96 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 19, 2023”

  1. Could be that much of the insane heating is due to the emerging El Nino in the equatorial Pacific ocean, but it’s still a little early for that to show the bulk of it’s effect, which should be at the end of the year (very mild winter in store for the midwest USA). Our model for ENSO (official name for El Nino/La Nina cycles) assumes a stimulus around the first of July which will propagate the rest of the year, Likely all the regional climate indices follow this model:
    https://geoenergymath.com/2023/07/17/the-big-10-climate-indices/

    ENSO – Equatorial and South Pacific
    AMO – Atlantic
    PDO – North Pacific
    QBO – equatorial stratosphere
    IOD — (East & West) Indian Ocean
    PNA – North America linking Pacific to Atlantic
    AO –Arctic
    SAM – Antarctic
    NAO – North Atlantic

    The commonality in all these are the cyclic pattern in tidal forces, the distinction is in the basin geometry, which is what also makes different musical instruments sound distinct.

    1. “.. much of the insane heating..”?
      It depends on your definition of “much”
      I thought it was obvious that the current record temperature patterns were a combination of climate change and ENSO cycles.

        1. Here’s a taste of his slime:

          There is no ‘Long Covid’.

          You were permanently injured by blood clotting, because you were denied treatment in order to protect the Emergency Use Authorization.

          Wake up… they are not your friends.

            1. Paul Pukite You are correct The Ethical Sceptic has over 10,000 followers on twitter, In fact, the account has over 217,000 followers, including a number of brave doctors who stood up to the Covid Plandemic by promoting early treatment and refusing to administer the deadly drug Remdesivir and the covid mrna vaccines that do not meet the definition of vaccines and are in fact bioweapons. https://www.davidmartin.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The_Fauci_COVID-19_Dossier.pdf

              I would argue the reason for the popularity of TES is not so much because of who he claims to be but because of the quality of his/her/their work which draws the attention of other high profile accounts who add credibility and increase the visibility of this account.

              The dilemma ”especially in the age of information” is, how do I as an individual with minimal first hand knowledge in any particular topic, decide which of the stories is most likely the closest to reality. So on the subject of Climate Change I have my personal experience in Eastern Paraguay where the drought periods now seem to last much longer especially in the winter but also in the summer compared to my childhood back in the 80’s before most of the jungle had been cut down to grow soybeans. Here in Michigan my mom who complains about the lack of regular summer showers and how late spring arrives and how late winter sets in. For example, she remembers strawberry season starting a week or two earlier in her childhood compared to these days. Also; I remember the National Geographic magazine would have articles on planting trees in an effort to halt the advancement of the Sahara. So when Al Gore comes out and blames it all on CO2 he is ignoring so much of the climate science that came before. On top of that he is a true hypocrite flying around in a private jet and living large, so for all practical purposes I have to believe he and those in his camp are just pushing a selfish agenda. So when I learn about Allan Savory teaching about the rapid desertification that’s been documented in what he calls brittle environments and all the testimonies of people in those environments of significant reversal of desertification by managing livestock in ways that mimic that of the large herds that used to manage the vast fertile grasslands of the world, I believed it enough to implement and adapt some of these principles on my little farm in southern Michigan that rates fairly low on the brittleness scale but a significantly continental climate. It was because of Allan Savory that I came across Walter Jehne who does an awesome job on Youtube explaining the hydrological cycles and the importance of the soil sponge and the moisture and microbes that trees and grasses respire into the air which cools the surrounding area and facilitates the formation of rain dropplets.
              Another gripe I have with the intense focus on CO2 is how it distracts from so much of the environmental pollution in our air soil and water from agricultural chemicals to geo engineering efforts.

              Another gripe I have with the idea that CO2 is the primary cause of climate change is how they ignore the dramatic changes in the climate since fully modern humans lived on this planet such as the climatic events surrounding the younger dryas that killed off like half of the species of megafauna in North and South America and many in Europe and Asia. They also ignore the historical records of the Roman warm period, the Medieval warm period and the little ice age.

              So when I come across The Ethical Sceptic’s idea that the earth and the oceans surface temperature is affected by waves of heat coming from within the core of the earth, which could in theory make sense of the almost instantaneous heating of the ocean surface without torching the surrounding land surface, I will definitely entertain his concepts. You, on the other hand, have no way to explain the well documented almost instantaneous heating of the ocean surface along with numerous measurements of massive heating deeper down and when introduced to this idea by a nobody on the internet, you are to proud to acknowledge that you knew nothing about this idea so you go on a character assassination Jihad/Crusade instead of seriously looking into the subject matter.

        2. Okay then; You just keep taking your Fauci booster sacraments while we out here keep on enjoying our heathen ways.

          And I’ll keep listening to those with the most rational arguments on climate even if those ideas are condemned as heresy by the ecclesiastical authorities.

          1. “Ecclesiastical authorities”
            Apparently in this context you are referring to people who actually know something about the subject.

          2. Don’t worry, the microplastics in your brain already did any potential damage a vaccine would do to your cognitive faculties. Hope that helps.

            1. What makes this site different is that we are actual skeptics, and not fake skeptics like the “Ethical Skeptic”. He has over 10,000 followers on Twitter because he claims to be a “president of a materials research corporation” and leads a “US Infrastructure Strategy”. and then “Trade Corporate & National Strategy”, “Postgrad Systems Science & Engineering”, “US Naval Intelligence”
              And then checkboxes every single conspiracy theory such as vaccines, sunspots, etc

  2. Oops, it wasn’t supposed to be like that.

    LEAKY INFRASTRUCTURE COULD MAKE GAS AS ‘DIRTY’ AS COAL

    • A new peer reviewed study confirms that leakages from natural gas infrastructure significantly drive up the industry’s greenhouse emissions.
    • Small amounts of methane leaks could make natural gas as ‘dirty’ as coal.
    • Many countries have enacted strict rules about how much methane leakage is allowed. Unfortunately, these rules have mostly proven difficult to enforce.

    “The study has found that even leaks amounting to as low as as low as 0.2% of the methane in the country’s gas production and supply system are enough to do as much damage as burning coal. That’s highly alarming considering that recent surveys have found leak rates far above that, of “0.65% to 66.2%.”

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/New-Study-Leaky-Infrastructure-Could-Make-Gas-As-Dirty-As-Coal.html

  3. ‘ZOMBIE FIRES’ IN THE ARCTIC: CANADA’S EXTREME WILDFIRE SEASON OFFERS A GLIMPSE OF NEW RISKS IN A WARMER, DRIER FUTURE

    As global temperatures rise, fires are also spreading farther north and into the Arctic. These fires aren’t just burning in trees and grasses. New research on the exceptional Arctic fire seasons of 2019 and 2020 points to fires moving into the ground as well. These underground fires are known as “zombie fires,” and there are a number of reasons to worry about the trend.

    While governing bodies that are working to curtail the pace of climate change worry about exceeding a 1.5-degree Celsius threshold globally, the Arctic has already exceeded a 2 C increase compared with pre-industrial times. That rise in temperature brings with it a number of changes to the environment that make the forest and tundra more susceptible to burning, for longer, and in more extensive ways than just a few decades ago.

    As the Arctic warms and fires move farther northward, peat soils rich in dead plant material burn at an accelerated rate. The burning peat also removes the layer insulating permafrost, the region’s frozen carbon-rich soil. Northern ecosystems store twice as much carbon in their peat and permafrost as the atmosphere, and both are increasingly vulnerable to fire. About 70% of recorded area of Arctic peat affected by burning over the past 40 years occurred in the last eight years, and 30% of it was in 2020 alone, showing the acceleration.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-07-zombie-arctic-canada-extreme-wildfire.html

  4. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+soul+survives+and+religion+lies&i=stripbooks&crid=3SW4E1KTFREMU&sprefix=The+soul+survives+an%2Cstripbooks%2C124&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_20

    Our own Ron P’s latest book is on a great price on Amazon.

    Ron doesn’t strike me as the type of guy to self-promote.

    His 2 books are 100% worth it, with a well thought out, evidenced based, UNIQUE perspective.

    But no one will buy a book they don’t know about.

    This is my last plug..

    hopefully the free readers of Ron’s work over the years will pick up the slack as I don’t want to annoy anyone.

    thanks!

  5. This year is looking likely to have a very bad hurricane season with highest ever (by a relatively large margin) sea surface temperatures and ocean heat content across the Atlantic and in the GoM, and with less wind shear than normal for an El Nino year. Any cyclone that gets to the GoM or east coast Miami is likely to escalate to high category five before land fall. What happens if it takes out the grid over a large area while a heat dome like the present one still exists, or severely damages a couple of refineries or production platforms (we might be getting beyond the design envelope for wind speeds now)? Will that shut up the deniers? Almost certainly not, they, or their cognitive dissonance, seem to be getting more desperate and illogical as the straws within clutching distance dwindle away.

    1. You can barely contain your glee now over even the slightest possibility of death and destruction on a massive scale. Also very curious that you singled out Miami.

      1. You read into the post your own prejudice not what is written there.

        1. People project onto the establishment because things are too difficult for them to understand, and then they want to live in denial.

          Silver lining; climate change deniers in Miami Florida likely don’t have a 5 year food prep. Enjoy the famine, losers.

          1. It wouldn’t bother me at all to see news helicopters circling trumps place, the more damage the better, lol.

            1. I would bet money he has federal flood insurance if private insurance isn’t available…

      2. Nothing about George’s post expressed glee. Read it carefully. Up until “Will that shut up the deniers?” his post is actually remarkably void of emotional content. It’s just a lot of facts and some idle speculation.

        What is it about this that offended you? Be specific.

      3. He should definitely stop ruining your day with reality. Really, quite the horrible thing for him to do.

  7. For those interested in the recent discussion on health and the American diet, you might find this (long) video interesting. Nate Hagens interviews Robert Lustig:

    “Processed Food, Metabolism, and The Ills of Society” | The Great Simplification

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

    In summary: sugar is bad, fibre is good, eat real food.

    1. There are literally hundreds of places we could build modestly sized pumped hydro systems in mountainous areas in the USA………. but it’s not going to happen except rarely.

      A big enough pumped hydro infrastructure would get us at least halfway to the point we could rely on wind and solar power.

      Nimby’s and environmentalists will make sure it doesn’t get built, at least not anytime soon.

      To my way of thinking, sacrificing a few hundred small valleys to supply otherwise clean electricity is a hell of a good deal, because it enables us to burn that much less coal and gas, and postpones the day gas will be in short supply.

      Plus such lakes can be great spots for recreation. They could also be used as emergency water supplies in some cases for down stream towns and cities.

      By the time the public comes to understand what’s at stake, it will probably be too late to build such things on the grand scale.

      1. I can see lakes dug into level ground with a deeper generation area. Of course the geology couldn’t allow seepage.
        I think enough leaders know what’s at stake but It’s like the oil industry is cleverer than the fed at “kicking the can down the road”
        I guess the curse of abundance is learning wasting is ok.

        1. Its not really the curse of abundance as its the perverseness of capitalism. Capitalism lets you squander real wealth (resources) for a never ending accumulation of fictional wealth (money and control of assets).

          Had we really valued oil we never wouldve built a society based on the ICE.

  9. Are human beings smarter then yeast ?
    “Scotland cut 16 million trees for wind farms”

    Energy policy is a war of memes.

    Nuclear died by memes; now it is being resurrected by memes. Clearly these memes don’t have to actually be “true”, or nuclear would’ve never died.

    Wind turbines now face their toughest meme yet:

    “Scotland cut 16 million trees for wind farms”

    So what? Only one year’s harvest for the forestry service, right? So no problem?

    No. City people didn’t realize there were tradeoffs with renewables.

    And now they do:

    https://telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/19/snp-chopped-down-16m-trees-develop-wind-farms-scotland/
    12:08 AM · Jul 20, 2023

    1. Land based wind farms have been effectively banned by the UK government for several years, after new rules made it almost impossible to get building permits. This despite them being the cheapest form of energy by a large margin, with wide public support. The Telegraph is a very right wing newspaper owned by a major billionaire coal magnate, and should be read with that fact clearly in mind. Last month the government again decided not to relax planning constraints.

      The Scottish highlands have been largely kept deforested for centuries by the landed gentry, who use the land as private shooting ranges for shooting grouse and other ground nesting birds. Parts were reforested about 50 years ago with fast growing conifers in dense commercial forests with little wildlife or habitat value. It is these trees that have been felled. Scotlands native forests disappeared several thousand years ago at the end of the Bronze Age.

      1. “Telegraph is a very right wing newspaper owned by a major billionaire coal magnate, and should be read with that fact clearly in mind.”

        Source bias is never a factor considered by Hole in Head. The more right wing or simply frantic…the better.

        1. Anyone who appears to find bullshit self validating is suspect.

      2. Ralph , the Left media ( The Guardian ) is too busy lambasting RFK jr and supporting the UKrnazis . As long as the news ( information) is correct , I don’t care about the source . I am interested in the message and not the messenger . So according to you 50 years worth of forests are useless for a few windmills . They have little habitat value ( you said ) . Just goes to show how ignorant you are about the importance of trees and forests ? Ever learn about the Biotic pump ? This was a scam in two parts: one, they wanted to make all the money selling those trees but couldn’t figure out how to make idiot environmentalists approve it. Two, cutting trees in Scotland? Should be a crime. They need all the trees they can get.
        Next they’ll figure out how to pave what small fertile land they have to put in a parking lot. Too late! That’s what solar farms are. Do some background research and learn how you are getting screwed by the ” Greenies ” . Cut the 50 years forest for useless EROEI windmills .
        Which party was in power ? SNP — a bunch of crooks . I am sure you voted for crooked Nicola now behind bars for corruption , The public gets the leaders it deserves .
        P,S ; Yours ” This despite them being the cheapest form of energy by a large margin ” . Yeah ? Who said that ? Ever hear of a concept called ” full cycle cost ” . Obviously not . Ignorance is bliss .

        1. The choice was to preserve the second growth or replanted conifer woodlands or import and burn more gas and oil. OR EVEN COAL.

          Wind farms are FAR AND AWAY the better option, for the country, the people, and the environment.

          These wind farms occupy around twenty thousand acres, plus or minus maybe ten percent, back of the envelope according to the article. That’s less than six miles square, around thirty square miles or so.

          Dozens of individual rich people keep more land in grass and shrubs rather than forest in Scotland for recreation…… mostly hunting, fishing, hiking,tourism, etc. as well as raising livestock.

          It’s a very common word game, using numbers that may be accurate but especially selected to create the desired impression in the mind of the reader or listener.

  10. Peak coal, well maybe after we don’t need it’s electricity for the air-conditioner.

    WHY HEAT WAVES ARE DEEPENING CHINA’S ADDICTION TO COAL

    China has an answer to the heat waves now affecting much of the Northern Hemisphere: burn more coal to maintain a stable electricity supply for air-conditioning. Even before this year, China was emitting almost a third of all energy-related greenhouse gases — more than the United States, Europe and Japan combined. China burns more coal every year than the rest of the world combined. Last month, China generated 14 percent more electricity from coal, its dominant fuel source, than it did in June 2022. China’s ability to ramp up coal usage in recent weeks is the result of a huge national campaign over the past two years to expand coal mines and build more coal-fired power plants. State media celebrated the industriousness of the 1,000 workers who toiled without vacations this spring to finish one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants in southeastern China in time for summer.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/business/china-coal-climate-change.html

    1. Meanwhile for the Latest Daily CO2 we have:

      Jul. 19, 2023 = 421.41 ppm
      Jul. 19, 2023 = 418.07 ppm
      up a healthy 3.34 ppm

      1. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

    3. I was told solar and wind were cheaper than hot rocks we dig up to burn.

      1. Solar and wind are more expensive UP FRONT. Over a period of years, say five to ten, if solar and wind projects are financed at reasonably low interest rates, they’re as cheap or cheaper, usually cheaper, than coal and gas fired electricity from then on out.

        Wind and sun are direct free gifts of nature. Inflation doesn’t apply to wind and sun.
        I’m paying about twelve to fifteen times as much, today, for gasoline, as I paid when I started driving……… and twenty times as much for diesel.

        Of course the cost of maintaining wind and solar farms Is subject to inflation……. but these costs are minor in relation to the INITIAL cost of construction.

        And you don’t ever have to go exploring in the Arctic or the third world looking for new gas fields.

    1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-sechin-idUSKCN0VJ0RB

      If you don’t think Putin is thinking about Peak Oil. Read the article above and Igor may very well be Putin’s closest ally.

      I believe Putin is slow rolling the Ukranian’s (sent in his worst troops first), after hoping they would just lay down.

      Waiting for the decline in oil to start.

      Then Russia will be much more difficult to deal with.

      And after the Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, etc etc don’t stand a chance without the Oil Importing NATO to defend them.

          1. Russia has historically been able to field a very large army compared to its population and both have demonstrated an outstanding capacity to suffer for “Mother Russia”. I suspect that how that will bear out in this instance will depend on how the population feels about whether Ukraine is part of Russia or is really a separate country.
            So far there are some glaring examples to suggest that average Russians do not feel good about the war. When constription was announced last year over one million young men fled the country. The most formidable units fighting in Ukraine to date have been Progoshin’s mercenaries, not conventional Russian soldiers. Some of thise troops will have entered the army since the bizarre departure of Prigoshin. Can the Russian army leadership use these troops as effectively? Are there enough of the left to make a difference? The strategic and tactical blunders exibited by the Russian officer ranks appears to have had a demoralizing effect on the rank and file.
            Who in their right mind would predict the outcome? Both sides are spraying the media with their own version of the progress so far and what it means. The very typical Russian approach to war, where there is no difference between fighting soldiers and committing rape, pillage and terror, is bound to have an effect on the opinion of the rest of the world to oppose Russian endeavors. That is especially true in light of the latest outrages of destroying food supplies meant for the poorest humans on the planet.
            I have no delusions that Ukraine represents some noble democracy that needs defending. But they are a soverign country that has been invaded by a country led by a gang of mobsters. I fear the war will continue as long as Putin is alive.

            1. Putin is undermined. Gone are the days when Russia had the ability to whole sale conscript canon fodder from the ethnic republics. Now, Putin relies on war lords, like Kadyrov and Prigozhin. Russia will fragment, and Putin will hold less, as the war lords vie for more. Combat arms are an entitled lot. Wagner mercenary rebellion is just the first wave.

              As far as Chechens volunteering for Ukraine side are concerned, Ukraine is just the start of the fight against Russia. Putin/Russia will have a war in North Caucasus, again, once Ukraine settles down, maybe sooner.

            2. I want Russia to lose.

              I just don’t think they will.

              I feel horrible for Ukrainians.

              As soon as NATO stops supplying the Ukraine with weapons they are finished.

              If oil starts declining, NATO will be forced to back off.

        2. This take was tiring back in March 2022 when it was trotted out the first time. It’s not aged very well.

          Given Russia is on a war footing and has ample units to sit and pick off the AFU moves into minefields, if needed, I don’t think anything but a frozen conflict at best, and a slow grinding for more territory and worst for Ukraine is on the cards.

    2. Hint:

      The failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and its lack of any viable way to win the conflict seems to be sinking in.

      1. It may be that the “failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive” is Russian propaganda.

        1. The Ukrainian army’s 47th Assault Brigade and 33rd Mechanized Brigade have paid a high price. Not a coward among them. Par for the course.

          1. Apparently these units that you mention did suffer signifiant reverses in that particular assault. I doubt that it evinces disaster or defeat for the entire enterprise. There is much fight left in Ukraine and a lot of war materials and training on the way.
            “Par for the course?” They’re not playing golf.

            1. Par for the forecasted Battle Damage Assessment, then. Infantry will next dismount their armored fighting vehicles to root out anti armory assets and forward observers, and provide a protective screen. It’ll take a while.
              I recommend paying attention to several centuries of literature that explain quite well what kind of fanatics Ukrainian Nationalist can be. What does Putin hope to Win; The Troubles, but the size of France?
              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

              Russia is in the box and will be bled for years to come; Ukraine’s got the minerals.

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

        2. I imagined all those Leopards and Bradleys sat in minefields, or they’re just pictures of the same lot constantly from different angles in different positions.

    1. Hint:

      Carbon dioxide levels in the air are now the highest they’ve been in more than 4 million years because of the burning of oil coal and gas.

      As a species, 300,000 is about our length of existence.

      1. I’m rather optimistic, personally, that our kind will be around for a very long time.

        We may manage to drive ourselves to extinction. I can’t say that won’t happen.
        But we’re extraordinarily adaptable and we’re extraordinarily mobile, and capable of living any place on Earth that will in the future support enough plant and animal life to provide us with food.

        So maybe in the future a few million of us live in Antarctica or Siberia, or in the highest mountains………. or in the tropics if there’s a snowball world, which is of course extremely unlikely.

        1. OFM
          I agree with you , but evolution marches on – human brain size has shrunk by30% since Cro Magnon Man, where will it go from here? The human brain consumes a large percentage of our energy intake , will a large brain be a detriment or an advantage to our descendants?
          In 200,000 years would we even consider them to be Homo Sapiens?

          1. So long as we’re their direct ancestors, it’s my personal opinion that our descendants will still be humans……… although they might indeed be rather different from us in various ways, such as larger, smaller, harrier, more or less intelligent, etc.
            But they’ll still be walking upright, with eyes to the front, useful hands, etc, because these things are simply too good to ever be lost …….. too useful for our survival.

            Could some of us return to the trees? That wouldn’t be totally out of the question…….. but it would take a million years, probably longer, for us to get really good at living in trees again, because evolution is usually rather slow.

            We might lose almost all our technology, except easy simple stuff such as clothing, building shelters, making weapons for hunting or fighting , fire of course. Simple agricultural practices would likely be maintained in at least some places.

            There are many places today where we could do just fine as hunter gatherers once ninety nine percent of us are gone.

        2. There is 8 billion of us in a very challenged ecosystem.
          99.99% of what has arisen is now extinct.

          1. Everyday we are seeing what’s happens when a species overpopulates it’s habitat. At least we have wishful thinking to fall back on. 😉

            1. I anticipate most of the human population dying hard within this century. That’s not wishful thinking the way I define it.

              And whether a few million of us continue to survive far into the future has just about zero to do with my thinking, except in academic terms.

    2. On the plus side, think of the millions of people that have been millenarians during a time in which little actually changed. You’ve got a cat-bird seat at essentially “the end of the world [as we know it]” (Please no one post the apocryphal chinese curse) We are living in a time of dramatic shift probably not seen since 1650. Which, consequently, was a period of hell on earth.

      1. ” I write these words from a temporal oubliette known as late-stage capitalism. We are on the cusp of something new and exciting, but we just can’t see it yet. The radically new is almost always invisible from the perspective of those still stuck in the old.”

        Exciting?

  17. Vera Rubin, the pioneering astrophysicist who proved the existence of dark matter, was born on this day in 1928. Her revolutionary work was described by The New York Times as “[helping] usher in a Copernican-scale change in cosmic consciousness.” Although she was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1993 and was long considered a front runner for the Nobel Prize in Physics, Rubin also battled sexism throughout her career, which made her both a shining role model and a ferocious advocate for women in the sciences. She once wrote, “I live and work with three basic assumptions: 1) There is no problem in science that can be solved by a man that cannot be solved by a woman. 2) Worldwide, half of all brains are in women. 3) We all need permission to do science, but, for reasons that are deeply ingrained in history, this permission is more often given to men than to women.”

  18. Russian inflation is raging at 60%, not the reported 3.6%, thanks to the ruble’s ‘freefall’, top economist Steve Hanke says Bold theirs.

    Russian inflation is soaring at extreme levels thanks to a steep slide in the ruble’s exchange rate, according to Steve Hanke.

    The economist estimated Russia’s current annual inflation at 60%, almost 17 times the level reported by the central bank.

    “The ruble’s FREE-FALL is fueling RAGING INFLATION in Russia,” the Johns Hopkins professor said.

    Russia could be grappling with an unreported inflation crisis as its war with Ukraine rages on, if the estimates of top economist Steve Hanke are any guide.

    Based on his own calculations, Hanke gauged the Russia’s annual rate of consumer-price increases at an eye-watering 60%, far above the 3.6% level most recently reported by the Bank of Russia.

    “According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Russian inflation expectations jumped to 11.1% in July. Today I measure inflation at 60%/yr, ~5.5x the central bank’s data point. The expectations appear to be way too optimistic,” the economist said in a tweet.

    “The ruble’s FREE-FALL is fueling RAGING INFLATION in Russia,” the applied economics professor at Johns Hopkins University said in an earlier tweet.

    “The ruble’s FREE-FALL is fueling RAGING INFLATION in Russia,” the Johns Hopkins professor said.

    There is a lot more to this article. The Russian economy is in deep shit. Putin really stepped in it when he started this war. Now he has no idea how to exit. Apparently he must now continue to wreck Russia’s economy.

  19. No, sorry but coal isn’t dead folks.

    CHINA LEANS ON COAL AS HYDROPOWER SLUMPS

    • Despite massive investments in renewable energy, China is turning to coal to cope with increasing power demand caused by a significant decline in hydropower capacity due to insufficient rainfall.
    • China’s total power generation rose by 5.2% in the first half of 2023, with coal-fired power output compensating for the decreased hydropower output, bringing the share of thermal power generation to 71% of China’s electricity output.
    • China’s coal production rose by 4.4% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, leading to record-high coal stocks at power plants and optimism about avoiding power rationing or factory closures during the summer.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/China-Leans-On-Coal-As-Hydropower-Slumps.html

    1. Far from being dead Coal is at or close to high production level
      that may last for a very long time.
      Got water?

  20. “101° WATER TEMP IN FLORIDA recorded Monday from a sensor along Manatee Bay at a depth of 5 feet. Two other water sensors nearby were over 98° as well. If confirmed and verified, 101° would be the hottest water temp ever recorded on earth.”

    Might be in the rear view mirror?

      1. I meant Fahrenheit. Even the UK has abandoned Fahrenheit, and is mainly metric. Why does the US still use pounds and ounces, feet and inches, gallons, and Fahrenheit?

        1. Inertia.
          Most manufacturing industry moving towards metric. Engineering textbooks are now metric based. Part of the problem is that we have had such an incredibly gigantic non-metric industrial base that the cost of switching over and the danger of incompatability with sub-contractors (both hardware and mental incompatability) has ben an obstacle. Also our long term dominance as a manufacturing customer made it economical for emerging industrial exporters to buy American machine tools to provide components for American companies. I’m some years retired as an engineer but I just looked under the hood of my 2017 Chevy Volt and all of the visible fasteners are metric.
          So I suspect that today we are industrially converted to metric but consumers are still most comfortable with the Imperial system as is the UK.

          1. Apart from distances in miles, the uk is now metric. The younger generation of Brits knows no other system than to purchase food in kilos, measure lengths of wood on milimetres or metres. buy fuel in litres. The weather forecasts always give temperatures in celsius. Imperial went out with the old monetary system of ponds shillings and pence. Younger people here are as likely to use the imperial system as they are to measure lengths in cubits or peppercorns or leagues. The only thing stopping us measuring distances in kilometres not miles is the vast cost of changing all the road signs across the country.

  23. A good overview from Chatham House:

    Climate change threatens to cause the next economic mega-shock

    The likely trajectory of climate change, given current global performance on emissions reduction, has been spelled out repeatedly. Extreme weather events, like the unprecedented heatwaves suffered by Southern Europe, the US and China this week, will become even more frequent and destructive as a result.
    …
    The severe economic and financial consequences of climate change are clear, particularly given the enormous shortfall to date in spending on adapting to what is to come.

    https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/07/climate-change-threatens-cause-next-economic-mega-shock

    New from Tim Watkins, a good summary of why energy drives the economy (most here already know this).

    Thus, the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies over the last two decades should have ushered in a new golden age of prosperity. But that isn’t what happened. Even before the 2008 crash, the western economies had struggled to maintain a decent growth rate. After the crash, they barely grew at all. And in the post-lockdown economies, growth has gone into reverse.
    …
    But even now, when it ought to be obvious to all that neither labour nor technology is the source of value, economists and pundits reach for more patches to try to repair our increasingly threadbare understanding of how the economy works.
    …
    Energy was always the true driver of growth in the economy. The technology/productivity that pundits like Bloom imagine is going to ride to the rescue in the future, was only ever a means of leveraging as much of the energy available to us for useful work (exergy) while minimising the amount lost as waste heat. But this is a once-and-done process. Now that all of the economically viable improvements have been made, only an alternative – more energy dense and cheap – energy source can save the day… and currently, no such energy source exists.

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/07/25/an-exercise-in-denial/

    1. I had someone argue to me within the past week that it’s not energy, labor OR technology that grows the economy, but CEOs almost singularly. They are the only creatures capable of determining what products to bring to market and without them it would all crash. And this guy is worth less than 10 million. This is what the elite of this country believe and you can put away all your notions of a course correction for our current trajectory.

    2. “…all of the economically viable improvements have been made…”
      This does not strike me as being true. We are still throwing away 60% of the energy we consume as waste heat, and not doing any useful work with it. That’s a lot of inefficiency to still be wrung out of the system. When our single occupancy passenger vehicles are Apteras and not F-150’s, and our furnaces, boilers and water heaters are all heat pumps, then we’ll know we’re being more serious about efficiency.

    3. From the Chatham House commentary-
      “Why financial markets do not yet reflect climate risk”
      I’d add that almost everyone in the world has not yet digested the severe impacts on the doorstep, from either climate destabilization of the Holocene Mass Combustion or from the effects of net energy supply decline.
      It will take a series of overt catastrophes for humanity to begin to understand that things really are going to be different.

      Its a very good commentary.

  24. WILDFIRES ARE SET TO DOUBLE CANADA’S CLIMATE EMISSIONS THIS YEAR

    A full reckoning won’t be published until 2025. But as of July 18, a preliminary estimate suggests roughly 1,420 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) have been released from the fires so far, across Canada’s managed and unmanaged forests. By comparison, emissions from all other sectors of the country’s economy totaled 670 million metric tons of C02e in 2021, the last year for which full-year figures are available. This season’s fires have been unprecedented both in terms of pollution — smoke blanketed major North American cities, shut down airports and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Europe — and the staggering scale of territory burned. Some 11.7 million hectares and counting have ignited, an area larger than Ohio. However, the most far-reaching impact, only just starting to be understood, is the scale of emissions.

    https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/wildfires-are-set-to-double-canada-s-climate-emissions-this-year-1.1950764

    1. Meanwhile, closer to home….

      WIND, HOT DRY WEATHER FAN FLAMES OF WILDFIRES IN B.C.’S INTERIOR

      Hundreds of wildfires continue to burn across B.C. as hot, dry conditions fan the flames of fires in the province’s Interior. As of Monday afternoon, there are nearly 500 wildfires in the province, many of which were sparked in the past three days. More than half are considered out of control. There are 23 fires of note, or fires that are considered highly visible or pose a threat to human safety. Among those is the Ross Moore Lake wildfire, burning in the small farming community of Knutsford, B.C., just 24 kilometres south of Kamloops. It covers 26 square kilometres and has prompted the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) to order the evacuation of 344 properties.

      https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfires-july-24-2023-1.6915933

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