Open Thread
October 8, 2016
By Paul Homewood
I’m driving home today, so it’s open thread time.
48 Comments
Comments are closed.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The Austrian government will continue to contest a decision by the European Commission which is facilitating the development of Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.
“The ongoing judicial procedure is not affected by the decision of the UK-Government to start to build the nuclear power plant. Our action is aimed at the annulment of the disputed state aid decision of the European Commission”
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2016/10/austria-to-fight-commission-decision-to-facilitate-hinkley-point.html
Thanks, oldbrew. The tyrannical world government is finally being exposed as other than just the benevolent giver of free phones, medical care, food stamps, drugs, gladiator sports, reality TV, etc.
EDF says, despite advances being made, it is hard to see a future powered completely by renewable energy.
In an interview with Euractiv website, Jean Paul-Chabard said, “A 100% renewable energy system is still hard to manage. It is technically impossible and economically unsustainable.”
———-
Well well – what a surprise!
But what matters is what Jean-Bernard says!
Who?
Open Thread? This in the US News… Economist Paul Krugman:
“It’s time to end the blackout on climate change as an issue. It needs to be front and center — and questions must be accompanied by real-time fact-checking, not relegated to the limbo of he-said-she-said, because this is one of the issues where the truth often gets lost in a blizzard of lies. There is, quite simply, no other issue this important, and letting it slide would be almost criminally irresponsible.”
Ok… Mr. Krugman…. How many tons of CO2 must be captured and safely buried to lower the atmosphere by one part-per-million? How long will it take? Can you “tact-check” those questions, please?
I suspect that this climate expert has no idea that it’s two billion metric tons and would take hundreds to thousands of years. It seems irresponsible not to at least mention that?
I suspect Mr Krugman is tact-less as well as fact-less.
Oops, didn’t realize the slip. But, your analysis is likely correct.
I find the comments on CO2 concentration ever more confusing. I’m sure that I have seen articles showing that back in the past CO2 concentrations were much higher than at present while temperatures were about present levels, Also I’m sure I’ve seen graphs purporting to show that, in the past, temperatures have risen before the related CO2 rise.
If either of these suggestions is true why do we give a monkey’s what the CO2 concentration gets to?
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Mike… here’s one reference…
Nature 461, 1110-1113 (22 October 2009) Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition. Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster, Bridget S. Wade
“Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene–Oligocene transition 33.5–34.0 million years ago. Modelling studies suggest that such ice-sheet formation might have been triggered when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell below a critical threshold of ~750 p.p.m.v. During maximum ice-sheet growth, pCO2 was between 450 and 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of 760 p.p.m.v.”
“We also find a sharp pCO2 atm increase after maximum ice growth as the global carbon cycle adjusted to the presence of a large ice cap.”
The ocean pH was about one unit lower than today. The geochemical data were derived from carbonate-secreting plankton. and the climate was “equitable”.
I found this article easy reading Mike
http://mysite.du.edu/~etuttle/weather/atmrad.htm
Quote from the above link:
There is evidence that the average temperature of the Earth is increasing. The rate of increase is slow, and is certainly not unreasonable. The average temperature has fluctuated rather widely in recent geological history. In fact, it is generally assumed that we are in an interglacial era, and that the temperature is changing is less remarkable than if it remained unchanged. The reasons for continental glaciation are still quite unknown, and prediction is not possible. It is somewhat remarkable that permanent ice still persists at polar latitudes and high altitudes, since this does not appear to be typical in geologic history. At present, then, it would be reasonable for the Earth’s temperature either to decrease or to increase, since it is at a rather intermediate level, perhaps cooler than normal, so an increase would not be surprising.
There is evidence that the temperature is increasing, slowly. It appears to have risen a fractional amount of less than one degree C over the last several hundred years. What might be surprising to some is that while atmospheric CO2 has risen more than 40% during this interval the sea level is a fractional amount higher… less than 12 inches higher.
I usually refer to this [Link below]. CO2 hasn’t changed its chemical composition over 65M years (otherwise, how could it be detected?) and temperature hasn’t changed its natural state so why do all the alarmist’s insist they have?
Mike Urry October 8, 2016 3:13 pm
“I find the comments on CO2 concentration ever more confusing. I’m sure that I have seen articles showing that back in the past CO2 concentrations were much higher than at present while temperatures were about present levels, Also I’m sure I’ve seen graphs purporting to show that, in the past, temperatures have risen before the related CO2 rise.”
What seems to be only part of the scam is the claimed amount of atmospheric CO2 in kilograms or kilotonnes! The meteorological scammers claim an atmospheric mass of 5.1 x 10^18 kg! They have absolutely no evidence of this. The way they calculate is to take (14.7 psi) times (the number of sq inches of Earth surface area) divided by (2.2lbs/kgm). It seems that these climatologists have had not even one hours instruction in solid/projective geometry or they would have realized that Earth atmosphere, complete with all airborne bugs, bees, birds, aircraft, and water condensate has a total mass less than a third of that!
“If either of these suggestions is true why do we give a monkey’s what the CO2 concentration gets to?”
Ahh! the “we”! 95% of earthlings know better than to worry. It is the 0.001% that wish to enslave all others that claim the importance of atmospheric CO2; and they also wish to stop the remaining 4.999% others from “terminating all of the 0.001% with extreme prejudice”!!! All depends on just which the 95% will be backing up!
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The entire global warming schtick is based on the idea that it is possible to calculate an “average global temperature”. What if it is not possible? Then, decades of spinning wheels, running computer models, continuous measuring of temperatures around the globe by balloons, satellites, etc., would be laughable except for the fact that the process and associated dogma has sullied the reputations of brilliant scientists who have challenged that dogma and cost taxpayers around the world billions of dollars with the potential for trillions more if policies being discussed are actually implemented.
Many excellent papers contest the idea that there is an “average global temperature”. The basis for these papers rest primarily on these concepts: (1) the climate is chaotic and so are temperatures. Therefore averages are meaningless; (2) the Earth-Atmosphere system is not in thermodynamic equilibrium so calculation of an average temperature is not possible; (3) Whatever method is used for the calculation of a global average temperature has not been justified mathematically based on the physics of the Earth-Atmosphere system. Is “average global temperature”, as promoted by the warmist climatology community an artifact of an erroneously applied mathematical calculation?
This following is an excellent paper addressing average temperature:
“Does a Global Temperature Exist?”
Authors:
Christopher Essex
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Western Ontario
Ross McKitrick
Department of Economics
University of Guelph
Bjarne Andresen
Niels Bohr Institute
University of Copenhagen
published in J. Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics
(in press, June 2006)
Tony: In my mind the idea of a GAT is as meaningful and as useful as knowing the average of the Lottery balls on a Friday night, just before you buy your ticket.
(Note: For the hell of it, I once wrote a program that would randomly generate tens of thousands of lottery numbers (in sets of six) and then calculate averages in various patterns. I then used the patterns to ‘predict’ the next lines that the program would come up with. My program never ever – in thousands of runs – hit the jackpot.)
1. Do you have a hyperlink to the above intriguing paper?
2. Unless the National Academies of Sciences insist on a correction to the obviously flawed definition of nuclear energy by Weizsacker (1935) and Bethe and Bacher (1936), they are also implicated in purposeful deceit to hide the source of energy that powers the Sun and the cosmos – NEUTRON REPULSION!
Here’s is a link
Click to access GlobTemp.JNET.pdf
Apologies-should has posted it my comment
Tony.. the point to be made is the fact that even if a real global temperature can be calculated and it does rise (for whatever reason) there is virtually nothing that humans can do to reverse it. When will we (they?) begin to see that clearly and stop the waste of money?
If temperatures go up, or appear to go up according to the selected data, the demand will be for more renewables. If, despite all data jiggery-pokery, temperatures go down the claim will be that renewable policies are finally working, so we need more of the same.
This is the sort of fake noddy logic that politicians seem to like.
Renewables do not lower CO2. They will have demand (as they are doing) to “accelerate” the already impossibly large capture and storage?
And, at the moment the fact that temperatures have “plateaued” has been greeted with attempts to make that fact disappear. Politicians listen to their most “respected” experts, whether logical or not?
Humans can do it! All we need to do is control the output of the sun, the currents and temperatures in the oceans, the motion of the tectonic plates, the eruption of volcanoes, the formation of clouds, the path of the jet stream, the path of the earth around the sun, the path of the sun around the galaxy, the path of the galaxy in the universe, and the intensity of cosmic rays from outside the galaxy. I don’t see the problem!
Golly, well explained Tony. Why haven’t more people seen the light so clearly? Supposedly, one US senator’s aide when told that the law of gravity was an important control replied. No problem… when we get in control we will simply have that law revoked.
Easy!!
Just tax it.
Christopher Booker gives our host credit where credit is due:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/08/the-guardians-100-months-to-save-the-planet-was-always-just-a-fa/
Phillip: I do miss the comments that used to follow pieces like Booker’s in the DT. I think he would have found a lot of support for his position (Do you remember the 30k comments he once got on one article?).
Phillip: This is the link to the DT Booker article: ‘Expert team plans to examine ‘adjusted’ temperature data’ – with the comments.
I remember it well, and being a regular commenter on CB’s articles.
Out of interest what happened to the ‘expert team’ who were going to examine the evidence for data manipulation? Have they and their report been shoved down the rabbit hole yet?
… the fact remains that the East Anglia CRU, by its own statements on its own webpage, did not keep (disposed of) the raw data they used. Thus, nobody can (a) check what data they used, (b) attempt to reproduce their results, or (c) use it to test alternative ideas. It’s gone.
Source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/
“Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.”
Swansea Bay tidal lagoon micro generator to be decided soon, much Green Zombie slavering about being able to lift large sums of money from bill payers to “save the planet” (huh?):
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/08/tidal-power-swansea-bay-lagoon
Perhaps this is to make the Hinckley electricity seem not so ridiculously expensive. Another project that could only exist in subsidy land.
Last I heard they wanted £168/MWh. The Grauniad is now saying £89.90/MWh. Of course the article is complete nonsense.
I did produce an article about the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon at http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/6/9/the-proposed-swansea-bay-tidal-lagoon.html
As the Grauniad article nearly states, that well-known renewable energy trougher Charles Hendry is giving an ‘independent’ review and recommendation.
My abiding disbelief in the climate debate is that the earth has never been as cold, without being in an ice age, nor as devoid of CO2, as it is now.
The earth’s natural inclination is to happily sequester CO2, it really doesn’t need any help from us. At 400ppm we are 250ppm away from wiping out life on earth altogether as plant life dies off around 150ppm.
On the other hand, we’re 750ppm away from when plant life really takes off.I believe the upper limit is around 2,000ppm at which levels, CO2 makes no difference to man’s ability to breathe. These are NASA numbers, not mine, after their experiments for space travel.
So, assuming for a moment that CO2 does cause warming, and assuming it were possible to stop man’s emissions altogether, earth’s natural predisposition to reduce CO2 all by itself, would mean that with a 1ppm fall in CO2 every year, plant life would begin to die off altogether in 250 years time. Of course, that wouldn’t matter much as the planet would have dropped in temperature so much there would only be 10 people left anyway.
Heat means the Canadian, Russian and Scandinavian, frozen tundra, billions of acres of the stuff, would be freed up for agriculture. The increased evaporation would, surely, also mean increased precipitation, and as rain isn’t too particular where it falls if clouds are heavy with the stuff, wouldn’t that mean equatorial regions might get their fair share? Perhaps it might mean an increase in equatorial rain forests, especially as increased CO2 means all plants grow like topsy. Agricultural areas would see increased growing seasons so 2, 3 and even 4 harvests per season can be realised.
And whilst a warmer planet may not be ideal, the alternative is a lot worse, and our current one is far from perfect.
And a little anecdotal evidence, well barely evidence, however, I live in Dartford, Kent, right at the junction of the M25, A2 and M20. It is one of the busiest area’s in Europe and probably one of the most polluted. Nearly 30 years ago our summer garden was resplendent with brown, parched grass which barely needed mowing over the entire summer.
Over the last 5 years or so that summer grass is no longer parched and this year, particularly, we are having to cut it twice a week. We have a Yew tree (bush as it’s been kind of trained) which barely grew beyond 6 feet or so tall and was fairly slim. We never needed to touch it. Within the last 5 years or so it has gone mad. It’s now 12 feet tall and you could hide a family of 4 in it. We have to trim it, well, trim is a polite term for attacking it with a combine harvester twice a year now.
We spent 20 years with a wall covered in Ivy, a pest, but it barely needed trimming either. 5 years ago I stripped half the wall clean of it (20 feet or so) and it’s now as bad as it ever was.
If this is what increased CO2 and heat means, I vote hotter, but I’ll need Bear Grylls’ help to get to the shed!
Einstein (1905) discovered, Aston (1922) measured, then Weizsacker (1935), Bethe and Backer (1936) obscured the exact mass (m) stored as energy (E) in atoms of the chemical elements that comprise all matter. That misunderstanding of nuclear energy is illustrated by the sloping base-line across the top of Figure 2:
http://www.journalijar.com/article/11650/neutron-repulsion–social-costs-from-overlooking-this-power/
National Academies of Sciences will either correct this obvious error or they will be an seen as an obvious part of the tyrannical misuse of science to enslave humanity.
Oliver K. Manuel October 9, 2016 5:03 am
“National Academies of Sciences will either correct this obvious error or they will be an seen as an obvious part of the tyrannical misuse of science to enslave humanity.”
Oliver, We all accept what you claim/believe, for serious consideration! The NAS is already seen as an obvious part of the tyrannical misuse of science to enslave humanity, by most all that are not part of NAS!!
Do you have any useful suggestions as to what to actually do to change that! Do you have the names of all the members of NAS, so they may be added tho the roster of the Counsel on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission
Will, the power that controls the cosmos does not need our assistance, although we humans know we are very, very important!
See: “HIGH-SPEED BULLET EJECTIONS DURING THE AGB-TO-PLANETARY NEBULA TRANSITION: HST OBSERVATIONS OF THE CARBON STAR, V HYDRAE” by R. Sahai, S. Scibelli, and M. R. Morris in The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 827, Number 2
Oliver K. Manuel October 9, 2016 7:04 pm
“Will, the power that controls the cosmos does not need our assistance, although we humans know we are very, very important!”
“See: “HIGH-SPEED BULLET EJECTIONS DURING THE AGB-TO-PLANETARY NEBULA TRANSITION: HST OBSERVATIONS OF THE CARBON STAR, V HYDRAE” by R. Sahai, S. Scibelli, and M. R. Morris in The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 827, Number 2”
So what? What do you have to offer that will even allow observation by earthlings of any of the Cosmos?
The Solar system has one of the best Sub-GOD ever! All powerful!? That’s good! All knowing? Naah! I would be so bored I must destroy self!! Let’s just hang, an see wot happns!! I just love those earthlings! Toolmakers par excellence, but to error is my wont! By the time they are six they can break a golf ball!
This GOD also likes the engineering mistooks, mistakes, and mistreaks! The lowest your co-workers fix before anyone important notices. A mistake is when the ‘self important’ notice, and committees are formed. A mistreak is like the original Hubble telescope. All you can do is bend way over and kiss your young ass goodbye!
Sorry, Will, but you are, in fact, in control of absolutely nothing.
Oliver K. Manuel October 9, 2016 7:08 pm
“Sorry, Will, but you are, in fact, in control of absolutely nothing.”
I never claimed such! Our local GOD is amused, but considerate of the antics of earthlings. Earthlings try very hard, but fail every time! Thank this local GOD that we are not all gone, but get to try again, much to the amusement of this local wonderful God.
Perhaps the Supreme, Ultimate, all powerful all knowing GOD would create assistants first!
The Solar system has one of the best Sub-GOD ever! All powerful!? That’s good! All knowing? Naah! I would be so bored I must destroy self!! Let’s just hang, an see wot happns!! I just love those earthlings!
You can see where this is heading… It’s the wobble of Climate Change. Or should that be warble.. geez..
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/global-warming-is-changing-the-earths-tilt-20160413-go5tgb.html
Geez.. If “we act now” we can tilt or wobble it back? Are the inmates running that asylum?
Prof Brian Cox claims to have found a new reason why humanity is doomed.
‘Aliens haven’t made contact because they killed themselves before they could – like we will, says stargazing TV professor Brian Cox’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3829584/Aliens-haven-t-contact-killed-like-says-stargazing-TV-professor-Brian-Cox.html
You couldn’t make it up…unless you were a TV guru with a book to sell perhaps?
I submit that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is so infinitesimally small as to be completely insignificant to Gaia.
According to IEA, it’s approximately 17.8 TW, which translates to 0.033 W/sq.m. of Earth’s surface.
Averagely, pre-AGW, homo sapiens sat in a spatial environment controlled by an aggregation of radiative heat flux from the Earth’s centre ((82 W/sq.m.) and insolation, averaging 240 W/sq.m across the globe, summer & winter (low-bound figure adopted), totalling 322 W/sq.m.
Total human heat production, as a proportion, is therefore adding 0.033 / 322 (= 322.033 , or 1/9,800 ths. of the aggregate surface heating of Earth from internal and solar insolation,
Turning this on its head, Solar + Earth flux is 9,800 times more powerful than AGW.