Heat and fires from when CO2 was “ideal”: Black Thursday, 1851

The year 1851 and CO2 is 287ppm in Law Dome Antarctica. The climate is perfect, but Australians are dealing with the worst fires in recorded history, scorching heat, drought, searing wind and by the sounds of it, an arabian dust storm. There are no skycranes, no mobile phones, and no helitankers. Temperatures in the shade hit 117F in Melbourne (that’s 47C), 115 in Warnambool, 114 in Geelong. But those are not BOM official records (the BOM didn’t exist until some 50 years later). The conditions were unprecedented in living memory even though, at the time, many people said fires and droughts were commonplace. Businesses stopped, and it was described as “wanton martyrdom” to go out in the streets. People fighting the fires realized they had to flee instead and took en masse onto galloping horses to head for bare hilltops or watercourses. One writer two weeks later suggests the fire consumed 150,000 pounds of life and property, “to the utter ruin of many families.” The population was around 80,000. Despite the devastation, no one suggests a carbon tax.

‘When the smoke turned day into night’ Painted by William Strutt | Library Of Victoria

Apparently the pall of smoke was […]

Chance to see Bob Carter, Mr David Leyonhjelm in Perth – Saturday

The PGA (Pastoralists and Graziers) convention is on Saturday morning in Perth. It’s a great event, has a few movers and shakers going, and I very much enjoyed the last one I went too. If you want to go, email the PGA or phone them today. The normal fee for non-members would be $250, but I put in a plea for readers who might be retired, or just coming “out of interest”, and Jenni Stawell kindly offered to reduce the price — mention you read about the offer here.

8.1 out of 10 based on 28 ratings […]

Bill McKibben says wind is cheap as coal. Jo Nova says “so who needs a carbon tax then?”

Bill McKibben wants to stop a mine in Australia because it might affect the weather. He says wind power is as affordable as coal.

The Australian, Friday Oct 25: “… we’ve reached the point where alternatives have become realistic.Wind power is now as affordable as coal-fired power in Australia, not to mention the limitless energy potential of the powerful sun that shines on your continent.”

To which I say, fantastic. If wind power is as cheap as coal, we don’t need a carbon tax, emissions trading schemes, renewable targets, or other subsidies … people will use wind simply because it is cheaper. Alternatively, Bill is talking out of his hat.

Kill the schemes, cut the subsidies. Bring it on. I say!

We can see how many people rely on Windpower in Australia

That’s the yellow part. Coal is the black or brown part.

Source: ESAA

Source: ESAA

All the assertions of “cheap wind power” are only true if we assume our CO2 emissions cause warming, amplified by water vapor and cloud changes, which causes dangerous and expensive outcomes. Furthermore we must assume that it is cheaper to mitigate rather than adapt (which it isn’t), and then assume that taxes, […]

Nearly $1 billion a day to change the climate… the invisible vested elephant in the room

Here’s a stark statistic that came out last week in a new report: The Climate Industry draws in nearly $1 billion dollars a day. But here’s an ominous combination: … it openly admits that taxpayer money is its “engine-room”. Reading between the lines below, this industry is almost completely dependent on domestic policies that funnel money from citizens to itself, and tilts the playing field — without those policies, it can’t attract much private money. That is, it can only get money at least partially by coercion, people won’t give it money purely voluntarily. These same groups want even more — they want the public to take the risks too. What could possibly go wrong?

Al Gore, said it himself: “Special interests control decisions too frequently.” [See the ABC]. So he must be concerned about the lobbying weight of a $360 billion dollar baby whose existence is contingent on government gravy? As if…

From: The Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013 from the Climate Policy Initiative

“Landscape 2013 finds that global climate finance flows have plateaued at USD 359 billion, or around USD 1 billion per day – far below even the most conservative estimates of investment […]

Weekend Unthreaded

A favourite rock pool of mine. My photo.

 

 

9 out of 10 based on 42 ratings

Catalyst says consensus wrong on cholesterol – but unquestionable on climate

On the ABC program Catalyst this week, Dr Maryanne Demasi slayed a few dietary myths–like, cholesterol and saturated fat cause heart disease.

She described how medical science was distorted for decades by the influence of money, and how one key researcher networked his way to the top of an influential association, casting ad hom insults at his competitor, ridiculing him, and calling his rival theory about sugar “quackery”. The personal attacks and name-calling worked, and for fifty years people have been paranoid of cholesterol, and scoffing corn syup instead, while study after study showed that that approach was not working.

Everything said about the processes in this tale could be equally well said about climate science: Correlation is not causation. Weak, flawed studies can be cherry picked while good studies are ignored. Associations can be taken over by one activist. Large financial interests distort science.

So the consensus was wrong about cholesterol, but is untouchable on climate? (See Witchcraft on Catalyst — Scary weather is coming, it’s all our fault, be afraid!)

Will it take 50 years for Catalyst to stop repeating the verdict of associations, and start investigating the evidence? The big lesson of the Enlightenment is that […]

UK Government hides its own graphic comparing Nuclear to Wind and solar

Is this a 2013 Streisand-Effect finalist?

The UK has decided to build its first new nuclear power plant in 20 years. The UK Department of Energy & Climate Change posted this graphic below in a News Story probably to help justify why it really did make sense to go nuclear rather than renewable. The Renewable Energy Association called it “unhelpful”, and lo, it disappeared from gov.uk.

Credit goes to Emily Gosden’s Tweet, and Will Heaven‘s Blog. Hat tip to Colin.

 

(Click to enlarge to see the fine print)

The fine print (edited out in the small copy here) says that Hickley Point C “is estimated to be equal to around 7% of UK electricity consumption in 2025 and enough to power nearly 6 million homes.” About onshore wind, the fine print reads: “The footprint will depend on the location and turbine technology deployed. DECC estimates the footprint could be between 160,000 and 490,000 acres“. That’s quite some error margin.

How many National Parks does one nuclear plant save then?

It’s a good representation of just how much of the Earths surface we have to give up if we want to live off renewables at the moment. So who […]

Solar effects seem to shift wind and rainfall patterns over last 3000 years in Chile

A team of researchers looked at the solar influence on Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds (SWW). These winds influence rainfall patterns and ocean currents in the Southern Hemisphere. Varma et al infer rainfall patterns by looking at iron deposits in marine sediments near Chile, which are apparently higher during drier conditions and lower during wetter times. They compared these to both Beryllium (10Be) and Carbon-14 (14C) which they use to estimate solar activity.

The end result is they find that the westerly winds shift northwards towards the equator during lower solar activity, and conversely move southwards towards the poles during higher solar activity. The shifting wind patterns move the rainfall. An effect is apparent in records for the last 3,000 years.

In graph a below, 10Be (solar activity) and Fe (rainfall) have a decent correlation coefficient (r) of 0.45, while the 14C (solar activity) and Fe (rainfall) correlation in b has a lower correlation (r) of 0.21. Varma et al say:

“the large correlation coefficient for 10Be would suggest that ca. 20% (i.e., r2) of late Holocene rainfall and hence SWW variability could be attributable to solar forcing.”

They conclude that the current models don’t give the sun a […]

Fuel Loads Not Climate Change Are Making Bushfires More Severe

The Age in Melbourne said they were “keen” to get a piece like this from David on Tuesday, but on Wednesday decided not to go with it.

Unfortunately figures on fuel loads are rare. David used to do carbon accounting for the Australian Government, which included developing the ability to estimate forest debris in Australian forests from a combination of plant models, satellite data on vegetation, and weather data. That capability exists in the Department of Environment, in the unit that produces Australia’s carbon accounts. However the figures here are only what David has heard from other sources over the years, and do not reflect any official or government figures. – Jo

UPDATE: Skynews tells us Defence admit starting the mega Lithgow fire last Wednesday. “A massive fire burning in Lithgow and the Blue Mountains was caused by explosives training which was being carried out in the area by the department of defence.”

————-

Fuel Loads Not Climate Change Are Making Bushfires More Severe

Dr David Evans

The bibles of mainstream climate change are the Assessment Reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) every six years or so. The latest was issued recently, in September […]

ABC plan to stop bushfires with windmills and buckets of your cash

The Australian media are going all out on climate change and bushfires.

The ABC 7:30 Report last night clearly laid out the options for preventing mega bush-fires.

Funded by you whether you like it or not.

 

Watch the whole bizarre post-modern witchcraft here: ABC Channel 1

Yes, the world has warmed by 0.7C since 1900. We are living in a new climate. Before, when things were, on average imperceptibly cooler, megafires did not happen. Right?

Thanks to Peter Ritson for the short video version.

“The Science is in”. Annabel Crabb tells us “The link is established between climate change and bushfires”. (What “link” would that be Annabel? — That when there is a bushfire there are more media stories about climate change?)

As Simon at ClimateMadness jokes, obviously there is no groupthink at the ABC because they put forward all the views from every side of Greenness:

9 out of 10 based on 109 ratings […]

Hottest September Ever in records going back 0.000003% of Earths history!

How about some perspective on those alarming headlines:

Thanks to Steve Hunter illustrations

We are tying ourselves in knots over 150 year old records (or even less) when:

These are just short Australian records, not long global ones. Even in the 1800’s Australia recorded heatwaves of 50+ degrees. The world was similarly warm 1,000 years ago, definitely warmer 7,000 years ago, and a lot warmer 120,000 years ago. The world has been warmer for most of the last 500 million years. Satellites are more reliable, have better coverage, and don’t have dubious inexplicable adjustments. They show it was not a record angry summer, nor the hottest year we’ve had. 8.8 out of 10 based on 87 ratings […]

Antarctic sea ice still at record high — where is springtime melt?

Whatever happened to polar amplification?

The oceans are apparently warming, and yet the sea-ice abounds in the Southern Hemisphere. A new record was set at 19.57 million square kilometers of ice [NSIDC-nrt], around one million more than the usual amount. (Yesterday ice covered 19.11m km2).

Source: http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/

National Snow and Ice Data Center Web site. Records date back to October 1978. NSIDC also has a similar graph of daily sea-ice-extent.

The size of the sea-ice surrounding Antarctica is spectacular. We can just see the outline of the landmass here to appreciate just how much of the Southern Hemisphere is covered with sea-ice right now.

8.6 out of 10 based on 93 ratings […]

Weekend Unthreaded

For all those other ideas…

8.9 out of 10 based on 12 ratings

CO2 emissions in last 50 years made us $3.5 Trillion wealthier

Millions of people are alive today because the net emissions of carbon dioxide have increased. These extra emissions have provided essential fertilization for crops around the world. Craig Idso has released a new report calculating that the extra value that the rise in CO2 has produced from 1961 – 2011 is equivalent to $3.5 trillion dollars cumulatively. Currently the extra CO2 is worth $160 billion dollars annually. Big-biccies. Projecting forwards, increasing CO2 levels could be worth an extra $9.8 trillion on crop production between now and 2050. Virtually every economic analysis to date does not include the agricultural gains. There are also benefits in health, as warmer winters reduce mortality by more than hotter summers increase deaths. The real economic question then, is “Can we afford to slow CO2 emissions at all?”

While there are negative externalities projected by some climate modelers, their models are unvalidated, proven wrong, and based on unsupported assumptions about clouds and humidity. Compare that to the agricultural gains, which are not just demonstrated in laboratory greenhouses, but confirmed in the field, and with global satellite estimates of increased biomass.

Obviously, the only sensible thing to do at this point is continue our emissions of […]

Smile, there is one less wind farm in the world

A small win for determined citizens?

Dailymail.co.uk: “After blighting the Yorkshire Dales for more than two decades, four giant turbines have been removed from the stunning landscape – the first ever windfarm in Britain to be scrapped.

9.5 out of 10 based on 86 ratings […]

Alarmists losing so badly they are scared of letters to editors

Those who depend on silencing opponents have already lost the intellectual war. But they cling to the hope that they can keep the news of their loss from spreading.

“Should newspapers ban letters from climate science deniers?

The Guardian

Graham Readfearn

The LA Times decides not to print letters from readers claiming there’s no evidence for human-caused climate change”

Note the example Readfearn chooses of a letter most dangerous and unworthy:

“Here’s an excerpt from a Letter to the Editor, printed earlier this week in The Australian newspaper.

“While [temperatures] have been higher than before the past 15 years, they have not increased in line with fossil fuel emissions, just as they failed to do over the 1948-77 period. This makes incorrect the theory that fossil fuel emissions cause temperature increases.” Des Moore, South Yarra, Victoria.

Wrongheaded and simplistic views like this …”

Except it’s not wrongheaded and Readfearn is the one who is simplistic, not Des Moore. (As it happens, the unworthy know-nothing denier was probably the same Des Moore who used to be the deputy secretary of the Australian Federal Treasury). Would Australia really […]

$22 billion wasted on carbon capture which increases cost of electricity by 70%

Three things everyone needs to know about carbon capture.

Coal supplies 29% of the worlds total energy (and oil supplies 31%). In the last five years governments world-wide promised to spend $22 billion on carbon capture and storage (CCS). $5b in the US. CCS increases the cost of electricity by 70%. (Yes, you read that correctly, seventy percent). That’s about $60/ton of carbon reduction.

TonyfromOz has been sending me gobsmacking details and statistics on this bizarre practice for months, and I must post them in their full glory as soon as possible. Historians of the future will gape at this strange religious ritual and ask how much we gave up in order to stuff a plant fertilizer down a deep hole in an effort to change the weather. – Jo

——————————————————

Carbon capture and storage—the Edsel of energy policies

By Steve Goreham

Originally published in The Washington Times

The war on climate change has produced many dubious “innovations.” Intermittent wind and solar energy sources, carbon markets that buy and sell “hot air,” and biofuels that burn food as we drive are just a few examples. But carbon capture and storage is the Edsel of energy policies.

[…]

Snow, blizzards, early winter in Europe, UK Met Office says horror winter predictions “are irresponsible”

This means nothing of course. Just weather. (No, actually I do mean that, though I expect those who look for excuses to complain will say I’m not allowed to discuss weather conditions. It’s a “dog-whistle”, or something.) For balance I’ll point out it’s been record hot on the East Coast of Australia. (Sydney’s “third hottest October day since records began 154 years ago.”)

But seriously, it’s interesting (and sad) that snow in Dakota killed 100,000 head of cattle, that early heavy snow has fallen in Europe (nearly a meter in Switzerland), it’s been called the worst start to “winter for 200 years”. The snowfall in Germany was the largest at the start of winter since records started in 1800.

Probably most interesting of all is that long range forecasters are issuing catastrophic warnings (they are quite extreme) but the UK Met says that’s “irresponsible”, and that trying to predict the weather that far in advance is “crystal ball” gazing. (Oh really?) They didn’t seem so concerned about predicting hot horrors on longer timeframes…

It’s been an early cold winter already in Europe NoTricksZone “Most Severe Winter Start In 200 Years!” + Euro Municipalities Now Ignoring Foolish Predictions Of Warm Winters […]

Melting glacier in Alaska reveals ancient remains of forest – evidence of warm periods

Glaciers that tore trees in half and then froze the stumps are receding again in Alaska to reveal those old remnants of a warmer era. I like these little “concrete” anecdotes, though their true meaning depends on exactly how old these remains are, and whether that timing correlates with warming in other places.

Ancient trees emerge from frozen forest ‘tomb’ Retreat of the Mendenhall Glacier reveals the remains of trees which grew more than 2,000 years ago By MARY CATHARINE MARTIN JUNEAU EMPIRE

The Mendenhall Glacier’s recession is unveiling the remains of ancient forests that have remained frozen beneath the ice for up to 2,350 years.

….

 

The most recent stumps she’s dated emerging from the Mendenhall are between 1,400 and 1,200 years old. The oldest she’s tested are around 2,350 years old. She’s also dated some at around 1,870 to 2,000 years old.

8.9 out of 10 based on 97 ratings […]

The story of one of the largest private wagers on the climate. A real climate bet.

[See our concise and updating story of the bet here.]

Commenters often ask us if I am prepared to make a bet and put “your money where your mouth is.” The answer is: been there — done that. We (as in David Evans and I) already have and a long time ago. As far as I know, it’s one of the largest private bets going on the climate*. David bet against Brian Schmidt, $6,000 to $9,000, in early 2007 on outcomes over 10, 15 and 20 years.

The bet was made a year before I started blogging. It was literally the first action we took as skeptics (instigated and hammered out almost entirely by David, with my support). So we have $6,000 exposure — betting that global temperatures would not rise faster than 0.15C per decade, as judged by GISTemp. How are we doing on this bet? Judging by the trend at the moment, pretty well. Brian is still optimistic that he will win on the later outcomes. (This is part of the reason we are particularly interested in trends from 2005, which is when the bet temperatures begin to count.) Kudos to Brian both for being one […]