Comments not related to Oil or Natural Gas in this thread, thanks.
313 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, March 28,2018”
Ever since I watched a youtube video on that vegan Beyond Burger, I’ve been getting hooked on all these nutrition videos. So much BS out there it’s way worse than climate change in terms of denial. The good news is there is some actual science, not just someones opinion. Dr. Greger of NutritionFacts.org is the most credible. They can take people who have type 2 diabetes for years and cure them in just a couple of months – just with diet.
The diet is “whole plant based” – lots of starch, fruit, and vegetables. No added salt, sugar or oil. It’s 80% carbs and almost no fat.
Dr. Gregor has a bit of a blind spot on the salt – low salt testing has been a complete disaster. Most people’s blood pressure does not drop with less salt, but they get sicker. Now, they mostly say not to cook with a lot of salt, but use it freely to taste at the table.
My blood pressure was getting kind of high, so I’ve been trying it and it’s definitely helping. I’d eaten vegetarian a lot, but never completely vegan. It’s been very interesting, they put eggs and milk in everything and dropping the dairy seems like it made a big difference to me. I’m still eating a little meat on the weekends, mostly seafood, but we’ll see how it goes. In many places meat is reserved for holidays and celebrations (like a wedding) and that seems to be pretty harmless.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, the vegans seem to be winning for best health based on science. A recent report says 100 million Americans are pre-diabetic (that’s almost one third).
Three main reasons to eat more vegan meals and less meat
1. Better Health
2. Less cruelty
3. Better for the environment
May I suggest a book? The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
“The Vegetarian Myth is one of the most important books people, masses of them, can read, as we try with all our might, intelligence, skill, hope, dream and memory, to turn the disastrous course the planet is on. It’s a wonderful book, full of thoughtful, soulful teachings, and appropriate rage. My admiration for Lierre’s sharing of life experience and knowledge is complete.”
Alice Walker, prize-winning author, “The Color Purple”
On a side note–
You may want to grow(or hunt or gather) part of your food yourself—–
It actually makes one aware.
I’m more interested in the latest Science than one person’s experience, but I’ll take a look, thanks. Not much opportunity to grow or gather food here, but I have done a lot of fishing.
Vegans need vitamin B12 – either a supplement or most of the milk substitutes have it. B12 is produced by bacteria in the soil and would be in our water except that we treat the water to get rid of bacteria and loose all the B12. Meat has B12 from that soil bacteria so meat eaters don’t need extra.
Also, vegans and meat eaters that don’t eat seafood need some omega 3 – I don’t like fish oil supplements, but there are other options made from algae and foods like flaxseed have some short chain omega 3’s.
Yes, most people agree the factory farms are a disaster and free range is better. Yes, grass lands need grazing animals, but the end product isn’t healthier – it’s still meat and you can’t feed the whole world meat 3 times a day with free range cattle. I was surprised how little fat wild animals have in their meat – it’s almost none. Chicken, pork and beef are something entirely different than kangaroo or rabbit. There was one study with kangaroo meat that seemed it might not be so bad, but they don’t have a lot of info on that. They do have plenty of data on vegans, and it’s winning on health.
I think this approach is missing the main problem: over eating. Too much food, regardless of the type, creates obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc., etc. Research has repeatedly shown that calorie restriction dramatically reduces all of the problems attributed to bad diet and lifestyle: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
I think everyone hates to say this, in part because it’s a direct attack on the food industry, in part because reducing food consumption is very very hard. It’s easier to demonize particular foods, depending on today’s fashion. It has been fat, it’s becoming sugar (which is certainly empty calories), but…I think it’s just food in general: “eat food, not too much…”.
I agree Nick.
And obviously getting out of the corporate food culture, where 10 calories produces 1 calorie of food.
Grains are keeping 7.6 billion alive, while destroying our ecosystems.
This is obviously a short term solution, with results that are not pleasant.
I’ll let you use your intelligence as to where this is heading—-
A lot of grain is used for other purposes like making fuel of animal feed. Only about 20% of the US maize crop is eaten by humans.
Ah, your catching on!
Its called “corporate agriculture”.
They disagree, they don’t restrict calories at all. That’s one of the great features, low calorie diets do not work for the vast majority of people. They say fill up on starch (rice, potatoes, bread, and beans) and don’t worry about the calories. I can testify that the high fiber foods they recommend are so filling I can no longer eat anywhere near as much food.
Oil has 9 times more calories than starch, but to convert starch to fat is only 30% efficient so to put on the same weight in fat you don’t just have to eat 9 times more but 27 times more starch. On the other hand, added oil gets directly absorbed. French frys btw are at least 50% fat by calories. I spent a lot of time in Japan and saw first hand their diet and they didn’t get any high blood pressure or heat disease or diabetes (note Japanese Americans do). They ate mostly rice, and all they want without limitation, and you almost never saw anyone fat. But there is lots of science now showing that basing your diet primarily on starchy grains and legumes is the best. Up until 100 years ago or so, that’s what Americans ate as well. Yes, a chicken in every pot but just one per week for a family of four.
They call it the Standard American Diet or “SAD” and it’s obvious that it has issues.
“They disagree, they don’t restrict calories at all. That’s one of the great features, low calorie diets do not work for the vast majority of people. They say fill up on starch (rice, potatoes, bread, and beans) and don’t worry about the calories. I can testify that the high fiber foods they recommend are so filling I can no longer eat anywhere near as much food.”
Now you are shifting the goal post. 🙂
If you consume more calories than you need over a longer period of time your body saves the excess as fat, end of story.
Or from a different point of view: As long as you have enough physical activity and your demand is as high as your caloric intake, kind of food is a very secondary aspect. Different groups with good health had/have very different eating behaviour and food composition.
That many vegan people have a quite active life style is the main contribution for their good average health, most of the issues we have now (esp. in the USA) were unknown three generations ago when people worked hard and did not have excess food, many of them lived from “unhealthy” fat. 🙂
There are a couple of studies with nuts where adding 500 extra calories per day of nuts compared to a control group resulted in NO weight gain. They don’t know why, but maybe the fiber in the nuts stops some of the calories from being absorbed. So no, a calorie is a calorie isn’t true.
Another study using ultrasound to measure the thickness of an arterial wall in the patients neck to see how much they were closing up. Problem was, all the vegans were at normal weight (BMI) and the only people on the SAD diet they could find who were not fat were extreme athletes working out at least 40 hours per week. So you have couch potato vegans vs athletes and…. The vegans were slightly better.
They are going to the max to show the most gains – just imagine having diabetes for more than 10 years – taking insulin every day and then in just 3 weeks on a vegan diet being cured – no insulin needed. That’s cool, but it’s likely fine to back off a little on the no salt, sugar or oil. In fact, a salad needs a little oil in order for you to absorb the nutrients – they suggest adding nuts and seeds, but maybe a little oil is okay.
My goal was only to lower my blood pressure without drugs, I’m not checking my weight. I’m not being anywhere near as strict about added salt, sugar, or oil and even still, it’s working after just 2 months my blood pressure is much lower. But, I think it has more of a chance on weight than any thing I tried before (and I’ve tried everything) just from how it slows down your digestion – no more sugar highs, no more crashes. They are definitely on to something.
There are a couple of studies with nuts where adding 500 extra calories per day of nuts compared to a control group resulted in NO weight gain
If this study wasn’t done in a hospital, where the participants’ diets were strictly controlled, you don’t know why they didn’t gain weight. A reasonably hypothesis would be that the nuts made them feel full faster than other foods, so they ate less of other foods. It definitely doesn’t show that nut calories are different from other calories.
I’ve seen similar studies with very dark chocolate, but no one suggested that chocolate calories were different, just that very dark chocolate might suppress appetite.
My goal was only to lower my blood pressure without drugs, I’m not checking my weight
Well, that means that you don’t know if your reduced BP is due to weight loss.
My weight isn’t down enough to explain the blood pressure drop, it’s only been a couple of months. But its not like that’s a bad thing, I don’t really care if its just from weight loss.
Yes, the nut study was done in a hospital under a completely controlled setting. There was a second study with similar results, but the first one was funded by an almond company.
“There are a couple of studies with nuts where adding 500 extra calories per day of nuts compared to a control group resulted in NO weight gain.”
Nuts are fat. For me as scientist, it is hard to accept without hard data that nuts change the metabolism, i.e. make it more inefficient.
That hyptothesis could easily be checked in a controlled experiment with carful bookkeeping of caloric intake, one control group would be get simply additional 500 kcal fat. 🙂
Not so much changing the metabolism but the gut fauna? Lots of new stuff going on to change the composition of the gut life which affects the breakdown of food.
NAOM
Hi, I’ll reply to Preston to bounce Hightrekker’s book suggestion back to the top again – The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith.
Table of Contents:
1.Why This Book?
2. Moral Vegetarians
3. Political Vegetarians
4. Nutritional Vegetarians
5. To Save the World
How’s that! It addresses each of Preston’s 3 main reasons for choosing vegetarianism! (Although I will admit Preston doesn’t suggest giving up meat completely).
I found the argument against nutritional vegetarianism most compelling – it included a comparison of various mammal gut lengths from carnivore to omnivore to herbivore and homo sapiens is closer to the carnivore end of the spectrum than the herbivore end. The argument is we evolved a digestive system that’s incapable of extracting all the nutrients we need from food if we don’t eat meat.
And full disclosure – I like eating meat, and have many vegetarian acquaintances, and have found the book very useful for justifying my meat eating no matter what the philosophical reason they try to convince me with, so its a bit of a favourite 🙂
That’s complete BS about “homo sapiens is closer to the carnivore end of the spectrum than the herbivore end”. All the great apes and monkeys in the wild are herbivore eating mostly fruit and leaves with only a tiny amount of insects. Our saliva digests starch, not meat. No, the human gut length has adapted a bit for cooking but is still way to long for meat which putrefys. I’ll bet all the rest of his arguments are equally invalid. That’s why I prefer people who stick with science.
Yes, like climate change it’s easy to be in denial. I’m probably in denial about salt.
Starches and sugars are a quick way to cardiovascular disease for about 60 percent of the population.
That’s not true according to the science. Fat causes diabetes, not sugar – seriously.
Try to keep an open mind and look at the science. this is an important point.
Diabetes is defined by high blood sugar but look a little deeper and the high blood sugar is caused by insulin resistance (type 2 anyway). Insulin resistance is caused by lipotoxicity (to much fat in the cells)
Lipotoxicity is a metabolic syndrome that results from the accumulation of lipid intermediates in non-adipose tissue, leading to cellular dysfunction and death. The tissues normally affected include the kidneys, liver, heart and skeletal muscle. Lipotoxicity is believed to have a role in heart failure, obesity, and diabetes, and is estimated to affect approximately 25% of the adult American population.[1]
In the 1950s a doctor showed a diet of nothing but rice and fruit cures diabetes – that’s 100% starch and sugar. And today they are curing diabetes with a 80% carb, 10% protein and 10% fat.
Preston, I studied the biochemistry involved years ago and attended lectures on cardiovascular disease biochemistry.
The quickest way to overstress the pancreas and cause fatty acid buildup in the bloodstream is to eat lots of bread, potatoes, sugar and other high glycemic foods.
The fat buildup is a side effect, not a cause. It’s the constant surges of high blood sugar that cause the diseases, which is why your doctor keeps speaking about low glycemic foods.
The biochemistry has not changed, beans are still a decent way to get carbohydrates as are other low glycemic foods but they are not magical. When mixing low glycemic foods with high glycemic foods, the low glycemic foods can slow the uptake of sugars from the high glycemic foods.
Test your blood sugar before and after eating a meal. See how it responds with different food combinations.
The biochemistry hasn’t changed, but theories don’t always pan out once tested and the science evolves. The Okinawans in Japan ate mostly white rice and sweet potatoes and no one got fat or diabetes. Also, why wouldn’t diabetes of been rampant in rural china where they ate nothing but white rice?
They talk about the meal after effect with beans. Subjects were given a shot of pure glucose in the morning and their blood sugar monitored. The ones that ate beans the night before did not have the huge spike in blood sugar and without that triggering too much insulin, they didn’t have the sink in blood sugar levels a few hour later.
In addition to all the fats in modern meat there is also the issue of heme iron. The human body has no way to remove excess iron and the heme form in meat is extremely bio available – so if you eat meat, it just builds up. You might of noticed they removed most of the iron from vitamin supplements, especially those for men. That’s because testing showed iron supplements were hurting. A study in Japan showed how an iron rich solution contracts the arteries as effectively as nicotine.
For me, this has been fun. “Vegan” foods always were so awful but not now. I prefer many of the vegan versions. I never even dreamed of dropping dairy and was surprised how good a soy latte is and how much better I feel. I thought corn was uneatable without butter – but salt pepper, a little hot sauce – it’s great! Seriously, I had never even tried corn without the butter. I doubt I’ll ever be completely vegan. I’d rater eat a little seafood than take a fish oil pill, but I do see the merit and well see…
“The Okinawans in Japan ate mostly white rice and sweet potatoes and no one got fat or diabetes”
Islanders not eating much fish? Amazing.
Could be they labored hard all day so that sugar spikes were limited. Could be some genetic factors. You give no actual studies so meaningful dialogue dries up quickly.
Here are a bunch of meat eaters with low diabetes rates that are getting higher now. Guess the introduction of the high starch/sugar diet, and changing lifestyles might just be the answer.
The Okinawans in Japan ate mostly white rice and sweet potatoes and no one got fat or diabetes. Also, why wouldn’t diabetes of been rampant in rural china where they ate nothing but white rice?
Because both populations ate very few calories, at least compared to their exercise levels. These were very, very thin people.
Okinawa in particular is well researched as a place where calories have historically been very restricted – they’ve had very unusual longevity as a result.
Yes okay, vegans are thin. Yes, they ate some fish, but 80% of the calories were from rice and potatoes. I spent a lot of time in Japan and before the 1990s heart disease, diabetes, and obesity was unknown. The diet was mostly white rice, the only beef they had was shabu-shabu at $100 per serving.
“That’s not true according to the science. Fat causes diabetes, not sugar – seriously.”
Yes, body fat. The origion of this could be fat or carbs. What is your point?
The criticla aspect is lack of demand with too high caloric intake, source is secondara issue.
You provide no evidence that diabetes type II is correlated to a certain type caloric intake, the only commone denominator is that people eat too much and gain visceral fat.
Diabetes II has become an issue only after WWII when food became cheap. It sharp increase excludes genetic causes as main driving force.
I think exercise immediately after eating high carbohydrate food can slow down the insulin surge that lays down the fat from sugar, also if you eat a lot of fibre with the sugar it helps – or something like that. Orange juice and coke are rally bad as the sugar goes straight to the blood stream. There was a pretty good film a few years ago about it (maybe called Sugar?).
“That’s not true according to the science. Fat causes diabetes, not sugar – seriously.”
Yes, body fat. The origin of this could be fat or carbs in the food. What is your point?
The criticla aspect is lack of demand with too high caloric intake, source is secondary issue.
Hi Preston,
I’m not an expert, but Lierre backs up her stuff with peer reviewed articles. In this case she quotes from a paper in the Journal of Nutrition Vol 15, No 6, 1999, “Nutritional Characteristics of Wild Primate Foods: Do the Diets of Our Closest Living Relatives Have Lessons for Us” by Katherine Milton, PhD.
There is a figure that compares the relative gut volume by part, for gibbon, siamang, orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and human. (I have tried a few ways to post it here, but can’t. You can see it here – https://rawfoodsos.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/gutpart.jpg – or google scholar the article).
The massive difference for humans is in the much bigger volume of the small intenstine and the much smaller volume of the colon.
Perhaps I gave the wrong impression with my disclosure. “The Vegetarian Myth” is a very science-based, nuanced book. The book investigates the main claims for vegetarianism in much the same way the skeptical science website investigates the claims of climate change deniers – hence the table of contents. Having shown in this case the arguments in the book have scientific merit and depth (it was helpful of you to choose great apes for your example), I hope you are willing to reconsider jumping to conclusions that all “his” (another jumped to assumption) arguments are invalid. Reading your comment I’ve jumped to the conclusion you’re a bad (non-scientific) judge of which people stick to science (because your BS call pisses me off).
Cheers, Phil
Just to wedge my 2 cents worth in…
I highly recommend Gary Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories” I believe it is a seminal work on nutrition from many angles. Also “The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz. Plus a slew of other books on how the current paradigm of diet based on the ‘food pyramid’ is wrong and is a big reason for the obesity, diabetes, CVD, cancer and other diseases of civilization. Many nutrition MDs have had great success in treating Type 2 Diabetes with a high fat, low carb diet. It makes a lot more sense, given that diabetes is largely a disease of carb intolerance.
There is plenty of scientific evidence that points toward a high fat, low carb diet being the healthy way to go.
Nutrition is a big, complex subject and issues can’t begin to be settled in a few sound bytes on a blog with ‘dueling URLs’.
Also take a look at “The Case Against Sugar” also by Gary Taubes.
I follow a high fat, low carb diet and I can basically eat all I want and not gain weight. Obesity is not simply a matter of calories in, calories out. It has a lot to do with how different foods are metabolized.
Before drawing hard conclusions about nutrition and diet, read up on some of these authors and researchers. One thing for sure is, unfortunately, much nutrition related research is poorly done and a basic understanding of the difficulties in doing that type of research will help one keep an open mind on the subject.
I could go on for pages, but I’ll heed my own warning about sound bytes.
ET
I agree with a lot of what you are saying but for me, as someone who is too fat, it doesn’t seem logical that the answer is more fat in my diet. They can take samples of someone’s fat and it matches the type of fat in their diet – its very hard for the body to convert carbs to fat, so why bother? The fat that gets stored is the fat in the persons diet. Less fat in the diet means less fat on the person. Also, humans run on carbs – especially the brain and I’m afraid of the long term issues on that low carb diet.
But like you said, nutrition is complicated. This Raymond Francis guy agrees with you about sugar and grains like wheat. They guy was nearly dead at 48, but is now 80 and looks fantastic. I’m sure he is speaking your language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XExB45GRrfc&t=3819s
He sure has much better skin than the super low fat guys who tend to be very wrinkled. I though maybe I was just used to the fat american faces, but Francis shows how good you could look at 80.
His presentation is kind of low on details, but he also bans refined oils and dairy. He says meat is full of pesticides and toxins that bio accumulate, so he’s not eating that either. It’s really not all that different than what I’m doing, so I’ll look into his info more. He’s big on Sauna, maybe that’s helping his skin? He lost me with the anti-vax comments, but if he just means flu, that might be right.
Anyway, thanks everyone for your comments. Anyone out their with diabetes or high blood pressure check out “What the Health” on Netflix to see what is possible, but don’t stop taking you medications without you doctor’s supervision.
It may be counter-intuitive that [too much] dietary fat is not the reason people get fat, but there is really sound science behind this. If you want to lose weight the most direct way is to cut the carbs and up the fat. I can pull up a lot of studies showing this. The quality of the fat is important. Vegetable oils are not good — too much Omega 6. Stick with either animal fats or, if you want to go the veggie route, coconut oil (saturated fat), olive oil (mono-unsaturated fat, avocados, etc.
Another good read that overturns the current low fat high carb paradigm is “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” by Jeff Volek, PhD, RD and Stephen Phinney, MD, PhD.
The body converts carbs to fat very easily and this is why we have such a problem. The other part of this debate is the demonization of cholesterol. Along with the demonization of fat, it has caused immense health problems (not to mention huge profits for the statin industry).
Taking the big picture view, the most compelling evidence in favor of meat being a healthy part of a human diet comes from archeological evidence. Whenever there has been an agricultural society developing and pushing out the hunter-gatherers archeological evidence shows clearly that the hunter-gatherers had a healthier diet as shown by their larger healthier bone structure. As opposed to the agriculturalists who became stunted and having dietary deficiencies causing rickets, beri-beri and other conditions. Granted, the life expectancy for all humans was pretty low in this period of human development, but the hunter-gatherers had a distinct advantage over the agriculturalists. I believe the Lierre Keith book goes into this.
Keep reading up on this stuff, it is probably the most important thing in having a healthy life.
ET
There are some people experimenting with a vegan based keto diet. I’m not sure why, they are already very thin, but they want to try it. Animals bio-accumulated pesticides and other pollutants in their fat so you get a concentrated hit – i don’t agree those are good.
Also, when you look around at all the fat Americans, just what do you think we eat that’s making us fat? I’ll tell you, it’s meats, cheese, cookies, ice cream, cake. Yes, there are some carbs in a lot of it, but by far most of the calories are fat. They aren’t eating bowl after bowl of rice or whole loaves of bread. They might eat a potato or corn, but not without adding a ton of butter. On the other hand, they do eat bowl after bowl of rice in Asia without the fat, and everyone is thin.
The Adkins folks used to make a big deal about 3 times more weight loss than the low fat controls after 1 year – but it was 0.3lbs lost vs 1lbs lost for Adkins – not significant within the margin of error. Another big trial recently showed similar results. Short term either group does pretty good, with the best results after about 2 months and anything that reduces weight helps with diabetes and high blood pressure. I’m at the 2 month mark, where everyone is happy – so well see.
The numbers I’ve heard is a 30% conversion efficiency for humans to convert starch to fat, so no that isn’t an easy thing.
The idea behind the whole plant based diet, however, isn’t really focused on fat vs carbs. They agree with those that think refined sugar is bad but they think a whole plant food with sugar, like an apple, is good. Similarly, refined oils are bad but nuts are good. Doing a high fat low carb vegan version might be interesting – but I’ll leave that to someone else to try.
Lierre is science based to the max.
That is the problem with our earth destroying, vegan people who have never got their hands dirty or bloody.
My take on the human digestive system is that it is unique because it is mostly outside the body. We have a short gut like a carnivore, but we also have weak teeth and jaws. So claiming we are carnivores is dubious at best. Heck even my house cat can eat a mouse whole without much trouble. I doubt I could (very well).
It is often claimed that Man invented fire, but the opposite is the case. A very smart primate invented fire, and using it converted that primate into Man. Fire makes it possible to digest food much more easily. You can roast meat and potatoes on a fire, greatly reducing the need for a robust digestive system.
So mankind’s digestive system atrophied, like the eyes of a fish species living in a cave. Simple comparisons to other animals need to take this into consideration. We have a short gut and weak jaws because we have evolved to eat cooked food.
P.S. And because we have weak jaws, we have fragile skulls, which can swell up to fit big brains.
Peter Ungar argues that we have weak jaws (and bad teeth) because we eat soft food:
“what prize was given to the bodies’ weakest muscle?
A trophy.”
As far as human nutrition goes, as far as I can tell from the literature, we still don’t really know what is going on. It seems clearly established though that it isn’t as simple as ‘eat less, move more’, or that calories in vs calories out determine body fat percentages.
My own prejudices lie along the lines of ‘what did we evolve to eat?’, and that if and when we figure out the full story, gut flora will play an enormous role in the whole equation.
In our evolutionary environment we didn’t have access to carbs, sugars, or vegetable lipids that didn’t come wrapped in a fiber package, and trans-fats simply did not exist.
I suspect that anti-biotics have played a big role in the obesity crisis thanks to wreaking havoc on gut flora, and that, in conjunction with processed carbs and sugars stripped of fiber, tells the bulk of the obesity story of the last 40 years.
When I was a child, very few people were fat, let alone obese (U.S.), and now so many are. The human genome and human appetite didn’t change in the last 40 years. It’s not a will-power problem. Something systemic has gone awry.
>Peter Ungar argues that we have weak jaws (and bad teeth) because we eat soft food
That’s exactly what I’m arguing.
Mammals are different from reptiles because they have a single hole on each side of the skull to connect the jaws muscles to the top of the skull. (Reptiles and birds have two holes.) Your cheekbone is a sort of handle on the side of your face. The jaw muscles are attached to the flat area at the back and outside of your jaw. They go behind the cheekbone and through the hole (the “temple” ) and then attach to the side of your skull. When you flex your jaw muscles you can feel them on your jaw and in your temple.
Strong muscles need a good place to anchor. So chimpanzees and most hominids have a sagittal crest on the top of the skull. In humans it disappeared because humans eat cooked food. It makes chimpanzee jaws very strong, but limits the ability of the brain case to expand after birth.
Here’s a better pic showing humans vs early hominids. Notice the massive cheekbone (“zygomatic arch”) for stabilizing the face during chewing and the robust jaw and teeth.
Notice also the balloon like expansion of the braincase in the human skull, which is allowed by the lack of a sagittal crest.
Besides the weak jaw and small canines, humans have about half the strength per pound compared to the other apes.
Maybe the other way around – we have to eat soft foods because we have weak jaws, and we have weak jaws because we had to get rid of the big muscles there to make room for our bigger brains (I seem to remember they have found the bit of DNA that is different between chimps and humans responsible for this, along with the bit that gives us full control of thumb movement).
Maybe the other way around – we have to eat soft foods because we have weak jaws, and we have weak jaws because we had to get rid of the big muscles there to make room for our bigger brains
Yep! Seems like a lot of people out there don’t understand the TOE. This is a good example as to why lamarckism has been discredited as an evolutionary theory. It is also known as the heritability of acquired characteristics or soft inheritance. (pun intended)
That isn’t how evolution works.
The book “Catching Fire” by Richard Wrangham makes the case that the use of fire predated the evolution of humans and contributed to their evolution with the smaller jaw bones and muscles. It makes more sense to me to consider this a co-evolutionary process. The use of fire for cooking food made large muscular jaws less necessary so these characteristics were left behind, so to speak, and the feedback of the larger brain probably took part in further refinement of the use of cooking, etc.
What is very clear to me is that humans evolved as omnivores and ate meat whenever it was available and were generally healthier when they had meat as part of their diet.
I read a book recently that I can’t remember the title of, but the author cites research showing that humans are able to adapt very quickly to a change in diet, like in a matter of days. The human digestive system is very ‘malleable’ if you will, in its ability to host microbes that aid in the digestion of a wide variety of foods.
One recent title that relates to the microbiome of Homo Sapiens is “I Contain Multitudes” by Ed Yong. A fascinating book that makes the case (in my opinion) that evolution is very possibly a much more flexible process than the current Neo-Darwinist paradigm allows.
I know, everyone’s burned out on this topic, but here is Dr. Greger going through the paleo-poop research.
They estimate the daily fiber content was over 125 grams per day (compares to 15grams for the average american). For most of the last 2 million years since humanoids branched off from the great apes, fiber equaled food. They have found how fiber triggers the feedback that signals fullness. And no, you don’t get a hundred grams of fiber eating meat, so no our ancestors weren’t eating meat all the time.
Regarding the low carb diets, I did find some really cool effects. The high fat levels can act like a sponge and pull bio-accumulated toxins out of your stored fat. Then with low carbs, the fat gets burned and the toxins eliminated. Sounds great and I may try it someday. I still don’t think its good as a long term lifestyle, but a few days, maybe a few weeks, it could be very good (well, a vegan version anyway)
The other thing pretty unique about humans is we are by far the best swimmers. Maybe we’ve adapted some for seafood, the omega 3’s are needed to prevent dementia in old age – plant based sources only supply short chain omega 3’s, which are hard to convert to long chain for older people. Plus, eating some of it raw is done in many cultures.
Speaking of atrophy, humans have the genes to produce vitamin C, but we were getting so much in our diet for so long we lost the ability to produce it.
People have this romantic notion of a cave man with a mastodon leg cooking over the fire. Hunters are not successful anywhere near everyday, hunter/gatherers mostly eat plants. Plus, life expectancy was what? Paleontologists have looked at the Paleo diet and they mostly find starch residues on the teeth. They think they were cooking lots of legumes and they estimate 100 grams per day of fiber(which is a lot). The photo is what broccoli looked like at the time, yumm. Life must of been hard. Of course, moving north into Europe there aren’t a lot of plants in the winter, so meat had to become a bigger part of the diet, but that happened relatively recently from an evolutionary standpoint.
Hi Preston, I’m not sure why you want to keep repeating the romantic myths of vegetarianism. You say: People have this romantic notion of a cave man with a mastodon leg cooking over the fire. Hunters are not successful anywhere near everyday, hunter/gatherers mostly eat plants.”
However, scientists say (in the article “Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Mar;71(3):682-92.)
Our analysis showed that whenever and wherever it was ecologically possible, hunter-gatherers consumed high amounts (45-65% of energy) of animal food. Most (73%) of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (> or =56-65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods , whereas only 14% of these societies derived >50% (> or =56-65% of energy) of their subsistence from gathered plant foods. This high reliance on animal-based foods coupled with the relatively low carbohydrate content of wild plant foods produces universally characteristic macronutrient consumption ratios in which protein is elevated (19-35% of energy) at the expense of carbohydrates (22-40% of energy).
my bold
“whenever and wherever it was ecologically possible”
what does that mean? What do the numbers look like without that screen? You are talking about modern hunter -gatherers? What is their life expectancy vs the ones eating more plants. Humans in the Paleolithic period lived typically to about 40 years old and many children died before the onset of puberty.
The study you cited gets quoted allover the place, but it would be nice to see it replicated, I’ll bet it’s BS.
Okay, Phil – I though more about it, and maybe but…
Even if it’s true for modern hunter/gatherers, that’s only because the very primitive tribes that eat more plants today are called farmers. I’ll also bet those modern hunters have many days per year with nothing to eat. I would also expect among primitive tribes, the farmers far outnumber the hunters. But what was it like before there was farming?
Just for clarity, no one (I don’t think) is claiming humans are carnivores. I wrote “a comparison of various mammal gut lengths from carnivore to omnivore to herbivore and homo sapiens is closer to the carnivore end of the spectrum than the herbivore end”. I should have included that still leaves us in the omnivore range.
I like the idea of thinking of food preparation and cooking as part of our digestive system.
And another factoid; a potato is a USO, an underground storage organ.
Cheers!
Phil S,
Human dentition supports your view that we’re pretty well-equipped to be omnivores.
“Dr. Greger of NutritionFacts.org is the most credible.”
Everyone has some biases, he is not perfect. I mentioned the data on salt hasn’t panned out, but he is one of the best. He sites several peer reviewed studies showing people cured of diabetes, the one above they forced people to eat extra on the vegan diet so they didn’t loose to much weight compared to the controls and they still got better.
Dude, your boy doesn’t think it’s fair in the Adventist study to compare the fat meat eaters to the vegans who all have normal weights. Yes, the one skinny meat eater didn’t get heart disease and no there isn’t enough data to remove that factor because there aren’t any fat vegans to compare to. In the Adventist study, no one smokes or drinks and they all have the same community support – but some eat meat and some don’t. Why would I care if the vegans were living longer from being thinner or from the diet when it clearly was the diet that made them thin? BTW, the vegan Adventists are now outliving even the Okanowans.
I’m pretty sure DR Gregeor went though all the points made on that website – the group of long lived Norwegians were recent immigrants from plant eating places and soon lost their edge once they ate meat for awhile, sometime people don’t call themselves vegetarian even though they eat very little meat and so on.
Why would I care if the vegans were living longer from being thinner or from the diet when it clearly was the diet that made them thin?
It’s important: is a vegan diet inherently better for you, or is it just a better weight loss strategy?
Those are very different propositions. For example, if it’s just a question of weight loss, then someone who’s thin doesn’t need to question their dietary choices.
Yes I get that, but Dr. Gregor was only talking about life expectancy and as a group the Vegans did better in the study – maybe because they all had a normal BMI, or maybe not, but it is hardly a valid criticism of Dr. Gregor’s statements on the subject.
Well, that comment was addressing that specific idea, rather than addressing Dr. Gregor’s statements in general.
A paper about how inaccurate IEA predictions on the energy market are.
Projections concerning human society are almost useless now beyond 5 to 10 years. We are up against or very near tipping points and thresholds, which means directions could change dramatically and unexpectedly in the near future. The best we can hope for is a damping effect executed by large portions of the population acting in concert, but still it will only be a damping effect.
Mostly the concert seems to play the same old music with some new overtones.
Waiting until once is forced to act is about like hitting the brakes at the stoplight instead of before.
If I had to guess I would say the IEA is extremely top down with a couple key figures at the top determining the methods to apply and a bunch of (policy) mindless mathematicians and statisticians cranking out charts at the middle and bottom.
The formulas are probably all correct – but the assumptions are trash. Whether these top are just ignorant (Dummy in-Dummy out) or willfully misguiding to appease an Oil/Gas agenda is hard to say without serious investigative journalism.
But to look at one quick example. Head of IEA is Faith Birol. Where did he get his start? OPEC. You could probably stop right there. What’s his education background? He’s an energy economist – and the global economy of energy revolves around oil not RE. So is he stupid or an idiot? Probably not. Ideology primarily works subconsciously without ever being recognized.
He comes from the oil industry (bias) and he is trained in classical economics which is about as useless as it gets and is almost prima facie propaganda (incorrect assumptions about how the world works – cheerleading the ideology of neoliberal capitalism).
Cheap natural gas is changing the landscape of electrical energy. With cheap power being so available from natural gas and renewable energy, it will be extremely difficult for new nuclear to proceed unless the technology changes dramatically.
Since 2011 the annual US electric power consumption of coal has dropped from 932,000 short tons to about 650,000 short tons in 2017.
Nuclear will probably only survive due to subsidies.
The much-touted ‘small modular reactors’ will not be the game changers the pro-nuclear folks claim to be.
“Each reactor unit would produce 190 megawatts of electricity or heat for industrial processes.
The EPR reactor in Olkiluoto, Finland was advertised to cost 3 billion (EURO, for 1,600 MW) at less than 5 years to build IIRC.
The real cost is currently estimated to be over 9 billion EURO.
Putting it all together:
Terrestrial SMR: “less than” $5.25 million per MW
Olkiluoto EPR: over $6.9 million per MW
It would be cheaper to let the Koreans build one of their APR-1400. They’re quite good at it.
Podcast – TMI – 39 years ago. History of denial
Sorry, can’t find anything.
Could you please provide a link to the podcast?
Most of America’s Fruit Is Now Imported. Is That a Bad Thing?
By DAVID KARP
It’s obvious to anyone who visits an American supermarket in winter — past displays brimming with Chilean grapes, Mexican berries and Vietnamese dragon fruit — that foreign farms supply much of our produce.
Imports have increased steadily for decades, but the extent of the change may be surprising: More than half of the fresh fruit and almost a third of the fresh vegetables Americans buy now come from other countries.
Although local, seasonal and farm-to-table are watchwords for many consumers, globalization has triumphed in the produce aisle. And despite the protectionist “America First” message coming from the Trump administration, the growth in imports appears likely to continue.
The surge in imports, mostly from Latin America and Canada, flows from many other changes during the last 40 years, starting with improvements in roads, containerized shipping and storage technology. Horticulturists developed varieties and growing practices adapted to warmer climates — enabling, say, blueberries and blackberries to be grown in central Mexico.
Growth in American incomes spurred greater demand for fresh produce year-round. Immigrants brought tastes for the foods of their homelands, and in some cases (like avocados and mangoes) these tastes have became mainstream. Foreign growers took advantage of lower labor costs. International trade agreements reduced tariffs and other obstacles to imports, while many American farmers, facing regulatory hurdles at home, have responded by shifting production abroad, mainly to Mexico.
“America first” is pretty dumb. The whole thing about flag waving all the time makes Americans look silly.
The problem that Americans have is that they don’t have any sense of place or other ways of marking their identities, except skin color. They lack any sense of community, so everyone has to wear a flag pin to be somebody.
The problem with America farmers is that they don’t understand that commodity prices are always going to fall, which means they have to “get big, get a niche, or get out”.
Complaining about organic farming or anti-GMO campaigners is the stupidest thing a farmer can do. If consumers are willing to pay more for specialties, farmers will profit from it.
Fighting imports with America First slogans is a terrible idea. Instead, farmers should start “buy local” campaigns. The demand side needs to change. They should oppose restaurant chains and packaged food companies that want to serve all Americans the same food, and focus on local specialties. They should push for farmers markets in residential neighborhoods. They should support hole-in-the-wall eateries run by enthusiastic cooks instead of franchises run by investors intent on reducing labor costs and material costs.
Developing a sense of place and of community would improve the quality of life of consumers and create a captive audience for producers. A good example of this is German beer — most of it is consumed within 50 km of where it is brewed, and there are thousands of companies. American craft brewers get it. It’s time for farmers to catch on.
Saudi Arabia has announced a $200 billion plan to build the world’s biggest solar-power project, which would end the country’s dependence on oil.
The project, which would result in panels taking up vast tracts of the desert equivalent to a million football pitches, has been secured by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and could mark a change in the world’s environmental management.
Under the terms of the arrangement, solar-power plants would supply enough electricity not only for Saudi Arabia but much of the Middle East. In doing so it would allow the country to export more oil for money and, it is claimed, help in the spread of renewable, low-carbon energy worldwide.
The only question I have is, what makes them think the rest of the world won’t stop using fossil fuels as well, thereby eliminating much of the market they think they can sell to in the future?
It will be a decades long transition away from FF, and FF will still be used for non-transportation and non-utility, such as chemicals, plastics, roadways for more decades after that.
KSA won’t be producing 10 million BOPD forever.
KSA is planning for future decades, not just thinking about the next quarter like in USA.
Why would the Saudi’s care if some of their resources stayed in ground? They could be selling electric power to Europe and parts of Asia and still running a viable economy. With 6 to 7 kWh/m2 solar energy per day oil would become a small part of their economy as they made money from sunlight. Much of that solar energy is direct radiation. The Saudi’s also have wind resources to be tapped.
From the US Army Missile Command paper, it can be noticed that much of Saudi Arabia winter seasonal minimum solar energy equals northeast US yearly average solar energy insolation. The maximums hit up to 9 kWh/m2/day.
They are not ideally situated geographically and politically, but politics change depending upon advantage.
Northwest African countries are better situated geographically to provide power to Europe.
Adding to your point:
There’s a two hour time difference between Riad, Saudi Arabia and Vienna, Austria. Saudi PV could provide power at the first load peak in the morning (1), at dawn in Europe.
It’s just 2,700 km from Central Arabia to Greece. 3,200 to Italy. Both possible entry points to the ENTSO-E power grid (2).
Covering that distance at several 10s of GW does not look like too much of a challenge. There are several long distance HVDC projects in operation at comparable distance already. With one capable of transporting 10 GW under construction in China. (3)
It would be up to the consumer to provide the storage for the 24 or 48 hour period needed to level the diurnal cycle.
chemicals, plastics, roadways for more decades after that.
Those don’t involve burning, which means that they don’t necessarily create the same pollution problems. Which raises the question: what about coal? As coal consumption drops due to pollution concerns, it would be a very low cost competitor to oil. Selling to these markets would just make sense.
China is using coal as a petrochemical feedstock…
Those don’t involve burning, which means that they don’t necessarily create the same pollution problems.
Which is kinda of the main advantage of switching to EVs and renewables in the first place.
Also included a follow up by Fully Charged on the 2018 Nissan Leaf which may have a serious issue with it’s fast charging capability. Could be due to Nissan having made a decision not to include a BMS to control battery temperature.
Good news for Islandboy is, that the Nissan van he is looking to buy, while built on basically the same platform does include a BMS.
Cheers!
the $200 billion nameplate number is probably misleading. I’ve dug into the actual publications of the Vision 2030 and they are no where near to committing to even a fraction of $200 billion to solar installation. I forget the exact number but it was tiny – less than 20 GW by 2030, which would cost closer to $20 billion.
So the $200 billion includes building factories and roads and services in SA as well as research around the world which will probably include things like nuclear. I have no problem with Vision 2030 per say, but to think ME or SA are LEADING the RE future is completely ass backwards – they are the worst models of global stewardship, wholly inadequate to the task at hand.
This vision 2030 is about attracting foreign investment and helping the economy – not really about RE. Diversification from FF is just part of that messaging.
It takes time to make new automation systems work even when devised by geniuses like Edison, who made the first almost fully automated industrial system. Took about two years to get it smoothed out but then it ran like a charm.
Should take Tesla a few months but anyone who expects new systems to work correctly at first try is not smart enough to be at the site. Maybe they could run a delivery truck, until they are automated out of that job. 🙂
The article does not cover much of the costs of using employees at an industrial site. Beside insurance costs, there are management costs, benefits costs, safety costs, human resource costs, etc.
—that the world’s best carmakers, the Japanese, try to limit automation because it “is expensive and is statistically inversely correlated to quality.” Their approach is to get the process right first, then bring in the robots —
We shall see—-
Repeating what was already said in the article you posted does not provide any further information. Sort of like saying things louder will make a foreigner understand your language.
Here, I will try it.
“It takes time to make new automation systems work even when devised by geniuses like Edison, who made the first almost fully automated industrial system. Took about two years to get it smoothed out but then it ran like a charm.
Should take Tesla a few months but anyone who expects new systems to work correctly at first try is not smart enough to be at the site. ”
Verstehen?
I’m not against automation——
Just letting reality seep gradually in——-
(I would not fight against Japanese Auto Manufacturing).
Lets see if Tesla can pull this off—–
(I actually used E Vehicles regularly, and hybrids on a regular basis— I’m currently auto free when it comes to driving)
Who knows, maybe they set too many problems to solve at once. They are a leader and have been successful so far, but anyone can bite off too much at once.
I have seen great companies with fantastic products go under because they started at the wrong time. Starting just before a recession with all those initial loans will defeat anyone. Luckily Tesla started earlier, but with the Gigafactory and the Tesla 3 starting now(huge investments), it may be the timing more than anything that takes them down as the economy stalls and drops.
We shall see– probably shortly.
Oh economic downturn, wherefore art thou?
The Japanese are good, but they’re not always right – just look at Toyota’s resistance to EVs. Their Prius sales are dropping, and they’re trying to catch up.
Historically automated equipment has been less flexible than humans: changes in assembly procedures have required slow, expensive reprogramming, and a human can change procedures with a piece of paper and 15 minutes of instruction. OTOH, automation has been getting faster, cheaper and more flexible over time. And, perhaps most importantly, once automated equipment is working right, it’s possible to scale up production very quickly: robots can work 24×7.
And, of course, scaling up quickly is Tesla’s biggest problem.
I’ve also noticed that Tesla is carefully limiting it’s models and options. That suggests an understanding of the limits of automation, and a desire to scale up quickly.
Let us hope that Tesla has guessed right about the right mix of automation…
Just because TSLA might fail does not mean EV is a bad concept.
Seems like many who are pro EV get defensive if TSLA falls short.
Very, very tough to start an auto company from scratch. Highly capital intensive. Highly cyclical business.
Many times it is better financially to not be the leader. Able to learn from front runner’s mistakes.
Absolutely – it’s quite astonishing that Tesla has succeeded so far. I think it’s main mission is to kickstart EVs in general, and that mission is 95% complete.
Still, if Tesla falters now companies like VW and Toyota would take that as a sign that they could ease up on the transition, and that would be a negative.
Tesla is symbolic of EVs in general, and if it failed people would think that was a negative sign about EVs in general.
Perception, perception…
Don’t disagree.
But I doubt the big guys like Toyota, etc just stop working on EV or other fuel alternatives if TSLA does BK.
The financial rewards for “cracking the alt fuel code” in automotive will be immense.
It is just a lot more difficult to do in the transportation arena than in other tech areas due to nature of the beast.
I hope the big money players keep working on this hard. A lot of FF will be needed for decades for the uses I mentioned up thread, not to mention air travel and heavy rolling equipment, which are a more challenging transition than personal transport.
Shale has given USA, via EIA and IEA in particular, a very false sense of FF energy abundance.
Hope I didn’t get too oily over here on the non-oil side.
Unless population growth stalls, the world MUST transition away at some point, simply due to lack of supply, regardless of environmental impacts.
Shallow, good to see you over here and I think I can speak for all when I say no, you’re not getting too oily at all. I’m somewhat fascinated by the questionable “oily” stuff I see occasionally over at the petroleum threads and wonder why that stuff is being discussed in the petroleum threads at all.
For some background on this most recent round of negative EV press, “rapidgate” and Tesla’s precarious financials, Model 3 product delays etc., we have to remember that FF interests, the Koch brothers in particular have committed millions of dollars to fight EVs. See, Koch Brothers Video Smears Electric Cars. Can You Spot The Lies?, a story on this video from the Koch-funded front group Fueling U.S. Forward.
With the Tesla Semi long range prototype showing it’s face all over the country, far from it’s home base at the Tesla design studio in Hawthorne, California, I can just imagine the Koch brothers and their ilk pissing in their pants right now. As EVs slowly gain more traction in the marketplace, we can expect the anti-EV propaganda machines to ratchet up their activity significantly.
As Fred wrote elsewhere further down in this thread, Musk may well have enough money to ride this through. He certainly has the balls! People like Caelan may well be (unwittingly?) doing the Koch brothers bidding by propagating all the anti-EV stuff they can find. Maybe he is a Koch funded troll masquerading as an anarchist. If he is not. he should try not to support stuff that is on their side so much. Maybe it’s just a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, maybe not.
I’m reminded of that famous Mahatma Gandhi quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” EVs are way past the ignoring and ridiculing phases and when the fight is over, guess what comes next?
As for my own motivations, before Caelan brings it up \, I am unashamedly pro renewable and pro EV. Not because I have any current financial interest in them, apart from my own personal ownership of PV equipment but, because I don’t see any other option for moving this experiment that is human civilization forward without the outcome being a complete and utter apocalypse. I concur “Unless population growth stalls, the world MUST transition away at some point, simply due to lack of supply, regardless of environmental impacts.“
“Having once been an early adopter of tech, I was an unlikely early rejector. But it has now been over a year since I have phoned my family or friends, logged on to antisocial media, sent a text message, checked email, browsed online, took a photograph or listened to electronic music. Living and working on a smallholding without electricity, fossil fuels or running water, the last year has taught me much about the natural world, society, the state of our shared culture, and what it means to be human in a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.
My reasons for unplugging, during that time, haven’t so much changed as shifted in importance. My primary motives were – and still are – ecological. The logic was simple enough. Even if used minimally, a single smartphone (or toaster, internet server, solar panel, sex robot) relies on the entire industrial megamachine for its production, marketing and consumption.
The consequences of this ever-intensifying industrialism are clear: widespread surveillance in our pockets; the standardisation of everything; the colonisation of wilderness, indigenous lands and our mindscape; cultural imperialism; the mass extinction of species; the fracturing of community; mass urbanisation; the toxification of everything necessary for a healthy life; resource wars and land grabs; 200 million climate refugees by 2050; the automation of millions of jobs, and the inevitable inequality, unemployment and purposelessness that will follow and provide fertile ground for demagogues to take control. I could go on, but you’ve heard it all before.
While this matters no less to me now, one person living without technology in the middle of somewhere unimportant doesn’t matter a damn to the machine economy. There are now 7.7bn active phone connections on Earth – that’s more phones than people – so one fewer hardly makes a difference on its own.
I’m now more interested in keeping the best of the old ways alive, preserving a link from our ancient past – and its crafts, perspectives, stories – into our future, so that when the industrial apparatus collapses under the weight of its own junk, these long-serving ways can point us towards the back roads home. For, as a computer ‘quit screen’ message once said, everything not saved will be lost. We would do well to heed it, lest we lose ourselves…
People regularly tell me that 7.3 billion humans can’t live as I do. On this I agree. But 7.3 billion humans can’t continue living as the mass of people do now, either. I don’t claim that this way of life is a solution for all the world’s people, for the simple reason that I don’t think there is some magical panacea to the convergence of crises our culture is bringing on itself. People won’t voluntarily go back to wilder times or cottage economies, yet ‘progressing’ forwards probably means techno-dystopia followed by ecological meltdown…
While I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions, there are important things that most of us can do… I argue that the three r’s of the climate-catastrophe generation – reduce, reuse, recycle – need a serious upgrade. In their place I propose resist, revolt, rewild…”
“On top of crashed cars, autonomous vehicle fatalities, production targets plunging, and ratings downgrades, Elon Musk’s car-making company is tumbling after-hours following reports of the recall of 123,000 Model S Sedans.”
“…more details have emerged that are anything but reassuring for the company. An ABC News report that got very little media visibility, reported that the Apple engineer who died from crashing his Model X had previously complained about Tesla’s autopilot feature.”
“TESLA, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, IS ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY…”
“Just a few days ago, shareholders of Tesla approved an almost comical pay package for their cult leader CEO Elon Musk that could potentially put $50 BILLION in his pocket over the next decade. Let’s put this figure in perspective: at $5 billion per year, Musk would make more than every single CEO in the S&P 500. COMBINED. In other words, if you add up the salaries of all the CEOs of the 500 largest companies in America, it would still be less than the $5 billion per year that Mr. Musk stands to earn….”
“Researchers examined the velocity of neutral hydrogen in a range of galaxies from small dwarfs to massive spirals and used these measurements to calculate how long the galaxy took to rotate. They found that all the galaxies spun like clockwork, completing a single rotation at their outermost edge in about 1 billion years, regardless of their size. The scientists also discovered that disk galaxies had sharp edges containing more older stars than expected, which will help astronomers define where a galaxy ends in future observations.”
Could be…
The company cannot survive the next twelve months without access to capital from Wall Street Banks or private investors.
We estimate that Tesla will need roughly $8 billion in the next 18 months to fund operating losses, capital expenditures, debts coming due, and working capital needs.
However, it appears that due to past SEC investigations and current investigations (which terrifyingly have not been disclosed by the company), it will likely be difficult for Tesla to access public markets.
But Musk who is worth about 13 billion has in the past been know to put his own money behind his ventures. He has done that before with Tesla. Anyways whether Tesla itself survives, that fact that every single major auto manufacturer is now heavily invested in EV technology, is due in large part to Elon Musk’s vision. That is his legacy and he himself has stated many times the Tesla was a very risky venture with a high probability of failure. Though he may still have enough ‘Fuck You’ money of his own to hang in there for a while longer. In the past he has bet the farm when all the odds were against him. I wouldn’t put it past him to do so again…
Anyways whether Tesla itself survives, that fact that every single major auto manufacturer is now heavily invested in EV technology, is due in large part to Elon Musk’s vision.
Earlier this month—on 17 March—the extent of Arctic sea ice peaked at nearly 15 million square kilometers, covering an area roughly twice the size of Australia. That may seem like a lot of ice, but this year’s peak is the second lowest on record, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center. Scientists have used satellites to measure the extent of Arctic sea ice for the past 39 years. As it stands, 2017 had the lowest amount of Arctic sea ice on record, followed by 2018, 2016, and 2015.
Earlier this month our esteemed president said that the sea ice was at record levels. Amazingly that was not a lie. He just failed to mention that the ice was at record level lows, not record highs which he was implying. Or, perhaps he was trying to sneak one by us because the Arctic ice was at a record level for the year. Was he just trying to give the impression that the Arctic sea ice was at record level highs without not actually telling a lie?
Here is the January through April PIOMAS Arctic ice volume monthly averages. March 2018 data should come out in a week or so. Still on the descent, nothing spectacular though. As the volume and thickness gets less, weather becomes a more important factor in any particular month.
According to that chart, that looks like the ice is making a strong rebound so far this year. Also, the amounts during this decade have been pretty steady overall. Clearly there are many lesser known natural cycles playing a role here.
The “lesser known natural cycle” as you put it is mostly weather and ocean currents. As has gotten thinner it is susceptible to smaller forcings from wind, temperature fluctuations and ocean currents. Ice can escape more easily from the Arctic.
Maybe these trend lines will give you a better appreciation of how to look at the graphs.
BTW: why would you name yourself after a fictional alien extinct race that thought itself to death?
What do the trend lines look like if they are more accurately started in 2010?
The Krell show that too much thought and science can be dangerous things.
The Krell show that too much thought and science can be dangerous things.
Only for complete fucking morons!
Meanwhile back on planet earth, in the non fictional world, reality is looking rather stark these days! BTW, while the Arctic sea ice is on a steadily dwindling trend the Sahara desert is growing. That, despite all the idiots who claim that all that great CO2 plant food and increased atmospheric water vapor should be greening the world’s deserts.
Twentieth-Century Climate Change over Africa: Seasonal Hydroclimate Trends and Sahara Desert Expansion
Natalie Thomas and Sumant Nigama
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland
Abstract Twentieth-century trends in seasonal temperature and precipitation over the African continent are analyzed from observational datasets and historical climate simulations. Given the agricultural economy of the continent, a seasonal perspective is adopted as it is more pertinent than an annual-average one, which can mask offsetting but agriculturally sensitive seasonal hydroclimate variations. Examination of linear trends in seasonal surface air temperature (SAT) shows that heat stress has increased in several regions, including Sudan and northern Africa where the largest SAT trends occur in the warm season. Broadly speaking, the northern continent has warmed more than the southern one in all seasons. Precipitation trends are varied but notable declining trends are found in the countries along the Gulf of Guinea, especially in the source region of the Niger River in West Africa, and in the Congo River basin. Rainfall over the African Great Lakes—one of the largest freshwater repositories—has, however, increased. It is shown that the Sahara Desert has expanded significantly over the twentieth century, by 11%–18% depending on the season, and by 10% when defined using annual rainfall. The expansion rate is sensitively dependent on the analysis period in view of the multidecadal periods of desert expansion (including from the drying of the Sahel in the 1950s–80s) and contraction in the 1902–2013 record, and the stability of the rain gauge network. The desert expanded southward in summer, reflecting retreat of the northern edge of the Sahel rainfall belt, and to the north in winter, indicating potential impact of the widening of the tropics. Specific mechanisms for the expansion are investigated. Finally, this observational analysis is used to evaluate the state-of-the-art climate simulations from a comparison of the twentieth-century hydroclimate trends. The evaluation shows that modeling regional hydroclimate change over the African continent remains challenging, warranting caution in the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies.
“What do the trend lines look like if they are more accurately started in 2010? ”
ROFL
This is what the graph looks like from 2010 on. The volumes still show a slight ongoing decline going forward, but as was seen, they have been quite stable overall through the 2010 decade.
Unskewed and Unbiased? More circus acts. LOL
Decline != Stable
NAOM
Cruosat is getting better and better, both for accuracy and access to data. This was their March report. They stop in May once melt ponds form.
For the third year running, Arctic sea ice reached a record low maximum extent in March. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reported that the extent of Arctic sea ice reached just 14.42 million square kilometres on March 7th. CryoSat data show that this coincided with a record minimum amount of sea ice for March of 24,200 cubic kilometres, despite the ice cover being as thick as the previous year – 178 cm, on average – and thicker than in 2012 or 2013.
Once Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum area for the year it can continue to thicken as seawater beneath the ice freezes to the under-ice surface, meaning the ice cover reaches its maximum annual amount towards the end of March or start of April. Therefore, it is currently too early to say exactly how this years maximum ice amount will compare to previous years.
Thank you Steven. I’d like to think I can recognize real science when I see it, and real science (like your chart) always looks good.
On this holy day (holiday in many parts of the Christian world) when Christians observe the crucifixion of their lord and saviour Jesus Christ, I got curious about the relationship between the celebration of easter as a Christian rite, easter bunnies, easter eggs and the spring equinox. As usual in such circumstances, Google is your friend and as I expected, easter is another holiday (holy day) co-opted by the Christian church, the Roman Christian church in particular, to coincide with ancient pagan festivals centered around the sun, the winter solstice and the spring equinox to be exact.
I found this web page, Easter and the Vernal Equinox to be particularly interesting so, I decided to check out the author of the piece. He is Milt Timmons, born in 1933, author, veteran broadcaster, professor of cinematography at Los Angeles Valley College and one of the founders of Atheists United. People interested in issues of climate change might be interested his latest book, “2084 – A Tale of Post America”, which is a sci-fi novel about global warming and how it will affect various parts of the country. The linked page from Timmons’ web site is an interesting collection of ancient mythology which seems to be related to some (much?) of the stories in the Christian texts.
I can just see the trolls, science deniers and bible thumpers throwing a fit because I have brought up this atheist!
You should get yourself to church this weekend to set your mind strait on these matters. I guarantee you’ll go on a profound journey of growth and discovery ending in your own personal rebirth. Once you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior you will recognize Easter Sunday is a true time to count your blessings and be thankful you to shall have everlasting life.
“Once you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior ”
Can we still have chocolate bunnies ?
No!
.
So Many Christians, So Few Lions.
Is the traditional Easter ham just a finger in the eye towards Jewish people, or is there some other significance? I think I’ll pass this year and go with vegan lasagna.
1st get it straight that “strait” refers to a constraint, like a narrow waterway.
amen.. happy easter yall.. i live because Jesus gave it all,so to him i owe my all.. 🙂
Cancel Easter. They found the body.
There’s a bit of doubt but Easter is probably named after Eostre, the Germanic goddess of dawn and spring, and a possibly an old name for April. It’s about flowers blooming and animals getting randy, much happier thoughts than human sacrifice. It would be amazing if any northern religion didn’t have a major celebration at this time of year.
Yea, that human sacrifice- death cult thing is a downer—
Spring is a change for more life.
Yes, the old natural religions are still being celebrated surreptitiously. Most everyone knows that and those that don’t have their heads in the sand so it doesn’t matter if they don’t know what they are actually celebrating. The icing does not make the cake.
o`lord,he is risen,on this day. i wish everyone to have a vary bless`d easter sunday1!
islandboy — Doesn’t each and every school boy (and girl) know that Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people were keenly interested in solstices and equinoxes, that when Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar in 45 BC he set March 25 as the date of the spring (Vernal) equinox, that time drift induced Pope Gregory XIII to create a modern (Gregorian) calendar and the Pope wanted to continue to conform with edicts concerning the date of Easter of the Council of Nicaea of AD 325 which means he wanted to move the Vernal Equinox to the date on which it fell at that time and that March 21 is the day allocated to it in the Easter table of the Julian calendar?
“islandboy — Doesn’t each and every school boy (and girl) know…….”
Surely you jest, Doug? I don’t remember ever being exposed to, much less taught any of this stuff in school, at any level. Not in Sunday school either, God forbid! 😉
If that’s true be sure your kids (or Grandchildren) don’t suffer the same fate. And, while you’re at it, a fun project is sundial construction. This can be an introduction to trigonometry and astronomy. A model of the Sun’s motion helps to understand sundials.
Hyundai now presents another EV, this one with a longer range than the Tesla Model 3 and the Chevy Bolt.
Their Ioniq electric is very efficient but has less range and power.
During a recent road test, the ionic kicked the leaf’s ass. The new Leaf still lacks active thermal management, so its not able to rapid charge repeatedly (see #rapidgate). First, even though the ionic battery is much smaller it is more efficient so the added capacity just didn’t help the leaf – it just meant longer charging times. Then, after a couple of rapid charges, the leaf throttled back the charge rate to half speed and needed 2 hours to charge, but the ionic didn’t have that problem so it beat the new leaf by hours. Bad thing is this was in very cold outside temps, so it’s likely much worse in summer. Lots of people canceled their Leaf orders. Next year’s 60kwh leaf will have liquid cooling, so if long road trips are desired you might want to pass on this version of the leaf. Of course, a Tesla would beat both of them.
I don’t think they have announced pricing, but rumors are the Kona will only be about $35,000 so under 30K with incentives.
Gone fishing,
The Model 3 has two versions, the base model has a range of 220 miles, the long range version has 310 miles of range, currently only the long range Model 3 is being manufactured, cost is about $49k.
The USA today article is poorly researched stating that the Model 3 currently being delivered to customers has a range of 220 miles, that is wrong, it is 310 miles of range on the Model 3 currently being produced, see link below.
The Kona EV will have a range of 292 miles and will cost $40k, it will be available in early 2019 in the US.
That is interesting, I had heard there were two versions of the Model 3, one with a larger battery of about 75 kWh. So the Kona is 10K cheaper, uses a 67 kWh battery to achieve real world range of 240 to 285 with maximum in city at 370 miles (mild weather). https://ev-database.uk/car/1126/Hyundai-Kona-Electric-64-kWh
Hyundai has broken through the 0.3 kWh barrier. The Ioniq uses about 0.2 kWh per mile and the larger Kona uses about 0.25 kWh per mile. Neither has the acceleration or top speed of the Model 3, but most people don’t spend much time over 100 mph. 🙂
Is the Kona larger than the Model 3, hard to tell from the photos?
They are calling it a small SUV or a crossover so I think it is bigger that the model 3, it may be closer to the model Y. The ICE version of the Kona is already shipping. Also, the EPA range didn’t make that 292, it was something like 270 – still great.
Just drive slower, get well over 300! 🙂
Hi Gone fishing,
Only a long range battery with premium options is available for the Model 3, the long range version with base options is 44k, so 4k more than the Kona, which won’t be available until 2019 in the US, by that time prices may have fallen for the Model 3 or range may be higher, also the range rating for the Tesla is quite conservative.
One test suggests the Model 3 can go as far as 495 miles (see final screen grab in the piece), no doubt this is at slower speeds around town maybe 40 MPH or less.
My daughter picked up her 310 mile range T3 this week. Dramatically different vehicle than we are all used to.
Chew on this article-
“Disruptive tidal flooding that now affects the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coastlines on 3 to 6 days per year will strike as often as 80 to 180 days a year by the 2040s, according to a major report from NOAA’”
Let’s just say after reading through that, I have few “significant” doubts. Instead, my initial thoughts turned to how, due to the gibs drying up under this administration, NOAA now has huge motivation to make the climate warnings even more impressive.
That must be why the Canadians, British and French are all warning of stronger storms and waves/surges.
Hi Max. Sorry the scientific projections do not give the results you would prefer. I don’t prefer the results either, but they are what they are.
Of course it is good to be skeptical about all data and analysis.
If you don’t want to ‘believe’ the projections, then I would suggest saving some money to by oceanside land cheap in S Carolina in the next few decades.
Research stilt building. Could be fun clamming from your deck.
Tesla Exec (In Employee Email): Daily Model 3 Production Well Into The 200s A recently revealed internal email, from Tesla Senior Vice President of Engineering Doug Fields to employees at the company, featured the comment that daily production rates were now “well into the 200’s on every single line.” That is, the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 production lines were all now churning out well over 200 units a day, each. (No, the Model Y isn’t making the cut yet.) The email was reportedly sent on March 23.
“There’s a lot to like about electric cars, of course, if, say, you’re a Google executive floating through life in a techno-narcissism bubble, or a Hollywood actor with wooly grandiose notions of saving the planet while simultaneously signaling your wealth and your “green” virtue cred. Teslas supposedly handle beautifully, ride very quietly, have great low-end power, and decent range of over 200 miles. The engine has something like twenty moving parts, is very long-lasting, and is easy to repair or change out if necessary.
Are they actually “green and clean?” Bwaahaaaaa….! Are you kidding? First, there’s the energy embedded in producing the car: mining and smelting the ores, manufacturing the plastics, running the assembly line, etc. That embedded energy amounts to about 22 percent of the energy consumed by the car over a ten-year lifetime. Then there’s the cost of actually powering the car day-by-day. The electricity around the USA is produced mostly by burning coal, natural gas, or by nuclear fission, all of which produce harmful emissions or byproducts. But the illusion that the power just comes out of a plug in the wall (for just pennies a day!) is a powerful one for the credulous public. The cherry-on-top is the fantasy that before much longer all that electric power will come from “renewables,” solar and wind, and we can leave the whole fossil fuel mess behind us. We say that to ourselves as a sort of prayer, and it has exactly that value.”
JHK take on the situation——
JHK take on the situation——
I posted Robert Llewellyn’s Fully Charged take on the situation in a comment up thread.
The people who attack renewables and EVs on the grounds that it is just more BAU really haven’t been listening to what proponents are actually saying as to why they are pro EVs, wind and solar and they are also ignoring the data.
Basically most people who are supporting all of the above are not half as stupid or naive as the naysayers would like to have everyone believe. As Llewellyn clearly states: EVs, wind and solar are not a panacea and will most certainly not save humanity! So stop telling us what we already know and putting words in our mouths.
We know that a small minority of humans have as much wealth as half the population of the planet. We know that there are way too many people on the planet. We know that all of industrial civilization requires massive amounts of energy and material resources to sustain it. We know that the current path that civilization is on is totally unsustainable. However renewables and EVs are still a hell of lot better than using fossil fuels to produce energy and fuel private automobiles. So unless all of the naysayers have a much better idea on how to move forward, I suggest they shut the fuck up, get the hell out of the way and go hide in their damn caves somewhere.
Maybe it is time for some to revisit this old Dylan tune….
We know that a small minority of humans have as much wealth as half the population of the planet…
We know that there are way too many people on the planet…
We know that all of industrial civilization requires massive amounts of energy and material resources to sustain it…
We know that the current path that civilization is on is totally unsustainable…
However…” ~ Fred Magyar
‘We know we know we know… however…’
Sure.
“I placed a comment about that on Peak Oil Barrel, (my one and only visit there) and was shouted down by the cornucopians there, who thought that recycling and ‘renewable’ energy would solve the problem. Fantasyland.” ~ David Highham
‘It is now generally accepted that a 5 degree rise in temperature will collapse civilization. At our current economic growth rate we can expect 5 degrees in 50 or 60 years from now. The only way to avoid this is to collapse civilization now.
I doubt there are solutions but if there are solutions we won’t get at them by imagining fairy tales like improved efficiency and renewable energy.
We need to start thinking now about the most humane way to deal with a collapsing civilization because we know from history that our tendency is to not behave well in such situations.
Interviewer: Why is your work so unknown?
Garrett: Humans have a deep-seated need for optimism and a belief that solutions exist.’
Me: aka denial“
“So unless all of the naysayers have a much better idea on how to move forward…” ~ Fred Magyar
Your so-called ‘naysayers’ have been suggesting better ideas for a long time now and loud and clear for those not in a state of denial and/or willful ignorance.
Collapse civilization now doesn’t mean in 30 years.
Why all the fuss Caelan, if you think you are screwed then just get on with living.
It’s coming from so far away
It’s hard to say for sure
Whether what I hear is music or the wind
Through an open door
There’s a fire high in the empty sky
Where the sound meets the shore
There’s a long distance loneliness
Rolling out over the desert floor
And the years that I spent lost in the mystery
Fall away leaving only the sound of the drum
Like a part of me
It speaks to the heart of me
Forget what life used to be
You are what you choose to be
It’s whatever it is you see
That life will become
Whatever it is you might think you have
You have nothing to lose
Through every dead and living thing
Time runs like a fuse
And the fuse is burning
And the earth is turning
Though the years give way to uncertainty
And the fear of living for nothing strangles the will
There’s a part of me
That speaks to the heart of me
Though sometimes it’s hard to see
It’s never far from me
Alive in eternity
That nothing can kill
Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying, The Shawshank Redemption dialogue
“Sorry Doug, forgot this was not a free speech forum.
I got confused, thought we were talking about people getting killed by machines and weapons. Won’t make that mistake again.
Glad you are running the show, I withdraw from your debate. Have fun with it.
BTW, probably much cancer is caused by our machine/pollution culture. No one seems able or interested in determining the levels that I know of or doing much about it. ~ GoneFishing
Why all the fuss, GoneFishing?
Methinks thou doth (protest/)project.
Apparently you have very limited comprehension and also seem way too interested in being critical and judgmental of others. Of course you are typically critical and judgmental of society and the many efforts of others to improve situations.
Look to yourself first.
You may do well to consider the hypocrisy and ostensible blindness of your own comment here before you tell someone to take a look at themselves.
That was part of my point above.
“BTW, probably much cancer is caused by our machine/pollution culture.” ~ GoneFishing
Oh do be careful, now, about being seen as being ‘typically critical and judgmental of society and the many efforts of others to improve situations’.
Yes, responded just as I predicted.
And? Are you in agreement then? 😀
They are changing—–
But most will not like it probably.
This is a predicament, not a problem.
JHK is a….clown.
Really – that’s what he says. He has no credentials in energy, no work experience, and his writings reflect that.
So, when he’s challenged he retreats to the “I’m just an entertainer” defense.
An example of his willingness to pretend expertise in areas in which he had none, and also of his general forecasting accuracy: He predicted absolute certain doom from Y2K. There was no if, and or but about it – we were doomed. Nothing could be done….
There are countless numbers of people with ‘credentials in energy’, etc., who are playing their hands at trashing the planet, Nick, and there’s nothing entertaining about it.
Trump names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general suing EPA on climate change, to head the EPA
He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. Ben Carson, named to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has expressed a deep aversion to the social safety net programs and fair housing initiatives that have been central to that agency’s activities. Betsy DeVos, named education secretary, has a passion for private school vouchers that critics say undercut the public school systems at the core of the government’s mission.
JHK does have a dismal record on forecasting.
I do find him a fascinating writer.
Feel like moving south? Just stay put.
And where is New York headed?
Does this mean Texans become Mexicans sometime between 2025 to 2050 fueled by their own climate change demise ?
They don’t believe in climate change so it won’t happen, just be weather.
that’s the plot of the Water Knife where they are called “Merry Perrys” (named I think after Rick Perry) after a series of hurricanes mangle them, and they become the equivalent of roaches streaming into Arizona.
I think the Northeast is going to start referring to “Second Winters” before it feels like we’re living in the Carolinas. Even if we haven’t been shattering low records, the average day-time Highs have been 5 to 20 degrees F below average for months now, is eerily consistent, much more like living on the West coast where the same weather pattern seems to repeat endlessly.
Given the jet stream patterns that now dominate the Northern hemisphere I would say the Northeast has become the “Cold Sink” for the arctic. As the vortex unravels and wind streams and atmospheric rivers flow into the pole, the cold that’s there is getting pushed out, has to go somewhere and its being vented out to places like Northeastern US.
Oh for crying out loud, more circus, the temperatures have not been consistently below normal. For Allentown Pa, February had 207 heating degree days less than normal and March had plus 40 degrees days above normal. January had 26 degree days below normal.
All that adds up to a negative HDD of 2.1 per day. Warmer than average!
Maybe you forget the significant thaws in January and February this winter?
What we had was a very erratic Jetstream that brought both lower and higher temperatures at different times.
Overall the US was 2.1F warmer in January than the 20th century average.
Yeah – doesn’t do me much good if nighttime temps are 10 to 20 degrees warmer and the day-times are colder – unless I’m going full weasel mode.
I’ve even seen a number of time this year where the high of the day was like 2am, or the low hit at 4pm as the jet stream began to wobble into a new regime.
good luck growing crops in this crap.
Well, around here the crops don’t grow in the winter and it still gets warm in the spring through summer. Except for a cold spell just after Christmas and a few warm periods in Jan and Feb it was pretty much a normal winter as far as temps go. Just had six inches of snow last night but it’s mostly melted already and the rain tonight will finish it along with the 60 F temps on Wednesday.
Remembering rare anomalies and making them a generality is not needed. The actual weather is chaotic enough.
PROF STEPHEN HAWKING FUNERAL: LEGACY ‘WILL LIVE FOREVER’
“He inspired people with the excitement and importance of pure scientific enquiry and was admired and revered for his devotion, as a scholar, to the pursuit of knowledge. This high regard was demonstrated wherever in the world he gave a public lecture: the auditorium was always packed, the atmosphere electric and the applause thunderous.”
Thanks Doug, a good link. It is a beautiful universe!
Will the expensive and ambitious plans to stay in place be enough for NYC to last through the century? Rising ocean levels, stronger storms, rogue waves, a slower Gulf Stream flow and simultaneous flooding from the Hudson and East River are going to be a massive challenge for New York to deal with and survive.
New York City Is Building for a Future of Flooding But the threat of rising tides is shaping change on a more basic level, too. The New York Times reports that the risk of future flooding is changing the way that buildings are designed in the city. Gone, for instance, are top-floor penthouses, replaced instead with emergency generators that won’t get flooded—and can provide enough power for residents to remain in their apartment for as long as a week. Elsewhere, special drainage systems channel water away within foundations, and ground floors are being built with materials that can tolerate floods.
Meanwhile, Curbed reports that initiatives are also under way outside of Manhattan. In Broad Channel Island, in the borough of Queens, street levels are being raised so sidewalks and roads stand taller than previously relative to the nearby waters of Jamaica Bay. And in another Queens district, Breezy Point, new houses are being built on raised platforms to save them from floods.
Storm surges of 3 to 9 feet in the Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut region were recorded during Sandy. Waves heights of up to 32 feet added to that surge. Sandy did not have high wind speeds of some hurricanes, Hurricane Donna had much higher winds but was much smaller than Sandy. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hurricane-donna-is-born
I had a bit of an epiphany about the car/car culture (sprawl, roadway infrastructure, remote [nature] access, etc.) and E.O. Wilson’s ‘Half Earth’ that can be found embedded in this very sentence.
Not to worry Caelan, there will be less people and a lot less energy use in the future. The cars will be autonomous but have no one to drive around so will just form gangs and roam the highways looking for power outlets.
Learn what’s behind that sign.
What is meant is that few will starve or even be uncomfortable, provided they start talking– including on sites like these which are supposed to be a lot more than this– more about things along the lines of, say, the possible food that’s behind that sign, rather than the contexts of that sign.
Maybe spruce, plantain, clover, dandelion, daisy, goldenrod, mice, etc…. all edible and probably packing more nutrient density than your typical industrial agro/factory farm fare. There is an ‘outlet’, but it is yours, rather than your car’s, and it’s local and realtime sunlight-based.
Priorities.
The metal, concrete and plastic ‘fruits’ of a dying culture don’t strike me as priorities except by the mad.
So what will you do in the extreme tech, AI driven world of a decade from now? It’s going to be even more polluted, more chaotic and most everyone will be lining up for genetic modifications.
“So what will you do in the extreme tech, AI driven world of a decade from now? It’s going to be even more polluted, more chaotic and most everyone will be lining up for genetic modifications.” ~ GoneFishing
“HALF EARTH: OUR PLANET’S FIGHT FOR LIFE
Chapter 9. THE MOST DANGEROUS WORLDVIEW
I think it relevant to quote the great explorer-naturalist Alexander Humbolt on this subject, as true in his time as it is in ours: ‘The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.’
E.O. Wilson” ~ Fred Magyar
“I’m always happy when surrounded by smart people who happens to be rich and powerful…”
I’m sure you are, Sophie, I’m sure you are.
It’s SOPHIA, not Sophie… Apparently Caelan’s intelligence is unable to correctly parse audio inputs and just as faulty when reading or copying and pasting text…
.
‘Happens‘, so I say Sophie, Freddie.
But you can let your triviality willfully blind you from my basic point above with regard to technologies’ ’embedded agendas’.
HALF EARTH: OUR PLANET’S FIGHT FOR LIFE
Chapter 9. THE MOST DANGEROUS WORLDVIEW
I think it relevant to quote the great explorer-naturalist Alexander Humbolt on this subject, as true in his time as it is in ours: “The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.”
E.O. Wilson
I actually heard some peepers by the lake last night, time for a celebration. Life struggles on.
Watch the skies…
I love peepers. Where are you located?
Your eagle makes me want to listen to Eagle.
Mid Atlantic USA.
I suspected east because it is uncertain that peepers go too far west.
“HALF EARTH: OUR PLANET’S FIGHT FOR LIFE
Chapter 9. THE MOST DANGEROUS WORLDVIEW
I think it relevant to quote the great explorer-naturalist Alexander Humbolt on this subject, as true in his time as it is in ours: ‘The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.’
E.O. Wilson” ~ Fred Magyar
“So what will you do in the extreme tech, AI driven world of a decade from now? It’s going to be even more polluted, more chaotic and most everyone will be lining up for genetic modifications.” ~ GoneFishing
You can try these instead… 😉
Gluten Free Communion Wafer | Cokesbury – cokesbury.com
Approximately 40 to 50 Wafers per Box
Ideal for church members with food sensitivities
As in “Polly want a ….”
I know, I know, but since it probably went over his head anyway and today is Easter, I thought you might want to try and kill two birds with one cracker by giving Polly, a gluten free holy cracker for a change…
.
I’m taking a lady friend out to one of my favorite beaches this afternoon and crossing my fingers that despite the Holy day, the local watering hole will be open and we can have a few beers while listening to which ever local band is playing there!
But doesn’t it get changed to meat (the body of christ) anyway? I think that’s gluten free…
Spare yourself the inflammation.
Accept only genuine
I’m reading about the reformation.
I knew about transubstantiation. I failed as a Catholic when I was 15 and discovered girls. But now, reading about religious wars I keep hearing in my inner ear ‘The body of Christ” and I know he thinks he just drank the blood.
What kind of lunatics think up this stuff? What kind of fools believe it?
Nothing makes me more sure eating less animal products than guys like this, I mean they are wrong abut everything else.
When I got Holy Communion they wouldn’t let me drink the Blood of Christ because I was only six years old and it contained alcohol.
That got me thinking: The blood of Jesus contains alcohol? What was he, some kind of drunk?
Then I realized that nobody really believed that the wine was turning into the blood of Jesus, no matter what they claimed.
But to your point, yeah, “If you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the He Who Has Died But Is Not Dead, you too will never die” sounds like a freaky basis for a religion.
“So renewables are great as a substitute provided they replace rather than add to existing sources of energy. Unfortunately, it is not clear that there is precedent for this sort of thing happening.
A second issue is that civilization is growing. As an open thermodynamic system, civilization is made of matter not energy. We use energy to extract raw materials from our environment in order to feed our people, construct civilization, and offset decay. Resource extraction depletes the oceans of fish, the forests of trees, and the ground of minerals, leaving behind material waste that pollutes our land, water and air.
How is it that renewables are an environmental panacea if the added energy they provide simply lets us grow the extraction of raw materials and production of waste? Whether the energy source is oil or solar, it doesn’t really matter. Energy is used, in part, to acquire the stuff from our environment that is needed to make up all the stuff of humanity, leaving a lesser environment in its wake.”
“Tesla finally acknowledged that its autopilot self-driving system was engaged when the Model X electric crossover SUVs crashed one week ago, killing the driver. In the latest troubling indication that Musk is desperate to hide any bad news about his company, the admission only took place after local news reported that the victim had made several complaints to Tesla about the vehicle’s Autopilot technology prior to the crash in which he died.”
In the latest troubling indication that Musk is desperate to hide any bad news about his company, the admission only took place after local news reported that the victim had made several complaints to Tesla about the vehicle’s Autopilot technology prior to the crash in which he died.
LOL! no he isn’t. The driver was a complete moron and disregarded multiple warnings from the autopilot to take control of the car. This is Tesla’s note on it’s auto pilot and driver use responsibility from Tesla’s website. Ignoring autopilot warnings is irresponsible and improper use of the autopilot feature.
Enhanced Autopilot Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage.
Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. >Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.
BTW there are a few previous cases of Tesla drivers who ignored the warnings and were involved in accidents. In every case it was shown that the drivers improper use of the autopilot was the cause of the crash. Not one was shown to be a malfunction of Tesla’s autopilot feature when used as directed by Tesla.
Musk seems to not have noticed that he is selling these things to human beings, the most distractable beings on the planet
Oh look a bird!
Well, that’s the whole point – getting rid of the human error as quickly as possible. We’re just not quite there yet.
“Average number of car accidents in the .U.S. every year is 6 million. More than 90 people die in car accidents everyday. 3 million people in the U.S. are injured every year in car accidents. Around 2 million drivers in car accidents experience permanent injuries every year.”
That means that there is a car accident for every 533,333 miles driven. So an average driver would have an accident every 43 years. One person dies about every 97 million miles driven. So when is the last time you drove 97 million miles?
So when we have fully autonomous cars and go to car as a service the number of accidents could drop in half per mile driven. But since the autonomous vehicles will have two to three times the passenger loading and the cars will have to drive more miles to pick up rides, the number of people injured and deaths will probably stay the same.
The other question is, will pedestrian accidents go up?
So what problem are we really solving by making cars autonomous and who benefits by the change? Who loses? What is the gain and loss to society in general?
I think the industry expects to reduce accidents & deaths by 90%. Almost all accidents are human error, not unavoidable/unpredictable failure of vehicle components or road surface.
The odds of death by car are now less than 0.01 percent. That is about 2,5% of the chance of dying from cancer. Are we even focusing on the right problems? Are we putting our money into fairly unnecessary tech instead of solving health, food and water problems or climate problems?
To drop it to 0.005% would be something but at what cost to everyone else? Lost jobs, more pollution from building and serving all that tech. What is the gain? Is there any real gain? We don’t know because it’s all experimental at this point.
You actually think computer systems can be made that good in real world situations? So then with more passengers per vehicle the number of injuries and deaths would go down to 45% -60%.
That is an amazing claim from people with quite a bit of self interest in the result. You do realize that the computers do not actually see or think? They merely react to some digitized and transformed sensory field input and match from a list of pre-programmed possible realities. A mismatch is inevitable in the real world. Not one of them knows what a human or animal is or even what anything is actually. They really know nothing, just have lists to check. Computers exist in a meaningless world and have no personal existence, far less than a bug. No meat in the game.
I am quite skeptical of more than a 50% reduction if that. I also see quite a number of problems during the long period where humans and robots interact on the highways.
Who is going to pay for all this? I hope the software writers, computer makers, sensor manufacturers, car companies and owners of the robot cars are all held accountable for any accidents involving fully autonomous vehicles. The courts are going to be overwhelmed for quite some time. We don’t need another industry that gets away with murder, we have lots of them now.
Otherwise we just continue our blind love for tech and continue our plunge into destruction as we are now. Or we can start to actually critically think about what we allow in the world and what it will do for us. That would be fairly new, but long overdue.
How many premature and direct deaths from various automation systems will be allowable? How many jobs will be lost, lives ruined? Who wins on this, Uber, Tesla? How much extra power will these systems and all their support systems suck up every minute of the day?
Are we even solving the real problems or just making new ones because we can?
Let’s hope this experiment in transport is done in a well measured and thoughtful way and not just allowed to run because it’s high tech, flashy and makes some companies lots of money.
Let’s put our money and effort into things we need most, fastest and will get us the most real improvement over time.
Let’s hope this experiment in transport is done in a well measured and thoughtful way and not just allowed to run because it’s high tech, flashy and makes some companies lots of money.
There is a world of difference between flashy high end privately owned EVs with current, (still rather primitive) state of the art autopilot features, such as Teslas and the next level of fully autonomous level 5 completely driverless vehicles, such as the modular SNAP.
And no, it still won’t save us and the planet from the sixth mass extinction but neither will adding another billion ICE vehicles to the world’s fleet.
Response from Youtube:
500 Internal Server Error
Sorry, something went wrong.
A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
LOL! That was kinda cool!
But try this one since the Fully Charged site itself seems to have been attacked by gremlins…
Fred, I am not against applying tech innovation. I just like people to put their money where it will be most effective and know both the up and downsides of a new tech before it becomes widespread.
Things are coming to a head and we need to apply ourselves to effective solutions.
As far as cars go the delta we are looking at is the difference between 2 billion ICE’s and 2 billion EV’s. The difference is very large as far as pollution and energy are concerned. So EV’s are a good investment.
Instead of putting the money into autonomous circuitry, why not make the cars lighter and more efficient with new materials and construction methods. The payback would be fast and permanent.
I don’t see any energy or material payback for autonomous cars, in fact it seems like a sink.
I agree with most of what you say. BTW If I ever get an electric bicycle, It probably will not be self balancing. Otherwise, I’ll just get a Segway… 😉
There is a time and a place to apply technology. I’ve never been a proponent of one size fits all. More often than not I walk to my local supermarket and take my own cloth bags.
I’ve lived in a couple of big cities when I’m in Sao Paulo I never drive. Mass transit there is really good. Mostly I use the trains, subways and buses for longer distances. Once in a while I’ll take a ride share. Otherwise I’ll walk. I don’t like risking my life so I don’t bike in that town…
When I think how the human race has merely escalated most problems it was aware of fifty or more years ago, until now we are deep into a huge set of problems and several major predicaments, my mind boggles at just the short list that was not taken care of years ago. The long list gets me depressed.
It’s not EV’s or smartphones that are the problem. It’s completely or mostly completely ignoring the problems we knew about and never really solving them back when they could be solved. We had a whole generation try to change things but as is happening now, all progress gets erased after the initial surge by corporations and their greedy marketers and politicians.
As one friend of mine said ” I just can’t believe the selfishness I see in the younger generation”. Then they look at the older generation and say the same thing.
“Resistance is futile” is getting more valid every day. For a while at least.
Are we even focusing on the right problems?
Of course not! But, that doesn’t make autonomous driving a bad thing.
We spend 30x as much on drug enforcement as we do on addiction treatment. We spend 30x as much on treatment as we do on prevention.
We spend 30x as much on healthcare treatment as we do on prevention, or medical research. We spend 100x as much on research into conditions like cancer and alzheimer’s as we do on something much more basic, like aging, which is the single biggest factor underlying almost everything.
Seems like a pattern…
Watch Moore’s film, “Where to Invade Next” for places that have found some solutions to society’s vexing problems. Makes America look backwards in many ways.
Not saying autonomous driving is “bad”. Just that we need to look critically at what we are unleashing on society instead of blindly going with the next new thing. The next new thing syndrome has been extremely harmful in many cases, but once embedded in a particular societal niche it’s harder to remove than a tumor.
The National Traffic Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said in a statement that it was “unhappy” with Tesla’s decision to release the information. But, better news is the production rate of model 3’s is now up to 2000 per week. From a company wide email by Elon:
“It has been extremely difficult to pass the 2000 cars per week rate for Model 3, but we are finally there. If things go as planned today, we will comfortably exceed that number over a seven-day period!”
Moreover, the whole Tesla production system is now on a firm foundation for that output, which means we should be able to exceed a combined Model S, X, and 3 production rate of 4000 vehicles per week and climbing rapidly. This is already double the pace of 2017! By the end of this year, I believe we will be producing vehicles at least four times faster than last year.”
A few years from now they will be producing 20,000 cars a week or more and everyone will forget about this silly time period. Just as the Prius is a very common sight now, EV’s will be seen every day by anyone driving.
Each one saves 8000 gallons of gasoline or more compared to the average ICE.
It’s been ten years since the Roadster came out. A lot has changed. The auto industry has had a nice shake-up.
KindaAutoPilot™
“The driver was a complete moron and disregarded multiple warnings from the autopilot to take control of the car.” ~ Fred Magyar
Which driver are you referring to?
In any case, I have read that the autopilot may lull people into a greater sense of safety than what the system can put out. False advertising?
Maybe it should be called an auto co-pilot? That way, along with the added safety as implied in the semantics, the implication would also be of two drivers for one car. We could even have another steering-wheel for the front seat passenger too that automatically takes over when a dashboard HALcam™ spots a driver transgression, along with a special device that automatically calls traffic-control if all drivers of the car are somehow incapacitated and therefore not paying attention to where the car is going. And even an emergency red button that, if all else fails, calls Musk directly.
Or how about a centralized driver that sends out wireless commands to millions of cars, based on street and CCTV cams, GPS trackings, and word-of-mouth, etc.?
While automated driving may be safer in theory, I’m unsure where it is going to go in practice if human guinea pigs keep getting killed with it and the decay of highway infrastructure repair and maintenance funds really starts to spread.
“Accidents involving autonomous cars could slow the advance of the technology and demonstrate the need for tougher federal standards, a leading highway safety advocate said Thursday.”
Which driver are you referring to?
Take a wild guess!
I prefer: Tougher rules on morons! There are apparently way too many people who can’t read and heed instructions and warnings… Let’s just remove the warning labels!
.
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“Which driver are you referring to?” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
“Take a wild guess!” ~ Fred Magyar
I ask this because the link you provided appears to point to a previous accident/driver from a previous year, as opposed to the most recent that the link in my previous comment points to.
“This image provided by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the damage to the left front of the Tesla involved in a May 7, 2016, crash in Williston, Fla.“
Last I read– and this may have changed since– if recalled, they were still investigating the most recent accident and that victim may have previously expressed concerns, maybe to Tesla, about Tesla’s autopilot.
So, again, which driver are you referring to please?
I read some reports on this crash over at insideevs.com so, let me get this straight. This guy complains to Tesla repeatedly about the autopilot feature for whatever reason. This guy then proceeds to continue using this feature, despite his misgivings about it, to the point where an accident happens that results in a fatality…his. I think this can be put down to a strong desire for a Darwin award!
Ignoring the hands on warning will end up a meme like ‘Just hold my beer.’. Darwin will start excluding these as ‘too common’ as she does with some other means of self chlorination.
NAOM
With Elon Musk’s sense of humor, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if at some point you’ll be able to activate full autonomy in a Tesla by saying “Jesus take the wheel”.
Why stop there, Alan?
How about expanding that to the myriad of dangerous and potentially dangerous facets of the crony-capitalist plutarchy?
Many already know that getting into a car is a potentially dangerous endeavor, whether the car has autopilot feature or not.
Some people– perhaps even some at Tesla– might have made the case that autopilot makes a car safer because it removes some human error from the equation.
In any case, if we agree that technology is supposed to improve the lives of people (and by implication, their planet), not make them worse, then it doesn’t appear to be doing its job does it? You know– from a planetary/civilizational collapse/etc. standpoint?
So how about expanding the Darwin Award to the entire human species?
Below are temperature deviation data, relative to 1971-2000, for 9 northern North American locations:
Location March 2018 Ave. Deviation (F) Jan.-March Ave. Deviation (F)
Prudhoe Bay, AK …………+14.71 ……………………………..+14.54
Moosonee, Ont. ………….+1.50 ……………………………..+1.76
Nome, AK …………………+7.52 ……………………………..+7.23
Churchill, Man. …………..+6.98 …………………………….+3.16
Iqaluit, Nunn. ………….+12.19 ……………………………+2.00
Goose Bay, NFL ………….+9.89 ……………………………+2.40
Yellowknife, NWT ……+4.40 …………………………..+4.06
Sault Ste. Marie, MI …….+1.76 ……………………………+2.99
Hibbing, MN …………..-2.24 …………………………..-3.22
Ave. …………………………….+6.30 ………………………….+3.88
Prudhoe Bay continues a string of very mild months, relative to the 1971-2000 averages. Here are temperature deviation data for Prudhoe Bay relative to 1971-2000 averages from Nov. through March.
These warm temperatures won’t stand for much longer. As a consequence of the weakening AO and strengthening PNA, major bone-chilling cold will engulf eastern North America once again this week.
Yep, I am in that dark blue blob. Here are the 10 day high temps 52, 45, 43, 65, 45, 51, 40, 43, 43, 49F. Really “bone chilling”. ROFL
Of course it doesn’t come near the 90F days they have had in Texas last month.
And your point, Bob, about this weather forecast is?
They say having a point is much more interesting for the reader.
Now I don’t know about you, but I can tolerate 90F days. However when it hits 100F, that is a bit much. It hit 107 once a few years ago here and I was glad I was headed north for a camping trip. In the recent past 100 F was a very unusual temperature where I live.
But the prognosticators at NOAA say that we could be headed toward multiple 100 degree and above days a lot more often in the future. In the scenario with higher greenhouse gas emissions, parts of Texas that experienced 10 to 20 days per year over 100°F in recent decades are projected to experience more than 100 by the end of the century. Parts of the East Coast as far north as New Jersey could see more than 30 days above 100°F each summer. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/100%C2%B0-days-past-and-future
Now they tie the rise in temperature in the future directly to GHG rise, while ignoring the doubling just from albedo change and natural emissions increase. So wear white and get your solar powered air conditioned umbrellas before they sell out.
Do you think this will increase the number of fires?
Naw—
Its hightrekker—-
(actually its a reliable, and good car– eco efficient? haaaa)
It has a magnetic force link option that allows it to be pulled along by ICE SUV’s while charging itself so that one never need charge the car.
Kool!
Yep, and they turn that function on for mere $10,000 extra.
Rods from God.
The Air Force’s ‘rods from god’ could hit with the force of a nuclear weapon — with no fallout
The 107-country Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967 prohibits nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons from being placed in or used from Earth’s orbit. What they didn’t count on was the US Air Force’s most simple weapon ever: a tungsten rod that could hit a city with the explosive power of an intercontinental ballistic missile. http://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-rods-from-god-kinetic-weapon-hit-with-nuclear-weapon-force-2017-9
It just gets more complicated and stupider all the time.
Regional and local cloud changes can have effects on temperature distributions.
When we examine the values of daily low temperatures observations across the Commonwealth over the time period from 1949 through 1996, that’s exactly what we see. Statistically significant increases in summer low temperatures are found in the eastern portion of Virginia, whereas the central and western Virginian stations generally do not (Richmond being the exception). Thus, it appears that the trend to greater nighttime cloudiness is producing a similar trend to higher overnight/early-morning temperatures (the time of day when we usually find the daily low temperature).
We rarely get a pure blue sky in the east anymore. Most days instead replaced by 1000’s of jet trails that just turn into streams of clouds instead of evaporating … covers the sky for hours and days. It’s got to be changing the climate here. So if you like something to research maybe start looking into why this happens? If you end up eventually at a deep rabbit hole the password you need to get in is … Barium
I agree the eastern skies are much cloudier and have high level haze but contrails are only a small part of the problem. What appears to be happening is increased water vapor condensing in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere. Stratospheric water vapor feedback http://www.pnas.org/content/110/45/18087
TWO DEGREES NO LONGER SEEN AS GLOBAL WARMING GUARDRAIL
“Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released Monday…With only one degree of warming so far, Earth has seen a crescendo of droughts, heatwaves, and storms ramped up by rising seas. Voluntary national pledges made under the Paris pact to cut CO2 emissions, if fulfilled, would yield a 3C world at best.
The treaty also requires that—by the end of the century—humanity stop adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than oceans and forests can absorb, a threshold known as net zero emissions…How fast we get to a 2C world is critical, Mitchell told AFP. If it only takes a couple of decades, we will be in trouble because we won’t have time to adapt to the climate.”
“Permafrost in the coldest northern Arctic — formerly thought to be at least temporarily shielded from global warming by its extreme environment — will thaw enough to become a permanent source of carbon to the atmosphere in this century, with the peak transition occurring in 40 to 60 years, according to a new NASA-led study.”
In ten years they will be saying 20 to 30 years and in 15 years it will be now.
Sounds whiney to me, “we will be in trouble because we won’t have time to adapt to the climate”
What about the rest of life as all of those numbers are blown past because we really don’t acknowledge our limited knowledge of the earth system? Act now, strongly and decisively, or forget later. Later is too late.
Maybe it’s already too late?
The two-year, 6-ppm surge in the greenhouse gas between 2015 and 2017 is unprecedented in the observatory’s 59-year record. And, it was a record fifth consecutive year that carbon dioxide (CO2) rose by 2 ppm or greater, according to Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.
“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted… CO2 will need to be reduced… to at most 350 ppm,” Columbia University climate guru James Hansen has said. We sailed past that target in about 1990, and it will take a gargantuan effort to turn back the clock.”
It’s not just CO2.
Too late for what? Preserving the world we used to live in and keeping the species we know? Much too late for that now in many cases. Embrace the change, reduce the damage and see how it goes. What we really need to do is start to think and use the results to make great decisions that don’t further endanger the world.
Without drastic change a model for the world right now is the vortex in a flushing toilet. Riding around at the top of the vortex might look like no real problem, might even be like a successful situation, but we know where it ends up, don’t we?
Yes we do!
And your solutions to preserving the planet are???
The 20th century’s industrialization led to overcrowding, pollution and global warming due to the greenhouse effect. In 2022, 40 million people live in New York City; housing is dilapidated; homeless people fill the streets; many are unemployed; those few with jobs are only barely scraping by and food and working technology are scarce with most of the population surviving on rations produced by the Soylent Corporation. Their latest product is Soylent Green, a green wafer advertised to contain “high-energy plankton” from the World Ocean, more nutritious and palatable than its predecessors “Red” and “Yellow” but in short supply.
Roth takes Soylent’s oceanographic reports to a group of researchers, who agree that the oceans no longer produce the plankton from which Soylent Green is reputedly made, and infer that it is produced from human remains, the only conceivable supply of protein matching the known production. They also deduce that Simonson was murdered by the corporation because he had found this out from the reports and his influence inside the corporation. Roth is so disgusted with his degraded life in a degraded world that he seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic.
Roth is mesmerized by the euthanasia process’ visual and musical montage – extinct forests, wild animals, rivers and ocean life. Before dying, he tells Thorn his discovery and begs him to expose the truth. Thorn boards a human disposal truck to the disposal center, where he sees the human corpses converted into Soylent Green
FIRST DIRECT OBSERVATIONS OF METHANE’S INCREASING GREENHOUSE EFFECT AT THE EARTH’S SURFACE
Scientists have directly measured the increasing greenhouse effect of methane at the Earth’s surface for the first time. A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) tracked a rise in the warming effect of methane – one of the most important greenhouse gases for the Earth’s atmosphere – over a 10-year period at a DOE field observation site in northern Oklahoma.
“OBSERVATIONALLY DERIVED RISE IN METHANE SURFACE FORCING MEDIATED BY WATER VAPOUR TRENDS.” The paper indicates that the greenhouse effect from methane tracked the global pause in methane concentrations in the early 2000s and began to rise at the same time that the concentrations began to rise in 2007.
“On January 1, 2018, methane levels as high as 2764 ppb (parts per billion) were recorded. The solid magenta-colored areas near Greenland indicate that this very high reading was likely caused by methane hydrate destabilization in the sediments on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. The state of the sea ice is behind this. On January 1, 2018, Arctic sea ice extent was at record low for the time of the year. The smaller the extent, the less sunlight gets reflected back into space and is instead absorbed in the Arctic. At this time of year, though, hardly any sunshine is reaching the Arctic. So, what triggered destabilization? As the image indicates, year-to-date average Arctic sea ice volume has been at record low in 2017, which means that there’s been very little sea ice underneath the surface throughout 2017.
ATTENUATION OF SEISMIC WAVES IN METHANE GAS HYDRATE-BEARING SAND
“Compressional wave (P wave) and shear wave (S wave) velocities (Vp and Vs, respectively) from remote seismic methods have been used to infer the distribution and volume of gas hydrate within marine sediments. Recent advances in seismic methods now allow compressional and shear wave attenuations (Q−1p and Q−1s, respectively) to be measured. However, the interpretation of these data is problematic due to our limited understanding of the effects of gas hydrate on physical properties. Therefore, a laboratory gas hydrate resonant column was developed to simulate pressure and temperature conditions suitable for methane gas hydrate formation in sand specimens and the subsequent measurement of both Q−1p and Q−1s at frequencies and strains relevant to marine seismic surveys. 13 dry (gas saturated) sand specimens were investigated with different amounts of methane gas hydrate evenly dispersed throughout each specimen. The results show that for these dry specimens both Q−1p and Q−1s are highly sensitive to hydrate saturation with unexpected peaks observed between 3 and 5 per cent hydrate saturation. It is thought that viscous squirt flow of absorbed water or free gas within the pore space is enhanced by hydrate cement at grain contacts and by the nanoporosity of the hydrate itself. These results show for the first time the dramatic effect methane gas hydrate can have on seismic wave attenuation in sand, and provide insight into wave propagation mechanisms. These results will aid the interpretation of elastic wave attenuation data obtained using marine seismic prospecting methods.”
This is part of our ongoing efforts to be more and more quantitative about just how scary the situation is. It’s a major step up from my usual “How much of that stuff is out there? Well, each time we look we find more.”
This will prove useful in the O and G industry’s recent (to me, anyway) re-focusing on the shallow-water parts of the Gulf of Mexico, too. Always a silver lining.
Time for more port. Ah! the Kopke 10-year tawny. Passed around in goblets on Olympus, I have no doubt at all.
It is quite possible that methane will represent this century the same radiative forcing as CO2 had in pre-industrial times.
Below is a picture of Musk’s tweet. Anybody who lost money as a result of this deserves to loose every penny. There were ample clues that this was an obvious April fools joke to warn even the most clueless. I’m pretty sure the is no such thing as a Chapter fourteen and a half filing for bankruptcy!
Was looking at global particulates and noticed a lot of particulates from new sources in Australia.
Wouldn’t treehuggers like yourself welcome that? There’d be less salt usage on roads, reducing pollution and damage to water systems. In addition there’d be less usage of snowplows and snowblowers, reducing fossil fuel and energy usage.
Krell- are you really an ass, or do you just a great job pretending?
Practices in front of the mirror every day.
Hmmmmmm, 🙂
To the Krell concerning the statement “Wouldn’t treehuggers like yourself welcome that?”
My recognition of plant life as intrinsically necessary for animal life to even exist is not the point.
The term tree hugger, a derogatory term, was invented by greedy destructive developers and clear cutting loggers to diminish those who realize the actual value of such biological entities as trees and more generally the environment as an operating system so that they, the developers/loggers, could gain easy profit from their destructive behavior without interference. Your use of the term places you in the sociopathic realm of mentally diminished variant humans. Placing oneself among the criminal thieves of posterity and poisoners of ecosystems is either a personal choice or the result of internal disease. This can only exist within a very narrow and diminished world view.
Destroyers of environment for personal profit are among the most heinous of criminals in existence. They are trading other’s lives and the living web for selfish “gain”.
This is not even a Faustian bargain, for that would imply that these people actually had spiritual values or moral principles to abandon for personal gain. This is a more deep seated and possibly organic deviation. The very act of turning the natural environment into empty dead areas is, in the long run, homicidal and suicidal.
Your implication that any naturalist, environmentalist or thinking human would welcome the results of rapid climate change merely shows an extreme dearth of knowledge, otherwise known as ignorance, of the subject and of human values.
“In a way the election was a referendum on… What happened to my community, my country, my area, and all the vital work those long-abandoned areas used to do… and the answer is simple:
An organism contracts from the periphery to the core.
…As it took decades, even a century to happen, you can see which peripheries were sacrificed first and next, who had power, who didn’t, and how long they could maintain it; and that’s interesting, because it was not East or West, white or black, rural or urban as they might have you believe. There are as many hopeless, abandoned people in Baltimore as there are in Billings, Montana, possibly more, and possibly started far sooner. But if it’s not ethnic or geographical, then what is it?
An organism contracting from the periphery to the core is a consequence of centralization…
The Core has been using their power to attract and concentrate more wealth and more power to themselves and their areas until most of the nation’s wealth and power are concentrated in… the sub-10% of the counties. All top 10 richest zip codes are now in one region: the Washington D.C. area.
Economic wealth and power is used to expand political power, further extracting the wealth of the Periphery to maintain the lifestyle of the Core. While this may seem a practical strategy, it isn’t. At one time the Periphery was creating maybe 2/3rds of the wealth of the nation…
So when those places are idled, 2/3rds of the nation’s GDP also vanishes, and while the Core can maintain their lifestyle by cannibalizing the remaining energy and attention, the entire nation they are part of only becomes far poorer. So far from the concentration of power making them stronger, it’s making them weaker, as they have a fraction of the former wealth and ability, cohesion and cooperation, men and materials to draw on.
This leads to the problem… which is social and political fracturing. With a majority of the wealth pulled to the Core, the Periphery withdraws its economic and social consent in a sense of unfairness that is only validated by further extractions, concentrations, and non-cooperations…
If a compromise cannot be reached and the Core attempts to force its will via social and military force, the price of compliance becomes too high and fails, and with it, the cooperation, the social contract that makes a people or a nation one unit…
Since large, concentrated societies contract to the Core to protect themselves and their critical assets, those in the core historically won’t offer time or resources to help anyone but themselves: the army, the police, the roads, the tax officials. When that is true, you may want to localize, decentralize and maintain your own Core, with your own people, at home. This re-localizing will re-establish the balance of power in the Periphery where most people live.“
ROFL!
I loved the Solar Sonic Mouse Repeller advertised at the Core link!
No ad blocker?
As opposed to treemuggers like you?!
I’ll take a treehugger any day!
.
Antarctica’s grounding lines are retreating across the seafloor
Abstract Grounding lines are a key indicator of ice-sheet instability, because changes in their position reflect imbalance with the surrounding ocean and affect the flow of inland ice. Although the grounding lines of several Antarctic glaciers have retreated rapidly due to ocean-driven melting, records are too scarce to assess the scale of the imbalance. Here, we combine satellite altimeter observations of ice-elevation change and measurements of ice geometry to track grounding-line movement around the entire continent, tripling the coverage of previous surveys. Between 2010 and 2016, 22%, 3% and 10% of surveyed grounding lines in West Antarctica, East Antarctica and at the Antarctic Peninsula retreated at rates faster than 25 m yr−1 (the typical pace since the Last Glacial Maximum) and the continent has lost 1,463 km2 ± 791 km2 of grounded-ice area. Although by far the fastest rates of retreat occurred in the Amundsen Sea sector, we show that the Pine Island Glacier grounding line has stabilized, probably as a consequence of abated ocean forcing. On average, Antarctica’s fast-flowing ice streams retreat by 110 metres per metre of ice thinning.
Note to trolls: No US taxpayer dollars were spent on this study!
Scientists relied on data collected by the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 to conduct their study. The satellite measures changes in ice sheet elevation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LjfwDXmna0
Richard Alley: Science works…science helps us!
Climate State
Published on Jan 9, 2018
Presidential Forum keynote speaker Richard Alley, renowned glaciologist and climate scientist, at the 98th AMS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas.
“Note to trolls: No US taxpayer dollars were spent on this study!” — Fred Magyar
Hallelujah! It’s been a long time coming for the millions of hardworking Americans who have been demanding an end to all the many wasteful uses of their taxes.
“millions of hardworking Americans”
Oh please, the only white American guy I know. Who isn’t to lazy to mow his own lawn is myself. Without undocumented workers, American obesity would be down 80%.
Speaking of waste of a money, that plate you pass a round every Sunday. Is the longest running con in human history.
“Hallelujah! It’s been a long time coming for the millions of hardworking Americans who have been demanding an end to all the many wasteful uses of their taxes.”
Since the Americans have produced much of the pollution that is causing climate change, why do you want a free pass? Also since it was the corporations making much of the pollution and promoting the use of pollution making devices (for profit of course) while only paying 4 percent of federal taxes, why shouldn’t the American corporations be made to pay for studies and mitigations?
Unless of course America is full of greedy cheaters and lowlifes that only take money, never take responsibility and don’t pay their debts. That is the appearance lately concerning the corporations and many politicians.
The American way of life or simply the American way is the unique lifestyle of the people of the United States of America. It refers to a nationalist ethos that adheres to the principle of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At the center of the American way is the American Dream that upward mobility is achievable by any American through hard work. This concept is intertwined with the concept of American exceptionalism, the belief in the unique culture of the nation.
Superman: Truth, Justice, and the American Way. “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound”. 1938 was a dark time for America, crime and economic collapse spread over the land as war loomed in the distance.
“crime and economic collapse spread over the land as war loomed in the distance”
Sound familiar ?
“At the center of the American way is the American Dream that upward mobility is achievable by any American through hard work. This concept is intertwined with the concept of American exceptionalism, the belief in the unique culture of the nation.”
Sounds like a dream alright, certainly not close to reality in most cases.
“crime and economic collapse spread over the land as war loomed in the distance”
Sounds like a description of just about any time, somewhere or several somewheres on the earth.
Now as to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Life, hard to live without it.
Liberty, due to private ownership laws we have only a small relative legal space to move about and none without laws diminishing and controlling our liberty.
Pursuit of Happiness, is a strange one. Since happiness is an internal emotion one should not have to go far to get it. Also in a society that feeds people constant entertainment of one sort or another, I seem to find very few happy people. Maybe the pursuit is key and the direct feeding of it kills the feeling. Or maybe the marketing of too many products kills happiness. A complex topic.
CryoSat-1 was launched in 2005, CryoSat-2 in 2010. They are European projects but have been providing data that has been used all over the world, including for important work coming from the USA. Your “about time” comment is in line with your normal pig ignorant, self delusional, jingoistic bullshit. It’s time for you to fuck off somewhere else.
I’m not sure this comment is entirely fair to pigs.
not fair to pigs– a given.
Interesting, thanks Fred.
Self-storage: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38 billion industry
By Patrick Sisson
Despite recessions and demographic shifts, few building types have boomed like self-storage lockers. In fact, they’ve proven to be one of the surest bets in real estate over the last half century, while malls, starter homes, and even luxury commercial space in big cities, once safe and steady investments, have struggled. Behind the combination locks and roll-up doors lies a $38 billion industry.
One in 11 Americans pays an average of $91.14 per month to use self-storage, finding a place for the material overflow of the American Dream. According to SpareFoot, a company that tracks the self-storage industry, the United States boasts more than 50,000 facilities and roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rentable space. In other words, the volume of self-storage units in the country could fill the Hoover Dam with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes more than 26 times.
Though the adage “sex sells” is hard to dispute, the decidedly unsexy self-storage industry made $32.7 billion in 2016, according to Bloomberg, nearly three times Hollywood’s box office gross. Self-storage has seen 7.7 percent annual growth since 2012, according to analysts at IBISWorld, and now employs 144,000 nationwide.
The industry’s boom over the last few decades mirrors larger demographic and real estate trends: Americans relocating from the Midwest and Northeast to Sunbelt cities store old gear in self-storage units. Millennials moving into increasingly crowded, high-demand downtowns require extra space. A wave of downsizing baby boomers needs a place to put a lifetime of accumulated memories. Small businesses want room to store excess inventory.
The confluence of these trends has created a building spree. The last few years have seen record-setting investment in self-storage expansion, including $4 billion alone in 2017. This year alone, planned or existing warehouse expansion will add 40 million square feet, or about 800 facilities, to the market, according to Investing Daily.
Let’s assume that the stored stuff is valuable and worth keeping.
Now a storage locker runs from $2 to $1 per square foot per month to rent.
A similar area in a house costs about $120 per square foot to build and with taxes over a 60 year period comes to $360 per square foot or $0.50 per square foot per month.
Now the cost of a garage addition is $40/ft2 and with taxes makes it $0.17 per square foot per month.
So obviously it’s better to use one’s home or even better a garage to store all that “valuable” stuff. Maybe even rent space in a friend’s garage.
The big question is, did having that smaller house/apartment or lack of garage end up actually cheaper for the millions of users of storage space. Or maybe there is a bigger question.
The money to be made because of “pack rat” syndrome and the inability of people to make decisions is huge, almost comparable in cost for cable TV that provides dancing lights and sound on a display for even many more millions of people.
Personally , I think that material storage is far better and safer than cable television.
Maybe we should store the TV’s and live with the valuable clutter?
Some people have caught on, they keep buying more stuff but have yard sales where they practically give away that older valuable stuff, thus saving $90 per month while spending much more.
A few others just don’t buy all that stuff, but they are not ordinary people.
Much of this storage is for people living in dense urban areas, where the cost per sq foot is much higher than that.
People that live in expensive dense urban areas should know better. 🙂
I don’t have any data on the distribution of users and costs per square foot by locale. Just took the national average since the national average and stats were given.
Wouldn’t the storage cost rise along with the cost of real estate, canceling some of the differential?
The figures I gave are the cost of building not the cost of real estate, since one would already own the real estate.
Most people in dense urban areas don’t have the option of adding to their home (think condos). If they have a bunch of stuff that doesn’t fit, they have to move or rent storage…
They don’t have to build, just understand the cost per square foot to store in house as compared to store external.
Hoarders learn to walk between the aisles of unused stuff since most rooms are empty space anyway. Maybe ceiling high storage racks in the living room? 🙂
A couple of stories from insideevs as counterpoints to the negative press on Tesla reported further up.
SURVEY INDICATES MARKET SHARE GAINS AHEAD FOR TESLA
One of the most famed Apple analysts, Gene Munster, has recently turned his attention to Tesla. Munster’s firm, Loup Ventures, “surveyed 519 people in the U.S. regarding interest in buying a Tesla Model 3… [and] found a surprisingly high number (17%) of people would buy a Model 3 at $40,000. Even if this survey is off by 3x, the results still imply significant market share gains are in store for Tesla given their current U.S. unit market share is below 0.5%.”
TESLA’S MODEL S MARKET DOMINANCE COULD FORESHADOW MODEL 3’S FUTURE
Recently famed Apple analyst Gene Munster predicted market share gains ahead for Tesla based on a survey executed by his firm Loup Ventures. It turns out there are other indicators that point to market share gains down the line for Tesla. With so much riding on the success of Model 3, Seeking Alpha’s Victor Dergunov remains convinced that a stock “breakout appears imminent… and new all-time highs [are] very likely” for Tesla.
Disclaimer: I have no financial interests in Tesla. I just want to highlight that, when it comes to news in the EV arena, there appear to be countervailing forces at work.
That is good news, whether one likes Tesla cars or not. As a leader and innovator in the industry of EV’s, the very presence of Tesla urges on the world to move into these highly efficient, non-polluting and quiet vehicles.
FIJI PM: CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS OUR SURVIVAL
Fiji’s prime minister has said the Pacific island nation is in “a fight for survival” as climate change brings “almost constant” deadly cyclones.
From an energetic viewpoint, system added energy is being displayed as an increase in the energy of weather phenomena and their timing. This was an expected result and those in long flat plains or near long stretches of open ocean (islands) will initially bear the brunt of strong storms.
What is generally not discussed is that we are seeing only a portion of the energy input since most of the energy is going into the ocean and some of that is being buried deep. There will come a time in the future when that buried energy surfaces and adds to the surface energy of the ocean, thus creating conditions which are generally much more severe than what is currently being experienced.
There is physical evidence during peak warm times, even during interglacial periods, that 30 meter waves on the ocean were common. Could one even use ocean transport in such an ocean environment, considering both the waves and the winds necessary to create them. With stronger storms will aviation become too dangerous and diminished and most above ground infrastructure at peril of damage?
Will natural forcings bring this about in a shorter timeframe?
Garbage War?
US DEMANDS CHINA KEEP IMPORTING AMERICA’S GARBAGE
“As it tries to strike an agreement with the U.S. to avert a trade war that economists fear could destabilize global markets, China has an ace up its sleeve that it’s just about ready to play: The Communist Party last year implemented a ban on imports of recyclable material that is provoking a mild panic in the U.S. The reason? The U.S. relies on China to “import” much of its bulk recyclable waste. But last July, in an effort to battle the “illegal foreign garbage” influx into China, the country’s Ministry of Environmental Protection notified the World Trade Organization that it plans to ban imports of 24 types of solid waste materials, including soda bottles, mixed paper, recycled steel and newsprint.”
Where did American ingenuity go? Sounds like an opportunity to clean up our own mess and start taking some responsibility for our own actions. What do other developed countries do about the situation? Maybe we need to start learning here in the US.
Maybe the producers of these products should not get a free ride and need to be included in the solution.
I know it sounds harsh, but the world is not a wastebasket and the time for childish taking is over. It’s time to grow up.
Several Northern European countries are suffering from waste shortages and would love that trash.
As the cold weather draws to a close in the northern hemisphere (for most at least), the thoughts of heating degrees days will fade in the brightness of the inclining sun. So as a parting nod to those cold days that were and a vision of those that will come, here is a set of graphs of monthly heating degree days by year for my area (41N, USA, mid-Atlantic at the edge of the continental climate).
The winter months are highly variable with January range of 400, February at 600 and so on. With such large variability from year to year, how does one plan? Plan for the worst case is all one can do and remember that monthly totals tell little about what happened during that month. More insulation, more thermal mass are two ways to deal with the variations. All heating systems need batch storage to weather the lows. Getting caught short can be a numbing experience.
“It’s not just the government that’s pushing electric cars. The media is equally complicit. Both are engaged in what has to be described as nothing less than a concerted propaganda onslaught to convince the public that the naked emperor is indeed wearing a suit of the finest materials available…
GM says what it must. But it is what sells that will determine whether belief in the ‘all electric future’ becomes actuality. And – so far – electric cars don’t.
Sell.
Not without monster ‘incentives’ that dramatically lower the purchase price…
Press conference cheerleading aside, a car like the Bolt makes no economic sense. It costs about as much as a Lexus ES350. But it is not a Lexus ES350. It is an electrically-powered economy car… that isn’t very economical…
GM can crow about the Bolt’s sales increasing. Which is true. But only because GM is giving away the Bolt. Imagine a restaurant that only charged $5 a plate for a full course prime rib dinner. Plus ‘free’ drinks.
The restaurant would be very busy.
Until it ran out of prime rib and Scotch and sodas to give away…
The economic facts are simply too bulgy to be swept under the rug. The lumps show. This is why, incidentally, the sudden stampede to pass laws banning other-than-electric cars. If people no longer have a choice, then they have to choose an EV!
Now, they’ll sell!
This is a measure of both the desperation of the EV putchsers and the seriousness of their intent. They are determined.
The same applies to the media whores who are un-indicted co-conspirators in this mess. Who purvey this EV inevitability BS.
Who never ask:
Where, exactly, will the billions come from to erect the nationwide fast-charging infrastructure that is absolutely essential for EVs to ever be more than subsidized curiosities?
…Erecting a network of fast chargers is a project on the order of building the Interstate Highway System – but we are told that there is barely enough money to maintain the highways which already exist…
Why is the cost of battery replacement – which involves several thousand dollars – never discussed when electric cars are discussed by the media?
…Yet they never mention that fact that battery replacement is a routine part of the electric car ownership experience. It is outrageous.
No mention – ever – by mainstream media people of the fact that the range of an electric car is greatly reduced when the EV must cope with very cold or very hot weather, as either of these require the use of electrically powered accessories (heat and AC, respectively) that draw lots of electrical power, which is another way of saying their use drains the battery and so reduces the range.
These – and more – constitute the line in the sand that separates belief vs. is.
…ask yourself why this business is being pushed so hard, in defiance of some very stubborn facts.”
…ask yourself why this business is being pushed so hard, in defiance of some very stubborn facts.”
Instead I ask why you are such a Koch bros propaganda whore and why are you constantly pushing so hard against the reality that EVs are better and cleaner than ICEs and that every major and minor vehicle manufacturer is pedal to the metal developing EV tech? US auto manufacturers and Fossil fuel interests notwithstanding!
Don’t believe me? Go to any of the major car shows anywhere in the world today.
You have to be totally delusional or have an ideological agenda not to see the writing on the wall.
The US car manufacturers represented by GM, Ford and Chrysler are stuck in the past as far as their US market is concerned. Even they know that the rest of the world is going to be a huge market and that market is EVs
Anyone who cannot see the simple benefit from not burning about 15.000 gallons of fuel equivalent per EV is either delusional or has a fossil fuel agenda.
EV sales for Jan-Feb 2018 for the top ten plug-in manufacturers was 101,513. That is over 600,000 this year probably closer to 800,000 and I expect that to double quite quickly. With the fast ramp up of Tesla, those numbers are already old.
BTW, the top ten does not include GM or Ford.
People do not realize it yet but the combined effect of higher mpg ICE, hybrids and EV’s is already having a significant impact upon oil demand.
If America wants energy independence (which seems more a propaganda slogan than reality) a switch to mostly EV’s and a large increase in PV and wind power would do it.
Haha, when you highlight an argument you usually do it because it’s your best argument. If your best argument is an insult, you don’t have any good arguments.
Your ridiculous rant focuses on GM and the Bolt, but what about Tesla? Somehow Tesla did manage to build that super charger network which you think is impossible and has back-orders for 100s of thousand of cars – they can’t build them fast enough. In the luxury market, Tesla already rules – Mercedes, Lexus, BMW – anything over 80K is already being outsold by Tesla. You think a few thousand in incentives makes any difference to someone buying a 100K car? They are now going after the mid range of the car market and they just get better and better. Not just Tesla anymore, but Hyundai, VW, and soon others will have some great EVs.
“Tim Garrett is Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah who’s research focus is the physics of clouds. Professor Garrett joins Steven to discuss his work, and model, which shows a consistent link between the global economy and climate change.
Professor Garrett’s model indicates the constant requirement of 9.7 Watts to support every $1000 (adjusted to the 1990 Dollar) means it is impossible to decarbonise the economy and prevent catastrophic climate change within six decades.
Steven and Tim discuss why Jevon’s Paradox supports this position and means that as we constantly strive for energy efficiency, ironically, the more energy we use.
To find out more on Professor Garrett’s work please visit
For an additional explanation provided by Dr Richard Nolthenius please view his presentation here“
Professor Garrett’s model indicates the constant requirement of 9.7 Watts to support every $1000 (adjusted to the 1990 Dollar) means it is impossible to decarbonise the economy and prevent catastrophic climate change within six decades.
Tim Garret’s model is bullshit! He needs to get out into the real world a bit more. The world is changing and it may be that humanity won’t be able to save itself but it sure as hell won’t be because of Jevon’s paradox.
Energy positive family car Stella Lux, the energy positive family car. This means she is so efficient that she generates more energy than she consumes during the entire year, even in Dutch weather conditions! The aerodynamic design has an important role in this: consider, for example, the tunnel which runs through the center of the car. Furthermore, Stella Lux has an extended roof on both sides of the car. Because of this, we were able to place another row of solar panels on the car. Stella Lux is designed to be extremely light by using materials like carbon fibre and aluminium.
Fred —
THE WHALES WHO LOVE TO SING IN THE DARK
“The alphabet for the bowhead has got thousands of letters as far as we can tell,” Prof Kate Stafford, lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, told BBC News.
“I really think of humpback whale songs as being like classical music. Very ordered. They might last 20 – 30 minutes.”
“The alphabet for the bowhead has got thousands of letters as far as we can tell,”
Doug, TKS mucho! I’ll have to read up on the literature later. I needed a little relief from the morons and trolls around here lately! But can’t say I’m all that surprised… That’s a heck of a lot of gray matter in those heads.
Unfortunately their survival depends on humans… My apologies to them!
I lived in Maui for quite a while.
While underwater, the sound of the Humpbacks was haunting– and for months.
Yep, used to listen to them on dives here too. Haunting is the right description.
NAOM
FirstEnergy unit that runs power plants files for bankruptcy
Ever since I watched a youtube video on that vegan Beyond Burger, I’ve been getting hooked on all these nutrition videos. So much BS out there it’s way worse than climate change in terms of denial. The good news is there is some actual science, not just someones opinion. Dr. Greger of NutritionFacts.org is the most credible. They can take people who have type 2 diabetes for years and cure them in just a couple of months – just with diet.
Here is a recent “best of” from Dr. Gregor which covers most of the science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU
The diet is “whole plant based” – lots of starch, fruit, and vegetables. No added salt, sugar or oil. It’s 80% carbs and almost no fat.
Dr. Gregor has a bit of a blind spot on the salt – low salt testing has been a complete disaster. Most people’s blood pressure does not drop with less salt, but they get sicker. Now, they mostly say not to cook with a lot of salt, but use it freely to taste at the table.
My blood pressure was getting kind of high, so I’ve been trying it and it’s definitely helping. I’d eaten vegetarian a lot, but never completely vegan. It’s been very interesting, they put eggs and milk in everything and dropping the dairy seems like it made a big difference to me. I’m still eating a little meat on the weekends, mostly seafood, but we’ll see how it goes. In many places meat is reserved for holidays and celebrations (like a wedding) and that seems to be pretty harmless.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, the vegans seem to be winning for best health based on science. A recent report says 100 million Americans are pre-diabetic (that’s almost one third).
Three main reasons to eat more vegan meals and less meat
1. Better Health
2. Less cruelty
3. Better for the environment
May I suggest a book?
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
“The Vegetarian Myth is one of the most important books people, masses of them, can read, as we try with all our might, intelligence, skill, hope, dream and memory, to turn the disastrous course the planet is on. It’s a wonderful book, full of thoughtful, soulful teachings, and appropriate rage. My admiration for Lierre’s sharing of life experience and knowledge is complete.”
Alice Walker, prize-winning author, “The Color Purple”
On a side note–
You may want to grow(or hunt or gather) part of your food yourself—–
It actually makes one aware.
http://www.lierrekeith.com
I’m more interested in the latest Science than one person’s experience, but I’ll take a look, thanks. Not much opportunity to grow or gather food here, but I have done a lot of fishing.
Vegans need vitamin B12 – either a supplement or most of the milk substitutes have it. B12 is produced by bacteria in the soil and would be in our water except that we treat the water to get rid of bacteria and loose all the B12. Meat has B12 from that soil bacteria so meat eaters don’t need extra.
Also, vegans and meat eaters that don’t eat seafood need some omega 3 – I don’t like fish oil supplements, but there are other options made from algae and foods like flaxseed have some short chain omega 3’s.
Yes, most people agree the factory farms are a disaster and free range is better. Yes, grass lands need grazing animals, but the end product isn’t healthier – it’s still meat and you can’t feed the whole world meat 3 times a day with free range cattle. I was surprised how little fat wild animals have in their meat – it’s almost none. Chicken, pork and beef are something entirely different than kangaroo or rabbit. There was one study with kangaroo meat that seemed it might not be so bad, but they don’t have a lot of info on that. They do have plenty of data on vegans, and it’s winning on health.
I think this approach is missing the main problem: over eating. Too much food, regardless of the type, creates obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc., etc. Research has repeatedly shown that calorie restriction dramatically reduces all of the problems attributed to bad diet and lifestyle: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
I think everyone hates to say this, in part because it’s a direct attack on the food industry, in part because reducing food consumption is very very hard. It’s easier to demonize particular foods, depending on today’s fashion. It has been fat, it’s becoming sugar (which is certainly empty calories), but…I think it’s just food in general: “eat food, not too much…”.
I agree Nick.
And obviously getting out of the corporate food culture, where 10 calories produces 1 calorie of food.
Grains are keeping 7.6 billion alive, while destroying our ecosystems.
This is obviously a short term solution, with results that are not pleasant.
I’ll let you use your intelligence as to where this is heading—-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpZCOQWO5C8
A lot of grain is used for other purposes like making fuel of animal feed. Only about 20% of the US maize crop is eaten by humans.
Ah, your catching on!
Its called “corporate agriculture”.
They disagree, they don’t restrict calories at all. That’s one of the great features, low calorie diets do not work for the vast majority of people. They say fill up on starch (rice, potatoes, bread, and beans) and don’t worry about the calories. I can testify that the high fiber foods they recommend are so filling I can no longer eat anywhere near as much food.
Oil has 9 times more calories than starch, but to convert starch to fat is only 30% efficient so to put on the same weight in fat you don’t just have to eat 9 times more but 27 times more starch. On the other hand, added oil gets directly absorbed. French frys btw are at least 50% fat by calories. I spent a lot of time in Japan and saw first hand their diet and they didn’t get any high blood pressure or heat disease or diabetes (note Japanese Americans do). They ate mostly rice, and all they want without limitation, and you almost never saw anyone fat. But there is lots of science now showing that basing your diet primarily on starchy grains and legumes is the best. Up until 100 years ago or so, that’s what Americans ate as well. Yes, a chicken in every pot but just one per week for a family of four.
They call it the Standard American Diet or “SAD” and it’s obvious that it has issues.
“They disagree, they don’t restrict calories at all. That’s one of the great features, low calorie diets do not work for the vast majority of people. They say fill up on starch (rice, potatoes, bread, and beans) and don’t worry about the calories. I can testify that the high fiber foods they recommend are so filling I can no longer eat anywhere near as much food.”
Now you are shifting the goal post. 🙂
If you consume more calories than you need over a longer period of time your body saves the excess as fat, end of story.
Or from a different point of view: As long as you have enough physical activity and your demand is as high as your caloric intake, kind of food is a very secondary aspect. Different groups with good health had/have very different eating behaviour and food composition.
That many vegan people have a quite active life style is the main contribution for their good average health, most of the issues we have now (esp. in the USA) were unknown three generations ago when people worked hard and did not have excess food, many of them lived from “unhealthy” fat. 🙂
There are a couple of studies with nuts where adding 500 extra calories per day of nuts compared to a control group resulted in NO weight gain. They don’t know why, but maybe the fiber in the nuts stops some of the calories from being absorbed. So no, a calorie is a calorie isn’t true.
Another study using ultrasound to measure the thickness of an arterial wall in the patients neck to see how much they were closing up. Problem was, all the vegans were at normal weight (BMI) and the only people on the SAD diet they could find who were not fat were extreme athletes working out at least 40 hours per week. So you have couch potato vegans vs athletes and…. The vegans were slightly better.
They are going to the max to show the most gains – just imagine having diabetes for more than 10 years – taking insulin every day and then in just 3 weeks on a vegan diet being cured – no insulin needed. That’s cool, but it’s likely fine to back off a little on the no salt, sugar or oil. In fact, a salad needs a little oil in order for you to absorb the nutrients – they suggest adding nuts and seeds, but maybe a little oil is okay.
My goal was only to lower my blood pressure without drugs, I’m not checking my weight. I’m not being anywhere near as strict about added salt, sugar, or oil and even still, it’s working after just 2 months my blood pressure is much lower. But, I think it has more of a chance on weight than any thing I tried before (and I’ve tried everything) just from how it slows down your digestion – no more sugar highs, no more crashes. They are definitely on to something.
There are a couple of studies with nuts where adding 500 extra calories per day of nuts compared to a control group resulted in NO weight gain
If this study wasn’t done in a hospital, where the participants’ diets were strictly controlled, you don’t know why they didn’t gain weight. A reasonably hypothesis would be that the nuts made them feel full faster than other foods, so they ate less of other foods. It definitely doesn’t show that nut calories are different from other calories.
I’ve seen similar studies with very dark chocolate, but no one suggested that chocolate calories were different, just that very dark chocolate might suppress appetite.
My goal was only to lower my blood pressure without drugs, I’m not checking my weight
Well, that means that you don’t know if your reduced BP is due to weight loss.
My weight isn’t down enough to explain the blood pressure drop, it’s only been a couple of months. But its not like that’s a bad thing, I don’t really care if its just from weight loss.
Yes, the nut study was done in a hospital under a completely controlled setting. There was a second study with similar results, but the first one was funded by an almond company.
“There are a couple of studies with nuts where adding 500 extra calories per day of nuts compared to a control group resulted in NO weight gain.”
Nuts are fat. For me as scientist, it is hard to accept without hard data that nuts change the metabolism, i.e. make it more inefficient.
That hyptothesis could easily be checked in a controlled experiment with carful bookkeeping of caloric intake, one control group would be get simply additional 500 kcal fat. 🙂
Not so much changing the metabolism but the gut fauna? Lots of new stuff going on to change the composition of the gut life which affects the breakdown of food.
NAOM
Hi, I’ll reply to Preston to bounce Hightrekker’s book suggestion back to the top again – The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith.
Table of Contents:
1.Why This Book?
2. Moral Vegetarians
3. Political Vegetarians
4. Nutritional Vegetarians
5. To Save the World
How’s that! It addresses each of Preston’s 3 main reasons for choosing vegetarianism! (Although I will admit Preston doesn’t suggest giving up meat completely).
I found the argument against nutritional vegetarianism most compelling – it included a comparison of various mammal gut lengths from carnivore to omnivore to herbivore and homo sapiens is closer to the carnivore end of the spectrum than the herbivore end. The argument is we evolved a digestive system that’s incapable of extracting all the nutrients we need from food if we don’t eat meat.
And full disclosure – I like eating meat, and have many vegetarian acquaintances, and have found the book very useful for justifying my meat eating no matter what the philosophical reason they try to convince me with, so its a bit of a favourite 🙂
That’s complete BS about “homo sapiens is closer to the carnivore end of the spectrum than the herbivore end”. All the great apes and monkeys in the wild are herbivore eating mostly fruit and leaves with only a tiny amount of insects. Our saliva digests starch, not meat. No, the human gut length has adapted a bit for cooking but is still way to long for meat which putrefys. I’ll bet all the rest of his arguments are equally invalid. That’s why I prefer people who stick with science.
Yes, like climate change it’s easy to be in denial. I’m probably in denial about salt.
Starches and sugars are a quick way to cardiovascular disease for about 60 percent of the population.
That’s not true according to the science. Fat causes diabetes, not sugar – seriously.
Here is one of Dr Gregor’s videos on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0qZK33Wyec
Magic beans are only in fairy tales.
Try to keep an open mind and look at the science. this is an important point.
Diabetes is defined by high blood sugar but look a little deeper and the high blood sugar is caused by insulin resistance (type 2 anyway). Insulin resistance is caused by lipotoxicity (to much fat in the cells)
Lipotoxicity is a metabolic syndrome that results from the accumulation of lipid intermediates in non-adipose tissue, leading to cellular dysfunction and death. The tissues normally affected include the kidneys, liver, heart and skeletal muscle. Lipotoxicity is believed to have a role in heart failure, obesity, and diabetes, and is estimated to affect approximately 25% of the adult American population.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipotoxicity
In the 1950s a doctor showed a diet of nothing but rice and fruit cures diabetes – that’s 100% starch and sugar. And today they are curing diabetes with a 80% carb, 10% protein and 10% fat.
Here are the details from Dr. Gregor…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-f9Q_-tT68
Preston, I studied the biochemistry involved years ago and attended lectures on cardiovascular disease biochemistry.
The quickest way to overstress the pancreas and cause fatty acid buildup in the bloodstream is to eat lots of bread, potatoes, sugar and other high glycemic foods.
The fat buildup is a side effect, not a cause. It’s the constant surges of high blood sugar that cause the diseases, which is why your doctor keeps speaking about low glycemic foods.
The biochemistry has not changed, beans are still a decent way to get carbohydrates as are other low glycemic foods but they are not magical. When mixing low glycemic foods with high glycemic foods, the low glycemic foods can slow the uptake of sugars from the high glycemic foods.
Test your blood sugar before and after eating a meal. See how it responds with different food combinations.
The biochemistry hasn’t changed, but theories don’t always pan out once tested and the science evolves. The Okinawans in Japan ate mostly white rice and sweet potatoes and no one got fat or diabetes. Also, why wouldn’t diabetes of been rampant in rural china where they ate nothing but white rice?
They talk about the meal after effect with beans. Subjects were given a shot of pure glucose in the morning and their blood sugar monitored. The ones that ate beans the night before did not have the huge spike in blood sugar and without that triggering too much insulin, they didn’t have the sink in blood sugar levels a few hour later.
In addition to all the fats in modern meat there is also the issue of heme iron. The human body has no way to remove excess iron and the heme form in meat is extremely bio available – so if you eat meat, it just builds up. You might of noticed they removed most of the iron from vitamin supplements, especially those for men. That’s because testing showed iron supplements were hurting. A study in Japan showed how an iron rich solution contracts the arteries as effectively as nicotine.
For me, this has been fun. “Vegan” foods always were so awful but not now. I prefer many of the vegan versions. I never even dreamed of dropping dairy and was surprised how good a soy latte is and how much better I feel. I thought corn was uneatable without butter – but salt pepper, a little hot sauce – it’s great! Seriously, I had never even tried corn without the butter. I doubt I’ll ever be completely vegan. I’d rater eat a little seafood than take a fish oil pill, but I do see the merit and well see…
“The Okinawans in Japan ate mostly white rice and sweet potatoes and no one got fat or diabetes”
Islanders not eating much fish? Amazing.
Could be they labored hard all day so that sugar spikes were limited. Could be some genetic factors. You give no actual studies so meaningful dialogue dries up quickly.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21375144
Here are a bunch of meat eaters with low diabetes rates that are getting higher now. Guess the introduction of the high starch/sugar diet, and changing lifestyles might just be the answer.
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/11/9/693
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/10/1766
The Okinawans in Japan ate mostly white rice and sweet potatoes and no one got fat or diabetes. Also, why wouldn’t diabetes of been rampant in rural china where they ate nothing but white rice?
Because both populations ate very few calories, at least compared to their exercise levels. These were very, very thin people.
Okinawa in particular is well researched as a place where calories have historically been very restricted – they’ve had very unusual longevity as a result.
Yes okay, vegans are thin. Yes, they ate some fish, but 80% of the calories were from rice and potatoes. I spent a lot of time in Japan and before the 1990s heart disease, diabetes, and obesity was unknown. The diet was mostly white rice, the only beef they had was shabu-shabu at $100 per serving.
The best quality fast food in the country
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzKI28L4P80&list=PLl1C9BZ4NjRijNajgoyz7HP7XaHvIxCwM&index=1
http://www.elpolloloco.com/our-food/
“That’s not true according to the science. Fat causes diabetes, not sugar – seriously.”
Yes, body fat. The origion of this could be fat or carbs. What is your point?
The criticla aspect is lack of demand with too high caloric intake, source is secondara issue.
You provide no evidence that diabetes type II is correlated to a certain type caloric intake, the only commone denominator is that people eat too much and gain visceral fat.
Diabetes II has become an issue only after WWII when food became cheap. It sharp increase excludes genetic causes as main driving force.
I think exercise immediately after eating high carbohydrate food can slow down the insulin surge that lays down the fat from sugar, also if you eat a lot of fibre with the sugar it helps – or something like that. Orange juice and coke are rally bad as the sugar goes straight to the blood stream. There was a pretty good film a few years ago about it (maybe called Sugar?).
“That’s not true according to the science. Fat causes diabetes, not sugar – seriously.”
Yes, body fat. The origin of this could be fat or carbs in the food. What is your point?
The criticla aspect is lack of demand with too high caloric intake, source is secondary issue.
Hi Preston,
I’m not an expert, but Lierre backs up her stuff with peer reviewed articles. In this case she quotes from a paper in the Journal of Nutrition Vol 15, No 6, 1999, “Nutritional Characteristics of Wild Primate Foods: Do the Diets of Our Closest Living Relatives Have Lessons for Us” by Katherine Milton, PhD.
There is a figure that compares the relative gut volume by part, for gibbon, siamang, orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and human. (I have tried a few ways to post it here, but can’t. You can see it here – https://rawfoodsos.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/gutpart.jpg – or google scholar the article).
The massive difference for humans is in the much bigger volume of the small intenstine and the much smaller volume of the colon.
A page on the UC Davis integrative Medicine website (https://ucdintegrativemedicine.com/2016/03/youre-not-cow-gorilla-dont-eat-like-one-either/#gs.rrEev38) explains all about the hindgut fermentation digestive system that monogastric herbivores have which requires a long colon.
Perhaps I gave the wrong impression with my disclosure. “The Vegetarian Myth” is a very science-based, nuanced book. The book investigates the main claims for vegetarianism in much the same way the skeptical science website investigates the claims of climate change deniers – hence the table of contents. Having shown in this case the arguments in the book have scientific merit and depth (it was helpful of you to choose great apes for your example), I hope you are willing to reconsider jumping to conclusions that all “his” (another jumped to assumption) arguments are invalid. Reading your comment I’ve jumped to the conclusion you’re a bad (non-scientific) judge of which people stick to science (because your BS call pisses me off).
Cheers, Phil
Just to wedge my 2 cents worth in…
I highly recommend Gary Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories” I believe it is a seminal work on nutrition from many angles. Also “The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz. Plus a slew of other books on how the current paradigm of diet based on the ‘food pyramid’ is wrong and is a big reason for the obesity, diabetes, CVD, cancer and other diseases of civilization. Many nutrition MDs have had great success in treating Type 2 Diabetes with a high fat, low carb diet. It makes a lot more sense, given that diabetes is largely a disease of carb intolerance.
There is plenty of scientific evidence that points toward a high fat, low carb diet being the healthy way to go.
Nutrition is a big, complex subject and issues can’t begin to be settled in a few sound bytes on a blog with ‘dueling URLs’.
Also take a look at “The Case Against Sugar” also by Gary Taubes.
I follow a high fat, low carb diet and I can basically eat all I want and not gain weight. Obesity is not simply a matter of calories in, calories out. It has a lot to do with how different foods are metabolized.
Before drawing hard conclusions about nutrition and diet, read up on some of these authors and researchers. One thing for sure is, unfortunately, much nutrition related research is poorly done and a basic understanding of the difficulties in doing that type of research will help one keep an open mind on the subject.
I could go on for pages, but I’ll heed my own warning about sound bytes.
ET
I agree with a lot of what you are saying but for me, as someone who is too fat, it doesn’t seem logical that the answer is more fat in my diet. They can take samples of someone’s fat and it matches the type of fat in their diet – its very hard for the body to convert carbs to fat, so why bother? The fat that gets stored is the fat in the persons diet. Less fat in the diet means less fat on the person. Also, humans run on carbs – especially the brain and I’m afraid of the long term issues on that low carb diet.
But like you said, nutrition is complicated. This Raymond Francis guy agrees with you about sugar and grains like wheat. They guy was nearly dead at 48, but is now 80 and looks fantastic. I’m sure he is speaking your language.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XExB45GRrfc&t=3819s
He sure has much better skin than the super low fat guys who tend to be very wrinkled. I though maybe I was just used to the fat american faces, but Francis shows how good you could look at 80.
His presentation is kind of low on details, but he also bans refined oils and dairy. He says meat is full of pesticides and toxins that bio accumulate, so he’s not eating that either. It’s really not all that different than what I’m doing, so I’ll look into his info more. He’s big on Sauna, maybe that’s helping his skin? He lost me with the anti-vax comments, but if he just means flu, that might be right.
Anyway, thanks everyone for your comments. Anyone out their with diabetes or high blood pressure check out “What the Health” on Netflix to see what is possible, but don’t stop taking you medications without you doctor’s supervision.
It may be counter-intuitive that [too much] dietary fat is not the reason people get fat, but there is really sound science behind this. If you want to lose weight the most direct way is to cut the carbs and up the fat. I can pull up a lot of studies showing this. The quality of the fat is important. Vegetable oils are not good — too much Omega 6. Stick with either animal fats or, if you want to go the veggie route, coconut oil (saturated fat), olive oil (mono-unsaturated fat, avocados, etc.
Another good read that overturns the current low fat high carb paradigm is “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” by Jeff Volek, PhD, RD and Stephen Phinney, MD, PhD.
The body converts carbs to fat very easily and this is why we have such a problem. The other part of this debate is the demonization of cholesterol. Along with the demonization of fat, it has caused immense health problems (not to mention huge profits for the statin industry).
Taking the big picture view, the most compelling evidence in favor of meat being a healthy part of a human diet comes from archeological evidence. Whenever there has been an agricultural society developing and pushing out the hunter-gatherers archeological evidence shows clearly that the hunter-gatherers had a healthier diet as shown by their larger healthier bone structure. As opposed to the agriculturalists who became stunted and having dietary deficiencies causing rickets, beri-beri and other conditions. Granted, the life expectancy for all humans was pretty low in this period of human development, but the hunter-gatherers had a distinct advantage over the agriculturalists. I believe the Lierre Keith book goes into this.
Keep reading up on this stuff, it is probably the most important thing in having a healthy life.
ET
There are some people experimenting with a vegan based keto diet. I’m not sure why, they are already very thin, but they want to try it. Animals bio-accumulated pesticides and other pollutants in their fat so you get a concentrated hit – i don’t agree those are good.
Also, when you look around at all the fat Americans, just what do you think we eat that’s making us fat? I’ll tell you, it’s meats, cheese, cookies, ice cream, cake. Yes, there are some carbs in a lot of it, but by far most of the calories are fat. They aren’t eating bowl after bowl of rice or whole loaves of bread. They might eat a potato or corn, but not without adding a ton of butter. On the other hand, they do eat bowl after bowl of rice in Asia without the fat, and everyone is thin.
The Adkins folks used to make a big deal about 3 times more weight loss than the low fat controls after 1 year – but it was 0.3lbs lost vs 1lbs lost for Adkins – not significant within the margin of error. Another big trial recently showed similar results. Short term either group does pretty good, with the best results after about 2 months and anything that reduces weight helps with diabetes and high blood pressure. I’m at the 2 month mark, where everyone is happy – so well see.
The numbers I’ve heard is a 30% conversion efficiency for humans to convert starch to fat, so no that isn’t an easy thing.
The idea behind the whole plant based diet, however, isn’t really focused on fat vs carbs. They agree with those that think refined sugar is bad but they think a whole plant food with sugar, like an apple, is good. Similarly, refined oils are bad but nuts are good. Doing a high fat low carb vegan version might be interesting – but I’ll leave that to someone else to try.
Lierre is science based to the max.
That is the problem with our earth destroying, vegan people who have never got their hands dirty or bloody.
My take on the human digestive system is that it is unique because it is mostly outside the body. We have a short gut like a carnivore, but we also have weak teeth and jaws. So claiming we are carnivores is dubious at best. Heck even my house cat can eat a mouse whole without much trouble. I doubt I could (very well).
It is often claimed that Man invented fire, but the opposite is the case. A very smart primate invented fire, and using it converted that primate into Man. Fire makes it possible to digest food much more easily. You can roast meat and potatoes on a fire, greatly reducing the need for a robust digestive system.
So mankind’s digestive system atrophied, like the eyes of a fish species living in a cave. Simple comparisons to other animals need to take this into consideration. We have a short gut and weak jaws because we have evolved to eat cooked food.
P.S. And because we have weak jaws, we have fragile skulls, which can swell up to fit big brains.
Peter Ungar argues that we have weak jaws (and bad teeth) because we eat soft food:
https://aeon.co/ideas/its-not-that-your-teeth-are-too-big-your-jaw-is-too-small
Brings to mind the joke:
“what prize was given to the bodies’ weakest muscle?
A trophy.”
As far as human nutrition goes, as far as I can tell from the literature, we still don’t really know what is going on. It seems clearly established though that it isn’t as simple as ‘eat less, move more’, or that calories in vs calories out determine body fat percentages.
My own prejudices lie along the lines of ‘what did we evolve to eat?’, and that if and when we figure out the full story, gut flora will play an enormous role in the whole equation.
In our evolutionary environment we didn’t have access to carbs, sugars, or vegetable lipids that didn’t come wrapped in a fiber package, and trans-fats simply did not exist.
I suspect that anti-biotics have played a big role in the obesity crisis thanks to wreaking havoc on gut flora, and that, in conjunction with processed carbs and sugars stripped of fiber, tells the bulk of the obesity story of the last 40 years.
When I was a child, very few people were fat, let alone obese (U.S.), and now so many are. The human genome and human appetite didn’t change in the last 40 years. It’s not a will-power problem. Something systemic has gone awry.
Links of interest:
Low fat vs low carb – study says: doesn’t matter:
https://examine.com/nutrition/low-fat-vs-low-carb-for-weight-loss/
The Excrement Experiment:
Turns out the Hadza don’t just have good teeth, they have good shit too:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/excrement-experiment
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/well/live/unlocking-the-secrets-of-the-microbiome.html
Germs are us: a broader survey of the human microbiome
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/22/germs-are-us
If you eat at McDonalds, make sure to drink orange juice with it:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844681/
>Peter Ungar argues that we have weak jaws (and bad teeth) because we eat soft food
That’s exactly what I’m arguing.
Mammals are different from reptiles because they have a single hole on each side of the skull to connect the jaws muscles to the top of the skull. (Reptiles and birds have two holes.) Your cheekbone is a sort of handle on the side of your face. The jaw muscles are attached to the flat area at the back and outside of your jaw. They go behind the cheekbone and through the hole (the “temple” ) and then attach to the side of your skull. When you flex your jaw muscles you can feel them on your jaw and in your temple.
Strong muscles need a good place to anchor. So chimpanzees and most hominids have a sagittal crest on the top of the skull. In humans it disappeared because humans eat cooked food. It makes chimpanzee jaws very strong, but limits the ability of the brain case to expand after birth.
Here’s a better pic showing humans vs early hominids. Notice the massive cheekbone (“zygomatic arch”) for stabilizing the face during chewing and the robust jaw and teeth.
Notice also the balloon like expansion of the braincase in the human skull, which is allowed by the lack of a sagittal crest.
Besides the weak jaw and small canines, humans have about half the strength per pound compared to the other apes.
Maybe the other way around – we have to eat soft foods because we have weak jaws, and we have weak jaws because we had to get rid of the big muscles there to make room for our bigger brains (I seem to remember they have found the bit of DNA that is different between chimps and humans responsible for this, along with the bit that gives us full control of thumb movement).
Maybe the other way around – we have to eat soft foods because we have weak jaws, and we have weak jaws because we had to get rid of the big muscles there to make room for our bigger brains
Yep! Seems like a lot of people out there don’t understand the TOE. This is a good example as to why lamarckism has been discredited as an evolutionary theory. It is also known as the heritability of acquired characteristics or soft inheritance. (pun intended)
That isn’t how evolution works.
The book “Catching Fire” by Richard Wrangham makes the case that the use of fire predated the evolution of humans and contributed to their evolution with the smaller jaw bones and muscles. It makes more sense to me to consider this a co-evolutionary process. The use of fire for cooking food made large muscular jaws less necessary so these characteristics were left behind, so to speak, and the feedback of the larger brain probably took part in further refinement of the use of cooking, etc.
What is very clear to me is that humans evolved as omnivores and ate meat whenever it was available and were generally healthier when they had meat as part of their diet.
I read a book recently that I can’t remember the title of, but the author cites research showing that humans are able to adapt very quickly to a change in diet, like in a matter of days. The human digestive system is very ‘malleable’ if you will, in its ability to host microbes that aid in the digestion of a wide variety of foods.
One recent title that relates to the microbiome of Homo Sapiens is “I Contain Multitudes” by Ed Yong. A fascinating book that makes the case (in my opinion) that evolution is very possibly a much more flexible process than the current Neo-Darwinist paradigm allows.
I know, everyone’s burned out on this topic, but here is Dr. Greger going through the paleo-poop research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEZYu_7zR4
They estimate the daily fiber content was over 125 grams per day (compares to 15grams for the average american). For most of the last 2 million years since humanoids branched off from the great apes, fiber equaled food. They have found how fiber triggers the feedback that signals fullness. And no, you don’t get a hundred grams of fiber eating meat, so no our ancestors weren’t eating meat all the time.
Regarding the low carb diets, I did find some really cool effects. The high fat levels can act like a sponge and pull bio-accumulated toxins out of your stored fat. Then with low carbs, the fat gets burned and the toxins eliminated. Sounds great and I may try it someday. I still don’t think its good as a long term lifestyle, but a few days, maybe a few weeks, it could be very good (well, a vegan version anyway)
The other thing pretty unique about humans is we are by far the best swimmers. Maybe we’ve adapted some for seafood, the omega 3’s are needed to prevent dementia in old age – plant based sources only supply short chain omega 3’s, which are hard to convert to long chain for older people. Plus, eating some of it raw is done in many cultures.
Speaking of atrophy, humans have the genes to produce vitamin C, but we were getting so much in our diet for so long we lost the ability to produce it.
People have this romantic notion of a cave man with a mastodon leg cooking over the fire. Hunters are not successful anywhere near everyday, hunter/gatherers mostly eat plants. Plus, life expectancy was what? Paleontologists have looked at the Paleo diet and they mostly find starch residues on the teeth. They think they were cooking lots of legumes and they estimate 100 grams per day of fiber(which is a lot). The photo is what broccoli looked like at the time, yumm. Life must of been hard. Of course, moving north into Europe there aren’t a lot of plants in the winter, so meat had to become a bigger part of the diet, but that happened relatively recently from an evolutionary standpoint.
Hi Preston, I’m not sure why you want to keep repeating the romantic myths of vegetarianism. You say: People have this romantic notion of a cave man with a mastodon leg cooking over the fire. Hunters are not successful anywhere near everyday, hunter/gatherers mostly eat plants.”
However, scientists say (in the article “Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Mar;71(3):682-92.)
my bold
“whenever and wherever it was ecologically possible”
what does that mean? What do the numbers look like without that screen? You are talking about modern hunter -gatherers? What is their life expectancy vs the ones eating more plants. Humans in the Paleolithic period lived typically to about 40 years old and many children died before the onset of puberty.
The study you cited gets quoted allover the place, but it would be nice to see it replicated, I’ll bet it’s BS.
Okay, Phil – I though more about it, and maybe but…
Even if it’s true for modern hunter/gatherers, that’s only because the very primitive tribes that eat more plants today are called farmers. I’ll also bet those modern hunters have many days per year with nothing to eat. I would also expect among primitive tribes, the farmers far outnumber the hunters. But what was it like before there was farming?
Just for clarity, no one (I don’t think) is claiming humans are carnivores. I wrote “a comparison of various mammal gut lengths from carnivore to omnivore to herbivore and homo sapiens is closer to the carnivore end of the spectrum than the herbivore end”. I should have included that still leaves us in the omnivore range.
I like the idea of thinking of food preparation and cooking as part of our digestive system.
And another factoid; a potato is a USO, an underground storage organ.
Cheers!
Phil S,
Human dentition supports your view that we’re pretty well-equipped to be omnivores.
“Dr. Greger of NutritionFacts.org is the most credible.”
Load of bullshit.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-by-veganism/
Everyone has some biases, he is not perfect. I mentioned the data on salt hasn’t panned out, but he is one of the best. He sites several peer reviewed studies showing people cured of diabetes, the one above they forced people to eat extra on the vegan diet so they didn’t loose to much weight compared to the controls and they still got better.
Dude, your boy doesn’t think it’s fair in the Adventist study to compare the fat meat eaters to the vegans who all have normal weights. Yes, the one skinny meat eater didn’t get heart disease and no there isn’t enough data to remove that factor because there aren’t any fat vegans to compare to. In the Adventist study, no one smokes or drinks and they all have the same community support – but some eat meat and some don’t. Why would I care if the vegans were living longer from being thinner or from the diet when it clearly was the diet that made them thin? BTW, the vegan Adventists are now outliving even the Okanowans.
I’m pretty sure DR Gregeor went though all the points made on that website – the group of long lived Norwegians were recent immigrants from plant eating places and soon lost their edge once they ate meat for awhile, sometime people don’t call themselves vegetarian even though they eat very little meat and so on.
Why would I care if the vegans were living longer from being thinner or from the diet when it clearly was the diet that made them thin?
It’s important: is a vegan diet inherently better for you, or is it just a better weight loss strategy?
Those are very different propositions. For example, if it’s just a question of weight loss, then someone who’s thin doesn’t need to question their dietary choices.
Yes I get that, but Dr. Gregor was only talking about life expectancy and as a group the Vegans did better in the study – maybe because they all had a normal BMI, or maybe not, but it is hardly a valid criticism of Dr. Gregor’s statements on the subject.
Well, that comment was addressing that specific idea, rather than addressing Dr. Gregor’s statements in general.
A paper about how inaccurate IEA predictions on the energy market are.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281939932_The_projections_for_the_future_and_quality_in_the_past_of_the_World_Energy_Outlook_for_solar_PV_and_other_renewable_energy_technologies
IEA, Idiotic Energy Association.
Projections concerning human society are almost useless now beyond 5 to 10 years. We are up against or very near tipping points and thresholds, which means directions could change dramatically and unexpectedly in the near future. The best we can hope for is a damping effect executed by large portions of the population acting in concert, but still it will only be a damping effect.
Mostly the concert seems to play the same old music with some new overtones.
Waiting until once is forced to act is about like hitting the brakes at the stoplight instead of before.
If I had to guess I would say the IEA is extremely top down with a couple key figures at the top determining the methods to apply and a bunch of (policy) mindless mathematicians and statisticians cranking out charts at the middle and bottom.
The formulas are probably all correct – but the assumptions are trash. Whether these top are just ignorant (Dummy in-Dummy out) or willfully misguiding to appease an Oil/Gas agenda is hard to say without serious investigative journalism.
But to look at one quick example. Head of IEA is Faith Birol. Where did he get his start? OPEC. You could probably stop right there. What’s his education background? He’s an energy economist – and the global economy of energy revolves around oil not RE. So is he stupid or an idiot? Probably not. Ideology primarily works subconsciously without ever being recognized.
He comes from the oil industry (bias) and he is trained in classical economics which is about as useless as it gets and is almost prima facie propaganda (incorrect assumptions about how the world works – cheerleading the ideology of neoliberal capitalism).
Three nuclear power plants in Ohio shutting down.
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20180329/news/156446/firstenergy-solutions-close-three-nuclear-power-plants-including-perry
Cheap natural gas is changing the landscape of electrical energy. With cheap power being so available from natural gas and renewable energy, it will be extremely difficult for new nuclear to proceed unless the technology changes dramatically.
Since 2011 the annual US electric power consumption of coal has dropped from 932,000 short tons to about 650,000 short tons in 2017.
Nuclear will probably only survive due to subsidies.
The much-touted ‘small modular reactors’ will not be the game changers the pro-nuclear folks claim to be.
“Each reactor unit would produce 190 megawatts of electricity or heat for industrial processes.
Terrestrial says its design will produce a reactor that is simple to operate, cost competitive and could be constructed in four years with an upfront investment of less than $1 billion.”
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article207241184.html
The EPR reactor in Olkiluoto, Finland was advertised to cost 3 billion (EURO, for 1,600 MW) at less than 5 years to build IIRC.
The real cost is currently estimated to be over 9 billion EURO.
Putting it all together:
Terrestrial SMR: “less than” $5.25 million per MW
Olkiluoto EPR: over $6.9 million per MW
It would be cheaper to let the Koreans build one of their APR-1400. They’re quite good at it.
Podcast – TMI – 39 years ago. History of denial
Sorry, can’t find anything.
Could you please provide a link to the podcast?
Most of America’s Fruit Is Now Imported. Is That a Bad Thing?
By DAVID KARP
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/dining/fruit-vegetables-imports.html
It’s obvious to anyone who visits an American supermarket in winter — past displays brimming with Chilean grapes, Mexican berries and Vietnamese dragon fruit — that foreign farms supply much of our produce.
Imports have increased steadily for decades, but the extent of the change may be surprising: More than half of the fresh fruit and almost a third of the fresh vegetables Americans buy now come from other countries.
Although local, seasonal and farm-to-table are watchwords for many consumers, globalization has triumphed in the produce aisle. And despite the protectionist “America First” message coming from the Trump administration, the growth in imports appears likely to continue.
The surge in imports, mostly from Latin America and Canada, flows from many other changes during the last 40 years, starting with improvements in roads, containerized shipping and storage technology. Horticulturists developed varieties and growing practices adapted to warmer climates — enabling, say, blueberries and blackberries to be grown in central Mexico.
Growth in American incomes spurred greater demand for fresh produce year-round. Immigrants brought tastes for the foods of their homelands, and in some cases (like avocados and mangoes) these tastes have became mainstream. Foreign growers took advantage of lower labor costs. International trade agreements reduced tariffs and other obstacles to imports, while many American farmers, facing regulatory hurdles at home, have responded by shifting production abroad, mainly to Mexico.
“America first” is pretty dumb. The whole thing about flag waving all the time makes Americans look silly.
The problem that Americans have is that they don’t have any sense of place or other ways of marking their identities, except skin color. They lack any sense of community, so everyone has to wear a flag pin to be somebody.
The problem with America farmers is that they don’t understand that commodity prices are always going to fall, which means they have to “get big, get a niche, or get out”.
Complaining about organic farming or anti-GMO campaigners is the stupidest thing a farmer can do. If consumers are willing to pay more for specialties, farmers will profit from it.
Fighting imports with America First slogans is a terrible idea. Instead, farmers should start “buy local” campaigns. The demand side needs to change. They should oppose restaurant chains and packaged food companies that want to serve all Americans the same food, and focus on local specialties. They should push for farmers markets in residential neighborhoods. They should support hole-in-the-wall eateries run by enthusiastic cooks instead of franchises run by investors intent on reducing labor costs and material costs.
Developing a sense of place and of community would improve the quality of life of consumers and create a captive audience for producers. A good example of this is German beer — most of it is consumed within 50 km of where it is brewed, and there are thousands of companies. American craft brewers get it. It’s time for farmers to catch on.
Paywall: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/saudi-arabia-plans-200bn-solar-park-for-an-oil-free-future-ghzsnhxt7
The only question I have is, what makes them think the rest of the world won’t stop using fossil fuels as well, thereby eliminating much of the market they think they can sell to in the future?
It will be a decades long transition away from FF, and FF will still be used for non-transportation and non-utility, such as chemicals, plastics, roadways for more decades after that.
KSA won’t be producing 10 million BOPD forever.
KSA is planning for future decades, not just thinking about the next quarter like in USA.
Why would the Saudi’s care if some of their resources stayed in ground? They could be selling electric power to Europe and parts of Asia and still running a viable economy. With 6 to 7 kWh/m2 solar energy per day oil would become a small part of their economy as they made money from sunlight. Much of that solar energy is direct radiation. The Saudi’s also have wind resources to be tapped.
From the US Army Missile Command paper, it can be noticed that much of Saudi Arabia winter seasonal minimum solar energy equals northeast US yearly average solar energy insolation. The maximums hit up to 9 kWh/m2/day.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a269970.pdf
They are not ideally situated geographically and politically, but politics change depending upon advantage.
Northwest African countries are better situated geographically to provide power to Europe.
Adding to your point:
There’s a two hour time difference between Riad, Saudi Arabia and Vienna, Austria. Saudi PV could provide power at the first load peak in the morning (1), at dawn in Europe.
It’s just 2,700 km from Central Arabia to Greece. 3,200 to Italy. Both possible entry points to the ENTSO-E power grid (2).
Covering that distance at several 10s of GW does not look like too much of a challenge. There are several long distance HVDC projects in operation at comparable distance already. With one capable of transporting 10 GW under construction in China. (3)
The same applies for Saudi-Arabia and India.
(1)
Peak(s) easily visible in this diagram
https://energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=conventional&year=2017&month=8
(2) ENTSO-E interactive grid map
https://www.entsoe.eu/map/Pages/default.aspx
(3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects
It would be up to the consumer to provide the storage for the 24 or 48 hour period needed to level the diurnal cycle.
chemicals, plastics, roadways for more decades after that.
Those don’t involve burning, which means that they don’t necessarily create the same pollution problems. Which raises the question: what about coal? As coal consumption drops due to pollution concerns, it would be a very low cost competitor to oil. Selling to these markets would just make sense.
China is using coal as a petrochemical feedstock…
Those don’t involve burning, which means that they don’t necessarily create the same pollution problems.
Which is kinda of the main advantage of switching to EVs and renewables in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaLwpUXFlQ0
Also included a follow up by Fully Charged on the 2018 Nissan Leaf which may have a serious issue with it’s fast charging capability. Could be due to Nissan having made a decision not to include a BMS to control battery temperature.
Good news for Islandboy is, that the Nissan van he is looking to buy, while built on basically the same platform does include a BMS.
Cheers!
the $200 billion nameplate number is probably misleading. I’ve dug into the actual publications of the Vision 2030 and they are no where near to committing to even a fraction of $200 billion to solar installation. I forget the exact number but it was tiny – less than 20 GW by 2030, which would cost closer to $20 billion.
So the $200 billion includes building factories and roads and services in SA as well as research around the world which will probably include things like nuclear. I have no problem with Vision 2030 per say, but to think ME or SA are LEADING the RE future is completely ass backwards – they are the worst models of global stewardship, wholly inadequate to the task at hand.
This vision 2030 is about attracting foreign investment and helping the economy – not really about RE. Diversification from FF is just part of that messaging.
The robots are killing Tesla
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-robots-are-killing-it-2018-3
It takes time to make new automation systems work even when devised by geniuses like Edison, who made the first almost fully automated industrial system. Took about two years to get it smoothed out but then it ran like a charm.
Should take Tesla a few months but anyone who expects new systems to work correctly at first try is not smart enough to be at the site. Maybe they could run a delivery truck, until they are automated out of that job. 🙂
The article does not cover much of the costs of using employees at an industrial site. Beside insurance costs, there are management costs, benefits costs, safety costs, human resource costs, etc.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/average-cost-factory-worker_n_1327413.html
Meanwhile, developed countries are starting to think ahead about how to handle the upcoming loss of jobs to automation. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/03/finland-trials-basic-income-for-unemployed
—that the world’s best carmakers, the Japanese, try to limit automation because it “is expensive and is statistically inversely correlated to quality.” Their approach is to get the process right first, then bring in the robots —
We shall see—-
Repeating what was already said in the article you posted does not provide any further information. Sort of like saying things louder will make a foreigner understand your language.
Here, I will try it.
“It takes time to make new automation systems work even when devised by geniuses like Edison, who made the first almost fully automated industrial system. Took about two years to get it smoothed out but then it ran like a charm.
Should take Tesla a few months but anyone who expects new systems to work correctly at first try is not smart enough to be at the site. ”
Verstehen?
I’m not against automation——
Just letting reality seep gradually in——-
(I would not fight against Japanese Auto Manufacturing).
Lets see if Tesla can pull this off—–
(I actually used E Vehicles regularly, and hybrids on a regular basis— I’m currently auto free when it comes to driving)
Who knows, maybe they set too many problems to solve at once. They are a leader and have been successful so far, but anyone can bite off too much at once.
I have seen great companies with fantastic products go under because they started at the wrong time. Starting just before a recession with all those initial loans will defeat anyone. Luckily Tesla started earlier, but with the Gigafactory and the Tesla 3 starting now(huge investments), it may be the timing more than anything that takes them down as the economy stalls and drops.
We shall see– probably shortly.
Oh economic downturn, wherefore art thou?
The Japanese are good, but they’re not always right – just look at Toyota’s resistance to EVs. Their Prius sales are dropping, and they’re trying to catch up.
Historically automated equipment has been less flexible than humans: changes in assembly procedures have required slow, expensive reprogramming, and a human can change procedures with a piece of paper and 15 minutes of instruction. OTOH, automation has been getting faster, cheaper and more flexible over time. And, perhaps most importantly, once automated equipment is working right, it’s possible to scale up production very quickly: robots can work 24×7.
And, of course, scaling up quickly is Tesla’s biggest problem.
I’ve also noticed that Tesla is carefully limiting it’s models and options. That suggests an understanding of the limits of automation, and a desire to scale up quickly.
Let us hope that Tesla has guessed right about the right mix of automation…
Just because TSLA might fail does not mean EV is a bad concept.
Seems like many who are pro EV get defensive if TSLA falls short.
Very, very tough to start an auto company from scratch. Highly capital intensive. Highly cyclical business.
Many times it is better financially to not be the leader. Able to learn from front runner’s mistakes.
The original Tesla bankruptcy.
https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/timeline/1916-tesla-declares-bankruptcy
Absolutely – it’s quite astonishing that Tesla has succeeded so far. I think it’s main mission is to kickstart EVs in general, and that mission is 95% complete.
Still, if Tesla falters now companies like VW and Toyota would take that as a sign that they could ease up on the transition, and that would be a negative.
Tesla is symbolic of EVs in general, and if it failed people would think that was a negative sign about EVs in general.
Perception, perception…
Don’t disagree.
But I doubt the big guys like Toyota, etc just stop working on EV or other fuel alternatives if TSLA does BK.
The financial rewards for “cracking the alt fuel code” in automotive will be immense.
It is just a lot more difficult to do in the transportation arena than in other tech areas due to nature of the beast.
I hope the big money players keep working on this hard. A lot of FF will be needed for decades for the uses I mentioned up thread, not to mention air travel and heavy rolling equipment, which are a more challenging transition than personal transport.
Shale has given USA, via EIA and IEA in particular, a very false sense of FF energy abundance.
Hope I didn’t get too oily over here on the non-oil side.
Unless population growth stalls, the world MUST transition away at some point, simply due to lack of supply, regardless of environmental impacts.
Shallow, good to see you over here and I think I can speak for all when I say no, you’re not getting too oily at all. I’m somewhat fascinated by the questionable “oily” stuff I see occasionally over at the petroleum threads and wonder why that stuff is being discussed in the petroleum threads at all.
For some background on this most recent round of negative EV press, “rapidgate” and Tesla’s precarious financials, Model 3 product delays etc., we have to remember that FF interests, the Koch brothers in particular have committed millions of dollars to fight EVs. See, Koch Brothers Video Smears Electric Cars. Can You Spot The Lies?, a story on this video from the Koch-funded front group Fueling U.S. Forward.
With the Tesla Semi long range prototype showing it’s face all over the country, far from it’s home base at the Tesla design studio in Hawthorne, California, I can just imagine the Koch brothers and their ilk pissing in their pants right now. As EVs slowly gain more traction in the marketplace, we can expect the anti-EV propaganda machines to ratchet up their activity significantly.
As Fred wrote elsewhere further down in this thread, Musk may well have enough money to ride this through. He certainly has the balls! People like Caelan may well be (unwittingly?) doing the Koch brothers bidding by propagating all the anti-EV stuff they can find. Maybe he is a Koch funded troll masquerading as an anarchist. If he is not. he should try not to support stuff that is on their side so much. Maybe it’s just a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, maybe not.
I’m reminded of that famous Mahatma Gandhi quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” EVs are way past the ignoring and ridiculing phases and when the fight is over, guess what comes next?
As for my own motivations, before Caelan brings it up \, I am unashamedly pro renewable and pro EV. Not because I have any current financial interest in them, apart from my own personal ownership of PV equipment but, because I don’t see any other option for moving this experiment that is human civilization forward without the outcome being a complete and utter apocalypse. I concur “Unless population growth stalls, the world MUST transition away at some point, simply due to lack of supply, regardless of environmental impacts.“
See here.
My advice after a year without tech: rewild yourself
Tesla Tumbles After-Hours On Massive Model S Recall
Victim Of Fatal Model X Crash Complained About Tesla Autopilot
“TESLA, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, IS ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY…”
“Just a few days ago, shareholders of Tesla approved an almost comical pay package for their cult leader CEO Elon Musk that could potentially put $50 BILLION in his pocket over the next decade. Let’s put this figure in perspective: at $5 billion per year, Musk would make more than every single CEO in the S&P 500. COMBINED. In other words, if you add up the salaries of all the CEOs of the 500 largest companies in America, it would still be less than the $5 billion per year that Mr. Musk stands to earn….”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-26/tesla-without-any-doubt-verge-bankruptcy
Careful, Doug, Nathanael may be lurking.
I just found this out, BTW:
Disk galaxies rotate once every billion years, no matter their size
Could be…
The company cannot survive the next twelve months without access to capital from Wall Street Banks or private investors.
We estimate that Tesla will need roughly $8 billion in the next 18 months to fund operating losses, capital expenditures, debts coming due, and working capital needs.
However, it appears that due to past SEC investigations and current investigations (which terrifyingly have not been disclosed by the company), it will likely be difficult for Tesla to access public markets.
But Musk who is worth about 13 billion has in the past been know to put his own money behind his ventures. He has done that before with Tesla. Anyways whether Tesla itself survives, that fact that every single major auto manufacturer is now heavily invested in EV technology, is due in large part to Elon Musk’s vision. That is his legacy and he himself has stated many times the Tesla was a very risky venture with a high probability of failure. Though he may still have enough ‘Fuck You’ money of his own to hang in there for a while longer. In the past he has bet the farm when all the odds were against him. I wouldn’t put it past him to do so again…
Anyways whether Tesla itself survives, that fact that every single major auto manufacturer is now heavily invested in EV technology, is due in large part to Elon Musk’s vision.
Not to mention all the new EV companies that are popping up all over the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfWOTMz5HUI
Geneva Motor Show 2018 Part 1 | Fully Charged
The genie is out of the lamp and he ain’t going back in…
See here.
My apologies if this has already been posted.
Arctic sea ice had second worst year on record
Earlier this month—on 17 March—the extent of Arctic sea ice peaked at nearly 15 million square kilometers, covering an area roughly twice the size of Australia. That may seem like a lot of ice, but this year’s peak is the second lowest on record, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center. Scientists have used satellites to measure the extent of Arctic sea ice for the past 39 years. As it stands, 2017 had the lowest amount of Arctic sea ice on record, followed by 2018, 2016, and 2015.
Earlier this month our esteemed president said that the sea ice was at record levels. Amazingly that was not a lie. He just failed to mention that the ice was at record level lows, not record highs which he was implying. Or, perhaps he was trying to sneak one by us because the Arctic ice was at a record level for the year. Was he just trying to give the impression that the Arctic sea ice was at record level highs without not actually telling a lie?
Here is the January through April PIOMAS Arctic ice volume monthly averages. March 2018 data should come out in a week or so. Still on the descent, nothing spectacular though. As the volume and thickness gets less, weather becomes a more important factor in any particular month.
Here is a podcast concerning the Arctic warming and state of the ice, the first speaker is the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center Mark Serreze.
https://www.ecoshock.org/2018/03/arctic-meltdown-50-shades-of-panic.html
According to that chart, that looks like the ice is making a strong rebound so far this year. Also, the amounts during this decade have been pretty steady overall. Clearly there are many lesser known natural cycles playing a role here.
The “lesser known natural cycle” as you put it is mostly weather and ocean currents. As has gotten thinner it is susceptible to smaller forcings from wind, temperature fluctuations and ocean currents. Ice can escape more easily from the Arctic.
Maybe these trend lines will give you a better appreciation of how to look at the graphs.
BTW: why would you name yourself after a fictional alien extinct race that thought itself to death?
What do the trend lines look like if they are more accurately started in 2010?
The Krell show that too much thought and science can be dangerous things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvf8IOIdGno
The Krell show that too much thought and science can be dangerous things.
Only for complete fucking morons!
Meanwhile back on planet earth, in the non fictional world, reality is looking rather stark these days! BTW, while the Arctic sea ice is on a steadily dwindling trend the Sahara desert is growing. That, despite all the idiots who claim that all that great CO2 plant food and increased atmospheric water vapor should be greening the world’s deserts.
Guess what? They were wrong!
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0187.1
Twentieth-Century Climate Change over Africa: Seasonal Hydroclimate Trends and Sahara Desert Expansion
Natalie Thomas and Sumant Nigama
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland
Abstract
Twentieth-century trends in seasonal temperature and precipitation over the African continent are analyzed from observational datasets and historical climate simulations. Given the agricultural economy of the continent, a seasonal perspective is adopted as it is more pertinent than an annual-average one, which can mask offsetting but agriculturally sensitive seasonal hydroclimate variations. Examination of linear trends in seasonal surface air temperature (SAT) shows that heat stress has increased in several regions, including Sudan and northern Africa where the largest SAT trends occur in the warm season. Broadly speaking, the northern continent has warmed more than the southern one in all seasons. Precipitation trends are varied but notable declining trends are found in the countries along the Gulf of Guinea, especially in the source region of the Niger River in West Africa, and in the Congo River basin. Rainfall over the African Great Lakes—one of the largest freshwater repositories—has, however, increased. It is shown that the Sahara Desert has expanded significantly over the twentieth century, by 11%–18% depending on the season, and by 10% when defined using annual rainfall. The expansion rate is sensitively dependent on the analysis period in view of the multidecadal periods of desert expansion (including from the drying of the Sahel in the 1950s–80s) and contraction in the 1902–2013 record, and the stability of the rain gauge network. The desert expanded southward in summer, reflecting retreat of the northern edge of the Sahel rainfall belt, and to the north in winter, indicating potential impact of the widening of the tropics. Specific mechanisms for the expansion are investigated. Finally, this observational analysis is used to evaluate the state-of-the-art climate simulations from a comparison of the twentieth-century hydroclimate trends. The evaluation shows that modeling regional hydroclimate change over the African continent remains challenging, warranting caution in the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies.
“What do the trend lines look like if they are more accurately started in 2010? ”
ROFL
This is what the graph looks like from 2010 on. The volumes still show a slight ongoing decline going forward, but as was seen, they have been quite stable overall through the 2010 decade.
Unskewed and Unbiased? More circus acts. LOL
Decline != Stable
NAOM
Cruosat is getting better and better, both for accuracy and access to data. This was their March report. They stop in May once melt ponds form.
For the third year running, Arctic sea ice reached a record low maximum extent in March. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reported that the extent of Arctic sea ice reached just 14.42 million square kilometres on March 7th. CryoSat data show that this coincided with a record minimum amount of sea ice for March of 24,200 cubic kilometres, despite the ice cover being as thick as the previous year – 178 cm, on average – and thicker than in 2012 or 2013.
Once Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum area for the year it can continue to thicken as seawater beneath the ice freezes to the under-ice surface, meaning the ice cover reaches its maximum annual amount towards the end of March or start of April. Therefore, it is currently too early to say exactly how this years maximum ice amount will compare to previous years.
http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/seaice.html
Thank you Steven. I’d like to think I can recognize real science when I see it, and real science (like your chart) always looks good.
On this holy day (holiday in many parts of the Christian world) when Christians observe the crucifixion of their lord and saviour Jesus Christ, I got curious about the relationship between the celebration of easter as a Christian rite, easter bunnies, easter eggs and the spring equinox. As usual in such circumstances, Google is your friend and as I expected, easter is another holiday (holy day) co-opted by the Christian church, the Roman Christian church in particular, to coincide with ancient pagan festivals centered around the sun, the winter solstice and the spring equinox to be exact.
I found this web page, Easter and the Vernal Equinox to be particularly interesting so, I decided to check out the author of the piece. He is Milt Timmons, born in 1933, author, veteran broadcaster, professor of cinematography at Los Angeles Valley College and one of the founders of Atheists United. People interested in issues of climate change might be interested his latest book, “2084 – A Tale of Post America”, which is a sci-fi novel about global warming and how it will affect various parts of the country. The linked page from Timmons’ web site is an interesting collection of ancient mythology which seems to be related to some (much?) of the stories in the Christian texts.
I can just see the trolls, science deniers and bible thumpers throwing a fit because I have brought up this atheist!
You should get yourself to church this weekend to set your mind strait on these matters. I guarantee you’ll go on a profound journey of growth and discovery ending in your own personal rebirth. Once you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior you will recognize Easter Sunday is a true time to count your blessings and be thankful you to shall have everlasting life.
“Once you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior ”
Can we still have chocolate bunnies ?
No!
.
So Many Christians, So Few Lions.
Is the traditional Easter ham just a finger in the eye towards Jewish people, or is there some other significance? I think I’ll pass this year and go with vegan lasagna.
1st get it straight that “strait” refers to a constraint, like a narrow waterway.
Which Easter?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#Table_of_the_dates_of_Easter
And for that matter, which bible?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament#Table
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_New_Testament_canon
And for that matter, whose interpretation?
“shall have everlasting life”
Sounds like cowards living in denial
amen.. happy easter yall.. i live because Jesus gave it all,so to him i owe my all.. 🙂
Cancel Easter. They found the body.
There’s a bit of doubt but Easter is probably named after Eostre, the Germanic goddess of dawn and spring, and a possibly an old name for April. It’s about flowers blooming and animals getting randy, much happier thoughts than human sacrifice. It would be amazing if any northern religion didn’t have a major celebration at this time of year.
Yea, that human sacrifice- death cult thing is a downer—
Spring is a change for more life.
Yes, the old natural religions are still being celebrated surreptitiously. Most everyone knows that and those that don’t have their heads in the sand so it doesn’t matter if they don’t know what they are actually celebrating. The icing does not make the cake.
o`lord,he is risen,on this day. i wish everyone to have a vary bless`d easter sunday1!
islandboy — Doesn’t each and every school boy (and girl) know that Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people were keenly interested in solstices and equinoxes, that when Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar in 45 BC he set March 25 as the date of the spring (Vernal) equinox, that time drift induced Pope Gregory XIII to create a modern (Gregorian) calendar and the Pope wanted to continue to conform with edicts concerning the date of Easter of the Council of Nicaea of AD 325 which means he wanted to move the Vernal Equinox to the date on which it fell at that time and that March 21 is the day allocated to it in the Easter table of the Julian calendar?
“islandboy — Doesn’t each and every school boy (and girl) know…….”
Surely you jest, Doug? I don’t remember ever being exposed to, much less taught any of this stuff in school, at any level. Not in Sunday school either, God forbid! 😉
If that’s true be sure your kids (or Grandchildren) don’t suffer the same fate. And, while you’re at it, a fun project is sundial construction. This can be an introduction to trigonometry and astronomy. A model of the Sun’s motion helps to understand sundials.
Hyundai now presents another EV, this one with a longer range than the Tesla Model 3 and the Chevy Bolt.
Their Ioniq electric is very efficient but has less range and power.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/28/new-york-auto-show-hyundais-kona-ev-get-tesla-like-electric-range/467221002/
During a recent road test, the ionic kicked the leaf’s ass. The new Leaf still lacks active thermal management, so its not able to rapid charge repeatedly (see #rapidgate). First, even though the ionic battery is much smaller it is more efficient so the added capacity just didn’t help the leaf – it just meant longer charging times. Then, after a couple of rapid charges, the leaf throttled back the charge rate to half speed and needed 2 hours to charge, but the ionic didn’t have that problem so it beat the new leaf by hours. Bad thing is this was in very cold outside temps, so it’s likely much worse in summer. Lots of people canceled their Leaf orders. Next year’s 60kwh leaf will have liquid cooling, so if long road trips are desired you might want to pass on this version of the leaf. Of course, a Tesla would beat both of them.
I don’t think they have announced pricing, but rumors are the Kona will only be about $35,000 so under 30K with incentives.
Gone fishing,
The Model 3 has two versions, the base model has a range of 220 miles, the long range version has 310 miles of range, currently only the long range Model 3 is being manufactured, cost is about $49k.
The USA today article is poorly researched stating that the Model 3 currently being delivered to customers has a range of 220 miles, that is wrong, it is 310 miles of range on the Model 3 currently being produced, see link below.
https://www.tesla.com/support/model-3-reservations-faq
The Kona EV will have a range of 292 miles and will cost $40k, it will be available in early 2019 in the US.
That is interesting, I had heard there were two versions of the Model 3, one with a larger battery of about 75 kWh. So the Kona is 10K cheaper, uses a 67 kWh battery to achieve real world range of 240 to 285 with maximum in city at 370 miles (mild weather).
https://ev-database.uk/car/1126/Hyundai-Kona-Electric-64-kWh
Hyundai has broken through the 0.3 kWh barrier. The Ioniq uses about 0.2 kWh per mile and the larger Kona uses about 0.25 kWh per mile. Neither has the acceleration or top speed of the Model 3, but most people don’t spend much time over 100 mph. 🙂
Is the Kona larger than the Model 3, hard to tell from the photos?
They are calling it a small SUV or a crossover so I think it is bigger that the model 3, it may be closer to the model Y. The ICE version of the Kona is already shipping. Also, the EPA range didn’t make that 292, it was something like 270 – still great.
Just drive slower, get well over 300! 🙂
Hi Gone fishing,
Only a long range battery with premium options is available for the Model 3, the long range version with base options is 44k, so 4k more than the Kona, which won’t be available until 2019 in the US, by that time prices may have fallen for the Model 3 or range may be higher, also the range rating for the Tesla is quite conservative.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114601_tesla-model-3-long-range-rating-of-310-miles-is-it-understated
According to the link above the Model 3 actually gets 334 miles of range, but Tesla reduced this to 310 miles.
Also at document linked below
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-gets-80-5-kwh-battery-258-hp/
One test suggests the Model 3 can go as far as 495 miles (see final screen grab in the piece), no doubt this is at slower speeds around town maybe 40 MPH or less.
My daughter picked up her 310 mile range T3 this week. Dramatically different vehicle than we are all used to.
Chew on this article-
“Disruptive tidal flooding that now affects the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coastlines on 3 to 6 days per year will strike as often as 80 to 180 days a year by the 2040s, according to a major report from NOAA’”
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/noaa-report-todays-damaging-floods-will-be-tomorrows-high-tides
Let’s just say after reading through that, I have few “significant” doubts. Instead, my initial thoughts turned to how, due to the gibs drying up under this administration, NOAA now has huge motivation to make the climate warnings even more impressive.
That must be why the Canadians, British and French are all warning of stronger storms and waves/surges.
Hi Max. Sorry the scientific projections do not give the results you would prefer. I don’t prefer the results either, but they are what they are.
Of course it is good to be skeptical about all data and analysis.
If you don’t want to ‘believe’ the projections, then I would suggest saving some money to by oceanside land cheap in S Carolina in the next few decades.
Research stilt building. Could be fun clamming from your deck.
Tesla Exec (In Employee Email): Daily Model 3 Production Well Into The 200s
A recently revealed internal email, from Tesla Senior Vice President of Engineering Doug Fields to employees at the company, featured the comment that daily production rates were now “well into the 200’s on every single line.” That is, the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 production lines were all now churning out well over 200 units a day, each. (No, the Model Y isn’t making the cut yet.) The email was reportedly sent on March 23.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/30/tesla-exec-in-employee-email-daily-model-3-production-well-into-the-200s/
“There’s a lot to like about electric cars, of course, if, say, you’re a Google executive floating through life in a techno-narcissism bubble, or a Hollywood actor with wooly grandiose notions of saving the planet while simultaneously signaling your wealth and your “green” virtue cred. Teslas supposedly handle beautifully, ride very quietly, have great low-end power, and decent range of over 200 miles. The engine has something like twenty moving parts, is very long-lasting, and is easy to repair or change out if necessary.
Are they actually “green and clean?” Bwaahaaaaa….! Are you kidding? First, there’s the energy embedded in producing the car: mining and smelting the ores, manufacturing the plastics, running the assembly line, etc. That embedded energy amounts to about 22 percent of the energy consumed by the car over a ten-year lifetime. Then there’s the cost of actually powering the car day-by-day. The electricity around the USA is produced mostly by burning coal, natural gas, or by nuclear fission, all of which produce harmful emissions or byproducts. But the illusion that the power just comes out of a plug in the wall (for just pennies a day!) is a powerful one for the credulous public. The cherry-on-top is the fantasy that before much longer all that electric power will come from “renewables,” solar and wind, and we can leave the whole fossil fuel mess behind us. We say that to ourselves as a sort of prayer, and it has exactly that value.”
JHK take on the situation——
JHK take on the situation——
I posted Robert Llewellyn’s Fully Charged take on the situation in a comment up thread.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-march-282018/#comment-634158
The people who attack renewables and EVs on the grounds that it is just more BAU really haven’t been listening to what proponents are actually saying as to why they are pro EVs, wind and solar and they are also ignoring the data.
Basically most people who are supporting all of the above are not half as stupid or naive as the naysayers would like to have everyone believe. As Llewellyn clearly states: EVs, wind and solar are not a panacea and will most certainly not save humanity! So stop telling us what we already know and putting words in our mouths.
We know that a small minority of humans have as much wealth as half the population of the planet. We know that there are way too many people on the planet. We know that all of industrial civilization requires massive amounts of energy and material resources to sustain it. We know that the current path that civilization is on is totally unsustainable. However renewables and EVs are still a hell of lot better than using fossil fuels to produce energy and fuel private automobiles. So unless all of the naysayers have a much better idea on how to move forward, I suggest they shut the fuck up, get the hell out of the way and go hide in their damn caves somewhere.
Maybe it is time for some to revisit this old Dylan tune….
Bob Dylan The Times They Are A Changin’ 1964 – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ
‘We know we know we know… however…’
Sure.
By Tim Garrett: Linking Wealth, Energy Demand, CO2 and Climate Change
“So unless all of the naysayers have a much better idea on how to move forward…” ~ Fred Magyar
Your so-called ‘naysayers’ have been suggesting better ideas for a long time now and loud and clear for those not in a state of denial and/or willful ignorance.
Collapse civilization now doesn’t mean in 30 years.
Why all the fuss Caelan, if you think you are screwed then just get on with living.
It’s coming from so far away
It’s hard to say for sure
Whether what I hear is music or the wind
Through an open door
There’s a fire high in the empty sky
Where the sound meets the shore
There’s a long distance loneliness
Rolling out over the desert floor
And the years that I spent lost in the mystery
Fall away leaving only the sound of the drum
Like a part of me
It speaks to the heart of me
Forget what life used to be
You are what you choose to be
It’s whatever it is you see
That life will become
Whatever it is you might think you have
You have nothing to lose
Through every dead and living thing
Time runs like a fuse
And the fuse is burning
And the earth is turning
Though the years give way to uncertainty
And the fear of living for nothing strangles the will
There’s a part of me
That speaks to the heart of me
Though sometimes it’s hard to see
It’s never far from me
Alive in eternity
That nothing can kill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyL97UzT8NU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6v_eSNVxec
Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying, The Shawshank Redemption dialogue
Why all the fuss, GoneFishing?
Methinks thou doth (protest/)project.
Apparently you have very limited comprehension and also seem way too interested in being critical and judgmental of others. Of course you are typically critical and judgmental of society and the many efforts of others to improve situations.
Look to yourself first.
You may do well to consider the hypocrisy and ostensible blindness of your own comment here before you tell someone to take a look at themselves.
That was part of my point above.
Oh do be careful, now, about being seen as being ‘typically critical and judgmental of society and the many efforts of others to improve situations’.
Yes, responded just as I predicted.
And? Are you in agreement then? 😀
They are changing—–
But most will not like it probably.
This is a predicament, not a problem.
JHK is a….clown.
Really – that’s what he says. He has no credentials in energy, no work experience, and his writings reflect that.
So, when he’s challenged he retreats to the “I’m just an entertainer” defense.
An example of his willingness to pretend expertise in areas in which he had none, and also of his general forecasting accuracy: He predicted absolute certain doom from Y2K. There was no if, and or but about it – we were doomed. Nothing could be done….
There are countless numbers of people with ‘credentials in energy’, etc., who are playing their hands at trashing the planet, Nick, and there’s nothing entertaining about it.
Trump names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general suing EPA on climate change, to head the EPA
He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. Ben Carson, named to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has expressed a deep aversion to the social safety net programs and fair housing initiatives that have been central to that agency’s activities. Betsy DeVos, named education secretary, has a passion for private school vouchers that critics say undercut the public school systems at the core of the government’s mission.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/07/trump-names-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-attorney-general-suing-epa-on-climate-change-to-head-the-epa/?utm_term=.2f3bc97e2379
JHK does have a dismal record on forecasting.
I do find him a fascinating writer.
Feel like moving south? Just stay put.
And where is New York headed?
Does this mean Texans become Mexicans sometime between 2025 to 2050 fueled by their own climate change demise ?
They don’t believe in climate change so it won’t happen, just be weather.
that’s the plot of the Water Knife where they are called “Merry Perrys” (named I think after Rick Perry) after a series of hurricanes mangle them, and they become the equivalent of roaches streaming into Arizona.
I think the Northeast is going to start referring to “Second Winters” before it feels like we’re living in the Carolinas. Even if we haven’t been shattering low records, the average day-time Highs have been 5 to 20 degrees F below average for months now, is eerily consistent, much more like living on the West coast where the same weather pattern seems to repeat endlessly.
Given the jet stream patterns that now dominate the Northern hemisphere I would say the Northeast has become the “Cold Sink” for the arctic. As the vortex unravels and wind streams and atmospheric rivers flow into the pole, the cold that’s there is getting pushed out, has to go somewhere and its being vented out to places like Northeastern US.
Oh for crying out loud, more circus, the temperatures have not been consistently below normal. For Allentown Pa, February had 207 heating degree days less than normal and March had plus 40 degrees days above normal. January had 26 degree days below normal.
All that adds up to a negative HDD of 2.1 per day. Warmer than average!
Maybe you forget the significant thaws in January and February this winter?
What we had was a very erratic Jetstream that brought both lower and higher temperatures at different times.
Overall the US was 2.1F warmer in January than the 20th century average.
Yeah – doesn’t do me much good if nighttime temps are 10 to 20 degrees warmer and the day-times are colder – unless I’m going full weasel mode.
I’ve even seen a number of time this year where the high of the day was like 2am, or the low hit at 4pm as the jet stream began to wobble into a new regime.
good luck growing crops in this crap.
Well, around here the crops don’t grow in the winter and it still gets warm in the spring through summer. Except for a cold spell just after Christmas and a few warm periods in Jan and Feb it was pretty much a normal winter as far as temps go. Just had six inches of snow last night but it’s mostly melted already and the rain tonight will finish it along with the 60 F temps on Wednesday.
Remembering rare anomalies and making them a generality is not needed. The actual weather is chaotic enough.
PROF STEPHEN HAWKING FUNERAL: LEGACY ‘WILL LIVE FOREVER’
“He inspired people with the excitement and importance of pure scientific enquiry and was admired and revered for his devotion, as a scholar, to the pursuit of knowledge. This high regard was demonstrated wherever in the world he gave a public lecture: the auditorium was always packed, the atmosphere electric and the applause thunderous.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-43582950
STEPHEN HAWKING’S FINAL INTERVIEW: A BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSE
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43499024
Thanks Doug, a good link. It is a beautiful universe!
Will the expensive and ambitious plans to stay in place be enough for NYC to last through the century? Rising ocean levels, stronger storms, rogue waves, a slower Gulf Stream flow and simultaneous flooding from the Hudson and East River are going to be a massive challenge for New York to deal with and survive.
New York City Is Building for a Future of Flooding
But the threat of rising tides is shaping change on a more basic level, too. The New York Times reports that the risk of future flooding is changing the way that buildings are designed in the city. Gone, for instance, are top-floor penthouses, replaced instead with emergency generators that won’t get flooded—and can provide enough power for residents to remain in their apartment for as long as a week. Elsewhere, special drainage systems channel water away within foundations, and ground floors are being built with materials that can tolerate floods.
Meanwhile, Curbed reports that initiatives are also under way outside of Manhattan. In Broad Channel Island, in the borough of Queens, street levels are being raised so sidewalks and roads stand taller than previously relative to the nearby waters of Jamaica Bay. And in another Queens district, Breezy Point, new houses are being built on raised platforms to save them from floods.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603527/new-york-city-is-building-for-a-future-of-flooding/
Storm surges of 3 to 9 feet in the Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut region were recorded during Sandy. Waves heights of up to 32 feet added to that surge. Sandy did not have high wind speeds of some hurricanes, Hurricane Donna had much higher winds but was much smaller than Sandy.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hurricane-donna-is-born
I had a bit of an epiphany about the car/car culture (sprawl, roadway infrastructure, remote [nature] access, etc.) and E.O. Wilson’s ‘Half Earth’ that can be found embedded in this very sentence.
Not to worry Caelan, there will be less people and a lot less energy use in the future. The cars will be autonomous but have no one to drive around so will just form gangs and roam the highways looking for power outlets.
Learn what’s behind that sign.
What is meant is that few will starve or even be uncomfortable, provided they start talking– including on sites like these which are supposed to be a lot more than this– more about things along the lines of, say, the possible food that’s behind that sign, rather than the contexts of that sign.
Maybe spruce, plantain, clover, dandelion, daisy, goldenrod, mice, etc…. all edible and probably packing more nutrient density than your typical industrial agro/factory farm fare.
There is an ‘outlet’, but it is yours, rather than your car’s, and it’s local and realtime sunlight-based.
Priorities.
The metal, concrete and plastic ‘fruits’ of a dying culture don’t strike me as priorities except by the mad.
So what will you do in the extreme tech, AI driven world of a decade from now? It’s going to be even more polluted, more chaotic and most everyone will be lining up for genetic modifications.
“HALF EARTH: OUR PLANET’S FIGHT FOR LIFE
Chapter 9. THE MOST DANGEROUS WORLDVIEW
I think it relevant to quote the great explorer-naturalist Alexander Humbolt on this subject, as true in his time as it is in ours: ‘The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.’
E.O. Wilson” ~ Fred Magyar
Artificial intelligence sticks foot in mouth for the first time.
42-44 seconds (cued for your convenience)
I’m sure you are, Sophie, I’m sure you are.
It’s SOPHIA, not Sophie… Apparently Caelan’s intelligence is unable to correctly parse audio inputs and just as faulty when reading or copying and pasting text…
.
‘Happens‘, so I say Sophie, Freddie.
But you can let your triviality willfully blind you from my basic point above with regard to technologies’ ’embedded agendas’.
Language Is A Virus
LOL! You obviously haven’t spent much time with women…
Is that creepy ‘power-/gold-digging’ thing what you call a woman, Fred? Is it anatomically correct for you too?
Somewhat hence, incidentally, my comments that saw both your and Gonefishing’s recent comments flipped here and here
BONK!
HALF EARTH: OUR PLANET’S FIGHT FOR LIFE
Chapter 9. THE MOST DANGEROUS WORLDVIEW
I think it relevant to quote the great explorer-naturalist Alexander Humbolt on this subject, as true in his time as it is in ours: “The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.”
E.O. Wilson
I actually heard some peepers by the lake last night, time for a celebration. Life struggles on.
Watch the skies…
I love peepers. Where are you located?
Your eagle makes me want to listen to Eagle.
Mid Atlantic USA.
I suspected east because it is uncertain that peepers go too far west.
“So what will you do in the extreme tech, AI driven world of a decade from now? It’s going to be even more polluted, more chaotic and most everyone will be lining up for genetic modifications.” ~ GoneFishing
I ran out of crackers.
S.O.S.
You can try these instead… 😉
Gluten Free Communion Wafer | Cokesbury – cokesbury.com
Approximately 40 to 50 Wafers per Box
Ideal for church members with food sensitivities
As in “Polly want a ….”
I know, I know, but since it probably went over his head anyway and today is Easter, I thought you might want to try and kill two birds with one cracker by giving Polly, a gluten free holy cracker for a change…
.
OMG LOL
Happy Spring.
Now on to Sea Horse racing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yB2oCHR15U
I’m taking a lady friend out to one of my favorite beaches this afternoon and crossing my fingers that despite the Holy day, the local watering hole will be open and we can have a few beers while listening to which ever local band is playing there!
Maybe we can watch reruns of the Snail races….
Elon Musk
Verified account
@elonmusk
Follow Follow @elonmusk
The race between Gary, our pet snail who lives in a pineapple, and Godot, our tunnel boring… https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_iL-aBCzj/
😀
But doesn’t it get changed to meat (the body of christ) anyway? I think that’s gluten free…
Spare yourself the inflammation.
Accept only genuine
I’m reading about the reformation.
I knew about transubstantiation. I failed as a Catholic when I was 15 and discovered girls. But now, reading about religious wars I keep hearing in my inner ear ‘The body of Christ” and I know he thinks he just drank the blood.
What kind of lunatics think up this stuff? What kind of fools believe it?
Nothing makes me more sure eating less animal products than guys like this, I mean they are wrong abut everything else.
Vegetarians and vegans HATE God and the Bible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXCnLuqxwvE
When I got Holy Communion they wouldn’t let me drink the Blood of Christ because I was only six years old and it contained alcohol.
That got me thinking: The blood of Jesus contains alcohol? What was he, some kind of drunk?
Then I realized that nobody really believed that the wine was turning into the blood of Jesus, no matter what they claimed.
But to your point, yeah, “If you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the He Who Has Died But Is Not Dead, you too will never die” sounds like a freaky basis for a religion.
Are renewables the answer?
Tesla Admits Autopilot Was Engaged During Deadly Model X Crash
In the latest troubling indication that Musk is desperate to hide any bad news about his company, the admission only took place after local news reported that the victim had made several complaints to Tesla about the vehicle’s Autopilot technology prior to the crash in which he died.
LOL! no he isn’t. The driver was a complete moron and disregarded multiple warnings from the autopilot to take control of the car. This is Tesla’s note on it’s auto pilot and driver use responsibility from Tesla’s website. Ignoring autopilot warnings is irresponsible and improper use of the autopilot feature.
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
Enhanced Autopilot
Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage.
Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. >Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.
BTW there are a few previous cases of Tesla drivers who ignored the warnings and were involved in accidents. In every case it was shown that the drivers improper use of the autopilot was the cause of the crash. Not one was shown to be a malfunction of Tesla’s autopilot feature when used as directed by Tesla.
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-fatal-tesla.html
Investigators fault driver in Tesla Autopilot crash
You can google for many other examples.
Musk seems to not have noticed that he is selling these things to human beings, the most distractable beings on the planet
Oh look a bird!
Well, that’s the whole point – getting rid of the human error as quickly as possible. We’re just not quite there yet.
“Average number of car accidents in the .U.S. every year is 6 million. More than 90 people die in car accidents everyday. 3 million people in the U.S. are injured every year in car accidents. Around 2 million drivers in car accidents experience permanent injuries every year.”
That means that there is a car accident for every 533,333 miles driven. So an average driver would have an accident every 43 years. One person dies about every 97 million miles driven. So when is the last time you drove 97 million miles?
So when we have fully autonomous cars and go to car as a service the number of accidents could drop in half per mile driven. But since the autonomous vehicles will have two to three times the passenger loading and the cars will have to drive more miles to pick up rides, the number of people injured and deaths will probably stay the same.
The other question is, will pedestrian accidents go up?
So what problem are we really solving by making cars autonomous and who benefits by the change? Who loses? What is the gain and loss to society in general?
I think the industry expects to reduce accidents & deaths by 90%. Almost all accidents are human error, not unavoidable/unpredictable failure of vehicle components or road surface.
The odds of death by car are now less than 0.01 percent. That is about 2,5% of the chance of dying from cancer. Are we even focusing on the right problems? Are we putting our money into fairly unnecessary tech instead of solving health, food and water problems or climate problems?
To drop it to 0.005% would be something but at what cost to everyone else? Lost jobs, more pollution from building and serving all that tech. What is the gain? Is there any real gain? We don’t know because it’s all experimental at this point.
You actually think computer systems can be made that good in real world situations? So then with more passengers per vehicle the number of injuries and deaths would go down to 45% -60%.
That is an amazing claim from people with quite a bit of self interest in the result. You do realize that the computers do not actually see or think? They merely react to some digitized and transformed sensory field input and match from a list of pre-programmed possible realities. A mismatch is inevitable in the real world. Not one of them knows what a human or animal is or even what anything is actually. They really know nothing, just have lists to check. Computers exist in a meaningless world and have no personal existence, far less than a bug. No meat in the game.
I am quite skeptical of more than a 50% reduction if that. I also see quite a number of problems during the long period where humans and robots interact on the highways.
Who is going to pay for all this? I hope the software writers, computer makers, sensor manufacturers, car companies and owners of the robot cars are all held accountable for any accidents involving fully autonomous vehicles. The courts are going to be overwhelmed for quite some time. We don’t need another industry that gets away with murder, we have lots of them now.
Otherwise we just continue our blind love for tech and continue our plunge into destruction as we are now. Or we can start to actually critically think about what we allow in the world and what it will do for us. That would be fairly new, but long overdue.
How many premature and direct deaths from various automation systems will be allowable? How many jobs will be lost, lives ruined? Who wins on this, Uber, Tesla? How much extra power will these systems and all their support systems suck up every minute of the day?
Are we even solving the real problems or just making new ones because we can?
Let’s hope this experiment in transport is done in a well measured and thoughtful way and not just allowed to run because it’s high tech, flashy and makes some companies lots of money.
Let’s put our money and effort into things we need most, fastest and will get us the most real improvement over time.
Let’s hope this experiment in transport is done in a well measured and thoughtful way and not just allowed to run because it’s high tech, flashy and makes some companies lots of money.
There is a world of difference between flashy high end privately owned EVs with current, (still rather primitive) state of the art autopilot features, such as Teslas and the next level of fully autonomous level 5 completely driverless vehicles, such as the modular SNAP.
Check it out at 11:34 in this latest Fully Charged video.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzz4CoEgSgWNs9ZAvRMhW2A
And no, it still won’t save us and the planet from the sixth mass extinction but neither will adding another billion ICE vehicles to the world’s fleet.
Response from Youtube:
500 Internal Server Error
Sorry, something went wrong.
A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
LOL! That was kinda cool!
But try this one since the Fully Charged site itself seems to have been attacked by gremlins…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaSG4Wxu_HU
Fred, I am not against applying tech innovation. I just like people to put their money where it will be most effective and know both the up and downsides of a new tech before it becomes widespread.
Things are coming to a head and we need to apply ourselves to effective solutions.
As far as cars go the delta we are looking at is the difference between 2 billion ICE’s and 2 billion EV’s. The difference is very large as far as pollution and energy are concerned. So EV’s are a good investment.
Instead of putting the money into autonomous circuitry, why not make the cars lighter and more efficient with new materials and construction methods. The payback would be fast and permanent.
I don’t see any energy or material payback for autonomous cars, in fact it seems like a sink.
I agree with most of what you say. BTW If I ever get an electric bicycle, It probably will not be self balancing. Otherwise, I’ll just get a Segway… 😉
There is a time and a place to apply technology. I’ve never been a proponent of one size fits all. More often than not I walk to my local supermarket and take my own cloth bags.
I’ve lived in a couple of big cities when I’m in Sao Paulo I never drive. Mass transit there is really good. Mostly I use the trains, subways and buses for longer distances. Once in a while I’ll take a ride share. Otherwise I’ll walk. I don’t like risking my life so I don’t bike in that town…
When I think how the human race has merely escalated most problems it was aware of fifty or more years ago, until now we are deep into a huge set of problems and several major predicaments, my mind boggles at just the short list that was not taken care of years ago. The long list gets me depressed.
It’s not EV’s or smartphones that are the problem. It’s completely or mostly completely ignoring the problems we knew about and never really solving them back when they could be solved. We had a whole generation try to change things but as is happening now, all progress gets erased after the initial surge by corporations and their greedy marketers and politicians.
As one friend of mine said ” I just can’t believe the selfishness I see in the younger generation”. Then they look at the older generation and say the same thing.
“Resistance is futile” is getting more valid every day. For a while at least.
Are we even focusing on the right problems?
Of course not! But, that doesn’t make autonomous driving a bad thing.
We spend 30x as much on drug enforcement as we do on addiction treatment. We spend 30x as much on treatment as we do on prevention.
We spend 30x as much on healthcare treatment as we do on prevention, or medical research. We spend 100x as much on research into conditions like cancer and alzheimer’s as we do on something much more basic, like aging, which is the single biggest factor underlying almost everything.
Seems like a pattern…
Watch Moore’s film, “Where to Invade Next” for places that have found some solutions to society’s vexing problems. Makes America look backwards in many ways.
Not saying autonomous driving is “bad”. Just that we need to look critically at what we are unleashing on society instead of blindly going with the next new thing. The next new thing syndrome has been extremely harmful in many cases, but once embedded in a particular societal niche it’s harder to remove than a tumor.
The National Traffic Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said in a statement that it was “unhappy” with Tesla’s decision to release the information. But, better news is the production rate of model 3’s is now up to 2000 per week. From a company wide email by Elon:
“It has been extremely difficult to pass the 2000 cars per week rate for Model 3, but we are finally there. If things go as planned today, we will comfortably exceed that number over a seven-day period!”
Moreover, the whole Tesla production system is now on a firm foundation for that output, which means we should be able to exceed a combined Model S, X, and 3 production rate of 4000 vehicles per week and climbing rapidly. This is already double the pace of 2017! By the end of this year, I believe we will be producing vehicles at least four times faster than last year.”
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/2/17188894/tesla-model-3-production-target-elon-musk
A few years from now they will be producing 20,000 cars a week or more and everyone will forget about this silly time period. Just as the Prius is a very common sight now, EV’s will be seen every day by anyone driving.
Each one saves 8000 gallons of gasoline or more compared to the average ICE.
It’s been ten years since the Roadster came out. A lot has changed. The auto industry has had a nice shake-up.
KindaAutoPilot™
Which driver are you referring to?
In any case, I have read that the autopilot may lull people into a greater sense of safety than what the system can put out. False advertising?
Maybe it should be called an auto co-pilot? That way, along with the added safety as implied in the semantics, the implication would also be of two drivers for one car. We could even have another steering-wheel for the front seat passenger too that automatically takes over when a dashboard HALcam™ spots a driver transgression, along with a special device that automatically calls traffic-control if all drivers of the car are somehow incapacitated and therefore not paying attention to where the car is going. And even an emergency red button that, if all else fails, calls Musk directly.
Or how about a centralized driver that sends out wireless commands to millions of cars, based on street and CCTV cams, GPS trackings, and word-of-mouth, etc.?
While automated driving may be safer in theory, I’m unsure where it is going to go in practice if human guinea pigs keep getting killed with it and the decay of highway infrastructure repair and maintenance funds really starts to spread.
Tougher US rules needed on autonomous cars: advocate
Which driver are you referring to?
Take a wild guess!
I prefer: Tougher rules on morons! There are apparently way too many people who can’t read and heed instructions and warnings… Let’s just remove the warning labels!
.
.
I ask this because the link you provided appears to point to a previous accident/driver from a previous year, as opposed to the most recent that the link in my previous comment points to.
From your link (the text under the image):
Last I read– and this may have changed since– if recalled, they were still investigating the most recent accident and that victim may have previously expressed concerns, maybe to Tesla, about Tesla’s autopilot.
So, again, which driver are you referring to please?
I read some reports on this crash over at insideevs.com so, let me get this straight. This guy complains to Tesla repeatedly about the autopilot feature for whatever reason. This guy then proceeds to continue using this feature, despite his misgivings about it, to the point where an accident happens that results in a fatality…his. I think this can be put down to a strong desire for a Darwin award!
Ignoring the hands on warning will end up a meme like ‘Just hold my beer.’. Darwin will start excluding these as ‘too common’ as she does with some other means of self chlorination.
NAOM
With Elon Musk’s sense of humor, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if at some point you’ll be able to activate full autonomy in a Tesla by saying “Jesus take the wheel”.
Why stop there, Alan?
How about expanding that to the myriad of dangerous and potentially dangerous facets of the crony-capitalist plutarchy?
Many already know that getting into a car is a potentially dangerous endeavor, whether the car has autopilot feature or not.
Some people– perhaps even some at Tesla– might have made the case that autopilot makes a car safer because it removes some human error from the equation.
In any case, if we agree that technology is supposed to improve the lives of people (and by implication, their planet), not make them worse, then it doesn’t appear to be doing its job does it? You know– from a planetary/civilizational collapse/etc. standpoint?
So how about expanding the Darwin Award to the entire human species?
Below are temperature deviation data, relative to 1971-2000, for 9 northern North American locations:
Location March 2018 Ave. Deviation (F) Jan.-March Ave. Deviation (F)
Prudhoe Bay, AK …………+14.71 ……………………………..+14.54
Moosonee, Ont. ………….+1.50 ……………………………..+1.76
Nome, AK …………………+7.52 ……………………………..+7.23
Churchill, Man. …………..+6.98 …………………………….+3.16
Iqaluit, Nunn. ………….+12.19 ……………………………+2.00
Goose Bay, NFL ………….+9.89 ……………………………+2.40
Yellowknife, NWT ……+4.40 …………………………..+4.06
Sault Ste. Marie, MI …….+1.76 ……………………………+2.99
Hibbing, MN …………..-2.24 …………………………..-3.22
Ave. …………………………….+6.30 ………………………….+3.88
Prudhoe Bay continues a string of very mild months, relative to the 1971-2000 averages. Here are temperature deviation data for Prudhoe Bay relative to 1971-2000 averages from Nov. through March.
Month………………Temp. Deviation (F)
Nov. ……………………..+15.50
Dec. …………………….+19.06
Jan. ………………………+8.61
Feb. …………………….+20.93
March……………………+14.71
These warm temperatures won’t stand for much longer. As a consequence of the weakening AO and strengthening PNA, major bone-chilling cold will engulf eastern North America once again this week.
Yep, I am in that dark blue blob. Here are the 10 day high temps 52, 45, 43, 65, 45, 51, 40, 43, 43, 49F. Really “bone chilling”. ROFL
Of course it doesn’t come near the 90F days they have had in Texas last month.
And your point, Bob, about this weather forecast is?
They say having a point is much more interesting for the reader.
Now I don’t know about you, but I can tolerate 90F days. However when it hits 100F, that is a bit much. It hit 107 once a few years ago here and I was glad I was headed north for a camping trip. In the recent past 100 F was a very unusual temperature where I live.
But the prognosticators at NOAA say that we could be headed toward multiple 100 degree and above days a lot more often in the future.
In the scenario with higher greenhouse gas emissions, parts of Texas that experienced 10 to 20 days per year over 100°F in recent decades are projected to experience more than 100 by the end of the century. Parts of the East Coast as far north as New Jersey could see more than 30 days above 100°F each summer.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/100%C2%B0-days-past-and-future
Now they tie the rise in temperature in the future directly to GHG rise, while ignoring the doubling just from albedo change and natural emissions increase. So wear white and get your solar powered air conditioned umbrellas before they sell out.
Do you think this will increase the number of fires?
Speaking of warmth—-
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iWsVZgJU_HM/VUQklDhhOZI/AAAAAAAAjWs/KrgyXxxRIIs/s1600/Tesla-Electric-Car-on-Fire-113459.jpg
Caelan II, is that you?
Naw–
Just adding fuel to the fire—
Naw—
Its hightrekker—-
(actually its a reliable, and good car– eco efficient? haaaa)
It has a magnetic force link option that allows it to be pulled along by ICE SUV’s while charging itself so that one never need charge the car.
Kool!
Yep, and they turn that function on for mere $10,000 extra.
Rods from God.
The Air Force’s ‘rods from god’ could hit with the force of a nuclear weapon — with no fallout
The 107-country Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967 prohibits nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons from being placed in or used from Earth’s orbit. What they didn’t count on was the US Air Force’s most simple weapon ever: a tungsten rod that could hit a city with the explosive power of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
http://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-rods-from-god-kinetic-weapon-hit-with-nuclear-weapon-force-2017-9
It just gets more complicated and stupider all the time.
Regional and local cloud changes can have effects on temperature distributions.
When we examine the values of daily low temperatures observations across the Commonwealth over the time period from 1949 through 1996, that’s exactly what we see. Statistically significant increases in summer low temperatures are found in the eastern portion of Virginia, whereas the central and western Virginian stations generally do not (Richmond being the exception). Thus, it appears that the trend to greater nighttime cloudiness is producing a similar trend to higher overnight/early-morning temperatures (the time of day when we usually find the daily low temperature).
http://climate.virginia.edu/vca/pclds.html
We rarely get a pure blue sky in the east anymore. Most days instead replaced by 1000’s of jet trails that just turn into streams of clouds instead of evaporating … covers the sky for hours and days. It’s got to be changing the climate here. So if you like something to research maybe start looking into why this happens? If you end up eventually at a deep rabbit hole the password you need to get in is … Barium
I agree the eastern skies are much cloudier and have high level haze but contrails are only a small part of the problem. What appears to be happening is increased water vapor condensing in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere.
Stratospheric water vapor feedback
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/45/18087
TWO DEGREES NO LONGER SEEN AS GLOBAL WARMING GUARDRAIL
“Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released Monday…With only one degree of warming so far, Earth has seen a crescendo of droughts, heatwaves, and storms ramped up by rising seas. Voluntary national pledges made under the Paris pact to cut CO2 emissions, if fulfilled, would yield a 3C world at best.
The treaty also requires that—by the end of the century—humanity stop adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than oceans and forests can absorb, a threshold known as net zero emissions…How fast we get to a 2C world is critical, Mitchell told AFP. If it only takes a couple of decades, we will be in trouble because we won’t have time to adapt to the climate.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-degrees-longer-global-guardrail.html#jCp
Meanwhile, February CO2
February 2018: 408.35 ppm
February 2017: 406.42 ppm
AND:
“Permafrost in the coldest northern Arctic — formerly thought to be at least temporarily shielded from global warming by its extreme environment — will thaw enough to become a permanent source of carbon to the atmosphere in this century, with the peak transition occurring in 40 to 60 years, according to a new NASA-led study.”
https://scitechdaily.com/thawing-of-the-far-northern-permafrost-has-scientists-worried/
In ten years they will be saying 20 to 30 years and in 15 years it will be now.
Sounds whiney to me, “we will be in trouble because we won’t have time to adapt to the climate”
What about the rest of life as all of those numbers are blown past because we really don’t acknowledge our limited knowledge of the earth system? Act now, strongly and decisively, or forget later. Later is too late.
Maybe it’s already too late?
The two-year, 6-ppm surge in the greenhouse gas between 2015 and 2017 is unprecedented in the observatory’s 59-year record. And, it was a record fifth consecutive year that carbon dioxide (CO2) rose by 2 ppm or greater, according to Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.
“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted… CO2 will need to be reduced… to at most 350 ppm,” Columbia University climate guru James Hansen has said. We sailed past that target in about 1990, and it will take a gargantuan effort to turn back the clock.”
It’s not just CO2.
Too late for what? Preserving the world we used to live in and keeping the species we know? Much too late for that now in many cases. Embrace the change, reduce the damage and see how it goes. What we really need to do is start to think and use the results to make great decisions that don’t further endanger the world.
Without drastic change a model for the world right now is the vortex in a flushing toilet. Riding around at the top of the vortex might look like no real problem, might even be like a successful situation, but we know where it ends up, don’t we?
Yes we do!
And your solutions to preserving the planet are???
The 20th century’s industrialization led to overcrowding, pollution and global warming due to the greenhouse effect. In 2022, 40 million people live in New York City; housing is dilapidated; homeless people fill the streets; many are unemployed; those few with jobs are only barely scraping by and food and working technology are scarce with most of the population surviving on rations produced by the Soylent Corporation. Their latest product is Soylent Green, a green wafer advertised to contain “high-energy plankton” from the World Ocean, more nutritious and palatable than its predecessors “Red” and “Yellow” but in short supply.
Roth takes Soylent’s oceanographic reports to a group of researchers, who agree that the oceans no longer produce the plankton from which Soylent Green is reputedly made, and infer that it is produced from human remains, the only conceivable supply of protein matching the known production. They also deduce that Simonson was murdered by the corporation because he had found this out from the reports and his influence inside the corporation. Roth is so disgusted with his degraded life in a degraded world that he seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic.
Roth is mesmerized by the euthanasia process’ visual and musical montage – extinct forests, wild animals, rivers and ocean life. Before dying, he tells Thorn his discovery and begs him to expose the truth. Thorn boards a human disposal truck to the disposal center, where he sees the human corpses converted into Soylent Green
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
“And your solutions to preserving the planet are???”
Planet is alright, ecosystems and civilization is going into shock mode.
Read the book Drawdown to get you started with lots of ideas. Good for the kids too, to choose a future career. After that read E. O. Wilson.
We sailed past that target in about 1990, and it will take a gargantuan effort to turn back the clock.”
XKCD Doomsday Clock. Spring Forward
https://xkcd.com/1655/
.
FIRST DIRECT OBSERVATIONS OF METHANE’S INCREASING GREENHOUSE EFFECT AT THE EARTH’S SURFACE
Scientists have directly measured the increasing greenhouse effect of methane at the Earth’s surface for the first time. A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) tracked a rise in the warming effect of methane – one of the most important greenhouse gases for the Earth’s atmosphere – over a 10-year period at a DOE field observation site in northern Oklahoma.
“OBSERVATIONALLY DERIVED RISE IN METHANE SURFACE FORCING MEDIATED BY WATER VAPOUR TRENDS.” The paper indicates that the greenhouse effect from methane tracked the global pause in methane concentrations in the early 2000s and began to rise at the same time that the concentrations began to rise in 2007.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-methane-greenhouse-effect-earth-surface.html#jCp
Farther north:
UNFOLDING ARCTIC CATASTROPHE
“On January 1, 2018, methane levels as high as 2764 ppb (parts per billion) were recorded. The solid magenta-colored areas near Greenland indicate that this very high reading was likely caused by methane hydrate destabilization in the sediments on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. The state of the sea ice is behind this. On January 1, 2018, Arctic sea ice extent was at record low for the time of the year. The smaller the extent, the less sunlight gets reflected back into space and is instead absorbed in the Arctic. At this time of year, though, hardly any sunshine is reaching the Arctic. So, what triggered destabilization? As the image indicates, year-to-date average Arctic sea ice volume has been at record low in 2017, which means that there’s been very little sea ice underneath the surface throughout 2017.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2018/01/unfolding-arctic-catastrophe.html
For geoscience types [attention Synapsid]:
ATTENUATION OF SEISMIC WAVES IN METHANE GAS HYDRATE-BEARING SAND
“Compressional wave (P wave) and shear wave (S wave) velocities (Vp and Vs, respectively) from remote seismic methods have been used to infer the distribution and volume of gas hydrate within marine sediments. Recent advances in seismic methods now allow compressional and shear wave attenuations (Q−1p and Q−1s, respectively) to be measured. However, the interpretation of these data is problematic due to our limited understanding of the effects of gas hydrate on physical properties. Therefore, a laboratory gas hydrate resonant column was developed to simulate pressure and temperature conditions suitable for methane gas hydrate formation in sand specimens and the subsequent measurement of both Q−1p and Q−1s at frequencies and strains relevant to marine seismic surveys. 13 dry (gas saturated) sand specimens were investigated with different amounts of methane gas hydrate evenly dispersed throughout each specimen. The results show that for these dry specimens both Q−1p and Q−1s are highly sensitive to hydrate saturation with unexpected peaks observed between 3 and 5 per cent hydrate saturation. It is thought that viscous squirt flow of absorbed water or free gas within the pore space is enhanced by hydrate cement at grain contacts and by the nanoporosity of the hydrate itself. These results show for the first time the dramatic effect methane gas hydrate can have on seismic wave attenuation in sand, and provide insight into wave propagation mechanisms. These results will aid the interpretation of elastic wave attenuation data obtained using marine seismic prospecting methods.”
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/164/1/149/632020
DougL,
Thanks for this.
This is part of our ongoing efforts to be more and more quantitative about just how scary the situation is. It’s a major step up from my usual “How much of that stuff is out there? Well, each time we look we find more.”
This will prove useful in the O and G industry’s recent (to me, anyway) re-focusing on the shallow-water parts of the Gulf of Mexico, too. Always a silver lining.
Time for more port. Ah! the Kopke 10-year tawny. Passed around in goblets on Olympus, I have no doubt at all.
It is quite possible that methane will represent this century the same radiative forcing as CO2 had in pre-industrial times.
-656.80 (2.72%)
Down again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK62tfoCmuQ
Tesla Shares Sink as Musk Jokes About Bankruptcy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-shares-sink-as-musk-jokes-about-bankruptcy-1522682691
Here’s the take on that from insideevs.com:
Tesla Files For All Chapters Of Bankruptcy
Including Chapter 14 1/2.
Below is a picture of Musk’s tweet. Anybody who lost money as a result of this deserves to loose every penny. There were ample clues that this was an obvious April fools joke to warn even the most clueless. I’m pretty sure the is no such thing as a Chapter fourteen and a half filing for bankruptcy!
Was looking at global particulates and noticed a lot of particulates from new sources in Australia.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-bushfire/hundreds-flee-australian-bushfires-that-kill-cattle-destroy-homes-idUSKBN1GU0Y9
http://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/
The changing face of winter.
Wouldn’t treehuggers like yourself welcome that? There’d be less salt usage on roads, reducing pollution and damage to water systems. In addition there’d be less usage of snowplows and snowblowers, reducing fossil fuel and energy usage.
Krell- are you really an ass, or do you just a great job pretending?
Practices in front of the mirror every day.
Hmmmmmm, 🙂
To the Krell concerning the statement “Wouldn’t treehuggers like yourself welcome that?”
My recognition of plant life as intrinsically necessary for animal life to even exist is not the point.
The term tree hugger, a derogatory term, was invented by greedy destructive developers and clear cutting loggers to diminish those who realize the actual value of such biological entities as trees and more generally the environment as an operating system so that they, the developers/loggers, could gain easy profit from their destructive behavior without interference. Your use of the term places you in the sociopathic realm of mentally diminished variant humans. Placing oneself among the criminal thieves of posterity and poisoners of ecosystems is either a personal choice or the result of internal disease. This can only exist within a very narrow and diminished world view.
Destroyers of environment for personal profit are among the most heinous of criminals in existence. They are trading other’s lives and the living web for selfish “gain”.
This is not even a Faustian bargain, for that would imply that these people actually had spiritual values or moral principles to abandon for personal gain. This is a more deep seated and possibly organic deviation. The very act of turning the natural environment into empty dead areas is, in the long run, homicidal and suicidal.
Your implication that any naturalist, environmentalist or thinking human would welcome the results of rapid climate change merely shows an extreme dearth of knowledge, otherwise known as ignorance, of the subject and of human values.
The Core
ROFL!
I loved the Solar Sonic Mouse Repeller advertised at the Core link!
No ad blocker?
As opposed to treemuggers like you?!
I’ll take a treehugger any day!
.
Antarctica’s grounding lines are retreating across the seafloor
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/04/02/Antarcticas-grounding-lines-are-retreating-across-the-seafloor/4511522697212/
“Our study provides clear evidence that retreat is happening across the ice sheet due to ocean melting at its base,” said researcher Hannes Konrad.
Paper behind Nature’s paywall:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0082-z
Abstract
Grounding lines are a key indicator of ice-sheet instability, because changes in their position reflect imbalance with the surrounding ocean and affect the flow of inland ice. Although the grounding lines of several Antarctic glaciers have retreated rapidly due to ocean-driven melting, records are too scarce to assess the scale of the imbalance. Here, we combine satellite altimeter observations of ice-elevation change and measurements of ice geometry to track grounding-line movement around the entire continent, tripling the coverage of previous surveys. Between 2010 and 2016, 22%, 3% and 10% of surveyed grounding lines in West Antarctica, East Antarctica and at the Antarctic Peninsula retreated at rates faster than 25 m yr−1 (the typical pace since the Last Glacial Maximum) and the continent has lost 1,463 km2 ± 791 km2 of grounded-ice area. Although by far the fastest rates of retreat occurred in the Amundsen Sea sector, we show that the Pine Island Glacier grounding line has stabilized, probably as a consequence of abated ocean forcing. On average, Antarctica’s fast-flowing ice streams retreat by 110 metres per metre of ice thinning.
Note to trolls: No US taxpayer dollars were spent on this study!
Scientists relied on data collected by the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 to conduct their study. The satellite measures changes in ice sheet elevation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LjfwDXmna0
Richard Alley: Science works…science helps us!
Climate State
Published on Jan 9, 2018
Presidential Forum keynote speaker Richard Alley, renowned glaciologist and climate scientist, at the 98th AMS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas.
“Note to trolls: No US taxpayer dollars were spent on this study!” — Fred Magyar
Hallelujah! It’s been a long time coming for the millions of hardworking Americans who have been demanding an end to all the many wasteful uses of their taxes.
“millions of hardworking Americans”
Oh please, the only white American guy I know. Who isn’t to lazy to mow his own lawn is myself. Without undocumented workers, American obesity would be down 80%.
Speaking of waste of a money, that plate you pass a round every Sunday. Is the longest running con in human history.
“Hallelujah! It’s been a long time coming for the millions of hardworking Americans who have been demanding an end to all the many wasteful uses of their taxes.”
Since the Americans have produced much of the pollution that is causing climate change, why do you want a free pass? Also since it was the corporations making much of the pollution and promoting the use of pollution making devices (for profit of course) while only paying 4 percent of federal taxes, why shouldn’t the American corporations be made to pay for studies and mitigations?
Unless of course America is full of greedy cheaters and lowlifes that only take money, never take responsibility and don’t pay their debts. That is the appearance lately concerning the corporations and many politicians.
The American way of life or simply the American way is the unique lifestyle of the people of the United States of America. It refers to a nationalist ethos that adheres to the principle of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At the center of the American way is the American Dream that upward mobility is achievable by any American through hard work. This concept is intertwined with the concept of American exceptionalism, the belief in the unique culture of the nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_way
Superman: Truth, Justice, and the American Way. “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound”. 1938 was a dark time for America, crime and economic collapse spread over the land as war loomed in the distance.
“crime and economic collapse spread over the land as war loomed in the distance”
Sound familiar ?
“At the center of the American way is the American Dream that upward mobility is achievable by any American through hard work. This concept is intertwined with the concept of American exceptionalism, the belief in the unique culture of the nation.”
Sounds like a dream alright, certainly not close to reality in most cases.
“crime and economic collapse spread over the land as war loomed in the distance”
Sounds like a description of just about any time, somewhere or several somewheres on the earth.
Now as to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Life, hard to live without it.
Liberty, due to private ownership laws we have only a small relative legal space to move about and none without laws diminishing and controlling our liberty.
Pursuit of Happiness, is a strange one. Since happiness is an internal emotion one should not have to go far to get it. Also in a society that feeds people constant entertainment of one sort or another, I seem to find very few happy people. Maybe the pursuit is key and the direct feeding of it kills the feeling. Or maybe the marketing of too many products kills happiness. A complex topic.
CryoSat-1 was launched in 2005, CryoSat-2 in 2010. They are European projects but have been providing data that has been used all over the world, including for important work coming from the USA. Your “about time” comment is in line with your normal pig ignorant, self delusional, jingoistic bullshit. It’s time for you to fuck off somewhere else.
I’m not sure this comment is entirely fair to pigs.
not fair to pigs– a given.
Interesting, thanks Fred.
Self-storage: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38 billion industry
By Patrick Sisson
https://www.curbed.com/2018/3/27/17168088/cheap-storage-warehouse-self-storage-real-estate
Despite recessions and demographic shifts, few building types have boomed like self-storage lockers. In fact, they’ve proven to be one of the surest bets in real estate over the last half century, while malls, starter homes, and even luxury commercial space in big cities, once safe and steady investments, have struggled. Behind the combination locks and roll-up doors lies a $38 billion industry.
One in 11 Americans pays an average of $91.14 per month to use self-storage, finding a place for the material overflow of the American Dream. According to SpareFoot, a company that tracks the self-storage industry, the United States boasts more than 50,000 facilities and roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rentable space. In other words, the volume of self-storage units in the country could fill the Hoover Dam with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes more than 26 times.
Though the adage “sex sells” is hard to dispute, the decidedly unsexy self-storage industry made $32.7 billion in 2016, according to Bloomberg, nearly three times Hollywood’s box office gross. Self-storage has seen 7.7 percent annual growth since 2012, according to analysts at IBISWorld, and now employs 144,000 nationwide.
The industry’s boom over the last few decades mirrors larger demographic and real estate trends: Americans relocating from the Midwest and Northeast to Sunbelt cities store old gear in self-storage units. Millennials moving into increasingly crowded, high-demand downtowns require extra space. A wave of downsizing baby boomers needs a place to put a lifetime of accumulated memories. Small businesses want room to store excess inventory.
The confluence of these trends has created a building spree. The last few years have seen record-setting investment in self-storage expansion, including $4 billion alone in 2017. This year alone, planned or existing warehouse expansion will add 40 million square feet, or about 800 facilities, to the market, according to Investing Daily.
Let’s assume that the stored stuff is valuable and worth keeping.
Now a storage locker runs from $2 to $1 per square foot per month to rent.
A similar area in a house costs about $120 per square foot to build and with taxes over a 60 year period comes to $360 per square foot or $0.50 per square foot per month.
Now the cost of a garage addition is $40/ft2 and with taxes makes it $0.17 per square foot per month.
So obviously it’s better to use one’s home or even better a garage to store all that “valuable” stuff. Maybe even rent space in a friend’s garage.
The big question is, did having that smaller house/apartment or lack of garage end up actually cheaper for the millions of users of storage space. Or maybe there is a bigger question.
The money to be made because of “pack rat” syndrome and the inability of people to make decisions is huge, almost comparable in cost for cable TV that provides dancing lights and sound on a display for even many more millions of people.
Personally , I think that material storage is far better and safer than cable television.
Maybe we should store the TV’s and live with the valuable clutter?
Some people have caught on, they keep buying more stuff but have yard sales where they practically give away that older valuable stuff, thus saving $90 per month while spending much more.
A few others just don’t buy all that stuff, but they are not ordinary people.
Much of this storage is for people living in dense urban areas, where the cost per sq foot is much higher than that.
People that live in expensive dense urban areas should know better. 🙂
I don’t have any data on the distribution of users and costs per square foot by locale. Just took the national average since the national average and stats were given.
Wouldn’t the storage cost rise along with the cost of real estate, canceling some of the differential?
The figures I gave are the cost of building not the cost of real estate, since one would already own the real estate.
Most people in dense urban areas don’t have the option of adding to their home (think condos). If they have a bunch of stuff that doesn’t fit, they have to move or rent storage…
They don’t have to build, just understand the cost per square foot to store in house as compared to store external.
Hoarders learn to walk between the aisles of unused stuff since most rooms are empty space anyway. Maybe ceiling high storage racks in the living room? 🙂
A couple of stories from insideevs as counterpoints to the negative press on Tesla reported further up.
New Survey Predicts Huge Future Market Share For Tesla
SURVEY INDICATES MARKET SHARE GAINS AHEAD FOR TESLA
One of the most famed Apple analysts, Gene Munster, has recently turned his attention to Tesla. Munster’s firm, Loup Ventures, “surveyed 519 people in the U.S. regarding interest in buying a Tesla Model 3… [and] found a surprisingly high number (17%) of people would buy a Model 3 at $40,000. Even if this survey is off by 3x, the results still imply significant market share gains are in store for Tesla given their current U.S. unit market share is below 0.5%.”
Tesla Model 3 Market Dominance May Be Imminent
TESLA’S MODEL S MARKET DOMINANCE COULD FORESHADOW MODEL 3’S FUTURE
Recently famed Apple analyst Gene Munster predicted market share gains ahead for Tesla based on a survey executed by his firm Loup Ventures. It turns out there are other indicators that point to market share gains down the line for Tesla. With so much riding on the success of Model 3, Seeking Alpha’s Victor Dergunov remains convinced that a stock “breakout appears imminent… and new all-time highs [are] very likely” for Tesla.
Disclaimer: I have no financial interests in Tesla. I just want to highlight that, when it comes to news in the EV arena, there appear to be countervailing forces at work.
That is good news, whether one likes Tesla cars or not. As a leader and innovator in the industry of EV’s, the very presence of Tesla urges on the world to move into these highly efficient, non-polluting and quiet vehicles.
FIJI PM: CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS OUR SURVIVAL
Fiji’s prime minister has said the Pacific island nation is in “a fight for survival” as climate change brings “almost constant” deadly cyclones.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43625608
From an energetic viewpoint, system added energy is being displayed as an increase in the energy of weather phenomena and their timing. This was an expected result and those in long flat plains or near long stretches of open ocean (islands) will initially bear the brunt of strong storms.
What is generally not discussed is that we are seeing only a portion of the energy input since most of the energy is going into the ocean and some of that is being buried deep. There will come a time in the future when that buried energy surfaces and adds to the surface energy of the ocean, thus creating conditions which are generally much more severe than what is currently being experienced.
There is physical evidence during peak warm times, even during interglacial periods, that 30 meter waves on the ocean were common. Could one even use ocean transport in such an ocean environment, considering both the waves and the winds necessary to create them. With stronger storms will aviation become too dangerous and diminished and most above ground infrastructure at peril of damage?
Will natural forcings bring this about in a shorter timeframe?
Garbage War?
US DEMANDS CHINA KEEP IMPORTING AMERICA’S GARBAGE
“As it tries to strike an agreement with the U.S. to avert a trade war that economists fear could destabilize global markets, China has an ace up its sleeve that it’s just about ready to play: The Communist Party last year implemented a ban on imports of recyclable material that is provoking a mild panic in the U.S. The reason? The U.S. relies on China to “import” much of its bulk recyclable waste. But last July, in an effort to battle the “illegal foreign garbage” influx into China, the country’s Ministry of Environmental Protection notified the World Trade Organization that it plans to ban imports of 24 types of solid waste materials, including soda bottles, mixed paper, recycled steel and newsprint.”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-demands-china-keep-importing-american-garbage/239616/
Where did American ingenuity go? Sounds like an opportunity to clean up our own mess and start taking some responsibility for our own actions. What do other developed countries do about the situation? Maybe we need to start learning here in the US.
Maybe the producers of these products should not get a free ride and need to be included in the solution.
I know it sounds harsh, but the world is not a wastebasket and the time for childish taking is over. It’s time to grow up.
Several Northern European countries are suffering from waste shortages and would love that trash.
As the cold weather draws to a close in the northern hemisphere (for most at least), the thoughts of heating degrees days will fade in the brightness of the inclining sun. So as a parting nod to those cold days that were and a vision of those that will come, here is a set of graphs of monthly heating degree days by year for my area (41N, USA, mid-Atlantic at the edge of the continental climate).
The winter months are highly variable with January range of 400, February at 600 and so on. With such large variability from year to year, how does one plan? Plan for the worst case is all one can do and remember that monthly totals tell little about what happened during that month. More insulation, more thermal mass are two ways to deal with the variations. All heating systems need batch storage to weather the lows. Getting caught short can be a numbing experience.
Electric Car Putsch
…ask yourself why this business is being pushed so hard, in defiance of some very stubborn facts.”
Instead I ask why you are such a Koch bros propaganda whore and why are you constantly pushing so hard against the reality that EVs are better and cleaner than ICEs and that every major and minor vehicle manufacturer is pedal to the metal developing EV tech? US auto manufacturers and Fossil fuel interests notwithstanding!
Don’t believe me? Go to any of the major car shows anywhere in the world today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umfAdnSWB_o
Tokyo Motor Show 5 – Trucks and Bikes | Fully Charged
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaSG4Wxu_HU
Geneva Motor Show 2018 Part 2 | Fully Charged
You have to be totally delusional or have an ideological agenda not to see the writing on the wall.
The US car manufacturers represented by GM, Ford and Chrysler are stuck in the past as far as their US market is concerned. Even they know that the rest of the world is going to be a huge market and that market is EVs
Anyone who cannot see the simple benefit from not burning about 15.000 gallons of fuel equivalent per EV is either delusional or has a fossil fuel agenda.
EV sales for Jan-Feb 2018 for the top ten plug-in manufacturers was 101,513. That is over 600,000 this year probably closer to 800,000 and I expect that to double quite quickly. With the fast ramp up of Tesla, those numbers are already old.
BTW, the top ten does not include GM or Ford.
People do not realize it yet but the combined effect of higher mpg ICE, hybrids and EV’s is already having a significant impact upon oil demand.
If America wants energy independence (which seems more a propaganda slogan than reality) a switch to mostly EV’s and a large increase in PV and wind power would do it.
Haha, when you highlight an argument you usually do it because it’s your best argument. If your best argument is an insult, you don’t have any good arguments.
Your ridiculous rant focuses on GM and the Bolt, but what about Tesla? Somehow Tesla did manage to build that super charger network which you think is impossible and has back-orders for 100s of thousand of cars – they can’t build them fast enough. In the luxury market, Tesla already rules – Mercedes, Lexus, BMW – anything over 80K is already being outsold by Tesla. You think a few thousand in incentives makes any difference to someone buying a 100K car? They are now going after the mid range of the car market and they just get better and better. Not just Tesla anymore, but Hyundai, VW, and soon others will have some great EVs.
Ep 012 – Linking wealth, energy demand, CO2 and Climate Change
(podcast)
Professor Garrett’s model indicates the constant requirement of 9.7 Watts to support every $1000 (adjusted to the 1990 Dollar) means it is impossible to decarbonise the economy and prevent catastrophic climate change within six decades.
Tim Garret’s model is bullshit! He needs to get out into the real world a bit more. The world is changing and it may be that humanity won’t be able to save itself but it sure as hell won’t be because of Jevon’s paradox.
He needs to incorporate some of the newer ideas into his outdated BAU models. Ideas of innovative thinkers and designers such as these.
https://solarteameindhoven.nl/stella-vie/stella-lux/
Energy positive family car
Stella Lux, the energy positive family car. This means she is so efficient that she generates more energy than she consumes during the entire year, even in Dutch weather conditions! The aerodynamic design has an important role in this: consider, for example, the tunnel which runs through the center of the car. Furthermore, Stella Lux has an extended roof on both sides of the car. Because of this, we were able to place another row of solar panels on the car. Stella Lux is designed to be extremely light by using materials like carbon fibre and aluminium.
Fred —
THE WHALES WHO LOVE TO SING IN THE DARK
“The alphabet for the bowhead has got thousands of letters as far as we can tell,” Prof Kate Stafford, lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, told BBC News.
“I really think of humpback whale songs as being like classical music. Very ordered. They might last 20 – 30 minutes.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43630716
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/14/4/20180056
“The alphabet for the bowhead has got thousands of letters as far as we can tell,”
Doug, TKS mucho! I’ll have to read up on the literature later. I needed a little relief from the morons and trolls around here lately! But can’t say I’m all that surprised… That’s a heck of a lot of gray matter in those heads.
Unfortunately their survival depends on humans… My apologies to them!
I lived in Maui for quite a while.
While underwater, the sound of the Humpbacks was haunting– and for months.
Yep, used to listen to them on dives here too. Haunting is the right description.
NAOM
FirstEnergy unit that runs power plants files for bankruptcy
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FIRSTENERGY_SUBSIDIARY_BANKRUPTCY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
A new Electric Power Monthly post is up
http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-electric-power-monthly-march-2018-edition-with-data-for-january-2018/
Non-petroleum comments could be placed below the Electric Power Monthly post.
Also a new post on UK Offshore Oil and Gas by George Kaplan is up
http://peakoilbarrel.com/uk-offshore-production-2017-summary-and-projections/