90 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, June 26, 2023”

  4. There’s no doubt this is as much a puff piece as not, but it’s still well worth reading.

    We’re still in the dog fight, but there are other, younger, and now, bigger as well, dogs in the fight for economic and political dominance.
    This is enough info to locate the long detailed discussion of China’s long term planning at Quora.

    Everything China
    ·
    Follow
    Answered by
    Amber Hsu

    May 10

  5. From today’s BBC World News

    DEFORESTATION SURGES

    An area of tropical forest the size of Switzerland was lost last year as tree losses surged. According to the new data, gathered by the University of Maryland, the tropics lost 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021, with just over 4m hectares (nearly 16,000 sq miles) felled or burned in total. This released an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to the annual fossil fuel emissions of India.

    1. Sweden has the goal of weaning itself from fossil fuel, not just in the electric sector but throughout the energy system.
      They will be going big on wind and perhaps nuclear…time will tell how quickly and to what extent they can pull it off. Look no further than Finland or UK to see how quick and at what cost nuclear building is.

      Sweden has a best chance at getting the job done, considering that 98% of their current electrical consumption mix is already wind, hydro and nuclear. They have some purchasing power, excellent wind and water resource, technological and industrial wherewith-all, and some degree of cultural unity that can be harnessed to getting big projects done.
      We shall see.

      https://balticwind.eu/sweden-a-new-energy-policy-goal/

      mish is mush

      1. HiH you really need to start reading the articles you post more carefully. I actually like Mish occasionally but this is just a real-live-actual fake news.

      1. Ford laying off ‘at least’ 1,000 salaried and contract workers.

        It will lose $3 billion making EVs this year.

        Ford is now likely losing more than $30,000 on every electric it sells.

        Last week the federal government (i.e. you) loaned Ford and a South Korean company $9.2 billion to build battery factories in the south, on top of federal tax credits to entice buyers.

        The next few years should be interesting for Detroit (and taxpayers)

        Let’s see if its .. sustainable.

        https://reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-cut-jobs-us-canada-2023-06-27/

        1. Hi HiH, your link talks about job cuts, but it says its over all its business arms. No mention of losses on making EV’s. Where did you get that from?

          1. H i H tends to focus on what he wants to believe.

            He’s smart enough to know that any company in any heavy industry that’s changing over to a new technology is almost sure to run at a big loss for the first few years, but he’s ready and willing to overlook this obvious fact in order to make his talking points.

            The real question is not whether Ford, or any other legacy vehicle manufacturer, can make money right away on electric vehicles, but rather whether such a company can afford to stick with conventional vehicles……. and lose more and more market share every year for as far out as the eye can see.

            1. HiH
              You left out this part:
              “No matter how you slice it, just under $60,000 per unit is a sizeable chunk of change to lose on each EV. However, there are several factors to consider. Firstly, volume is reduced thanks to scheduled downtime at the Cuautitlan plant in Mexico which produces the Mustang Mach-E. The temporary slowdown in production is to increase output at the plant to 210,000 per year by the end of 2023.

              .. Ford’s EV unit is hemorrhaging cash while scaling production. That includes $3.5 billion being spent on the Ford-owned LFP battery plant in Marshall, Michigan, and BlueOval City in Tennessee, which will produce Ford’s next-generation electric truck in 2025, with a capacity of 500,000 units each year.”
              What that means is that Ford is doing the sensible thing, using it’s sales of old technology product to finance the growth of future business. It is not, as you imply, a marketing failure by Ford but the normal course of a changing business market.

  8. Canada wildfire . Insane stats .
    Quebec burned area last 20 years : 1.121Mha

    🔥Quebec burned area last 25 days: 1.128 Mha

    Let that sinks in…

    (Burned area within the intensive protection zone)

  9. Antarctic ice at a record low, North Atlantic Ocean at a record high, global temperatures at an all time high and El Nino is just getting warmed up, looks like we are headed for an ‘interesting’ next year or two.

    As for Sweden, they already get pretty much all of their electricity from low carbon sources, I guess they are mostly just planning to stick with their current 30% wind & other renewable / 30% nuclear mix rather than trying to replace the nuclear with wind, which does seem logical enough.

    Finland recently completed a nuclear plant (with the usual many years and billions of Euros is cost and schedule overruns), so maybe they can get some power from the Finns if they need it.

    1. Well, currently the Swedish juice is still going east and southwards from what I can see, but I´m fairly happy since I´m currently in southern Finland and it keeps the minibar at the hotel cold 🙂
      https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Power-system-data/Exchange1/ALL/Hourly111/

      But Olkiluoto 3 is now running, but quite expensive and late as you say.

      We also drove by Pyhääjoki on the way down, another nuclear project, not much going on there now due to Rosatoms involvement, a finn actually said that was the only good thing about the Ukraine war.

        1. Not well known, but the insecticide DDT is extremely effective at mosquito eradication. Before its ill side-effects (thin eggshells, etc.) were known, the incidents of Malaria in affected areas where DDT was applied were so much reduced that it was theorized that Malaria, known to have killed more than half of the people who have ever lived, might actually become a thing of the past.

          What happened instead was human nature; people can’t be trusted to follow the directions on the bottle. People would spread DDT in amounts far exceeding what was needed throughout the environment causing the damage it’s known for. The truth is DDT when used as directed, is practically harmless while having the effect desired – those nasty bugs that bite and suck blood don’t come around no more.

          Glad I live out of the zone but feel a little bad for the people who can’t save themselves due to shortsightedness.

            2. Not far from HB at all:

              https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0900993

              The 13-acre Montrose Chemical Corporation. site in Los Angeles, California, was the location of a manufacturing plant that made the pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) from 1947 to 1982. The Montrose Superfund Site occupies approximately 18-acres within the Harbor Gateway area of the City of Los Angeles, including the 13-acre former Montrose plant property, the adjacent 5-acre Jones Chemicals, Inc. (JCI) property, and other areas impacted by the former plant operations. Various hazardous substances entered the environment through several pathways during this time. EPA is investigating the extent of contamination in certain media and has finished cleanup for others. Cleanup, monitoring, and operation and maintenance activities are ongoing.

  10. Tuesday trivia.

    CANADA SEES RECORD CO2 EMISSIONS FROM FIRES SO FAR THIS YEAR

    Hundreds of forest fires since early May have generated nearly 600 million metric tons of CO2, equivalent to 88 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions from all sources in 2021, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-06-canada-co2-emissions-year.html

    1. I was in Oregon in 2020 when pretty much the entire PNW was covered in smoke and ash for about a month. couldn’t go outside for weeks at a time. And I have family that live in the Owens valley which often some of the worst air quality in the US due to LA water use (It’s Chinatown bay-bee). Today Great Lakes has most of the top spots for worst Air Quality. Queue up Martha and the Vandellas.

  11. Nate’s latest has him saying he knows things that he can’t say publicly. Anybody have a clue what he’s on about? Doesn’t sound very frank.

      1. Limits to being frank. Peak frank.
        https://youtu.be/nO9yHWIB_V0

        If Nate has signed NDAs or has perhaps caught wind of some classified intelligence, and doesn’t want to be a leaker, then I agree; one should not repeat certain things publicly. Or perhaps he just doesn’t want to share certain messages and opinions due to social and professional consequences, not legal ones.

  12. Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x

    I think this may be the most important recent paper, or equal with the earlier one about southern overturning circulation collapse (and both about equally ignored by the MSM). Ecosystems are going to come under increasing stress. OECD countries are going to do anything to maintain BAU growth even as EROI declines, energy costs rise, we enter semi permanent global recession and social and international relations decline. If that means demolishing nature even faster to supply the putative green renaissance and keep everyone overfed, then so be it. Poorer countries will have trouble maintaining basic services and nutrition and the last remaining sustainable fisheries and agricultural practices will be sacrificed for day to day needs. The coup-de-grace will likely come from climate change through increased temperature and water cycle volatility on top of gradual, but still too fast for biome adaption, trends.

    Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers

    For many observers, UK Chief Scientist John Beddington’s argument that the world faced a ‘perfect storm’ of global events by 2030 has now become a prescient warning. Recent mention of ‘ghastly futures’, ‘widespread ecosystem collapse’ and ‘domino effects on sustainability goals’ tap into a growing consensus within some scientific communities that the Earth is rapidly destabilizing through ‘cascades of collapse’. Some even speculate on ‘end-of-world’ scenarios involving transgressing planetary boundaries (climate, freshwater and ocean acidification), accelerating reinforcing (positive) feedback mechanisms and multiplicative stresses. Prudent risk management clearly requires consideration of the factors that may lead to these bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Put simply, the choices we make about ecosystems and landscape management can accelerate change unexpectedly.

  13. https://www.topspeed.com/hydrogen-electric-vehicles-future-of-auto-industry/

    There’s little or nothing in this link the regulars here don’t know already……. but it’s nevertheless true that hydrogen has the potential to displace batteries……. maybe five to ten years down the road, maybe twenty years down the road, depending on how much otherwise surplus wind and solar power we have available to manufacture it, and how much progress is made in the business end of distributing and selling it.

    This piece is particularly notable for having one self contradictory or erroneous statement after another. I suppose it was written by a machine, and that nobody who actually knows doo doo from apple butter bothered to revise it.

  14. Global Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly keeps rapidly breaking new records.

    We need to seriously consider the possibility that this warming spike will be worse than the 1997 and 2015 Super El Niños.

    This will turn into record atmospheric heat soon.

    1. on the other hand – thanks for posting this stuff HiH. Between you, Doug Leighton et al, you are keeping the thread up to date on an issue arguably more important than Peak Oil.

    2. One word ” Abnormal ” .
      All monthly records are being broken simultaneously.

      🌍🌡📈June surface air temperatures will be highest on record.
      🌊🌡📈Global Sea Surface Temperatures will be record high.
      🧊➡️🌊Global Sea Ice will be record low.

      This is not normal!

  16. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/food-and-farms/why-vertical-farming-just-doesnt-work

    I’ve generally argued that vertical farming is nothing more, in essence, than a high rise greenhouse operation, and that it doesn’t work except maybe under very special circumstances.

    The capital costs and the energy costs are simply too high by a factor of as much as three or four and maybe five or ten.

    But I still expect to see a few of them work, in the right places……. places with very limited space, cheap workers, and a lack of farmland, meaning it’s necessary to import veggies.

    If by some means such a place has cheap electricity, perhaps by importing it via long distance power lines, the prices of vertical farm veggies might be competitive.

    1. OFM —
      I agree on vertical farming. It’s like American cities (like Las Vegas) investing in exotic tech like monorail when they need buses and trains and sensible zoning.

      Holland is one of the world’s most densely populated countries, and a massive net exporter of agricultural goods. They use greenhouses. Check out the satellite images between Rotterdam and the Hague.

      Meanwhile Californians complain about water shortages but the Dutch use a tenth as much water per pound of tomatoes as they do in California.

      1. According to jet stream forecast it looks like quite a bit of melt for quite a bit of time. Perhaps up to near 80% in about a week and a half.

        I did a nice screen shot of the event but can’t post it. I’ve read the chatter on such occurrences. It’s me. I’m thick. Just watch the animated forecast. At about 204 hours, from now, a big ridge envelops Greenland.

  18. From OFM’s link
    https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/28/solar-will-reach-dominance-as-cheapest-source-of-electricity-in-world-dnv/

    There is a good graphical display of global electricity production by source, with projections according to DNV.
    Of course the future details are to be determined, but out to the mid 2030’s at least I’d rank it as very close to the mark as to what will actually be the case.
    A couple points for this timeframe
    -coal is close to peak, but the decline will be pretty slow over the next ten years yet by 2040 it ends up much lower than current levels
    -nuclear is going just about nowhere overall. It will have to run hard to stay in place.
    -by the the mid 2030’s solar and wind will in the ‘bigtime’
    -keep in mind this is electricity…not all energy
    -as oil begins to decline the world emphasis will be shifting increasingly to all thing electricity, if you haven’t gotten the message yet

    1. DNV says:

      “We expect the average LCOE of solar PV to fall by at least 40% by 2050″

      Meanwhile, in 2023, in China, module costs have fallen 25%, polysilicon costs by 70%. Since February!

        1. We live about 100 miles from Scottsbluff… it has always hailed in this country, but the difference is that the hail of my youth was golf-ball size… baseball size was virtually unheard of. We watched the clouds build for that storm – it had 4 tiers or shelfs … identifiable updraft layers. Glad we were not under it. Which again raises the question… who built that solar farm without taking weather patterns into account….

          1. Engineers are generally quite conscientious about building stuff to a STANDARD……. if the customer specifies a panel that can withstand baseball sized hail driven down at up to a hundred and fifty mph by strong winds plus gravity, they’ll get what they ask for……… IF they’re willing to pay for it.

            Hail is part of life out in the open central part of this country. I live close to a thousand miles from “hail country” but I lost three crops of fruit over the last thirty years or so to hail.

            It’s very unlikely there was significant damage to the solar farm other than broken panels, which can be easily and quickly replaced……. and panels are getting cheaper, in terms of output per dollar, every year.
            https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/27/baseball-sized-hail-smashing-into-panels-at-150-mph-destroys-scottsbluff-solar-farm/

        2. Its a good example of how the whole human endeavor aimed at the manipulation of the natural world for our benefit is a far from a perfectly successful one…not to mention the destructiveness of the whole experiment.

          Even something like solar with no moving parts is prone to destruction and degradation.

          And oil refineries blow up, pipelines leak, nuclear plants melt down, wind towers fall over, coal mines collapse, tankers rupture, dams breach, storage tanks leak….
          and ice caps melt.
          The forest retreats.
          Crops wither in the field.
          The spring become silent.

      2. The price of almost every single industrial input has collapsed over the past year. Don’t get used to it.

        2. Collapsed? Copper and nickel prices are down since January but copper is up year-on-year.

            1. No John , it is not a collapse , simple deflation . Note both copper and nickel inventories at LME are at the lowest but price keeps falling . It is a ” demand recession ” also called deflation . HHH has discussed about this on the Petroleum thread .

          2. @john norris – I should have clarified – I’m looking at Cycle-to-Date which is how I believe the economy works in general but I think commodities and industrials are cyclical as well (two sine waves not that far out of phase in this case).

            In this latest cycle copper peaked at about $4.90/lb. And the low was $3.25/lb. A drop of about 33%. From my perspective it then “bounced” (retraced – whatever), to $4.25, a recovery of 30% (but still 13% off its high). And now sits at $3.75 – 25% off the high. If one were to believe we are not still in a downturn, then you would be correct, Copper prices are doing well off the previous cycle low, but…

            https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/chinas-deepening-slide-industrial-profits-adds-economic-gloom-2023-06-28/

            https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-industrial-output-drops-34-march-2023-05-08/

            “U.S. manufacturing is already in recession based on the latest monthly report on business from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) issued on Feb. 1:”

            https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-manufacturing-is-recession-2023-02-02/

            and although you are correct to highlight Dr. Copper as being critical, notice I mentioned industrial inputs in general. So here’s a list of materials that’s not too unheard of (all YoY – again you are correct a very good time measure):

            Coal: -67%; Natural Gas: -51%; Steel: -17%; Lithium: -35%; Titanium: -55%; Cobalt: -55%; Zinc: -21%; Palladium: -37%; Rhodium: -67% (Rhodium is an extremely rare and valuable precious metal, primarily used in the automotive industry for its exceptional ability to reduce harmful emissions. Its rarity, industrial demand, and geopolitical factors contribute to its high price and investment appeal – newagemetals.com).

            My main point being that solar panels are NOT getting cheaper because technology is improving or some narrative like that, but economic cycles, money supply, recession, et al.

        3. The continuation of the dramatic decade long decline in global PV pricing has very little to do with commodity price swings, in fact the base commodities have been trending up during the past decade while PV costs overall have plummeted.
          Rather, the price declines are due to production at scale. Additionally, a consequence of this is that the energy required to manufacture each panel has dropped and dropped, resulting in an EROI that would surprise the pants off of the earlier publishers of that metric if they were to remeasure it with the modern manufacturing parameters.

  19. A personal observation…. Here on the high plains of reddest America, after several dry years we have had a blue ribbon spring. Wave after wave of gulf moisture, cool with only two 80 degree days so far, green as far as the eye can see… my wife and I can no longer manage ranch work so we moved to town and leased our rangeland grass three years ago… I still travel out there – about 300 highway miles every week with numerous miles around the pastures every trip .. my wife and I spend the rest of the time diddling around on 10 unimproved acres in town. Grass, sweet clover, flowering weeds in town mostly lawn tractor high, and we mowed about 3 of those acres. During all the mowing and all the travel I have seen NO bees of ANY kind, no grass hoppers, no mosquitos, no biting flies, ONE butterfly, maybe 10 miller moths when normally they are everywhere… Usually any mowing would require shirtsleeves and bug repellent… not this year. I have seen NO meadowlarks which is normally the dominant bird at this time of year. I started feeding the birds in town and have 2 pairs of doves, about 10 blackbirds, and maybe 100 sparrows…. one pair of robins…. I have had NO large insect impacts on the windshields… no need to clean the windshield this spring where cleaning is normally needed every day. My observations are not the final word …. out here in reddest America society does not recognize there is a problem.

    1. That is startling…to put it mildly.
      Many others have been reporting the same thing, and not just in your region but widespread.
      Imagine for a moment the severe destruction of the living web one layer down from what you can see…closer to the foundation- in the soil and ponds and streams. Its probably much worse than the layers we can see.
      Some are even as bold as to call it the 6th mass extinction event.
      If its a premature or overly dramatic call, its not by much.

      https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023989118
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
      https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/02/24/1082752634/the-insect-crisis-oliver-milman
      https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-ENVIRONMENT/INSECT-APOCALYPSE/egpbykdxjvq/

      I’m glad you had rain this spring. Water brings life.

    2. Skyline , I am in Europe but my sympathies are with you . On the ground observations to how we are destroying the bio sphere just so that we can party on Friday night is mind boggling . Keep updating and be well .

    4. Once half the land area is open cast mines and the other half covered with solar pnals these will look like the good old days (or maybe a quarter each with the rest monoculture agriculture and planted forest).

    1. “This is not a political blog”

      Lets not be naive. Almost all of the sources that you Hole in Head, choose to quote and link, as well as many of your personal comments
      do have a hard right, authoritarian, or ultra-nationalist affiliation.
      So, to the contrary, you have always posted here with a very big political agenda.

    2. The third post in the zerohedge article blames immigration policy as the main reason for the unrest which is the line that I’ve seen multiple times coming out of right wing countries like Belgium, so yeah I think we can call your post political, but just not in the way you framed it. I googled French unrest news and the zerohedge article wasn’t even in the top 5 pages.

      1. Macron has asked for the Himars and F16s now. He needs them for some other reason. Zelensky will have to wait… . ROFL

        1. France does not have F-16s, only French-made Rafale warplanes and the previous generation Mirage 2000 jets. Ukrainian pilots will likely conduct training on F16s in France. That’s about it.
          Furthermore, France has MARS II / LRU / MLRS-I, it is a European variant of the M270A1 involving Germany, France, and Italy.
          I would be suspicious of any source claiming France is gonna start integrating F16s and HIMARS into their own defensive framework. Again, Ukrainians will likely receive training on HIMARS in France. As well as other locations, like Poland, Germany, Uk, etc etc

        1. HiH – the reason I mention it is that with the link you posted – it wasn’t just political because its a political event – police shooting, riots. But the fact that you chose probably the MOST politically biased string of words one would be likely to find. You went out of your way to display your anti-immigration stance and back that line. but still felt the need to kind of hide it and couch it behind the mealy “I don’t want to be political” language. Just own it. As long as you stay short of “Straight Up Nazi Dude” on the thread, I think you’ll be fine.

          1. Twocats , we have a poor connection ( telecom language ) . Me and anti immigrant ? Friend , I myself am an immigrant . 90 % of my associates are immigrants . Regarding politics , I am a political atheist .For me the left and the right are nothing but ” cheeks of the same bottom ” . In Belgium voting is compulsory ( exemptions being out of country , hospitalisation , death in family etc ) or the fine is Euro 150 . I pay the fine . If you read my post the intention was only to update the non Europeans on events in Europe . In the meanwhile the riots have now spread from France to Belgium (Brussels) and Switzerland ( Lausanne) . I don’t make the news , just report it . Hope it will clear the muddy waters .

      1. Knee deep certainly. Knee deep in ess-aitch-eye-tea. Water companies are dischaging raw sewage into rivers and on to beaches arounnd the UK. There was a time when water companies providing water and wastewater management were owned by the communities they served. Then the Holy SaviourMadam Thatcher proclaimed the gospel of Free Enterprise and Market Forces and decided these guardians of the health of the people should be denationalised. The companies then became servants of the shareholders – mostly pension fund management organisations. This meant fat profits for the companies, fat dividends for the shreholders, asset stripping by the bosses, and massive leakages in mains water networks, and filth pouring out on to British beaches and into British rivers. So we really are in the ess-aitch-eye-tea.

          1. I’m sensing some hubris in this commentator.

            That kind of certainty is the kind of certainty possessed by gods not men. Some humility seems to be in order.

            Never is a very long time.

  23. Supreme Climate Council (HCC) of France has a report .
    ” …France is still not reducing its emissions sufficiently to do its part in the fight against climate change, nor is it “ready to respond adequately to the consequences of climate change “. So stated the French Supreme Climate Council in its annual report, a 200-page assessment of the country’s climate strategy.
    The record heat and exceptional drought of 2022 have “led to severe impacts in France (…) beyond the current capacity for prevention and crisis management,” the HCC said.
    “Yield declines of 10% to 30%” in agriculture, hydroelectric production “20% lower than average “, pressure on drinking water supplies, excessive heat-related deaths…. The HCC analyses the economic and social impacts one by one, not forgetting the drought’s impact on biodiversity: “virtually no reproduction” of certain amphibians, “low or abnormal reproduction” of waterbirds. 8,000 municipalities have requested recognition as “natural disasters” because of the shrinking and swelling of dried clay soils, causing cracks in buildings. The cost of the phenomenon to insurance companies, “estimated at €2.9 billion, is borderline unsustainable”, according to the Caisse Centrale de Réassurance. The HCC calls for “far-reaching economic policies” that require public and private funding of “the order of 30 billion a year between now and 2030” to decarbonise the economy, prioritising transport, the biggest emitter (32%) ahead of industry…
    Read here
    https://actu.orange.fr/economie/la-france-amp-quot-n-est-pas-prete-a-faire-face-amp-quot-aux-effets-du-changement-climatique-CNT00000259J60/photos/la-climatologue-corine-le-quere-le-28-juin-2023-a-paris-bc12c6dc8eaf280f662428b64902cf3a.html

  25. https://vsnyder.substack.com/p/are-humans-really-causing-climate

    Temperature and CO2 are unrelated:
    To use a corrected phrase Ante hoc ergo non propter hoc — Before the thing, therefore not caused by the thing.
    During the last 600 million years, temperature and CO2 have been essentially unrelated.

    Each DOUBLING of CO2 concentration ADDS 0.84 degrees Celsius to the average Earth surface temperature, not the 3 degrees the IPCC uses to scare us. Read that again: A DOUBLING, not an increment from 400 to 500 ppmv.

    1. First the author say:

      During the last 600 million years, temperature and CO2 have been essentially unrelated.

      Then:

      Each DOUBLING of CO2 concentration ADDS 0.84 degrees Celsius to the average Earth surface temperature, not the 3 degrees the IPCC uses to scare us.

      So which is it, are they related or not ?

      Analysis is weak, co2 is not the only thing that affects the earths temperature. The earth is an extremely dynamic system. And the doubling say from 200-400ppm & from 1000ppm-2000ppm might have a different effect on temperature. And the further we go back in time the more uncertain we are about both temperature and GHGs.

      If you believe CO2 is unrelated to temperature, how do you explain the variation in temperature between Mercury and Venus ?

      1. Well he’s probably just a silly engineer who spent too much time at the jet propulsion lab. But he did back up those 2 issues with hard data.
        Related? Huh? He thinks they’re both true. He clearly shows how co2 warms the atmosphere but not as much as people think.
        Weak responses here.

    3. AGAMEMNON —

      Google “The Flat Earth Society”. You will find many intellectual equals. This isn’t the place for you.

    4. “Results from five studies show that the people who disagree most with the scientific consensus know less about the relevant issues, but they think they know more.” – Philip Fernbach, “The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone”

      1. Thanks, George. I decided to check this book out on Amazon. When I brought up the page, right at the top, it said: “You purchased a Paperback format of this item on November 30, 2019.” Damn! I thought. I bought, I bought this book over three years ago and never bothered to read it. I even forgot about buying it. I checked my library, and there it was. Sooo… I’m reading it now. Thanks.

    1. As Water Levels Drop, the Risk of Arsenic Rises

      By Melissa Bailey, KFF Health News, May 30, 2023

      In Colorado’s famed San Luis Valley, residents who rely on well water are grappling not only with a shortage amid drought, but questionable quality of the water coming out of the ground.

      Angie Mestas, a schoolteacher, used a lifetime of savings to drill a drinking well on her land in Los Sauces, Colorado. But she won’t drink from it until she tests for arsenic and E. coli, which are common in the area.

      When John Mestas’ ancestors moved to Colorado over 100 years ago to raise sheep in the San Luis Valley, they “hit paradise,” he said.

      “There was so much water, they thought it would never end,” Mestas said of the agricultural region at the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

      Now decades of climate change-driven drought, combined with the over pumping of aquifers, is making the valley desperately dry — and appears to be intensifying the levels of heavy metals in drinking water.

      Like a third of people who live in this high alpine desert, Mestas relies on a private well that draws from an aquifer for drinking water. And, like many farmers there, he taps an aquifer to water the alfalfa that feeds his 550 cows.

      “Water is everything here,” he said.

      Texas Eyes Marine Desalination, Oilfield Water Reuse to Sustain Rapid Growth. A stock pond south of Dallas dries up due to drought conditions. Across Texas, drought is taxing reservoirs and rivers and groundwater aquifers are being pumped faster than they can recharge. Currently, more than half the state is in drought.

      https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30052023/water-west-arsenic-drought/

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