403 thoughts to “Open Thread: Non-Petroleum, November 8, 2017”

  1. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2649/hot-news-from-the-antarctic-underground/

    Study Bolsters Theory of Heat Source Under West Antarctica

    A new NASA study adds evidence that a geothermal heat source called a mantle plume lies deep below Antarctica’s Marie Byrd Land, explaining some of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. Although the heat source isn’t a new or increasing threat to the West Antarctic ice sheet, it may help explain why the ice sheet collapsed rapidly in an earlier era of rapid climate change, and why it is so unstable today.

      1. I think you have posted against the wrong comment, can’t read, can’t be bothered to read, are an idiot, or had a not very important point to make that you came up with sometime recently and just latched on to the first thing that looked vaguely appropriate – or all of the above. I just posted a link to a NASA report and quoted a section of it in case other’s found it interesting, nothing more. The same link was posted below so I guess at least one other person finds the subject of interest.

        1. You have just been hooked by an obvious flaming troll. No response is the best response.

    1. I guess some are getting tired of having the Autumn People in charge.

      1. The Autumn People by Ray Bradbury? Sorry but I fail to make the connection.

        Wait! Perhaps I do. The Autumn People is a collection of horror stories. Oh yeah, now I understand.

        1. Actually I was referring to the evil circus freaks and ring leader in Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked this Way Comes.” They were called the autumn people.

          1. I’m a big sci fi fan and love Bradbury, but I missed these stories so thanks for mentioning them. Haven’t been reading any sci fi since inter net days, before that I haunted used book stores and libraries. Time to catch up on missed classics. Thought you were referring to orange and yellow people like the autumn leaves, meaning Trump and company.

            I posted a bunch of good links about the election at or near the tail end of IslandBoys last article. Anybody interested can easily find them there.

            Bottom line things are turning in favor of the D’s a lot faster than most people anticipated, going by these last elections. I’m thinking getting rid of Trump may actually be possible after the mid terms.

            All the R’s in even mildly competitive districts are steering clear of him already, and at least a few will have to totally disown him in order to have a shot at keeping their own seats in DC.

            Northam’s margin in Virginia surprised me and I mean it REALLY surprised me. The likeliest explanation for this considering the polls which indicated a close race, my opinion anyway, is that the liberalish/ progressive faction is HOT and the conservative faction that’s at least moderately awake and principled is badly discouraged and most likely quite a lot of people who would normally vote R in Virginia in this off year election just stayed home or voted D.

            I’m still grinning although there are some things about the overall D platform I don’t like at all.

            Nevertheless , the environmental issue trumps EVERYTHING ELSE combined, and the D’s are so far ahead of the R’s on environment that they’re completely out of sight and coming around to gain a lap, in automobile racing parlance.

  2. CLIMATE CHANGE COSTS A LOT MORE THAN WE RECOGNIZE

    “The latest U.S. government report on climate change illustrates how expensive the phenomenon can be: It estimates that more frequent flooding, more violent hurricanes and more intense wildfires, among other things, have cost the country $1.1 trillion since 1980. What’s particularly striking, though, is how much the report and others like it are still missing.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-08/climate-change-costs-a-lot-more-than-we-recognize

    1. Yes, and they also ignore the fact that all of these problems and disasters cause one more positive carbon feedback type to be added to all the other “more natural” ones as we rebuild, replace, mitigate and transistion. Every action we take is at least 80 percent carbon driven and when climate stresses force us to act more, it feeds the cycle of warming.
      We need to quickly lower the ratio of carbon to human action or we will, as they say, just be adding fuel to the fire.

      Personally I am transitioning as fast as possible but I am just one person. We need billions to join in to get off this feedback loop.
      In the US we need to get the greedy middleman and the greedy intrusive local governments out of the PV residential install loop.

        1. Ah, but the beaches have a lot of competition lately from fracking. Prediction is that fracking in just Eagle Ford, Permian and Canada will hit 35.7 million cubic yards of sand per year. Much larger than the piddling 170,000 cubic yards for Miami-Dade county beach restoration.
          Just think of all that work to quarry and load, all the diesel for trains and trucks to move sand to the fracking going on all over the country for gas and oil production. All that carbon and all that worn equipment and infrastructure that will need to be repaired and replaced due to just sand demand.

          It’s had a massive impact. Today, a producer in the Montney might blast 100 rail cars of sand down a single well.

          http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/grains-of-sand-how-fracking-has-caused-a-surge-in-demand-for-one-of-the-worlds-oldest-commodities

          BTW, sand is so dense that rail cars carrying it are only 40 feet long versus the typical 60 feet to keep the pressure on the rails and wheels down to standard. Also due to the need for certain physical sand properties, sand may have to be transported large distances to fracking sites.

          1. Yup,

            THE WORLD IS RUNNING OUT OF SAND

            https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand

            AND

            THE WORLD IS FACING A GLOBAL SAND CRISIS

            “Sand and gravel are now the most-extracted materials in the world, exceeding fossil fuels and biomass (measured by weight). Sand is a key ingredient for concrete, roads, glass and electronics. Massive amounts of sand are mined for land reclamation projects, shale gas extraction and beach renourishment programs. Recent floods in Houston, India, Nepal and Bangladesh will add to growing global demand for sand.”

            Research shows that sand mining operations are affecting numerous animal species, including fish, dolphins, crustaceans and crocodiles. For example, the gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) – a critically endangered crocodile found in Asian river systems – is increasingly threatened by sand mining, which destroys or erodes sand banks where the animals bask.

            Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-world-global-sand-crisis.html#jCp

            1. Too bad we have to wait 100,000 years for another set of glaciations to grind up more rock into sand and gravel.

              Just think, PV uses sand and we need a lot of PV in the future. Better not use it all up sending it down the wells.
              Maybe natural gas backup for electric power is not a great idea after all.

            2. Just the US will probably need 4.7 mllion tons quartzite sand and 1.9 million tons of carbon every 40 to 50 years to produce enough PV if we go all renewable with mostly PV. Using a lot of wind and efficiency could cut that demand in half.
              A relatively small demand compared to the other uses for sand and carbon.

        2. Yair. . .

          170,000 meters? . . . . A days production for a decent scraper spread? A few decimal places missing I think? (grins)

        3. GRRR! Don’t even get me started on the stupidity of many Florida beach replenishment projects that I have personally seen silting over our coral reefs!

          But now we may be legally allowed to import sand from the Bahamas…

          https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2017-11-03-florida-beaches-sand-bahamas

          Florida Wants to Purchase Sand From the Bahamas to Replenish Critically Eroding Beaches, But It’s Illegal

          In February, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) introduced a bill, the SAND Act (Sand Acquisition, Nourishment and Development), that would allow the purchase of foreign sand, TCPalm.com reported. At the time, Rubio said the ability to purchase sand from other countries is “desperately” needed.

    2. more frequent flooding, more violent hurricanes and more intense wildfires

      IPCC says no evidence of increase in any of those.
      It is easy to say there are more frequent weather extremes due to global warming, but despite all the statistics and 40 years of global warming, there is no proof of that according to IPCC.

      climate change illustrates how expensive the phenomenon can be

      And weather-related global losses as % of global GDP show a downward trend. Either we are better at protecting from weather losses, or global warming is actually decreasing weather extremes.

      1. WEATHER-RELATED LOSS & DAMAGE RISING AS CLIMATE WARMS

        • Weather-related losses and damage have risen from an annual average of about $50 billion in the 1980s to close to $200 billion over the last decade, according to the Munich Re insurance group.

        • A new report highlights the World Bank’s experiences from decades of work in weather-related disaster risk management and climate resilience.

        • Disasters strike rich and poor countries alike but some island nations and the poorest nations in Africa and Asia are among the most vulnerable.

        http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/11/18/disaster-climate-resilience-in-a-changing-world

        MITIGATING THE IMPACT OF INCREASING LOSSES FROM WEATHER-RELATED NATURAL CATASTROPHES

        http://www.agcs.allianz.com/insights/expert-risk-articles/mitigating-natcat-losses/

        National Centers for Environmental Information: BILLION-DOLLAR WEATHER AND CLIMATE DISASTERS: OVERVIEW

        “The 1980–2016 annual average is 5.5 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2012–2016) is 10.6 events (CPI-adjusted).”

        https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/

        1. And,

          STEADY INCREASE IN CLIMATE RELATED NATURAL DISASTERS

          The incidence of natural disasters worldwide has steadily increased, especially since the 1970’s, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Then main reason for this increase in the steady uptick of climate-related disasters. There were three times as many natural disasters between 2000 to 2009 compared to the amount between 1980 and 1989. A vast majority (80%) of this growth is due to climate-related events. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the scale of disasters has expanded, owing to increased rates of urbanization, deforestation, environmental degradation and to intensifying climate variables such as higher temperatures, extreme precipitation and more violent wind/water storms.

          https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/steady-increase-in-climate-rel/19974069

          1. And somebody should tell those doctors at the New England Journal of Medicine, that the IPCC has not found the same when specifically reviewing climate data and climate publications.

            IPCC AR5 states “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin”
            “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”
            “In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms”

            IPCC AR5. 2013

            If the IPCC says no, I guess that means no.

            1. Javier, somebody should tell you that you are full of shit!

              I think the people in the list below pretty much have. Why don’t you contact them and tell them that you are right and all of them are wrong! I’m sure they can’t wait for your deep scientific insights.

              U.S. Global Change Research Program v Climate Science Special Report
              Benjamin DeAngelo, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
              Administration
              David W. Fahey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
              Administration
              Kathy A. Hibbard, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
              Wayne Higgins, Department of Commerce
              Jack Kaye, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
              Dorothy Koch, Department of Energy
              Russell S. Vose, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
              Administration
              Donald J. Wuebbles, National Science Foundation and U.S.
              Global Change Research Program – University of Illinois
              Subcommittee on Global Change Research
              Bradley Akamine, U.S. Global Change Research Program
              – ICF
              Jim Biard, Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites
              – North Carolina
              Andrew Buddenberg, Cooperative Institute for Climate
              and Satellites – North Carolina
              Sarah Champion, Cooperative Institute for Climate and
              Satellites – North Carolina
              David J. Dokken, U.S. Global Change Research Program
              – ICF
              Amrutha Elamparuthy, U.S. Global Change Research
              Program – Straughan Environmental, Inc.
              Jennifer Fulford, TeleSolv Consulting
              Jessicca Griffin, Cooperative Institute for Climate and
              Satellites – North Carolina
              Kate Johnson, ERT Inc.
              Angel Li, Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites
              – North Carolina
              Liz Love-Brotak, NOAA National Centers for
              Environmental Information
              Thomas K. Maycock, Cooperative Institute for Climate and
              Satellites – North Carolina
              Deborah Misch, TeleSolv Consulting
              Katie Reeves, U.S. Global Change Research Program – ICF
              Deborah Riddle, NOAA National Centers for Environmental
              Information
              Reid Sherman, U.S. Global Change Research Program –
              Straughan Environmental, Inc.
              Mara Sprain, LAC Group
              Laura Stevens, Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites –
              North Carolina
              Brooke C. Stewart, Cooperative Institute for Climate and
              Satellites – North Carolina
              Liqiang Sun, Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites –
              North Carolina
              Kathryn Tipton, U.S. Global Change Research Program – ICF
              Sara Veasey, NOAA National Centers for Environmental
              Information
              Report Production Team
              Administrative Lead Agency
              Volume Editors
              Science Steering Committee
              David J. Dokken, U.S. Global Change Research Program
              – ICF
              David W. Fahey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
              Administration
              Kathy A. Hibbard, National Aeronautics and Space
              Administration
              Department of Commerce / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
              Thomas K. Maycock, Cooperative Institute for Climate and
              Satellites – North Carolina
              Brooke C. Stewart, Cooperative Institute for Climate and
              Satellites – North Carolina
              Donald J. Wuebbles, National Science Foundation and U.S.
              Global Change Research Program – University of Illinois
              Ann Bartuska, Chair, Department of Agriculture
              Virginia Burkett, Co-Chair, Department of the Interior
              Gerald Geernaert, Vice-Chair, Department of Energy
              Michael Kuperberg, Executive Director, U.S. Global
              Change Research Program
              John Balbus, Department of Health and Human Services
              Bill Breed, U.S. Agency for International Development
              Pierre Comizzoli, Smithsonian Institution
              Wayne Higgins, Department of Commerce
              Scott Harper, Department of Defense (Acting)
              William Hohenstein, Department of Agriculture
              Jack Kaye, National Aeronautics and Space
              Administration
              Dorothy Koch, Department of Energy
              Andrew Miller, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
              David Reidmiller, U.S. Global Change Research Program
              Trigg Talley, Department of State
              Michael Van Woert, National Science Foundation
              Liaison to the Executive Office of the President
              Kimberly Miller, Office of Management and Budget

            2. If exact quoting the IPCC is being full of shit, then the IPCC is full of shit. I quite agree.

              That those people believe in something, doesn’t make it any more real. The list of people that believe in God is quite impressive. You can write them and tell them they are full of shit.

            3. If exact quoting the IPCC is being full of shit, then the IPCC is full of shit. I quite agree.

              No, it’s called cherry picking and quoting out of context! Much like taking a tiny downward wiggle in a graph showing a long term warming trend and trying to claim cooling.

              Up is not down and you are still full of shit! Your are nothing but a dishonest troll!

            4. Bullshit. Nowhere in IPCC AR5 is any evidence that climate extremes are on the increase, with the possible exception of heat waves. The trolls are those that claim the opposite without evidence.

              And I do not claim cooling. The planet is in a multicentennial warming trend. It has also been in a multiannual cooling trend for the past 21 months. Both are facts. They can’t be argued. If you don’t like me saying it, that’s your problem.

            5. You Know Fred, Javier makes a lot of sense………

              Except when he’s talking about climate change, which is unfortunately most of the time!

            6. Fred – I expect most here and any REAL climate scientist would quickly recognize Javier for the quack that he is; for one thing, my nine-year-old Grandson has a better grasp at basic statistics than he does. Probably best to X him out.

            7. “Ad hominem” fallacious arguments are so tiresome. When you can’t demonstrate that the IPCC supports an increase in extreme weather due to global warming, then attack whoever says so.

              Your climate doom beliefs are full of holes and whatever you say of me won’t change that.

            8. And don’t forget, Fred, that most of us have Javier on ignore.
              So it’s kind of like watching a one-sided rage fest. 🙂

              -Lloyd

            9. Continue your personal attacks. That’s all you can do since you can’t show the IPCC AR5 agreeing with global warming having caused an increase in weather extremes.

              After 40 years of data that’s pretty pathetic. And it shows how much lying about climate change is being spread to the public.

            10. Javier doesn’t believe in the precautionary principle.
              I doubt there’s a real scientist anywhere who would hire him as a lab assistant handling dangerous chemicals for fear he would either poison himself or burn down the laboratory.

          2. Storm of the century. Actually the 1990’s and into the 2000’s were a period of large storms and flooding in my region. Repetitive floods of unusual size. Snow storms were fierce and temperatures dropped lower than I ever remember by fifteen to twenty degrees in some of them.

            The Blizzard of 93 was impressive near me, but nothing that people 25 miles away in the higher mountains hadn’t seen before. It’s ferocity and unusual nature was further south. Blizzard in Atlanta anyone?

            Storm of the century:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVbsP9eh-_0

        2. We’ve hardly moved the tail of the bell curve out much yet – if we get to 2, 3 or 4 degrees increase the number of 3 sigma events go up by factors of 10 to 100, and for 5 sigma events (i.e. the end of the local habitable zone) go from never to possible or even likely within a generation.

        3. Of course the loss increases, since population and wealth increase. A lot more human stuff in the path of natural disasters. Unless you adjust for GDP increase, you are just measuring how many more we are and how much richer we have become. Simple and obvious.

  3. With all these predictions from Stephen Hawkins and others about the dangers of AI and other possible destructive scenarios, some people think we should head to other solar systems.
    I fully disagree on the real need to do so. We can expand within the solar system if needed. As the sun heats up, if humans or their descendants are still around, we should be able to move the earth further from the sun so it doesn’t overheat. Plus we should have really good climate control in the future (if we survive the next few hundred years) and energy will not be a problem.
    Assuming our AI has not killed us off or we have used it to kill us off, but actually helps us, building space colonies and terraforming planets will be well within our grasp.
    This of course implies we have shed some of our maniac qualities along the way.
    If we need more real estate, think Venus, not Mars.

    But nature has a way of radiating species and we keep dabbling in genetics, so who knows what we will be like in the future or what new Pandora’s box we open up.

    1. Well yeah, as the Sun ages it gets hotter; initially, it was about 70% as luminous as it is now. So, the solar constant, the energy Earth receives from the Sun, would have been correspondingly lower which, interestingly, leads to the famous “Faint Sun Paradox” borne out of the realization that, though the Sun was cooler in its infancy, early Earth still contained liquid water. Astronomers estimate the Sun’s luminosity will increase about 6% every billion years. But, will humans still be here in one billion years? Maybe radiogenic heat is a factor?

      1. No paradox, just a lot more CO2.
        I wouldn’t depend on radiogenic heat at 50 milliwatt/m2 it’s not enough.

        But to have a meddlesome techno species like humans on the planet for millions of years or longer begs the question, what mischief will we get up to in the future?

    2. I like it where we are – why can’t the sun be moved instead?

      1. It would be better to move the earth, less melting of equipment occurs and low cost shielding. Due to the r2 law we don’t have to move it far.

      2. 59% of the GOP are young Earth creationists who think the Earth was created in its present form right about when (Science tells us) the Sumerians invented glue.

        Maybe they could help?

        1. I often point out that making fun of Christians and other people who take their religion seriously is a major political mistake, because it fires them up like nothing else,and that means they get out to VOTE.

          And what people tell pollsters and reporters and writers who they may perceive and very often DO perceive as their political and cultural enemies does not necessarily reflect their true beliefs in any meaningful way.

          I live in one of the deepest and darkest corners of the socalled Bible Belt, and my family up until recently was about as gung ho for Jesus as they come.

          Some of the really old folks and SOME of the younger ones do still read and believe thier KJB’s literally.

          But it’s been many years since I was sitting around the country store, or at our informal little farm shop two pm bring your own get together for all the old retired guys and anybody else who for some reason has the day off. I’m the only university graduate, and only a couple more of the dozen or so regulars have any advanced training of any sort, other than in a trade.

          But not a single one of these guys ever bats an eye when I talk about where oil and coal come from, or how all the bones in a human correspond almost exactly to the bones of a chimp, etc, about deep time, about the sun being the center of the solar system, about WHY the KJB never mentions anything that identifies the Americas, or describes any of the countless species of animals supposedly on Noah’s Ark, etc. Sometimes I talk about these things for an hour at a stretch, and along here and there everybody talks about what he has seen on tv……. and believe me, damned near all these school dropout hillbillies have satellite tv, and watch some real science shows.

          NOT A ONE OF THEM ever accuses me of being a pawn of the Devil, etc. They’re comfortable with the concept of evolution, having seen it demonstrated by hybridization of peaches and plums, etc, by dogs being bred from two pounds to upwards of two hundreds, etc, “sports” meaning new varieties of apples NEVER BEFORE SEEN just happening by accident. Etc etc etc.

          But two thirds of them go to church on a more or less regular basis.

          AND if you ask ANY of them whether they believe in the KJB as the literal word of God, and Heaven and Hell, etc, and there’s an AUDIENCE, or the possibility of an audience later reading or listening to his words, well now…….

          Every LAST one of them WILL solemnly swear on his KJB that he believes every last word in it.

          Anybody who cannot understand WHY is pretty close to intellectually challenged, if he’s old enough to have lived on his own rather than being sheltered from reality by his parents.

          I’m sure somebody will call me an idiot, but calling me names doesn’t bother me at all, excepting only a very few, which I need not mention here and now, and want me to EXPLAIN myself.

          Will do when asked or challenged.

          PS, Given that the local preacher knows the purpose of our gathering, to enjoy a few brews and tell some lies out of hearing of the women, he makes it a point to never show up. He pretends we don’t drink on Sunday, or at least doesn’t name us by names as victims of the Devil and John Barleycorn, and we listen politely, if we don’t fall asleep, when he mentions evolution, or rock and roll music, lol

          Incidentally I don’t think I have even met a self trained country preacher who has even HEARD of Bishop Usher. Ask a back woods Baptist preacher about how long seven days is when GOD is the time keeper and you will get an answer that boils down to ” as long as he wants it to be”.

          Now the point of this long rant is that if you WANT to, you can find ways and means to talk to such people so that they will be your political friends, or at the very least neutrals, rather than your political enemies.

          I have posted some of these ways from time to time, and will do so again.

          Look… What do you want? To get off on feeling smug and superior because you’re putting other people DOWN, or do you want to WIN ELECTIONS?

          I know damned well that the answer is that the ones of you who make fun of Christians want BOTH, but you can’t necessarily HAVE both.

          If you keep your opinions of religious people in general and Christians in particular to yourself, or at least refrain from posting them in the public record, you will be doing YOUR part to win elections for the D’s who ARE the party of the environment.

          If this forum were to be a classroom, and I were to be the teacher, I wouldn’t pass any body who makes such remarks until he copies a little book titled “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by HAND, nice and neat.

          Go ahead and cuss me, flame me, I hope somebody does because it helps me make my case.

    1. Try to restrain yourself and read what’s already been posted, in this case the very first comment. 😉

      1. You must be so proud of yourself. Great catch. What would we do without you Johnny?

  4. A strange repeating and long lasting supernova.

    The event, dubbed iPTF14hls, was put on 24/7 watch. The eyes of the Las Cumbres Observatory — a robotic network of telescopes positioned all over the world — followed the supernova as it brightened, then faded, then brightened again. The nova hit five peaks of brightness before finally seeming to dwindle in summer 2016. But at 600 days old, it was already the longest-lived supernova ever observed.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/11/08/the-strangest-supernova-weve-ever-seen-a-star-that-keeps-exploding-and-surviving/

  5. Changes, always changes. Having spent time in the northern forests canoe camping, sleeping under conifers can mean a lot of dripping in the early morning as one makes breakfast. The structure of their leaves (needles) makes for great water collection out of damp and foggy air.
    Now things may be changing for the redwoods of California.

    http://blogs.ucdavis.edu/egghead/2016/10/18/scientists-explore-the-foggy-link-between-redwoods-climate-change/

    Institute for the study of ecological & evolutionary climate impacts
    http://iseeci.ucnrs.org/

    1. Fly Fishing on the South Fork of the Eel, in the largest intact old growth redwood forest on Earth, on a rainy February day, is absolutely magical.

      1. The hemlock forests near me were like giant cathedrals until the wooly adelgid got them.

        1. Live right at the southern hot edge of the range for such trees.
          Just cut two beautiful specimens we planted fifty years or more ago as part of our permanent landscaping on the home place. The woolies got’em.

          Might have been a closely related but different species, I would have to find forestry book and key them out to be sure.

    1. No bugs in the shuttle, human driver of semi was cited for illegal backing. This will be a growing problem as robotic vehicles encounter the antics of human drivers. Where I intuitively expect other drivers to do stupid things in certain situations, I don’t think the robot brains are up to that level yet. The advantage of the robot is that everything should be recorded, so most collisions will be determined to be the human driver fault. Should be interesting when two different make autonomous vehicles meet.

      1. I’d love to see how an autonomous car would deal with traffic down here. Can an AI have a nervous breakdown?

        NAOM

        1. You are right. What I think are bad drivers around here would be considered road blocks in many areas of the world.

  6. Johnstown Never Believed Trump Would Help. They Still Love Him Anyway.

    In a depressed former steel town, the president’s promises don’t matter as much as they once did.
    By MICHAEL KRUSE
    November 08, 2017

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/08/donald-trump-johnstown-pennsylvania-supporters-215800

    When I asked Del Signore about the past year here, he said he “didn’t see any change because we got a new president.” He nonetheless remains an ardent proponent. “He’s our answer.”

    I asked Schilling what would happen if the next three years go the way the past one has.

    “I’m not going to blame him,” Schilling said. “Absolutely not.”

    Is there anything that could change her mind about Trump?

    “Nope,” she said

    All this, perhaps, is not so surprising, considering polling continues to show that—in spite of unprecedented unpopularity—nearly all people who voted for Trump would do it again. But as I compared this year’s answers to last year’s responses it seemed clear that the basis of people’s support had morphed. Johnstown voters do not intend to hold the president accountable for the nonnegotiable pledges he made to them. It’s not that the people who made Trump president have generously moved the goalposts for him. It’s that they have eliminated the goalposts altogether.

    This reality ought to get the attention of anyone who thinks they will win in 2018 or 2020 by running against Trump’s record. His supporters here, it turns out, are energized by his bombast and his animus more than any actual accomplishments. For them, it’s evidently not what he’s doing so much as it is the people he’s fighting. Trump is simply and unceasingly angry on their behalf, battling the people who vex them the worst—“obstructionist” Democrats, uncooperative establishment Republicans, the media, Black Lives Matter protesters and NFL players (boy oh boy do they hate kneeling NFL players) whom they see as ungrateful, disrespectful millionaires.

    And they love him for this.

    “I think he’s doing a great job, and I just wish the hell they’d leave him alone and let him do it,” Schilling said. “He shouldn’t have to take any shit from anybody.”

    1. This reality ought to get the attention of anyone who thinks they will win in 2018 or 2020 by running against Trump’s record.

      Total bullshit. The elections on November 7 was a total rejection of Trump and trumpism. Yes, Trump still holds on to his redneck, homophobic, Bible-thumping, gun-toting, white supremacist base but that is only about 32 percent of the population. However that is about 70 percent of the Republican population. And therein lies the predicament for Republicans.

      Trump supporters will win in the primary elections and get trounced in the general election. It is all over the news that Republicans are in a total panic. Republicans are caught in a catch 22. They cannot win in the primary if they oppose trump and cannot win in the general election unless they oppose him.

      1. “They cannot win in the primary if they oppose trump and cannot win in the general election unless they oppose him.”

        Now ain’t that sup’m?

        I consider this a very positive development. Maybe the Dems can start kicking the foxes out of the hen house next year. Right now the foxes (Kochs et al) are very much in charge of the hen house (Whitehouse).

    2. I am from Altoona Pennsylvania and have watched a number of hockey games in Johnstown…the Johnstown Jets back in the day…ever seen the movie ‘Slapshot’?

      My wife and I moved away after college and never looked back. There are good people back home, but a whole lot more cretins. They voted for and support the cretin-in-chief and will reap what they sow. They will get exactly what they deserve…I have no sympathy for them.

    1. I recently did a rough calculation of the cost of building enough batteries to store 2 weeks worth of energy for the US. Answer: 1.35 trillion.

  7. Lisa Murkowski Introduces Bill To Open Arctic Wildlife Refuge To Oil Drilling

    “This is not a choice between energy and the environment,” the senator said. “We are past that.”

    WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation Wednesday night that would open a portion of a pristine wildlife refuge in her state to oil and gas development, a move expected to bring in slightly more than $1 billion in federal revenue over the next decade.

    The bill would open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), described by some as “America’s Serengeti,” which covers more than 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska. The region is home to polar bears, caribou, moose and hundreds of species of migratory birds. It’s considered one of the state’s crown jewels.

    In a statement, Murkowski called it “a tremendous opportunity” for the country.

    The bill comes just days after Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, held a hearing to discuss allowing oil and gas production in the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, also known as the 1002 Area. The Senate budget plan includes a provision that requires the committee to find $1 billion in additional revenue over the next decade to help pay for tax reform.

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/murkowski-arctic-wildlife-refuge-drilling_us_5a03c13ee4b0937b510f8685?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

  8. After spending €587 million ($683 m, £520m) on carbon capture and storage, EU has nothing to show for it.
    https://euobserver.com/investigations/139257

    More climate induced waste of money. A hole in one place is a hill in another.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/875213/European-Union-EU-wasted-green-project-carbon-capture-zero-results

    “EUROCRATS blew £520 million of taxpayers’ cash on a decade-long project to reduce carbon emissions that produced absolutely zero results whatsoever, it has emerged.

    officials catastrophically miscalculated carbon emissions pricing in Europe, which they expected to go up but which actually dropped drastically just after the programme was announced.

    Yet what is very clear from the International Energy Agency, and the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], is that if you don’t develop CCS, we cannot meet the global carbon reduction ambition that was set in Paris.”

    The definition of self-inflicted damage.

    1. So based on seeing some of your posts here and the link that people are claiming goes to your twitter(no way for me to verify that it’s actually yours), you seem to think that emissions are not related to climate change. I agree with you completely that CCS is a big waste of time. I’m curious as to your general outlook. Is there some way that you see “hope” for the future? Some technology that you think solves the upcoming fuel crisis?

  9. Sorry Javier, this material will be well beyond your comprehension level so just give it a pass; maybe we can find you some old Archie comic books and you can look at the pictures. You should be able to identify with Jughead Jones, that’s the guy with the crown.

    HUMAN-CAUSED WARMING INCREASING LIKELIHOOD OF RECORD-BREAKING HOT YEARS

    A new study finds human-caused global warming is significantly increasing the rate at which hot temperature records are being broken around the world… “We can now specifically say climate change is increasing the chance of observing a new temperature record each year,” he said. “It’s important to point out we shouldn’t be seeing these records if human activity weren’t contributing to global warming.” King found only the climate models that included human influences had the same number of record-breaking hot years as historical temperature records — 15 to 21, on average. The models without human influences only had an average of seven record-breaking hot years from 1861 to 2005.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171108155504.htm

    1. So when does the great heat avoidance migration from India and Southeast Asia begin?

      Heat affects just about everything in civilization. Road surfaces, air transport, engines, electrical power usage and transmission, communications, railroads, food production and preservation, ease of material ignition (fires), fuel usage, water supply, human labor, disease transmission and much more are compromised or outright fail.
      We will be rebuilding most things over the next 50 to 100 years so will we plan for the coming changes or keep building to the least expensive standards possible.
      Our air conditioning systems can be highly improved but they are often working against buildings and facilities that are inadequately insulated and shaded. In fact these buildings are often great heat collectors.

      1. So when does the great heat avoidance migration from India and Southeast Asia begin?

        Ha ha ha!

        According to Janos Bogardi, director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) there were up to 50 million environmental refugees by 2010. The Guardian. October 12, 2005

        They even made a map showing where those 50 million climate refugees were coming from. It includes the places you insist will produce them. I guess the deadline has been moved indefinitely into the future. Somebody should tell them not to start packing.

      2. “We will be rebuilding most things over the next 50 to 100 years so will we plan for the coming changes or keep building to the least expensive standards possible.”

        That’s an easy one. When I recently replaced my hot water heater (which is in a hard-to-reach location) I asked the plumber to install a good one and he said: “They don’t make “good ones” anymore, the metal gauge keeps getting thinner hence so does the life expectancy.”

        AND

        “Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems require regular maintenance in order to work properly, but even well-maintained systems only last 15 to 25 years. Furnaces, on average, last 15-20 years, heat pumps last 16 years, and air conditioning units last 10-15 years. Tankless water heaters last more than 20 years, while an electric or gas water heater has a life expectancy of about 10 years. Thermostats may last 35 years but they are usually replaced before they fail due to technological improvements.”

        http://www.atdhomeinspection.com/advice/average-product-life/

        1. Yes, we reap the rewards of globalization every day with inferior products. We can design around a lot of them or at least reduce their use to the point where they will wear out due to age not use.

          1. We can design around a lot of them or at least reduce their use to the point where they will wear out due to age not use.

            That topic is a theme running throughout this year’s DIF.
            Here are just two of the discussions.

            “If you want to predict the future you need to design it”
            Buckminster Fuller

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksKAvGWZMLE

            The #PostDisposable challenge is designed to see how quickly all 7.4 billion people on the planet can create a post disposable future.

            #PostDisposable challenges people, industry and governments to rapidly integrate closed loop systems to advance the circular economy and positive change. It is a global movement to rapidly redesign systems that sustain wastefulness and resource depletion by reframing negative narratives.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ykeZpFpE6Po

            The End of Waste

            From that bit of plastic wrap that keeps your meat fresh to the piece of clothing you only wear a handful of times before chucking it out, it seems difficult to escape the fact that we are a wasteful society.

            So don’t we all just need to do our bit? If we up our game, make better purchasing decisions and act responsibly, won’t we crack the waste problem? Perhaps not. It sounds like a logical answer, but just looking at behaviour change misses out the unseen and the unavoidable. For example, how are our products made in the first place, and how are they stored and delivered? Here we’re talking about the system surrounding a product, and most of us have no say over how that system acts.

            1. Sorry Fred but I TL;DR those, way too much waffle.

              As far as packing goes here are some of my experiences. Today I bought a lighter for the stove. The old one had run out of gas and I could get a BIC lighter like cartridge for it but that is a lot of plastic and not much gas so I went for one of the refillable ones that are becoming common here. Even the cartridge one was an improvement on the old style that was a big plastic body that was thrown away whole. Still, the new one came in a plastic blister pack that had a piece of torn cardboard and a cardboard contaminated plastic bubble that had to be thrown away. The lighter could easily be sold from a cardboard, stand up tray with no packaging.

              Parma cheese, 3 different types of plastic, no recycling. Stopped the bread lady putting 2 pieces in 2 separate bags “but their different”! The bag filler, at the checkout, couldn’t understand my not wanting a carrier bag (sometimes it is just easier to accept a bag so they don’t frizz out).

              I used to have a re-useable shopping bag but some design genius had used bio-degradeable plastic to make it so that, when I went to pick it up, it turned to dust in my hand. The only way to pick up the pieces was with a vacuum cleaner as the bits fell apart as I picked them up. Sorryanna has 1 size of bag in the fruit and veg, big. They work on the idea that if you only put out big bags and trolleys then people will put more stuff in (I am the one who picks up a bucket from the cleaning isle, puts my shopping in, then leaves the bucket at the checkout).

              I don’t like plastic waste but, here, it is a big boon for hygiene, ghetto washing-up means you eat off a clean plate not one that has been cleaned in dirty water. Plastic has a place but it needs to be minimised and not used to excess such as a bag in a bag in a bag that one ends up in some places. We don’t need huge cardboard and plastic blisters to hold every tiny item. Also, less packing -> less transport, less handling. Intelligent packing of re-useable/recyclable material sent back in the empty lorries to close the loop.

              Finally Christmas! I see mountains of stuff that is designed not to last and think “January and February’s rubbish”.

              NAOM

            2. Change has to come primarily at the system level.

              That’s why ideas like “leading by example” and “Gore hypocrisy ” don’t make that much sense.

            3. My newly minted description of progress:

              “That which costs more, doesn’t function as well and is a pain-in-the-ass to deal with.”

      3. Heat affects just about everything in civilization. Road surfaces, air transport, engines, electrical power usage and transmission, communications, railroads, food production and preservation, ease of material ignition (fires), fuel usage, water supply, human labor, disease transmission and much more are compromised or outright fail.

        You forgot levels of violence!

          1. Also drug use, especially khat – the best way to cope with the heat when you have no AC is to be pretty well zoned out and immobile in the daylight hours, hence endless khat chewing, interspersed with a bit of crime to pay for it.

        1. You are right Fred. I had that filed under population reduction.

      4. “Our air conditioning systems can be highly improved but they are often working against buildings and facilities that are inadequately insulated and shaded. In fact these buildings are often great heat collectors.”

        Tell me about it! The apartment I live in, designed and built when oil was $20 a barrel, is a perfect example. I often dream of punishing the architect by forcing him to live in a place like mine between May and October, with no air conditioning and no fans. I suspect the designers and developers are long deceased but, if not, four months here without air conditioning or a fan would probably kill them!

    2. human-caused global warming is significantly increasing the rate at which hot temperature records are being broken around the world…

      Trivial. As the planet warms, hot records are to be broken, and heat waves should become more common. It just cannot be otherwise. However that depends on the amount of warming, not on its origin, as physics doesn’t distinguish among natural or human-caused warming, nor do we. The amount of warming caused by humans is assumed, as it cannot be measured in any way.

      1. Do you not think it’s valid to compare rates of warming in the geological record against rate of warming now? We see that the rate now is many times faster than ever before. So what’s different between then and now? Seems to me that a species of primate burning a previously underground fuel might be an outlier in the geological record.

    1. Hi Boomer II,

      To clarify, after reading the piece you linked, it is the high debt loads of the retail corporations rather than consumer debt that is the focus of that article.

      I had wrongly assumed that high consumer debt loads were the problem for retailers.

      Basically there are too many retail outlets in much of the US and some of their market share is being taken my online retail (though that also is not the focus of the piece, it is mostly dismissed by the author, but it is a part of the story imo).

      The bankruptcies will reduce debt levels as much of it will go poof in the bankruptcy proceedings.

      1. My take is that the decline of stores in various communities will negatively impact those communities: loss of jobs and a decline in commercial property values.

        The article suggests that these stores can’t withstand the impact of online retailing because of their debt loads.

        1. Hi Boomer II,

          That is correct, but it is the nature of capitalism. The fact is there has been overinvestment in retail space. When this occurs businesses are not profitable. The debt load is a consequence of poor profitability which resulted from poor investment decisions and has lead to a poor allocation of resources.

          I agree it could potentially be a problem for the economy. It might also lead to higher consumer debt load if unemployment rates rise as a result.

  10. In the previous non-petroleum thread, there was a discussion about hybrid/electric conversion kits for existing ICE powered vehicles. I’ve been doing some more digging and came up with a story from Green Car Congress on the 2009 Crown Vic conversion that Nick mentioned:

    ALTe Developing Series Plug-in Hybrid Powertrains for Conversion and OEM Applications

    I found some interesting images from doing a search that I hope the following link will replicate (the complex inner workings of Google might produce unpredictable results but, I tried)

    http://images.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=hybrid+conversion+kit

    A couple of the results linked to outfits that have obviously refined their offerings over time and are still in existence like ALTe Technologies and XL Hybrids. There were a couple that showed the motor directly attached to the rear axle, as I suggested in a post to the previous non-petroleum thread. These integrated motor/rear axle set ups are from two Chinese outfits. The following link shows what appears to be configurations for both front and rear wheel drive vehicles:

    https://www.uumotor.com/10kw-bldc-motor-for-electric-car.html

    The following link goes to a page that about half way down, has a picture of what they call a “Rear wheel differential gear bridge with motor”, the drawing for which I have posted below:

    https://www.goldenmotor.com/eCar/frame-eCar.htm

    These motors attached directly to the rear (or front) differential certainly don’t look very exotic and if they were to be produced in significant numbers, the cost of developing and manufacturing the mechanical parts should be trivial, especially if computer aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and stuff like 3D printing and rapid prototyping were employed.

    If one is willing to think outside the box, there are lots of creative solutions that could be tried.

    1. “In a moment I shall thoroughly debunk it.”

      I’m on the edge of my seat over here.

  11. WARNING: There’s some real science here Javier so, to avoid embarrassing yourself (again), best stick to looking at pictures in your comic books.

    COMPLETE BED TOPOGRAPHY AND OCEAN BATHYMETRY MAPPING OF GREENLAND FROM MULTIBEAM ECHO SOUNDING COMBINED WITH MASS CONSERVATION

    “Greenland’s bed topography is a primary control on ice flow, grounding line migration, calving dynamics, and subglacial drainage. Moreover, fjord bathymetry regulates the penetration of warm Atlantic water (AW) that rapidly melts and undercuts Greenland’s marine-terminating glaciers. Here we present a new compilation of Greenland bed topography that assimilates seafloor bathymetry and ice thickness data through a mass conservation approach. A new 150 m horizontal resolution bed topography/bathymetric map of Greenland is constructed with seamless transitions at the ice/ocean interface, yielding major improvements over previous data sets, particularly in the marine-terminating sectors of northwest and southeast Greenland. Our map reveals that the total sea level potential of the Greenland ice sheet is 7.42 ± 0.05 m, which is 7 cm greater than previous estimates. Furthermore, it explains recent calving front response of numerous outlet glaciers and reveals new pathways by which AW can access glaciers with marine-based basins, thereby highlighting sectors of Greenland that are most vulnerable to future oceanic forcing.”

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074954/full

  12. GoneFishing says:
    11/06/2017 at 4:45 pm
    El Nino is just stored solar energy surfacing. It’s all just global warming. The ocean does not generate it’s own heat. The ocean just stores it and moves it around.

    Javier says:
    11/06/2017 at 6:12 pm
    After El Niño, the ocean gets cooler and part of the energy is radiated to space. From the global mean average surface temperature it is just heat passing by as the atmosphere also doesn’t generate its own heat and just moves it around.

    GoneFishing says:
    11/06/2017 at 6:20 pm
    The lack of comprehension is staggering.

    Whoever is interested in understanding El Niño should take a look at this talk (powerpoint pdf) by William Kessler, of NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and School of Oceanography, University of Washington. Fear not, it is climate neutral. It explains very clearly what El Niño, is, how it starts and ends, what Rossby and Kelvin waves are and the role they play. Fantastic explanation.
    https://faculty.washington.edu/kessler/TALKS/ENSO_UWHS_Aug2012.pdf

    On the second slide it says:
    “The role of the Ocean-Atmosphere system is to move excess heat from the tropics to the poles, where it is radiated to space.”

    On slides 24 & 25:
    “(One might say that the climate “function” of El Niño events is to drain excess heat from the west Pacific warm pool.)”
    “Because the amount of warm water in the warm pool is limited, [Los] Niños have a finite duration (9-12 months).”

    The prevailing ENSO recharge-discharge hypothesis is presented.

    This article from the Guardian (2016) explains it further:
    El Niño is Earth’s rechargeable heat battery

    “when the waters are warm (El Niño), resulting in more evaporation from the ocean waters into the atmosphere. Conversely when the ocean waters are cold, there is often less evaporation. Because evaporation requires a great deal of thermal energy – it cools the ocean while moistening the atmosphere – it’s an engine that moves heat.

    So, a new study, led by Dr. Michael Mayer from the University of Vienna, focused on the energy flows during the ENSO process.

    During La Niña, heat builds up in the Pacific and then during El Niño, the heat is dissipated to other regions. The dissipation occurs in both laterally via atmospheric energy transports and vertically via radiation to space.

    The authors found that models tend to underestimate the ENSO processes in the upper 700 meters of the Pacific. While observations show substantial cooling of the tropical Pacific during El Niño as measured by ocean heat content, most models lack this typical signature.

    The buildup and release of oceanic heat during La Niña and El Niño mainly occurs in the tropical Pacific. What is happening in the other basins during warm and cold ENSO events tends to be of opposite sign. This means that oceanic heat is released from the Pacific during El Niño while ocean heat content increases in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Ocean at the same time. The opposite tends to be the case during La Niña. This “seesawing” of oceanic energy between the different ocean basins is a result of the atmospheric teleconnections we describe. Besides this energy exchange between the different ocean basins there is also considerable radiative heat loss to space during El Niño.”

    The article is open:
    Mayer, M., Fasullo, J. T., Trenberth, K. E., & Haimberger, L. (2016). ENSO-driven energy budget perturbations in observations and CMIP models. Climate Dynamics, 47(12), 4009-4029.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-016-3057-z

    From the conclusions:
    “This study shows that key aspects of ENSO, namely (1) net radiative energy loss (gain) at TOA, (2) ocean heat discharge (recharge) in the tropical Pacific and (3) compensating OHC tendencies of the opposite sign in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans during warm (cold) events, are underestimated in all considered models and partly missing in some models.”

    With all this information we can analyze what the 2014-2016 El Niño has meant for the planet. Most lay people think that El Niño warms the planet. Quite the opposite. El Niño is the discharge part and cools the planet by increasing energy loss to space from the tropical top of the atmosphere and at the poles. It just looks as global warming because the energy is moved from the Pacific Ocean through the atmosphere to other parts of the climate system and to space. We measure that energy transfer as warming in our thermometers.

    This big El Niño has not been followed by a La Niña. For as long as there is no La Niña, two things happen:
    -There is no rapid surface cooling. The post-El Niño cooling we are observing is much slower.
    -There is no rapid recharge of Pacific Ocean energy.

    We are also observing warmer Arctic winters with above normal snow precipitation over Greenland (see figure). This is indicative that warm humid air from the South is making it to the Poles where the energy is mostly radiated to space.

    The most likely outcome is that global average surface temperatures will continue decreasing over the next year. A new El Niño is unlikely unless a strong La Niña recharges the lost energy or enough time (years) is past for a slow recharge.

    Do not expect much global warming in the near term. Now you can go on with your personal attacks if that is all you’ve got.

      1. Great comment, NAOM. It actually says a lot more about you than about me.

    1. Hi Javier,

      You are aware I assume that warmer objects radiate more heat?

      So nothing you have posted refutes what Gone fishing has said.

      During El Nino the atmosphere warms and a warmer atmosphere will lead to more heat flow at the TOA, the flow will be comparatively lower when the atmosphere is cooler (during La Nina).

      The point is that the average over these warm and cool periods is what matters and the physics of the Earth system is that there is warming and it correlates quite nicely with the level of greenhouse gases especially over 10 year averaged data for global temperature and atmospheric CO2 from 1870 to 2016, giving support to the underlying physical model.

    1. Survivalist — It’s probably a mistake to link Javier to science. I’ve known many scientists but none, that I respected, who were willing to make sweeping statements and generalizations about areas outside their own area of expertise and most were extremely cautious about (definitive) statements even within their own field. Take geology, which includes Volcanology, Paleontology, Petrology, Structural Geology, Stratigraphy, Economic Geology, Mining Geology, Petroleum and Engineering Geology, Hydrology, Soil Science, Minerology, Geochronology, etc. If you’re a stratigrapher, you seek advice from a paleontologist, you don’t tell him/her their business. Javier claims to be a biologist, of some sort; what is he doing interpreting climate science? He doesn’t seem to understand even basic statistics. I have 40 odd years experience as an exploration geologist/geophysicist working across the globe and never once presumed more knowledge than my peers – we learned by working together and sharing information. Javier is just a pathetic armchair know-it-all.

      1. If you’re a stratigrapher, you seek advice from a paleontologist, you don’t tell him/her their business.

        Exactly!

        Let’s put the shoe on the other foot and for a moment suppose that some supposed climate scientist were to decide to give his opinion about some arcane aspect of microbiological research, about which he understood very little and the microbiological community readily accepted as fact.

        Then loudly proclaim that he was right and all the known microbiologists in the entire world didn’t know what they were talking about. That climate scientist would be laughed out of any serious scientific conference where the topic was being discussed and summarily dismissed as a crank.

        You don’t see Javier posting on realclimate.org, they wouldn’t put up with his BS there for very long!

        1. Can you tell me please in what do you think I disagree with all the climatologists in the entire world?

          Because I have left very clear that I base my opinions on the evidence presented in scientific publications, and data from official research institutions, and nothing else. Everything I have said I have been able to back it up on published research.

          For example I agree with the IPCC in that there is no evidence that climate extremes, with the possible exception of heat waves, are increasing with global warming. How can you conclude that all the climatologists disagree with me if that is what the IPCC concludes? Since my opinion on that is aligned with the IPCC I would say that is evidence that I share it with quite a few climatologists.

          1. “For example I agree with the IPCC in that there is no evidence that climate extremes, with the possible exception of heat waves, are increasing with global warming.”

            You agree with the IPCC. Wow, so now we can all relax, God has spoken. BTW, I agree with both, yes both, Newton and Einstein so YOU can be assured the laws of Universal Gravitation and General Relativity are OK. Big fucking deal. Face it Javier, you’re not a climate scientist and nobody gives a rats ass who you agree or don’t agree with any more than they care whether or not I accept Newton’s and Einstein’s physics. Does quantum chromodynamics get your seal-of-approval or should that theory go to the dustbin? We wait with bated breath.

            1. “Independent Researchers”
              In other words, any valid publisher would be embarrassed to publish it, no matter how much they were paid.

            2. Whoever Javier is, I must say that except when the subject is forced climate change, he seldom if ever says anything inconsistent with sound environmental science. I can’t remember a single instance.

              I must also say that he is the only reputed scientist I know of (who is apparently actually qualified by training as indicated by Dennis, who runs things these days and has access to his real identity, etc, ) who utterly disregards the precautionary principle, never mentioning the consequences of following his lead if he turns out to be wrong about forced warming, and we collectively do little or nothing proactive about preventing it.

              I’m not a real scientist, but I do fancy myself as being somewhat knowledgeable about real ones, by way of knowing some well, and talking to a lot more, over time.

              None of them would hire a lab assistant who doesn’t believe in the precautionary principle for fear he would do something leading to a serious accident, or worse.

              The fact that he talks sense in all respects except forced warming is very unusual.Most mouth pieces and trolls sooner or later display their ignorance or reveal their real agenda .

              It puts him in a class by himself. I have knowledge of a few people, via reading, who were essentially completely rational, except in one or maybe a couple of respects.

              Maybe he’s one of that kind, or maybe he’s just another troll…….IF so, he is far better at his trade than any other troll I know of. He sticks to his message as well as any professional politician.

            3. Javier has replied twice to my comments, recently.

              One time he was very helpful, looking up a quote from Tainter. The second…he said flaky stuff about solar power.

              Sigh.

            4. Hi Doug,

              There are many here who make comments about climate science and offer their opinions on these matters who are not experts (obviously I include myself).

              Much of the information conflicts with the mainstream climate science view (such as the positions of the posts at realclimate.org or the IPCC).

              Javier makes a mix of statements and opinions many of which I disagree with.

              The position of many here is that there will be tipping points reached that will cause catastrophic climate change.

              Note that most scenarios based on the mainstream climate models require very high levels of carbon emissions (RCP8.5) to reach these catastrophic warming levels within the next 400 years or so.

              The carbon emissions for RCP8.5 are approximately 5 trillion metric tons of carbon emissions from 1750 to 2200.

              It is unlikely that even half this amount will ever be emitted.

              In fact the ridiculously optimistic “high” scenarios for the oil, natural gas, and coal scenarios I have created in the past have about 11% higher emissions than RCP4.5. The medium scenario has carbon emissions very similar to RCP4.5 (about 1400 Pg C from 1800 to 2150).

              Potentially the 2 to 2.5 C of global warming that may result from such a scenario will be catastrophic and there is a great deal of uncertainty in the climate response to carbon emissions (probably 2.5 to 3.5 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 based on current science in the near term to 2300, and possibly higher over longer periods (3.5 to 4.5 C for Earth system sensitivity in a World with small ice sheets as is currently the case) of 5000 years.

              If atmospheric CO2 falls to 400 ppm after 10000 years and ESS is 4.5C that would imply 2.3 C of warming, the very long term effects are highly uncertain.

              In my view the uncertainty is reason to be careful and limit carbon emissions to 1000 Pg from 1750 to 2100 with zero net emissions after 2100. Lower would be better, a rapid energy transition (optimistic of course) might allow us to limit carbon emissions to 930 Pg from 1750-2100, but realistically 1000 Pg C will be exceedingly difficult to accomplish.

              Removal of CO2 from the atmosphere through reforestation and other means may be needed in the future when solar power is plentiful and falling population may result in excess energy which can be used for CO2 removal processes.

              The first steps are better education and equal rights for women worldwide (the key to reducing total fertility ratios) and a transition to non-fossil fuel energy (preferably wind and solar with limited hydro and biofuel backup and possibly limited nuclear power that can automatically shut down safely with no power input necessary).

            5. “The first steps are better education and equal rights for women worldwide (the key to reducing total fertility ratios) and a transition to non-fossil fuel energy (preferably wind and solar with limited hydro and biofuel backup and possibly limited nuclear power that can automatically shut down safely with no power input necessary).”

              Gee, never thought of that stuff Dennis. 🙂 So, will all this happen in time to avert global disaster? And no, you’re not a climate scientist either but though you do tend to be a bit of a Prima Donna at times, unlike Javier, you’re not obnoxious or arrogant or imperious with your views and opinions. Mostly I’m polite but narcissistic know-it-alls and armchair experts tend to tip me over the edge.

            6. Hi Doug,

              Sorry I come across as a prima donna, I am trying to be better on that score.

              I included that obvious stuff to point out that we have a problem if continue to do what we have done for the past 200 years, will we do what needs to be done?

              Unknown.

              I think I said I was no climate scientist and have never pretended otherwise. I read the papers and blog posts at places like realclimate.org which I believe represents mainstream climate science.

              I try not to take things out of context as sometimes is done by others, but no doubt fail.

              Everyone (this includes me of course) has a point of view which colors their interpretation of what they read.

              That’s why I try to read what the experts at realclimate.org think as well as IPCC reports.

              There are a wide range of opinions even among the experts, I just go with the middle of the range as I do not have the expertise to properly judge who is correct.

              As a geophysicist you would know more than me, though this is not really your area of interest, you prefer astrophysics, I think.

            7. The thing I can’t stand with J is his messiah complex – i.e. he thinks he knows better than us and he’s going to save us from ourselves, and part of that will be to butt in and shut down or divert all discussion that he disagrees with. That plus if he’s losing an argument he either just makes stuff up or starts defaming real climate scientists.

              I might be out of date though – I haven’t read anything since we were able to x him out and not much for some time before then.

            8. “I might be out of date though haven’t read anything since we were able to x him out and not much for some time before then.”

              No, nothing has changed George. Same narcissistic know-it-all ass.

            9. The big concern, at this late point, is that the carbon output from fossil fuel burning is becoming a smaller factor each year. Human agriculture produces a lot also. CO2 from forest fires alone may now be about half as much as fossil fuel burning creates. Lake, pond and swamp emissions are on the increase. Permafrost emissions are on the rise. Arctic albedo changes add to the heat as well as the water vapor, pushing other feedbacks. Oceans are slowing in their uptake of CO2, keeping more in the atmosphere.

              If we wait much longer, fossil fuels will be just a sideshow.

            10. Fish — Excellent points: I read somewhere that currently about 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions come from forest fires which is one of the reasons I harp on (ad nauseam) about wildfire feedback.

            11. “The first steps are … input necessary).”

              Is there an “Invent time machine and go back forty years, then …”, missing in there?

              Or 46 might be better, then you could stop Jim Morrison ODing as well.

            12. Hi Doug,

              I’m like you in that I believe the likelihood of real shit in the fan climate troubles is high to extremely high, where as Dennis is more cautious and prefers to stick to a more middle of the road interpretation of the data.

              Furthermore, it occurs to me that he may be more pessimistic in actuality than his comments here indicate, because he IS our defacto moderator, after all, lol. That may lead him to speak a little more cautiously than he would otherwise.

              How about it, Dennis?

              And ya know what? Most of the time, taken all around, the middle of the road guys turn out to be right.

              He may turn out to be right, and I strongly suspect he IS right , in respect to the total amounts of fossil fuels left that we can easily get at.

            13. Hi OFM,

              My guesses have about a 50% chance of being too low and a 50% chance of being too high. 🙂

              I think we don’t know what climate sensitivity is (the experts say 1.5 to 4.5 C with a 90% probability that it is in this range).

              Based on temperature and carbon dioxide data 3 to 3.5 C seems to be a good guess (maybe a 50% probability it is in this range) for Equilibrium climate sensitivity (the fast climate response achieved within 300 to 400 years of reaching peak atmospheric CO2). Earth system sensitivity will add more to climate response from changes in albedo as there will be less snow and ice and changes in the range of deserts, forests, and grasslands and there will also be carbon releases from melting permafrost.

              The total added by all these changes is far from clear and it is also not clear over what period these changes will occur (1000, 5000, 10,000 years?).

              The fact that so much is unknown is reason to err on the side of caution in my view.

              If things are as bad as many here are convinced, it changes little in my view.

              Unless the argument is that we should party on (and I don’t think anyone is arguing for that approach), we need to do as much as is possible to reduce environmental damage and get population under control.

              I advocate for action rather than the idea that things are so bad we should give up any hope of making progress.

              Scenarios such as RCP8.5 are inherently driven by a belief that fossil fuel resources are about 3 to 4 times larger than is likely to be the case.

              RCP8.5 is consistent with the cornucopian viewpoint that I categorically reject. Projections of climate change based on a scenario that is unlikely to ever occur is a waste of time, the focus should be on RCP4.5 which is actually reasonable, and we need to do better than that (RCP3.7 with total carbon emissions close to one trillion tonnes, preferably less).

    2. Hi Survivalist,

      Don’t make stuff up.

      I know Javier’s identity, as does Ron (I think).

      He is not Ned Nikolov, you may believe that if you repeat this enough it will be true.

      It is not the truth.

      Now that you know, you can stop repeating something that is false.

  13. Back in the olden days, evolution was the topic of topics to bring up if you wanted to have a useless never ending debate. Nowadays we have climate science (AKA “my science is better than your science”) bullshine to keep otherwise idle brains busy. Actually, make that men’s brains. Ever notice that women are rarely part of the circular debates?

    1. Isn’t climate science the study of evolution ?

      My atheist God

    2. We have a gun lust. Guns make us (especially men) feel empowered, even when we are mostly weak. Guns make small men feel they are someone to be reckoned with — and I’m not referring to physical stature. Guns give impotent (sexually or existentially) men vitality and make them feel formidable.

      It is intensely sad that we feel guns empower us. It is perversely sad that we think guns reinforce our manhood. But what’s really sad, really pathetic and really telling is that so many of us are really only dangerous with a gun.

      We are intellectually meek. We are imaginatively bankrupt. We are inexcusably ignorant. We’re a sad, dangerous gaggle of spoiled, misinformed children. But give us the girl, the good jobs, the bigger houses, the golf course and the perpetual, unchallenged right to feel good about ourselves . . . and we’ll leave you alone.

      1. We are also nothing more than apes with canine teeth and muscles and basically the same behaviors built into us by evolutionary programming as all the other so called higher animals.

        And while I understand the message behind such speech as the one posted by Hightrekker at 12:48 am, it’s also an absolutely indisputable fact that we live in a Darwinian world, and that MA NATURE keeps score only by way of tallying up the survivors and the deceased, short term, medium term, and long term.

        Anybody who doesn’t understand this is fails to comprehend the VERY FOUNDATIONS of the science of biology, and just about everybody here at least PROFESSES to believe in science.

        And as some wag said at least a century plus ago, paraphrased, God made men big and small. Colonel Colt equalized them all.

        Go ahead and flame me. I’ve PERSONALLY been in a situation more than once where the fact I had a gun saved my sorry ass from being beaten to a pulp, or maybe killed.

        Just saying because I love being a gadfly, lol.

        It may pay some of the wimpiest of us to remember what Orwell had to say about such subjects. Paraphrased, good peaceful men can sleep in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

        I won’t argue that it’s impossible that the entire human species can be disarmed, but I don’t see any real evidence to that effect. When one country gets to be TOO complacent about self defense, some other country always seems to be ready to take advantage of that complacency, in much the same way that ant colonies and wolf packs and bands of chimps raid each other, lol.

        Some people here insist there is no culture war, but the things the rest of us say prove there is. Such remarks are about as divisive as divisive can be, because they’re interpreted as ATTACKS by the people on the OTHER side of the cultural fence.

        I don’t particularly care one way or another, except for preserving the environment. I won’t be here a whole lot longer, and I’ve posted many times that demographic trends and cultural trends in my opinion are inevitably going to result in the USA ending up looking very much like Western Europe , economically, politically, and culturally, when the people of my generation and the next one following start declining seriously in numbers,and that’s already happening , and it will happen faster every year. It might happen a lot sooner than I have been thinking.

        Sometimes the worst sort of short term bad luck can actually turn out to be BETTER luck than only moderately short term bad luck, over the long term.

        The Trump presidency may be a case in point. A woman married to a moderately useless or bad man may take a LOT longer to decide she’s done with him than her sister takes to decide she’s done with a REALLY bad mistake of a husband.

        I’ve lived on both sides of the cultural fence. Life is largely what you make it, and a lot of people LIKE it as they find it on both sides or maybe I should say the side of their choice.

        1. OFM-
          I live in Red Central Oregon.
          Guns are a part of life here.
          I have guns, and enjoy them.
          I’m just not sure us Merikins have got a developed enough Prefrontal Cortex to have one.
          Most of our species doesn’t have one until mid twenties, but we may be a bit delayed in development.

          1. Hi , Trekker,

            I’m with you. I understand the beliefs of people on both sides of the issue, and if this forum were one in which idiots talk about their guns and actually using them, I would be posting stuff very similar to what you posted. Maybe even the same exact stuff, if I had stumbled on it, lol.

            Using other handles in other forums, I sometimes post stuff that makes me look like a leftie’s leftist, and a one hundred percent pure whale loving tree hugging pink panty wearing sissy queer, according to the regulars there, lol. And that’s when they’re being nice to me.

            I like to see people back off far enough from the trees to see the forest.

            We need to do something about murder in this country, for damned sure, but we just aren’t politically very smart. The opioid epidemic is killing a lot more people, and it’s not at ALL about what the pro gun people are about, mostly…….. a long established constitutionally enshrined RIGHT.

            It’s about a bunch of goddamned filthy drug companies and criminally responsible physicians making mega bucks out of this human misery more than anything else, and could be done away with by devoting only ten percent of the effort the leftish / liberalish establishment is devoting to trying to restrict gun rights.

            And doing it wouldn’t result in political backlash such as by way of example the election of DT to the presidency.

            I used to love to shoot and hunt.

            Now…… it’s something I still do if the occasion presents to enjoy a day out with the guys. Saw a white tail yesterday afternoon with a rack on him that would have made my mouth dry and my heart pound and my hands tremble when I was a youngster. Just looked at him looking at me and said out loud to him as he disappeared , “Old boy, that rack will be the death of you within thirty days”. The thought of hanging his horns on the wall myself never even occurred to me.

            But when it gets cold enough, in a week or so, I will put a couple of Bambi’s in the freezer, and I won’t get any more excited about it than I do buying meat at the supermarket. No bears, no wolves, no mountain lions here.Some coyotes but they aren’t controlling the deer.

            The countryside is a patchwork quilt of orchards, pastures, cut overs, corn and bean fields, hay fields, roadsides, etc, but still mostly hardwood forest. Deer paradise. Chronic Wasting Disease swept thru here four or five years ago and you could find five or six dead deer in half a day of looking for them.

            Bambi eats my cultivated stuff, I eat Bambi. The circle is closed.

        2. I grew up with guns, and sorted through my share of lead pellets in ducks. I think hunting is a great excuse for getting out in the country with friends.

          But, guns keeping us safe? That’s mighty unrealistic.

          Guns are mostly a danger to their owners. In 2013, there were 33,636 deaths due to “injury by firearms” – 21,175 were suicides. That’s 63%. And, compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher. Now, sure, that’s partly because of a long-term Prohibition of drugs that’s created gang warfare that makes the Valentine’s Day Massacre look lame, but lots of countries have similar drug laws. What’s unique about the US (besides our arbitrary and oppressively high rate of incarceration, unparallelled since Franco’s Spain and Stalin’s Russia)?

          It’s all the weapons out there.

          Do Democrats and Liberals want to get rid of hunting weapons? Don’t be silly. In theory they know the stats I mentioned above, they’d like to get rid of hand guns, and they occasionally pay lip service to gun control. But in practice (with the exception of a few urban cities with serious crime problems) they barely care about AK-47s and armor piercing bullets. It’s the gun manufacturers and Republican propagandists who keep pushing the buttons of gun owners, to scare them into buying more guns and voting against democrats.

          1. Hi Nick,

            So says a guy who is a confirmed liberal , and believes what he WANTS to believe.

            I believe what I want to believe likewise, lol.

            There’s obviously a lot of truth in what you have said.

            Says the CDC:

            “Opioids (including prescription opioids, heroin, and fentanyl) killed more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record. Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths involve a prescription opioid.”

            I’ll believe you are more interested in human life,etc,than you are in the D party’s overall agenda, when you switch horses and start talking with equal vehemence about other problems involving death and dying that are not so susceptible to being promoted on the basis of partisan politics.

            Incidentally although I don’t like everything about that agenda , I vote D almost all the time… because the environment trumps all other issues combined.

            The D establishment sounds almost as bad talking about Russians for the last year or so as most of the old time staunch anti commie right wingers did back when I was a youngster, lol.

            Back then they went to great pains to explain to us anti commies that the commies were actually nice guys, and that things were all hunky dory on the other side of the IRON CURTAIN.

            This is not to say that the Russians weren’t busy trying to help Trump, but rather than that if they had been caught trying to help the D’s the D’s would have poo poohed it like they did HRC’s secret email system, like the R establishment defends R’s caught with their pants down and their peckers up in the company of little girls whose parents don’t know shit from apple butter about parenting,else they would know their daughters were off someplace alone with with horny men two or three or four times their age, lol.

            One of my former mother in laws was a wise and plain spoken old country woman, and one of her favorite sayings when it came to men and women or girls was that “A stiff dick ain’t got no conscience”.

            Old Judge Roy was just doing what comes naturally to men who think they can get away with it.If it had been MY daughter I would have shot him , without worrying much about getting away. I could call him a pervert, but that’s simply a value judgement. He ‘s entitled to his own values, but not to ACT them out, lol, in violation of the law. I’m entitled to my own values too, but not allowed to shoot people for any reason,lol.

            Don’t pay me too much mind.

            I like to stir up fusses, but I also like for people to step back far enough from the trees to see the forest. 😉

            If major D party politicians would quit running their mouth at every opportunity about guns, the R’s wouldn’t be ABLE to push gun rights hot buttons, lol.

            I have said numerous times that the liberal establishment is going to win this contest by way of demographics, given time, and that soft pedaling the hard core rhetoric about it would likely result in MORE D’s holding office than otherwise, short to medium term.

            Believe me, it’s no harder for a conservative to believe that the liberals want to collect his guns than it is for a liberal to believe that conservatives want to outlaw abortion, or do away with the government safety net, or gut clean water laws, etc.

            1. “Old Judge Roy was just doing what comes naturally to men”

              Says the pedophile

            2. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, HB.

              You didn’t call HIM a pedophile when I said the same basic things about your PRINCESS /GODDESS HRC’s homie girl’s pervert husband who is iirc headed off to jail or at least on probation for monkeying around with underage girls.

              The word pervert in itself implies value judgements, as does the word pedophile. These words delineate legal and cultural norms, and have next to nothing to do with science and nature, which you know nothing about.

              Depending on which side of a state line you are on, you can be a pervert or pedophile on one side of the road, and an upstanding citizen on the other side, lol.

              Scientists don’t make such arbitrary distinctions.

              No real biologist would ever criticize me on professional grounds for taking a young woman as my wife, and fathering children with her, even on the basis of common law, or just sleeping with her, so long as she WANTS to sleep with me.

              Men very often do what comes naturally, when they think they can get away with it, as women do. HRC got away with making a hundred grand by way of defrauding other customers of her broker with his help, and that of the arguably most influential lawyer in the state with plenty of insider connections to the industry when she was trading cattle futures.

              Moore has finally been caught, and is now paying a PARTIAL price for his indiscretions and sins, lol.

              The truth matters no more to you that the ants I step on without even seeing them matter to me.

              You’re a hypocrite, a cretin, and a partisan. Period.

              I could name at least a dozen big time D partisans who have been caught recently abusing women, including women younger than the age of consent……. legal children. Some of them have had their pictures taken with your Goddess, lol.

              I’m waiting for you to call them pedophiles, lol.

              Maybe I’ll post links to some of the news about them, later today. Will you call them pedophiles ? Will send ten bucks to the charity of your choice, and post a picture of the check here if you do!

              Thanks for making my case for me, and giving me an excuse to point out once again just how poor a choice the D party made in running HRC for prez.

            3. a confirmed liberal

              No. I think you’d have a very hard time finding any place where I identified with “liberals” or party Democrats.

              Opioids (including prescription opioids, heroin, and fentanyl) killed more than 33,000 people

              US drug policies are a disaster. They are far more interested in finding employment for police of various kinds than they are in helping people. If we really cared about helping people’s drug problems we’d spend more than .01% of our drug enforcement budget on medical R&D for actually finding ways to help cure addiction. That could prevent addiction to opioids, heroin, tobacco, sugar, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.

              I’ll believe you…when you switch horses and start talking with equal vehemence about other problems…that are not so susceptible to being promoted on the basis of partisan politics.

              I’m answering your comments, which are explicity dealing with politics. OTOH, see my many comments elsewhere on medical research, which gets enthusiasm (if not nearly enough actual dollars) from both parties. It’s not a partisan issue, or at least it wasn’t until this administration.

              I’d say religion is the only place where there is a real, fundamental conflict. The advance of knowledge makes belief in the supernatural harder and harder, and yet people need a basis for community and a way to access their deepest intuitions for guidance and healing. I think you’ll find I have been fairly respectful towards religion and prayer.

              If major D party politicians would quit running their mouth at every opportunity about guns, the R’s wouldn’t be ABLE to push gun rights hot buttons, lol.

              Well, that’s how this came up in the first place, because it’s not really true. Obama said almost nothing about guns in his first term – it had no effect on the volume of NRA propaganda.

              Fox News propaganda about guns, abortion, antifa, etc.,etc., has almost nothing to do with reality.

              Again: Trump started his run for the presidency by saying that Obama was not born in the US. A majority of republicans still believe that.

              One more time: Fox News propaganda about guns, abortion, antifa, etc.,etc., has almost nothing to do with reality. In the last election Clinton was scored as saying things that weren’t true 25% of the time. Sanders was rated at 26% (so the two were statistically tied). Trump was at 75%.

  14. Back to the Coal Age?

    There are some people thinking about the effects of fossil fuel burning on the global environment beyond 2100. It is quite possible that the atmospheric CO2 level may not return to pre- fossil fuel levels even though the carbonate levels of the ocean re-equilibrate.

    Fossil fuels will have large impacts on ocean chemistry and climate during the period while they are being burnt (and carbon dioxide emitted) in large amounts. It is frequently assumed that these impacts will fade away soon thereafter. Recent model results, by contrast, suggest that significant impacts will persist for hundreds of thousands of years after emissions cease. We present a new analysis that supports these model findings by elucidating the cause of this ‘fossil fuel hangover’ phenomenon. We explain why the carbonate compensation feedback is atypical, compared to other feedbacks, in the sense that convergence is back towards a new steady-state that is distinct from the starting state. We also calculate in greater detail the predicted implications for the future ocean and atmosphere. The post-fossil fuel longterm equilibrium state could differ from the pre-anthropogenic state by as much as 50% for total dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity and 100% for atmospheric pCO2, depending on the total amount of future emissions.I/>

    It is the unusual properties of the carbonate compensation response that will, it appears, cause extra CO2 to remain in the atmosphere following recovery from of fossil fuels. The reason that the system returns to a new steady-state that is different from before is that carbonate compensation is a negative feedback on [CO2−3 ] only. It is not a negative feedback on [DIC] or [Alk] or atmospheric pCO2. It affects them only indirectly. In the process of stabilizing [CO2−3 ] the feedback will drive other dissolved carbon system variables to novel values
    From both Figs. 1 and 2, it is clear that the greater the amount
    of fossil fuels eventually burnt, the larger will be the difference
    between the pre- and post-fossil fuel atmospheric CO2 and climate.
    It has recently been predicted that the relic atmospheric
    CO2 could delay glaciation for as long as 500 000 yr (Archer and
    Ganopolski, 2005). Emission of fossil fuels may continue for a
    few hundreds of years, but it appears that the after-effects will
    continue to affect climate for hundreds of thousands of years.
    Our results support Archer’s work and additionally demonstrate
    the likelihood of large future excursions in the levels of DIC
    and alkalinity in the oceans.

    http://jgshepherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Tyrrell-et-al-2007.pdf

    1. Here’s a pretty good primer as to the basic chemistry: https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/Assets/Nemo/documents/lessons/Lesson_3/Lesson_3-Teacher's_Guide.pdf

      First, CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid (H2CO3-):
      (1) CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3

      Carbonic acid can then dissociate into bicarbonate (H+ CO3-):
      (2) H2CO3 -> H+ + HCO3-

      Bicarbonate can then dissociate into carbonate ions (CO3 –)
      (3) HCO3 -> H+ + CO3 —

      (1) CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3-

      (2) H2CO3 -> H+ + HCO3-

      (3) HCO3 -> H+ + CO3 —

      When first viewing these equations it may appear that both hydrogen ions and carbonate ions increase in solutions as a result of CO2 dissolving in seawater. This is not the case! This would be true if the reactions above only occurred in a single direction but chemical equations can actually go in either direction. A more correct representation of this would be:

      (4) CO2 + H2O H2CO3-

      (5) H2CO3- H+ + HCO3-

      (6) HCO3 H+ + CO3 —

      It is ultimately the rates of occurrence and net direction of the above reactions that determine seawater pH and carbonate availability. First when CO2 dissolves in seawater the primary reactions that occur are (1) and (2) going in the direction as listed.

      Equation (2) shows that formation of carbonic acid results in an increase in the
      hydrogen ion concentration (and thus a decrease in pH). This leaves equation (3) as a key player in determining carbonate availability in seawater. Chemical reactions inseawater can send any of the above equations in either direction as the system tries to maintain equilibrium. As more CO2 dissolves and H+ ions increase in solution, equation (3) will shift in the opposite direction (to the left) to produce bicarbonate. Thus in the system’s attempt to reduce the hydrogen ion concentration, it binds hydrogen and carbonate ions together thereby reducing carbonate availability to marine organisms.

      To get an idea as to what happens in real terms, drop a piece of chalk into a glass of vinegar.

      I haven’t the faintest idea on how to get these really basic and simple scientific concepts across to our political, economic and corporate leaders, let alone to the vast majority of the world’s population. Especially when we have a cadre of fucking assholes who masquerade as legitimate scientists and have sold out to the fossil fuel interests and engage in obfuscation. Sooner rather than later we need to hold these people accountable for their crimes against humanity!

        1. To understand that all you need is high school level chemistry, it really isn’t that difficult.

          1. Change precipitation, change temperature and all the rates change.
            Equilibria might not be reached for thousands of years and then it might be at a much different level than now.

            And then there are the oceans.
            But oceans are not able to absorb all of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, a recent study suggests that the oceans have absorbed a smaller proportion of fossil-fuel emissions, nearly 10 percent less, since 2000.
            Industrial carbon dioxide emissions have increased dramatically since the 1950s, and oceans have until recently been able to absorb the greater amounts of emissions. Sometime after 2000, however, the rise in emissions and the oceans’ carbon uptake decoupled. Oceans continue to absorb more carbon, but the pace appears to have slowed.

            The reason is based in part on simple chemistry. Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide have turned waters more acidic, especially nearer to the poles. While carbon dioxide dissolves more readily in cold, dense seawater, these waters are less capable of sequestering the gas as the ocean becomes more acidic. The study revealed that the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica, absorbs about 40 percent of the carbon in oceans.

            Previous studies have attempted to quantify the carbon-storage potential of oceans by assessing the amount of natural carbon in the sea. Khatiwala’s team chose not to measure natural carbon sinks, which he said are more difficult to assess globally.

            The role of oceans, particularly coastal marine ecosystems, could become instrumental in mitigating climate change. These habitats have been overlooked by the policymakers who will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, next month to develop a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, according to two reports released this fall.

            The carbon sequestration potential of tidal salt marshes, mangroves, seagrass meadows, and kelp forests combined “compares favorably with and, in some respects, may exceed the potential of carbon sinks on land,” according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in a report released on Tuesday.

            “If you look at the quality of carbon, compared to forests, you will find these habitats are 15 times more effective per unit area,” said Dan Laffoley, vice chair of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas and an author of the report. “This has been a big wake-up call.”

            http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6323
            So as our ocean ecosystems die and ocean temperatures change we are watching the largest sequestration system on the planet just fade away.

          2. Hi guys,

            I used the modelling of Archer, Joos, and others to create a Bern-like model along with a scenario for 1140 Pg of Carbon emissions from 1800 to 2100. Atmospheric CO2 peaks around 2080 CE at 508 ppm and falls to 470 ppm by 2200 CE, to 458 by 2500 CE and to 400 ppm in 28,200 CE.

            If Earth system sensitivity is high (5 C) methods of carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere will be needed.

            1. If Earth system sensitivity is high (5 C) methods of carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere will be needed.

              Wouldn’t it be a moot point at that stage?

            2. The experiment is running full steam ahead, who and what will succeed or fail will be the pointless knowledge gained. Change is the name of the game and it’s not pretty.
              The world used to be a mysterious place with growing knowledge of it. Now we face an unknown new and rapidly changing world where we might as well toss much of our hard won knowledge out the window, for it will not apply. What further horrifying mischief will we cause in our many misguided efforts of controlling the future?
              What new species will the experiment produce? Could be anything. We don’t know.
              Even primitive man would stop and approach, very cautiously, hidden and unknown areas. We plunge ahead into them believing we can handle it all, do what we please, enough will succeed. Some believe nothing will happen, some believe something will happen but it won’t be that bad and is controllable, others stare ahead with the hair standing up on the back of their necks and say run away as fast as you can or at least stop. But we charge on.
              What will we find? What will we try? Will we make any sense or just try everything and nothing?
              Space is not the final frontier, it’s right here.
              We have found the key to time and set the clock running 70 times faster backward.

            3. Hi hightrekker

              It is not clear how quickly the earth system will react to increased co2.

              For the full warming effects of earth system changes to be realized may be 5000 to 15,000 years, we don’t have very good estimates.

              Over that time there can be reforestation or perhaps CCS for biofuels.

            4. Hi hightrekker

              It is not clear how quickly the earth system will react to increased co2.

              For the full warming effects of earth system changes to be realized may be 5000 to 15,000 years, we don’t have very good estimates.

              Over that time there can be reforestation or perhaps CCS for biofuels which might bring down atmospheric co2.

            5. Hi Hightrekker,

              At 450 ppm that would be 3.5 C of warming if ESS is 5C,

              that’s the reason reforestation or some other means of reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm will be needed.

              350 ppm would result in 1.7 C of warming. Note that an ESS of 5 C is near the higher end of estimates for a world with small ice sheets in the Northern hemisphere (as is the case today). Probably 4 C is a better estimate for ESS, which would be 1.3 C of warming at 350 ppm and 2.1 C at 400 ppm.

            6. The small ice sheets of today were due to 270 ppm CO2. Now it’s over 400 ppm and climbing. The continental ice sheets are just starting to respond to this extreme surge of GHG’s. The last time there was 400 ppm there was hardly any ice left at all. We are headed for higher than that. Think ice free world or at least very small ice sheets with 150 feet of sea level rise as happened the last time CO2 crossed the 400 ppm line.

              BTW it takes 60 to 100 years to reforest areas. The forests are burning and being developed faster than we could reforest. Reforested areas are often deforested quite quickly.

  15. OFM – Any thoughts?

    SCALE OF ‘NITRATE TIMEBOMB’ REVEALED

    Huge quantities of nitrate chemicals from farm fertilisers are polluting the rocks beneath our feet, a study says. Researchers at the British Geological Survey say it could have severe global-scale consequences for rivers, water supplies, human health and the economy. They say the nitrate will be released from the rocks into rivers via springs. That will cause toxic algal blooms and fish deaths, and will cost industry and consumers billions of pounds a year in extra water treatment.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41945650

    1. OFM – You seem to be interested in this kind of stuff?

      “There are around 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth, with major eruptions occurring on average once every 100,000 years. One of the greatest threats an eruption may pose is thought to be starvation, with a prolonged volcanic winter potentially prohibiting civilisation from having enough food for the current population. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that food reserves worldwide would last 74 days.”

      http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170817-nasas-ambitious-plan-to-save-earth-from-a-supervolcano

      1. Thanks again Doug,

        Yes, thanks, I’m very interested, because one of my primary overall goals is to have the clearest possible picture of reality, political, economic, scientific and otherwise.

        My informal and amateurish research has already lead me to believe that volcanoes, ordinary and super sized, are a substantially greater risk than other possible natural disasters, by a large margin.

        Asteroids big enough to matter in orbits that might result in hitting us within a few centuries or so are apparently very scarce, since most of that sort seem to have hit the Earth or some other planet already over the last few billion years.

        The super volcanoes are still with us, and the earth is still generating enough heat internally via nuclear reactions to drive eruptions…….. and we likely past due for one, on the geological time scale.

        Doing something to cool off Yellowstone may be within the potential limits of the engineering professions, as suggested by the authors of your link. They are right that actually doing it is politically out of the question.

        The likelihood of Yellowstone or any other super volcano erupting soon, on the human time scale, is probably trivial……… probably.

        If a super volcano erupts, we will likely have plenty of advance notice, months at least, to prepare at the personal level.

        If an ordinary bigger one erupts unexpectedly, the thing to do is flee if you can, and hunker down with all the food and water you can put your hands on quickly if you can’t.

        If you live in farm country, you would be able stock up on livestock feed easily, compared to getting mobbed at a supermarket, and livestock feed stores very well. As Crocodile Dundee said in the movies about lizards, tastes like shit but will keep you alive.

        A ton of concentrate feed and a few bottles of multivitamins would be enough to see you thru a year or two. Two trips in a car would get it home. ONE trip in a sturdy car, if you drive it very carefully.

        The most intelligent person I have ever had the privilege of knowing well lives in Hawaii and keeps six months worth of food on hand, because he believes there is a significant possibility of a highly contagious plague occurring, and that Hawaii would be hit very hard due to all the air travelers passing thru….. and a place very hard to flee due to a shortage of air transport.So he’ s prepared to simply stay home and avoid all human contact to the extent possible until such a plague burns itself out.

        Anybody who has food and water enough to last out the eruption and is not TOO close to an actively erupting volcano, even a monster sized one in terms of human history, likely has a good shot at pulling thru. Nice high quality particle masks, or better yet filter masks, would be a great investment, because you do NOT want to breathe in very many microscopic glass particles.

        I believe self identified sophisticated people who pooh pooh such conversations refer to them as doomer porn, lol.

        I’m a self identified dirty old white nominally Christian redneck MALE , and I enjoy many kinds of so called porn,ranging from pics of nude women to doomer sci fi novels.

        As one of my centenarian male relatives put it, you NEVER get to old to think about sex, you just get too old to do anything OTHER than think about it, and maybe drool and pee on yourself because you can’t help it. We talked about some particular times he got laid as young man less than a week before he died. Cheered him right up!

        It’s enlightening to hear a man tell you just how hot and eager one of your great grandmothers was at fourteen, lol, remembering that she bore one of your grandfathers at sixteen. I knew her only as a shrunken and bowed and wrinkled eighty year plus old woman who worried a lot about people going to hell for getting laid and enjoying it, or drinking a few beers,lol.

        She would never have admitted publicly in a million years that she had a lover before she got married……. to a different man. It wasn’t a shot gun wedding so far as I know, but there were plenty of that sort arranged by outraged fathers and brothers back in those simpler times.

        Sixteen was commonly accepted as adulthood and marriage age back then in this part of the world.

        It’s one of the fascinating odd little coincidences of life that having studied the KJB as a child, I’m intellectually more open to taking the possibility of long shot natural catastrophes seriously than most people other than scientists. The Book of Revelation’s first class hard core doomer porn, as good in literary terms as any ever composed. Ask just about any professor of English lit.

        1. In a larger sense, faced with multiple predicaments and a few potential cataclysms, the only one we should be concerned with is nuclear war and it’s cousin nuclear power. The proliferation of both nuclear weapons and the stockpiling of nuclear material and waste is the only predicament or cataclysm that could disrupt the path of DNA, disrupt future viable life on the planet.

          All the rest are just setbacks and changes, in the larger sense.

          1. “All the rest are just setbacks and changes, in the larger sense.”

            I agree, although there’s still a possibility of other technologies being invented and deployed that could turn out to be similarly disruptive.

            But it’s hard to imagine what they might be.

    2. Hi Doug,

      Thanks for this link, I will be saving it for my own work. I’ll read it in a few minutes. The nice thing about BBC links is that a lot of them tend to be accessible indefinitely, so I can just post them later on without having to ask permission to copy the contents into my book to be. It will have a hell of a lot of links in it, lol..

      I’m knowledgeable in terms of basic principles, and understand the nitrate pollution problem in principle but I ‘m not a REAL practicing scientist of any sort, never mind being the right specialist to answer in detail.

      I can assure you that the quantities of nitrates leaching into ground water are HUGE, and may well be large enough to result in future problems on the grand scale that dwarf the ones you know about already, such as algae blooms, dead fish, dead spots in the sea near river mouths, etc.

      Nitrate pollution can and does force changes in the population profiles of countless smaller species that are at or near the base of river and stream food chains, etc. The possible consequences of such changes are only to be guessed at, for now, for the most part.

      Nitrates in drinking water are already a potentially DEAD no pun intended serious public health problem in some rural areas. LOTS of rural areas. Some urban areas too.

      https://www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/where-occurs-ground-water-and-drinking-water

      Quantifying these problems real and potential is beyond me. I would have to go back to school to learn a good bit of forgotten or never studied chemistry and geology in order to even properly understand the literature………. which would be a piece of cake for you, considering you used to be a practicing geologist. I’m WAY obsolete these days.

      1. Why do farmers put so much fertilizer on their crops that it is running off in huge quantities? It seems this is wasting a resource and costing them money. It is not just their fertilizers that end up in the ocean or water table but their money.

        NAOM

        1. Farmers are mostly pretty good with their pencils, because it’s as competitive an industry as exists. The number of farmers in industrialized countries shrinks every year, mostly because the ones who quit aren’t making a living at it.

          We try to add fertilizers until until we reach the point at which doing so matches or exceeds what than we get back in sales revenue. There’s no practical way to prevent SOME fertilizer from running off or sinking down to the water table in most cases.

          It’s usually profitable to add enough that you know a modest percentage of it WILL run off or sink in below the root zone and eventually down to the water table. . On the other hand, fertilizer is one of our most expensive inputs, and we usually apply it as best we can so as to minimize the amount wasted.

          There are ways to apply it such that very little runs off, but these ways involve spending more time days in the field with expensive machinery burning more diesel.

          Bottom line, it’s business, profit and loss, and modest fertilizer run off is no more of concern to a farmer than left over food is to a restaurant operator. Being sure you have ENOUGH is more important than wasting some.

          Any one farmer’s run off is trivial. A million farmers run off is big time trouble.

          1. Thanks for that explanation. I wonder if there is a point where rising fertilizer prices will mean that a slightly lower yield may loose less money than runoff?

            NAOM

            1. Yes, there is such a point, and it can be easily estimated, by modeling crop prices and yields using various production schemes.

              Fertilizer is already expensive enough that many farmers put on say three or four light applications rather than just one as they did previously. The savings in the quantity needed to get the same yield is enough to justify the expense of the extra work.

              The cheaper it is, the more fertilizer will be used, up to a point.
              At some point beyond THAT one, applying too much actually reduces yields.

              The more expensive it is, the less will be used, and if it’s expensive enough, none will be used. That usually results in very sharply reduced yields, but not always.

              Sometimes it’s possible to make a profit using no fertilizer, or only a very little.

              It’s seldom possible to make a profit for more than a very few years farming in western countries on the industrial scale without using manufactured fertilizers, unless the farmer has one of two other options.

              He may have access to affordable mulches, manures, and other natural fertilizers, or he may be able to use these even when they are scarce and therefore expensive, if he can get a higher than usual price for his crops.

              Some farmers are growing organic crops, and paying higher production costs, but still making a profit because they get a price premium for organic production.

              Organic chicken feed costs just about exactly twice what otherwise comparable feed costs at my local farmer owned cooperative. This means of course that a local organic egg producer must get pretty close to twice the price for his organic eggs.

              This organic feed would cost somewhat less, but there’s not enough demand for it for the coop to blend and bag it locally. So it has to be hauled from the next nearest feed mill owned by the coop, which is over a hundred miles away.

        2. NOAM,
          The technology is available today to better control the amounts of fertilizer, herbicides, etc. applied to crops according to site-specific need, but I don’t know how widespread it’s use is. Personally, I don’t know of any area farmers who use it, probably because of the initial cost of soil-sampling that would have to be done, as well as the cost of the new equipment. The size of farm operations in north Bama is nowhere near the large farms in the Midwest and west, but it’s not uncommon for local farmers to work 2 or 3 thousand acres, which is mostly rented land, which would probably hinder a farmer from spending the money on somebody else’s land.

          http://www.farms.com/precision-agriculture/technology/

          As far as the effectiveness of this tech in mitigating the effects of the problem discussed in the BBC article, it’s kind of like closing the barn door after the horse has left the premises. I think the reason for developing these systems is almost entirely because of the financial cost of the lost chemicals, as you mentioned.

          Concerning the size of farm operations in north Bama in comparison to big-farm areas of the country, when I started cross-country trucking I was somewhat surprised to see that the size of the equipment varies as little as it does from here to there. Here, there are lots of fields as small as 30 or 40 acres, which means that large equipment has to be driven or hauled along public roadway from field to field. About a month ago I watched a local farmer cut about 20 acres of soybeans across the road from my shedominium, and though I didn’t time him, it seemed he was finished in 45 minutes.

          1. Thanks for that. Maybe, as the cost of tech goes down and cost of fertilizer goes up, the balance will move to make this more widespread and applicable to smaller production. Perhaps contract application of the technology may become a part as, for example, a sensor laden UAV may be expensive for small units and only be needed for a short time, but spread the cost over many then it can become affordable.

            NAOM

            1. Anybody raising five hundred acres or so of corn or beans or almost anything else is in the lower ranks of the big leagues of farming. Even in the mid west , a thousand acres is nothing to sniff at.

              The cost of soil testing and other such work is trivial in relation to the savings and profit opportunities it opens up, and it’s done on rented land just as often as on owned land.

              Just about all American farmers except the smallest nickel and dimers do this sort of testing these days.

            2. I have even done testing on my garden(UK) and it has made a difference. Small self test kits were available from when I was young but even these could not persuade my father to change his ways, he felt the problems were the clay soil(you could make a pot out of it) not that it lacked key nutrients. Even putting lines of fertilizer across several rows of crops leading to a clear high/low growth did not persuade him.

              It is getting the right mix, not too much, not too little that is critical and switching from one big dump to several light applications is one step in the right direction. UAVs and GPS controlled application is another. Good management will help the bottom line as costs of the technology drop which will also aid the environment by preventing excess.

              NAOM

    1. DougL,

      I saw that article. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison.

      In map view both the Greenland and the Cordilleran ice sheets are very large but that’s about it. The Cordilleran ice sheet was coalesced ice caps feeding ice streams that flowed out of the mountains and then coalesced into a broad piedmont, while the Greenland one is a huge mass of ice in a bowl, surrounded by mountains. The Cordilleran ice was deepest in valleys and thinnest on ridges and peaks, and did indeed melt back rapidly over much of its area, but the Greenland ice mass is deepest in the central parts with much of it below sea level thanks to the weight of the ice.

      Picture ice varying in thickness and draped over mountains and compare to thick ice in a deep bowl.

      The work described in the article is fine but the extrapolation of Cordilleran melt-out rates to Greenland sounds to me like the kind of thing an editor would write.

      1. Synapsid — With continued melting will sea water eventually get access to the bowl?

        1. The center might be slightly below sea level, but one must consider that sea level is considerably disturbed near Greenland by the ice sheets and will fall nearby as they melt. So probably not below sea level.

          1. Gone Fishing,

            The NASA piece I mentioned in my reply to DougL has a map of Greenland below sea level. It’s a fair piece of real estate when we consider the size of Greenland, but it isn’t the majority of the island, no.

        2. Hi DougL.

          I don’t know; I wouldn’t be surprised though. I’ll look for a map of Greenland sans ice and see if I can find an answer.

          There’s another melting mechanism that’s ongoing: an area of high geothermal heating, in the SE (I think) of Greenland. There is under-ice flow of melt water, too, forming a channel network. I expect that some, maybe most, of that results from pressure melting. I doubt that any of that water leaves Greenland.

      2. Synapsid — Checking the literature, I see there’s not a lot of Greenland bedrock below sea level; there will eventually be glacial isostatic adjustment (rebound) to consider as well. Interestingly, I see that deep under the ice there are some regions of intense geothermal heat causing Greenland’s ice to melt from below and flow rapidly in a west-to-east zone of northern Greenland having anomalously high heat. I don’t imagine there will be many geothermal gradient measurements available. 🙂 If you feel like directing me to links on these topics it would be appreciated.

        1. Hi DougL.

          There’s a spanking new NASA article, New Greenland maps show more glaciers at risk, that has a map showing sea-level connections from the ice sheet to the sea. There’s more than I’d expected but you know how deep fjords can be. I found it by googling Greenland map without ice.

          Isostatic rebound will eventually have the whole of interior Greenland above sea level but that will take many millennia. Scandinavia is still rebounding and so is eastern Canada, so it doesn’t happen overnight. I don’t have specific links (this link stuff is beyond my level, edging into incipient fossilization as I am) but google works well enough. The best place to keep up with this Quaternary research that I know is Nature Geoscience, a monthly. I haven’t looked to see how available it is online.

          1. Synapsid — Thanks. One final comment before we put this to bed: I suspect any isostatic rebound in Greenland will be overshadowed by sea level raise. 🙂

            Cheers, Doug

            1. Doug, if the Greenland ice sheet were to totally melt the ocean level near Greenland would fall 100 meters due to gravitational release on the nearby waters. More likely a large freshwater lake will form and feed into the ocean.
              So I doubt if much ocean water will reach inland.

              Taking the Fingerprints of Global Sea Level Rise
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD3-XCJATTU

            2. How long would that rebound take? Maybe the sea level rise will beat it and flood in, to be overtaken, later, by the rebound leaving a briny lake.

              NAOM

            3. It’s sea level fall, not rise. Fall of 100m for the whole ice cap due to loss of gravitational pull from the ice. Even if Antarctica also melted it would not be enough to compensate for the drop in sea level at Greenland.

              Rebound is a slow process, sea level drop near a melting ice sheet happens as the ice melts away.

            4. Thanks, it is beginning to sound like Greenland is a much bigger threat than the Antarctic. Add in darkening of the ice from increased wildfires and things may start happening way faster than we are expecting. If that ocean level falls 100 feet then it has to go somewhere else – ooops!

              NAOM

            5. Hi Gone fishing,

              I believe the drop in sea level is 30 to 50 meters at the shore of Greenland due to the gravitational effect.

              http://nautil.us/issue/33/attraction/why-our-intuition-about-sea_level-rise-is-wrong

              From the article linked above:

              So if the Greenland ice sheet were to catastrophically collapse tomorrow, the sea level in Iceland, Newfoundland, Sweden, Norway—all within this 2,000 kilometer radius of the Greenland ice sheet—would fall. It might have a 30 to 50 meter drop at the shore of Greenland.

  16. ….Roughly 4.8 million mortgaged properties were in the paths of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, representing nearly $746 billion in unpaid principal balances, according to financial data firm Black Knight. In September, the number of loans that were more than 30 days past due rose 48% in Irma-affected areas and 67% in Harvey-affected areas, Black Knight found. The firm has not run the numbers for Puerto Rico yet. ….
    http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/10/news/economy/hurricane-foreclosures/index.html?iid=hp-toplead-dom

  17. CNREC advises reform and increased RE targets in China

    A newly published report from the China National Renewable Center (CNREC) advises China’s National Energy Administration to increase its targets for total renewable energy capacity (excluding big hydro) to 500 GW by 2020.

    CNREC has released a list of recommendations regarding renewable energy deployment in China. Chief among these is advice that the target for solar PV deployment by 2020 be raised from 110 GW to 200 GW.

    The report also recommends increased targets for wind (from 210 GW to 350 GW) and biomass (from 15 GW to 30 GW), and advises the NEA to cease the approval of new coal fired plants and to halve the share of coal in China’s energy mix by 2030.

    Maybe Doug or Political Economist can chime in on whether or not they think these recomendations have much of a chance of being adopted. If they were to be adopted, it would offer some slight hope for CO2 emissions reductions.

    1. Islandboy – Sorry, I’m mostly ignorant regarding renewable energy in China which has changed a lot since I was active there. They are trying to curb reliance on coal, which is hard to transport from the coal mines in the west and north of the country to the economically developed southeast coast. China is also building reactors along this coast mainly to increase energy security, lower reliance on coal and oil and limit CO₂ emissions while keeping up economic growth. At one time I had friends fairly high up in China’s nuclear power industry but, oddly, this was a spin-off from some of my wife’s research in particle physics at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in Guangdong province (which had something to do with measurement of τ lepton mass).

      1. Energy Watch Group: 100% renewable electricity is both feasible and cost effective

        A joint study by Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology and Energy Watch Group presented on the sidelines of the COP23 talks in Bonn demonstrates that a global transition to 100% renewable electricity could be achieved by 2050, and would be more cost effective than the current electricity system.

        The study, ‘Global Energy System Based on 100% Renewable Energy – Power Sector’ was presented during the Global Renewable Energy Solutions Showcase event, a sideline to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP23 currently underway in Bonn.

        The study’s key overall finding is that a global shift to 100% renewable electricity is feasible with current technology, and would be more cost effective than the current system led by fossil fuels and nuclear generation…..[snip]

        “There is no reason to invest one more dollar in fossil or nuclear power production,” exclaims EWG President Hans Josef. “All plans for a further expansion of coal, nuclear, gas and oil have to be ceased. More investments need to be channeled in renewable energies and the necessary infrastructure for storage and grids. Everything else will lead to unnecessary costs and increasing global warming.”

        Only time will tell whether this study’s recommendation will translate into reality. As lead author Christian Breyer sums up: “Energy transition is no longer a question of technical feasibility or economic viability, but of political will.”

        Bold mine. Doug, in light of the bold section at the end of the quote above, I’m wondering about the state of “political will” in China and whether or not the ruling councils are likely to go “all in” on renewables.

        1. islandboy — As I’ve said to OFM on a number of occasions, although the West thinks Chinese power resides in Beijing, in reality it’s in the provinces where lip service is paid to the central government. In many respects it’s like the US in that regard. Because of this, generalizations about the direction the country will take, based on reports from Beijing, must be taken with a grain of salt. I was involved with projects in different provinces and there was ALWAYS a representative of Beijing hanging around (usually looking for a fat bribe) but approvals, or refusals, were always made locally, often dependent upon bribes as well. That said, if people (children really) in the provinces are choking from smog changes will be made.

          1. Hi Doug,

            I’ve revised my opinion of Chinese long term planning downward substantially as the result of hearing about your experiences there in person.

            But standing way back, looking at the big picture in terms of history and power politics etc I still see a pattern indicating an overall plan, with this plan being implemented to a substantial extent, by encouraging certain provincial activities while discouraging others.

            Your mentioning that things in China are much like things in the USA in this respect hits home.

            Many a king, queen, prime minister, president and dictator has struggled, with varying degrees of success, to control locally powerful allies and underlings, or at least entice these people to do as the central power wishes.

            Beijing is no doubt often forced to get what Beijing wants, when getting it is possible, by playing off various local interests.

            I still see a national government that’s building up it’s military assets, working to establish Chinese money as a viable substitute for Yankee money, pushing various economic policies that are consistent with China becoming an ever more dominant economic power in the world, enhancing Chinese national security by reducing dependence on imported energy, etc.

            The guy from Beijing looking for his bribe has some real power, in that Beijing can play off local interests one against others, promising some interests certain things, in order to move the national agenda ahead.

            That agenda in my estimation , in a nutshell, is economic growth, which confers political stability by raising living standards and enhances China’s military and economic power as a player on the world stage.

  18. NV Energy boasts ‘lowest-cost’ PPAs for 2 proposed solar projects

    While the new 100 MW of proposed solar capacity is news in itself, it is the cost on the smaller two projects likely to draw the most attention.

    “To the best of our knowledge, Techren 3 and 4 are the lowest-cost universal solar power purchase agreements entered into in the United States,” Pat Egan, NV Energy senior vice-president, renewable energy and smart infrastructure, said in a statement.

    The levelized price of the new solar is $34.20/MWh for the 25-year contract, compared with NV Energy base tariff energy rates of $32.43MWh. At just 5.5% more than the base rate, Egan said in his testimony that the Techren agreements “provide long term price stability for a bundled product.”

    These projects, if approved, would be slated for completion in 2020. They are probably counting on costs going down even further by the time construction is started.

  19. Just a few details on the cryosphere and albedo feedback. These findings show a much stronger feedback than 18 climate models. I expect that trend to continue as we learn more and start depending more on field studies.

    N. Hemisphere cryosphere radiative forcing is -3.3 +-1.2Wm2, peaking in May at 9Wm2
    Boreal cryospheric cooling decreased by 0.45W/m2 between
    1979 and 2008, with nearly equal contributions from land snow and sea-ice reductions
    1979 -2008 changes in sea-ice CrRF are largest during May-July, not September
    Boreal cryosphere albedo feedback is currently 0.6 (0.3 – 1.11)W/m2/K, more than double the mean feedback (0.25W/m2/ K) simulated by CMIP3 models over 1980-2010

    https://www.wcrp-climate.org/conference2011/orals/B11/Flanner_B11.pdf

    1. Latest models are cmip5. Many models underestimated snow and sea ice loss in cmip3, but several overestimated in cmip5 (GISS).

        1. The models are imperfect and the system is complex.

          It is far from clear what the future will look like.

          Certainly it would be better to reduce our impact on the Earth system as much as is possible.

          1. The models can only work with what information on processes and parameters that are available at best. Until the world takes climate change seriously and puts lots of field scientists and technicians as well as monitoring stations across the globe at ground level, we will have to rely on satellite data interpretations and the minimal ground testing that is performed. That is a crime, to not be very interested in the planet we live on to a large degree. At all levels, not just for climate.

            So as the known + poorly known + poorly verified + unknown factors all add up and interact with each other, the whole planetary system of life will have to bear the brunt and the costs of our inability to commit meaningful resources, manpower and time for something so critical.

            Maybe regional economic assessments will spur more action than the general climate models. This assessment is a bit cornucopian and describes a Pollyanna like future for the US, but it is a step in the right direction. Even so, the changes and effects are somewhat brutal in areas.

            The American South Will Bear the Worst of Climate Change’s Costs
            The study, published Thursday in Science, simulates the costs of global warming in excruciating detail, modeling every day of weather in every U.S. county during the 21st century. It finds enormous disparities in how rising temperatures will affect American communities: Texas, Florida, and the Deep South will bleed income in the broiling heat, while some chillier northern states gain moderate benefits.

            “We are really sure the South is going to get hammered,” says Solomon Hsiang one of the authors of the paper and a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “The South is really, really negatively affected by climate change, much more so than the North. That wasn’t something we were expecting going in.”

            https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/global-warming-american-south/532200/

  20. Radioactive cloud over Europe.

    Ruthenium-106 is a radioactive isotope that is not found in nature. “It’s an unusual isotope,” says Anders Ringbom, the research director of the Swedish Defence Research Agency, which runs radioactive monitoring for that nation. “I don’t think we have seen it since the Chernobyl accident.”

    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/10/563286253/mysterious-radioactive-cloud-over-europe-hints-at-accident-farther-east

  21. Now that November 11 is upon us, I’d like to take this opportunity to be the first in wishing our Veterans a most joyous day. Only because of all yall’s sacrifices are we able to enjoy the many freedoms we have in this glorious country. Ya’ll stand tall as symbols of freedom, liberty, and human rights. These are the values which represent the very foundation of our democracy. We salute these accomplishments in the knowledge that each and every Veteran is loved. God Bless Ya’ll, God Bless President Trump, and God Bless These United States Of America!

    1. Pale Blue Dot

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5FwsblpT8

      “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

      The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

      Carl Sagan

    2. God bless veterans.they are,true heros,,,and why we live in the best country of the world,bless also/

      1. and why we live in the best country of the world

        So that means you must be Swedish, right?
        https://goodcountry.org/index/results
        Sweden the number one country in the world in contributing to global Health and Wellbeing and Prosperity and Equality…

        The Good Country Index, a new way of looking at the world

        We’re not making moral judgments about countries. What we mean by a Good Country is something much simpler: it’s a country that contributes to the greater good of humanity. A country that serves the interests of its own people, but without harming – and preferably by advancing – the interests of people in other countries too.

        1. “So that means you must be Swedish, right?”

          I would have said Norwegian. 🙂

          1. Currently Norway ranks lucky number 13

            Still, not too bad overall. 🙂

          2. The Nordic model starts with a deep commitment to equality and democracy, because you can’t have one without the other.

            AFTER I LIVED IN NORWAY, AMERICA FELT BACKWARD. HERE’S WHY.

            “I was dumbfounded. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden practice variations of a system that works much better than ours. Yet even the Democratic presidential candidates, who say they love or want to learn from those countries, don’t seem know how they actually work.”

            “Maybe our politicians don’t want to talk about the Nordic model because it shows so clearly that capitalism can be put to work for the many, not just the few. Consider the Norwegian welfare state. It’s universal. In other words, aid to the sick or the elderly is not charity, grudgingly donated by elites to those in need. It is the right of every individual citizen. That includes every woman, whether or not she is somebody’s wife, and every child, no matter its parentage. Treating every person as a citizen frees each one from being legally possessed by another—a husband, for example, or a tyrannical father.”

            Interesting aside: Norway has won the largest number of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals of all countries in the Winter Olympics.

            https://www.thenation.com/article/after-i-lived-in-norway-america-felt-backward-heres-why

      2. General Smedley Butler was one of the most highly decorated Marines. He was also instrumental in stopping an attempted takeover of the US government. I highly recommend his book “War is a Racket”.

        1. He was also instrumental in stopping an attempted takeover of the US government.

          I wasn’t familiar with his story so I looked him up.

          Too bad he isn’t around today to help stop the takeover of the US government by the GOP, Trump and associates and their fascist supporters.

          1. The US governemt has been taken over anyway by the military industrial complex after WWII. The last president who had any real power against them was JFK, didn’t turn out so well. Since then it really doesn’t matter which figurehead is currently in the White House.

            1. Strummer — Not normally commenting on “political” issues, I tend to agree with you. Apparently, President Eisenhower, (and a general to boot), ended his presidential term by warning about increasing power of the military-industrial complex though I know nothing about the context of this remark.

    3. Does that include veterans who carried out massacres such as Mỹ Lai? The one who murdered JFK? The one who just shot up a church? Does that mean fuck everyone else in the world?

      NAOM

      1. Don’t forget Charles Whitman. USMC. Great shot too. Earned the Sharpshooter Badge for doing very well at rapid shooting over long range. Was buried with military honors and his casket draped with the American flag.

        Troop worship is a disease.

        http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/the-us-military-pampered-safe-and-very-scared.html

        I wonder if Korean War vets can be considered as having ‘fought for democracy and freedom’ in spite of the fact that SK was for the most part either an autocratic regime or a military dictatorship from 1948 to 1987.

        Troop worshippers, in my observation, possess two primary characteristics- 1/ they know fuck all about history, and 2/ they never served in the military. Except for the douchebags who served, they love to be called heros and sacralized.

        It’s easy to be a warmonger when you’re ineligible to serve due to obesity and diabetes. Or in Trump’s case during the Vietnam war, ‘bad feet’ (bone spurs in his heels). Trump is a draft dodging warmonger. What a total piece of human garbage.

        https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/heel-spurs-pain-causes-symptoms-treatments#1

        I enlisted in December 91 and did basic and occ infantry in 92. I can say from experience and observation that bone spurs on heels is something many soldiers develop during service due to plenty of PT (excercise) and spending long periods of time on their feet. Trump is a fucking coward. ‘Waste of rations’ is what shitbirds like Trump are referred to by those who serve in combat units. Peggy should sign up or shut up.

        1. The basis for these wars was a fight against the spread of communism.

          Bone spurs? What a wimp. Have had them and still kept walking, hiking, working etc. I know people who are on their feet all day with them.

          1. Draft dodging warmonger equals human garbage. The ‘liberal destroyers’, as short bus calls them, are highly populated with these cowardly pieces of shit (Romney, Trump, Cheney, Limbaugh, Nugent and O’Reilly)

            1. Just to clarify, I have no particular problem with draft dodging pacifists etc, just draft dodging warmongers. Trump seems pretty gungho to send everybody to war, but when he’s in the breach his enthusiasm seems to wane and he’s got a ‘serious note’ from his Dr. about his ‘heel spurs’. Romney took a deferral on religeous grounds. However, those same religious grounds that prevent him from fighting didn’t stop the Mormon church from supporting the Vietnam war, didn’t stop Romney from counter protesting against Vietnam war protestors at Stanford, and don’t stop him from advocating as a politician for a war that your children can fight in (I assume his children can’t on religeous grounds)
              What a bunch of shitbags.

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_violence

              “Romney was a 19-year-old student at Stanford University in the spring of 1966 when opponents of the military draft occupied a campus building. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the formal name of the Mormon Church) was a strong supporter of the Vietnam War, and the clean-cut young Romney protested against the protesters. Photographs show him carrying a placard saying: “Speak Out, Don’t Sit In.”

              Rather than joining the armed forces, however, Romney later that summer chose another path. He obtained a deferment allowing him to avoid military service and traveled to France to work as a missionary for his Church, a traditional form of service for young Mormons. Romney’s five sons all followed in his footsteps, serving as missionaries but not soldiers.”

              https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-campaign-mormons-military/while-romney-didnt-serve-in-military-many-mormons-do-idUSBRE8A11HA20121103

            2. Yea, I was the class of 1966, the most drafted of the War.
              Refused to go— fought in the streets instead.
              (I ended up being gassed on three continents)
              It really was a class issue.

    4. You’re welcome. Very proud of my service to this great country.

      USAF. 1971-1978.

    5. Thank you to all veterans. Past, present, and future. Semper Fi!

    6. “One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head. The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.”

      — Mike Hastie, Former U.S. Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71

  22. From the NRDC:
    Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has released recommendations to President Trump that could include shrinking or eliminating protections for nearly a dozen marine monuments and sanctuaries, including the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod. Sacrificing these areas to oil and gas drilling or industrial fishing would threaten endangered species, jeopardize the livelihoods of coastal communities, and put some of our most fragile ecosystems at risk. Stop Trump’s attack on these treasured areas before it’s too late.

    1. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has released recommendations to President Trump that could include shrinking or eliminating protections for nearly a dozen marine monuments and sanctuaries, including the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod.

      You mean this POS?!

      https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/trump-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-business-links-putin-family-paradise-papers

      Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, is doing business with Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law through a shipping venture in Russia.

      Leaked documents and public filings show Ross holds a stake in a shipping company, Navigator, through a chain of offshore investments. Navigator operates a lucrative partnership with Sibur, a Russian gas company part-owned by Kirill Shamalov, the husband of Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova.

      That whole ship is going to sink sooner or later and Trump will look great in a prisoner’s stripes on his way to Davey Jones’ Locker!
      .

      1. FredM,

        Navigator buys NG from Gazprom and sells it in Europe. Hey, a buck’s a buck.

  23. A long-awaited document has been released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/NOAA administered U.S. Global Change Research Program. This is one of the most encyclopedic compendiums of its kind, and it was issued despite some indications of hostility toward its findings by the current administration. The research project has roots which precede this presidency, and could not readily be snuffed out if that were anyone’s intention in the administration due to approved funding and congressional mandate. For those of you who are REALLY ambitious and have lots of time, here is the link to this entire volume.

    https://science2017.globalchange.gov/

      1. Yep, I also posted a link to it a couple of days ago and have downloaded the full pdf file to two different laptops. I have been reading it over the last few days. Most here will already know which way the wind is blowing and won’t be all that surprised at what the report says…

        1. Good, but I was thinking more of a public archive somewhere that doesn’t kow-tow to the USA, Iceland or Switzerland maybe.

          NAOM

    1. Yippee, more overpaid government actors attempting to sell the masses on a money making scheme concocted by the “educated elite” and sold to ignoramuses to investigate. You know there’s no logic to the man made global warming argument, other than just being a project to make simpletons feel better about themselves by running around in Learjets while telling the rest of us to ride a bicycle.

      1. I think they prefer a G5 600.
        Lear’s are so yesterday.
        (sarc)

      2. money making scheme concocted by the “educated elite”

        Mac,

        Here’s that “intellectual elite” scapegoating meme I was talking about the other day.

        A classic attempt to divert anger away from real, wealthy, elites, towards middle class professionals who had the temerity to challenge the real elites.

        1. Anti intellectualism has an interesting history

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism

          “American society tends to deny the factual reality of climate change;[30] as such, 25 per cent of the U.S. population believe in a geocentric solar system, that the sun orbits planet Earth, [31] and, in 2014, 35 per cent of Americans could not name any branch of the U.S. government.[32]”

          1. How America Lost Its Mind
            Kurt Andersen September 2017 Issue U.S.

            https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

            How many Americans now inhabit alternate realities? Any given survey of beliefs is only a sketch of what people in general really think. But reams of survey research from the past 20 years reveal a rough, useful census of American credulity and delusion. By my reckoning, the solidly reality-based are a minority, maybe a third of us but almost certainly fewer than half. Only a third of us, for instance, don’t believe that the tale of creation in Genesis is the word of God. Only a third strongly disbelieve in telepathy and ghosts. Two-thirds of Americans believe that “angels and demons are active in the world.” More than half say they’re absolutely certain heaven exists, and just as many are sure of the existence of a personal God–not a vague force or universal spirit or higher power, but some guy. A third of us believe not only that global warming is no big deal but that it’s a hoax perpetrated by scientists, the government, and journalists. A third believe that our earliest ancestors were humans just like us; that the government has, in league with the pharmaceutical industry, hidden evidence of natural cancer cures; that extraterrestrials have visited or are visiting Earth. Almost a quarter believe that vaccines cause autism, and that Donald Trump won the popular vote in 2016. A quarter believe that our previous president maybe or definitely was (or is?) the anti-Christ. According to a survey by Public Policy Polling, 15 percent believe that the “media or the government adds secret mind-controlling technology to television broadcast signals,” and another 15 percent think that’s possible. A quarter of Americans believe in witches. Remarkably, the same fraction, or maybe less, believes that the Bible consists mainly of legends and fables–the same proportion that believes U.S. officials were complicit in the 9/11 attacks.

            Why are we like this?

            The short answer is because we’re Americans—because being American means we can believe anything we want; that our beliefs are equal or superior to anyone else’s, experts be damned. Once people commit to that approach, the world turns inside out, and no cause-and-effect connection is fixed. The credible becomes incredible and the incredible credible.

            1. The Atlantic is a superb publication, as publications go these days. I read it regularly, and have been doing so for many years.

              But THE ATLANTIC is part and parcel complicit in cherry picking the truth for partisan ends when it suits whoever is running the show to do so.

              In a not so far back article, maybe a little over a year ago, they ran the ATLANTIC version of the Clinton scandals stories.

              There was ZERO mention of Cattle Gate in that story. The readers sure INCINERATED the comments section pointing out how the article was written as if it were composed by a Clinton partisan posing as an objective journalist.

              The only really rational explanation I can think of for this obviously deliberate omission is that it’s the ONE scandal that simply cannot be dismissed by any technically or mathematically literate person, on the basis of it being a partisan smear, because the RELEVANT ACTUAL INDISPUTABLE FACTS are set in stone in the public record, and readily available to anybody who bothers to go to a library or online and read them, as reported in the major national papers at the time it hit the national news.

              I mention this by way of example to remind those here in this forum that deception and trickery is universal human behavior.

              I’ve spent a lot of time, like the old guy wandering the world with his lantern, looking for a TRULY HONEST human being, lol. I doubt such a creature exists, although like all the rest of us naked apes, I like to believe the one I see in the mirror is morally superior to all the rest, lol.

              We lie more successfully to ourselves than we do to others. The classical novelists and playwrights tell us so. The KJB Bible and the other ancient major religious literature tells us so. The scientists who study human behavior tell us so.

              And those of us who get wiser as we get older realize it without having to be TOLD it’s so.

        2. Hi Nick,

          There’s always a hard core or kernel of truth in your comments. There’s plenty of scapegoating going on, at all levels.

          I’m generally one of the first to say that despite their many shortcomings, the people who run the D Party establishment are better by a mile on environmental issues than those who run the R Party establishment.

          And there’s no question in my mind that on average, the majority of the better educated people of this country are D’s or D leaning rather than than R or R leaning.

          There’s also no doubt in my mind that you and I want pretty much the same thing for our families, friends, neighbors, and the world….. We want it to be a clean, safe, prosperous place for everybody, and for everybody to have the opportunity to live a dignified and reasonably comfortable life.

          But I’m out personally to challenge any and all doctrinaire thinking, from any quarter, and trying to point out the flaws in such thinking. I enjoy the gadfly role, lol.

          And I’m deliberately trying to provoke people into pointing out errors in my own arguments by exaggerating the way I present them. Eloquent rebuttals will find their way into my book. I don’t even need to ask permission, they’re in the public domain, if they’re posted here.

          Not many people will ever change their minds based on anything I say, but if they take my thoughts into account, they sometimes change the way they ACT to some extent. Hard core D partisans may for instance heed my constant argument that they should never nominate candidates for high office who are handicapped by dragging career long baggage trains and distrusted or loathed by roughly half the country even before announcing their candidacy.

          Not many of them will ever say so in public, but they nevertheless can, at least with a little goading from me helping them along, come to terms with the FACT that which lever a voter pulls is determined by what that voter believes, rather than by objective facts.

          There’s less pretending and faking going on at the political level on the left as there is on the right, but there’s still plenty. In both cases, it works for those doing it, because the people of this country really and truly are abysmally ill informed.

          I don’t know how I can PROVE the argument that A culture war, THE culture war, explains more about politics than anything else, but I KNOW it’s true. If we could ask any of the great classical novelists or playwrights of the last few centuries, they would agree with me on this point almost to a man or woman.

          If you and I were to go out on the streets and start questioning people at random, we could predict what they would say about given topics with great accuracy within a few minutes, by finding out who they see as their peers and friends, who they see as their IN group, and who they see as OUTSIDERS.

          Everybody seems to be ready to argue that economists know their stuff when the conventional economic wisdom suits their agenda, lol. When it doesn’t, they have a low opinion of economics. If they believe in free trade, well then, they LIMIT their thinking about the consequences of free trade to thinking about the good aspects of it, and block out any thoughts about the negative consequences of it, especially in public discourse.

          It’s as plain as the noonday sun that I’m the ONLY person in this forum who’s pointed out that the D’s lost the last election in substantial part BECAUSE ENOUGH people in this country feel threatened by free trade.

          If it’s possible to say in a few words what’s really wrong with this country, and with the world, it boils down to ignorance and the culture war. Facts don’t matter in the voting booth. The beliefs, the angers, the fears, the hopes and dreams of the voter are what matter in the voting booth.

          I’m sure most of the regulars here have heard the old joke about the pipe smoking, tweed jacketed with leather elbow patches and Earth Shoes bearded professor of English at a small New England liberal arts college had to say about McGovern. “I can’t understand how he lost. Everybody I know voted for him.”

          Get out on the street, and away from your comfortable perch, wherever and whatever that perch may be, and actually talk to people, actually LISTEN to them, rather than telling them what you think, and what you think THEY should think, and you will find that ninety percent plus of them don’t know shit from apple butter about any of the topics we discuss here. They can’t even recognize EITHER substance, so help me Sky Daddy, the majority of the time, when it comes to topics such as the environment, energy, public health, international politics, geology, chemistry, math, you name it.

          Mention any of these things to them, and their eyes very shortly glaze over, even if they happen to be younger women, possibly excepting younger women of above average intelligence and curiosity.

          Those on the right generally don’t know shit from apple butter about the inevitable depletion of oil, but they tend ( BROAD BRUSH!) to either believe that arguments in support of renewable energy, electric cars, etc, are leftish plots, or PRETEND to believe thus, so as to support their perceived IN group / friends/ cultural and political allies.

          All in the same BREATH, they brag about American ingenuity and Yankee giterdone, and how much oil and gas we produce these days to show them there towel heads who’s who, while condemning the D’s , and Obama, for waging a war on the energy industries and trying to destroy the economy by starving it of energy.

          ALL IN THE SAME BREATH, hard core HRC fans insist that she’s a charismatic and skillful politician possessed of EXCELLENT judgement, while at the same time blaming her losing to TRUMP, for Sky Daddy’s sake, on the Russians and the FBI, and on stupid right wingers, whereas SHE is the person who put that awesomely reckless secret email system in place. It ‘s obvious to anybody who can hear thunder and see lightning that she would have won had she had sense enough as an aspiring presidential candidate to have refrained from running such a stupid risk.

          If she weren’t arrogant and STUPID , she wouldn’t have called stupid voters stupid, lol. She wouldn’t have TOLD the people of West Virginia, in no uncertain words, that she intended to put the ones of them who still get a living out of the coal industry that she planned on putting them on welfare. It’s a sound bite world, and when working people on farms and in factories and countless other lines of work heard that………. they heard their own livelihoods threatened. Trump’s an old he coon of a crook, the kind that can drown a coon hound five or six times his own size, and although he was a complete amateur as a politician, he played her like a violin, lol, his very first time in the game, and made HER look like the enemy, and she set herself up for it, every step of the way.

          Those on the left preach tolerance……. so long as they get to decide what will be tolerated, and what won’t.

          Those on the left and even those on the right (wing politically ) who are to some minor extent environmentally conscious, rather than comatose, have some vague ideas to the effect that pesticides are dangerous to man and beast, which is true.

          But they generally don’t have a FUCKING CLUE when it comes to the realities of feeding seven billion plus people, and what changes and sacrifices would have to be made to do so farming organically…… which at this time, and maybe for the entire foreseeable future, is literally impossible, as an economic and practical matter, and maybe even impossible as a technical matter. The Nattering Nabobs who advocate eating locally as if doing so is even POSSIBLE, given the current distribution of people and farmlands, don’t comprehend that tomatoes only ripen from late June until around the end of September or so in Virginia, and if they live here, and want one in March, it will have to be shipped from someplace far away.

          Step back far enough from this CIRCUS , and look at it as A REAL SCIENTIST would look at it, as a BIOLOGIST from another planet would look at it, and the answer to it all is as clear as pristine desert air. We’re just another kind of animal, doing what we’re programmed by evolution to do, which is reproduce and take advantage of any and every available niche possible, and every resource possible, to the extent possible. That’s MOTHER’S way. SHE doesn’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut which species survive and thrive, she’s only a figurative GOD ( DESS).

          IF our figurative Mother Goddess were alive and sentinient, and would deign to talk to us, SHE would say something to this effect.

          If some of you survive, fine. If not , fine. There are countless millions more species on your wet rock. I set the machinery in motion to create more new ones, continuously, a couple of billion of your piddly years ago, and some of them will evolve and take advantage of your absence. I originally set your little circus in motion to amuse myself. I never forget ANYTHING, but I haven’t given it any thought since, and don’t care at all if it survives and thrives another billion years, or if you destroy it tomorrow.

          Bottom line, lying, cheating,stealing, killing, and flying under false colors of every possible sort are all perfectly ordinary behaviors practiced by all most or maybe even all the species highly evolved enough to practice them. Some practice them even without conscious knowledge, as when flies deck themselves out like wasps with stingers, and snakes without venom dress themselves like the ones that have it.

          Once we reached the point that we started competing for space and resources among ourselves, rather than defending against our predators and competition, we divided ourselves into camps. The broadest and most meaningful short description of these CAMPS boils down to two words. US , THEM.

          I have said at least fifty times here, maybe more than a hundred times, that it’s possible to entice people from the ” THEM camps” into the “US camps” of the sort of people that inhabit THIS little bit of intellectual space, meaning this blog, and the larger environmental camp, if one understands the RULES, and how to play the game.

          One of the very most basic rules, one virtually always denied or at best FORGOTTEN by almost all of us, is that we are COMPELLED to prove to ourselves, and to our IN CAMP fellows, that we know what’s good about us, and what’s bad about THEM, and we do this in large part by badmouthing THEM. There isn’t any such thing as a camp, tribe,coalition, call it what you will, of human beings that communicate with each other, that I know of, that doesn’t maintain it’s EXISTENCE as a camp by way of the members telling each other they are right and superior, and the outsiders are wrong and inferior.

          Sometimes a camp is right in respect to objective facts, and when this is the case, it does actually mean this camp is superior, in that the camp and the members of it are more apt, everything else equal, to survive and thrive, leaving behind more offspring.

          Moral superiority is an ABSTRACTION that I happen to believe in , as an individual in terms of my own life, and I consider myself morally superior to many humans, such as the ones that practice slavery, or force children into prostitution, or sell dangerous drugs for profit.

          Mother Nature doesn’t believe in abstractions. She believes in arithmetic, the arithmetic of surviving and thriving, or else. She cares no more about the means than I care about the microbes I crush underfoot every step I take.

          Maybe I’m all wrong. “My” preacher would surely think so, if he were to ever learn what I really believe, lol.

          But I’m very nice to him, when he comes to visit my old Daddy, who is not long for this world, and takes great comfort in the belief that he will awaken, when he departs this life, in another, hale and hearty and in the company of his many departed loved ones.

          I’m just about dead sure that if each and every person in this country who goes around ridiculing people – which he does, whether he is smart enough to realize it , or NOT- because they have been less fortunate in the lottery of life, and know less science than he does,………. Would do what I DO…….. we collectively could flip enough people from the anti environmental camp to the environmental camp, politically, to start winning elections very quickly.

          What I do is listen to them, and indicate I UNDERSTAND their worries, angers, and fears, WITHOUT condemning them or looking down on them. Once communication is established, I start exploring the ground we have in common, and there’s ALWAYS PLENTY of common ground, if you are willing to look for it.

          This is not to say that once in a while I will point out to a person, directly, and to his face, that he is either as ignorant as a cow, or else a simpleton , if doing so creates openings for me to win over other people who witness such exchanges.

          As a practical matter, real fools DON’T change. But bystanders, if you choose your words carefully, will find them taking root in their minds, and growing into arguments they eventually accept.

          Not long ago, I allowed a redneck Trumpster to make a complete fool out of himself at the nearest country store where we drink cokes and eat peanuts when the rain or cold drives us country guys inside, for company, and we don’t want to go back home right away. He has three or four major chronic diseases, and if it weren’t for the fact that the government has spent tons of money on medical research, he would without a doubt be DEAD, instead of ranting about his hero Trump cutting taxes. I told him so, in no uncertain terms, and I could just about literally see the gears turning in the minds of some other guys there, guys who don’t have much money, and who have chronic diseases of their own, and loved ones with chronic diseases.

          These guys, this sort of people, are NOT stupid, but they ARE ill informed.All all too often they are DESPERATELY ill informed.

          Bottom line, it all boils down to ignorance and the culture war.

          The first goddamned rule of winning them over is to quit making fun of them.

          We live in a sound bite world, and people hear the sound bites, not the real arguments.

          1. Winning them over? Some of these people believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God! It’s beyond hope man! Lol.

            They’ll figure it out after missing about 9 meals in a row. A lot of these folks just aren’t gonna get through the next population bottleneck. I’m ok with that. Nothing much I can do about it anyway.

            “Life’s tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid.” – Unknown (although John Wayne gets credit by some)

            “we spend a lot of time arguing about how best to communicate when, in reality, there are some people who are unconvinceable, and it’s probably worth recognising that if you want to move forward, then it’s going to involve doing so despite these people, rather than trying to find ways to convince them to do so.
            Of course, there are scenarios where something like consensus messaging can have an impact, and others where taking cultural cognition into account can have an impact. However, this doesn’t change that there will probably be some core of people who will never be convinced and trying to find clever messaging strategies that might do so, is probably a waste of time.

            https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/if-its-a-fight/

            “Character consists of keeping out of the way of fools, not in conquering them.” – Maimonides

            1. Hi GF,
              For sure there are plenty of people out there who are too stupid to ever change their minds about anything important.

              “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.” Friedrich Schiller. Hope I spelled his name correctly. Unless I’m mistaken, this gem of wisdom can be traced at least as far back as classical Grecian times in more or less similar form.

              For sure lots of them aren’t going to make it thru the next population bottleneck. For that matter, lots of people with doctorates from well respected universities won’t make it. I’m ok with THAT, when they happen to be arrogant elitist assholes who preach tolerance and liberal values, while in the same breath denying those values.

              But in general terms, although I’m a hard core Darwinist, I’m still also pretty much of a sentimental old softie, and I would much prefer that a few billion people not die hard lingering deaths in the coming crash……… which I firmly believe is baked in, given that we are deep into overshoot already, and it’s very unlikely, in my own personal opinion, that the world wide population will peak and start declining before we run desperately short of a considerable assortment of critical non renewable resources.

              But I find it hard to believe that somebody who is obviously highly intelligent (and you ARE obviously highly intelligent, you’re obviously a very smart fellow, whereas I may only be fart smeller) does not believe that at least SOME people can be convinced to change their mindset about various important issues, such as the overall environmental issue.

              What I’m trying to get across, apparently because I’m not expressing myself well enough, is that “we”, meaning people who possess technical training enough to understand the environmental issue, need to convince only a relatively modest portion of the people who DON’T understand that “we” are right, and that the R Party/ bankster/ fossil fuel / Republican Lite D Party establishment is WRONG…….. and that their own long term welfare, and that of their children and grandchildren, depends on doing everything possible to protect and preserve the environment , STAT………

              Because… the country is for practical purposes divided into approximately equally powerful political camps ,in terms of the electorate.

              It follows that we need to move only a few voters, in percentage terms, from the “them” camp to the “us” camp in order to regain political control of the federal government, as well as control of as many as a dozen or more state governments.

              IF we can convince just one or two more voters out of each HUNDRED voters that strongly supporting renewable energy is GOOD policy, for them personally, and for their families and friends and yes their country, ” WE” will win more often on election day.

              If we can convince just one or two voters out of each hundred that strong clean water laws and strong clean air laws mean they save more in health care costs than they lose by way of having to pay a little more for some products, “WE” will win more often on election days.

              If we can convince just one or two voters out of each hundred that single payer health care is very likely to mean THEY are going to be better off, in terms of both their own health, and their own finances, ” we” win more often on election day.

              We don’t have to discover techniques to do so. The applicable techniques are well known, and taught in teacher training classes, in nursing school, in business management classes,etc. These techniques are included in just about any sophisticated leadership training program.

              They don’t work overnight. Using them successfully requires patience and long term dedication to the job, and they work best by far when used one on one.

              For sure, there will always be “some core of people who will never be convinced”. I wouldn’t DREAM of disagreeing on this point.

              There are ways to slip inside the intellectual defenses people erect because they don’t want to believe something, and plant little seeds of knowledge that often grow into conviction that what they formerly believed to be false is actually true.

              There are ways, judo like ways, to use a person’s own technical training to cause him to change his mind from pro to con, or con to pro, on various issues.

              I’ve tried by way of example to illustrate some of these techniques here in this forum from time to time. It’s late, and I’m tired and sleepy , so I won’t say anymore tonight.

              Tomorrow’s another day, and I will post another example, maybe two.

            2. OFM said “Hi GF,
              For sure there are plenty of people out there who are too stupid to ever change their minds about anything important. ”

              Wrong guy OFM. Not me. Was Survivalist you were talking to.

      3. What radio talk shows educated you so much? It must be a heady experience to be so grandly superior to everyone. So knowledgeable, miles beyond all those stupid professors and their cronies.
        And they say the nobility is fading from this world. No, here we have a prime example of one. We are saved. All the peasants should line the streets, cheer and throw flowers to Lord Sroka. We are blessed with his presence here.
        Us poor ignoramuses will have to force ourselves to learn from him. Bow down, one and all.

        1. -Limbaugh
          -Hannity
          -Mark Levin
          -Chris Plante
          -Savage Nation
          -Red Eye
          -Phil Valentine

          Those are the ones I can think of straight away. There are always many lesser known liberal destroyers on patriot talk radio stations as well.

          1. Interesting sources aka echo chamber for idiots. I’m guessing you didn’t get much past grade 10.

            1. “Liberal destroyers…” Nahhh, all they do is destroy the minds of the highly susceptible paranoid dimwits. Everyone else knows they are just spewing lies, hate and garbage.
              More like hate comedy shows because no thinking person could ever take them seriously.

      4. Just for kicks, I ran this post critcizing “educated elites” through a Reading Grade Level calculator, and got this out:

        Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 16.8
        Grade level: College Graduate and above.

        Flesch Reading Ease score: 33.6 (text scale)
        Flesch Reading Ease scored your text: difficult to read.

        So Mr. Proletariat here uses a vocabulary you need a Bachelor’s degree to read, and even then, he’s judged difficult to read.

        Kinda like those “environmentalists in Learjets” strawmen he builds up, he praises something he’s not: the uneducated man. He does prove that you can be an English Major and still be a jackass, though.

        1. Did you test the quality of the prose? A turd with a ribbon on it still smells and is indigestible.

    2. “The research project has roots which precede this presidency, and could not readily be snuffed out if that were anyone’s intention in the administration due to approved funding and congressional mandate.”

      Cronyism at it’s finest. This sentence implies the plan was, release the report under Hillary’s watch in the White House. Then claim completely independent findings, because her administration wasn’t the one ordering it in the first place.

      1. You should stick to using words that you understand the definition of. That way you’ll appear less stupid.

        cro·ny·ism
        ˈkrōnēˌizəm
        noun derogatory
        the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.

  24. Interesting discussion about materials that can be used for 3D printing. I have a hunch that the fossil fuel industry isn’t going to like it very much. Plastics from petrochemical feed stocks may be phased out sooner rather than later at least in local niche markets.

    This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the movie the ‘Graduate’ and the one word quote ‘Plastics’, which may soon be going the way of the Dodo, and not a moment too soon given what it is doing to all ecosystems but especially the marine ecosystems. The new word, rather ironically may be, ‘Chitin’, just a hunch…

    The Biggest Revolution in 3D Printing is Yet to Come
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=987&v=_wHT-FsCJjM

    As they say the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And apparently neither will the fossil fuel age. Though not that very long ago I certainly believed that to be a very real possibility.

    1. Amazing Fred, thanks. You must have been one totally awesome teacher.

      1. You are too kind, sir!

        Though I will say this, I think I always ended up learning more from my students than what I was ever able to teach them.

        Side note: Chitin has been on my radar for a few years now thanks to one of the participants in the course I helped my Brazilian physician friend set up to prepare his colleagues for international medical conferences, she was doing research using Chitin from shrimp as a scafold for breast reconstruction surgery.

        One of the greatest joys in this life is to remain curious and be a life long learner.

        1. “One of the greatest joys in this life is to remain curious and be a life long learner.”

          Absolutely! And if you can inspire others to have the same passion, so much the better.

          1. For a proper dose of humility I often go to my all time favorite teacher.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQ2atfqk2c

            QED: Photons — Corpuscles of Light — Richard Feynman (1/4)

            “So relax, you don’t have to know mathematics, all you have to know, is what it is, all it is, is tricky ways of doing something which would be laborious, otherwise.”

            😉

            1. Yes, many years ago Richard Feynman gave my wife a copy his three volume set; The Feynman Lectures, to pass on to our kids. I have no doubt whatsoever that it was this that caused one of my Daughters to become a nuclear physicist.

          1. It is a commonly used commercial material with a wide variety of derivatives and uses.

            GF, sure but the issue at hand is that we need to find a way to stop using harmful petroleum based plastics and if possible substitute them with materials that have better properties while also fitting into already existing natural ecosystems without causing serious harm to those systems!

            I don’t know if you’ve watched the video but at about the 6:14 min. mark she shows a graph comparing the production of natural materials such as cellulose, lignin and chitin, then comparing them to petrochemical plastics.
            The main point being that petrochemical plastics are a major environmental nightmare even though they are barely a blip in terms of volume when compared to natural polymers such as Chitin.

            Nature has evolved ecosystems that constantly recycle these polymers without causing damage.
            So we could at least in theory, learn to use natural materials in our design pallets that fit into what nature already does.

            Petrochemical based plastics have no place being in the marine environment! Here is just one reason:

            http://www.alphr.com/science/1007473/corals-eat-plastic-because-they-like-the-taste

            Corals eat plastic because they like the taste

            Plastic is almost completely indigestible, so it causes blockages and create a false sense of being full

            For years, scientists thought corals accidentally ate the plastic debris that washed into their waters because they mistakenly took them for prey. But a new study from Duke University shows this is not the case: the plastic just tastes good.

            Just like humans, corals are drawn to food that is bad for them, it would seem. The researchers tested corals they had collected off the North Carolina coast, by giving them a variety of options to eat, including bits of sand and plastic.

            The corals largely ignored the bits of sand and went for the plastic.

            “Corals in our experiments ate all types of plastics but preferred unfouled microplastics by a threefold difference over microplastics covered in bacteria,” says Austin Allen, a PhD student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “This suggests the plastic itself contains something that makes it tasty.”

            1. Yes, I understand the new directions necessary for materials. I was just providing some base information on the chemistry and the uses we have now. Not raining on any parade, just getting a foundation from which to start. Not all of us are as far down the track as you in this area.

            2. BTW, that is a very interesting paper and I didn’t for a moment think you were raining on any parade.

              As for me being far down the track, I’m merely reporting on some interesting developments.

              It’s the people like Dr Alysia Garmulewicz who are directly involved in the research and development, that are the ones who deserve all the kudos!

            3. I worked on several bio-degradable materials projects during my career. It’s very difficult to compete with the properties and cost of the non-degradable polymers.

            4. It’s very difficult to compete with the properties and cost of the non-degradable polymers.

              The point is that might not be true for much longer.

              Just as the cost curves for alternative energy such as wind and solar are catching up and passing fossil fuels.

              Seems to me that there may be some tipping points in materials science and manufacturing processes that could be crossed that might make non-degradable polymers no longer cost effective. And that’s not counting the possibility of taxing these products to pay for the damage they cause to the commons.

            5. In the meantime, why don’t we just stop using the oceans and rivers as garbage pits!!!!
              Talk about medieval practices.

  25. From the bygone days of 1947. The early CPU for a semi-automated handling system was a human. Talk about a cog in the machine.

    1. Vertical Farming fits perfect with fungi.
      Other farming, it is advocated by people who don’t farm.

      1. Bezos has invested $200 million in what the company calls the largest agricultural technology investment of all time.

        Plenty grows its plants in 20-foot tall towers inside a climate-controlled facility with LED lights. It does not use pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, or GMOs.

        https://www.geekwire.com/2017/jeff-bezos-backed-indoor-farming-startup-plenty-opens-100k-square-foot-facility-seattle-region/

        But you are right, it’s not easy and many start-ups have already failed due to high capital costs, and what does Bezos know about farming?

        1. I’m not sure how they can manage without fertilizers, seems like plants will need those to grow. The Plenty web site only mentions the *cides and GMO. By the time transport, water use etc are taken into account maybe it may make some sense for cities. Turn farms into renewable energy farms and power stations into vertical farms, now that is an idea. As for Bezos, he seems to be able to get the right people to do the things he doesn’t know.

          NAOM

          PS Any one who can recommend a hydroponic web site for small users, I’m thinking of trying as I don’t have very good space for growing and it may be easier to avoid the cats self cropping the plants.

          1. They just said “no synthetic fertilizers”, but yes they clearly require some kind of organic fertilizers.

            I’ve done some growing with LEDs – it works better than you expect since plants don’t use much green. You don’t need to reproduce anywhere near the total amount of light in sunlight – just the red and blue content is used by plants. The LEDs are still way too expensive, but it’s falling fast and with a big enough market that will accelerate. Hydro is pretty hard, you need to keep everything well controlled including temp, nutrient level, ph level, etc – anything to far out and the plants die fast.

            1. T5 fluorescent are the best bang for the buck currently.
              LED’s just aren’t there yet.
              But you really need high pressure sodium or Metal Halide—–

            2. HPS is very good and similar to LEDs in efficiency (300W per sq meter) is about right. You do need to replace the bulbs often (at least once per year). T5 fluorescent can be good if you use the right kind of tube.

              That Plenty company Bezos invested in is using LEDs and the Dutch greenhouses in the video have supplemental lighting. It looks like combo of HPS and LEDs.

              So the Dutch are doing 35% of their vegetables in the greenhouses using 1% of their farmland. It’s even cost effective enough for them to export some of it. One of the dutch farms grows tomatoes all year round they said completely without soil or water. (Actually, they collect rain water and use that – but just that). They aren’t getting a lot of sunlight in the winter up there, so most of the light is artificial.

        2. The EROI only works for a few high value crops.
          (Tomatoes, Cannabis, and a few others) .

          But we shall see—- there are easier and more earth centric ways.

          (I have quite a bit of first hand experience with hydroponic growing– never a dull moment!)

      2. Hi, Trekker

        The number of people who think of themselves as intellectually sophisticated and yet talk about vertical farming as if it could be implemented to produce globally meaningful amounts of food…….. proves my oh so often repeated point about the astounding breadth and depth of the ignorance of the people of this country, and for that matter, for the world.

        The handful of regulars here know why vertical farming can’t be made work , as a practical matter.

        For all our trolls, and any lurkers trying to learn something, I’ll repeat the lesson.

        EXCEPTING FUNGI aka known as mushrooms, all the things we think of as plants require light. The more productive the plant, the more light it requires. ( The technical classifications used by biologists aren’t important for purposes of this discussion. )

        Building giant multistory greenhouses that would necessarily look very much like skyscrapers for use as farms is simply out of the question, due to the high cost of such construction.

        And even if such buildings were affordable, simply ENORMOUS amounts of electrical energy would be needed to provide the necessary lights, NOT ONLY at night, but around the clock, because the only plants that would get enough natural light to produce well would be the ones right against the outside walls on the sunny side of the building, and the ones on the top floor.

        The energy needed to run the lights is NOT available at ANY cost on the scale that would be necessary. It’s extremely unlikely it will EVER be available within any time frame meaningful to people alive here and now.

        Vertical farming, on any scale that really MEANS anything, is simply not going to happen, except maybe to produce some ridiculously expensive greens which contain next to nothing in the way of protein, fats, or calories.

        Greens are good for us.We need them in our diet, but it’s impossible to eat enough to stay alive on the basis of calories or protein content. Our digestive systems aren’t up to the job. We’re not cows.

        For the extra dense who may be among us, I suppose I should repeat that mushrooms grow in the dark.

        It’s beyond absurd that some professors of agriculture are willing to pen articles about vertical farming as if it’s going to happen on the grand scale in the near future, thereby displaying their utter lack of professional ethics as educators, because to the best of my knowledge there aren’t any ag professors who are so stupid and or ill informed that they don’t know very well why it’s not going to happen anytime soon, if EVER.

        1. The energy in sunlight at the peak of the day is 1000W per square meter, but the green light has most of the energy and is reflected by plants. Also, peak sunlight is only a few hours per day. You really only need about 100W per sq meter of red and blue light to produce the same. LEDs are currently about 30% efficient, so total energy needed is about 300W per square meter.

          Most plants do need a little time with the lights off, but running 20 hours per day is fine when running the summer cycle. Some plants need the fall cycle (12 hours per day) to trigger fruiting. Also, a little green and yellow light is needed to get the taste right since plants have other photo-chemical pigments that need a small amount of the other wavelengths.

          This much power isn’t all that much more than an office building using old incandescent lights.

          It’s still very expensive for the lights so yes it’s not really competitive with current outdoor growing methods, but current methods are not sustainable.

  26. Humans are not the only invasive predators (parasites) on the planet. The story of the sea lamprey introduction to the Great Lakes through a manmade canal (we are so helpful that way) around Niagara Falls is one of fast and horrifying death for the fish in the lakes. The fishing industry died along with the fish.

    http://www.glfc.org/sea-lamprey.php

    1. Here’s the good news!

      http://www.glfc.org/control.php

      Sea Lamprey Control in the Great Lakes:
      A remarkable success!

      Of the more than 180 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin, sea lampreys are the only invader that is controlled basin-wide and is the only example in the world of a successful aquatic vertebrate pest control program at an ecosystem scale.

      Science, it works, bitches!

      1. Those are the type of jobs for the future. Controlling and cleaning up the mess we have created.

        1. Then we are going to need to do a lot better with math and science education…

      1. Yes, little. It’s called an attention span. Try to develop one.
        Would you like to see a link to a big presentation for comparison, so you can see?

      2. Given the amount of time and education it takes to become a scientist, do the research and produce such a presentation, in comparison, it takes but a miniscule amount of time to take it all in.

        Of course that does assume the audience has basic science literacy and does not suffer from severe ADD. Judging from the quality and lengths of your posts, Twitter’s 140 characters are already quite beyond your capability for content absorption.

        1. Twitter is officially doubling the character limit to 280
          By Hayley Tsukayama November 7

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/07/twitter-is-officially-doubling-the-character-limit-to-280/

          It’s official. We’re going to 280. Now every Twitter user — from first-day users to President Trump — will have twice the room to share their thoughts.

          Twitter confirmed Tuesday that it’s doubling its well-known character count for good, after a month or so of tests trying out longer tweets.

          While many Twitter users reacted with horror to the tests, the company said in a blog post that the higher limit made people more likely to tweet, left just 1 percent of users hungry for more space and increased its “engagement” — an umbrella term for likes, replies and retweets.

          (For those having trouble visualizing the difference, the second paragraph of this article has 140 characters; the third has 280.)

          The company said in September that it was testing a new upper limit because languages such as English couldn’t pack as much information into 140 characters as other languages, such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean, which can use characters that denote whole words. (Those languages will retain the 140-character limit, Twitter said.)

          1. Newsflash, President Chump can be twice as wrong and twice as offensive.

            NAOM

        1. Give him an enema and there’ll be nothing left but an empty wrapper.

    1. Survivalist – These are good links, thanks. I have forwarded them to my Daughter so she can use them as a stats lesson for my Grandson. Someone should do the same for Javier even though the concepts seem to be beyond him.

        1. Imagine that there was more minimum sea ice extent in 2007 to 2017. Imagine that the amount of minimum sea ice extent in those years was by chance equal to the exact values that are plotted by the red dashed line. Then it would be very clear to Javier that sea ice remains in decline because the minimum extent values stick to the red dashed line. That is; more minimum ice in those years would mean ice is declining. But as it is, the decline in those years exceeds the trend line. That is, it is below the red dashed line. In conclusion- Javier is telling us that more ice to bring values in accordance with red dashed line equals continued decline. Less ice, that is below the red dashed line, means the trend has ended. That’s Orwellian double speak.
          Javier is either blind, mathematically illiterate, full of shit, or some combination of the three. If the mouth breathing knuckle draggers from WUWT who troll here can’t figure that out then I would suggest that continued caloric support of their metabolism is a waste of rations.

            1. and another pic from Tamino.

              …. for the lurkers. I know you guys get this. It’s painfully obvious.

      1. You’re welcome. I like that blog and check it often for updates. I understand Tamino, can’t remember his real name, has a book too.

          1. That is correct and I believe he has published at least two books on statistics.

  27. CO2 emissions on the rise again (behind paywall, but to be published in Nature Climate Change)

    Global carbon dioxide emissions are rising again, ending hopes that pollution had reached a peak.[Not the first time that Times journalists have got confused when discussing first derivatives]

    The projected 2 per cent increase this year is being driven partly by growth in the burning of coal in China, according to research by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

    China’s emissions are forecast to rise by 3.5 per cent this year because of stronger growth in industrial production and lower hydro-power generation due to less rainfall.

    India’s emissions are expected to rise by 2 per cent, though its annual rate of emissions growth has fallen from an average of more than 6 per cent in the past decade .

    “With global CO2 emissions from human activities estimated at 41 billion tonnes for 2017, time is running out on our ability to keep warming well below 2ºC let alone 1.5ºC.

    “This year we have seen how climate change can amplify the impacts of hurricanes with more intense rainfall, higher sea levels and warmer ocean conditions favouring more powerful storms.

    “This is a window into the future. We need to reach a peak in global emissions in the next few years and drive emissions down rapidly afterwards to address climate change and limit its impacts.”

    … is running out? … next few years? … drive emissions down?

    But, always end on some good news:

    Dave Reay, Professor of Carbon Managementat the University of Edinburgh, said: “This latest global carbon budget shows that we are still deep in the red. Emissions in 2017 were well above what we can afford if the most dangerous impacts of climate change are to be avoided. The good news is that an increasing number of nations have been able to achieve sustained economic growth and cut emissions at the same time — the holy grail of climate change mitigation called ‘decoupling’.

    “More renewables, energy efficiency, and forest protection are all helping to keep the global carbon debt in check but balancing the books will require far greater contributions from the nations of the world. At the climate talks in Bonn this week there is simply no room for complacency.”

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/carbon-dioxide-emissions-still-rising-but-its-not-all-doom-and-gloom-2j0kvrd2z

    1. Yeah, but think of all those happy, happy plants getting all those extra snacks…
      Empty calories to be sure, but still, soooo happy, happy, happy!
      .

    2. Isn’t that nice? I guess we are doing the best we can.

      “The rate of CO2 growth over the last decade is 100 to 200 times faster than what the Earth experienced during the transition from the last Ice Age,” Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said in a statement. “This is a real shock to the atmosphere.”

      The Ecosystem is not a toy to be broken and then replaced at Christmas.

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/conservation/11130750/Life-on-earth-is-dying-thanks-to-one-species.html

      1. Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said in a statement. “This is a real shock to the atmosphere.”

        You can shock the atmosphere all you want! It is a dynamic physical and chemical based system that really doesn’t care one way or the other. However, the consequences, of upsetting the delicate balances in that atmospheric system and what that implies for living ecosystems, now DAT, is indeed a whole nuther buckyball of cera alba

        Merry Xmas!

        1. We live in a fully interactive world. Change one or two things and the rest changes with it. The boundary points are well outside current conditions so enjoy the ride.

  28. Here’s a thought about the nature of SOPHISTICATED trolling.

    There are some like our Javier who are quite sophisticated, in that they know a hell of a lot, and display that knowledge in every respect except one……. that one being the subject of their trolling. I can’t remember any particular remark on his part that indicates ignorance of the basics of biology or the other hard sciences, although he may have made some. His bs is totally or almost totally confined to climate and closely related questions.

    This is a rather sophisticated camouflage dodge, one good enough to take in some people who do know some real science but little or nothing about climate science. There are for instance many people who have for instance taken just one real course in the hard sciences, because that’s all that’s required to graduate from most colleges and universities in any major EXCEPTING science and engineering majors. Javier can come across as entirely reasonable to such a person, if he is predisposed to be suspicious of “them there liberals”.

    Now with Javier’s example in mind, I invite anybody interested in understanding the nuances of communication to read this article, and share his opinion of it.

    Is it sophisticated trolling tailored to keeping some principled ( YES, there are such people ) R voters from bolting the R camp, and providing cover for such R politicians as are caught on the horns of the Moore problem?

    Is it the work of a serious author and editorial team charged by Fox management with smacking the R establishment upside the head, hard, with a figurative broken brick, so as to force it to come to its senses and do SOMETHING about Moore, even if it’s wrong?

    Or has the author of it already been escorted from the premises, and the sleepy editor who allowed it to slip past him already had his ass thoroughly chewed and been told he’s reassigned to high school sports in North Dakota?

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/11/12/senate-gop-has-constitutional-option-on-moore-last-senator-ousted-in-1862.html

    In any case, reading it will put a wide grin on the face of anybody who takes pleasure in the R camp’s political problems.

  29. ‘DAUNTING’ ANTARCTIC SEA ICE PLUMMET COULD BE TIPPING POINT

    “It dropped rapidly last year and we’re seeing now early break-up of the sea ice. Many of these things coming together certainly don’t bode well.” The sea ice is not only melting ahead of schedule, there’s a lot less of it to begin with. Last year there was 30 percent less ice – a drop of around 1 million square kilometres. Climate scientists believe Antarctica may have hit a tipping point.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2017/11/daunting-antarctic-sea-ice-plummet-could-be-tipping-point.html

    1. ANTARCTICA’S WARM UNDERBELLY REVEALED

      This is the best map yet produced of the warmth coming up from the rocks underneath the Antarctic ice sheet. The map was made by researchers at the British Antarctic survey and is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

      http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41972297

      1. That’s a real interesting map, thanks for sharing. It made me think of how a road and rail map of Antarctica would be designed if there were cities and civilization on the continent. The standard “north is at the top of the page” wouldn’t work in this situation. We would probably end up with a special projection for 2-D Antarctic transportation maps.

    2. Coming to another pole near you too once the ice gets thin enough – which might be next year as there’s no thick, multiyear ice left now.

    3. I wonder what the comments would’ve been like if the internet was around when the glaciers were receding and melting at the end of the last ice age. No doubt I can see a whole lot of spooked paranoia about ‘tipping points’ and the upcoming end of the world.

      1. Your talents are wasted. You should work for CIA as Director of Complicated Operations.

      2. Tony – The way I see it, total world population at the end of the last Ice Age stood at roughly five million. It took 10,000 or so years to create the agriculture that can support 7,000 million people. We now face the task of relocating all of that into protected regions and onto infrastructures that do not yet exist, and we must complete this in essentially 30 years. If we fail, we will fall back to the 10 million population that the natural world can support. That’s what’s at stake. You can call this spooked paranoia if you like.

        1. If we fail, we will fall back to the 10 million population that the natural world can support. That’s what’s at stake. You can call this spooked paranoia if you like.

          Actually it might be much worse than that!

          http://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/

          The Alliance of World Scientists (AWS)

          We invite all scientists to endorse this global environmental article and engage with a new alliance concerned about global climate and environmental trends
          World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

          The article can be read, downloaded or endorsed at the link above.

          1. “Actually it might be much worse than that!” I know Fred, but as you know I’m a Pollyanna, always on the bright side. 🙂

          2. This is the problem with people who know how to add and do a proper accounting. They depress themselves and everyone else. Who would listen to them anyway? Fantasy land is much more fun and we all know AI and the internet will save us.
            Now back to the party.

            1. Actually those are climate scientists pretending to be ordinary citizens and just trying to fit in…

      3. They’d be saying – wow things are just perfect for us now, let’s hope it doesn’t start getting hotter again though. And also let’s hope we don’t have to see any more of that crap from Cowley, posted here.

  30. There is so much to explore and learn and so little time in which to do it, sad. 😉

    http://uwm.edu/news/uwm-geologists-uncover-antarcticas-fossil-forests/

    UWM geologists uncover Antarctica’s fossil forests

    During Antarctica’s summer, from late November through January, UW-Milwaukee geologists Erik Gulbranson and John Isbell climbed the McIntyre Promontory’s frozen slopes in the Transantarctic Mountains. High above the ice fields, they combed the mountain’s gray rocks for fossils from the continent’s green, forested past.

    By the trip’s end, the geologists had found fossil fragments of 13 trees. The discovered fossils reveal that the trees are over 260 million years old, meaning that this forest grew at the end of the Permian Period, before the first dinosaurs.

    1. “We risk being the first people in history to have been
      able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive,
      so ‘realistic’ that they can live in them.”

      — Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to
      Pseudo-Events in America (1961)

      How America Lost Its Mind
      The great unbalancing and descent into full Fantasyland was the product of two momentous changes. The first was a profound shift in thinking that swelled up in the ’60s; since then, Americans have had a new rule written into their mental operating systems: Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.

      The second change was the onset of the new era of information. Digital technology empowers real-seeming fictions of the ideological and religious and scientific kinds. Among the web’s 1 billion sites, believers in anything and everything can find thousands of fellow fantasists, with collages of facts and “facts” to support them. Before the internet, crackpots were mostly isolated, and surely had a harder time remaining convinced of their alternate realities. Now their devoutly believed opinions are all over the airwaves and the web, just like actual news. Now all of the fantasies look real.

      https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

        1. perhaps it’s because you’re [x]’d out and as a result not visible.

  31. https://electrek.co/2017/11/13/tesla-semi-unveiling-electric-truck-expectations/

    Is anybody willing to post his guess about the likely range of this truck?

    I can see it having a range of as much as five or six hundred miles, if the tractor is sold packaged with the trailer, because there’s ample room under the trailer floor to mount batteries, out of mind, out of sight, and mounting them there can mean better weight distribution.

    Sometimes the load is very dense, heavy stuff, such as let us say pallets of tomatoes or potatoes . In that case, even a substantial reduction in the volume of the cargo space doesn’t matter in terms of payload versus space, but the weight of lots of batteries matters a LOT, because there’s a set in stone GROSS weight limit, per vehicle, and per axle as well.

    Now in the case of cargo that’s bulky, but not very heavy, there’s a wonderful opportunity to load on a few tons of extra batteries, because there are not only weight limits, there are also dimensional limits, as to the total height of the truck, the width of the truck, and the length of the truck. It’s impossible to load a truck up to the weight limit hauling mattresses, or potato chips, or many other kinds of merchandise.

    A hell of a lot of trucks running local delivery routes are seldom if ever loaded anywhere close to the weight limits, because the nature of the delivery business is that the stuff to be dropped off at each stop must be separately dealt with, on pallets or in crates or whatever, and loaded in the reverse order of delivery, first off last on. Space is more often the limiting factor than weight.

    So……. There’s a possibility that even though the Tesla truck may need to haul enough batteries that it weighs a lot more than a conventional truck of the same dimensions, the owner of it may still be able to load it with just as much cargo as a conventional truck , running local deliveries.

    If the price of it isn’t much more than double the price of a conventional truck, the potential savings in diesel fuel, general repairs, and downtime for routine maintenance will add up fast enough that there will a waiting list comparable to the one for the Model Three.

    Furthermore , it’s reasonable to predict that drivers wages will fall to a substantial extent, because such trucks, when they do get to be popular, will require substantially less skill on the part of the driver than a conventional truck, and will have built in accident prevention technology……. right up to the point of eventually being driver FREE.

    The wages paid to dump truck drivers in my town fell a couple of bucks an hour back in the nineties when automatic transmissions became popular……. because it was suddenly possible to hire women with clean driving records but few marketable skills and train them in a matter of a few days, a week or two at the most.

    The toughest skill by far that must be mastered by a trucker is close quarter parking. I’m willing to bet ten to one that a Tesla rig will be able to park itself, and do it as well or better than any driver alive, if it’s hooked to a Tesla trailer or a trailer equipped with add on Tesla sensors. Such WIRELESS sensors can be easily added or removed in a couple of minutes, just by slapping them on, being held by magnets or vacuum cups, or placed in little slots put there for that specific purpose.

    There’s an opportunity for after market options such as a on board small propane or cng fired genset that would add range very cheaply indeed, because such gensets can run on dirt cheap tax free fuel…… at least until that potential loophole is plugged. Gensets can run many thousands of hours with very little in the way of down time, because they’re mechanically simple and run at constant speeds for long periods in such applications, and that’s the sweet spot for conventional engines.

    As the rules are currently written, off road diesel could probably be used to help keep the batteries topped up, lol, since such a genset wouldn’t be connected to the WHEELS.

    1. Can’t wait to hear, the announcement has been delayed a couple of months.

      My predictions
      -4 motors, one motor per axis
      -record breaking torque and performance
      -range 200 miles fully loaded and 300 miles with more typical loads.
      -Convoy mode were a single driver leads a convoy of trucks
      -automated fast charging

      I heard truckers are required to have a 45 minute break every 3 hours, so the trucks have time to fast charge during the breaks. Having longer range is possible, but the battery costs are still kind of high to do 600 miles with a full load. Battery swap stations are also possible.

      Doing a semi-automated convoy is a lot easier than full automation and solves a lot of issues. Someday they will be fully automated – but I suspect not yet.

    2. Not to mention that you have roughly 440 sq.ft. on top of a 53 ft. long trailer where you can install solar panels. If you have a single tractor pulling two such trailers that’s 880 sq.ft. of solar panels. That plus a genset could be a significant range extender on certain sunny highways in the South West.
      .

      1. Those are shipping container. Good luck stacking them on a ship without damage.

        1. There are plenty of rigs that are pulling trailers and not shipping containers. The picture was intended to illustrate the area of the top.
          And even if that were the case we have flexible film solar panels that could just be rolled out on the tops of any shipping container during the trip. No need to stack them on ships with the panels attached. Just sayin. 😉

          1. You might get (on a sunny day) peak of 21 horsepower with average of 12 horsepower over the day from the panels. That is the sum of both trailers.
            That is equal to the usable energy from about 9 gallons of diesel fuel. When one subtracts out the energy to make that diesel fuel it goes up to about 16 gallons of diesel fuel effective.
            So it would be both a range extender, further reducer of energy across the fuel production system and a pollution reducer.

            Independent trailers, not shipping containers, could collect energy into on board batteries when they were just sitting around and provide much more travel distance. As long as the snow and ice was cleared off them in the cold weather and they were parked outside in the sunlight. That would also make them useful during night drives.
            Or they could not have the solar panels, just the battery, and be plugged in at freight points to power produced from PV arrays, to give range assist.

            1. Trailers not in use are parked in nice sunny locations the vast majority of the time. It’s not practical to park them in small spaces where there’s apt to be shade, they’re too big and too hard to maneuver . See one, you’re apt to see it in a parking lot, see a dozen or more and they will for SURE be in a large parking lot.
              If affordable panels can be made tough tough enough to withstand the ride day in and day out for years, there will be panels on top of most of them within the next ten to fifteen years, maybe sooner.

        2. Having the panels on the containers while stacked on a ship would be a waste of a panel. It would perhaps be a fairly simple operation to attach them to the tops of shipping containers at a time shortly after they are crossloaded from ships to trucks.

      2. Fred, that’s 40.9 square metres for people in the solar energy business, thank you very much, you should know that! 😉 Makes for more simple calculations of yield. 40 m2 would get a maximum of 40 kW of energy falling on it. 20 percent efficient panels would harness 8kW of the incident energy. I found a nice Sun Hours per day chart at :

        http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/SunHoursPerDay.html

        Looking at the chart, it would appear that on a good summer day in the desert south west one 16m (53ft.) trailer could yield as much as 7 x 8 = 56 kWh per day with most of that being available for about 8 hours centered around solar mid day. So a tandem 16m semi traveling along Interstate 10, east from San Diego, California through Arizona and New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, could expect to harvest 112 kWh during the daylight hours. Google maps estimates that it’s 724 miles and should take about 10.5 hours (13 hours at an average speed of 55 mph.). We will have to wait and see the power consumption specs for this rig when fully loaded to see if having solar caps to attach to the top of trailers would be worthwhile.

        On another note, having these caps to cover rail cars could yield well over 800 kW for a 100 car train. Attaching the inverters to the rolling stock with cables and standard plug/socket set ups for the caps would allow for a standard cap for each length of container or rail car. The inverters could be designed to output 3 phase 480V ac to transmit power to the nearest Distributed-power unit (DPU) or better yet each rail car could be fitted with it’s own set of traction motors and batteries to capture energy during braking. Such a train could basically cruise with zero fuel cost during the middle of the day and could mostly use energy recaptured when slowing down to assist with getting up to cruising speed. See the link below for why I thunk it could work:

        Is Bigger Better? ‘Monster’ Trains vs Freight Trains

        My idea wouldn’t be necessarily longer trains, just solar powered trains that cruise for free during the daytime.

        1. Fred, that’s 40.9 square metres for people in the solar energy business, thank you very much, you should know that!

          Yo, I grew up in Brazil! So long before I ever heard of solar panels I was already steeped in metric… don’t me get me started! 😉

        2. A loaded rail car covered with PV would at best get enough energy to move it about 14 miles per day. Since they sit around a lot, a battery storage system would collect a lot more, but I doubt if the railroads would go for it due to the intermittency, higher maintenance, higher equipment costs and low returns. They are more likely to put in catenary systems and feed it from power stations.

          This should satisfy most people as to the topic of rail electrification

          Cost Benefit Analysis of Railroad Electrification
          http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-cost-to-benefit-analysis-of-railroad.html

    3. I think it unlikely that the Tesla Semi range will exceed 400 miles. I think instead of longer range and heavier batteries it will have either parallel ultra charging of the packs (>350kW), or battery swapping.

      1. It will have a very short range. It has to be cheap.

        There’s a lot of in-city delivery and business, a 100 mile range is enough there for the beginning.
        With these short distances, ICE vehicles are not optimal since short distance driving is hard to the engines. They never warm fully up.
        Parcel delivery companies here in Germany start using electric vehicles for city delivery. They have only 60 miles range, but are cheap and they drive only from central to one town quarter and back, stopping every few 100 meters.

        DHL is investing here, they are buying them in the 1000s for city delivery.

        https://www.streetscooter.eu/

        They produce about 15.000 / year at the moment.

        Tesla will be bigger – but you can start small if you have production problems anyway.

        1. Mannnn, I could really use that electric trike, mmmmmmmmmmmmm! Christmas is coming, anyone?

          NAOM

      2. Versus the range of a diesel of 1200 miles on a tank (1500 on a good day).

        1. Two hundred fifty gallons of diesel costs around six hundred bucks, depending on the local tax rate and the market for diesel these days. That’s about what you need to run fifteen hundred miles.

          That adds up in a hell of a hurry.

    4. I’ll take a wild-assed guess, just based on the appearance of the truck.
      Since this is obviously a prototype, lots of things can and probably will change before a production model hits the road.

      If the present configuration means anything, I’d say it’s targeted at UPS, YRC, Fed-Ex, or similar operations, it’s intended use to be terminal-to-terminal just as their systems currently operate. Not for local pick-up and delivery, because a single drive axle would work better there. Short wheelbase, high seating position, cabover style. That used to be called COE, (cab over engine), now COB?? Cab over batteries?

      No sleeper needed because those freight terminals are mostly spaced so that a driver can leave his home terminal, drive for about half his shift to a terminal, drop the trailer, hook another, and return to home base within his allowed shift.

      Could also be targeting the rocky-mountain doubles part of the market to start with, as they are allowed in some of the western states where the gradual introduction of AV’s will likely begin, which is likely part of Tesla’s longer-range plan.

      So, likely range? I’d guess 400 miles would be plenty for this application, probably could get away with 200 to 300 to start. I doubt the trailer will be part of Tesla’s rig at present. Having batteries on/under the trailer needlessly complicates the matter. The truck will have to enter the market as the market exists today, where freight trucks hook to hundreds of different trailers in their lifetime. Have you ever counted the trailers parked at a large freight yard or distribution center? Those thousands of trailers aren’t going to be discarded until they’re worn out, and certainly not just to jive with Tesla’s new truck.

      The article linked above talked a bit about the possible acceleration rate of the new rig. That’s just bullshit in the real world if you’re trying to sell the truck on lower cost of operation. I’m sure all of you are well aware of the cost in mpg when you drive an ICE vehicle like a dragster. Same principle applies here. It’s just physics. How quickly would you burn those batteries down by accelerating 40 tons from 0 to 60 in 20 seconds? Huge current bursts requiring greatly oversized conductors and connectors?
      Then there’s the stress put on the mechanical systems. Ever seen a loaded dump-truck twist a driveshaft or axle just because he got into it a bit to hard in soft ground? Expensive and not uncommon. Of course the Tesla most likely has motors inline with individual rear wheels, through planetary gearsets, which would eliminate the normal driveshaft, diffs, and axle-shafts.
      Then, where the rubber meets the road. That kind of takeoff performance would chew up a set of expensive tires quickly. Good for PR, bad for business, but that would most likely be taken care of by the electronic controller. Putting a driver in a truck with that kind of torque capability available to his right foot is a guaranteed call to the tow-truck.

      Anyway that’s my guess. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. It will for sure have to compete dollar-wise with a very competitive business.

      Stan

      1. Freight depots have forklifts, easy for battery swap. Tesla will hit truck stops to add charging stations next to the diesel pumps (at a safe distance).

        NAOM

      2. A lot of trailers, probably half of all of them, are used almost exclusively or exclusively by the company that owns them. Such companies will be able to afford new trailers with built in battery racks and install batteries as needed or as they are able to make profitable use of them.

        And adding batteries to existing trailers will not be at all hard.

        There’s tons of unused space under there, and there are off the shelf components already on the market such as tool boxes, spare tire racks, etc, designed for easy attachment. Adding batteries to an existing trailer could be done by a two or three man team in a trailer shop in less than a day, once the process is standardized.

        I know because I’m a world class jack ass of all trades. I worked in truck garages for probably a couple of years total out of the last fifty or so. Probably drove close to that long too, but never very long at any one time, a few weeks at the most, filling in an empty seat.

        Driving is a superb back up skill that makes you worth a lot more to an employer who needs to be able to move craftsmen around as the need for them arises. I strongly recommend that any tradesman who has the opportunity learn to drive trucks, the bigger the better. A cdl is an ace in the hole when times are slow. Learned on the farm, myself, back when I was a kid.

        You can learn to operate a forklift in a couple of hours, if you can walk and chew gum without tripping on your shoelaces. If you can check that box on an application, it can be the difference in getting hired and wasting your time. Getting really good at it takes a while of course. Months at least in really tight places when you have to hustle.

        Small companies will find plenty of things for willing hands to do if you show them you can do things and WANT to do things. You start on a highway job in a truck, if you know how to drive a truck. The first day the truck is down, or not needed, you find yourself on a compactor, or helping a driller or mechanic. If the mechanic likes you and needs a helper, you’re in, learning another trade, not making much money, but priceless experince for later on. I do almost all my own mechanical work and save at least fifty bucks for every hour I work on my own equipment, sometimes twice or even three times that much.

        Kids need to hear these things. Maybe there are some lurking here.

        In recent years I’ve used my combined all around experience mostly to renovate old houses. Three months work upfront , assuming I live to my statistically expected age for healthy males, will likely bring in up to two hundred grand in appreciation and rent. Farming is for recreation.

        1. To get longer range all EVs make use of regenerative breaking – slowing down by using the motor as a generator and putting energy back into the battery. But standard trailers don’t have motors on the rear wheels. This can cause a stability issue going downhill. New trailers with motors on the rear wheels would help a lot and it wouldn’t hurt to have batteries in the trailer. Nice bonus is it might be possible to move the trailer (like around a parking area) without the cab attached.

          1. Replacing an ordinary rear trailer axle assembly with a new one, with integrated motors, would take maybe a couple of hours, but the new axle assembly would be sort of expensive. New wheels and new tires would also be needed, but the take off axle, wheels, brakes and tires would be sold on the used parts market.
            Axles seldom go bad, ditto wheels, but the tires and brakes and any suspension components are always in steady demand.

            It will be a matter of CAN’T AFFORD NOT TOO, if batteries get cheap enough, and when you’re talking up to a thousand bucks a day to pay for diesel fuel…… in a European tax environment, or in the event of a long term bull market for oil producers ) even a couple of hundred thousand bucks worth of batteries will start looking cheap.

            Only one of the two usual rear axles would need motors and regenerative braking, which would be plenty for ordinary stops. Emergency stops will still require either mechanical brakes or electronic override of regenerative braking forcing the motor into an emergency stop mode. I’m not sure this could be easily accomplished, so back up mechanical brakes might still be necessary.

    5. I’ll put my thoughts back into the pool (wrote about this on Oct. 14th). Not going to go back over my research, going from memory ‘cause time is tight.

      First: Musk has said that this truck will pull a diesel truck uphill in a tug of war, and that they will be using Model 3 motors. My opinion is that they will do this by putting a Model 3 motor/gearbox assembly on each of the 4 rear wheels; my guess (not totally wild-ass) is that they will be tuned/programmed to deliver between 300 and 400 horsepower per wheel. Musk has said that all six wheels are powered: I think that a significantly beefed-up version of the front-wheel drive setup from a four-wheel drive Model S will be used on the front wheels, giving another 200-300 horsepower. So, between 1400 and 1900 horsepower, delivered in a linear fashion with no gear changes, with a computer monitoring the traction at each wheel. With all that torque available at 0 (zero) mph, and run through 5 gearboxes and 6 axles.

      Second: I remember seeing possible prices in the $300,000 to $400,000 range without the battery, which Tesla says will be leased. This makes sense when we consider the Electrek author’s concerns with maintenance and per-mile costs. (It also makes sense when you consider all those Model 3 drivetrains). The maintenance requirements and costs of the truck will be much lower than a diesel, both in terms of parts and man hours; Tesla has been working with big fleet operators to plan the truck, so I am assuming that the high initial cost will be balanced by reduced operating costs. My guess is $250,000 US without a battery lease agreement (if you buy 100 ☺ ). Don’t know enough about the subject to speak on the per-mile costs.

      Regarding range: “The information about the truck’s range appears to come from Scott Perry, an executive at Ryder, a fleet operator based in Florida. Perry told Reuters that Tesla is focused on “an electric big-rig known as a ‘day cab’ with no sleeper berth, capable of traveling about 200 to 300 miles with a typical payload before recharging.” Perry did not respond to a request for comment from The Verge in time for the publishing of this story.” (https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/24/16199522/tesla-truck-range-miles-big-rig)

      -Lloyd

      1. What the hell is 1400 to 1900 hp going to be used for? And why? I thought lowering the cost of operation was a big point for this thing. I know nothing about your experience, but I’ve owned and operated a rig with a 600 hp Cat engine. I very seldom was out-pulled on a grade unless the other truck was empty or loaded lightly. Top speed was about 102 mph, according to the specs, and that’s plenty faster than any fleet truck on the road and faster than I’d want to be going when a steer tire decided to come apart. I’ve had two steer tire blowouts in my time, neither of which caused any great problem, but I was running legal speeds both times.

        Most big fleets probably run trucks with 400 hp or less nowadays, haven’t kept up since I quit trucking. Going fast costs money, as the old hot-rod builders used to say “speed costs money, how fast can you afford to go?”. Running speeds of 65 mph is costing more money than lots of companies want to pay, so they keep their trucks at around 55 or so. Wind resistance is an exponential function of speed, and whether diesel, electric, or horseshit is making the power, it’s gonna cost more.

        Also, the safety folks are all over big trucks for years now, calling for slower speeds than cars, so top speed is going nowhere but down, in my opinion. Sorry, but I guess I’m just too old-headed to see a need for even 1000 hp in a truck on US highways.

        Maybe Musk is just using those numbers for hype, and he does seem to have a knack for stylish stuff. Notice that nice-looking Peterbilt that’s hauling his electric truck?

        1. Hi Stanley.
          What the hell is 1400 to 1900 hp going to be used for? And why?
          There is a video in the article showing what is believed to be a Tesla “mule”(a vehicle with the Tesla drive train but not the body) making an unusually quick and smooth acceleration from a standing start. That, and the fact Musk has said the truck will have at least four Model 3 drive trains, 6 driven wheels, and that he says it will out-pull any diesel tractor, makes me think that this is the configuration they came up with. The motors are rated at 258 horsepower for the Model 3, so even without pushing their output, this thing will have 1200 horsepower (assuming a Model S motor driving the front wheels).

          Musk claims it’s fun and easy to drive. I don’t drive heavy machinery, but I have driven standard for 35 years: I know automatic is easier, and you never stall (for the record, I stall maybe twice a year). This thing will have no clutch, no gear selection, and computerized traction control on all six wheels, meaning far fewer concerns about traction loss (if one wheel has traction, it can apply that 250 or 400 HP to get you out).

          As for using all that power, it will all be computerized, so it can be governed: it wouldn’t be hard to have a performance lock-out. There will also probably be a black box “flight recorder”, or constant monitoring. You may not want your boss seeing you use all that power for no reason, or shredding the tires.

          Finally, there are problems with electric motors applying torque to their drive trains: 100% of torque at 0 mph apparently can be hard on the gear sets. I believe spreading the torque across 6 axles is intended to solve this problem. They used Model 3 drive trains to reduce development costs: I think they chose having a hellaciously powerful truck rather than de-tuning the motors.

          I think they will end up with a truck that will be easier for people who aren’t very mechanical or experienced to drive. They’ll be able to focus on putting the trailer into the loading dock instead of their clutch and gear selection.

          -Lloyd

          1. Stanley is dead on the need for horsepower in excess of around five hundred or so, which is ample to get a loaded truck away from a traffic light in a REASONABLY nimble manner, and enough to maintain the speed limit fully loaded on probably ninety five percent of all the roads in the USA, the last five percent being the UP HILL portions of steeper mountain roads. Late model trucks maintain sixty mph fully loaded climbing I77 North here in Va going up Fancy Gap, and fifty to fifty five on the steepest places elsewhere. That’s maybe six to eight miles all the way thru Va on this highway.

            The real reason we’re hearing so much about electric trucks being super powerful is that this sort of talk gives guys who own and drive them a nice woody.

            It’s the same story old story and sales gambit used so successfully by Elon Musk, who is one of the world’s PREMIER salesmen.

            There’s no need at all for a land yacht such as the Tesla S to be able to out run a Corvette at the drag strip.

            Musk understood that his best and only shot at turning the tables on the IC engine crowd, in the early going, was to embarrass them, thereby creating enthusiasm for HIS car.

            It’s all about ego, salesmanship, one upmanship, free advertising, hype, hype, hype.

            I used to drive an old Mack once in a while that had only a little over two hundred horsepower. It got the job done, and if it had gotten it done faster, I would have been paid for fewer hours driving it.

    1. Peak oil has been delayed for a while, who knows when peak natural gas and coal will occur. In any case stabilizing at well below 2C is a dream of the past. No fossil fuel burning by 2050? It’s a really big order to change a civilization (in a good way) in 30 years. Renewables and EV’s had better rampage upward exponentially. They are fighting against a growing population of increased energy/transport/materials users. So any delay puts them back 80 million people per year plus whoever takes up a higher lifestyle.
      It’s staggering to think companies could sell 500 million EV’s in the next thirty years and we could have more ICE’s than when we started.
      There will be a breaking point or points to this upward trend and it will hurt. Yes, it will be painful. But then it already is for several billion people on this earth and trillions of animals.

      But as Ugh and Wug discussed at the onset of the last glaciation “You know Ugh, I think this thing is snowballing.” Ugh was a denier though and thought Wug was full of it. Neither of them lived to the present day.

        1. His real name was Ahhhhhh!. He kept falling into crevasses and didn’t come out the last time.

  32. I’ve lost the link now, but it looks like the Alaska Cod fishery has collapsed this year, probably due to warmer waters (I don’t think any collapsed fishery has ever returned to anything like it’s previous numbers once it’s gone).

    1. https://www.ktoo.org/2017/11/06/cod-numbers-gulf-alaska-fall-dramatically/

      In case anyone might wants to read the cheerful news…

      Cod numbers in the Gulf of Alaska fall dramatically

      The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates groundfish in Alaska and other federal fisheries, received some shocking news last month.
      Pacific cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska may have declined as much as 70 percent over the past two years.
      The estimate is a preliminary figure, but it leaves plenty of questions about the future of cod fishing in Gulf of Alaska.
      The first question that comes to mind when you hear the number of Pacific cod in the Gulf dropped by about two-thirds is what happened?

      Three guesses:
      A) Humans
      B) Aliens
      C) The Cod just decided to say Fuck this, and all committed suicide…

      Or:

      “We had what the oceanographers and the news media have been calling the blob, which is this warm water that was sitting in the Gulf for those three years,” Barbeaux said. “It was different from other years in that it went really deep, but it also lasted throughout the winter.”
      Warmer water temperatures speed up a fish’s metabolism, leading them to eat more.
      “What can happen is you can deplete the food source pretty rapidly when the entire ecosystem is ramped up in those warm temperatures,” Barbeaux added.

      Move along, nothing to see here! Just another ecological tipping point reached thanks to human induced global warming…

      1. Apparently the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is doing a great job of mismanaging. More than likely a combination of overfishing their food sources and overfishing the cod.
        Temperature probably is just increasing the problem.

  33. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/letter-to-humanity-warning-climate-change-global-warming-scientists-union-concerned-a8052481.html

    (Might have been already posted above, but worth repeating)

    15,000 SCIENTISTS JUST GAVE A CATASTROPHIC WARNING ABOUT THE FATE OF HUMANITY

    The message updates an original warning sent from the Union of Concerned Scientists that was backed by 1,700 signatures 25 years ago. But the experts say the picture is far, far worse than it was in 1992, and that almost all of the problems identified then have simply been exacerbated.

    Mankind is still facing the existential threat of runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population, they warn. And “scientists, media influencers and lay citizens” aren’t doing enough to fight against it, according to the letter.

    If the world doesn’t act soon, there [will] be catastrophic biodiversity loss and untold amounts of human misery, they warn.

    1. Do you honestly believe people are to do anything in response to the warnings this time around?

      1. Some might, maybe enough to make a difference. I think there’s a fair chance children born now are being condemned to a life that is going to be increasingly nasty, brutish, solitary and short, maybe approaching absolute hell in many cases. So if a few would be parents stop and think a bit longer then it will have done something.

        1. Since when did people (or any creature) get a free pass around the time and circumstances into which it was born?
          You think this period of time is so great? Maybe for a few. But even they are poisoned and suffer the horrible diseases of civilization.

          You want population control. Just show the young guys what it is really like to get involved. Why go through all the fuss ending up in divorce. Odds are less than 20 percent of being happy. Use the shortcut. Just say no.

      2. Yes I do. In many cases they’re going to respond by dying in place due to starvation, or they are going to engage in unregulated mass migration.

      3. Sure, just look at the US delegation promoting coal at the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Now, THAT is really sumthin, ain’t it?!

        Personally I think it is a brilliantly counter intuitive strategy because it will piss off a lot of people around the world to the point that they will transition to renewables just to spite the US. Or so they think, When in reality they have just fallen for a ploy…

        Trump and his administration are not only pro science, and pro renewables, and anti fossil fuels, they are also marketing geniuses. By using jujitsu like negative psychology tactics to get people to do what they otherwise might not be willing to do at all! The only other world leader in on the joke is Trump’s BBF Vlad.

        1. Fred, I think you are right!
          Don the Con and Vlad the Bad are closet environmentalists—
          No one could be that stupid. They are also marketing geniuses!

    2. Yeah, but we don’t want to upset the few hundred people living the good life at the expense of half the population of the planet.

      After all those 15,000 greedy scientists who signed the letter are all after the taxpayers money in every country in the world, right?

      Not to mention that they really don’t know for sure if climate change is caused by humans burning fossil fuels. It could be caused by so many other things…

      1. I don’t know what they are talking about. I looked outside and there were no glaciers or even any snow, just a light frost.

        The tea leaves and bones indicate snow in the future.

        1. I don’t understand this runaway consumption either. If you consume too much, it’s tough to run away.

          1. I don’t understand this runaway consumption either.

            Consumption is a term used to describe tuberculosis.
            If you run into (pun intended) someone with consumption, you run away, as fast as you can…

  34. If this isn’t BAU, what is?

    US LEADS WORLD IN OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION, IEA SAYS

    “International energy markets are set for “major upheaval” as the US cements its status as the world’s largest oil and gas producer, while China overtakes it as the biggest oil consumer. It believes that global energy demand will rise 30% by 2040, driven by higher consumption in India. At the same time, the renewable energy sources will become more important.”

    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41988095

    1. Sounds like increasing BAU. The frontier mentality in an overpopulated, over-used world just doesn’t work out. Business doesn’t really like it either because that attitude lends a lot of uncertainty for planning large projects.

    2. If this isn’t BAU, what is?

      I think IEA is wrong and I also think BAU is already doomed!

      Checkout this presentation about an organization called Metabolic and what they are doing in Amsterdam. These young people are examples of the anti BAU, I’m betting on them, not on BAU! I have to believe in my son’s generation otherwise what is the point?!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=-reLfEuKMQ8

      Cheers!

      BTW I haven’t watched this one yet. You might watch it and let me know if it meshes with your experience there?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=Z-9b-l4s3ps

      Nordic Industry: Are They Ahead of the Game in the Transition to Circular Economy?

      1. We need to start retreating. Industry and business has been moving away from NYC for a long time now. To move it back is certainly a big mistake in the long run. Over the next century people need to leave the low lying near shoreline regions and islands. Turn them back into parks, bird rookeries, let nature take them and keep them.
        To battle the seas, especially rising seas and stronger storms is a huge waste of time on land that will become just a money sink and eventually worthless to commerce and residence. Shoreline cities, towns and businesses need to start moving away now, it takes a long time to do it right.
        This of course gives lots of opportunity to do it better as things get built elsewhere. But unless you want constant disaster movie reruns in real life, all low level shoreline cities and shoreline living must retreat, now.

        Beneath this defiant civic agenda is an old, blithe assumption that New York is too rich, too important, too tough, to ever give up an inch of real estate. “We still have essentially the gung ho, Wild West way of doing business in this country, where we think we are the master of nature,” Jacob said. “Fighting, building barriers, instead of accommodating the ocean.”

        If sea-level rise reaches 2.5 feet, the floodplain for a hundred-year storm will expand to nearly a quarter of the city. The climate-change panel predicts that could happen by 2050, which still leaves some time for long-range planning. That is the kind of foresight that used to be New York’s specialty: The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, for instance, established the street grid that defines Manhattan above Houston to this day. At present, however, the city appears to be unable to accept the fact that it faces an inevitable reckoning. The human tide is moving in the wrong direction, still marching toward the waterline.

        A recent national study by the real-estate firm Zillow found that six feet of sea-level rise would inundate some 2 million homes, with a cumulative current value of $882 billion. About half of the vulnerable properties are in Florida. But even the presence of water on the streets of Miami Beach during high tides is not enough to deter development. “There is this mismatch of time horizons,” says Robert Muir-Wood, the chief research officer of RMS, a firm that analyzes catastrophe risk for the insurance industry. An insurance policy typically lasts just one year; private investors think in terms of a 30-year mortgage — or less, if they can flip a building for a profit.

        And so, billions in private and public money are being spent to develop more housing that will move more New Yorkers into places that may not withstand the next Sandy. The short-term incentives create situations like the one now happening around the polluted Gowanus Canal, where local bloggers recently posted pictures of high tides swelling disconcertingly close to a new 700-unit apartment complex offering two-bedroom rental units for $7,000 a month. If the buildings generate that kind of money for 30 years, maybe the owners don’t care if the complex doesn’t make it to 40.

        http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/new-york-future-flooding-climate-change.html

        Waterfront land in cities may now seem to be the most valuable, monetarily and politically, land but it will soon become a huge and expensive liability as attempts to preserve and protect it are bound to occur.

        So if we do manage to build better economies and ways of life that will be more sustainable, it is mandatory to build them in safer places or they will disintegrate right before the eyes of the children and grandchildren.

        It will happen slow, it will happen fast and I can almost guarantee that hundreds of millions of people will be taken by surprise during the fast times, thinking sea level rise will always be slow. And it’s not just sea level rise, it’s storm surges combined with flooding. Suckers.

          1. Anyone who lives in a coastal city anywhere in the world should watch this video. Sea level rise can happen in a geological blink of an eye… Unfortunately most people won’t get it, even if they do watch it. C’est la vie!

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKm0eRfFFfo

            The Underwater Forest
            The Underwater Forest, a new documentary by Ben Raines produced by This is Alabama, details the discovery and exploration of an ancient cypress forest found sixty feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, due south of Gulf Shores, Alabama. The forest dates to an ice age more than 60,000 years ago, when sea levels were about 400 feet lower than they are today.

  35. The Dog Track down on Wall Street is getting a interesting vibe to it.
    Any thoughts?

  36. Interesting project in Amsterdam. There is a new generation of urban designers using science based systems thinking and applying it to urban redevelopment. I think of this as one kind of antidote to retrograde Trumpism. I think the future is going to be city centered and in a much more interconnected global system. Unfortunately a certain portion of the old guard doesn’t seem to want to go quietly, too bad for them.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1713&v=-reLfEuKMQ8
    Towards the Circular City: Designing and Planning Urban Ecosystems (DIF 2017)

    1. Here in the mitten, October started really warm, which caused leaves to stay on longer, this year. Then it got cold, much colder than what I remember is usual for October. I didn’t even get enough days with the leaf blower to get at every leaf in my yard, because it was below freezing with the flurries starting to fall, by the time the trees were bare. All the cold must of been unexpected?

      Regards,
      Ralph
      Cass Tech ’64

      1. That’s your weather not climate
        That’s your local not global.

        Adios

        1. It’s sunny and warm here today at 41 N. In the high forties (F) today. Must be that global warming they talk about. Or maybe it’s just a south wind.

          1. We had 31C yesterday compared with average of 28C and record of 31C. So much for cooling.

            NAOM

  37. Hey HB,

    This one’s for YOU.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-defends-roy-moore-totally-denies-213258204.html

    Why don’t you tell us what you think about Trump saying voters in Alabama should overlook Moore’s personal ethics, etc, and vote for him, BECAUSE HE’S A REPUBLICAN?

    https://news.google.com/news/video/4y9iAndtRfw/du1W3C9gPIiT2dM6PbxauVEHVrhgM?hl=en&gl=US&ned=us

    The lead says Trump’s comments on Moore are a huge gift forDemocrats. I totally agree.

  38. about the earthquakes in 2018 paper

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/11/21/the-real-science-behind-the-unreal-predictions-of-major-earthquakes-in-2018/?utm_term=.522c8bd4df57

    This paper may or may not stand, but the pattern detected does appear to be real, although good records don’t go back far enough to be dead sure about it.

    ““Basically you can think of earthquakes as something like a battery or a neuron; they have a certain amount of time they need to be charged up,” Bendick said.

    A certain class of earthquakes — those with a magnitude of 7.0 or more, and a short renewal interval between 20 and 70 years — seemed to cluster in the historical record. Every three decades or so, the planet seemed to experience a bunch of them — as many as 20 per year, instead of the typical 8 to 10. It was as if something was causing the earthquakes to synchronize, even though they were happening in spots scattered around the globe.

    Contrary to some reports on the study, “it’s not exactly the case that every 32 years we have a bad patch,” Bendick said. “If it were that, people would have found [the pattern] ages ago. That would be super obvious in the record.”

    Instead, she explained, “events with that renewal interval happen together more often than they happen at random, and that pattern is statistically significant.”

    Sure, it’s a less flashy finding than, “we know when earthquakes will happen,” she acknowledged. But that’s geophysics for you. “We’re scientists, not magicians,” she said.

    WHT, if he happens to see this, can probably do the math in his head, in terms of computing the probability of this pattern being a real one that WILL repeat, lol. I used to know in in principle how to do it, but I can’t remember enough math and enough probability theory to do more than very simple probability calculations these days.
    How about it, WHT?

    I’m willing to bet that if this pattern is verified, it cannot be explained as the result of any known climate cycle I have heard about, but all I know about climate is based on random reading rather than actual formal study.

    Thirty plus or minus year climate cycles may exist. ?????

    1. “We’re scientists, not magicians,” she said.

      Then we need magicians, not scientists.
      We can’t accurately predict earthquakes, many weather events, global warming, sea level rise, wars, disease outbreaks, business downturns, political results, volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, technological changes, droughts, famines, peak oil, etc. Most anything important.

      The world is like Lake Chaos and Black Swans swimming around in it.
      So much for science. Sigh. 🙁
      sarc

      After consulting the bones and tea leaves, I predict I will have a big dinner tomorrow in a house other than my own. Happy Thanksgiving to you all and have a great day no matter what you do.

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