260 thoughts to “Open Thread, September 5, 2018”

    1. Yeah, surprise surprise! I’ve excerpted this from a comment I made just yesterday in the ‘Forced Variations’ section over at Realclimate.org. Why any of this should come as a surprise to anyone with at least one firing synapse is beyond me!

      12
      Fred Magyar says:
      4 Sep 2018 at 11:48 AM

      I see three main obstacles to mitigating the consequences of climate change. To be clear, I don’t like the term ‘solutions’ in this context. As I see multiple dilemmas.

      1) The continued addition of about 80 million humans to the planet every year. in the face of already diminishing ecosytem services and finite natural resources.

      2) The propagation of the myth that economic growth is possible on a finite planet and that such growth is a solution to all our problems. I’m with Donella Meadows in her Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System where she clearly explains that growth is the right lever but it is being pushed in the wrong direction.

      3) The apparent lack of understanding by the general public of the magnitude of the crisis we are facing and the total lack of will by the economic and political leaders of the world to do more than just pay lip service and actually grab the bull by the horns and start doing what is necessary instead of just continually kicking the can further down the road.

      So if might channel the late Great George Carlin, ‘The Climate is Fine, It’s the People that are F@cked!’

      And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress…

      1. Oh, I’m sure we can easily absorb an extra 80 million or so every year. All comes down to good old American ingenuity and engineered solutions doesn’t it?

        1. “I’m sure we can easily absorb an extra 80 million or so every year”
          Didn’t The Blob get frozen up in the Arctic? Blobs can absorb humans and the Arctic is thawing.
          Using Dr. Bartlett’s methods it might only take a few weeks to get enough blobs to deal with the population problem.

          1. Hmm, so the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand that the population of Blobs will grow exponentially?!

            The good news is, none of us will be around to witness the Great Blob Dieoff of 2045 😉

            1. That long, I was thinking more like the New Year’s Day 2020?

              But the Blob is a real world example of “divide and conquer”.

        2. Yeah! Here’s one brilliant engineering idea they’ve come up with, for coral reefs…

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A19Z0d56DIU
          3D-Printing Creates Artificial Coral Reefs

          There is NO CORAL THERE!! Those are nothing more than Lego blocks. covering them with algae does not an ecosystem make.

          To be clear, I’m very much in favor of artificial reefs but for anyone to argue this solves the underlying problems of reef dieoff is beyond pathetic.

          Maybe next we can fill the rain forests with artificial 3D printed trees, astro turf the great plains and build plastic icebergs to float in the Arctic.

          When engineers can reproduce the ecosystem complexity of all the flora and fauna that live on a single tree in a rain forest, then I will sit up and take notice.

          1. “Maybe next we can fill the rain forests with artificial 3D printed trees, astro turf the great plains and build plastic icebergs to float in the Arctic.”

            We can do all that by collecting the plastic in the oceans and using it to produce the artificial forests/bergs/plains.

          2. I was going to ask you, Fred, about this idea. Sure its no cure, but it seems like a very useful idea to create these frameworks to increase potential habitat.
            Amazing how much life collects around shipwrecks and piers.
            It seems like providing frameworks towards cooler waters may serve as a sanctuary effect.
            I am just thinking aloud with no expertise in these matters.

            1. Yeah, frameworks and artificial reefs have their place. I still dive on a couple right off the beaches where I live.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccBxdvJHB90
              Dania Beach Erojacks | Scuba Diving the Dania Beach Erojacks

              They do serve as a substrate for all kinds of sea life, even living corals and they do end up attracting plenty of fish. So I have nothing against them per se. Except to say they are a very poor substitute for the real thing.

              Trying to move corals into cooler waters would be great but they still have to contend with ocean acidification. I have very little hope that we will find a way to address that in a timely fashion.

              BTW, I don’t know if you saw this link I posted the other day about 3D ocean farming? Kelp farming might be a way to get CO2 out of the atmosphere but we have stop emitting it!

              https://www.greenwave.org/

              Here’s their founder talking about the concept.
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GchLfXTgII
              3D Ocean Farming

  2. How much do you think that wars, trade wars and economic wars can affect the future of energy production?

    1. Trade wars are economic wars, and they can definitely affect energy production if they cause a recession. And that is very likely to happen.

      1. Before appealing to argument from authority, watch the goddamn video if you are interested. If your mind is already made up on the topic then don’t comment.
        Basically what you are saying is if we observe an unknown natural phenomena and don’t know what that phenomenon is, but we see some patterns upon studying or gathering data, we should just ignore the data because we don’t know what the phenomenon is. Lets ignore dark energy and dark matter then…

        1. Sorry Mike I did not mean to offend! If you watch the clip I posted you should have a clearer understanding as to what I think about anything to do with UFOs.

          Comparing that to applying the scientific method to trying to understand dark energy and dark matter is simply not a valid comparison.

          This is not in any way an argument from authority. However, I do indeed navigate my way through my own turgid existence by applying a scientific Occam’s razor to pretty much everything I come across! Which admittedly still makes me quite ignorant about most things but doesn’t allow me to make stuff up just because it suits my fancy.

          Cheers!

          1. If you are interested please read this short entry on J Allen Hynek on wiki, the subject is not a trivial one. And can’t be easily brushed away due to ignorance, or ridicule.
            Hynek acted as scientific advisor to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three consecutive projects: Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1952), and Project Blue Book (1952–1969).
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Allen_Hynek#Evolution_of_opinion_on_UFOs

            Look let me tell you something, as someone who has a MSc in physics, and again i don’t want you to not take my word for it or believe me, but to find out for yourself. Modern cosmology is on the fringes of science. Scientific method in its strict sense, is seldom used. Theoretical physics is sorry if i offend anyone, a lot of nonsense, perhaps not all of it but a lot of it is. It is just a way for universities to get grant money to do absolutely pointless research and to pump out papers to be peer reviewed ad nauseam.
            The Lambda-CDM model of the universe is so glitched from a scientific method sense, dark energy and dark matter are “reverse engineered” to fit the model. Think about it this way, in this model which is modern cosmology, ~70% of the universe is dark energy, 25% dark matter and 5% the matter we see. So you have a model in which ~95% is unknown. You wouldn’t ever get away with that sort of thing in any other scientific field.
            Another problem or clash with regards to the scientific method and modern cosmology is repeatability. The equipment required to gather data cost a shit load, hence it makes it very limited. Theoretical physics is even worse, string theory, multiverses, utter nonsense, not only are you unable to falsify them, they are in an area of science which are called “not even wrong”.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

            Anyways I applaud your awareness of your automated scientific Occams razor 😉
            Please read that short entry on J Allen Hynek, I give more “weight” to his opinion who is well informed on the topic than Neil de Grasse Tyson, who is merely just a science cheerleader.

            2. GF,

              To be honest I have little knowledge about condensed matter physics other than the basics, I concentrated mostly on astrophysics, cosmology, and intermediate QM. I remember using perfect fluids in special relativity, if memory serves me right, we assumed the stress-energy tensor to be a perfect fluid (to make the maths slightly easier).
              I think the quantum vortices research will probably be fruitful and interesting. Thanks for the link.

      2. If a machine tells me so, then it is so. If a human does, it’s bullshit. Photos or video not accepted.
        Get your UFO detector and carry it with you at all times, especially near farm houses in the Midwest and military installations. Then contact your local (loco) scientist.
        https://www.amazon.com/UFO-Detector-magnetometer-interfaced-microcontroller/dp/B000FVUKKO

        33 PERCENT OF AMERICANS BELIEVE IN UFO’S and 1 in 10 Americans believe they have seen a UFO according to a 2012 study by National Geographic Channel.
        EASY TO USE. Blue LED’s light in a rotating circular pattern in monitoring mode. UFO Detector signals anomaly by flashing all LED’s and simultaneously beeping.

        Sadly, even though I spent large amounts of time outdoors day and night I have never seen a UFO. None showed up on the many sky photos I took. A number of strobe lights from jetliners did show up on the photos and I see them quite often. Or were they airplanes????
        All that a UFO would need is some lights and flashing strobes and a transponder to fool us all. Maybe they are there every night!!!
        Possibly only the cheap flying saucers get sighted, the better ones are not visible or can appear to be aircraft.
        Probably those cheap Venusian tourist trips, they never spend any money here. Should build an umbrella or something.

        Here are some hints on recognizing aliens.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKiWed9Rwk4

        https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2016-featured-story-archive/how-to-investigate-a-flying-saucer.html

        From documentaries done in the 1950’s, some saucers can be brought down by audio modulating high frequency signals. They used to hang around the capitol a lot but gave up on that, no sign of intelligent life.
        If you catch one, SpaceX might pay good money for the tech.
        Warning, do not accept rides from strangers.

        1. http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/ufocaseshome.asp

          Under Physical Effects & Evidence
          Knock yourself out.

          Lets be real, we all known more than 95%+ cases are bullshit or easily explained. But again you are ignoring the small percentage of cases which don’t deserve your ridicule, but are worthy of scientific study.

          1. What do you mean I am ignoring again? I never even saw one, nor am I privy to any evidence. I was mostly making a bit of fun of Tyson who sounded a lot like an arrogant ass on that one. Honestly, I have no clue if they exist or not. Too much garbage on the internet about them.

            I did personally hear a few accounts from people who saw UFO’s. One seemed quite credible. I also met a guy once who claimed he had been taken away on a flying saucer once. When I questioned him in a non-confrontational way, he got really angry and claimed I didn’t believe him. Sensitive type, definitely on edge and no way to get any more info from that one. Couldn’t even find out where it happened.
            Problem is that a lot of the “observers” come off as nutters. Mostly, UFO’s seem the stuff of movies and sci-fi stories.

            I just wonder why no one called for plane intercept when an unidentified craft was seen over a nuclear launch site. Only one guard? Those little details bother me. Also no surveillance cameras?

            I have pretty much stopped taking this site seriously anyway Mike. Every time I present graphs or data based/research based information the trolls/ignorant know it-alls/ blockheads etc. come out of the woodwork . That plus a lot of sarcastic or off topic responses.
            No way to have a serious discussion.
            The latest one “Your wrong…. science has spoken.. ” is just one more to add to the list. The list is too long now.

            Glad to hear you are among the reasonable ones, though I did not take you seriously since you come off quite dictatorial telling people what to say and not to comment if they disagree or have another viewpoint. I will try to take you more seriously if I continue to comment here.

            1. I’ve never seen one either. And i am overall skeptical, but again there is some cases that would be interesting to scientifically study. Multiple radar returns, EM-signatures, and manipulation of local space-time (possibly).

              I agree with what you are saying with regards to eyewitness testimony or video or photo. These by themselves are not worthy of been taken seriously, even if they did happen.

              I hear what you are saying regarding the trolling too. You should just ignore those people. I think all in all there are some really intelligent people on this site, and their input has weight, whether we agree or disagree, debating without resorting to personal insults is always positive, we don’t want to be in an echo chamber.

              The people who make statements like “Your wrong…. science has spoken.. ” don’t know real science. Funny thing is the difference between religion and science is, religion is always trying to prove itself right anyway it ca, were as science is always trying to prove itself wrong. A true scientist has no definite beliefs and is always open to changes in world view, he/she just goes where the data takes him/her. A blank canvas in a way being painted by constantly revised data.

              Peace

        2. 33 PERCENT OF AMERICANS BELIEVE IN UFO’S and 1 in 10 Americans believe they have seen a UFO according to a 2012 study by National Geographic Channel.

          I certainly believe there are UFOs and have even seen a few myself.
          However that is not quite the same as believing that Earth has been visited by alien space craft with little green men in them. It just means there are flying objects that I have been unable to identify!

          Next 😉

          1. I remember when my cousin and I were launching UFOs at night. He got in trouble eventually. Keeps the villagers on their toes.

          2. I can’t understand how critters able to commute around the galaxy would find humans any more interesting than I am about the sex life of gold fish.

            1. We avidly study insects and microbes. As the Martians found out, it’s the little things that get you. 🙂
              Of course, they might be machines. and who knows what a machine culture would study. Maybe our machines. Sort of a chance to watch their own Genesis story.

              I think one of the best Sci Fi books ever written was Rendezvous With Rama by Clarke. The aliens or whatever they were simply ignored us.

            2. Doug, there are ichthyologists who spend their entire careers studying the sex lives of gold fish… 😉

            3. Nah, they are just surveying for the new intergalactic highway 😉

              NAOM

          4. A guy who lived down the road from me…..about 45 years ago, fervently believed in UFOs. He believed in them so much he filled his beat up old car with dynamite, drove up Mt Prevost (Duncan BC), and let ‘er go. He thought he could launch himself into some other extra terrestrial realm. I don’t know if they even found the hubcaps?

            Another Englishman, down the same road from me, saw UFOs all the time. We called him, “There Goes Another One Vernon Stanley-Jones”. (This was before anyone hyphenated their name). What is it about these old Englishmen? Hell, the kaboom man’s sister was even wackier, but she was very very awesome in an eccentric manner. Very eccentric. They lived on an old estate and had a model train that you could actually ride on all around their fields. She also rode a Harley….this was in ’69, so it was pretty rare stuff.

            There were a lot of UFOs on the Island in the 1970s. 🙂 (A lot of something, for sure).

            1. He believed in them so much he filled his beat up old car with dynamite, drove up Mt Prevost (Duncan BC), and let ‘er go. He thought he could launch himself into some other extra terrestrial realm.

              Well, I’d say he probably achieved his goal! 😉

  4. Synapsid – A tidbit to add to your already vast knowledge.

    YOUNGEST ACCRETION DISK DETECTED IN STAR FORMATION

    “ALMA is so powerful that it can resolve an accretion disk with a radius as small as 15 astronomical units (AU),” says Chin-Fei Lee at ASIAA. “Since this disk is about a few times younger than the previously resolved youngest disk, our result has provided a stronger constraint on current theory of disk formation by pushing the disk formation time by a factor of a few earlier. Moreover, together with the previous results of the older disks, our disk result favors a model where the disk radius grows linearly with the protostellar mass, and thus supporting the ‘early-start, slow-growth’ scenario against the ‘slow-start, rapid-growth’ scenario for accretion disk formation around protostars.”

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-09-youngest-accretion-disk-star-formation.html#jCp

    1. And, (a bit) closer to home.

      RESEARCHERS RELEASE THE MOST ACCURATE MAP OF ANTARCTICA TERRAIN

      The map, called the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA), has a resolution of 8 meters. This means researchers now know the height of every mountain and all the ice in all of Antarctica within a few feet. In the past, the most accurate topographical map was within about one kilometer or about a half mile in elevation. The new map covers about 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), which is about 50 percent larger than the lower 48 states of the U.S.

      Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-09-accurate-antarctica-terrain.html#jCp

      1. Doug,

        Resolution down to eight meters, hm. That means the DOD can do it down to half a centimeter or less but they aren’t talking.

        If there are alien bases beneath the ice we’ve got them now, heh heh. Unless they’re tunneled into the bedrock, and if they are now we know where to use geophysics to find them.

        This brings up a story by Arthur C Clarke… Ahem: Time for more port.

        1. As I recall Flash Gordon fought with the aliens tunnelled underground in an episode called “The Mud People”

    2. Did Dark Energy Just Disappear?
      Why are we talking about dark energy again? Because another team has just announced a new analysis of updated supernova data. They claim that the data are consistent with there being NO dark energy – no accelerating expansion. They suggest that the universe may just be expanding at a constant rate – never speeding up, but also not slowing down. In this episode, Matt discusses this controversial claim, and whether or not we should throw away nearly twenty years of work on dark energy.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UNLgPIiWAg&t=724s

      This stuff just never goes away.

        1. “A more dramatic conclusion is that all traditional descriptions of fundamental physics have to be thrown out. ”

          That’s OK! We still get to keep germ theory and the T.O.E. 😉

    3. DougL,

      Thanks. ALMA has been justifying every penny spent to build it, hasn’t it? Something daily or at least weekly in the literature comes out of its use.

      No vast knowledge, Doug. My education got started with Uncle Scrooge comic books as foundation in the early 1950s. Once I had my own copy of the Junior Woodchuck’s Guide Book I didn’t have to learn another thing.

      As to the Millennials on their travels: Mention of ginger nuts is enough to tell me that the correspondents hailed from Blighty, or at least the Commonwealth. I wish Peter Cook were still alive to comment.

      How’s the smoke been up your way? It’s been clear here–oh dear, and Merlin said we should avoid assonance–for a week or so.

      Ah: Here’s one for you. I’ve recommended a couple of stories to Ron, ones that overlapped to some extent a topic under discussion. For a distinguished geophysicist I offer “Pate de Foie Gras”, by Isaac Asimov. About 1957, I think it was. I’d expect it to be on the web. The quiz will be next Tuesday.

      1. The quiz will be next Tuesday.

        Damn! I did a search for the story and found it but decided to read what Wikipedia said about it first, that ruined it, because the entry has the solution… Bummer!

        So do not read the Wikipedia entry before reading the story if you don’t want a spoiler!

        Note: today we might solve the riddle by applying CRISPR 😉

        1. Esteemed FredM,

          Thanks for this; I hadn’t known about that approach to the problem of The Goose.

  5. THEY BREED! The Millennials are now traveling unsupervised!! THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY “THOMAS COOK VACATIONS” FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS

    1. “On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”

    2. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”

    3. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”

    4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We ass/u/me/d it would be included in the price.”

    5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”

    6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”

    7. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers to siesta in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”

    8. “No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”

    9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”

    10. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”

    11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun”

    12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”

    13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”

    14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort.’ We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”

    15. “When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”

    16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”

    17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”

    18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”

    19. “My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you all responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

    BEWARE …THEY WALK AMONG US and…THEY VOTE!

    1. Yeah, those 10 votes will make a big difference. Did you know they have to wait in line and there are more than two choices, most won’t vote.
      Look at it this way, all those people only produced one kid, population of picky dumb people chosen by Jay Leno type editing will fall quickly. 🙂

        1. Of those 19 examples, probably none to one. The lines are too long, they let most anyone in and there are too many choices. The one thought it was photo machine.

    2. Trump- “who would have thought health care could be so complicated?”

    4. You need to read some of the ones on icanhas.cheezburger.com those are nothing to what Americans seem capable of! BTW none vote for Trump, Tom Cook is a British travel agency – Spain is a favourite British destination. Now, that comment about Goa makes me wonder if I should have the Vindaloo that is in my freezer for Sunday dinner, must decide by Saturday for defrosting 🙂

      NAOM

    5. Quite funny. By the way, my family is originally from Goa, India. 🙂

        1. Only by the old generation. The Portuguese left in 1961 and now there is very little Portuguese influence. However the local “Konkani” language has adopted many Portuguese words.

    6. Reformist politics is the easy way out (and very rarely works).

      1. Has anyone seen the op-ed the NY Times published today by an anonymous senior official in the Trump Administration?

        These are not exactly normal times! I’m thinking Trump will be removed from office by invoking the 25th Amendment and that might also get him off the hook for most of his crimes because he will be deemed mentally incompetent.

        Break out the popcorn. Trump is already ranting and raving and a twitter storm is sure to be unleashed.

        BTW, a side note: Jaron Lanier considers Trump to be a victim of a pathological twitter addiction. He is Sam Harris’ latest podcast guest.
        https://samharris.org/podcasts/136-digital-humanism/

        1. Why do you want Pence. At least everyone knows what Trump is like and the Woodward book indicates there are, at least some, measures being taken to block the worst. I fear Pence may get away with more by seeming nice.

          NAOM

          1. Why do you want Pence.

            I sure as hell don’t! He is a greater threat to the constitution and the republic than Trump is. He would work double time to end the divisions between the church and the state. If he has his way he would like to make the US into a theocracy!

            The only silver lining is that his association with the Trump administration would taint his presidency making him a lame duck should he come to hold the office. Remember, his base is basically the evangelical Christians and that is still a minority of the electorate that is hopefully not going to allow a fiasco like this to happen again.

            Yeah, you can call me an eternal optimist 😉

            1. Something I thought about after shutting down. Would Trump have picked a better, smarter person than himself as Veep?

              NAOM

            2. Well, he really couldn’t have picked a dumber person than himself that is already in politics, because that person doesn’t exist. He would have had to pick some idiot that flunked out of school in the eighth grade.

              However, Pense is pretty dumb but still smarter than Trump. But Pense is an ideologue. He puts his religion before his country. So we lose if Trump stays in and we lose if he is thrown out.

            3. “So we lose if Trump stays in and we lose if he is thrown out.”

              That’s what worries me especially when people talk of impeachment. Maybe the best way would be to tie the administration up in knots for 2 years.

              NAOM

            4. I have been thinking some more on this matter. I can’t help thinking that it may be a foreshadowing of a coup d’état by Pence. Testing the waters. The Republicans may gripe about the leaks in public but privately sidle up to Pence in the corridors for a quick chat.

              NAOM

            5. My wife said the other day, in regards to this palace intrigue in the Trump administration, when she watched Pence on TV profess his innocence and decry the anonymous op-ed writer, that Pence is Frank Underwood.

              ‘House of Cards’ watchers will get it.

              Except Pence will tend towards High Chancellor Sutler. Perhaps he will pave the way towards the Republic of Gilead (The Handmaid’s Tale).

        2. It’s in the Times (London) today: A group of senior officials in the Trump administration is working hard for the good of America to thwart the president’s “worst inclinations”, according to an explosive confession from one of those allegedly involved.

          I don’t think those who wrote the constitution quite had that in mind when they put in all the checks and balances to prevent abuse of presidential power – it’s supposed to be the senate and congress.

          There was also something yesterday that said Pence thinks he can turn Trump to god and all will be well, but I thought the best revelation was the mock interview, in which he proved incapable of not lying even when there is no need, and was advised that he either had to refuse or he’d go to gaol (why didn’t they just let him go ahead if they are looking out for the country).

          That Woodward book is going to fly off the shelves – but will anything fundamental change, even if Trump ends up in an orange onesey.

          1. “but will anything fundamental change, even if Trump ends up in an orange onesey.”

            Nope, the republican voters are still proud of their man. The electoral college is still a thorn in the side of democracy, the local districts are still gerrymandered, the supreme court is on the verge of a hard shift to the evangelical/fundamentalist, and the voters are overall as dimwitted as ever.

    7. That is known as taking the piss, the twin bed one is great. They read like they come from the Viz Comic, but if not then they were composed by some hung over revellers cramped up on a return charter flight or coach after failing to chat up the travel rep as the comment cards were being handed out (although it’s probably all electronic these days).

  6. The Tesla FUD Machine Is Unstoppable: How ‘Bout A FUD Tracker?

    Barnard believes that the media Tesla-bashing is being turbocharged not only by short-selling interests, but by anti-electric car PR campaigns organized by supporters of the fossil fuel industries. Before you say “conspiracy theory” and stop reading, let’s point out that the enemies of Tesla fall into several different categories, and there’s no evidence that these groups are working together. However, it’s no secret that there are oil industry-funded groups (yes, including the sinister Koch brothers) working to delay the advent of EVs.

    A network of fossil fuel CEOs created an advocacy group called Fueling U.S. Forward in 2016. Two of the group’s leaders were Koch board member James Mahoney and fossil-fuel industry lobbyist Charlie Drevna. The group’s anti-EV efforts included targeted events in black evangelical communities (as reported in the New York Times) as well as faux news articles and YouTube videos. The organization’s disinformation campaign has been documented by Electrek, DeSmogBlog, and CleanTechnica.

    Fueling U.S. Forward shut down after a year or so, but the tide of oily FUD continues to flow through Koch-affiliated think tanks and political advocacy groups, including the Institute for Energy Research, the American Energy Alliance and Americans for Prosperity.

    Yup! Sounds about right!

    1. I have been wondering that, the shorters do not seem to have a big enough stake to keep traveling to the factory and flying drones. The surveillance seems too co-ordinated and well funded.

      NAOM

    2. Despite the Kochs and others’ continued attempts at anti renewables propaganda…
      Is North Carolina finally thinking about moving into the 21st century?
      All headlines listed below are from https://www.bizjournals.com

      No more nukes: Duke Energy writes new nuclear out of its long-range plan

      Duke Energy moves up closing dates for several coal plants

      Duke Energy accounts for large boost in solar power in its latest long-range plan

      How offshore wind could add up to $710M in economic benefits for NC

      Note: While Peter will be sad to note that nuclear and coal are being phased out, due mostly to economic considerations, he should at least be happy to know they they still plan on using plenty of gas turbines. However they are also quickly trying to adapt to new technologies and a major paradigm shift as well.

      New considerations
      Snider says this IRP marks a first attempt by Duke to upgrade the whole process for the Integrated Resource Plan in important ways. New technologies such as battery storage, for instance, do not fit into the old dichotomy between power generation and power transmission (through substations, power lines and other infrastructure). He says the utilities need new ways of evaluating the benefits of new technologies and distributed power plants — such as solar farms — versus traditional centralized power plants.

      None of this has anything to with being ‘GREEN’ other than the money part. Its the economics. stupid! The Kochs and friends are all stuck in the past they are all dinosaurs well on the way to extinction.

      1. What I am failing to see is why the Kochs and the ilk do not see a huge investment potential in renewables.

        NAOM

        1. They are business people–

          Smart enough for the con, but too stupid to realize the results.

          They would obviously be doing something else if they were smarter.

    3. This probably explains why the FUD machine is running at full bore:

      Tesla Model 3 Breaks Into Top 5 Best-Selling Passenger Cars In U.S.

      Tesla Model 3 is now the 5th best-selling passenger car in the U.S.

      Tesla Model 3 devoured the competition of any kind, regardless of powertrain type.

      In August, sales increased to around 17,800, which is an all-time record for any plug-in model.

      Good Car Bad Car sales stats (with higher estimations of Model 3 sales than ours – 20,450), shows Model 3 is now the fifth best-selling passenger car in the country (it would be at our 17,800 figure, too)! Only the high-volume Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord and Toyota Corolla Family were able to sell in more volume, but at full swing of 10,000 cars a week and 40,000 a month, it’s just a matter of time before the Model 3 rises to the top.

      and there;s also this

      First Million Electric Car Sales Took 5 Years, 2nd (4th actually) Million Just 6 Months

      Overall sales volume may be small, but the growth is nothing short of impressive

      Lately, even the hardest doubters and naysayers of the electric car revolution are – even if unwillingly – changing their backward views. If nothing else, the sheer sales numbers are proving that the future is electric after all. When the first modern electric vehicles hit the market, it took five years to sell the first million electric cars. Now, it took just about just six months to sell the last million. That’s over 150,000 electric cars sold in a single month, on average. And with the constant ramp up in both production and new EV reveals, the first 10 million is not that far away.

      Five years to sell the first million and then one million sold in six months. Anybody else here think Tony Seba might be on to something? What must be really disconcerting to most of the legacy automakers, is that they have nothing with which to compete at the scale of tens of thousands of units per month, nothing.

      1. The first ‘all American’ car comes in at 9th and that model is being dropped. 7 foreign and 1 newcomer are above it, is that sending a message or what?

        NAOM

      2. About the time we are a quarter of the way to converting to electric cars, the advances will let us take to the air and roads will go by the wayside. Disruption on disruption, insanity will be the norm of the 21st century.

    1. They are not from the same camera. Look at the original images from the linked Independent (go to the gallery). Note the very RHS has red objects, they are different. Different corridors.

      NAOM

        1. I can walk 4 mph, just under 6 fps. Those guys could be 5′ apart and pass the camera in the same second. Looking at Gatquick on Google maps shows at least 1 gate that can run 2 air bridges. Is that timestamp original or is it there from another purpose?
          One thing is for sure, the police have a LOT more videos and images of this pair that they will not be showing and note that they are showing still images and not the video.

          NAOM

          1. You have more info than me.
            I’m still a bit curious. British intelligence is quite like most intelligence.

    2. I already told the GRU to off the two guys for forgetting to wear their fake beards and noses and the fake body fat suits. Putin was extremely upset because he personally warned them that London had over 260 thousand security cameras. Such incompentence will not be allowed in the future, next time they will use two Ukrainian snipers firing high caliber rounds of -150 degree C water ice.

  8. 12,000 km³ of Arctic sea ice have been lost since 1979.

    http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png

    This is over a third of the ice, and the process accelerates as less ice is left and more CO₂ accumulates in the atmosphere.

    When all the Arctic sea ice is gone all the heat that is melting the ice will go into warming the oceans and the atmosphere. The Arctic will become a very different place and the entire Northern Hemisphere will be more extreme, colder in winter and warmer in summer negatively affecting people and the ecosystems. We are just a few decades away from the total melting of the Arctic every summer, but we can feel the effects already as progressively less ice is left.

    We need to reduce the fossil fuel demand, but I am weary about doing it by taxing CO₂, as it tends to hurt the poor most by increasing the price of energy, since not enough renewable energy is still in place.

  10. My hero (heroine) gets much deserved recognition.

    PULSAR DISCOVERER JOCELYN BELL BURNELL WINS $3 MILLION BREAKTHROUGH PRIZE

    The British astrophysicist will receive a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The $3 million award recognizes not only Bell Burnell’s 1967 discovery of the weird, fast-spinning stellar corpses known as pulsars but also her scientific leadership in the 50 years since then.

    “Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s discovery of pulsars will always stand as one of the great surprises in the history of astronomy,” Edward Witten, chairman of the selection committee for the Fundamental Physics Breakthrough Prize, said in the same statement. “Until that moment, no one had any real idea how neutron stars could be observed, if indeed they existed. Suddenly, it turned out that nature has provided an incredibly precise way to observe these objects, something that has led to many later advances.”

    https://www.space.com/41733-jocelyn-bell-burnell-pulsar-discovery-breakthrough-prize.html

    1. I sat next to Hewish at a dinner once, I was quite drunk, he wasn’t.

      1. I’ve always considered Hewish a tad pompous and would likely wind up drunk if I were sitting beside him as well. Not unlike some of the people who comment here. 😉

    2. DougL,

      She got the Breakthrough! Yippee!

      Talk about an award well earned.

      Thank you for this, Doug.

      (Too early for port)

          1. EFredM,

            Surely Magyar and Brazilian contributing there, a synergy to be commended.

            Wait till five, though? It is to laugh–Ha! Ha!

            1. Synergies, yes!

              A gypsy violin to set the mood for a glass of fine 20 year old, 5 Puttonyos Tokaji Aszu or if the mood perchance should tip more toward a classical Samba and percussion, in which case a nice barrel aged Cachaça, neat, in a shot glass.

              Since it’s always five somewhere you never have to wait. 😉

            2. Cachaça, I’ll drink to that, pity I can’t find any around here 🙁

              NAOM

            4. Trouble is I am Tequila land 🙁 I think there is a supplier to business that has it but I have never seen it on sale, maybe I should ask the local churrascaria. Visited a distillery, the plumbing was quite frightening but the sample they gave me with the full power stuff and cane juice was totally mind blowing, so many flavours in one.

              NAOM

            5. EFredM,

              I’ve never tasted a Tokaji and chances are I wouldn’t be qualified to appreciate it since I don’t care for wine, except for the fortified ports, of course.

              I’ve tried a couple of Cachacas (cedilla to be supplied by the reader) but as I told DougL spirits disable my tasting mechanisms so I can’t drink them straight. Several brands are available here including one that bills itself as Brazil’s best seller and comes in a 1-liter bottle, that I figure I could run my car on in a pinch.

              The capirinha looks to me to be diluted sugar. Haven’t been offered one so I dunno.

            6. Caipirinha, most excellent, try if you get a chance and yup, diluted sugar – with attitude.

              NAOM

            7. I love Tokaj, great with Christmas pudding (just sets you up for the port and cheese to follow), but that stuff you quoted is about 95 quid for a half bottle over here!

            8. I have a second cousin in Hungary who is married to the editor of a prestigious publication on local Hungarian wines and they have a rather well stocked wine cellar, courtesy of various Hungarian vineyards and bottlers. Plus the price of wines in Hungary is quite affordable if you have Euros or Dollars due to the exchange rate.

              To be fair, I don’t drink it in Florida…

              And, I get fine Cachaças via visiting relatives from Brazil! 😉
              Cheers!

        2. DougL,

          Well, I…ah…

          Ahem. My practice is to walk three or four miles in the morning and, upon returning home, have two mugs of tea. Then, if I have eaten something and if it is past noon, I will have a glass of port.

          There are certain degrees of freedom here, of course, it stands to reason doesn’t it, can’t trammel myself by denying the good in life that would be showing off. While making the first mug of tea I half fill a miniature A&W root-beer mug with Kopke 10-year tawny, that’s about the volume of the second joint of my thumb, and sip that.

          At the moment, replete with a fresh bread stick and a pear and almond pastry, I await the stroke of noon–Say! We’re on Pacific Daylight Time! It’s past noon by the Sun and any Earth scientist would go by that…

          Time for port!

          1. “Happiness is having a rare steak, a bottle of whisky, and a dog to eat the rare steak.” — Johnny Carson

            1. DougL,

              Well I have to admit that spirits traumatize my mouth so I don’t drink them straight but I will add a splash of Powers Irish Whiskey to a mug of Irish Breakfast tea, of a cool evening.

              My usual Irish Breakfast is from Trader Joe’s of all places. I learned inadvertently who their blender is (I haven’t the authority to divulge the name, harrumph) and they’re one of the top firms. I had tried that tea after my car mechanic, a Scot, had recommended it. O happy chance!

  11. CLIMATE CHANGE FIRST BECAME NEWS 30 YEARS AGO. WHY HAVEN’T WE FIXED IT?

    “Research by an array of scientists and scholars supports a daunting conclusion: Climate change is unlike any environmental problem we’ve ever faced. We can’t “fix” it the way we’ve started to fix smog or the ozone hole, with circumscribed regulations and treaties and limited technological changes. Climate change is too big in space, time, and complexity; the emissions that cause it are too central a consequence of the effort of some 7.5 billion people now, and some 10 billion within several decades, to prosper on Earth…

    The real shape of what’s happening to Earth emerges only when the greenhouse emissions surge is considered alongside other metrics for human activity. A 2015 scientific report titled “The Great Acceleration” included a planetary dashboard of graphs charting signals of human activity, from tropical forest loss to paper manufacturing to water use. Most have the same shape as the curve for CO2 emissions. Pollution and climate impacts, then, are symptoms of a broader situation: the human-Earth mash-up moment that’s increasingly called the Anthropocene.”

    As the Italians are wont to say: Tutto Per Tutti (everything for everyone).

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/07/embark-essay-climate-change-pollution-revkin/

    1. “Most have the same shape as the curve for CO2 emissions.”

      They are suggesting the wrong causality. The responsible curve is called population.

      Meadows got it right in her model when she called it pollution and made it depend on population and industrial output in “The limits to growth.” That research is still valid even if the details or timing are slightly off. She just didn’t know about global warming.

      1. They are suggesting the wrong causality. The responsible curve is called population.

        Carlos, I’m pretty sure Doug, is quite aware of the causality between the population curve and all of the above mentioned curves.

        Cheers!

        1. Indeed, and for the record, a recent study of the relationship between population growth and global warming determined that the “carbon legacy” of just one child can produce 20 times more greenhouse gas than a person will save by driving a high-mileage car, recycling, using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs, etc. In fact, each child born in the US will add about 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the carbon legacy of an average parent. Clearly, the savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle. What does that say about adding a few billion new souls to planet Earth?

          https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/

          1. But Jesus loves children!
            The more the better– humans look like God or something?
            Chimps?

            2. Alcohol consumption could have saved the planet, people just did not drink enough of it.

          2. Yes Doug, we have tied ourselves to mechanization powered by fossil fuels. The mechanization and industrial chemical production (along with medical knowledge) drove up the population and consumption to strong overshoot. It’s a huge job moving to solar and wind power as prime energy sources, which will break the link between mechanization and CO2 output.
            Sadly we are far down the dependency path, to the point of huge dependency on technology.
            Considering future phenomenon, dependency may get even worse, as exemplified by this short German video. Food for thought and a warning.
            Blackout
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lPTNBkV_NE

            Singularity or deadly tech prison?

            2. Amazing Fred, and all happening so fast.
              Think I’ve decided to trade in my old dog for a robot. Of course I’m just kidding!

            3. Of course it is astounding to see how far along these robots have come. What freaks me out even more than the technical capability is glimpsing what people have in mind to create. Not not not good.

    2. Although I am a strong conservative voter when it comes to politics, I admit I have come to the belief that humans can impact our climate. However based on the research I’ve done in coming to this belief the human impacts are probably small compared with other factors such as water vapor, clouds, solar activity, airborne particulate matter and other natural events. Earth’s geologic history has a significant amount of evidence showing global climate change in the past before large scale human industrial activity, even though the experts have since convinced themselves nature has never been in control.

      1. The research you claim to have done must have been rather limited, as 100% of your claims have been either extensively debunked, discredited are made up of half truths, myths, strawmen or are mostly irrelevant!

        Furthermore, when making such claims, unless you are actually publishing in reputable peer reviewed science journals you need to back up your claims with the sources where you have obtained said information.

        Otherwise it doesn’t count as anything more than your personal unfounded beliefs and opinions! Though you are certainly entitled to those!

        If you are truly serious about learning about climate science from actual climate scientists who have put in the time to obtain their PhDs, do the research and publish papers, you can start at the link below. You will find all the main points of your comment clearly explained one by one in layman’s terms!
        http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

        Cheers!
        .

      2. It’s interesting that your first sentence seems to imply that you innately assume strong conservative voters do not believe (or maybe understand) science, or on a higher level that somehow politics influences physical laws.
        As for the other stuff – what Fred said and keep studying (e.g. water vapour is a feed back loop controlled by a simple and direct function of air temperature, which is now mostly affected longterm by CO2 from humans, likewise clouds, aerosols are mostly produced by humans).

        1. It’s interesting that your first sentence seems to imply that you innately assume strong conservative voters do not believe (or maybe understand) science, or on a higher level that somehow politics influences physical laws.

          To add add a footnote to that, a study recently published in the journal ‘Current Biology’ may shed some light on the mind set and thought processes, that seems to underlie the kind of world view that Adam and many others like him seem to hold!

          It is a common narrative among those who identify as ‘conservatives’ to promote conspiracy theories such as “Climate Change is a Hoax invented by the Chinese”, or “Climate Change is a global plot by the UN to economically enslave American taxpayers and destroy the US economy”. I’m paraphrasing and being somewhat hyperbolic but It’s quite close to reality.

          While the focus of this particular paper is not Climate Change per se but rather more specifically the statistical analysis of the relationship between conspiracism and teleological bias with the authors using ‘Creationism’, as an example of the ultimate conspiracy theory.

          Creationism and conspiracism share a common teleological bias
          https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30863-7?

          Disclaimer: A good grasp of basic statistical analytical methodology is a prerequisite for making sense of, and understanding this paper but it should not be beyond the capabilities of most university students who have taken statistics.

          Collectively, these results identify teleological thinking as a new predictor of conspiracism, independent of agency perception, anthropomorphism, science rejection, analytical thinking and randomness perception. As a finalist and purpose-driven view of the natural world, teleological thinking has long been associated with creationism and identified as an obstacle to the acceptance of evolutionary theory [5, 6]. We suggest that this powerful cognitive bias extends to social and historical events, and nowadays to conspiracy narratives.
          Bold mine.

          It is clearly evident from even a cursory examination of current public discourse on social media, that a majority of those who self identify as ‘Conservatives’ have a strong belief in Climate Science being part of a liberal conspiracy.

          And if that paper isn’t enough to underscore this as being a rather pernicious form of anti science closed mindedness and irrationality, there is also this paper which we have already discussed in a previous thread and I will leave it to be read by those who wish to delve even further into this topic.

          Study looks at Swedish Climate Change Denialism.

          https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/tme/centres/ceforced/Pages/default.aspx

          Centre for Studies of Climate Change Denialism (CEFORCED)

          The only antidote to these virulant anti science memes is early innoculation with the application of strong doses of critical and analytical thinking, followed by a solid education in mathematics and the sciences. Without such an intellectual foundation there can be little hope for constructing free and truly democratic societies. let alone, grappling with the future existential risks posed by catastrophic global climate change! Which, unfortunately, is not just another conspiracy theory.

          Cheers!
          ​

          1. It’s that pesky, overactive, reptilian amygdala that conservatives have – fear, loathing and short-term thinking rule when you’ve got one of those (and excessive cognitive dissonance results).

      3. “Although I am a strong conservative voter . . . ”

        Everything you say after this is utterly predictable.

      4. The output is rather predictable once you grasp its apparent ideology

      5. Adam: My guess is we contribute about 60% of the warming. And about 90% of the greening of the earth, which is a very positive development. What we see is science being used heavy duty for political purposes and this means about 95% of what we see in the media about global warming is either incomplete, distorted, exaggerated, or fake news.

        The earth isnt about to disappear, there are worse problems, such as running out of cheap oil, or artificial intelligences deciding to use us to grease their threads.

        I suggest this link as one educated position on global warming you can quote

        https://thebestschools.org/special/karoly-happer-dialogue-global-warming/william-happer-interview/

        1. Adam: My guess is we contribute about 60% of the warming. And about 90% of the greening of the earth, which is a very positive development.

          As usual, your guesses are just plain wrong, you could actually check the relevant research!

          https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-scientists-think-100-of-global-warming-is-due-to-humans

          And the best estimate from the body of peer-reviewed climate science research is that humans are responsible for more than 100% of the global surface warming since 1950, with natural factors probably offsetting a little bit of that with a slight cooling influence.

          As for this truly simplistic view of yours that greening is a positive development, again there is plenty of research available that disputes that notion. You don’t seem to understand much about basic plant physiology and photosynthesis let alone how ecosystems actually work. Maybe you should just stick to something simple like engineering.

          https://ag.purdue.edu/climate/elevated-co2-and-higher-temperatures-negatively-impact-photosynthesis/

          Elevated CO2 and higher temperatures negatively impact photosynthesis

          And Happer has no credibility in the field of climate science.

  12. Followup to comments in last thread about California forest fires …

    New one broke out yesterday north of Redding, called Delta fire. Right on Interstate 5, which is completely shut down for 40 miles, along with Amtrak.

    Trucks and cars abandoned all over with several burned/destroyed.

    A lot of dramatic footage is being posted online as so many people were caught up in it.

  13. Trump to name climate change skeptic as adviser on emerging technologies

    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/happer-climate-denier-trump-adviser/index.html

    “William Happer, a Princeton atomic physicist and prominent skeptic questioning whether humans are causing rapid climate change, is joining the National Security Council as senior director for emerging technologies, according to NSC officials.

    Happer, 79, is an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton who served in the Department of Energy under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s. He did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

    His public stance on climate change is in opposition to near universally accepted science.”

    I guess this serves as an answer for why we aren’t trying to fix this mess. Whoever still has hopes to avoid climate catastrophe is just fooling himself. There is no intention of doing such thing.

    1. Happer is a physicist and expert in Atmospheric physics. He was the ine who had the idea to use sodium lasers to serve as guidance stars. He also coauthored a book on the greenhouse effect in the 1980’s.

  15. It looks like Florence is going to hit East Coast USA as a cat 4 late next week (Europe and US models agree quite closely at the moment). The changes in the jet stream mean hurricanes now are more likely to be pushed west rather than veer out over the Atlantic (Sandy was the first time I’d heard about that phenomenon).

    1. Yep, looking more and more like a direct hit from Florence followed by another direct hit from Helene a short time thereafter in the same general area, both as major hurricanes. A one two punch double whammy! Could have catastrophic consequences for the Carolinas. Similar to what Irma and Maria did to the Caribbean about a year ago. Maybe Trump will visit to hand out rolls of paper towels with MAGA printed on them…

      As far as the Jet Stream goes, tropical depression number 9, in between Florence and Helene is interesting to me personally because of how it is tracking. That one could be a wild card.

      1. 9 could get into the Caribbean- and who knows?
        But that is a long way off.

    2. For all the folks here in the Carolinas, please stay safe. I’m sending up prayers for you to be spared from this storm.

      1. “In the name of Jesus, you Hurricane Florence, we speak to you in the name of Jesus, and we command the storm to cease its forward motion and go harmlessly into the Atlantic. Go up north away from land and veer off in the name of Jesus. We declare in the name of the lord that you shall go no farther, you shall do no damage in this area.”
        Pat Robertson

        You can’t make this shit up! I could also see VP Pence doing that incantation as well!

    3. Hurricanes have been steered due west by high pressure ridges for millions of years. What they see a bit less frequently is a horseshoe shaped arc of subnormal water temperature with a warmer water core, a condition ive observed for the last few months. It is safe to guess that given the lack of other news, we will see a lot of fake news attributing this hurricane to global warming 😐

    1. This fire has closed interstate 5 , the main north-south highway on the west coast.

      1. I need to get South end of next week——-
        Might have to go to the coast——

      1. Fred — Interestingly, according to a report commissioned by several governments including the U.K., Norway and South Korea, by 2030, we will pass the point where we can stop runaway climate change. So, say one decade from now. Meanwhile, among any number of contradictory announcements: COAL INDIA EXPECTS 367 MT OUTPUT FROM 115 PROJECTS IN 2018-19. Indeed, “State-run Coal India Ltd expects 367 million tonne output by the end of the current financial year from its 115 ongoing projects. The public sector undertaking accounts for over 80% of India’s coal production. The coal production from the projects is planned to reach 377 mt in 2019-20,” Coal India said in a report, adding that there are 65 projects in the pipeline with a targeted capacity of 247.66 mt per year. Of these 65 future projects, 27 with ultimate capacity of 108.29 MT have been approved. So, answer this, what are the odds of meeting the 2030 deadline. BTW, there will be 830,000,000 more of us to look after by then.

        https://www.livemint.com/Companies/Gk3qo0JTp6fCXpR5xric0L/Coal-India-expects-367-mt-output-from-115-projects-in-20181.html

        https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/runaway-climate-change-2030-report_us_5b8ecba3e4b0162f4727a09f

        1. So, answer this, what are the odds of meeting the 2030 deadline. BTW, there will be 830,000,000 more of us to look after by then.

          I know! Maybe people like you and I, have missed something…

        2. So in three years we will know if we will keep below 2 K and if we don’t we will hit runaway change and render most of the earth uninhabitable. I know what my money is going on. I wonder what will happen after September 2021 as people start to realise, I can only think it will be a faster and sharper turn to the right, it’s what we are evolutionarily conditioned: to do to protect our personal genes above all else.

          1. Hard right turn for sure——
            Slow thinkers, keep to the right.

          2. Hard right true. But also hard left, and that can be just as murderous.

            Both forms of extremism can be severely racist, vengeful, and have followers that act like brainwashed zombies. ‘Blame someone else’.

            Even worse perhaps is the extremism that emanates from places of prayer.
            Fundamentalists.
            Do they have a seat at the table of power in your region? [like in the congress and supreme court in America]
            Do they control they textbook choices and teacher selection in local school districts? [like in America]
            Do they have a media outlet? [like Comcast cable and Fox news in America]
            Are their extremist views tolerated as normal in your culture? – the answer to this one is yes in every country. (If I am wrong on this, please inform me.)

          3. There sure seems to be a lot of runaway imagination. However, if you believe their baloney, and you think the world will end, go ahead and sell everything and have a party.

            1. Please provide a peer reviewed paper by recognised scientists from recent couple of years (i.e. using the latest research and data) that supports the description “baloney”. And please desist from advising me how I should lead my life.

            2. The world won’t end. There’ll just be a famine that kills lots of people. You’ll see that it happens quite often if you read a bit of history and current events. Selling everything and having a party is not advised in the pre-famine stage. It tends to lead to suboptimal outcomes. Better to invest wisely , stock up on preps, and brush up on things like duties of a sentry & fire and movement.

          1. How’s the beach HB?

            Been a great summer here, warm but not too hot, only a few damaging storms. However, someone stole summer overnight. Been in the low 90’s and 80’s over the last week but dropped to a high of 53F today with rain.
            Shades of the now typical Jetstream roller coaster of winter to come.

            1. Hello GoneFishing,

              It’s been a real nice summer here too, except for about three plus weeks starting in late July of hot humidity of upper 80’s and lower 90’s. That evenings only cooled down to mid 70’s. It’s common for us to get about one week of this hot weather in late August or September. So I wouldn’t be surprised if we still got another round of hot weather. But about 2 weeks ago we got a cool period of which I have heard a few people make the comment that it feels like Fall is setting in. Your temp change of the last week is about what we experience annually. Most homes here with in about 5 miles from the ocean don’t have air conditioning. During the hot periods it’s not uncommon to hear people talking about having AC installed in their homes.

              I have actually spent more time on the beach this summer than any time in the last 35 year that I have lived here. This year I have a new girlfriend who lives about 200 feet from the sand of Sunset Beach. Been out paddle boarding, body surfing and over 1500 miles of road biking along the ocean this summer. If in a few days after a new tread starts and you leave your email address here. Or, I can send my email address to Fred and he can forward it to you. I will send you a few pictures from my phone of us at the beach that I don’t want to post here. She’s a 62 year old personal trainer and manager of the HB LA Fitness.

              Be sure to vote in November

            2. Sunset Beach was great in the 1960’s, but used to flood even regularly then.
              HB ,with the Golden Bear and surfers, was wide open in the 1960’s.
              Some other details I will omit.
              I can handle it a day or two now.
              I have a sister living in Newport,
              Lived in Laguna for extended periods, but even that is a couple of days and I’m gone.
              But we all have different reference points—
              And I’m not surfing daily anymore.

              Golden Bear:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bear_(nightclub)

  17. Good weather news from Paul S.

    Dry summer over for BC and fires should start to abate pretty much everywhere around here, starting this weekend. On the coast we have 4 days of steady rain in store, a nice fall pattern. Below my house there are several hundred springs holding, as well as pinks. A few coho are also starting to come in. This morning I caught a twenty+ pound spring which I released, and a few coho of which the biggest was about 10 lbs. Tonight’s rain and a high tide should bring in lots more. Plus, despite the low flows the water temp this summer was low enough so there were no/few mortalities of the earlier runs.

    Our vegetable production was very very high this year, and our plum trees hung down to the ground like grape vines. We must have given away 200 lbs of plums and the same in apples, plus still more to pick. In a few minutes I’ll try to move the rooster out of the Italian plum area so we can get in and pick. (He is very aggressive and goes for us at every opportunity).

    It was the worst fire season in BC this year, but it has been dryer in previous years where I live…..mid Van Isl. We dodged a bullet with the fires and gave thanks for a drilled well…good and deep in the gravel/sand lense. It was a big wake up call. I have a few courses for my emergency communication duties this month, and we got set up with fire pumps, hoses, etc just in case.

    I just made a batch of homemade salsa. This is the time of year we pretty much live on our own production. This week we had cod, salmon, corn, potato salad, green salads, stir frys, and tonight tacos over a few drinks and country music on satellite radio. 🙂 The fire is on in the woodstove and rain drumming on the roof. My son is now home from a two month stint in Alberta Oil Sands. They are very very busy there with lots of OT. Back to regular shifts for awhile.

    Rain just let up so plums here we come. 🙂

    1. Thanks for goodness of your life with plums, salmon, and good water Paulo!

  18. An inversion of nature: how air conditioning created the modern city
    Rowan Moore

    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/14/how-air-conditioning-created-modern-city

    Once, when I was staying in Houston, Texas, my host was showing me round her house. It included a mighty fireplace.

    “How often does it get cold enough to light a fire?” I asked, as what little I knew about the city included the fact that it is mostly hot and humid. Maybe once or twice a year, she replied, but her husband came from Wisconsin. He liked a log fire. So they would turn up the air conditioning and light one.

    This was climate as television, to be summoned with the twiddle of a dial, the outcome of a century which started in 1902, when Willis Carrier was simply asked to find a way to prevent heat and humidity from warping the paper at the Brooklyn printing company Sackett-Wilhelms. But the air-conditioning that he helped develop has changed buildings, and the ways they are used, more than any other invention: more than reinforced concrete, plate glass, safety elevators or steel frames. Its effects have directed the locations and shapes of cities. They have been social, cultural and geopolitical.

    Environmentally speaking, air conditioning is anti-social. It buys its owner comfort at the cost of shifting the surplus heat somewhere else, on to surrounding streets and ultimately into the atmosphere of the planet. The night-time temperature of Phoenix, Arizona, is believed to be increased by one degree or more by the heat expelled from its air conditioning. This is, you could say, the perfectly neoliberal technology, based on division and displacement. According to one theory, air conditioning helped to elect Ronald Reagan, by attracting conservatively inclined retirees to the southern states that swung in his favour.

    In pointing out the shortcomings of air conditioning, it is easy to overlook its achievements, to ask, in the style of Life of Brian, what it ever did for us. Considerable reductions in the loss of life through excess heat is one answer. Increased productivity and economic activity in hot regions of the world is another. Or better-functioning hospitals and schools. Most of us would be grateful for its contribution to computing and movies. Few people who have spent time in hot and humid climates would not sometimes want the refuge of artificially cooled air.

  19. Are Cities Making Animals Smarter?
    Paul Bisceglio

    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/cities-animal-intelligence-fishing-cats/567538/

    By 2030, it’s estimated that nearly 10 percent of the planet’s land will be covered by cities. More than half the human population now lives in urban areas, and an untold number of animals do, too—from mosquitoes that have buzzed around the London Underground for so long they’ve become genetically distinct, to leopards that stalk stray dogs around villages in Mumbai. Colombo is at the forefront of this global trend. Its trees are filled with resplendent magpies and lorikeets, all chirping like arcade machines. Geckos climb its walls, and thick-bellied monitor lizards scurry around its bushes. One evening, I saw a crocodile as long as a canoe casually paddling in one of its lakes.

    Sometimes animals end up in cities because they have nowhere else to go. Other times they happily move in, finding readily available food or other advantages over life in the wild. Chicago’s coyotes, for instance, escape year-round hunting and trapping by staying within the city’s borders. “The city actually serves as a huge refuge for them,” says Stan Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State University who has been studying the canines for almost two decades. “There are a lot of nooks and crannies in the landscape, places that people don’t use, that coyotes are really good at exploiting.”

    One of the great mysteries of urban adaptation is what, if anything, living in cities does to animal minds. Research on urban wildlife has already shown that cities can have jaw-dropping effects on animals’ behavior. Gehrt’s coyotes have not only learned where it’s safest to cross roads, but have also learned to avoid traffic based on its speed and volume. Do behavioral shifts like this reflect deeper changes in how urban animals think? In what urban animals are?

    1. Big cane going to hit the East Coast——-
      We shall see- possible delay upon impact– Hurricane Harvey II.

      1. By ECMWF it is almost category 5 and will stall for about 3 days, that’s a huge amount of flooding. One million under evacuation order but that might grow.

    2. Nice to see the temperature has been dropping since 2016. This explains why we only had one serious heat wave this summer, and the temperature is so nice since late August

    1. More or less. Australia, like the US, is in danger of becoming an oligarchy. The general population and some portion of the states are at odds with the federal government when it comes to renewable energy and climate change. This despite considerable efforts by the Murdoch owned mass media outlets to muddy the waters and promote global warming denial among other ideas favoured by the extremely wealthy. Bear in mind that Murdoch also has considerable media holdings in the US as well.

      We should all be pretty familiar with the right wing memes that are used when advancing their ideas, so my source of choice for the other side of the story, as far as Australia is concerned is reneweconomy.com.au. Have you ever read any of the stuff written by Giles Parkinson?

      1. I think I have a relatively balanced view of what’s happening, and not happening, respecting global warming and the environment. My two primary concerns are:

        1) the incredibly short fuse we are looking at (ten years is nothing), and
        2) the fact we’ll have almost another billion people on planet Earth by 2030.

        Of course, I have no idea whatsoever how things will play out. I just don’t like the odds.

      2. This despite considerable efforts by the Murdoch owned mass media outlets to muddy the waters and promote global warming denial among other ideas favoured by the extremely wealthy.

        To be fair there are people just as wealthy who accept the science and are not engaged in muddying the waters. People like Bill Gates, Richard Branson and that really crazy dude, Elon Musk! 😉

        I will take a look at reneweconomy.com.au and Giles Parkinson.
        Cheers!

        1. I must apologize for that little bit of sloppiness. I was in a hurry to go out and was in too much of a hurry to think of a better way to put it. I did think of some other really wealthy people who are not science deniers like Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, the founders of Google and even Warren Buffet. Walmart is a leader in the use of renewable energy despite it’s owners being the richest family in the US. Down under there is British billionaire industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, pushing hard for the use of renewable energy in his industrial developments in Australia.

          Giving the matter some further thought, perhaps I should have written,”This despite considerable efforts by the Murdoch owned mass media outlets to muddy the waters and promote global warming denial among other ideas favoured by extremely wealthy individuals and organizations that are heavily invested in the fossil fuel industries”. Better?

        2. Google has a comprehensive algorithm slant to highlight left wing propaganda, which also includes YouTube videos. The whole company culture is extremist, they have swallowed every talking point used by neomarxists, and its so extreme they face a class action law suit for violating california labor law due to abuse of republican and other non leftist employees, as well as discriminatory practices against whites, chinese, and japanese americans.

          1. Google has a comprehensive algorithm slant to highlight left wing propaganda, which also includes YouTube videos.

            Sorry Fernando, but I am going to have to call Bullshit on that one. You are just repeating what Trump has said. Sure there are more articles and YouTube videos calling Trump a damn fool because 65% of the people know that and the other 35% are Trumpites. So perhaps 75% of the articles tell it like it is while 25% back Trump. (The reason it’s not 65-35 is because so many Trumpites cannot read or write.)

          2. Google has a comprehensive algorithm slant to highlight left wing propaganda, which also includes YouTube videos.

            Do you even have a clue as to how Google’s SEO works?!
            Something tells me, you don’t!

            Google uses automated programs called spiders or crawlers, just like most search engines. Also like other search engines, Google has a large index of keywords and where those words can be found. … Google uses a trademarked algorithm called PageRank, which assigns each Web page a relevancy score.

            As for the rest of your bullshit, you really need to drop some Psilocybin and mellow out a bit… you seem to be borderline paranoid and psychotic!

            1. As for the rest of your bullshit, you really need to drop some Psilocybin and mellow out a bit…
              As a veteran with psilocybin, I’m not so sure—-

            2. Whatever! The point is, he is off his rocker and needs to take some meds to calm himself down!
              Cheers!

    2. From Wikipedia:
      Coal is mined in every state of in Australia, but mainly in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.[citation needed] About 75% of coal mined in Australia is exported, mostly to eastern Asia,[citation needed] and of the balance most is used in electricity generation. Coal production in Australia increased 13.6% between 2005 and 2010 and 5.3% between 2009 and 2010.[1] In 2016, Australia was the biggest net exporter of coal, with 32% of global exports (389 Mt out of 1,213 Mt total), and was the fourth-highest producer with 6.9% of global production (503 Mt out of 7,269 Mt total). 77% of production was exported (389 Mt out of 503 Mt total).[2]

      Australia makes money from coal and uses coal for power, it could keep this up for six more decades as it slowly transistions to other energy sources and still have a lot of coal left in the ground.

      1. Australia makes money from coal and uses coal for power, it could keep this up for six more decades as it slowly transistions to other energy sources and still have a lot of coal left in the ground.

        Six more decades?! Highly doubtful, though it probably won’t be for lack of coal!

  22. Britain. spending on fossil fuels moves outward to external “dirty” projects.

    Britain spent ‘twice as much on overseas fossil fuels as renewables’
    The UK has spent more than twice as much overseas support on fossil fuels projects as on renewable ones so far this decade, according to research commissioned by the Catholic aid agency Cafod.

    The Overseas Development Institute, which analysed the figures, found that 46% of Britain’s £6.1bn energy spending in developing countries between 2010 and 2014 went on oil, coal and gas-fired schemes, compared with 22% for renewable energy projects.

    Overall, fossil fuel support increased by nearly £1bn this decade compared with the previous five years, with a staggering 99.4% of UK export finance support directed towards “dirty” energy investments.

    The top five beneficiaries of UK energy support this decade were Brazil, Vietnam, Turkey, India and the Russian Federation, according to the ODI figures.
    Of the money earmarked for fossil fuels, oil and gas received a total of 87% of UK funds, with 9% going to coal.
    “It doesn’t make sense for there to still be any public money going into fossil fuels overseas, whether that’s through aid money, loans or export finance to support British companies operating overseas,” Wykes said

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/11/britain-spent-twice-as-much-on-overseas-fossil-fuels-as-renewables

    Also due to the large number of imports needed to sustain Britain, their actual carbon footprint is about twice as large as usually declared.

  24. A great example of why neo-luddite anti renewables and anti new technology arguments are generally speaking really dumb! For example, that one about the sun not shining at night so we can never use solar… and god forbid we ever run some appliances on stored battery power after sunset! Anyways this video is about LED traffic lights but it underscores the typical arguments from ignorance that are so often bandied about to shore up the anti renewables agenda!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiYO1TObNz8
    The LED Traffic Light and the Danger of “But Sometimes!”

    Yeah, but sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine! Deal with it!
    Cheers!

  25. Reuters 2023-11-7 Singapore Corporate Zone
    BioFusion Inc announced third stage success with their patented “GreenDerm” tissue modification system, which has reportedly functioned impeccably, and without complication, when implanted at the ‘organ’ level in the human clone model testing system. The augmented dermal stem cell lines incorporating immunologically bland cyanobactor derived chloroplasts have now been cultivated at the vat level of production, with enough base material for tens of thousands of individuals, according to company spokesman.
    They are now seeking healthy (well paid) volunteers for the whole body implantation debut, to commence 6 months hence…

    1. Reuters 2028-10-23, International Bulletin.

      OMG!! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

    1. Fortunately there are lots of people around the world who still think very differently!

      Don’t supposed you would like to join ‘Good Country’ as a ‘New Global Citizen’, would you? I’m joining. Because I am strongly of the opinion that Ultra Nationalism and Right Wing Authoritarianism is anathema to resolving any of the major challenges facing humanity and our global civilization. It is time to get our planet back!

      http://www.goodcountry.org

      The Good Country is now much more than an idea, more than a TED talk and more than an Index: the Good Country is becoming a country.

      We’re not doing this because we want to build a better country, but because we need a new country to build a better world.

      Four years after Simon Anholt launched the Good Country Index at TED, our research has shown that at least ten percent of the world’s population fully shares the values of the Good Country.

      That’s seven hundred million people, the world’s third largest nation. These are the people who, like us and perhaps like you, think of themselves as members of the human race first, and citizens of their own country second; people who’d like governments to focus a lot more on collaborating and a little less on competing; people who don’t mistrust or dislike other people just because they come from a different background; people who see a great future for humanity if only humanity could learn to work as one.

      Our task now is to activate that huge, invisible nation; to grant it its sovereign status, and so to create a powerful new player at the heart of the international community. Not a movement raising awareness of the issues, not a campaign raising money and signing petitions, but a true sovereign power that designs and executes innovative new ways of solving international problems. We’re lucky enough to be living in an age where such extraordinary things really can happen.

      1. I believe in the sanctity of the individual.

        I believe that when gangs of men who have been given sanctuary in a democratic country repay that country by violating and raping young women. Those scum should be deported back to where they come from. I believe that when a nations police force fails to investigate horrendous crimes and those responsible are not even pursued. Then citizens have a right to find their own justice.

        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/13/sex-assaults-sweden-stockholm-music-festival

        https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/14/oxford-gang-guilty-grooming-girls

        https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/05/child-forced-to-have-an-abortion-after-being-gang-raped-in-a-forest-by-rotherham-sex-gang-7914419/

        https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/172959/I-was-gang-raped-by-5-Asians-at-the-age-of-12

        https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-36559092

        Left wing councils and police afraid of being branded racist allowed girls to be brutalised for years. they even arrested a father who complained his daughter was being targeted.

        Today people who want evil immigrants deported are called right wing or fascist by scum who have no morals.

        1. That’s your response to my saying there are people who disagree with those views and for suggesting people join ‘Good Country’?!

          Well, I had my suspicions before, but now you have finally displayed your true colors and are clearly nothing but a racist xenophobic troll, posting comments for the sole purpose of sowing discord and hate mongering!

          You add nothing of value to the discussion here or anywhere else for that matter.

          I am of the opinion that Ultra Nationalists, Nazis and Fascists are bad and need to be defeated every time such ideologies rear their ugly heads!

          For now, I’ll just use the ignore button on you. Adios Muchacho!

          1. “racist xenophobic troll” – you forgot odious, blinkered, trump drooling, religious bigot fuckwit (and I’d guess with serious self image issues).

          2. Fred

            Please stick to your promise, that fact that you show no regards for young women being raped or those rapists not getting the punishment they deserve, Show how utterly twisted your morals are.

            The police should look carefully at you

            1. 416 of the 843 rapes registered with Swedish crime stats from 2013 to 2018 were committed by Europeans. 427 by non Europeans. 416 to 427.

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

              These two Swedish brothers were convicted of over 1,000 rapes between 2001 and 2009. Not much outrage from Peter over that though.

              https://www.thelocal.se/20171215/swedish-brothers-convicted-of-more-than-1000-rapes-of-children

              Perhaps Peter was oblivious about the history of rape in Sweden until it fed his agenda. Perhaps Peter never cared a wit about rape in Sweden until it it suited his anti immigrant ideals. Or perhaps not, perhaps Peter has been a women’s rights social justice warrior all his life.

      1. And for the record: The far-right Sweden Democrats took only 17.6 percent of the vote.

        For comparison in the US only 26% of eligible voters voted for Trump, yet he is now President because of the electoral college, even though he lost the popular vote by a significant amount.

        Fortunately, even though Sweden still has a figurehead Monarch, it is in practice, a Representative Parliamentary Democracy where power is shared by a coalition of various parties. So while the far right has made some inroads this election cycle, A very large majority of Swedes reject their ultra right wing ideology outright!

        Nazis, Fascists and Ultra Nationalists are still bad news anywhere and anytime they show up!

        1. “Nazis, Fascists and Ultra Nationalists are still bad news anywhere and anytime they show up!”
          careful Fred- you are pissing on Fernandos peeps.

          1. Being in the ruling class of a right wing dictatorship, I’m sure you are right.

  28. Is the tide about to turn in Australia?

    Independent climate campaigner ends Liberals’ 61-year hold of Wagga Wagga

    The Daily Telegraph is calling it a Bush Bloodbath. But could the crushing by-election defeat of the Liberal Party in a regional seat it has held safely since 1957 be more accurately described as a Climate Comeuppance?

    The final numbers are not in yet, but it has been called: The blue ribbon Riverina electorate of Wagga Wagga has been won by an independent candidate called Joe McGirr – a medical doctor who puts climate change firmly at the top of his political agenda.

    Dr Joe, according to an article published late last week in The Australian, is not for turning on this stance, and has gone as far as to have “written articles” about the dangers of the global warming and supported organisations like the Climate Council.

    Indeed, according to his profile page, the Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame, was a co-author of a 2014 paper published in the Australian Journal of Rural Health, titled “Preparing rural general practitioners and health services for climate change and extreme weather.”

    And he even supports renewables!

    The next domino to fall could be the US. Will voters revolt against the corporate stronghold on their governments in Australia and the US? It would seem that there are more people in both countries who accept the science of global warming than not and global warming might be becoming more of a hot button political issue. The deniers can ratchet up the rhetoric all they want, the evidence to the contrary is getting harder to deny.

      1. As opposed to this?

        Energy prices jump since Morrison coup, as “fair dinkum” coal trips again, and again

        Scott Morrison’s elevation to the job of prime minister after the coup against Malcolm Turnbull has not worked out quite as planned, at least on wholesale electricity prices.

        Data shows that electricity jumped for the first two weeks of the Morrison administration, the dumping of the emissions targets, and his appointment of anti-wind campaigner Angus Taylor as energy minister, and forming mining lawyer and climate skeptic Melissa Price as environment minister.

        This graph below shows that wholesale electricity prices jumped noticeably from the date of the first Liberal Party spill and the second spill that unseated Turnbull.

        About the same time, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 10-year outlook, which pointed to greater risk of supply shortfalls this coming summer, particularly in Victoria, due to concerns about the health of ageing coal generators was also released. But this should affect futures prices (which it did), rather that the spot price.

        As if in cue, however, the big Loy Yang A generator has been having the sort of problems which gives AEMO nightmares, tripping four times in the last five days, including another one in the Loy Yang 1 unit just this morning. (See graph below, also provided by Dylan McConnell of the Climate and Energy College).

        2. Islandboy

          Do you know why the Loy Yang generators went offline?
          Do you know the time of day and the amount of electricity provided by alternative sources throughout those days?

          I, myself, do not, and no longer have much interest in getting into the deeper how/why of the Australian electricity market.
          I did that a year or so back when Dennis steered me to a comparable incident (load shedding in NSW, IIRC) and referred me to your then-posting of a similar link like you just did above.

          It was my entre into the Australian energy sector and I learned a lot.
          This perspective enables me, I believe, to evaluate info (and sources) as much by what is left out as what is included, highlighted, emphasized in the reporting and describing of these matters.

          Tremendous global battle going on for the hearts and minds of people for various – often conflicting – agendas.
          As difficult, even odious to some, a chore as it might be, a fuller, more comprehensive picture can emerge when one expands one’s sources of knowledge.

          A priori dismissing alternatives says more about the (non) participant than the subject matter at hand.

        1. Time for a major upgrade. I live in the supposed greatest country in the world not that far from a megapolis and the grid here goes down on a regular basis. Not brownout, blackouts. No attempt to fix this situation and people pay a nickel a kWh for the pleasure of having their power transported on a completely antiquated and unreliable system. Residential Solar PV provides power at less than a nickel a kWh despite the ripoff prices here. That saves about 12 cents per kWh over current unreliable grid prices.

          1. If or when “clean” energy may compete (totally unsubsidized) with the trustworthy traditionals like coal, then you can begin lecturing people to get with “the times.” Under the current situation, the proper lecture, instead, would be how government policy makes energy more expensive than necessary. At the end of the day, it’s the elderly and poor who must bear the most when dealing with massively higher energy prices.

            2. Don’t forget the “Sponge”s too they can be pretty helpful too. A village appears to have lost one of their best. They must be out frantically searching for their little Timmy!

            3. Hi Timothy.
              There are places that use a lot of coal for their electricity, and it can be pretty cheap. You can choose to live there, but the air water and soil can get pretty crappy if you live downwind of the smokestacks or downstream of the mines. Your choice.
              Or, you can live in a place where people have decided they prefer cleaner natural gas, and/or hydro solar and wind to be a bigger part of the mix.
              In my state there has been a big shift towards cleaner electricity. If you read the local papers, or walk the streets, you don’t hear any grumbling about electric bills.
              Property taxes yes, but that has nothing to do with electricity.

        2. “Yeah! compared to price of staying with fossil fuels?!” ~ Fred Magyar

          ^ That’s a false dilemma fallacy.
          Fossil fuels are still being burned, regardless, and are also being burned to create pseudorenewables and their dubious future/apps, and in the face of anthropogenic climate change.

          “A false dilemma is a type of informal fallacy in which something is falsely claimed to be an ‘either/or’ situation, when in fact there is at least one additional option” ~ Wikipedia

          There appears no time left, which should have started decades ago, for so-called renewables, except perhaps in very limited apps, like medical facilities and other critical infrastructure. Ditto for electric vehicles.

          As a self-described ‘entertainer’ with an anonymous moniker, I’d advise that some of islandboy’s comments, such as in this vein, be taken with a large grain of salt– likewise with other anons hereon.

  29. Oh no, the rebel forces are at work. Looks like Australia is headed for 50% renewable electric grid power by 2025.

    The Australian renewable energy industry will install more than 10 gigawatts of new solar and wind power during 2018 and 2019. If that rate is maintained, Australia would reach 50% renewables in 2025.

    Our analysis, released today by the ANU Energy Change Institute, shows that the Australian energy industry has now demonstrated the capacity to deliver 100% renewable electricity by the early 2030s, if the current rate of installations continues beyond the end of this decade.

    http://theconversation.com/at-its-current-rate-australia-is-on-track-for-50-renewable-electricity-in-2025-102903

      1. And, methinks Australia is married to coal for the foreseeable future (as is Canada to its tar sand).

        “A study commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia predicts a 400 million tonne increase in annual demand by 2030 — double Australia’s total thermal coal export level in 2017…

        Breaking it down and looking at where demand is coming from, there will still be continued demand from those North Asian countries which have been the bedrock of the Australian coal industry in terms of Korea, China and Japan, but what’s interesting now is that demand is developing in South East Asia, in countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.”

        http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/australian-coal-demand-surging-driven-by-asia/9914058

        1. Not to be outdone,

          U.S. COAL EXPORTS INCREASED BY 61% IN 2017 AS EXPORTS TO ASIA MORE THAN DOUBLED

          “The United States exported 97.0 million short tons (MMst) of coal in 2017, a 61% (36.7 MMst) increase from the 2016 level. Exports to Asia more than doubled from 15.7 MMst in 2016 to 32.8 MMst in 2017, although Europe continues to be the largest recipient of U.S. coal exports.”

          https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35852

          1. Well Fred, there’s still lots of coal sitting around to get us comfortably through any mini Ice Age so I guess all’s well. What could go wrong?

          2. More disturbing and probably much more realistic are the musings of Paul Beckwith. His assessment of global weather changes as the Arctic Blue Ocean event approaches seasonal lengths and more, is a shift in the polar vortex toward Greenland. Instead of being more or less centered on the North Pole, it would have a tendency to center toward the new and only cold spot, Greenland, moving it much further south on the North American and Western European side.
            Now this could get complicated because of the difference in position between the rotational center (North Pole) and the cold ice cap much further south, forcing the vortex center away from the NP.
            So we have rotational forces, gyroscopic forces, Coriolis forces and the thermodynamic engine set up by high altitude cold Greenland ice interacting with warmer moist air currents.

            1. Paul Beckwith.
              Seems a bit down lately. The reality is getting to him.

            3. Can’t say reality is all that easy to deal with these days. You have to be made of steel and ice, not be affected to some degree!

              I may have to go to Germany to see family, I haven’t been for a few years and my elderly mother is there visiting my siblings. I tried talking to them about the summer heat waves they just had with all the crop failures, but they either don’t want to know or can’t connect the dots.

              https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-change-gobal-warming-freak-weather-explained/amp/

              BERLIN — We’ve all become increasingly used to reports of extreme weather over the past few years. But this summer’s raft of dramatic weather events is significant: Not only does it show what warming can do, it points to the potential large-scale trouble that lurks in the disruption of the planet’s winds and ocean currents.

              Oh well!

            4. Beckwith needs to get a graduate student with good speaking skills to do the presentations. Good information, but miserable delivery. Interrupts the value of the message, unfortunately.
              Arctic Blue. If that doesn’t get the worlds attention, only famine will.

            6. “Arctic Blue. If that doesn’t get the worlds attention, only famine will.”
              Really, you don’t think any weather event or change can’t be covered with political spin?
              We have several hurricanes queued up right now and people are still asking how much of this is from global warming. Is it the second one in line or the third? Is it the stronger winds and heavier rain of is that just part of some normal variation we don’t know about?

            7. Fox news declares ‘Arctic Blue’ a democrat party stunt. ‘An Al Gore trick’ to lure voters. Their “expert” proclaims ‘just wait til January, I guarantee you there will be ice!’

            9. Anecdote from Fly Speck Farm: Due to that jet stream shift (Google Jennifer Francis, everybody), we here in the northeast US have had three winters of the most appalling cold and snow, and three summers of no rain. The snow pounds us until April, then it stops, and everything dries up and it stays that way. We’ve lost most of our apple crop this year as a result. Apple trees do well in drought, but not in three years of drought.

            10. “Weeds are plants and many are edible, healthy and, along with insects, form part of a vital ecosystem– excluding your orchard apparently. ” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

              “Guess what? I love eating dandelions, lambs quarters, smart weed, wood sorrel, etc.

              But you try taking them to a goddamn farmers market and selling them.” ~ Michael B

              “We’ve lost most of our apple crop this year as a result.” ~ Michael B

              If we really must crony-capitalist-commodify the planet to death before we can leap off the runaway train, there are stop-gap strategies, like different, commodifiable fruit and secondary products from so-called weeds and so forth. Dandelion wine/spirits maybe? Cherries? Walnuts? Berries? Fibre plants? Drought-resistant apples? Reconfiguring the biz? But then that would require a little imagination and/or foresight, such as in terms of planting the things and waiting a few years.

  30. Further attacks on the Empire, hydrogen from enzymes.
    Need fuel, need backup power? Who you gonna call? Algae of course, but not in the way you might think.

    The researchers’ groundbreaking method relies on an important enzyme in algae known as hydrogenase, Newsweek reported.

    Sokół explained in the press release that the researchers had been able to resurrect a process algae has stopped doing in nature.

    “Hydrogenase is an enzyme present in algae that is capable of reducing protons into hydrogen. During evolution this process has been deactivated because it wasn’t necessary for survival but we successfully managed to bypass the inactivity to achieve the reaction we wanted – splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen,” she said.

    https://www.ecowatch.com/photosynthesis-renewable-energy-2602019724.html

  31. The renewable renegades are in Jamaica.
    Last Thursday Jamaica’s scientists and policymakers participated in a forum at The University of the West Indies (UWI), entitled “100 per cent Clean, the Why and How of Jamaica’s Transition from Imported Fossil Fuels to Natural Resources.” Chair of the forum Gerald Lindo, United States Agency for International Development project management specialist for energy, opened by declaring that “Climate Change is the direst situation faced by civilisation.”

    Professor Anthony Chen, member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with former US Vice-President Al Gore and Professor of Applied Atmospheric Physics, led the discussion. He noted that Jamaica had joined with the NGO 350.org, which states as its purpose: “Cut CO2 emissions and build a global movement for climate solutions”. Last Saturday 350.org led a worldwide campaign, #RiseforClimate, stating, “It’s a beautiful time to really feel global unity in the struggle for just climate action.”

    http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/opinion/renewable-energy-on-a-roll-in-jamaica_143778?profile=1096

    1. …the NGO 350.org, which states as its purpose: “Cut CO2 emissions and build a global movement for climate solutions”

      Oh, Yeah!
      Those were the days my friend
      We thought they’d never end
      We’d sing and dance forever and a day
      We’d live the life we choose
      We’d fight and never lose
      For we were young and sure to have our way…

      However…
      September 8, 2018 405.19 ppm

      1. Ahh, come on Fred. Don’t be a wet blanket. We need that water to cool the nukes, cool the coal burners and cool the hot heads. 🙂

        Why can’t we all just get along

        Hey you, the world is on fire
        I’m so sick and so tired
        Of this blood in the water, blood in the water
        Words turn into explosions
        I’m so up in emotion
        I thought we were brothers, thought we were brothers

        Love and forgiveness
        Love and forgiveness
        How we forget it
        How we forget

        Why can’t we all just get along
        Do we wanna be here ten years later
        Singing the same sad song
        It don’t have to take our last breath
        To admit that we’re wrong
        Why can’t we all just get along

        We blow in like a hurricane
        We kill all the good
        And we hurt one another, hurt one another
        Don’t take this life for granted
        We need second chances
        As hard as it is
        (Come one people now)

        Why can’t we all just get along…

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7GeWrdyTDQ

    2. I attended (How could I not?) and in the question and answer/comments session I asked Professor Alvin Wint, head of the Generation Procuring Entity (GPE) how the incumbent utility was going to compete with the steadily declining price of renewable energy, in light of the fact that the soon to be completed NG fired combined cycle gas turbine plant would in all likelihood be uncompetitive long before the investment in it has been recovered. I prefaced my question by introducing the gathering to the ideas and work of Tony Seba, who has projected in his 2014 book “Clean Disruption” that solar PV will be the least cost source of electricity by 2030 (2025 in his most recent presentations on youtube). The GPE is in charge of managing the replacement of existing electricity generation capacity and the procurement of new capacity.

      In his response Professor Wint said that in light of the cost trajectories of renewable energy and storage technologies, he was confident that the one other planned plant, other than the plant under construction, will be the last fossil fuel powered electricity plant built in Jamaica! The other planned plant is to be built to provide electricity to a bauxite/alumina processing plant. I was encouraged by the professor’s awareness of the pending disruption in the electricity generation arena.

      It is my hope that one day in the future, Jamaica’s alumina plants will get most of their electricity from renewable sources. That will require at at least an order of magnitude more renewable capacity than currently exists.

  32. PV steps in to cover coal and nuclear power shortfalls

    Solar keeps the lights on

    Aurelie Beauvais, of Solarpower Europe, said PV systems filled summer gaps where conventional energy failed. In France and Germany, for example, coal and nuclear power plants had to be shut down as the necessary quantities of cooling water would no longer have been available – PV was able to keep the electricity grid stable and provide the required electricity.

    “Without solar energy, there would have been major power supply challenges in July,” said Mr. Burger, referring to power reductions in conventional plants due to rising river temperatures. PV systems would have reached a maximum daily output of between 25 and 30 GW, he added.

    Mr. Burger pointed out the proportion of solar in Germany could be significantly higher if an electricity price brake had not been enforced in 2013 by today’s Federal Minister of the Economy, Peter Altmaier.

    The move greatly slowed the expansion of PV, said Mr. Burger, adding: “We could use this [PV] now to better get through the hot summer months,” especially since PV power generation peaks at noon, coinciding with the highest demand to fuel air conditioning and refrigerators.

    The US and Australia should take note!

    1. Excellent!

      Sanity may yet prevail but only because nature is forcing us to adapt or fail.

  33. Nuclear power is being left behind, industry experts say

    “The relative prices of electricity generation sources have switched, and solar and wind energy are now, in most countries, the cheapest grid-connected sources of energy.”

    This statement, though it sounds like a press release from a renewable energy trade body, or a campaign from an environmental group, is one of the main conclusions of the 2018 edition of the Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), which is published each year by French independent consultant specializing in nuclear energy, Mycle Schneider…..[snip]

    But what is really hurting nuclear power, the experts say, is economics. “Auctions resulted in record low prices for onshore wind (<US$20/MWh) offshore wind (<US$45/MWh) and solar (<US$25/MWh), which compares with the “strike price” for the Hinkley Point C Project in the U.K. (US$120/MWh),” the authors of the report wrote.

    Total investments in nuclear power for 2017, relating to 4 GW of capacity, totaled just $16 billion, while global investments in wind and solar equaled $100 billion and $160 billion, respectively.

    The report also stresses how nuclear power may also be impacted by global warming, as the cooling of the reactors requires large amounts of water, and governments, especially in Europe, are introducing operational restrictions to avoid the excessive heating of rivers. “While in most cases, regulations required to lower the output of the reactors by 10 percent or so, some reactors were shut down, including at least four reactors in France, to deal with the problem,” the report notes.

    Although this heating issue is considered secondary, the experts warn that the “malaise” about the uncertain future of the industry remains “deep and disconcerting.”

    1. MAGA!

      Seriously though, when I was growing up in Brazil under a military dictatorship and underwent currency change and inflation rates that would cause most USians to commit harakiri, it taught me to never expect anything good to come out of government and economic policy.

      I don’t worry about economic collapse at all because it is an absolute given and we are probably living the end times for the US empire. All good things as they say must come to an end but Trump sure as hell sped things up!

      But what with global ecological overshoot, catastrophic climate change, sea level rise, the sixth mass extinction, etc… etc… things are just going to get even more interesting.

      Fasten your seat belts folks, we are about to hit some serious turbulence!
      Cheers!

      And things could be worse. Imagine if you lived in Wilmington NC!

    2. VIX is still low but this bull run has been going on for too long especially with things like trade wars in the way. I don’t like it.

      NAOM

    4. Just watched it and I’m wondering what the situation is in my neck of the woods. There are currently fairly large infrastructure projects underway in the capital city with a couple of the main thoroughfares being widened to accommodate two lanes of traffic each way instead of one. There is also a significant project to increase the number of lanes heading into and out of the city to the west from two to three as well as to remove an inconvenient intersections and replace it with local roads connected to the highway by a bridge and on/off ramps.

      The work is being carried out by Chinese contractors using a mix of Chinese and local labour. I think it is being financed partially by the Petrocaribe Fund set up by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez but, the main funding is coming from the ExIm Bank of China. There are also a few Chinese construction firms busy building several multi-story buildings around the capital so there is a lot of construction work going on and the economy appears to be bustling. The economy is also being helped by strong tourism numbers that the Minister of Tourism is frequently bragging about

      There is a slight undercurrent of what was shown in the video here though. I’ve recently noticed that I’m paying about JM$170 per litre for low sulphur diesel (about US$4.66/US gallon) up from about JM$120 earlier this year when the exchange rate was about JM$120 to the US dollar ($3.78/US gallon). Part of the increase is due to the price of oil and part due to currency exchange rate changes, the strengthening US dollar coupled with a weakening local currency. Another price movement I noticed recently is a 142g (5 oz.) tin of Tuna selling for about JM$120 after hovering around $100 for seems like years. I have not been focusing on interest rates but, according to tradingeconomics.com, “Interest Rate in Jamaica averaged 12.27 percent from 1996 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 33 percent in October of 1996 and a record low of 2 percent in June of 2018.”, this down from about 5% a year ago. Retail interest rates are typically in the double digit range (>9%).

      So the economy is booming and prices are creeping up but interest rates are at historically low levels. Not quite sure what to make of it but, when oil prices go up a giant sucking sound is heard in Jamaica as high oil prices suck the life out of the local economy. Hence my advocacy of renewable energy and EVs, just in case anyone wants to know.

  35. So, 2020 now? Sigh. In that case its already too late – hell, maybe it has been for quite awhile. And, why do they never mention population? A lot of people are suffering right now and we’re adding ‘us’ at 83,000,000 per year. For that matter, why do they rarely mention other species? Indeed, the climate is moving faster than we are, a lot faster. Think I’ll invite my Grandson over and we can spend the day in my machine shop fixing a broken $2.00 can opener — that’s about the same thing our overpaid leaders are doing isn’t it?

    ‘CLIMATE CHANGE MOVING FASTER THAN WE ARE,’ SAYS UN SECRETARY GENERAL

    “UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that if the world doesn’t change course by 2020, we run the risk of runaway climate change. Mr Guterres said he was alarmed by the paralysis of world leaders on what he called the “defining issue” of our time.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45471410

    1. Here is a podcast, with the actual voices of the people at the time, illuminating the political tipping point back in the 80’s when “we” had much more leverage in dealing with global warming/climate change. Since then the burning has more than doubled while consumption/environmental degradation has risen dramatically.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/podcasts/the-daily/climate-change-losing-earth.html

      This video might be the poster child for how human civilization operates.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3kL6nMap2s
      Over 9 days and 100 km long.

      Even if “we” could somehow back off to 1970 levels of emissions, which would be a huge change, it would barely slow global warming.
      Meanwhile the growth continues.
      Then and now.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDCiB39UAjw
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce_6oZEB9Gw

  36. The road to “fixing the problem” runs thru The Republic of Awesome. I’m really gonna miss Jerry. I’d like one more chance to vote for him for president.

    Gov. Brown’s new climate goal: less than zero global warming emissions
    https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-to-go-100-percent-clean-energy-by-2045-13218236.php

    David R. Baker Sep. 10, 2018 Updated: Sep. 10, 2018 8:04 p.m.

    Gov. Jerry Brown has repeatedly ratcheted up California’s global warming goals, setting ever-higher targets for the use of renewable power and demanding deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

    But on Monday, Brown announced a climate goal so ambitious that many experts don’t know how to reach it.

    As diplomats descended on San Francisco for a global climate conference, Brown signed an executive order calling for the state to slash its overall emissions to zero by 2045 and then go negative. Starting in 2046, California would pull more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, year-by-year, than it put in.

    The governor also signed a bill, SB100, that calls for 100 percent of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2045.

  37. If humans continue on their chosen path, this is the future:

    The 1960 street map of Lagos, Nigeria, shows a small western-style coastal city surrounded by a few semi-rural African villages. Paved roads quickly turn to dirt, and fields to forest. There are few buildings over six floors high and not many cars.

    No one foresaw what happened next. In just two generations Lagos grew 100-fold, from under 200,000 people to nearly 20 million. Today one of the world’s 10 largest cities, it sprawls across nearly 1,000 sq km. Vastly wealthy in parts, it is largely chaotic and impoverished. Most residents live in informal settlements, or slums. The great majority are not connected to piped water or a sanitation system. The city’s streets are choked with traffic, its air is full of fumes, and its main dump covers 40 hectares and receives 10,000 metric tons of waste a day
    But new research suggests that the changes Lagos has seen in the last 60 years may be nothing to what might take place in the next 60. If Nigeria’s population continues to grow and people move to cities at the same rate as now, Lagos could become the world’s largest metropolis, home to 85 or 100 million people. By 2100, it is projected to be home to more people than California or Britain today, and to stretch hundreds of miles – with enormous environmental effects.

    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/19/urban-explosion-kinshasa-el-alto-growth-mexico-city-bangalore-lagos

    Of course most here will not believe this can happen, yet I am sure the educated person of 1918 thought that cities of 20 million stretching across vast areas were impossible too.

    2. Anybody can view the reality of Lagos for themselves with Google Street View nowdays. When I view the street scenes, I see a huge amount of opportunity for entrepreneurs and business leaders as millions move up the economic ladder.

          1. You either didn’t watch the lecture or you’re just not very bright… Perhaps both!

            In any case, anyone who says this about Lagos:

            When I view the street scenes, I see a huge amount of opportunity for entrepreneurs and business leaders as millions move up the economic ladder.

            Probably doesn’t understand the exponential function!

            If Richard Wolff’s talk is too controversial for you or just plain beyond your level of comprehension, I’m sure there is a shit load of stupid you can find on Youtube to make you happy!

  38. Dateline 2027 London-
    Victory Charter has announced their first ‘Arctic Blue’ luxury cruise series, slated for this upcoming summer. With the 3rd year of this epic El Nino firmly entrenched, the consensus expert report indicates the complete melting of the arctic ocean this summer, and thousands of cruise tickets have been per-ordered. In fact a company spokeswomen predicts that a lottery system will be instituted…

      1. There is a scifi story based on that. In the end suicide pills are dropped from the air and concrete poured over the top to make a new road. 🙁

        NAOM

      1. Richard Wolff is a very good communicator, and knows his subject well.
        He even spoke at a event we sponsored.
        The knee jerk reaction to his political history is amusing.

        1. Agreed, and interesting about your sponsored event. Wolff seems to compress a lot of info into his sentences while managing nevertheless to stay easy-to-follow. Derrick Jensen, on the other hand and for example, as much as he’s also appreciated, can often take supplementary detours and can therefore sometimes demand extra effort and attention, kind of like watching a film that depends a lot on flashbacks and flash-forwards.

  40. Solar power’s greatest challenge was discovered 10 years ago. It looks like a duck.

    “It has now been 10 years since NREL’s fateful discovery, and in the interim, the duck curve has become a serious threat to solar and a shared obsession among the clean energy community.

    If it doesn’t get solved, things could get ugly. In the near future, utilities could regularly be forced to ramp up their dispatchable plants for a morning peak, then scale back or shut down almost all of those plants while the sun is out, and then bring them all back online (quickly) when the sun goes down.

    All that ramping and stop-starting is expensive and unfamiliar to the operators of many fossil fuel power plants. If the tension gets too high, solar expansion could be choked off.”

Comments are closed.