Comments not related to Oil and Natural Gas in this thread. Thanks.
386 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 25, 2019”
Please file in the (overflowing) Greater than Expected tray.
UNDERWATER GLACIAL MELTING IS OCCURRING AT HIGHER RATES THAN MODELING PREDICTS
“Researchers have developed a new method to allow for the first direct measurement of the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier, and, in doing so, they concluded that current theoretical models may be underestimating glacial melt by up to two orders of magnitude.”
they concluded that current theoretical models may be underestimating glacial melt by up to two orders of magnitude.”
Yikes! That’s a huge underestimation!
I realize that most of the readers here are well versed in scientific notation. Me, I’ve always been more of a visual learner so I like to draw pictures! The graphic below is a scaled drawing that represents what a two order of magnitude difference implies with respect to the diameter of the big 100″” circle compared to the 1″ circle at the top left.
.
Fred —
Point 1: Einstein excelled in visual imagination and spacial reasoning so you’re in excellent company;
Point 2: Since we’re dealing with volume here (ice), not area, perhaps spheres or cubes would be the “preferred” images.
Doug, while I am a visual thinker, Einstein, I most certainly am not. I do know my limitations…but thanks for including me in such august company, even if I am hardly qualified to clean Einstein’s boots!
With respect your second point, I wasn’t intending to depict the actual volume of ice. I was only illustrating how great a difference two orders of magnitude actually is!
Number language generally confuses people. Many seem to suppose that a 100% increase must be pretty much the same as an increase by an order of magnitude, but in fact such an increase represents merely a doubling of quantity. A “hundredfold increase” is even bigger:
Yeah Like a million times bigger, a pretty YUGE!! underestimation to say the least. 😉
.
Fred,
By your visual you are showing differences in area. so the example you give shows 4 orders of magnitude 10^2 squared is 10^4.
So two orders of magnitude in volume would mean for a sphere that the difference in diameter would be a factor of about 4.64.
Yes, all of that is correct but none of that had anything to with my real point. What I was trying show was that depending on how, to what and when, it is applied an underestimation of two orders of magnitude could have enormous implications. At this point my graphical representation and my spherical volumetric equations have definitely been counter productive to my point.
Yes, I also agree with your point down thread as well, that the paper is dealing with a possible two orders of magnitude difference in total ice volume loss which while still enormous, definitely does not equate to an actual million fold increase in ice loss.
But that wasn’t what I was trying to illustrate. So I will leave it at that.
Just to try to clarify, in the first illustration I thought I had made it clear that I was talking about a two order of magnitude increase in the diameter of the circle so of course the area of the circle increases as you have stated.
Cheers!
“So I will leave it at that.”
Awaaa don’t don’t stop now Fred, it’s fun arguing High School Math. I for one am going to backtrack and say your point was valid and well expressed. 😉
See my new drawing down thread. I don’t think anyone will be able to find fault with it this time 😉
Cheers!
Fred,
My point was that your visual, though stated as diameter, the visual is area, something different, so what is claimed to be 2 orders of magnitude, visually is 4 orders of magnitude.
So not a great visual in my view (it is off by 2 orders of magnitude).
In volume
10^0 = litre bottle of bleach
10^1 = big box store container of bleach
10^2 = 1/2 a drum of bleach
Go on Fred, you can do it. 😉
NAOM
Ok you are right if 10^0 is 1000 cc then 10^1 is 10,000 cc and 10^2 is 100,000 cc! I agree with that.
But if your radius in a sphere increases from 1 unit to 100 units (two orders of magnitude) then your total volume of that sphere still increases by a factor of one million.
Again, I wasn’t calculating the actual volume of ice, I was just trying to show that a two order of magnitude increase could be a very big deal depending on which variable you were looking at. Especially if you had developed a model expecting a unit value of 1 and it turned out the actual value was 100… 1^3 is still 1 but 100^3 is one million.
Cheers!
Melt rate would influence volume so comparing litres is probably better than areas. Now, we just need a nice picture to show people, in everyday terms, what that means. Hint Hint 😉
NAOM
Dec 11, 2018 – While the Arctic Ocean contained over 15 trillion tons of floating ice in 1979 during the month of September, in the same month in 2012, it averaged just under 3.5 trillion tons. This year, it averaged just 4.66 trillion tons in September.
Ok, so you’re saying we need a picture of that?! Roughly a loss of 10 trillion tons in 39 years.
Maybe we can get some inspiration from Chris Jordan’s work.
Carbon, 2018 8×15 feet in four panels (each 40×96”)
Depicts 2,400,000 pieces of coal, equal to the estimated number of pounds of carbon dioxide being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere every second by the human burning of fossil fuels.
Click the image to zoom.
Fred,
The underestimation was volume by 2 orders of magnitude (a factor of 100).
Yes! Forget everything I said before and let me just put it in terms of the actual underestimate in terms of actual ice loss.
According to their previous models for every 1000 cubic kilometers of ice loss that they were expecting it turns out the real loss is 100,000 cubic kilometers. That is bad enough, and here’s what that looks like in a drawing. Cheers! 😉
.
Fred,
Much better and correct in my view. An underestimate by a factor of 100. In astronomy I have heard that estimates that are within an order of magnitude are considered quite good, that was according to what my friend was told in astronomy class in the 70s. Might be different now.
In astronomy I have heard that estimates that are within an order of magnitude are considered quite good
LOL! that might be ok for astronomy but I suspect that if your model predicts ice loss on earth, a two orders of magnitude difference might border on the catastrophic.
Note: I live in South Florida at less than 9 ft. above sea level…
Cheers!
Walked by a neighborhood trailhead today.
3 cars parked.
All electric- nissan leaf, audi 3etron, chevy bolt.
All small hatchbacks.
No Tesla, or Hummer, in sight.
And not more expensive than the average ICE, which is up to about $37k!
Well, Tesla is building over 1000 cars per day, shipped over 60K cars is the US so far this year. The leaf, bolt, and etron add up to a total of 16K, so your trail head isn’t typical. I’ve never even seen an etron – they have only shipped 1800 cars in the US so far this year.
Nice area, We can just hope for a few less fires and smoke this summer.
The Tesla stock took a hit a few days ago for missing on earnings, they shipped a record number of cars for the quarter and still lost money. But with the new factory starting up in China, that should get better. One item people missed during the discussion was they plan to increase their battery production a huge amount next year to one tera watt hour. They are already making more Li ion batteries than the rest of the world combined, and that is 35 times more then they are making this year. It may be based on the dry electrode process they acquired by buying Maxwell.
I read one article on this that quoted them as saying it would be the Maxwell process.
NAOM
Was in Marin for almost 10 years.
But, Peoples Park still is imbedded in the memory, and the smell of Gas still around.
Now live in Bend, where a Dem is progressive—
Pepsi, Pepsi Lite
I just completed a cross country trip in my new Tesla Model 3. San Francisco CA to Pensacola, FL. 5600 miles round trip. The supercharger network worked fine – the charging rate I saw was 500 miles per hour (120KW). Since the charging rate slows down as the battery gets full, the idea is to leave each supercharger as soon as you have enough charge to make it to the next one. There was usually about 150 miles needed to be added and required about 20 minutes. I had my dog with me and he need to get out and walk anyway, the 20 minute stops every 150 miles were fine.
I expect the newer 250KW charges to cut the time to about 11-12 minutes. The current supercharges do have problems above 110F, but I got lucky crossing New Mexico and didn’t need to charge when it was hotter than that. The 250KW charges have water cooled cables, so maybe they can handle higher temps.
The longest distance I made it in 1 day was 785 miles from Rifle, CO to Kansas City – it took 13 hours including 1.5 hours charging.
The total cost for electricity round trip was $281.
Here is a typical supercharger in the middle of Utah, crowding was not an issue, finding some shade was….
Anyone who knows the typical price of fossil fuel and MPG calculate the cost for an IfCE of similar size?
NAOM
About twice as much.
5,600 miles divided into $281 gives about 5 cents per mile. At .3 kWh per mile, that’s 17 cents per kWh, which is higher than the national average of 12 cents. Night charging using Time of Use rates might give 5 cents per kWh. ToU rates are available to all US consumers by law (per a 2005 Federal energy statute), though few know about it, as utilities hate to publicize it.
The average MPG of the US light vehicle fleet is 23MPG. For cars it might be as high as 30MPG. At $3/gallon, that’s 10 cents per mile. So, the trip would have cost about $560.
Over 200,000 miles an EV would save about $16,000 compared to the average car, and about $22k vs the average light vehicle.
Thanks for that, puts it into the spotlight. Savings on fuel, maintenance etc make EVs a very desirable item.
NAOM
Yep, about twice the cost/mile is what I got too (for ICE vs EV)
I just put a new set of tires on my 2012 Chevy Volt, and I noticed that the cost of tires is about the same as cost of electricity, i.e. about 2.5 cents per mile or 4 miles per KWH at 10 cents/KWH. (A set of Michelins was $940.)
Hi Preston,
What is your experience with cost of electricity/kwh while charging on the road?
Do you know the variation in cost?
I had read that fast charging on the road can be very expensive, compared to home charging at the best times of day.
My current home plan has rates varying from 3 cents to 45 cents/kwh, depending on the time of day.
I don’t think it matters what time of day but it does vary on location. California is 26 cents/kwh. Most places charge by the minute, not kwh, El Paso Texas was 25 cents per minute. The per minute charge steps down once the charge rate slows, but the rate for the 120KW varied from 30 cents to 22 cents on my trip.
Yep, Kunstler and Ilargi Meijer have been talking about this for quite a while. I expect the obfuscation of the truth will go on until the 2020 elections.
Saw this over at reneweconomy.com.au this morning but only just read it:
Without networks of thermometers, ocean buoys and satellites to record temperature, we need other methods to reconstruct past climates. Luckily, nature has written the answers down for us. We just have to learn how to read them.
Corals, ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments, and ocean sediment cores provide a wealth of information about past conditions – this is called “proxy” data – and can be brought together to tell us about the global climate in the past.
Teams of scientists around the world have spent many thousands of hours of field and laboratory work to collect and analyse samples, and ultimately publish and make available their data so other scientists can undertake further analysis.
Previously, our team, along with many other proxy experts, meticulously analysed and collated temperature-sensitive proxy data covering the last 2,000 years from around the world, creating the largest database of temperature-sensitive proxy data yet assembled. We then made all of the data publicly available in one place.
Astonishing consistency between reconstruction methods
With this unique dataset in hand, our team set about reconstructing past global temperature.
We scientists are notoriously sceptical of our own analysis. But what makes us more confident about our findings is when different methods applied to the same data yield the same result.
In this paper we applied seven different methods to reconstruct global temperature from our proxy network. We were astounded to find that the methods all gave remarkably similar results for multidecadal fluctuations – a very precise result considering the breadth of the methods used.
Well, there you have it! Another study for the deniers to try and “debunk”!
Good deal- give those Sooners a taste of that renewable electric kool-aid!
They’ll be hooked.
Second big heatwave in Europe so far this summer-
-Paris smashed its all-time high with at least 42.6°C (108.7°F) on Thursday.
-Both Germany and the Netherlands have already topped their all-time national records from Wednesday by at least 1°C
-At Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory in England, one of the world’s oldest weather stations, Thursday’s high was 97.7°F. This breaks the all-time high from *214 years* of recordkeeping by 2.5°F
-This is the second record-smashing heat wave that Europe has seen this summer, following extreme early-season heat during the last few days of June. In that first round, many dozens of cities set record highs for June, and some of them broke all-time highs for any month, including Germany’s three oldest stations with reliable long-term data going back as far as 1824
-In France, about 25% of the nation’s 150-plus top-level weather observing stations have set all-time records this summer (through Wednesday)
–
Sorry, that’s not just weather. Global warming bitches! Imagine what it’s gonna be like when the Arctic goes ice free! Maybe now some more people will stop denying it.
The Svalbard Islands are already +4C with winter temps at +7C. Ice is not forming in the fiords. Looking for a further 10C rise this century. (since the estimates keep going up that is probably on the low side).
That is 77.875 N latitude.
And August is yet to come 🙁
While Global Temps Soared, Study Shows US Media Coverage of Right-Wing Think Tanks’ Climate Lies Actually Rose Over Past 5 Years
by Jessica Corbett
A new Public Citizen analysis shows that over the past five years—as rising global temperatures repeatedly set records—national television news networks and the 50 most widely circulated newspapers in the United States increased their coverage of right-wing think tanks denying the climate emergency or that the global crisis is the result of unsustainable human activity.
The consumer advocacy group released its new study ahead of the 13th annual conference of the Heartland Institute—the self-described “leading think tank promoting skepticism of the theory there is a human-caused climate crisis”—which kicked off at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
The study focuses on coverage of the Heartland Institute and the four other think tanks associated with the conference—the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation—from 2014 through mid-June 2019.
According to Public Citizen:
The number of media mentions featuring the think tanks and published op-eds by them rose over the five years, hitting a peak in 2017 (in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration) and remaining steady over the course of 2018, Public Citizen found. Many outlets cited the deniers to provide “balance”—even though the deniers’ positions have been widely debunked. Most outlets didn’t inform viewers or readers that the think tanks receive fossil fuel money.
I’m not at all surprised.
The tidal wave of facts is swamping them.
They must lie at an ever increasing rate, lest lose their franchise/readership.
And this time period coincides with trumps- “keep america lying campaign”
His average in public is up to something like 26/day.
Note: Very long read. (though not quite as long as the Muller report)
This is one of the last untouched environmental treasures in the United States.
It also sits on top of an immense reserve of oil.
How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic
“It’s clear the administration is desperate to jam through Arctic drilling while President Trump is still in office,” said Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees marine fisheries and coastal management. “The entire environmental review process has been a rush job, and its integrity has been undermined by politics. The Interior Department has ignored its legal obligations and the findings of their own career scientists.”…
…One thing, though, is clear: For the Trump administration, establishing a foothold in ANWR is paramount. Five days before Fran Mauer arrived in the refuge, Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that, along with the tax cuts and slashing of regulations, opening up ANWR would be one of his most important and lasting achievements.
Here’s what I think!
Fuck the oil companies, Fuck the Right Wing think tanks, Fuck the GOP, Fuck Trump, and Fuck his stupid supporters! Any questions?!
Cheers!
Hey Fred, since it seems that you find some of the activities of those who use their wealth to obfuscate the facts on global warming mildly upsetting 😉 , I’ve been thinking about some possible outcomes. One possible outcome that I think Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch and their ilk are not accounting for has very sinister implications for them. What if a movement solidifies around people like Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (age 19, US), Greta Thunberg (age 16, Sweden) and Rezo (age 27 on August 14, Germany), all intelligent young people with an acute awareness of the risks involved in not acting to reduce C02 emissions.
If as is being speculated, these heatwaves become the new normal and start to result in crop failures leading to global food shortages, there could be a massive change in the political tide. These young people could start directing their wrath at those they see at the root of the problem and with their understanding of politics they could lead a 21st century inquisition against climate change denying heretics. This could lead to the seizure of assets deemed to have been used in fostering or promoting science denial as penalties for crimes against the biosphere!
In such a scenario people like “Moscow Mitch” (McConnell) would likely end up in circumstances where if they are not already dead, they wish they were!
This could lead to the seizure of assets deemed to have been used in fostering or promoting science denial as penalties for crimes against the biosphere!
We can’t even seem to manage a consensus for proceeding to impeach Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors, of which, to anyone who has read, even the redacted version of the Mueller report, There should be zero doubt!
But if the Greta’s, Reza’s and Martinez’s of the world, somehow manage to pull off a way to make those who have been most responsible for maintaining the fossil fuel based status quo, pay for their crimes, That would certainly wouldn’t make me sad!
Cheers!
d
I just wonder what would happen if it turns out that the scientist have been way too cautious in an effort to avoid being called alarmist. For example, if the sea levels rose over a short enough period to put most of South Florida under just an inch of water before any preventative measures could be attempted, you could easily have over 10 million very angry people (voters) wanting to know why the scientist warnings were not taken more seriously. All it would take is for someone to point a finger at the usual suspects and provide a little bit of damning evidence and I could imagine calls being made for heads to roll.
On the other hand maybe I’m thinking too rationally and in such a scenario, rational thought might be in short supply!
I think that the scientists have been very over cautious both for that reason and that they have stuck to confirmed facts rather than anything that has not been confirmed but is expected.
NAOM
Trump is headed for reelection. In the debates last month, I just couldn’t see any of the Democrats being able to match his oversized celebrity status. Maybe a Joe Biden 10 years younger could win, but, now, his time has passed. A number of the other candidates have decent policy arguments and proposals. Policy, however, doesn’t drive presidential elections.
This is starting to feel like 2004, where the Republican incumbent isn’t particularly well-liked overall but knows what to say and do to maximize turnout of his base in the right states, all the while Democrats are hindered by group infighting, a base that wants to move the country farther left than the average person is comfortable with, and the lack of a charismatic leader.
Trump may be playing too deep into his base alienating the more moderate republicans that supported him in 2016, people who may be turned off by his racism and xenophobia.
NAOM
There won’t be any such movement established around those characters in the United States. I expect our militias, patriots, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus, and sovereign citizens to see to that.
Hey Dan, you are making the assumption that global warming is not going to make the lives of your said “militias, patriots, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus, and sovereign citizens” really, really difficult and unpleasant. Suppose that assumption turns out to be invalid and these folks start to question the memes that they have been fed through the propaganda efforts of FF interests.
The point I am making is that if it turns out that global warming is a real threat, a clear and present danger, some folks who were led to believe it was not real, could get the idea that they were fed false information and start looking for the source of that information to try and discern the motive behind the misinformation. If they start to think that FF interests bamboozled them into thinking “global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the UN to curtail individual freedoms” when all that was happening was that a few already wealthy folks wanted to keep their businesses relevant at the expense of life on the planet. they might be the ones who start the inquisitions.
If you think what I’m saying is all just crazy talk, watch this Jimmy Kimmel interview the second most popular candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket, who according to a recent Fox News poll would beat Trump by 6 points. The part that sounds like what I wrote above starts at 1 min. 44 sec. or more specifically, the 40 seconds starting at 3 min 8 sec. in.
Once they realise just how badly they have been screwed over by the denialistas, when their paper fortunes are worth more as toilet paper, as they watch their luxury homes disappear beneath the waves then it may be your pussy comietits are the ones putting the denialistas up against the wall.
NAOM
Don’t be so sure Dan! When Americans are ready to get Homeric it looks like the Right Wing militias, patriots, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus etc might have a bit of opposition
Given the costs drilling in the Arctic, the current low price for oil, and a cloudy future for oil consumption, how many companies actually want to drill there?
Global Jet Stream Forecast
Welcome to our new interactive global jet stream forecast map here on Netweather. Drag the map around to move it, the mouse wheel will zoom in and out (pinch to zoom on mobile and tablet). The maps update four times a day – and are an initial small feature using this new mapping technology – keep your eye out for further additions soon.
You can deny climate science all you want but you’re still going to have to deal the results of what the Jet Stream is doing.
In Phoenix, we call those temperatures, “summer”. I suggest looking into air conditioning like the rest of us figured out decades ago.
Thanks for the thoughtful input. Very useful.
Bruce. Some July day you may find yourself without electricity. Palo Verde Nuclear Plant shut down. If it happens I wonder if you will think back to the snide remark you made here about the heatwave in Europe- PARIS (Reuters) – French utility EDF may have to shut down electricity generation at its 2,600 megawatt (MW) Golfech nuclear power plant in the south of France from Tuesday July 23 because of high temperatures forecast on the Garonne river.
Horrible Feeling
“Sounds like someone who might be taking the tack that if one is questioning something– BAU technology, like solar panels and other innaccurately-termed green/clean/renewable tech– then they’re automatically for something else– fossil fuels.
“You also promote fossil fuels through constant attack on renewable energy and sustainable systems.” ~ GoneFishing
‘A false dilemma is a type of informal fallacy in which something is falsely claimed to be an ‘either/or’ situation, when in fact there is at least one additional option.’ ~ Wikipedia
…it’s more like religious fervor, perhaps like the promo of solar panels as magic bullets for anthropological climate change– maybe like pissing on a forest-fire to try to put it out.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
“Jamica[sic] is probably 100% dependant on imports for technology since it does not manufacture PV or even any of the raw materials needed to make PV panels. Ditto for EV’s, Computers, Smartphones, etc. What happens when those items or replacement parts become unavailable do[sic] to a global crisis.
FWIW: The issue I see with Renewables and the Caribbean islands is the frequent Hurricanes that rip them to shreds. Hurricanes Maria and Irma destroyed any wind or solar farms in their path.
PVs, EVs are 100% dependent on globalization. I am sure an average EV or even smartphone contains parts from dozens of countries, and probably double that for the raw materials used to manufacture electronic components. If Caribbean does[n’t] have the means of manufacturing Renewable components and parts, and there is a major global crisis. Its going to put the islands in a very untenable position. What’s Plan-B?” ~ TechGuy
“I seem to recall even Islandboy previously mentioning, including with some attached images, some of the post-hurricane alternative energy destruction.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
“I just get this horrible feeling that renewables will end up just being a fossil fuel extender…” ~ GoneFishing
Oh well then, it’s a good thing that instead of an all out thrust for renewable energy, the Jamaican authorities instead decided to go with LNG and secured the services of New Fortress Energy to supply a FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit, Golar Freeze pictured below):
Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the newly commissioned Floating Storage and Regasification Terminal has placed Jamaica firmly on track of reaching its target of generating 50 per cent of the island’s electricity from renewable energy sources.
Holness, who was speaking at a ceremony on Friday to officially unveil the terminal at its location just off the coast of Old Harbour Bay in St Catherine, said Jamaica is now “on track to achieve an ambitious goal which is to have at least 50 per cent of our electricity generation from renewables or cleaner fuels”.
The prime minister said the new LNG terminal, built at a cost of nearly US$1 billion by the United States-based New Fortress Energy, will result in cheaper energy costs for the country, as well as establishes Jamaica as a premier hub for the environmentally-friendly fuel source.
“We are demonstrating that we can put in place the necessary investments, build infrastructure that both reduces the cost to the consumer, but most importantly, reduces the cost to the environment, and I think this is a good example of that. It’s a win-win for all,” he said.
The article went on to mention a planned pilot project to use NG to supplement the diesel used by the state owned municipal bus fleet and the use of NG at a co-gen plant at the local campus of the regional university. There is also this:
Managing Director of JAMALCO, Austin Mooney, says construction of the bauxite/alumina company’s US$189 million gas-fired cogeneration power plant by New Fortress Energy, is on track for completion by February 2020.
Speaking during a tour of JAMALCO’s mines and refinery operations in Halse Hall, Clarendon on January 10, Mr. Mooney disclosed that construction of the offshore gas pipeline has been completed, while work on the inland segment is underway.
“They [NFE] have started to ship the gas pipe from the United States and we expect that to be here very soon. NFE has already received some of the large stacks, which are here [at the NFE site].The steam generators and the combustion turbines are expected in Kingston in about eight to 10 days, then they will be transported to the refinery. The contractors will start mobilising towards the end of January or February,” he said.
JAMALCO’s Director of Operations, Richard Russell, said the new power plant will serve two purposes.
“It is going to supply 90 to 100 megawatts of power into the [national energy] grid, which is low cost power. It will [also] provide JAMALCO with 120,000 pounds of steam, which is about 40 per cent of our demand [that] will help us to become a more efficient refinery,” he said.
So with the expenditure of a mere US$1 billion, Jamaica no longer has to worry about damage to their energy system from hurricanes and can sleep well at night with the knowledge that they are doing their little bit to stop CO2 emissions! You see, the burning of NG aka “Freedom Gas”, doesn’t produce CO2 but instead produces a gas found in angel farts that smells like roses, has a cooling effect on the planet and a calming effect on the soul. I feel better now knowing that Jamaica did not spend a billion dollars on non renewable renewables and is not supporting Caelan’s much reviled ” crony-capitalist-plutarchy”.
Of course, with the vessel pictured below, Jamaica’s energy security is assured, since it is essentially a ship and we all know ships can’t move! /sarc
I wasn’t aware that NGL was considered renewable, although it looks like they qualified that with the term, ‘cleaner fuels’.
In any case, it looks like natural gas is the next ‘lowest-hanging fruit’. It appears much too late for so-called renewable energy, anyway. If they made any sense, such as in a non-crony-capitalist plutarchy system, such as an ethical system, we’d likely have it already and/or be burning a lot less FF’s, rather than, say, burning them to augment non-renewable renewable energy projects at this late anthropogenic climate change and assorted environmental indignities stage of the game. And not be arguing about it on sites like these.
At this point, so-called renewable energy, and electric vehicles and whatnot, appear as mere token gestures, in part to make the so-called rich feel good about themselves vis-a-vis the planet while they extract far more of its resources than the so-called poor.
‘Hey everybody, I have an electric car and solar panels. Go me.’
When we get to the next lowest hanging fruit, maybe non-renewable renewables will have a real chance, but then it will probably be even later than too late.
“The goal of Energiewende was to make Germany independent of fossil fuels. But it hasn’t worked out. The 29,000 wind turbines and 1.6 million PV systems provide only 3.1% of Germany’s energy needs and have cost well over 100 billion Euros so far and likely another 450 billion Euros over the next two decades. And much more than that when you add in the extra cost of maintaining fossil generation systems to back up the lack of wind and sunshine from seconds to weeks.
Because of their extremely low energy density and need for a great deal of space, forests are being cut down, pits dug, and filled with hundreds of tons of reinforced concrete for wind turbines to stand on, 5 acres per turbine. With the forest no longer protecting the soil, it is now vulnerable to wind and rain erosion.
Because wind and solar farms get a guaranteed price for 20 years, they have no need to innovate, do research, or please customers, who paid them 176 billion euros for electricity with a market value of just 5 billion euros from 2000-2016. This is money that taxpayers could have used to build bridges, energy efficient buildings, or renovate schools, which would create even more jobs than the wind and solar industry claims so they can tout themselves as good for society, perhaps they aren’t so great when you look at other ways and jobs that could have been created with all the subsidies (Vernunftkraft 2018)…
…there are even more reasons in this document than I have listed above for why Energiewende is a failure. And also see…”
“No one has really told us much about where we’ll all be going in our new electric cars, such as if or when sociocultural fossil fuel [EROEI]… plummets.
You have a relatively-miniscule set of people who own electric cars already and who make claims about how splendid they are, except that they appear to be thinking generally in terms of their present contexts, as opposed to the future.
The future is a very different animal.
Put it this way: If everyone in a boat all moved to one side all at once and relatively-suddenly, depending on how many people there were and how small and tipping-prone the boat was, they could irreversibly tip it and all end up in the water.
Our oversized overcomplex global-industrial society relies on vast amounts of energy to function. Remove that relentlessly, year-after-year, replace it with what, and again, where is everyone going in their new electric cars? It’s not just a rhetorical question.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
“As a long time student of evolutionary biology I tend to look at much of the world through that lens and the question I ask is, if renewables could possibly be a game changer that could lead to not only leaving fossil fuels behind, but could it lead to radical social, political and economic evolution,therefore laying the foundations of a totally new order and reality.
My gut feeling is that it can and it will.” ~ Fred Magyar
Yes I can see how that sort of thing directs people’s thoughts and beliefs and informs their opinions. Science? Rationality? Well, we can use it to cloak our ‘gut feeling’ narratives/agendas.
‘It’s EV’s and PV’s, cuz gut feelings, that’s cuz.’
‘Leaving fossil fuels behind’ is what’s going to happen eventually anyway, irrespective of the non-renewable energy systems that many, such as hereon, obtusely call ‘renewable’.
As for the ‘long time student of evolutionary biology’-‘gut feeling’ cloak, I’ll just add a familiar quote ostensibly by Carl Sagan and leave it at that:
‘Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception’.
As usual, Caelan is posting antirenewable comments that are questionable at best and downright misleading in some cases.
I don’t want to bother with digging out data about what the value of electricity generated in the PAST by German wind and solar farms might have been worth……. but it’s obvious that the earliest installations were many times as expensive as ones built within the last few years, and produced hardly any electricity, compared to newer installations.
Perhaps he will provide a direct link to his source for this assertion about the cost versus production, in terms of money.
But what REALLY pisses me off, and pisses of ANYBODY interested in knowing the real score, is that he fails to mention that the cost of wind and solar sourced electricity has been falling like a rock for the last ten years, and that VIRTUALLY ALL OF THE WIND AND SOLAR FARMS BUILT IN GERMANY WILL BE PRODUCING ELECTRICITY INDEFINITELY, and producing it in ever increasing amounts at ever lower cost.
Solar farms can be and will be upgraded as the panels gradually lose efficiency, but the used panels will be sold in the second hand market, and will continue producing useful amounts of electricity for another twenty years. Replacing the panels installed today twenty years from now, in constant money, will cost no more than a third what they cost today. Pretty much everything will still be good, indefinitely, except the panels themselves, and new panels twenty years from now will probably produce anywhere from a quarter to twice as much ADDITIONAL electricity as the ones installed today.
Wind farms, once constructed, can also be brought back to BETTER THAN NEW productivity for only a minor percentage of the cost of new starting from scratch construction…… because only the combination generator and turbine on top of the towers will need replacing, if the towers are still good….. and most of them will be. There won’t be any new transmission lines, roads, or other infrastructure needed, no costly permitting process, etc.
The AVOIDED costs of purchasing coal, oil, and natural gas over the next couple of generations will be such that Germany’s total investment in renewable electricity will be a BARGAIN based on that basis alone.
And perhaps it’s worth mentioning that while Germans understandably avoid mentioning WWII in general and the Siege of Stalingrad in particular, they haven’t forgotten, and they aren’t dumb enough to believe the Russians have forgotten.
Their investment in renewable energy is justifiable on the basis of their national security alone.
Somebody ought to get Caelan and Debbie Downer together. They would ENJOY being miserable together.
Nobody can say for sure how long it will be before oil and gas get to be very expensive indeed, or perhaps unobtainium, due to the combined effects of world wide economic growth and depletion, but anybody with a brain bigger than a peanut has to understand that even without considering the environmental and public health factors, an energy crisis is brewing, and might explode almost any year, maybe even this year, in the event of war.
Germany will be better prepared than any other country in the world ( in similar circumstances, meaning short on domestic fossil fuel reserves) to weather this baked in energy crisis, and pull thru more or less whole……. assuming they continue to make rapid progress in producing renewable electricity and conserving energy and using it efficiently.
There’s such a thing as BALANCE in commenting and passing along information. Maybe somebody can explain it to Caelan.
Self-Impoverishment For The Rich?
“Germany will be better prepared than any other country in the world…” ~ OFM
That kind of helps my point. Have you yet begun impoverishing yourself, Yankee? No time like the present.
“Steckel and colleagues conclude that poor nations striving to achieve high levels of human development cannot at the same time achieve rapid improvements in energy efficiency. Even if consumer goods like stoves and refrigerators are made to run on less energy, they argue, the society-wide infrastructure improvements necessary for development (which involve a lot of inputs like cement and steel) are and will remain highly energy intensive. Low-income nations, even ones with a large economy and an affluent minority, cannot adequately raise their overall Human Development Index if they are operating at only half of the 1300 W threshold, as Jacobson is asking India, Haiti, Cuba, and the whole continent of Africa to do…
For the world’s poor majority to achieve good quality of life, energy supplies in poor nations must be not only converted but also increased. This will require massive assistance from the rich nations; perhaps those funds and resources can be regarded as partial payback of what Pope Francis has called the “ecological debt … between the global north and south.”
Another complication: The wholesale conversion to wind and solar energy infrastructure, wherever it’s happening, will itself consume a lot of energy. Until the conversion is complete, the energy driving the transition will have to come largely from fossil fuels. So supporting the energy-expansion-and-conversion effort in poor nations will put even heavier pressure on rich nations, which will already be struggling to build up their own renewable infrastructure on a crash schedule while simultaneously trying to shrink their overall energy footprint (if they are really serious about reducing emissions). The rich nations will need to offset those emissions created in the process of converting the worldwide energy supply by cutting their own energy use even more deeply.”
“As you advise me to do that, you offer up your narrow subject-matter EVs relatively-falsely as ‘green credentialed’, complete with your typical and misleading Koch brothers ‘rhetorical device’ (or whatever that might be called in propaganda parlance), and in the apparent relative absence of, say, natural, systemic and/or ethical contextual evaluations/considerations/etc..
Tell you what: If or depending on how often I’m around, I’d consider ‘chasing article headers’ after you can show me evidence, ideally in your articles perhaps, that you’re functioning as devil’s advocate, or at least far more of one, and minus your Koch bothers ‘rhetorical device’, for what you’re huckstering…
“The extraction and refinement of rare metals causes immense environmental damage. To employ these metals in green and digital technologies, enormous quantities of rock must be extracted using huge amounts of acids. Purifying one tonne of rare-earth elements requires 200 cubic metres of water. In the process, this water is contaminated with heavy metals and ends up untreated in rivers, soils, and aquifers.
The extraction of rare metals has become one of China’s most polluting industries. A world leader in their production, China’s approximately 10 000 mines scattered all over the country have helped ruin its environment. Contamination incidents have been numerous and serious. In 2006, 60 companies producing indium, a metal used in the manufacturing of solar panels, poured tonnes of chemicals into the river Xiang, polluting the supply of drinking water for local people. In the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where most of the rare-earth elements needed for new technologies are extracted, mining areas have become hellish places. Close to the city of Baotou lies the Weikuang Dam, an 85-million cubic metre artificial lake filled with toxic waste from surrounding refineries…”
And no fossil fuel extraction operation or use case has ever despoiled the environment? Righty oh then!
‘Funding’ Both Sides of The War On Nature
Currently, fossil fuel extraction, via the fossil fuel industry of course (minus the Koch bro’s I guess) is being used to build out so-called renewable energy systems, all the while the planet goes to hell.
In this case, perhaps, it ‘helps’ to mask the charade by targeting an outfit like the Koch brothers in order to aid in the creation of the illusion that the fossil fuel industry isn’t ‘funding’ both sides of the war, so to speak, on nature.
So I’m guessing Caelan would rather see the FF burned with no attempt to create low/zero carbon alternatives? Make no mistake about it, that is what will happen anyway.
I had no water in the pipes at my apartment all of yesterday and at the time of this post the pipes are still dry. This is a result of insufficient water supplies to the city I live in. This page from the municipal water supply web site starts with a history of the last major reservoir built to serve the city. Initially used in 1946 and first filled to capacity in 1948 it suffered from significant leaking until the was largely rectified in 1959. The other major catchment/reservoir in the hills above the city, was completed in 1927 and the same web page linked to above describes a 19 mile pipeline drawing 16 to 20 million imperial gallons per day from a river to the west of the city completed in 1986. So the first major water supply project built about 90 years ago, the next finally completed 60 years ago and the most recent 33 years ago.
While climate change is affecting rainfall patterns, reducing inflows into the municipal water supply and precipitating major water supply problems, we have the local press fawning over all the “development” happening in the city. Lots of multi-story (vanity?) projects mostly being carried out using Chinese construction firms and it seems that every available piece of land is being targeted for higher density development. This is in addition to a multi-decade trend of building apartment/townhouse complexes on plots of land that previously had a single dwelling on them, steadily increasing population density. Of course all of these developments use lots of concrete, with all the attendant C02 emissions outlined by Doug elsewhere in this thread.
At the same time, the island is busy developing a NG fueled infrastructure for electricity generation and is actively looking at using NG supplementing transportation fuels. The ports are chock a block full with new and used cars coming from Japan and mostly new cars from elsewhere. The car dealer lots are brimming with cars for sale and the roads are congested every day, yet it seems that everybody’s dream is to “get a little car”. The number of EVs in the island is less than 15 as far as I am aware.
In my neck of the woods, I don’t hear anybody talking seriously about reducing their carbon footprint. It is as if that is something for somebody else to do and if it is going to cost “too much money” it is off the table. All I see around me is largely BAU on steroids with some fairly serious energy efficiency projects on the part the public and private sectors, all geared at saving money on electricity bills. Against this background, what does Caelan choose to focus his attention on? What is his biggest issue (apparently)? Renewable energy.
I can not recall hearing any outrage from Caelan on the Dieselgate scandal, the various coal ash spills and threats at US coal plants, the current US administration’s war on the EPA, including the attempts to reduce or eliminate vehicle fuel efficiency requirements and lots more. Instead he decides to get his knickers in a knot over renewable energy. Go figure!
edit 8:30 am. The water has been back from around daybreak 6:00 am. Saw this on a newspaper web site this morning:
Persons living in the Mona-Papine area of St Andrew and who are served by the National Water Commission (NWC) are to experience further disruptions in their water supply as the agency continues to battle the ongoing drought.
The NWC is reporting that there has been a significant decline in inflows to the Hope Water supply system, and the Mona Reservoir, with approximately 32% of its storage capacity, is also at critically low levels which will negatively impact the company’s ability to augment the shortfalls within the Hope network.
According to the piece, some areas will be getting water two days a week, some three days!
So everyone will fill up every available vessel and use up the water faster. Been there, went through a drought in the UK.
“If there is going to be, as you write, a ‘four horsemen’ anyway, we might as well start looking at taking our pacifiers out of our mouths, rolling up our sleeves and getting down-and-dirty with our own adult self-empowerment again. Empowering ourselves and helping each other in that endeavor– community, cooperation, and all that.
The longer we maintain this infantilistic cultural tack in our ‘plastic pants’, the harder and more brutal the crash will be. Why? Because a lot of the skills many people will have by then if no change will amount to little more than shopping, driving a car, pushing a product, and surfing the net/texting.
‘Hey kids! What has the same number of syllables as ‘biz•ness•as•u•su•al’?!’
Kids: ‘What?!’
‘Vul•ner•a•bi•li•ty!’
Kids: ‘Yaaayyyyy!’
‘Not yaaayyyyy!’
Kids: ‘No?!’
‘NO!’
?” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
Under the circumstances, I find Caelan’s choices of topics to argue about bizarre to say the least!
Awesome! ^u^
Have a lollypop.
Caelan you are as full of shit as an overflowing hog farm lagoon, and that’s a LOT of shit.
In actuality, people who have no electricity at all are the ones who benefit the most from solar power, because they can get at least a little juice that comes in VERY handy from even a single small panel… enough to run a light or two at night, using a rechargeable battery, or a sewing machine or water pump, etc.
You throw shit around on the basis of hoping somebody will take it seriously on the basis of the quantity of it.
I’m proud to be a Yankee, and I have done MY part to help the people of the world to live better and longer, by furthering the education of a lot of kids, and spreading a lot of USEFUL information.
You so seldom post anything useful and relevant to the discussion here that it’s a surprise.
You remind me of a couple of Trump’s women, Sarah Sanders and Kelly Ann Conway.You can bet that anything they say is either an outright lie, or deliberately misleading, or intended simply to deflect attention from what’s actually happening.
You spout shit right, left, and center, and in such a quantity that it would take me HOURS to actually type up what’s wrong with the stuff you post in ten minutes. Of course that’s the nature of character assassination attacks, or other deliberately told lies.
A typical Trump supporter listens to his bullshit, and accepts it uncritically. Explaining to him WHY it’s bullshit takes quite a bit of time. A typical uninformed reader may unfortunately take your bullshit the same way.
So you deliberately dilute the discussion with trash in this forum, which in and of itself is worthy of a paycheck from the Koch brothers, which you are a damned sight more likely to be collecting than anybody else in this forum, even as you others may be doing.
I dub thee SIR WORM TONGUE.
Incidentally it’s rather likely that you, as an individual, would be DEAD, without the technology you are so quick to condemn. Most older individuals would be dead, long since, without it.
You’re a sound bite troll, shoveling them out with a mechanized loader, rather than a scoop shovel. Ordinarily I keep you blocked, but once in a while when somebody else responds to your bullshit, I’m motivated enough to point out that you are LESS than useless member of this forum.
I dub thee SIR WORM TONGUE.
Foaming At The Mouth: OFM Trolls Caelan
“…full of shit… an overflowing hog farm lagoon… a LOT of shit… throw shit around… seldom post anything useful and relevant… a couple of Trump’s women… outright lie… deliberately misleading… intended… to deflect attention… spout shit right, left, and center… in such a quantity… what’s wrong with the stuff you post… character assassination attacks… deliberately told lies… Trump supporter… listens to his bullshit… accepts it uncritically… WHY it’s bullshit… A typical uninformed reader… your bullshit… deliberately dilute the discussion with trash… WORM TONGUE… a sound bite troll… your bullshit… LESS than useless member… WORM TONGUE.” ~ OFM
“Signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as ‘noise’ that interferes with the ‘signal’ of appropriate discussion.” ~ Wikipedia
“HB and OFM have gotten into a weird black hole together.
No fun for the rest of us, who I suspect are taking care to skip such comments as quickly as possible.” ~ Nick G
As usual, Caelan is posting antirenewable comments that are questionable at best and downright misleading in some cases.
Ok, seeing that Caelan posted three comments in a row and after seeing your response I decided to actually see what he posted for myself.
FWIW: The issue I see with Renewables and the Caribbean islands is the frequent Hurricanes that rip them to shreds. Hurricanes Maria and Irma destroyed any wind or solar farms in their path…
…“I seem to recall even Islandboy previously mentioning, including with some attached images, some of the post-hurricane alternative energy destruction.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
I think Islandboy will agree that there was indeed some damage to solar farms and installations and I believe he did post images to back that up. However there is a flip side to this coin. In every case where there was damage it was due to proper precautions not having been taken. To be clear I live in South Florida and know that if properly installed, solar farms are most definitely not ripped to shreds by every passing hurricane! That is a blatantly false statement. Quite the contrary, in general they survive mostly intact! This is not just my personal opinion. Here’s a report on what happened in North Carolina during hurricane Florence.
Faced with Hurricane Florence’s powerful winds and record rainfall, North Carolina’s solar farms held up with only minimal damage while other parts of the electricity system failed, an outcome that solar advocates hope will help to steer the broader energy debate.
North Carolina has more solar power than any state other than California, much of it built in the two years since Hurricane Matthew hit the region. Before last week, the state hadn’t seen how its growing solar developments—providing about 4.6 percent of the state’s electricity—would fare in the face of a hurricane.
Florence provided a test of how the systems stand up to severe weather as renewable energy use increases, particularly solar, which is growing faster in the Southeast than any other other region.
So the question I have is, why does Caelan feel the need to lie about this?! Not to mention his false statements about what is happening in Germany, a place that I also happen to have first hand knowledge about!
Anyways,
There’s such a thing as BALANCE in commenting and passing along information. Maybe somebody can explain it to Caelan.
IMHO, Caelan is most definitely not interested in BALANCE so I have just put him back on ignore where he belongs.
Cheers!
“I think Islandboy will agree that there was indeed some damage to solar farms and installations and I believe he did post images to back that up.” ~ Fred Magyar
Yes, I think that’s what was being referred to.
“To be clear I live in South Florida and know that if properly installed, solar farms are most definitely not ripped to shreds by every passing hurricane! That is a blatantly false statement.” ~ Fred Magyar
Then why did you make it? Oh wait, never mind.
In any case, the reference was about the Caribbean islands, not South Florida.
WRT ‘if properly installed’, results will of course vary. (Including when a hurricane smashes into South Florida.)
“Ok, seeing that Caelan posted three comments in a row and after seeing your response I decided to actually see what he posted for myself… so I have just put him back on ignore where he belongs.” ~ Fred Magyar
Oh ok, gotcha. Thanks for letting us know. Catch you next time.
“As I said before I’m done with responding to you this is really my last response ever to you!” ~ Fred Magyar
Fred- “why does Caelan feel the need to”?
I don’t read his “commentary”, but
I think I know the answer to your question Fred.
He likes the attention his irrelevant banters garners.
Its pretty simple.
Not much else going on for the guy.
Pretty sad.
Too bad he didn’t take Island Boy up on the offer of learning goat raising down in Jamaica a while back.
Would have been healthy for him.
Maybe not for Island Boy.
Too bad he didn’t take Island Boy up on the offer of learning goat raising down in Jamaica a while back.
Would have been healthy for him.
Maybe not for Island Boy.
Have you no compassion for the poor goats?! They have feelings too, you know 😉
Hi Hickory,
It hasn’t occurred to me, until just this minute, reading your ten seventeen comment, that maybe Caelan is is simply a TROLL… albeit a more sophisticated one than usual.
Lots of curious people who will put only a few minutes into investigating any bit of news that attracts their attention will do a fast search on such a topic as “peak oil” or “cost of renewable energy” etc, and some of them will land at this site.
Some of the ones that do will take Caelan’s bullshit as legit, because they aren’t going to spend enough time here to learn otherwise.
If they happen to be hard core Republican types, they will take any antirenewable comments as legit, because in that case, they are likely already anti renewable as a matter of political solidarity with their political soul mates.
Some others will just skip over this site altogether, because there’s too much in the way of irrelevant comments.They won’t take time to read such stuff as Caelan posts, even if it were to make any sense to them.
( I’m guilty myself in this respect, given that I post a lot about political matters, etc, but when I post about things down my own alley, such as agriculture, my comments are as relevant as any. )
Caelan’s evening job may be to simply sow as much FUD as he can, here and elsewhere, Worm Tongue style….. pretending to be on the side of the righteous.
Yes, troll. Twisting Fred’s comment by omitting what he is commenting on and twisting it back against him. Quoting only from skeptic sources that present false narratives. Harking on about rare materials that are not required for renewables. Attacking people who counter him. Mocking people. Yep, troll and we must treat him as such by countering his points with the true facts rather than mud wrestling.
Here are my thoughts about a good approach to trolls:
1) verify that they are trolls by asking a few simple questions to see if they’re open to real information, and willing to say something that’s not a FF talking point. It might be as simple and broad as “Do you agree that climate change is a serious problem?”.
2) If their trollness is clear, then put out of mind any thought of convincing them. Now, the audience for a comment isn’t the troll, it’s everyone else who’s reading.
3) Clarify for those readers that the troll is a troll, and that their comments are entirely unrealistic and coming from FF or right wing talking points. But, don’t get personal, don’t get angry, just stay on topic.
4) provide real information: a paragraph or two about the topic from a reliable source, and links to real information.
“NickG, your reply is what to be expected from a troll.” ~ Rune Likvern
Informing the 3rd party, rather. 🙂
Crocodile Tears
And yet you don’t support any of your claims. Maybe practice what you preach. (Though I have my doubts you can.).
Bandying words about does not necessarily make their case and in fact can betray hidden issues, such as fear, anger or vendettas (Trips to the archives might settle some of those questions.). They can, of course, distract from rational/cool-headed thought and action, and this appears to be the case with the content of some comments lobbed at myself. LOL…
As for the issues of ‘mocking’ or ‘trolling’ or whatever, maybe you/we should ask yourself/ourselves this simple question:
‘Did who I feel was being mocked/trolled/whatever dish out what they weren’t willing to take?’
Oh boo-hoo.
For someone who claims ‘I like the attention’ while supposedly casting themselves in their virtual snowflake-style safe-space where I’m concerned, (and whose comments, alas, I generally pass over and/or don’t think much of), Hickory sure seems to like to ‘jump in’ where I’m concerned.
You can’t make this stuff up.
“Too bad he didn’t take Island Boy up on the offer of learning goat raising down in Jamaica a while back.” ~ Hickory
LOL
Right you are Fred! The whole point of my exercise after the passage of two very destructive hurricanes through the Caribbean in 2017, seems to have gone completely over Caelan’s head. I was very interested in the survivability of solar PV installations and spent time searching for both those that survived unscathed and those that did not. The fact is that, the level of damage varied widely, with total destruction at many and light to no damage at others. Richard Branson’s Necker Island installation and the installation on the ninth story roof of the San Juan VA Hospital in Puerto Rico are examples of arrays that survived. I actually prepared and presented a Powerpoint (type) presentation, outlining my findings and pointing out the weaknesses in the local code with pictorial examples of questionable local practices, to a local seminar on PV.
The Rocky Mountain Institute subsequently released Solar Under Storm: Designing Hurricane-Resilient PV Systems in June 2018, which I promptly circulated to all the relevant parties in mu neck of the woods. The 2017 hurricanes were a learning experience, a very good one in some respects.
Seeing the photos of the damage I would put it 100% down to poor construction. Very thin steel C section beams may be able to take the load but have absolutely no resistance to twisting. Even a few rebar cross braces my have made a big difference but those beams were a definite no! Interesting to see the solar installations popping up around here and figuring which will be left after a good storm passes through.
“The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.
But even if they were not, the panels would of course help weight down the whole structure and make them essentially hurricane-proof.
But even if the panels did blow off, along with the roofs, did you know that, according to independent research, they can apparently retain about 95% of their efficiency over 5 years?!
Same thing with electric vehicles (EV’s). They are not generally subject to debris and falling trees like the rest of the human infrastructure is. Something about all those batteries and their reverse-polar magnetic charges acting as a repellant maybe.
So anthropogenic climate change? Give me a break.”
Yair . . . .
“The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.”
WE HAVE A WINNER!!! That’s the most inane comment I have seen on the internet ever!
CM must be joking and fishing for a bite . . . surely?
Caelan appears to have a large database of peoples posts that he can cherry pick, twist as necessary and use against them. It is notable that, in many of these comments, he does not add anything of his own, just posting his distortions. For example
from Fred as quoted by Caelan “To be clear I live in South Florida and know that if properly installed, solar farms are most definitely not ripped to shreds by every passing hurricane! That is a blatantly false statement.” ~ Fred Magyar
Caelan responds “Then why did you make it? Oh wait, never mind.”
making it seem that Fred is referring to the first sentence in his second. He deliberately misses out Fred’s previous paragraphs
“FWIW: The issue I see with Renewables and the Caribbean islands is the frequent Hurricanes that rip them to shreds. Hurricanes Maria and Irma destroyed any wind or solar farms in their path…
…“I seem to recall even Islandboy previously mentioning, including with some attached images, some of the post-hurricane alternative energy destruction.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre”
Which is, very clearly, what Fred is responding to.
Anyone who keeps such a database, that goes back a very long time including ‘The Oil Drum’, is very deliberately trying to distort the conversation and is very deliberately trolling.
NAOM
An amazing insight, thanks!
notanoilman’s lack of any real insight here is to be expected from someone who, paradoxically, appears to be doing some of what they are accusing me of.
Incidentally, some people like to ‘mock’ themselves, which is quite a difference of course from someone else mocking them. Case in point:
“I enjoy making a fool of myself in public jousting with Caelan…” ~ OFM
The POB archives are the ‘database’.
The issue was about the Caribbean islands, not South Florida, which Fred appeared to be basing his point on.
As an aside, part of the quote was attributed to TechGuy which Fred neglected to do when he re-quoted it.
Also, South Florida, and/or the USA may have different PV installation requirements and approaches, different building codes, as well as different hurricane dynamics than some Caribbean islands.
Lastly, I have no ‘database’ as such, I just do some ‘research’ in the spirit of what any researcher or university student worth their salt would do. I try to avoid dabbling, like some hereon, in rampant irrationality, mindless personal attacks, imaginary whimsy or flights of fancy.
In those regards, good luck in ‘corralling your cronies’, notanoilman.
“…we must treat him as such by countering his points with the true facts rather than mud wrestling.” ~ notanoilman
‘Yee-haw, ride ’em, cowboy.’
As I said “twist as necessary”
NAOM
notanetnanny
LOL…
I have this thought just now, as in a film, of this mildly wacky-sounding, harsh-voiced guy (Darth Vader meets Goofy?) somewhere off-camera, saying…
“…We must treat him as such by countering his points with the true facts rather than mud wrestling.”
Incidentally, one would have thought that you would have heard of a ‘search engine’ before and seen the archives on the right of this site’s page. ‘Database’? LOL
Anyway, who wouldn’t be ok with twists, such as if new perspectives and so forth can be introduced. Nevertheless, I endeavor to post the links, so one can also look up the original context (which can be quite expansive/insightful/funny/transparent/etc.).
But this would seem to take someone who is less prone to ramming their head you-know-where (leverage the ignore button, etc.?) at the slightest hint of a ‘twist’, especially if it involves them.
Take it as you like, Alan. Maybe you can find a point in there. Then again, even if you do, would it really matter to you?
While I’m here, though, you give two, in my opinion, bad examples of systems that apparently ‘survived’ (whatever survived means exactly)– a hospital and a rich guy’s place– while mentioning various levels of destruction, (whatever that means)…
Now we could unpack that and the statistics/details and path of the hurricane, the economics, and so forth, but again, would it really matter, such as if you’re peddling this status-quo-derived PV shit hereon? I mean, would it be in your better interest to kind of suppress some sorts of stats and details a little?
And still no condemnation by Caelan of the long established players that have brought the world to this juncture and with the aid of their puppets (e.g. The Orange Bufffoon and MoscowMitch in the US, Scott Morrison et al in Australia and Bolsonaro in Brazil), continue to perpetuate crimes against the biosphere! How come they appear to get a pass while technology that threatens the very core of their existence does not? Strange!
But that would seem unbalanced/groupthinky of me.
For the sake of balance, and time-constraints, I have to pick my poisons, and so I do. ^u^
Like i said, strange! Rather than rail against the long established hegemony responsible for the vast majority of global warming emissions and pollution to date, Caelan chooses to pick on the new kids on the block that threaten them. Strange choice of “poisons”. Yet he chooses to criticize me and others for rooting for the “little guys”!
I’m fine with the poisons that I pick and don’t really care if you’re not. See how that works? It’s called freedom, and given that you’ve mentioned hereon being the son (or grandson?) of an escaped slave, or something along that line, one would think you’d appreciate that more than most. That said, too, in some sense, you appear to be selling out to said system that enslaves and that likely enslaved your family member. That system’s been around for awhile.
More alarmist news from yours truly. Please ignore if you don’t like hearing about bad stuff.
ARCTIC WILDFIRES: WHAT’S CAUSED HUGE SWATHES OF FLAMES TO SPREAD?
Wildfires are ravaging the Arctic “at unprecedented levels”, a senior scientist has warned. Large areas of Siberia, northern Scandinavia, Alaska and Greenland are in flames. The wildfires are believed to have been triggered by lightning and summer temperatures that are higher than average due to climate change.
Extremely dry ground and hotter than average temperatures, combined with heat lightning and strong winds, have caused the fires to spread aggressively. The burning has been sustained by the forest ground, which consists of exposed, thawed, dried peat – a substance with high carbon content.
HOW BAD IS IT? A big environmental concern is that the fires themselves are releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing further to the global warming that helped cause them in the first place.
“This will result in high temperatures and consequently enhanced melting of the Greenland ice sheet. We don’t know yet whether it will beat the 2012 level, but it’s close.”
In a few years these heat waves will just be normal weather and the heat waves of the future will be measured by the dying, drying and the burning.
Asphalt roads and asphalt shingles will not be recommended.
Yup. Yesterday 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) in almost all of Sweden. Record temperatures in many EU countries. France shutting down 2 nuclear power plants because they can’t cool the cores due to the high outdoor temperatures and lack of cooling water.
“We need tankers, we need helicopters, we don’t have enough supplies. There are 80 fires right now in Sweden, and there is no helicopter company or pilot in all of Sweden that’s not involved in fighting these fires.”
Welcome to the future. Sigh!
France shutting down 2 nuclear power plants because they can’t cool the cores due to the high outdoor temperatures and lack of cooling water.
Yeah, next they will have to shut down all the solar farms and wind turbines in Europe due to not being able to cool the cores… oh wait! That doesn’t happen. /sarc
Side note: I can’t wait for Boris Johnson’s ‘No deal Brexit to tank the British economy, start a global depression that will drastically reduce industrial output all over the world, which in turn will reduce aerosol and particulate pollution and reduce global dimming and immediately raise average global temperatures by another couple of degrees! Guaranteeing that tipping points and feedback loops are set in motion to melt the remaining Arctic ice and glaciers, melting the permafrost and releasing massive quantities of methane. Who knows maybe we will get lucky and be spared all of that and be mercifully be put out of our misery by an asteroid strike
Science has established that the long-term driver of earth’s climate is the tilt of earth’s axis. The angle of the tilt determines the length of sunlight each point on the planet sees in different parts of the year (365.25 days). Earth’s present tilt angle is approximately 23.5°, but it varies over time because of precession. This means the seasons occur at different times of the year as the planet revolves around the sun following a repeating cycle of about 23,000 years, give or take a few thousand years.
The precession of the axial tilt is what is responsible for the ice ages the planet has been through time and time again. The last ice age was about 20,000 years ago, meaning we are due to enter the next one soon simply due to forces out of our control. Anybody rejecting the sound science about the precession of the axial tilt to instead believe that man’s activities in the lowest part of the atmosphere could have as significant an effect as natural phenomena is either an ignorant lunatic or serving an ulterior motive by way of receiving funding from globalists.
Please tell me where I can get money from Globalists.
NAOM
You must be employed in one of the favored professions, professors of certain sciences at universities in America and other western nations being among the most favored of them all.
In line with the globalists’ modus operandi, the goal is to destroy natural order. In this instance, the natural order is the hierarchy that exists between developed nations and undeveloped nations. Globalists mandate citizens of developed nations to pay carbon taxes, while citizens of undeveloped nations are free to do as they please. The end game is to achieve a massive redistribution of wealth right into the pockets of the globalists, members of the favored professions, and people of undeveloped nations. Meanwhile, if you live in a developed nation, you are forced beyond your will to abide catastrophically lower living standards.
Troll Alert! (Not to be taken seriously)
Hey “Shiloh Pacheco”! Here’s something for you to chew on:
The grid operator for most of the Lone Star State has been adding wind energy at a rapid clip for years, and the results are showing.
Wind was virtually nonexistent on the state’s grid in 2003, and now generates about a fifth of the state’s energy.
According to ERCOT’s data, wind resources generated almost 39,000 GWh in the first half of this year, nudging out coal. Gas generators roughly doubled that volume.
(Credit: ERCOT)
And projects in ERCOT’s interconnection queue give a clear indication of where the state’s resource mix is headed.
Of 109 GW listed in the grid operator’s monthly Generator Interconnection Status Report, more than 94 GW is wind and solar while gas makes up less than 10 GW and none is coal.
So why don’t you show that to your “handlers” so y’all can get over to Texas and stop this madness!
Shiloh- “the natural order is the hierarchy that exists between developed nations and undeveloped nations”
Thats the biggest bunch of bullshit. Nations aren’t natural, and there ain’t no order.
Your belief system is for ignorant people.
Count me out.
I made it all the way past 6 grade.
Even further.
“In line with the globalists’ modus operandi, the goal is to destroy natural order.”
speaking of natural order, … I can’t wait for the famine. The population could use a good bottleneck if you ask me. My guess is it will select for intelligence, and for those individuals with a useful response to risk that is distant in time and space.
I think the correct term may be ‘natural disorder’.
And intelligence generally hasn’t been selected for in past population bottlenecks.
Just look at us for proof.
Generally, the intelligent have been killed off by the impulsive, the cruel, the selfish.
And here we are. The offspring.
I doubt it will be different this time.
I’ll say goodbye now, in advance.
Thanks for the chatter, in case I don’t get a chance to say it later.
The precession of the axial tilt is what is responsible for the ice ages the planet has been through time and time again. The last ice age was about 20,000 years ago, meaning we are due to enter the next one soon simply due to forces out of our control.
Would you like to invest in my Miami snow removal business, ground floor opportunity! Hurry time is running out! I can promise very high returns…
“Anybody rejecting the sound science about the precession of the axial tilt to instead believe that man’s activities in the lowest part of the atmosphere could have AS significant an effect as natural phenomena is […]an ignorant lunatic.”
Can’t argue this point. No sane person rejects that, or thinks that.
Doesn’t mean that man’s activities aren’t having an effect.
Shiloh Pacheco,
The angle of tilt of Earth’s axis varies over a 41 000 year cycle not a 23 000 year one. The 41 000 year cycle set the timing for ice ages before about 900 000 years ago; since then the cycle length has been about 100 000 years not 23 000. The 23 000 year cycle does modulate the 100 000 cycle but it doesn’t set it.
The 23 000 year precession cycle is set by the precession of the axis of the planet–the direction the axis is pointing. Currently the north end points very close to the star Polaris. You can see precession by watching a spinning top. Precession sets the timing of seasonal change, not of ice ages.
OK, let’s get this straight. Without relatively low CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere, ice ages or glaciations won’t happen. Once the CO2 and methane levels fall low enough, the orbital variations become amplified to the cold side by snow and ice reducing albedo and more CO2 is held in the cooling ocean.
The next big player in the pack of variables is the changing elliptical of the orbit which varies the amount of sunlight received by up to 23 percent around the orbit.
“The timescale of Earth’s eccentricity variation is ~400,000 years with a superimposed 100,000 year cycle. There is also an unimportant 2.1 million year cycle.”
The precession and varying obliquity sometimes add or subtract to cooling of the northern hemisphere. The NH is most important because it has most of the land mass, where snowfall and glaciers can become persistent, changing the albedo of the earth and the amount of plant life as well as how much CO2 the ocean holds through temperature changes.
Both the cooling and the heating of the Earth system is dependent upon the changing properties of water with temperature.
The symphony of variables does not stop during a glaciation, ice can grow or retreat during the cold periods depending upon how much insolation the northern regions are receiving.
Lately (last 3 million years) short warm periods are the exception and the earth generally has lots of persistent ice.
Now with high levels of CO2 and methane combined with a shallow orbital cycle, glaciation is reversing itself and may not come back for a very long time.
Asphalt roads are no problem, we have them here. It is just that Europe has used grades suited to lower temperatures whereas we use grades suited to higher temperatures. The roads need repair/replacement, usually just the top layer stripped and relaid, so gradual replacement with hotter grades can be done. Then there is always white paint 😉
NAOM
Yes, just one more adaptation we need to do, change the road surfaces as things warm up.
Who, what, why: When does tarmac melt? “Asphalt is like chocolate – it melts and softens when it’s hot, and goes hard and brittle when it’s cold – it doesn’t maintain the same strength all year round,” says Robinson.
However not all road surfaces are made of the same type of asphalt, or tarmac, which means the temperature at which roads melt varies.
Robinson says following a heatwave in 1995, the road industry introduced a new asphalt specification allowing asphalt surfacings to be made using polymer modified binders – which raises the softening point of the asphalt to around 80C.
But this type of tarmac is relatively expensive and generally only used on heavy-traffic roads. Robinson estimates probably less than 5% of all the UK’s road surfaces contain polymer modified asphalt.
“Almost certainly the section at Potters Bar wouldn’t have, if the cause is due to asphalt softening, which is why it became rutted or ridged,” he says
Doug, would you or anyone reading this know of a good site where I could download for free, accurate hi-res 3D topographic models, specifically of Nova Scotia, that would be importable in AutoCAD (3D drafting program)?
Sorry, no. I’ve been out of that loop for a long time now. My (our) AutoCAD program still exists somewhere but haven’t updated the license in over a decade. I’d be very surprised if the GSC (Geological Survey of Canada) doesn’t have what you’re looking for.
Fair enough, Doug, thanks. Indeed, I’ll look at the GSC.
a·larm·ist
/əˈlärməst/
noun
1. someone who is considered to be exaggerating a danger and so causing needless worry or panic.
synonyms: scaremonger, gloom-monger, doom-monger, voice of doom, doomster, doomsayer, doom merchant, Cassandra;
Reporting bad news and facts is not in and of itself alarmist any more than your oncologist telling you you might only have a year left to live based on his diagnosis.
The problem is those who do not want accept those facts and the responsibility that goes along with it!
de·ni·al·ist
/dəˈnīələst/
noun a person who does not acknowledge the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence; a denier.
“the small minority of very vocal climate change denialists”
Cheers!
Anyways we all know this wouldn’t be a problem if everyone had properly raked their forests…
THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2019
Smoke Covers Much Of Siberia
Smoke covers much of Siberia, as shown by the NASA Worldview image dated July 25, 2019.
The enormous intensity of the fires is illustrated by the image below, showing carbon monoxide (CO) levels as high as 80,665 ppb on July 25, 2019.
The image below shows that, at that same spot on July 25, 2019, carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels were as high as 1205 ppm.
The image below shows that aerosols from biomass burning were at the top end of the scale.
With 80 percent of China’s tree planting failing and trees/shrubs burning enmass in other places, the whole idea of planting trees to “sequester” our carbon plume seems a bit of a stretch. We need to plant trees just to “sequester” the carbon plume from biomass burning. No idea if those will end up burning too.
Makes using biomass for energy a Red Queen event.
As far as the labeling going on, such as alarmist, the internet is full of labeling, innuendo, sarcastic remarks, trolling, outright attacks, threats, and total bonkers. Real information and opinions mixed in with cesspool mentalities.
” 80 percent of China’s tree planting failing”
Most people don’t really understand ‘tree planting’ as a bio-engineering maneuver. The notion might make them feel good, but its generally a very shallow analysis.
In short, if humans would just leave an area alone, and it was suited for tree growth (water, sun, soil), then trees will move right in, and gradually become a mature forest ecosystem. If you want to speed up the process, by all means plant the trees and give them water the first couple years. But the important part is to leave the area alone- no veg cutting, mowing, no concrete, no grazing livestock, no off road vehicles, no burning man.
In dryer marginal tree growing areas of the world, you can make it work by one simple maneuver- add water.
So if you have lots of water, by all means use it on tree growing rather than on people or agriculture. That would be good. Focusing on the the dry grassland/woodland savanna zones. There are huge swaths around the world.
I think its not feasible, personally. More realistic to get the cattle off these lands.
Best to give money and effort to the Nature Conservancy.
They work to keep people from utilizing (killing) land. https://www.nature.org/en-us/
Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119,000,000 acres of land and thousands of miles of rivers worldwide.
Another tack would be to re-educate people to live within nature and natural constraints again, to reacquaint them with it and how it works and how to nurture it, and so forth. I’ve heard of schools starting to do more of this sort of thing with the kids. Permaculture seems a decent approach for that.
“Someone has written a book about the children and their need for their, just simply, emotional and mental development to have contact with the mountains, with the air, the sea, with the dawn, the sunset, the trees, the birds, the song of the birds. Children that don’t have these experiences have no real idea of the world they live in. They live in a house, in a school, in a city that’s all manufactured. And they begin to be progressively isolated from the basic dynamics of what human life is all about.” ~ Thomas Berry
Fred —
UPDATE ON THE ONGOING CORAL DISEASE OUTBREAK IN FLORIDA
“The ongoing outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease in the Florida Reef Tract began in 2014 and continues to spread. It is highly active off Key West, Florida and appears to be expanding to the Caribbean region. The Lower Florida Keys are in the epidemic zone with the highest concentration of active disease.”
NOAA is co-leading the Coral Rescue Team, which is collecting healthy corals and placing them in land-based aquaria to prevent them from becoming diseased, to preserve genetic diversity, and to serve as propagation source stock for future restoration activities. This is the first-ever rescue effort of this magnitude and is necessitated by the urgency and devastating impact of the current outbreak. Coral species are prioritized based on their susceptibility to the disease, the speed of disease progression across the colony, prevalence of whole colony mortality, contribution to reef-building, long-term declines in spatial distribution, reproductive strategy, conservation status, and current abundance. To ensure sufficient genetic diversity is preserved and available for future propagation activities, approximately 4,500 corals are planned for rescue. Genetic markers will be developed and the genetic identity of each rescued coral will be determined. When conditions are suitable, this project will be completed with the eventual propagation of corals for introduction to the wild.
I’m sorry, but while I wholeheartedly applaud these efforts, I think that expecting there to be healthy habitat for these corals to be reintroduced to in the future, is simply a false hope!
Given everything that needs to be fixed for that to occur. Namely: Global warming, ocean acidification, agricultural run off, phosphates, nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, pollution from roads, plastics, sunscreen use, physical damage from recreational boating and inexperienced divers, beach restoration projects, port enlargement through dredging, real estate development along sensitive beach fronts, destruction of mangrove buffer zones, etc… etc…
Florida will continue growing by more than 300,000 people a year and will top 22 million residents in 2022, according to a report posted online this week by state economists.
The Demographic Estimating Conference updated population forecasts through April 1, 2024, and showed steady growth during the multi-year period.
“Between April 1, 2018, and April 1, 2024, population growth is expected to average 330,605 net new residents per year (906 per day), representing a compound growth rate of 1.53% over this six-year time horizon,” an executive summary of the report said. “These increases are analogous to adding a city slightly larger than Orlando every year.”
The report estimated the population on April 1, 2018, at 20.84 million, with it increasing to 21.2 million on April 1, 2019. It is forecast to hit 22.2 million as of April 1, 2022 and be at 22.8 million on April 1, 2024.
Islandboy. Sorry (Not really! 😉 ) to burst your EV bubble but… Yeah, this amazed me as well.
WHAT AMERICANS SPENT THE MOST MONEY ON IN THE SECOND QUARTER
“What was the main driver of [US] spending in the second quarter? Well, for some inexplicable reason, in Q2 the American consumer was scrambling to buy… recreational vehicles!?”
“the American consumer was scrambling to buy… recreational vehicles!”
People would be better off spending the money on making their home a nicer place to hang out.
Staycation. Get used to it.
Dig a mud pit, embroider a yoga mat for the whole family, or something akin.
I just Googled: ‘Embroidered Yoga Mats’, wish I hadn’t! 😉
Hey Doug, not really bursting any bubbles there. 😉 What EV advocates would prefer to see happen and reality are two different things and I am fully aware that “the dark side” is wining right now! I just try to point out chinks in their armor. Did you catch the video from Ford I linked to in the previous thread?
As I have said her before, Ford is making no effort to keep this project secret, quite the contrary they are doing their best to make it known that an all electric F-150 is “in the works”. Why put “camo” on a standard looking F-150 body on electric underpinnings? Without the camo, nobody would take a second glance at it and if they saw it charging would think it is an independent conversion job. The camo screams, “Hey look at me! I’m an official Ford prototype vehicle!” Except that the body is virtually identical to the current F-150. I’d say they’re worried that the new offerings from the various startups, including Tesla, might steal sales from them if they don’t at least have a competing product in the pipeline!
Depending on whether they have real balls, or ovaries as the case may be, and how far up the corporate ladder they reside,and how long until they are ready to either retire or bail out……….
Corporate management types decide to face up to problems, and try to solve them, or pretend a particular problem does not exist, or does not matter, because it’s too far down the road to do anything about it NOW.
They can play the game either way. A few will face up to unpleasant realities early on , and bring a car such as the Leaf to market. A few others will get on board a few years later. Some will just ride out their career, or play the fossil fuel cards in their hand, and still maybe make it to the very top.
But I’m convinced that anybody who fights his way up the corporate ladder to someplace near the top has brains enough to see the handwriting on the wall, in respect to both peak oil and electrified cars and light trucks.
My guess is that a number of managers at FORD are doing all they can, pedal to the metal, to bring an electric truck to market, as soon as they can get their ducks in a row, in terms of building it.They are probably having a hard time getting as much money as they would like for their new baby, due to other project managers also competing for R and D dollars , and everybody including stock holders, factory employees and managers wanting a fatter dividend or paycheck.
Maybe they were afraid to try to make their case four or five years ago, afraid of being shuffled aside and out, looking for a new position.
Maybe Ford’s late to the electric truck game because the electric truck advocates couldn’t make their case well enough any sooner than a couple of years back to convince the rest of the top management team. Maybe they had to wait until Tesla was selling cars by the tens of thousands, and not having to replace more than a very few batteries, to get their case across, using Tesla as their proof.
Maybe the bulk of Ford managers realized sometime back that they would HAVE to have a line of electric cars and trucks, but judged that it would be better to wait until now, before committing themselves to making the investment. Lots of new applied technology changes so fast that new investments in manufacturing capacity are obsolete within a very few years, such as computer chips and solar cells, etc.
The ones who think it’s best to wait are probably confident that given their corporate muscle, they can start almost from scratch and put hundreds of thousands of electric trucks and cars on the road within a very short time, given that the only HARD part is the battery, and they already have factories out the ying yang.
Maybe this, maybe that.
I have encountered a few top level corporate people over the years. None of them impressed me as idiots. If they say something idiotic, you can bet it’s said for consumption by idiots.
You can bet that they know about peak oil and that within a few more years gasoline and diesel fuel are going to be a LOT more expensive, whether they admit it publicly or otherwise, whether they are willing to rock their corporate boat or otherwise.
Showing electric pickups towing such loads is nothing more than a pissing match sort of deal between the various manufacturers, intended to impress naive customers.
If the Ford prototype weighs let us say seven thousand pounds, I could load enough brick in a similar conventional four by four Ford pickup to exceed that weight by a couple of tons, and put the conventional truck in low four and drag the electric truck backwards, with all four wheels of the electric prototype slipping or sliding.
Or I could hook it up to the rail road cars and tow them no problem, as easily as the electric prototype.
These ads are just show biz.
I’m pro electric and hope to live long enough to buy a ratted out old electric car dirt cheap, lol. That way I might have money enough for a Motel 6 next time I go on a fishing trip, rather than sleeping in my car.
I read one report that the RV industry was taking a hammering from tariffs. The cost of steel, aluminium and fixtures has forced them to raise prices leading to a drop in orders and lay-offs. Seems to be in contradiction to zerohedge !
So, are they saying that the RV industry went from crash to booming in just 1 week or is it that the right hand of zerohedge not knoweth what the left doth say? 😉
NAOM
I don’t know about Zerohedge, I find that the quality of their reporting leaves a lot to be desired. As for the legacy RV industry I think they are dinosaurs that will probably go extinct with or without idiotic Trump’s tariffs.
However the RV industry is probably ripe for disruption and I’d like to see it go all electric and solar. We also need more mom and pop conversion businesses such as this.
Of course Trump’s tariffs don’t help this either.
Or maybe a lot more people will be living in trailers, motor homes and vans instead of in houses and apartments. You know, the Make America Poor Again program. Been going on for decades.
With flooding and rising sea levels RVs may become a thriving business. People who are being flooded out, repeatedly, may decide a home in which they can get away from the problem is a solution.
NAOM
Yeah, zerohedge jumps the whale a lot. An earlier posting showed how Americans had increased spending on RV’s above cars (not true). It implied these were motorhomes and trailers when in reality the recreational goods and vehicle spending is mostly electronics and also includes off road vehicles.
I would steer clear of their “info” unless one wants to be the fool.
“Yeah, zerohedge jumps the whale a lot”
So many ‘news’ outlets are just crap. They sensationalize things to grab viewers. the people writing stories are poorly educated on the subjects they are writing about, and have no idea about the context.
Throw in partisanship, deliberate misinformation, and cherrypicking-
Good luck out there.
“I would steer clear of their “info” unless one wants to be the fool.”
Trivia to go with your Saturday morning coffee!
CEMENT PRODUCES MORE POLLUTION THAN ALL THE TRUCKS IN THE WORLD
“A ton of cement yields at least half a ton of CO2, according to the European Cement Association.”
“There are greener ways to make it, but customers are slow to embrace the change.”
“LafargeHolcim, the second-largest maker by capacity, once launched a carbon-free product. It was more expensive and used a different production process. Customers were “very price sensitive” and didn’t show interest. Buyers acknowledge that cost is crucial.”
Which is why CO2 needs a cost. The industry is trying
“Producers have succeeded in cutting their emissions as much as 20% in recent years, from a ton of CO2 per ton of cement down to about 0.8 tons of CO2. Yet it appears the industry may be reaching the limits of what it can achieve with fuel efficiency and fly ash. Meanwhile, total CO2 emissions from cement have kept climbing as production increases. If the world wants to slow or stop global warming while continuing to use concrete, more radical changes are needed. Cement would need to be part of the solution to climate change rather than a major cause.”
Thanks, the big hiccup is cost which is why a tax on CO2 is needed so the true cost of production can be seen. At the moment the cement industry gets free waste disposal.
NAOM
Slow customers should be given the option to either change or be given a pair of free cement boots and a long one way boat ride out to a shark infested reef… 😉
E FredM, E DougL, and all who enjoy marvelous animals:
Speaking of sharks, let’s speak of mantas instead.
Go to the site Nakedcapitalism, click on Links, and scroll down to the Antidotes where one is a video of breeching mantas. I’ve never seen anything like it. I hope it isn’t fake.
E. Synapsid,
The breaching of Manta Rays is well documented and real.
Though the frame rate of this particular video seems to have been significantly slowed down for added effect!
Reality, while still impressive, looks more like this:
Awesome Fred, you will know this but others may not (I certainly didn’t two minutes ago 🙂 “Mantas have huge brains — the biggest of any fish — with especially developed areas for learning, problem solving and communicating. The giant rays are playful, curious and might even recognize themselves in mirrors, a sign of self-awareness.”
Do a search for a Manta called Freckles it approached divers to ask them to take out a fish hook stuck near her eye and waited while they helped. I don’t know how many levels of thought process and intelligence that takes but it is a lot.
Yep, we see them fly down here, awesome creatures and seeing them move effortlessly underwater is a treat.
NAOM
A massive CO2 producer.
And very energy intensive.
Fred, you may be interested in this,
RESEARCHERS DEPLOY NEW TECH TO EXPLORE DEPTHS OF GULF OF MEXICO
“The research team will deploy an autonomous glider modified with sonar technology to collect up-close and personal data on the migrating animals in the water column. The slow-moving glider can stealthily travel through the water measuring where organisms are and how they are moving. An exciting addition to the glider is an “acoustic brain” developed by the University of Washington that processes acoustic data and sends data products home through a satellite connection. The team will simultaneously deploy a prototype camera system developed by the National Geographic Society called the Driftcam. Also an autonomous device, the Driftcam is designed to collect high-resolution images of species composition, distribution and even behavior that is not possible to capture with current technologies and methods. It too, is a minimally invasive device.”
Up thread Hickory says
““Yeah, zerohedge jumps the whale a lot”
So many ‘news’ outlets are just crap. They sensationalize things to grab viewers. the people writing stories are poorly educated on the subjects they are writing about, and have no idea about the context.
Throw in partisanship, deliberate misinformation, and cherrypicking-
Good luck out there.
“I would steer clear of their “info” unless one wants to be the fool.”
xxxx
He’s dead on as usual. I want to add that while this journalistic abuse is now the NORM, rather than the exception, especially on the net, it’s NOT NEW.
Bear with me, this is IMPORTANT .
Back in my younger days, when you got any really important news from magazines, unless you were a daily reader of a big city paper, or from maybe on the TV between six and seven in the evening, various writers and editors went whole hog about the arrival of the next ice age, cherry picking the actual science in the name of sensationalizing it, in order to drive up the circulation, and thus their paychecks.
I can’t clearly remember the details, but I’m quite sure some real and competent scientists were interviewed and that they said there will be another ice age….. sometime within the near future, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME, meaning maybe a hundred years, or a couple of thousand years. Of course this extremely pertinent fact was either glossed over, being relegated to a single line maybe, or left out altogether.
A discussion of this coming ice age, at least in passing, was included in many of my undergrad classes, ranging from biology to geology to world history. Virtually everybody who went to a real college or university back then remembers this discussion.
DO NOT DENY THAT THEY WERE TAUGHT THAT there is an ice age on the way, or that they were lead, by the mass media of that time, to believe it was COMING SOON.
If you make that mistake, you are inadvertently HELPING the anti science crowd advance their agenda.
There’s seldom a day I don’t actually hear somebody say bullshit about global warming, they were predicting an ice age just a while back, they don’t have any fucking idea what they’re talking about, it’s just another libtard power grab trick, and if you ain’t got sense enough to see that, IT’S YOU MAC, that has your head up your ass. ( I do live in an educational back water of course, and speak to such people on a daily basis. )
As Ron points out occasionally, there’s hardly any point at all in trying to convince ( MOST ) of these people that the scientific establishment is right about such things…….. but SOME of them are intelligent enough that you can get the truth across to them, that there IS an ice age baked into the astronomy of our solar system, but that it won’t arrive at any particular time, and certainly not anytime SOON, and no reputable scientist EVER said it would arrive anytime SOON, in human terms.
You win voters over one at a time. Take your time to explain the truth to anybody that will listen, when you have the opportunity.
From my trusty Engineer’s Handbook (a recent Supplement: RE: PORTLAND CEMENT)
“… CO2 emissions from cement production are incurred through the consumption of fossil fuels, use of electricity, and the chemical decomposition of limestone during clinkerization, which can take place at around 1400°C. Decarbonization of limestone to give the calcium required to form silicates and aluminates in clinker releases roughly 0.53 t CO2 per ton of clinker. In 2005, cement production (total cementitious sales including ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and OPC blends) had an average emission intensity of 0.89 with a range of 0.65–0.92 t CO2 per ton of cement binder. Therefore, the decarbonation of limestone contributes about 60% of the carbon emissions of Portland cement, with the remaining 40% attributed to energy consumption, most of which is related to clinker kiln operations…”
BTW, the WWF-Lafarge Conservation Partnership estimated that the production of clinker is responsible for over 90% of total PORTLAND CEMENT production emissions.
I believe Musk has advanced the electric car revolution by at least five to ten years by the force of his personality and business acumen.
This is not to say he hasn’t been LUCKY as well, lol.
Yes, he has done that, but to peg him only to the EV revolution is to totally miss what he is about.
Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and engineer.[4][5][6] He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship and is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of SpaceX;[7] co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.;[8] co-founder and CEO of Neuralink; founder of The Boring Company;[9] co-founder and co-chairman of OpenAI;[10] and co-founder of PayPal. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People.[11] He has a net worth of $22.3 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 40th-richest person in the world.
Source Wikipedia
The two companies of his that I find most interesting are OpenAI and Neuralink:
Here’s a video about Neuralink.
All those pundits and Wall Street analysts who think Musk is the CEO of a car manufacturing company don’t have even the slightest of clues!
Cheers!
Right on Fred,
Some of his ventures may be a long time paying off, and might never pay off, at least within our personal time frames. You can’t know that you have hit a scientific brick wall until you hit it, and getting around or thru it might take years and years.
But so far as I can see, the tunneling system he is promoting is basically an off the shelf deal, in terms of the engineering and technology involved.The tech involved needs refining, but the invention stage has been old news for a long time already. We already know how to do all the work involved in constructing such tunnels, and it looks as if the only REAL problems at this point are working capital and permits to do the actual work.
If the company can get a franchise , or whatever the right term might be, to construct such tunnels, and retain ownership either indefinitely or for many years, and collect such tolls as the traffic will bear, the Boring Company has the potential to be one of the most profitable companies ever.
If I were to live in a city where the company wants to build such tunnels, I would be all in favor, even if I couldn’t afford the tolls personally. Every car in the tunnel,built using private rather than tax money, would be one less on the street, making it that much easier for me to get around.
Here’s a link to some rather depressing news about the depletion of fossil water in the mid west.
“Fraumeni said a young man and woman showed up at his home and the man said he was visiting a friend in the neighborhood when the Tesla battery died.”
So what? What does that prove? ICE cars run out of gas. What is your point?
It’s a simple news clip, Alan. Take from it what you wish.
ICE cars run out of gas, sure, but the accessibility and collection of fuel is different.
Eviation Alice, electric passenger aircraft. Israeli electric Aircraft maker Eviation promises what major companies failed to, an exo-friendly flight, with a range of nearly 1000km and with the space for 9 passengers, Alice will be world’s first electric passenger aircraft. This might be the start of something big, as this was never attempted before, an electric plane capable of caring 11 people. If successful the new dawn of electric flight is before us. Wish them all the best.
HUNGARY OFFERING $35,000, LIFETIME TAX EXEMPTION FOR HAVING LOTS OF CHILDREN
“Faced with a declining birth rate and unwilling to fill population shortfalls with immigrants like some of its European neighbors, Hungary has rolled out a seven-point “Family Protection Action Plan” which showers boatloads of cash, loan assistance and tax breaks to couples who agree to crank out lots of Hungarian children.”
COUNTRIES THAT DESPERATELY WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE MORE SEX
“If you aren’t going to have a kid for your own family, Danes are told, at least do it for Denmark; in Russia, on the Day of Conception, people get the day off to focus on having kids. Women who give birth exactly nine months later, on June 12, win a refrigerator; Singapore has the lowest fertility rate in the world, at just 0.81 children per woman. On August 9, 2012, the Singaporean government held National Night, an event sponsored by the breath-mint company Mentos, to encourage couples to “let their patriotism explode” ; And in India, of all places, had a series of provocative ads in 2014, including one that read “Be responsible — don’t use a condom tonight.” The list goes on……..”
And in India, of all places, had a series of provocative ads in 2014, including one that read “Be responsible — don’t use a condom tonight.
Yeah! Rather ironic to say the least!
India is projected to be the world’s most populous country by 2024, surpassing the population of China. It is expected to become the first political entity in history to be home to more than 1.5 billion people by 2030, and its population is set to reach 1.7 billion by 2050.
Birth rate: 19.3 births/1,000 population (2016 e…
Death rate: 7.3 deaths/1,000 population (2016 …
Population: 1,324,171,354 (2016 est.)
Density: 382 people per.sq.km (2011 est.)
Demographics of India – Wikipedia
How climate change affects crops in India
Date: June 17, 2019
Source:
Data Science Institute at Columbia
Summary: Researchers found that the yields from grains such as millet, sorghum, and maize are more resilient to extreme weather in India; their yields vary significantly less due to year-to-year changes in climate and generally experience smaller declines during droughts. But yields from rice, India’s main crop, experience larger declines during extreme weather conditions.
But they are expanding the airports in Mumbai and New Delhi!
Delhi’s new airport: construction to start, for 2022 opening
A Foundation Stone will shortly be laid to mark the start of construction work on Delhi’s second airport, which will be a P3 transaction. The project was announced well after the second airport for Mumbai but has caught it up, and the chances are it will open in 2022.
As usual, there has been a myriad of hurdles to jump along the way, including in this instance advice from IATA not to decentralise operations.
But civil aviation in India is evolving rapidly and the second airport – which itself is expected to fill up rapidly – does at least offer the authorities options to meet the demands of that evolution.
THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN WHILE EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS!
India is not remotely survivable.
However, I think Pakistan will be first over the falls.
Orban doesn’t understand the root of the problem, which is, that Hungarian Storks are delivering more babies in Africa than in Hungary…
For example, scientists have now discovered that, during their years of maturation, young male storks often do not return home, and spend their summers in Asia Minor.
Thereby Increasing the population of Asians 😉
.
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
by Peter Matthiessen
Highly recommended
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
Peter Matthiessen
360pp, Harvill, £20
Peter Matthiessen is a sensitive soul. He has to be. Having travelled the world in search of some of its rarest and most beautiful birds, he returned home to Long Island, where he attended a dinner party. On hearing of the object of his odyssey, a fellow guest was heard to exclaim: “Cranes?! Who cares about cranes?” The author of this book, for one. And a motley crew of birdwatchers, conservationists and local people who are fighting to preserve the world’s 15 species of crane against the tide of devastation which threatens to drive many of them towards extinction.
This is a losing battle! You can count the number of people who understand and care about what is happening to the ecosystems all over the world, in the couple of thousands vs the billions who are ignorant, desperate and being exploited by the couple of dozen so called elites who should be drawn and quartered.
Yes Fred, we have a case of global Stockholm Syndrome. Of course the “captives” will be injured and killed by the very system they learned to support through indoctrination and propaganda.
Fred, give some break to the many millions that support environmental and conservation organizations and efforts. Many of which you hear little about, which is good since revenge and ostracism (sometimes murder) happens to people who fight the good fight.
I am now involved in a local battle against a pollution problem that will again place me at odds with a much greater number of people who have little comprehension of what they do in the name of enjoyment and recreation. I expect some blowback. Maybe I will get lucky and squeak by once again.
However, in the bigger picture the dominant culture will have to break itself to have any chance at aligning itself with the natural system that is covering the planet. Moving from extraction and domination to enhancement and symbiotic care is not beyond human ability but cannot happen within the current dominant paradigm of human civilization.
Consider where your leaders and business magnates are really leading you. Even without global warming and ecological crises, think of where “civilization” is actually headed, what are it’s real aims and directions?
Welcome to the Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb153OypInQ
Trump Straws – Pack of 10
$15.00
Liberal paper straws don’t work. STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP and buy your pack of recyclable straws today.
Please allow 12-14 business days.
BPA free
Reusable & Recyclable
9″ long
Pack of 10 identical straws as shown
Laser engraved
Made in USA
I was in a small village, some way out of town. There were lots of toads sitting around catching flies. The women were telling the children to leave them alone. Some do understand, sadly not enough.
NAOM
The plague kills it’s host, the Ebola virus kills it’s host, the parasite drains and torments it’s host. Our host is the natural world, which we drain, kill and torment en masse while installing creations of mass destruction.
We happen to be somewhat self-aware but not enough to overcome our instincts to any great degree.
It’s the End of the World as They Know It
David Corn
It’s hardly surprising that researchers who spend their lives exploring the dire effects of climate change might experience emotional consequences from their work. Yet, increasingly, [those] in the field have begun publicly discussing the psychological impact of contending with data pointing to a looming catastrophe, dealing with denialism and attacks on science, and observing government inaction in the face of climate change.
While Americans feel “an increasing alarm” about climate change, according to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, scientists have been coping with this troubling data for decades—and the grinding emotional effects from that research are another cost of global warming that the public has yet to fully confront. Before you ask, there is no scientific consensus regarding the impact of climate research on the scientists performing it. It hasn’t been studied in a systematic way.
But in a single study, two years ago, Lesley Head and Theresa Harada, two geography scientists in Australia, published a paper examining “emotional management strategies” used by a sample of Australian climate scientists. Head and Harada found that daily immersion in the subject caused anxiety for the scientists, exacerbated by the difficulty of “protecting the psyche from the subject matter of climate change.” The scientists’ thinking was more often “pessimistic than optimistic,” and they tended to use “diverse distancing practices” to “separate themselves from emotions.” They generally said they enjoyed their work, but Head notes that “it’s hard to imagine it’s not something that could cause manifestations down the track. For the most part, these academics are well-established in their jobs and already have demonstrated resilience in a competitive system. But you can’t help but wonder what the burden is doing to people that may or may not be visible.”
Are scientists, then, canaries in a psychological coal mine? Is understanding their grief important because their anxiety could become more widespread within the general population?
Luxury or not, I love my bamboo bike! I can’t even imagine riding a metal frame bike anymore. I think it rides better than carbon fiber. Let alone something really stupid like a $7,700 Porsche bike with an aluminum frame that I recently rode.
.
I’m envious but good to know.
Interview with Jason Bradford, for those interested. Mentions peak oil and implications upon food systems, and other general interview chat.
Amid a flurry of ambitious state action on climate change policy, the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature has just passed an energy bill that represents an enormous step backward. It is the most counterproductive and corrupt piece of state energy legislation I can recall in all my time covering this stuff — the details must really be seen to be believed.
The bill, just signed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, is called HB6. Though the story behind it is complex and sordid, the bill itself is pretty simple. It would do four things:
Bail out two nuclear plants: From 2021 until 2027, Ohio ratepayers will pay a new monthly surcharge on their electricity bills, from 85 cents for residential customers up to $2,400 for big industrial customers. The surcharge will produce about $170 million a year. $150 million of that will be used by the utility FirstEnergy Solutions to subsidize its two big nuclear power plants — Davis-Besse, outside of Toledo, and Perry, northeast of Cleveland — which it claims are losing money and will be closed in the next couple of years without bailouts. The remaining $20 million will divided among six existing solar projects in rural areas of the state.
Bail out two coal plants: FirstEnergy customers across Ohio will pay an additional monthly surcharge ($1.50 for residential customers; up to $1,500 for big industrials) to help bail out two old, hyper-polluting coal plants owned by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (a collective owned by several large utilities), one in Ohio, one in Indiana.
Gut renewable energy standards: Ohio has one of the oldest renewable portfolio standards in the country, requiring its utilities to get 12.5 percent of their power from renewables by 2027. The bill reduces the target to 8.5 percent by 2026, exempts large industrial customers, and kills the standard after 2026, effectively nullifying any incentive for new renewable energy development in the state.
Gut energy efficiency standards: Ohio utilities are required to reduce customers’ energy use 22 percent from 2008 levels by 2027 through energy efficiency programs (which were set to save Ohio ratepayers $4 billion over the next 10 years). HB6 allows utilities to abandon those programs entirely once they hit 17.5 percent, a level most have almost reached already.
To summarize: the bill would subsidize four uncompetitive power plants, remove all incentive to build more renewable energy projects, and cancel efforts to help customers use less energy. It is a bill only a utility (and the lawmakers who do its bidding) could love, an extravagant gift to utility investors that hoses Ohio ratepayers.
An exemplary manifestation of representative democracy in action.
See my Plato post directly above 🙁
I strongly support pedal to the metal investment in renewable energy, and in any project or policy that results in using energy more efficiently or that reduces the need for so much energy.
BUT…… and this is a VERY BIG BUT…… Anybody who thinks we can get by without maintaining a huge percentage of our fossil fuel capacity for some years to come, and half of it for some years after that, and SOME of it for a LONG time, maybe fifty years or longer, has ANOTHER think coming.
REALITY is what it is, REALITY and the reality in this case is that as wind and solar power continue to grow, the lowered utilization of power from existing coal fired and nuclear power plants will result in more and more of them running at a LOSS.
We simply CANNOT shut too many of them down too fast, or the lights will go off, and if they do, we will elect another TRUMP, and another REPUBLICAN Congress. Plus more state and local level Republicans, of course. THEN we will shut down wind and solar power investment,via the regulatory powers of government, and go back whole hog to coal, gas, and maybe even nuclear power.
So get used to it, folks. Reality dictates that we will, one way or another , bail out or subsidize some conventional power producers. We don’t really have any CHOICE , as a day to day practical political matter.
The real question then, is how many, and how much, and how to go about it.
Maybe we can pay some companies to just keep some coal and gas fired plants ready to run, via subsidy, for backup, or maybe we can simply let them take their chances, by guaranteeing them a high per kilowatt hour rate for whatever they do produce when it’s needed.
I think maybe all the regulars here, with the exception of maybe my old friend HB and Caelan understand that in this case, you can take my words to the bank, as you can take them to the bank when I talk about agriculture.
To pretend or maintain otherwise, to maintain that we don’t NEED fossil fuel backup generation, by conveniently GLOSSING OVER the next two, three, four, or maybe more decades, which will be needed to build out enough renewable energy production and storage infrastructure, etc, is to provide the fossil fuel mouth piece and propaganda industries with a very good weapon which can be used to make renewable energy advocacy look like pie in the sky commie pinko libtard idiocy.
Nobody ever went broke overestimating the stupidity, avarice, or lack of attention to details and facts, in respect to the general public. NOBODY.
Except for a rather small minority of people such as the ones who hang out here, we live in a sound bite world. Most of us want somebody else to solve our problems for us these days, so we can just go to work and come home and pig out on the sofa watching ball games or soap operas or playing video games, or just get drunk or stoned, so we can face going to work again tomorrow.
Asking a typical man or woman encountered on the street these days in the USA to actually THINK is about as likely to get a positive result as I am to sprout wings.
Nevertheless, you can get thru to a FEW such people, and a few is enough to put the more sensible and less corrupt D’s back in control in DC and in state houses.
Another perspective, as if we needed it.
EARTH’S 2019 RESOURCES ‘BUDGET’ SPENT BY JULY 29th
“Mankind will have used up its allowance of natural resources such as water, soil and clean air for all of 2019 by Monday, a report said. The so-called Earth Overshoot Day has moved up by two months over the past 20 years and this year’s date is the earliest ever, the study by the Global Footprint Network said. The equivalent of 1.75 planets would be required to produce enough to meet humanity’s needs at current consumption rates.”
Yes I do have a thing about the Arctic which, I think, comes from having worked there (in a past life).
PEATY SCIENCE OF ARCTIC WILDFIRES
“Unprecedented, yes, but not unexplained. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to the desiccation of vegetation, which fuels huge blazes. Fortunately for us, these wildfires typically threaten remote, sparsely populated areas. But unfortunately for the whole of humanity, so far this year Arctic fires have released some 121 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Why such a huge burp of emissions? Because these are no ordinary wildfires. Many of them are burning through peat. And when dried peat burns, it burns in a super weird way. In California, fierce autumn winds fan blazes like last year’s Camp Fire, which consumed dry grasses and shrubs and trees before overwhelming a town of 30,000 in a matter of minutes. But when peat catches fire, say after a lightning strike at the surface, it smolders like a lit cigarette, gradually burning deeper and deeper into the ground and moving laterally across the ecosystem, carving enormous holes in the soil.
This three-dimensional fire continues for perhaps months at a time, gnawing both downward and sideways through carbon-rich material. “It’s the combination of these two phenomena that leads to massive carbon emissions, massive damage to the ecosystem, massive damage to the soil and the root systems. You have to go to a different planet to find a more persistent type of fire.”
“The largest fires — blazes likely ignited by lightning — are located in the regions of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia, according to the Earth Observatory. These conflagrations have burned 320 square miles (829 square kilometers), 150 square miles (388 square km) and 41 square miles (106 square km) in these regions, respectively, as of July 22.”
No big deal, just an another feedback loop; there are so many to choose from. What’s the harm of some burning peat that helps keep the mosquitoes down?
World on Fire
Sarah McLachlan
Hearts are worn in these dark ages
You’re not alone in these stories pages
The light has fallen amongst the living and the dying
And I’ll try to hold it in, yeah, I’ll try to hold it in
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
I watch the Heavens but I find no calling
Something I can do to change what’s coming
Stay close to me while the sky is falling
I don’t wanna be left alone, don’t want to be alone
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
Hearts break, hearts mend, love still hurts
Visions clash, planes crash
Still there’s talk of saving souls
Still the cold is closing in on us
We part the veil on our killer sun
Stray from the straight line on this short run
The more we take the less we become
The fortune of one man means less for some
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
There are similar long lived smoldering fires to be found in places where coal has extracted by underground mining. Once started, such a fire can track along mined out or untouched coal beds for generations, because enough fresh air finds its way in thru old tunnels and mineshafts and crevices in the ground.
A return of heavy rain and snow fall generally extinguishes peat fires, once the ground is waterlogged again.
But in far northern climes that get little rain the fire may be hot enough that snow fall may not produce enough melt water to entirely extinguish such a fire, so it might burn for years.
There are often spots in old coal mines that (due to good drainage or impermeable rock overhead ) never get wet enough to put out the fire, so it may temporarily retreat, but it spreads again.
There are lots of these fires. Some of them have apparently been burning a century or more, but good documentation of such fires is iffy that far back.
This link is about one of the better known ones not all that far from where I live.
I visited one of these in Decazeville, France next to the open cast mine. Holes in the ground, emitting smoke and sulpher deposits around them like small, seabed volcanic vents. Spooky.
NAOM
Underground coal fires are indeed bad business; we had one here in Merritt that smoldered for almost a century. Of course, coal fires produce: CO, CO2, CH4, NOx, SOx, etc. Due to the incomplete combustion, underground fires produce more of these gases then a complete combustion of coal at surface. Complete combustion of 1000 kg of coal with 750 kg of C leads to about 2.7 tons of CO2. An incomplete combustion of 1000 kg of coal with 750 kg of C leads to roughly 1.3 tons of CO2, and 0.8 tons of CH4. Since methane interferes with the atmosphere 20 times more than CO2 it has a much greater greenhouse effect. So, as a result of an incomplete combustion of 1000 kg coal with 750 kg C 5.1 tons of CO2 equivalent are caused from a coal fire. The most disastrous coal fires in the world currently occur in China and India some of which have been smoldering for over 100 years. There are numerous references on this topic available.
Estimable DougL,
Thanks for the numbers. An underground coal fire can almost double the warming effect of the produced gases.
Offhand, would 1000 kg of coal with 750 kg C be bituminous? What would the figures for anthracite be?
Synapsid —
Don’t know, only that sub-bituminous and bituminous coals are the ones most likely to self combust. I had a business partner who’d been a coal geologist (in a former life) which is how I happened to learn a bit about coal, not much but a bit. Haven’t spoken to him in years. Besides, you are undoubtedly far more knowledgeable about such matters than I.
E DougL,
You make a good point implicitly that anthracite would be the least likely of the coal types to self combust.
If we’re talking about Appalachian coal then the likely one would be bituminous as that’s the big producer in the region. Lignite in Texas and some in Wyoming (I think) but no underground fires come to mind there. Other parts of the world I’d have to look up and that would take me away from Port.
As a kid I remember the large piles of mine tailings smoldering across the towns in Pennsylvania. The nasty sulfide smell, the paint being blistered off of houses, the haze in the air.
But that was on the surface and eventually those piles were removed.
I have been near Centralia a number of times but never had the urge to visit that long burning underground fire that wiped out a town. I had seen enough of what coal can do to people, the land, air and water as I grew up.
Pennsylvania Coal Fires No one can say for sure how many such fires currently rage in Pennsylvania, but the number is unquestionably in the dozens. The number is hard to pin down because coal fires that seem to be out can smolder at low temperatures for years and then flare up again; the process of checking to see whether they’re still going carries with it the risk of making matters worse by adding more air.
The largest and most infamous of Pennsylvania’s coal fires is under the town of Centralia. It started in 1962, apparently due to someone burning garbage in the town dump. For decades, a combination of bureaucratic delays, funding shortages, and ineffective containment efforts permitted the fire to grow to the point that the entire town (formerly home to 1,100 people) was condemned and basically shut down.
Thanks, I couldn’t find any reference to the type of coal there but I probably don’t know the best places to search, however I found the following reference (part way down the LHS) that points to spontaneous combustion.
NAOM
I’ve read literature supporting the fact that the Permian-Triassic extinction was the result of volcanic flows reaching a massive coal deposit and the ensuing ignition essentially leading to the P-Tr mass extinction.
Almost all of our mass extinctions were caused by increased CO2.
Hint: 415 is a new high for homo sapiens
Iron Mike,
Yes there is coal intruded by the dikes that fed the Siberian Traps at the end of the Permian, and carbonates too–they’d release CO2 upon intense heating. The area containing the eruptions and covered by the Traps (the flows) is much greater than those regions though, and the two mechanisms are generally considered as contributing to the environmental impact of the eruptions rather than as the causes of the extinctions.
To paraphrase Walter Alvarez, who proposed the impact cause for the Cretaceous/Tertiary extinctions: “Sometimes you have a run of really bad days.”
The team worked to create a device that could squeeze the photons emitted as heat into a narrower band that could be absorbed by a solar cell. The proof of concept device they developed is described in the paper Macroscopically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes as a Refractory Platform for Hyperbolic Thermal Emitters, published in the journal ACS Photonics.
The device uses a film of carbon nanotubes which electrons can only travel through in one direction and the researchers claim it could operate at temperatures of up to 700 degrees Celsius. The next step for the research will be to combine the ‘hyperbolic thermal emitter’ device with a solar cell.
“By squeezing all the wasted thermal energy into a small spectral region we can turn it into electricity very efficiently,” said Naik, “the theoretical prediction is that we can get 80% efficiency.”
Solar capacity in India is expected to touch 38 GW this year and the expanding market scale, coupled with high-quality solar resources and competition, has pushed solar costs down to half the level seen in many rival Asia Pacific countries – according to WoodMac research director Alex Whitworth.
The trend is spreading across the region, however, with Asia Pacific set to see solar directly compete with coal by 2027.
Australian solar to beat coal next year
Solar power in the second cheapest Asia Pacific market of Australia – a nation which has been historically reliant on cheap and abundant coal and gas for power generation – is already cost-competitive against gas with the LCOE for solar having fallen 42% in three years. Solar is expected to break through the coal-fired electricity price barrier next year, when its cost falls to US$48/MWh.
“Notably, the tariff tendered by the company Scatec Solar for [the] Tataouine project, namely $0.0244 per kilowatt hour, is the lowest bid ever recorded in Africa and is among the lowest in the world,” wrote Majoul. “The prices proposed under this tender will help bring down the cost of production of electricity nationwide and reduce the bill for energy subsidies in addition to lowering national imports of natural gas by 5%. These projects will start operating from 2021.”
Vietnam has scaled up its PV market in just one year to break into the gigawatt-scale bracket, and by the end of June, we expect renewables to account for up to 7% of the country’s total installed electricity capacity. Quickly becoming the PV powerhouse in Southeast Asia, Vietnam differs from other countries in the region with its many large-scale mega projects and a diverse landscape of market participants. To deal with the growth in energy demand, Vietnam will continue to be an important market for PV investment.
The point of post the four articles above is to try and highlight the possibilities presented by solar PV and related technologies. If efficiencies can be increased to over 30% as suggested by an article I posted a couple of weeks ago, or to 80% as suggested by the top article in this comment, cost of generating electricity using solar energy could fall significantly over the coming decade. 80% efficient solar PV cells would make putting solar on top of trains, trucks, cars, aircraft and even ships a proposition worth considering for very practical reasons. At that sort of efficiency solar PV on top of the vehicle could provide most if not all of the power needed for propulsion allowing for significantly smaller (thus lighter) batteries.
Significant increases in efficiency would also allow more residential and commercial/institutional buildings to generate more electricity than they need from their rooftops, without needing significantly more raw materials. These sort of developments lend credence to Tony Seba’s proclamations that by 2030 all new electricity generation will be solar.I suggest that it is electricity from solar sources that will eventually be “too cheap to meter”.
Islandboy, another number for your spreadsheet. 😉
GLOBAL ENERGY NEEDS WILL INCREASE 25% BY 2050
Many of the consequences of climate change are well reported in the press: rising seas, more severe storms, droughts and floods, and increasing numbers of heat-related illness and deaths. Now Ian Sue Wing, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of earth and environment, Bas van Ruijven, a former visiting scholar at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and Enrica De Cian, a professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy, project another troubling outcome: a significant increase in global energy needs, largely anticipated to arise from cooling and air-conditioning usage.
“We’ve known for a long time energy demand would grow as a function of population growth and economic development but for the first time, this paper has given us estimates of the growth in energy demand as a function of climate change itself — a potentially disruptive positive feedback.”
Amplification of future energy demand growth due to climate change
Abstract Future energy demand is likely to increase due to climate change, but the magnitude depends on many interacting sources of uncertainty. We combine econometrically estimated responses of energy use to income, hot and cold days with future projections of spatial population and national income under five socioeconomic scenarios and temperature increases around 2050 for two emission scenarios simulated by 21 Earth System Models (ESMs). Here we show that, across 210 realizations of socioeconomic and climate scenarios, vigorous (moderate) warming increases global climate-exposed energy demand before adaptation around 2050 by 25–58% (11–27%), on top of a factor 1.7–2.8 increase above present-day due to socioeconomic developments. We find broad agreement among ESMs that energy demand rises by more than 25% in the tropics and southern regions of the USA, Europe and China. Socioeconomic scenarios vary widely in the number of people in low-income countries exposed to increases in energy demand.
I’ve read it a couple of times already! I think there must be something seriously wrong with my capabilities for thinking through the plausibility of any of those scenarios. Try as I might I just can’t see it. I guess I just don’t believe that we will not have runaway catastrophic climate change long before 2050.
The Arctic is burning today! And there are record heat waves happening all over the globe right now. 2050 with continued economic growth?! Seriously?! Does anyone really think we will not suffer the consequences of drought, flooding and collapse of global agricultural systems?! What are we going to do?! Ask god to turn on the giant air conditioner in the sky?!
Either I’m to too dumb to get it or these people are just plain nuts and in denial of reality!
Good luck folks!
“I guess I just don’t believe that we will not have runaway catastrophic climate change long before 2050.”
Nor do I Fred, nor do I.
And, BTW: Short video —
AS TEMPERATURES SOAR, A ‘HEAT DOME’ IS COMING TO THE ARCTIC
Air conditioning or whatever other fantasy some think will continue, ain’t gonna put a dent in what is coming down the pipeline in the next decade, let alone what will be happening by 2050.
Even if we do have climate catastrophic events related to warming by 2050,
the energy demand of humanity will be higher than today.
Unless one of two things happen.
One would be a population decline by 2050 only 7.1 B instead of 9.4B
The second would be a great depression, followed shortly by 2 more.
Those things could derail the train, or would be symptoms of a derailed train.
Leading by example! Certainly beats those “world leaders” who go to climate conferences in their private jets.
GRETA THUNBERG TO SAIL ATLANTIC FOR CLIMATE CONFERENCES
“The teenager will make the journey aboard the Malizia II, a high-speed 18-metre (60ft) yacht built to race around the globe. She had previously said that she wanted to attend the UN Climate Action summit in New York on 23 September, but was struggling to work out how to make it without taking a plane or going on a cruise ship – which have similarly high emissions. Malizia II was built to compete in the 2016-2017 round-the-world Vendée Globe race. The high-tech vessel generates electricity through solar panels and underwater turbines.”
I had the immense pleasure of meeting this gentleman in Brazil on one of his round the world journeys before he got into solo round the world racing and even got to sail with him from Newport to NY on his 60 ft racing sailboat, which he built himself! Today he only sails on the Lake Balaton.
“In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses[2] and normalizing tangential discussion,[3] whether for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain.
Both the noun and the verb forms of “troll” are associated with Internet discourse. However, the word has also been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, the mass media have used “troll” to mean “a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families””
To me, DayBeer and Bradley Linto are stupid pussy’s.
Picking on women. And they both have earned the fascist stupid term just about every time they speak.
They have nothing useful to add to any discussion.
I’m granting them both the big ‘Ignore’
Adios girls.
“Maybe she could get scurvy traveling this way?” ~ Daybeer
Scurvy is the result of one lacking in Vitamin C, not from riding in sailboats.
Boy, Greta does get the wingpawns upset!
Sorry, but this sounds like another Greta Gimmick for when she’s trying to write an eye-popping college application essay in order to get a completely free ride scholarship to a place like the University of Yale or Harvard and maybe a book deal or two afterwards (not necessarily written by herself, but most likely by a ghostwriter). Then again, if her parents can afford such a boat to go across the ocean, they can probably afford to pay her tuition themselves to any one of the ivy leagues.
You are displaying the best of American exceptional ignorance. Greta lives in Sweden and a quick Internet search reveals that Swedish nationals pay no tuition fees to attend university. That’s right! One of the benefits many Europeans have access to is tuition free education right up to university level! As a matter of fact in Norway even international students pay no tuition to attend university! Betcha didn’t know that?
As for the trip, why would it cost more than airfare to hitch a ride on a boat that uses no fuel? The operators of the vessel obviously don’t use it for commercial purposes, apart from the race for which it was built. For all I know they could be doing it to support the cause (for free)!
For all I know they could be doing it to support the cause (for free)!
Don’t know about expenses but the sailboat owners are supporting the cause.
Not to mention that they can certainly afford it. It was their idea to make the offer!
The more you know about the trip, which is expected to take approximately two weeks, the cooler — and more impressive — it gets. Predictably, the boat is emission-free, as it features solar panels and underwater turbines. Furthermore, Thunberg will be making the journey alongside just her dad, a filmmaker, and the head of the Malizia II racing team, who happens to be the grandson of Prince Rainier III of Monaco and the American actress Grace Kelly.
Having sailed on boats like this as a passenger I can attest to what an incredible experience this is for all involved.
The three trolls mocking Greta should try it themselves though I’m betting they are all landlubbers and couldn’t handle the rigors of such a crossing! They’d probably be below decks the whole time barfing into a bucket…
“They’d probably be below decks the whole time barfing into a bucket…”
So absolutely not the best place to be when feeling like that. 🙂
NAOM
I was more tickled by the idiotic suggestion that she is trying to “get a completely free ride scholarship to a place like the University of Yale or Harvard”! How many Europeans study at US universities? When I did an Internet search looking for the answer, I didn’t come up with anything much, maybe because the answer is, “very few”. When according to one of the search results, all public colleges in Germany, Iceland, Norway and Finland are free for residents and international students, what incentive is there for students to study in the US?
As for Yale or Harvard, it seems that Richard Brockley has never heard of Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich or Imperial College. According to this ranking of the top 100 universities in the world, 29 are in the US while the UK, with a much smaller population has 18. Sweden has two out of the top 100 so, I don’t think Greta is the least concerned with where she will go to college. Note also that she is fluent in English, while I doubt very much that Richard knows a word of Swedish.
Richard would do well to read the following web page:
We had some US students over on university exchange. After observing them, for a short time, it was clear they were much more immature and less capable than ourselves.
NAOM
American students are not less capable than Europeans but they are severly handicapped by a poor educational system coupled with being brainwashed to believe that everything American is better than anywhere else. Europe is by no means perfect but they are ahead of the game on many fronts. I really feel sorry for young Brits if their leaders take the UK out of the EU with a no deal brexit. They will lose big time! Maybe Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland will vote to stay in the EU! A couple of my German American nephews and nieces went to uni in Edinburgh.
“American students are not less capable than Europeans, but they are severely handicapped by a poor educational system coupled with being brainwashed to believe that everything American is better than anywhere else.”
There are several reasons for choosing where you go to do your post grad studies. Personally, I wanted access to certain specific scientists — above all else. Especially, I wanted to learn from Hannes Alfvén (Hannes was an electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics). Hannes had an amazing sense of humor and, not unlike many Europeans, he spoke several languages, including: Swedish, English, German, French, and Russian, plus some Spanish and Chinese.
Learning an extra language was tough at first but a bonus for me too: I’ve never regretted this. And, learning from the world’s leading experts in your “field(s) of interest” is stimulating, to say the least. Makes no difference where they reside or what their nationality is.
To be clear, at the post graduate level American universities are world class!
Having been fortunate enough to have grown up in a polyglot multicultural environment I’ve never been quite able to understand this desire by some, to insist on speaking only one language.
Has Greta heard of carbon offsets? She could simply buy those and then be able to fly to the conference. An ocean crossing on a sailboat is not for the faint of heart, she will likely be nauseous for most of the time and seasickness is rough.
Carbon offsets are just swaps, they do nothing to reduce output of CO2 into the atmosphere – a con.
NAOM
Disagree, when you have to pay for something. One uses less of it.
Clean air shouldn’t be free for polluters to abuse
Carbon offsets are generally a sham in my opinion.
They only way to mitigate is to not create it (burnt carbon).
All the rest is greenwashing.
If I’m wrong, teach me about it.
Carbon offsets are not a bad idea, but they’re much more complex than a carbon tax, and they’ve been implemented very, very badly – you can’t give legacy polluters a lot of free carbon credits, and you have to tightly manage the projects that are eligible.
AFAIK, they’re currently better than nothing, but…not much. But, they could be made to work, if governments weren’t afraid of polluters. Of course, if they weren’t afraid of polluters, they’d just impose carbon taxes…
Nick G.
I see people, or organizations,
claiming that they have purchased carbon offsets to justify an activity.
What I am saying is that this is pure bullshit, just makes them feel better to be ‘politically correct’ on carbon.
And that these mechanisms are not helpful in the least.
The Extinction Event marches on.
The only useful action is inaction.
By that I mean- do not consume. Period.
Perhaps some here may have noticed that I tend to focus on topics more related to the ecosphere and biosphere and things like the sixth mass extinction, disappearance of insects, cascading food web destruction, devastation of coral reef ecosystems, etc, etc… Many of these have things complex multi faceted causes. However it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult to ignore the vast amounts of data coming in that are telling us that things are quite dire. The intricately woven tapestry of life on which we ourselves depend, is beginning to unravel at an ever increasing pace. And yet so many still deny this truth!
Global Warming Is Pushing Pacific Salmon to the Brink, Federal Scientists Warn The fish, critical to local economies and the food chain, were already under pressure from human infrastructure like dams. Climate change is turning up the heat.
Pacific salmon that spawn in Western streams and rivers have been struggling for decades to survive water diversions, dams and logging. Now, global warming is pushing four important populations in California, Oregon and Idaho toward extinction, federal scientists warn in a new study.
The new research shows that several of the region’s salmon populations are now bumping into temperature limits, with those that spawn far inland after lengthy summer stream migrations and those that spend a lot of time in coastal habitats like river estuaries among the most at risk.
That includes Chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley and in the Columbia and Willamette River basins in Oregon; coho salmon in parts of Northern California and Oregon; and sockeye salmon that reach the Snake River Basin in Idaho, all of which are already on the federal endangered species list.
The best strategy by far, if you can manage it, is to stay home, away from hospitals and nursing homes. If you MUST, go to a hospital for treatment, and get out as fast as ever you can.
The odds of a fatal infection acquired in such surroundings is generally higher than the odds of dying from a stroke or heart attack , etc, at home.
A Deadly, Drug-Resistant Fungus Could Be The First Infection Spread by Climate Change
LENA H. SUN, THE WASHINGTON POST
24 JUL 2019 Three years ago, US health officials warned hundreds of thousands of clinicians in hospitals around the country to be on the lookout for a new, quickly spreading and highly drug-resistant type of yeast that was causing potentially fatal infections in hospitalized patients around the world.
I was taking bacteriology at Baylor Medical School circa 1953. The professor was hysterical about the overuse of antibiotics and the resulting drug resistance. This is not a new issue.
Robert, as well he should have been! In the case of C. auris, what is new, isn’t just the fact that it is antibiotic resistant. Something else is going on.
Fungal infections in humans are rare. Mammals have more advanced immune systems than other organisms at risk of fungal infections, and most fungi in the environment cannot grow at the temperatures of the human body, said Arturo Casadevall, one of the authors of the new study, who is a microbiologist and immunologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
But as the climate has gotten warmer, the researchers say C. auris was able to adapt, which helped it replicate in the human body’s temperature of 37 degrees Celsius…
…“The most mysterious thing is that Candida auris appeared simultaneously in three different continents, and it’s very hard to explain that,” Casadevall said. Something happened to allow the organism to “bubble up and cause disease,” he said.
“You gotta try to think, what could be the unifying cause here? These are different societies, different populations,” he said.
I recall an article that talked about a jump from plants and the soil to animals, I don’t recall the mechanisms involved.
NAOM
Ditto biology professors at any university with a college of agriculture, back in the sixties.
The ag guys were all ecstatic about the potential to cut costs and increase production of meat, milk, and eggs.
What they failed to mention, as is usually the case, to farmers, is that once all of us adopted this new tech, we would all be back in the same place…. cutthroat competition driving us out year after year as the bigger and better financed operators gained by scaling up.
The USUAL state of affairs for farmers is that they just barely hang on, long term, because they have no pricing power, and produce until the market prices of agricultural commodities are, on average, at break even levels. You make a living, maybe, that’s it, long term, in relation to the work and investment….. if you are competent and reasonably lucky.
Yes, I have seen that video before and those fish are high on my list of amazing sea creatures but there is one at the very very top of my list of most bizarre fish ever. Check this out!
It’s stuff like this that makes me truly depressed when I contemplate the sixth mass extinction and the profound ignorance and arrogance of so many…
Thanks for those, I’ll have to catch the second tomorrow but that Macropinna is weird! Yeh, that last sentance too 🙁
NAOM
Macropinna
Thanks Fred, great vids!
When you bathe the environment with toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds, how can any creature expect to healthy?
You like to use oil and all it’s products? You like coal and all of it’s products? Of course you do. You use them everyday. How about those lovely asphalt roads that allow you do drive all over the place and allow all those lovely products to be trucked here and there? Those great parking lots and outdoor basketball courts are just adored.
Welcome to PAH’s, just one set of nasty carcinogenic compounds let loose all over the world. Found in asphalt, coal products, heating, cooking, burning and industrial processes. You literally breathe, eat, drink, and play upon those lovely things. They are everywhere now. It’s your world, you helped to make it and paid to make more. They are definitely in your food, your environment and in you. They go right through your skin too.
Report on Carcinogens, Fourteenth Edition Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons:
Individual PAHs are found in the environment not in isolation but as components of highly complex mixtures of chemicals. PAHs are very widespread environmental contaminants, because they are formed during incomplete combustion of materials such as coal, oil, gas, wood, or garbage or during pyrolysis of other organic material, such as tobacco or charbroiled meat
At least five of the listed PAHs are present in coal tar, which is used as a fuel in the steel industry in open-hearth and blast furnaces (HSDB 2009). Coal tar is also used in the clinical treatment of skin disorders such as eczema, dermatitis, and psoriasis. Coal tar is distilled to produce a variety of products, including coal-tar pitch and creosote. At least two of the listed PAHs are present in coal-tar pitch, which is used primarily as a binder for aluminum smelting electrodes in the aluminum reduction process. Coal-tar pitch is also used in roofing, in surface coatings, for pitch-coke production, and for a variety of other applications (IARC 1985). At least two of the listed PAHs are found in creosote, which is used to preserve railroad ties, marine pilings, and telephone poles. Some creosote is used for fuel by steel producers (NIOSH 1977). At least three of the listed PAHs are present in bitumens and asphalt, which are used for paving roads, sound- and water-proofing, and coating pipes.
Oh yes, PAH’s are water soluble. I highly recommend reading the section on exposure.
GF. Don’t hate me, but
“You like to use oil and all it’s products? You like coal and all of it’s products? Of course you do. You use them everyday. How about those lovely asphalt roads that allow you do drive [fly] all over the place and allow all those lovely products to be trucked [flown]here and there? Those great parking lots and outdoor basketball courts [airport runways] are just adored.’
Just saying.
Please note that I totally agree with your point. Just trying to reinforce to it.
Mutagenic and carcinogenic properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The rapid development of the chemical industry, combustion of fossil fuels, and smoking of tobacco have resulted in contact of the general population with benzo(a)pyrene and other carcinogenic aromatic hydrocarbons. Persons especially at risk occupationally are those engaged in thermal processing of oil shale, coal, and heavy residual petroleum. It has been shown that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons require metabolic activation before they can act as mutagens or carcinogens. This metabolic activation results from interaction with microsomal enzymes present in many body cells, yielding reactive epoxides which react with DNA and produce mutations in the count frame shift or participate in covalent bounding. While opinions differ regarding the relative role of these processes in mutagenesis, considerable evidence exists which links mutagenesis and carcinogenesis. Metabolites of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are carcinogenic are usually mutagenic, which supports the hypothesis that damage to chromosomes plays an important role in carcinogenesis. These facts open the possibility to monitoring the spread of carcinogenic substances in the biosphere by relatively simple tests whose endpoint is mutagenesis.
Hormonal analogs anyone? Or should I say everyone and every creature?
Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved
Background: Chemicals having estrogenic activity (EA) reportedly cause many adverse health effects, especially at low (picomolar to nanomolar) doses in fetal and juvenile mammals.
Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
Plastic Degradation and Its Environmental Implications with Special Reference to Poly(ethylene terephthalate)
Plastic particles in the ocean have been shown to contain quite high levels of organic pollutants.
Toxic chemicals, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), nonylphenol (NP), organic pesticides,
such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and bisphenol A (BPA) have been consistently found
throughout oceanic plastic debris [10–12]. The presence of these compounds further increases the risks
associated with ingestion of plastic debris by wildlife, and additionally, many of these compounds can
undergo significant biomagnification and may potentially pose a direct risk to human health [12].
These toxic agents have been linked to and are associated with many health problems, including
developmental impairment (neurological impairment, growth abnormalities and hormonal imbalances),
cancer, endocrine disruption, neurobehavioral changes, arthritis, breast cancer, diabetes and DNA
hypomethylation [13–16].
Plastic debris in landfill also acts as a source for a number of secondary environmental
pollutants [45]. Pollutants of note include volatile organics, such as benzene, toluene, xylenes, ethyl
benzenes and trimethyl benzenes, released both as gases and contained in leachate [49] and endocrine
disrupting compounds, in particular BPA [50–52]. In addition to its endocrine disruption properties,
BPA released from plastics in landfill has also been shown to lead to an increase in production of
hydrogen sulphide by sulphate-reducing bacteria in soil populations [52]. High concentrations of
hydrogen sulphide are potentially lethal [52].
Another technique routinely used for disposal of plastic waste is incineration [45]. Plastic
incineration overcomes some of the limitations placed on landfill in that it does not require any
significant space, and there is even the capability for energy recovery in the form of heat [41].
However, there is a significant trade-off in that incineration of plastics leads to the formation of
numerous harmful compounds, most of which are released to the atmosphere [45]. PAHs, PCBs, heavy
metals, toxic carbon- and oxygen-based free radicals, not to mention significant quantities of
greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are all produced and released when plastics are
incinerated [53–57]. The significant environmental drawbacks of plastic disposal via both landfill and
incineration were the driving force behind the development of plastic recycling processes.
Coral found to prefer eating microplastic to natural food
…Back in their lab, the researchers cut open the specimens and discovered that every single polyp contained at least 100 bits of microplastic—the first recorded instance of coral consuming plastic in the wild. Next, the team dumped microbeads into tanks of lab-raised coral along with their normal food, shrimp eggs. hen they later cut the corals open, they found that there was twice as much plastic in their polyps as there were shrimp eggs. The researchers claim this shows the coral has a strong preference for plastic bits over natural food…
In a follow-up experiment, the researchers dunked a batch of plastic beads into the ocean, which allowed bacteria to form a biofilm on them. They then laced the biofilm with E. coli and fed the beads to lab-raised corals. The team reports that even though the corals spit out the beads two days later, they all died from E. coli infections. The team suggests this finding indicates that a lot of coral might be dying from infections carried by plastics.
Cheers!
I say incineration of single use plastic made of C, H and O in my low emission non catalytic wood stove makes as much sense as burning wood made of C, H and O. I have not tried burning foam yet but beverage bottles and grocery bags burn into clear smoke just like the 2+ cords of birch that heats my cabin near Fairbanks every winter.
Douglas
So you thought it was poor diet?
Environmental endocrine disruptors: New diabetogens? While lifestyle factors (sedentariness, noxious food), together with genetic susceptibility, are well-known actors, there is accumulating evidence suggesting that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may also play a pathophysiological role in the occurrence of metabolic diseases. Both experimental and epidemiological evidence support a role for early and chronic exposure to low doses of chemical pollutants with endocrine and metabolic disrupting effects. Most are present in the food chain and accumulate in the fat mass after absorption. In rodents, bisphenol A stimulates synthesis and secretion of pancreatic β cells and disturbs insulin signaling in liver, muscle and adipose tissue through epigenetic changes leading to insulin resistance and β cell impairment. In humans, epidemiological reports show statistical link between exposure to pesticides, polychlorinated bisphenyls, bisphenol A, phthalates, dioxins or aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbides or heavy metals and DT2 after acute accidental releases or early in life and/or chronic, low doses exposure. More prospective, longitudinal studies are needed to determine the importance of such environmental risk factors. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069117301245
Health Effects of Environmental Endocrine Disrupters
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are environmental chemicals that mimic, block, or interfere with hormones in the body. Increasing exposure to EDCs over the past 20 years appear responsible for the growing number of people with infertility, diabetes, early onset of puberty in girls and early menopause in women, cancer, birth defects, and neurobehavioral disorders, according to a statement issued by the Endocrine Society and IPEN, a global network of more than 500 public interest NGOs in more than 100 countries around the world. https://www.endocrineweb.com/professional/other-endocrine-disorders/health-effects-environmental-endocrine-disrupters
Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. However, more Americans continue to think that humans evolved over millions of years — either with God’s guidance (33%) or, increasingly, without God’s involvement at all (22%).
The latest findings, from a June 3-16 Gallup poll, have not changed significantly from the last reading in 2017. However, the 22% of Americans today who do not believe God had any role in human evolution marks a record high dating back to 1982. This figure has changed more than the other two have over the years and coincides with an increasing number of Americans saying they have no religious identification.
As many as 47% and as few as 38% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins throughout Gallup’s 37-year trend. Likewise, between 31% and 40% of U.S. adults have attributed humans’ development to a combination of evolution and divine intervention over the same period.
Americans do love their fictional entertainment. Nature seems to be the ruling system here but humans do their best to ignore it, wreck it and work around it. All delusional of course with hellish ramifications. But like credit cards, they try to keep the final payment in the future, as they ignore the amount they have to pay today.
“As many as 47% and as few as 38% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins …”
No, that would be “as many as 72% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins.”
“Evolution with God’s guidance” IS creationism, period.
In general, the vast number of Americans are stupid–full stop–because of religion, marketing & advertising, and television.
Trump is a perfect fit for a stupid nation.
Even more astounding to me- some people actually believe in god
If something is real or true, you don’t need to ‘believe’ in it.
You don’t need to ‘have faith’ in true, real things.
They just are.
You should see what I posted on the petro side.
The term “plastic people” came into vogue decades ago. Now we have actual plastic people and plastic food, plastic wildlife then more. But plastic does not remain as plastic, even on land. It changes dramatically and releases new particles and chemicals across the soil, water and land.
Generally speaking, when plastic particles break down, they gain new physical and chemical properties, increasing the risk that they will have a toxic effect on organisms. And the larger the number of potentially affected species and ecological functions, the more likely it is that toxic effects will occur.
Chemical effects are especially problematic at the decomposition stage. Additives such as phthalates and Bisphenol A (widely known as BPA) leach out of plastic particles. These additives are known for their hormonal effects and can disrupt the hormone system of vertebrates and invertebrates alike. In addition, nano-sized particles may cause inflammation, traverse cellular barriers, and even cross highly selective membranes such as the blood-brain barrier or the placenta. Within the cell, they can trigger changes in gene expression and biochemical reactions, among other things.
The long-term effects of these changes have not yet been sufficiently explored. “However, it has already been shown that when passing the blood-brain barrier nanoplastics have a behaviour-changing effect in fish,” according to the Leibnitz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries.
Microplastics can also interact with soil fauna, affecting their health and soil functions. “Earthworms, for example, make their burrows differently when microplastics are present in the soil, affecting the earthworm’s fitness and the soil condition,”
The students at Westmeade Elementary School worked hard on their dragon. And it paid off. The plastic bag receptacle that the kids painted green and outfitted with triangular white teeth and a “feed me” sign won the students from the Nashville suburb first place in a recycling box decorating contest. The idea, as Westmeade’s proud principal told a local TV news show, was to help the environment. But the real story behind the dragon — as with much of the escalating war over plastic waste — is more complicated.
The contest was sponsored by A Bag’s Life, a recycling promotion and education effort of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a lobbying group that fights restrictions on plastic. That organization is part of the Plastics Industry Association, a trade group that includes Shell Polymers, LyondellBasell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips, DowDuPont, and Novolex — all of which profit hugely from the continued production of plastics. And even as A Bag’s Life was encouraging kids to spread the uplifting message of cleaning up plastic waste, its parent organization, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, was backing a state bill that would strip Tennesseans of their ability to address the plastics crisis. The legislation would make it illegal for local governments to ban or restrict bags and other single-use plastic products — one of the few things shown to actually reduce plastic waste.
A week after Westmeade’s dragon won the contest, the APBA got its own reward: The plastic preemption bill passed the Tennessee state legislature. Weeks later, the governor signed it into law, throwing a wrench into an effort underway in Memphis to charge a fee for plastic bags. Meanwhile, A Bag’s Life gave the Westmeade kids who worked on the bag monster a $100 gift card to use “as they please.” And with that, a minuscule fraction of its vast wealth, the plastics industry applied a green veneer to its increasingly bitter and desperate fight to keep profiting from a product that is polluting the world.
A Bag’s Life is just one small part of a massive, industry-led effort now underway to suppress meaningful efforts to reduce plastic waste while keeping the idea of recycling alive. The reality of plastics recycling? It’s pretty much already dead. In 2015, the U.S. recycled about 9 percent of its plastic waste, and since then the number has dropped even lower. The vast majority of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic ever produced — 79 percent — has ended up in landfills or scattered all around the world. And as for those plastic shopping bags the kids were hoping to contain: Less than 1 percent of the tens of billions of plastic bags used in the U.S. each year are recycled.
Huawei first-half revenue surges 23 per cent as China telecoms giant fights off US tech ban impact
SIBERIA FOREST FIRES SPARK POTENTIAL ‘DISASTER FOR ARCTIC
“Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia’s Siberia, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment. As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, environmentalists warn of a disaster threatening to accelerate the melting of the Arctic. More than 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) were in the grip of fires on Monday.”
ARCTIC WILDFIRES BREAKING RECORDS, IN NUMBERS AND EMISSIONS
“This year, between 250 and 300 fire detections, or “hot spots,” have been recorded north of the Arctic Circle each day, four to five times higher than previous years. based on satellite observations alone. Some Arctic fires are likely penetrating deep into the soil, releasing carbon that’s been trapped for hundreds of years. That’s a problem because fires in peat moss emit about 10 times the amount of methane per kilogram of fuel compared to regular wildfires. This June alone, for example, saw emissions rise to 10 times the average of previous years.”
Wouldn’t it be “funny” if oil production started its permanent decline right about now?
[Not funny ha-hah, funny oh-fuk.]
umm.. its not?
I though the permanent decline was here [+/-5%].
(We won’t have accuracy greater than that until the peak of production is atleast 5 yrs in the rear-view mirror.)
Islandboy, here’s a bit of data for your energy spreadsheet.
FRONTIER OILSANDS PROJECT HEADS TO MCKENNA FOR REVIEW
“A massive new oilsands project is inching closer to getting built in Alberta. Only the federal environment minister’s approval stands in the way of Teck Resources’ $20-billion, 260,000-barrel-per-day Frontier project, which would be the first new open-pit petroleum-mining construction in the country’s oil patch in many years. An extensive report says the 292-square-kilometre site north of Fort McKay is in the public interest despite in spite of significant adverse project and cumulative effects on certain environmental components and Indigenous communities. The Company expects the project to produce about 3.2 billion barrels of bitumen over four decades of life.”
Esteemed Doug, it is articles such as the one linked to in your comment that highlight why our civilization should have and still should be be putting the pedal to the metal on renewables and EVs. If solar continues to grow at recent rates, it will eventually cut into the profits of NG operations, first at the electricity generation end but, eventually feeding back to exploration and production.
If EVs were 50% of the market for new vehicles and growing, the need for such a project would likely not exist. One of Tony Seba’s projections is that an increased share of miles traveled going to EVs is going to eventually result in a decline in demand for transportation fuels, slight at first but as electric propulsion takes an ever increasing share it will eventually reduce demand to very low levels. Too low to justify the cost of the Frontier Project. My hope is that, by the time the project gets anywhere near to completion demand will be falling like a rock!
All of this assumes of course, that the TS does not HTF first!
Supposedly good news but, a grenade lurks therein:
The Greenpeace study shows 12,622 MW of wind and solar power generation capacity along the Belt & Road route was supported by Chinese equity investment, alongside 67.9 GW of coal capacity. Some 93% of the wind and solar investment – and 94% of the coal projects – went to south and Southeast Asia.
I think it is time for the UN to tell China that their holiday with coal is over. Governments should put a price on carbon that makes continuing to burn carbon based fuels an increasingly uneconomic proposition. The Chinese have been particularly enthusiastic with regard to using coal to fuel their economic growth and are now seemingly propagating that enthusiasm across the planet without any regard for the consequences on the climate. Even in my neck of the woods, coal plants were proposed as parts of major development projects.
Of course, the FF trolls will have a problem with taxing carbon (flame suite on).
Hello Mr Island,
Will you be writing your electricity power monthly summary soon? Looking forward to that…
It was written at the time of posting of this thread but, I had not let Dennis know it was ready so it should be in the next pair of top posts. Glad you like it!
“Mr Island”
I like it. Nice ring to it.
No man is an Island…
Pulls hat down low over forehead and ducks then quickly exits stage left! 🙂
“I think it is time for the UN to tell China that their holiday with coal is over.”
Perhaps the some letter should go to the United States, Russia, India and Japan who, together with China, account for over 75% of worldwide coal consumption.
I left out the US because coal consumption is trending down in the US and only one new plant has been put into service since 2015, a 17 MW plant at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. That is nothing compared to what is being spearheaded by Chinese interests. While India has been building coal plants like there is no tomorrow, I read at least one article recently:
The only news I found on new coal plants in Russia was about a proposed largest plant in the world to supply electricity to, you guessed it, China.
There is a suggestion that renewables will drive coal out of the electricity markets in India over time leaving many of these coal plants as stranded assets.(We can only hope!)
So, I’m not giving those other countries a pass, it just appears that China is the source of financing for most of the new coal plants.
Nice idea (UN taxing coal), but unless I missed it they don’t have taxing authority.
The idea is not for the UN to tax coal. Note I said, “Governments should put a price on carbon that makes continuing to burn carbon based fuels an increasingly uneconomic proposition.” As far as I am aware the climate change conferences are officially called the nth Conference of the Parties to the Unitited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, so the body that would propose that governments tax carbon is the UN but, it would be up to individual governments to levy the taxes.
Clarification noted Mr Island.
I agree.
I’d love to see a carbon tax with all collected revenue specifically devoted to renewable energy build out.
More good news from the technology front [sarc]
Gigantic, mysterious radiation leak traced to facility in Russia
Feodosyev, of Novatek, claimed for the company all the credit for the record passage time. There was no mention that there’s a lot less ice up there than there used to be because of the Arctic warming up.
Sad.
Yep, quiet is sometimes a strategy —
On this date:
1945 — High Seas: USS Indianapolis, having just completed its secret mission to deliver the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, is torpedoed. The ship sinks in 12 minutes. Because of the secret nature of its mission, the incident went unreported for five days; survivors were left to fend for their own before a Navy plane on routine patrol discovered them. Of the 1,100 men aboard, 880 lost their lives to drowning, sharks & exposure.
Should be seeing soon another big blast on Greenland’s surface melt conditions, as the European heatwave heads to the Arctic http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
Yup, where’s Javier with his impending ice age nonsense?
ARCTIC ICE IS CRASHING
“Over the next few days, Greenland is expected to roast as the weather system that fueled Europe’s second record-smashing heatwave of the summer marches north and west. Scientists are warning of what could be a near-record melt-out across the northern ice sheet’s surface, one that may also impact sea ice surrounding the island…. Weather models predict temperatures across Greenland could rise as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal on Tuesday and Wednesday, with extreme heat engulfing a vast swath of the ice sheet.”
Risk management is not about discerning the optimal response to the most likely outcome. It is about discerning the appropriate response to the most likely distribution of possible outcomes. That means incorporating the possibility that climate change, either by a bad roll of the geophysical dice or a large and unexpected societal vulnerability to warming, turns into a bigger problem than we expect.
In his most recent book on the economics and policy of climate change, economist Richard Tol outlines three factors that would motivate greater climate ambition if we look beyond the “most likely” outcomes.
The first is that surprises are weighted toward the bad. Despite some technical ambiguity, scientists believe that the chance of a nasty surprise on the climate front is much larger than the chance of a pleasant surprise.
Cheers!
TEMPERATURES DIP TO 37 DEGREES IN INTERNATIONAL FALLS, BREAKING 121-YEAR-OLD RECORD
“While the calendar says Minnesota is in the middle of summer, it felt like fall in northern Minnesota on Tuesday morning.
A new daily low temperature record was set in International Falls, where the mercury dipped to 37 degrees, breaking the record (38 degrees) set back in 1898.
A new record low up north this morning. 37° in @Int_Falls_MN, breaks the old record of 38° that stood since 1898. #mnwx pic.twitter.com/S3atMQtLAD
— Matt Brickman (@Matt_Brickman) July 30, 2019
Temperatures in the area don’t typically reach the 30s until late September, early October.”
Well since the Arctic is already on fire the Brazilian government has decided to do its part by speeding up the deforestation of the Amazon by burning it down at an accelerated rate!
Bolsonaro to World: “Fuck You! The Amazon is ours so we get to burn it down ourselves!”
.
Hey, maybe if the clueless idiots (Bolsonaro, Trump, etc) put this puppy in the ditch fast enough, the survivors (if any) will have more resources to survive on?
Naw–
Meanwhile, the same source for the graphic above produced the graphic below. So, despite the decline in the amount of money spent, capacity growth continued to track an exponential curve. Slightly more investment in 2018 resulted in more than twice as much new PV capacity than that in 2014 (40,134 MW), more than three times the amount of PV installed in 2011 (30,133 MW) and more than five times that installed in 2010 (17,151 MW). Remarkable how that works, isn’t it?
We estimate that the first 1TW of wind and solar required approximately $2.3 trillion of capital expenditure to deploy. The second terawatt will cost significantly less than the first. Based on estimates from our New Energy Outlook 2018, capital expenditures on wind and solar generation will total about $1.23 trillion from 2018 to 2022 inclusive.
Sure, however, your graph looks like it’s flattening out already and has a date to June 30, 2018, rather than first half of 2019 of the one I presented. It appears as the first half of a bell curve, although perhaps it’s closely paralleling fossil fuel depletion? If so and FF-depletion follows more of a Seneca cliff, then when will it’s peak be roughly and when that happens what will happen to alternative energy buildout? Will its buildout curve shadow FF’s depletion curve?
“Even if a transition to renewables could theoretically have been accomplished, we are out of time. Thirty years ago we might have had a shot at it, but not now. We had a one-time gift of fossil energy that could at least have sustained industrial civilization for very long time if we had used it wisely, but we didn’t. We have no prospect of remaking industrial civilization to run on renewables when things are falling apart because we lack the energy to maintain the current system. Peak oil thus inexorably means peak renewables as well.”
“In 2018, for the first time this century, global growth of new renewable energy capacity did not show a year-to-year increase. While this leveling off counters a long and steady trend of increased new renewable capacity each year – capacity added in 2018 is ten times higher than it was in 2001 – it has raised concern that efforts to advance a low-carbon energy transition may be stalling at just the wrong time.”
If so-called renewables growth is stalling, perhaps it is an indication of an approaching or just-past-peak fossil fuels.
Astute readers can discern for themselves what the juxtaposition of the two graphics reveals and whether or not Caelan is making sense
“In actuality, people who have no electricity at all are the ones who benefit the most from solar power, because they can get at least a little juice that comes in VERY handy from even a single small panel… enough to run a light or two at night, using a rechargeable battery, or a sewing machine or water pump, etc..” ~ OFM
Yes and the so-called ‘poor’ and/or those without electricity can work as wage-slaves for The (neofeudal/land-grabbing) Man/Woman/LGBTQ+ and buy into their crony-capitalist plutarchy ideological indoctrinations as landless tax-/profit-pimped ‘consumers’ while they watch their traditional cultures disappear.
Total freedom and dignity.
And now that’s kind of becoming old newz as societies and planet continue their trajectory toward the abyss.
“To hear Ati Quigua tell it, New York City is a place where people who don’t know each other live stacked inside big buildings, gorging on the ‘foods of violence’, and where no one can any longer feel the Earth’s beating heart.
Quigua, an indigenous leader whose village in Colombia sits on an isolated mountain range rising 18,700 feet (5,700 meters) before plunging into the sea, is just one of over 1,000 delegates in town for the 15th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues that ends Friday.
‘On top of the temples of the goddess and Mother Earth, they are building castles, they are building cities and building churches, but our mother has the capacity to regenerate’, Quigua said. ‘We are fighting not to have roads or electricity — this vision of self-destruction that’s called development is what we’re trying to avoid.’ “
“As serious as this incident looks, the Hyundai Kona is apparently not alone. Just a few months ago, security cameras captured the moment a Tesla Model S spontaneously caught on fire in an underground garage…
While it’s unreasonable to assume electric cars are any more prone to catching of fire than internal combustion engine cars, lithium batteries can cause spectacular fires when damaged.
Such was the case a few months ago where a BMW i8 caught fire while stationary on a showroom floor and had to be dunked into a water bath by the fire department to be extinguished completely.”
I personally have seen no less than a dozen places where conventional cars caught fire and resulting in houses or garages burning , and in one case, a large patch of woodland burned up, as well as the farm house, and all the farm outbuildings burned to the ground. That fire spread because it was winter, with the wind pushing the fire along in tall dry grass. I was only ON the scene at the actual time of the fire happening a couple of times. Farmers to tend to be in and around garages and such more often than most people, or I wouldn’t have witnessed two actual conventional car fires that got totally out of hand.
Caelan how much are the KOCH BROTHERS paying you?
Sure and electric cars catch fire too– ‘balance’, as you write.
Again one wonders why it is that, despite the claim that these posts do not represent support of the FF industries, they seem to mirror the talking points that have been developed by the FF industry propaganda machine. The FF industry propaganda machine is at pains to highlight every single EV fire while conveniently ignoring the facts on the overall number of vehicle fires. To wit, “Each year, from 2014 to 2016, an estimated 171,500 highway vehicle fires occurred in the United States, resulting in an annual average of 345 deaths; 1,300 injuries; and $1.1 billion in property loss.1 These highway vehicle fires accounted for 13 percent of fires responded to by fire departments across the nation.”. That represents an average of about 470 vehicle fires in the US every day!
Again I feel the need to point out that the individual that posted the comment above has little or nothing to show in the way of criticism for the long established CO2 emitters and polluters.
First the obligatory disclaimer:
No, I didn’t bother to read the post that lead to this comment from Islandboy. Most of the regulars here are already acutely aware of the simple fact that we are facing an unprecedented planetary ecological crisis which will not be solved just by transitioning from fossil fuels and ICE vehicles to renewable energy sources and EVs.
It is clear we need a complete system reset at all levels. Political, social, economic and ecologic! However for anyone to suggest that renewables and EVs are just as bad or perhaps even worse than the current BAU paradigm is patently ridiculous, at best misguided and at worst a deliberate attempt to derail necessary change!
Whatever such a person’s intentions and motivations they are either deliberately or unwittingly a big part of the problem! And therefore need to be called out at every turn. Thank you to those who actually have the patience to wade through the the never ending torrent of bullshit and constant gishgalloping. I no longer do it myself because I tend to lose my cool and end up retorting with a steady stream of expletives! Which admittedly is counter productive.
For the record, This is Tesla specific fire safety statistics only:
From 2012 – 2018, there has been approximately one Tesla vehicle fire for every 170 million miles traveled. By comparison, data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation shows that in the United States there is a vehicle fire for every 19 million miles traveled.
In order to provide an apt comparison to NFPA data, Tesla’s data set includes instances of vehicle fires caused by structure fires, arson, and other things unrelated to the vehicle, which account for about 15% of Tesla vehicle fires over this time period.
So Teslas at least, are 9X safer, when it comes to fire safety than ICE vehicles!
I sometimes find it intellectually stimulating to search for material to counter the B.S. but, at times it gets tiring.
Yep, that is why trolls and denialists indulge in shitposting and gishgallops as their favorite tactics. They know it takes a full time effort to counter their B.S.!
Just about every week we get 1 or more report, in the local newspaper, of an IfCE vehicle going up in flames. I have seen many in my travels even had to call the motorway police to advise them of one.
NAOM
See my most recent comments under the new article.
WARNING POLITICAL RANT
I am putting this HERE because I should have kept my comments about religion and politics in this thread to begin with. It’s a reply I dashed off to a reply in the petroleum thread.
My POINT is that it’s NOT good, politically, to deliberately or inadvertently piss off religious people, because doing so tends to motivate them to vote for Trump type politicians. We are engaged in a CULTURAL war, in the USA, and whichever side musters the most votes wins.
Every thing else I have to say is secondary to this POINT. But people who like to THINK of themselves as being intellectually sophisticated might gain a little in the way of insight into the nature of naked apes, and the way human societies WORK.
This is what I wrote but decided to post HERE.
xxxx
Of COURSE some people who practice no religion of any sort at all care for their elders. Good on you.
I have NUMEROUS acquaintances of various cultural stripes, having lived in both religious communities and in secular communities. My secular friends put their parents in nursing homes as a general rule. My religious friends, the ones who are REALLY SERIOUS about their religion, generally make the necessary sacrifices and take care of their own. If I had grown up in a secular home and society, the odds are MUCH HIGHER that I would not be looking after Daddy.
If I had not been taught as a child to live modestly, and save for a rainy day, as part of my religious culture, I would have been far more likely to have spent lots of money on such things as new cars, money that I invested in things that APPRECIATE, rather than depreciate. No REAL Christian EVER flaunts the fact that he has a lot of money.REAL Christians seldom have a lot of money.
SURE there are lots of dingaling Christians who have swallowed Trump hook line and sinker.
ONE fact that is generally overlooked in such debates as this one is that the LARGE majority of so called religious people in a country such as the USA these days are only NOMINALLY religious. They aren’t REALLY afraid of going to HELL, or else they wouldn’t be paying for lunch at a restaurant right after leaving church. They are however quick to react when they perceive that their preferred cultural values are under attack, and fight back. THIS is what it’s all about, here and now in the USA, TODAY.
Religion here in the USA IS on it’s way out, but religious people are fighting a rear guard action, and anybody who is REALLY paying attention knows this is true. In another generation or two, our country will be pretty much THERE, or close, to being like Western European societies in this respect and other respects as well, barring bad luck.
The LARGE majority of the churches that are so common all over this country are seldom fully occupied these days, excepting for the funeral of a well known member.Relatively sparse congregations ARE the rule, and if you visit a dozen randomly selected churches on a Sunday morning, you will see that children are SCARCE. In lots of churches, you will see ONLY middle aged and elderly people. Kids these days believe in dinosaurs and evolution, in astronomy and aliens. They don’t take Jonah and the whale seriously, or Noah and the Ark, even if their parents do take them to church.
A lot of people who are anti religion seem to believe that THEY have a right to tell OTHER people how OTHERS MUST live, that these OTHERS don’t have a RIGHT to their own chosen values.
I’m not religious at all, in respect to any DOGMA. I’m a true blue dyed in the wool hard core Darwinist, and my handle would BE Darwinian, except Ron has dibs on it, from the old TOD days. I’m a realist. Naked apes are social animals, tribal animals. Religion is just one more form of tribalism. It’s as natural as the sun coming up, as birds flocking, as fish schooling. Anybody who REALLY understands biology and evolution KNOWS that this is true, assuming his education extends beyond the abc level.
THIS IS NOT TO SAY that new forms of tribalism cannot displace old forms. We can and have largely replaced religion in this country by providing social services via tax monies that were once provided by local churches, by way of example. There’s new tribe in town. We call it the welfare state, or the safety net, depending on our personal prejudices.
I have heard a dozen true stories, first hand telling, from my own old folks, about people’s very lives being saved because they went out, as part of their religious core value system, and provided food, firewood, and personal attention to OTHER old folks, back when they were young themselves, and in a couple of instances, stories about some of my own family surviving today as the result of such aid in times past.
SOMEBODY, SOMEONE, SOME ORGANIZATION, SOMETHING determines what values a society and or culture holds. If it’s not a religion, it’s something equivalent, functionally. It could be communism, or Anne Rand style capitalism. It could be the Viking philosophy, or the philosophy of Genghis Khan, which could be described as religions.
Sure some wars are started as the result of religion, but most wars are fought for other reasons. Sure lots of people make a cynical living out of religion. I can’t think of ANY cultural phenomena or philosophy that isn’t misused and abused by somebody. All the major wars I can think of in recent times have been fought for reasons that have little to do, directly, with religion.
We Yankees wouldn’t be in the Middle East, except as some famous robber said, when asked why he robbed banks, “That’s where the money (oil) is.”
Hitler hated Jews, Gypsies, etc, but that’s not what WWII was about……. WWII was a war about resources, a war about land and minerals. Vietnam was not about religion. The wars we Yankees fought with our parent society, nowadays called the UK, weren’t about religion. We didn’t fight a war with Mexico about religion.
SOMEBODY provides whatever moral guidance we have.
People can and do use and abuse religion just as the use and abuse virtually everything else. The anti religious rhetoric here reflects very badly on people who are supposedly intellectually sophisticated, because they NEVER acknowledge that religion has it’s good points.
The Quakers for instance were one of the biggest driving forces in the abolition movement which led to the end of slavery in the USA. The concept of charity is a FOUNDATION stone in Christianity and other major religions. The very concept of equal rights for every body is embedded in the basic tenets of Christianity.
But ALL of this is neither here nor THERE, in terms of my pounding away on it.
MY POINT is that if we want positive change in our society, we get it, when we elect politicians that want the same, positive change.
Deliberately or inadvertently pissing off religious people is not good political strategy. It adds votes in the R column to a greater extent than it adds votes to the D column.
You said political rant warning.
Seems like a religious one.
I’m into separation of church and state.
Forgive me if I’ve misinterpreted your statement.
I tend to be sensitive about the subjects being intermixed-
I live in a country (world) where religious people have bullied (massacred) everyone (non-believers) for as far back as anyone can remember.
I am LIKEWISE into separation of church and state.
ALL I am trying to do is to get people to understand that badmouthing other people, whether justified on a factual basis or not, is NOT good politics…… not if you want Democrats and environmentally friendly politicians win elections.
In order to do THAT, I am trying to get people who insist on publicly badmouthing religious people to understand, if they are SCIENTIFICALLY LITERATE, that religion is a natural part of the human experience. I have friends who are like me, technically agnostics, but as a practical matter, atheists, who never the less, talk with me as if Nature, or MOTHER Nature, if you please, is in many ways WORTHY of worship, as we depend on “HER” for our very existence. We believe seeing a beautiful sunset, or birds hatching, or the green climbing the mountainsides in the spring, are sacred experiences. WE ALL have excellent TECHNICAL educations, plus a reasonably solid grounding in the humanities.
It would not be all that far fetched to call us nature worshippers.
Try to get it, religion is just one more variety of TRIBAL BEHAVIOR, one more kind of GLUE that holds societies together. SOMETHING holds every society together, or some combination of somethings holds every society together, otherwise it disintegrates, and is replaced by OTHER newly forming or growing tribal organizations.
Hating any such behavior is as stupid and ill considered, intellectually, as hating mosquitos or rats or enemy soldiers. Hate contributes NOTHING to understanding reality. It contributes only to US VERSUS THEM.
Of course I long ago realized that not more than one person out of fifty is actually capable of APPRECIATING what I’m talking about.
Don’t over analyze it.
Just think about whether the leftish liberalish better educated wing of our society will continue to vote liberal and D, if you give up bashing religious people, publicly.They WILL , in my opinion at least.
And then think about how many people such as my older relatives, and tens of millions of other people , are motivated to present you the middle finger by voting for TRUMP and company next election. I KNOW some people who will vote for Trump primarily for this very reason, because they have been publicly talked about as second class citizens, described as ignorant, backwards, racist, etc.
It does not even MATTER if these accusations are TRUE, next election. What matters is that making them fires up the Republican base like stroking a dogs fur the wrong way when it’s confronting another dog, while doing very little to nothing in terms of firing up the D base.
EVEN my LITERALLY illiterate grand father on my mothers side understood such simple reasoning.
Anybody that does not GET IT is in bad need of reading some books about winning friends and influencing people.
IF smart alec “holier than thou know better than you dumb ass religious cretins” had said less about “deplorables” and paid a little more RESPECTFUL attention to them, the three states that went for TRUMP putting him over the top , Clinton might have carried those states.
It was THAT close.
It may be that close again. And yes, if anybody wonders, I’m in favor of doing away with the electoral college.
Religion is poison
To clarify my comments a little-
I have no doubt that someone like you OFM could be trained to be an ethical, kind and compassionate person without religion.
Without the bad stuff of religions- like monstrous bureaucracy, the teaching of false nature of the universe and of human history, the coercion and killing of non-believers, etc.
My point here is not to delve into the negative attributes of religions,
rather to say that people can be properly trained to simply do good in their lives,
for the sake of the common good and for the sake of the pursuit of a life in harmony with their own family, community and the greater world.
No need for any kind of preisthood/authority/organization franchise, etc.
For example, if a people decided to see Joshua of Nazareth as a role model, no need to invoke a notion of god. Just a good man, like we all should work to be. Being a good man is attainable.
Lastly, I commend for you for being kind and responsible with you father.
Strong work.
I posted a reply to your 10:55 am before reading your 5:22 pm comment.
Of COURSE religion is not NECESSARY to the teaching of ethics and morals.
But SOME sort of organization, no matter how loosely organized, IS necessary, otherwise there would be no CONSENSUS morality, no CONSENSUS ethics, to hold AN extended family, or small band of humans, or a larger tribe, or a nation together.
Take away religion,and it WILL be replaced by something else. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we are so programmed that we naked apes will NOT tolerate a vacuum. We habitually, maybe instinctively, ally ourselves together in bands from the size of nuclear families all the way up to nation states. Survival depends on being a member in good standing of a viable band, or failing that, managing to join another viable band, in the last analysis.
There is a consensus, somewhat shaky at this moment but nevertheless real, here in the USA, and a STRONG consensus in other Western countries, that society as a whole is or should be responsible for some or most of the functions formerly served by the churches.
This consensus is growing, year by year, Trumps or no, and the churches are shrinking, it terms of power and influence, year by year, although a lot of people don’t realize this is so. But when MY generation is gone, the very HEART of the core of Trump type political voters will be shrinking, because the generation represented by my nieces and nephews is not even HALF as serious about their religion as mine.
The grand children don’t think anything at all about dating or marrying into another race or religion, and generally speaking, don’t pay any attention at all to preachers, other than lip service. They believe in sleeping with anybody they want, they believe in working any time they want, they believe in dinosaurs and deep time, and in aliens rather than angels. Or I should say ninety percent of them fit this description. There are a couple of younger Jesus freaks in the family……just a COUPLE, out of all the ones I have personally met, which is all of them, out to second cousins, and third and fourth cousins in more cases than not. The preachers dare not say anything about younger women showing up in short skirts, knowing that if they do, these young women will NOT be back,nor will their husbands OR their kids, in the event they have ever shown up in the first place.
The actual TRUTH of the matter, as I see it, is that back in my younger days, most of the people I knew who were devout, and that was NEVER more than half the community, and generally LESS, even here in one of the darkest corners of the Bible Belt, generally paid no attention to politics and most of them didn’t vote. The OTHER half of the community even back then paid no more than lip service to religion, and engaged in some or most of the behaviors prohibited by the church, from drinking to out of wedlock sex to working on Sunday right on up to crimes ranging from tax evasion( a more or less national sport) to burglary to cheating their customers or stealing from their employers right on up to out right robbery and such.
In recent times, NOW, the R’s have seized on all these peoples’ their fears and resentments involving changes forced on them by the courts, by automation, by globalization, etc, over the last fifty years, and have stroked their fur the wrong way until they are all too often habitually voting R to spite the D’s….. if they vote at all.
Anybody that goes around talking about them publicly as racists, xenophobes, superstitious, ignorant, backward , DEPLORABLE, etc is HELPING the Trump camp.
This will in my estimation end well, but not quickly, because we are going to have to wait for the middle aged conservative working and religious class of people to die of old age, or at least go senile to the point they forget to vote, for the leftish liberalish faction to have a SOLID and DECISIVE majority. The young people of this country ARE by and large left and liberal leaning.
Not even old farmers are comfortable talking about whales swallowing people and burping them up alive, or ARKS and FLOODS these days, when you are around a bunch of them and no preachers or women nearby. BUT confront them in public, and they are as adamant that the Jonah and the Ark stories are true as a typical Clinton fan is adamant that BILL never abused any women, and that Hillary therefore never ran a bimbo squad to cover for him.
And of COURSE all the Clinton fans I ever met are equally adamant that Trump DOES abuse women, even as they deny that Trump abuses women….because in the END, it’s mostly or ENTIRELY all about US versus THEM. Because in the end, most of us believe what we WANT to believe, excepting technical matters we understand as the result of technical training.
If you want to liberals and Democrats to win elections, I advise you, meaning the rhetorical you, to avoid HELPING the R camp by shooting off your mouth publicly about MILLIONS of voters who WILL HEAR and WILL remember what you have said or written about them, and vote R in order to flip you the bird.
This ain’t rocket science guys, it’s public relations one o one.
Just two months to go for Arctic Sea Ice Minimum time.
However, current sea ice area is tracking slightly below the 2012 line. Open water can absorb up to 11 times the incoming energy compared to sea ice.
“Extreme heat bowled over Europe last week, smashing records in its wake. Now, the heatwave that started in the Sahara has rolled into Greenland — where more records are expected to crumble in the coming days… 2019 could come close to the record-setting year of 2012, said Jason Box, professor and ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. During that “melty year,” Greenland’s ice sheet lost 450 million metric tons — the equivalent of more than 14,000 tons of ice lost per second.”
Maybe we shall witness some more impressive King Tides in South Florida next year. If so, it would be interesting to see if Florida Republicans connect the dots or continue to drink the denialist kool aid.
Melting of floating Arctic ice doesn’t impact sea level. However melting glaciers in Greenland and Iceland do… So we will have a worsening of the King Tide phenomenon in South Florida, probably sooner than later!
As for Florida Republicans, there is little to expect from them other than continued denial!
Cheers!
Or, as Greta has said: “Our house is on fire.”
OUR PLANET IS IN CRISIS. BUT UNTIL WE CALL IT A CRISIS, NO ONE WILL LISTEN
“In 2002, Luntz wrote a memo to Bush urging him and the rest of his party to use the term “climate change” instead of “global warming”. Climate change sounded “less frightening”, he pointed out, “like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale”….
Under the administration of Donald Trump, the situation is even worse. Now, instead of re-framing language about the climate crisis, Republican officials simply remove references to it entirely and put pressure on researchers and analysts who disagree….
There is no longer any doubt that climate change is an unprecedented planetary emergency. And the terms we use to describe this crisis must deliberately reflect an appropriate sense of urgency. The good news is that there is already some movement in this direction.”
ALREADY SOME MOVEMENT IN THIS DIRECTION?! HOW ABOUT, THERE IS FINALLY SOME MOVEMENT IN THIS DIRECTION?
THE TOLL OF RECORD-BREAKING HEAT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
“July is on track to be the hottest month on Earth in recorded history. The record-breaking heat is taking a particularly hard toll on the world’s Arctic region.”
SHALE NATURAL GAS DEVELOPMENT IMPACTING RECREATIONISTS
“As the Trump administration opens millions of acres of once protected land and coastline for oil and natural gas exploration, there is mounting concern about the potential impact on the environment as well as those who enjoy the outdoors. What most people don’t realize is that a lot of the shale natural gas energy development is happening within or adjacent to public parks and protected areas. So, those who love playing in the great outdoors are often encountering anything from heavy duty truck traffic congestion to actual construction and drilling operations while recreating on public lands.”
At the start of the month, Brazil’s most recent A-4 renewables auction saw 211 MW of PV capacity secured at a record-breaking $0.0175/kWh. That project took the crown from a 200 MW facility in Los Angeles which undercut the two-cent mark when it was contracted for $0.01997/kWh just a week before the project in Brazil, although the latter’s claim to the world title is somewhat controversial. Tomorrow the PV world could see another record, as Saudi Arabia carries out part of a wider 1.4 GW tender.
Due to cheap labor
You have a spreadsheet with the cost breakdown?
Where? During manufacture or installation? If you are saying manufacturing, then you are wrong. Modern PV manufacturing is very highly automated with machines (robots) doing almost all the work. If it is during installation then it balances out since locations with lower income levels and spending power would benefit from lower installation costs and less expensive electricity.
RUSSIAN ARMY ORDERED TO TACKLE MASSIVE WILDFIRES
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the army to help tackle massive wildfires raging in Siberia and other regions in the east. The decision was taken after Mr Putin was briefed on the growing crisis by the head of the emergencies ministry. About three million hectares (7.4 million acres) have been affected, in what Greenpeace is describing as an “ecological catastrophe”.
Wildfires in Russia have been raging for weeks, caused by record high temperatures combined with lightning and strong winds.
No surface weather stations in Central Greenland. Satellites provide estimates, not 100% accurate data, but pass over the region only sporadically, not 24/7.
Your shitposting is weak.
Satellites provide measurements, not estimates.
There are numerous “weather stations” on the surface of Greenland.
Here are some of them https://www.wunderground.com/global/GL.html
Shall we compare and contrast ground station data with satellite data to see how closely the two data sets align?
Not only Greenland, Alaska too.
RECORD HEAT IN ALASKA; NO FREEZING TEMPERATURES IN MORE THAN A MONTH
“Not a single Alaskan weather station, nearly 300 of them, has recorded a temperature below freezing since June 28 — the longest such streak in at least 100 years. High temperatures inevitably lead to wildfires: more than 2 million acres have burned so far this year — not a record, yet, but headed that way.”
LightSail 2 Spacecraft Successfully Demonstrates Flight by Light
Years of computer simulations. Countless ground tests. They’ve all led up to now. The Planetary Society’s crowdfunded LightSail 2 spacecraft is successfully raising its orbit solely on the power of sunlight.
Since unfurling the spacecraft’s silver solar sail last week, mission managers have been optimizing the way the spacecraft orients itself during solar sailing. After a few tweaks, LightSail 2 began raising its orbit around the Earth. In the past 4 days, the spacecraft has raised its orbital high point, or apogee, by about 2 kilometers. The perigee, or low point of its orbit, has dropped by a similar amount, which is consistent with pre-flight expectations for the effects of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft. The mission team has confirmed the apogee increase can only be attributed to solar sailing, meaning LightSail 2 has successfully completed its primary goal of demonstrating flight by light for CubeSats.
Pretty cool and a bit of a distraction from all the bad stuff that is happening!
Cheers!
I don’t come over here often. Have two questions.
I have read the recent stories about one trillion trees being a big help offsetting burning fossil fuels.
1. Is this accurate? Why or why not?
2. If accurate, any ideas on how many trees per barrel of oil burned need to be planted?
We produce a small amount of oil. We also have returned some of our low lying farmland back to timber. We have more we are considering planting trees on. Guess I am wondering if the trees we have planted are an offset?
Not saying this permanently solves anything. Just interested in discussing.
You need to be careful which kind of trees you grow or you can offset your gains of planting. Sorry but I can’t give you any details but there are others here that can.
NAOM
To answer your question with the depth and attention to detail that it merits would require a few dissertations in various fields of the biosciences ranging from botany, plant physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, evolution, ecology, ecosystems science, etc…
I think to focus on a particular number of trees is to literally miss the forest for the trees! To illustrate my point I suggest reading this article:
Tree stumps that should be dead can be kept alive by nearby trees
A tree stump that should have died is being kept alive by neighbouring trees that are funnelling water and nutrients to it through an interconnected root system. The finding adds to a growing understanding that trees and other organisms can work together for the benefit of a forest.
Our planet has multiple highly non linear interactive systems upon which a complex web of life exists and that web of life depends on and also affects all the underlying systems. Before one can successfully adjust the controls of these systems it behooves us to learn what all the knobs and levers do!
Cheers!
Good answer Fred. Until recently Professional Foresters here were overseeing logging 0f multi species forests and replanting them with lodge pole pine (because it grows fastest). Even yours truly, who knows nought about forests (apart from walking in them a lot), could see the limited usefulness of this from an environmental perspective. Except pine, with all that resin, makes spectacular wildfires — if that’s your objective!
Hi Shallow,
There is no straight answer on this that is applicable to all kinds of vegetation zones.
But if your land is in a place that naturally supports trees, rather than just grassland, I’d be planting a mix of trees. Not only are they more ‘permanent ‘ stores of carbon than grasses, but the other advantages to watershed and wildlife are of course important.
Trees and meadow interspersed make a great ecoscape, if there is enough rainfall in your zone.
Note that if grasslands are harvested or plowed, the CO2 sequestration is much less.
And when trees are cut for firewood- same deal.
Hickory.
We consult with a forester about the types of trees to plant. The lowland areas do really well, we planted about 70 acres of trees 22 years ago and they have flourished except on a sand ridge, which only covers about 2 acres. We have since planted about 100 more acres to trees over the years in much smaller projects. Oak, hickory, cherry, walnut are the primary types.
I will also say that deer are incredibly more abundant here now than 30-40 years ago. So much so that they pretty much destroy the first 20-40’ of corn and soybeans planted near woodlands.
I will also say that deer are incredibly more abundant here now than 30-40 years ago. So much so that they pretty much destroy the first 20-40’ of corn and soybeans planted near woodlands.
Time to introduce a pack of wolves… 😉
Summary from what I read from people who’re supposed to know what they’re talking about:
IF we rapidly decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the next couple years AND plant said number of trees, we have reason to expect keeping global warming to a level that we can still adapt to.
Plant said number of trees and we’re fine?
Hell no!
Stop emitting greenhouse gasses and plant said number of trees and we’re fine?
Nope!
Stop emitting greenhouse gasses in five to ten years and plant said number of trees and mankind may survive this with a concussion, two blue eyes, a lost arm, limping with the help of a stick?
Still possible.
What we’d need is the kind of effort the U.S. went through from 1939 to 1941 when a fourth rate military and an economically damaged peacetime economy was turned into a huge war machine backed by possibly the largest materiel production in human history.
Globally.
AND combined with a severe reduction of the negative impact mankind has on the environment.
AND we’d have to start NOW.
And we’d still have to change the way we live.
No more SUVs to work, it’s public transport and bikes from now on. Severe reduction in meat consumption. At best one new smartphone every ten years, new TV every twenty.
No McMansions, no sprawling suburbia, no “let’s hop to Vegas for the weekend”.
And I’m an optimist. Don’t ask a pessimist unless you want reasons for suicide.
I enjoy these non-technical assessments Gerry, keep them coming.
Mcmansions are great, they can be converted to house at least a dozen people or more. Not well designed but with some work could be sealed and insulated well enough to function in a low energy society. Often they have enough land around them to make community gardens.
I don’t think that the US is smart enough anymore to accomplish any dramatic changes. I give for example the Iraq/Afghan wars where we have spent at least 20 million dollars to kill each enemy soldier/insurgent. Any nation stupid enough to allow that kind of economic kidnaping without severe backlash to the government will go happily to their demise. Just provide reality TV and news coverage feeding them lots of lies and scapegoats.
Next example is the huge amount of money poured into oil and gas production, long after being fully warned about climate change and environmental degradation. Instead of making cars, houses, buildings, aircraft more efficient and cutting back on frivolous activities the US response was drill, drill, drill and more growth, more war, more of everything.
Next example is the corporate and elite takeover… but that is for another time.
Basically, the US doesn’t mind being fleeced, debt ridden, over-worked and underpaid as long as they get fed a lot of BS and their virtual addictions plus toys are still available.
When are the people going to become citizens and say WTF?
you missed
STOP CUTTING THE BLOODY TREES DOWN!
end rant
NAOM
Shallow
First of all, it would be brainless to attempt massive sequestration of carbon if we are still pouring carbon into the air by burning massive amounts of fossil fuels. Planting trees is a one shot deal, they sequester carbon but as the forest matures it sequesters little carbon, merely exchanges. Likelihood of forest burn is increasing with increasing temperatures and drying, so the planting might be for naught and there would have been energy and carbon burn to plant them.
Forests are great, but it takes a thousand years to build a true forest ecosystem so one must question what we are doing?
Plus with the Arctic warming fast, I doubt if any sequestering we do will make any difference at all. Certainly not if we don’t stop the purposeful carbon burn.
Number of urban tree seedlings grown for 10 years
A medium growth coniferous or deciduous tree, planted in an urban setting and allowed to grow for 10 years, sequesters 23.2 and 38.0 lbs of carbon, respectively. These estimates are based on the following assumptions:
•The medium growth coniferous and deciduous trees are raised in a nursery for one year until they become 1 inch in diameter at 4.5 feet above the ground (the size of tree purchased in a 15-gallon container).
•The nursery-grown trees are then planted in a suburban/urban setting; the trees are not densely planted.
•The calculation takes into account “survival factors” developed by U.S. DOE (1998). For example, after 5 years (one year in the nursery and 4 in the urban setting), the probability of survival is 68 percent; after 10 years, the probability declines to 59 percent. To estimate losses of growing trees, in lieu of a census conducted to accurately account for the total amount of seedlings planted versus surviving to a certain age, the sequestration rate (in lbs per tree) is multiplied by the survival factor to yield a probability-weighted sequestration rate. These values are summed for the 10-year period, beginning from the time of planting, to derive the estimate of 23.2 lbs of carbon per coniferous tree or 38.0 lbs of carbon per deciduous tree.
One gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of CO2 which is 5.5 pounds of carbon. So a deciduous tree takes 10 years to offset 7 gallons of gasoline burned. Meanwhile much of that CO2 was in the atmosphere.
We better get tree planting, cutting down on oil burning and cutting back on population fast.
34M tonnes is less than 1% growth – that’s a significant achievement for an economy growing at 7%.
AFAIK China is very concerned about it’s environment. Unfortunately, like most of the rest of the world including the US, it’s not ready to aggressively confront it’s domestic coal industry. Worse, it’s not going to let anything get in the way of employing the tens of millions of young Chinese men who will never find mates – if they’re not employed, they’ll be plotting revolution…
A significant achievement?
Not when you consider China’s natural gas consumption is so high.
Please file in the (overflowing) Greater than Expected tray.
UNDERWATER GLACIAL MELTING IS OCCURRING AT HIGHER RATES THAN MODELING PREDICTS
“Researchers have developed a new method to allow for the first direct measurement of the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier, and, in doing so, they concluded that current theoretical models may be underestimating glacial melt by up to two orders of magnitude.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-underwater-glacial-higher.html
they concluded that current theoretical models may be underestimating glacial melt by up to two orders of magnitude.”
Yikes! That’s a huge underestimation!
I realize that most of the readers here are well versed in scientific notation. Me, I’ve always been more of a visual learner so I like to draw pictures! The graphic below is a scaled drawing that represents what a two order of magnitude difference implies with respect to the diameter of the big 100″” circle compared to the 1″ circle at the top left.
.
Fred —
Point 1: Einstein excelled in visual imagination and spacial reasoning so you’re in excellent company;
Point 2: Since we’re dealing with volume here (ice), not area, perhaps spheres or cubes would be the “preferred” images.
Doug, while I am a visual thinker, Einstein, I most certainly am not. I do know my limitations…but thanks for including me in such august company, even if I am hardly qualified to clean Einstein’s boots!
With respect your second point, I wasn’t intending to depict the actual volume of ice. I was only illustrating how great a difference two orders of magnitude actually is!
https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/orders-of-magnitude/
Number language generally confuses people. Many seem to suppose that a 100% increase must be pretty much the same as an increase by an order of magnitude, but in fact such an increase represents merely a doubling of quantity. A “hundredfold increase” is even bigger:
Yeah Like a million times bigger, a pretty YUGE!! underestimation to say the least. 😉
.
Fred,
By your visual you are showing differences in area. so the example you give shows 4 orders of magnitude 10^2 squared is 10^4.
So two orders of magnitude in volume would mean for a sphere that the difference in diameter would be a factor of about 4.64.
Yes, all of that is correct but none of that had anything to with my real point. What I was trying show was that depending on how, to what and when, it is applied an underestimation of two orders of magnitude could have enormous implications. At this point my graphical representation and my spherical volumetric equations have definitely been counter productive to my point.
Yes, I also agree with your point down thread as well, that the paper is dealing with a possible two orders of magnitude difference in total ice volume loss which while still enormous, definitely does not equate to an actual million fold increase in ice loss.
But that wasn’t what I was trying to illustrate. So I will leave it at that.
Just to try to clarify, in the first illustration I thought I had made it clear that I was talking about a two order of magnitude increase in the diameter of the circle so of course the area of the circle increases as you have stated.
Cheers!
“So I will leave it at that.”
Awaaa don’t don’t stop now Fred, it’s fun arguing High School Math. I for one am going to backtrack and say your point was valid and well expressed. 😉
See my new drawing down thread. I don’t think anyone will be able to find fault with it this time 😉
Cheers!
Fred,
My point was that your visual, though stated as diameter, the visual is area, something different, so what is claimed to be 2 orders of magnitude, visually is 4 orders of magnitude.
So not a great visual in my view (it is off by 2 orders of magnitude).
In volume
10^0 = litre bottle of bleach
10^1 = big box store container of bleach
10^2 = 1/2 a drum of bleach
Go on Fred, you can do it. 😉
NAOM
Ok you are right if 10^0 is 1000 cc then 10^1 is 10,000 cc and 10^2 is 100,000 cc! I agree with that.
But if your radius in a sphere increases from 1 unit to 100 units (two orders of magnitude) then your total volume of that sphere still increases by a factor of one million.
Again, I wasn’t calculating the actual volume of ice, I was just trying to show that a two order of magnitude increase could be a very big deal depending on which variable you were looking at. Especially if you had developed a model expecting a unit value of 1 and it turned out the actual value was 100… 1^3 is still 1 but 100^3 is one million.
Cheers!
Melt rate would influence volume so comparing litres is probably better than areas. Now, we just need a nice picture to show people, in everyday terms, what that means. Hint Hint 😉
NAOM
Dec 11, 2018 – While the Arctic Ocean contained over 15 trillion tons of floating ice in 1979 during the month of September, in the same month in 2012, it averaged just under 3.5 trillion tons. This year, it averaged just 4.66 trillion tons in September.
Ok, so you’re saying we need a picture of that?! Roughly a loss of 10 trillion tons in 39 years.
Maybe we can get some inspiration from Chris Jordan’s work.
I happen to like this piece of his:
http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#carbon
Carbon, 2018 8×15 feet in four panels (each 40×96”)
Depicts 2,400,000 pieces of coal, equal to the estimated number of pounds of carbon dioxide being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere every second by the human burning of fossil fuels.
Click the image to zoom.
Fred,
The underestimation was volume by 2 orders of magnitude (a factor of 100).
Yes! Forget everything I said before and let me just put it in terms of the actual underestimate in terms of actual ice loss.
According to their previous models for every 1000 cubic kilometers of ice loss that they were expecting it turns out the real loss is 100,000 cubic kilometers. That is bad enough, and here’s what that looks like in a drawing. Cheers! 😉
.
Fred,
Much better and correct in my view. An underestimate by a factor of 100. In astronomy I have heard that estimates that are within an order of magnitude are considered quite good, that was according to what my friend was told in astronomy class in the 70s. Might be different now.
In astronomy I have heard that estimates that are within an order of magnitude are considered quite good
LOL! that might be ok for astronomy but I suspect that if your model predicts ice loss on earth, a two orders of magnitude difference might border on the catastrophic.
Note: I live in South Florida at less than 9 ft. above sea level…
Cheers!
Walked by a neighborhood trailhead today.
3 cars parked.
All electric- nissan leaf, audi 3etron, chevy bolt.
All small hatchbacks.
No Tesla, or Hummer, in sight.
And not more expensive than the average ICE, which is up to about $37k!
Well, Tesla is building over 1000 cars per day, shipped over 60K cars is the US so far this year. The leaf, bolt, and etron add up to a total of 16K, so your trail head isn’t typical. I’ve never even seen an etron – they have only shipped 1800 cars in the US so far this year.
https://insideevs.com/news/343998/monthly-plug-in-ev-sales-scorecard/
Still in Marin?
Berkeley Hills.
True, not typical Preston
Nice area, We can just hope for a few less fires and smoke this summer.
The Tesla stock took a hit a few days ago for missing on earnings, they shipped a record number of cars for the quarter and still lost money. But with the new factory starting up in China, that should get better. One item people missed during the discussion was they plan to increase their battery production a huge amount next year to one tera watt hour. They are already making more Li ion batteries than the rest of the world combined, and that is 35 times more then they are making this year. It may be based on the dry electrode process they acquired by buying Maxwell.
I read one article on this that quoted them as saying it would be the Maxwell process.
NAOM
Was in Marin for almost 10 years.
But, Peoples Park still is imbedded in the memory, and the smell of Gas still around.
Now live in Bend, where a Dem is progressive—
Pepsi, Pepsi Lite
US wars – civilian fatalities
https://www.voltairenet.org/article204021.html
I just completed a cross country trip in my new Tesla Model 3. San Francisco CA to Pensacola, FL. 5600 miles round trip. The supercharger network worked fine – the charging rate I saw was 500 miles per hour (120KW). Since the charging rate slows down as the battery gets full, the idea is to leave each supercharger as soon as you have enough charge to make it to the next one. There was usually about 150 miles needed to be added and required about 20 minutes. I had my dog with me and he need to get out and walk anyway, the 20 minute stops every 150 miles were fine.
I expect the newer 250KW charges to cut the time to about 11-12 minutes. The current supercharges do have problems above 110F, but I got lucky crossing New Mexico and didn’t need to charge when it was hotter than that. The 250KW charges have water cooled cables, so maybe they can handle higher temps.
The longest distance I made it in 1 day was 785 miles from Rifle, CO to Kansas City – it took 13 hours including 1.5 hours charging.
The total cost for electricity round trip was $281.
Here is a typical supercharger in the middle of Utah, crowding was not an issue, finding some shade was….
Anyone who knows the typical price of fossil fuel and MPG calculate the cost for an IfCE of similar size?
NAOM
About twice as much.
5,600 miles divided into $281 gives about 5 cents per mile. At .3 kWh per mile, that’s 17 cents per kWh, which is higher than the national average of 12 cents. Night charging using Time of Use rates might give 5 cents per kWh. ToU rates are available to all US consumers by law (per a 2005 Federal energy statute), though few know about it, as utilities hate to publicize it.
The average MPG of the US light vehicle fleet is 23MPG. For cars it might be as high as 30MPG. At $3/gallon, that’s 10 cents per mile. So, the trip would have cost about $560.
Over 200,000 miles an EV would save about $16,000 compared to the average car, and about $22k vs the average light vehicle.
Thanks for that, puts it into the spotlight. Savings on fuel, maintenance etc make EVs a very desirable item.
NAOM
Yep, about twice the cost/mile is what I got too (for ICE vs EV)
I just put a new set of tires on my 2012 Chevy Volt, and I noticed that the cost of tires is about the same as cost of electricity, i.e. about 2.5 cents per mile or 4 miles per KWH at 10 cents/KWH. (A set of Michelins was $940.)
Hi Preston,
What is your experience with cost of electricity/kwh while charging on the road?
Do you know the variation in cost?
I had read that fast charging on the road can be very expensive, compared to home charging at the best times of day.
My current home plan has rates varying from 3 cents to 45 cents/kwh, depending on the time of day.
I don’t think it matters what time of day but it does vary on location. California is 26 cents/kwh. Most places charge by the minute, not kwh, El Paso Texas was 25 cents per minute. The per minute charge steps down once the charge rate slows, but the rate for the 120KW varied from 30 cents to 22 cents on my trip.
A Non-Hack That Raised Hillary’s Hackles
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/22/ray-mcgovern-a-non-hack-that-raised-hillarys-hackles/
A bit more complicated than MSM news.
Yep, Kunstler and Ilargi Meijer have been talking about this for quite a while. I expect the obfuscation of the truth will go on until the 2020 elections.
Saw this over at reneweconomy.com.au this morning but only just read it:
2,000 years of records show it’s getting hotter, faster
Well, there you have it! Another study for the deniers to try and “debunk”!
Good deal- give those Sooners a taste of that renewable electric kool-aid!
They’ll be hooked.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/25/oklahoma-co-op-targets-largest-wind-solar-storage-facility-in-us/
Second big heatwave in Europe so far this summer-
-Paris smashed its all-time high with at least 42.6°C (108.7°F) on Thursday.
-Both Germany and the Netherlands have already topped their all-time national records from Wednesday by at least 1°C
-At Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory in England, one of the world’s oldest weather stations, Thursday’s high was 97.7°F. This breaks the all-time high from *214 years* of recordkeeping by 2.5°F
-This is the second record-smashing heat wave that Europe has seen this summer, following extreme early-season heat during the last few days of June. In that first round, many dozens of cities set record highs for June, and some of them broke all-time highs for any month, including Germany’s three oldest stations with reliable long-term data going back as far as 1824
-In France, about 25% of the nation’s 150-plus top-level weather observing stations have set all-time records this summer (through Wednesday)
–
Sorry, that’s not just weather. Global warming bitches! Imagine what it’s gonna be like when the Arctic goes ice free! Maybe now some more people will stop denying it.
The Svalbard Islands are already +4C with winter temps at +7C. Ice is not forming in the fiords. Looking for a further 10C rise this century. (since the estimates keep going up that is probably on the low side).
That is 77.875 N latitude.
And August is yet to come 🙁
While Global Temps Soared, Study Shows US Media Coverage of Right-Wing Think Tanks’ Climate Lies Actually Rose Over Past 5 Years
by Jessica Corbett
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/25/while-global-temps-soared-study-shows-us-media-coverage-right-wing-think-tanks
A new Public Citizen analysis shows that over the past five years—as rising global temperatures repeatedly set records—national television news networks and the 50 most widely circulated newspapers in the United States increased their coverage of right-wing think tanks denying the climate emergency or that the global crisis is the result of unsustainable human activity.
The consumer advocacy group released its new study ahead of the 13th annual conference of the Heartland Institute—the self-described “leading think tank promoting skepticism of the theory there is a human-caused climate crisis”—which kicked off at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
The study focuses on coverage of the Heartland Institute and the four other think tanks associated with the conference—the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation—from 2014 through mid-June 2019.
According to Public Citizen:
The number of media mentions featuring the think tanks and published op-eds by them rose over the five years, hitting a peak in 2017 (in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration) and remaining steady over the course of 2018, Public Citizen found. Many outlets cited the deniers to provide “balance”—even though the deniers’ positions have been widely debunked. Most outlets didn’t inform viewers or readers that the think tanks receive fossil fuel money.
I’m not at all surprised.
The tidal wave of facts is swamping them.
They must lie at an ever increasing rate, lest lose their franchise/readership.
And this time period coincides with trumps- “keep america lying campaign”
His average in public is up to something like 26/day.
Note: Very long read. (though not quite as long as the Muller report)
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/trump-science-alaska-drilling-rush/
This is one of the last untouched environmental treasures in the United States.
It also sits on top of an immense reserve of oil.
How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic
“It’s clear the administration is desperate to jam through Arctic drilling while President Trump is still in office,” said Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees marine fisheries and coastal management. “The entire environmental review process has been a rush job, and its integrity has been undermined by politics. The Interior Department has ignored its legal obligations and the findings of their own career scientists.”…
…One thing, though, is clear: For the Trump administration, establishing a foothold in ANWR is paramount. Five days before Fran Mauer arrived in the refuge, Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that, along with the tax cuts and slashing of regulations, opening up ANWR would be one of his most important and lasting achievements.
Here’s what I think!
Fuck the oil companies, Fuck the Right Wing think tanks, Fuck the GOP, Fuck Trump, and Fuck his stupid supporters! Any questions?!
Cheers!
Hey Fred, since it seems that you find some of the activities of those who use their wealth to obfuscate the facts on global warming mildly upsetting 😉 , I’ve been thinking about some possible outcomes. One possible outcome that I think Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch and their ilk are not accounting for has very sinister implications for them. What if a movement solidifies around people like Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (age 19, US), Greta Thunberg (age 16, Sweden) and Rezo (age 27 on August 14, Germany), all intelligent young people with an acute awareness of the risks involved in not acting to reduce C02 emissions.
If as is being speculated, these heatwaves become the new normal and start to result in crop failures leading to global food shortages, there could be a massive change in the political tide. These young people could start directing their wrath at those they see at the root of the problem and with their understanding of politics they could lead a 21st century inquisition against climate change denying heretics. This could lead to the seizure of assets deemed to have been used in fostering or promoting science denial as penalties for crimes against the biosphere!
In such a scenario people like “Moscow Mitch” (McConnell) would likely end up in circumstances where if they are not already dead, they wish they were!
This could lead to the seizure of assets deemed to have been used in fostering or promoting science denial as penalties for crimes against the biosphere!
We can’t even seem to manage a consensus for proceeding to impeach Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors, of which, to anyone who has read, even the redacted version of the Mueller report, There should be zero doubt!
But if the Greta’s, Reza’s and Martinez’s of the world, somehow manage to pull off a way to make those who have been most responsible for maintaining the fossil fuel based status quo, pay for their crimes, That would certainly wouldn’t make me sad!
Cheers!
d
I just wonder what would happen if it turns out that the scientist have been way too cautious in an effort to avoid being called alarmist. For example, if the sea levels rose over a short enough period to put most of South Florida under just an inch of water before any preventative measures could be attempted, you could easily have over 10 million very angry people (voters) wanting to know why the scientist warnings were not taken more seriously. All it would take is for someone to point a finger at the usual suspects and provide a little bit of damning evidence and I could imagine calls being made for heads to roll.
On the other hand maybe I’m thinking too rationally and in such a scenario, rational thought might be in short supply!
I think that the scientists have been very over cautious both for that reason and that they have stuck to confirmed facts rather than anything that has not been confirmed but is expected.
NAOM
Trump is headed for reelection. In the debates last month, I just couldn’t see any of the Democrats being able to match his oversized celebrity status. Maybe a Joe Biden 10 years younger could win, but, now, his time has passed. A number of the other candidates have decent policy arguments and proposals. Policy, however, doesn’t drive presidential elections.
This is starting to feel like 2004, where the Republican incumbent isn’t particularly well-liked overall but knows what to say and do to maximize turnout of his base in the right states, all the while Democrats are hindered by group infighting, a base that wants to move the country farther left than the average person is comfortable with, and the lack of a charismatic leader.
Trump may be playing too deep into his base alienating the more moderate republicans that supported him in 2016, people who may be turned off by his racism and xenophobia.
NAOM
There won’t be any such movement established around those characters in the United States. I expect our militias, patriots, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus, and sovereign citizens to see to that.
Here Danny, sing along!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNEq7gHqF8
“The Sing-Along Second Amendment” by Roy Zimmerman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avOkoQb3oGQ
“A Very Good Person” by Roy Zimmerman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvRH2zuqR7k
“Secret Agent Manafort” by Roy Zimmerman
Hey Dan, you are making the assumption that global warming is not going to make the lives of your said “militias, patriots, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus, and sovereign citizens” really, really difficult and unpleasant. Suppose that assumption turns out to be invalid and these folks start to question the memes that they have been fed through the propaganda efforts of FF interests.
The point I am making is that if it turns out that global warming is a real threat, a clear and present danger, some folks who were led to believe it was not real, could get the idea that they were fed false information and start looking for the source of that information to try and discern the motive behind the misinformation. If they start to think that FF interests bamboozled them into thinking “global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the UN to curtail individual freedoms” when all that was happening was that a few already wealthy folks wanted to keep their businesses relevant at the expense of life on the planet. they might be the ones who start the inquisitions.
If you think what I’m saying is all just crazy talk, watch this Jimmy Kimmel interview the second most popular candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket, who according to a recent Fox News poll would beat Trump by 6 points. The part that sounds like what I wrote above starts at 1 min. 44 sec. or more specifically, the 40 seconds starting at 3 min 8 sec. in.
Once they realise just how badly they have been screwed over by the denialistas, when their paper fortunes are worth more as toilet paper, as they watch their luxury homes disappear beneath the waves then it may be your pussy comietits are the ones putting the denialistas up against the wall.
NAOM
Don’t be so sure Dan! When Americans are ready to get Homeric it looks like the Right Wing militias, patriots, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus etc might have a bit of opposition
https://psjbgc.org/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms
What could possibly go wrong?
Given the costs drilling in the Arctic, the current low price for oil, and a cloudy future for oil consumption, how many companies actually want to drill there?
That has similarities to this
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/26/russia-disinformation-rt-nuanced-online-ofcom-fine
NAOM
Ouch!
You can also check out how the Jet Stream is doing.
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/global-jetstream#2019/07/26/0600Z/jetstream/surface/level/overlay=jetstream/orthographic=19.39,48.05,1024
Global Jet Stream Forecast
Welcome to our new interactive global jet stream forecast map here on Netweather. Drag the map around to move it, the mouse wheel will zoom in and out (pinch to zoom on mobile and tablet). The maps update four times a day – and are an initial small feature using this new mapping technology – keep your eye out for further additions soon.
You can deny climate science all you want but you’re still going to have to deal the results of what the Jet Stream is doing.
I think the one here is better.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-76.07,21.80,680/loc=-80.256,25.235
NAOM
In Phoenix, we call those temperatures, “summer”. I suggest looking into air conditioning like the rest of us figured out decades ago.
Thanks for the thoughtful input. Very useful.
Bruce. Some July day you may find yourself without electricity. Palo Verde Nuclear Plant shut down. If it happens I wonder if you will think back to the snide remark you made here about the heatwave in Europe- PARIS (Reuters) – French utility EDF may have to shut down electricity generation at its 2,600 megawatt (MW) Golfech nuclear power plant in the south of France from Tuesday July 23 because of high temperatures forecast on the Garonne river.
Horrible Feeling
I think the point you should make is:
“I just get this horrible feeling that renewables will end up just being a fossil fuel extender…” ~ GoneFishing
Oh well then, it’s a good thing that instead of an all out thrust for renewable energy, the Jamaican authorities instead decided to go with LNG and secured the services of New Fortress Energy to supply a FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit, Golar Freeze pictured below):
New US$1B LNG terminal pushes Jamaica nearer to 50% renewable energy target
The article went on to mention a planned pilot project to use NG to supplement the diesel used by the state owned municipal bus fleet and the use of NG at a co-gen plant at the local campus of the regional university. There is also this:
New US$189M Jamalco Power Plant on Track for Completion by February 2020
So with the expenditure of a mere US$1 billion, Jamaica no longer has to worry about damage to their energy system from hurricanes and can sleep well at night with the knowledge that they are doing their little bit to stop CO2 emissions! You see, the burning of NG aka “Freedom Gas”, doesn’t produce CO2 but instead produces a gas found in angel farts that smells like roses, has a cooling effect on the planet and a calming effect on the soul. I feel better now knowing that Jamaica did not spend a billion dollars on non renewable renewables and is not supporting Caelan’s much reviled ” crony-capitalist-plutarchy”.
Of course, with the vessel pictured below, Jamaica’s energy security is assured, since it is essentially a ship and we all know ships can’t move! /sarc
I wasn’t aware that NGL was considered renewable, although it looks like they qualified that with the term, ‘cleaner fuels’.
In any case, it looks like natural gas is the next ‘lowest-hanging fruit’. It appears much too late for so-called renewable energy, anyway. If they made any sense, such as in a non-crony-capitalist plutarchy system, such as an ethical system, we’d likely have it already and/or be burning a lot less FF’s, rather than, say, burning them to augment non-renewable renewable energy projects at this late anthropogenic climate change and assorted environmental indignities stage of the game. And not be arguing about it on sites like these.
At this point, so-called renewable energy, and electric vehicles and whatnot, appear as mere token gestures, in part to make the so-called rich feel good about themselves vis-a-vis the planet while they extract far more of its resources than the so-called poor.
‘Hey everybody, I have an electric car and solar panels. Go me.’
When we get to the next lowest hanging fruit, maybe non-renewable renewables will have a real chance, but then it will probably be even later than too late.
Germany’s renewable energy program, Energiewende, is a big, expensive failure
“No one has really told us much about where we’ll all be going in our new electric cars, such as if or when sociocultural fossil fuel [EROEI]… plummets.
You have a relatively-miniscule set of people who own electric cars already and who make claims about how splendid they are, except that they appear to be thinking generally in terms of their present contexts, as opposed to the future.
The future is a very different animal.
Put it this way: If everyone in a boat all moved to one side all at once and relatively-suddenly, depending on how many people there were and how small and tipping-prone the boat was, they could irreversibly tip it and all end up in the water.
Our oversized overcomplex global-industrial society relies on vast amounts of energy to function. Remove that relentlessly, year-after-year, replace it with what, and again, where is everyone going in their new electric cars? It’s not just a rhetorical question.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
Correction: Link for above headline should be:
Germany’s renewable energy program, Energiewende, is a big, expensive failure
Yes I can see how that sort of thing directs people’s thoughts and beliefs and informs their opinions. Science? Rationality? Well, we can use it to cloak our ‘gut feeling’ narratives/agendas.
‘It’s EV’s and PV’s, cuz gut feelings, that’s cuz.’
‘Leaving fossil fuels behind’ is what’s going to happen eventually anyway, irrespective of the non-renewable energy systems that many, such as hereon, obtusely call ‘renewable’.
As for the ‘long time student of evolutionary biology’-‘gut feeling’ cloak, I’ll just add a familiar quote ostensibly by Carl Sagan and leave it at that:
‘Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception’.
As usual, Caelan is posting antirenewable comments that are questionable at best and downright misleading in some cases.
I don’t want to bother with digging out data about what the value of electricity generated in the PAST by German wind and solar farms might have been worth……. but it’s obvious that the earliest installations were many times as expensive as ones built within the last few years, and produced hardly any electricity, compared to newer installations.
Perhaps he will provide a direct link to his source for this assertion about the cost versus production, in terms of money.
But what REALLY pisses me off, and pisses of ANYBODY interested in knowing the real score, is that he fails to mention that the cost of wind and solar sourced electricity has been falling like a rock for the last ten years, and that VIRTUALLY ALL OF THE WIND AND SOLAR FARMS BUILT IN GERMANY WILL BE PRODUCING ELECTRICITY INDEFINITELY, and producing it in ever increasing amounts at ever lower cost.
Solar farms can be and will be upgraded as the panels gradually lose efficiency, but the used panels will be sold in the second hand market, and will continue producing useful amounts of electricity for another twenty years. Replacing the panels installed today twenty years from now, in constant money, will cost no more than a third what they cost today. Pretty much everything will still be good, indefinitely, except the panels themselves, and new panels twenty years from now will probably produce anywhere from a quarter to twice as much ADDITIONAL electricity as the ones installed today.
Wind farms, once constructed, can also be brought back to BETTER THAN NEW productivity for only a minor percentage of the cost of new starting from scratch construction…… because only the combination generator and turbine on top of the towers will need replacing, if the towers are still good….. and most of them will be. There won’t be any new transmission lines, roads, or other infrastructure needed, no costly permitting process, etc.
The AVOIDED costs of purchasing coal, oil, and natural gas over the next couple of generations will be such that Germany’s total investment in renewable electricity will be a BARGAIN based on that basis alone.
And perhaps it’s worth mentioning that while Germans understandably avoid mentioning WWII in general and the Siege of Stalingrad in particular, they haven’t forgotten, and they aren’t dumb enough to believe the Russians have forgotten.
Their investment in renewable energy is justifiable on the basis of their national security alone.
Somebody ought to get Caelan and Debbie Downer together. They would ENJOY being miserable together.
Nobody can say for sure how long it will be before oil and gas get to be very expensive indeed, or perhaps unobtainium, due to the combined effects of world wide economic growth and depletion, but anybody with a brain bigger than a peanut has to understand that even without considering the environmental and public health factors, an energy crisis is brewing, and might explode almost any year, maybe even this year, in the event of war.
Germany will be better prepared than any other country in the world ( in similar circumstances, meaning short on domestic fossil fuel reserves) to weather this baked in energy crisis, and pull thru more or less whole……. assuming they continue to make rapid progress in producing renewable electricity and conserving energy and using it efficiently.
There’s such a thing as BALANCE in commenting and passing along information. Maybe somebody can explain it to Caelan.
Self-Impoverishment For The Rich?
That kind of helps my point. Have you yet begun impoverishing yourself, Yankee? No time like the present.
Cornucopian Renewable-Energy Claims Leave Poor Nations in the Dark
See also here.
Quote:
And no fossil fuel extraction operation or use case has ever despoiled the environment? Righty oh then!
‘Funding’ Both Sides of The War On Nature
Currently, fossil fuel extraction, via the fossil fuel industry of course (minus the Koch bro’s I guess) is being used to build out so-called renewable energy systems, all the while the planet goes to hell.
In this case, perhaps, it ‘helps’ to mask the charade by targeting an outfit like the Koch brothers in order to aid in the creation of the illusion that the fossil fuel industry isn’t ‘funding’ both sides of the war, so to speak, on nature.
So I’m guessing Caelan would rather see the FF burned with no attempt to create low/zero carbon alternatives? Make no mistake about it, that is what will happen anyway.
I had no water in the pipes at my apartment all of yesterday and at the time of this post the pipes are still dry. This is a result of insufficient water supplies to the city I live in. This page from the municipal water supply web site starts with a history of the last major reservoir built to serve the city. Initially used in 1946 and first filled to capacity in 1948 it suffered from significant leaking until the was largely rectified in 1959. The other major catchment/reservoir in the hills above the city, was completed in 1927 and the same web page linked to above describes a 19 mile pipeline drawing 16 to 20 million imperial gallons per day from a river to the west of the city completed in 1986. So the first major water supply project built about 90 years ago, the next finally completed 60 years ago and the most recent 33 years ago.
While climate change is affecting rainfall patterns, reducing inflows into the municipal water supply and precipitating major water supply problems, we have the local press fawning over all the “development” happening in the city. Lots of multi-story (vanity?) projects mostly being carried out using Chinese construction firms and it seems that every available piece of land is being targeted for higher density development. This is in addition to a multi-decade trend of building apartment/townhouse complexes on plots of land that previously had a single dwelling on them, steadily increasing population density. Of course all of these developments use lots of concrete, with all the attendant C02 emissions outlined by Doug elsewhere in this thread.
At the same time, the island is busy developing a NG fueled infrastructure for electricity generation and is actively looking at using NG supplementing transportation fuels. The ports are chock a block full with new and used cars coming from Japan and mostly new cars from elsewhere. The car dealer lots are brimming with cars for sale and the roads are congested every day, yet it seems that everybody’s dream is to “get a little car”. The number of EVs in the island is less than 15 as far as I am aware.
In my neck of the woods, I don’t hear anybody talking seriously about reducing their carbon footprint. It is as if that is something for somebody else to do and if it is going to cost “too much money” it is off the table. All I see around me is largely BAU on steroids with some fairly serious energy efficiency projects on the part the public and private sectors, all geared at saving money on electricity bills. Against this background, what does Caelan choose to focus his attention on? What is his biggest issue (apparently)? Renewable energy.
I can not recall hearing any outrage from Caelan on the Dieselgate scandal, the various coal ash spills and threats at US coal plants, the current US administration’s war on the EPA, including the attempts to reduce or eliminate vehicle fuel efficiency requirements and lots more. Instead he decides to get his knickers in a knot over renewable energy. Go figure!
edit 8:30 am. The water has been back from around daybreak 6:00 am. Saw this on a newspaper web site this morning:
More water restrictions for Mona-Papine area of St Andrew
According to the piece, some areas will be getting water two days a week, some three days!
So everyone will fill up every available vessel and use up the water faster. Been there, went through a drought in the UK.
NAOM
islandboy
From The Archives
Under the circumstances, I find Caelan’s choices of topics to argue about bizarre to say the least!
Awesome! ^u^
Have a lollypop.
Caelan you are as full of shit as an overflowing hog farm lagoon, and that’s a LOT of shit.
In actuality, people who have no electricity at all are the ones who benefit the most from solar power, because they can get at least a little juice that comes in VERY handy from even a single small panel… enough to run a light or two at night, using a rechargeable battery, or a sewing machine or water pump, etc.
You throw shit around on the basis of hoping somebody will take it seriously on the basis of the quantity of it.
I’m proud to be a Yankee, and I have done MY part to help the people of the world to live better and longer, by furthering the education of a lot of kids, and spreading a lot of USEFUL information.
You so seldom post anything useful and relevant to the discussion here that it’s a surprise.
You remind me of a couple of Trump’s women, Sarah Sanders and Kelly Ann Conway.You can bet that anything they say is either an outright lie, or deliberately misleading, or intended simply to deflect attention from what’s actually happening.
You spout shit right, left, and center, and in such a quantity that it would take me HOURS to actually type up what’s wrong with the stuff you post in ten minutes. Of course that’s the nature of character assassination attacks, or other deliberately told lies.
A typical Trump supporter listens to his bullshit, and accepts it uncritically. Explaining to him WHY it’s bullshit takes quite a bit of time. A typical uninformed reader may unfortunately take your bullshit the same way.
So you deliberately dilute the discussion with trash in this forum, which in and of itself is worthy of a paycheck from the Koch brothers, which you are a damned sight more likely to be collecting than anybody else in this forum, even as you others may be doing.
I dub thee SIR WORM TONGUE.
Incidentally it’s rather likely that you, as an individual, would be DEAD, without the technology you are so quick to condemn. Most older individuals would be dead, long since, without it.
You’re a sound bite troll, shoveling them out with a mechanized loader, rather than a scoop shovel. Ordinarily I keep you blocked, but once in a while when somebody else responds to your bullshit, I’m motivated enough to point out that you are LESS than useless member of this forum.
I dub thee SIR WORM TONGUE.
Foaming At The Mouth: OFM Trolls Caelan
“Signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as ‘noise’ that interferes with the ‘signal’ of appropriate discussion.” ~ Wikipedia
As usual, Caelan is posting antirenewable comments that are questionable at best and downright misleading in some cases.
Ok, seeing that Caelan posted three comments in a row and after seeing your response I decided to actually see what he posted for myself.
FWIW: The issue I see with Renewables and the Caribbean islands is the frequent Hurricanes that rip them to shreds. Hurricanes Maria and Irma destroyed any wind or solar farms in their path…
…“I seem to recall even Islandboy previously mentioning, including with some attached images, some of the post-hurricane alternative energy destruction.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
I think Islandboy will agree that there was indeed some damage to solar farms and installations and I believe he did post images to back that up. However there is a flip side to this coin. In every case where there was damage it was due to proper precautions not having been taken. To be clear I live in South Florida and know that if properly installed, solar farms are most definitely not ripped to shreds by every passing hurricane! That is a blatantly false statement. Quite the contrary, in general they survive mostly intact! This is not just my personal opinion. Here’s a report on what happened in North Carolina during hurricane Florence.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20092018/hurricane-florence-solar-panel-energy-resilience-extreme-weather-damage-wind-flooding
Faced with Hurricane Florence’s powerful winds and record rainfall, North Carolina’s solar farms held up with only minimal damage while other parts of the electricity system failed, an outcome that solar advocates hope will help to steer the broader energy debate.
North Carolina has more solar power than any state other than California, much of it built in the two years since Hurricane Matthew hit the region. Before last week, the state hadn’t seen how its growing solar developments—providing about 4.6 percent of the state’s electricity—would fare in the face of a hurricane.
Florence provided a test of how the systems stand up to severe weather as renewable energy use increases, particularly solar, which is growing faster in the Southeast than any other other region.
So the question I have is, why does Caelan feel the need to lie about this?! Not to mention his false statements about what is happening in Germany, a place that I also happen to have first hand knowledge about!
Anyways,
There’s such a thing as BALANCE in commenting and passing along information. Maybe somebody can explain it to Caelan.
IMHO, Caelan is most definitely not interested in BALANCE so I have just put him back on ignore where he belongs.
Cheers!
Yes, I think that’s what was being referred to.
Then why did you make it? Oh wait, never mind.
In any case, the reference was about the Caribbean islands, not South Florida.
WRT ‘if properly installed’, results will of course vary. (Including when a hurricane smashes into South Florida.)
Oh ok, gotcha. Thanks for letting us know. Catch you next time.
Fred- “why does Caelan feel the need to”?
I don’t read his “commentary”, but
I think I know the answer to your question Fred.
He likes the attention his irrelevant banters garners.
Its pretty simple.
Not much else going on for the guy.
Pretty sad.
Too bad he didn’t take Island Boy up on the offer of learning goat raising down in Jamaica a while back.
Would have been healthy for him.
Maybe not for Island Boy.
Too bad he didn’t take Island Boy up on the offer of learning goat raising down in Jamaica a while back.
Would have been healthy for him.
Maybe not for Island Boy.
Have you no compassion for the poor goats?! They have feelings too, you know 😉
Hi Hickory,
It hasn’t occurred to me, until just this minute, reading your ten seventeen comment, that maybe Caelan is is simply a TROLL… albeit a more sophisticated one than usual.
Lots of curious people who will put only a few minutes into investigating any bit of news that attracts their attention will do a fast search on such a topic as “peak oil” or “cost of renewable energy” etc, and some of them will land at this site.
Some of the ones that do will take Caelan’s bullshit as legit, because they aren’t going to spend enough time here to learn otherwise.
If they happen to be hard core Republican types, they will take any antirenewable comments as legit, because in that case, they are likely already anti renewable as a matter of political solidarity with their political soul mates.
Some others will just skip over this site altogether, because there’s too much in the way of irrelevant comments.They won’t take time to read such stuff as Caelan posts, even if it were to make any sense to them.
( I’m guilty myself in this respect, given that I post a lot about political matters, etc, but when I post about things down my own alley, such as agriculture, my comments are as relevant as any. )
Caelan’s evening job may be to simply sow as much FUD as he can, here and elsewhere, Worm Tongue style….. pretending to be on the side of the righteous.
Yes, troll. Twisting Fred’s comment by omitting what he is commenting on and twisting it back against him. Quoting only from skeptic sources that present false narratives. Harking on about rare materials that are not required for renewables. Attacking people who counter him. Mocking people. Yep, troll and we must treat him as such by countering his points with the true facts rather than mud wrestling.
NAOM
Does my 07/26/2019 at 12:44 pm comment below qualify as true fact or mud wrestling?
It’s a true fact!
Here are my thoughts about a good approach to trolls:
1) verify that they are trolls by asking a few simple questions to see if they’re open to real information, and willing to say something that’s not a FF talking point. It might be as simple and broad as “Do you agree that climate change is a serious problem?”.
2) If their trollness is clear, then put out of mind any thought of convincing them. Now, the audience for a comment isn’t the troll, it’s everyone else who’s reading.
3) Clarify for those readers that the troll is a troll, and that their comments are entirely unrealistic and coming from FF or right wing talking points. But, don’t get personal, don’t get angry, just stay on topic.
4) provide real information: a paragraph or two about the topic from a reliable source, and links to real information.
Informing the 3rd party, rather. 🙂
Crocodile Tears
And yet you don’t support any of your claims. Maybe practice what you preach. (Though I have my doubts you can.).
Bandying words about does not necessarily make their case and in fact can betray hidden issues, such as fear, anger or vendettas (Trips to the archives might settle some of those questions.). They can, of course, distract from rational/cool-headed thought and action, and this appears to be the case with the content of some comments lobbed at myself. LOL…
As for the issues of ‘mocking’ or ‘trolling’ or whatever, maybe you/we should ask yourself/ourselves this simple question:
‘Did who I feel was being mocked/trolled/whatever dish out what they weren’t willing to take?’
Oh boo-hoo.
For someone who claims ‘I like the attention’ while supposedly casting themselves in their virtual snowflake-style safe-space where I’m concerned, (and whose comments, alas, I generally pass over and/or don’t think much of), Hickory sure seems to like to ‘jump in’ where I’m concerned.
You can’t make this stuff up.
LOL
Right you are Fred! The whole point of my exercise after the passage of two very destructive hurricanes through the Caribbean in 2017, seems to have gone completely over Caelan’s head. I was very interested in the survivability of solar PV installations and spent time searching for both those that survived unscathed and those that did not. The fact is that, the level of damage varied widely, with total destruction at many and light to no damage at others. Richard Branson’s Necker Island installation and the installation on the ninth story roof of the San Juan VA Hospital in Puerto Rico are examples of arrays that survived. I actually prepared and presented a Powerpoint (type) presentation, outlining my findings and pointing out the weaknesses in the local code with pictorial examples of questionable local practices, to a local seminar on PV.
The Rocky Mountain Institute subsequently released Solar Under Storm: Designing Hurricane-Resilient PV Systems in June 2018, which I promptly circulated to all the relevant parties in mu neck of the woods. The 2017 hurricanes were a learning experience, a very good one in some respects.
Seeing the photos of the damage I would put it 100% down to poor construction. Very thin steel C section beams may be able to take the load but have absolutely no resistance to twisting. Even a few rebar cross braces my have made a big difference but those beams were a definite no! Interesting to see the solar installations popping up around here and figuring which will be left after a good storm passes through.
NAOM
From The Archives
And the point is?
Caelan appears to have a large database of peoples posts that he can cherry pick, twist as necessary and use against them. It is notable that, in many of these comments, he does not add anything of his own, just posting his distortions. For example
from Fred as quoted by Caelan
“To be clear I live in South Florida and know that if properly installed, solar farms are most definitely not ripped to shreds by every passing hurricane! That is a blatantly false statement.” ~ Fred Magyar
Caelan responds
“Then why did you make it? Oh wait, never mind.”
making it seem that Fred is referring to the first sentence in his second. He deliberately misses out Fred’s previous paragraphs
“FWIW: The issue I see with Renewables and the Caribbean islands is the frequent Hurricanes that rip them to shreds. Hurricanes Maria and Irma destroyed any wind or solar farms in their path…
…“I seem to recall even Islandboy previously mentioning, including with some attached images, some of the post-hurricane alternative energy destruction.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre”
Which is, very clearly, what Fred is responding to.
Anyone who keeps such a database, that goes back a very long time including ‘The Oil Drum’, is very deliberately trying to distort the conversation and is very deliberately trolling.
NAOM
An amazing insight, thanks!
notanoilman’s lack of any real insight here is to be expected from someone who, paradoxically, appears to be doing some of what they are accusing me of.
Incidentally, some people like to ‘mock’ themselves, which is quite a difference of course from someone else mocking them. Case in point:
The POB archives are the ‘database’.
The issue was about the Caribbean islands, not South Florida, which Fred appeared to be basing his point on.
As an aside, part of the quote was attributed to TechGuy which Fred neglected to do when he re-quoted it.
Also, South Florida, and/or the USA may have different PV installation requirements and approaches, different building codes, as well as different hurricane dynamics than some Caribbean islands.
Lastly, I have no ‘database’ as such, I just do some ‘research’ in the spirit of what any researcher or university student worth their salt would do. I try to avoid dabbling, like some hereon, in rampant irrationality, mindless personal attacks, imaginary whimsy or flights of fancy.
In those regards, good luck in ‘corralling your cronies’, notanoilman.
‘Yee-haw, ride ’em, cowboy.’
As I said “twist as necessary”
NAOM
notanetnanny
LOL…
I have this thought just now, as in a film, of this mildly wacky-sounding, harsh-voiced guy (Darth Vader meets Goofy?) somewhere off-camera, saying…
Incidentally, one would have thought that you would have heard of a ‘search engine’ before and seen the archives on the right of this site’s page. ‘Database’? LOL
Anyway, who wouldn’t be ok with twists, such as if new perspectives and so forth can be introduced. Nevertheless, I endeavor to post the links, so one can also look up the original context (which can be quite expansive/insightful/funny/transparent/etc.).
But this would seem to take someone who is less prone to ramming their head you-know-where (leverage the ignore button, etc.?) at the slightest hint of a ‘twist’, especially if it involves them.
Happy ‘social engineering’! ^u^
Twister
Yawn
Take it as you like, Alan. Maybe you can find a point in there. Then again, even if you do, would it really matter to you?
While I’m here, though, you give two, in my opinion, bad examples of systems that apparently ‘survived’ (whatever survived means exactly)– a hospital and a rich guy’s place– while mentioning various levels of destruction, (whatever that means)…
Now we could unpack that and the statistics/details and path of the hurricane, the economics, and so forth, but again, would it really matter, such as if you’re peddling this status-quo-derived PV shit hereon? I mean, would it be in your better interest to kind of suppress some sorts of stats and details a little?
And still no condemnation by Caelan of the long established players that have brought the world to this juncture and with the aid of their puppets (e.g. The Orange Bufffoon and MoscowMitch in the US, Scott Morrison et al in Australia and Bolsonaro in Brazil), continue to perpetuate crimes against the biosphere! How come they appear to get a pass while technology that threatens the very core of their existence does not? Strange!
But that would seem unbalanced/groupthinky of me.
For the sake of balance, and time-constraints, I have to pick my poisons, and so I do. ^u^
Like i said, strange! Rather than rail against the long established hegemony responsible for the vast majority of global warming emissions and pollution to date, Caelan chooses to pick on the new kids on the block that threaten them. Strange choice of “poisons”. Yet he chooses to criticize me and others for rooting for the “little guys”!
I’m fine with the poisons that I pick and don’t really care if you’re not. See how that works? It’s called freedom, and given that you’ve mentioned hereon being the son (or grandson?) of an escaped slave, or something along that line, one would think you’d appreciate that more than most. That said, too, in some sense, you appear to be selling out to said system that enslaves and that likely enslaved your family member. That system’s been around for awhile.
More alarmist news from yours truly. Please ignore if you don’t like hearing about bad stuff.
ARCTIC WILDFIRES: WHAT’S CAUSED HUGE SWATHES OF FLAMES TO SPREAD?
Wildfires are ravaging the Arctic “at unprecedented levels”, a senior scientist has warned. Large areas of Siberia, northern Scandinavia, Alaska and Greenland are in flames. The wildfires are believed to have been triggered by lightning and summer temperatures that are higher than average due to climate change.
Extremely dry ground and hotter than average temperatures, combined with heat lightning and strong winds, have caused the fires to spread aggressively. The burning has been sustained by the forest ground, which consists of exposed, thawed, dried peat – a substance with high carbon content.
HOW BAD IS IT? A big environmental concern is that the fires themselves are releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing further to the global warming that helped cause them in the first place.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49125391
Meanwhile,
EUROPE’S RECORD HEAT WAVE MOVES TOWARD GREENLAND
“This will result in high temperatures and consequently enhanced melting of the Greenland ice sheet. We don’t know yet whether it will beat the 2012 level, but it’s close.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-greeland-europe-ice-heat-record-1.5225980
In a few years these heat waves will just be normal weather and the heat waves of the future will be measured by the dying, drying and the burning.
Asphalt roads and asphalt shingles will not be recommended.
Yup. Yesterday 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) in almost all of Sweden. Record temperatures in many EU countries. France shutting down 2 nuclear power plants because they can’t cool the cores due to the high outdoor temperatures and lack of cooling water.
“We need tankers, we need helicopters, we don’t have enough supplies. There are 80 fires right now in Sweden, and there is no helicopter company or pilot in all of Sweden that’s not involved in fighting these fires.”
Welcome to the future. Sigh!
France shutting down 2 nuclear power plants because they can’t cool the cores due to the high outdoor temperatures and lack of cooling water.
Yeah, next they will have to shut down all the solar farms and wind turbines in Europe due to not being able to cool the cores… oh wait! That doesn’t happen. /sarc
Side note: I can’t wait for Boris Johnson’s ‘No deal Brexit to tank the British economy, start a global depression that will drastically reduce industrial output all over the world, which in turn will reduce aerosol and particulate pollution and reduce global dimming and immediately raise average global temperatures by another couple of degrees! Guaranteeing that tipping points and feedback loops are set in motion to melt the remaining Arctic ice and glaciers, melting the permafrost and releasing massive quantities of methane. Who knows maybe we will get lucky and be spared all of that and be mercifully be put out of our misery by an asteroid strike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Rm4Z0_Tmw
City Killer Sized Asteroid Aptly Named “Asteroid 2019 OK” Barely Missed Earth this Morning
See, I can be alarmist too! 😉
Cheers
Science has established that the long-term driver of earth’s climate is the tilt of earth’s axis. The angle of the tilt determines the length of sunlight each point on the planet sees in different parts of the year (365.25 days). Earth’s present tilt angle is approximately 23.5°, but it varies over time because of precession. This means the seasons occur at different times of the year as the planet revolves around the sun following a repeating cycle of about 23,000 years, give or take a few thousand years.
The precession of the axial tilt is what is responsible for the ice ages the planet has been through time and time again. The last ice age was about 20,000 years ago, meaning we are due to enter the next one soon simply due to forces out of our control. Anybody rejecting the sound science about the precession of the axial tilt to instead believe that man’s activities in the lowest part of the atmosphere could have as significant an effect as natural phenomena is either an ignorant lunatic or serving an ulterior motive by way of receiving funding from globalists.
Please tell me where I can get money from Globalists.
NAOM
You must be employed in one of the favored professions, professors of certain sciences at universities in America and other western nations being among the most favored of them all.
In line with the globalists’ modus operandi, the goal is to destroy natural order. In this instance, the natural order is the hierarchy that exists between developed nations and undeveloped nations. Globalists mandate citizens of developed nations to pay carbon taxes, while citizens of undeveloped nations are free to do as they please. The end game is to achieve a massive redistribution of wealth right into the pockets of the globalists, members of the favored professions, and people of undeveloped nations. Meanwhile, if you live in a developed nation, you are forced beyond your will to abide catastrophically lower living standards.
Troll Alert! (Not to be taken seriously)
Hey “Shiloh Pacheco”! Here’s something for you to chew on:
ERCOT: Wind outpaced coal on Texas grid for the first time
So why don’t you show that to your “handlers” so y’all can get over to Texas and stop this madness!
Shiloh- “the natural order is the hierarchy that exists between developed nations and undeveloped nations”
Thats the biggest bunch of bullshit. Nations aren’t natural, and there ain’t no order.
Your belief system is for ignorant people.
Count me out.
I made it all the way past 6 grade.
Even further.
“In line with the globalists’ modus operandi, the goal is to destroy natural order.”
speaking of natural order, … I can’t wait for the famine. The population could use a good bottleneck if you ask me. My guess is it will select for intelligence, and for those individuals with a useful response to risk that is distant in time and space.
I think the correct term may be ‘natural disorder’.
And intelligence generally hasn’t been selected for in past population bottlenecks.
Just look at us for proof.
Generally, the intelligent have been killed off by the impulsive, the cruel, the selfish.
And here we are. The offspring.
I doubt it will be different this time.
I’ll say goodbye now, in advance.
Thanks for the chatter, in case I don’t get a chance to say it later.
The precession of the axial tilt is what is responsible for the ice ages the planet has been through time and time again. The last ice age was about 20,000 years ago, meaning we are due to enter the next one soon simply due to forces out of our control.
Would you like to invest in my Miami snow removal business, ground floor opportunity! Hurry time is running out! I can promise very high returns…
Can’t argue this point. No sane person rejects that, or thinks that.
Doesn’t mean that man’s activities aren’t having an effect.
Shiloh Pacheco,
The angle of tilt of Earth’s axis varies over a 41 000 year cycle not a 23 000 year one. The 41 000 year cycle set the timing for ice ages before about 900 000 years ago; since then the cycle length has been about 100 000 years not 23 000. The 23 000 year cycle does modulate the 100 000 cycle but it doesn’t set it.
The 23 000 year precession cycle is set by the precession of the axis of the planet–the direction the axis is pointing. Currently the north end points very close to the star Polaris. You can see precession by watching a spinning top. Precession sets the timing of seasonal change, not of ice ages.
OK, let’s get this straight. Without relatively low CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere, ice ages or glaciations won’t happen. Once the CO2 and methane levels fall low enough, the orbital variations become amplified to the cold side by snow and ice reducing albedo and more CO2 is held in the cooling ocean.
The next big player in the pack of variables is the changing elliptical of the orbit which varies the amount of sunlight received by up to 23 percent around the orbit.
“The timescale of Earth’s eccentricity variation is ~400,000 years with a superimposed 100,000 year cycle. There is also an unimportant 2.1 million year cycle.”
The precession and varying obliquity sometimes add or subtract to cooling of the northern hemisphere. The NH is most important because it has most of the land mass, where snowfall and glaciers can become persistent, changing the albedo of the earth and the amount of plant life as well as how much CO2 the ocean holds through temperature changes.
Both the cooling and the heating of the Earth system is dependent upon the changing properties of water with temperature.
The symphony of variables does not stop during a glaciation, ice can grow or retreat during the cold periods depending upon how much insolation the northern regions are receiving.
Lately (last 3 million years) short warm periods are the exception and the earth generally has lots of persistent ice.
Now with high levels of CO2 and methane combined with a shallow orbital cycle, glaciation is reversing itself and may not come back for a very long time.
Asphalt roads are no problem, we have them here. It is just that Europe has used grades suited to lower temperatures whereas we use grades suited to higher temperatures. The roads need repair/replacement, usually just the top layer stripped and relaid, so gradual replacement with hotter grades can be done. Then there is always white paint 😉
NAOM
Yes, just one more adaptation we need to do, change the road surfaces as things warm up.
Who, what, why: When does tarmac melt?
“Asphalt is like chocolate – it melts and softens when it’s hot, and goes hard and brittle when it’s cold – it doesn’t maintain the same strength all year round,” says Robinson.
However not all road surfaces are made of the same type of asphalt, or tarmac, which means the temperature at which roads melt varies.
Robinson says following a heatwave in 1995, the road industry introduced a new asphalt specification allowing asphalt surfacings to be made using polymer modified binders – which raises the softening point of the asphalt to around 80C.
But this type of tarmac is relatively expensive and generally only used on heavy-traffic roads. Robinson estimates probably less than 5% of all the UK’s road surfaces contain polymer modified asphalt.
“Almost certainly the section at Potters Bar wouldn’t have, if the cause is due to asphalt softening, which is why it became rutted or ridged,” he says
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23315384
Doug, would you or anyone reading this know of a good site where I could download for free, accurate hi-res 3D topographic models, specifically of Nova Scotia, that would be importable in AutoCAD (3D drafting program)?
Sorry, no. I’ve been out of that loop for a long time now. My (our) AutoCAD program still exists somewhere but haven’t updated the license in over a decade. I’d be very surprised if the GSC (Geological Survey of Canada) doesn’t have what you’re looking for.
Fair enough, Doug, thanks. Indeed, I’ll look at the GSC.
a·larm·ist
/əˈlärməst/
noun
1.
someone who is considered to be exaggerating a danger and so causing needless worry or panic.
synonyms: scaremonger, gloom-monger, doom-monger, voice of doom, doomster, doomsayer, doom merchant, Cassandra;
Reporting bad news and facts is not in and of itself alarmist any more than your oncologist telling you you might only have a year left to live based on his diagnosis.
The problem is those who do not want accept those facts and the responsibility that goes along with it!
de·ni·al·ist
/dəˈnīələst/
noun
a person who does not acknowledge the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence; a denier.
“the small minority of very vocal climate change denialists”
Cheers!
Anyways we all know this wouldn’t be a problem if everyone had properly raked their forests…
From the most ‘ALARMIST’ blog site of them all…
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2019
Smoke Covers Much Of Siberia
Smoke covers much of Siberia, as shown by the NASA Worldview image dated July 25, 2019.
The enormous intensity of the fires is illustrated by the image below, showing carbon monoxide (CO) levels as high as 80,665 ppb on July 25, 2019.
The image below shows that, at that same spot on July 25, 2019, carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels were as high as 1205 ppm.
The image below shows that aerosols from biomass burning were at the top end of the scale.
With 80 percent of China’s tree planting failing and trees/shrubs burning enmass in other places, the whole idea of planting trees to “sequester” our carbon plume seems a bit of a stretch. We need to plant trees just to “sequester” the carbon plume from biomass burning. No idea if those will end up burning too.
Makes using biomass for energy a Red Queen event.
As far as the labeling going on, such as alarmist, the internet is full of labeling, innuendo, sarcastic remarks, trolling, outright attacks, threats, and total bonkers. Real information and opinions mixed in with cesspool mentalities.
” 80 percent of China’s tree planting failing”
Most people don’t really understand ‘tree planting’ as a bio-engineering maneuver. The notion might make them feel good, but its generally a very shallow analysis.
In short, if humans would just leave an area alone, and it was suited for tree growth (water, sun, soil), then trees will move right in, and gradually become a mature forest ecosystem. If you want to speed up the process, by all means plant the trees and give them water the first couple years. But the important part is to leave the area alone- no veg cutting, mowing, no concrete, no grazing livestock, no off road vehicles, no burning man.
In dryer marginal tree growing areas of the world, you can make it work by one simple maneuver- add water.
So if you have lots of water, by all means use it on tree growing rather than on people or agriculture. That would be good. Focusing on the the dry grassland/woodland savanna zones. There are huge swaths around the world.
I think its not feasible, personally. More realistic to get the cattle off these lands.
Best to give money and effort to the Nature Conservancy.
They work to keep people from utilizing (killing) land.
https://www.nature.org/en-us/
Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119,000,000 acres of land and thousands of miles of rivers worldwide.
Another tack would be to re-educate people to live within nature and natural constraints again, to reacquaint them with it and how it works and how to nurture it, and so forth. I’ve heard of schools starting to do more of this sort of thing with the kids. Permaculture seems a decent approach for that.
Fred —
UPDATE ON THE ONGOING CORAL DISEASE OUTBREAK IN FLORIDA
“The ongoing outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease in the Florida Reef Tract began in 2014 and continues to spread. It is highly active off Key West, Florida and appears to be expanding to the Caribbean region. The Lower Florida Keys are in the epidemic zone with the highest concentration of active disease.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-ongoing-coral-disease-outbreak-florida.html
From the article:
NOAA is co-leading the Coral Rescue Team, which is collecting healthy corals and placing them in land-based aquaria to prevent them from becoming diseased, to preserve genetic diversity, and to serve as propagation source stock for future restoration activities. This is the first-ever rescue effort of this magnitude and is necessitated by the urgency and devastating impact of the current outbreak. Coral species are prioritized based on their susceptibility to the disease, the speed of disease progression across the colony, prevalence of whole colony mortality, contribution to reef-building, long-term declines in spatial distribution, reproductive strategy, conservation status, and current abundance. To ensure sufficient genetic diversity is preserved and available for future propagation activities, approximately 4,500 corals are planned for rescue. Genetic markers will be developed and the genetic identity of each rescued coral will be determined. When conditions are suitable, this project will be completed with the eventual propagation of corals for introduction to the wild.
I’m sorry, but while I wholeheartedly applaud these efforts, I think that expecting there to be healthy habitat for these corals to be reintroduced to in the future, is simply a false hope!
Given everything that needs to be fixed for that to occur. Namely: Global warming, ocean acidification, agricultural run off, phosphates, nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, pollution from roads, plastics, sunscreen use, physical damage from recreational boating and inexperienced divers, beach restoration projects, port enlargement through dredging, real estate development along sensitive beach fronts, destruction of mangrove buffer zones, etc… etc…
BTW, for the record, Ocean Acidification is a total Myth! /Sarc
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/25/the-total-myth-of-ocean-acidification-science-edition/
With everything going against future healthy habitat for corals we also have the constant FUD and disinformation campaigns of the science denialists!
Cheers!
Florida to add 906 people a day through 2024, economists say
The News Service of Florida
https://www.chronicleonline.com/news/state/florida-to-add-people-a-day-through-economists-say/article_d26de7cc-af02-11e9-96ad-e3e11a8ad871.html
Florida will continue growing by more than 300,000 people a year and will top 22 million residents in 2022, according to a report posted online this week by state economists.
The Demographic Estimating Conference updated population forecasts through April 1, 2024, and showed steady growth during the multi-year period.
“Between April 1, 2018, and April 1, 2024, population growth is expected to average 330,605 net new residents per year (906 per day), representing a compound growth rate of 1.53% over this six-year time horizon,” an executive summary of the report said. “These increases are analogous to adding a city slightly larger than Orlando every year.”
The report estimated the population on April 1, 2018, at 20.84 million, with it increasing to 21.2 million on April 1, 2019. It is forecast to hit 22.2 million as of April 1, 2022 and be at 22.8 million on April 1, 2024.
Islandboy. Sorry (Not really! 😉 ) to burst your EV bubble but… Yeah, this amazed me as well.
WHAT AMERICANS SPENT THE MOST MONEY ON IN THE SECOND QUARTER
“What was the main driver of [US] spending in the second quarter? Well, for some inexplicable reason, in Q2 the American consumer was scrambling to buy… recreational vehicles!?”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-26/what-americans-spent-most-money-second-quarter
“the American consumer was scrambling to buy… recreational vehicles!”
People would be better off spending the money on making their home a nicer place to hang out.
Staycation. Get used to it.
Dig a mud pit, embroider a yoga mat for the whole family, or something akin.
I just Googled: ‘Embroidered Yoga Mats’, wish I hadn’t! 😉
Hey Doug, not really bursting any bubbles there. 😉 What EV advocates would prefer to see happen and reality are two different things and I am fully aware that “the dark side” is wining right now! I just try to point out chinks in their armor. Did you catch the video from Ford I linked to in the previous thread?
All-Electric F-150 Prototype: Tows 1M+ Pounds | F-150 | Ford
As I have said her before, Ford is making no effort to keep this project secret, quite the contrary they are doing their best to make it known that an all electric F-150 is “in the works”. Why put “camo” on a standard looking F-150 body on electric underpinnings? Without the camo, nobody would take a second glance at it and if they saw it charging would think it is an independent conversion job. The camo screams, “Hey look at me! I’m an official Ford prototype vehicle!” Except that the body is virtually identical to the current F-150. I’d say they’re worried that the new offerings from the various startups, including Tesla, might steal sales from them if they don’t at least have a competing product in the pipeline!
Depending on whether they have real balls, or ovaries as the case may be, and how far up the corporate ladder they reside,and how long until they are ready to either retire or bail out……….
Corporate management types decide to face up to problems, and try to solve them, or pretend a particular problem does not exist, or does not matter, because it’s too far down the road to do anything about it NOW.
They can play the game either way. A few will face up to unpleasant realities early on , and bring a car such as the Leaf to market. A few others will get on board a few years later. Some will just ride out their career, or play the fossil fuel cards in their hand, and still maybe make it to the very top.
But I’m convinced that anybody who fights his way up the corporate ladder to someplace near the top has brains enough to see the handwriting on the wall, in respect to both peak oil and electrified cars and light trucks.
My guess is that a number of managers at FORD are doing all they can, pedal to the metal, to bring an electric truck to market, as soon as they can get their ducks in a row, in terms of building it.They are probably having a hard time getting as much money as they would like for their new baby, due to other project managers also competing for R and D dollars , and everybody including stock holders, factory employees and managers wanting a fatter dividend or paycheck.
Maybe they were afraid to try to make their case four or five years ago, afraid of being shuffled aside and out, looking for a new position.
Maybe Ford’s late to the electric truck game because the electric truck advocates couldn’t make their case well enough any sooner than a couple of years back to convince the rest of the top management team. Maybe they had to wait until Tesla was selling cars by the tens of thousands, and not having to replace more than a very few batteries, to get their case across, using Tesla as their proof.
Maybe the bulk of Ford managers realized sometime back that they would HAVE to have a line of electric cars and trucks, but judged that it would be better to wait until now, before committing themselves to making the investment. Lots of new applied technology changes so fast that new investments in manufacturing capacity are obsolete within a very few years, such as computer chips and solar cells, etc.
The ones who think it’s best to wait are probably confident that given their corporate muscle, they can start almost from scratch and put hundreds of thousands of electric trucks and cars on the road within a very short time, given that the only HARD part is the battery, and they already have factories out the ying yang.
Maybe this, maybe that.
I have encountered a few top level corporate people over the years. None of them impressed me as idiots. If they say something idiotic, you can bet it’s said for consumption by idiots.
You can bet that they know about peak oil and that within a few more years gasoline and diesel fuel are going to be a LOT more expensive, whether they admit it publicly or otherwise, whether they are willing to rock their corporate boat or otherwise.
Showing electric pickups towing such loads is nothing more than a pissing match sort of deal between the various manufacturers, intended to impress naive customers.
If the Ford prototype weighs let us say seven thousand pounds, I could load enough brick in a similar conventional four by four Ford pickup to exceed that weight by a couple of tons, and put the conventional truck in low four and drag the electric truck backwards, with all four wheels of the electric prototype slipping or sliding.
Or I could hook it up to the rail road cars and tow them no problem, as easily as the electric prototype.
These ads are just show biz.
I’m pro electric and hope to live long enough to buy a ratted out old electric car dirt cheap, lol. That way I might have money enough for a Motel 6 next time I go on a fishing trip, rather than sleeping in my car.
I read one report that the RV industry was taking a hammering from tariffs. The cost of steel, aluminium and fixtures has forced them to raise prices leading to a drop in orders and lay-offs. Seems to be in contradiction to zerohedge !
NAOM
Well-
http://www.durangobill.com/GwdLiars/GwdTextBook.jpg
This from 2 days ago. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-19/trade-war-chaos-trumps-tariffs-crash-american-rv-industry
So, are they saying that the RV industry went from crash to booming in just 1 week or is it that the right hand of zerohedge not knoweth what the left doth say? 😉
NAOM
I don’t know about Zerohedge, I find that the quality of their reporting leaves a lot to be desired. As for the legacy RV industry I think they are dinosaurs that will probably go extinct with or without idiotic Trump’s tariffs.
However the RV industry is probably ripe for disruption and I’d like to see it go all electric and solar. We also need more mom and pop conversion businesses such as this.
Of course Trump’s tariffs don’t help this either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCVTcraGoA4
Solarrolla | Solar Powered Electric Vehicles!
Or maybe a lot more people will be living in trailers, motor homes and vans instead of in houses and apartments. You know, the Make America Poor Again program. Been going on for decades.
With flooding and rising sea levels RVs may become a thriving business. People who are being flooded out, repeatedly, may decide a home in which they can get away from the problem is a solution.
NAOM
Yeah, zerohedge jumps the whale a lot. An earlier posting showed how Americans had increased spending on RV’s above cars (not true). It implied these were motorhomes and trailers when in reality the recreational goods and vehicle spending is mostly electronics and also includes off road vehicles.
I would steer clear of their “info” unless one wants to be the fool.
“Yeah, zerohedge jumps the whale a lot”
So many ‘news’ outlets are just crap. They sensationalize things to grab viewers. the people writing stories are poorly educated on the subjects they are writing about, and have no idea about the context.
Throw in partisanship, deliberate misinformation, and cherrypicking-
Good luck out there.
“I would steer clear of their “info” unless one wants to be the fool.”
Trivia to go with your Saturday morning coffee!
CEMENT PRODUCES MORE POLLUTION THAN ALL THE TRUCKS IN THE WORLD
“A ton of cement yields at least half a ton of CO2, according to the European Cement Association.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-23/green-cement-struggles-to-expand-market-as-pollution-focus-grows?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=climate&fbclid=IwAR0QOOFn_ePRE9nNN6d8SlT5kCwCgmp6ETltDFxDf3fiG7CVnhfvfpmBLXo
And, anticipating the “electric cement” comments:
“There are greener ways to make it, but customers are slow to embrace the change.”
“LafargeHolcim, the second-largest maker by capacity, once launched a carbon-free product. It was more expensive and used a different production process. Customers were “very price sensitive” and didn’t show interest. Buyers acknowledge that cost is crucial.”
Which is why CO2 needs a cost. The industry is trying
https://www.worldcement.com/the-americas/25072019/lafargeholcim-launches-carbon-capture-project/
NAOM
https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/concrete-solutions
Concrete Solutions
Making eco-friendly cement is easy; the hard part comes later.
From your link,
“Producers have succeeded in cutting their emissions as much as 20% in recent years, from a ton of CO2 per ton of cement down to about 0.8 tons of CO2. Yet it appears the industry may be reaching the limits of what it can achieve with fuel efficiency and fly ash. Meanwhile, total CO2 emissions from cement have kept climbing as production increases. If the world wants to slow or stop global warming while continuing to use concrete, more radical changes are needed. Cement would need to be part of the solution to climate change rather than a major cause.”
Thanks, the big hiccup is cost which is why a tax on CO2 is needed so the true cost of production can be seen. At the moment the cement industry gets free waste disposal.
NAOM
Slow customers should be given the option to either change or be given a pair of free cement boots and a long one way boat ride out to a shark infested reef… 😉
E FredM, E DougL, and all who enjoy marvelous animals:
Speaking of sharks, let’s speak of mantas instead.
Go to the site Nakedcapitalism, click on Links, and scroll down to the Antidotes where one is a video of breeching mantas. I’ve never seen anything like it. I hope it isn’t fake.
E. Synapsid,
The breaching of Manta Rays is well documented and real.
Though the frame rate of this particular video seems to have been significantly slowed down for added effect!
Reality, while still impressive, looks more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAhCKoVxDZs
Hundreds of Manta Rays Leap into the Air
Cheers!
Thanks Fred.
Awesome Fred, you will know this but others may not (I certainly didn’t two minutes ago 🙂 “Mantas have huge brains — the biggest of any fish — with especially developed areas for learning, problem solving and communicating. The giant rays are playful, curious and might even recognize themselves in mirrors, a sign of self-awareness.”
Do a search for a Manta called Freckles it approached divers to ask them to take out a fish hook stuck near her eye and waited while they helped. I don’t know how many levels of thought process and intelligence that takes but it is a lot.
NAOM
Pretty amazing!
Here’s another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVw35GWNms4
Manta Rescue!
Yep, we see them fly down here, awesome creatures and seeing them move effortlessly underwater is a treat.
NAOM
A massive CO2 producer.
And very energy intensive.
Fred, you may be interested in this,
RESEARCHERS DEPLOY NEW TECH TO EXPLORE DEPTHS OF GULF OF MEXICO
“The research team will deploy an autonomous glider modified with sonar technology to collect up-close and personal data on the migrating animals in the water column. The slow-moving glider can stealthily travel through the water measuring where organisms are and how they are moving. An exciting addition to the glider is an “acoustic brain” developed by the University of Washington that processes acoustic data and sends data products home through a satellite connection. The team will simultaneously deploy a prototype camera system developed by the National Geographic Society called the Driftcam. Also an autonomous device, the Driftcam is designed to collect high-resolution images of species composition, distribution and even behavior that is not possible to capture with current technologies and methods. It too, is a minimally invasive device.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-deploy-tech-explore-depths-gulf.html
Up thread Hickory says
““Yeah, zerohedge jumps the whale a lot”
So many ‘news’ outlets are just crap. They sensationalize things to grab viewers. the people writing stories are poorly educated on the subjects they are writing about, and have no idea about the context.
Throw in partisanship, deliberate misinformation, and cherrypicking-
Good luck out there.
“I would steer clear of their “info” unless one wants to be the fool.”
xxxx
He’s dead on as usual. I want to add that while this journalistic abuse is now the NORM, rather than the exception, especially on the net, it’s NOT NEW.
Bear with me, this is IMPORTANT .
Back in my younger days, when you got any really important news from magazines, unless you were a daily reader of a big city paper, or from maybe on the TV between six and seven in the evening, various writers and editors went whole hog about the arrival of the next ice age, cherry picking the actual science in the name of sensationalizing it, in order to drive up the circulation, and thus their paychecks.
I can’t clearly remember the details, but I’m quite sure some real and competent scientists were interviewed and that they said there will be another ice age….. sometime within the near future, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME, meaning maybe a hundred years, or a couple of thousand years. Of course this extremely pertinent fact was either glossed over, being relegated to a single line maybe, or left out altogether.
A discussion of this coming ice age, at least in passing, was included in many of my undergrad classes, ranging from biology to geology to world history. Virtually everybody who went to a real college or university back then remembers this discussion.
DO NOT DENY THAT THEY WERE TAUGHT THAT there is an ice age on the way, or that they were lead, by the mass media of that time, to believe it was COMING SOON.
If you make that mistake, you are inadvertently HELPING the anti science crowd advance their agenda.
There’s seldom a day I don’t actually hear somebody say bullshit about global warming, they were predicting an ice age just a while back, they don’t have any fucking idea what they’re talking about, it’s just another libtard power grab trick, and if you ain’t got sense enough to see that, IT’S YOU MAC, that has your head up your ass. ( I do live in an educational back water of course, and speak to such people on a daily basis. )
As Ron points out occasionally, there’s hardly any point at all in trying to convince ( MOST ) of these people that the scientific establishment is right about such things…….. but SOME of them are intelligent enough that you can get the truth across to them, that there IS an ice age baked into the astronomy of our solar system, but that it won’t arrive at any particular time, and certainly not anytime SOON, and no reputable scientist EVER said it would arrive anytime SOON, in human terms.
You win voters over one at a time. Take your time to explain the truth to anybody that will listen, when you have the opportunity.
From my trusty Engineer’s Handbook (a recent Supplement: RE: PORTLAND CEMENT)
“… CO2 emissions from cement production are incurred through the consumption of fossil fuels, use of electricity, and the chemical decomposition of limestone during clinkerization, which can take place at around 1400°C. Decarbonization of limestone to give the calcium required to form silicates and aluminates in clinker releases roughly 0.53 t CO2 per ton of clinker. In 2005, cement production (total cementitious sales including ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and OPC blends) had an average emission intensity of 0.89 with a range of 0.65–0.92 t CO2 per ton of cement binder. Therefore, the decarbonation of limestone contributes about 60% of the carbon emissions of Portland cement, with the remaining 40% attributed to energy consumption, most of which is related to clinker kiln operations…”
BTW, the WWF-Lafarge Conservation Partnership estimated that the production of clinker is responsible for over 90% of total PORTLAND CEMENT production emissions.
Tyson on Musk.
I’m with Tyson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXcgBfi4xxo
I believe Musk has advanced the electric car revolution by at least five to ten years by the force of his personality and business acumen.
This is not to say he hasn’t been LUCKY as well, lol.
Yes, he has done that, but to peg him only to the EV revolution is to totally miss what he is about.
Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and engineer.[4][5][6] He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship and is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of SpaceX;[7] co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.;[8] co-founder and CEO of Neuralink; founder of The Boring Company;[9] co-founder and co-chairman of OpenAI;[10] and co-founder of PayPal. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People.[11] He has a net worth of $22.3 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 40th-richest person in the world.
Source Wikipedia
The two companies of his that I find most interesting are OpenAI and Neuralink:
Here’s a video about Neuralink.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA77zsJ31nA
Watch Elon Musk’s Neuralink presentation
All those pundits and Wall Street analysts who think Musk is the CEO of a car manufacturing company don’t have even the slightest of clues!
Cheers!
Right on Fred,
Some of his ventures may be a long time paying off, and might never pay off, at least within our personal time frames. You can’t know that you have hit a scientific brick wall until you hit it, and getting around or thru it might take years and years.
But so far as I can see, the tunneling system he is promoting is basically an off the shelf deal, in terms of the engineering and technology involved.The tech involved needs refining, but the invention stage has been old news for a long time already. We already know how to do all the work involved in constructing such tunnels, and it looks as if the only REAL problems at this point are working capital and permits to do the actual work.
If the company can get a franchise , or whatever the right term might be, to construct such tunnels, and retain ownership either indefinitely or for many years, and collect such tolls as the traffic will bear, the Boring Company has the potential to be one of the most profitable companies ever.
If I were to live in a city where the company wants to build such tunnels, I would be all in favor, even if I couldn’t afford the tolls personally. Every car in the tunnel,built using private rather than tax money, would be one less on the street, making it that much easier for me to get around.
Here’s a link to some rather depressing news about the depletion of fossil water in the mid west.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/pissing-away-our-supergiant-fossil-water-aquifer-the-ogallala/
Indigenous leader killed by miners in Brazil amid escalating land invasions
https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/indigenous-leader-killed-by-miners-in-brazil-amid-escalating-land-invasions-20190728-p52bjz.html
Alleged Teen Killers Reportedly Obsessed With Hitler, Putin, Trump
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/teen-killers-murder-canada-hitler-putin-trump-863932/
They are not alone, apparently.
Tesla Owner Leaves Car Plugged Into A Stranger’s Lake Worth Home
Electric car was at home for 12 hours
So what? What does that prove? ICE cars run out of gas. What is your point?
It’s a simple news clip, Alan. Take from it what you wish.
ICE cars run out of gas, sure, but the accessibility and collection of fuel is different.
Eviation Alice, electric passenger aircraft.
Israeli electric Aircraft maker Eviation promises what major companies failed to, an exo-friendly flight, with a range of nearly 1000km and with the space for 9 passengers, Alice will be world’s first electric passenger aircraft. This might be the start of something big, as this was never attempted before, an electric plane capable of caring 11 people. If successful the new dawn of electric flight is before us. Wish them all the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmr0HQgWy4I
Almost sounds Biblical, will this become a trend?
HUNGARY OFFERING $35,000, LIFETIME TAX EXEMPTION FOR HAVING LOTS OF CHILDREN
“Faced with a declining birth rate and unwilling to fill population shortfalls with immigrants like some of its European neighbors, Hungary has rolled out a seven-point “Family Protection Action Plan” which showers boatloads of cash, loan assistance and tax breaks to couples who agree to crank out lots of Hungarian children.”
https://nationandstate.com/2019/07/28/hungary-offering-35000-lifetime-tax-exemption-for-having-lots-of-children/
Lemmings, running toward the cliff.
COUNTRIES THAT DESPERATELY WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE MORE SEX
“If you aren’t going to have a kid for your own family, Danes are told, at least do it for Denmark; in Russia, on the Day of Conception, people get the day off to focus on having kids. Women who give birth exactly nine months later, on June 12, win a refrigerator; Singapore has the lowest fertility rate in the world, at just 0.81 children per woman. On August 9, 2012, the Singaporean government held National Night, an event sponsored by the breath-mint company Mentos, to encourage couples to “let their patriotism explode” ; And in India, of all places, had a series of provocative ads in 2014, including one that read “Be responsible — don’t use a condom tonight.” The list goes on……..”
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/10-countries-that-desperately-want-people-to-have-more-sex-a7612246.html
Living is a very small box.
And in India, of all places, had a series of provocative ads in 2014, including one that read “Be responsible — don’t use a condom tonight.
Yeah! Rather ironic to say the least!
India is projected to be the world’s most populous country by 2024, surpassing the population of China. It is expected to become the first political entity in history to be home to more than 1.5 billion people by 2030, and its population is set to reach 1.7 billion by 2050.
Birth rate: 19.3 births/1,000 population (2016 e…
Death rate: 7.3 deaths/1,000 population (2016 …
Population: 1,324,171,354 (2016 est.)
Density: 382 people per.sq.km (2011 est.)
Demographics of India – Wikipedia
Meanwhile:
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/8/2400/pdf
Apr 23, 2019 – suicides is increasing throughout the world and particularly in India [1]. … The rate of farmers’ suicides in India has been increasing every year .
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/talk/the-disruptive-force-of-climate-change-on-agriculture/article27158665.ece
The disruptive force of climate change on agriculture
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190617164712.htm
How climate change affects crops in India
Date: June 17, 2019
Source:
Data Science Institute at Columbia
Summary:
Researchers found that the yields from grains such as millet, sorghum, and maize are more resilient to extreme weather in India; their yields vary significantly less due to year-to-year changes in climate and generally experience smaller declines during droughts. But yields from rice, India’s main crop, experience larger declines during extreme weather conditions.
But they are expanding the airports in Mumbai and New Delhi!
https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/reports/delhis-new-airport-construction-to-start-for-2022-opening-458384
Delhi’s new airport: construction to start, for 2022 opening
A Foundation Stone will shortly be laid to mark the start of construction work on Delhi’s second airport, which will be a P3 transaction. The project was announced well after the second airport for Mumbai but has caught it up, and the chances are it will open in 2022.
As usual, there has been a myriad of hurdles to jump along the way, including in this instance advice from IATA not to decentralise operations.
But civil aviation in India is evolving rapidly and the second airport – which itself is expected to fill up rapidly – does at least offer the authorities options to meet the demands of that evolution.
THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN WHILE EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS!
India is not remotely survivable.
However, I think Pakistan will be first over the falls.
Orban doesn’t understand the root of the problem, which is, that Hungarian Storks are delivering more babies in Africa than in Hungary…
https://hungarytoday.hu/hungarian-storks-spend-winters-three-separate-continents-tracking-data-shows-30160/
Hungarian Storks Spend Winters on Three Separate Continents, Tracking Data Show
Not to mention!
For example, scientists have now discovered that, during their years of maturation, young male storks often do not return home, and spend their summers in Asia Minor.
Thereby Increasing the population of Asians 😉
.
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
by Peter Matthiessen
Highly recommended
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/30/scienceandnature.stephenmoss1
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
Peter Matthiessen
360pp, Harvill, £20
Peter Matthiessen is a sensitive soul. He has to be. Having travelled the world in search of some of its rarest and most beautiful birds, he returned home to Long Island, where he attended a dinner party. On hearing of the object of his odyssey, a fellow guest was heard to exclaim: “Cranes?! Who cares about cranes?” The author of this book, for one. And a motley crew of birdwatchers, conservationists and local people who are fighting to preserve the world’s 15 species of crane against the tide of devastation which threatens to drive many of them towards extinction.
This is a losing battle! You can count the number of people who understand and care about what is happening to the ecosystems all over the world, in the couple of thousands vs the billions who are ignorant, desperate and being exploited by the couple of dozen so called elites who should be drawn and quartered.
Yes Fred, we have a case of global Stockholm Syndrome. Of course the “captives” will be injured and killed by the very system they learned to support through indoctrination and propaganda.
Fred, give some break to the many millions that support environmental and conservation organizations and efforts. Many of which you hear little about, which is good since revenge and ostracism (sometimes murder) happens to people who fight the good fight.
I am now involved in a local battle against a pollution problem that will again place me at odds with a much greater number of people who have little comprehension of what they do in the name of enjoyment and recreation. I expect some blowback. Maybe I will get lucky and squeak by once again.
However, in the bigger picture the dominant culture will have to break itself to have any chance at aligning itself with the natural system that is covering the planet. Moving from extraction and domination to enhancement and symbiotic care is not beyond human ability but cannot happen within the current dominant paradigm of human civilization.
Consider where your leaders and business magnates are really leading you. Even without global warming and ecological crises, think of where “civilization” is actually headed, what are it’s real aims and directions?
Welcome to the Machine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb153OypInQ
Trump Straws – Pack of 10
$15.00
Liberal paper straws don’t work. STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP and buy your pack of recyclable straws today.
Please allow 12-14 business days.
BPA free
Reusable & Recyclable
9″ long
Pack of 10 identical straws as shown
Laser engraved
Made in USA
Goodbye
On the off chance anyone should think this is parody or sarcasm, no, it is actually a real thing!
https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/products/trump-straws/
In stock soon the Trump Sippy Cup!
.
I was in a small village, some way out of town. There were lots of toads sitting around catching flies. The women were telling the children to leave them alone. Some do understand, sadly not enough.
NAOM
The plague kills it’s host, the Ebola virus kills it’s host, the parasite drains and torments it’s host. Our host is the natural world, which we drain, kill and torment en masse while installing creations of mass destruction.
We happen to be somewhat self-aware but not enough to overcome our instincts to any great degree.
It’s the End of the World as They Know It
David Corn
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/
It’s hardly surprising that researchers who spend their lives exploring the dire effects of climate change might experience emotional consequences from their work. Yet, increasingly, [those] in the field have begun publicly discussing the psychological impact of contending with data pointing to a looming catastrophe, dealing with denialism and attacks on science, and observing government inaction in the face of climate change.
While Americans feel “an increasing alarm” about climate change, according to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, scientists have been coping with this troubling data for decades—and the grinding emotional effects from that research are another cost of global warming that the public has yet to fully confront. Before you ask, there is no scientific consensus regarding the impact of climate research on the scientists performing it. It hasn’t been studied in a systematic way.
But in a single study, two years ago, Lesley Head and Theresa Harada, two geography scientists in Australia, published a paper examining “emotional management strategies” used by a sample of Australian climate scientists. Head and Harada found that daily immersion in the subject caused anxiety for the scientists, exacerbated by the difficulty of “protecting the psyche from the subject matter of climate change.” The scientists’ thinking was more often “pessimistic than optimistic,” and they tended to use “diverse distancing practices” to “separate themselves from emotions.” They generally said they enjoyed their work, but Head notes that “it’s hard to imagine it’s not something that could cause manifestations down the track. For the most part, these academics are well-established in their jobs and already have demonstrated resilience in a competitive system. But you can’t help but wonder what the burden is doing to people that may or may not be visible.”
Are scientists, then, canaries in a psychological coal mine? Is understanding their grief important because their anxiety could become more widespread within the general population?
@Fred
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-49130215/uganda-s-bamboo-bikes-a-sustainable-luxury
NAOM
Luxury or not, I love my bamboo bike! I can’t even imagine riding a metal frame bike anymore. I think it rides better than carbon fiber. Let alone something really stupid like a $7,700 Porsche bike with an aluminum frame that I recently rode.
.
I’m envious but good to know.
Interview with Jason Bradford, for those interested. Mentions peak oil and implications upon food systems, and other general interview chat.
Edit- the link
https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/07/06/459-jason-bradford/
I assume you mean this:
https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/07/06/459-jason-bradford/
459: Jason Bradford on Rural Living as our Future.
Expecting that ruralization is the next evolution.
Thanks Fred, my link didn’t go through or something
Some interesting thoughts relevant to the politics of today
https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/what-would-plato-make-of-referendums/p074jgpb?playlist=made-in-partnership-with-the-open-university
NAOM
Ohio just passed the worst energy bill of the 21st century
By David Roberts
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/7/27/8910804/ohio-gop-nuclear-coal-plants-renewables-efficiency-hb6
Amid a flurry of ambitious state action on climate change policy, the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature has just passed an energy bill that represents an enormous step backward. It is the most counterproductive and corrupt piece of state energy legislation I can recall in all my time covering this stuff — the details must really be seen to be believed.
The bill, just signed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, is called HB6. Though the story behind it is complex and sordid, the bill itself is pretty simple. It would do four things:
To summarize: the bill would subsidize four uncompetitive power plants, remove all incentive to build more renewable energy projects, and cancel efforts to help customers use less energy. It is a bill only a utility (and the lawmakers who do its bidding) could love, an extravagant gift to utility investors that hoses Ohio ratepayers.
An exemplary manifestation of representative democracy in action.
See my Plato post directly above 🙁
I strongly support pedal to the metal investment in renewable energy, and in any project or policy that results in using energy more efficiently or that reduces the need for so much energy.
BUT…… and this is a VERY BIG BUT…… Anybody who thinks we can get by without maintaining a huge percentage of our fossil fuel capacity for some years to come, and half of it for some years after that, and SOME of it for a LONG time, maybe fifty years or longer, has ANOTHER think coming.
REALITY is what it is, REALITY and the reality in this case is that as wind and solar power continue to grow, the lowered utilization of power from existing coal fired and nuclear power plants will result in more and more of them running at a LOSS.
We simply CANNOT shut too many of them down too fast, or the lights will go off, and if they do, we will elect another TRUMP, and another REPUBLICAN Congress. Plus more state and local level Republicans, of course. THEN we will shut down wind and solar power investment,via the regulatory powers of government, and go back whole hog to coal, gas, and maybe even nuclear power.
So get used to it, folks. Reality dictates that we will, one way or another , bail out or subsidize some conventional power producers. We don’t really have any CHOICE , as a day to day practical political matter.
The real question then, is how many, and how much, and how to go about it.
Maybe we can pay some companies to just keep some coal and gas fired plants ready to run, via subsidy, for backup, or maybe we can simply let them take their chances, by guaranteeing them a high per kilowatt hour rate for whatever they do produce when it’s needed.
I think maybe all the regulars here, with the exception of maybe my old friend HB and Caelan understand that in this case, you can take my words to the bank, as you can take them to the bank when I talk about agriculture.
To pretend or maintain otherwise, to maintain that we don’t NEED fossil fuel backup generation, by conveniently GLOSSING OVER the next two, three, four, or maybe more decades, which will be needed to build out enough renewable energy production and storage infrastructure, etc, is to provide the fossil fuel mouth piece and propaganda industries with a very good weapon which can be used to make renewable energy advocacy look like pie in the sky commie pinko libtard idiocy.
Nobody ever went broke overestimating the stupidity, avarice, or lack of attention to details and facts, in respect to the general public. NOBODY.
Except for a rather small minority of people such as the ones who hang out here, we live in a sound bite world. Most of us want somebody else to solve our problems for us these days, so we can just go to work and come home and pig out on the sofa watching ball games or soap operas or playing video games, or just get drunk or stoned, so we can face going to work again tomorrow.
Asking a typical man or woman encountered on the street these days in the USA to actually THINK is about as likely to get a positive result as I am to sprout wings.
Nevertheless, you can get thru to a FEW such people, and a few is enough to put the more sensible and less corrupt D’s back in control in DC and in state houses.
Another perspective, as if we needed it.
EARTH’S 2019 RESOURCES ‘BUDGET’ SPENT BY JULY 29th
“Mankind will have used up its allowance of natural resources such as water, soil and clean air for all of 2019 by Monday, a report said. The so-called Earth Overshoot Day has moved up by two months over the past 20 years and this year’s date is the earliest ever, the study by the Global Footprint Network said. The equivalent of 1.75 planets would be required to produce enough to meet humanity’s needs at current consumption rates.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-earth-resources-spent-july.html
Yes I do have a thing about the Arctic which, I think, comes from having worked there (in a past life).
PEATY SCIENCE OF ARCTIC WILDFIRES
“Unprecedented, yes, but not unexplained. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to the desiccation of vegetation, which fuels huge blazes. Fortunately for us, these wildfires typically threaten remote, sparsely populated areas. But unfortunately for the whole of humanity, so far this year Arctic fires have released some 121 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Why such a huge burp of emissions? Because these are no ordinary wildfires. Many of them are burning through peat. And when dried peat burns, it burns in a super weird way. In California, fierce autumn winds fan blazes like last year’s Camp Fire, which consumed dry grasses and shrubs and trees before overwhelming a town of 30,000 in a matter of minutes. But when peat catches fire, say after a lightning strike at the surface, it smolders like a lit cigarette, gradually burning deeper and deeper into the ground and moving laterally across the ecosystem, carving enormous holes in the soil.
This three-dimensional fire continues for perhaps months at a time, gnawing both downward and sideways through carbon-rich material. “It’s the combination of these two phenomena that leads to massive carbon emissions, massive damage to the ecosystem, massive damage to the soil and the root systems. You have to go to a different planet to find a more persistent type of fire.”
https://www.wired.com/story/the-bizarre-peaty-science-of-arctic-wildfires/?verso=true
THE ARCTIC IS ON FIRE — YOU CAN SEE IT FROM SPACE
“The largest fires — blazes likely ignited by lightning — are located in the regions of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia, according to the Earth Observatory. These conflagrations have burned 320 square miles (829 square kilometers), 150 square miles (388 square km) and 41 square miles (106 square km) in these regions, respectively, as of July 22.”
https://www.space.com/wildfires-burning-arctic.html
ARCTIC IS ON FIRE
So what’s the big deal?!
https://thinkprogress.org/arctic-fire-heat-wave-europe-climate-change-melting-bad-89735ea2c172/
The Arctic’s on fire and now it’s going to be hit by a heat wave
Ice on fire by Adinad4 on DeviantArt
.
“So what’s the big deal?!”
No big deal, just an another feedback loop; there are so many to choose from. What’s the harm of some burning peat that helps keep the mosquitoes down?
World on Fire
Sarah McLachlan
Hearts are worn in these dark ages
You’re not alone in these stories pages
The light has fallen amongst the living and the dying
And I’ll try to hold it in, yeah, I’ll try to hold it in
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
I watch the Heavens but I find no calling
Something I can do to change what’s coming
Stay close to me while the sky is falling
I don’t wanna be left alone, don’t want to be alone
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
Hearts break, hearts mend, love still hurts
Visions clash, planes crash
Still there’s talk of saving souls
Still the cold is closing in on us
We part the veil on our killer sun
Stray from the straight line on this short run
The more we take the less we become
The fortune of one man means less for some
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
The world is on fire
It’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more
More than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able
World On Fire
There are similar long lived smoldering fires to be found in places where coal has extracted by underground mining. Once started, such a fire can track along mined out or untouched coal beds for generations, because enough fresh air finds its way in thru old tunnels and mineshafts and crevices in the ground.
A return of heavy rain and snow fall generally extinguishes peat fires, once the ground is waterlogged again.
But in far northern climes that get little rain the fire may be hot enough that snow fall may not produce enough melt water to entirely extinguish such a fire, so it might burn for years.
There are often spots in old coal mines that (due to good drainage or impermeable rock overhead ) never get wet enough to put out the fire, so it may temporarily retreat, but it spreads again.
There are lots of these fires. Some of them have apparently been burning a century or more, but good documentation of such fires is iffy that far back.
This link is about one of the better known ones not all that far from where I live.
http://appalachianmagazine.com/2015/12/15/the-underground-coal-fire-thats-been-burning-for-53-years/
I visited one of these in Decazeville, France next to the open cast mine. Holes in the ground, emitting smoke and sulpher deposits around them like small, seabed volcanic vents. Spooky.
NAOM
Underground coal fires are indeed bad business; we had one here in Merritt that smoldered for almost a century. Of course, coal fires produce: CO, CO2, CH4, NOx, SOx, etc. Due to the incomplete combustion, underground fires produce more of these gases then a complete combustion of coal at surface. Complete combustion of 1000 kg of coal with 750 kg of C leads to about 2.7 tons of CO2. An incomplete combustion of 1000 kg of coal with 750 kg of C leads to roughly 1.3 tons of CO2, and 0.8 tons of CH4. Since methane interferes with the atmosphere 20 times more than CO2 it has a much greater greenhouse effect. So, as a result of an incomplete combustion of 1000 kg coal with 750 kg C 5.1 tons of CO2 equivalent are caused from a coal fire. The most disastrous coal fires in the world currently occur in China and India some of which have been smoldering for over 100 years. There are numerous references on this topic available.
Estimable DougL,
Thanks for the numbers. An underground coal fire can almost double the warming effect of the produced gases.
Offhand, would 1000 kg of coal with 750 kg C be bituminous? What would the figures for anthracite be?
Synapsid —
Don’t know, only that sub-bituminous and bituminous coals are the ones most likely to self combust. I had a business partner who’d been a coal geologist (in a former life) which is how I happened to learn a bit about coal, not much but a bit. Haven’t spoken to him in years. Besides, you are undoubtedly far more knowledgeable about such matters than I.
E DougL,
You make a good point implicitly that anthracite would be the least likely of the coal types to self combust.
If we’re talking about Appalachian coal then the likely one would be bituminous as that’s the big producer in the region. Lignite in Texas and some in Wyoming (I think) but no underground fires come to mind there. Other parts of the world I’d have to look up and that would take me away from Port.
As a kid I remember the large piles of mine tailings smoldering across the towns in Pennsylvania. The nasty sulfide smell, the paint being blistered off of houses, the haze in the air.
But that was on the surface and eventually those piles were removed.
I have been near Centralia a number of times but never had the urge to visit that long burning underground fire that wiped out a town. I had seen enough of what coal can do to people, the land, air and water as I grew up.
Pennsylvania Coal Fires
No one can say for sure how many such fires currently rage in Pennsylvania, but the number is unquestionably in the dozens. The number is hard to pin down because coal fires that seem to be out can smolder at low temperatures for years and then flare up again; the process of checking to see whether they’re still going carries with it the risk of making matters worse by adding more air.
The largest and most infamous of Pennsylvania’s coal fires is under the town of Centralia. It started in 1962, apparently due to someone burning garbage in the town dump. For decades, a combination of bureaucratic delays, funding shortages, and ineffective containment efforts permitted the fire to grow to the point that the entire town (formerly home to 1,100 people) was condemned and basically shut down.
https://itotd.com/articles/6917/pennsylvania-coal-fires/
Coal Fires a major Source of Greenhouse Gases- a forgotten problem.
http://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/coal-fires-a-major-source-of-greenhouse-gases-a-forgotten-problem-8871.html
Thanks, I couldn’t find any reference to the type of coal there but I probably don’t know the best places to search, however I found the following reference (part way down the LHS) that points to spontaneous combustion.
NAOM
I’ve read literature supporting the fact that the Permian-Triassic extinction was the result of volcanic flows reaching a massive coal deposit and the ensuing ignition essentially leading to the P-Tr mass extinction.
Almost all of our mass extinctions were caused by increased CO2.
Hint: 415 is a new high for homo sapiens
Iron Mike,
Yes there is coal intruded by the dikes that fed the Siberian Traps at the end of the Permian, and carbonates too–they’d release CO2 upon intense heating. The area containing the eruptions and covered by the Traps (the flows) is much greater than those regions though, and the two mechanisms are generally considered as contributing to the environmental impact of the eruptions rather than as the causes of the extinctions.
To paraphrase Walter Alvarez, who proposed the impact cause for the Cretaceous/Tertiary extinctions: “Sometimes you have a run of really bad days.”
Harnessing heat for 80% theoretical efficiency
India’s renewable power generation cost the lowest in Asia Pacific
Lowest bid in Tunisia’s 500 MW solar tender comes in at $0.0244
Vietnam’s 2019 commissioning rush
The point of post the four articles above is to try and highlight the possibilities presented by solar PV and related technologies. If efficiencies can be increased to over 30% as suggested by an article I posted a couple of weeks ago, or to 80% as suggested by the top article in this comment, cost of generating electricity using solar energy could fall significantly over the coming decade. 80% efficient solar PV cells would make putting solar on top of trains, trucks, cars, aircraft and even ships a proposition worth considering for very practical reasons. At that sort of efficiency solar PV on top of the vehicle could provide most if not all of the power needed for propulsion allowing for significantly smaller (thus lighter) batteries.
Significant increases in efficiency would also allow more residential and commercial/institutional buildings to generate more electricity than they need from their rooftops, without needing significantly more raw materials. These sort of developments lend credence to Tony Seba’s proclamations that by 2030 all new electricity generation will be solar.I suggest that it is electricity from solar sources that will eventually be “too cheap to meter”.
Islandboy, another number for your spreadsheet. 😉
GLOBAL ENERGY NEEDS WILL INCREASE 25% BY 2050
Many of the consequences of climate change are well reported in the press: rising seas, more severe storms, droughts and floods, and increasing numbers of heat-related illness and deaths. Now Ian Sue Wing, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of earth and environment, Bas van Ruijven, a former visiting scholar at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and Enrica De Cian, a professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy, project another troubling outcome: a significant increase in global energy needs, largely anticipated to arise from cooling and air-conditioning usage.
“We’ve known for a long time energy demand would grow as a function of population growth and economic development but for the first time, this paper has given us estimates of the growth in energy demand as a function of climate change itself — a potentially disruptive positive feedback.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-global-energy.html
The link in that article goes to this paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10399-3
Amplification of future energy demand growth due to climate change
Abstract
Future energy demand is likely to increase due to climate change, but the magnitude depends on many interacting sources of uncertainty. We combine econometrically estimated responses of energy use to income, hot and cold days with future projections of spatial population and national income under five socioeconomic scenarios and temperature increases around 2050 for two emission scenarios simulated by 21 Earth System Models (ESMs). Here we show that, across 210 realizations of socioeconomic and climate scenarios, vigorous (moderate) warming increases global climate-exposed energy demand before adaptation around 2050 by 25–58% (11–27%), on top of a factor 1.7–2.8 increase above present-day due to socioeconomic developments. We find broad agreement among ESMs that energy demand rises by more than 25% in the tropics and southern regions of the USA, Europe and China. Socioeconomic scenarios vary widely in the number of people in low-income countries exposed to increases in energy demand.
I’ve read it a couple of times already! I think there must be something seriously wrong with my capabilities for thinking through the plausibility of any of those scenarios. Try as I might I just can’t see it. I guess I just don’t believe that we will not have runaway catastrophic climate change long before 2050.
The Arctic is burning today! And there are record heat waves happening all over the globe right now. 2050 with continued economic growth?! Seriously?! Does anyone really think we will not suffer the consequences of drought, flooding and collapse of global agricultural systems?! What are we going to do?! Ask god to turn on the giant air conditioner in the sky?!
Either I’m to too dumb to get it or these people are just plain nuts and in denial of reality!
Good luck folks!
“I guess I just don’t believe that we will not have runaway catastrophic climate change long before 2050.”
Nor do I Fred, nor do I.
And, BTW: Short video —
AS TEMPERATURES SOAR, A ‘HEAT DOME’ IS COMING TO THE ARCTIC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTgUVgBGB90
Air conditioning or whatever other fantasy some think will continue, ain’t gonna put a dent in what is coming down the pipeline in the next decade, let alone what will be happening by 2050.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=Jki_DYQ5nPk
Melting at the top of Greenland and the Beaufort Sea – a comparison
Even if we do have climate catastrophic events related to warming by 2050,
the energy demand of humanity will be higher than today.
Unless one of two things happen.
One would be a population decline by 2050 only 7.1 B instead of 9.4B
The second would be a great depression, followed shortly by 2 more.
Those things could derail the train, or would be symptoms of a derailed train.
Leading by example! Certainly beats those “world leaders” who go to climate conferences in their private jets.
GRETA THUNBERG TO SAIL ATLANTIC FOR CLIMATE CONFERENCES
“The teenager will make the journey aboard the Malizia II, a high-speed 18-metre (60ft) yacht built to race around the globe. She had previously said that she wanted to attend the UN Climate Action summit in New York on 23 September, but was struggling to work out how to make it without taking a plane or going on a cruise ship – which have similarly high emissions. Malizia II was built to compete in the 2016-2017 round-the-world Vendée Globe race. The high-tech vessel generates electricity through solar panels and underwater turbines.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49156223
I had the immense pleasure of meeting this gentleman in Brazil on one of his round the world journeys before he got into solo round the world racing and even got to sail with him from Newport to NY on his 60 ft racing sailboat, which he built himself! Today he only sails on the Lake Balaton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4mX2BFuhr8
Spirit of Hungary – Nándor Fa – VendéeGlobe2016-17 onboard
Maybe she could get scurvy traveling this way?
Let me guess, you’ve never been anywhere near an 18 m racing sailboat have you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOnVF8Gg0xE
Malizia II – What can you do for the Ocean?
In a Facebook post, Team Malizia said they were “honoured to sail Greta Thunberg emission free across the Atlantic”.
Nah, but I can see her eloping with AOC while in New York. Birds of a feather and all. Or make that socialists of a feather.
Do you even know what the word socialist means?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXJgM2Z8n8k
“Socialist” by Roy Zimmerman
LOL! ?
Founda video of Greta coming to town in her EV. ?
https://tenor.com/view/haters-gonna-hate-kid-car-gif-12414184
“In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses[2] and normalizing tangential discussion,[3] whether for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain.
Both the noun and the verb forms of “troll” are associated with Internet discourse. However, the word has also been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, the mass media have used “troll” to mean “a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families””
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
To me, DayBeer and Bradley Linto are stupid pussy’s.
Picking on women. And they both have earned the fascist stupid term just about every time they speak.
They have nothing useful to add to any discussion.
I’m granting them both the big ‘Ignore’
Adios girls.
“Maybe she could get scurvy traveling this way?” ~ Daybeer
Scurvy is the result of one lacking in Vitamin C, not from riding in sailboats.
Boy, Greta does get the wingpawns upset!
Sorry, but this sounds like another Greta Gimmick for when she’s trying to write an eye-popping college application essay in order to get a completely free ride scholarship to a place like the University of Yale or Harvard and maybe a book deal or two afterwards (not necessarily written by herself, but most likely by a ghostwriter). Then again, if her parents can afford such a boat to go across the ocean, they can probably afford to pay her tuition themselves to any one of the ivy leagues.
Maybe if you weren’t so low energy beta you wouldn’t be getting owned by a little girl
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting
You are displaying the best of American exceptional ignorance. Greta lives in Sweden and a quick Internet search reveals that Swedish nationals pay no tuition fees to attend university. That’s right! One of the benefits many Europeans have access to is tuition free education right up to university level! As a matter of fact in Norway even international students pay no tuition to attend university! Betcha didn’t know that?
As for the trip, why would it cost more than airfare to hitch a ride on a boat that uses no fuel? The operators of the vessel obviously don’t use it for commercial purposes, apart from the race for which it was built. For all I know they could be doing it to support the cause (for free)!
For all I know they could be doing it to support the cause (for free)!
Don’t know about expenses but the sailboat owners are supporting the cause.
Not to mention that they can certainly afford it. It was their idea to make the offer!
https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/greta-thunberg-sailboat-atlantic-ocean.html
The more you know about the trip, which is expected to take approximately two weeks, the cooler — and more impressive — it gets. Predictably, the boat is emission-free, as it features solar panels and underwater turbines. Furthermore, Thunberg will be making the journey alongside just her dad, a filmmaker, and the head of the Malizia II racing team, who happens to be the grandson of Prince Rainier III of Monaco and the American actress Grace Kelly.
Having sailed on boats like this as a passenger I can attest to what an incredible experience this is for all involved.
The three trolls mocking Greta should try it themselves though I’m betting they are all landlubbers and couldn’t handle the rigors of such a crossing! They’d probably be below decks the whole time barfing into a bucket…
“They’d probably be below decks the whole time barfing into a bucket…”
So absolutely not the best place to be when feeling like that. 🙂
NAOM
I was more tickled by the idiotic suggestion that she is trying to “get a completely free ride scholarship to a place like the University of Yale or Harvard”! How many Europeans study at US universities? When I did an Internet search looking for the answer, I didn’t come up with anything much, maybe because the answer is, “very few”. When according to one of the search results, all public colleges in Germany, Iceland, Norway and Finland are free for residents and international students, what incentive is there for students to study in the US?
As for Yale or Harvard, it seems that Richard Brockley has never heard of Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich or Imperial College. According to this ranking of the top 100 universities in the world, 29 are in the US while the UK, with a much smaller population has 18. Sweden has two out of the top 100 so, I don’t think Greta is the least concerned with where she will go to college. Note also that she is fluent in English, while I doubt very much that Richard knows a word of Swedish.
Richard would do well to read the following web page:
Four Major Differences Between European and American Universities
We had some US students over on university exchange. After observing them, for a short time, it was clear they were much more immature and less capable than ourselves.
NAOM
American students are not less capable than Europeans but they are severly handicapped by a poor educational system coupled with being brainwashed to believe that everything American is better than anywhere else. Europe is by no means perfect but they are ahead of the game on many fronts. I really feel sorry for young Brits if their leaders take the UK out of the EU with a no deal brexit. They will lose big time! Maybe Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland will vote to stay in the EU! A couple of my German American nephews and nieces went to uni in Edinburgh.
“American students are not less capable than Europeans, but they are severely handicapped by a poor educational system coupled with being brainwashed to believe that everything American is better than anywhere else.”
There are several reasons for choosing where you go to do your post grad studies. Personally, I wanted access to certain specific scientists — above all else. Especially, I wanted to learn from Hannes Alfvén (Hannes was an electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics). Hannes had an amazing sense of humor and, not unlike many Europeans, he spoke several languages, including: Swedish, English, German, French, and Russian, plus some Spanish and Chinese.
Learning an extra language was tough at first but a bonus for me too: I’ve never regretted this. And, learning from the world’s leading experts in your “field(s) of interest” is stimulating, to say the least. Makes no difference where they reside or what their nationality is.
To be clear, at the post graduate level American universities are world class!
Having been fortunate enough to have grown up in a polyglot multicultural environment I’ve never been quite able to understand this desire by some, to insist on speaking only one language.
Has Greta heard of carbon offsets? She could simply buy those and then be able to fly to the conference. An ocean crossing on a sailboat is not for the faint of heart, she will likely be nauseous for most of the time and seasickness is rough.
Carbon offsets are just swaps, they do nothing to reduce output of CO2 into the atmosphere – a con.
NAOM
Disagree, when you have to pay for something. One uses less of it.
Clean air shouldn’t be free for polluters to abuse
Carbon offsets are generally a sham in my opinion.
They only way to mitigate is to not create it (burnt carbon).
All the rest is greenwashing.
If I’m wrong, teach me about it.
Carbon offsets are not a bad idea, but they’re much more complex than a carbon tax, and they’ve been implemented very, very badly – you can’t give legacy polluters a lot of free carbon credits, and you have to tightly manage the projects that are eligible.
AFAIK, they’re currently better than nothing, but…not much. But, they could be made to work, if governments weren’t afraid of polluters. Of course, if they weren’t afraid of polluters, they’d just impose carbon taxes…
Nick G.
I see people, or organizations,
claiming that they have purchased carbon offsets to justify an activity.
What I am saying is that this is pure bullshit, just makes them feel better to be ‘politically correct’ on carbon.
And that these mechanisms are not helpful in the least.
The Extinction Event marches on.
The only useful action is inaction.
By that I mean- do not consume. Period.
Perhaps some here may have noticed that I tend to focus on topics more related to the ecosphere and biosphere and things like the sixth mass extinction, disappearance of insects, cascading food web destruction, devastation of coral reef ecosystems, etc, etc… Many of these have things complex multi faceted causes. However it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult to ignore the vast amounts of data coming in that are telling us that things are quite dire. The intricately woven tapestry of life on which we ourselves depend, is beginning to unravel at an ever increasing pace. And yet so many still deny this truth!
Here is just one more such data point:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29072019/pacific-salmon-climate-change-threat-endangered-columbia-river-california-idaho-oregon-study
Global Warming Is Pushing Pacific Salmon to the Brink, Federal Scientists Warn
The fish, critical to local economies and the food chain, were already under pressure from human infrastructure like dams. Climate change is turning up the heat.
Pacific salmon that spawn in Western streams and rivers have been struggling for decades to survive water diversions, dams and logging. Now, global warming is pushing four important populations in California, Oregon and Idaho toward extinction, federal scientists warn in a new study.
The new research shows that several of the region’s salmon populations are now bumping into temperature limits, with those that spawn far inland after lengthy summer stream migrations and those that spend a lot of time in coastal habitats like river estuaries among the most at risk.
That includes Chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley and in the Columbia and Willamette River basins in Oregon; coho salmon in parts of Northern California and Oregon; and sockeye salmon that reach the Snake River Basin in Idaho, all of which are already on the federal endangered species list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAqYzqHdXu8
Carole King – Tapestry [HD]
I suppose this was inevitable. Sigh!
DRUG-RESISTANT SUPERBUG SPREADING IN EUROPE’S HOSPITALS
“Superbugs resistant to emergency antibiotics are spreading in hospitals, a Europe-wide study shows.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49132425
The best strategy by far, if you can manage it, is to stay home, away from hospitals and nursing homes. If you MUST, go to a hospital for treatment, and get out as fast as ever you can.
The odds of a fatal infection acquired in such surroundings is generally higher than the odds of dying from a stroke or heart attack , etc, at home.
Didn’t know about that one!
Here’s another one. The Fungus Among Us!:
https://www.sciencealert.com/deadly-fungus-could-be-linked-to-climate-change-study-suggests
A Deadly, Drug-Resistant Fungus Could Be The First Infection Spread by Climate Change
LENA H. SUN, THE WASHINGTON POST
24 JUL 2019
Three years ago, US health officials warned hundreds of thousands of clinicians in hospitals around the country to be on the lookout for a new, quickly spreading and highly drug-resistant type of yeast that was causing potentially fatal infections in hospitalized patients around the world.
I was taking bacteriology at Baylor Medical School circa 1953. The professor was hysterical about the overuse of antibiotics and the resulting drug resistance. This is not a new issue.
Robert, as well he should have been! In the case of C. auris, what is new, isn’t just the fact that it is antibiotic resistant. Something else is going on.
Fungal infections in humans are rare. Mammals have more advanced immune systems than other organisms at risk of fungal infections, and most fungi in the environment cannot grow at the temperatures of the human body, said Arturo Casadevall, one of the authors of the new study, who is a microbiologist and immunologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
But as the climate has gotten warmer, the researchers say C. auris was able to adapt, which helped it replicate in the human body’s temperature of 37 degrees Celsius…
…“The most mysterious thing is that Candida auris appeared simultaneously in three different continents, and it’s very hard to explain that,” Casadevall said. Something happened to allow the organism to “bubble up and cause disease,” he said.
“You gotta try to think, what could be the unifying cause here? These are different societies, different populations,” he said.
I recall an article that talked about a jump from plants and the soil to animals, I don’t recall the mechanisms involved.
NAOM
Ditto biology professors at any university with a college of agriculture, back in the sixties.
The ag guys were all ecstatic about the potential to cut costs and increase production of meat, milk, and eggs.
What they failed to mention, as is usually the case, to farmers, is that once all of us adopted this new tech, we would all be back in the same place…. cutthroat competition driving us out year after year as the bigger and better financed operators gained by scaling up.
The USUAL state of affairs for farmers is that they just barely hang on, long term, because they have no pricing power, and produce until the market prices of agricultural commodities are, on average, at break even levels. You make a living, maybe, that’s it, long term, in relation to the work and investment….. if you are competent and reasonably lucky.
Nuclear is safe – isn’t it?
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-ro5-radioactive-major-nuclear.html
NAOM
@Fred, nice video in there
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/science/anglerfish-bioluminescence-deep-sea.html
NOAM
Yes, I have seen that video before and those fish are high on my list of amazing sea creatures but there is one at the very very top of my list of most bizarre fish ever. Check this out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM9o4VnfHJU
Macropinna microstoma: A deep-sea fish with a transparent head and tubular eyes
Edit: I just had to add this too.
Glow-in-the-dark sharks and other stunning sea creatures | David Gruber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96HHmILhyrE
It’s stuff like this that makes me truly depressed when I contemplate the sixth mass extinction and the profound ignorance and arrogance of so many…
Thanks for those, I’ll have to catch the second tomorrow but that Macropinna is weird! Yeh, that last sentance too 🙁
NAOM
Macropinna
Thanks Fred, great vids!
When you bathe the environment with toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds, how can any creature expect to healthy?
You like to use oil and all it’s products? You like coal and all of it’s products? Of course you do. You use them everyday. How about those lovely asphalt roads that allow you do drive all over the place and allow all those lovely products to be trucked here and there? Those great parking lots and outdoor basketball courts are just adored.
Welcome to PAH’s, just one set of nasty carcinogenic compounds let loose all over the world. Found in asphalt, coal products, heating, cooking, burning and industrial processes. You literally breathe, eat, drink, and play upon those lovely things. They are everywhere now. It’s your world, you helped to make it and paid to make more. They are definitely in your food, your environment and in you. They go right through your skin too.
Report on Carcinogens, Fourteenth Edition Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons:
Individual PAHs are found in the environment not in isolation but as components of highly complex mixtures of chemicals. PAHs are very widespread environmental contaminants, because they are formed during incomplete combustion of materials such as coal, oil, gas, wood, or garbage or during pyrolysis of other organic material, such as tobacco or charbroiled meat
At least five of the listed PAHs are present in coal tar, which is used as a fuel in the steel industry in open-hearth and blast furnaces (HSDB 2009). Coal tar is also used in the clinical treatment of skin disorders such as eczema, dermatitis, and psoriasis. Coal tar is distilled to produce a variety of products, including coal-tar pitch and creosote. At least two of the listed PAHs are present in coal-tar pitch, which is used primarily as a binder for aluminum smelting electrodes in the aluminum reduction process. Coal-tar pitch is also used in roofing, in surface coatings, for pitch-coke production, and for a variety of other applications (IARC 1985). At least two of the listed PAHs are found in creosote, which is used to preserve railroad ties, marine pilings, and telephone poles. Some creosote is used for fuel by steel producers (NIOSH 1977). At least three of the listed PAHs are present in bitumens and asphalt, which are used for paving roads, sound- and water-proofing, and coating pipes.
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles//polycyclicaromatichydrocarbons.pdf
Oh yes, PAH’s are water soluble. I highly recommend reading the section on exposure.
GF. Don’t hate me, but
“You like to use oil and all it’s products? You like coal and all of it’s products? Of course you do. You use them everyday. How about those lovely asphalt roads that allow you do drive [fly] all over the place and allow all those lovely products to be trucked [flown]here and there? Those great parking lots and outdoor basketball courts [airport runways] are just adored.’
Just saying.
Please note that I totally agree with your point. Just trying to reinforce to it.
Mutagenic and carcinogenic properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The rapid development of the chemical industry, combustion of fossil fuels, and smoking of tobacco have resulted in contact of the general population with benzo(a)pyrene and other carcinogenic aromatic hydrocarbons. Persons especially at risk occupationally are those engaged in thermal processing of oil shale, coal, and heavy residual petroleum. It has been shown that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons require metabolic activation before they can act as mutagens or carcinogens. This metabolic activation results from interaction with microsomal enzymes present in many body cells, yielding reactive epoxides which react with DNA and produce mutations in the count frame shift or participate in covalent bounding. While opinions differ regarding the relative role of these processes in mutagenesis, considerable evidence exists which links mutagenesis and carcinogenesis. Metabolites of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are carcinogenic are usually mutagenic, which supports the hypothesis that damage to chromosomes plays an important role in carcinogenesis. These facts open the possibility to monitoring the spread of carcinogenic substances in the biosphere by relatively simple tests whose endpoint is mutagenesis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/446450
Hormonal analogs anyone? Or should I say everyone and every creature?
Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved
Background: Chemicals having estrogenic activity (EA) reportedly cause many adverse health effects, especially at low (picomolar to nanomolar) doses in fetal and juvenile mammals.
Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/
Plastic Degradation and Its Environmental Implications with Special Reference to Poly(ethylene terephthalate)
Plastic particles in the ocean have been shown to contain quite high levels of organic pollutants.
Toxic chemicals, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), nonylphenol (NP), organic pesticides,
such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and bisphenol A (BPA) have been consistently found
throughout oceanic plastic debris [10–12]. The presence of these compounds further increases the risks
associated with ingestion of plastic debris by wildlife, and additionally, many of these compounds can
undergo significant biomagnification and may potentially pose a direct risk to human health [12].
These toxic agents have been linked to and are associated with many health problems, including
developmental impairment (neurological impairment, growth abnormalities and hormonal imbalances),
cancer, endocrine disruption, neurobehavioral changes, arthritis, breast cancer, diabetes and DNA
hypomethylation [13–16].
Plastic debris in landfill also acts as a source for a number of secondary environmental
pollutants [45]. Pollutants of note include volatile organics, such as benzene, toluene, xylenes, ethyl
benzenes and trimethyl benzenes, released both as gases and contained in leachate [49] and endocrine
disrupting compounds, in particular BPA [50–52]. In addition to its endocrine disruption properties,
BPA released from plastics in landfill has also been shown to lead to an increase in production of
hydrogen sulphide by sulphate-reducing bacteria in soil populations [52]. High concentrations of
hydrogen sulphide are potentially lethal [52].
Another technique routinely used for disposal of plastic waste is incineration [45]. Plastic
incineration overcomes some of the limitations placed on landfill in that it does not require any
significant space, and there is even the capability for energy recovery in the form of heat [41].
However, there is a significant trade-off in that incineration of plastics leads to the formation of
numerous harmful compounds, most of which are released to the atmosphere [45]. PAHs, PCBs, heavy
metals, toxic carbon- and oxygen-based free radicals, not to mention significant quantities of
greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are all produced and released when plastics are
incinerated [53–57]. The significant environmental drawbacks of plastic disposal via both landfill and
incineration were the driving force behind the development of plastic recycling processes.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&ved=2ahUKEwja4u2LiNzjAhUriOAKHasRD_gQFjALegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2073-4360%2F5%2F1%2F1%2Fpdf&usg=AOvVaw2We0yPaIT46syFUm3S6dKv
But plastic even tastes better than real food! Well, at least to corals!
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-coral-microplastic-natural-food.html
Coral found to prefer eating microplastic to natural food
…Back in their lab, the researchers cut open the specimens and discovered that every single polyp contained at least 100 bits of microplastic—the first recorded instance of coral consuming plastic in the wild. Next, the team dumped microbeads into tanks of lab-raised coral along with their normal food, shrimp eggs. hen they later cut the corals open, they found that there was twice as much plastic in their polyps as there were shrimp eggs. The researchers claim this shows the coral has a strong preference for plastic bits over natural food…
In a follow-up experiment, the researchers dunked a batch of plastic beads into the ocean, which allowed bacteria to form a biofilm on them. They then laced the biofilm with E. coli and fed the beads to lab-raised corals. The team reports that even though the corals spit out the beads two days later, they all died from E. coli infections. The team suggests this finding indicates that a lot of coral might be dying from infections carried by plastics.
Cheers!
I say incineration of single use plastic made of C, H and O in my low emission non catalytic wood stove makes as much sense as burning wood made of C, H and O. I have not tried burning foam yet but beverage bottles and grocery bags burn into clear smoke just like the 2+ cords of birch that heats my cabin near Fairbanks every winter.
Douglas
So you thought it was poor diet?
Environmental endocrine disruptors: New diabetogens?
While lifestyle factors (sedentariness, noxious food), together with genetic susceptibility, are well-known actors, there is accumulating evidence suggesting that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may also play a pathophysiological role in the occurrence of metabolic diseases. Both experimental and epidemiological evidence support a role for early and chronic exposure to low doses of chemical pollutants with endocrine and metabolic disrupting effects. Most are present in the food chain and accumulate in the fat mass after absorption. In rodents, bisphenol A stimulates synthesis and secretion of pancreatic β cells and disturbs insulin signaling in liver, muscle and adipose tissue through epigenetic changes leading to insulin resistance and β cell impairment. In humans, epidemiological reports show statistical link between exposure to pesticides, polychlorinated bisphenyls, bisphenol A, phthalates, dioxins or aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbides or heavy metals and DT2 after acute accidental releases or early in life and/or chronic, low doses exposure. More prospective, longitudinal studies are needed to determine the importance of such environmental risk factors.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069117301245
Health Effects of Environmental Endocrine Disrupters
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are environmental chemicals that mimic, block, or interfere with hormones in the body. Increasing exposure to EDCs over the past 20 years appear responsible for the growing number of people with infertility, diabetes, early onset of puberty in girls and early menopause in women, cancer, birth defects, and neurobehavioral disorders, according to a statement issued by the Endocrine Society and IPEN, a global network of more than 500 public interest NGOs in more than 100 countries around the world.
https://www.endocrineweb.com/professional/other-endocrine-disorders/health-effects-environmental-endocrine-disrupters
Americans Believe in Creationism
by Megan Brenan
https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. However, more Americans continue to think that humans evolved over millions of years — either with God’s guidance (33%) or, increasingly, without God’s involvement at all (22%).
The latest findings, from a June 3-16 Gallup poll, have not changed significantly from the last reading in 2017. However, the 22% of Americans today who do not believe God had any role in human evolution marks a record high dating back to 1982. This figure has changed more than the other two have over the years and coincides with an increasing number of Americans saying they have no religious identification.
As many as 47% and as few as 38% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins throughout Gallup’s 37-year trend. Likewise, between 31% and 40% of U.S. adults have attributed humans’ development to a combination of evolution and divine intervention over the same period.
Americans do love their fictional entertainment. Nature seems to be the ruling system here but humans do their best to ignore it, wreck it and work around it. All delusional of course with hellish ramifications. But like credit cards, they try to keep the final payment in the future, as they ignore the amount they have to pay today.
“As many as 47% and as few as 38% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins …”
No, that would be “as many as 72% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins.”
“Evolution with God’s guidance” IS creationism, period.
In general, the vast number of Americans are stupid–full stop–because of religion, marketing & advertising, and television.
Trump is a perfect fit for a stupid nation.
Even more astounding to me- some people actually believe in god
If something is real or true, you don’t need to ‘believe’ in it.
You don’t need to ‘have faith’ in true, real things.
They just are.
You should see what I posted on the petro side.
The term “plastic people” came into vogue decades ago. Now we have actual plastic people and plastic food, plastic wildlife then more. But plastic does not remain as plastic, even on land. It changes dramatically and releases new particles and chemicals across the soil, water and land.
Generally speaking, when plastic particles break down, they gain new physical and chemical properties, increasing the risk that they will have a toxic effect on organisms. And the larger the number of potentially affected species and ecological functions, the more likely it is that toxic effects will occur.
Chemical effects are especially problematic at the decomposition stage. Additives such as phthalates and Bisphenol A (widely known as BPA) leach out of plastic particles. These additives are known for their hormonal effects and can disrupt the hormone system of vertebrates and invertebrates alike. In addition, nano-sized particles may cause inflammation, traverse cellular barriers, and even cross highly selective membranes such as the blood-brain barrier or the placenta. Within the cell, they can trigger changes in gene expression and biochemical reactions, among other things.
The long-term effects of these changes have not yet been sufficiently explored. “However, it has already been shown that when passing the blood-brain barrier nanoplastics have a behaviour-changing effect in fish,” according to the Leibnitz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries.
Microplastics can also interact with soil fauna, affecting their health and soil functions. “Earthworms, for example, make their burrows differently when microplastics are present in the soil, affecting the earthworm’s fitness and the soil condition,”
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic-planet-how-tiny-plastic-particles-are-polluting-our-soil
How the Plastics Industry Is Fighting to Keep Polluting the World
Sharon Lerner
https://theintercept.com/2019/07/20/plastics-industry-plastic-recycling/
The students at Westmeade Elementary School worked hard on their dragon. And it paid off. The plastic bag receptacle that the kids painted green and outfitted with triangular white teeth and a “feed me” sign won the students from the Nashville suburb first place in a recycling box decorating contest. The idea, as Westmeade’s proud principal told a local TV news show, was to help the environment. But the real story behind the dragon — as with much of the escalating war over plastic waste — is more complicated.
The contest was sponsored by A Bag’s Life, a recycling promotion and education effort of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a lobbying group that fights restrictions on plastic. That organization is part of the Plastics Industry Association, a trade group that includes Shell Polymers, LyondellBasell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips, DowDuPont, and Novolex — all of which profit hugely from the continued production of plastics. And even as A Bag’s Life was encouraging kids to spread the uplifting message of cleaning up plastic waste, its parent organization, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, was backing a state bill that would strip Tennesseans of their ability to address the plastics crisis. The legislation would make it illegal for local governments to ban or restrict bags and other single-use plastic products — one of the few things shown to actually reduce plastic waste.
A week after Westmeade’s dragon won the contest, the APBA got its own reward: The plastic preemption bill passed the Tennessee state legislature. Weeks later, the governor signed it into law, throwing a wrench into an effort underway in Memphis to charge a fee for plastic bags. Meanwhile, A Bag’s Life gave the Westmeade kids who worked on the bag monster a $100 gift card to use “as they please.” And with that, a minuscule fraction of its vast wealth, the plastics industry applied a green veneer to its increasingly bitter and desperate fight to keep profiting from a product that is polluting the world.
A Bag’s Life is just one small part of a massive, industry-led effort now underway to suppress meaningful efforts to reduce plastic waste while keeping the idea of recycling alive. The reality of plastics recycling? It’s pretty much already dead. In 2015, the U.S. recycled about 9 percent of its plastic waste, and since then the number has dropped even lower. The vast majority of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic ever produced — 79 percent — has ended up in landfills or scattered all around the world. And as for those plastic shopping bags the kids were hoping to contain: Less than 1 percent of the tens of billions of plastic bags used in the U.S. each year are recycled.
Huawei first-half revenue surges 23 per cent as China telecoms giant fights off US tech ban impact
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3020624/huawei-first-half-revenue-surges-23-cent-china-telecoms-giant-fights
Effective mosquito control!
SIBERIA FOREST FIRES SPARK POTENTIAL ‘DISASTER FOR ARCTIC
“Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia’s Siberia, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment. As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, environmentalists warn of a disaster threatening to accelerate the melting of the Arctic. More than 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) were in the grip of fires on Monday.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-siberia-forest-potential-disaster-arctic.html
And,
ARCTIC WILDFIRES BREAKING RECORDS, IN NUMBERS AND EMISSIONS
“This year, between 250 and 300 fire detections, or “hot spots,” have been recorded north of the Arctic Circle each day, four to five times higher than previous years. based on satellite observations alone. Some Arctic fires are likely penetrating deep into the soil, releasing carbon that’s been trapped for hundreds of years. That’s a problem because fires in peat moss emit about 10 times the amount of methane per kilogram of fuel compared to regular wildfires. This June alone, for example, saw emissions rise to 10 times the average of previous years.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-wildfires-1.5228945
The tipping point has been passed.
NAOM
You may be right
Wouldn’t it be “funny” if oil production started its permanent decline right about now?
[Not funny ha-hah, funny oh-fuk.]
umm.. its not?
I though the permanent decline was here [+/-5%].
(We won’t have accuracy greater than that until the peak of production is atleast 5 yrs in the rear-view mirror.)
Islandboy, here’s a bit of data for your energy spreadsheet.
FRONTIER OILSANDS PROJECT HEADS TO MCKENNA FOR REVIEW
“A massive new oilsands project is inching closer to getting built in Alberta. Only the federal environment minister’s approval stands in the way of Teck Resources’ $20-billion, 260,000-barrel-per-day Frontier project, which would be the first new open-pit petroleum-mining construction in the country’s oil patch in many years. An extensive report says the 292-square-kilometre site north of Fort McKay is in the public interest despite in spite of significant adverse project and cumulative effects on certain environmental components and Indigenous communities. The Company expects the project to produce about 3.2 billion barrels of bitumen over four decades of life.”
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/30/news/tecks-frontier-oilsands-project-heads-mckenna-review?fbclid=IwAR3gE9hGkWeUU_J1ndSnF7ZpmXYuZx1xJfk7_2Sbxaah4la67ac2FDXSKGY
Esteemed Doug, it is articles such as the one linked to in your comment that highlight why our civilization should have and still should be be putting the pedal to the metal on renewables and EVs. If solar continues to grow at recent rates, it will eventually cut into the profits of NG operations, first at the electricity generation end but, eventually feeding back to exploration and production.
If EVs were 50% of the market for new vehicles and growing, the need for such a project would likely not exist. One of Tony Seba’s projections is that an increased share of miles traveled going to EVs is going to eventually result in a decline in demand for transportation fuels, slight at first but as electric propulsion takes an ever increasing share it will eventually reduce demand to very low levels. Too low to justify the cost of the Frontier Project. My hope is that, by the time the project gets anywhere near to completion demand will be falling like a rock!
All of this assumes of course, that the TS does not HTF first!
Supposedly good news but, a grenade lurks therein:
Chinese investment in renewables soars under Belt & Road initiative
I think it is time for the UN to tell China that their holiday with coal is over. Governments should put a price on carbon that makes continuing to burn carbon based fuels an increasingly uneconomic proposition. The Chinese have been particularly enthusiastic with regard to using coal to fuel their economic growth and are now seemingly propagating that enthusiasm across the planet without any regard for the consequences on the climate. Even in my neck of the woods, coal plants were proposed as parts of major development projects.
Of course, the FF trolls will have a problem with taxing carbon (flame suite on).
Hello Mr Island,
Will you be writing your electricity power monthly summary soon? Looking forward to that…
It was written at the time of posting of this thread but, I had not let Dennis know it was ready so it should be in the next pair of top posts. Glad you like it!
“Mr Island”
I like it. Nice ring to it.
No man is an Island…
Pulls hat down low over forehead and ducks then quickly exits stage left! 🙂
“I think it is time for the UN to tell China that their holiday with coal is over.”
Perhaps the some letter should go to the United States, Russia, India and Japan who, together with China, account for over 75% of worldwide coal consumption.
I left out the US because coal consumption is trending down in the US and only one new plant has been put into service since 2015, a 17 MW plant at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. That is nothing compared to what is being spearheaded by Chinese interests. While India has been building coal plants like there is no tomorrow, I read at least one article recently:
Delhi to shut down Rajghat thermal power plant, use its land for solar park
The only news I found on new coal plants in Russia was about a proposed largest plant in the world to supply electricity to, you guessed it, China.
There is a suggestion that renewables will drive coal out of the electricity markets in India over time leaving many of these coal plants as stranded assets.(We can only hope!)
As far as Japan goes there’s this Reuters story:
Japanese utilities turn away from coal plans amid green energy boom
So, I’m not giving those other countries a pass, it just appears that China is the source of financing for most of the new coal plants.
Nice idea (UN taxing coal), but unless I missed it they don’t have taxing authority.
The idea is not for the UN to tax coal. Note I said, “Governments should put a price on carbon that makes continuing to burn carbon based fuels an increasingly uneconomic proposition.” As far as I am aware the climate change conferences are officially called the nth Conference of the Parties to the Unitited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, so the body that would propose that governments tax carbon is the UN but, it would be up to individual governments to levy the taxes.
Clarification noted Mr Island.
I agree.
I’d love to see a carbon tax with all collected revenue specifically devoted to renewable energy build out.
More good news from the technology front [sarc]
Gigantic, mysterious radiation leak traced to facility in Russia
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2211511-gigantic-mysterious-radiation-leak-traced-to-facility-in-russia/?utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=2019-0730-GLOBAL-NSDAY&utm_content=NSDAY
Novatek’s LNG tanker sets new record for passage via Northern Sea Route
https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/novateks-lng-tanker-sets-new-record-for-passage-via-northern-sea-route/
Hightrekker,
Feodosyev, of Novatek, claimed for the company all the credit for the record passage time. There was no mention that there’s a lot less ice up there than there used to be because of the Arctic warming up.
Sad.
Yep, quiet is sometimes a strategy —
On this date:
1945 — High Seas: USS Indianapolis, having just completed its secret mission to deliver the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, is torpedoed. The ship sinks in 12 minutes. Because of the secret nature of its mission, the incident went unreported for five days; survivors were left to fend for their own before a Navy plane on routine patrol discovered them. Of the 1,100 men aboard, 880 lost their lives to drowning, sharks & exposure.
For those who like to watch:
Check out the 3, 5 & 10 day forecasts for Max 2M temp. Look at Greenland.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/fcst_outlook/
Should be seeing soon another big blast on Greenland’s surface melt conditions, as the European heatwave heads to the Arctic
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
Yup, where’s Javier with his impending ice age nonsense?
ARCTIC ICE IS CRASHING
“Over the next few days, Greenland is expected to roast as the weather system that fueled Europe’s second record-smashing heatwave of the summer marches north and west. Scientists are warning of what could be a near-record melt-out across the northern ice sheet’s surface, one that may also impact sea ice surrounding the island…. Weather models predict temperatures across Greenland could rise as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal on Tuesday and Wednesday, with extreme heat engulfing a vast swath of the ice sheet.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv7gzm/arctic-ice-is-crashing-and-thats-bad-news-for-everyone
For those interested: this is the news from mid June on Greenland melt-
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/06/14/us/greenland-sudden-ice-melt-wxc/index.html
And this is recent news pertaining to the forecast and impending melt-
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/07/30/world/greenland-ice-melt-climate-heat-wave-sci-intl/index.html
Stay tuned here
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
Jetstream forecast animation
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/jetstream
Is it my imagination, or are things happening faster than many experts had suggested might be the case, to wit, faster than expected?
Ah, yes, the new dilemma: WORSE THAN EXPECTED!
Is it my imagination, or are things happening faster than many experts had suggested might be the case, to wit, faster than expected?
Probably not your imagination…
https://thebulwark.com/what-changed-my-mind-about-climate-change/
Risk management is not about discerning the optimal response to the most likely outcome. It is about discerning the appropriate response to the most likely distribution of possible outcomes. That means incorporating the possibility that climate change, either by a bad roll of the geophysical dice or a large and unexpected societal vulnerability to warming, turns into a bigger problem than we expect.
In his most recent book on the economics and policy of climate change, economist Richard Tol outlines three factors that would motivate greater climate ambition if we look beyond the “most likely” outcomes.
The first is that surprises are weighted toward the bad. Despite some technical ambiguity, scientists believe that the chance of a nasty surprise on the climate front is much larger than the chance of a pleasant surprise.
Cheers!
TEMPERATURES DIP TO 37 DEGREES IN INTERNATIONAL FALLS, BREAKING 121-YEAR-OLD RECORD
“While the calendar says Minnesota is in the middle of summer, it felt like fall in northern Minnesota on Tuesday morning.
A new daily low temperature record was set in International Falls, where the mercury dipped to 37 degrees, breaking the record (38 degrees) set back in 1898.
A new record low up north this morning. 37° in @Int_Falls_MN, breaks the old record of 38° that stood since 1898. #mnwx pic.twitter.com/S3atMQtLAD
— Matt Brickman (@Matt_Brickman) July 30, 2019
Temperatures in the area don’t typically reach the 30s until late September, early October.”
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/07/30/minnesota-weather-temperatures-dip-to-37-degrees-in-international-falls-breaking-121-year-record/
Automated Notification- you have been ignored. Your comment is not displayed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting
You trolling again Alex? Can you say ‘Outlier’?!
https://www.weathercentral.com/weather/us/maps/current_temperatures.html
Well since the Arctic is already on fire the Brazilian government has decided to do its part by speeding up the deforestation of the Amazon by burning it down at an accelerated rate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOFQHzZS8-0
Exterminating the Future: World Outcry Grows as Brazil Rapidly Expands Deforestation of Amazon
Bolsonaro to World: “Fuck You! The Amazon is ours so we get to burn it down ourselves!”
.
Hey, maybe if the clueless idiots (Bolsonaro, Trump, etc) put this puppy in the ditch fast enough, the survivors (if any) will have more resources to survive on?
Naw–
Graphic of The Week
Meanwhile, the same source for the graphic above produced the graphic below. So, despite the decline in the amount of money spent, capacity growth continued to track an exponential curve. Slightly more investment in 2018 resulted in more than twice as much new PV capacity than that in 2014 (40,134 MW), more than three times the amount of PV installed in 2011 (30,133 MW) and more than five times that installed in 2010 (17,151 MW). Remarkable how that works, isn’t it?
The graphics was found in the following article:
World Reaches 1,000GW of Wind and Solar, Keeps Going
Sure, however, your graph looks like it’s flattening out already and has a date to June 30, 2018, rather than first half of 2019 of the one I presented. It appears as the first half of a bell curve, although perhaps it’s closely paralleling fossil fuel depletion? If so and FF-depletion follows more of a Seneca cliff, then when will it’s peak be roughly and when that happens what will happen to alternative energy buildout? Will its buildout curve shadow FF’s depletion curve?
Peak oil also means peak renewables
Stalling Renewables Growth Raises Concerns About Global Decarbonization Efforts
If so-called renewables growth is stalling, perhaps it is an indication of an approaching or just-past-peak fossil fuels.
Astute readers can discern for themselves what the juxtaposition of the two graphics reveals and whether or not Caelan is making sense
Continued here.
The Fine Print
Yes and the so-called ‘poor’ and/or those without electricity can work as wage-slaves for The (neofeudal/land-grabbing) Man/Woman/LGBTQ+ and buy into their crony-capitalist plutarchy ideological indoctrinations as landless tax-/profit-pimped ‘consumers’ while they watch their traditional cultures disappear.
Total freedom and dignity.
And now that’s kind of becoming old newz as societies and planet continue their trajectory toward the abyss.
Roads and Electricity? No, Thanks
See also here.
You want electricity? It comes with ‘strings attached’, especially in the current model.
Hyundai Kona EV catches fire, blows up garage
I personally have seen no less than a dozen places where conventional cars caught fire and resulting in houses or garages burning , and in one case, a large patch of woodland burned up, as well as the farm house, and all the farm outbuildings burned to the ground. That fire spread because it was winter, with the wind pushing the fire along in tall dry grass. I was only ON the scene at the actual time of the fire happening a couple of times. Farmers to tend to be in and around garages and such more often than most people, or I wouldn’t have witnessed two actual conventional car fires that got totally out of hand.
Caelan how much are the KOCH BROTHERS paying you?
Sure and electric cars catch fire too– ‘balance’, as you write.
Again one wonders why it is that, despite the claim that these posts do not represent support of the FF industries, they seem to mirror the talking points that have been developed by the FF industry propaganda machine. The FF industry propaganda machine is at pains to highlight every single EV fire while conveniently ignoring the facts on the overall number of vehicle fires. To wit, “Each year, from 2014 to 2016, an estimated 171,500 highway vehicle fires occurred in the United States, resulting in an annual average of 345 deaths; 1,300 injuries; and $1.1 billion in property loss.1 These highway vehicle fires accounted for 13 percent of fires responded to by fire departments across the nation.”. That represents an average of about 470 vehicle fires in the US every day!
Again I feel the need to point out that the individual that posted the comment above has little or nothing to show in the way of criticism for the long established CO2 emitters and polluters.
First the obligatory disclaimer:
No, I didn’t bother to read the post that lead to this comment from Islandboy. Most of the regulars here are already acutely aware of the simple fact that we are facing an unprecedented planetary ecological crisis which will not be solved just by transitioning from fossil fuels and ICE vehicles to renewable energy sources and EVs.
It is clear we need a complete system reset at all levels. Political, social, economic and ecologic! However for anyone to suggest that renewables and EVs are just as bad or perhaps even worse than the current BAU paradigm is patently ridiculous, at best misguided and at worst a deliberate attempt to derail necessary change!
Whatever such a person’s intentions and motivations they are either deliberately or unwittingly a big part of the problem! And therefore need to be called out at every turn. Thank you to those who actually have the patience to wade through the the never ending torrent of bullshit and constant gishgalloping. I no longer do it myself because I tend to lose my cool and end up retorting with a steady stream of expletives! Which admittedly is counter productive.
For the record, This is Tesla specific fire safety statistics only:
https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport
From 2012 – 2018, there has been approximately one Tesla vehicle fire for every 170 million miles traveled. By comparison, data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation shows that in the United States there is a vehicle fire for every 19 million miles traveled.
In order to provide an apt comparison to NFPA data, Tesla’s data set includes instances of vehicle fires caused by structure fires, arson, and other things unrelated to the vehicle, which account for about 15% of Tesla vehicle fires over this time period.
So Teslas at least, are 9X safer, when it comes to fire safety than ICE vehicles!
I sometimes find it intellectually stimulating to search for material to counter the B.S. but, at times it gets tiring.
Yep, that is why trolls and denialists indulge in shitposting and gishgallops as their favorite tactics. They know it takes a full time effort to counter their B.S.!
Response here.
Response here.
Just about every week we get 1 or more report, in the local newspaper, of an IfCE vehicle going up in flames. I have seen many in my travels even had to call the motorway police to advise them of one.
NAOM
See my most recent comments under the new article.
WARNING POLITICAL RANT
I am putting this HERE because I should have kept my comments about religion and politics in this thread to begin with. It’s a reply I dashed off to a reply in the petroleum thread.
My POINT is that it’s NOT good, politically, to deliberately or inadvertently piss off religious people, because doing so tends to motivate them to vote for Trump type politicians. We are engaged in a CULTURAL war, in the USA, and whichever side musters the most votes wins.
Every thing else I have to say is secondary to this POINT. But people who like to THINK of themselves as being intellectually sophisticated might gain a little in the way of insight into the nature of naked apes, and the way human societies WORK.
This is what I wrote but decided to post HERE.
xxxx
Of COURSE some people who practice no religion of any sort at all care for their elders. Good on you.
I have NUMEROUS acquaintances of various cultural stripes, having lived in both religious communities and in secular communities. My secular friends put their parents in nursing homes as a general rule. My religious friends, the ones who are REALLY SERIOUS about their religion, generally make the necessary sacrifices and take care of their own. If I had grown up in a secular home and society, the odds are MUCH HIGHER that I would not be looking after Daddy.
If I had not been taught as a child to live modestly, and save for a rainy day, as part of my religious culture, I would have been far more likely to have spent lots of money on such things as new cars, money that I invested in things that APPRECIATE, rather than depreciate. No REAL Christian EVER flaunts the fact that he has a lot of money.REAL Christians seldom have a lot of money.
SURE there are lots of dingaling Christians who have swallowed Trump hook line and sinker.
ONE fact that is generally overlooked in such debates as this one is that the LARGE majority of so called religious people in a country such as the USA these days are only NOMINALLY religious. They aren’t REALLY afraid of going to HELL, or else they wouldn’t be paying for lunch at a restaurant right after leaving church. They are however quick to react when they perceive that their preferred cultural values are under attack, and fight back. THIS is what it’s all about, here and now in the USA, TODAY.
Religion here in the USA IS on it’s way out, but religious people are fighting a rear guard action, and anybody who is REALLY paying attention knows this is true. In another generation or two, our country will be pretty much THERE, or close, to being like Western European societies in this respect and other respects as well, barring bad luck.
The LARGE majority of the churches that are so common all over this country are seldom fully occupied these days, excepting for the funeral of a well known member.Relatively sparse congregations ARE the rule, and if you visit a dozen randomly selected churches on a Sunday morning, you will see that children are SCARCE. In lots of churches, you will see ONLY middle aged and elderly people. Kids these days believe in dinosaurs and evolution, in astronomy and aliens. They don’t take Jonah and the whale seriously, or Noah and the Ark, even if their parents do take them to church.
A lot of people who are anti religion seem to believe that THEY have a right to tell OTHER people how OTHERS MUST live, that these OTHERS don’t have a RIGHT to their own chosen values.
I’m not religious at all, in respect to any DOGMA. I’m a true blue dyed in the wool hard core Darwinist, and my handle would BE Darwinian, except Ron has dibs on it, from the old TOD days. I’m a realist. Naked apes are social animals, tribal animals. Religion is just one more form of tribalism. It’s as natural as the sun coming up, as birds flocking, as fish schooling. Anybody who REALLY understands biology and evolution KNOWS that this is true, assuming his education extends beyond the abc level.
THIS IS NOT TO SAY that new forms of tribalism cannot displace old forms. We can and have largely replaced religion in this country by providing social services via tax monies that were once provided by local churches, by way of example. There’s new tribe in town. We call it the welfare state, or the safety net, depending on our personal prejudices.
I have heard a dozen true stories, first hand telling, from my own old folks, about people’s very lives being saved because they went out, as part of their religious core value system, and provided food, firewood, and personal attention to OTHER old folks, back when they were young themselves, and in a couple of instances, stories about some of my own family surviving today as the result of such aid in times past.
SOMEBODY, SOMEONE, SOME ORGANIZATION, SOMETHING determines what values a society and or culture holds. If it’s not a religion, it’s something equivalent, functionally. It could be communism, or Anne Rand style capitalism. It could be the Viking philosophy, or the philosophy of Genghis Khan, which could be described as religions.
Sure some wars are started as the result of religion, but most wars are fought for other reasons. Sure lots of people make a cynical living out of religion. I can’t think of ANY cultural phenomena or philosophy that isn’t misused and abused by somebody. All the major wars I can think of in recent times have been fought for reasons that have little to do, directly, with religion.
We Yankees wouldn’t be in the Middle East, except as some famous robber said, when asked why he robbed banks, “That’s where the money (oil) is.”
Hitler hated Jews, Gypsies, etc, but that’s not what WWII was about……. WWII was a war about resources, a war about land and minerals. Vietnam was not about religion. The wars we Yankees fought with our parent society, nowadays called the UK, weren’t about religion. We didn’t fight a war with Mexico about religion.
SOMEBODY provides whatever moral guidance we have.
People can and do use and abuse religion just as the use and abuse virtually everything else. The anti religious rhetoric here reflects very badly on people who are supposedly intellectually sophisticated, because they NEVER acknowledge that religion has it’s good points.
The Quakers for instance were one of the biggest driving forces in the abolition movement which led to the end of slavery in the USA. The concept of charity is a FOUNDATION stone in Christianity and other major religions. The very concept of equal rights for every body is embedded in the basic tenets of Christianity.
But ALL of this is neither here nor THERE, in terms of my pounding away on it.
MY POINT is that if we want positive change in our society, we get it, when we elect politicians that want the same, positive change.
Deliberately or inadvertently pissing off religious people is not good political strategy. It adds votes in the R column to a greater extent than it adds votes to the D column.
You said political rant warning.
Seems like a religious one.
I’m into separation of church and state.
Forgive me if I’ve misinterpreted your statement.
I tend to be sensitive about the subjects being intermixed-
I live in a country (world) where religious people have bullied (massacred) everyone (non-believers) for as far back as anyone can remember.
I am LIKEWISE into separation of church and state.
ALL I am trying to do is to get people to understand that badmouthing other people, whether justified on a factual basis or not, is NOT good politics…… not if you want Democrats and environmentally friendly politicians win elections.
In order to do THAT, I am trying to get people who insist on publicly badmouthing religious people to understand, if they are SCIENTIFICALLY LITERATE, that religion is a natural part of the human experience. I have friends who are like me, technically agnostics, but as a practical matter, atheists, who never the less, talk with me as if Nature, or MOTHER Nature, if you please, is in many ways WORTHY of worship, as we depend on “HER” for our very existence. We believe seeing a beautiful sunset, or birds hatching, or the green climbing the mountainsides in the spring, are sacred experiences. WE ALL have excellent TECHNICAL educations, plus a reasonably solid grounding in the humanities.
It would not be all that far fetched to call us nature worshippers.
Try to get it, religion is just one more variety of TRIBAL BEHAVIOR, one more kind of GLUE that holds societies together. SOMETHING holds every society together, or some combination of somethings holds every society together, otherwise it disintegrates, and is replaced by OTHER newly forming or growing tribal organizations.
Hating any such behavior is as stupid and ill considered, intellectually, as hating mosquitos or rats or enemy soldiers. Hate contributes NOTHING to understanding reality. It contributes only to US VERSUS THEM.
Of course I long ago realized that not more than one person out of fifty is actually capable of APPRECIATING what I’m talking about.
Don’t over analyze it.
Just think about whether the leftish liberalish better educated wing of our society will continue to vote liberal and D, if you give up bashing religious people, publicly.They WILL , in my opinion at least.
And then think about how many people such as my older relatives, and tens of millions of other people , are motivated to present you the middle finger by voting for TRUMP and company next election. I KNOW some people who will vote for Trump primarily for this very reason, because they have been publicly talked about as second class citizens, described as ignorant, backwards, racist, etc.
It does not even MATTER if these accusations are TRUE, next election. What matters is that making them fires up the Republican base like stroking a dogs fur the wrong way when it’s confronting another dog, while doing very little to nothing in terms of firing up the D base.
EVEN my LITERALLY illiterate grand father on my mothers side understood such simple reasoning.
Anybody that does not GET IT is in bad need of reading some books about winning friends and influencing people.
IF smart alec “holier than thou know better than you dumb ass religious cretins” had said less about “deplorables” and paid a little more RESPECTFUL attention to them, the three states that went for TRUMP putting him over the top , Clinton might have carried those states.
It was THAT close.
It may be that close again. And yes, if anybody wonders, I’m in favor of doing away with the electoral college.
Religion is poison
To clarify my comments a little-
I have no doubt that someone like you OFM could be trained to be an ethical, kind and compassionate person without religion.
Without the bad stuff of religions- like monstrous bureaucracy, the teaching of false nature of the universe and of human history, the coercion and killing of non-believers, etc.
My point here is not to delve into the negative attributes of religions,
rather to say that people can be properly trained to simply do good in their lives,
for the sake of the common good and for the sake of the pursuit of a life in harmony with their own family, community and the greater world.
No need for any kind of preisthood/authority/organization franchise, etc.
For example, if a people decided to see Joshua of Nazareth as a role model, no need to invoke a notion of god. Just a good man, like we all should work to be. Being a good man is attainable.
Lastly, I commend for you for being kind and responsible with you father.
Strong work.
I posted a reply to your 10:55 am before reading your 5:22 pm comment.
Of COURSE religion is not NECESSARY to the teaching of ethics and morals.
But SOME sort of organization, no matter how loosely organized, IS necessary, otherwise there would be no CONSENSUS morality, no CONSENSUS ethics, to hold AN extended family, or small band of humans, or a larger tribe, or a nation together.
Take away religion,and it WILL be replaced by something else. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we are so programmed that we naked apes will NOT tolerate a vacuum. We habitually, maybe instinctively, ally ourselves together in bands from the size of nuclear families all the way up to nation states. Survival depends on being a member in good standing of a viable band, or failing that, managing to join another viable band, in the last analysis.
There is a consensus, somewhat shaky at this moment but nevertheless real, here in the USA, and a STRONG consensus in other Western countries, that society as a whole is or should be responsible for some or most of the functions formerly served by the churches.
This consensus is growing, year by year, Trumps or no, and the churches are shrinking, it terms of power and influence, year by year, although a lot of people don’t realize this is so. But when MY generation is gone, the very HEART of the core of Trump type political voters will be shrinking, because the generation represented by my nieces and nephews is not even HALF as serious about their religion as mine.
The grand children don’t think anything at all about dating or marrying into another race or religion, and generally speaking, don’t pay any attention at all to preachers, other than lip service. They believe in sleeping with anybody they want, they believe in working any time they want, they believe in dinosaurs and deep time, and in aliens rather than angels. Or I should say ninety percent of them fit this description. There are a couple of younger Jesus freaks in the family……just a COUPLE, out of all the ones I have personally met, which is all of them, out to second cousins, and third and fourth cousins in more cases than not. The preachers dare not say anything about younger women showing up in short skirts, knowing that if they do, these young women will NOT be back,nor will their husbands OR their kids, in the event they have ever shown up in the first place.
The actual TRUTH of the matter, as I see it, is that back in my younger days, most of the people I knew who were devout, and that was NEVER more than half the community, and generally LESS, even here in one of the darkest corners of the Bible Belt, generally paid no attention to politics and most of them didn’t vote. The OTHER half of the community even back then paid no more than lip service to religion, and engaged in some or most of the behaviors prohibited by the church, from drinking to out of wedlock sex to working on Sunday right on up to crimes ranging from tax evasion( a more or less national sport) to burglary to cheating their customers or stealing from their employers right on up to out right robbery and such.
In recent times, NOW, the R’s have seized on all these peoples’ their fears and resentments involving changes forced on them by the courts, by automation, by globalization, etc, over the last fifty years, and have stroked their fur the wrong way until they are all too often habitually voting R to spite the D’s….. if they vote at all.
Anybody that goes around talking about them publicly as racists, xenophobes, superstitious, ignorant, backward , DEPLORABLE, etc is HELPING the Trump camp.
This will in my estimation end well, but not quickly, because we are going to have to wait for the middle aged conservative working and religious class of people to die of old age, or at least go senile to the point they forget to vote, for the leftish liberalish faction to have a SOLID and DECISIVE majority. The young people of this country ARE by and large left and liberal leaning.
Not even old farmers are comfortable talking about whales swallowing people and burping them up alive, or ARKS and FLOODS these days, when you are around a bunch of them and no preachers or women nearby. BUT confront them in public, and they are as adamant that the Jonah and the Ark stories are true as a typical Clinton fan is adamant that BILL never abused any women, and that Hillary therefore never ran a bimbo squad to cover for him.
And of COURSE all the Clinton fans I ever met are equally adamant that Trump DOES abuse women, even as they deny that Trump abuses women….because in the END, it’s mostly or ENTIRELY all about US versus THEM. Because in the end, most of us believe what we WANT to believe, excepting technical matters we understand as the result of technical training.
If you want to liberals and Democrats to win elections, I advise you, meaning the rhetorical you, to avoid HELPING the R camp by shooting off your mouth publicly about MILLIONS of voters who WILL HEAR and WILL remember what you have said or written about them, and vote R in order to flip you the bird.
This ain’t rocket science guys, it’s public relations one o one.
Just two months to go for Arctic Sea Ice Minimum time.
However, current sea ice area is tracking slightly below the 2012 line. Open water can absorb up to 11 times the incoming energy compared to sea ice.
Recent post from Paul Beckwith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjA3y0K0Kxk
Rapidly Darkening Arctic is a Powerful Warming Feedback
Good Luck!
Impressive numbers, I’d say.
GREENLAND IS MELTING IN A HEATWAVE.
“Extreme heat bowled over Europe last week, smashing records in its wake. Now, the heatwave that started in the Sahara has rolled into Greenland — where more records are expected to crumble in the coming days… 2019 could come close to the record-setting year of 2012, said Jason Box, professor and ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. During that “melty year,” Greenland’s ice sheet lost 450 million metric tons — the equivalent of more than 14,000 tons of ice lost per second.”
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/31/europe/greenland-heatwave-climate-crisis-intl/index.html
Arctic sea ice tracking below record 2012 levels as we speak:
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/blog/polview.html
Maybe we shall witness some more impressive King Tides in South Florida next year. If so, it would be interesting to see if Florida Republicans connect the dots or continue to drink the denialist kool aid.
Melting of floating Arctic ice doesn’t impact sea level. However melting glaciers in Greenland and Iceland do… So we will have a worsening of the King Tide phenomenon in South Florida, probably sooner than later!
As for Florida Republicans, there is little to expect from them other than continued denial!
Cheers!
Or, as Greta has said: “Our house is on fire.”
OUR PLANET IS IN CRISIS. BUT UNTIL WE CALL IT A CRISIS, NO ONE WILL LISTEN
“In 2002, Luntz wrote a memo to Bush urging him and the rest of his party to use the term “climate change” instead of “global warming”. Climate change sounded “less frightening”, he pointed out, “like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale”….
Under the administration of Donald Trump, the situation is even worse. Now, instead of re-framing language about the climate crisis, Republican officials simply remove references to it entirely and put pressure on researchers and analysts who disagree….
There is no longer any doubt that climate change is an unprecedented planetary emergency. And the terms we use to describe this crisis must deliberately reflect an appropriate sense of urgency. The good news is that there is already some movement in this direction.”
ALREADY SOME MOVEMENT IN THIS DIRECTION?! HOW ABOUT, THERE IS FINALLY SOME MOVEMENT IN THIS DIRECTION?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/31/climate-crisis-change-language
THE TOLL OF RECORD-BREAKING HEAT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
“July is on track to be the hottest month on Earth in recorded history. The record-breaking heat is taking a particularly hard toll on the world’s Arctic region.”
https://globalnews.ca/video/5705089/the-toll-of-record-breaking-heat-throughout-the-world
This Is Fine Fire GIF from Thisisfine GIFs
Drill baby drill!
SHALE NATURAL GAS DEVELOPMENT IMPACTING RECREATIONISTS
“As the Trump administration opens millions of acres of once protected land and coastline for oil and natural gas exploration, there is mounting concern about the potential impact on the environment as well as those who enjoy the outdoors. What most people don’t realize is that a lot of the shale natural gas energy development is happening within or adjacent to public parks and protected areas. So, those who love playing in the great outdoors are often encountering anything from heavy duty truck traffic congestion to actual construction and drilling operations while recreating on public lands.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-shale-natural-gas-impacting-recreationists.html
Portuguese auction attracts world record bid of €14.8/MWh for solar
Due to cheap labor
You have a spreadsheet with the cost breakdown?
Where? During manufacture or installation? If you are saying manufacturing, then you are wrong. Modern PV manufacturing is very highly automated with machines (robots) doing almost all the work. If it is during installation then it balances out since locations with lower income levels and spending power would benefit from lower installation costs and less expensive electricity.
RUSSIAN ARMY ORDERED TO TACKLE MASSIVE WILDFIRES
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the army to help tackle massive wildfires raging in Siberia and other regions in the east. The decision was taken after Mr Putin was briefed on the growing crisis by the head of the emergencies ministry. About three million hectares (7.4 million acres) have been affected, in what Greenpeace is describing as an “ecological catastrophe”.
Wildfires in Russia have been raging for weeks, caused by record high temperatures combined with lightning and strong winds.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49182554
>55%surface melt on Tuesday
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/07/31/greenland-ice-sheet-is-throes-one-its-greatest-melting-events-ever-recorded/?utm_term=.18e48fde1561
No surface weather stations in Central Greenland. Satellites provide estimates, not 100% accurate data, but pass over the region only sporadically, not 24/7.
Your shitposting is weak.
Satellites provide measurements, not estimates.
There are numerous “weather stations” on the surface of Greenland.
Here are some of them
https://www.wunderground.com/global/GL.html
This one is rather central
https://www.geosummit.org/
as are ones shown here
http://cires1.colorado.edu/steffen/gcnet/mapSelect.php
Shall we compare and contrast ground station data with satellite data to see how closely the two data sets align?
Not only Greenland, Alaska too.
RECORD HEAT IN ALASKA; NO FREEZING TEMPERATURES IN MORE THAN A MONTH
“Not a single Alaskan weather station, nearly 300 of them, has recorded a temperature below freezing since June 28 — the longest such streak in at least 100 years. High temperatures inevitably lead to wildfires: more than 2 million acres have burned so far this year — not a record, yet, but headed that way.”
https://www.newsandguts.com/wapo-record-heat-in-alaska-no-freezing-temperatures-in-more-than-a-month/?fbclid=IwAR293rogXYgQ00tiyiBdBnVG6lNHpB2Wruw5uDip2l6Iqra0609Il1sR7qA
Unreal—
And I have spent quite a bit of time there.
With apologies to XKCD, ‘SCIENCE, IT WORKS BITCHES!’
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/lightsail-2-successful-flight-by-light.html
LightSail 2 Spacecraft Successfully Demonstrates Flight by Light
Years of computer simulations. Countless ground tests. They’ve all led up to now. The Planetary Society’s crowdfunded LightSail 2 spacecraft is successfully raising its orbit solely on the power of sunlight.
Since unfurling the spacecraft’s silver solar sail last week, mission managers have been optimizing the way the spacecraft orients itself during solar sailing. After a few tweaks, LightSail 2 began raising its orbit around the Earth. In the past 4 days, the spacecraft has raised its orbital high point, or apogee, by about 2 kilometers. The perigee, or low point of its orbit, has dropped by a similar amount, which is consistent with pre-flight expectations for the effects of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft. The mission team has confirmed the apogee increase can only be attributed to solar sailing, meaning LightSail 2 has successfully completed its primary goal of demonstrating flight by light for CubeSats.
Pretty cool and a bit of a distraction from all the bad stuff that is happening!
Cheers!
I don’t come over here often. Have two questions.
I have read the recent stories about one trillion trees being a big help offsetting burning fossil fuels.
1. Is this accurate? Why or why not?
2. If accurate, any ideas on how many trees per barrel of oil burned need to be planted?
We produce a small amount of oil. We also have returned some of our low lying farmland back to timber. We have more we are considering planting trees on. Guess I am wondering if the trees we have planted are an offset?
Not saying this permanently solves anything. Just interested in discussing.
Opposite direction:
https://www.wildcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Willits-Rein-in-Caltrans-Slide.jpg
You need to be careful which kind of trees you grow or you can offset your gains of planting. Sorry but I can’t give you any details but there are others here that can.
NAOM
To answer your question with the depth and attention to detail that it merits would require a few dissertations in various fields of the biosciences ranging from botany, plant physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, evolution, ecology, ecosystems science, etc…
I think to focus on a particular number of trees is to literally miss the forest for the trees! To illustrate my point I suggest reading this article:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2211209-tree-stumps-that-should-be-dead-can-be-kept-alive-by-nearby-trees/
Tree stumps that should be dead can be kept alive by nearby trees
A tree stump that should have died is being kept alive by neighbouring trees that are funnelling water and nutrients to it through an interconnected root system. The finding adds to a growing understanding that trees and other organisms can work together for the benefit of a forest.
I also recommend reading :
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25622872-half-earth
Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life
(The Anthropocene Epoch #3)
by Edward O. Wilson
You can better inform yourself about the project itself here:
https://www.half-earthproject.org/
Our planet has multiple highly non linear interactive systems upon which a complex web of life exists and that web of life depends on and also affects all the underlying systems. Before one can successfully adjust the controls of these systems it behooves us to learn what all the knobs and levers do!
Cheers!
Good answer Fred. Until recently Professional Foresters here were overseeing logging 0f multi species forests and replanting them with lodge pole pine (because it grows fastest). Even yours truly, who knows nought about forests (apart from walking in them a lot), could see the limited usefulness of this from an environmental perspective. Except pine, with all that resin, makes spectacular wildfires — if that’s your objective!
Hi Shallow,
There is no straight answer on this that is applicable to all kinds of vegetation zones.
But if your land is in a place that naturally supports trees, rather than just grassland, I’d be planting a mix of trees. Not only are they more ‘permanent ‘ stores of carbon than grasses, but the other advantages to watershed and wildlife are of course important.
Trees and meadow interspersed make a great ecoscape, if there is enough rainfall in your zone.
Note that if grasslands are harvested or plowed, the CO2 sequestration is much less.
And when trees are cut for firewood- same deal.
Hickory.
We consult with a forester about the types of trees to plant. The lowland areas do really well, we planted about 70 acres of trees 22 years ago and they have flourished except on a sand ridge, which only covers about 2 acres. We have since planted about 100 more acres to trees over the years in much smaller projects. Oak, hickory, cherry, walnut are the primary types.
I will also say that deer are incredibly more abundant here now than 30-40 years ago. So much so that they pretty much destroy the first 20-40’ of corn and soybeans planted near woodlands.
I will also say that deer are incredibly more abundant here now than 30-40 years ago. So much so that they pretty much destroy the first 20-40’ of corn and soybeans planted near woodlands.
Time to introduce a pack of wolves… 😉
Summary from what I read from people who’re supposed to know what they’re talking about:
IF we rapidly decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the next couple years AND plant said number of trees, we have reason to expect keeping global warming to a level that we can still adapt to.
Plant said number of trees and we’re fine?
Hell no!
Stop emitting greenhouse gasses and plant said number of trees and we’re fine?
Nope!
Stop emitting greenhouse gasses in five to ten years and plant said number of trees and mankind may survive this with a concussion, two blue eyes, a lost arm, limping with the help of a stick?
Still possible.
What we’d need is the kind of effort the U.S. went through from 1939 to 1941 when a fourth rate military and an economically damaged peacetime economy was turned into a huge war machine backed by possibly the largest materiel production in human history.
Globally.
AND combined with a severe reduction of the negative impact mankind has on the environment.
AND we’d have to start NOW.
And we’d still have to change the way we live.
No more SUVs to work, it’s public transport and bikes from now on. Severe reduction in meat consumption. At best one new smartphone every ten years, new TV every twenty.
No McMansions, no sprawling suburbia, no “let’s hop to Vegas for the weekend”.
And I’m an optimist. Don’t ask a pessimist unless you want reasons for suicide.
I enjoy these non-technical assessments Gerry, keep them coming.
Mcmansions are great, they can be converted to house at least a dozen people or more. Not well designed but with some work could be sealed and insulated well enough to function in a low energy society. Often they have enough land around them to make community gardens.
I don’t think that the US is smart enough anymore to accomplish any dramatic changes. I give for example the Iraq/Afghan wars where we have spent at least 20 million dollars to kill each enemy soldier/insurgent. Any nation stupid enough to allow that kind of economic kidnaping without severe backlash to the government will go happily to their demise. Just provide reality TV and news coverage feeding them lots of lies and scapegoats.
Next example is the huge amount of money poured into oil and gas production, long after being fully warned about climate change and environmental degradation. Instead of making cars, houses, buildings, aircraft more efficient and cutting back on frivolous activities the US response was drill, drill, drill and more growth, more war, more of everything.
Next example is the corporate and elite takeover… but that is for another time.
Basically, the US doesn’t mind being fleeced, debt ridden, over-worked and underpaid as long as they get fed a lot of BS and their virtual addictions plus toys are still available.
When are the people going to become citizens and say WTF?
you missed
STOP CUTTING THE BLOODY TREES DOWN!
end rant
NAOM
Shallow
First of all, it would be brainless to attempt massive sequestration of carbon if we are still pouring carbon into the air by burning massive amounts of fossil fuels. Planting trees is a one shot deal, they sequester carbon but as the forest matures it sequesters little carbon, merely exchanges. Likelihood of forest burn is increasing with increasing temperatures and drying, so the planting might be for naught and there would have been energy and carbon burn to plant them.
Forests are great, but it takes a thousand years to build a true forest ecosystem so one must question what we are doing?
Plus with the Arctic warming fast, I doubt if any sequestering we do will make any difference at all. Certainly not if we don’t stop the purposeful carbon burn.
Number of urban tree seedlings grown for 10 years
A medium growth coniferous or deciduous tree, planted in an urban setting and allowed to grow for 10 years, sequesters 23.2 and 38.0 lbs of carbon, respectively. These estimates are based on the following assumptions:
•The medium growth coniferous and deciduous trees are raised in a nursery for one year until they become 1 inch in diameter at 4.5 feet above the ground (the size of tree purchased in a 15-gallon container).
•The nursery-grown trees are then planted in a suburban/urban setting; the trees are not densely planted.
•The calculation takes into account “survival factors” developed by U.S. DOE (1998). For example, after 5 years (one year in the nursery and 4 in the urban setting), the probability of survival is 68 percent; after 10 years, the probability declines to 59 percent. To estimate losses of growing trees, in lieu of a census conducted to accurately account for the total amount of seedlings planted versus surviving to a certain age, the sequestration rate (in lbs per tree) is multiplied by the survival factor to yield a probability-weighted sequestration rate. These values are summed for the 10-year period, beginning from the time of planting, to derive the estimate of 23.2 lbs of carbon per coniferous tree or 38.0 lbs of carbon per deciduous tree.
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references
One gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of CO2 which is 5.5 pounds of carbon. So a deciduous tree takes 10 years to offset 7 gallons of gasoline burned. Meanwhile much of that CO2 was in the atmosphere.
We better get tree planting, cutting down on oil burning and cutting back on population fast.
Incredible story. I wonder if Epstein was a fan of Garrett Hardin’s eugenics and Lifeboat Ethics? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jeffrey-epstein-new-mexico-ranch-frozen-penis_n_5d41ed59e4b0aca34117d4e5
hint:
“this shit ain’t checkers – it’s chess”.
Last year China’s coal consumption grew by 34 million tonnes.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-energy-coal/china-expects-to-hit-2020-coal-cap-targets-demand-overshadows-study-idUSKCN1SZ17M
China also increased it’s coal fired capacity in 2018. China is telling us it hopes to limit coal burning to only 3,500,000,000 tonnes per year.
Yet there are still people who believe the propaganda coming from the ruthless dictatorship that it is environmentally concerned.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-30/china-super-trawlers-overfishing-world-oceans/10317394
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/papua-new-guinea-rainforest-destruction-photos-deforestation-global-witness-illegal-logging-a8265451.html
34M tonnes is less than 1% growth – that’s a significant achievement for an economy growing at 7%.
AFAIK China is very concerned about it’s environment. Unfortunately, like most of the rest of the world including the US, it’s not ready to aggressively confront it’s domestic coal industry. Worse, it’s not going to let anything get in the way of employing the tens of millions of young Chinese men who will never find mates – if they’re not employed, they’ll be plotting revolution…
A significant achievement?
Not when you consider China’s natural gas consumption is so high.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-gas-beijinggas/china-gas-demand-to-surge-in-2019-but-maybe-not-enough-to-sop-up-lng-glut-idUSKCN1RK0BW
Not when you consider China’s nuclear plant build.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
They are definitely putting employment before environment
Guday folks.
I thought this was amusing . . .
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/08/the-diesel-generator-behind-the-electric-car-charging-point/