Unthreaded Weekend

For all those other thoughts…

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243 comments to Unthreaded Weekend

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    Just how totally useless can a new Solar power plant be?

    As you read this, I want you all to think of how much we take access to reliable and constant electrical power totally for granted.

    Recently, I had a Comment at one of the Posts at my home site from a man in Kenya, bemoaning the fact that his Government was caving in to the green hued lobby, and going ahead with a new Solar power plant. There’s nothing new in that, as there are people who will always question why these types of power plants are needed. However, what it did do was to make me go and find out some facts about electrical power in Kenya. That comment is at this link to the Spanish solar plant Post, and the comment is at the bottom of that Post.

    Kenya might actually be viewed as a poster child for very low CO2 emissions and also for renewable power, as around 95% of its power comes from renewable sources, nearly all of it Hydroelectric power.

    Recently, we all saw the terrible drama of the terrorist attack in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, and while that drama unfolded, we saw images of quite a nice shopping mall, and I’ve often mentioned how shopping malls are huge consumers of electrical power. So, here we have a nice shopping mall in Kenya’s capital city, most probably giving an (assumed) impression that Kenya has some of the things we have, including access to electrical power, something we subliminally think, because we already have that access to electrical power, and if we have it, then most people do also, even those in Kenya.

    Kenya is a little smaller in area than New South Wales. However, it has a population of 43.3 Million people, which is almost double that of the whole of Australia.

    So then, how much electrical power does Kenya have?

    Kenya has a total Nameplate Capacity for ALL its electrical power of 1800MW, and no, that is not a misprint.

    1800MW.

    That’s just less than the Capacity of three of the four units at the ONE power plant, Bayswater in NSW.

    Nearly all of that power in Kenya is generated by Hydroelectricity, and there are 3 Geothermal plants, and one small wind plant, totalling out at that 1800MW.

    The total power generated by these Kenyan power plants comes in at 7.33 TeraWattHours (TWH) each year. Here in Australia, with half the population, all our power plants generate 230TW, 31 times what Kenya generates. In fact, that one Bayswater plant alone supplies the same power which runs Kenya for a year ….. every 152 days. So, to use a totally misleading comparison, the per capita usage of electricity is 60 times higher in Australia than it is in Kenya.

    Form that, some may think that Kenyans are perhaps more frugal with their use of electrical power, but what it means is that perhaps as high as 85% of the population have NO access to electrical power whatsoever, let alone the constant access we have to a reliable supply, which is always there.

    So now, Kenya is planning to construct a 50MW solar plant, a PV plant, where the panels generate the electricity. It is being done in conjunction with a Chinese Company, and China is going ahead big time across most of Africa.

    Each year, this plant will generate a tad over 76,000MWH of power, which amounts to an addition to the Kenyan total of just on 1%. That total is theoretical, and gives this plant a Capacity Factor of 17%, about standard for this type of plant. So, while this plant will deliver portions of its power across all (clear and bright) sunlight hours, this is the equivalent of delivering its full rated power for around 4 hours of every day, averaged across the whole year.
    The Kenyan government will be sinking money into the project, and the Chinese Company will receive carbon credits from the UN, as it is part of the Clean Development Mechanism, credits it can then sell on the open market, so basically, recovering nearly all of their costs for the plant.

    So, here you have a Country that is basically a very poor, and still Developing Country, with very little access to electrical power, and they are constructing what amounts to a tiny new power plant, which will generate a tiny amount of power over a tiny number of hours.

    That sounds like being pretty close to useless to me.

    Now, think again how much for granted we all take our access to electrical power. Look at Kenya, and gain a glimpse of what a life without coal fired power might look like.

    For more in depth analysis, see my Post on this subject at the following link.

    Useless New Solar Power Plant Planned For Kenya

    Tony.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Tony, one thing that the stats do not show, is “amateur” power generation.

      I witnessed a multinational university project, run by third year Commerce students at Victoria University of Wellington, that included extramural students from countries around the world.

      The exercise was, as it is every year, for international teams of students to come up with an entrepreneurial idea, and then collaboratively construct a business case that would attract investor financing. Students in the various teams are divided, not only by language, and distance, and hence time, but also by different generations of computing and communications technology, and different sorts of power generation, when it comes to powering an ancient Intel 386 computer running early versions of the MS Office suite, over a “standard” copper telephone line.

      One team contained a young African (from Botswana, I think), who relied on a bicycle, attached to a generator, to generate power.

      I understand that it is hard to cycle and type at the same time (I haven’t personally tried it), so members of the extended family would help out, by taking turns on the bike. Not only did this student do some excellent work, in contributing to the overall team effort, but the whole family ended up fitter than they were before.

      The point of this story is not so much about the student, but about the fact that this happens all over the third world. People generate their own power if they need it. And not just by using bicycles, but also by damming streams, or burning wood, coal, animal dung, rubbish, etc. (think about what that does to the environment). And this is not limited to the third world. There are back-country farmers in Australia and New Zealand, who also generate their own power, “for the wool shed”.

      This “amateur” power does not appear in the official statistics, but we know it is significant.

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        Joe V.

        This “amateur” power does not appear in the official statistics, but we know it is significant.

        Yes we know the sort of enterprising stuff that goes on behind garage doors in New Zealand, like Bruce Simpson’s, the guy who built a cruise missile

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        Mortis

        While all that is true, it is true because of UN mandates designed to keep Africa in the dark. They use it like their lab, trying to implement the renewable life that they want everyone to have. Africa needs access to clean, cheap power to raise their standard of living but are not allowed to do so. Amateur power is only significant in that it shows how poorly the third world is treated by the UN.

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        marius

        @RW
        “This “amateur” power does not appear in the official statistics, but we know it is significant.”

        Sorry to be a realist/naysayer here RerekeW but the power you speak of is so miniscule that it’s not only not ‘significant’ but, if I may use the term, not even ‘insignificant

        Ever ridden a bicycle with a dynamo fitted? Those dynamos usually produce 6 watts or thereabouts of power but when you engage it you’ll get a nasty surprise, notice how hard pedaling becomes?
        Try it once.

        Humans simply cannot generate useful amounts of electrical power.
        When you add the losses incurred during generation and reconversion to mechanical energy you realise that a simple mechanical solution is far more efficient.

        There were fun experiments like providing power to a drive in theater by the patrons themselves, each group of moviegoers would pedal for 10 minutes a turn and then have a rest. That was the max time for the average person to exert any useful power before needing a rest.

        Every society that had to rely on human power alone, no animals or wind nor water wheels, remained technologically undeveloped. Even culturally less advanced than other societies simply because there was not enough surplus production to provide free time to ponder about things.

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          Another Ian

          When you go to a remote property and it has a main 60KVA gen set and a 40KVA backup and you look at the rest of remote Australia this might not be earth shattering but I’ll be suprised if it is not bigger than the “bicycle Class”.

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          Carbon500

          Marius: what you need on your bicycle is a Sturmey Archer ‘Dynohub’. No nasty surprises or increased pedallin effort – here’s some information from their literature of years ago:
          “The ultra – modern generator, which is covered by world patents, has no mechanical losses whatever and electrically is highly efficient, giving an output of 2 watts at 6 volts. [The bulbs used were rated at 1.8 watts — John Allen] Using the existing wheel bearings and having no troublesome contact brushes it is entirely without mechanical friction or wearing parts, so that the effort to propel it is negligible. Being gearless it is absolutely silent, and its position in the hub protects it from damage. Voltage regulation is remarkably good, giving a good light at low speeds without an undue rise in voltage at the higher speeds, so guarding against the burning-out of bulbs.”

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      Anthony

      I once had someone make the same point about Iceland being 100% renewable, but once you do a little googling you find out that appart from Iceland having a major geothermal resource and only need to supply power for a population of 321,000 people and a mini-mart.

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        They are not totally “renewable”. Iceland does still import oil. It appears they hope to reach said goal as soon as they can convert to electric cars and the like. It appears they have little mining, so there’s no problem with trying to make an fully electric mine truck. They do make cement, which is a big no-no for carbon reduction. As Anthony notes, there are only around 321,000 people, making hydro and geothermal (both of which are not variable to the degree of wind and solar) feasible. On the other hand, they import virtually everything, meaning:

        Iceland has no carbon footprint because they dumped all the mining, etc, on other countries. A typical green attitude. (Note: I am not opposed to efficient use of resources–just to lying about how efficinet you are by dumping the “bad” stuff on everyone else. You are not morally or otherwise superior just because you make other people do the stuff that increases carbon. It only counts if the country import nothing made in any way with fossil fuel.)

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          Andrew

          Strangely, the “only what we emit” argument doesn’t work in reverse. Iceland is green because they import all their aluminium smelted in China.

          However, the filthy Greens want to shut down our coal export “climate destroying” industry, even though we’re not actually burning it. We’re selling the product, emitting nothing in the sale. We’re not accountable if the Chinese took the product we sold them and set it on fire, surely? Any more than a petrol station is charged with arson just for selling the product?

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          kindletot

          I do have a general question on this. Cement manufacture is supposed to be a big no-no because of all the CO2 generated in its manufacture- as I understand the process you roast various ores to drive off the CO2 to make the cement, but I also understand that when cement cures it absorbs large amounts of CO2. Is this second part taken into consideration in the cement = BAD justification, or is it just ignored so they can find another villain?

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        Bob Malloy

        Sometime in the past, I either read a report or watched a documentary on Fox about the diminishing returns from geothermal in one of the Nordic countries.

        Over the time they had been extracting steam for generation they were experiencing drop of in available steam pressure causing the complete shut down of some facilities. They were looking at ways to overcoming their problems by forcing fresh water back into the heat source but that has it’s own problems.

        I have looked for a link to where this might be happening but could only find this one in NZ.

        It looks like geothermal might in time not be truly renewable

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          Bob Malloy

          Iceland Geothermal

          Geothermal energy is power extracted from heat stored in the earth. This heat comes from the original formation of the planet when radioactive minerals began to decay as a result of volcanic activity and from solar energy absorbed at the earth’s surface.

          Geothermal energy can’t be harnessed just anywhere, because there aren’t hot-spots (where the earth is warm enough) everywhere in the world, but thanks to the fact that Iceland is abound with volcanoes and straddles two tectonic plates we have quite a few.

          Here’s the catch: These hot-spots can go cold. If you harness the energy for long enough, in large enough quantities, without giving the earth time enough to replenish its heat you can suck that baby dry.

          “And then what?” I cried at Ómar as he continued to blow my mind with his mad nature knowledge. Then you might have to wait say a 100 or so years so for the resource to replenish itself again.

          So on Thursday I tracked down a geologist at the University of Iceland who specializes in geothermal heating, a man by the name of Stefán Arnórsson.

          I asked him about how long it would take for a geothermal plant running on full capacity to deplete its geothermal well. Ómar was right on the money; Stefán said his calculations estimated it would take about 50 years or so in those conditions.

          So then I asked if Ómar’s estimate of it taking a 100 years for the well to replenish was right too. Stefán said—and these are his exact words: “If you use energy at this capacity and it runs out in 50 years it won’t replenish itself again in 50 years, or in one century or even two centuries, it could take a 1,000 years before that geothermal system becomes a resource again.”

          One thousand years!

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    • #

      I mention in the Post that Kenya is the seventh largest Country in Africa by population, and only generates 7.33TWH of power each year.

      Here’s the list of the 6 African Countries larger than Kenya by population and how much power those Countries generate.

      For the sake of comparison I’ll place Australia at the top of the list.

      Australia – 23 Million people – 230TWH

      Nigeria – 177 Million – 277TWH

      Ethiopia – 87 Million people – 6TWH

      Egypt – 85 Million people – 140TWH

      Democratic Republic Of Congo – 75 Million people – 9TWH

      South Africa – 53 Million people – 250TWH

      Tanzania – 46 Million people – 5TWH

      Only two of those Countries generate an equivalent or slightly more power than we do here in Australia, Nigeria, which has eight times our population, and South Africa which has two and a third times our population.

      Tony.

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  • #

    I know that I hog the start of these Unthreaded Posts of Joanne’s, and there’s the advantage of copy and paste and writing the comment beforehand.

    I wanted this comment to be separate from the first comment, so as not to detract from that information, and to separate the responses. (if there are any)

    While there exists that situation in Kenya, the same applies for almost all of those other 50+ Countries in Africa, and in fact Kenya is better off than most of them.

    The same situation also exists in nearly all of South America.

    The same situation also exists across most of South East Asia.

    The same situation also exists across most of China.

    The same situation also exists across most of India.

    So, where I see warmists using their emotive language, it makes me so angry. They rabbit on about the Science, and I have no problem with that, but they totally ignore what the end result of what they call for, the lowering of those CO2 emissions, which effectively means the shutting down of all CO2 emitting power plants, coal fired and natural gas fired as well. As soon as I mention that, all of a sudden it’s a straw man argument.

    Then they mention the emotive grandchildren argument, their grandchildren. That makes me angry also, because here they are having used the advantage of having that ready access to large scale constant and reliable electricity, they say that for the sake of their grandchildren, we need to go without something which they also now accept without question as a staple of their life.

    What makes me angry is that they have not even bothered to find out what that end result would be, and that, while they have consideration for their grandchildren, their failure to even investigate shows that they have no consideration for what might effectively be a third to half the World’s population, and they also have grandchildren. They have no electricity at all, let alone what we have, and not only do they want to deny those people what we already have, the end result of their failure to check is that they want us to go back and join them.

    Tony.

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      Kevin Lohse

      Tony. Hitting the bull’s eye yet again. Do you know if anyone has done an estimate of the GHG trade-off between one medium-sized coal-fired plant and the myriad dung and wood open hearth cooking fires such a power plant would replace? If you then took into account the social costs of untimely deaths, mostly women, due to open hearth domestic fires, I believe that the Warmist case would be severely damaged.

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      janama

      Yes – I was on facebook and someone posted a Greenpeace site rabbiting on about the wonders of solar power.

      They have no idea.

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      Andrew

      Yes – I had one ****ing ****clown use the grandchildren argument on me. But incredibly, it wasn’t about the temp, or associated climate change arguments. It was actually a proposition that they won’t be able to breathe the air because of CO2 “pollution”!!

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        janama

        My reply to that accusation is that our grandchildren will likely castigate us for wasting billions of research dollars chasing after a myth instead of finding a cure for cancer.

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          Andrew

          Yes, their argument also relies on the “no detriment” argument for climate policy. “So what if we’re wrong about CO2? All that happens is we run some cleaner, more renewable energy and noone gets hurt.”
          Tell that to the grandchildren in Spain, who have no future – they watched a single generation turn it into a third world country; they might as well move to South America (except Brazil) where they also speak Spanish. And the $1bn a day spent at the urging of the cli-fi merchants – that money has no value. It’s just printed paper. It’s not like it could be spent usefully.

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            bobl

            Or to the grannies that died last winter in the UK from fuel poverty driven by green levies, or the several people who died in the recent mini heatwave that were too afraid to use aircon.

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      Ian Hill

      Just speaking to one of my sons and asked him a hypothetical question about what would happen if there was no electricity for a week. He said he’d be very stressed out because his I-phone needs to be recharged every night. I’d rate him a moderate to heavy user of it.

      When the big blackout does happen here in SA everyone under the age of 40 will finally “get it” and realise they have been conned by the renewables industry.

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        Kevin Lohse

        Let him work out for himself that if he bought a lead which works off the car cigarette lighter, he’d still have use of his iPhone and be a local hero in his school for sticking it to the Bosses. Alternatively, charge up a spare car battery and jury-rig a charging unit which he can then get payment from his buddies to use. Science, technology and entrepreneurship in one lesson.

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          Ian Hill

          He told me about the car option Kevin and said it would be a pain to do that all the time. The point I’m making is that most kids would get a rude shock to their way of life as their parents make them rationalise their use of those things.

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            Kevin Lohse

            I take your point which is a good one. My point is that human ingenuity will find a way round most problems. I often thought, when my sons were inflicting adolescence on me, that the answer was to lock them in a cage and feed them occasionally until they reached 18. Luddism and the dependency culture are teenage afflictions, but then you already realise that. 🙂

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              bobl

              We always said, that the moment they stike puberty, they should be sent to work for a few yesrs until their minds overcome their hormones and then complete their education – especially boys, excessive Testosterone makes you dumb.

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        Gos

        Have you notice how they speak of “renewables”,don’t they realise that the power is generated by a machine/solar panel of some sort that has to be manufactured from components that will need to come from ore that needs to be smelted,forged etc or made from some chemical arrangement.

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        • #

          I don’t think they care. The term “renewable” is an easy sell. After repeated corrections by wind opponents, the wind industry was forced to start saying it’s “free fuel”. That was a start. I also emphasize that we do not “farm” wind.

          This is a picture I found on Greenie Watch and posted on my wind blog: http://whynotwind.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/228/

          Really says it all.

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      Franny by Coal light

      I know that I hog the start of these Unthreaded Posts of Joanne’s, and there’s the advantage of copy and paste and writing the comment beforehand.

      Preparing the comment beforehand ? Oh you devious hogger you.
      You don’t hog the posts tony, you just thread the (unthreaded) needle and always with some new & worthy information to keep this all in perspective.

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    • #

      Tony: Now that we have an open weekend, I can throw in my question:

      http://phys.org/news/2013-05-sheerwind-invelox-turbine-power.html
      http://www.hallmarkemporium.com/id26.html

      The first is supposed to be a “working” idea and they are going to “test” it soon. From a physical point of view, I can’t see how the wind is built up as much as they say. Maybe someone can explain it. Also, seems it would be fairly loud on the ground and the wind coming out could be problematic. A 15 mile per hour wind on the ground is noticeable. No statement on what happens in 60 mph wind or if the whole contraption can be shut down.

      The second just looks like a patented idea that has not been developed. Some of the same problems hold–and granted, it won’t kill eagles, I can still see bats and smaller bird falling prey.

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      • #

        Oh Sheri, thanks for these.

        I think this was the same guy who was run out of Sydney after trying to sell shares in some bridge.

        I seriously doubt that the first can be scaled up to drive large scale systems, considering the huge fan at the top of a tower can now drive generators of 6MW+.

        The second also suffers from its inability to be scaled up to the MW size.

        I have an image (shown at this link) of what the inside of the nacelle looks like on a typical wind tower. Now, while there is no indicator as to the explanation of those parts, that text is at the Post at this link, and just scroll down a little till you see the smaller version of this image and the explanatory text is written where that image is.

        The problem with the two links you have in your comment is, as I mentioned scaling them up, and the big problem they have is the generator itself, because it has to have something that can actually drive that generator. In your car, the engine drives the alternator via a belt attached to it. Aircraft use a shaft drive. In coal fired and nuclear power, steam drives the turbine which drives the generator. Hydroelectric power uses a Francis Turbine (a large one is shown at this link) to drive the generator.

        On a wind tower, the wind drives the blades which via a shaft and through a CSD (basically a gearbox) that drives the generator.

        Somewhere in that image at the first link of yours of the unit, there needs to be something to drive the generator, say an impeller, but look at the small size. There’s no impeller that small which can drive any reasonable sized generator hence the problem of scaling it up. It’s a similar situation with the second link.

        The costings are a little, umm, how do I say this politely, questionable at best.

        Tony.

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          Tony-thanks for the input. I am familiar with the insides of wind turbines and how they work, which is probably why this looks so suspicious. The Sheerwind people claim they can scale them up, though most are in the KW, not MW range. The propeller in the lower part that runs the generator is indeed very small. I can’t really see it working, though I’m sure some people will look at it and think “Wow, they solved all the problems”.

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            It looks as though the first design relies on the Venturi effect to increase the wind speed. But you dont get owt for nowt, so the payback is a drop in air pressure, which might defeat the whole purpose. But, from the picture it does look like they have a working model, so who knows? The other though that occurred to me was the similarity of the inlet funnels to the large speakers they have a rock concerts. You have a humming fan at the bottom, and a horn shaped megaphone on top. That should annoy the neighbours, quite nicely.

            The other design has to be a joke. Is it dated?

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            • #

              The Sheerwind site went up in 2012. It says:I
              NVELOX technology has been reviewed and validated by a technical advisory board, a team of experts from major research universities and agencies. Prototypes were tested under controlled laboratory conditions, and test results were used to build and validate full-scale computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models. – See more at: http://sheerwind.com/technology#sthash.unysvt1P.dpuf
              The information on full-scale trials is very sketchy, kind of like other “fringe” inventions. I did find another interesting site: http://barnardonwind.com/2013/06/03/good-and-bad-bets-new-wind-technologies-rated/ with some truly odd ideas. A couple looked interesting, though, like the mobile turbine.

              The other site (The “Mellennium Wind Turbine”) appears to have been up for a bit longer. He says the original idea dates from 2007. As far as I can tell, he has a patent and is trying to sell the idea to a manufacturer. I really cannot see how it could ever work without noise and vibration. It could be a joke, but the guy seems serious and is linking to the page on other blogs.

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        Mark D.

        Sheri, what a lousy web site that guy has. His design shown built into a house roof is pretty funny. He wants only 5 million for the design……….

        There are a number of good vertical windmill designs and they actually work at least on small scale. The problem (well the major one) with this guys design is the mass and he tries to make that somehow better by considering it to be a flywheel. Just try to make something heavy move in the wind. Then imagine you get the thing spinning at the top of your house! Noisy much?

        Three blade designs as currently used are the best at both slow start torque and can still work at fairly high speeds without self destructing. Adding a fourth blade creates problems with turbulence and strength.

        The giant funnel idea? Great if you like to make an ugly thing even uglier. Then you have to figure out how to turn it into the wind. Lastly why would it discharge air at 15 MPH? Wasted energy there needs a better turbine (guts from a jet engine maybe?)

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          Mark D: That was my thought, too. A very ugly website for the modified vertical turbine. He may need to hire marketers if he wants to sell the idea. The whole thing with both ideas is they seem poorly thought out and virtually untested. The noise, the vibration, the wind at the end of the funnel….all bad.

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        Vic G Gallus

        I only read an obscure reference to an interesting idea. It was about a horizontal wind turbine that could work in the merest of breezes. The idea was to use it to produce electricity to condense water from the atmosphere. It didn’t say whether the idea was to compress air to lower the dew point or to cool air in a chamber to below the dew point, or both. Wouldn’t we be doing Africa and other regions (with poor drinking water rather than arid) a service to pursue something like this?

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          Is this similar to what you mean: http://www.treehugger.com/wind-technology/wind-turbine-makes-clean-water-desert.html This requires a 15 mph wind speed, however, and is vertical.
          I couldn’t find anything with a horizontal turbine or extremely low speeds.

          It might help Africa–though it looks to be rather expensive.

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            Vic G Gallus

            That was a horrible description. I guess it was treehugger.com. It still appears to be too complex to produce water cheaply.

            The version I read about was an Australian version but I think it might have been in an article by Philip Adams so exaggerated beyond belief. I would think that a mechanical connection to a fan to compress air and raise the dew point (oops) and a simple Peltier cooler to condense the water might be good enough.

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          Graeme No.3

          Vic:

          Was this possibly the tower concept? Very high tower (about 1 kilometre) looking much like a power station cooling tower, with sea or bore water running down the insides from the top. Supposedly air is cooler at the top and the water is enough extra cooling to cause a strong flow of air down the tower and out the bottom sides, evaporating more water as it drops. The air either passes through a vertical axis turbine just before the exit, or through horizontal axis turbines at the exit, to generate enough power to run the thing (or in more mathematically challenged publications enough to power X number of homes. (X in that case is between 75 and 206 times the number Tony would think of).

          The cool air exiting is supposed to be saturated with water vapour, which condenses out at night to turn the surrounding desert into green farms. A sort of desalination plant and electricity generator in one. The idea has been around for 20 years or more, and appears as Golly Gosh! Super Idea! in the more credulous magazines such as New Scientist and Popular Science. I am not sure if anyone has ever got one working.

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            Vic G Gallus

            No. It was supposed to be a new design in wind turbines to power something to condense water. As per my comment above, all I know was described with little detail in the Aus by one of their least capable journalists.

            I was just trying to make the point that using turbines for electricity for the grid seems a bit silly. Using the power for a desalination plant (pre-pressurising by pumping water into a tower?) or something similar would be a better use of resources.

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              Graeme No.3

              Vic:
              cannot find much. I assume it might be “The unit developed by Aerodyn works on mechanical vapour compression (MVC) technology, using the kinematical energy of the wind turbine directly to drive the compressor of the evaporation desalination plant”.

              Most processes seem to generate electricity and apply that. (One more practical approach added a diesel generator for reliability of supply).
              This makes some sense as it would waste less power “Germany-based engineering company Synlift Systems has implemented pilot wind-powered desalination units in the Gulf region, which integrate off-the-shelf wind turbines and RO desalination technology”.

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              I agree with you that wind turbines can be useful for some applications. Part-time power is better than no power. And wind was used for decades to pump water. As long you remember, wind is “when it shows up” power, not “renewable” power and your application can be shut down for a week or more at time when the wind does not show up, then the use of turbines makes sense.

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            mullumhillbilly

            What happens to the salt which is left on the tower walls?

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      Roy Hogue

      I’m beginning to see ads and get spam from people offering to install solar, own it themselves and just let me get the “benefit”, whatever that is.

      If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. They collect rent from me and I get a pig in a poke.

      Oh come all ye faithful gullible. 🙁

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        Roy Hogue

        PS:

        I hate this laptop already and I’ve just gotten it hooked up to the internet. Got a lot of setup left to do so my wife can use it for what she wants to do. For a computer professional I feel like a dimwit just because it’s Windows 7.

        Why do they reinvent the computer for every new version? Don’t answer that, I know why. They need something new to keep selling operating systems.

        Hel-l-l-l-p! 😉

        At least I got a secure wireless connection going. Push on to victory I say… …I hope. 🙂

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          Be happy it’s not Windows Vista or Millenium. Vista was a nightmare–had to buy all new peripherals and a book on how to work around Vista. I switch to Mac now. Haven’t bought software yet. all but one peripheral worked and I only yell at it once or twice a month! 😉 My husband has a laptop with Windows 7 and I have so much fun switching back and forth. Windows 7 doesn’t seem too bad to work with. Watch out with Windows 7 for a box that wants to sell “Windows Premium Shield”. If you click to close the pop-up, it activates the virus. My hubby now just closes the Explorer window and goes back in. First time I ever had to go in through safe mode with a command prompt to remove a virus. Very, very evil little thing. Virus writers are getting so much more efficient!

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            Roy Hogue

            First time I ever had to go in through safe mode with a command prompt to remove a virus. Very, very evil little thing. Virus writers are getting so much more efficient!

            Advice from a dimwit:

            Install GOOD antivirus and network security and keep it scrupulously up to date. And I mean scrupulously, period. 🙂

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              Roy Hogue

              PS: The windows firewall isn’t worth having compared to a good product, neither is Windows Security Essentials.

              Norton Internet Security

              Trend Micro

              And then learn how to use it to allow what you want and prohibit what yoju don’t want.

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                Yonniestone

                Roy what do you think of Avast online security?
                I’ve been struggling a bit with windows 8 for a year. 🙁

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                Roy: I admit to taking a hammer to a Norton Disk once along with McAfee. I depise the things. As far as I could tell, there was no way possible to “allow it do what I wanted and prohibit what I did not”. It was more invasive than a virus. To be honest, this is one reason I went to Mac. Less trouble with malware and virtually no viruses (though a Mac can spread a windows virus–kind of like Typhoid Mary 🙂 ) The only antivirus software I found that removed it at the time was Emsisoft Antimalware, and that was after I removed the line from the registry that caused the virus to run. Perhaps Norton has caught up?

                I deliberately do not run antivirus software on said laptop. It costs about $40 or more per year for the antivirus software. The laptop has a broken screen (now uses an external monitor) and it’s only for my hubby to surf the net. I also use it for the one peripheral Mac would not run. It’s not worth it to me to spend the money. Should it be completely decimated by a virus, there’s format and reload–well, except there’s no reinstallation disk, so I see replacement computer in my future if this happens. Plus, how can I keep my computer skills up if I depend on a program to deal with problems? I stay sharp on Windows because the sites my hubby surfs seem to be prime breeding grounds for malware.

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                Roy Hogue

                Roy what do you think of Avast online security?

                Yonni,

                I’ve never heard of that one. There are so many now that it’s impossible to keep up. I have too much on my computers to want to risk losing anything for want of a good solid product so I run Norton Internet Security.

                I can understand why Sheri would not like Norton or McAfee. They do require some detailed understanding of what networking is all about to get exactly what you want. But they have the reputation that freeware and lesser names just can’t approach.

                After a year, what do you think of Windows 8?

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                Should it be completely decimated by a virus, there’s format and reload–well, except there’s no reinstallation disk…

                And goodbye data.

                Good backup utilities are not that expensive and can save your (digital) life. Mine has saved me both at home and the office more times than I can count. Try having a disk drive go south on a mission critical computer. Literally years of work were on that drive yet I didn’t lose a single file.

                I really do understand taking a hammer to Norton or McAfee though. However, they can only protect you if they are invasive. There’s no way around that. They have to take over some of the OS functions or they’re just another application program.

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                Yonniestone

                Roy I’m by no means an expert but try to learn as I go, I upgraded to Windows 8 from XP (which I loved) and apart from getting around the touchscreen tiles (I don’t have a touchscreen) I find it OK.
                My biggest gripe is getting the system to open or recognize certain saved files PDF etc, recently it wouldn’t let me download the basic Adobe Reader as it changed some protocol somewhere without my knowledge, very frustrating. 🙁
                I believe the system might be as good as the tool on the keyboard and some tools are harder to sharpen than others. 😉

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                Roy–I used to run mainframe computers and maintain PC networks. I understand backup and have redundant backups. If there was anything valuable on the PC, it would be backed up. I did lose “data” when the electricity damaged my external hard drive, but that was my own fault for not realizing how many changes I had made. And, technically, I did not lose any data–just the organization of it. Everything was backed up on DVD’s and I put it back. I really do understand computers and how they work and how they don’t work.

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                janama

                Roy I run with Microsoft security essential and have had no problems with it and I’m online 16 hours a day.

                My greatest asset is Tuneup Utilities running in the background all the time. I’ve installed the new version every year for over 16 years since it used to be called Fixit.

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                janama

                I also run Mailwasher Pro on all my email.

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                Janama: The Windows Premium Shield malware ran right through Microsoft Security Essentials. I’ve had a couple of others do that, too. I turned off Microsoft because it wouldn’t run with the other malware remover. Until recently, we did get by with the Security Essentials. I did notice that getting viruses is often associated with certain forums and blogs. Hubby seems to like ones that are virus proved!

                I’m amazed you’ve run a program fro over 16 years, updating each year. It must work well for you. I usually last a year or so and then try something new (maybe that’s my ADHD?).

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                J Martin

                Avast has a pre-boot scanner that makes it a much more effective AV than the others. If you have a virus infection that your current AV can’t remove, install Avast then set it to do a scan on boot up and reboot the PC / laptop. It will interrupt the boot before Windows starts and then it does a full scan and if it finds something you get an old fashioned style menu asking if you want to try to clean it or if that fails delete it.

                The most effective root kit killer I have used is Combofix from BleepingComputer.com I have only seen it fail 3 times in many years of using it on many companies PCs and in those instances I resorted to installing Avast and running the boot time scanner which cured the problem.

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                Roy Hogue

                I believe the system might be as good as the tool on the keyboard and some tools are harder to sharpen than others.

                Yoni,

                I know that problem from long experience. Nothing will teach you humility faster than a computer.

                By the way, I’ve found differences from one “version” of XP to another and one of my XP computers can see the other by name on the network but the other can’t see the first at all. I’ve never figured that one out.

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                Roy Hogue

                Shhhh!

                Sheri, don’t mention mainframes. It’ll date you for sure. 😉

                I see you probably learned about backing stuff up the same way I did. The hard way! But when you started talking about reformatting and starting over I nearly had a heart attack. Sorry about that. 🙂

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                Roy Hogue

                About antivirus and network security products in general, there are a couple of points to remember.

                1. None of them are perfect. They all will fail over one threat or another.

                2. A threat has to appear in the wild and be discovered, analyzed and a workable detection scheme developed before anyone’s product can protect against it. This means you can get it if you’re unlucky. So stay away from those questionable sites.

                3. Maybe a third point: Not all designers are equally capable. And worse, some concentrate on only one or a few aspects of the security problem and end up missing part of it. So reputation counts a lot as it does with any important product you buy.

                I’ve had Windows Security Essentials let through a bad trouble maker and I’ve also had Norton let through a bad one. In the Norton case the author was incredibly stupid in the way he designed it, the offending file not only wasn’t hidden but it was in a place where I knew what should be there so I could tell what was out of place. All I had to do was sign on to my wife’s account, which wasn’t affected and delete the file then search the registry for references to it and delete them. In the Security Essentials case I installed Norton, it found the problem and got rid of it.

                Root kits, if you know what they are, are the toughest problem to deal with. I’m not sure that any product is 100% secure when it comes to these because they can hide the presence of their files from anything that depends on the Windows basic file system, which is literally everything except possibly a stand alone bootable program that doesn’t run Windows but reads the file system itself.

                And finally, a good antivirus/network security product will hide at least some of itself in the same way a root kit does to prevent malware from finding and deleting it.

                Here’s a place dedicated to the security problem and it’s well worth looking over — Gibson Research.

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                Roy-Didn’t mean to nearly give you a heart attack. My bad. If I mention that the mainframes were reel-to-reel tape with punch cards, does that date me even more? 🙂

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                Roy Hogue

                Not only you but me as well. I’m an old timer for sure and finally, next Friday is my last day of full time employment. On February 1 I’ll be retired!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

                I’ll be doing a little part time consulting for the company but my time will finally be mostly my own.

                I don’t know if going back that far deserves a 🙁 or a 🙂 but one way or the other, I’m retired.

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                Rereke Whakaaro

                Not trying to introduce one-up-man-ship, or anything, but the first computer I was exposed to, used paper tape for input, and was programmed in Assembler. Wearing a plaid shirt was almost mandatory.

                I have retired twice, and I am now firmly embarked on my concurrent third and fourth careers.

                One of the major advantages of this post-modern age, is that kids are not taught to think for themselves, so they have very few problem solving skills. Opportunities abound, and you can charge a fee that is a percentage of the potential cost of the problem.

                I just thought I would mention that, in case you get bored.

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                Roy Hogue

                Rereke,

                Along with the mainframes we had 3 or 4 desk size computers with paper tape readers. You could not even boot up the machine without some paper tape bootstrap. The tape reader was the only thing the harsware would read from scratch.

                So you’re not one up but just even. 🙂

                The programming language was all assembler. The only “higher order language” was an interpretive thing that wasn’t very facile for most stuff. No one used it after a few first tries that were soon abandoned.

                I plan on getting involved in local politics and see where that goes.

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                Rereke Whakaaro

                Well! Local politics? You are braver man than I. I trust you will be keeping in touch, and we will not loose your wisdom?

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                Roy and Rereke: You “win”. You both are older than I am! 😉

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                marius

                @Sheri
                Agree re. Norton.
                They used to be the bees knees in the DOS days and I loved it.
                Now they become all intrusive and so complex that you actually need a special Norton Uninstaller to get rid of it. Not a good advertisement.

                I’m happy with MS Sec. essentials. Avast isn’t too bad either.

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            David Smith

            Hi Sheri,

            Got an old computer that needs a second life?
            Wipe off windows and wack a good Linux distro on the machine instead. I love Mint myself, really easy to use and an uncluttered UI.
            A few staff at my school have brought in their old and creaking laptops running XP and Vista and I’ve turned them into Linux boxes for the pupils to learn to code with. It’s been brilliant!

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              What a great idea! I will certainly keep that on file for when we get a new laptop. I’m not really big into coding, but I do try to learn as much as possible. Thanks!

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              Backslider

              This is a really good idea. I have a really old box that was returned after years on loan. I wiped it clean and installed Ubuntu and it runs totally sweet. Linux does not use anywhere near the resources that Windows and Mac do so its really good for old hardware.

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                Andrew S.

                Long time lurker here.

                Regarding the virus scanners, I found Avast to be very good but it’s slowly turning into “Norton”, by which I mean bloatware. I reckon it has another year or two before I’ll have to start considering alternatives.

                I also found (from some trial and error) that a surprising number of viruses for me seemed to get at me through ad-banners from many sites, influding some reputable ones. I solved this issue for myself and another small company by getting them to use adblock plus in Firefox, which completely eliminated these issues. Never had a virus since 2010.

                As an extra measure, I also run a realtime virus scanning router on their premises, but even without that, adblock plus has stopped more nasties than Avast itself. It’s not cheap though so best stick to adblock. 🙂

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              Andrew McRae

              I also can approve of the Mint distribution of GNU/Linux. I do not have it installed to hardware but have been running it in a VM for a few months (for Google Earth and software development) and it is certainly better than the 12.x and 13.x versions of Ubuntu. The windowing GUI is screwed in Ubuntu after 11.x, with window borders so thin you can’t grab them with the mouse. It’s like Canonical actually wanted to convince people to stop using Ubuntu.
              Mint is still a Debian and GNOME 2 compatible O/S under the Cinnamon covers, so a whole bunch of free software in the Debian multiverse works in it, and it seems to have more available in their package manager than Ubuntu, which I found surprising.

              At this point it is only inertia and the hassle of a clean install that inhibits me from trading up from Ubuntu 12.04 to Mint 15.

              Of course plenty of people tell me that Mac OSX on homebuilt PC hardware (a “Hackintosh”) is the bee’s knees of desktop computing. They tell me I’m crazy for running Linux on a home desktop. Yes, one day I may “retire” from GNU/Linux and convert to Apple OSX. One day when I’m old and feeble and can’t hack it any more… 😛

              One criticism of Linux that I must admit is true:
              “The only way Linux is free is if your time is worthless.”

              The hoops you have to jump through to figure out how to:
              * upgrade your NVidia video driver,
              * be able to drag and drop files onto a network share,
              * automatically mount a public Windows SMB share at logon,
              * automatically mount a 2nd local HDD at startup (it’s not automatic!?)
              …convinced me this statement is true.

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      Richard111

      Have problems here in the UK.

      http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-1815.html

      22,500 newly installed panels and no sign of the sun for the last two months and possibly the next two months. A lot of these panels are visible from my house. I look on them as grave stones of the future.

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      Geoff Sherrington

      Is there any thought that African etc countries are going to be kept poor so there is a continuing mechanism for carbon credits? If they suddenly got rich and could not be used for indulgences, would that not wreck a nice earner for some?
      Personally I don’t think it is happening, but the logic seems to fit.

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    Peter Miller

    Here is something which is totally sad and is a clear demonstration of how the area’s supposed ‘elite’ has successfully transformed most of Europe into an ineptocracy, where political posturing ranks well above economic realism.

    Around 700,000 fracking holes have been drilled in the USA, with dramatically beneficial economic and strategic consequences.

    In the European Ecoloon Collective (EEC), fracking is now banned in several countries and the the Collective’s unelected leadership, the Commission, was only just persuaded not to make the conditions of drilling fracking holes so onerous that no one would attempt to do so.

    So why is the EEC so hostile to fracking?

    1. Well, ecoloons are insidiously distributed throughout every political party of the centre and left.

    2. Lying about the supposed dangers of fracking (now that the subject of ‘climate change’ has become boring and disproved) helps fill the coffers of green activist groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and

    3. The question has to be asked as to who will be most disadvantaged by fracking in Europe? Step forward Russia’s Gazprom and if you think these guys are going to be inactive in the European debate on fracking, then you also have to be a believer in Mannian Mathematics.

    Anyhow, the first successful fracking hole in Europe has just been drilled in Europe, in Poland – see below. I do not know whether to applaud or cry.

    http://www.thegwpf.org/shale-gas-set-start-flowing-europe/

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    • #

      An example of the tactics of those opposed to fracking is at Barton Moss to the west of Manchester. Here a company is drilling exploratory wells – not fracking. Some highlights.
      16th Dec – Entrance to test site blocked with wind turbine blade.
      6th Jan – Someone fires a flare at a police helicopter.
      6th Jan – Policing costs reach £300,000. Since then protests have escalated.
      7th Jan – Two protesters glue themselves into a car to block road to the drill site.
      14th Jan – Two-thirds of arrested fracking protesters ‘not local‘.
      23rd Jan – Police claim most fracking protesters are there to ‘intimidate the local community’ and ‘antagonise’ the force.

      In a related incident, the French oil company Total announced that they were investing in UK shale gas. So two protesters chained themselves to a pump at a Total petrol station. It was later revealed that Total had shortly before sold the site, with the signs yet to be changed.

      NB All but one of the links is to the Manchester Evening News, part of the Guardian Media Group.

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    peter

    Please forgive me for cluttering up this site as i am in no way qualified to comment on the science usually discussed here. I am however not convinced by any of the CAGW arguments. My intuition is well honed by my life’s experiences. Enough of the preamble, my intuition tells me that catastrophic ocean acidification is balony and i would like someone to tell me,very approximately, how much atmospheric co2 exists per cubic metre of ocean. I’ve tried working it out but my calculator loses track of the decimal points and zeros.
    Would someone care to help this simple soul? Thank you in advance.

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      Do you understand how chemical reactions work? If so, you need to put down your calculator and remember, even fuzzily, things you were taught about equilibria and concentration gradients.

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        Heywood

        An alternative would be to help him out, since he asked nicely, rather than be a smart ar$e about it.

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          Kevin Lohse

          GEE AYE is a pollie and a warmist. Smartarsery is in Gee Aye’s genes.

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            My smart arse is in Jeans.
            So I hope GEE puts his AYE away to explain how this settled science about how many times more water than the oceans contain exists below the mantle. Then GEE AYE could show how undersea lakes of sinking CO2 (being heavier than water), Missing heat and natural renewable energy could all be frolicking together in a happy abiotic place. This way CO2 and heat and human energy needs may all be self solving problems.
            http://www.earth.northwestern.edu/research/suzan/publications/44_Preface.pdf
            Oh wait. There could be a pollution problem if abiotic hydrocarbon is not burnt faster than the planet creates it. So to apply the precautionary principle, we should increase population to ensure we can turn the newly created “fossil” fuel back to lovely life giving CO2 fast enough to prevent pollution.
            I hope this settles to GEE AYE’s bottom before we have a planet fart.

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      Graeme No.3

      Impossible to answer. There is roughly 52 – 60 times as much in sea water.

      Firstly the oceans slowly turn over (estimates 800-1900 years), so water lower down will have dissolved less CO2 when on the surface (because the amount in the atmosphere was less then). Equally the equilibrium of CO2 dissolved is dependent on the amount (strictly the partial pressure) of CO2 in the atmosphere.

      Secondly the amount dissolved (and staying dissolved) depends on the temperature of the water.

      Thirdly, some CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which in turn can form bicarbonic acid. (This is the bit that gets the warmist knickers in a twist). Most CO2 remains as dissolved gas at current pH values in equilibrium with the atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature, and doesn’t affect the pH. More CO2 will react at higher pH values, and less at lower pH values; thus reaction virtually stops around pH 5.5. The amount dissolved isn’t linear with concentration, doubling the atmospheric CO2 level will lead to about 10% more reacting (see Revelle factor). At 560 ppm. CO2 the amount of bicarbonate rises about 12% from the estimated level at 280 ppm.

      Fourthly, the amount of carbonic present depends on the composition of the salts in the water. It isn’t a simple calculation, depending on the composition e.g. the presence of minute amounts of borate affect the end result. Much of this carbonate then reacts with calcium and magnesium ions and becomes insoluble (this is an equilibrium at higher pressure, see calcite and magnesium lysocline.

      You are correct in saying “catastrophic ocean acidification is baloney”. It is scare tactics and in some cases, particularly if your name is Michael, lack of knowledge. (He’s gone now, thanks to Jo). It has been estimated that even at 1900 ppm CO2 that the pH wouldn’t drop below 7.4. Since this would require burning off at least 3 times more oil and gas than known reserves it would seem an unlikely event.

      This is in line with the White Cliffs of Dover being laid down in Cretaceous times when the CO2 level was between 760 and 960 ppm. So much for high CO2 levels killing off sea creatures.

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        peter

        Thank you Graeme. From what your saying it appears that this is just another unknown and probably unknowable aspect of all this malarky (pardon technical language). So far the score is intuition one, climate models nil. I always have a good laugh when i hear some clown say that the science is in and i think, yeah mate, in your mind, or maybe in your ar…m. lol

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        Vic G Gallus

        I wrote a blast of a documentary on our acidifying oceans on the Andrew Bolt blog. The doco started with a story on how a lower pH was stunting the growth of larvae in an oyster farm. The lower pH was due to acidic rain water run off, not CO2.

        After a lot of comments about the stupidity of the description ‘acidifying’ when the pH of the oceans could not drop below 7 at all (coastal waters excepted), and some stupid defense of it, some one claiming to be an oyster farmer posted a comment. He pointed out that they pump CO2 into the larvae tanks because they feed on algae, and the CO2 makes the algae grow faster.

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      Peter Miller

      Peter

      First of all, this from Wikipedia:

      Carbon dioxide is soluble in water, in which it reversibly converts to H2CO3 (carbonic acid).

      The hydration equilibrium constant of carbonic acid is K_{\mathrm h}=\frac{\rm{[H_2CO_3]}}{\rm{[CO_2(aq)]}}=1.70\times 10^{-3} (at 25 °C). Hence, the majority of the carbon dioxide is not converted into carbonic acid, but remains as CO2 molecules not affecting the pH.

      Yours is not an easy question to answer as some of the CO2 ends up as calcium bicarbonate. However, and this should really scare you – at the current rate of CO2 absorption by the oceans, their CO2 levels will rise by just over one part per million over the next century.

      Here are the maths:

      Volume of oceans: 1,330,000,000,000,000,000 cubic kilometres, or tonnes.

      Mankind’s current emissions of carbon dioxide: Approximately 50% of 34 billion tonnes per year is absorbed by the oceans, or 17 billion (17,000,000,000) tonnes annually.

      So annually the CO2 content of the oceans increases by) 17 parts in 1,330,000,000, or one part in 78,235,294.

      So every century the CO2 content of the oceans increases by one part in 782,353, or just over one part per million.

      Not surprisingly, alarmists are very concerned about this!?! Another point is carbonic acid (or soda water) is an extremely weak acid.

      Ocean acidification by CO2, as proposed by alarmists, is a complete myth.

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        Roy Hogue

        We could give a much simpler answer and say the oceans have withstood far greater CO2 concentrations in the past and they’re still here and still full of life.

        And whatever the case, there’s not a snowball’s chance in a red hot furnace that we’ll stop burning those terrible fossil fuels for yet a very long time.

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        Peter Miller

        Whoops

        1,330,000,000,000,000,000 cubic metres, not cubic kilometres.

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        bobl

        This is assuming that the CO2 isn’t fixed or precipitated out in some way, a higher carbon ion concentration has got to result in saturated carbonate salts forming and therefore precipitation and more bio-fixing into calcium carbonate.

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      Speedy

      Peter

      According to the CRC Handbook of Chemical Engineering, there is approximately 50 tonnes of CO2 in the oceans for each tonne of CO2 in the air. The CO2 transfer between ocean and atmosphere is increased with increasing temperature because CO2 solubility in water decreases with increasing temperature.

      Now comes the interesting bit.

      If increased CO2 in atmosphere increases global temperatures – THEN
      The oceans will warm up – THEN
      The solubility of CO2 in the oceans will increase – THEN
      CO2 in atmosphere will increase again – THEN

      etc.

      The logic can be defeated if we assume that either CO2 does not have a high impact on temperatures at the concentrations which are currently prevailing OR that other effects (such as cloud albedo) counter some or all of the effects of increased CO2 level.

      In either case, there doesn’t seem to be much need to restructure industrial civilisation to “save the planet” from increased CO2 levels.

      Cheers,

      Speedy.

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        bobl

        I think you mean solubility wil REDUCE

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          Speedy

          Bobl

          Yep! Another 30 minutes in the arse-kicking machine for me! REDUCE!

          And the other point being, of course, that there’s plenty of CO2 in the oceans to make anything mankind is doing totally insignificant.

          Thanks for fixing that up.

          Cheers

          Speedy

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        Roy Hogue

        If increased CO2 in atmosphere increases global temperatures – THEN
        The oceans will warm up – THEN
        The solubility of CO2 in the oceans will increase – THEN
        CO2 in atmosphere will increase again – THEN

        How does this logic escape the warmists? It’s the single most compelling argument against global warming when viewed in the context of the Vostock ice core graphs Al Gore was misrepresenting for so long. From his own data, CO2 lagged behind temperature change, it didn’t lead. No one credibly disputes the CO2 lag. No one!

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          Kevin Lohse

          Err… Roy?. Doesn’t warming water have decreasingsolubility, leading to out gassing of CO2?

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            Another Ian

            Speedy et al – I reckon this fits about here

            FYI re the place of CO2 in the scene of CAGW

            “IR Expert Speaks Out After 40 Years Of Silence : “IT’S THE WATER VAPOR STUPID and not the CO2″ ”

            More at

            [http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/ir-expert-speaks-out-after-40-years-of-silence-its-the-water-vapor-stupid-and-not-the-co2/]

            And note this comment

            jmrsudbury says:
            January 26, 2014 at 3:07 am
            So a quick check netted the following links:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_telescope

            and

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_astronomy

            They both say that the infrared telescopes are built on mountains to try to escape the effect of water vapour. A quote from the second link says the following:

            “The principal limitation on infrared sensitivity from ground-based telescopes is the Earth’s atmosphere. Water vapor absorbs a significant amount of infrared radiation, and the atmosphere itself emits at infrared wavelengths. For this reason, most infrared telescopes are built in very dry places at high altitude, so that they are above most of the water vapor in the atmosphere.”

            Nothing there about CO2.

            The http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay20/ir-telescopes.pdf file says, “Another problem to be overcome by ground-based observatories was the absorption of infrared radiation by gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Fortunately, in the near-infrared and mid-infrared regions, from 1 to 10 μm, there are some clear atmospheric ‘windows’. From observatories on high mountain peaks, astronomers are able to use these ‘windows’ to investigate the infrared sky at certain wavelengths.”

            That is the only mention of carbon dioxide in the file. The rest is about water vapour like, “However, even the Mauna Kea site is not high enough to allow far-infrared observations. In order to rise above the bulk of the water vapor and the atmosphere, astronomers have turned to placing telescopes on balloons, sounding rockets or high-flying aircraft.”

            There is also the following paragraph from the second page:

            “However, a much larger, more powerful successor is scheduled to become operational in 2002. NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will fly on board a modified Boeing 747-SP aircraft at an operational height of 12.5 km (nearly 41 000 ft). From this altitude, SOFIA will be above 99.9% of the infrared absorbing atmospheric water vapor that limits ground based infrared observations.”

            They are working hard to get above 99.9% of the water but they don’t care to mention carbon dioxide.

            Interesting.”

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              Andrew McRae

              I replied to Mr Sanicola’s comment on “Steven Goddard”‘s blog, but the comment was immediately trapped in moderation.
              I wrote an email asking the moderated comment to be released and when I went to address it I suddenly realised there is no contact email address anywhere on the “Real Science” blog for the blog’s owner. A web search then brought to light the fact that nobody knows who the owner really is, and there is even speculation that it is a pseudonym.
              The link to the moderated comment is this, but of course that comment only shows for me as the author. It has been nearly 18 hours since I wrote it and it is still moderated. I now find my next comment asking for it to be un-moderated is also immediately moderated. So comment there is now impossible.

              Here is the comment “Steven Goddard” won’t publish.
              _________________

              Astonishing comments made by Mike Sanicola, January 27, 2014 at 7:08 pm.
              > “Earth’s surface radiates at 9-13 microns” and “Other wavelengths of IR that CO2 can and might absorb, are not emitted by Earth.”

              If thermal radiation worked the way Mr Sanicola says it does, then at their normal operating temperature of 2773 K our tungsten incandescent lightbulbs would emit only monochromatic 1082nm radiation, which is outside human visual range.

              I have one question.
              How did GE make so much money selling lightbulbs for a century if, according to Sanicola Physics™, nobody could use their light bulbs’ output to see at night?

              Some “IR expert” eh?

              Gail Combs commented: > “Thanks for the information and enjoy your retirement.”

              I must wholeheartedly agree with her sentiments.
              Mr Sanicola will have to learn to enjoy retirement because after a gaff as monumental as this one there won’t be any coming back from retirement.

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                Kevin Lohse

                Andrew. Steve Goddard’s blog is up and running, with a full page of posts including yours. Looks like a system fault rather than skullduggery. I’ve followed Steve’s blog for a few years now and he doesn’t seem to skulldug. Mr Sanicola’s post is certainly attracting attention.

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            Roy Hogue

            Exactly! That’s why Gore’s graph shows CO2 buildup lagging behind temperature rise by about 800 years. The water would warm much more slowly than the atmosphere, thus the lag in releasing the additional CO2 into the air.

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    AndyG55

    This is my last post for a while. because I’m heading off OS.

    I just want all those trolls, and other supporters of the AGW agenda to ask themselves…

    WHAT IF this really is a hoax. a fabrication !!!

    What will you do if the global temperatures now start to decrease as the sun has a 30-50 year snooze..

    HOW MUCH DAMAGE have you done to the reputation of SCIENCE and ENGINEERING if you have promulgated this myth.

    Ask yourself…… have YOU done your due diligence.. or have you just accepted a cause !!

    Good luck to y’all and try not to let your conscience kick you too hard in the arse !!!

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Send us a postcard, from time to time …

      I here rumours that the interwebby thing works in foreign bits, but the keyboards are sometimes odd, and the mice don’t squeak with an Aussie accent.

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      Bob Malloy

      This is my last post for a while. because I’m heading off OS.

      It’s ok Andy, Stockton has finally been dragged out of the 18th century,they do have electricity now.

      I’m sure Andy as a Novacastrian gets it, even if I’ve confused the rest of you.

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    Graeme No.3

    One for Jo:

    In the days of the Roman Empire, when the State was in danger but the Senate was in doubt what course to adopt, they consulted the Augers, and they in turn guided their decision by examining the entrails of a newly killed fowl.

    These days we consult economists, yet the experience of the last 20 years shows that on the whole the Roman system was better. Had our politicians during these years guided their actions not by the advice of economists but by examining the entrails of a fowl, there would have been at least a 50-50 chance that commonsense would have prevailed.

    Sir Randle Holme,
    President of the English Law Society, on the occasion of his retirement in 1940.

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      That’s right. Being so uniformly wrong takes real skill and dedicated purpose. It also requires knowledge of what is the right thing do to so one can do the exact opposite. They consciously intend to cause harm to persons, property, and individual rights.

      They are in no way innocent in the matter.

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      Joe Lalonde

      Graeme No.3,

      Economists were/are trained by the banking system.
      Economic growth is ingrained as to how a healthy economy is suppose to be by inflation of around 2%.
      The problem that this is creating is that you need a balance of wage growth to be the same or greater.
      With the advent of “free-trade” and many government programs in ALL levels from user fees to taxation, etc. we have had a MASSIVE imbalance.
      Wages were suppressed, politicians were lobbied for support generating another imbalance of competition, banks were allowed to freely trade massive amounts without collateral backing which has the risk of banks being in danger of being insolvent in an economic crisis that they have NOT projected.
      Deflation is what the banking system fears most as this system of credit was NEVER designed for prices to be lower. Profits are the most important thing to keep investors(top 5%) to keep investing in their countries.

      In this current system, inflation is killing the average citizen but is pure profit to the banking system which MUST keep it going in order NOT to be in a banking crisis.

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        Your “training” is not destiny unless you willfully cooperate, refuse to think, and evade a massive amount of evidence contrary to said “training”. The so called economists CHOSE to be mindless drones following the arbitrary dictates handed to them without evidence nor support from historical events. As I said, they are not innocent in the matter.

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          Mortis

          “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair

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          Roy Hogue

          There is another possible explanation here, Lionell. Some of them may never have been exposed to the need to think critically or ask questions. You really do have to be taught the skill required to be skeptical and start looking for yourself — or you have an experience that teaches it to you. And so they follow what they’ve been told without question. The modern education system and our relatively easy life in the western world really do not require much critical thinking about either science or economics.

          I have met numerous people who fall in this category when it comes to both subjects.

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          • #

            That no one taught them is no excuse. It is simply part of an explanation of why they are the way they are.

            They made the choice not to question and find out for themselves. They willfully abandoned their responsibility for being self responsible. It was easier not to question, not to think, not to be anything in particular, and to evade the information that is so abundantly available.

            They willfully chose their state of intellectual passivity. They are not innocent in the matter.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        And let us not forget that modern Economics is driven by computer models, using exactly the algorithmic approaches, as the climate models.

        This, of course, demonstrates that Climate Science is no more than an Economic application. But of course, we knew that, already.

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        Vic G Gallus

        The issue is that we can hoard products. Economics works best when people need to flog off what they have made as soon as possible, and use their money to buy goods or produce more as soon as possible. Saving money by investing in shares or developing properties is good. Hoarding gold or real estate is not. We need people who produced things to be the rich elite, not those who gambled on markets.

        We also need security for workers without extortion of business (automotive for example) or cultivating corruption (e.g. AWU scandal).

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        • #
          bobl

          Yes and no,
          Investors take a portion of the costs and most of the risk for funding the creation of the things to flog off, so investors in say BHP help, investors in the parasitic rent seekers don’t say Slater and Gordon.

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        Graeme No.3

        Deflation brings a lot of problems, not the least damage to the banks and to the government. You won’t mind that but you would be next.

        If prices are falling i.e. deflation, no-one is going to borrow from a bank to buy a house.
        Firstly when you own it, it will be worth less than you paid. Not a great investment.
        Secondly, as wages will tend to shrink then paying the instalments will become more and more painful.
        Then the multiplier effect works in reverse, less house building, less demand for materials, less demand for labour. In other words a depression.

        For the government, running up debts (as they have been for hundreds of years) becomes impossible. No way will anybody lend money if the eventual payment is less than that loaned (even if the reduced sum has increased buying power). And the value of existing debts will increase NOT be wiped out by inflation. And bracket creep won’t be possible, indeed as wages shrink people will pay LESS Tax.

        The 2% rule is merely what the economists think of as a safety margin to prevent deflation. Their record in 1940 wasn’t great, and in 2014 their record is looking worse. The old gag about the Economics exam having the same questions every year, because only the answers change still rings true. So does Winston Churchill’s comment that an economist is someone who can always tell you what you did wrong, after it goes wrong. But then they gave him the disastrous advice to return to the Gold Standard, for the consequences of which he was then blamed, and spent 10 years out of office.

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          According to your theory, the computer that I bought for $600 last year should really have been priced at $40,000,000 or even much more. Imagine what the computational capability of my $600 3GH four core i5, 8 gig ram, and 1Tb hard disk PC would have cost in 1985. That is if it could even be achieved. Is it price deflation or simply the consequence of technological advance that is a product of competition in the free market of minds doing more with less and still making a profit.

          A centrally managed “price level” always distorts the nature of market transactions. It cuts off the very necessary feedback of the supply/demand/cost price of all the factors that make up producing anything at any level in the economy. It is exactly the same as any automatic control system in which the feedback loop is cut and the set point is determined by political factors rather than the hard objective reality of all the micro situations.

          The system will go out of control and, if the system gain is high enough, will oscillate between the hard limits set by reality. History shows the system gain of the economy is sufficiently high to bang between boom and bust when the feed back mechanism is damaged or eliminated. Exactly as it is today! That feedback mechanism is the market established is the price/demand/cost of each and every factor of production.

          Central top down control of complex systems will always fail even by the standards of the top level controllers. Sufficient information cannot be made available. The information that is available is too little and too late. ALL decisions based upon that information will not reflect the reality of the situation and will, except by accident, make things worse. Very much worse.

          This is why genuinely free market systems (capitalism) works and socialism (totalitarian dictatorships) fails. It is simply a consequence of the nature of human action and of the nature reality. Go against either or both and disaster is the final result.

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            Graeme No.3

            Lionell:

            I am not looking for an argument, just stating what is what. During deflation innovators find it hard to get finance, as everyone thinks depression…batten down the hatches etc.

            So while there has been tremendous improvements in computers and other electrical goods, this has occurred in inflationary times. During the 16TH Century prices doubled in Europe due to a flood of gold and silver from the Americas, but Europe generally went from being behind the Turkish, Chinese and Moghul empires to a position of technological and military superiority.

            Mind you, that was 0.7% p.a. inflation. These days the tendency is to overdo it a bit.

            Regarding Central control of the economy and other aspects of life, there is no argument possible. Countries where governments take a low percentage of the GDP show very much higher growth rates, than those with “the government will look after you” attitudes. Europe can expect stagnation for many years.

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    handjive

    A Timely Australia Day mystery …

    Ancient Egyptians lived near Woy Woy: fact or fantasy?

    The fact that there are Underground Chambers that need to be investigated by professionals would clarify the origin of the Glyphs.
    The fact that Nefer Djeseb describes in the glyphs certain aspects of the building of the underground chambers as well as from where the rocks came, that littered once the western plain above the Grave site, as well as the fact, that Nefer-Ti-Ru is buried in the red earth section.
    As the Red Earth section is the inside of the hieroglyphic site only, the red color was obtained from Iron Oxide, Red ocre to you..
    And incidently, the glyphs were engraved with stone chisels.
    . . .
    During the early months of 2000 the media was alive with reports that residents of the Mid North Queensland coastal town of Sarina, had identified a massive stone causeway jutting out from the shore into Sarina Inlet as an ancient wharf, constructed by Phoenician colonists in Bronze-Age times [ie 2000-1400 BC]
    Egyptian mariners inscription, found by the Gilroys at a ruined
    temple dedicated to Ra, at Sarina Mid North Queensland, November 2000.
    In the course of a week’s searching we uncovered a number of Egypto-Phoenician, Celto-Phoenician and Celtic rock scripts, both on the coastal front and further inland.
    . . .
    A tiny drawing of a kangaroo curled in the letters of a 16th century Portuguese manuscript could rewrite Australian history.

    TIMBERS from a shipwreck in New Zealand have been dated to some 70 years before Captain Cook and is just the latest in a string of finds showing ancient seafarers explored our great southern lands – but never returned.
    The 107cm bronze swivel cannon found at Dundee Beach southwest of Darwin in 2010 was recently determined to have sat on the seabed for some 250 years.
    Five 1000-year old coins from the ancient African kingdom of Kilwa were recently identified after being found in the Northern Territory in 1944.

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      handjive

      Oops. Missing link re: Sarina Qld & stone wharf.

      Plus:

      The North Bondi Engravings
      Located beyond the golf course on the rocks at Williams Park, North Bond, above the ocean is an Aboriginal rock carving site which features a number of Aboriginal engravings, including sharks, fish, men and women.
      To their north-east is another group (right), which today are quite worn, and appear to be of non-Aboriginal origin.
      One carving in this group is of a Spanish sailing ship.
      It was in 1912 that Hargrave, Australia’s ‘father of aviation’ and a historian of some repute, examined these carvings which depict letterings and two outlines of a carrack, a vessel steered by a sweep, like an ancient Greek trireme.
      The ship resembles the Santa Maria, in which Columbus sailed to America in 1492. The letterings in capitals beside the ship, are “BALN” in one line and beneath are the letters “ZAIH.” The letter “W” is beside the symbol of a cross within an elongated circle, which is the symbol of conquest by Spain. It was emblazoned on the sails of the Spanish Armada and the ships of the conquistadors on their voyages to the Americas.

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      • #

        my Spanish American grandfather did this in 1905. He didn’t cut them in as deeply as those done by the indigenous people.

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          Peter C

          By cutting in more deeply Do you mean that the Aboriginal people were creating worse graffiti or better art? Or has his inscription been erased by weathering?

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        Graeme No.3

        Of course Australia was discovered before Cook, but it was always hushed up.

        P.S. The Portuguese used sweep steering.

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          The credit of a discovery does not go to the first person to find something.

          It is the first person to get back home again, after finding something, who gets the credit.

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          Anthony

          I wish I could remember the name of it, but there was an excellent documentary on SBS a year or two ago about the Dutch exploring Australia before cook. But one of the highlights for me was a local Aboriginal tribe send a delegation to Holland to apologise on the anniversary of the killing of some of those explores.
          They also mentioned the aboriginal people making records of the dutch explores, but I am not sure if they are the same paintings mentioned here.
          Happy Aussie day all. Not a perfect country, but a dam fine one.

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          Mortis

          I have asked this question of the Columbus “discovery” and it fits here – how do you discover a place that already has people living there? If so, I want to “discover” some millionaire’s island and plunder it’s resources…

          This was not pointed at you specifically btw, just a general observation 🙂

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          • #

            It is a discovery if no one from Europe knew America existed. Just like “discovering” radioactivity. It was always there since the beginnning of time. How do you discover that?

            As for “pillaging” the place and claiming it for the Queen, using hindsight to evaluate history is as foolish as using flawed models to claim CAGW. It does not apply in any way. At the time, claiming land after “discovering” or pillaging land which a ruler or conquerer wanted was the norm. Going back and apologizing for what dead people you can never have met is STUPID. Flat-out STUPID. It’s the past. Get over it and stop rewriting it. Romans, Huns, all pillaged. In the future, I suspect there will be “Wimpy Idiots Day” to laugh at how stupid the 21st century people were and to mourn the dark ages that wimpiness threw the world into.

            As for pillaging a millionaire’s island and plundering its resources, go for it. I suggest you contact the Somalie pirates for training. They’re having a heyday since it’s “wrong” to stop evil people from pillaging.

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        handjive

        Even Cook was searching for the fabled ‘lost southern land’.

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      marius

      as the good Captain Mannering used to say to Jones the thatcher ” now you are living in the realm of phantasy”

      Having said that, I have no doubt that Australia had been visited by many ancient seafaring people in the past.
      We just don’t have any proof of it that’s all.

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        Joe Lalonde

        Unless they built something out of rock or did some writings in caves, the weather would have disintegrated the materials they had back then over the years.

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        • #

          There is a series of caves along the base of cliffs adjacent to a beach on Bigge Island in the West Kimberley’s Buccaneer Archipelago, which depicts sailing ships of the past, men smoking clay pipes and wearing strange headpieces with crosses on, rowing in what look like small whalers. Definitely not English in origin. Right alongside the usual hand outlines and other painted items. Some caves and rock openings also contain burials along the same cliffs.

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        Frankly Skeptical

        “don’t panic, dont panic”
        From wiki:
        “The first undisputed sighting of Australia by a European was made in early 1606. The Dutch vessel Duyfken, captained by Willem Janszoon, followed the coast of New Guinea, missed Torres Strait, and explored part of the western side of Cape York, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, believing the land was still part of New Guinea.[6][7][8][9] On 26 February 1606, the Dutch made landfall near the modern town of Weipa and the Pennefather River, but were promptly attacked by the Indigenous people.[10] Janszoon proceeded down the coast for some 350 km. He stopped in some places, but was met by hostile natives and some of his men were killed. At the final place, he initially had friendly relations with the natives, but after he forced them to hunt for him and appropriated some of their women, violence broke out and there were many deaths on both sides. These events were recorded in Aboriginal oral history that has come down to the present day. Here Janszoon decided to turn back, the place later being called Cape Keerweer, Dutch for “turnabout”.”

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        Roy Hogue

        Possession is supposedly 9/10 of the law. So Australia belongs to the British Commonwealth regardless of who went there first. I’ll leave the other 10th to be debated here. But 9/10 settles it for me. Ownership is what counts. Discovery gets mention only in the history books.

        Love ya, Australia!

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      Chris in Hervey Bay

      BTW… you might like to Google “Stradbroke Island galleon”.

      An excellent read.

      And you Guys can send up some Global Warming. Minus 5 C at midday in Newtown, just out of Philadelphia. Expecting minus 12 later today. (Saturday)

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    No comment from me this weekend. I am hiding from the flag wavers and wearers. One good (get it?) thing about the weekend is that the AOTY award might hobble a premiership contender.

    hurrah

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    Vic G Gallus

    I’ll finish off last weeks suggestion for quantifying extreme summer temperatures to see whether there is any evidence that global warming has led to higher extreme hot days and more often, in the south-east of Australia. What is meant by more extremely hot days is subjective so, in order to reduce the subjective assessment of such a postulate, I propose a factor F to compare over the years, which is related to the maximum temperatures recorded for a particular day and weather station.

    Rather than comparing the number of degrees above a certain temperature, the value is squared. So for Adelaide, if the number of degrees the maximum temperature is above 32°C is squared, then a day that is 46°C will be quantified as 4 times worse than a day of 39°C, rather than just twice as bad. The 2 degree difference between 33°C and 35°C will be a difference in F of 8, and it will be 44 for the 2 degree difference between 42°C and 44°C, and 52 for the difference between 44°C and 46°C.

    For the total F, 22 days of 35°C will be equal to 3 days of 40°C, 2 days of 42°C or 1 day of 46°C.

    Here is a plot of F for two Adelaide stations (SE Australia, BOM 2300 and 23090). There is an overlap of data for early 1978 till Early 1979 that shows that the Kent Town station normally records higher values on extremely hot days.

    Notice the 2 days of 46°C and 2 days of 44°C in 1939. These were during a five day period with the middle day only reaching 35°C. I’ll point out that there hasn’t been a repeat of this. Also,the weighting shifts these temperatures and the 42°C day well away from the 32°C-38°C days so that they standout without too large a difference between them.

    A plot of the total value of F over the summer periods (the year corresponds to the Oct-Dec of the summer period). The second final data point for West Terrace overlaps with the Kent Town data and shows that the newer station records higher. The last data point does not include data for March, but substituting data from Kent Town shows that the result would still be 10% less than for Kent Town. the plot shows there were milder summers in the mid 20th century but 100 years ago was just as intense as now.

    The last plot of total F is for Melbourne (BOM 086071). It shows no significant change over the century and a half (a linear fit gives a 10% increase over the 150 years which I’m confident would be well under the uncertainty). The red data is for the square of the difference between the maximum temperature and 34°C. Again, there is no indication that the summers are getting more extreme.

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    marius

    I believe Jones was a butcher not a thatcher but my spellchecker insisted!

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      Franny by Coal light

      Jones was many things but I think he may have been safer as a butcher than as a thatcher.

      20

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      Kevin Lohse

      That’s a dud spell-checker. Captain Mainwaring would have been most put out, in a village bank-managing sort of way.

      50

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    pat

    the NIWA case as seen through the tobacco/Heartland meme. insane.

    hundreds of comments, many removed by moderators, Karoly weighing in. btw, who funds The Conversation?

    23 Jan: The Conversation: Jim Salinger: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science
    (Jim Salinger, Honorary Research Associate in Climate Science, School of Environment at University of Auckland)
    One of the best known international proponents of such strategies is US think tank, the Heartland Institute.
    Just to be clear: there is no evidence that the Heartland Institute helped fund the NZ court challenge. In 2012, one of the Trustees who brought the action against NIWA said Heartland had not donated anything to the case.
    However, Heartland is known to have been active in NZ in the past, providing funding to the NZ Climate Science Coalition and a related International Coalition, as well as financially backing prominent climate “sceptic” campaigns in Australia…
    The Heartland Institute also has a long record of working with tobacco companies, as the letter on the right illustrates…
    Earlier this month, the news broke that major tobacco companies will finally admit they “deliberately deceived the American public”, in “corrective statements” that would run on prime-time TV, in newspapers and even on cigarette packs.
    It’s taken a 15-year court battle with the US government to reach this point, and it shows that evidence can trump doubt-mongering in the long run.
    A similar day may come for those who actively work to cast doubt on climate science…
    COMMENT #1: By Michael J. I. Brown: ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University: An amazing story of how a small (but internationally connected) group have wasted scientists’ time and the NZ government’s resources, and then tried to dump a large bill on NZ taxpayers.
    http://theconversation.com/an-insiders-story-of-the-global-attack-on-climate-science-21972

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      Graeme No.3

      Revised version;

      An amazing story of how a small (but internationally connected) group have wasted government resources, and then dumped a large bill on taxpayers.

      That’s closer to reality.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      The man has flipped.

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      Manfred

      It’s not all entirely bad news, in spite of the frantic and incessant peddling from the activists at the Ministry of We Know Best for Your Own Good. Once again, no discernible link between passive smoking and lung cancer.

      JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst (2013) doi: 10.1093/jnci/djt365 First published online: December 6, 2013
      No Clear Link Between Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer

      A large prospective cohort study of more than 76,000 women confirmed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer but found no link between the disease and secondhand smoke.

      Investigators from Stanford and other research centers looked at data from the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI-OS). Among 93,676 women aged 50–79 years at enrollment, the study had complete smoking and covariate data (including passive smoking exposure in childhood, adult home, and work) for 76,304 participants. Of those, 901 developed lung cancer over 10.5 mean years of follow-up.

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        J Martin

        Regardless of whether second hand smoking causes cancer or not, it does negatively affect people who have bronchitis and asthma. In the UK asthma is quite a significant killer, killing over 1000 people each year including children. Second hand smoke makes for unpleasant working conditions and leaves a foul smell on your clothes which becomes more obvious when you get home and away from the smokers. Smoking is a pointless and destructive drug addiction it can also be a significant drain on poor peoples finances.

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          kindletot

          and think of all the people who are offended by the thought that someone has the right to do something that may be possible to forbid. This is what government was MADE for.
          And all that money that could be used to support useful
          Yep. I’m sold. You sold me to your pals.

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      Tim

      Pat: I’m not sure if you missed this one. (Can’t find it from my quick scans.)

      Breaking: New Climate Data Rigging Scandal Rocks US Government
      http://www.principia-scientific.org/breaking-new-climate-data-rigging-scandal-rocks-us-government.html

      [It is a discovery made by Steven Goddard: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/just-hit-the-noaa-motherlode/ ] ED

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    pat

    obviously, some public money is funding The Conversation, so why
    doesn’t the website cover matters of interest to all Australians?

    The Conversation: Funders & Partners
    Without the support of Founding Partners The Conversation would not have started. So it’s hats off to CSIRO, Monash University, University of Melbourne, University of Technology, Sydney, and University of Western Australia who saw the value of helping us develop a new independent information channel that would also showcase the talent and knowledge of the university and research sector…
    Strategic Partners:
    RMIT, Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, Commonwealth Bank, Victorian Department of Business and Innovation…etc
    http://theconversation.com/au/partners

    The Conversation: Our Team
    http://theconversation.com/au/our_team

    Homepage: The Conversation
    http://theconversation.com/au

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      Kevin Lohse

      An incorporation of the bright but clueless. I like it, it means there’s only one place to search for the next fantastic wheeze about life, the universe and everything.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Interesting. All of the strategic partners could, conceivably, have motive for supporting a vehicle that is less than skeptical.

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      Vic G Gallus

      They had a story on why a 17th Century Portuguese drawing of a kangaroo (eating leaves)was an aardvark. After I had commented about the bleeding obvious that Papua New Guinea has tree kangaroos (and wallabies) in the areas visited by the early Portuguese explorers, I noticed that many of the newspaper reports of a few days earlier pointed it out as well.

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    janama

    Dr David Whitehouse outlays the UK’s dilemma.

    With none of the fanfare that accompanies their prediction of the global temperature for the forthcoming year the Met Office has quietly released the global temperature for 2013. It will come as no surprise after the 2013 temperatures released by NASA and NOAA that it shows the global temperature standstill – now at 17 years – continues.

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      Joe Lalonde

      And another year that the “mainstream media” spreads their propaganda.
      You have to remember that the MAJOR advertisers of wasted space advertising is governments…their bread and butter.

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    john

    New solar development (following the money).

    What happened to the $120 million in closed loans (5/1613 announced by Rockland Capital and Broadway) from Deutsche Bank and Key Bank for Cape Solar Projects?

    http://www.powerintelligence.com/Article/3206899/Rockland-Capital-Wraps-Cape-Cod-Solar-Deal.html

    Something’s up-

    From Commonwealth Magazine — Friday, January 17, 2014

    http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org/News-and-Features/Online-exclusives/2014/Winter/004-Broadway-Electrical-pulls-plug-on-solar-work.aspx#.UuF1dPYo5cw

    News and Features: Online exclusives
    Broadway Electrical pulls plug on solar work No word on whether stoppage is temporary
    BY: BRUCE MOHL January 17, 2014
    ONE OF THE state’s largest solar contractors is reportedly shutting its doors, but it was unclear on Friday whether the shutdown was temporary or permanent or why it was happening.
    Broadway Electrical Co. of Boston, which does electrical construction work and in recent years has moved aggressively into solar power development, stopped doing work at some of its projects yesterday, leaving customers in the lurch.
    Liz Argo, the special projects coordinator for the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative, which has hired Broadway to do several solar installations on the Cape, said Broadway workers didn’t show up at work sites on Friday. She said she had little information from the company on what was happening although Broadway officials promised to meet with her next week.
    “We have heard that they are winding down. We’re in a heightened state of concern,” she said.
    Jonathan Wienslaw, president of Broadway Electrical, couldn’t be reached for comment. Another official at Broadway declined comment, saying all information must come from Wienslaw.
    Last May, Gov. Deval Patrick called for a dramatic boost in the state’s solar power production during a press conference at a rooftop solar facility in South Boston installed by Broadway. Patrick and other state officials were joined at the announcement by Wienslaw.

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      Joe Lalonde

      The stock market in the US and Canada took a sizable plunge Thursday and Friday, so investors are very nervous.

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    Joe V.

    Happy Australia Day.
    A day to rejoice ,
    for that from which you have been saved in the last year.
    A day to rejoice,
    that the World is now following in your footsteps.
    A day to rejoice,
    that the madness is subsiding, for now.
    A day to rejoice,
    Australia was the tipping point.
    A day to rejoice,
    We’ve finally tipped.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      You have finally flipped?

      Oh, sorry Joe, I misread your last line. 🙂

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        Joe V.

        Well at least you read it.

        It wasn’t meant to be poetry. I was just playing with that politician’s thing of repeating the same line over an’ over, in the hope someone might get it.
        But I see what you mean.

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    wayne, s. Job

    I am starting to have a bit of trouble in the mind about WUWT and the attack on Roger tallbloke. Science is about exploring new ideas and not killing them in their infancy.

    Willis has posted a cyclic page on the tides by some other person and saying he knows not what it means but the science is sound.

    That is all very nice but current gravity theory does not explain our ocean tides, not even close, nor does gravity explain our universe as to the horror of the standard model people 95% of the universe is missing. Thus as in climate science and quantum mechanics a fudge was needed so dark matter and dark energy was invented.

    One can only conclude that all their science at a basic level is wrong, and another force, subtle but all pervading is the missing link. The link that eludes all the sciences including the climatologists. Tallbloke and the other people involved are seeing patterns and harmonic linkages that include not just the earth but the entire universe.

    They are seeing the results and being denigrated, it would be more beneficial to scientific endeavour to ask why are these results happening. This subtle force is all pervading coming from the very heart of matter, repulsive obviously to balance gravity and thus there is no missing matter in the universe.

    Things like black holes which are a mathematical construct from standard gravity theory disappear and all the fudges in quantum mechanics become mute with a new subtle force, for almost one hundred years we have seen no advance in the standard models of the universe or physics, the 20th century has been a dark age, punctuated only by invention from practical people that gave us our modern world.

    Consensus science has held the world to ransom at great cost, free thinkers have been marginalised, jailed or nobbled by court processes. The time has come for real open science to shine, the internet thus far has been able to give a fair go to all, it must remain so or the twenty-first century will fall into a deep dark age of un-enlightenment that is impossible to escape from.

    Tallbloke et al and their research right or wrong must not be buried, the music of the spheres may be more important to future science than many think.

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      janama

      Yes, I’m troubled too.

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      Joe Lalonde

      I am in total agreement with you.

      People who are REALLY interested on the mysteries of our planet and Universe are totally screwed by hundred year old theories that do NOT have today’s technology or newer products to use in experimentation.

      The answer you seek on the question of the moon is that it exerts pressure on our atmosphere.
      Nitrogen is an extremely interesting gas in our atmosphere:

      Take an empty plastic bottle and seal the cap on it.
      The pressure is the same outside and inside in the same temperature space.
      Now put this in the sun and the bottle temperature is risen and the bottle expands, yet the pressure around has NOT changed. Now take that bottle and put it in the freezer and the bottle will contract on itself. Again the pressure has not changed but the gases inside have and change the pressure inside the bottle.
      We live in an environment where the natural temperature of nitrogen is -346°F and -320.44°F. This gas is trapped in an environment that is totally out of it’s normal temperature zone so it vibrates like crazy. This vibration also can trap water vapor into single spheres.

      This is just my own research…
      I also did the velocity mapping that Jo was kind enough to put on a web page:
      http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations.pdf
      http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations-2.pdf
      At 48 degree latitude, water changes direction.

      Hope this helps to bring a different perspective…

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    • #
      Truthseeker

      WUWT and Anthony Watts and Willis Eschenbach in particular fell for a three card trick and do not realise it. Their attack on Tallbloke et al is entirely spurious and without foundation. Not only that, but they have become increasingly dogmatic when it comes to greenhouse gas theory, the work of Nicholas and Zeller that tied all planetary bodies in our solar system to a unified theory of climate and the more recent work that was published in the ill-fated Copernicus magazine.

      It has been going on for a while, but this latest episode has brought a lot more light onto this.

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      PeterK

      “One can only conclude that all their science at a basic level is wrong, and another force, subtle but all pervading is the missing link.”

      It’s the GOD factor (lol).

      30

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        Joe Lalonde

        PeterK,

        Not GOD factor…manipulation and psychological programming of bad theories.
        Take temperature data…absolutely useless as the scientists did NOT study ALL the causes and effects to generate this…how about the “adjusted” atmospheric pressure to sea level? again useless to the factors that contribute to pressure and the differences in altitude.

        30

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          PeterK

          Joe: I don’t disagree with you.

          Most everything in science appears to be hypothetical, theoretical, etcetera.

          We do have some theories that sound logical such as gravity that fits within the observable parameters but I do believe the total scientific knowledge that we as humans possess is but a drop of water in the proverbial ocean.

          There are so many factors that come into play for any observable phenomenon such as weather (climate change) that in the end I believe that we humans for whatever reason in our biological makeup are totally delusional if we think that we know how something works (let alone how to fix it).

          The only thing we appear to be good at is theorizing and making up ideas to fit what we can’t explain. Perhaps in a few more thousand years we will actually understand a bit more about how our universe actually works.

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            Joe Lalonde

            PeterK,

            I don’t know it all either.
            The bits an pieces I have been able to fit into the overall picture works extremely well when changing parameters and timelines.

            I also study history and what technology was available in that period of time.
            The whole process would drive a person crazy if he had to figure it out himself but I find going into other subjects of research and back again usually settles in quite nicely in the growth of the overall picture.

            If you look at meteorology, they record and try to generate a pattern rather than learning how the process works.
            From my research, NOTHING ever EXACTLY repeats which throws off patterns that others are trying to repeat…and they just don’t get it!

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        My theory is that the Universe is entirely random, and constantly changing in unpredictable ways.

        But because it is so huge, and because changes happen over incredibly long timeframes, we lack the ability to notice, and so are stuck in a state of trying to make sense of the current noise.

        I shall now await the responses from my betters, that will eruditely prove that I am wrong.

        31

        • #

          What if you’re not wrong?

          30

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            Yonniestone

            If Rereke is right it doesn’t matter if he’s right or wrong as in Degenerate distribution, right and wrong is a random constant. 😉

            00

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            If I am wrong, it proves two things: 1. There is a God; and 2. God has a really sick sense of humour.

            00

            • #

              Why would changes happening over a long period of time and us trying to make sense of it prove there is a God and that he has a sick sense of humor. If we knew everything, we’d be equal to God. If the universe is not random, then evolution works. (Or at least everyone keeps telling me that evolution is not random.)

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          Joe Lalonde

          Some is random(like black swan events) but the majority is not.
          It is the lack of our understanding our own planet and the factors surrounding our planet.

          We are given what our scientists say as absolute gospel…after all, they are our appointed and educated experts who REALLY get into a huff when questioning their suppositions or theories.
          We are NOT allowed to discuss new ideas or put them under the scrutiny of the public. This is where “catch 22” is when the science community is settled and their is sooooooooooooo many questions unanswered. Anyone who presents anything new will be ignored as the science community(experts) NEVER considered it.

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          Tim

          If Einstein and Hawking can’t give a definitive “theory of everything” that I can understand without my brain hurting; I’ll just have to hope someone eventually will.

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        • #

          One of the basic assumptions is that physical laws are the same everywhere. This has actually only been shown to be true over some very small part of the universe.

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          • #

            Interesting. I always wondered if physical “laws” applied everywhere and that they lasted through 4.5 billion years as everything else changed around them.

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            Vic G Gallus

            After an infinite number of years, the universe should be at maximum entropy. Random, though, is not alternating and entropy is not randomness. Entropy is the state that is most likely, and areas of the infinite universe being very ordered and becoming less ordered must exist no matter how old the universe is. Why are we in such a place? Because we wouldn’t be discussing it if we weren’t. Is this science? No. The ideas expressed come from science but we are asking questions that can’t be explained through experimentation.

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      Vic G Gallus

      I assume that you were having a dig at General Relativity rather than Quantum Physics.

      Can I add that scientists don’t sit on a chair above the universe and observe. All they have to go on is the transfer of their thoughts on paper and the mathematics to change that in to a description of what to expect from experiments. I also have a problem where the existing understanding needs to be tweaked rather than completely overhauled if 95% of the mass of the universe appears to be missing. The former is far more likely where a scientist has invested countless hours of study (and lack of parties and sex) to get their head around the concepts, meaning that they are less likely to start again from scratch.

      I don’t have a good understanding of relativity, so I will not express an opinion on how good it is, I’ll just point out the concern. The null experiment behind it wasn’t actually null, just insignificant (and literally, just).

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        Joe Lalonde

        I’m more of a facts man and anything that is hypothesis is disregarded.
        It’s hurts the head trying to decipher that huge mathematical equation that they themselves have no clue what it means in the long run.
        Looking at a good old globe on an axis can give a surprising amount of information.

        E=MC2 is a joke when that energy is in multiple strengths such as an orb in rotation.
        http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations.pdf
        http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations-2.pdf

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        wayne, s. Job

        Hi Vic, I was referring to all modern physics, general and special relativity is full of holes and basic mathematical mistakes that make idiots of researches that come to conclusions that are crazy. First fix the maths. Quantum mechanics has not advanced in almost a hundred years, try questioning why they need to borrow hyperthetical imaginary particles from an æther that to them does not exist, just to make some of their stuff work. Get back to me with their answer.

        We do not need quantum mechanics, we need a quantum leap in common sense and thinking, what they seek is under their noses but they refuse to look as the peer pressure would destroy their career. Thus is science, thus it is not science.

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    janama

    What I find interesting is that Willis has been posting his scientific pondering on WUWT for quite some time, it’s not peer reviewed, there are few if any references, it’s just pondering yet when a group of scientists get together and compile a set of papers which they peer review, reference and publish in a science journal he goes off at them for being unscientific!

    40

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      Joe Lalonde

      janama,

      Through this scientific “peer-review” process, do you understand the planet more?
      Remember the majority of it is THESIS based and NOT through actual fact finding.

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    • #
      Winston

      Janama,

      Even if everything Roger Tattersall et al. have published is eventually shown to be utter rubbish, I would prefer such theories to reach the light of day in a publication, because it stimulates discussion, prompts scientists to scrutinise their “findings” and disprove or cast doubt on their conclusions, and in so doing likely acts as a prompt to formulate alternate more legitimate hypotheses which inevitably promote progress that propels us more freely toward new discoveries and a generally more open minded approach to broaden knowledge.

      I have to ask, therefore, is peer review merely a way of established scientists protecting their turf, and holding onto failed theories that render their life’s work irrelevant or worthless?

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      • #
        Boadicea

        The answer is undoubtedly YES

        For one good essay on the subject, look up “Refereed Journals: Do they insure Quality of orthodoxy? ” by Frank J. Tipler, Professor of Mathematical Physics.2003 ISCID Archive. Tulane University.

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    Robber

    Light the BBQ and have a happy Australia Day Jo, and thanks for your inspirational leadership.

    50

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    pat

    back to “The Conversation”. by chance, i clicked on this SBS (taxpayer-funded in part)article, only to realise it was sourced from them. note all the other stuff SBS is publishing on this page:

    25 Jan: SBS: Source: The Conversation: Thomas Whitham, Northern Arizona University: Comment: Genetics may be key to climate change solutions
    This article first appeared on LiveScience.
    One of these advances is the Southwest Experimental Garden Array, or SEGA, a US$5m facility which was made possible with support from the National Science Foundation, Northern Arizona University and diverse public and private land owners…
    (Thomas Whitham receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Bureau of Reclamation.)
    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/01/25/comment-genetics-may-be-key-climate-change-solutions

    top story linked in righthand column:

    31 Dec: SBS: Comment: A 2014 calendar for climate change policy-making
    Source: The Conversation
    By David Hodgkinson, University of Western Australia
    To mark the beginning of a new year, I have put together a list of some of the major issues and events expected to influence climate change policy-making in 2014. From 1 to 8, these are my top predictions
    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/12/31/comment-2014-calendar-climate-change-policy-making

    From The Conversation version: Disclosure Statement: David Hodgkinson does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

    EcoCarbon: Executive Director David Hodgkinson
    David is a member of The Hodgkinson Group, Aviation and Climate Change Advisors and Special Counsel with Clayton Utz, a national Australian law firm. David is also an Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia Law School. He was formerly Director of Legal Services at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the organisation of the world’s international scheduled airlines, based in Montreal and Geneva…
    David holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours, a Bachelor of Laws degree and a Master of Philosophy degree (with a thesis on treaty interpretation). He is the recipient of an Evans Grawemeyer Fellowship awarded by the Australian Government for research and activities aimed at improving the global order…
    http://www.ecocarbon.org.au/people.html

    About EcoCarbon
    EcoCarbon is an industry partnership which is building capacity in emissions trading and other market-based mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…
    EcoCarbon is a not-for-profit association incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act 1987 (WA).
    http://www.ecocarbon.org.au/about.html

    who are you serving, SBS?

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      Vic G Gallus

      Cute, but why do you see transported convicts or refugees from Europe (my folks) as trespassers but not people who pay a lot of money to fly to Indonesia and then get on a leaky boat?

      PS My father lined up in a refugee camp for the paper work and applied to come here.

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      Winston

      As 1/1048576 “Pict”, I object strenuously to the invasion of the “Gaels”. As 1/262144 “Gael”, I strenuously object to the invasion of “Angles” and “Saxons”. As 1/1024 “Anglo-Saxon”, I strenuously object to the invasion of “Normans” and “Danes”. As 1/1048576 “Gaulish”, I strenuously object to the invasion of the “Franks”. As 1/2622144 “Frank” I strenuously object to the invasion of the “Romans”……………..

      Revisionist history is really annoying. The Age of conquest was driven by evolutionary divergence, with Europe a melting pot of different races and groups cross pollinating in battle and trade who developed more rapidly due to their proximity, but also conversely their separateness to develop independent of one another. The depths of the Maunder minimum, with crop failures, disease and death drove technologically superior groups to utilise their better skills to broaden their horizons, literally. Morality did not enter into it in a modern sense, and it is wrong of us in our modern lifestyle to pass modernist judgements on people of a different era, and a different mindset and set of principles. Aboriginal life in the 1700’s was most definitely not a pristine nirvana, especially for women. There is no way that realistically Aboriginal culture could have survived a world advancing beyond them at such rapid speed, and it is possible that had Europeans not invaded that they may even have gone into inexorable decline or extinction. Inevitably they would be “discovered” by someone, and inevitably the results would be “tragic”, arguably considerably more tragic had they have been discovered by the Japanese, the Dutch or the French. It is unfortunately an inevitable consequence of competition, and the survival of the fittest. At our root, as much as we like to kid ourselves otherwise, we are merely animals trying to survive, and are not immune to animal needs and drives as a result.

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        Winston

        Just as an aside,

        If Europeans had not settled in Australia 240+ years ago, not one person currently living in Australia, indigenous or not, would even have been born, given that your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are incredibly unlikely to have met, procreated and conceived you at exactly the same time and place (and with the same people) if that had not happened. That includes the gentleman in the picture. That’s one thing about history, you can’t change it…..unless of course you are a Marxist, in which case all bets are off.

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      Andrew McRae

      Just saw this ripper of a Tweet from a rally in Brisbane:

      Seriously? This is Aboriginal Day of Mourning. Why do the refugee/socialists get a turn at the microphone? #invasionday #brisbane

      Seriously? Haven’t the aboriginal rights mob figured it out yet? You aren’t important until the collectivists have figured out how to co-opt your movement! They’re not doing it for your benefit.

      It reminds me of the old Monty Python movie Meaning of Life…
       “What do I do?”
       “I beg your pardon!??”
       “I’m aboriginal and want to use the 26th of January to remind Australians of the modern aboriginal predicament resulting from a clash of vastly different cultures 226 years ago, what do I do?”
       “Nothing! You’re. NOT. QUALIFIED.”

      Ahh it’s all a bit of a laugh.

      Yes it was an invasion. A fleet of boat people and 15% of them crooks, sounds familiar. No shying away from the facts. But will it take “us” 227 years to get over it, or 247 ? Looks like the latter at this rate.

      I don’t see the need for special pleading. If nobody discriminates against or oppresses anybody else for any unfounded prejudicial reasons, then a whole raft of special-interest groups stop being special.
      The SBS channel National Indigenous Television (NITV) is occasionally interesting for seeing Aboriginal projects and issues. It’s also telling that so many recent immigrants figure out how to successfully integrate into mainstream European Australian culture. The aboriginals who choose to integrate have many precedents to guide them.

      As usual the pollies are telling us lots of nice things that we want to hear about ourselves as Australians. Funny, if you look at today’s Australia Day awards, you’d guess we were a bunch of depressed epileptic racist Country singers who can’t cook. That doesn’t sound flattering. The media/government complex says we’re supposed to support Australian fundamental principles and values whatever that is. Can’t say I’m much of a fundamentalist. I’m always wary that patriotism can morph into nationalism and be misused by governments and radicals.

      I guess I’m supposed to… “do something” today.
      Nobody is burning me at the stake for being an Unbeliever, I can vote without having royalty for parents, I can almost travel freely within the country without showing ID at checkpoints, and there’s no armed civil wars. Surely it’s what doesn’t happen here that shows Australian values as much as what does.

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      • #

        Only 15 % crooks? I think there was little difference between the convicts and the guards. The Royal marines chosen were probably the screwups from various units.

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    Kevin White

    In the interests of balance, here is a video message about global warming from a penguin …

    http://youtu.be/cfTyDx0el0M

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      Ian Hill

      If I were to ask Henry Higgins where that annoying accent (agree with you James – below) comes from, I’d say Cornwall or Devon, but I may be way out. When I went to England a long time ago they thought I was a kiwi!

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    scaper...

    Well, finally, next week my daughter restarts her education via online education.

    Hasn’t had any schooling since July but won’t have to repeat year 9 due to her NAPLAN results last year and the fact that the online school will be giving her revision where needed.

    There was going to be a considerable fee but a phone call to the Minister for Education’s office secured a waiver of such.

    Her favourite/strongest subject is maths and she has shown considerable interest in the sciences. Shame, by the time she reaches university stage the science disciplines will equate with prostitution/politics and used car salesmen!

    Another reason to isolate the frauds and put them through the legal system to limit the damage to the sciences.

    Oh well…AUSTRALIA DAY! Proudly flying my full size Australian made, hand stitched flag on my concreting extension pole.

    The same set up I used at the Convoy of no Confidence.

    The guy in the leather hat next to me is the champion of champions in the fight. I’m sure there is no need to name him.

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      wayne, s. Job

      I went on that little shindig to Canberra, I was with about thirty trucks and the police pulled us over and made us wait, it was obvious that they had instructions to give trucks a hard time but they did nothing except be polite.

      A local truck came along they pulled him over and sent our convoy on its way. After the rally we all went to a showgrounds type complex to camp for the night. We had a police guard, nearing time for dinner barbies hot I walked over to them and said, “have you come for the riot” then I asked them if they would like to join us for a BBQ.

      They came over pushed out the cooks and preceded to cook and serve the odd hundred people or two. They did not answer questions directly but one could easily tell they did not like the government. Fun trip.

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        scaper...

        Yeah, that was a great night at EPIC. Plenty of food and a band to boot. Has a chat late that night with one of the cooks/police and there is no doubt they despised the Labor government. They were on our side. Travelled down in Convoy 4.

        Stayed in Canberra for an extra day as had arranged a meeting with a MP in the House. Also caught up with family and Sydney friends whilst down there.

        Finally got back to Brisbane two weeks after the rally. Had a ball of a time and would do it all again at the drop of a hat.

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    James (Aus.)

    Kevin, that penguin wiv an unpleasant and annoying accent reminded me of someone who practises the very opposite of what the bird espouses. You would fink an Adelie penguin knows nothing of pre-determined conclusions and even less of cherries and their harvesting, but that little bastard’s right up there.

    Not long and that bird will be in hot water.

    30

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    pat

    Christiana & Coca-Cola:

    24 Jan: Deutsche Welle: Manuela Kasper-Claridge: Cost of climate change high on Davos agenda
    From within the Davos Congress Center, you can see skiers racing down the slopes outside of the World Economic Forum. Looking at the snow outside, some participants might wonder why there’s so much talk about global warming.
    Not so Christiana Figueres. Standing in the snow, the UN climate chief said she is pleased the topic is so high on the agenda at Davos.
    “The risk of increased natural events is there, the risk of a water crisis and the risk for a food crisis,” she told DW, adding that there was economic fallout associated with failing to deal with climate change and its effects.
    “If we don’t address it, it’s a major risk to the global economy, but if we do, it’s a real promoter of global economy because it can bring new jobs,” she said. “It can bring new sectors, energy security and it will help health and so many other factors.”…
    Climate change and Coca Cola
    Many companies have become aware of such issues, among them Coca Cola.
    “Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years – we see those events as threats,” Coca Cola’s Jeff Seabright told “The New York Times.” The beverage-maker needs a lot of water in the production cycle, but water is getting scarcer as climate change progresses…
    Renat Heuberger of the Swiss company South Pole Carbon traveled to Davos to take part in climate debates. His company gives advice to firms on dealing with the impact of climate change.
    “Everybody in the world suffers from the consequences of climate change,” he said. “Here in Switzerland, we loose our glaciers, in Bangladesh they have droughts. Everywhere we feel the consequences as we’re all affected and need a global solution ultimately.”…
    The ‘climate year’?
    Some folks have already termed 2014 the “climate year,” and events at the WEF related to climate issues attract considerable attention. Former US Vice President Al Gore came here specifically to head a debate called “Changing the Climate for Growth and Development,” which was also attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
    The United Nations has said it would debate climate change at the General Assembly in September and send out a clear signal on the need to keep it at bay….
    The UN climate chief (Figueres) estimated that about ***$1.3 billion (950,000 million euros) will have to be spent annually to combat climate change effectively.
    http://www.dw.de/cost-of-climate-change-high-on-davos-agenda/a-17385764

    ***$1.3 billion ANNUALLY? Figueres was probably referring to the UN Budget for CAGW Summits!

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    pat

    this lengthy investigative report by Richard Moore at Lakeland Times, Wisconsin, is worth reading:

    24 Jan: Lakeland Times, Wisconsin: Richard Moore: As consensus falls apart, state toes the global-warming line
    DNR (Dept of Natural Resources) refuses to answer questions about using outdated climate-change models to make policy
    Among the questions: Why is the agency actively pursuing policy goals in 2013 based on outdated and inaccurate 2007 climate-change assessments? Why is the DNR continuing to promote in classrooms, on its website and in public presentations the U.N. 2007 climate-change assessment, without equally offering alternative points of view? Why did the agency tell this newspaper in 2011 it had stopped issuing a teachers’ guide based on the 2007 U.N. assessments, when it continues to do so? Is there any concern about the use of taxpayer facilities and dollars for an unproven and increasingly disputed political agenda, which the DNR continues to do?
    Instead of answering those specific questions, the DNR defaulted to a generic answer for all of them, issued by agency spokesman Bill Cosh this past weekend:
    “It is not DNR’s role to confirm nor deny climate change or its potential causes,” Cosh said. “However, it is the agency’s responsibility to adjust management strategies and decisions in response to changing environmental conditions, no matter the source. Therefore, DNR has several adaptation strategies in place to help guide management practices when there is evidence of changing environmental conditions.”
    All of which begs the question – which was asked but not answered – is the DNR “adjusting management strategies and decisions” based on the most extreme and increasingly debunked global-warming predictions, and, if so, are they reconsidering and why or why not?…
    http://www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=9&SubSectionID=9&ArticleID=19868

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    pat

    total propaganda from Bloomberg (to coincide with Davos annointing 2014 “Climate Year” no doubt); no writer attribution, anonymous sources, & dodgy percentages:

    24 Jan: Bloomberg: by Bloomberg News: China Bank Regulator Said to Issue Alert on Coal Loans
    …said two people with knowledge of the matter…
    said the people, who asked not to be identified…
    the people said…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-24/china-bank-regulator-said-to-issue-alert-on-loans-to-coal-miners.html

    24 Jan: Bloomberg: by Bloomberg News: China to Cut Dependence on Coal for Energy as Smog Chokes Cities
    The nation is aiming to get less than 65 percent of its energy from coal this year, according to a government plan released today…
    China’s coal use accounted for 65.7 percent of its total energy consumption in 2013, the 21st Century Herald newspaper reported Jan. 13, citing an official it didn’t name…
    The country’s total energy consumption will rise 3.2 percent to 3.88 billion metric tons of coal equivalent, while output is expected to increase 4.3 percent to 3.54 billion tons, the government plan shows. Coal use will climb 1.6 percent to 3.8 billion tons, while production may gain 2.7 percent to 3.8 billion tons…
    Power consumption is expected to rise 7 percent to 5.72 trillion kilowatt hours.
    China’s oil demand is forecast to rise 1.8 percent to 510 million tons, while crude output will climb 0.5 percent to 208 million tons. Natural gas demand will increase 14.5 percent to 193 billion cubic meters and production will reach 131 billion, up 12 percent, the NEA said…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-24/china-to-cut-dependence-on-coal-for-energy-as-smog-chokes-cities.html

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    Dylan

    Peer-reviewed journals are dead. When was the last time you read a actual peer-review in a journal (not just reviewed by the editors)? 10 years? 15 years? Something like http://edge.org/ , a peer-review forum, seems to me more valuable. Publish-or-perish academics would need find another way.

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    RoHa

    Isn’t it about time “The Sceptics Case” was updated.

    Perhaps a longer list of failed predictions, too.

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    Aussiebear

    A parody song addressing the “Ship of Fools” (aka: Turney’s Turkey Tour)
    => Not Drifting Away – (N)ice work if you can find it! – parody

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    Carbon500

    Just when you thought things were looking up on the CO2 story and reality is at last dawning on the ‘warmists’, here’s a major UK university spending money on something called ‘sustainable chemistry’ and building a new laboratory which is apparently going to be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2025:

    http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/estates/developments/csc.aspx

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    Andrew McRae

    C500, You think “sustainable chemistry” is bad…
    Carbophobia has even invaded Computer Science.
    GreenMail: Reducing Email Service’s Carbon Emission with Minimum Cost
    It’s a Master’s thesis. The design is for a caching proxy for IMAP email servers.
    The ruse is that it is supposed to run in “carbon neutral” data centres, but the system design still needs the email origin server to be running. So instead of one giant email cluster at GMail or Hotmail, there will be two, with second one running GreenMail. Oh but that email caching is supposed to save the planet, y’know. Surely those handful of TCP connections that are saved will make all the difference… for those who like to read their old emails multiple times before deleting I guess?? Doesn’t sound like much of an energy or CO2 saving at all.
    Still, he’ll get his Master’s out of it and the greenwashing will go on.

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    Kevin Lohse

    “The world is entering the 17th year of the greatest climate science embarrassment in modern history — the pause in global warming. “Because intellectuals are densely networked in self-selecting groups whose members’ prestige is linked, we incubate endless, self-serving elite superstitions, with baleful effects.”

    http://www.thegwpf.org/procrastinating-global-warming-pause/ Doug Hoffman, The Resilient Earth.

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    pat

    Hannam calls on CAGW Cultist Chapman to call people with a different opinion “Cult”. sounds like Lewandowsky!

    26 Jan: SMH: Peter Hannam: Abbott government will go ahead with new wind farm study on health
    The federal government will press ahead with “an independent program” to study the health effects of wind farms even though a survey of global research on the issue by a leading Australian medical body is yet to be made public.
    The National Health and Medical Research Council began its review of so-called ”wind-turbine syndrome” in September 2012 and the results are expected to be released in ”coming months”. Prime Minister Tony Abbott told commercial radio this month that research should be refreshed “from time to time” to consider whether there were “new facts that impact on old judgments”. “It is some years since the NHMRC last looked at this issue – why not do it again?” Mr Abbott said. A “rapid review” of the evidence by the council in 2010 found “renewable energy generation is associated with few adverse health effects”.
    The Victorian government will contribute $100,000 to the extra wind farm health study by the council or other designated body.
    Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at Sydney University, said Mr Abbott appeared to be swayed by a tiny group of anti-wind farm campaigners, such as the Waubra Foundation.
    ***”We all need to be concerned about whether he’s being influenced by little more than a cult.”…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-will-go-ahead-with-new-wind-farm-study-on-health-20140126-31gut.html

    2 Nov 2012: The Conversation: Simon Chapman: There’s still no evidence that wind farms harm your health
    Back in July I wrote an article for the The Conversation arguing that wind turbine syndrome was a classic “communicated” disease: it spreads by being talked about, and is therefore a strong candidate for being defined as a psychogenic condition…
    Sarah Laurie says she has obtained information about the health effects of wind turbines from “sick residents”.
    My response: the “information” she is obtaining will be un-publishable in any serious research journal because she has no clearance from any institutional human ethics committee to obtain it…
    http://theconversation.com/theres-still-no-evidence-that-wind-farms-harm-your-health-10464

    May 2012: ABC The Drum: Wind turbines power mass hysteria
    Political acquiescence to the NIMBY and turbine-rent-envy driven culture of complaint about wind farms threatens to seriously hobble Australia’s ability to meet carbon reduction targets…
    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4028112.html

    Climate & Health Alliance
    Expert Advisory Committee (includes)
    Professor Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health, University of Sydney
    Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia
    The Climate and Health Alliance Statement of Purpose (which outlines the Alliance’s Aim and Objectives) can be found here.
    http://caha.org.au/about/governance/

    CAHA
    The Climate and Health Alliance is a national charity that is an alliance of organisations and people in the health sector working together to raise awareness about the health risks of climate change and the health benefits of emissions reductions…
    A new short film, ’The Human Cost of Power’, directed by award winning science journalist, Alexandra de Blas and produced by CAHA Convenor Fiona Armstrong, has just been released. The film explores the health impacts associated with the massive expansion of coal and unconventional gas in Australia.
    The Human Cost of Power is a joint project of the Climate and Health Alliance and the Public Health Association of Australia.
    Click here to see the film on YouTube…
    http://caha.org.au/

    CAHA – Members (includes)
    World Vision
    http://caha.org.au/about/members/

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    pat

    Chris Turney’s boss Sherwood involved:

    27 Jan: J-Wire: Jerry Barach: Australia working with Hebrew University on climate change
    The University of New South Wales has been involved in a joint project with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem dealing with greenhouse gases.
    The warming effect of human-induced greenhouse gases is a given, but to what extent can we predict its future influence?
    That is an issue on which science is making progress, but the answers are still far from exact, say researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the US and Australia who have studied the issue and whose work which has just appeared in the journal Science…
    (Prof Daniel) Rosenfeld wrote this article in cooperation with Dr. Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Dr. Robert Wood of the University of Washington, Seattle, and Dr. Leo Donner of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
    http://www.jwire.com.au/news/australia-working-with-hebrew-university-on-climate-change/40049

    Science Daily: Picture of how our climate is affected by greenhouse gases is a ‘cloudy’ one
    Date: January 26, 2014
    Source:Hebrew University of Jerusalem
    Journal Reference:
    1.D. Rosenfeld, S. Sherwood, R. Wood, L. Donner. Climate Effects of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions. Science, 2014; 343 (6169): 379 DOI: 10.1126/science.1247490
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140126134615.htm

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    handjive

    Talk about making a bet on Global warming, here is a couple of examples.

    Carbon Cate Blanchett bets $2M:
    “Cate Blanchett and her husband, Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Andrew Upton, have spent nearly $2 million on a waterfront apartment in Elizabeth Bay.
    Sources close to the sale said the purchase is an investment for their three sons …”

    But, the best for last. Australian Labor Govt – $45M:
    The new home of Hobart’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) has been officially opened.

    It has been more than four years since the previous federal government committed to build the $45 million centre on the waterfront.
    . . . .
    If any one should be aware of sea level rise from settled science …

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    george

    And now for something completely different,I purchased a T Shirt at “http://www.australian-native.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=4778” and plan to have my picture taken at the local Aldi store.<:o)

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      scaper...

      You are a stirrer, onya!

      I see Adam Goodes got the Australian of the year award.

      What has he ever done besides play football and got antsy because a young girl called him an ape??

      The award means nothing to me since that Flannery got one for being a CAGW alarmist!

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        Hasbeen

        Yep, this is probably second only to Flannery in the worst ever.

        Who choses these awards

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          scaper...

          Lifted from Bolt’s blog.

          The National Australia Day Council consists of ten members; one is a sportsman and four are connected to the racism industry:-

          Ms Shelley Reys AO

          Managing Director

          Arrilla – Indigenous Consultants & Services

          Professor Samina Yasmeen

          Director

          Centre for Muslim States and Societies

          Dr Tim Soutphommasane

          Race Discrimination Commissioner

          Jason Glanville

          Chief Executive Officer

          National Centre of Indigenous Excellence

          Another Australian institution hijacked. The remaining members are largely administrative or former recipients.

          To what extent do our institutions now reflect the values of the people who fund them?

          Reverse racism???

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        handjive

        Howsabout this Australia Day award.
        It appears they give awards for telling “porky pies”:

        Australia Day honours for solar pioneers
        Quote: “There really is no choice. The energy supplies that we have currently got, coal and gas, we have only got for another 100 years – that is the timespan of our grandchildren,” says Morrison.”

        100 years?
        Has Dr Graham Morrison, Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of New South Wales, seen the manifest/stock take of all earth’s resources, known and unknown?
        Perhaps the good doctor might share his “stocktaking book of the earth’s resources” with the rest of us.

        Perhaps the Australia Day award winning doctor might explain this from his finite list:
        Major oil discovery in outback SA
        So if you took the 233 billion (barrels), well, you’re talking Saudi Arabia numbers. It’s massive, it’s just huge.
        . . . .
        Fact check courtesy of the ABC.

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          ianl8888

          I’ve made this comment quite a few times on various websites – perhaps this one, too

          Whenever you hear agitprop about “running out of oil, gas, coal or whatever”, just ask the agitator for their predictions of future consumption rates

          Time limits on resource are dependent on 1) known existing reserves; 2) known existing resources that may become economic (and therefore, reserves); 3) predicted rates of future consumption

          You will never get answers to these questions, but it will shut said agitprops right up. They’ll just walk away

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      Yonniestone

      I’ve got a singlet for Australia day sporting a big Australian flag and the words “Try burning this one” underneath.
      So far I haven’t had any takers. 🙂

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    pat

    26 Jan: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: Exclusive: Climate scepticism blamed as Owen Paterson slashes spending on global warming
    The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will spend just £17.2m on domestic “climate change initiatives” this financial year, a 41 per cent decline on the previous 12 months, according to its response to a freedom of information request.
    The figures will fuel fears that the Environment Secretary’s personal climate-change scepticism could be exposing the UK to a higher risk of flooding and other global warming consequences…
    Bob Ward, policy director at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute, said: “These shocking figures should worry everyone in the UK…
    Maria Eagle, shadow Environment Secretary, said such a steep drop in domestic climate change initiatives “reveals an incredible level of complacency about the threat to the UK from climate change”…
    The spending now represents just 0.7 per cent of the department’s total budget for the year, down from 1.2 per cent last year…
    This month, Mr Paterson was asked in Parliament whether he agreed with David Cameron’s “suspicion” that climate change was partly to blame for the ferocity of the recent storms – and he failed to answer…
    Guy Shrubsole, a Friends of the Earth campaigner, said: “By cutting Defra’s work to protect the UK from climate change and extreme weather events, Owen Paterson has shown that he’s unfit for office. He continues to put more people and their livelihoods at risk.”…
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-climate-scepticism-blamed-as-owen-paterson-slashes-spendingon-global-warming-9086397.html

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    pat

    24 Jan: AP: John Heilprin: Cameron, Bono link poverty, climate at AP debate
    to eradicate poverty must be linked to climate change, saying that rising temperatures will have widespread effects on everything from food supplies to education.
    Panelists at two separate sessions at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — among them Bill Gates, Al Gore and U2 frontman Bono — underlined the importance of the issue. The United Nations is also making climate change a priority at Davos this year, pushing for a U.N.-brokered internationally binding climate treaty in Paris in 2015.
    At a debate sponsored by The Associated Press, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the next U.N.-led campaign to eradicate extreme poverty must make the climate a top priority…
    More than one billion people live in extreme poverty by the World Bank’s definition, living on less than $1.25 a day.
    “We do need to prioritize, but I would argue if we do want to help the one billion, we need to put in climate change,” Cameron said…
    “Extraordinary things happen in Davos — no more extraordinary than an Irish rock star complimenting a Conservative British Prime Minister for his leadership in the fight against extreme poverty. Anything can happen,” Bono said, before turning directly to Cameron. “Thanks dude. I’m a top-line melody guy, and I will try and help with the assignment. But I have a feeling it’s people not in this room that are going to execute it.”…
    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bono-cameron-talk-poverty-climate-ap-debate

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    • #

      This links right in with what I mentioned right at the top of this Post in the first couple of comments and again at Comment 1.3, where pat mentions this:

      More than one billion people live in extreme poverty by the World Bank’s definition…..

      Outside of the capital cities of nearly every African Country, the average connection to a source of electricity is around 4% of the population, and in most of those poorer African Nations, it’s as low as 1% to 2%.

      That’s not the level of electricity that we here in Oz have, but to ANY electricity at all.

      Take Malawi for instance. It has a population of 15.4 Million people, and they only generate 767GWH of power to run the whole Country for each year.

      That’s the same amount of power generated by Bayswater every 16 days.

      Shut down CO2 emitting electrical power generation because of some perceived CO2 induced Climate Change threat, and we go back to living like that, no question about it.

      For all you warmists out there, this would be the end result of what you call for, not an end to poverty, but a dramatic and hugely monstrous increase in the most abject poverty.

      Rock singers and movie stars have traction in our World, and people sagely say that at least some people like this have their finger on the pulse. Those people who live in these Developed Countries look at what we have ….. well, no, they don’t because they don’t even know any of that, because they have no way of ever finding out.

      Tony.

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    pat

    26 Jan: WebCommentary: Paul Driessen: Risking lives to promote climate change hype
    Yet another global warming expedition gets trapped in icebound ideology
    Will global warming alarmists ever set aside their hypotheses, hyperbole, models and ideologies long enough to acknowledge what is actually happening in the real world outside their windows? Will they at least do so before setting off on another misguided adventure? Before persuading like-minded or naïve people to join them? Before forcing others to risk life and limb to transport – and rescue – them? If history is any guide, the answer is: Not likely.
    The absurd misadventures of University of New South Wales climate professor Chris Turney is but the latest example…
    Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, senior fellow with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death.)
    http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=driessenp&date=140126

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    wayne, s. Job

    Hi Jo and others, an interesting post @ Steve Goddard’s Real Science Blog.

    Mike Sanicola a retired infra red astronomer has spoken out about the zero effect of CO2 on back radiation. He would know as he has to look through it, it would seem that water vapour and ozone are the only problems to a clear sky for looking out in the infra red. Woot

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    Stephen Hawking’s new paper cuts the tail off the tale of modern cosmology:

    Big Bang => H => He => C => O => . . . Fe => Neutron stars => Black Holes

    [Stephen Hawking, “There are no black holes,” Nature online (24 Jan 2014)]

    http://www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawking-there-are-no-black-holes-1.14583

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      wayne, s. Job

      Oliver, Black holes are a construct of mathematics derived from incorrect first principles.
      They have only lived in the minds of those propagating false images of our universe, but it is good for science fiction writers, they have fun.

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    Oliver K. Manuel

    Neutron repulsion prevents the collapse of neutron stars into “Black Holes” and causes

    1. Their violent fragmentation (fission), or
    2. Steady evaporation by neutron emission

    01