce human-induced climate change, that is what they will find and reproduce. But that is a proof of nothing except bias.
You do seem to view the world of climate science as a grand conspiracy.
“Even so, that means more than one in five Americans with postgraduate degrees show a high predisposition for conspiratorial belief. As an educator, I find this disturbing.
Other factors are at work in creating a conspiratorial mind. Uscinski and Parent note that in laboratory experiments “researchers have found that inducing anxiety or loss of control triggers respondents to see nonexistent patterns and evoke conspiratorial explanations” and that in the real world “there is evidence that disasters (e.g., earthquakes) and other high-stress situations (e.g., job uncertainty) prompt people to concoct, embrace, and repeat conspiracy theories.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories/
Not at all, but the times when scientists decided on their own what to research are long gone. The science that gets researched is the science that gets funded. It is as simple as that. Funding bodies decide how they assign the money and therefore what gets researched and what doesn’t. Political directives are one of the ways the society decides what gets researched.
What you think is a conspiratorial belief is actually knowledge of how science takes place. Scientists in general do their best, but they are paid workers. Politicians are actually in charge and many times they don’t do their best.
But since much of the science is at universities there would have to be some method to control each one in place and some larger conspiracy at work. Since much of the results go against the political and corporate desires, I see no central ruling force at work. I do hear people who believe there is a greater conspiracy at work.
This would have to be a worldwide conspiracy too. So I do not think that your assessment is within the realm of reality.
Hi Javier,
There are many nations that have had the political establishment against climate science, supporting their fossil fuel masters. Also the fossil fuel industry can support their own research to find “the truth”.
Many scientists will pursue those avenues of research they think are most fruitful.
Did you base your research solely on what could get the most lucrative funding?
Not all scientists are motivated solely by money, if they are, they work in the private sector rather than at academic institutions.
The main responsibility of a principal investigator is to have his/her research group adequately funded. Without that he cannot pay salaries, pay for the research or attract students.
To do that the PI has to be successful at grant applications. Past proven success shown by publications is paramount, but knowing or guessing what is likely to get funded by the funding body where applying is as important.
If working on climate research presenting an application on human induced climate change is several times more likely to get funded than the opposite. And if you get a reputation of disagreeing with consensus or providing ammunition to skeptics you can forget about publishing in a lot of journals and getting money from a lot of places.
Perhaps you have forgotten about climategate emails, where it was shown how Mann, Briffa, Jones, … engaged in gatekeeping to have contrarian papers rejected from several journals.
Just to cite one:
Jones to Mann Mar 31, 2004
Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Hi Javier,
Mann, Jones etc don’t supply the funding, that comes from governments and corporations.
Take off the tin hat 🙂
Dennis,
No. What Jones, and Mann, and others in collusion with them do is to control the editorial policies about climate change in quite a few journals.
We have seen with surprise how the publication of some contrarian articles has resulted in the publicized resignation of journal editors, like in the Soon & Baliunas 2003 paper, the Spencer & Braswell 2011 paper, or the Akasofu 2013 paper. This is unprecedented in science where scientific debates are everyday business and good and bad papers are published also everyday by all sides. It results in a lot of pressure being brought on journals and editors to not accept contrarian articles, and the pressure originates in the consensus scientific elite to which Jones and Mann belong, as their emails demonstrate. Different means towards the same end. Let the other side starve from lack of funds, lack of publications, public victimization by activist groups and the media, and lack of career progress. Scientists are not stupid. Those holding a contrarian point of view will hide it.
Suppression of the contrarian point of view by such questionable methods is strong indication that the consensus of experts is probably wrong. When the science is right there is no need to go to those extremes.
WHY HASN’T JAVIER BEEN BANNED YET?
I am tired of scrolling past his inane garbage.
I believe Javier still has not explained why he believes that carbonic acid does not increase the ocean’s acidity, or why he believes that acidifying the ocean is harmless to creatures which form calcium carbonate shells, or why he denies the consensus of geologists on the causes of the P-Tr extinction. He’s just propagandizing at this point.
Michael F. Holick, MD, PhD of the Boston University School of Medicine might be interested in those statistics but, I’m sure he’d want to investigate links to something other than temperature, UV exposure and vitamin D deficiency to be exact.
GF’s post above suggests that EWM has less to do with temperature and I’m pretty sure Dr. Holick would suggest a link to decreased levels of vitamin D in the winter months. Of course such ideas run afoul of another giant, very profitable, multinational industry, the pharmaceuticals but, that’s a whole other story.
Eating organ meats during the winter will keep up the levels of essential minerals and vitamins.
On a lighter note: (Have a good holiday, mates. Remember, a happy Christmas dinner means no talking about politics, including AGW.)
Racial Profiling?
I was standing at the bar of Terminal 3 in the International Airport when this small Chinese
guy comes in, stands next to me, and starts drinking a beer.
I asked him, “Do you know any of those martial arts things, like Kung-Fu, Karate, or Ju-Jitsu?”
He says “No, why the hell would you ask me that? Is it because I am Chinese?”
“No”, I said, “It’s because you’re drinking my beer, you little prick.”
Good one Paulo. Have a Merry Christmas.
LOL!
And Happy Holidays to all with best wishes for good health, cheer and happiness with family and good friends in the coming New Year.
+1
I’ve been so impressed with Tesla, they have proven you can build an EV that is better than an equivalent ICE based car. With Tesla being such a hit, there are a bunch of new companies trying to copy them. They all are opening offices in California. Who knows, maybe California will soon be producing more cars than they do in Detroit.
The first two are doing high end sedans like the Model S, the second two are more like the roadster – at least for now.
Lucid
https://lucidmotors.com/car
LeECO
http://lesee.leeco.com/en/
Fariday Future
https://www.ff.com/en/ffzero1concept/
Next EV
http://www.nio.io/ep9
Lucid has a partnership with Samsung to supply the batteries (hopefully they are not the galaxy x7 batteries) they are planning a 150kWh EV with over 400 miles of range.
LeEco is a Chinese company mainly targeting the Chinese market; the owner is overextended. Faraday Future is a mess full of vaporware, promises, and a high cash burn rate, and is funded by *the same guy as LeEco*, who has brought in the team from LeEco to try to straighten them out. NextEV I know less about but seems both underfunded and pretentious. Lucid has a solid chance but it still underfunded.
NASA/USGS Provide Global View of Speed of Ice
“”We are now able to map how the skin of ice is moving,” said Ted Scambos, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Colorado lead for the GoLIVE project. He and his colleagues are releasing new results from the project at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco. “From now on, we’re going to be able to track all of the different types of changes in glaciers — there’s so much science to extract from the data.”
With a near-real-time view of how glaciers and ice sheets are moving, researchers can integrate information about atmosphere and ocean conditions to determine what causes these ice sheets to change — and what that means for how much ice is flowing into the ocean. That could help provide critical information to coastal communities that will be most impacted by rising oceans. ”
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6698
There was some discussion in a previous thread of atmospheric carbon dioxide not explaining much of the warming since 1850. I used Berkeley Earth Annual Land Ocean Global Temperature data (link below)
http://berkeleyearth.org/data/
and Carbon Dioxide data from links below for 1850-2015
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law2006.txt
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_gl.txt
A ordinary least squares linear regression of the natural log of atmospheric CO2 vs global temperature (BEST) was performed to find the “C” model (C=carbon).
The model (C) and data (BEST) are compared in the chart below. The R squared for the regression is 82% and the correlation coefficient is 92%. The transient climate response (TCR) of the “model” is 2.3 C. The ECS (after the ocean warms) would be higher, at least 3 C (and probably higher, maybe 3.4 C).
Dennis,
And your claim is that model C reproduces 1910-1945 warming and 1950-1975 cooling?
I would argue quite strongly that it doesn’t. It is actually a quite beautiful demonstration that CO2 cannot explain past temperature record. It is barely rising in 1910-1945, and going opposite to temperatures in 1945-1975.
The Shrinkage
Javier (Costanza) has been making cold claims for years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DoARSlv-HU
This is NOT Cool! Climate Change 2016 by Peter Sinclair
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROQQ5SUV9Ug
bang, bang, done
Spy Satellites Show The Himalayas’ Changing Glaciers
Until now, knowledge about glacier mass change in the region has been spotty.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spy-satellites-show-the-himalayas-changing-glaciers_us_585852c5e4b0630a25423517?section=us_green
“A glacier may be losing mass for two reasons — it may be from melt or it may be getting less snow,” Rupper said. “Remote sensing can give you the net change but not the cause. The power is when you can couple that with on the ground information to put that into perspective.”
bang, bang, done
Hi Javier,
Read carefully. The oversimplified “model” explains 82% (R squared)of the variation in temperature from 1850 to 2015, without atmospheric CO2 it is difficult to explain the overall temperature trend. Note that the slope of the trendlines are the same, there are two trendlines on top of each other, one for the “C” model, and one for the data.
We can add AMO (Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation) data to the “model” do a linear model with temperature depending on ln(CO2) and AMO, call it the “camo” model.
In that case R-squared is 91% and the correlation coefficient is 96%.
Again this “model” is way too simple, but shows that most of the temperature trend is explained by the change in the natural log of atmospheric CO2 (82%) with another 9% explained by AMO, we could also add ENSO, aerosols, solar variability etc.
I will repeat that natural variability is assumed and explains why temperature does not track precisely with the natural log of CO2, this is fairly straightforward.
Yes, Dennis,
You can do models and they should fit past temperatures.
Bill Illis made a model in 2008 for AMO, ENSO, solar, volcanic and CO2. It reproduces quite well past temperatures, and due to the lag in ENSO it also predicts for 3-4 months in advance.
The model is still performing rather well eight years later. He talks about it here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/07/think-progress-weve-found-some-global-warming/#comment-2295440
And here originally:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090626174702/https://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/25/adjusting-temperatures-for-the-enso-and-the-amo/
Some of the features of the model:
Using HadCrut or GISS it gives 1.85°C per doubling of CO2.
Using RSS it gives only 0.7°C per doubling of CO2.
The curious thing is when he posted his graph early in September I thought there is no way temperatures are going to fall by that much when there is no or very weak La Niña. However the model was right and we have seen that huge fall in temperature anomaly.
At least this model does predictions and they turn out to be correct.
Javier,
Webhubbletelescope has done similar models, but without AMO, solar can be left out as it adds little to the model as can aerosols. Note that the 1.85 C per doubling is a transient climate response estimate. It takes quite a while for the ocean to warm due to the high heat capacity of water, roughly 75 years to raise the top 700 meters of ocean by 3 C if no heat was transferred to the deeper ocean. Clearly this is not the case. If all of the ocean was an average depth of 3700 meters, it would take about 390 years to raise all of the ocean by 3 C, the ocean mixing rate is probably slower than this so reality would be between 75 and 400 years, maybe 250 years or so. In any case equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) reflects the warming after the ocean has warmed and will be higher than transient climate response, by about 1 to 1.5C.
The 1.85 C TCR estimate is similar to my very simple “CAMO” model with a TCR of 1.76C for a regression on 1866-2000 data. The R squared for 1958-2015 annual data is 94% and the correlation coefficient is 97%.
These simple models do not give an estimate of ECS, only TCR. They are consistent with IPCC estimates of TCR.
Thank you Dennis, and is there a reason you haven’t banned Javier yet? It is boring scrolling past his nonsense to try to find comments from sane people.
Dennis,
But observe that the model can be made to fit any temperature dataset, including satellite, even though they are quite divergent. In fact using satellite it gives a value of only 0.7°C per doubling.
The point being made is that the ability of models to reproduce past warming tells you nothing about the future, and more importantly tells you nothing about climate sensitivity values, that clearly should not be derived from models.
Hi Javier,
RSS data is available for only 45 years, far too short to tell us much, it is also based on “models” which you generally distrust, so you should distrust this data as well.
Why do you choose to trust this data? The surface temperature data based on weather station data is far better in the view of many scientists and is available for a much longer period (about 165 years).
If you would prefer to use paleoclimate data to estimate Earth System Sensitivity (including albedo change from ice sheet melting and vegetation changes over time), we can do that.
Temperature increased about 3.6 C globally from LGM to HCO based on Shakun et al 2012, atmospheric CO2 increased from about 180 ppm to 260 ppm.
ESS=3.6/(ln(260/180))*ln(2)=6.8 C.
An alternative estimate uses 278 ppm for Holocene average atmospheric CO2 and 180 ppm for LGM and a temperature change of about 3.4 C from LGM to average Holocene temperature.
ESS=3.4/(ln(278/180))*ln(2)=5.4 C.
Hansen estimates about half of this change in temperature is due to increased greenhouse gases(GHG), if we treat increases in GHG as a feed back to increased CO2, then ECS would be about 2.7 C. If the rest of the temperature change is due to changes in ice sheet area (affecting mostly albedo), this would be about 2.7 C as well.
Most of the changes in ice sheet area have been in the Northern hemisphere for the past 800,000 years. Currently Northern hemisphere ice sheet area is about one tenth the size of the LGM, so currently the ESS due to albedo change might be as low as 0.27 C, though lower snow cover extent as temperatures warm might increase this by 0.15 C, so ESS might be about 3.1 C, if melting permafrost and carbon release from soil due to warming are not significant.
I believe these might be significant and increase ESS to as much 4 C.
The mid Pliocene had Global Temperature at about 1.7 C above 1961-1990 mean and atmospheric CO2 about 400 ppm. Based on this, ESS=1.7/ln(400/278)*ln(2)=3.2C.
We will see atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm and it is difficult to predict the result, uncharted territory. ESS of 3.9C or even 4.2 C is a distinct possibility, but we just don’t know. Assuming everything will be ok strikes me as Pollyannaish.
Note that the climate models (rather than the simple linear regressions which are not true models) are based on physical principles and are a very good basis for estimating Equilibrium climate sensitivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MhTuTnJJlY
FM16 Press Conference: Attributing mountain glacier retreat to climate change
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting 2016
Kaboom! Kaboom! annihilated…
If you took the previous hundred million years as a normal, the globe right now is in an historically cool time period. Otherwise, if you took the time period since the last remaining continental glaciers melted away, global temperatures have averaged warmer, although they have been colder at times as well. In any case, the concept of there being this sort of ideal climate that the entirety of humanity has the power to set in stone belies reason and logic.
Hi Charles Van Vleet,
Most humans prefer a climate that humans are well adapted to, so the climate of the past 250,000 years is much more relevant, homo sapiens sapiens, aka modern humans, are thought to have evolved approximately 250,000 years BP.
Hi Charles,
The nature of modern industrially based civilization is such that we are adapted not just to the climate that has mostly dominated for the last few thousand years, as Dennis points out, we are ECONOMICALLY and geographically adapted to the various climates that have prevailed for the last two to three HUNDRED years, since that’s about how long it’s been since the Industrial Revolution really got rolling.
Since then our population is up by a factor of roughly twenty, iIrc, maybe I ought to check that number. Seven billion of us are now concentrated mostly in the spots that have the most pleasant and productive climates.
If the climate were to shift noticeably , over a very large area, such as the central USA, or California , or the Indian subcontinent, or in any major bread basket, there will be hell to pay.
We know that such shifts do occur naturally, as evidenced by the drought that forced the cliff dwellers out of our southwest, etc.
The thing is, Charles, we also know that we are forcing climate to change in ways that are going to result in far more harm than good, for dead sure.
If you have trouble understanding WHY this is so, consider monkeying around with the adjustments of any sort of machine you are acquainted with, changing them at random. The odds of IMPROVING the adjustments, which were already correct , are so slim as to be for practical purposes the same as zero.
And given that we have adjusted our very LIVES to the climatic conditions that prevail now, and have prevailed for the last few centuries……….. we DON’T want to be monkeying around with the adjustments.
And they have neve experienced CO2 levels this high.
In fact, none of the Great Apes have.
Possibly earlier primates may have, but even that is questionable.
Hi Duncan,
Primates have been around for a long time lemurs for example around 75 million years, 3.2 Million years ago atmospheric CO2 is estimated to have been about 400 ppm, human like apes were around 5 million years ago, according to Wikipedia.
Hominina (humans and biped ancestors) and Panina (chimps) separated about 7.5 million years ago to 5.6 million years ago.[3]
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution
Nobody has ever demonstrated that those high levels of CO2 are an important problem.
There are a lot of things that are at levels never seen before. Metals, organic compounds, byproducts of our industries. It doesn’t mean they are necessarily dangerous. The planet can cope with a lot of changes. Levels of CO2 were very high in the distant past. CO2 is part of the cycle of life.
Javier- “The planet can cope with a lot of changes. Levels of CO2 were very high in the distant past. CO2 is part of the cycle of life.”
That is very true, similar to defecating in your water supply. Cholera is a very unpleasant way to die, but the ‘planet copes’.
Hi Javier,
Likewise nobody has proven that it is not a problem, most biologists think that and increase in radiative forcing to 7.4 W/m^2 (which is about 1120 ppm of atmospheric CO2 and assumes the relationship is linear, reality is likely to be higher).
Over millions of years the flora and fauna can adapt and/or evolve, over a few millennia perhaps not. Humans may find there is a lack of food supply if crops are poorly adapted to a much warmer World.
One can claim that everything will be ok, and be wrong.
The concern over global cooling reflects a poor understanding of the carbon cycle. Global temperatures (30 year averages) will be above the Holocene average for 100,000 years if 1000 Pg of carbon( from fossil fuel burning, cement production and land use change) are emitted from 1750 CE to 100,000 CE.
P – Tr extinction is sufficient to demonstrate the problem with high levels of CO2.
And why hasn’t Javier been banned yet for blatant lies?
Hi Nathanael,
Do we really know what caused the Permian Triassic Extinction?
Solstice Trivia
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016, 3:23 PM: The Arctic has been suffering bizarre weather extremes as of late, and even the start of Winter hasn’t cooled things down, as North Pole temperatures have climbed to 30 degrees C hotter than normal for this time of year. Graphs show the temperature has climbed to the freezing mark and above a few times since Sept., however none of those events represents such a marked contrast to the temperatures that we should be seeing at the time.
Next up: perihelion, on Jan. 4, 2017 at 14:18 UTC!
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/north-pole-reaches-30-celsius-hotter-than-normal-thursday/77265/
DougL,
If you haven’t seen today’s XKCD comic yet, head over thither.
A tribute to ol’ Sleipnir; who’d ‘a thunk it?
Happy Christmas to you all.
Much to the chagrin of the renewable enthusiasts, the economy will remain fossil fuel based into the distant future. Fossil fuels will power the economy while renewables wag the tail.
The carbon economy ain’t ending anytime soon. All scheduled flights usually arrive on time. The private jets will be parked at Dulles during the inauguration and the party that follows will be like it’s 1999.
Remove jet fuel, diesel, gasoline, you have biofuels derived by fossil fuels… and mayhem.
You’re going to starve in a hurry. Chaos won’t be just a word. Carbon drives the entire machine.
Except in Germany, Norway, France…. They now have a huge economic advantage since they no longer need to fight over supplies of dwindling fossil fuels.
R Walter:
“Remove jet fuel, diesel, gasoline, you have biofuels derived by fossil fuels… and mayhem.”
That statement shows a breathtaking, profound lack of knowledge and imagination.
Much to the chagrin of the renewable enthusiasts, the economy will remain fossil fuel based into the distant future. Fossil fuels will power the economy while renewables wag the tail.
Sorry, but not buying that tired old line anymore.
https://goo.gl/zolvnF
Dare to be ambitious in 2017
by Bertrand Piccard Solar Impulse
The problems we face in terms of health, poverty, education, pollution, climate change, bad governance are the result of old ways of thinking, which are no longer valid in a globalized world. In this 21st century, exploration needs to be taken to another level. Not to go back to the moon, as this has already been done, but rather to improve the quality of life on Earth.
The first dogma we need to throw over board is the need to burn fossil fuel in order to grow our economy. Today, people are beginning to realize not only that it is possible to get rid of this dependency, but also that it makes a lot of sense: not only to protect the environment and save natural resources, but also to create jobs, generate profits and boost the economy.
Hi Fred, I am fully on board with you as usual, and believe that with good luck and good management we can transition to an economy based on renewable energy and recycling etc, while still enjoying a modern, dignified , and healthy life style.
But even though I have often said RW is our forum’s royal jester, and not to be taken literally, I have to agree with him once in a while, when he says something that can be interpreted only one way.
When he says” the economy will remain fossil fuel based into the distant future” I am afraid I must agree with him, depending on how I interpret “distant future”.
My own guess is that most richer Western countries will still be using at least fifty percent fossil fuel energy in 2050, with maybe Germany and a few other smaller and highly advanced nations doing better.
The odds my making it till 2050 are pretty close to zero, but still…… most people probably think of 2050 as being quite a long time off.
So – in your personal opinion or estimation, how long do you think it will be before most advanced economies are less than fifty percent dependent on fossil fuels ??
Ironically I think a bunch of the more backward ( less economically developed ) nations with the fewest natural resources are apt to manage the transition a lot faster than countries such as the USA, since such nations will likely be able to develop domestic renewables industries more easily than they can earn money to pay for imported fossil fuels.
The time needed for a complete transition doesn’t seem critical to me, because as I see it, once we pass fifty percent or thereabouts, we can probably manage the remaining fifty percent, over another generation or so, without much risk of economic collapse.
But Sky Daddy help us , if we were to experience a major short fall in fossil fuel supplies within the next twenty years……….. Transition in that event might be politically and economically impossible.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
You didn’t ask me, but my answer is at link below
http://peakoilbarrel.com/the-energy-transition/
That is about half of energy from fossil fuel using very conservative estimates.
My scenario assumed no further decreases in Energy intensity (energy used to produce a dollar of real GDP) after 2050, which is not likely. I also assumed a very gradual growth rate in renewable output after 2050.
If we assume renewable energy grows by 7%/year (similar to fossil fuel growth rates from 1920 to 1973) from 2031 to 2048 and then at 6% per year until fossil fuels are replaced, then 50% of energy demand is provided by non-fossil fuels by 2045 and fossil fuels are replaced by 2057, in 2050 70% of energy demand is met by non-fossil fuels. Chart below shows percentage of energy demand provided by non-fossil fuels in this scenario. This scenario results in about 900 Pg of carbon emissions from all sources (fossil fuels, cement production and land use change).
Hi Dennis,
Thanks. My opinion for what it’s worth is that your future scenarios are as good as anybody else’s, bar none.
So long as some random event or positive feed back effect doesn’t upset the business as usual apple cart.
And while some other regulars seem to overlook the fact that you DO point out your assumptions about business as usual , I don’t .
Now Fred is a guy who has his head on straight, and he frequently talks about positive technical change, and disruption, so I am hoping to add his opinion or guess to others I have filed away.
Hi OFM.
I too am interested in Fred’s opinion. He is aware of some of the cutting edge stuff going on, but smart enough not to be taken in too much by hype. He follows the cutting edge stuff much more closely than me.
OFM & Dennis, Thank you for your votes of confidence. While I certainly do not have a crystal ball and therefore have no idea how our future will unfold. I do have a gut feeling that we may be reaching a perfect storm of tipping points on multiple fronts. Perhaps there may be change afoot and that will happen much quicker than many of us believe.
I have sort of made a career of being a generalist.
As such, at a very early age long before the internet was a major force in our lives, I spent a considerable amount of time doing research in libraries about a very wide range of technical and scientific topics.
We live today in an age when anyone who so desires has access to incredible amounts of information. I have continued to explore widely throughout this fantastic smorgasbord of knowledge. I have become reasonably proficient at reading writing on walls, connecting dots and synthesizing what I witness.
Here’s a slightly different perspective… an essay from the biomimicry point of view on how super organisms might select a leader…
IMHO, The full read is well worth it.
https://biomimicry.org/nature-elect-president/
Why do we persist with political parties and the electoral college, superdelegates, gerrymandered political districts, and a single president, chosen by only a quarter of the people, many of them infected by the parasitic spores of false news? The answer is tradition and entrenched interests—complex systems fiercely resisting change. But radical change occurs when ordered systems approach the edge of chaos, and it seems we are approaching that now. It is doubtful the next generation of digital natives will have much patience for parties and presidents. Press the right leverage points, and watch the thing flip on a dime. Revolutions surprise us, and change is sudden and unexpected. The water boils, and we don’t see it coming. The networked way of life works, and failures are fossils (as Janine Benyus says). The ants thrive, and the dinosaurs are no more.
No leader can know everything in this complex and changing world, and the more uncertain the future, the less one single vision is likely to be the right one. Ant scouts wander, junebugs blunder—they don’t know what they don’t know, and they can’t afford to limit the possibilities.
Collective intelligence and distributed leadership are evolutionarily proven strategies for success. Diversity and independence, networked by transparent and truthful transactions, allow the wisdom of the crowd to go to work. With flat networks, we can innovate better, make more accurate decisions, and enjoy far greater resilience. We can respond to change much faster. Stop boiling the frog, and sense the local details.
It’s time to jump out of the water.</I.
About the Author
Dr. Woolley-Barker is an Evolutionary Biologist and pioneer in the emerging discipline of Biomimicry. She serves as an independent ‘Biologist at the Design Table’ with organizations like Biomimicry 3.8, providing biologically inspired innovation for a global clientele. Her book TEEMING: How Superorganism Work
As usual, well said Fred. Of course I agree with you. Speaking of intelligence, here’s a random (and off topic) tidbit for you.
GIANT CELL BLOB CAN LEARN AND TEACH, STUDY SHOWS
It isn’t an animal, a plant, or a fungus. The slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) is a strange, creeping, bloblike organism made up of one giant cell. Though it has no brain, it can learn from experience, as biologists have demonstrated. Now the same team of scientists has gone a step further, proving that a slime mold can transmit what it has learned to a fellow slime mold when the two combine.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161221090246.htm
Oh yeah! They are old friends of mine and brilliant at solving shortest route problems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEyWwUNj_es
Published on Oct 10, 2012
Tokyo railway optimal path design and slime mould…. A single celled organism can do ‘optimization’ as good as hundreds of engineering minds put together… amazing video and amazing creature… just fascinating….
Looks good Dennis, let’s do what we can and keep our fingers crossed.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all.
Hi Gone Fishing,
You have sais in the past this will not happen automatically, I emphatically agree. We need to do all we can to make it a reality.
I think it is possible, perhaps even moderately likely (higher than 50% probability). that a transition to non-fossil fuels will happen by 2070, the scenario I painted above is quite optimistic, with maybe a 15% probability that close to zero fossil fuels are consumed for energy use in 2057.
2015: solar produced 0.6% of US electricity.
Annual growth rate has been between 41% and 48%. Using the more conservative 41% growth rate, it doubles every two years. In 16 years — 2031 — solar will be producing at least 153% of today’s electricity usage in the US. Electric car adoption only increases demand by ~10%. Other sources of demand have been flat in recent years due to efficiency increases; heating wil increase demand, but you get the point.
Other countries are following similar curves. China is faster. Europe is mostly starting further ahead. Africa is starting with less electricity — it has very little fossil fuel base to replace. The US is actually a laggard, along with all the other major oil-producing countries apart from Norway.
This is ignoring the growth in wind power or the retention of hydropower.
World car sales in 2015: 88.7 million. Electric and plug-in hybrid electric car sales: 550K. Tesla doubles production yearly, on average. Others will have to keep up if they want to survive. In about 8 years — 2023 — all new cars will have a plug, and it’ll take another 10 years or so for the old cars to be replaced, so 2033.
Stationary batteries are moving down in price more slowly, but they’re only needed for nighttime when the wind isn’t blowing, which is already less than 50% of energy usage. Many are already being installed for other purposes like frequency regulation but they will cut down on the need for “backup nighttime fossil fuel burning”. Batteries probably displace “backup fossil fuel burning” for utility company new-build plants within 2 years, and they replace old natgas plants when natgas prices go up too high (I haven’t calculated how high, but somewhere less than $6).
That leaves heating. The heat pump is the big technology here and it’s already cheaper to operate than any form of heating except natural gas heating, or wood you chopped yourself. And costs about the same as a boiler. And they, too, get better every year. Natgas at $6 makes the heat pump cheaper to operate *in the winter in the snowbelt*; it’s already cheaper in warm climates. People are slow to replace heating systems so I hesitate to guess the years on this one.
The US will most definitely *not* be using 50% fossil fuels by 2050. No chance whatsoever. I realize many US people are highly ignorant, but at some point they’ll be convinced to save money.
This documentary is on point. The key point is that solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and heat pumps all follow *manufacturing economics*, not resource economics. (The raw materials for them all are incredibly abundant, cheap, and *not destroyed* — they can all be recycled.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmyrbKBZ6SU
Anyway, it’s an interesting coincidence how many of my projections are coming in in the 2030-2035 timeframe. If we manage to have a serious oil crisis before roughly 2030, that would be very troublesome.
That’s a whole 14 years from now. I think we probably will. I’m trying to switch off of oil before the oil crisis causes a panicked run on solar panels and batteries and electric cars and causes the prices to be bid way up (and the companies selling them to make lots of money).
Hi Nathanael.
Assuming that a 48% exponential growth rate will continue for more than a couple of years is pretty silly in my opinion.
Hi Dennis,
Please tell us anything you can about the nature of the so called S curve flattening out as a new technology matures and the market for it is getting to the point that the manufacturers, distributors, and individual people in the industry come to realize that the fast growth phase is over, and that the industry will be settling down to steady business with maybe a small annual increase in revenues.
It’s obvious this will eventually happen to the wind and solar industries, if they continue to grow long enough.
But it’s hard for me to visualize how many years ahead a major manufacturer might decide that building another new production facility would be a bad move, because there are too many variables involved. If management thinks the price of the product will fall too fast either to new tech or slowing sales, the plant won’t get built, etc.
But I can’t model this scenario, since I lack the necessary skills.
Can you create a graph or chart that shows the point at which management will stop investing in new capacity, based on assumptions that prices will be thus and so, and sales volume thus and so, for so many years from the date the new production plant will be ready?
Maybe I am asking too much, lol, because I don’ know how much work this involves.
Coming up with an answer for one combination of prices, quantity of sales, years of sales, etc, versus the cost of a new plant is easy enough. The decision would be straight forward. If the estimated quantity to be sold, and the prices obtained high enough, for enough years, etc, the plant should get built. Otherwise, it should not be built.
I am guessing that new investment in renewable energy will fall off very fast indeed not less than about five to ten years before industry leaders estimate the fast growth days are over- unless maybe the management of a given company believes it has new tech that will enable the company to undercut the competition in a slow market.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
I will have to think a bit on that. Basically one would ignore prices and just assume a certain demand growth for energy depending on population growth and economic growth primarily and making assumptions about changes in energy intensity. Businesses that produce wind or solar would look at installed capacity and the rate that this capacity will need to be replaced as it ages or becomes obsolete as technology improves. As the industry matures investment will be for upgrading plant and equipment and there is likely to be excess capacity, just like the current auto industry.
Also population is likely to peak and eventually demand for energy will fall so over the very long term the industry would contract as population declines in the 22nd century and beyond. Eventually, if humans get things right, population will stabilize at some sustainable level maybe 1 billion or so in the 23rd or 24th century CE.
“The first dogma we need to throw over board is the need to burn fossil fuel in order to grow our economy.”
In mature economies we can generate economic growth with reduction of energy use for at least one generation.
Banks should not be controlling the money or the economy. If they can’t exist in a replacement economy, we will find other ways to move our money around.
The banks had better have a plan B.
700 different cryptocurrencies are functioning right now. My bet is peer to peer exchange of values, will sooner or later completely destroy the top down centralized monopoly of the banking system. Good riddance!
You seriously think the banks will allow that?
NAOM
The banks are looking at using blockchain tech to secure their systems (I’ve seen the job ads.)
My guess is that we’ll see blockchain used for a lot of things, but probably not as a replacement for money.
-Lloyd
Naolig Llawen, Feliz Navidad
Maybe the banks will use it but they are not going to let go of their control over money.
NAOM
Banks like any other system or organization can be disrupted and it can happen whether they ‘Allow’ it or not. What is really at stake is finding a way to end the control of resources by the 57 individuals who hold over 50% of the world’s wealth.
BTW, blockchain, is just a technology that makes peer to peer exchanges of value very difficult to hack or corrupt. Think all kinds of contracts and even democratic elections.
Out of the 700 or so existing crypto currencies you gotta love these two: Titcoin and Potcoin… 😉
List of cryptocurrencies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptocurrencies
Anyone following the news about all the die-offs in the Pacific Ocean? More and more people are suspecting Fukushima, I’m hoping they are wrong and it’s just a wacky theory, but something may be happening.
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-whale-corpses-chile.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-02/fukushima-radiation-has-contaminated-entire-pacific-ocean-and-its-going-get-worse
There are lots more, but maybe it’s just the high temps from global warming.
Another thing they are reporting is missing insects all across the US. Especially missing are fly’s and mosquitoes (the meat eaters). I can report in San Francisco we were getting more and more mosquitoes as the temps warmed, 2015 was crazy (most widows here don’t even have screens since it wasn’t a problem long ago) but this year was warm but no mosquitoes. But truckers, etc are saying it’s everywhere, really?
Leslie Corrice blogs about Fukushima on a regular basis. He can also be followed on twitter and Facebook. http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/about-the-author.html
Radiation in the ocean. http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/is-there-fukushima-radiation-on-north-america-s-coast.html
Thanks rw, that is a much more reasonable analysis. Yes,the cesium has contaminated the whole pacific, but the ocean is huge and it sounds like we still have more cesium left over from the atomic tests then we do from Fukushima. Soo much misinformation out there…
The EIA released their latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly today. I’ll start with the interesting stuff, capacity additions. In October for the third time this year virtually no FF capacity additions occurred (0.46% NG) with solar and wind, combined making up slightly more than 95% of new capacity! Batteries actually made up slightly more than 3% of capacity additions. If these trends were to become the norm, the Koch Brothers et al should be somewhat concerned. See chart below.
These trends WILL become the norm. Critical price thresholds are being crossed as solar, wind, and batteries get cheaper… and fossil fuels don’t.
I am hearing that petrol (gasoline for the USAnians) prices, down here, will be going up 20% in the new year. This seems to be supported by a sudden shortage ie holding onto supplies until the price goes up.
NAOM
Big queues to fill up today, enjoyed passing those frustrated motorists on my bici.
NAOM
They say you should never discuss politics at family gatherings and on holidays, etc, but it’s still ok to read about politics.
Here’s a Christmas present for all the regulars here. I guarantee ya all a BUNCH of belly laughs.
Just go to quora dot com, and type Trump jokes into the search window.
Be careful not to spit up too much coffee or beer or whatever and ruin your keyboard laughing!!!
Here’s one of the better ones.
One day, Donald Trump visited an elementary school, to tell the children about his success, and to show off his ‘intelligence’.
The schoolchildren were learning vocabulary, specifically the word ‘tragedy’, when the famous businessman stormed into the classroom.
Trump decided to help the children learn the word ‘tragedy’, and asked the following question to them:
“What would be a tragedy, kids?”
A bespectacled boy nervously answers:
“If my best friend died of pneumonia, that would be a tragedy.”
“No, that would be a great loss,” Trump corrects him.
Another shy young child answers:
“If my uncle got hit by a train, that would be a tragedy.”
“No, no, that would be an accident,” Trump replies.
A young girl raises her hand. The wealthy businessman asks her if she’d like to give an example of a tragedy. The girl nods, and says:
“If Mr. Trump was in his private jet, and a missile hit the jet, that would be a tragedy.”
“Yes, that would be a tragedy for sure. Can you tell me why?” The businessman asks.
“Well, it definitely wasn’t a great loss, and I’m not sure if it was an accident, either,”
answers the young girl.
Another:
El Chapo has offered $100 million dollars for Trump’s body, dead or alive. I guess that finally answers the question about how much Donald Trump is actually worth.
Another:
On Friday, an elementary school teacher poses her students a challenge….
“If you can tell me who said the following quote, they don’t have to come to school on Monday: ‘We have nothing to fear, but fear itself'”
A hand shoots up and little Billy Tran says “Franklin Delano Roosevelt”.
“Correct, Billy. You can have next Monday off” the teacher replies.
“I’m Vietnamese, we value education I’ll be here Monday”.
“Ok” says the teacher “Lets try another one: ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.'”
This time the hand of little Susie Hou rises.
“Abraham Lincoln”
“Correct Susie.” the teacher asserts “Enjoy your day off”
Susie says “Oh no ma’am. I’m Chinese, we also value education I’ll be here early on Monday morning”.
“Fucking immigrants!” a voice says from the back.
“Who said that?!” the teacher snaps.
“Donald Trump…” says little Johnny “…I’ll see ya Tuesday”
Another
“Let me say this about Donald Trump. I love Donald Trump, all comedians love Donald Trump. If God gave comedians the power to invent people, the first person we would invent is Donald Trump. … God’s gift to comedy.”—Jerry Seinfeld
One more.
A Mexican doctor comes illegally in the US and sets up shop in NY.
He can’t practice due to lack of papers so write a note outside the door: “we cure any disease for 50 dollars, if we fail we give you 100 dollars”. Donald Trump walks by and wants to show how smart he is. Goes in and says “ I have lost my taste buds, I can’t taste anything anymore “. Doctor tells the nurse “get preparation 21 for me”. He asks Trump to stick his tongue out and puts a few drops. “puah, this is disgusting, you gave me shit!”. Doctor : “Good, you are cured, give me 50 dollars!!”
Trump is pissed, thinks about it and comes back the following day:” I seem to have lost my memory, I can’t remember anything “. “no problem“ says the doctor, “nurse get me preparation 31.”. Same scene, the doctor drops a few drops on Trump ‘s tongue. “puah this is disgusting, it is the same shit you gave me yesterday “. I see you are cured, you owe me another 50 dollars!!
Now Trump is fuming, the New York Times maybe reporting on this, he is mad. Comes back the following day and says: “I can’t really see, my eyesight is gone. “ same scene as before, doctor puts 3 more drops of shit on Trump’s tongue but Donald doesn’t speak a word. The doctor says “I’m sorry Mr. Trump it looks like I can’t cure you” . Trump is estactic and puts out his hand. The doctor hands him only a 10-dollar bill and says “here is your 100 dollars as promised “. Trump yells “you Mexican bastard, it is only 10 dollars, not 100 dollars”. Doctor : “good you are cured, you can see again, you owe me another 50 dollars.”
That doctor one was good.
Hi Dennis,
You or Ron, either or both of you, may think these jokes are inappropriate, since I am posting so many of them.
It won’t hurt my feelings at all if you delete the lot of them, but give the guys a chance to read them first, and Merry Christmas!
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
They are pretty funny to me, though Trump fans may not like them.
On the last day of Barack’s presidency, he and Donald Trump go to the same barbershop to get their hair done.
Barbers decide not to talk about politics, and everybody ends up not talking at all. The air is so tense. it could be almost cut with the barber’s knife.
Barack and Donald decide to get haircuts while in conference, to save a little time.
Donald’s hair gets finished first, and when the barber tries to apply some cologne to it, Donald goes nuts “Are you out of your mind? I can’t go to my house smelling like I’ve been in a brothel. Melania would go crazy”.
Right at that point the other barber finishes doing Barack’s hair and goes, “So Mr. President, I guess you won’t like cologne either?”
“I don’t have a problem with that”, says Barack with half smile on his face; “Michelle doesn’t know what a brothel smells like.”
It’s going to be a long 4 years, thanks
‘Brothel”- thats very funny!
You might enjoy this as well-
North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
“In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly-free, democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.
Indeed Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project. ”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article122618669.html
Oh well,
They can move to Virginia or South Carolina I guess. Those that don’t like a Republican dictatorship.
Sad to see.
Read this link.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/12/23/north_carolina_doesn_t_really_qualify_as_a_democracy_anymore.html
This is the second and third sentence of the article:
The state where the outgoing governor signed a law stripping his successor of certain powers scored 58/100 in the 2016 election, according to the Electoral Integrity Project, a joint effort between Harvard University and the University of Sydney. That places the state alongside the likes of Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone.
“North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.
READ THE THIRD SENTENCE.
People will believe what they WANT to believe, and if they want to believe North Carolina has a third world country equivalent government, well no amount of evidence would will ever convince them otherwise.
When a Trumpster says something totally out of line with reality, every body gets his shorts in a bunch, displaying his indignation about the Trumpsters making mountains out of mole hills, using one percent truth and ninety nine percent bullshit to construct their slanders.
“That places the state alongside the likes of Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. ”
Cuba has not even HAD a fucking election since Castro took power. Trump himself couldn’t do any better job twisting the actual truth into a pretzel.
“North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.”
I live just across the state line , and know a hell of a lot about NC politics, I know lots of people there. I read a couple of NC papers, off and on. I know some local kids, two of them relatives, that are pretty liberal, who attend NC colleges and universities. They aren’t bent out of shape about anybody not being allowed to vote, Met the rest of them at a Sanders function. . They ARE pissed about bathroom laws, etc. I was in the mythical NC town of Mayberry, on election day, and there were quite a lot of black and brown voters. None of them displayed the slightest hint of worry about being turned away from the polling place I visited for no more reason than that I had business in the immediate neighborhood and stopped to bs with an old acquaintance I saw coming out of the building. I have never heard personally of any person with a valid North Carolina address being denied the right to register to vote. If blocking voter registration were all that common a practice, I would have heard of it, from local people, when it happened to local people.
I don’t know much about Iranian politics, but any body who compares NC politics to Venezuelan politics, and says NC is as bad or worse is as bad a cynical partisan liar as as Trump himself.
IF there is ANY dirty trick the current Venezuelan government has not pulled recently, somebody please tell me WHICH dirty trick the Maduro regime overlooked.
I’ll send him a memo, explaining that by using it he might be able to maintain his farcical authoritarian government another few weeks.
For Sky Daddy’s sake , how could any body take this level of bullshit partisanship reporting seriously? Think about the effect accusing Tar Heels of living in a state , and liking it, with a government as corrupt as Cuba’s.
This is as good a way to make sure Tar Heels continue to hold the liberal establishment aka the D party in contempt as you could come up with if you tried.
Is NC gerry mandered ? Sure. Most states are to some extent. D’s are apparently about as good at it as R’s , when they have the opportunity. NC may be the current USA champion.
The older PEOPLE of the state of NC are heavily inclined towards the older more traditional ( much despised by younger more liberal voters) cultural values that prevailed over most of this country up until the last two or three decades. NC state politics reflect this cultural bias, which is to be expected.
I am not so much trying do DEFEND NC, as I am trying to point out partisan bullshit rhetoric wherever I run across it.
Politicians of both parties pull the same sort of trick the NC guv just pulled.
Obama just pulled one that is supposed to permanently ban any drilling in American Arctic waters. Now I happen to be ok with that, but the thought HAS crossed my mind that he did it to restrict the powers of the incoming R president.
Whoda thunk it?
A D prez on his way out doing something to restrict the powers of an incoming R prez????????
But I’m glad he did. 😉
We’re going to need all the fish we can get from up that way once the waters down this way get to warm for the fish. I posted links just a few days back about the more desirable species moving north, out of UK waters, and less desirable warm water species such as squid moving in.
“People will believe what they WANT to believe” yes they will.
“Obama just pulled one that is supposed to permanently ban any drilling in American Arctic waters. Now I happen to be ok with that, but the thought HAS crossed my mind that he did it to restrict the powers of the incoming R president. ”
Perhaps he saw a danger to the both the republic and the environment and took precautions. Our government is based on limited power and checks and balances. Lately the line has been crossed too many times, some of them permanently. Is that the direction you think we should head toward?
Hi GF,
Merry Christmas!
I SAID I was ok with Obama’s banning Arctic waters oil drilling.
You say ” Our government is based on limited power and checks and balances. Lately the line has been crossed too many times, some of them permanently. Is that the direction you think we should head toward?”
I totally agree.
My whole point is or was that political discourse in this country has descended to the level of people screaming insults and lies at each other, and I don’t like it.
For Sky Daddy’s sake, if a professor of law, etc, at a respected major university, one known to be a pretty liberal institution, talks like a Trump mouth piece……. and this is the case in this case……. maybe we have already passed the point of no return, and doomed to sinking ever lower into the muck, where we will eventually drown like elephants and mules that venture into water covering too much soft sucking mud.
There isn’t anybody around to pull us out, the way we have pulled other much smaller and poorer countries out of jams, here and there over the years.
As a general rule, I do not believe in justifying the means because the end is for a ( perceived ) good cause, except in rare instances when something really really critical is being protected or saved, or some extraordinary risk avoided.
And in both the Obama case, and the NC case, it MUST be pointed out that these actions were taken IN ACCORDANCE with existing law. Neither the the prez nor the NC guv and legislature broke the law. Both of them bent the spirit of it, maybe, but they remained within the rules. Note all the D partisans gave HRC a free pass on twisting the spirit of security law into a pretzel with her emails etc.
The whole issue in terms of the coverage, is bullshit partisan editorializing, rather than honest reporting.
Notice that there is seldom any mention of what was actually DONE, because mentioning it puts it into perspective, and perspective is the last thing this whatchamacall it organization wants, in the case of NC. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find it shares LOTS of connections with the D party and the Clinton Foundation, etc, not that I really give a shit.
Overall , it seems likely that the organization does good useful work.
Break the rules too often, and the end result is that there ARE no rules. Whoever has control of the levers of power can and generally does to suit himself.
I have always said that Obama is a fairly decent prez, especially considering what he is has been up against, and he’s looking better by the day, in hindsight, lol.
The state of the world in general, and the USA in particular, is getting a little more problematic every year, and things look as if they will continue to go down hill, regardless of who occupies the WH.
The truth is that most of what happens in the world, and here in the USA as well, is mostly beyond the president’s control. A lot of things are entirely beyond his control, even domestically.
A certain number of important to critical events, processes, industries, etc, are subject to being STEERED to some extent by the president and congress.
Obama steered us towards renewables. Trump will steer us back towards fossil fuels.
But in the end…….. depletion will rule.
Anybody who really understands the world and politics knows this is true. Unfortunately we tend to think and vote as if we believe presidents have powers they don’t, for the most part.
Now just as a person who is getting old and has a major chronic illness can and does occasionally rally and do a lot better for a while, so can this country, overall, economically.
The thought of better times cheers me up, but the thought of Trump getting credit for them pisses me off, although I do recognize that he may do some things to make the economy perform better , short term.
My doctor tells me he COULD prescribe all sorts of pills that would make me feel GREAT, for a little while. He won’t , because in the medium and long term, they would do me a lot of harm, maybe even kill me.
Trump and the R controlled congress might do some things that will temporarily goose up the economy, but if so, I’m confident and afraid the longer term effects of this goosing will be BAD.
Clinton and a D congress would have resorted to the goosing medicine, this being SOP, but they would have exercised more restraint and better judgement about the long term consequences.
In either case, their partisan fans would give credit to them for things that would mostly have happened ANYWAY if the other party had been in power. The out party likewise makes a habit of blaming any unfortunate events and economic troubles on the party in power.
This business of goosing the economy ( in order to make it lay more eggs faster, short term, causing it to go off it’s feed, and lay a lot less eggs LATER) is one of the biggest reasons we have boom and bust economic cycles.
Everything Hitler did was completely legal, too.
Apparently North Carolina makes it a little too easy to change the basic constitutional structure of the state. In normal states they wouldn’t be able to do what they did in NC; it would require a constitutional amendment which would require a referendum.
Most perniciously, the specific powers they stripped from the governor are the powers to oversee elections; they are making damn sure that the elections remain just as crooked and dishonest as they were last time. This is really deliberate anti-democratic sabotage, sorry to say.
Perhaps it is partisan on my part but putting in place an environmental protection on a single issue is a different kettle of fish from significantly reducing the scope of responsibility of a chief executive for purely partisan reasons.
This act fits in the same catagory as denying the president the power to appoint a Supreme Court justice solely to enable, hopefully, an appointment from your own party.
Democracy isn’t only about staying legal. A democracy can only stand when the traditions of democracy are respected. The Repubs have, consciously as a party, chosen to trample on those traditions.
Agree, Thank you
Read it more carefully, Mac. They rated North Carolina on a number of specific characteristics, then computed an overall score (which is always a questionable thing to do).
On the overall score, North Carolina rated alongside Cuba (yes, Cuba does have elections, quite regularly), Indonesia, and Sierra Leone. An artifact of averaging better scores in some areas with awful scores in others.
On one specific category — gerrymandering — North Carolina is the worst in the entire world.
On another specific category (legal framework and voter registration) North Carolina is in the same category as Iran and Venezuela. (And you must admit people are still registering and voting in Venezuela.)
They PRETEND to have elections in CUBA , and in North Korea too, unless I am mistaken. They PRETENDED to have elections in the old USSR.
Once I have caught a person or organization in such an obvious and blatant distortion of the facts, with the distortion being so bad as being equivalent to the worst sort of barefaced lie, I don’t ordinarily take that person or organization seriously, there after.
North Carolina may actually be the world champion when it comes to the gerrymander, but I will not personally take THIS organization’s word for it. You wouldn’t either, unless you either WANT to believe it, or unless you are ……. well I can’t think of a polite way to say it, but anybody who believes any body who has twisted the truth so into such pretzels as this outfit in one respect is telling the truth in another is NAIVE at best, or to put it bluntly… Well, I won’t actually say it.
You’re a decent guy , and I mostly agree with your comments, but in this case, you are displaying a little too much of a tendency to support your in group at the expense of looking ……….. naive, or cynical, at best.
I personally refuse to go along with the “pretend” games that are so popular with both the right and left wings. I point out bullshit where ever I run across it.
You can BET that R politicians will be reading this particular bullshit at R political gatherings large and small in the Tar Heel state for the next few years, and the people there who hear it will be reinforced in their contempt for the D party, because they KNOW who the libel is aimed at, and middle of the road voters who hear it, and who like the state of NC pretty well, as evidenced that they LIVE THERE rather than elsewhere, aren’t going to be thrilled with joy , exactly, when they hear it.
One really really bad mistake the liberal establishment keeps on making, over and over, is assuming conservative voters are not only ignorant, but that they are also STUPID, and that they don’t have internet, cable tv, and even a newspaper in their homes.
You don’t make friends and allies out of the people of a whole fucking state by accusing them of literally being the moral equivalent of a Castro or Hitler.
This sort of bullshit is great when it is used as the basis for a sermon by the D party leadership to the D party choir. But when it posted on the internet………. well, I know a guy very well who can’t read more than maybe a thousand common words, who can’t write much more than his own name, who cannot balance a checkbook, etc, who has been adjudged ( correctly imo) as having the mental capacity of a small child……… who can work his Iphone faster than I can work my keyboard, and carry on conversations with half a dozen different girls over the course of an hour. ( He lucked out on looks, girls think he is HOT stuff. )
The point is that anything on the net is going to be seen and discussed by people who DON’T like it, even if they are the sort of people that “nose in the air , holier than thou, I’m smarter than you ” people habitually look down on, even as they preach about tolerance in the same breath.
Those who don’t like that sort of snobbery and moralizing outnumber those who do, in the Tar Heel state, and are reinforced in their intentions to vote for “anybody but Clinton”, even if the only other candidate with a shot at winning is Trump.
MY point, when I comment about this sort of issue, is to get the D party to understand that when it’s shooting at the R party establishment, it OUGHT to be careful about shooting off its own toes.
After rereading the article and going to the actual site, I look upon the Electoral Integrity Project as a real service to the nation. North Carolina did not score bottom overall, fairly far down on the list but it had an extremely low score in one area.
It is watchdog organizations like this that point out the flaws in the democratic system and the abuses that can grow. We should be thanking them for warning us and investigating the claims, not bulldogging them and calling them left or right.
Much like a garden or a farm, democracy has to be carefully tended and watched over. It can become just as pest ridden as any plant.
Yep. This is bad stuff.
The federal government is supposed to step in in cases like this and force North Carolina to hold honest elections — there’s a constitutional clause, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” and they don’t mean government by the Republican Party.
Of course the federal government is broken.
She Went To Alaska To Photograph Polar Bears In Snow, But Found No Snow
“The shot struck me immediately.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/patty-waymire-polar-bears_us_585d6ca6e4b0eb5864863a14?section=us_green
Heterotroph – An organism that is unable to synthesize its own organic carbon-based compounds from inorganic sources, hence, feeds on organic matter produced by, or available in, other organisms.
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Heterotroph
Humans are using, feeding on, organic carbon-based compounds all of the time. Tertiary consumers, top of the food chain. That includes all and any sundry that takes us there and gets us there.
Going to continue as such, the human condition, no escaping a carbon economy. It rules.
Let it snow, but remember it melts too.
“Thick sea ice covered with snow can reflect as much as 90% of the incoming solar radiation. After the snow begins to melt, and because shallow melt ponds have an albedo (or reflectivity) of approximately 0.2 to 0.4, the surface albedo drops to about 0.75. As melt ponds grow and deepen, the surface albedo can drop to 0.15, while the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest.
As Professor Peter Wadhams, University of Cambridge, once calculated, a collapse of the sea ice would go hand in hand with dramatic loss of snow and ice cover on land in the Arctic. The albedo change resulting from the snowline retreat on land is similarly large as the retreat of sea ice, so the combined impact could be well over 2 W/sq m. To put this in context, albedo changes in the Arctic alone could more than double the net radiative forcing resulting from the emissions caused by all people of the world, estimated by the IPCC to be 1.6 W/sq m in 2007 and 2.29 W/sq m in 2013.
Thick sea ice covered with snow can reflect as much as 90% of the incoming solar radiation. After the snow begins to melt, and because shallow melt ponds have an albedo (or reflectivity) of approximately 0.2 to 0.4, the surface albedo drops to about 0.75. As melt ponds grow and deepen, the surface albedo can drop to 0.15, while the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest.”
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-threat-of-arctic-albedo-change.html
GoneFishing,
Prof. Peter Wadhams is a crackpot. He is such outlandish alarmist that not even alarmists dare to cite him anymore. Here are some examples:
2012 Prof. Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at the University of Cambridge, predicts a collapse of the Arctic ice sheet by 2015-2016.
Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years
2016 ‘Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice’
But wait, it gets even better:
Have three climate change scientists been ASSASSINATED? The astonishing claim made by a Cambridge professor
“Professor Peter Wadhams insists three scientists may have been murdered. Seymour Laxon died after a fall while Tim Boyd was struck by lightning. Katharine Giles was crushed to death by a truck while cycling in London. Prof Wadhams believes they were killed by oil lobby workers.”
That appears to be the nature of our scientists-alarmists.
Now the real question is why the media publishes articles on his predictions every year, saying he is an expert scientist. Common people like GoneFishing then believe this short of bullshit and repeat it as if it was the gospel.
Is there a reason Javier hasn’t been banned yet? Seriously?
GF has pointed out data in his 10:51 comment that ought to scare the living hell out of anybody who really does appreciate the nature of non linear change, the sort of change that can be brought about by runaway positive feed backs.
I’m damned glad my little place is high enough up that at least it will never be threatened by rising seas. 😉
If I were a young man, I would be looking at some property a thousand miles farther north, and at least a couple of thousand feet above sea level.. It may well get hot enough, on average , that living in such a place will be roughly equivalent to living where I am NOW, in terms of average weather.
Maybe it will cool off enough in Florida that people will be able to enjoy some sunbathing and swimming on cool mid winter days. I guess the rest of the time they can come out at night,if they MUST, like small desert dwelling animals.
Don’t be in such a rush to move north Old Farmer ( I know you are not), it might turn out to be bad for a while if the AMOC shuts down or severely slows. It could get quite cold in certain northerly regions, mostly northern Europe but some effects in the North American region too. Don’t ask me the timing or probability of that change in currents. Still it would be quite disappointing to set up in New England only to find the temperature there dropping, while other areas further north and inland increase in temperature.
You can’t depend on the weather. Although altitude is the better guarantee of average cooling, I wouldn’t go further north than Northern Pennsylvania in the hills. If the AMOC starts fluctuating parts of Europe will be very difficult and parts of NA will become harsh compared to present.
Lots of wood for heating though in the hills of Pa and NY.
The key thing is that the Great Lakes basin has a huge supply of fresh water, which is going to be rarer and rarer. And the weather patterns mean that even if you’re not quite in the Great Lakes basin… we’ll still have lots of rainfall up here. Drought predicted in much of the southern part of the country…
Paging Doug,
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/190004/20161224/volcano-that-caused-europe-s-largest-volcanic-eruption-stirring-again-what-would-happen-if-a-supervolcano-erupts.htm
I have an excellent idea what an actual super eruption would mean. WWII might look like a rained on picnic by comparison, depending on where the eruption occurs. Yellowstone could wipe out half the USA as effectively as a thousand atom bombs.
The question is this.
Are there any publicly released estimates of what the odds are of a super sized eruption, based on the current indications described in this link??
Would you care to share a wild ass guess of your own?
People who don’t care about volcanoes might not realize that just because a volcano IS capable of a super eruption, it still has smaller, more ordinary sized ones as well, sometimes.
Javier pooh poohed the one that this volcano had most recently , in the 1800’s , but he wouldn’t be poo pooing a super eruption. He might not even live over it, or the aftermath, depending on where he lives.
Hi Mac,
“Are there any publicly released estimates of what the odds are of a super sized eruption, based on the current indications described in this link??”
Yes. The yearly probability of a caldera-forming Yellowstone eruption has been approximated by the USGS as one in 730,000 (0.00014%). This is based on averaging the two intervals between the three major past eruptions — hardly enough to make a critical judgment. This probability is similar to that of a large asteroid hitting Earth. Of course catastrophic geologic events are neither regular nor predictable. Yellowstone has only had three truly enormous eruptions in history: one 2.1 million years ago, one 1.3 million years ago, and one 664,000 years ago. BTW Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia is the only supervolcano that is sometimes described as Yellowstone’s “big” sister. About 74,000 years ago, Toba erupted and ejected several thousand times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens.
Mt . Toba has erupted four times: 1.2 million years ago, at 840,000 years ago, 500,000 years ago and then again around 74,000 years ago. The last eruption is considered as the biggest known eruption ever on Earth. The Toba catastrophe theory relating to this eruption suggests the event caused a decade-long global volcanic winter that was possibly followed by 1,000 years of cooling. This blast was 100 times greater than the largest volcanic eruption in recent history, Mt Tambora in 1815.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL.
Hi Doug,
Here’s hoping you are surrounded today by old friends and family, and enjoying the traditional celebrations on which the festivities and rituals of such latecomers as Baptists are based.
From Wikipedia
xxxxxx
How we inherited Christmas from
THE VIKING YULE
The celebration of Yule in Scandinavia predates the Christian holiday by thousands of years
Winter Solstice, the time of the year when the days get longer and the sun begins to return was truly a cause for celebration among our ancestors in Scandinavia. Their Midwinter Feast lasted at least twelve days. So there are the twelve days of Christmas.
Most Christmas traditions are rooted deep in ancient Yule rituals, many coming from the Vikings. Historic evidence indicates that Jesus was not born on December 25, but in the Spring. Why is then Christmas celebrated on December 25? A common theory is that the Christian church designated this date as the day of Christ’s birth to coincide with the Nordic Midvinter Solstice celebrations, as well as with a Roman midwinder fest called Saturnalia, in order to “facilitate” the conversion of “heathens” to Christianity.
At Midwinter, or Solstice, the Vikings honored their Asa Gods with religious rituals and feasting. They sacrificed a wild boar to Frey, the God of fertility and farming, to assure a good growing season in the coming year. The meat was then cooked and eaten at the feast. This is the origin of today’s Christmas ham in Scandinavia.
During the festivities they burned a giant Sunwheel, which was put on fire and rolled down a hill to entice the Sun to return. According to one theory, this is the origin of the Christmas wreath.
Another Viking tradition was the Yulelog, a large oak log decorated with sprigs of fir, holly or yew. They carved runes on it, asking the Gods to protect them from misfortune. A piece of the log was saved to protect the home during the coming year and light next year’s fire. Today, most know the Yulelog as a cake or cheese log rolled in nuts.
Even the Christmas tree goes back to pre-Christian times. The Vikings decorated evergreen trees with pieces of food and clothes, small statues of the Gods, carved runes, etc., to entice the tree spirits to come back in the spring.
Ancient myths surround the Mistletoe. The Vikings believed it could resurrect the dead, a belief based on a legend about the resurrection of Balder, God of Light and Goodness, who was killed by a mistletoe arrow but resurrected when tears of his mother Frigga turned the red mistletoe berries white.
The Yule Goat, (Swedish julbock, Finnish joulupukki, Norwegian julebukk) is one of the oldest Scandinavian Christmas symbols. Its origin is the legend about the Thundergod Thor who rode in the sky in a wagon pulled by two goats. An old custom was for young people to dress up in goat skins and go from house to house and sing and perform simple plays. They were rewarded with food and drink. The Yule Goat at one time also brought Yule gifts. This character was later replaced with “jultomten” (Santa Claus).
Our pre-Christian ancestors would dress up someone to represent Old Man Winter, who was welcomed into homes to join the festivities. Dressed in a hooded fur coat, Father Christmas traveled either by foot or on a giant white horse. Some think that this horse may have been Odin’s horse Sleipnir and that Father Christmas was originally Odin, who was often depicted with a long beard. When the Vikings conquered Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries, he was introduced there and became the English Father Christmas.
Today, Viking Yule is celebrated in reconstructed Viking Villages such as Foteviken in Skåne and Jörvik in England, where visitors in December can make Christmas decorations with the Vikings, listen to Viking legends and hang their wishes in Odin’s Yule Tree. Viking Yule is also celebrated by Asatruers, who revive the old Nordic religion, called Asatru.
Of course, our Scandinavian forefathers were not alone in celebrating the Winter Solstice. All over the world, and throughout history, people have celebrated the sun’s return after the winter with a wide diversity of rituals and traditions. And still are.
Links: Yule in the Old Norse Religion – Thor’s Goats – Yule around the World and in History
xxxxxx
About that volcano–I’m sure the odds of a super eruption are very slim indeed. The guys at the USGS are pretty sharp.
But the odds of a more typical, smaller eruption of the sort that commonly happens at least once a century or so,still big enough to be a BIG problem locally, somewhere in the world, may actually be as high as one or two percent annually over the next few decades. The local area is densely populated, and even a modest eruption would be catastrophic for anybody living within a few miles.
Do you know of any estimates on the likelihood of an ordinary eruption, given the known prevailing conditions?
Here is a website that monitors the volcanic region with deformation and gas graphs. Use your favorite translator if you don’t read Italian.
http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/en/campi-flegrei.html
This article states that the next Camp Flegrei explosion can be less than 100 years away.
“The scientists then created a long-term temporal probability model based on the available eruptive record to study the clustering pattern of Campi Flegrei. Under the assumption that the Monte Nuovo eruption represents the beginning of a new eruptive epoch, model results, on average, estimate that the next eruption in the Campi Flegrei caldera is likely to occur within 100–120 years. The models indicate that the eruption could occur as soon as 4–5 years from now or as distant as 400–500 years from now (corresponding to the 5th and 95th percentile bounds of the model variability). However, such time estimates increase significantly, up to even more than 1000 years, if Monte Nuovo is not assumed to be the beginning of a new eruptive epoch and/or only western side activity is considered.”
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/when-might-the-campi-flegrei-caldera-erupt-again
Thanks GF,
This is exactly the sort of data I was looking for.
Check out my nice comment about Trump.
Pretty useless models I would say.
Now, is it You-l or is it U-lay?
I’ve been puzzling over this.
NAOM
Oldfarmermac,
A common hypothesis but it is a false one. Christians arrived to their date independently, and prior to the establishment of the festivity of Sol invictus in Rome.
It starts with the incorrect dating of the death of Jesus Christ in the third century, and the interest by the Christians to find the date of the birth of Jesus.
The first clues were the dating of the Annunciation towards the end of March due to the conception of John the Baptist five and a half months earlier taking place during the Feast of Tabernacles in early October. The Annunciation festivity is celebrated the 25th of March.
The dating of Jesus death in Tertullian times was wrong. Tertullian wrote that Jesus was crucified on the eighth day before the Kalends of April during the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, or March 25, 29 C.E. We now know that the date is incorrect, but at the time it also made sense because it was the date of the Vernal equinox and the Jews believed the world was created by God on the Vernal equinox.
Since the Annunciation fell on about the same date of the year it also made sense according to another jewish belief. That Moses and other great prophets were born and died on the same day, having perfect lives because God completed their days.
Thus since Jesus died on March the 25th, and since He came to the world at the time of his conception that was also dated by the end of March, then he must have been conceived also on March the 25th and had been born nine months later, on December the 25th. That is the origin of the date for Christians.
Hippolytus of Rome (170-236) in his “Commentary on Daniel” (224) is the first to mention December 25 as the date of Jesus birth. “For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC].”
At the time, Saturnalia ended on December the 23rd. It was 50 years later when Aurelian instituted the unconquered sun (Sol invictus) festivity from a religion that was more recent in Rome than Christianity.
And Scandinavia was too far removed from the Roman Empire for their festivities to have any influence there.
As always we must remain skeptical of popular theories not based on evidence.
Hi Javier,
I have at times read a good bit about the ins and outs of Christian history, but too long ago to remember the details, and don’t really care anymore about particular details, except when major events turn on them.
I am however very much interested in understanding the course of history. You have a point about Scandinavia being too far removed from the old Roman empire to have had much effect on religion and traditions THERE, back then.
But Scandinavians played a truly MAJOR role in the history of most of what we refer to as Western Europe from the Viking era onward, and that’s when our religious traditions involving Christmas were evolving into modern forms, with a lot of Scandinavian influence.
And since most of the prevailing culture in the Western Hemisphere today is historically based on the prevailing cultures of Western Europe during the era of European colonization of the Americas……….
I am satisfied that our current day Western, Christian holiday traditions contain a heaping helping of Scandinavian elements.
You may well be right about some of the the details and whether they have been correctly interpreted. I have read more than enough history to know that historians make a lot of mistakes, and that depending on who they are, who they owe allegiance to, they are also prone to playing favorites.
Hi Oldmacfarmer,
I find religions fascinating. Another one of my many interests. With a religion humans give themselves from what to eat and how to eat it, to how to behave to other humans, whether related or not, from the same religion or from a different one. It is very clear that they have an adaptative role, a very big one. Every people in the past developed a religion. And groups that have kept their identity for long, like Jews or Amish, usually have in common a strong religious belief.
As a scientist I am non religious since I don’t believe on anything that cannot be demonstrated, but I see that most people feel the need to believe even if they are unaware of it. A lot of atheists display the same posture towards science than religious people towards their religion. They have an unshakable faith that progress will provide if we remain faithful to the true science. However history has already demonstrated that progress can stagnate for a millennium or even go backwards, and that science can lose its way for a generation or more following wrong ideas.
There are a lot of myths everywhere. Religions, History, Science. We humans love myths so we tend to create myths all around us, and propagate them if we like them, and what we do is we suspend our skepticism to accept a myth that we like. Anything that is not supported by hard evidence is susceptible of being a myth. The myth that Christians copied Jesus birthday from pagans was created out of thin air in mid 19th century and propagated and supported with all kind of logical reasoning based mainly on its coincidence with the winter solstice. Most people accept it without asking for evidence.
Something similar happens with the myth that we are going towards an apocalyptic climate Armageddon. It was created the day it was decided that the cooling period between 1945 and 1975 could be fully explained by cooling from contamination aerosols. Nobody knew by how much aerosols were capable of cooling the planet, but it was made big enough to prevent warming from growing CO2 emissions and cause all the cooling observed. A very strong aerosol pollution cooling allowed for a very strong CO2 warming. Obviously there is no evidence of that and we don’t know the cooling factor of contamination as we don’t know the warming factor of CO2 (climate sensitivity). This myth has been dressed with all sorts of logical arguments and the efforts of a lot of scientists are dedicated to defend it, while best scientific practices indicate that it should be attacked instead, since no hypothesis or theory can be demonstrated to be correct so we must settle for being unable to demonstrate that it is incorrect. As with any good myth that we like, nobody is asking for the evidence. How do we know that the promised apocalypse is real? We don’t. It is all a worse case scenario based on assumptions that nobody can demonstrate. At the same time Nature is telling us that it is not going that worse case path, but again most people simply ignore any evidence that doesn’t fit the myth, or only accept negative opinions on climate regardless of the evidence.
In 1988 we were told by Hansen that we were going to radically alter the climate of the planet if we didn’t change course. We not only didn’t change course, but increased our emissions by more than Hansen predicted, yet 30 years later we have only experienced a modest increase in temperatures. According to HadCrut4 anomaly last month was +0.524, only +0.325° C above 1988 value 30 years ago, and all the growth since 2003 has been due to an El Niño. Other than that humankind is doing proportionally better now than in 1988 in almost any measurable condition. The problems we have related to the incredible growth in our numbers are not climate related.
It should be clear by now to any impartial observer that the catastrophic anthropogenic CO2 climate change hypothesis cannot be correct without the need to wait 30 more years.
Backatcha Javier,
You certainly do display some real understanding of the way the collective mind of our naked ape species works.
As I said, you are right about some of the details of current day Christian dogmas, but the general statement that we have a lot of Scandinavain elements incorporated into our Christian religious traditions still stands true. It will be even more true, if we incorporate even more elements later on.
You can no more make grand sweeping statements about the observed DETAILS of a religion or culture than you can about climate, based on a very few observations.
I won’t be changing my mind about Scandinavian influences on Christmas traditions.
Actual traditions are obvious enough. Midwinter and mid summer religious or sacred rituals are known to have been observed well before we even have any written history.
Preachers and priests, salesmen and con artists, PR men of every stripe, are generally decades to centuries ahead of the egg head philosophers and anally retentive academics who do as best they can to explain these things to us.
The dumbest local horse trading hillbilly I know will latch onto any observation to make his case. There is ZERO doubt in my mind that early Christians not only could have but DID do whatever they could to insinuate their beliefs, piecemeal, into the prevailing dominant religions, and to incorporate bits and pieces of these dominant religions into Christianity, in order to better sell Christianity to the men and women of their day and time.
How do I know this? Because human nature changes but little, if at all, on the historical time scale, and I see it happening on a daily basis today. This sort of co option of elements of other people’s belief systems, for various reasons, good bad and indifferent, is the RULE, rather than the exception.
When it suits their agenda, for example, Republicans adopt the position Democrats have held longer and more consistently, in respect to public debts. The R’s used to scream about it, until they got in power, then they quit screaming and started running it up.
( This incidentally is one reason I do not consider big R republicans to be real or true conservatives, but rather opportunists using the term to paint themselves as wiser, more prudent, etc than “liberals”. Debt may NOT be a critical issue, so long as the measure of it is limited in relation to the size of the economy, but to say it just doesn’t matter is incontrovertible evidence of stupidity, in my estimation. How great that measure may be…………. now THAT’S something to worry about! I worry about it. )
I won’t be changing my mind about the reality of and the dangers associated with forced warming.
In human affairs of the every day sort, it is easily understood that a factor either good or ill can be present, and having a real, accumulating effect, for quite some time, before the result becomes obvious, even to the specific human involved.
My personal observations of the affairs of men, and natural events, on the grand scale, have lead me to the understanding that while change is inevitable, as the result of changing circumstances, the actual appearance of this inevitable change may be long delayed…. but that does not mean it won’t happen. Sometimes the ill effects of drinking a lot of alcohol are not apparent for a decades, but then all at once the alcoholic individual’s health nose dives.
I can add, or remove nutrients from the soil in a certain field, in modest increments, for quite some time, before the addition or loss of these nutrients becomes obvious over the noise introduced by natural variations in the weather, pest problems, etc, is overcome sufficiently for me to say that my yield is either up or down due to the nutrient profile.
Then at some point, either up or down, the yield may change DRAMATICALLY, with only a minor ADDITIONAL change in the nutrient profile.
No biologist, or professionally trained farmer, will argue that the productivity of a given plant or crop, such as corn, does not correlate in a well understood and pretty much invariable fashion with the quantities of available NPK and trace nutrients, EVERYTHING ELSE HELD EQUAL.
I do NOT have GREAT FAITH in the predictive powers of climate models, in terms of their accuracy, because there is not sufficient data available to refine them, the way we can refine the details of medical text books, or agricultural text books. Physicians have had the luxury of observing the progress of countless thousands of cases of any important disease, and the treatments tried for it, and thus can predict rather accurately that a man with a certain disease will or will not live five more years, or five more DAYS, etc, in the case of many well understood diseases.
Climate scientists don’t have the luxury of all these thousands of past observations carried thru to conclusions, but the physics involved are perfectly obvious, and the actual observed results, over time frames OTHER than the ones you choose to use, are rather obvious, unless one wishes to say the loss of Arctic sea ice over the last three decades is the result of natural variation, or the greening, which YOU have pointed out, in northern climes, is also the result of natural variation.
Bottom line, I am agnostic as to the SPECIFIC predictions of climate scientists, meaning by SPECIFIC the average temperature will rise by thus and so in thus and so many years. But the odds are VERY CLOSE to one hundred percent that rising green house gas concentrations will result in higher average temperature, and the odds are CLOSE to one hundred percent , in my estimation, that these rising temperatures will result in various positive feedbacks that will lead to FURTHER rises in the average temperature.
Maybe the increase will be less than the climate scientists as a group expect. Maybe it will be more. If anybody wants to place a modest long term bet, my money says it will be MORE than the middle of the road predictions.
My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that the odds are 99.9 percent plus that the overall climate will continue to heat up for the next few decades, and probably for the next few centuries.
The precautionary principle applies.
Beyond that……….
If you collect coins, and put aside a legal tender coin, it will never be worth less than it’s face value, no matter what happens in the collectible coin market.
Whatever we do to cut back on the use of fossil fuels, and to advance the growth of the renewable energy industries, and to promote energy conservation and efficiency……….
ALL such policies and actions will have a positive effect on our future collective well being, and the well being of the other living things with which we share this one planet.
The closest I can come to agreeing with you is to acknowledge that there is a non zero chance you are right. In my estimation, there is maybe one in a thousand chance you are right, in terms of a personal wild ass guess on my part.
People who know more about the specifics of climate science will likely estimate the odds of your being right at one in a million, or less.
But if they say ZERO, they are NOT sticking to good scientific practice, because there is a non zero chance some unknown negative feed back effect might prevent warming from happening.
Oldfarmermac,
I have not said that a good deal of Christmas traditions are coming from pagan beliefs predating Christianity. The Church has always allowed the incorporation of elements from other belief systems as long as they do not oppose dogma, and we have seen that as much in Scandinavia, as in Africa or the Americas. The celebrations for the day of the dead in Mexico are very peculiar and clearly tolerated because don’t run against dogma, but not encouraged either.
The Christmas tree is clearly not a Christian element, and poor Saint Nicklaus was probably co-opted to fill the role of some other figure in a more acceptable manner, before falling prey to Coca Cola advertisement.
But all this is likely to have happened after Northern Germany and Scandinavian Christianization, centuries after Christians decided they wanted to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, instead of only His death. this change took place at the second to third century transition as Christianity changed from an apocalyptic sect to a full fledged permanent religion.
So we can agree on that.
“I won’t be changing my mind about the reality of and the dangers associated with forced warming.”
I am fine with that. I’m not making converts but defending the right to an alternative explanation. There are lots of ifs and assumptions in the catastrophic interpretation, and lots of evidence don’t fit the narrative.
“a factor either good or ill can be present, and having a real, accumulating effect, for quite some time, before the result becomes obvious.”
I am prepared to accept that and discuss long term negative effects of increased CO2. The problem is that this is not what we are being sold. Catastrophe has been imminent for the past 30 years.
“But the odds are VERY CLOSE to one hundred percent that rising green house gas concentrations will result in higher average temperature, and the odds are CLOSE to one hundred percent , in my estimation, that these rising temperatures will result in various positive feedbacks that will lead to FURTHER rises in the average temperature.”
Well, you pulled those chances out of your hat, Olfarmermac. So I will ask you the same question I asked Dennis.
Since temperatures haven’t really raised since 2003 except for El Niño, would you still hold the same opinion if come 2030 the average temperature of the planet is still at the same level or below temperature average on 2003? If yes, why?
Dennis thinks that even if huge amounts of CO2 are emitted over 30 years, the current hypothesis can accommodate whether there is lots of warming or not warming at all. I find that preposterous, anti-science, and akin to a religious belief. What is your take?
Hi Javier,
You have completely misinterpreted what I think. I base what I think on the evidence that we have at present, which suggests the mean estimate of the IPCC matches the data.
I will reject the current hypothesis when a better alternative hypothesis explains the empirical evidence better.
I am still waiting for your alternative, the data supports a transient climate response similar to the CMIP5 ensemble mean.
Note that most of the change in temperature can be explained by the natural log of atmospheric CO2 over 67 year intervals from 1850 to 2015, over 80% of the variation in temperature is explained in this way. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will remain high for many millennia (about 100) and the ocean will warm by 2 C over 100 to 200 years under reasonable scenarios (1000 to 1200 Pg of anthropogenic carbon emissions).
Most of this is physics and chemistry.
Dennis,
“I am still waiting for your alternative, the data supports a transient climate response similar to the CMIP5 ensemble mean.”
My alternative is a ECS of about 1.65°C that is also supported by the data, as defended in multiple publications. The rest is natural-induced climate change.
The CO2 hypothesis can perfectly well accommodate such low climate sensitivity with the consequence that future warming would be much lower and essentially no damaging consequences would be seen for centuries.
A low climate sensitivity would go a long way to explain the pause, so it fits better the data.
Hi Nathanael.
Assuming that a 48% exponential growth rate will continue for more than a couple of years is pretty silly in my opinion.
Hi Javier,
Well the data supports a transient climate response of 1.75 C perhaps. You do realize it takes some time for the ocean to warm and that carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for quite some time (as the ice core evidence suggests a Tau for the remaining 45% of carbon dioxide that is not sequestered quickly of roughly 200,000 years to match the decline from 275 ppm to 180 ppm over roughly 80,000 years.)
So no, the evidence you point to is not agreed to by many climate scientists, but you can believe it if it makes you feel good.
Dennis,
“the ice core evidence suggests a Tau for the remaining 45% of carbon dioxide that is not sequestered quickly of roughly 200,000 years to match the decline from 275 ppm to 180 ppm over roughly 80,000 years.”
As I have already told you, the long CO2 delay observed in ice cores after an interglacial is assumed to correspond only to CO2 decay to yield those estimates.
This is clearly wrong. The slow descent of the planet into an interglacial has a corresponding decrease in the biosphere. Deserts expand, grassland substitutes forested areas, and rainforest decreases very much its extent. At the same time most animal species greatly reduce their numbers, as planet land becomes a lot more unproductive. These huge biosphere die off accompanies the descent in temperatures and precipitations and results in a huge amount of CO2 being released over time that slows the descent in CO2 levels.
Those calculations mean nothing as they don’t take this factor into account, and all we know is that CO2 probably has a much lower half life in the atmosphere than those calculations indicate.
Hi Javier,
There are off setting effects as the World gets colder. Carbon dioxide solubility increases as the ocean cools, and permafrost decreases the rate that microorgansms break down soil carbon and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The scientists that develop the carbon models are well aware of all the arguments you have given. In addition the bulk of carbon dioxide is removed by ocean processes and your argument primarily applies to land, most of the carbon on land is cycled from land to atmosphere and back.
Geophysics and Geochemistry principles lead to the very long life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
See
https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.fate_co2.pdf
Abstract from paper above:
A model of the ocean and seafloor carbon cycle is subjected to injection of new CO2 pulses of varying sizes to estimate the resident atmospheric fraction over the coming 100 kyr. The model is used to separate the processes of air-sea equilibrium, an ocean temperature feedback, CaCO3 compensation, and silicate weathering on the residual anthropogenic pCO2 in the atmosphere at 1, 10, and 100 kyr. The mean lifetime of anthropogenic CO2 is dominated by the long tail, resulting in a range of 30–35 kyr. The long lifetime of fossil fuel carbon release implies that the anthropogenic climate perturbation may have time to interact with ice sheets, methane clathrate deposits, and glacial/interglacial climate dynamics.
Is there a reason Javier hasn’t been banned yet? I’m tired of his dishonest spews clogging up the place. He doesn’t know jack shit and he insists on spewing lies.
Then ignore him, your choice.
All that ‘history’ is a fabrication, part of the indoctrination/brainwashing by the ‘church’.
And you know that for a fact because…
No, just opinion of course. Reading between the lines of history.
I think is funny when people claim to know the history of Joshua. Those with the franchise have made the man unrecognizable to himself.
Though I seldom post I have lurked here for many years and thank most of you for a great education. A Merry Christmas to all.
Just ran across this at Resilience.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-12-22/eroei-estimates-show-pv-to-be-a-fully-mature-technology/
The numbers on energy return and payback time appear to be about as good as the most enthusiastic backers of solar power say they are.
I am wondering if and when any of the reputable and capable scientists and engineers who used to post stuff about the poor returns of pv will update their work.
When the dollar cost of a technology falls by as much as a factor of five, which is the case with pv in recent years, the energy returned on the energy invested just about HAS to have fallen by at least a factor of two or three, because energy prices have not fallen but so far, and energy is not the only cost involved.
If we bite the bullet, and do what has to be done in terms of building electrical storage infrastructure, we can be sure , for practical purposes, that our finite endowment of oil will last at least twice as long as it will under the current bau scenario, due to electrifying most or nearly all personal transportation, and some commercial transportation as well.
And if we have no other choice, we CAN build pumped storage to giterdone. The environmental lobby, and the nimby lobby will scream bloody murder, and the screaming will be justified in many cases. but the necessary pumped storage WILL be built anyway, if there is no other choice available, and we get started before it’s too late to build it.
Getting the juice hither and yon won’t be an insurmountable problem, because we are going to have to build lots of HVDC transmission lines anyway.
There must be at least a thousand places where pumped storage reservoirs CAN be built, from a technical pov, in the USA. It would be possible to build one within a mile or two of my home with a thousand foot head, and a hundred acre reservoir at least fifty feet deep on average. It could probably be twice that big, and might be cheaper on a unit capacity basis made bigger. There are already major transmission lines within thirty miles, and some fairly large ones within ten or fifteen miles.
There are probably half a dozen such places within thirty or forty miles.
Uncle Sam chased us hillbillies out of not far distant hills and hollows within the living memory to establish the Shenandoah National Park. He can and will do it again, if the situation calls for it, and it makes political sense to do it.
I wonder if pumped storage will be stifled because of environmental laws. Batteries are far worse for the environment, but since the pollution is mostly out of country they will go forward. Hydrogen storage is another energy storage medium, just not quite as efficient as pumped storage.
The economics of oil and it’s infrastructure system are quite bad, much more expensive than PV energy. It is a no brainer to switch away from oil as much as possible. However apparently obvious economics do not work well in the real world.
Happy Holidays GF,
Here is a pump storage operation that has been running in the U.S. for the last 30 years.
“Four generators are conventional turbines and another four are reversible turbines. With the four-reversible turbines, the dam can utilize pumped-storage hydroelectricity by pumping water that is discharged downstream back into the reservoir; essentially “reusing” water.[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Russell_Dam
If you check the “est. pump” column in the link below you can see the amount pumped daily for storage hydroelecticity.
http://water.sas.usace.army.mil/declarations.cfm/
Thought you might find this interesting
I used to work at the North Anna nukes on shutdown jobs, such as refueling or any shutdown due to needed unscheduled repairs -rare. Refueling is scheduled, and nearly all repair work is done during refueling shut downs.
The off peak juice produced at North Anna was used to recharge the upper reservoir at this pumped storage plant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station
It was my understanding from talking to the engineers at the nukes that North Anna juice was used exclusively to pump the water back to the upper lake, but the wikipedia article says coal, nukes and other about where the juice comes from.
It does seem likely that some small amounts of coal fired and gas fired juice, maybe even a little hydro, would be used for pumping at times, since with fully modernized interconnections these days, the pumps can be used to help balance the grid to a nicety, thus avoiding the need to dial back the fires at fossil fuel plants, and ramp them up again.
But so far as I can tell, no other source of juice is as cheap to produce as off peak nuke juice. With the nuke already built, the little bit of extra fuel used to run flat out during the off peak hours is a trivial expense, and older nukes NEED to run flat out.
Most folks don’t realize it, but newer nuke designs can cycle up and down to a substantial extent without causing problems.
This is a good study of Solar PV EROEI, except for one thing.
It assumes 25 year lifespans. That’s now the WARRANTY PERIOD for new solar panels. Insiders believe they’ll last at least 30 years. 40-year-old solar panels are still working fine, so they may last 50 years or more.
The very long lifespan of solar panels means it’s probably correct to double the EREOIs estimated by this study.
Happy Newton’s Birthday!
(For the non theists)
Given that it is Christmas, and the Baptist interpretation of the season is peace, forgiveness, brotherhood, etc, except of course for infidels who are SUPPOSED to burn in hell, I have something good to say about Trump.
This whole comment is sarcasm, for those who can’t recognize it by the shovel full.
I fully expect the Trump administration to be the most transparent in history.
There will be a symbolic gold star and attaboy for the first person who figures out WHY.
I wish I could claim credit for this joke or cynical observation, but I can’t,and have no idea who thought of it first.
Merry-ecstatic Hallow Eastereen, everyone. Have a much richer nicer one, and for all the blessed world to know and cherish. Because peak oil salad dressing will recover with lime juice and of course KFC bucket.
Hi Caelan,
That’s one of the most depressing cartoons I have ever seen in my life, because it captures so much that has gone to hell in a handbasket, so much of what we have lost.
And hey , I do know that most of us ever had what is depicted in the left frame, but some of us, a lot of us, actually DID have that sort of family life, and community life.
Ritual is extraordinarily important, and preparing a holiday feast, and getting together as family and community to consume it, is one of the handful of things that makes life truly worthwhile.
Sky Daddy help us, but so many of us lead emotionally and intellectually barren lives these days……….
Personally I have been extraordinarily lucky to have experienced a close knit extended family and community life, and also in living in close contact with nature most of the time.
I wouldn’t even THINK about trading places with a one percenter living in a subdivision and working in an office park.
My work today took me out into the bottomlands on my farm, where I used my biggest big boys toy, a large backhoe, to uproot some trees in an overgrown old orchard that I’m converting to pasture.
A hundred feet up the hillside, and fifty yards horizontally from the happily burbling stream in the middle of the bottom, I dug out nice round boulders two feet in diameter. Creek rock, worn smooth and round by water carrying sand and gravel, maybe tumbling these boulders down from ten thousand feet or higher …..
My little stream must have at one time been a regular ripsnorter, with waterfalls and wild rapids, maybe a couple of hundred feet wide and fifty feet, or more, deep in flood.
The Blue Ridges used to be equal to the ALPS, but now they’re are mere shadows of what they once were, as my old Daddy is a mere shadow of the man he used to be.
King James Bible , Ecclesiastes 1;4
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
The people of the East, the old ones, know some things about the wheels of nature. Most of us Westerners don’t have a clue. I fear the modern day Asian man knows as little as the typical Western man, these days.
Life in even the nicest place in town, cut off from nature, to me would be like reading about being in love, as opposed to actually BEING in love.
Merry Christmas to Friends at the Peak Oil Barrel! I know I don’t post much, but I often read here many times a week and have learned a lot about energy industries. I would like to thank all the people who do post. May God bless you all with Wellness, Happiness and Prosperity now and into the New Year!
Sorry kids if you didn’t get your presents this year. Santa got a little hung up.
Hey, he should consider himself lucky he didn’t get burned to crisp by a CSP system…
Anyways he’ll be put out of business soon enough by AI drones, so it is fitting to see him hanging up his reindeer and sleigh. 😉
I don’t think that is really Santa, probably put up there by the anti-windmill people since their squawking about bird kills wasn’t working.
Will people have to build drone landing pads for deliveries? The Fed-Ex truck just uses the road.
Wonder how many delivery drones will get shot down or crashed by storms.
Wonder how many delivery drones will get shot down or crashed by storms.
No worries the Eagles will get their revenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKNN49idCUo
Eagles trained to take down drones.
Despite this being the first human fossil recovered from the North Sea – or indeed from any ocean in the world – many other fossils of extinct Ice Age fauna have been dredged up over the years, as have stone tools, reflecting a past era in the Pleistocene when sea levels were about 100m lower than the present day, and the current sea bed was dry land. this environment was capable of supporting a large suite of flora and fauna, in a geographical range extending from modern-day Britain, clear across to what we now know as the Netherlands and even parts of Scandinavia. Here’s a word from Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London…
‘This is a very significant discovery,’ said Professor Chris Stringer, human origins expert at the Natural History Museum, who directs the AHOB project. ‘The skull fragment represents the first ancient human found from below the sea – who knows what else we may find down there!’
‘For most of the last half-a-million years, sea levels were significantly lower than today, and at times, substantial areas of the current North Sea were dry land,’ says Stringer. ‘There were extensive river systems with wide river valleys, lakes and floodplains and these areas were rich habitats for large herds of herbivores and the animals that preyed on them, including early humans.’
‘Isotope analyses of this North Sea Neanderthal match other specimens in suggesting a diet dominated by meat.’ Stringer adds, ‘Woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, reindeer and other Pleistocene mammal fossils are brought ashore every year by the fishing industry and from other dredging operations, and some fishermen now concentrate on collecting fossils rather than fish.
http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2011/08/first-neanderthal-fossil-dredged-from.html
It takes a Neanderthal to be swimming fifteen miles from shore. Probably looking for the lost unicorn. lol
Probably people just making stuff up, fake news, in the parlance of our times. Who would believe there was dry land where the North Sea is now? Nobody. Ya, we were out fishing and we drug up some bones from the bottom of the North Sea. Sure you did. Tell me another one.
You just can’t trust these scientists and their exaggerated claims of where things came from and what they are.
If the North Sea was once 100 meters lower, then it makes a good case for some nut building an ark out of gopher wood. Some stupid old man was stuck out in the middle of nowhere where no water could be found for miles around, then builds a giant boat to hold animals and few close kin to ride out the flood that was forecast by God himself. People would point and laugh, make a fool out of the old fool. Little did they know that Noah knew about some big sheet of ice about to melt.
But that was only 6,000 years ago when the earth was formed, not this old wives’ tale of the earth being 4.6 billion years old, who is going to believe such hyperbole? Balderdash, nonsense, no scientist with a sterling reputation on the line would make up such numbers. Just won’t happen in the real world. Next thing you know, some crackpot with some kooky idea will dream up a continent called Gondwana or something and some more nonsense about tectonic plates. All bunkum and bosh. We all know it is steady state geology with a more sensible number of years of earth’s existence, creation, of no more than 6.000 years.
Get with the program and pay attention. Scientists are more prone to getting it all wrong than getting it all right, most of the time, they’re all wrong, they just make stuff up, like always. Can’t argue with that.
Of course, it could be true that the earth actually is 4.6 billion years old. Just some more fake news there too. You can’t believe a word people say anymore. Evidence is a pigment of their wild imaginations.
Then there is Grimfrost:
http://home.grimfrost.com
Neanderthals could not swim. Probably because of their muscular heavy built they were prone to sinking. They never took on boating and didn’t even colonize Sardinia, that is clearly visible from the coast. Most probably they advanced when the seas retreated, and retreated when the seas advanced.
By the time Doggerland flooded, Neanderthals had been extinct for tens of thousands of years.
Neanderthals could not swim. Probably because of their muscular heavy built they were prone to sinking. They never took on boating and didn’t even colonize Sardinia, that is clearly visible from the coast. Most probably they advanced when the seas retreated, and retreated when the seas advanced.
Javier do you ever check any of the literature before you spout your ignorance? Where the heck do you get a ridiculous idea like, muscular heavy builds, equate with not being able to swim?! Have you ever taken a course in physiology, or evolutionary zoology? Let alone anthropology?
http://phys.org/news/2012-03-evidence-neanderthals-boats-modern-humans.html
Evidence suggests Neanderthals took to boats before modern humans
(PhysOrg.com) — Neanderthals, considered either a sub-species of modern humans or a separate species altogether, lived from approximately 300,000 years ago to somewhere near 24,000 years ago, when they inexplicably disappeared, leaving behind traces of their DNA in some Middle Eastern people and artifacts strewn all across the southern part of Europe and extending into western Asia. Some of those artifacts, stone tools that are uniquely associated with them, have been found on islands in the Mediterranean Sea, suggesting, according to a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, by George Ferentinos and colleagues, that Neanderthals had figured out how to travel by boat. And if they did, it appears they did so before modern humans.
Fred,
Neanderthals lived for hundreds of thousands of years in Southern Europe, yet there is no convincing evidence that they inhabited the Mediterranean islands. Had they been capable of colonizing the islands they would have done so repeatedly, so we can conclude that they were not navigators.
You know a little bit of biology. Do you know the impact that the arrival of an apex predator has on an island fauna?
Leppard, Thomas P. “Modeling the impacts of Mediterranean island colonization by archaic Hominins: the likelihood of an insular Lower Palaeolithic.” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27.2 (2014): 231-254.
“It has been suggested that the islands of the Mediterranean were first settled during the Pleistocene. Attention has in particular been paid to recent claims that the occupation of Crete by hominins dates to the Middle Pleistocene. This paper examines what—if Lower Palaeolithic pre-modern hominins did indeed colonize the Mediterranean islands—environmental and evolutionary impacts this would have had, what forms these impacts would have taken, and what traces these forms would leave. Such impacts are modeled using information derived from island biogeography, historical ecology, and evolutionary biology. Probable outcomes of colonization scenarios—including turnover in insular faunas, ecological cascade events, and morphological changes in isolated populations of Homo—are compared to the palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental record for the Mediterranean islands. The absence of any obvious correlation casts doubt on large-scale and sustained colonization of the more remote Mediterranean islands during the Lower Palaeolithic, although this does not preclude the possibility of chance and short-lived colonizations by pre-modern hominins.
Conclusions: Crossing Deep Water in Deep Time
It is unlikely, based on the evidence for palaeoenvironmental dynamics, that there was sustained and deliberate colonization of the remote Mediterranean islands by archaic forms of Homo in the Lower Palaeolithic. Such colonization—as studies of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of colonizing taxa suggest—would have had transformative ecological impacts for which there is little evidence.
In contrast, on the Balearics, Cyprus, and the central Mediterranean islands (excepting Sicily and its satellites), there is strong evidence for the retention of biological endemism throughout the Pleistocene, militating against the likelihood of colonization on any noticeable scale.
It remains the case that our own species is the only apparent member of the genus Homo with the time and the inclination deliberately to aim for, arrive at, and survive upon remote islands. A Mediterranean awash with seagoing archaic hominins is, then, inherently unlikely.
This conclusion has implications for understanding hominin dispersal not only in the Mediterranean, but on a global scale. It is clear that anatomically modern humans have, since ~50 kya, possessed the cognitive and social apparatus to undertake deliberate, active colonization of distant landmasses. Conversely, there is little evidence that archaic forms of Homo behaved similarly.”
If it didn’t happen in hundreds of thousands of years, it was because it couldn’t happen. A few badly dated doubtfully attributed stone tools in some Aegean close to the cost islands does not change the fact that neanderthalensis was not an island colonizer.
The figure below shows when the level of endemism in the Mediterranean islands suffered a massive loss after the Last Glacial Maximum, when sapiens arrived.
Chimps are muscular and heavy boned,compared to humans, and probably close to Neanderthals in this respect. They seldom DO actually swim, but they can learn how, which is well documented by actual video footage.
I think it is very likely that Neanderthals could swim if they happened to live in places where they found it advangtageous to venture into deep enough water for swimming to be possible, and so learned how, by experiment forced by necessity. Collecting shellfish, or fishing with a spear would have been reasons for venturing into such waters.
But just because they could likely have LEARNED how to swim is no indication that they did, or that if they did, the knowledge was preserved and passed on.
We wore shoes and used ropes and bags to carry loose objects and rode horses , and used ropes to TIE horses for a very long time before the stirrup was invented. And given the above facts, the stirrup was such a SIMPLE invention……….
Neanderthals probably did not venture into water deep enough to swim if they could avoid it, because swimming would have been a LEARNED behavior , rather than an instinct, for them, as it is for us, and for chimps.
The observation of ONE individual drowning, or being pulled under by a shark maybe, would have been enough to thoroughly discourage any other individuals from entering deep water.
I do not doubt personally that they were capable of communicating well enough to pass along such observations to their fellows, and their children.
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-chimpanzees-orangutans-swim-dive-01319.html
For the past decade Arctic sea ice has been stable despite a huge campaign to try to convince us that the Arctic has been melting rapidly.
For another year, September 2016 average sea ice extent was higher than 2007. Expert alarmists continue telling us that the Arctic will be ice-free soon, but sea-ice refuses to go. And sea-ice extent is not the only parameter that is improving:
– Summer ice survival for older than 1 year ice has also been increasing since 2007. The consequence is that there is more older age ice now than in 2007.
– The date of the summer ice minimum has also been taking place earlier since 2008, indicating that the melting season is getting shorter and shorter.
This all has taken place while 2015 was the warmest year on record and 2016 is likely to be even warmer. This pause in Arctic sea-ice melting was not predicted. In fact we were told that sea-ice melting was accelerating.
Since the media can no longer claim that there is less sea ice than in 2007, they have turned to report about sub-seasonal variability, like the November with less sea-ice, or out of the ordinary temperatures, to try to convince us that the Arctic is melting rapidly, when it is not.
Meanwhile polar bears are booming. Latest count has come the highest ever, at 25-30,000 individuals of this top predator. This numbers compare very favorably with the less than 15,000 estimated in the early 1960’s. It turns global warming has been very good to polar bears. Either that or hunting limitations, that would reveal who is the real enemy of polar bears.
https://polarbearscience.com/2015/05/31/global-polar-bear-population-size-is-about-26000-20000-32000-despite-pbsg-waffling/
Here you go Javier!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj1G9gqhkYA
“Published on Oct 28, 2016
Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years, it’s becoming younger and thinner as well. In this animation, where the ice cover almost looks gelatinous as it pulses through the seasons, cryospheric scientist Dr. Walt Meier of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describes how the sea ice has undergone fundamental changes during the era of satellite measurements.”
I mean if we can’t trust what the scientists at NASA tell us, who can we trust?
You, Javier?
Hahaha
Meanwhile polar bears are booming. Latest count has come the highest ever, at 25-30,000 individuals of this top predator. This numbers compare very favorably with the less than 15,000 estimated in the early 1960’s. It turns global warming has been very good to polar bears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfjgkLcIocc
FM16 Press Conference: How animals will fare in a changing climate
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
I think I’ll trust scientists like Kristin Laidre, Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
Javier, eh, not so much…
Fred,
“I think I’ll trust scientists like Kristin Laidre”
OK. You trust somebody that tells you what is going to happen, when it is the opposite of what is happening. I’m fine with that, but don’t call it science.
Chilyb,
Then why their own data says something different to what they say?
Check ice extent and ice surface area since 2007 and report back to see if their claims match the evidence available.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/N_09_area_v2.txt
So it seems the question is if you should trust what they say or the data they are supposed to be reporting.
And the same with sea-ice age. The data is also from NSIDC (NASA)
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/10/2015-melt-season-in-review/
So what I am reporting is the official data by NASA. Don’t you trust the official data from NASA, Chilyb? Do you need somebody to interpret those numbers and graphs for you and to tell you that what is white is actually black?
Javier,
Use thirty years, not eight years.
Just because you say so. Those predicting the demise of Arctic sea ice since 2007 have been predicting it in much less than 30 years. The last 9 years have already disproved their claims without having to wait any longer.
Nobody knows how Arctic sea ice will be in 20 more years but it is evident that those defending that the Arctic sea ice is in a death-spiral are wrong. Already. Not in 20 years. 9 years without melting say so.
Javier,
Not just because I say so. Thirty years is a useful interval, widely used, that allows trend to be discerned within variation when viewing data recorded over decades.
Besides being a horrible indicator of actual sea ice amount, Arctic sea ice extent Sept area is 60 percent of what it was in 1980.
Volume is about 1/3 of what it was in 1980. Arctic sea ice Sept volume is 26% of it’s 1979 Sept volume. Sept volume 2016 is 36 percent of it’s 2005 Sept volume.
NSIDC and PIOMAS sources.
Yes, yes. But the situation is very similar, even better, than in 2007 when we were told by alarmists that Arctic sea ice was going to have disappeared by now.
Prof. Wieslaw Maslowski from Dept. Oceanography of the US Navy predicts an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer by 2013, and says that prediction is conservative.
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
So here we are, nine years later and with the same amount of Arctic sea-ice. Clearly they were wrong then. Why do they still think that they are right when they repeat the same doom predictions about Arctic sea ice only now a few years later?
Climate alarmism is baseless. We simply have no idea what is going to happen 10. 20. 30 years into the future, and the correlation with CO2 is really weak. Looking back 20 years, nothing of what was happened with the climate was predicted.
Happy Holidays Javier.
The facts still stand.
Happy Holidays GoneFishing, My best wishes to you and everybody else.
And yes, the facts are the only thing that stands. I agree 100% with you on that. We just have to be wary of our interpretation of the facts.
Javier, go away. Live in your little bubble of ignorance and denial of facts. Stop spewing your spew here where people want to talk about facts, since you wouldn’t know a fact if you stepped in one.
Dennis, help Javier out. Ban him.
My best wishes to you too, Nathanael.
Nath- I don’t agree w Javier’s analysis on climate, but I certainly don’t think he should be banned for having a different view on it (than you or I). As long as he is not being rude/racist.
Being a broken record on this (banning) is like a form of propaganda, one that trump used during his campaign. Ugly tactic. I suppose the same, and perhaps even more, could be said about Javiers stance on climate.
I am not a broken record. Only on this thread I have comments on Neanderthal navigation capabilities and Christian origin of Christmas tradition. Both are opinion comments based on scientific research in the first case and original third century sources in the second.
A lot of people simply post their personal two cents or at most base their opinion on mass media reports that cannot be trusted.
It is clear that what causes a conflict in my case is that I hold an unpopular view and support it on scientific literature. Some people like GoneFishing are posting continuously about climate without creating any conflict because his comments conform to the majority’s opinion on the issue.
That somebody is targeted personally for holding a minoritarian view speaks volumes about the tolerance of those supporting the majoritarian view.
Javier,
It only speaks volumes about the individual(s) doing the personal targeting.
Not everyone who aligns with the consensus is intolerant of thoughtful dissent.
I stand corrected, Bob
Only a vocal minority within the majority is intolerant. And there are as many intolerant people within the skeptic population. And those are the ones that should be shun by all sides.
We have given ourselves a system that permits the resolution of any disagreement. It is called democracy. Let the people decide on how to best tackle the climate issue and accept the result.
The idea that those with more knowledge should be the ones deciding for all is not democracy.
You just proved you can not read.
NAOM
Nathanael,
Stop spamming the thread with your demand like some kind of toddler throwing a tantrum. Everybody heard you the first time.
GF,
OK. You trust somebody that tells you what actually happened, when it is the opposite of what Javier is telling you is happening… I’m fine with that, but don’t call it science, just because the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the Polar Science Center are your sources.
What should I call it Fred?
I think you have your opposites reversed. Causality left the room.
Dunno, really.
Maybe you could ask Mr. Contrarian, himself.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-dec-22-2016/#comment-590088
Probably better if I just get quiet. There is nothing to be gained in that direction other than useful energy being turned to waste heat.
Agreed!
Yeah, the blog discussion is parasitized.
Hi Javier,
That is a very good example of cherry picking. Lets see 1980 to 2015.
Chart below from
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
Dennis,
Both maximum and minimum sea-ice extent for 2016 are above the values for 2007. This is a fact that goes against predictions made by experts since 2007, and despite 2015 and 2016 being warmest years on record. Clearly Arctic sea-ice is not behaving according to expectations, underscoring a fundamental lack of knowledge by experts. Predictions about the future of Arctic sea ice should be disregarded as unreliable.
Man! Are you going into the maraschino, glace or syrup cherry business with all those you are picking?
NAOM
Hi Javier,
I agree that those that predicted there would be an Arctic Sea Ice minimum of zero by 2013 were incorrect.
Picking a minimum and than suggesting that Arctic Sea Ice is on an increasing trend, is a classic case of cherry picking.
If it were me, I would be concerned that people would ignore what I have to say if I tried to pull such a cheap trick.
Post what you wish, just don’t expect you won’t be called on it.
Dennis,
There are scientific reports that convincingly link AMO to Arctic sea ice.
As AMO appears to have peaked, there is reason to believe Arctic sea ice melting might have peaked also. This is not cherry picking because there is a scientific reason to believe a change of trend is on the making. I am not the only one defending this. It has been defended in the scientific literature and accepted by referees and editors without saying they were trying to pull a cheap trick.
A signal of persistent Atlantic multidecadal variability in Arctic sea ice
M.W. Miles et al. 2014. Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 463–469.
http://folk.uib.no/ngftf/CV/PDF_Furevik/miles_et_al_grl_2014.pdf
“We establish a signal of pervasive and persistent multidecadal (~60–90 year) fluctuations… Covariability between sea ice and Atlantic multidecadal variability as represented by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index is evident during the instrumental record. This observational evidence supports recent modeling studies that have suggested that Arctic sea ice is intrinsically linked to Atlantic multidecadal variability.
Given the demonstrated covariability between sea ice and the AMO, it follows that a change to a negative AMO phase in the coming decade(s) could —to some degree— temporarily ameliorate the strongly negative recent sea-ice trends.”
Wyatt, M. G., & Curry, J. A. (2014). Role for Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice in a secularly varying hemispheric climate signal during the 20th century. Climate dynamics, 42(9-10), 2763-2782.
http://cdn.cnsnews.com/documents/Curry,%20Wyatt%20paper.pdf
“In recent decades, rapid changes in the Arctic have been documented. Most interpretations of the recent decline in Arctic sea ice extent have focused on the role of anthropogenic forcing, with some allowance for natural variability.
But according to stadium-wave projections, and according to our interpretation of stadium-wave evolution, this trend should reverse, under the condition that the stadium-wave hypothesis captures 20th century dynamics correctly. Rebound in WIE, followed by ArcSib should occur after the estimated 2006 minimum of WIE and maximum of AMO.”
So no, 30 years are not needed to detect a change of trend in Arctic sea ice. In fact the change of trend can actually be predicted, and when correctly predicted provides strong support to the hypothesis capable of such prediction.
Expect Arctic sea ice to continue being stable or even increase over the next couple of decades. That should give you some pause, right?
Hi Javier,
That is different from what your first chart (12/26 at 10:17 AM) was implying, as you said nothing in that comment about the AMO.
R squared for arctic sea ice minimum vs AMO is only 41% for 1980 to 2015, not much explanatory power.
On Arctic melting and fact checking:
https://climatecrocks.com/2016/07/14/jason-box-urges-care-caution-on-arctic-methane-risk/
No facts to be checked in that link.
“There is indeed reason for concern, … and still, the risk is real, because…” As far as we know it has never happened before, even during the much warmer Eemian interglacial, or during Dansgaard-Oeschger events that warmed the North Atlantic by +8°C in just a few decades.
While we are still little children we must lean that just because we can imagine something bad doesn’t mean it is going to happen, and should not be scared without reason. Some scientists apparently didn’t learn it, or perhaps are trying to make a living out of scaring other children.
Dennis, again I ask, why hasn’t Javier been banned yet? You’ve documented his dishonest behavior repeatedly, but you’re still allowing him to clog up the threads with his garbage.
When a child throws a temper tantrum and starts screaming denials of reality, we give him a time out. Javier needs a time out. He needs to be sent to the corner and told that if he can’t recognize reality, he needsto shut up until he can.
Hi Nathanael,
Javier won’t be banned, but if someone annoys me enough they will be.
You are fast approaching that point.
Get it?
Atom-thick solution to energy storage conundrum
“With support from a research grant from the EU’s European Research Council (ERC), Prof. Feng has developed a new generation of 2D materials to get around this problem. By blending carbon with a range of metals and other heavy elements, Prof. Feng can tune the properties of the materials, causing them to behave like semiconductors.
A similar approach is being investigated by Professor Aurelio Mateo-Alonso at the POLYMAT Institute of the University of the Basque Country in Spain. He coordinates the 2D-INK project, funded under the EU’s Future and Emerging Technologies programme, in which a consortium of research centres and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are developing layers of graphene with nanoscopic holes inside them.
By fixing different atoms and molecules to the edge of the holes, 2D-INK partners can alter the properties of the graphene, thereby turning it into a semiconductor.
Prof. Mateo-Alonso said that porous graphene could provide key building blocks for a range of new energy technologies. In principle, its high surface area makes it an ideal electrode for more efficient supercapacitors, and its plasticity could be exploited to make flexible solar cells.”
“Prof. Mateo-Alonso said that porous graphene could provide key building blocks for a range of new energy technologies. In principle, its high surface area makes it an ideal electrode for more efficient supercapacitors, and its plasticity could be exploited to make flexible solar cells.
Incorporating nitrogen into porous graphene also creates highly reactive chemical traps that help split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction lies at the heart of hydrogen fuel-cell technologies. It usually requires the use of expensive metals to take place but porous graphene could perform the same task with affordable and environmentally friendly materials.”
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/atom-thick-solution-energy-storage-conundrum_en.html
‘Ideal’ energy storage material for electric vehicles developed
The goal of a polymer dielectric material with high energy density, high power density and excellent charge-discharge efficiency for electric and hybrid vehicle use has been achieved by a team of materials scientists.
“A comparison of BOPP and the sandwich structure nanocomposite, termed SSN-x, in which the x refers to the percentage of barium titanate nanocomposites in the central layer, shows that at 150 degrees C, SSN-x has essentially the same charge-discharge energy as BOPP at it typical operating temperature of 70 degrees C. However, SSN-x has several times the energy density of BOPP, which makes SSN-x highly preferable for electric vehicle and aerospace applications as an energy storage device due to the ability to reduce the size and weight of the electronics significantly while improving system performance and stability. The elimination of bulky and expensive cooling equipment required for BOPP is an additional bonus.”
“”Our next step is to work with a company or with more resources to do processability studies to see if the material can be produced at a larger scale at a reasonable cost,” Wang says. “We have demonstrated the materials performance in the lab. We are developing a number of state-of-the-art materials working with our theory colleague Long-Qing Chen in our department. Because we are dealing with a three-dimensional space, it is not just selecting the materials, but how we organize the multiple nanosized materials in specific locations. Theory helps us design materials in a rational fashion.””
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160822152734.htm
And we also have people working on rectennas… No, they aren’t antennas you shove up your ass 😉
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v10/n12/full/nnano.2015.220.html
A carbon nanotube optical rectenna
Asha Sharma, Virendra Singh, Thomas L. Bougher & Baratunde A. Cola
AffiliationsContributionsCorresponding author
Nature Nanotechnology 10, 1027–1032 (2015) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.220
Received 26 May 2015 Accepted 24 August 2015 Published online 28 September 2015 Corrected online 09 October 2015
An optical rectenna—a device that directly converts free-propagating electromagnetic waves at optical frequencies to direct current—was first proposed over 40 years ago1, yet this concept has not been demonstrated experimentally due to fabrication challenges at the nanoscale2, 3. Realizing an optical rectenna requires that an antenna be coupled to a diode that operates on the order of 1 PHz (switching speed on the order of 1 fs). Diodes operating at these frequencies are feasible if their capacitance is on the order of a few attofarads3, 4, but they remain extremely difficult to fabricate and to reliably couple to a nanoscale antenna2. Here we demonstrate an optical rectenna by engineering metal–insulator–metal tunnel diodes, with a junction capacitance of ∼2 aF, at the tip of vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (∼10 nm in diameter), which act as the antenna5, 6. Upon irradiation with visible and infrared light, we measure a d.c. open-circuit voltage and a short-circuit current that appear to be due to a rectification process (we account for a very small but quantifiable contribution from thermal effects). In contrast to recent reports of photodetection based on hot electron decay in a plasmonic nanoscale antenna7, 8, a coherent optical antenna field appears to be rectified directly in our devices, consistent with rectenna theory4, 9, 10. Finally, power rectification is observed under simulated solar illumination, and there is no detectable change in diode performance after numerous current–voltage scans between 5 and 77 °C, indicating a potential for robust operation.
Still early on but the potential here is enormous in sensor and energy transformation applications. From converting waste heat to electric power to making an optical power source more efficient than PV solar panels.
Yup! Could be disruptive, though not sure if it is based on any ‘REAL’ science… More like magic 😉
Real science always looks like magic to the peasants. It probably looks like magic to the nobility and elite but they are too proud to admit it and much more interested in the profit and power it will bring them.
Made from tiny diamonds found in Arkansas petroleum, the finest wire ever made is only three atoms across sheathed in diamond.
“To make their nanowire the team used a singularly commonplace chemical: petroleum from Arkansas. Petroleum has a lot of impurities in it when it’s pulled from the ground, and what they are depends on the local geology. In this case the oil had molecule-sized fragments of diamond in it. In diamonds, the carbon atoms are arranged in box-like shapes. These “diamondoids” can then be chemically altered in the lab so that one of the carbon atoms is attached to a sulfur atom. Each one of these structures can only attach to others like it in a certain orientation because of their shape. This isn’t uncommon in nature; DNA molecules and receptors only link to certain molecules in a particular way. In addition, diamondoids form strong bonds with each other, making them perfect for the outside of the wire, and acting like a glue to link the building blocks together.
When the research team dropped the sulfur-linked diamondoid in a solution full of copper atoms, the copper would link to the sulfur atom. The sulfur atom, now linked to a diamondoid and a copper atom, would bump into another structure like it. Since the diamondoid-sulfur-copper structures only fit together one way, they form the wire, a string of copper and sulfur atoms surrounded by the diamond.”
“http://qz.com/872050/thinnest-wire-ever-diamond-coating/
Converting CO2 to useful materials plus energy.
http://newatlas.com/co2-li3n-reaction/22620/
Patent for the reaction:
Synthesis of carbon nitrides from carbon dioxide
http://www.google.com/patents/US8632743
Nice work, nice work. We’re going to need CO2 removal technologies… every one of these helps.
Obama—
JHK
That’s a beautiful paragraph.
I don’t fault Obama. He has been a voice of reason.
The bigger issue has been economists and politicians basing the future of the world on economic growth.
Most of us here don’t expect that, and we have entirely different expectations of the future.
Sanders was more radical than most politicians, but his financial projections were also based on a growing economy. The numbers his camp used to tout a single payer system were based on a rapidly growing US economy, and the taxes that would be collected as a result. They weren’t very likely to happen as projected.
The people who best understand the future, and are willing to talk about it, wouldn’t be electable.
I am very much in favor of renewable energy, but we will also need lifestyle changes to make it work. People don’t need to consume as much stuff and use as much energy as they currently do, but many don’t realize that, or don’t want to make the changes.
Back In 1990, George Michael Already Saw A Glaring Problem With The Modern Media
“a few years removed from his Wham! years and into his solo career, George Michael agreed to a rare interview with The New York Times to help publicize his newest album, “Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1.””
“While discussing “Praying for Time,” Michael’s first single off the album, which included the line “the rich declare themselves poor” and talked of people trying desperately to keep hold of their possessions, Michael expressed his fear that the modern media were making people paranoid of one another, rather than worried about one another.”
George Michael -“Because of the media, the way the world is perceived is as a place where resources and time are running out. We’re taught that you have to grab what you can before it’s gone. It’s almost as if there isn’t time for compassion.”
“a segment from “The O’Reilly Factor” last week, in which host Bill O’Reilly told his like-minded viewers that “the left wants power taken away from the white establishment.””
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/george-michael-media_us_586198cbe4b0eb586486fa38?ewro0iivfdxs3v7vi
Praying for Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goroyZbVdlo
The generations are destroying themselves, resonating the pain forward into other generations. But not being happy with abusing their children and grandchildren plus killing each other piecemeal, they proceed to pollute the atmosphere, water and land until all are becoming ill. Then they build bombs and energy machines that could wipe life from the face of the earth. Not being happy with that they fight all change that will make things better.
An unhappy and dastardly lot, the hordes that are.
Ever pour a beer that is liquid in the can, then when you open it, it begins to freeze? The top has the slushy ice slosh, the bottom is the ice cold beer in liquid form. You can see the Arctic Ocean is much like an almost frozen beer from the can. If the Arctic Ocean were beer, it would be dry just like the Aral Sea. It’s like the super cooled ocean water in the Antarctic when it comes to the surface, it instantly freezes the wave, the same when you open the super cooled can of beer. har
We need a foundry, a place to process some raw materials to manufacture some steel, some copper, have to have a system. Can’t just go about things willy nilly like Mother Nature does from time to time.
Hotter than hell in the summer, colder than hell in the winter. Mother Nature doesn’t know if she is afoot or horseback. A whirling dervish to boot.
A cruel, heartless bitch from hell. Bleed her to death of oil and she will become even more heartless and cruel, ruthless. Not just an opinion, it will be a fact. She just doesn’t give two hoots about what happens. No concern to her at all.
I digress.
You gotta have clean water systems, infrastructure, so you aren’t running down the hall to the outhouse behind the apartment building where you live and have a horse pulling a cart to collect the human soil which is then dumped into the ocean three miles off shore like it used to be before oil and sanitation efforts and plumbing and sewage systems. In essence, modern living, not the old days of Old New York.
When life was at sustainable levels, the basics, the bare minimums.
Oil changed all of that. Oil has taken us a long ways down the road. It deserves some thanks, some appreciation.
It takes a lot of beer to write all of this mindless drivel.
Oil changed all of that. Oil has taken us a long ways down the road. It deserves some thanks, some appreciation.
Ok! Thank You Oil! Here’s your retirement present.
.
That’s lovely, Fred.
Happy New Year, RW
I find your mindless drivel more entertaining than ninety nine percent of what I could see on TV, and hope you will continue to contribute it, if not to this blog, then someplace else, and let us know where.
Beyond that , I read for insight, and your drivel has an occasional the little gold nugget of insight in it, like the gravel in stream bottoms.
We all NEED somebody to poke fun at us, and keep us from getting carried away.
I am all in favor of looking after the environment, but I’m also like the people John D McDonald described in his novels set in Florida. They all want just one more buddy to move down, and after that, they are all in favor of preserving what the moved there FOR.
I’m all in favor of getting away from oil, too, but not until after I wear out my current oil burning machinery, and after electric automobiles get as cheap as old conventional cars.
Personally I think we will be VERY lucky if we can use renewable electricity to power fifty percent of our overall transportation system within twenty years. And that would still leave construction and farm machinery running on oil or gas………..
If business or pleasure ever brings you to my corner of the former backwoods, which is now unfortunately morphing into a HOT DESTINATION, all the beer you can drink, any brand sold locally, is on me for a day or a week, if you want to drop in for while.
“I am all in favor of looking after the environment, but I’m also like the people John D McDonald described in his novels set in Florida. They all want just one more buddy to move down, and after that, they are all in favor of preserving what the moved there FOR. ”
Ha! I guess I’m rare in not being that type.
Hi Nathaniel,
Your situation may be a lot more desirable than my own, in material terms.
It could be that you don’t NEED any oil burning machinery.
I can assure you that I would be in a very tough situation without my pickup truck, tractors, chainsaw, and few other assorted oil burners, even though I am more or less retired.
And YOU my friend, unless you are a subsistence farmer or a hunter gatherer, would be in one HELL of a tough spot if I and my fellow farmers were forced to give up our oil burners, and the trucking industry were forced to give up oil burning engines. You would be dead of starvation within a matter of a few months at the longest, maybe within as little as three or four weeks.
And it could be that you live in a great spot where NATURE as such is still relatively unspoiled, and that you DON’T have any friends you would like to see move in as neighbors, before cutting off access to newcomers. But you don’t REALLY expect anybody to take you seriously when you say such things , do you?
Methinks you forgot to add a smiley face. 😉
I am now sorry I didn’t add a smile face myself. I should have, because my comment was intended to remind the reader that we are not altogether rational creatures. 😉
Most of us care about our fellows, but damned few of us care more about others collectively than we do ourselves as individuals.
I might have met a dozen or so people who really and truly put the welfare of others ahead of their own over the course of my life.
Heat loss through windows can be a costly loss in money and energy. Given 400 square feet of window, heat losses in my area can be 31.6 million BTU per heating season assuming no air leakage. That is equivalent to about 290 gallons of fuel oil per heating season. R2 windows. At $2 per gallon that is $580 per season,An equivalent 6 inch insulated wall area will use about 27 gallons of heating oil per season.
Heating oil?!? The most expensive possible way to heat your house.
Get an electric-powered air-source heat pump.
Yes, insulating the houses is paramount.
November 2016 Global Temperature Update
The 2016 meteorological year (December 2015 through November 2016), at +1.02C relative
to the 1951-80 mean, was easily the warmest year in the period of instrumental data. The
second and third warmest years were 2015 (+0.84C) and 2014 (+0.73C).
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/November2016.pdf
If you prefer the 1920 baseline, then add 0.3C to those numbers putting us at +1.32C for 2016. There is a lag between emissions and reaching a new stable temperature, we are definitely already past the 1.5C goal already and likely past the 2C as well. But what looks really bad, is it was going up 0.02C per year for 36 years but now over the last 2 years it has gone up 0.11C and 0.18C. Maybe it’s just el-nino, but maybe warming is accelerating rapidly.
It seems very likely to me that we will see more warming year after year, on average, for a long time to come, with the amount of warming experienced each year increasing as well.
Any two bit street wise punk who has seen a coin tossed that comes up either heads or tails ten or twelve times out of twelve tries knows the coin is a loaded coin.
It’s altogether possible there is a natural warming trend that is increasing the average temperature and has been for the last decade plus, but the problem with ” possible ” is that it is not the same thing as ” probable” unless good reasons can be found to attribute the warming to natural causes.
The evidence that a natural trend is responsible seems to be missing.
The evidence that the trend is correlated with green house gas concentrations is unmistakable , and the known physics principles or rules that apply to atmospheric conditions all point to CAUSATION, which explains the correlation.
Another way of putting the question is Where’s my cold years, dude ?
Who stole my cold years? (hat tip to the guys who composed the Who moved my cheese story!)
So what if it doesn’t happen? What if after 20 or 25 years there hasn’t been any warming at all? What do we do then?
Or we could look at a longer period such as 1970 to 2015 annual temperature data from Berkeley Earth (BEST).
Looking further back doesn’t change the fact that the hypothesis cannot account for 20-25 years of massive increase in CO2 and no temperature change. In a few years it is very possible that Nature could discredit the hypothesis quite thoroughly.
Oldmacfarmer places the odds at less than 1%, but looking at temperatures where we are presently only 0.1°C above the average for the entire 21st century I would say that the chances of looking at 20-25 years of massive increase in CO2 yet no warming are >1%.
Dennis, I repeat, why hasn’t Javier been banned yet? I realize it’s entertaining for you to post these time series, but we could do without Javier’s idiotic denialist babble.
Hi Nathanael,
I prefer not to have an echo chamber, if that is what you prefer you will need to look elsewhere.
Hi Javier,
I will repeat, there is natural variability which is difficult to explain precisely. The storage and release of heat stored in the ocean will affect global temperatures as changes in ocean currents change the rate of storage and release of heat in the ocean. A simple model that uses a linear regression of global land ocean temperature from Berkeley Earth (dependent variable) vs the natural log of atmospheric CO2, the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and ENSO over the period from 1861 to 1995 (134 years). The correlation coefficient over the longer period from 1850-2015 is 97%. This simple “CAMOS” model is compared with annual Berkeley Earth Global Land Ocean temperature in the chart below.
Dennis,
“The storage and release of heat stored in the ocean will affect global temperatures as changes in ocean currents change the rate of storage and release of heat in the ocean.”
The average temperature of the lower troposphere is something like 15°C, while the average temperature of the oceans is something like 3.9°C. We are told that the warming of the oceans is occurring not at the surface but at depths 0-700 m and even 700-2000 m. Water at those depths is much colder than at surface and has a huge thermal capacity. We simply do not know any mechanism by which that slightly less cold water could warm the surface. Simply put we are next to a huge heat sink that is at one of its coldest points for the past 550 million years. It would take many hundreds of thousands of years of global warming to heat the oceans to the temperature they had prior to the descent into the Quaternary Ice Age. That heat is gone for good, perhaps to be lost during the next glacial period.
And once more, that you can fit a model to the data with three or more variables says nothing about how correct the model is. All three variables might be wrongly factored as to give a good fit. In other words there are multiple ways of getting
ax + by + cz = 0.7
by using different combinations of a, b and c.
Hi Javier,
Of course. You do understand what a linear regression is, I hope.
The factors have taken the data which might potentially affect temperature and found the values which fit the empirical data best. There are good physical reasons to think that atmospheric CO2, AMO, and ENSO might affect global temperatures, aerosols and total solar irradiance have lower statistical significance than these other three variables over the 1850 to 2015 period.
The use of too many variables results in over fitting and does not improve the result.
How do we determine the “right” factors in your opinion?
How was the gravitational constant on Earth determined? It was the factor that fit the data observed. One could claim that it might be some other number, but typically scientists choose the factor that fits the data best.
Dennis,
“The factors have taken the data which might potentially affect temperature and found the values which fit the empirical data best.”
That would be the correct procedure, but empirical data has been adjusted to provide a better fit with one of the factors that might potentially affect temperatures at the expense of the others.
Of course Javier is repeating a roundly debunked denier talking point in the chart above.
Using data that cover the entire globe instead of cherry-picking a data set that covers only a few percent of it, the correlation would be reversed. CO2 is ANTI-correlated to global temperature adjustments,
See chart at link below…
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opy7LoBO__w/VNoo9u5ynhI/AAAAAAAAAg4/_DCE5Rzm9Fw/s700/land%2Bocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
… from http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2015/02/homogenization-adjustments-reduce-global-warming.html
That few percent is the part that has the best measurements for the longest time. Most of the globe was not measured prior to the 1980’s and big parts of it are not being measured even today. So all of that is the product of infilling and extrapolation. The raw data for the rest of the world, except some parts of Europe, cannot be trusted. It doesn’t mean anything what direction is adjusted.
But even today the adjustments for the entire globe are making the past colder and the present warmer.
Between 2008 and 2016, the difference between 1910 and 2000 went from 0.45°C in 2008 to 0.70°C in 2016 in GISS dataset. The question is that those temperatures come with a 90% confidence interval that every adjustment can violate by a huge amount. We are being sold that we have confidence on our temperature reconstruction when every adjustment demonstrates that the confidence is moot.
The true definition of man-made global warming is to be found in temperature datasets. Man is 100% responsible for all the warming that appears after every version change.
Hi Javier,
The data from Berkeley Earth is very good.
Do you have a specific objection to that data set for Global temperatures as that is what I have used rather than GISS?
Why do tou trust the RSS data when it is based on models that generally you think are not trustworthy?
Do you only believe models that confirm what you already believe?
Hi Dennis,
“The data from Berkeley Earth is very good.”
So you say.
“Do you have a specific objection to that data set for Global temperatures as that is what I have used rather than GISS?”
Yes, it uses very similar raw data homogenization and temperature infilling adjustments and produces essentially the same result as GISS.
We know UHI is a real phenomenon, yet they don’t find it in the data and so it is not adjusted for. This produces a ghost warming that is not real.
“Why do tou trust the RSS data when it is based on models that generally you think are not trustworthy?”
Satellite data has inherent advantages. It measures everywhere within the coverage. It measures over oceans exactly the same way as over land and with the same density. It cannot be biased by local effects or UHI. If you want a global average, satellites are clearly the way to go.
All models are wrong, some are useful. None should be trusted too much but some are to be distrusted completely. Climate models should be distrusted completely as they have been shown to be useful to learn how much we don’t know yet about climate.
Hi Javier,
Yes the Urban heat island affect is real, so data sets have been constructed without using data affected by that problem. The result, no change in global temperature of any significance.
Try reading the work at Berkeley Earth, most scientists would find it pretty convincing. Also they use more stations for the Land Temperature estimate.
See
http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/#question-15
and
http://www.scitechnol.com/2327-4581/2327-4581-1-104.pdf
See especially figure 5 on page 5 of the paper linked above.
Judith Curry is one of the authors (someone you seem to trust as being sufficiently skeptical).
Hi Javier,
There is a slim chance I will still be alive and rational in twenty five years. Maybe you will be too. If so, and there has been no significant warming, I will gladly point out that I was wrong, and that you were right.
It never bothers me when I am wrong in predicting bad news. The minor and soon forgotten loss of face associated with being wrong in this case would be trivial in comparison to living those years in a happier, more productive, more peaceful, safer world.
And I would also be in a position to point out that a substantial portion of any efforts devoted to PREVENTING warming would still have had some positive effects, thus offsetting some or maybe all of the costs of such efforts.
A carbon tax would for instance help speed up the adoption of new tech that improves energy efficiency, and thus help extend the life of our one time gift of nature fossil fuel endowment.
Tougher environmental regulations associated with burning coal would result in substantially improved public health , especially near the places where steel mills and power plants are located. ETC ETC
A million giant wind mills would not actually be GOOD for the environment, in the narrow sense of the cost of the land to site them, or the loss of birds they might kill.
BUT lots of wind farms would mean a LOT less strip mining, a lot less mountain top removal, a lot less less water pollution, etc. Ditto lots of solar farms.
Greater dependence on renewable energy, and lesser dependence on depleting fossil fuels that are necessarily imported at great cost in so many cases would mean less need for large military establishments necessary to defend the possession of coal, oil, and gas – or to SEIZE possession of the same in the case of dire need and inability to pay.
And then there’s that old precautionary principle to be considered. I have four separate fire insurance policies, at this very minute, and have had more at times over the years. But I have NEVER had a fire that resulted in my making a claim.
The closest I ever came to NEEDING fire insurance is that I once collected a couple of grand on a policy with me listed as a beneficiary, when an old house burned down, because the owner at the time of the fire pledged the house as security for a debt owed to me.
I have collected maybe five percent as much from insurance companies on my own property insurance policies as I have paid in premiums, overall.
But I still believe in fire insurance. 😉
Hi Preston,
If one uses data from Marcott et al 2013 and Mann et al 2008, then average Holocene temperatures from 11,000 BP to 1750 CE are about 0.2 C above the 1951-1980 Global mean temperature. So in 2016 we have temperature about 0.8 C above the pre-industrial Holocene global average temperature.
The CMIP3 models suggest temperatures would rise another 0.3 C above current temperatures with no further carbon emissions (not a realistic scenario of course). A 1000 Pg C emission scenario results in about 1.5 C above pre-industrial based on MAGICC 6.
Marcott et al., 2013 are clearly wrong on that estimate. No way we are above Holocene Climate Optimum. Glaciers, biology, and marine sediments are very clear on that.
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/global-holocene-climatic-optimum-temperatures1.pdf
Hi Javier,
The proxy temperature data says otherwise. They are not clearly wrong, perhaps you are. Just because Curry writes something does not make it so. Most other estimates of the HCO are local estimates rather than Global. We are interested in Global temperatures.
In fact, if Curry writes anything about climate, it is best to examine it thoroughly:
“Judith Curry is a climatologist at Georgia Tech, infamous for flirting with the denier community on the basis that some of them have “good ideas” and can’t get their contrarian papers published. For instance, she has posted on Anthony Watts’ blog, as well as Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit. She has further embarrassed herself (and her university) by using refuted denier talking points and defending the Wegman Report, eventually admitting she hadn’t even read it in the first place.[1] This and other shenanigans led Tamino of Open Mind to say, “Judith, your credibility is now below zero.”[2] In short, she’s the Richard Lindzen of the South. Or maybe the Roy Spencer of Georgia, take your pick.
Perhaps what has sparked the most criticism, more than any other one thing, is that she has invited McIntyre to talk at Georgia Tech. No, really.[3] This makes her a massive enabler.
Some other stuff she’s been wrong about:
Maybe the Heartland Institute isn’t so bad after all![4]
The BEST team tried to “hide the decline,” because there has been “no warming since 1998.” (This was widely quoted in a Daily Mail article.)[5]
(From the same Daily Mail article) “The models are broken.” She later backed down about this on her blog, saying she was misquoted and “had no idea where it came from.”[6]
Murry Salby is right about CO2 and every other scientist is wrong.[7]
This list could actually go on for much longer — just go to her blog for more info.”
If you cannot combat the argument, try to discredit the person.
This might work in politics, but not in science, because the arguments are irrespective of who holds them.
Javier needs to be banned. NOW.
As noted above, Judith Curry defended a study she hadn’t *read* (then admitted she hadn’t read it and was defending it for no reason), provided quotes to the Daily Mail and then denied that she’d done so, etc. Just a record of intellectual dishonesty.
That DOES discredit her. Her work is not to be trusted.
Dennis,
Proxies are subject to selection and interpretation. Glaciers and biology are not. Glaciers, tree lines, species range, clearly indicate that we are not warmer than the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Even models disagree with Marcott et al., 2013 interpretation for the Tropical and Southern Hemisphere paleotemperatures.
Dennis, why hasn’t this liar been banned yet?
Nathanael, maybe it’s a free speech issue? And/or Dennis wants to debate Javier so people can see Javier’s points are contestable? Either way, the evidence is that neither Ron or Dennis want to ban Javier so the only choice is to skip his comments. Or engage.
While I disagree with Javier’s conclusions, he actually does bring something very useful to the discussion of climate here, namely his contrarian pov.
WITHOUT HIM, I would have read hundreds fewer comments here about the ins and outs,comments about the more subtle points involved in the warming issue.
Javier is thus in a very real sense contributing to my continuing education.
Gadflies are useful members in any forum that has as part of the goal the education of the readership.
I can’t contribute much at all, from the technical pov, about warming, because I am not a physicist, or statistician, or other professional capable of collecting, collating and interpreting the data.
But I can bring some professional expertise of another kind to the discussion, and say something useful about the CONSEQUENCES of warming, as they relate to food supplies, and in turn to other issues such as war.
If anybody wants to dispute or question what I have to say about agriculture in general, or wars, or politics, etc, then I will gladly do my best to explain my positions, hoping he will do the same, and that any body who reads our discussion will learn something useful.
Every time Javier says something, and Dennis or Fred hold his toes to the fire, pointing out how others come to opposite conclusions using the same or very similar data, I learn something.
Furthermore the preponderance of the evidence suggests that that Javier’s toes are made out of asbestos. He’s a big boy capable of holding his own in such a discussion, right or wrong.
Dennis and Fred don’t need any help either, they’re also big boys.
Mac, the crap Javier posts isn’t about the discussion. It’s about legitimizing a false narrative for the 90% of Americans that aren’t paying attention.
The same roll you played for Trump before the election.
HuntingtonBeach,
You said you skip my comments and it shows, because I am always supporting my pov on scientific literature, bringing citations, links to articles and articles’ figures to the discussions.
Have you read all those scientific articles that I linked you would have read several dozens of articles that do not support an alarmist view of climate and at the very least you would have gained some appreciation that the science is far from settled.
So whatever narrative you think the 90% of Americans that aren’t paying attention should be getting is guaranteed to be wrong.
Science is not about narratives, but evidence. And evidence for climate catastrophism is severely lacking.
Hi Javier,
So we should trust the models more than the data?
Is that what you are arguing? Glaciers are not a record of temperature, the HCO lasted for about 560 years based on the Marcott et al analysis (temperatures more than 0.4 C above the 1961-1990 mean). The HCO probably was warmer than the mean global temperature from 1966-2015, which was 0.33 C above the 1961-1990 global land ocean mean temperature. Based on the Marcott analysis, the HCO was warmer than the 1966-2015 mean by roughly 0.11 C from 7270 BP to 6710 BP (average temperature over that period was 0.44 C above 1961-1990 mean). There is quite a bit of smoothing of the data in Marcott so potentially temperatures might have been higher on decadal scales. It is also possible that temperatures more than 0.4 C above the 1961-1990 mean for 560 years would result in quite a bit of glacial melting, as well as changes in Northern hemisphere species and tree ranges due to higher summer insolation in the Northern hemisphere due to the Milankovitch cycle.
Again we are interested in the globe as a whole, rather than hemispheric changes.
Also note that the pre-industrial mean temperature I calculated was for the entire Holocene up to 1750 CE, the HCO was warmer than that mean by at least 0.22 C and perhaps as much as 0.48 C (using 2 sigma uncertainty from Marcott et al).
Dennis,
We can trust the models when they agree with the data as presented in the 15 articles referenced in
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/global-holocene-climatic-optimum-temperatures1.pdf
Marcott shows cooling in the tropical area and this is unsupported both by multiples proxies and models. As the Tropical area constitutes 60% of the surface it skews significantly down the final result.
Not when considered individually, as they are affected by several factors, but as all but one are either local or regional, when considered globally they do constitute a record of global temperature.
See:
Oerlemans, J. (2005). Extracting a climate signal from 169 glacier records. Science, 308(5722), 675-677.
http://spordakost.jorfi.is/data/fraedigreinar/Oerlemans_2005_science.pdf
“I constructed a temperature history for different parts of the world from 169 glacier length records. Using a first-order theory of glacier dynamics, I related changes in glacier length to changes in temperature. The derived temperature histories are fully independent of proxy and instrumental data used in earlier reconstructions. Moderate global warming started in the middle of the 19th century. The reconstructed warming in the first half of the 20th century is 0.5 kelvin. This warming was notably coherent over the globe. The warming signals from glaciers at low and high elevations appear to be very similar.”
See figure below.
Glaciers, and biology, and marine sediments all confirm that HCO was significantly warmer than present. Models agree. The only possibility is that Marcott is wrong.
Hi Javier,
Glacier length would not represent anything very well, it is glacier volume that matters, so I find the glacier length study unconvincing.
I disagree that Marcott was wrong. There are many papers citing Marcott et al 2013 about 396 papers according to Google.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8PbZCvYAAAAJ&hl=en
It is possible all of these scientists are incorrect.
I find the evidence in the paper convincing and continue to disagree with your criticisms of that paper. I also suggested it is possible that HCO was warmer than the mean estimate of Marcott et al.
Their estimate is a better Global temperature estimate than most others for the Holocene from 11,500 BP to 1250 BP. The HCO was quite long (500 years or more) and a lot of glacial melting can occur over 500 years. Your chart says nothing about the HCO.
Good luck Dennis, I guess we all have to learn the hard way. I haven’t even read these comments but I know exactly how it goes and ends. You would be better off with a foot in a bear trap. Use this post as a get out of jail free and don’t make the mistake again.
Bang Bang Done
Dennis,
“Glacier length would not represent anything very well, it is glacier volume that matters, so I find the glacier length study unconvincing.”
It does provide a completely independent measurement from proxies and instruments.
“There are many papers citing Marcott et al 2013”
Citations do not provide confirmation as the great majority of those citing a work do not bother reviewing its data and procedures. Albeit wrong, Marcott et al., 2013 provides a popular message these days among alarmists. In fact an incorrect graph from Marcott et al., 2013 (admitted by themselves and still in the article) made a huge impact in the media, and is still being used. Not a good sign for rigorous science that an article makes the news based on an procedural artifact.
“Their estimate is a better Global temperature estimate than most others for the Holocene from 11,500 BP to 1250 BP.”
Their estimate is the best and the worst available, as it is the only one.
” The HCO was quite long (500 years or more) and a lot of glacial melting can occur over 500 years.”
Yes and that is why we also have data from small permanent ice patches. Over the last decades glaciers and small permanent ice patches have been releasing permanently buried organic materials radiocarbon dated to 3,000-6,000 BP, like Ötzi the ice man dated 5,150 BP. This is as good an indicator as any other that we have not reached HCO temperatures. Do you have a better explanation for such a clear evidence?
See:
Johannes Koch, John J Clague and Gerald Osborn: Alpine glaciers and permanent ice and snow patches in western Canada approach their smallest sizes since the mid-Holocene, consistent with global trends. The Holocene 2014 24: 1639
http://kochj.brandonu.ca/ho_2014.pdf
This is pretty solid evidence not a simple mash up of disparate proxies to produce a predetermined outcome. Of course you can deposit your faith at any Church of your choice.
Hi Javier,
Most people understand it takes many years to melt a large volume of ice, not really hard to understand. So 0.44 above the 1961-1990 mean temperature for over 500 years will melt a lot more ice than 0,33 C above the 1961-1990 mean for 50 years (which has been the case for the 1966-2015 period).
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with latent heat.
https://www.britannica.com/science/latent-heat
Hi Javier,
If glaciers were shaped like cylinders, perhaps glacier length would be relevant.
Do you believe that is the case?
Glacier length probably does not correspond with temperature very well,so such a study is an independent confirmation of glacier length and not much else.
Dennis,
I am familiar with latent heat. You have ignored the issue of small permanent ice patches. They have very little volume and can melt very fast. They are permanent because conditions remain so for thousands of years of being continuously frozen. Organic remains disappear almost as soon as they get exposed.
As the link above shows small permanent ice patches confirm the story that glaciers are saying. Global warming has reverted essentially 5000 years of glacier growth trend, but has not reached HCO conditions, and it might not do so for the rest of this interglacial.
Regarding the shape of the glaciers, when using 169 glaciers its importance gets greatly diminished by averaging.
I find it funny that everybody is using glaciers as a very good indicator of the seriousness of global warming, but as soon as I start pointing out what glaciers are really showing, then suddenly glaciers are not such good indicators of anything except glaciers themselves.
Hi Javier,
I have never commented that glaciers are a good indicator of global warming.
Perhaps there are regions that have not reached HCO conditions during the warmest parts of the year during the HCO.
I haven’t looked into the exact orbital configuration during the HCO, but my understanding is that Northern hemisphere summers were very warm, due to the earth’s orbit and orientation at that time. Whether every point on the globe is warmer than summer during the warmest years of the HCO is not the issue, it is global averages.
Seriously Javier,
If reason and facts from Dennis don’t sway you to stop kidding yourself, please remember once it gets too hot to grow corn in Iowa we are all doomed.
I can understand, if all the polar bears in the world need to die to keep us warm in the winter, well then, bye-bye polar bears. But it’s not just the polar bears, or the 2000 year old redwoods in California, or all the other species going extinct every day. Eventually, and likely sooner than many suspect, something humans need will get hit hard and there will be nothing Donald Trump or your sky god can do about it.
If we were voting, I’d go with Nathanael and support a ban. I just don’t have the patience to strike down all Javier’s nonsense, and I don’t think he’s reachable. But there may be others interested in the debate.
Seriously, Preston,
Absolutely no evidence that it will ever get that hot. We are only experiencing a moderate warming.
There is more polar bears now that at any time during the past 55 years. Last count was the most numerous ever, with 25,000-30,000 bears which is a quite reasonable number for a top predator. I wish we had that many of a lot of other species.
If they are going extinct every day you surely will have no problem citing the names of a few of them, right? I mean if we are losing species that fast surely the body count must be awesome right? Does anybody know what species are those that we are losing? If not, how do we know we are losing them?
If you are going to talk seriously you should start by getting some facts correct instead of repeating #FakeNews.
What Javier is not telling you it that polar bear was heavily hunted in the twentieth century and it recovered population in some areas due to hunting restrictions. A number of populations are declining and threatened. Large areas that contain polar bears have no accurate estimates of population, so making claims outside the known areas is just trash talk.
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/population/
From the Russian Geographical Society:
“Conservation status:
Status of the polar bear in the IUCN Red list is Vulnerable A3c what means that the polar bear population decline by 30% in 3 generations (45 years).
Polar bear is listed in Appendices II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Appendices II includes species that are not necessarily threatened but can become in the future if trading of these animals for purposes incompatible with their survival is not strictly prohibited.
Conservation status in Russia (according to the Red book of Russia):
•The Kara – Barents seas population: category 4 – uncertain status.
•The Laptev Sea population: category 3 – rare.
•The Chukotka – Alaska population: category 5 – reestablishing.
•Killing of the polar bear in the Russian Arctic strictly prohibited since 1957”
Still illegal killing of polar bears goes on with no real estimate of the amount.
https://www.rgo.ru/en/projects/protection-endangered-species-polar-bear/about-polar-bear
I’ll bet those Trump boys have a couple. Right next to their stuffed lions.
Tks, GF,
I almost posted a response to his BS and Lah Di Dah idiocy that everything is just fine and dandy with global ecosystems. They aren’t! And the science and data and analysis is available from multiple converging fields of knowledge that the shit is hitting the fan.
To be clear, I’m not just talking about polar bears. Go dive any of our coral reefs. Take a trip to the Amazon. Go to Borneo. Take a hard look at the numbers of large mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and even insects that are seriously endangered due to human induced habitat loss.
And all we get from our contrarian denialist friends is inane comments, that the science doesn’t support our views and we should look at the science and the facts.
Well fuck that shit!! I have been looking at the science and the facts for a couple of decades now, I personally know plenty of biologists and especially ecologists who disagree very strongly with the kind of bullshit spewed here by these people.
They are highly intelligent, deeply caring individuals with advanced degrees and long careers studying biological ecosystems the world over. So based on that, I find the crap some people post here, to be deeply insulting to them and I take personal umbrage!
BTW, this kind of shit happens every day all over the world!
It’s the ‘Humans’ Stupid!
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/28/507220370/china-announces-its-largest-ever-seizure-of-trafficked-pangolin-scales
China Announces Its Largest-Ever Seizure Of Trafficked Pangolin Scales
All eight species of pangolin are facing extinction.
But go look at the facts, everything is just fine! There are still pangolins in the world.
Of course it is the humans stupid, but it is not climate change. I am a biologist and also know plenty of biologists that agree with me that climate change is a small factor in the damage we are doing to ecosystems.
Essentially it is the consequence of being 7.5 billion people on the planet and growing. We are taking everything for us and in the process contaminating and destroying a lot.
Climate change has little to do with this, or do you think that with 0.5°C less average global temperature ecosystems would be in a better condition?
We have to focus on conservation and forget this climate crisis nonsense. That is the best path forward to try to revert part of the damage done. That and limit our population growth before there is nothing left to save.
Hi Javier,
I agree lower rates of population growth would be great, by 2070 it may be that we reach peak population if total fertility ratios continue to fall as projected by some demographers.
It is possible that either depletion of fossil fuels or ramp up of non fossil fuel energy sources (or some combination) might limit total anthropogenic carbon emissions to less than 1000 Pg C after 1750 CE.
Some climate scientists think this might be enough to keep global warming to less than 2C above the pre-industrial Holocene average global temperature.
We can imagine that everything will be ok, but this is not known, only a WAG.
I prefer to be realistic.
For those who said they couldn’t remember Javier ever saying anything thought provoking, or his sharing any useful insights etc, I refer them to his twelve twenty nine eight twenty one am comment somewhere up thread.
Having said this much, my sympathies are with Fred Maygar, when it comes to Javier being so cocksure he is right, and that so many other scientists are wrong.
And yes, we have Dennis’s word for it that Javier has demonstrated his bonafides as a biologist, but does not want to comment using his own name, unless I am merely imagining reading a comment to this effect posted by Dennis himself.
Dennis,
Your realism is based on some assumptions that are likely and others that are unlikely.
Yes population is probable to peak in a few decades as every significant factor appears to work in that direction, and it is hard to envision unforeseen factors that could revert current trends. Unforeseen factors might actually accelerate population peak and corresponding descent.
Yes carbon emissions are likely to stop growing and start decreasing in a few years to a couple of decades if only from fossil fuel depletion and increasing dependence from non-fossil energy sources. It is also hard to envision unforeseen factors that will increase our emissions beyond what fossil fuel depletion might allow.
But that global warming can reach 2°C above pre-industrial average is based on shaky assumptions.
Most of the warming since pre-industrial times is natural. Essentially all warming between 1850 and 1950 is natural, and a part of the warming since 1950 is also natural.
You cannot assume that natural warming is going to continue in the future, as natural climate change is cyclical in nature, and post-LIA natural warming is likely to end sometime in the future and be substituted by natural cooling. That is what has happened always and the Holocene general trend is towards cooling and at some point it will resume.
If CO2 induced warming has to fight natural cooling we will see much less warming and it is very unlikely that we ever reach those +2°C that you talk about.
My opinion is that we are not going to see any more warming until about 2030 when global warming might resume. 30 years of no warming should make most alarmist scenarios highly implausible, and +2°C hard to reach in any significant time-frame.
Hi Old Farmer Mac.
Yes I have confirmed that Javier is a published scientist, you did not imagine that.
Hi Javier,
Some of the warming has been natural perhaps, but probably only 20% or so from 1850 to 2015, the rest is likely from CO2 increase and the feedbacks associated with the increased atmospheric CO2.
There is very likely to be at least 1000 Pg of carbon emissions and it could easily be 1500 Pg of carbon emissions (there is likely to be enough fossil fuel to accomplish this).
Now if one assumes that fossil fuels are very limited (my low scenario) and renewables ramp up quickly, we might be ok, if we also assume ECS=2.7 C and that 2 C of warming is not catastrophic.
Many believe that the four assumptions above are very shaky. I think they are possibly correct, but wouldn’t bet on it.
Well, that precisely is my point, GoneFishing. Polar bears are endangered because of us, not climate change. After all polar bears already survived the Eemian that was significantly warmer than the Holocene, and when most of the ice in Greenland melted, and probably Arctic sea ice reached ice free conditions every summer for thousands of years.
Megafaunal extinction took place during the last glacial period and early Holocene (and still continuing). It did not happen during any of the dozens of glacial periods that preceded the last one. The only new factor was that our species was around hunting all megafauna species.
Conservation efforts should focus on our effect on species, through over-hunting/fishing, land and resources appropriation and pollution. The effect of climate change on species survival is a minor factor. In fact many species are benefiting from climate change as a lot of ecosystems are becoming more productive with higher temperatures that extend growing season, and increased CO2 that fertilizes plants.
That we take resources from traditional conservation efforts to fight climate change is pure stupidity and likely to result in more species being lost from conservation neglect.
Javier said”There is more polar bears now that at any time during the past 55 years. Last count was the most numerous ever, with 25,000-30,000 bears which is a quite reasonable number for a top predator. I wish we had that many of a lot of other species.”
“Well, that precisely is my point, GoneFishing. Polar bears are endangered because of us…”
No it was not your point.
Slippery as an eel lubricated with snake oil. First the polar bears are doing fine, then they are not. You switch your tale faster than most politicians.
You can put it any way you want. The facts are stubborn. Climate change has not reduced polar bear numbers. The main factor reducing polar bear numbers was over-hunting and as soon as hunting limitations were introduced polar bear numbers have increased.
What should we all be alarmed of?
Slippery as an eel lubricated with snake oil. First the polar bears are doing fine, then they are not. You switch your tale faster than most politicians.
Yup!
And while we are on the topic of slithery creatures…
Rattlesnakes Under Threat Due To Climate Change
http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Snakes/Wild-Snakes/Rattlesnakes-Under-Threat-Due-To-Climate-Change/
The ranges of rattlesnake species are likely to shift dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100. This is because the climate will change over 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, according to a newly published study by Indiana University (IU) scientists.
But everything is just fine!
Fred,
That’s also a non-news as it is not based on evidence.
“If climate change runs amok, then rattlesnakes will shift their ranges dramatically between now and 2100.”
What is the fact there? We don’t know how the climate is going to change in the future and this is just an opinion piece on how a hypothetical change might affect a species.
Again, what should we all be alarmed of?
Fred, if there was anywhere near a 6 degree rise in temperature this century, I am quite sure the rattlesnakes would be doing better than us, by far.
People have been the rattler’s biggest problem and climate change will stress people which will not bode well for any wild animal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/12/27/these-coal-country-voters-backed-trump-now-theyre-worried-about-losing-obamacare/?utm_term=.489a91c67a24
The party is over, time for the HANG over.
But if Clinton had won, it seems likely to me that some working people would have seen their jobs outsourced even faster than they will be under Trump.
( Wait a minute, OFM slaps self upside the head, wondering if he said something nice about Trump. I am not yet sure if Trump tells the truth about ANYTHING, but he may have told the truth about planning to do something to slow down the offshoring of jobs. )
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
As I have pointed out before, if Trump does more than jawboning to prevent jobs from moving overseas (like raising taxes for individuals through tax breaks for businesses) by restricting capital movement or creating trade barriers, then other nations will respond in kind, this is likely to create job losses for workers in industries that export goods. So jobs saved in one industry are more than offset by job losses in other industries. To add insult to injury everyone pays higher prices making everyone worse off.
This is very well known international economic theory and is called comparative advantage.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
This is why the Republican support for free trade is the correct policy.
Sounds like Reaganomics. Reduce one tax, raise another, slip in another one. Public debt up by nearly three times during his terms. Borrow, borrow, borrow your way to success.
I think the churn rate is going to become a problem in the near future. We can’t have much real growth overall, so churn will take over, especially if the government is promoting the wrong businesses.
Hi Dennis,
This theory was taught to me in 201 221 and 231 Ag Econ ( which was a dual listed course taught in the econ department by an econ professor. Same book, same classroom, same hour as the econ majors.) just about as you describe it. The higher level ag econ courses were taught within the ag school, but I didn’t take more than one or two more.
AND in broad general terms, I agree with you, and with the textbook , and the professor.
But the devil is in the details, as usual. The Japanese want to sell us cars, but they don’t want my apples, or Washington state apples either, and put in protectionist measures disguised as environmental regs to prevent us selling to their consumers.
The Chinese put a hell of a dry involuntary xxxxing on American workers by way of paying wages that are a minor fraction of typical American industrial wages paid in non union southern mill towns.
So – Whether you are a winner, or a big loser, depends on who you are, even though it is true that the OVERALL economy of the country, and the world, is more vigorous with free trade. It is worth noting that a very large majority of all the liberal individuals I have ever known, excepting minorities, work in fields that are not threatened by globalization to any real extent, such as health care, police work, education, etc. The lack of essential paper work also protects such people from worries about losing their jobs to immigrants.
I make no bones about being a spokesman for the working class people who have been on the receiving end of the dry involuntary sex associated with offshoring American industries. The R party never gave a fuck about us ( yes, I am still one of this class at heart and by culture and upbringing although I have my degree, and property, and investment income, and a personal library, etc, and have held professional jobs and at times made six figure money, although I never made six figures in any given single year. I occasionally refer to myself as a capitalist piglet, which is true enough. The D party no longer gives a shit, in the opinion of most of the people who have either lost their jobs, or at risk of losing them.
Clinton was too arrogant, too stupid, to make a real effort in the states that cost her the election. She took the working people there for granted.
They sent her, and the D party, a message. They didn’t vote FOR Trump, they voted against Clinton, and her bankster globalist cronies, because they were , to put it in non PC terms , off the reservation, and on the warpath, figuratively.
The D party is also said in right wing circles to assume the minorities will always stay on the D plantation, being effectively OWNED by the D party. That ownership is beginning to show some signs of discontent as well, but I put it mostly to antipathy towards Clinton herself, rather than the party itself.
(If I were a black person, I would be a big D Democrat, no question, but I would also be raising hell about being taken for granted. Most of the black guys and girls I used to know socially in Richmond, back when I was hanging out around the university during my party years, were upwardly mobile, and most of them quietly left Richmond, usually for the surrounding counties, for the better schools,lower taxes, safer communities, etc. Those counties are R party strongholds. )
And while I agree that you, and my old textbook and professor were right, in general terms, even that depends on the size of the box in which you are doing your thinking.
If it weren’t for globalization, how far along do you think the Chinese would be, economically, today? How much trouble would we be having with terrorism spawned in sand country, if it weren’t for the international trade in oil?
If the world were twenty or thirty years behind, globally, economically, we would still be firmly in first place, along with the Germans and a few other Western countries, most likely, and the basic sciences would be almost as advanced as they are today. Peak oil, and global warming, would be problems ten or fifteen years farther down the road, and the technologies we will need to deal with these issues would be much farther advanced, in terms of the basic sciences, than they are now, in relation to the size of the problem.
If the industries we have lost to globalization were still located here, we would have far fewer, and far more easily solved domestic problems with broken families, drugs, welfare bums as opposed to truly unfortunate and needy people on assistance, far fewer problems with crime, etc.
So far as I am concerned, anybody who thinks cheap consumer junk is a good enough deal to have traded our industries for them is at best ill informed. If such a person really understands the workings of society, and still believes we Americans as a whole are better off, then my personal opinion is that he is a fool.
Cheap clothes, cheap appliances, cheap throw away tools are no bargain, when we could have the same stuff for maybe twice the money , but also with twice the quality, on average, WITHOUT having millions of people in deep economic trouble due to having lost their jobs via offshoring.
Some of the thousands and thousands of jailers, cops , and criminal lawyers could be and would be doing actual useful work, work that would contribute to our well being.
And yes, I know all about automation, and that it will destroy ever more jobs anyway. But that does not mean we should just wave our hands and say fuck the working people, because they are fucked anyway.
They got out their figurative pitchforks and torches, and chased Clinton out of town, replacing her with Trump- who is even worse of course.
Rebuttals are welcome. HOPED FOR.
But comments referring to working class people as stupid won’t advance the conversation. Ignorant, ill informed, they truly are , in some respects. But stupid they are not.
I am always glad to refine my opinions, and occasionally even change my mind about some key point, lol.
I think the industrial working class is screwed, mostly because of automation and partly because of globalization. Get into the renewable energy business, health, some trade such as plumbing or electrician. The fossil fuel industry is a an unknown, it looks like it may be on the strong decline within ten years but it also may find ways to keep going.
Bringing back the steel industry when steel use is being reduced is probably not the best option. Better to invest in new materials technology companies and get them up and running. Still we could use some more at home steel industry just to improve the quality.
We have a lot of high tech industries so jobs for laborers and operators are much fewer. Service industries are getting more automated, that is no cure.
When fossil fuels go up in price, upgrading homes with more insulation and sealing them could become a hot business and won’t need a huge amount of education or training.
There is a bright spot, renewables. Tesla and Panasonic will be building solar panels in Buffalo NY. 1400 jobs added with 500 in manufacturing.
Hi Gone fishing,
I agree there will be fewer manufacturing jobs due to automation. Those without a college degree will need to rely on trades jobs (carpentry, millwright, electrician, plumbing, roofing, etc).
The days of graduating high school and working at the local plant or mill and making a decent living are not going to last much longer.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
You seem to be missing the fact that there are plenty of workers in industries that will be affected badly by protectionist measures. The world changes.
A reading of history from 1900 to 1950 might disabuse you of your belief that isolationism is the best policy. I guess I am less tribal and am concerned about the welfare of humans in general. It is not all that clear to me that American made goods are the best quality, some of the worst cars I have ever owned were made by Chevrolet and the best were made by Toyota or Honda.
Now if you think isolationism would result in lower economic growth, I agree.
I also think lower economic growth might be a good thing.
Remember however that GDP is essentially the same as national income.
I think you would have trouble convincing the average man on the street that lower income is a good idea, but that is basically your argument.
Hey your income is 30k per year, how about 20k?
It’s a hard sell.
Protectionism works.
For some reason my longer comments didn’t go through, but the Archdruid Report has a very good piece on what’s wrong with Free Trade. Quite recently.
Also, comparative advantage isn’t a real thing; there’s no empirical evidence of it. There is strong empirical evidence of *absolute advantage*, but that’s quite different.
Hi Nathanael,
How well did protectionism work from 1910 to 1945?
Backatcha Dennis,
“You seem to be missing the fact that there are plenty of workers in industries that will be affected badly by protectionist measures. The world changes.”
I don’t. I do understand that a LOT of people earn excellent livings because we export large quantities of certain goods and services.
“A reading of history from 1900 to 1950 might disabuse you of your belief that isolationism is the best policy.”
But I have not actually said that I believe isolationism is the best policy, and I HAVE read as much history as just about anybody I have ever met, excepting historians or people who work in fields very closely associated with the study of history. I am fully aware that protectionist measures, and or isolationism as policy can and have resulted in races to the bottom that were in very large part responsible for both WWI and WWII, not to mention lots of other troubles.
Perhaps you failed to appreciate my pointed remarks to the effect that I am and have been speaking from a partisan pov, as a member of the working classes that have suffered from globalization here in the USA, and especially here in my part of the country. It follows that I am making MY CASE, and that you and other globalists are free to make yours. Mine is seldom ever articulated in a forum such as this one.
I am virtually alone here in pointing out the plight of a substantial number of my relatives, old school mates, and neighbors,and my extended community nation wide.
( Note I have also pointed out that I am moderately well off, short on CASH but LONG on hard assets, and that the last two generations of my family are well sprinkled with successful professional people including doctors, lawyers, teachers, and business men of various sorts. )
” I guess I am less tribal and am concerned about the welfare of humans in general.”
I understand, and feel the same way, in terms of the BIG PICTURE. I fully understand that a textile worker in Asia is in the natural scheme of things just as worthy of a job that means a modern life as my next door neighbor. I have already pointed out that I am making the partisan for not for isolation as such, but for protection of our working class, because nobody else is making it HERE, in this forum.
I have been doing my damnedest to get the hard core D folks here who seem to think Clinton had no faults to UNDERSTAND that she lost the election BECAUSE she was a lousy campaigner with a lousy track record in terms of trust and likability with the people of this country……… meaning the people taken as a whole.
Whether she IS colossally arrogant,whether she WAS colossally stupid in terms of thinking she could get away with such foolishness as the secret email system, whether she talked the working people’s talk, but walked the walk with the moneyed elites, etc etc etc may be debatable, in your opinion, and in the opinion of countless other observers.
But it is an indisputable fact that ENOUGH of the people of this country PERCEIVED her as having these shortcomings that she managed to lose to TRUMP, a man hated even by virtually ALL of the R party establishment, although the R establishment is now kissing his ass, which is what establishments do, that’s sop.
Trump was indisputably just about the worst possible candidate the R party could run, except for ONE thing. The infuriated electorate wanted CHANGE and Trump was smart enough to promise change, the same as Obama, and smart enough to capitalize on Clinton’s doofus identity politics and elitist campaign. This pissed off ENOUGH working class and socially conservative people who hold more traditional views and values that she lost what should have been a cakewalk election.
BUT hey, you and I at least are adults, and I just can’t imagine YOU blaming Trump or Rush Limbaugh or anybody else for pointing out Clinton’s shortcomings. SHE created the email system, SHE took the banksters money, bald faced , a quarter of a million bucks per secret little speech, and SHE was the one arrogant enough to think she would get away with doing so, and still win.
My political sympathies are with the working class. But in terms of the bigger picture, I am and have been a single issue environment voter for quite some time, even though I remain a conservative in some ways.
Protecting the environment is about as conservative a policy as can be imagined, if one understands what REAL conservatism is all about, but one must be technically literate to understand the technical CONSERVATIVE reasoning that leads to this conclusion.
Unfortunately way too many SO CALLED conservatives are conservatives in name only, and technically illiterate.
So even though HB may never believe it, I WANT the D party to run winning candidates , and winning campaigns.
“It is not all that clear to me that American made goods are the best quality, some of the worst cars I have ever owned were made by Chevrolet and the best were made by Toyota or Honda.”
I agree about the cars, in general, in respect to older models, but I put the difference down to complacency and lack of good management to the domestic manufacturers, more than any thing else.
But it’s also worth mentioning that the Japanese were ready to adopt new manufacturing technology at a time when the big three domestic producers were sitting on a vast fortune in serviceable but suddenly semi obsolete plants, and plagued by union rules that prevented management from doing a better job organizing production, etc.
The Japanese didn’t have this huge sunk investment, so they weren’t looking to preserve it, and were in a position to leapfrog Detroit, and did so. Nor were they hamstrung by union rules. ( I HAVE BEEN a union guy, and my farmer Daddy was a union man all his life, working a second shift job in town. I am telling it like it was. )
But our farm machinery industry, and heavy truck industry, the construction equipment industries are world class, as good as anybody’s and much superior to most other brands.My seventies vintage Ferguson tractors ( originally a Limey make ) have run twice as many hours without overhauls as some local examples of very popular new orange tractors built in Japan. Ditto my neighbor’s Fords.
I used to buy American made power tools that I expected to last at least couple of decades, without disappointment. Now American brand name power tools coming from Asia can be expected to last maybe four or five years at best, in regular use, but they ARE dirt cheap.
I have owned Nissans, Toyotas, Hondas, Chevrolets, Fords, Dodges and a few other makes over the years, even a couple of Porsche’s. My opinion for what it’s worth is that there is very little difference in the reliability or durability of American versus Japanese makes these days unless you buy one handful of the American lemon models. The Japanese seldom bring a lemon model to market. I am dead sure that given the difference in price between an older Chevy and an older Toyota pickup, everything else about equal in terms of condition, model year, etc, I would take the Chevy, because it will actually outlast the Toyota on the kind of jobs I do, and cost less to maintain. Chevy parts are cheap, compared to Toyota parts.
“Now if you think isolationism would result in lower economic growth, I agree.” Isolation does in my estimation result in slower economic growth, everything else held equal. But every thing else is NEVER equal, and sometimes an isolationist country can at least theoritically experience rapid growth.
I won’t take time to go into this point, except to say a country as large and diverse and well populated and as rich in a huge assortment of natural resources does not NEED international trade to anything like the same extent as smaller, less fortunate countries.
” I also think lower economic growth might be a good thing.”
I agree that slower economic growth MIGHT be a good thing, depending on context, on the size of the box in which we are talking and thinking.
Faster growth has obviously enough allowed faster population growth, historically, which is bad. BUT faster growth in actual fact has enabled women to become more independent, to get educations, etc, and the RESULT of THAT has been falling birth rates.
WHODA THUNK IT back in the days I was reading a new book titled The Population Bomb?
Economic growth allows for more scientific research, and faster growth means faster growth in the number of scientists, and their working budgets. That is obvious enough almost everybody will accept this argument at face value.
BUT – I also believe that if our economy had grown only fifty percent ( for example ) as much in the last twenty five years, the body of knowledge comprising the basic hard sciences would have grown MORE than fifty percent.
Less research means lesser results overall, but less research also means better targeted research, because researchers will pick and choose their projects with greater care. I hunt and fish ONLY in places where I think I will find game and fish, and the fewer days I have for these pastimes, the more careful I am to pick the most promising days and locations. When time is no object, I can afford to spend a few days on long shot locations.
“Remember however that GDP is essentially the same as national income.” I am tempted to say I would prefer to think about this a while before agreeing , but I will agree for present purposes.
“I think you would have trouble convincing the average man on the street that lower income is a good idea, but that is basically your argument.”
That is NOT my argument at all. MY PRIMARY argument is that tens of millions of working class people, who are incidentally mostly socially conservative people , socially and culturally, and more often than not politically conservative VOTERS , have been royally fucked over by the moneyed elites who have banked most of the profits earned as the result of the export of our industries.
My SECONDARY, following argument, is that they voted NOT FOR Trump , especially, but rather that they DIDN’T vote FOR Clinton, a few weeks back.
I do fully understand that MOST Americans are better off due to globalization, if you measure their situation solely in terms of their incomes or personal living standards. Globalization didn’t cost me anything when I was a teacher, or when I was renovating and selling old houses, or hanging around the university district with the young upwardly mobile liberal set, with papers in my pocket, namely a special grad student’s id, etc, proving my bonafides as a member in good standing. Globalization hasn’t cost my sister who is a professor and retired captain in the army anything. It didn’t cost my Daddy anything much as an orchardist , until the very last few years we kept the orchard going, when all at once we were competing with Chinese apple juice concentrates, etc. It doesn’t cost my second cousin the cop, or my first cousin the mail carrier ( recently retired) anything. If anything , it contributes to the cop’s job security.
BUT if we were still buying American made furniture, made in factories in my neighborhood, and American made clothing made in factories in my neighborhood, well then……….. they wouldn’t be in half as great need of food stamps, highly subsidized health care, or court appointed lawyers when they get caught dealing a little dope or peddling some stolen goods in order to make ends meet. We wouldn’t need nearly as many jailers or cops.
And these formerly proud and self respecting working people wouldn’t be TRUMP VOTERS, because except for their rage and fury, their utter contempt for the D and R establishments, Trump would still be in show biz , rather than the prez elect.
“Hey your income is 30k per year, how about 20k?” See above.
I am not buying the argument that we are materially better off, taken all around, due to globalization. Some of us are, no question,and on AVERAGE we probably are better off. Would I be better off with a twenty thousand dollar income, and no globalization is it has recently played out , or thirty thousand with it? Probably with the thirty, but suppose the real figures are thirty with it, and twenty seven five without it, and a lower tax bill, a safer community, more self reliant, more self respecting neighbors, less crime, fewer social workers, and a cleaner environment too?
Its hard to get laws passed toughening up environmental regulations, but it’s easy to enforce them, once passed.
So an American company is not so apt to dump nasty chemicals into the air as a Chinese company.
“It’s a hard sell.”
I am not so much trying to SELL it, as I am to get people to really see it and UNDERSTAND IT, hoping that this understanding will lead to our MY class being better treated, and better respected, and that it will also lead to the election of more real, traditional D politicians, rather than the newer variety that seems to have forgotten that there are many many times more working class people than there are rich people.
Control of the media, as Fred Maygar has pointed out upthread someplace is no longer a guarantee of control of the electoral process. Money can buy only so many votes. Slick ads and endorsements by newspaper editors won’t necessarily giterdone anymore.
Rebuttals and any comments pro or con are MORE than welcome. The comments I make here in this forum are working notes, and will be incorporated in large part into my book to be. Show me where I am going wrong, or point out things I have overlooked, and I will be grateful!!
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
I agree that many people wanted change and that Clinton was not well liked and made a number of mistakes.
An argument for keeping jobs in America, is essentially an argument for tariffs, this leads to tariffs all around and isolationism. There are no halfway measures for free trade, you have it or you don’t for the most part (though agriculture seems to be somewhat exceptional in this regard).
How do you propose we keep the clothing and furniture manufacturing in the US? Capitalism allows the free movement of capital, we would have to restrict the free movement of capital (or I suppose we could eliminate corporate taxes which might help a bit). Why is it a good idea to allow the free flow of goods and capital?
Economics suggests that this allows the largest quantity of goods to be produced at minimum cost, given the amount of resources and capital available.
So we get more stuff for lower prices and total national income is maximized, the reason income is the same as GDP is because when something is produced and sold it becomes income for someone.
So lets say we had chosen a policy where all of the furniture and clothing jobs had remained in the US. This only would have been accomplished with tariffs on other nations furniture and clothing. Other nations would then impose tariffs on Boeing Jets, GM and Ford cars, and GE wind turbines.
So the result would be we have more people employed making clothes, shoes, and furniture while having fewer people employed making jets, cars, and wind turbines.
There are workers employed in all of these industries, I wish them all well, but I think workers in general if the government does a minimum to interfere in the economy. Most government intervention should be in tax policy to combat income inequality and regulations and other policy support to reduce negative externalities(pollution) and increase positive externalities (such as public transportation).
It is not up to the government to decide which industries (furniture vs wind turbines) succeed or fail.
Workers in the US in general (looking at all industries rather than a select few) are helped rather than hurt by free trade.
Your economics professors were correct.
Back atcha one more time , Dennis
I just saw your last reply, and will post another in depth, of my own, later.
How Big Coal summoned Wall Street and faced a whirlwind
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-coal-hobet/
Personally, the only way to get coal going again in the US is to stifle natural gas, solar and wind power growth. Also efficiency changes would need to be stopped.
However, things did not look very good for coal back in 2009.
“Second, the map shows only in a very general way where coal was originally located. The map does not illustrate historical mining trends or demonstrate how people have dug out the coal during the past 150 years of industrial activity in the U.S. Sure, the map shows the coal-rich areas in a broad, arm-waving kind of way. But many of those areas, especially in the eastern and Appalachian region, are mined out near the surface. You need to understand that much of the shallow and easily obtained reserves are gone. The only way to get to the remaining coal is through complex stripping operations or deep and expensive shaft mines.
Arctic Coal That Cannot Be Mined…”
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2009-03-04/how-much-coal-out-there/
Coal uses 18 to 37 kwh per ton for stripping operations and 26 to 55 kwh per ton electricity for underground operations. Ignoring explosives and transport energy, coal produces 1927 kwh electricity per ton. Depreciation and maintenance of machinery and equipment also ignored.
So one ton of coal produces 35 tons to 107 tons of coal depending on strip mine overburden, coal type, and mine type.
Hi GF,
The fact that coal is on its last legs in the eastern USA is well known to folks in the industry, and to anybody who cares to investigate the question for even ten minutes, but it this well known fact is one of the ones most often deliberately overlooked by partisans on the political right. Even the miners themselves manage to over look it.
The local papers in Kentucky and West Virginia have published quite a few articles on the depletion of coal in the local region. I have read a number of these articles myself.
Sure OFM, a few years ago the governor of WV warned the coal workers that they would soon be looking for new jobs.
BREITBART EXPLAINS ARCTIC REINDEER WEIGHT LOSS
(has to do with coal)
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/12/wuwt-explains-why-reindeer-have-been.html
Greenland melting history and current melting. The Eemian ice, Last Glacial period, Holocene formation and present. Presently large portions of Greenland are losing mass and sections are losing altitude. With altitude loss comes warmer temperatures. In the past, most of the ice sheet melted, with temperatures similar to the current temperature.
“Why are scientists out flying over Greenland, drilling into its ice, and monitoring it from space? The answer is that they see it as a bellwether of future Earth.
Scientists are sampling, drilling, and flying over this great island because they believe it may be a bellwether of future Earth. Greenland is two million square kilometers of land… 81% of which is covered by a giant central ice cap, the Inland Ice. Here is 2.8 million cubic kilometers of ice… layered and packed over the millennia. Its thickest points lie beneath two massive ridges… the northern at 3 kilometers thick, the southern at over 3.2 kilometers.
The Inland Ice basin is framed by parallel mountain ranges. Its bedrock basement floor is down near sea level… depressed by the weight of the ice above it. If this ice sheet were to melt, the land beneath would be underwater, dotted with small islands. Over time, with the weight lifted, it would gradually rise. Today, the sheer mass of the Inland Ice exerts a gravitational pull on surrounding oceans. This pull raises sea levels all around the island.
In the event of extreme melting, a recent study showed that sea levels would actually drop out to a distance of about 1000 kilometers. More distance shores, however, would experience an average global sea level rise of over 7 meters.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo8ym0kiddE&t=172s
Elevation changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
“NASA observations show the dynamism of Greenland’s Ice sheet in the changing elevation of its surfaces. Recent analysis of seven years of readings from NASA’s ICESat satellite and four years of laser and and ice-penetrating radar data from NASA’s airborne mission Operation IceBridge shows the changes taking place.
In the animation featured here, the colors shown on the surface of the ice sheet represent the accumulated change in elevation since 2003. The light yellow over the central region of the ice sheet indicates a slight thickening due to snow. This accumulation, along with the weight of the ice sheet, pushes ice toward the coast. Thinning near coastal regions, shown in green, blue and purple, has increased over time and now extends into the interior of the ice sheet where the bedrock topography permits. As a result, there has been an average loss of 300 cubic kilometers of ice per year between 2003 and 2012.
This animation portrays the changes occurring in the surface elevation of the ice sheet since 2003 in three drainage regions: the southeast, the northeast and the Jakobshavn regions. In each region, the time advances to show the accumulated change in elevation from 2003 through 2012.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kteMXaUNvlc
Not sure if this was up before, but it’s interesting.
Will we ever stop using fossil fuels?
Christopher Knittel
Not without a carbon tax, suggests a study by an MIT economist.
“This trend — in which cheaper renewables are outpaced by even cheaper fossil fuels — portends drastic climate problems, since fossil fuel use has helped produce record warm temperatures worldwide.
The study concludes that burning all available fossil fuels would raise global average temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100; burning oil shale and methane hydrates, two more potential sources of copious fossil fuels, would add another 1.5 to 6.2 degrees Fahrenheit to that.”
“To see how much better firms are at extracting fossil fuels from the Earth, consider this: The probability of an exploratory oil well being successful was 20 percent in 1949 and just 16 percent in the late 1960s, but by 2007 that figure had risen to 69 percent, and today it’s around 50 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As a result of these improved oil and gas extraction techniques, we have consistently had about 50 years’ worth of accessible oil and natural gas reserves in the ground over the last 30 years, the scholars note.
All told, global consumption of fossil fuels rose significantly from 2005 through 2014: about 7.5 percent for oil, 24 percent for coal, and 20 percent for natural gas. About 65 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are derived from fossil fuels, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Of those emissions, coal generates about 45 percent, oil around 35 percent, and natural gas about 20 percent.”
http://news.mit.edu/2016/carbon-tax-stop-using-fossil-fuels-0224
I don’t really believe much of it but it does bring up some points worth discussing. One is the cost of renewable energy is dependent upon the cost and availability of storage. The other is the true cost of EV’s are dependent upon the cost of the battery (and the implied rate of replacement).
Why does he think fossil fuels can get cheaper indefinitely?
This is the “peak oil” piece of the puzzle. Extraction costs for oil go up as the “Easy oil” is extracted and the companies have to move on to the “difficult oil”. Same with coal. Same with gas.
He’s already out of date on renewables costs. Tesla had battery pack costs below $190/kwh by the time that was published in February.
Of course we should have a carbon tax, but the price crossover point for solar and wind vs. natgas *has already happened*, the crossover for electric cars vs. gasoline has happened (nobody’s noticed because it’s hidden in Tesla’s humungous profit margins until they can ramp production up), and stationary batteries vs. gas should follow shortly.
Economists and their biggest fanboys are seldom very much interested in real facts and up to date data if such facts and data interfere with their soap box pronouncements. Soap boxes are useful in attracting publicity.
“They know just enough to be dangerous” is the way old hands on construction jobs express their opinion of brash new guys who know what can be done, if one disregards consideration of what can go wrong- often fatally.
But it’s hard to blame economists as individuals, because if you are actually in contact with them, instead of reading the bare bones of things they have said, you usually find they attach plenty of caveats to those bare bones.
The fault lies as much or more with today’s so called journalists as it does with the economics profession. Nobody would read such an economists actual lectures to undergrads, because the man on the street is not much interested in nuance and details, which are nevertheless ESSENTIAL to understanding any topic more complicated than tic tac toe.
Environmentalists who absolutely know better, and who often lecture everybody else about the impossibility of continuous growth in a finite environment as a general rule use such ridiculous pronouncements from economists to make the environmental case for laws and policies limiting the use of fossil fuels. They play right along in leading the public into believing the supply of fossil fuels is essentially unlimited, at least in relation to the longest time frame a man on the street is willing to give even a minute’s consideration- his own life span, plus the lifespan of his kids.
My personal belief is that the environmental message would sell a hell of a lot better if it consisted of fifty percent honest data about the depletion of fossil fuels and the associated risks involved in obtaining and using them, OTHER than straight up environmental problems. Fifty percent should be about depletion, resource wars, terrorism, the certainty that prices must go up as extraction costs go up, transportation costs go up, local taxes and local jobs and local control as pluses associated with renewable energy, etc.
The remaining fifty percent in my estimation should be about environmental issues such as global warming, ocean acidification, public health, habitat loss and species losses, etc.
“Economists and their biggest fanboys are seldom very much interested in real facts and up to date data if such facts and data interfere with their soap box pronouncements.”
Says the Truck Driver with a BS degree
HI Ya Mr Elitist HB,
I will gladly debate you anytime, face to face, the topic being hard science, history, culture, or politics, so long as the place and time are of my choosing, since you threw out the challenge.
I am not free to travel, so you will have to come to me.
I’m reasonably sure I have forgotten more biology, chemistry, and science in general than you have ever known, or ever will,judging by your comments or lack thereof in this respect in this forum, and I ‘m dead sure I can make you look childish in such a face to face encounter, unless you manage to bring along a hand picked audience.
I learned to drive an eight ton truck when I was twelve or thirteen years old on the farm, and I HAVE spent a few months behind the wheel of a big truck, from time to time, when it suited me to do so as a temporary source of income. It paid as well as teaching, with fewer hassles, and enabled me to organize my life as I pleased, for instance taking off a few months to live in my camper in my woods, coming out to go for groceries and books once a week or so but otherwise enjoying an extended random walk thru the libraries of the world.
I owned a big truck of my own sometimes, depending on what sort of projects I had going on. I have held a general contractors license, and I have thoroughly renovated a dozen houses as sole or part owner,and built a few new ones, as part of the crew.
I have read nearly the whole of Shakespeare, the KJB, and nearly all the works of Darwin and a considerable number of other scientists who have changed the course of history.
I took a full year course in economics in the same classroom, at the same hour, as the econ majors at my university, using the same text book.
I have even saved the lives of at least three people by sticking my nose into their business when they had a stroke in one case, a drug overdose in another, and an accident in the third, having some training in the medical sciences. I didn’t learn much in nursing school that I hadn’t already encountered in agricultural textbooks about the management of livestock, lol. I failed to graduate, as the oldest student ever enrolled at the school, dropping out in order to look after my parents who otherwise would have wound up in nursing homes, but nevertheless I still know enough nursing to carry on a pro level conversation with a physician.
Yep, I can drive a truck. I personally welded up nearly all of the stainless steel HEPA ductwork in the building wherein the state of Virginia placed the laboratories we will need in the event of a disease outbreak along the lines of ebola or worse. The lives of thousands and thousands of people will be at risk if that duct work leaks in actual use. It won’t. It has MY name on the paperwork.
I can carry on a meaningful pro level conversation with a professional forester, or agronomist, or etomologist, in respect to the best management practices of my timberland and farmland, having gotten the basics of these sciences as an ag major.
How many of these things can YOU say you have done, or can do??
Mac, if your a student of formal education, then I would think you would show some respect for the study of economics. What your comment shows is your ignorance of the subject.
As far as challenging me to a contest and than saying I need to come to you. I can’t take you seriously, but got a good laugh. If there is one thing I learned about truck drivers in my days of being a Mack salesperson. Was that drivers love to talk and have an opinion about most everything with every little education. I always figured it was because of all the lonely hours behind the wheel. But, when they did get an ear to listen. They never stopped talking.
Back in my Mack days. I had a CDL and pulled a couple of loads from LA to Vegas. I got 100% on my drivers test. I can back up a 53 footer.
Hi HB,
I somehow have gained the impression that the greatest heights you have scaled , intellectually, are those associated with selling trucks.
Any idiot can pass the tests associated with getting a CDL, if he can read the booklet. Neither of us have any grounds for bragging for having mastered this skill. OTOH, the possession of it is no indication whatsoever that a person hasn’t mastered countless other skills, some of them requiring substantial study and brain power.
I have met a large number of highly qualified professional people such as engineers, doctors, lawyers, some scientists, etc. Virtually all of them have at one time or another held an every day job such as clerking in a store, or driving a truck, the exceptions being the ones who lucked out in the parental lottery.
Laugh as much as you like, but every body who is reading our exchanges, with the exception of Clinton partisans blind to reality, is laughing at you, rather than at me.
The facts are on my side.
SO you say SO says the truck driver…….. and then you admit you have driven yourself……… as a matter of training to work at a level in the industry hardly any higher up the ladder than a driver? Most drivers probably make more money than most truck salesmen, judging from my experience talking to both.
And we can continue our little debates here, unless either Ron P or Dennis C. say otherwise.
“My personal belief is that the environmental message would sell a hell of a lot better if it consisted of fifty percent honest data about the depletion of fossil fuels and the associated risks involved in obtaining and using them, OTHER than straight up environmental problems. Fifty percent should be about depletion, resource wars, terrorism, the certainty that prices must go up as extraction costs go up, transportation costs go up, local taxes and local jobs and local control as pluses associated with renewable energy, etc. ”
Excellent Old Farmer Mac, you have one really good idea. Several of the organizations I belong to seem to do a good chunk of bringing the problems to light not just the end results.
Nathanael,
To play devil’s adequate on this one, I will calculate the battery cost of an EV versus the gallons of gasoline used by a Prius hybrid (not plug-in).
Looks like batteries are headed to the $100/kwh mark so I will use that. An 80 kwh battery would cost $8000. Given a 10 year life for the battery, that would cost $800 per year, just for battery replacement. Power cost of the EV to go 10,000 per year would be about $500. Total cost of energy plus battery depreciation is $1300/year.
Prius gets about 50 mpg, using 200 gallons per year for the 10,000 miles. Since the engine and most of the components last at least 200,000 miles or more I am not going to add any 10 year depreciation. At $2.50/gallon gasoline the cost per year for fuel would be $500.
So the yearly cost of the energy system in the EV is $1300 while the yearly cost of the Prius energy system is about $500. If one wants to add in oil changes at 5000 miles the yearly cost might go up to $560. In fact a 20 mpg car is equivalent in cost per year to an EV unless the battery can last the life of the car (over 200,000 miles).
The basis for this calculation is that cars can last well past 20 years (200,000 miles) which would entail at least one battery replacement if not two . More than likely the EV would be very outdated at 10 years time and sold off for scrap value or a very low price since it has a near dead battery or weak battery. The EV would be replaced with a much newer model. So the actual cost of the EV would be closer to $3500 per year plus power costs of $500 per year.
If batteries are treated very conservatively they might last the full life of the car, then the EV cost would come down to the Prius cost (except for the initial sales price). A difference in $10,000 in sales price is 20 years of gasoline at $2.50 per gallon.
In this analysis GoneF.. I think it would be reasonable to use something like 80-90% depreciation at 10 yrs for both cars. Don’t used cars sell at something like that?
Also, if it comes to replacement of worn parts- the EV should be much cheaper- except the battery replacement. The cost of battery replacement may be much cheaper as well in 10 yrs.
Also here in CA the electricity cost is closer to 1000$ for 10,000 miles. On the other hand, Gasoline will likely be much more expensive over the next ten yrs than $2.50.
Mixed bag- but I think your analysis is skewed in favor of ICE.
Lastly, if you have good solar on your roof and live in the one spot for ten years +, the analysis could shift strongly in favor the electric vehicle.
Hickory, I think you missed the point. ICE’s now often last past 250K miles with not much needed in repairs, just some typical maintenance. I had an ICE that ran to over 360K miles, engine and trans still great. No major work, just replaced brakes and bearings.
An EV would now need two battery replacements to get that far. That is the equivalent of replacing two engines and two transmissions in a car. Is it worth it, or is it worthless at the first battery replacement.
The car is worth it’s ability to move. After that it is scrap and parts. Loss of the battery, which is now estimated at 8 to 10 years, makes it scrap and spare parts until that is replaced and it may not be worth doing after only 8 or ten years. A decent ICE can last 200,000 miles without anything other than normal maintenance.
So using the standard depreciation without adding the additional costs of battery (and possibly computer) replacements is in error.
Forget the depreciation of the car, just count the costs to run and replace needed parts (like batteries). Even at a low cost of $100/kwh battery, a $35,000 vehicle ends up costing $51,000 plus energy costs -beyond the normal maintenance (bearings, shocks, brakes, control arms, etc.).
For example, listed cost of maintenance/repair of Honda Civic to 100k miles is $1500. The car lists at less than $20,000 and gets about 38 mpg. Life of car costs to 200,000 miles might be $26,000 plus fuel. Way below the plus $50,000 cost of the EV without even including normal maintenance/replacement of other parts.
The economics of the EV are not there yet. When batteries last the life of the car at least, then they will be competitive, especially if gasoline doubles in price.
Hi Gone Fishing,
There’s some actual battery performance data in this Electrek article:
https://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-s-battery-pack-data-degradation/
This only addresses the battery performance of Tesla’s, but there is some real world high mileage experience that can be looked at:
http://insideevs.com/200000-miles-tesla-model-s-experienced-6-battery-degradation/
Tesloop has over 200,000 miles on a Model S, and they aren’t easy on it. They Supercharge the battery to 100% capacity daily. They lost 6% of their range in that mileage.
I couldn’t readily find what size pack the car had, probably a P85, but let’s assume the worst and say it was a 100kWh pack that had lost 6kWh capacity over 200,000 miles. At your pricing, wouldn’t that be $600. of battery cost, or $30. of battery cost per 10,000 miles?
Tesla also has a battery, mentioned in the Electrek article, that they’ve put 500,000 simulated miles on, and it has lost 8% capacity.
If you start with an 80kWh pack, even at 10% decline for each 100,000 miles, over 20 years you would still have a car with ~192 miles of range per charge.
We will see how battery performance goes over the long haul, but so far, at least with Tesla, things look pretty good.
Also, I’m a lucky monkey, but in my little neck of the woods I pay $0.06 per kWh for green power, so using the cost of battery loss above, plus my cost for power, over 200,000 miles, my cost would be ~$4,600, or $230/year.
And any car with a combustion engine, plug-in hybrid or not, is still 100% dependent on fossil fuels to operate.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. Batteries are getting better fast and some have reported little loss after years of use. Not all but it is still early on. As batteries get better, EV’s less expensive up front and gasoline more expensive then EV’s will be the only sane choice economically. Right now they are the best choice overall if one has the money, economics aside.
I was playing devil’s advocate there, just showing one of the big weaknesses of the EV that people see right now. I do not believe that the oil situation will be plentiful 20 years from now, so ICE’s will be mostly gone by then. But I could be wrong and that might not happen for 30 or 40 years.
The lithium battery will probably not even be made ten or fifteen years from now, not for cars anyway. Other battery technology will have taken over.
Of course in the US, the other big weakness is the lack of charging points and battery switching points. On road charging for those who run out of power is not available yet, so it’s a major problem now.
When EV’s run 300 to 400 miles at highway speeds, charging points are common and roadside assistance is trained and prepared to deal with EV’s; then the EV avalanche will commence.
Right now battery life has been listed as 8 to 10 years by manufacturers. Probably in reality it is much longer, but also I have found instances where it is much shorter.
Battery life turns out largely to be determined by four things:
— allowing charge to go too high
— allowing charge to go too low
— allowing batteries to get too hot
— allowing batteries to get too cold
Tesla wraps their batteries in a pack which temperature-controls them, keeps a reserve at the bottom and a reserve at the top, and has very long durability. Nissan didn’t temperature-control its battery in the first-gen Leaf, and they all died fast.
Simple as that, really…
Yep, batteries can’t deal with the real environment yet. They will someday.
The advances are coming fast and furious and the technology has made fast leaps forward already. I expect batteries to be half the weight and twice the charge within a decade.
An interesting documentary on batteries from ABC’s (Australia) Catalyst series.
Battery Powered Homes
A confluence of circumstances have made the economic case for batteries in many parts of Australia quite convincing. Maybe Australia will do for batteries what Germany did for modules.
Wow Bob- great news on the battery longevity- hope it really works out that way for general use. Really a game changer for the economics of EV.
In what region are people so fortunate to be getting 6cents/kWh?
It’s a municipal power company.
But my cost per kWh is only half the story. My house has four apartments on one commercial meter, so although I pay an astonishing $0.04 kWh, plus $0.02 kWh green power premium, I also pay $8.04 per kW of grid demand charge. Last month our peak load was 3.6kW, so $28.90 just for the load. We used 415kWh. Once the distribution voltage charge, taxes, green power, and customer service charges are all added in, the bill was $110. So, all told we actually paid $0.265/kWh in reality.
You’ll note that this structure doesn’t really reward me for consumption frugality, but does ding me for the demand I put on the grid, and does undermine the economic benefits of an electric car. A Nissan Leaf has a 6.6kW on board charger. so right off the bat if I charge at the max rate at any time during the month, it will cost me ~$53 just for the grid load, plus whatever volume I use, and that is for a single car. One of my tenants has a Tesla Model 3 reserved, which would add another $72/month demand charge alone.
It may be that adding a second meter, specifically for the electric cars, would be more cost effective. I haven’t talked to the utility about it yet.
My calculations were based on $0.15 per kwh. $0.265/kwh puts the EV in a real economic hole.
$0.06/kwh! Yeeow. I pay the national average of $0.11/kwh… for 100% renewable power. And it’s still way cheaper than gasoline.
I will say that a plug-in hybrid (well, one which has a mode switch to force it into electric mode) can be run with an empty gas tank. People have done it.
Battery life is unknown — tech’s too new — but if you want to keep track of it, look at the Tesla Roadsters which were the first on the road to use lithium-ion. Some are replacing their batteries with newer, awesomer batteries, but *they don’t have to*. The batteries are just fine.
They’re likely to last 200,000 miles.
To me, the tip of the iceberg–which of course also is melting from massive global warming–as far as the libs are concerned starts out with a Carbon Tax. Let them force one of these job-destroying ideas unto us and the entire NWO the left desires will come about in no time, starting with a Freshwater Tax, a Sunshine Tax, and ending up with an Oxygen Tax! Every bit of it barging into your life via a lock-step “no tax is too much” agenda brought to you by your local neighborhood progressives.
Hmm, I wonder if we could impose a ‘Troll Tax’ on people like little Billy boy who only posts here with political, ideological and financial agendas. Dennis, you and Ron could make a freakin fortune!
Maybe you could require a basic bitcoin account of everyone who posts here with say an equivalent $10.00 in it and every time someone makes a post like the one above, you would automatically transfer value from their account into Peak Oil Barrel’s account… 😉
We got us a new troll!
This is, of course, a dialogue pair.
His comment is not in response to the article: the “Bill Franti” identity has seen the opportunity to insert canned conservative talking points into our discussion. It is an attempt to re-frame our discussion as political rather than fact-based.
There are a lot of incendiary adjectives, but no facts.
-Lloyd
Oooooh! I’m really scared now! And I don’t even live in the US (or Hawaii or Puerto Rico)!
Hold on! Wait! What am I talking about? I’ve already got 1600 W DC of solar PV on my roof, with another 1900 to go once I’ve sorted out all the red tape and fees mandated by my local “friendly” electricity supplier! Plus, as soon as a BEV I have in mind can be had on the used market in the UK for less than, say £7,000 I’ll start making moves to acquire one and ship it to my neck of the woods, assuming the guys in the government around here figure out that charging 12% more aggregate duties on a pure electric over a hybrid is the opposite of how it should be. I expect that the local grid is going to go increasingly “green” as the facts outlined in the video linked to by Nathanael sink in. So, I guess I don’t really have to be scared until they start talking about Mr Franti’s “Sunshine Tax”, by which time I will probably be dead or too old to give a shit.
On a related subject, the local utility is constructing a very high profile “solar carport” at their bill payment office along Half Way Tree Road, a very heavily traveled north-south thoroughfare, bisecting the middle section of the capital city. By high profile I mean that the location has been chosen to ensure that anybody passing by will surely notice the installation and probably be curious. This is to join an identical structure that I witnessed the inverter being taken out of the box for about a week ago, at the company’s head office in the New Kingston financial district. What I expect to be happening is that the utility is learning the costs of installing a solar carport, how easy it is to set up a 15 kW (60 module) ground mounted solar PV array in the form of a carport and how quickly one can add 30 kW to the grid. It could not have been more than two months ago that, I noticed the construction at the Half Way Tree location and I never noticed the New Kingston location at all until last week even though it shares a building with my bank!
The utility should also be learning how solar PV can be added to the grid in small “bite sized” chunks over time, lowering the hurdles for financing and environmental permitting etc. They should also be figuring out how solar PV can be distributed strategically to reduce peak daytime demand on the grid from the commercial/industrial sections of the island. Sooner or later they will probably figure out that strategically located grid scale batteries can help smooth out the late evening demands on their transmission/generating network as well at a lower cost than combustion turbine peaker plants.
Here’s to learning by doing! Whadayya think about that, Bill?
Here’s a pic of the BEV I’m following the price for on the UK used vehicle market. It seems it might be another year or twoi before they reach my target price, judging from the prices on the following page:
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/van-search?sort=supplied-price-asc&radius=1500&make=NISSAN&model=E-NV200
One might ask why not Japan if one is looking for right hand drive vehicles from markets around the world with easy shipping to Jamaica? It seems that BEVs are not depreciating as fast in Japan as they are in the UK or the US for some unknown reason.
With weather related disasters on the increase, the human toll is rising fast. The economic toll world wide is reaching 250 billion to 300 billion dollars per year.
“Asia accounts for the lion’s share of disaster impacts including 332,000 deaths and 3.7 billion people affected. The death toll in Asia included 138,000 deaths caused by Cyclone Nargis which struck Myanmar in 2008.
In total, an average of 335 weather-related disasters were recorded per year between 2005 and 2014, an increase of 14% from 1995-2004, and almost twice the level recorded during 1985-1995.
The extent of the toll taken by disasters on society is revealed by other statistics from CRED’s Emergency Events Data Base, or EM-DAT: 87 million homes were damaged or destroyed over the period of the survey.
Floods accounted for 47% of all weather-related disasters from 1995-2015, affecting 2.3 billion people and killing 157,000. Storms were the deadliest type of weather-related disaster, accounting for 242,000 deaths or 40% of the global weather-related deaths, with 89% of these deaths occurring in lower-income countries.
Overall, heatwaves accounted for 148,000 of the 164,000 lives lost due to extreme temperatures. 92% of heatwave deaths occurred in high-income countries, with Europe accounting for 90%.
Drought affects Africa more than any other continent, with EM-DAT recoding 136 events there between 1995 and 2015, including 77 droughts in East Africa alone. The report recommends that there needs to be improved data collection on indirect deaths from drought.”
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1253/report/OF11-1253.pdf
The UNISDR report:
http://www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf
Just published paper indicating that highly-managed grass-finished
beef systems in the Upper Midwestern United States can
mitigate GHG emissions through SCS while contributing
to food provisioning.
Conclusions
The recent call for improved management of grazing
systems as part of an international climate change mitigation
strategy is critical, particularly in light of many existing
beef LCAs that have concluded that beef cattle produced
in grazing systems are a particularly large sources
of GHG emissions. To identify the best opportunities to
reduce GHG emissions from beef production, a systems
approach that considers the potential to increase soil C
and reduce ecosystem-level GHG emissions is essential.
Using a combination of on-farm collected data, literature
values, and IPCC Tier 1 methodology, we generated
an LCA that indicates highly-managed grass-finished
beef systems in the Upper Midwestern United States can
mitigate GHG emissions through SCS while contributing
to food provisioning at stocking rates as high as 2.5
AU ha-1. From this data, we conclude that well-managed
grazing and grass-finishing systems in environmentally
appropriate settings can positively contribute to reducing
the carbon footprint of beef cattle, while lowering
overall atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
file:///C:/Users/Dwight/Downloads/Rowntree,%20Jason%20E%20at%20al.%202016.%20Potential%20mitigation%20of%20midwest%20grass-finished%20beef%20production%20emissions%20with%20soil%20carbon%20sequestration%20in%20the%20United%20States%20of%20America.%20Future%20of%20Food-%20Journal%20on%20Food,%20Agriculture%20.pdf
Yum! Your link is broken though.
Try this: http://fofj.org/index.php/journal/article/view/232
If you have ever had the chance to ride an electric bike, you are probably like most people who have the thrill of feeling three times stronger than usual. It is a joy to power up hills you would have never tried.
Bikes are incredible even without a motor, but with one they are incredible plus.
I highly recommend finding a shop who will let you take one out for a test spin.
In places with safe bike lanes and a biking culture, this really opens the door for living in the days beyond cheap oil.
For those who aren’t familiar- most units come with pedal assist that senses your effort, and the harder you push, the more help you get from the motor. And the degree of help is adjustable. You don’t have to play around with a throttle. You just get on and pedal, and the bikes comes along for the ride. Seamless.
Here is the kind of machine you can purchase these days-
https://electricbikereview.com/rad-power-bikes/radcity/
Trump’s ‘Victory’ Means Goodbye To Appalachian Trail
If Donald Trump has his way, those moments will be lost to another generation. According to Forbes, Trump and Rex Tillerson own shares in the pipeline which is about to sever the Appalachian Mountains and spread natural gas along the Appalachian Trail.
Virginia’s Governor, Terry McAuliffe, is a pipeline supporter. The 550-mile pipeline was proposed by Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources as well as Richmond-based Dominion one of McAuliffe’s biggest campaign donors.
The multi-billion ACP is part of the latest efforts to bring natural gas from the Marcellus Shale fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and northern West Virginia to markets in the Upper South.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-victory-means-good-bye-to-appalachian-trail_us_58587253e4b0d5f48e165231?section=us_green
So there aren’t already any pipelines or high-voltage power lines already in place along this trail? This pipeline will be the first piece of modern energy infrastructure to cross paths with the trail–therefore the entire trail is going to be destroyed? I bet you find that as hard to believe as I do.
To me, any efforts to oppose this pipeline are just one more leftist social justice effort meaning to deprive millions of people along the pipeline’s path the prosperity and optimism that comes from having access to an affordable and efficient energy source like natural gas. Besides, pipelines contribute to America’s goal of Energy Independence–something everybody should want irregardless of political or religious belief.
Energy Independence: yes. Fossil fuels: no.
To me, any efforts to oppose this pipeline are just one more leftist social justice effort meaning to deprive millions of people along the pipeline’s path the prosperity and optimism that comes from having access to an affordable and efficient energy source like natural gas.
Sorry Bill, solar and wind are already cheaper than natural gas! So your pushing fossil fuels must be a authoritarian right wing effort meaning to deprive millions of people of affordable and efficient clean energy sources like wind and solar!
Maybe you should watch the documentary posted by Nathanael
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-dec-22-2016/#comment-590196
New troll’s second post!
Another Dialogue pair.
Same as his previous post: a blatant attempt to re-frame the discussion as ideological.
No facts offered.
No references.
Only canned conservative talking points.
-Lloyd
Hello Coach, I’m tell’in you there is something about the HP articles that brings out the troll’s. It’s like flies on shit or Teabaggers for Trump. I remember the posters name. I wouldn’t be surprised if his first post was relayed to another HP post.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2016/12/28/how-this-startup-is-producing-sustainable-oil-from-sewage-sludge/#138ddbf039b4
My personal opinion is that the best way to go, if we can manage it, would be to keep heavy metals and other similar contaminants out of the sewage systems up front, and use sewage directly as fertilizer wherever it is possible to do so. This is an expensive undertaking, to be sure, due to the cost of transportation of the sewage, so it won’t work in most places.
But processing it for fuel and fertilizer instead of just processing it to get rid of it means getting paid at both ends, in effect. You avoid some of the expense otherwise necessary for treatment, and gain some revenue from the sale of such oil and fertilizer.
Let’s hope this sort of technology proves to be profitable and scalable.
We’ve been unable to figure out how to keep heavy metals and other persistent contaminants out of the sewage system upfront. Been trying since the 1970s. It requires basically banning the household products which contain them, then waiting 20 years. Nobody’s had the political will.
If anybody wants to know why the world is up shit creek without a paddle, the fact that the lead article in my Google news feed for the last full day has been the death of an actress is all the explanation needed.
She was probably a great person, and she was most definitely talented, and hot too, although it is against the rules to say that, unless you are allowed to say it because you are …….. well, figuring out who is allowed to say a woman is or at least used to be hot, and who is not allowed to say so, and why, is another reason we are up that old shit creek.
“and hot too, although it is against the rules to say that, unless you are allowed to say it because you are …….. well, figuring out who is allowed to say a woman is or at least used to be hot, and who is not allowed to say so, and why, is another reason we are up that old shit creek.”
Mac, you must be personally preforming a Trump colonoscopy without any instruments. I handed you a lay up about the Appalachian Trail above. Which you could have contributed meaningful dialog, but instead you wrote this nonsense.
Hi HB,
I’m sorry, but I didn’t compose my comment was as a response to yours.
Hopefully the A T will survive Trump, and his homeboys. I expect it will. The situation with the trail shares a lot with the situation working people must endure, in respect to automation, which will continue to take their jobs.
Development will continue in areas close to the trail, and the views from it are inevitably going to suffer from this development. There has been a considerable amount of discussion of this issue in the outdoor press. There is a possibility that some parts of the trail will have to be rerouted, or even closed permanently, due to development.
T he construction of the proposed pipeline is unlikely to mean the demise of the trail, although it might well degrade the views in some spots.
I suppose my poor attempt at poking fun at those of us who are too full of themselves is not up to your standards.
But it’s a fact that depending on who you are, you can GUSH about how attractive a woman is, especially if she is in show biz, and get nothing but attaboys for your comments.
But SOME of us are not allowed by the thought police to say anything about a woman’s looks, without being taken to the metphorical woodshed for the sin of being a male who noticed.
Perhaps I can make my meaning a bit more transparent.
For twenty four hours or so, all my news feeds, Bing, Google, Yahoo, and some other major news sites I check any time I sit down for a rest break put the death of an ACTRESS for Sky Daddy’s sake in the prime spot, at a time when there are hot wars and hot wars threatening, when the cyrosphere is shrinking dramatically, when the domestic political situation is all about partisanship rather than citizenship, etc.
The death of an actress is the lead story because most us don’t know the difference between REAL news and show biz news.
This bothers me , a LOT.
“But SOME of us are not allowed by the thought police to say anything about a woman’s looks, without being taken to the metphorical woodshed for the sin of being a male who noticed.”
I guess it’s dammed if your straight or dammed if you are gay. I think it more about delivery. If you sound like a first time dog in heat. That’s not cool.
We are all part of nature
Steve Martin Deletes Carrie Fisher Tribute After Backlash
Martin was criticized for a sexist tweet following the actress’ death.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-martin-carrie-fisher-tweet_us_58642c36e4b0de3a08f70427
The news lead again at this moment is the death of another actress.
But I can’t blame Google, because the object there as a business is to get the maximum traffic possible.
This in my estimation reflects VERY poorly on us as a country and society.
Of course instead of making a sensible reply, your come up with some mindless pc drivel.
The women of show biz have been displaying more of their er um gifts of nature year after year for the last few decades, to the point that they now routinely appear almost nude, for all practical purposes.
About the only thing that can still elicit a faked gasp of shock and disapproval from the self appointed Holly Wood pc appearance police squad is the “accidental” display of a nipple or pubic hair, and I hear Miley Cyrus is out to free the nipple, lol.
I might be wrong, but I nevertheless sure that I have forgotten more real science, more real biology, physics, chemistry, psychology, and history than you have ever dreamed of knowing, in ADDITION to being a master level BULLSHITTER.
I ‘m a better bullshitter than you, and have a diploma displaying my credentials as a master bullshitter hanging on the garage wall to prove it, to go along with my real BS in ag science.
My BS bullshitting diploma cost me ten bucks at a place that creates them on nice looking paper, with your name and dates, etc, while you wait. Frame extra.
Just about any biologist will tell you that what we refer to as feminine physical beauty is actually the overt display of genetics indicating she has great potential as a mother, and of course this attracts the attention of men. Nature by way of evolution has PROGRAMMED men to notice and appreciate this display.
Nature also programmed us guys to run our yappers to more often and louder than strictly necessary.
Putting something , anything, on deliberate display, as a routine practice, especially in pursuit of money, attracts attention.
Then when these women in show biz get the attention they deliberately seek, by displaying their “natural assets” they and especially their less attractive sisters, and a few pc men go around acting outraged that other men notice.
Tell ya what. My opinion is that anything that is more or less perpetually advertised, at enormous expense, is fair game for comments indicating the target audience LIKES it.
The target audience is NOT other women, except to the extent the winners like to rub the losers noses in it.
You are entitled to your own opinion of course, just as you are entitled to believe it’s somebody else’s fault, rather than her own, that Clinton lost the election.
People who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and mistakes amuse me.
A woman appears on the red carpet doing every thing possible to look as much like a bitch in heat, figuratively speaking, as she can. Then when a man remarks on this behavior, HE deserves censure, for honestly stating that HIS reaction to HER display is PRECISELY the reaction she sought to elicit from him.
Please continue, you are providing me with lots of material.
If Carrie Fisher or this other I forget her name actress had been more typical women in terms of their physical sexual attributes, the odds are pretty high we would never have heard of either one of them.
Show biz has only a little use for ugly men, and even less use for women except the ones lucky enough to be physical beauties.
I will not apologize for pointing out obvious facts.
My original remark that started this exchange included a brief reference to this foolishness to put it into perspective ( example relevant to TODAY’s news ) in relation to a war that might conceivably break out between Israel and neighboring countries, which played second fiddle this morning to the death of another woman we would probably never have heard of, had she not been hot.
Methinks you miss the point AGAIN.
You appear to be exceptionally skillful when it comes to missing the point.
Perhaps you find it necessary to miss the point for a reason along the line so well expressed in this old saying.
” It’s impossible for a man to understand a thing, if his salary depends on his NOT understanding it”, paraphrased.
So long as you fervently believe everything a Baptist preacher tells you, so long as you believe in everything in the old KJB, you will never have to deal with facts such as geological time, or finding and transporting polar bears to the ARK, and having enough strawberries on hand to feed them for the duration of the flood, etc.
You just deny that such facts exist.
So long as you stick to your PC religion, you will never have to face up to the day to day realities of the world we live in.
Trump’s a low life, but he’s smart enough to have made a fool out of you, and people who think like you, because he recognized day to day realities for what they ARE, rather than pretending what they AREN’T.
Men SHOULDN’T make cat call comments about women on the street, unless the woman is doing all she can to attract such catcalls.
BUT
If she’s dressed like a hooker, she is deliberately asking for the cat calls, and ought to APPRECIATE them, rather than getting her undies in a bunch about it.
I will go even farther out on the non pc limb, and remark that SOME women who dress like hookers are dumb enough that they DON’T understand that the reason they dress like that way is that this look is precisely the one that attracts the most attention from men.
Facts are stubborn things, and reality is a harsh mistress.
Having said this much, I believe the evidence is clear that on average, women are smarter than men.
Here’s an old farm joke for anybody who got this far, a joke about sexual maturity, physical and mental.
Two bulls on a hill top, one very young, are looking at a valley full of newly arrived cows,and excitedly remarks, let’s run down there and do it with some of those cows.
His older companion companion replies, Let’s just walk down, and do it with them all.
Old Farmer Mac, up and down around the Denver area women hold free the nipple gatherings every now and then. One of my sons attended one of the free the nipple conventions last summer in Boulder. It was an eye-opening experience for him.
“Trump’s a low life, but he’s smart enough to have made a fool out of you, and people who think like you, because he recognized day to day realities for what they ARE, rather than pretending what they AREN’T.”
“Methinks you miss the point AGAIN.”
Mac, I’m a party man. An I don’t mean going out every night and drinking up a storm. I mean I pick the best ship sailing in the direction that’s best for humanity in general and get on board. It’s you who got side tracked and bought into all the hate Hillary talking points. Kind of like how you perceive Americans infatuation with move stars. When I need a flight to South Carolina to visit my lake property. I don’t pick it because of the pilot of the plane. I choose it because of the benefits the carrier supplies.
There is no doubt in my mind Republican policies today favor me personally over the Democrats. I have no children who need an education or who are going to have to deal with climate change. I’m not going to have a lady friend who needs an abortion. And even if I did. I have enough money to pay for a flight to make it happen. I’m not gay, so that Republican stupidity doesn’t affect me. I’m not a woman, so that Republican injustice hands me more power. I’m white and born in the USA, so repressing those with brown skin color gives me an advantage and cheap labor. I’m to old to go to war, so unless Trump gets us nuked. I’ll be fine. Oh, and let me add. My heavily oil balanced retirement stock portfolio is up almost 25% since November 8. You got to love those oil refineries. WNR 🙂
What I’m guilty of is believing that America would never elect a President with a personality of a poorly disciplined 6th grader and has a history of taking advantage of a lot of those who voted for him.
Maybe it’s just human nature and those Trump voters will have to learn the hard way. President elect Trump never conned me. He is the President the Republicans have been dreaming about since Ronny. The country should put it’s seat belt on. Because we are headed for a hard right turn, but if humanity is lucky. Some of those Trump voters will fall out of the car when the left hand door flies open.
Back atcha HB,
You just rose about an order of magnitude in terms of my personal respect for you, having said some things that indicate you are not a lost cause true believer, as I thought previously.
But methinks you are still missing MY point.
You have some very good ones, except your preferred candidate lost.
Back when the primaries were still going on, the D party had a chance to nominate a candidate who , going by the polls, was far more electable versus Trump.
My BASIC argument all along is that a voter or a party should never nominate it’s worst possible candidate, Clinton in this case, in terms of the broad mass of voters perceptions of that candidate, on a nation wide basis.
You will note that the R party did all it could, from the pov of the party establishment, to PREVENT the nomination of Trump, who did eventually win, due to being a better campaigner, with a better finger on the pulse of the collective voter.
Clinton had the smartest, most perceptive, most likable politician in the country on her side, the most brilliant man with the greatest common touch since Reagan, and maybe even better than Reagan in that respect, maybe the best ever, but she wouldn’t listen to Bill.
She would almost for sure have won if she had listened to him, and modified her campaign style, going into the Rust Belt like she MEANT IT.
But she took the Rust Belt for granted, like a man or woman taking his or her spouse for granted, and it cost her the WH.
Personally I do want gays and lesbians to be able to get together any way they please, and I don’t really give a crap if I have to share a restroom with a dyke or even a baboon, so long as it’s a PET baboon, lol. etc etc
But as a practical matter, the D’s would have done better if they campaigned less on this sort of stuff, and a hell of a lot more on working class issues, without giving the appearance of being in the vest pocket of big money interests, and coming across as such blatant hypocrites, as in embracing big money like a long lost child, after badmouthing the R’s for doing the same. etc etc
Folks who lack university educations also usually lack the technical chops to truly understand scientific issues, but they AREN’T STUPID.
They think and they come to good decisions, GIVEN THE DATA they have available to work with.
When the data they have consists in large part of seeing a politician do one thing, while saying another, they tend to vote for the opposition, everything else equal.
Let’s hope Trump is voted out next election, and that our collective luck holds, and that he won’t have an opportunity to put more than one hand picked new judge on the Supreme Court.
And let’s hope that no one person gains control of the D party apparatus next time around, so that there aren’t ANY established nationally known D ‘s willing to run against that person.
Most of the people in this country couldn’t have said for sure who Bernie Sanders WAS, a Senator, or a ball player, lol, two months before he started his campaign.
Clinton’s grip on the short hair of the party machinery was THAT TIGHT, so tight she literally scared EVERY nationally known D out of even TRYING for the nomination.
Trump never conned me either.
You may not wish to share it, but my personal conviction, based on my own seat of the pants conversations with a LOT of people who voted for him, is that at least one quarter of the votes he got were NOT FOR him, but AGAINST Clinton, pure and simple, for the simple reason that those voters personally DETESTED Clinton.
At least another quarter in my own seat of the pants opinion were cast for him because the voters were thoroughly pissed about the recent direction of both the D and R parties, and had a burning desire to send BOTH establishments an unmistakeable message, keeping in mind that Trump WAS NOT the choice of the party establishment, but for all practical purposes an outsider who successfully crashed the party’s party, so to speak.
I am hoping that at at least a handful of D people will hear what I have been saying, here, and in some other forums, and exert whatever influence they have, in the future, to ensure the nomination of a candidate more likely to win, next time around.
It’s about time to move on to another issue.
I have beaten this one black and blue.
“My BASIC argument all along is that a voter or a party should never nominate it’s worst possible candidate”
How could she be the “worst possible candidate” and get 2.84 million more votes than Trump? Your entitled to your opinion, but not the facts.
She lost.
Just about anybody else would have won, at the head of the D ticket.
As they say on the sports page, statistics are for losers.
Well, China burns about half of the coal, so about half of the carbon tax on coal will be paid for by China.
At ten dollars carbon tax per ton of coal, China would owe 350 billion dollars in carbon taxes to the taxman in one year. If you want to do it right, you go to the source of where most of those emissions come from, the origin of the emissions. Who needs to pay.
Goldman Sachs would be in charge of all carbon taxes collected.
A carbon tax on pre-mined and pre-burned coal could be collected in advance to help pay for debts of other nations. Can’t expect China to be burning all of that coal and not help pay for some of the money owed to JP Morgan, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank et al. Had they not been burning all of that coal, manufacturing would not have been as robust. China is going to burn it in the future, so collecting the tax in advance will help finance more debt, a win win for the entire planet.
Some of those profits enjoyed by China over the years can be socialized with a carbon tax levied on China and Chinese corporations. Who better to do the job of guarding those carbon taxes collected from China than Goldman Sachs? Can’t have Chinese banks collecting the tax, the money has to go to where it will be in the right hands and that would be Goldman Sachs’ hands.
Investment banks will do a better job. Besides, they’re too big to fail. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs will know what to do. Goldman Sachs does God’s work, so what can possibly go wrong?
A carbon tax will keep them solvent. In other words, China will keep them solvent.
Weren’t all of those Wall Street banksters insolvent back in October of 2008? Bear Stearns Lehman Brothers, that Wall Streeter who went to Congress and begged for 700 billion dollars, what was his name? Oh yeah, Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury.
We can rest assured that a carbon tax will be fairly distributed for the benefit of the few at the expense of the Great Unwashed.
You know, socialize costs and privatize profits. Just so the too big to fail crowd can continue to be too big to fail.
That’s what a carbon tax is for.
You don’t want those insolvent banks to be even more insolvent, do you? Do your part, contribute to the Goldman Sachs Relief Fund, aka, God’s Work, and you too will be doing God’s Work when you pay your carbon tax, it will be a relief, consolation.
It will be more like the Grinch who stole Christmas, but it will remain God’s Work.
Isn’t that like negative interest rates, a bail-in? Just be happy you will get to pay the carbon tax with no further fees. It will be mandated by Congress much like healthcare, you will have to pay the tax, regardless. You might not even own a car, you will still be mandated to pay the carbon tax. China will need help, can’t expect them to pay Goldman Sachs the carbon tax all by themselves, you will need to do your part.
A carbon tax will save the world. Never been a better opportunity to do God’s Work and a carbon tax will be the best way possible to keep the too big to fail Wall Street banksters solvent.
That’s what Trump means when he says he is going to build a wall. har
But the Chinese don’t agree to that, R. Walter,
No tax on CO2 emissions in China’s new environment law
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-tax-co2-emissions-china-environment.html
“Polluters will be charged for contributing to air, water and noise pollution, according to a copy of the legislation on the NPC’s official web site.
But CO2 did not make the list, which includes air and water pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and sulfite, taxed at rates beginning at 1.2 yuan ($0.17) and 1.4 yuan ($0.20) per unit respectively.”
So much for those that fear China is going to take leadership in the climate change fight. Acts speak a lot louder than words. They don’t believe climate change is a serious problem.
I just copied this from the Quartz site.
xxxx
Sanders, whose run for the Democratic presidential nomination this year emboldened the left wing of the Democratic party, has seen his cachet rise in a party looking for leadership following Hillary Clinton’s defeat in November. Amidst the recriminations and a messy race to head up the party’s national committee, it hasn’t been clear who would be the face of Democratic opposition to Trump. Now, we have an answer.
While Sanders’ harsh critique of the millionaire and billionaire class turned off professional Democrats who benefit from the global economy during his primary run, the election results have convinced party leaders that they need to better articulate how their economic policies will lead to broadly shared prosperity. Schumer, hailing from New York, is known as a voice for Wall Street in his party, but is also a pragmatist who once wrote a campaign book about how he sought to appeal to middle-class families on Long Island.
Both Schumer and Pelosi, prodigious fundraisers themselves, will have noted Sanders’ ability to raise money in large quantities from grassroots donors for progressive causes. A spokesperson told Quartz that left-over dollars from Sanders’s presidential campaign will go toward organizing the Jan. 15 rallies.
Read this carefully HB.
It jibes pretty well with everything I have had to say about why Clinton was at risk of losing to Trump, all thru the campaign season.
If any insiders in her campaign had been other than YES BOYS and YES GIRLS, and willing to point out what was WRONG with the campaign, and been listened to, she would most likely have carried the three big states that cost her the election.
But my money still says you will always believe it’s the fault of others that she lost, rather than the faults she brought to the race, and displayed as a candidate.
Evidence of any sort, no matter how good, makes about the same impression on true believers who don’t WANT to understand as rain water on a duck.It runs right off.
Duck feathers and true believer’s brains are water proof and evidence proof, respectively, lol.
In case nobody else has posted this link, it’s a handy one for keeping up with climate news.
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/29/10-best-climate-stories-of-2016_partner/
Masses of dead sea creatures being tested after washing ashore in Nova Scotia
Latest find comes after weeks of dead herring reported to be washing up along provincial shores
I hope they solve this one, it could be key to a lot of future problems we will see.
Climate Heretic: Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-heretic/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2011/11/09/is-judith-curry-peddling-disinformation/#.WGUmiXeZO3V
Curry, J. A., & Webster, P. J. (2011). Climate science and the uncertainty monster. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92(12), 1667.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3139.1
“How to understand and reason about uncertainty in climate science is a topic that is receiving increasing attention in both the scientific and philosophical literature. This paper provides a perspective on exploring ways to understand, assess, and reason about uncertainty in climate science, including application to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. Uncertainty associated with climate science and the science–policy interface presents unique challenges owing to the complexity of the climate system itself, the potential for adverse socioeconomic impacts of climate change, and the politicization of proposed policies to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. The challenges to handling uncertainty at the science– policy interface are framed using the “monster” metaphor, whereby attempts to tame the monster are described. An uncertainty lexicon is provided that describes the natures and levels of uncertainty and ways of representing and reasoning about uncertainty. Uncertainty of climate models is interpreted in the context of model inadequacy, uncertainty in model parameter values, and initial condition uncertainty. This article examines the challenges of building confidence in climate models and, in particular, the issue of confidence in simulations of the twenty-first-century climate. The treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC assessment reports is examined, including the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report conclusion regarding the attribution of climate change in the latter half of the twentieth century. Ideas for monster-taming strategies are discussed for institutions, individual scientists, and communities.”
What turns Judith Curry into a climatic heretic is that she defends there is a lot of uncertainty that is not being properly accounted for.
It is an example of how little you need to disagree with the IPCC to be singled out, labeled, targeted, and attacked by the climate establishment, activist groups, and media.
Scott Adams’ Blog
The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science
“Before I start, let me say as clearly as possible that I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change. If science says something is true – according to most scientists, and consistent with the scientific method – I accept their verdict.
I realize that science can change its mind, of course. Saying something is “true” in a scientific sense always leaves open the option of later reassessing that view if new evidence comes to light. Something can be “true” according to science while simultaneously being completely wrong. Science allows that odd situation to exist, at least temporarily, while we crawl toward truth.
So when I say I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change, I’m endorsing the scientific consensus for the same reason I endorsed Hillary Clinton for the first part of the election – as a strategy to protect myself. I endorse the scientific consensus on climate change to protect my career and reputation. To do otherwise would be dumb, at least in my situation.
As regular readers of this blog already know, human brains did not evolve to understand reality in any deep way. If some of us survive and procreate, that’s good enough for evolution. It doesn’t matter that you live in a movie that says you will reincarnate after you die, while I live in a movie that says reality is a software simulation, and perhaps our mutual friend lives in a movie in which his prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse. Those are very different realities, but it doesn’t stop any of us from procreating. This lesson about the subjective nature of reality is one we learned from watching Trump’s march to the election. As the world looked on, everything they thought they understood about Trump’s chances dissolved in front of them. And yet the world still worked fine.
This perceptual change in humanity is happening as I predicted it would a year before Trump won. I told you he would change more than politics. I said he would open a crack in reality so you could view it through a new filter. That transformation is well underway. I’ll widen the crack a bit more today.
If you have been involved in any climate change debates online or in person, you know they always take the following trajectory: Climate science believers state that all the evidence, and 98% of scientists, are on the same side. Then skeptics provide links to credible-sounding articles that say the science is bunk, and why. How the heck can you – a non-expert – judge who is right?
You probably are not a scientist, and that means you can’t independently evaluate any of the climate science claims. You didn’t do the data collection or the experiments yourself. You could try to assess the credibility of the scientists using your common sense and experience, but let’s face it – you aren’t good at that. So what do you do?
You probably default to trusting whatever the majority of scientists tell you. And the majority says climate science is real and we need to do something about it. But how reliable are experts, even when they are mostly on the same side?
Ask the majority of polling experts who said Trump had only a 2% chance of becoming president. Ask the experts who said the government’s historical “food pyramid” was good science. Ask the experts who used to say marijuana was a gateway drug. Ask the experts who used to say sexual orientation is just a choice. Ask the experts who said alcoholism is a moral failure and not a matter of genetics.
There are plenty of examples where the majority of experts were wrong. What you really want to know is whether climate change looks more like the sort of thing that turns out to be right or the sort of thing that turns out to be wrong. Let’s dig into that question.
It seems to me that a majority of experts could be wrong whenever you have a pattern that looks like this:
1. A theory has been “adjusted” in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, “Global warming” evolved to “climate change” because the models didn’t show universal warming.
2. Prediction models are complicated. When things are complicated you have more room for error. Climate science models are complicated.
3. The models require human judgement to decide how variables should be treated. This allows humans to “tune” the output to a desired end. This is the case with climate science models.
4. There is a severe social or economic penalty for having the “wrong” opinion in the field. As I already said, I agree with the consensus of climate scientists because saying otherwise in public would be social and career suicide for me even as a cartoonist. Imagine how much worse the pressure would be if science was my career.
5. There are so many variables that can be measured – and so many that can be ignored – that you can produce any result you want by choosing what to measure and what to ignore. Our measurement sensors do not cover all locations on earth, from the upper atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean, so we have the option to use the measurements that fit our predictions while discounting the rest.
6. The argument from the other side looks disturbingly credible.
One of the things that always fascinated me about jury trials is that attorneys from both sides can sound so convincing even though the evidence points in only one direction. A defendant is either guilty or innocent, but good lawyers can make you see it either way. Climate science is similar. I’ve seen airtight arguments that say climate science is solid and true, and I’ve seen equally credible-looking arguments that say it is bunk. From my non-scientist perspective, I can’t tell the difference. Both sides look convincing to me.
As I have described in this blog before, I’m a trained hypnotist and I have studied the methods of persuasion for years. That gives me a bit of context that is different from the norm. In my experience, and based on my training, it is normal and routine for the “majority of experts” to be completely wrong about important stuff. But in the two-dimensional world where persuasion isn’t much of a thing, it probably looks to most of you that experts are usually right, especially when they are overwhelmingly on the same side and there is a mountain of confirming evidence.
We like to think we arrived at our decisions about climate science by using our common sense and good judgement to evaluate the credibility of experts. Some of you think you have superior sources of information as well. But both sides are wrong. No one is using reason, facts, or common sense to arrive at a decision about climate science. Here’s what you are using to arrive at your decision:
1. Fear
2. Unwarranted trust in experts
3. Pattern recognition
On the question of fear, if you believe that experts are good at predicting future doom, you are probably scared to death by climate change. But in my experience, any danger we humans see coming far in the future we always find a way to fix. We didn’t run out of food because of population growth. We didn’t run out of oil as predicted. We didn’t have a problem with the Year 2000 bug, and so on. I refer to this phenomenon as the Adams Law of Slow-Moving Disasters. When we see a disaster coming – as we do with climate science – we have an unbroken track record of avoiding doom. In the case of climate change danger, there are a number of technologies under development that can directly scrub the atmosphere if needed.
On the question of trusting experts, my frame of reference is the field of influence and persuasion. From my point of view – and given the examples of mass delusion that I have personally witnessed (including Trump’s election), I see experts as far less credible than most people assume.
And when it comes to pattern recognition, I see the climate science skeptics within the scientific community as being similar to Shy Trump Supporters. The fact that a majority of scientists agree with climate science either means the evidence is one-sided or the social/economic pressures are high. And as we can plainly see, the cost of disagreeing with climate science is unreasonably high if you are a scientist.
While it is true that a scientist can become famous and make a big difference by bucking conventional wisdom and proving a new theory, anything short of total certainty would make that a suicide mission. And climate science doesn’t provide the option of total certainty.
To put it another way, it would be easy for a physicist to buck the majority by showing that her math worked. Math is math. But if your science depends on human judgement to decide which measurements to include and which ones to “tune,” you don’t have that option. Being a rebel theoretical physicist is relatively easy if your numbers add up. But being a rebel climate scientist is just plain stupid. So don’t expect to see many of the latter. Scientists can often be wrong, but rarely are they stupid.
To strengthen my point today, and in celebration of my reopening of the blog commenting section, please provide your links to pro and con arguments about climate science. This might be the only place in the world you will see links to both sides. If you want to be amazed, see how persuasive BOTH sides of this debate are.
As I said above, I accept the consensus of climate science experts when they say that climate science is real and accurate. But I do that to protect my reputation and my income. I have no way to evaluate the work of scientists.
If you ask me how scared I am of climate changes ruining the planet, I have to say it is near the bottom of my worries. If science is right, and the danger is real, we’ll find ways to scrub the atmosphere as needed. We always find ways to avoid slow-moving dangers. And if the risk of climate change isn’t real, I will say I knew it all along because climate science matches all of the criteria for a mass hallucination by experts.”
Dogbert cartoon from 1990:
Wow, that sure convinced me. Didn’t you guys get convinced, especially the talking dogs with a tank and a funny hat. That was the real kicker that made me toss aside all reality and jump on the denier-contrarian bandwagon. Still, I might lapse unless a talking rat and dinosaur tells me that everything is OK, it’s all natural and there hasn’t been any problems nor will there be. Please tell Scott Adams to continue telling us it’s all just a bad dream, otherwise reality might just creep in again. Maybe there are pills we can all take, Dogbert probably sells them.
And now a word from the climate change skeptics president. Listen to this guy, he knows his stuff.
Climate Change, A Fairy Tale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr306NnBVwo
Well that guy may have had a few facts and dates wrong; but to his main point he is very convincing. You will never “stop” climate change as long as there is one beer and bag of doritios left in this world. Very Convincing.
I think he is preparing for the next glaciation rather than global warming. But that is contrarians.
Actually he has his facts in a fairly decent row, but he is obviously playing to the skeptics audience, and posing as being smarter than everybody else.
He doesn’t even mention the actual facts involved, he is talking about the way people as a whole think and act, and he has a very good grasp of how technically illiterate people think and talk. The vast majority of all people, including university graduates, are TECHNICALLY illiterate, meaning they have had NO SIGNIFICANT FORMAL TRAINING in the hard sciences.
Nobody should NEVER take anything a comedian says literally. This man , if he is the same as the one who writes the most hilarious sci fi since TWAIN , is a WORLD class comedian.
He has made a glaring mistake, and as a professional observer, he should have known better, but maybe he made it deliberately so as to avoid pissing off his regular followers, who are overwhelmingly educated and liberal.
The mistake is this. He says people who are unable to evaluate the evidence default to the prevailing scientific consensus, this being forced warming in this case.
This is one hell of a long way from the actual truth.
When we are unable to evaluate conflicting scientific evidence ( and there IS SOME evidence indicating warming is not a problem, but a hundred times more indicating it IS a problem) we do NOT default to the scientific consensus if the issue is a political or cultural hot button.
We DEFAULT to , we heartily ENDORSE, whichever interpretation of the evidence and issue is best aligned with the people we identify as friends and allies, as our peers, our IN GROUP, with near zero consideration given to the actual facts.
Even people with sound technical backgrounds, people who have studied chemistry, physics, math, etc, at the university level are prone to disregarding what they KNOW to be consistent with their professional training, and believing what they WANT to believe.
This is why I know some hard core Republicans with excellent technical educations who disregard the evidence that forced warming is real, and a real threat. They don’t want to believe it, whereas they DO want to be seen and known as members in good standing of the R coalition.
This is likewise why I know a couple of younger women who haven’t the faintest clue as to WHY you cannot burn water like gasoline, or why the sun appears to travel in some unexplained fashion across the sky day after day, ( OK, I am making the sexist joke here. If you can’t handle it , after I just pointed out that I know R males who are WELL educated technically who make the SAME mistake, tough titty to you! ) believe in forced warming without any doubt.
These women believe IN warming for the same reasons the above mentioned R engineer types do not. They are English majors, and TERRIFIED they will fail the ONE semester “survey ” science course they will eventually have to take, even though it will be watered down to the point there is no lab, no math, no outside reading, etc.
( No body who does the softball easy homework and shows up to class is any danger of failing such a course, unless she also fails basket weaving, or the history of art, lol. )
ALL of them believe what they WANT to believe, what is consistent with their desired status as members in good standing within their cultural peer group. The ladies believe because the D party and the liberal establishment which they are a part of believes.
I am sure Adams knows this to be true, but I also thinks he doesn’t want to actually say so, for reasons involving his OWN status as a public figure.
Incidentally I DO personally know enough science, and enough about the peer review process, etc, to know that in this particular case, the liberal / Dems are right, and the conservative ( so called ) / Republicans are wrong.
He also made a SECOND MAJOR mistake, saying:
” If science is right, and the danger is real, we’ll find ways to scrub the atmosphere as needed. We always find ways to avoid slow-moving dangers.”
Anybody who SERIOUSLY makes such a statement is either seriously ill informed, or playing a PR, a public relations game, insinuating he is cool with the skeptics at one point, cool with the liberal establishment at another, and cool with the people who believe in science and technology the same way a Baptist believes in Jesus, in his conclusion. Along the way, he implies he is also cool with the skeptics, cool with the Trump voters, etc. The man is trying to please EVERYBODY, and he is such a talented writer he is actually pretty successful at actually doing so.
If he actually knows anything about the FACTS associated with FIXING the warming problem, he would NEVER say anything indicating such a naive and arrogant belief in science and technology- unless of course he is playing the PR game.
This man makes his LIVING as an ENTERTAINER , for Sky Daddy’s sake.
Taking anything he says without a helping of salt is not to be recommend.
Having said this much about him, I also must say again that he is an incredibly talented comic writer, one in a million, and I can’t say enough about how much I have enjoyed reading his books.
Nothing personal, but I’m not taking my climate change advice from a guy without self control who doesn’t respect his own body and life.
I’m betting Trump voter and for sure Javier mentality.
I’m betting he will start his own party to run against Trump in 2020 and will win in a landslide!
But HB, I can’t believe you took that seriously. Seriously? Might as well listen to talking dogs in cartoon strips.
Sorry, there aren’t any talking dogs out there. But there are millions of “skeptics president”. I’ll admit I unfairly judge that good old southern country boy logic.
It was also to subvert Javier’s post following your lead and tie Javier to the video.
They may not be talking, but the Australian Climate Dogs sure are giving it to the Aussies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlJzwmkePMk
Well done. Maybe even Trump’s attention span would be able to watch it from start to finish.
Maybe the intelligence community might want to incorporate it into the Daily Briefing
ROFL
It’s not supposed to convince you. It’s supposed to explain to you why some people believe in global warming catastrophe and why some don’t, and why it is almost impossible to convince anybody to change his mind about the issue.
It also explains why given the politicization of this debate and the level of pressure brought on scientists not conforming to the consensus, the scientific debate is being skewed by subduing and suppressing one side. And how that actually makes it more likely that the consensus of experts have it wrong. And we know the consensus of experts can be wrong because, well… it has been wrong many times before.
So a rational person can take any side of this debate as the science can support both an alarmist view or a non-alarmist view, and both sides should admit the possibility of being wrong because at this point we clearly don’t know who is right.
So a rational person can take any side of this debate as the science can support both an alarmist view or a non-alarmist view, and both sides should admit the possibility of being wrong because at this point we clearly don’t know who is right.
That is an absolute crock of shit!
Dara O’Briain: Science doesn’t know everything
Comedian Dara O’Briain sets the record straight about the public understanding of science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDYba0m6ztE
I do have many hundreds of papers that support a non-alarmist view of climate change regardless of origin, and I have linked dozens of those papers here in peakoilbarrel.
The alarmist view requires a set of assumptions for which there is no evidence, like the amount of future emissions, the antropogenic nature of nearly all warming since 1950, the nature and balance of climate feedbacks known or unknown, the future behavior of CO2 sinks, the half life of a CO2 pulse, the existence of tipping points, the existence of warming already in the pipeline, and so on, so on. Nothing of that is properly known to the point of giving a low uncertainty.
The alarmist view is a worst case scenario, and worst case scenarios tend to not happen.
“The alarmist view is a worst case scenario, and worst case scenarios tend to not happen.”
It’s called Risk Management- (in business) the forecasting and evaluation of financial risks together with the identification of procedures to avoid or minimize their impact.
The insurance industry describe people with Javier attitude as going naked. In life, they call him dad.
The problem is that the agreed upon measures from Paris accords would have negligible impact on temperatures according to most experts. The policies that are proposed do not resist a minimum cost-benefit analysis.
Some people are already pointing out that adaptation is likely to be more effective in dealing with climate change.
Most people think your in denial and 97% scientist disagree with you
The alarmist view is a worst case scenario, and worst case scenarios tend to not happen..
If you say so Javier but there are plenty of examples from real life to contradict you. Macondo, Fukshima,The Challenger Disaster, just to name a few…
If the people like myself who disagree with you are wrong, the worst that will happen is we change the OS of our civilization and build a world that uses energy differently. That will happen regardless. However if you, and people who think like you, are wrong, then we are truly fucked and I’m just not willing to take that risk!
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt
Appendix F – Personal observations on the reliability of the
ShuttleSPACE SHIP EARTHby R. P. Feynman slightly edited by Fred Magyar
Introduction
It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the
probability of a failure with loss of
vehicleTHE PLANET and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higherfigures come from the
working engineersclimate scientists, atmospheric chemists physicists, biologists, ecologist, etc.. and the very low figures frommanagement. The Fossil Fuel Interests and wealthy 1% ers who have interests in maintaining BAU, What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put aShuttleSpace Ship Earth up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask “What is the cause ofmanagement’s. Fossil Fuel Interests and wealthy 1% ers who have interests in maintaining BAU fantastic faith in themachineryBAU?”.
Don’t feed the troll(s) Fred, it’s counterproductive. Besides, he doesn’t understand risk analysis.
I know Doug, my response is really not intended as a rebuttal to Mr. Contrarian, but rather as possible food for thought for the casual reader, who might still have an open mind.
Though frankly, at this point, I think Mr. Contrarian is getting paid to pretend he doesn’t understand risk analysis…
Not a good example. Climate change is progressive not explosive, and takes place over hundreds of years, not in an instant. The evidence is showing that global warming is taking place more slowly than initially anticipated. No reason to panic. Better to take the right measures tomorrow than the wrong measures today.
What? Hundreds of years IS explosive (an brief instant in human terms). Yes, you really are a moron – or a troll?
The evidence is showing that global warming is taking place more slowly than initially anticipated. No reason to panic.
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The risk is very asymmetrically distributed towards the cooling side as the Little Ice Age showed.
Warming so far has been beneficial.
Fred, the worst case is happening right now. We are well into the sixth extinction. There is only one place this can go unless the course changes dramatically.
The problem with people is they either don’t know to begin with or forget the horrors of the past that even happened within their own lifetimes. I remind people, they do not like it.
“Fred, the worst case is happening right now.” Ah yes, therein lies the rub.
Amen, I am a member of that choir already! 😉
GoneFishing, you are a victim of mass hysteria.
Anthropogenic global warming has added very little to the environmental problems that we were already causing by the time the warming started in the 1980’s. The increase in the environmental problems of the planet is due to the rapid growth we are experiencing, with 80 million new inhabitants every year. This is the equivalent to the entire population of Egypt every year.
GoneFishing, you are a victim of mass hysteria.
And you, are one very very slimy creature!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ6b5egtcwc
EVIL BLIZZARD “Slimy Creatures”
Javier, you are more mentally challenged than usual. I did not mention climate change, yet you acted as if I did. Early Alzheimers? Maybe dementia? That would explain some of your emotional disruptions.
Hi Javier,
The case I give relies on the mean estimates by experts, which tends to be the most likely scenario.
I agree that does not mean it is certain, just that the scenario is more likely than most. If we limit carbon emissions to 1000 Pg of Carbon, Global average temperatures may remain below 1.7 C above the 11,000 BP to 200 BP Global mean land ocean temperature. There is a lot of uncertainty about Earth System Sensitivity, so long term temperatures (after 2200 CE) might be higher or lower, the 1.7 C estimate is to 2250 CE, based on CMIP3 models and 1000 Pg of total carbon emissions (fossil fuels, cement, and land use change).
O’Briain is great.
Hi Javier,
The mainstream view is not climate catastrophe, just a lot of warming if there are a lot of carbon emissions.
It is possible that there might only be 1000 Pg of carbon emissions, but there is enough fossil fuel that 2000 Pg of Carbon might be emitted, hopefully non-fossil fuel energy will develop quickly enough to keep carbon emissions at 1000 Pg or less.
Forget changing their minds. Off with their heads. http://www.newsweek.com/should-climate-change-deniers-be-prosecuted-378652
So in what kind of way would anybody be able to prosecute when there are genuine climate experts out therewith evidence of man made climate change either no big problem as the untrustworthy mainstream media says or just isn’t real no way. Want to see the kind of experts I’m talking about, google names like Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Murry Salby…they have been doing deep research into climate change for years. Because they are respected investigators in their fields, they are getting more scientists to jump off the man made climate change bandwagon and question the work the grant funded scientists have done also. Anyway I guess my main point is yes we get droughts, severe thunderstorms, cold winters, warm winters, sleet, snow, hail, and so on…but that’s stuff that’s been going on since the start of time. There just wouldn’t be a big enough case with evidence to convict any company, business, or individual saying climate change isn’t real. Not in a civil or criminal courtroom.
How change occurred or how General Custer became a human pin cushion, what really happened.
Everybody makes mistakes.
General Custer: A scout has a certain look… Kit Carson, for example. You look like… a muleskinner!
Jack Crabb: Uh, General I don’t know anything about mules…
General Custer: Lieutenant, it’s amazing how I can guess the profession of a man just by looking at him! Notice the bandy legs, the powerful arms. This man has spent years with mules. Isn’t that right?
Jack Crabb: Uh, yes sir!
General Custer: Hire the muleskinner!
A little while later after Little Big Man attempts to kill Custer but fails…
Jack Crabb: You’re not going to hang me.
General Custer: Your miserable life is not worth the reversal of a Custer decision.
And then:
Jack Crabb: General, you go down there.
General Custer: You’re advising me to go into the Coulee?
Jack Crabb: Yes sir.
General Custer: There are no Indians there, I suppose.
Jack Crabb: I didn’t say that. There are thousands of Indians down there. And when they get done with you, there won’t be nothing left but a greasy spot. This ain’t the Washite River, General, and them ain’t helpless women and children waiting for you. They’re Cheyenne brave, and Sioux. You go down there, General, if you’ve got the nerve.
General Custer: Still trying to outsmart me, aren’t you, mule-skinner. You want me to think that you don’t want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really *don’t* want me to go down there!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065988/quotes
You just can’t make this stuff up!
Sometimes, a wrong decision makes for a bad day.
Can’t we all just get along? Why all of this fussin’ and fightin’ over a one degree centigrade increase of global temperatures? What can it hurt?
Have a nice day!
“Can’t we all just get along? Why all of this fussin’ and fightin’ over a one degree centigrade increase of global temperatures? What can it hurt?”
Because if the Arctic melts any further the Blob gets loose and that will be the end of the polar bears. 🙂
We need to
prosecutepersecute climate change deniers, not just condemn them as stupid and ignorant, two heresies that are intolerable, no forgiveness, no mercy, throw them in jail and confiscate all their homes and belongings, enslave them for the rest of their born days.Really no other way to handle the problem of climate change deniers. Off to some concentration camp in Siberia.
Arbeit Macht Frei
Or better yet and more appropriately , let’s burn them at the stake.
More ironic.
awe, boo hoo, do people sometime get angry at you when you post your denier BS? Sooo sad….
Meanwhile in the real world, real climate scientists are constantly getting death threats and other harassment. Many are now afraid to speak out or are so cautious in their outlook, they way underestimate the problem. But that’s the whole point isn’t it?
IT WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD. AGAIN
“In case it wasn’t clear, the clearest sign of climate change is heat. And this year had lots of it: hot Arctic, hot summer, hot water, and so it’s only fitting that the biggest climate milestone of the year (in a year that itself is a milestone) is record heat. Of course, that was the biggest story in 2014; and 2015 for that matter. This year marks the third year in a row of record-setting heat, an unprecedented run. It’s a reminder that we’ve entered a new era, where our actions have changed the world we call home. We also have the ability to decide what comes next.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/most-important-climate-change-stories-2016-21007
El Niño years of 2015 and 2016. Already being corrected.
Javier, I presented a geophysical model for ENSO at this month’s AGU meeting.
http://contextearth.com/2016/11/21/presentation-at-agu-2016-on-december-12/
You are shotgunning everything in sight with your spew. Time to settle down and talk some physics if you want to be taken seriously.
WHT, I found this graph and as you can tell by the cold blue snake on the right hand side, we are in for lot’s of frozen water…
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From yesterday:
Amazing the psychological projection of Lindzen. It is Lindzen that has set back generations of atmospheric science research with his deeply flawed model of stratospheric winds (see QBO). He missed a very simple derivation back in the 1960’s that could have set a nice “intellectual foundation” for the next 40+ years.
http://contextearth.com/2016/11/21/presentation-at-agu-2016-on-december-12/
Yet instead he has occupied the fringe sciences of climatology with his bizarre theories. Scientists such as Ray Pierrehumbert have been on to him, e.g. “It’s okay to be wrong, and [Lindzen] is a smart person, but most people don’t really understand that one way of using your intelligence is to spin ever more clever ways of deceiving yourself, ever more clever ways of being wrong. And that’s okay because if you are wrong in an interesting way that advances the science, I think it’s great to be wrong, and he has made a career of being wrong in interesting ways about climate science.”. And you have Isaac Held, who says that he had studied under Lindzen and found him smart but highly contrarian and a fringe scientist.
“There’re people like [Lindzen] in every field of science. There are always people in the fringes. They’re attracted to the fringe . . . It may be as simple as, how do you prove you’re smarter than everyone else? You don’t do that by being part of the consensus,” Held says.
Maybe we could just turn it upside down?
Hi Javier,
Cherry picking again?
Talking about different things, Dennis.
You medium term warming of the planet, me short term non-warming of the planet. Both things compatible, but hardly alarming. Long term warming of the planet since 1850 is beneficial as all the evidence shows.
Unfortunately, anything NOAA or NASA says these days must absolutely be questioned for truthfulness. Furthermore, considering we’re in the waning days of the Obama Administration, the need is probably even greater. Previous years, when announcing temperatures the warmest ever, they actually re-calibrated/manipulated older temperature sets, meaning old years became colder and more recent years became warmer. Discounting these changes means 1934 should still be considered the warmest year in the modern record.
Here’s a nice summary of the situation, although written last month before this year’s temperature proclamation was handed down.
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20161121/OPINION02/161129918/1004
Anyone who has closely followed the climate debate is familiar with the “adjustments” to the raw temperature data. What most Average Joes don’t realize is that the adjustments are almost entirely done to accomplish one thing — cool the past and warm the present.
How did they do this? Scientists have “smoothed” regional temperatures to get better agreement between urban and rural data. But instead of adjusting city temperatures lower (because of urban heat effects) they raised rural temperatures. More recently, in order to get rid of the “pause” in temperatures, they adjusted the sea surface temperatures higher when they decided that mid-20th century temperatures taken in ship engine intakes are more accurate than the modern ocean buoys. That’s right, the technology of the 1950s with the ship engine heat influencing the data was determined to be better than the network of modern electronics uninfluenced by external heat sources. And these are only a few examples of what has been going on.
On a more local level, between 2011 and 2013, the NOAA data set lowered annual Maine temperatures between three to five degrees in the early 1900s…and made almost no changes to recent temperatures. That “adjustment” is more than three times the actual warming we have seen.
When you look at how temperatures have been manipulated you start to wonder if we have any idea what the global temperature is. Over the past decade or so, the keepers of the data have cooled temperatures in the pre-1910 period the equivalent of -0.52 degrees per century. They warmed temperatures from 1980 to the early part of this century by the equivalent of +0.11 degrees per century.
Who cares about your BS and fossil fuel propaganda! You’re out of touch with the future and you have already lost!
Watch this, it was previously posted by Nathanael.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmyrbKBZ6SU
The breakthrough in renewable energy (vpro backlight documentary)
And for the rest of us…
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We’re back up to at least two trolls!
This is another dialogue pair. It is not a response to the earlier comment, and exists solely to throw in conservative talking points.
Adds nothing to our discussion.
-Lloyd
Hi Fred…wrote while you were posting.
-L
…and exists solely to throw in conservative talking points.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that this entire anti climate science BS is a very concerted effort by fossil fuel interests to lull the average Joe into a false sense of security and keep them addicted to fossil fuels for as long as they can.
Why else would any even give a rat’s ass about climate science?!
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/sefcovic/blog/future-clean_en
The future is clean
Propaganda : information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Methods of climate denialists to maintain an appearance of legitimate controversy:
1.Conspiracy theories – Dismissing the data or observation by suggesting opponents are involved in “a conspiracy to suppress the truth”.
2.Cherry picking – Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers in order to make their opponents look as though they base their ideas on weak research.
3.False experts – Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility.
4.Moving the goalpost – Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence.
5.Other logical fallacies – Usually one or more of false analogy, appeal to consequences, straw man, or red herring.
I was responding to Doug Leighton’s post of 12/30/2016 at 12:48 pm about how the federal government is out to proclaim 2016 as the hottest year ever. I stayed on topic in providing evidence of how this is unlikely true, in light of the temperature adjusting NOAA and NASA have done previously. As I see it, you are the one going off topic. What do you make of the facts I have presented, especially the article from a mainstream publication that itself is starting to pick up on the problems with climate data?
May the baby Jesus save your soul from it’s earthly sins
What do you make of the facts I have presented, especially the article from a mainstream publication
ROFL!
Yo Jeff! This is the 21st century so I googled your buddy Michael Sununu…
Not exactly the most reputable of citizens IMHO!
Love New Hampshire, though, been there many times! ‘Live Free or Die’!
Most of the citizens there are against fascism.
Temps have been “manipulated” to make the warming look SMALLER, not larger, troll.
Why? Each change is to remove a bias due to older, less accurate instruments and methods for measuring temperature. Net result is that “raw” data show more global warming and “adjusted” data show less. The opposite of what you insinuate.
Hi Jeffrey,
In Manchester, New Hampshire they call that paper the “Union Misleader”. 🙂
Well the main thing is that we know why 2016 was so hot, and it wasn’t extra anthropogenic warming but good old El Niño, which is perfectly natural warming. We know there have been strong Niños since before CO2 started rising above pre-industrial levels, and nobody has shown any change of El Niño frequency with GHGs.
So all is fine and dandy as temperatures are going down quite fast towards their 21st century average. So it looks this could just be a blip in temperatures for a couple of years.
And the most important thing is that this El Niño has taken us +0.4°C above prior temperatures in a quick move and the main effect that we have seen from this increase has been a world record wheat crop. So the test actually has backfired in terms of alarmism. The world seems to be just fine with 0.4°C more.
Now I wonder what would happen if for the next three years we went back to the temperatures we had in 1972-75, or even 1903-06. I bet most people wouldn’t like that at all. In the mid seventies some people were worried that a new glaciation was already starting. Two scientists, George Kukla and Robert Matthews organized an international symposium, and reported it in Science on 1972, then they wrote to President Nixon, and the administration got worried enough to set the ad hoc Panel on the present interglacial.
So I don’t think we should be any more worried than before we had the 2015-16 El Niño. Soon we will be discussing if El Niño put an end to the pause or if it was just a pause of the pause.
Muir Glacier melt, Alaska
August 13, 1941 – August 31, 2004
The 1941 photograph shows the lower reaches of Muir Glacier and its tributary, Riggs Glacier. The two glaciers filled Muir Inlet. In the 2004 photograph, Muir Glacier, continuing a retreat nearly two centuries long, is located about 4 miles (7 kilometers) to the northwest, out of the field of view. Riggs Glacier has retreated some 0.4 miles (0.6 kilometers). Both glaciers have thinned substantially.
http://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=376#376-muir-glacier-melt-alaska
McCarty Glacier melt, Alaska
July 30, 1909 – August 11, 2004
The 1909 photograph shows the west side of the terminus of McCarty Glacier. In the 2004 image, the terminus has retreated about 9 miles (15 kilometers) to the north. The area in the foreground, which had been covered by glacial deposits, is now open ocean water, thanks to the melting of glacier ice under the sediment deposits. The former barren zone and adjacent hillside are now covered by dense vegetation.
http://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=365#365-mccarty-glacier-melt-alaska
Temperature will remain within a few tenths of a degree of the red curve defined by the logarithm of CO2 concentration – as in the picture below.
By 2025, the annual average will surpass the recent El Nino more than half the time.
By 2030, not even a strong La Nina will be enough to fall below 2016’s average temperature.
WHF,
That’s a good way to present the data. Do you have any comment on how important CO2e (i.e. including methane etc.) is compared with just using CO2? Possibly CO2e has been closely correlated with CO2 and therefore doesn’t modify the trend, but in recent years methane growth has accelerated and may continue to do so if some of the worse scenarios proposed for the permafrost in the high latitudes play out.
In the chart below – is the levelling out in 2075 possible given the recent findings of growing CO2 release from soils, or would there need to be actual extraction from the atmosphere as well?
A graphic assumption is still an assumption, and yours is incorrect, since 2015-16 is an outlier due to be El Niño years, and we know temperature is not correlated to CO2 on El Niño years.
A deceitful graphic indeed. You have no way of knowing if the graphic could be like the one below or any other of the infinite possibilities. Your temperature predictions for 2025 and 2030 are bonkers. They are not going to happen.
wehappyfew said”Temperature will remain within a few tenths of a degree of the red curve defined by the logarithm of CO2 concentration – as in the picture below.”
Only if GHG was the only source of extra heating, which it is not. The snow fields and icecaps are all reducing in albedo due to melt ponds, changes in formation, carbon deposits, and much earlier bare ground in the spring. Also the Arctic Ocean now has much more exposed water surface than before, decreasing albedo in the region.
All of that is increasing the heating in the northern regions as an additional source of radiative forcing. So the temperature will rise faster than the projected line.
Other short term forcings cause heat pulses to occur, increasing the melt and changes in snow reflectivity.
George and GoneFishing,
You are both right that CO2 is not the only forcing, but it is the largest by a good bit… 1.94 out of the 2.97 W/m^2 total for all the well-mixed green house gasses.
The increases in the other gasses are mostly well correlated to CO2, however, so this simple regression captures the effect of the other gasses. CO2 acts as a proxy for all the other GHGs.
Their correlation is not perfect, and recently the CFCs have been declining due to the effect of the Montreal Protocol. Methane was flat for a while, and has recently started increasing again. The HCFCs are increasing exponentially as they replace CFCs.
GF’s point about albedo is extremely important.
The regression I show above also captures any warming due to albedo changes up to now, but it cannot be expected to predict future albedo effects, as the change in summer snow and ice may be a highly non-linear function of temperature (and thus CO2 levels in the atmosphere).
So far, summer ice and snow have been declining steadily, but close to linearly, so the regression is not failing yet. I am not at all confident we can rely on that to continue much longer. So we should expect some deviation from the simple logarithmic curve of CO2 alone. It will climb above the red line if albedo feedbacks take off. It will fall below if we take vigorous action to control methane, NO2 and H/CFCs.
Another forcing not accounted for is human aerosols. Current warming is partially masked by dirty coal from China and India. As they clean up their energy production, there will be a one-off upward shift in temperatures relative to the predicted red line.
And, of course, the future is hard to predict, so George’s question about the effectiveness of soils and other current sinks is very important. I think it is the height of hubris to confidently continue emitting CO2 (and the other GHGs), expecting everything will be just fine.
There are so many possible feedbacks due to warming and sea level rise. When our most productive coastal and estuarine farmland and wetlands are under a few meters of rising seas, how much methane will they emit?
…
(… and DFTT …)
And to throw the big wrench in the works, the atmosphere controls 70 percent of the radiation into and out of the planet. A change in clouds and haze can overwhelm the effects of GHG gases in either direction.
Happy New Year, it only gets weirder from here. Enjoy it.
Humans could NEVER do anything to fuck up the atmosphere because it is just SOOO HUGE!!!
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2014/11/02/amazing-photos-astro-reid-highlight-fragile-earth-even-fragile-climate/
See than thin blue line? That is our atmosphere. Put a dime flat against a classroom globe, and you will see how very thin the layer of air that protects us from the intense cold and harsh radiation of space really is. From @astro_reid on the ISS this week.
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What a truly great message (and picture) to end the year with: you NEVER fail us Fred. Happy New Year!
Live long and prosper.
Right now the heat of fusion of ice melt is stifling the non-linearity. As the snow and ice disappears, then a new order of non-linearity will exhibit itself. The next few generations have a lot to look forward to.
If we allow market forces to continue replacing fossil fuels with cheaper and more abundant renewables, we might achieve the following path of CO2 and temperature – the red line predicts the temperature plus or minus a few tenths due to natural variations.
CO2 is assumed to continue accelerating until 2030, then deccelerate at twice the previous rate of acceleration, finally topping out at 506 ppm around 2075 (not shown, because it is silly to try to predict the actual trajectory that far out).
I view this as a best case scenario. It assumes the enormous vested interests of fossil fuel asset owners like Fox News and the Trump cronies are not very successful at propping up their oligarchic control of our current energy system by prevent competition from renewables.
Very little will be accomplished if the rate of fossil fuel use is slowed but the total is maximized, i.e. a mix of energies are continued as long as possible. It will merely extend the curve and possibly make the maximum temperature higher due to increasing natural feedbacks along with finding better ways to extract fossil fuels.
http://www.noaa.gov/news/record-annual-increase-of-carbon-dioxide-observed-at-mauna-loa-for-2015
Record annual increase of carbon dioxide observed at Mauna Loa for 2015
“Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” Tans said. “It’s explosive compared to natural processes.”
Levels of the greenhouse gas were independently measured by NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In February 2016, the average global atmospheric CO2 level stood at 402.59 ppm. Prior to 1800, atmospheric CO2 averaged about 280 ppm.
The last time the Earth experienced such a sustained CO2 increase was between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago, when CO2 levels increased by 80 ppm. Today’s rate of increase is 200 times faster, said Tans.
I guess that’s just not fast enough, eh? Maybe we should wait until it’s 400 times as fast…
But Fred (I’m sure you know this) CO2 is just one greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases are one of many factors affecting climate. So, expecting a perfect correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is a common mistake because if there’s a major change in another climate forcing, such as Arctic albedo, correlations will be obscured — correlations will ALWAYS be obscured.
correlations will ALWAYS be obscured.
Hmm, I’m not so sure about that… 😉
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Doug, correlation through natural feedbacks. The warmer it gets the more humid the atmosphere. The warmer it gets the more CO2 from land and water sources back into the atmosphere.
So the apparent correlation is multi-factored. Methane gets in there too, but don’t tell anybody.
Humans may have kick started the process, but it’s going to be a long time before the process ends, long after we stop putting CO2 into the air.
Unlikely since global warming started around 1850, long before emissions became significant.
It is possible that some warming was caused by forest reduction for agricultural use, the burning of coal which started in the 1600’s. It may not have been enough to compensate for the natural cooling. As for the 1800’s there is mixed results there due to a large amount of volcanic activity and the resulting warming after the aerosols dissipated. So I see you are starting the New Year off as usual.
“It assumes the enormous vested interests of fossil fuel asset owners like Fox News and the Trump cronies are not very successful at propping up their oligarchic control of our current energy system by prevent competition from renewables.”
This is what the election of 2016 was all about. Not emails or a wall, those were just tools to get to the objective. Teflon Don is just the lubricant used before it’s going to be stuck up your rectum . Now bend over.
Not every scientist is on board with climate change science, something has to be done and fast.
Ivar Giaevar, a Nobel laureate, says global warming is a hoax.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk60CUkf3Kw
After listening to a climate change denier’s propaganda and lies for almost thirty minutes, it is easy to see how some folks can become climate change deniers themselves after a thorough brainwashing using the propaganda disseminated by the anti AGW educated knuckoheads.
You just can’t trust some scientists, you know how they lie all of the time.
Probably should be locked up for a long time. They’re too dangerous, a threat to all life on the planet.
A few years in a gulag, a re-education camp, should solve a lot of problems. It is for their own good and the good of humanity. Alexander Solzhenitsyn would agree. We need a special police force to identify and round up these scientists who are obviously deluded by their own findings and evidence to counter the incontrovertible evidence of climate science. A Stasi like network of informants needs to be organized.
The science is settled and any more new, dubious science challenging the incontrovertible evidence of climate change must be nipped in the bud.
Prison will work wonders on their brains. Their empty heads are filled with wrong facts discovered by the wrong evidence using the wrong data gathered from wrong observations drawing the wrong conclusions.
Really should force the knaves and fools of the Nobel Prize committee to fall in line or threaten incarceration for insubordination. There must be a price to pay, prosecution and imprisonment is really the only solution.
Yeah, right.
After listening to a climate change denier’s propaganda and lies for almost thirty minutes, it is easy to see how some folks can become climate change deniers themselves after a thorough brainwashing using the propaganda disseminated by the anti AGW educated knuckoheads.
Yeah, Ivar Giaever, was involved with spreading doubt about smoking causing cancer and he currently works for that paragon of virtue and honesty, The Heartland Institute.
https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/ivar-giaever
Fortunately he will be dead of old age soon enough! He was born in 1929.
The latest vandalism from the Dork Side:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2016/12/30/climate-change-and-the-great-lakes/
https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/12/30/0056226/wisconsins-department-of-natural-resources-site-no-longer-says-humans-cause-climate-change
Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources Site No Longer Says Humans Cause Climate Change
“The website of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources has been updated with new language and no longer says that humans and greenhouse emissions cause climate change. Instead, the site says that the causes of global warming “are being debated and researched by academic entities.”
Republican Gov. Scott Walker who took office in 2011 is an avowed climate skeptic.
Welcome to the New Dark Ages! In Wisconsin they also say they are still unsure why an apple fell on Newton’s head, as it is still being debated and researched by academic entities, Gravity is only one of many theories…
Maybe we can reduce global warming by putting a big sun shade over Wisconsin. Humans didn’t do it, it’s natural.
Done!
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Hey Fred, your going to need a cabana to cover the state of Florida. Your buddy Rick Scott doesn’t even allow the words “Climate Change” to be said.
Conservatives, one step forward, three step back
True, but at least the Mayor of Miami has been allocating funds to sea level rise mitigation. You can’t argue against sea level rise when Cthulhu’s scouts are swimming in your parking garages around the cars…
A bit late but…
It’s beginning to look a lot like fish-men
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJ_eQbBtls
Watch out Fred, now that the sun shade is over Wisconsin, they will be headed your way.
There you show the kind of person you are.
I’m just a realist and anyone in his nineties is not likely to be long for this world. But I readily admit I have a profound dislike of his ilk!
Sometimes the convincing force is just time itself and the human toll it takes, Kuhn said, using a quote from Max Planck: “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it
Thomas Khun on Paradigm shifts in Science
Hey, at least I’m willing to wait until the old fogey passes of natural causes and I don’t advocate blowing his brains out like some people, when talking about climate scientists…
IF
IF, mind you, meaning everybody,
IF ones steps back far enough from the mad house to truly come to appreciate and understand that humans really are just nekkid (deliberate spelling) apes under their clothes, the warming controversy makes sense instantly.
It’s not about facts, it’s about partisanship, it’s about “me your friend, that there guy over there him you enemy cause he heretic, he believe bad thing, cause you much trouble”
Me you , we know better, maybe we shut him up, heh? .
There are a FEW people who are serious students of climate who really do believe forced warming is minor, and will not be a serious problem. There are many times as many who have put in as much time as the members of the ” be happy don’t worry” camp who believe otherwise.
Then there are the trolls, the sort who don’t know anything but just post talking points or obviously ridiculous arguments , because they are conservatives, and hate liberals, and Democrats, and therefore believe forced warming is a hoax. I’m fairly sure hardly any of the ones who show up here get paid, because they don’t post enough to justify pay.
Then there are professional mouthpieces, who may actually know quite a lot, but post only such data as supports their position, and ignore all other evidence. They DO stick around. They may or may not be paid. Some of them are probably DONATING their time to defend their industries, and or their personal professional beliefs.
Except in the case of very simple ( relatively speaking ) problems, such as what happens in lab experiments, most real world events do happen in such a way that there are INDICATIONS ( evidence, or some things that can be interpreted as evidence) that the cause may be one thing, or another thing, or a combination of things, or simply an accident without any particular precipitating cause at all, or the consequence of a natural trend.
A term that has not so far as I have noticed been introduced into the discussion HERE in this forum is the “preponderance of evidence” principle that is used in reaching a decision in courts of law.
Now my personal opinion is that a forum such as this one has great or at least potentially great value as an educational resource. It is quite obvious that any undergrad who wants to write a research paper about fossil fuels or renewable energy can find LOTS of good solid data here, such as charts produced by various government agencies, or collected by the various industries, or gathered by the authors of the key posts here. There are tons of good links.
It’s also quite possible that some people who are truly open minded, or capable of critical thinking, are lurking here, and learning quite a bit by reading the exchanges between various forum members.
Those of us who believe that forced warming is a real problem and that it will get worse as time passes need to remind the new reader or long time lurker that in the case of laboratory work, you can talk in absolute terms.
But in observing REAL WORLD phenomena, the data are ALWAYS messy, and there will always be some observations made, some examples to be found, that do not mesh with any theory that explains ALL THE OTHER data, which in the case of warming is many times greater in volume.
It behooves us to mention the preponderance of the evidence rule when we comment, so as to better earn the respect and attention of readers who are not so well informed, technically , as fellows such as Fred or Doug or Dennis or WHT, etc.
Simply DENYING that Javier has SOME evidence supporting his position is a MISTAKE, in terms of earning the trust of a layman. Most likely, a FATAL mistake.
I am, if I say so myself, a little better informed than the average bear, and when I catch somebody in an obvious lie, or deliberately distorting facts to the point that he might as well be lying, he loses my trust, and getting it back is very hard to impossible.
When a layman hears a person say everything Javier has to say is bullshit, and he KNOWS that SOME things Javier says are true, he is more apt to trust Javier than the person who says Javier is NOTHING BUT a bullshitter. ( Whether he is, or is not, in fact nothing but a bullshitter is irrelevant to my point, which is that the impression made on the layman listening in will figure heavily in determining what the layman believes, and who he will more likely vote for, next election. )
Know one understands repeating bullshit better than the hate Hillary local leader. Repeat a lie enough times and 90% will believe it. Yes, you do know how it works.
I posted a comment a couple of days ago that I had just about beaten the Hillary horse to a pulp, and that it was time to move on.
My intention was to get on with a discussion of the future path and identity of the D party.
But if you WANT to insult me by going back………..
You probably can’t even drive car with a stick shift, never mind a real truck, and you certainly can’t win any sort of debate with me, because you are coming to a gun fight without even a rock, never mind a knife.
You need weapons in a fight, of any sort, and in this one, you need either wits or facts, or both, as weapons. You don’t have much in the way of either.
ANYBODY who is even REMOTELY interested in an accurate and impartial evaluation of this last election, as viewed by an outsider, in the sense of a knowledgeable observer of politics, or an athletic contest, must agree with me that Clinton was a badly flawed candidate, and that she ran a piss poor campaign, ignoring the working class voters in the three big Rust Belt states that cost her the election, etc.
I find I must retract my earlier comment that you went up in my personal estimation.
Keep your head buried in the sand, and run another D candidate , in 2020, who has negatives even two thirds as high as Clinton’s, going into the election, IF such a pathetic candidate can even be FOUND , and watch the R’s mop the floor with the D’s one more time.
You are simply too far gone a true believer to even CONSIDER the possibility that your heroine could ever have been wrong about any thing, or that she ever made any major political mistakes, or that she ever displayed a colossal lack of judgement and corresponding excess of arrogance.
Now why don’t you tell us why the R’s mopped the floor with the D’s so many times, in so many elections, from dog catcher to president, in recent years?
Is it because the people of this country, taken as a whole, are stupid, in your opinion?
I am SURE that in your opinion it has NOTHING to do with HRC’s overreaching in certain respects, such as doing her best to force thru major changes during Bill’s tenure in our health care system, with virtually all of the planning done SECRETLY.
You may have forgotten about that, but I can assure you that a LOT of people who either stayed home or voted for Trump remembered. Then they gave some additional thought to the secret email system. They apparently concluded that she likes in in the shadows, and that sort of scares most voters.
And OF COURSE it’s the R party’s fault she lost because the R’s emphasized what SHE did??
I am sure that in your opinion she never miscalculated concerning the views of many many tens of millions of American citizens who, whether YOU like it or not, are entitled to decide for themselves what their cultural and ethical values should be, and so lost just about all the country, excepting the places with large cities.
I am sure that in your opinion that one of my neighbors, who I just hired for the day, so he will have enough money to feed his kids this week, should be GRATEFUL for globalization, even though he was making sixteen bucks with excellent bennies on the first job he lost to globalization, and all the overtime he wanted, with excellent prospects for advancement, and then he lost a SECOND job, same reason, plant closed, work sent overseas, and believe it or not, a third one, same reason.
He may be a local record holder in this respect, I wouldn’t know, but he is a skilled mechanic, and went from one job to the next in the same industry, and one company after another moved out on him. He was good enough that he got hired TWICE by companies that were downsizing even as they hired him, given his sterling recommendations from his previous employers, do ya get it?
Hey, I know, he’s my nephew.
So now the best work he’s been able to find pays less than eleven bucks, with the possibility of a buck or so more soon, to be sure, but the bennies will never be very good.
Do you think he blamed this bad luck on TRUMP ( who is even worse than Clinton, but was at least NOT an office holder promoting globalization), or Clinton??
True believers never get it, and you never will.
But a very large fraction of the D party as a whole, after thinking it over for a while, GETS IT NOW, in the aftermath, and there is a real fight going on now for the soul of the party.
I was planning on moving on to that fight.
If you wish to continue discussing HRC, I’m ready.
You often post links to the Huffington Post , which I read quite often, although I do not agree with everything I read there.
Shall we start with a discussion of the contents of THIS link?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-democratic-party-deserves-to-die_us_58236ad5e4b0aac62488cde5
There are more, plenty more, along the same general lines at the HP. I’ve read them myself.
Are you going to accuse me of cherry picking right wing propaganda?
You probably would, except I have courteously prevented you from making such a stupid mistake by reminding you that you post stuff from the HP.
I am REALLY going to enjoy seeing just how long it will take you to figure out that by pointing at ME as the problem, when your CANDIDATE was the problem, you are doing the D party a disservice.
I fear I might die of old age first. 😉
You may have forgotten already, but I did what I could to help Sanders get the nomination, considering my personal situation.
You enjoy playing the nose in the air, I’m morally superior games, and you make fun of me for saying tongue in cheek dry humor style that I want to get away from oil, but not until I wear out my oil fired machinery…………
And then you tell us how proud you are that you have HIGHLY PROFITABLE INVESTMENTS in the oil industry.
Talk about talking the environmental talk, then walking the capital piglet’s walk!!!
( Full disclosure, I am a capital piglet myself, but I have never owned any stocks, or bonds, etc, except indirectly as part of a mandatory pension plan associated with a job or two I have held in the past. My money is in things that can’t be counterfeited, or easily substituted, or shipped overseas, or that might conceivably be made obsolete by new technology. )
WOW!
I don’ think you could make it any easier for me, but I am beginning to wonder.
“you are doing the D party a disservice.”
Oh Mr. Email Server, I’ll never match the crap you posted for a year before the election. 2020 is a long way off. Who says we will even make it there with captain fascist at the helm.
Let me know if you need to borrow some money for the repair of the clutch in your baby pickup. I enjoy doing charity loans.
I see you are reduced entirely to personal insults at this point.
You remind me of some BADLY spoiled children I have encountered from time to time.
In exchange for this insult, I am going to post a few paragraphs from the HP link I put in my earlier comment.
XXXX
They said they were facing an economic apocalypse, we offered “retraining” and complained about their white privilege. Is it any wonder we lost? One after another, the dispatches came back from the provinces. The coal mines are gone, the steel mills are closed, the drugs are rampant, the towns are decimated and everywhere you look depression, despair, fear. In the face of Trump’s willingness to boldly proclaim without facts or evidence that he would bring the good times back, we offered a tepid gallows logic. Well, those jobs are actually gone for good, we knowingly told them. And we offered a fantastical non-solution. We will retrain you for good jobs! Never mind that these “good jobs” didn’t exist in East Kentucky or Cleveland. And as a final insult, we lectured a struggling people watching their kids die of drug overdoses about their white privilege. Can you blame them for calling bullshit? All Trump could offer was white nationalism as protection against competing with black and brown people. It wasn’t a very compelling case, but it was vastly superior to a candidate who enthusiastically backed NAFTA, seems most at ease in a room of Goldman Sachs bankers and was almost certain to do nothing for these towns other than maybe setting up a local chapter of Rednecks Who Code. We bet that Trump’s manifest awfulness would be enough to let us eke out a win. We were dead wrong. Here’s my version of the Democratic Party autopsy because, make no mistake, the old ways of the Democratic party must die.
I’M having fun. HOW ‘BOUT YOU?
Post another personal insult, and I will post another paragraph.
Aw, I’m having so much fun I will just post another one anyway.
Note that this was written by a real big D Democrat.
xxxxx
Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings were obvious from the beginning to anyone who bothered to open their eyes. I wasn’t the only one who saw before she ever entered the race that a card-carrying member of the global elite who helped usher in this era of record-breaking inequality was hardly the best fit for the moment. It’s hard not to feel let down by people like Vice President Biden and Senator Warren who clearly saw the problems with Hillary but didn’t step up for their nation when they were called. Bernie did his level best but couldn’t compete against a party terrified of the modest radicalism that made him so appealing. I do believe that a different candidate would have led to a different outcome. But Hillary’s coronation is also proof that the problems in the Democratic Party run much deeper than just one candidate. There’s a reason why nearly the entire party rose up to stomp out the promise of Bernie Sanders candidacy.
xxxx
Hell’s bells, electrons are dirt cheap, and Dennis will probably post a new open thread soon, so maybe I better poke you in the eye with another sharp stick while the poking will still be in the best spot.
You don’t NEED the eye any way, metaphorically, because it’s clear enough you are blind, politically speaking.
xxxx
Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings were obvious from the beginning to anyone who bothered to open their eyes. I wasn’t the only one who saw before she ever entered the race that a card-carrying member of the global elite who helped usher in this era of record-breaking inequality was hardly the best fit for the moment. It’s hard not to feel let down by people like Vice President Biden and Senator Warren who clearly saw the problems with Hillary but didn’t step up for their nation when they were called. Bernie did his level best but couldn’t compete against a party terrified of the modest radicalism that made him so appealing. I do believe that a different candidate would have led to a different outcome. But Hillary’s coronation is also proof that the problems in the Democratic Party run much deeper than just one candidate. There’s a reason why nearly the entire party rose up to stomp out the promise of Bernie Sanders candidacy.
xxxx
Might as well get in ONE more, just for good measure, ’cause my old Daddy taught me to always deliver full measure , plus a little more, to any regular customer, in order to ensure good word of mouth and lots of repeat business.
You are the BEST customer I have, in terms of helping me get my arguments across about what the D’s need to do to WIN.
So here’s a few more apples for your basket!
xxxx
The slow drift in the Democratic Party was long in the making. It’s been many years since the Democratic Party decided to throw their lot in with the shiny world of corporate professionals, Wall Street financiers, and Silicon Valley gurus. We accepted the decline of unions as inevitable (it wasn’t), didn’t bother even trying to come up with an alternative source of worker power and embraced the new politics of money even as we talked out the other side of our mouths about oh how terrible all this flood of cash in politics is. If you just send in one more donation we’ll be able to get the money out! There was an incredibly revealing moment at the DNC. In an effort to rev up the crowd one of the speakers called out: “Who in this room works with their hands?” Silence. It was a lot more than one candidate who led us to this place.
xxxx
You want to play some more?
If I were willing to leave my old Daddy with a hired sitter,I could be out having a hell of a good time, it’s PARTY TIME tonight!
I might even get laid, there are some older women around who have indicated they are interested either in me or my farm, lol, I’m not sure which.
But Daddy doesn’t deal well anymore with people he hasn’t known for a LONG time, and I’m one of those ignorant deplorable types who thinks it’s cool to HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER , even though I am a fully committed Darwinist ( not the left wing definition of Darwinist, as equivalent to a slave trader, etc. )
I’m the sort of Darwinist who has actually read Darwin. I am beginning to think you haven’t read anything relating to politics that hasn’t passed muster with the Clinton team’s censors, other than my comments here in this forum.
You deny reading them, supposedly because they are too long ( indicating perhaps that you are either a slow reader, or have a rather limited attention span?) but you DO read them, as evidenced by the fact you keep on posting replies, lol.
“or have a rather limited attention span?”
OK, you got me. My head starts to nod when I read your posts.
“If you wish to continue discussing HRC, I’m ready.”
Bud, that ship has sailed. You need your next target.
He doesn’t even remember she won the popular vote, nor seems to care about the result. Keeps shooting the dead horse over and over.
I am damned surprised to read this comment, coming from you , GF.
She lost the fucking ELECTION, which is what actually MATTERS.
We can debate this forever, and so long as you and most other big D partisans insist on looking at it as being the fault of the opposition that Clinton lost, then there’s little prospect of the D party exhibiting brains enough NEXT time around to run a candidate with favorable poll numbers, a smidgen of charisma, a candidate without a dead fish stink reaching back to the earliest days, a candidate that bend the rules the rest of us are expected to follow into pretzels and then says it was merely for convenience she did so………. etc etc etc…….. a candidate who hardly even BOTHERED to talk a little working class talk, but STRUTTED the corporate elite walk, brazenly taking millions of dollars in in CHECKS made out to her name………
………… Oh that’s right, all that dead fish stink is a figment of right wingers imagination. Even if this happens to be the literal truth, the PERCEPTION of the same remained in the eyes of enough voters in enough places that Clinton lost.
And pardon me ever so much for saying so, but if you actually think I don’t CARE ABOUT THE RESULT, well, I am afraid you must have an intellectual blind spot comparable to that exhibited by HB.
You guys hang together in there , in your happy little lotus dream land, and shoot all the messengers who arrive with news or facts you would rather not deal with.
With friends like you, the D party doesn’t NEED any enemies.
Hmm, yelling and swearing, how pleasant.
No, I am not a Democrat but I don’t like people to be constantly crucified. To what purpose do you keep harping on about her? Is she bothering you personally?
Yes, it was the opposition that caused Hillary to lose, they kept pounding her with all kinds of allegations, got the FBI involved and ran her ragged. The same people that flaunt the Constitution on a regular basis. So it looks like 30 percent of the people don’t like the Constitution or the USA. They want it different, so they will get it different.
Sanders was a flop, so who else was there?
Keep on shooting at Hillary. The rest of us have moved on. We are now a neo-republican republic because about 29 percent of the voters voted for Trump. Trump is in, why not talk about him?
How about the Russian connection? How about the dismantling of health care? Lots of important things to talk about, rather than a personal vendetta against Clinton, who is no longer in the picture.
HuntingtonBeach frequently responds with insults and attacks to people that don’t think like he does. Surprisingly he seems to have a high concept of himself.
Just because there is variance in the data does not imply that the accepted science of climate and geophysics is wrong. Short term variations are interesting, local weather phenomenon like La Nina and El Nino are interesting, but not sources of energy or long term climate changing phenomenon.
What is apparent when deniers and contrarians present their alternative science, opinions and conclusions is a lack of understanding of basic physical phenomena.
The weakness in the case of climate change is the large number of variables involved and that weather is very variable by nature. This very variability can be used to the advantage of those who do not want to recognize that the planet is warming and that our actions were and are the initiator of that warming. Sadly as the temperature rises, the variability increases giving more opportunity to twist reality.
I have found horrendous errors of judgment in many of the contrarian scientific papers. It looks like science but it is not. One might accept them at the middle school and high school level, but once they are exposed by those at a higher level of knowledge, the conclusions and methods disintegrate.
One of the big errors of most scientists is they do not spend enough time examining and refuting those papers. Instead they spend most of their time trying to expand knowledge and make progress in understanding our world. Many scientists do lack a strong ability to communicate to the public, so they are at a disadvantage there also. They also do not like opinion or make claims not supported by evidence or the extrapolation of evidence.
Any real scientist realizes the error ranges and variations allow for other interpretations, but do not throw away the basic physical science behind natural phenomena. They do not throw out the baby with the bath water. To do so would mean most of what we have learned and done so far is wrong, and we know that is not true.
GoneFishing, you don’t seem to have a good understanding of the issue. Basic physics admits equally well a high climate sensitivity and a low climate sensitivity and our knowledge of the feedbacks involved is so poor that in some cases we don’t even know their sign.
Both catastrophic and moderate anthropogenic climate change are physically correct, and the evidence does not support the catastrophic interpretation.
Almost nobody doubts that the planet has warmed. The evidence is very solid. But the warming started around 1850, so our actions could hardly have initiated it. One of the main problems with catastrophic alarmists is their efforts to rewrite the climate history of the planet so to make it look like there has never been any warming not caused by GHGs. Having to rewrite history to support your cause is a pretty good indicator that you are wrong.
Your premise that global warming started in 1850 is wrong. According to ice cores it started about 20,000 years ago. There had been a long term global cooling trend prior to the 1800’s. Actual warming in the early 1800’s is compromised by large volcanic eruptions causing cooling then warming after the aerosols dispersed.
As far as human activity is concerned they had been eradicating forests for agriculture for a very long time, had been burning coal since the 1600’s and the industrial revolution was well on it’s way by 1850.
Research indicates a long term involvement of successive volcanic eruptions causing global cooling up to 1800.
Abstract
The oceans mediate the response of global climate to natural and anthropogenic forcings. Yet for the past 2,000 years — a key interval for understanding the present and future climate response to these forcings — global sea surface temperature changes and the underlying driving mechanisms are poorly constrained. Here we present a global synthesis of sea surface temperatures for the Common Era (ce) derived from 57 individual marine reconstructions that meet strict quality control criteria. We observe a cooling trend from 1 to 1800 ce that is robust against explicit tests for potential biases in the reconstructions. Between 801 and 1800 ce, the surface cooling trend is qualitatively consistent with an independent synthesis of terrestrial temperature reconstructions, and with a sea surface temperature composite derived from an ensemble of climate model simulations using best estimates of past external radiative forcings. Climate simulations using single and cumulative forcings suggest that the ocean surface cooling trend from 801 to 1800 ce is not primarily a response to orbital forcing but arises from a high frequency of explosive volcanism. Our results show that repeated clusters of volcanic eruptions can induce a net negative radiative forcing that results in a centennial and global scale cooling trend via a decline in mixed-layer oceanic heat content.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n9/full/ngeo2510.html
text of the paper
http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/23465/1/Ocean2k_LowResSSTpaper_45.pdf
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n9/full/ngeo2510.html
So you can see that the cooling trend was overcome by increasing GHG’s and that earlier warming had several components, including reduction of the volcanic aerosols and natural feedbacks related to them, as well as agricultural and forest reduction components.
One must understand all the factors involved in cooling and warming. Try it, it is illuminating.
But the warming started around 1850, so our actions could hardly have initiated it.
Oh yeah, the warming started in 1850 on March 14th at 2:15:38 PM… well, give or take a few seconds, their instruments weren’t very precise back then. So there is NO chance that anything humans did before 1850 had anything to do with changing the climate. And there is no such thing as a lag effect in any physical system. So when you put a kettle of water on the fire it goes poof, instant steam!
So even if you discount all the impacts of the 10,000 years or so of human agricultural development, on the environment and the climate, due to deforestation and burning of wood, you still have to accept that by the mid 1700’s coal was being burned and the industrial revolution was well on its way by 1850.
http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution
The steam engine was also integral to industrialization. In 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) developed the first practical steam engine (which was used primarily to pump water out of mines). By the 1770s, Scottish inventor James Watt (1736-1819) had improved on Newcomen’s work, and the steam engine went on to power machinery, locomotives and ships during the Industrial Revolution.
Furthermore science already understood the affects of burning cabon based fuels and the consequences of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere by the late 1800’s.
http://www.lenntech.com/greenhouse-effect/global-warming-history.htm#ixzz4UVzJGDJa
Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) was a Swedish scientist that was the first to claim in 1896 that fossil fuel combustion may eventually result in enhanced global warming. He proposed a relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature. He found that the average surface temperature of the earth is about 15C because of the infrared absorption capacity of water vapor and carbon dioxide. This is called the natural greenhouse effect. Arrhenius suggested a doubling of the CO2 concentration would lead to a 5C temperature rise. He and Thomas Chamberlin calculated that human activities could warm the earth by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This research was a by-product of research of whether carbon dioxide would explain the causes of the great Ice Ages. This was not actually verified until 1987.
The industrial revolution initially only affected a small percentage of the surface of the planet, and only a small population. It was not until after the second world war when most of the world industrialized. Prior to the Little Ice Age the general temperature trend of the Neoglacial period for the last 5000 years was downwards, despite rising GHGs.
Present global warming started around 1850 and was driven mainly by natural factors.
You can argue about the facts as much as you want, but they are stubborn.
The American West appears to be in a long term drought. flows of the Colorado river have been on the descent for over one hundred years. The variability and range of the flows also appears to be increasing. Climate change is pushing the trend toward lower flows. This would not normally be a major problem, as migration could occur away from severe drought areas. In modern times the very large populations in the deserts as well as the large agriculture/industrial use of water is quickly compounding the problem. The Colorado reservoir system holds about 4 times the annual flow of the river, yet it too has been stressed lately, reducing reservoirs to the point of being below the output pipe.
Upper Colorado River Basin
Flows and Paleohydrology
“Conclusions
The observed streamflow record at Lees Ferry provides over one hundred years of data
indicating a trend of decreasing annual flow from the Upper Colorado River Basin. However, this
dataset is not long enough to encompass the full range of variability in the system. A number of
tree-ring streamflow reconstructions have been able to extend the flow record as far back as
800 C.E. These models not only confirm that the 20th century was a particularly wet period, but
that past droughts in the 16th and 12th centuries have been much more severe and longer
lasting than in the observed streamflow record. Furthermore, general climate projections for the
southwest indicate warmer temperatures and drier conditions, with severe drought conditions
likely for the late 21st century.
In a watershed that is over allocated due to negotiations for the 1922 Colorado Compact based
on a wet period, with growing water demands for an increasing population as well as
management for conservation of freshwater ecosystems in the region, water resource managers
are faced with the challenges of balancing these competing water needs in a future that will
likely have scarcer water resources.”
https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/education/classes/files/content/page/JennyTa_paleohydrology_031115.pdf
Hi GF,
There’s certainly a NON ZERO chance that the current trend toward a much more arid climate in the Southwest will reverse itself, and wetter conditions will return. Do you detect a bit of sarcasm in this statement? It’s intended to be there.
BUT the odds DO appear to be pretty good that the current drought will last quite a long time, with maybe a few minor wet spells along the way. The tone of THIS second sentence can be taken as sarcastic, but it’s intended to be read literally, and by pretty good,I mean two or maybe three to one, simply going on past indications.
( This comment is directed at the forum rather than just GF, past this point. )
It’s hard to imagine how those of us who do obviously know some real science can look at the many ominous trends involving the climate, and the obvious depletion of Mother Nature’s one time gift of fossil fuels, and never mention whether they believe in the precautionary principle, as a matter of their general philosophical beliefs , and if so, why they apparently believe we can safely ignore this same precautionary principle in respect to climate troubles and fossil fuel troubles.
I’m not a physician, but I know enough to know that a potential or actual health problem caught in time can often – most of the time, actually- be successfully treated, and at an affordable cost.
I AM a good mechanic, and can say with assurance that if you see green or yellow or orange liquids , which are invariably leaking coolant, or oil , on the ground under your car, you had best look into the problem IMMEDIATELY, because fixing a leak is cheap, whereas new engines and transmissions are VERY expensive.
Anybody who appreciates the day to day realities of environmental science, or public health, or personal finances, or any number of other subjects, knows that there are MANY problems that start small and can easily be ignored or overlooked altogether until it’s just plain flat TOO LATE to do anything but cry about the consequences.
I cried at the funeral of a very close friend of forty years a while back. He was a brilliant man, in many respects, but he chose to ignore what he knew to be true about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, and regularly indulged in both. The cancer that killed him is about three or four times as common among men who both smoke and drink as it is among non drinking non smoking men. It was detected too late to do more than extend his life a few months. If he had had a BETTER physician, it would have been detected MUCH sooner, because the signs were obvious, but the proper PRECAUTIONARY tests were not ordered.
LIFE ITSELF is a VERY messy business. ALMOST all of us, meaning everything alive, possibly excepting a few deep earth microbes that live on minerals and may not actually have any predators, spend just about all our energy trying to eat some other living creature, or avoiding being eaten , with whatever is left over devoted to reproduction.
Rats and mice don’t give a shit if there is any corn in my crib for ME, but they do shit in and on whatever they can’t eat themselves.
Step back far enough, and it’s obvious that all our human social institutions are also MESSY indeed, with those who are trying to game any given institution, agency, organization, etc being very numerous, meaning these same organizations, etc, spend a huge portion of their resources not on their primary goals, but simply on defending themselves and ensuring their own continued existence.
My point is that huge quantities of resources that are are in the considered opinion of SOME people going entirely to waste are in the opinions of OTHERS being used very wisely indeed.
Personally I have near zero interest in professional sports, but since I played a little baseball as a kid, I will watch a World Series game if invited over to a friends house and the game is on. But I consider it a near total waste of public resources to spend tax money subsidizing baseball or any other sport. The guys who build the stadiums will heartily disagree of course, as will the fans who pay rip off prices for tickets, but those same construction workers COULD be build something useful to EVERYBODY , rather than just the people who have skin in the business of the GAME and those watch the game.
Bitching about this use of tax money is not my object. I am simply trying to point out that nearly anything we do is done with a great part of the energy and effort being wasted, and with some of us winning, and some losing, depending on what is built , or what policy is implemented, etc.
Whatever we do to goose the growth of the renewable energy industries and slow down the rate at which we use fossil fuels will obviously mean people who work in the conventional energy industries will suffer some harm.
But if we FAIL to speed up the growth of the renewable energy industries, and slow down the consumption of fossil fuels, NOW, well………… by the time collectively realize we have a fossil fuel depletion cancer gnawing at the guts of the industrial economy, it may be too late to do anything about it.
The same argument applies to the climate issue, of course, but I’m working on refining and polishing arguments in favor of renewables, etc, that are likely to be favorably received by the typical man and woman on the street.
Any comments are much appreciated, especially those that point out ways I can make such arguments more effectively, or that point out anything I have overlooked.
Tipping a few tonight Old Farmer? As far as the drought goes, I will go with the science and scientists that the drought will get deeper over time. Of course there will be wet times, but the long downtrend is visible as are the burning forests .
There is a possibility that renewables will become lock-stepped to the reduction in fossil fuel production. As fossil fuel depletes or is phased out, renewables will grow. This could cause a very long fossil fuel tail.
Some countries will phase out early while others stay with fossil fuel for as long as possible. Short of a trade restriction on fossil fuels and fossil fueled transport, the industry will keep going for a long time. It won’t make sense, but it is the trend now and in the near past.
Free thought pretzels for everyone.
Imagine the USA (trump) wants to “take” the oil from some unlucky country.
Without a state owned oil company it would be difficult.
The govt could seize the assets of Exxon mobile.
Who would u want in ur cabinet if that was the plan?
Carl Icahn? Legendary corporate raider. Rex tillerson? Former Exxon ceo. General James Matt is who published a paper predicting peak oil.
Let’s not forget trump had said he will take iraqs oil and a Russian carrier group is in the Mediterranean Sea attempting to protect something.
Curious pattern.
Does it really matter ? It’s not like Trump has an Email Server in his bathroom or something.
Oh, we’re going to war. I mean escalate our current status of war. Just wait until someone bombs a Trump hotel. Then he’ll pick which countries oil he wants.
It’s time to start praying to the Baby Jesus
People with working brains who have tried praying generally like it, finding the effects of it on their minds to be very similar to the effects of meditation. As it is practiced in the church the observant members of my family attends, it’s organized around opening ones mind up to any and all courses of behavior that are consistent with the basic teachings of this particular church.
Maybe it’s just an extraordinarily unlikely cosmic accident, but these people are actually doing quite well for themselves, all things considered. They live longer than average, they have far fewer health problems associated with bad habits such as tobacco and alcohol, and they are extremely good at making a go of living well on modest amounts of money.
The large majority of them own houses by the time they are in their thirties that are nicer, more spacious, with larger lawns, garages, etc, than people in not so far distant Northern Virginia own , even though folks up that way are earn WAY WAY more than local folks, on average. Damned few of them rent long term, but a hell of a lot of them are long term landlords. Tons of successful people up DC way have zero equity in a home of their own, even when middle aged.
Folks who actually know a little, first hand, about religion know this:
Prayer changes people, and people change things.
The pastor of “my ” church, although I seldom ever attend a service, goes out of his way to encourage young people to attend any and every local college or university, no matter their intended major, including biology and medicine, and we all know all about those heretics who believe in evolution, right?
I have never personally heard of any local preacher saying climate science is fraudulent, or that there were never any dinosaurs, or that the world is only six thousand years old, or any of the claptrap that is leveled indiscriminately at all religious people, rather than the few who take it seriously.
The Seven Days of Creation story is taught as a parable, although if put on the spot, and forced to say one either believes it, or does not, group solidarity rules, and belief will be the answer.
As a matter of fact, a good many preachers, maybe most of them, are quite fond of quoting scientists, INCLUDING climate scientists, as further proof of the various prophecies of the world going to hell in a hand basket.
This comment is not so much to DEFEND religion as to point out that those who heap scorn on it are making a BIG mistake, in more ways than one.
For one thing, they are spreading misinformation about what most religious folks are really like these days, in terms of their day to day thinking, painting the community as equivalent to the most backward members of it.
Second, they could hardly do any thing more certain to ensure that observant Christians ( there are not a hell of a lot of adherents of other religions in this country, at least not yet ) are already irritated at best, and quite often seriously PISSED OFF, when the time comes to decide what their position will be in respect to any policy advocated by the D party, because most all of the folks who go around bad mouthing observant Christians are well educated liberal big D Democrats, by their own admission.
I do not wish to debate whether it is time to move on to a secular society. There are some very successful European societies that have made the transition, and I personally don’t take the dogma at all seriously. I do try to live according to the philosophy, in terms of doing unto others, etc.
Here is a VERY important observation, one that deserves real thought. I forget who said it first.
When people cease to believe in GOD, they do not henceforth believe in NOTHING.
Folks from other walks of life sometimes express this same concept by way of saying that nature abhors a vacuum.
It behooves us to think hard about what we wish for, because we may get it, and IT may not turn out to be what we expected and wished for.
Now here’s my last joke for the year.
This crabby old lady is sorting thru her junk, and tries to rub the tarnish off an old silver flask. Out comes the genie, and of course she gets the traditional three wishes.
So she thinks about it, and wishes to be young and beautiful again, and BAM, she is better looking that any starlet, and perpetually twenty years old. She wishes some more, and gets herself an isolated tropical island with every thing on it she ever wanted, and bam again, she’s THERE.
So she thinks some more , and tells the genie to fetch her old tomcat, because he is the ONLY creature in the world that loves her, and turn him into a handsome young man who will spend eternity with her on her island, just the two of them.
BAM, he’s there, but he folds his arms, and says I guess now you’re sorry you took me to the vet.
Happy new year everybody. You too , H B.
If you ever run into a genie that will grant you 3 wishes, make sure that your first wish is for an unlimited number of wishes.
The genies’s union back in the beginning got a clause inserted in the general agreement that this one particular wish is not allowed. It still stands. 😉
“but these people are actually doing quite well for themselves, all things considered. They live longer than average, they have far fewer health problems associated with bad habits such as tobacco and alcohol, and they are extremely good at making a go of living well on modest amounts of money.”
Who are you kidding ? Remember, I told you I had summer lake property in South Carolina. Just south of Smoky Mountains National Park. You know, where there is a cemetery and a baptist church at every cross road. Did you know the South has the highest obesity rates in the country and a Buick Road Master is a new car. And by the way, how does “living well on modest amounts of money” fit into your BS about the election being all about “jobs, there’s no jobs” ? Besides Walmart is always hiring.
I am honored by your special call out “You too , H B”. Well, you want to know the truth, your special to me too Mac.
Here’s another one, ” People with working brains “. What does that mean ? Why bother to write that ? I guess your creative juices were flowing of something.
Happy New Years from Smoke’n California Mac (where table dancing is required)
Obviously you have a hard time with nuance.
There are plenty of stupid people who pray, and a lot who are not necessarily stupid but do so as a matter of routine, without seriously getting into it, and thus don’t get the benefits, just as you won’t get the benefits of reading an involved novel with your attention mostly elsewhere. Achieving effective prayer is very much like achieving effective meditation, you have to put some effort and ritual into it, as a rule.
The stupid people still benefit, often to a very great extent, because it reinforces their committment to following all those stupid religious rules, such as honoring one’s parents, not committing adultery, not stealing, practicing charity, being kind to strangers, not eating foods that will potentially kill you ( that one’s now pretty much obsolete in well developed countries with food inspections ). You know, the same old rules, you anti religious types enjoy making fun off, by way of making fun of religion.
Not sleeping around, which does after all have quite a lot to do with preventing broken families, and preventing the spread of STD’s.
Living within your means , and setting aside something on a regular basis for tough times. Contributing back to the community, paying your taxes, refraining from murder, etc.
Now YOU may think I ‘m kidding, but anybody who actually knows and lives among folks who take their religion SERIOUSLY knows I am dead on the money, in respect to those who really do take the teachings of the Christian church seriously.
The original founding documents are prominently displayed on the wall in the church on the hilltop adjacent to our family farm , where most of the last three generations of my grand parents are buried. Those documents prohibit members from indulging in alcohol and tobacco, and while there are obviously quite a few members today who use both, the percentage is much less than in the overall population.
A discussion of the reasons we mostly make less money in this area than people who live up north will take quite a while, from my side, because I do believe in depth and nuance, whereas you are into sound bites.
Sure there are obese people who are serious Christians. But the ones who are really serious are far more apt to be eating at home rather than at KFC, for various reasons, sometimes including lack of a large discretionary income of course. If I see two random busloads of old folks get out at a large restaurant, I can usually pick the one from a Baptist church reliably on the basis of smaller waistlines. Smaller waistlines are well correlated with healthier life styles, and the church promotes a healthy lifestyle.
I live in the heart of a community that is far more observant than the average, even in the south, and my personal estimate is that even here, no more than maybe a quarter of the people are TRULY observant. Maybe half to two thirds observe most of the rules, most of the time.
Half of my local acquaintances never set foot in a church, except for funerals and weddings.
This does not mean however that it doesn’t really piss them off when somebody attacks the south and the traditional culture and values of the local people, and predispose them to vote AGAINST candidates such as HRC.
I don’t think you will EVER get it, because you don’t WANT to get it, but the nut of everything I have been talking about politically that has touched on HRC to any extent for the last year or two is about the D party WINNING elections, rather than losing them.
IF you WANT somebody to be your friend, if you WANT something from people, it behooves you to say as little as possible if you can’t say something nice about them.
Folks like you appear to be incapable of understanding this ever so simple concept, for some reason.
Now it may occur to some readers, but not to you, or you would have accused me of hypocrisy already, that I am constantly violating the very rules I am encouraging D’s to observe, by pointing out errors in Christian dogma, etc.
Why?
The portion of the audience here that consists of serious Christians is minuscule to non existent, whereas the remainder is my target audience, in respect to coaching them on how to win over middle of the road and conservative voters.
So in this forum, there is nothing to lose, but potentially a lot to be gained, in terms of my modest little educational campaign.
There are some things I really don’t like about the overall D party as it exists today, and the people it is nowadays beholden to, but it is still incontestably true that the D’s are decades ahead of the R’s on environmental issues, which (unfortunate word!) trump all other issues combined, in my estimation.
This link is to a current article in the Scientific American.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail/
It behooves you, and everybody else who habitually makes fun of religious people to read it, and think hard about it.
IF you want to win elections.
Why are we trying to convince people anyway? Of what, that the Republicans have the answer or that climate change is caused by them? To what purpose?
Find common ground and build relationships from there.
As far as climate change and other footprint problems go, you don’t have to mention it, since economics will do the job and motivate that person to change their ways. I have convinced neighbors to insulate their homes using calculations that show how much money (or work in the case of firewood) they save.
Let the money do the talking now. Only the richest will really ignore the idea that they save money.
Some time ago I showed on this blog that putting PV on the roof not only saved money but there was no real loss at all to be recouped.
If it’s not practical and economically advantageous, only the already convinced and altruistic will do it anyway.
Hi GF,
I am generally with you all the way, and specifically working to convince people that you are right when you say this sort of thing.
“Find common ground and build relationships from there.”
This ought to be engraved in stone over academic and political doors.
“As far as climate change and other footprint problems go, you don’t have to mention it, since economics will do the job and motivate that person to change their ways. I have convinced neighbors to insulate their homes using calculations that show how much money (or work in the case of firewood) they save.”
But in this case, I fear you are a little too complacent, and that we need to do whatever we can to speed up the switch to renewables.
If we don’t move FAST ENOUGH, a successful transition may prove to be impossible.
I ‘m not at all comfortable placing all my bets on the Invisible Hand in this case.
The HAND has awesome trans-formative powers, no doubt about it, but the Hand will not necessarily giterdone fast enough.
So while I believe in the INVISIBLE HAND, I also believe in offering it all the reasonable assistance we can.
I agree that if we don’t move fast enough the transistion won’t be possible, at least without a lot of pain.
However I live in an area where most people have other things on their minds and could care less about climate change. But when I tell them how to save lots of money on heating and cooling their homes they perk up and listen, some even doing something about it. When we talk cars and I show them my SUV that gets 35 mpg on the highway and still has lots of cargo capacity, I get their attention. The thoughts get planted without sermonizing and arguing.
Lead by example, but don’t shove it down their throat. Let them have time to make it their own.
We have governments at the state level that are assisting the energy transistion. Up till now the federal government has been doing some things for energy transistion and efficiency. I think that is changing at the federal level.
As other states see how the transistion model is advantageous, they will come around, despite the negative propaganda stream.
I am not complacent, but I found that those people with strong opposing feelings or opinions about climate change and other predicaments are most easily approached and convinced by economic factors. The end result is the same. So why worry what they believe as long as the actions change?
What you want is to have everybody compliant and not defiant. You want to silence the opposition. You want it your way.
Good luck doing that. This isn’t Burger King, you don’t get it your way. Climate change deniers are going to remain climate change deniers, you are not going to convince them, it will be considered brainwashing by them. They don’t believe in climate change, they won’t listen. They’re stubborn ignoramuses, to be brutally frank. You can talk until you are blue in the face, they will look at you like you are stupid. You’re wrong, they’re right. End of story.
It is easy to see that anthropogenic causes are going to influence the climate, cause change, all of those emissions from coal and oil do pollute the air and other things, like land and water.
Runoff from ag land that is filled with pesticides does ruin the water in reservoirs for water supplies.
Fill a large building with about forty diesel engines, close all doors and vents, fire up the engines and observe what happens to the inside air of the building. There will be some changes in air quality. It is a simplified example, but you get the picture.
What is more distressing is nobody listens. Just don’t believe in climate change at all, and you’ll never convince them that is does happen.
Humans and their activities are going to cause atmospheric changes and different whether patterns, weather anybody accepts them or not. har
Today’s recommendation: mocco cakes.
RW said “What you want is to have everybody compliant and not defiant. You want to silence the opposition. You want it your way.
Good luck doing that. This isn’t Burger King, you don’t get it your way. ”
My way? RW, if I ever actually stated my way, you would quiver in terror. I just try to accept reality and hope for stepwise moderate change. If you did read my post you would understand the change does not depend on climate change beliefs but on economics. So even a thickhead can change.
Sure there will be some old curmudgeonly diehards who hold out no matter what, but they will be overridden soon by the younger generation. Even in backward America, the young generation is 58 percent for energy transistion.
But have it your way, it just will not match reality.
I can’t agree with your moca cakes either, no chocolate in them. So hardy har har and happy new year.
(I did like the play on words and the understatement about the diesel engine experiment).
Backatcha one more time, GF
What you are saying and doing is pretty much exactly what I have been advocating, and doing all along, personally, in working with people who are opposed to or suspicious of large D Democrats and liberal social policies.
It works, we both know this approach works.
But we still need the PUSH that comes from goosing efficiency standards, actively promoting renewable energy via subsidies, etc.
I don’t go around preaching runaway climate doom and gloom at all, when I am talking to individuals, or when I post in conservative forums. I do basically the same things as you are advocating, and I have been doing them for a LONG time.
If you go back to the old TOD archives, I believe you will find I was the first person there to post links to the military white papers advocating renewable energy, warning of peak oil, etc, known as the JOE reports.
It didn’t take me long at all to figure out once I learned about these JOE’s that they were excellent tools for use in converting hard core conservatives into renewable energy advocates.
I had one friend, now deceased, who once he fully digested the concept and the fact ( eventual) of peak oil advocated holding back on domestic production, to the extent possible, and burning everybody elses’ oil, and and not only that, but buying in on credit, on the assumption that when the hot resource wars arrived, we could honorably repudiate debts owed to enemy countries, lol.
Backatcha HB,
I forgot to mention that it’s pretty much accepted common wisdom that the two most successful liberal big D Democrats of recent times, namely Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have occasionally indulged.
And although I doubt Hillary is capable of loosening up enough these days to enjoy it, she did say she would work for legalization, if I remember correctly.
I’m personally too old to even climb up on a table, without risking a broken leg, but if the younger women are so inclined, I ‘m still interested in watching. 😉
And while I doubt you will take me up on this suggestion , you would broaden your intellectual horizons substantially by reading some Greek tragedies.
Paraphrased, they had a gem of a saying, which goes about like this.
He ( or she) whom the Gods would destroy, first they raise high.
That in a nutshell is the story of HRC.
“He ( or she) whom the Gods would destroy, first they raise high.”
So the Gods chose Trump? God bless America.
The ” Gods” may or may not have it in for Trump.
The tragedies are all about rising to great heights, and the crashing, and the principal characters usually bring the crash on themselves, by way of irritating the Gods.
Then he will do just fine, since the Gods seem to have a very sick sense of humor.
I have several articles on energy generation economics, but I don’t want to post them here because they will get buried in this mass of climate comments.
They aren’t specifically petroleum related, so I don’t know that they fit in the Texas update post.
Is there any chance that this forum can divide the non-petroleum posts into at least two separate posts: energy economics and climate?
Surely there are other readers like me who would prefer to skip over all the climate discussions, but do want to talk about the future of energy — petroleum and otherwise.
Consider posting them first or very early in the next non petroleum thread. They won’t get buried immediately.
That’s what I plan to do, but there hasn’t been a new non petroleum thread for more than a week.
If these non-petroleum threads are now primarily climate discussions, perhaps we can have some other options as well.
Hi Boomer.
This is, of course, the best argument for not responding to Javier’s comments: not only does it make the blog about climate denial all the time, it makes it not about anything else.
I do believe that, like the runs, Javier will pass (oops-that’s a mixed metaphor, but I like the double-poop reference, so I’m gonna leave it in.) I don’t know why he decided to plague us for the past two weeks, but I doubt he can keep it up forever.
How long not forever is, though, is hard to say. Maybe he goes back to work on the third.
We won’t know the point at which we hit peak Javier until after the fact.
-Lloyd
I don’t bother to read Javier’s posts, nor do I read the responses to his posts.
I’m just not interested in those climate debates. I accept the science, but I also believe the fastest way to reduce carbon is by changing the way we generate and consume energy. Those are the topics I want to explore.
I realize there are other places on the Internet to get that info and to discuss it. But I have liked the petroleum discussions here, so I’d like to continue to discuss the future of fossil fuels and the alternatives here.
Yair
Seeing as “Here in Halifax” doesn’t post any more is there anyone who knows about LED lighting? . . . I am not a happy camper.
Cheers.
Hi Scrub,
Happy New Year!
All I can say for sure is that they run cool and seem to last just about forever and save a hell of a lot of kilowatt hours for you.
I don’t know about the prices of them in the Australian boonies, but here you can get good name brand bulbs at big box stores for as little as two to three dollars apiece, by buying six at a time.
I am down to about four old CFL’s which refuse to die. When they do, the LED replacements are on hand.
LED’s are world class bargains for people who are on the grid. Sorry I don’t know about what they cost when you buy the ones made to run on different dc voltages.
The truckers are replacing all the lights except headlights on their trucks with led’s. They outlast the old conventional bulbs by a factor of at least five on trucks meaning less maintenance and less chance of getting an “improper equipment ” ticket aka court summons in an encounter with a cop whose wife has him sleeping on the sofa, lol.
Post a specific question in the next thread and see what happens.
NAOM
Surely there are other readers like me who would prefer to skip over all the climate discussions, but do want to talk about the future of energy — petroleum and otherwise.
Hey Boomer, I would gladly move on to other topics so as soon as we get a new thread please post what you have! Hopefully the trolls will not be interetsed.
BTW I just read:
Google has announced its entire global business will be powered by renewable energy in 2017
I’d still like to wait for a new post. There are so many comments here that it is hard to find new info.
It’s just some numbers about non-fossil fuel use and also reasons why nuclear won’t be a solution.
Here’s my last question for the year, for anybody quick with a calculator, and skilled at finding the numbers needed.
How much would it cool the upper layer of the waters of the world ocean if all the floating and grounded ice were to break loose and float out into open warm waters and melt?
The calculation itself is simple enough, but I haven’t run across an estimate of the total mass all the ice that is either floating or grounded below sea level and thus could float, if it breaks away.
It takes so many calories or joules or whatever unit is handy, to melt a kilo of ice, times the estimated number of kilos. A kilo of water must be chilled so many degrees to yield up that much heat. Then we need the total area of all the oceans, and then we decide what is meant by upper layers. There seems to be some consensus that this means the top seven hundred ( ?) meters or so.
I can’t trust my dyslexic old eyes anymore when dealing with strings of digits.
And besides, I’m feeling too lazy to hunt up the needed data, but I’m betting somebody like Fred or Doug can come up with the answer in about sixty seconds, lol.
The calculation itself is simple enough, but I haven’t run across an estimate of the total mass all the ice that is either floating or grounded below sea level and thus could float, if it breaks away.
Perhaps not quite so simple…
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/estimating-glacier-contribution-to-sea-level-rise/
Found this nice table on a climate denier’s site and I did not double check the sources but I have no reason to think that they are wrong even if I disagree with his main conclusions about what is causing climate change. Perhaps they are a bit outdated.Though I guess for a rough back of the envelope calculation they might suffice.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html
Totals in cubic kilometers
Global Floating ice 620,000 Km^3
Global Grounded ice 29,340,000 km^3
Global Total ice 29,960,000 Km^3
Feeling too lazy to dig much further today 😉
Thanks Doug,
Thirty million cubic kilometers is good enough for conversational purposes. This is to be used only to illustrate that the world ocean is a super colossal heat sink, and that is the primary reason, so far as I can tell from extensive reading that the climate is not warming even faster, with the excess heat going into the sea.
Thanks for the links. They will go into my files.
If one were to want a real world answer, I realize dozens of pesky hard to measure and maybe even impossible to recognize or predict variables and feed backs would come into play, etc.
I can take it from here in a couple of minutes, if I can find my calculator. All I need now is to look up the phase change energy, which I once knew by heart fifty years ago, when I was a student, lol. And probably a new battery for the calculator.
I am going to have to hunt up a kid to straighten out my computer, because the TEN upgrade did not go all too well, and I am a world class computer klutz, and can’t get it right myself.
Email and internet works ok, but most everything else seems to be relocated under new names and new menus, and hidden with malice aforethought, so as to remind me I am an old fart, and about ready for the recycle bin.
Actually I don’t even need the calculator. I can still use scientific notation, which is fortunate, because I can’t read long strings of digits accurately, due to dyslexia.
Being an old fart certainly beats being dead, lol.
It was really sad in the recent past when the extraneous posts obliterated the oily ones. We have improved, thanks to the new system.
Yes, it has been helpful for the climate and political discussions to mostly end up in their own posts.
And I normally just skip over the non-petroleum posts entirely.
But with Trump coming into office, I want to discuss the economics of energy since I think many of them run counter to what he has said he wants to do. The question will be whether the economics will influence him or whether the push will be for more fossil fuels, even if increased FF turn out not to be a good economic, military, or, of course, environmental strategy.
My prediction. A cold January will bring on a critical natural gas situation in some locations. Trump will want to micro-manage. He will first push the “drill baby drill” mantra then find someone (Obama?) to blame.
Residential and commercial use of natural gas is running about the same as other years in December . Last year was exceptionally warm. Storage levels are still within the normal range. Residential/Commercial use is up less than 16.4 BCF/D compared to a total rise of 24.4 BCF/D, yoy. But R/C is still within normal demand range.
The increases over the years are in the electric power and industrial sectors.
Shale gas production is near an all time high. If we have trouble getting through a winter now, heaven help us in the future. I do notice that active rigs are low in number.
http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/weekly/#tabs-supply-2
Yearly natural gas consumption. I believe that the changes before and after 1980 were at least partially due to price controls and their removal. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9140us2A.htm
The global temperature record shows a cooling trend from 500 AD to about 1900 AD where a very fast rise in temperature goes above the 500 AD to 1000 AD period by about 0.7 C. The drop seems to have initiated around 1400 AD and gone into the 1800’s.
The National Academy of Sciences and a lot of the main groups reconstructing temperatures over the past millennium disagree with what you say. The cooling trend did not extend to 1900. Global warming started about 1650, but due to the very cold relapse of about 1815 and a second one about 1840, the Little Ice Age did not end until about 1850, when global warming started to accelerate with little to no anthropogenic contribution. The need to rewrite climate history is a very bad sign.
“Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions yield a generally consistent picture of temperature trends during the preceding millennium, including relatively warm conditions centered around A.D. 1000 (identified by some as the “Medieval Warm Period”) and a relatively cold period (or “Little Ice Age”) centered around 1700. The existence of a Little Ice Age from roughly 1500 to 1850 is supported by a wide variety of evidence including ice cores, tree rings, borehole temperatures, glacier length records, and historical documents.”
Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (2006)
The National Academy of Sciences.
https://www.nap.edu/read/11676/chapter/2#2
That’s OK, they can disagree with NASA and NOAA all they want. The blue line on that graph of yours looks like it was hand drawn in, certainly does not run the average. Glacier lengths????
GoneFisher,
??? Why should the National Academy of Sciences have to disagree with NASA and NOAA?
Don’t you know the attribution of the graph you posted? That’s from Mann et al., 2008. It is not only the National Academy of Sciences that disagrees with that article. It has been demonstrated that the famous hockey-stick is fake. The IPCC has even retired any mention of that paper from the Fifth Assessment Report, after having used that figure prominently in the previous one.
Too bad you rely on fake science that neither IPCC nor the National Academy of Sciences approve.
Javy, NASA is using that graph, adapted from Mann et al 2008, so I assume they agree with it. The so called hockey stick was never disproven, only climate deniers make up that crap.
Probably an old page that hasn’t been updated in years. that means nothing.
The hockey stick has been thoroughly debunked and is an example of fraudulent science. Michael Mann is discredited.
Based upon a relatively-cursory scan of the Wikipedia entry, Hockey Stick Controversy, that’s not the sense I’m getting….
Quotes of note from said article:
On the irregular occasions when I decide to investigate or ‘peer-review’ some aspects of your comments, Javier, they always seem to somehow fall apart.
Chart of the Day:
NSIDC monthly ice extent charts have been posted already.
This is relevant to our discussion of albedo, albedo feedbacks, and global warming.
The fact that Northern Hemisphere ice continues to decline in December is an important symptom of the Arctic amplification of global warming, but it does not contribute directly to albedo feedback because the ice is almost entirely dark – no reflection of sunlight as the sun does not shine in the winter at the poles.
The Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, has seen a plunge in sea ice at summer solstice – the maximum in solar insolation. To be clear, the experts attribute this almost entirely to changes in wind direction and strength, not warming.
But now we have a fine natural experiment. What effect will changing the albedo of 2 million square km of ice – reflecting 90% of sunlight – into open water reflecting only 5% ???
There are potential feedbacks here. Polar waters can be stratified by salinity rather than temperature (as is most common outside the poles). Solar energy can penetrate deeply into the clear water, but cannot escape through convection, being trapped by the salinity gradient. This reminds me of the solar ponds which were a brief fad a few decades ago before PV became so inexpensive. Cold fresh water at the surface traps warm salty water below, allowing solar heat to build up at depth.
This warm salty water is perfect for melting the base of ice shelves and grounded marine ice sheets like Pine Island, Thwaites, and Totten. More fresh water from this melting ice reinforces the salinity gradient… you get the picture.
Would help a lot to actually post the chart…
Happy New Year everyone!
I was waiting for a new top post to post the following but, this seems as good a point as any to interject.
I’ve been giving some thought to gloabal warming denial and why it is able to persist and a couple things have occured to me. I think one the reasons many here are frustrated by the persistent denialists is that, having studied the idea of Peak Oil for a while, we are well aquainted with a couple of concepts.
One is the concept of hysteresis, the lagging of reactions to events, oil price goes up, oil production is very rarely able to respond quickly in a very significant way. Oil price goes down and you have a fair amount of people who spent significant amunts of money expanding their capacity produce who are unwilling and maybe even unable to just turn the taps off and wait for better prices so, it takes a while for oil production to decline.
Another concept we understand is that of inevitability. One day global oil production will peak. Oil is a finite resource that took millions of years to “create” and the human race has gotten very good at finding, extracting and burning oil. There are signals aplenty that the best years of oil production are behind us so when people say “Those doomers have been prediciting Peak Oil since Hubbert in 56 and they’ve been wrong every time” they remind me of little kids on a long road trip who keep asking “are we there yet?”. Not to worry. As long as we keep heading down the road, we’re gonna get there.
A personal example of hysteresis that gives me cause for concern about global warming is the concrete roof of the apartment I live in. The concrete is about six inches thick and has poor thermal conductivity but, a fairly high thermal mass so on a cloud free summer evening the temperature of the lower surface of my roof continues to rise hours after the sun has gone down. Similarly when the morning sun atarts heating the upper surface of the roof, it takes a while for the temperature to go up on the lower surface. At one point I was logging the temperature of the ceiling so, I know this.
As a result, I find the idea that, the temperature increases being observed all over the globe are not caused by the significant increases in CO2 concentration to be preposterous. My elementary reasoning goes like this. Temperatures are going up. Hmm! What else is going up that could probably cause it? CO2? Bingo!
There is something that has IMO prevented the temperature increases from being worse that, frankly scares the shit out of me when I think about it and it is related to the comment which this reply followws. Ice. Everybody knows that if you have a pot of water with lots of ice in it, that water is going to be around 0°C even if there is a heat source trying to warm the pot. What will happen is that all that heat energy will go into melting the ice until all the ice is gone. Once the ice is gone, then the temperature of the water in the pot can start to rise in earnest. For that reason, I see melting of the ice in the arctic as an ominous sign. Any day we observe an ice free arctic ocean, we are going to be in really uncharterd waters!
When I add hysteresis to these thoughts, it gets really depressing because even if we cut global carbon emissions to zero today, the suggestion is that there is enough CO2 up there to continue the warming trend for decades, if not centuries. I fear that we are like a little kid who likes pushing buttons to see what they do. The problem is the response to the climate buttons takes a while to happen and while it is slowly happening the deniers are busy saying it wasn’t our pressing of the CO2 button that did it. When it becomes clear that we did press a button we shouldn’t have pressed, it will likely be too late to do much about it.
So what am I to do? Hope with all my being that Tony Seba’s projections are right and that renewables and EVs disrupt fossil fuel burners in short order. I also have to hope that some yet to be obsreved natural phenomenon kicks in and starts sequestering C02 at a rate that will help to keep the current mass extinction from turning out really badly.
“Any day we observe an ice free arctic ocean, we are going to be in really unchartered waters!”
Thank you. Great line and that is exactly the point. The little kid analogy is spot on too. Our only home, mother earth is experiencing changes by the likes of man that are unprecedented. There’s no do overs. Humans need to do everything that is reasonable to minimize our impact.
Happy New Years Islandboy
There are plenty of unprecedented changes in the pipeline…
I have been compiling a very long list of topics that I feel are not very generally on most people’s radars. I will be writing articles and posting on an international corporate and business blog next year.
I’m sorry to say that unless things change drastically, I think the current US administration by pushing its backward thinking fossil fuel agenda is going to be left in the dust, at least for now, in the energy sphere.
I do think there are still some very bright spots where the US is the defacto world leader.
I’ll post just two topics here for discussion now.
Prof. George Church – The Augmented Human Being
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSVIKC4R2Zo
Artificial Intelligence: Blurring the Lines Between Humans and Machines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko5rvfiK5vM
Donald Trump’s Trade Policies: Blessing Or Curse?
“Targeting bilateral trade balances is a fool’s errand. There are perfectly good reasons why we run trade surpluses with some countries and deficits with others, driven by supply chains, comparative advantage and other perfectly normal factors”
“We hear a lot about America’s trade deficits, both at the aggregate level and for individual countries like China, Mexico and Japan. But it’s an important, and usually overlooked point, that countries don’t trade, only people and businesses trade. And every international transaction by definition has a satisfied buyer and a satisfied seller, and those engaged in those mutually beneficial trades aren’t countries, but individuals and corporations. As we explain in the first week of an economics class, trade is always win-win, and the fact that there is a trade deficit from an accounting standpoint at the national level when imports exceed exports in no way changes the fact that what we call a trade deficit reflects hundreds of thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges over a certain period.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2016/12/03/donald-trumps-trade-policies-blessing-or-curse/#1dc406526083
India rushes to adopt Western ways,
PRIVATE VEHICLES ADD TO DELHI’S POLLUTION WOES
“Despite alarming pollution levels, Delhi has seen a surge in private vehicles, while public transport is in decline…Government figures that show there are now about 10 million vehicles registered in Delhi – up from fewer than nine million a year ago. Meanwhile, public transport, such as bus fleets, has been found to be declining year after year.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38472712
There are only 9.8 million people in Delhi. Nationwide the number of cars, taxis and jeeps registered is 28.6 million as of March 2015, with a total population of 1.25 billion.
If you look closely at that article, there are about 1 million registered cars in Delhi. Most of the vehicles in India are two-wheelers (154 million).
This is nowhere near the level of US car usage, they have to have about 33 times the number of cars in use now to get the number of cars per person the US has.
I don’t understand the pollution problem unless they don’t require any catalytic converters. The city has far more area than New York City and only about 10 percent more population. Maybe the two wheelers are all uncontrolled and producing the pollution. I suspect that other sources are also responsible such as industry, power plants and crop burning.