George Soros buys bargain coal shares with big coal reserves

George Soros has poured money into promoting “climate change” politics through his foundations, working to demonize coal, but the man himself is now buying coal stocks. Analysts are asking if he is buying in to shut them down, or to pick up a bargain and take the profits. (There must also be options where he gets control to turn them into mixed energy renewables/coal plays.) But in the end he’s 85, and worth $24 billion. He has an 11 billion dollar stock portfolio and he’s spent less than $3 million on coal. It’s hard to believe the profits would be worth the bad press. Though Steve Milloy points out those companies own rights to 11 billion tons of coal reserves.

Coal used to supply 50% of US electricity, now it’s 40%. Peabody Energy Shares used to trade at $90, but now trade at $1.

Fox News

Soros, whose Climate Policy Initiative think tank recently urged the world to stop using fossil fuels in general and coal in particular, snapped up 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and half a million shares of Arch Coal, giving him significant stakes in what’s left of the U.S. coal industry.

The trades would have cost Soros a lot more six years ago, when Peabody, which trades under the symbol BTU, was at about $90 a share. Under the Obama administration, which has punished the coal industry with costly mandates and regulation, Peabody shares have fallen to around $1.

These are tiny dollars for Soros:

The filing shows the purchases of 553,200 shares of Arch Coal for $188,000 and an investment of $2,254,000 into Peabody Energy for 1,029,400 shares, which means he’s lost money on both so far.

Steve Milloy points out there are billions of dollars of value in their coal reserves:

“What a difference a few months makes, especially when those months have seen coal company stocks fall to fire sale prices,” Steve Milloy a former coal industry executive who publishes JunkScience.com, writes on Breitbart.

It’s true that Soros’ coal buy only represented a small portion of his personal wealth and of each company’s available stocks. This could mean that Soros is looking to make some quick cash off a rebound in global coal prices as international demand for the fuel grows. But Milloy thinks that’s unlikely.

“It’s possible that Soros is only looking for a ‘dead cat bounce’ from his Peabody and Arch Coal investments, but the companies together have provable coal reserves of about 11 billion tons, worth hundreds of billions of dollars,” Milloy added. “I doubt the shrewd Soros is looking to make just a few million dollars on these investments.”

The profits (if there are any) won’t rate in his $11 billion portfolio.

The important thing about coal, Simmons said, is a little over 10 years ago, coal produced 50 percent of energy in the U.S. and that is now at 40 percent and continuing to trend downward.

Michael South, a UK-based mining and energy consultant, told FoxNews.com that while coal prices have suffered around the world in part because of a drop in demand from China and other countries, and fracking, which produced natural gas at a cheaper price, there is still a huge need for coal, and eventually prices will go up.

“George Soros spent millions of dollars and multiple years helping to driving down price of coal,” said H. Sterling Burnett, research fellow and managing editor, at the Heartland Institute. “If he buys enough stock to have controlling interests in these coal businesses, closes them down and leaves the coal in the ground, we might accept that he is a true believer, that his investment was all about stopping climate change and saving the environment.”

“But my suspicion is that he helped to drive stocks down, bought as many shares as he can, and, when stocks rebound, he can sell his shares and make a huge profit.”  – Fox News

9 out of 10 based on 65 ratings

224 comments to George Soros buys bargain coal shares with big coal reserves

  • #

    Preach high, buy low, preach low, sell high.

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    About 25% of the (black) coal burnt in German power plants comes from the USA.

    In 2014 17.8% of Germany’s electricity came from “hard coal”, 25.4% came from brown coal and 15.8% from nuclear power.

    Tellingly, renewable energy sources accounted for only 3.2% (128 of a total 4041 PJ) of Germany’s manufacturing and mining energy inputs in 2013, with little “improvement” since 2008. It shows how useless the unreliables are for energy-intense manufacturing and mining.

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    • #

      And of those German “renewables”, much is from burning biomass. It’s just that wind turbines and solar arrays always get their pictures in the Guardian or Bloomberg. They smile for the camera.

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        Andrew

        Biomass? Oh, you mean forests.

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        • #

          Not just that. There’s also the stuff that theyt used to leave in the fields and forests as “litter” to decompose (and provide habitat) that’s going into e.g. massive digesters to be turned into biogas. Not many of them have yet exploded, but they do pong and awful lot. So much that some rural folk complain.

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          • #
            gai

            Mean while the fields no longer get the organic matter needed to enrich the soil to grow crops.

            It used to be called Slash and Burn except the nutrients from the burning are not left in the field. A real lose lose from the point of view of future farm fertility.

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            • #
              James Murphy

              Someone should think of the children…!

              Someone should also think about where artificial fertilisers come from, and what is required to make them… but then, as long as the renewable energy percentage increases, I guess nothing else matters, and logic is just a liability.

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Apparently, according to one young person I met recently, “logic” is just a process you use to explain the truth to other people.

                It appears to have deteriorated into a formal way to express one’s ideas and beliefs. If you believe that your teachers are telling you the truth (and why wouldn’t they?), then the way they explain things, is by using a step-by-step “logical” process. What is so hard, in understanding that?

                There used to be a verbal “mathematical” trick which appeared to “prove” that one equals two. It really annoyed me, that I couldn’t remember how it worked, in my time of need.

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              • #

                my 5 year old tells me, correctly, that one and one is 11 and one plus one is 41

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                I didn’t know that your 5 year old was destined to be a climate modeller.

                You must be so proud!

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              • #
                Olaf Koenders

                One = two when zero is counted as a digit first.. 0, 1, 2.. There’s 3 digits. I know.. Just stupid 🙂

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              • #
                Gee Aye

                RW. That comment is unworthy of you

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “RW. That comment is unworthy of you”

                True.. your kid seems way brighter than the average climate modeller.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Must come from the mother’s side. ! 🙂

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              • #
                Gee Aye

                But typical of me, my comment can be interpreted in multiple ways. Just to be clearer, I don’t mean ithat my problem was ithat the comment was insulting or rude (whether or not this was the intention), I was actually disappointed by the lack of wit.

                If one ignores the use of punctuation and capitalisation, it is not far removed from something Angry would write.

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  • #
    Leonard Lane

    George Soros, like Obama, is out to fundamentally change this country into a dystopian, one party regime. Like all the old Marxist-Leninist and Stalin believes, he yearns for a the destruction of the Republic of the USA. I do not believe he will succeed unless Obama organizes a coup.
    Of course Soros would like to hurt the coal industry because of its efficiency and pick up some money in the process. With people like Soros there is never enough money or power.

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    • #
      Brute

      Your post is too extreme.

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      • #

        a polite way of saying wrong?

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      • #
        Leonard Lane

        Brute: Please read Obama’s speeches before and after his election. He said he would “fundamentally change this country” and later that “electricity prices will of necessity skyrocket”.

        These are some of the nicer things he said. He also said America needs a domestic police force as well funded and as well equipped as the military forces. After that Homeland Security, Forest Service, BLM, Fish ad Wildlife, national park police, etc spent billions on ammunition, some of it hollow point bullets, and thus illegal for war under international treaty. If hey cannot be used in war, why have them?
        George Soros has funded of the marijuana legalization projects in states, all the while knowing that is an illegal drug under federal law, which is conveniently ignored by Obama.
        My comments were not too extreme, they were appropriate for the characters discussed.

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        • #
          Bill

          The militarization of the police is both a betrayal of the fundamental principles of policing and justice; AND a serious mistake. When you make the police a military force, it begins to see the population it serves as the enemy…..when you use a racist agenda to justify it, you are dangerously approaching armed insurrection in response. (Especially when you mix in the 2nd ammendment mythos of the US.)

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          • #
            gai

            There is a lot of concern about the militarization of the police and that includes among the police officers.

            The last thing the cops want is for the entire population to start viewing them not as peace keepers but as ‘The Enemy’

            The result of Obama’s stirring the pot and setting the blacks against the police is not only dead blacks, riots and destroyed property but open season on cops. The result is “De-policing” just like in certain sections in the EU police do not go there.

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            • #
              Bill

              Very true. I would also add that the police needs to also have a specialist tactical capacity to deal with the extreme incidents (SWAT), but must not be militarized. Militaries are excellent for the projection of power outside of the borders and support to the civil authorities within (in emergencies) but when used on a regular basis for internal “security”, they become oppressors of the population. The very last thing you want to do is make the police the oppressors. (Which hasn’t happened in the US yet, despite the wining of certain “activists”.) But let’s go back to the main topic now.

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      • #
        cohenite

        That’s a brute of a comment.

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    • #
      RoHa

      Yes, George Soros is obviously another one of these evil socialists who promote Global Warming in order to destroy capitalism. Just like Margaret Thatcher, Al Gore, ENRON, the Carbon Credit traders, and the private manufacturers and operators of wind farms.

      “…out to change this country …”

      He’s out to change Australia?

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      • #
        Andrew

        Who do you think funds GetUp’s evil agenda?

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        • #
          James Murphy

          I just cannot for the life of me, comprehend how anyone can think GetUp is apolitical (and sadly, quite a few friends of mine think this). The more an organisation has to claim that they are a ‘grass roots’ movement, the less I believe them.

          As for funding, well, good luck finding out where the money really comes from, and just how much the people at the top skim off for their own personal gratification. Still, I keep forgetting that making a fortune is all OK as long as it is done in support of left-wing views and policies – just as Malcolm Turnbull is allowed to be rich…

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Grass roots work best; when fertilised at regular intervals, by bovine waste.

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            Radical Rodent

            There is an organisation in Britain called “Hope not Hate”. On the surface, they are a pretty apolitical, altruistic group, but delve a bit deeper, and they do start to get considerably darker, and usually in shades of red. Regrettably, too many judge by what they see on the surface, rather than look for the piranhas that might be lurking deeper.

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      • #
        Dariusz

        Not sure how Mag Thacher and crazy Al etc are in the same sentence?
        She was a champion of capitalism and free thinking.

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            gai

            Al Gore is very much a Fabian socialist as are the Clintons. (Bill Clinton even teaches at the London School of Economics.) ENRON was just a typical rent seeker.

            …Enron, joined by BP, invented the global warming industry. I know because I was in the room. This was during my storied three-week or so stint as Director of Federal Government Relations for Enron in the spring of 1997, back when Enron was everyone’s darling in Washington. It proved to be an eye-opening experience that didn’t last much beyond my expressing concern about this agenda of using the state to rob Peter, paying Paul, drawing Paul’s enthusiastic support.

            In fact, this case was not entirely uncommon in that the entire enterprise was Paul’s idea to begin with. Which left me as the guy on the street corner muttering about this evil company cooking up money-making charades, to nothing but rolled eyes until the, ah, unpleasantness and the opportunity it afforded to take a few gratuitous swings at George W. Bush. Buy me a beer and I will regale you with tales of reporters from Newsweek and the Washington Post desperately seeking assistance to spin, respectively, Enron as having urged Bush away from the Kyoto agenda as opposed to having crafted it, and Enron’s global warming activism as its one redeeming feature.

            The basic truth is that Enron, joined by other “rent-seeking” industries — making one’s fortune from policy favors from buddies in government, the cultivation of whom was a key business strategy — cobbled their business plan around “global warming.” Enron bought, on the cheap of course, the world’s largest windmill company (now GE Wind) and the world’s second-largest solar panel interest (now BP) to join Enron’s natural gas pipeline network, which was the second largest in the world. The former two can only make money under a system of massive mandates and subsidies (and taxes to pay for them); the latter would prosper spectacularly if the war on coal succeeded…. — Chris Horner

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            • #
              RoHa

              A socialist in American government? Pull the other one. And you yourself support the idea that ENRON was not a socialist front. Pure capitalist.

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              • #
                gai

                RoHa

                Read E.M. Smith’s “Evil Socialism” vs “Evil Capitalism”
                E.M was trained as an economist and explains WHY corporations are NOT pro-capitalism and ARE pro-socialism. This is probably the biggest stumbling block in actually understanding what is going on.

                Do you really think ‘socialism’ would even be known if it was not of great use to the elite? — See Congressman, Louis T. McFadden’s 1933 speeches especially what he says about who financed the Bolshevik take over of Russia.

                Also aside from small business which is being intentionally strangled** there IS no capitalism in the USA because of the fiat paper money that is printed on the spot and then lent to Big Business while Small Businesses are Self-Financed.

                The word ‘Capitalism’ has been morphed to mean something else like many other words. To me capitalism is taking real wealth manufactured from actual productivity and reinvesting it to create more wealth. Fiat money is theft of that real wealth through the debasing of the currency via dilution. Capitalism is based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights. The only legitimate function of the government, is the task of protecting individual rights, yet now we have the courts protecting the rights of the bureaucracy and large corporations and not the individual. The ‘Group’ is all important and not the individual who is therefore reduced to the status of serf as a result since all protection for the individual has been slowly removed.

                Probably the most clear demonstration of this is Monsanto’s trespass onto private property to gather samples of organic corn and then suing and winning in court because THEIR GENETICS have trespassed and adulterated the farmers corn.**** If the government protected the rights of the individual and property rights it would be Monsanto who lost.

                >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                REFERENCES
                ** CAUGHT UP IN RED TAPE: THE IMPACT OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS ON SMALL BUSINESSES AND CONTRACTORS: HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS UNITED STATES
                (wwwDOT)gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg76478/html/CHRG-112hhrg76478.htm

                Regulations are choking small business engine of growth
                (wwwDOT)washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/25/regulations-are-choking-small-business-engine-of-g/

                ****Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO seed patents, ability to sue
                (wwwDOT)vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/monsanto200805
                (wwwDOT)rt.com/usa/monsanto-patents-sue-farmers-547/

                Note: Over twenty-five years ago I started the search to figure out why my country was going from bad to worse. Originally I thought it was just age and the accumulation of more and more laws. Later I found the destruction was carefully planned and intentional. This is a very very short round-up of that 25 years worth of learning.

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          • #
            Dariusz

            She had the courage to refute this and admit that she made a mistake

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            • #
              gai

              She was out to break up the strangle hold the Miners union had on energy. Also the British ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Crispin Tickell (Julian Huxley’s cousin) was whispering in her ear.

              The Julian Huxley link leads back to something interesting.

              …”Global Warming” is, and always was, a policy for genocidal reduction of the world’s population. The preposterous claim that human-produced carbon dioxide will broil the Earth, melt the ice caps, and destroy human life, came out of a 1975 conference in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, organized by the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in 1974.

              Mead—whose 1928 book on the sex life of South Pacific Islanders was later found to be a [email protected]recruited like-minded anti-population hoaxsters to the cause: Sow enough fear of man-caused climate change to force global cutbacks in industrial activity and halt Third World development. Mead’s leading recruits at the 1975 conference were climate-scare artist Stephen Schneider, population-freak biologist George Woodwell, and the current AAAS president John Holdren—all three of them disciples of malthusian fanatic Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb.[1] Guided by luminaries like these, conference discussion focused on the absurd choice of either feeding people or “saving the environment.”

              Mead began organizing for her conference, “The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering,” shortly after she had attended the United Nations Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania, in August 1974. She had already bullied American scientists with her malthusian view that people were imperiling the environment….

              Mead’s population-control policy was firmly based in the post-Hitler eugenics movement, which took on the more palatable names of “conservation” and “environmentalism” in the post-World War II period. As Julian Huxley, the vice president of Britain’s Eugenics Society (1937-44), had announced in 1946, “even though it is quite true that radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.” Huxley was then director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

              https://moderneugenicsblog.wordpress.com/tag/fabian-society/

              Dr. Tim Ball also traced the origins of CAGW back to the Malthusians.

              Overpopulation the Fallacy Behind the Fallacy of Global Warming

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            • #
              RoHa

              Sure, after the damage was done, she changed her mind.

              And she didn’t refute it, she only denied it. “Refute” means “prove wrong”.

              (Of course, for a politician, their own words are all the proof they need.)

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  • #

    These people don’t get to be where they are because they are stupid. They also don’t get to be where they are because they are altruistic. That coal will not stay in the ground.

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    • #
      el gordo

      He can afford to leave the coal in the ground until the price picks up.

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      • #

        What I meant was that Soros is well aware that coal fired power is not going away and that it’s got a big future. He’s positioned himself (how convenient) to take advantage of what’s ahead and is going to make a killing down the track.

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        • #
          Annie

          I wonder how many years of life he has left to take advantage of a renewal of interest in coal?

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          • #
            Annie

            In other words, how long does he reckon we have before the AGW scam and all it’s ramifications become obvious even to the most unthinking steeple?

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          • #
            gai

            Annie, His buddy David Rockefeller just celebrated his 100th birthday in June.

            I think they both hope to see the death of the USA and the rest of western civilizations before they die. This make Paris particularly dangerous.

            From the David Rockefeller Autobiography Memoirs (2002)

            For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure–one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

            That quote of Rockefeller’s is backed up by Pascal Lamy’s statement that the planning for ‘Global Govenance’ goes back to the 1930’s and the establishment of the IMF and World Bank. Some on the internet are trying to do damage control saying David was only joking — Yeah right.

            Somewhere in the trillionaires room of Heaven three old codgers are sitting around a table smoking cigars and chuckling over the J. P Morgan Chase & Company buyout of Bear Stearns for a paltry $2.00 a share. Not so much because the price had been over $130 a share a few weeks earlier but because the Federal Reserve Board put up $30 billion of the government’s money to guarantee the sale.

            Yes, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, patriarchs of three of the most powerful family fortunes in history have waited nearly two centuries to see their dreams fulfilled. Perhaps such patience is why their families have remained successful by steadfastly maintaining the rules of the game as set down by their founders…
            (WWWDOT)articlesbase.com/finance-articles/jp-morgan-chase-buyout-of-bear-stearns-a-trillionaires-delight-400359.html

            Original link dead. now at: (WWWDOT)streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/196642/property_tips/a_trillionaires_delight.html

            I do not think most of us understand this multi-generational thinking that drives long term planing over century or more time spans. This is their greatest weapon. The endless patience on their side and the fickle short term attention span of the public on ours. All they have to do is wait and when no one is paying attention the law they wanted, that was vehemently protested two years ago, ten years ago, or twenty years ago is quietly passed.

            Here is a well documented exampleplanned just after WWII and just now coming to fruition. (They are not finished yet.)

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            • #
              James Murphy

              When did “the left” start approving of the IMF and world bank? I distinctly recall protests in the streets at IMF meetings about 20 years ago, by the same people and organisations who now use IMF reports as ersatz stone tablets from on-high…

              Then again, maybe I have it wrong, and this was not the case..? Perhaps I am in need of some re-education?

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            • #
              Annie

              Gai, I fear you are right. I don’t understand the mindset of these people; pathetic old men with wealth way beyond any use in their personal lives. I just wonder what force has taken hold of them?

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              • #

                Power. It’s an entire dynasty that’s been focussed on power; initially wealth, but once sufficient levels of wealth has been achieved, money no longer means anything. It’s power that they yearn for and there is never a limit to how much power an individual can have.

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                Originalsteve

                The devil always needs willing dupes…wealthy or otherwise…

                “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” ( 1 Tim 6:10 )

                Never a truer word was written….

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            • #
              Leonard Lane

              Well said gai, thank you.

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    • #
      ivan

      bemused, most people don’t look at the big picture.

      In many ways the greens are very gullible and easily fooled. Soros does not care about the environment or CAGW or any of the other green mantra. He is using the fake concern (think tanks that generate the required message) to manipulate the greens and the economy FOR HIS BENEFIT.

      I often wonder what will happen when the eco-green movement wakes up to this fact. It could be that we will be living in interesting times.

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        Originalsteve

        Climate Change is a mirage that disproportionately messes up the heads of the middle class.

        Think of it this way – a few peopel I know are blue collar workers who have a very grounded view of the world. They know reality at ground level, and categorically realize CAGW is pure horse manure.

        The wealthy/elite know fully its a scam, and will happily create any number of scams to fleece people of thier money.

        The middle class, thinking they are “wise” ( after all – they have been to uni, right? ), with huge uni loans ( fiscal bondage ) and priuses and green power ( mental bondage ) are just sheep to be fleeced – kept in line with tax benefits and govt handouts ( carrot and stick bondage ), they are a the cow with its head contentedly in the crush, dociley chewing on its cud ( being milked dry ).

        Anyone with half a brain can see the game, which is why when sceptics speak the truth, the biggest issue for the wealthy is spooking the “cattle” and depriving them of their income supply….

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    • #

      Kinda’like those green ‘seas are rising’
      criers who buy sea shore estates.

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  • #
    handjive

    Climate vulnerable Philippines plans huge bet on coal

    “The Philippines is planning a huge expansion of its coal power plant network, despite calls for the climate vulnerable nation to help lead efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

    “It’s ironic given we are at ground zero of climate change the government has approved over 50 coal power plants,” he told RTCC.”
    ~ ~ ~
    Over 80 new coal-fired power stations are proposed in Turkey, the biggest coal rush in the world after China and India (guardian)
    ~ ~ ~
    World Falls In Love With Coal That Obama Is Waging War On (investors.com)

    “A new study by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences detects an unmistakable “coal renaissance” under way that shows this mineral of fossilized carbon has again become “the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale.”

    Coal is expanding rapidly “not only in China and India but also across a broad range of developing countries — especially poor, fast-growing countries mainly in Asia,” the study finds”
    . . .
    Coal is king.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Actually, Philippines being near the equator will be less affected by any hypothetical climate change.

      But what the heck.. just let them run with their fallacy, so long as they keep adding CO2 plant food to the atmosphere. 🙂

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        Andrew

        Philippines is ground zero? That’s a relief – someone told me it was Australia!

        Anyhow they experience zero warming as the tropics are already saturated with H2O but do benefit from the fewer hurricanes.

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  • #
    Chris

    With energy prices falling for oil, surely coal is partially dependent? and that means profits disappear so coal stocks become a bargain if you think prices will go up again. Sounds like a very small portfolio exposure for good reasons.

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      Dariusz

      Working in the oil industry I am trying desperately to save my job now.
      Fall in oil and coal price has also a devastating effect on the “profitability” of the subsidised green schemes. This crisis, not seen since 1986 that brought the fall of communism, will bear its fruit in Paris too when India and China will veto anything that is more expensive. They see their chance to get out of poverty through cheap energy and their time to act is now through building more coal plants and paying the lip service to the western powers.
      Good luck to them even at the expense of my job.

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        James Murphy

        As a fellow oil industry employee, I also sense that my days are numbered. Absolutely no idea what I would turn my hand to, if/when it happens.

        Maybe I will have no shortage of opportunities with these ‘green jobs’ and ‘high tech green industries’ which have been promised to us…? I’m sure there would be a high demand for geologists…

        Otherwise, I agree, I look forward to seeing the Chinese and Indian approach, even if I am ‘between jobs’ at the time.

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          ROM

          To name a couple. Warren Buffet and his long time financial partner who nobody seems to remember, Charlie Munger plus George Soros and other immensely wealthy self made billionaires [ as distinct from those who inherited their fortunes ] are generally blessed with considerable foresight, foresight which as senior CBA back room numbers man once explained to me, the real good CEO’s and self made million / billionaires can derive a very significant future trend from very little information and then act usually to their advantage on that information to theirs and their associates and investors considerable gain.

          Warren Buffet started buying train lines and train companies and their systems a couple of years ago when everybody thought trains were about one of the worst investments one could buy into in the USA.
          Trains of course along with huge amounts of fracked oil are the only means of efficiently transporting huge tonnages of coal across the USA from the 600 plus coal mines in the USA including the great strip mines where they remove mountain tops to mine the huge coal deposits underneath in the north western states of the USA.
          For instance, Wyoming produces close to 400 million tonnes of coal annually which is shipped by mile long train loads to the eastern American coal fired power plants.
          They have one line taking the coal trains across to the east and another line with the empty wagons travelling back.
          My brother and I stayed in a motel in Montana in 1991 [ we were promoting the use of nitrogen fixing medic and clover plants by invitation from a Montana farm group ] where that damn mile long, fully loaded coal train went down the corridor of that motel all night at regular 20 minute intervals.
          ——————-
          So George soros is buying coal companies and their coal deposits
          Why?

          Today;
          UK; Energy secretary on track to slash solar subsidies [ Amber Rudd, UK energy secretary , a supposed left winger is becoming a bit of a pin up girl for the skeptics
          Out goes the subsidies for small scale solar.
          New off shore wind no longer subsidised or licensed
          Subsidies removed for Bio mass generators.

          More cuts coming and considerable talk all over on the fact that after 30 years of massive public subsidies, the renewable energy companies have claimed repeatedly that they are cheaper than fossil fueled power generators.
          So why subsidise them anymore when there are so many other more worthy causes that require lots of government finance and which must be put in place by the government and soon.

          Spain is being sued by international renewable energy companies for removing the subsidies on turbines, solar and micro hydro which is big in Spain.

          Germany has stopped subsidising new off shore turbines and has now put in place an auction system for the costs of power from new solar energy farms.

          Italy has refused to subsidise solar on the grounds it is now technically advanced after 30 years of massive subsidised investment from public funds and should be able to compete with fossil fueled power production.

          Greece for obvious reasons can’t pay anything much in the way of subsidies to their renewable industry.

          India has said, yes, renewable energy can go ahead BUT it MUST be able to predict with ten percent, its power output at least 24 hours ahead to allow the grid mangers to configure the grid to suit the generated power.
          Failure by the renewables to provide this accurate prediction of power output 24 hours ahead will lead to very heavy fines.

          American wind turbine companies have just applied for a thirty year duration license to allow for protected bird kills such as their rare bald eagles.
          The judge threw a dead cert license application out and told them and the department the wind companies have wrapped up to go away and start taking some action on those unacceptable bird kills.
          Opposition came from the American Audubon Society I think, who initiated the action against granting the turbine companies that crazy license to kill as they liked with no comebacks for thirty years.
          Suddenly the American wind industry is looking decidedly shaky on the endangered species killing grounds as the judge basically told them and their tame wild life department that their run of no responsibility for killing endangered species is about over.

          Plus as Tony from Oz has a repeatedly said. Everybody else other than the stupid westeners are flat out building new technically advanced coal fired power generators right around the world as they try to lift their people to a new level of existence and living standards.

          Now why would George Soros buy up coal companies and their assets when they are dirt cheap and nobody wants them as coal is about finished as power generating fuel?
          Or didn’t you know that?

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      • #

        Perhaps a long, cold winter will cure the world. A couple of weeks of stationary systems over North-Western Europe, gently drawing in the Siberian cold.

        Trucking in biomass to run their sustainably-inadequate district heating won’t be as easy as turning on a tap of the oil or gas pipeline. Heck; they’re banning wood fires in open fireplaces of German homes.

        October is traditionally a month of peak instability in world share and commodity markets. You guys could try to corner the world market in cheap diesel generators. 😉

        Western governments have “invested” heavily in protection against the CO2 monster. They cannot be seen to openly recognize it to be a unicorn. They don’t have the guts. They don’t have the respect for the people whose money they’re taking and whose livelihoods they’re destroying.

        40

  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    There’s lesson to be learnt here. If our going to rig the market, do so with Presidential backing and UN approval. Soros realises that Winter is Coming and has positioned himself to clean up. The last man to do similar was the original Rothschild, who bought up most of Brussels in the days before Waterloo in the expectation that Wellington would defeat Napoleon.

    300

  • #
    Geoff

    Victorian Brown coal resource is 425 Billion tons. The breakdown is approximately 60% water, 20% carbon and 20% volatiles (hydrocarbons). There is also 1.580 Billion tons under Bass Strait in the Gippsland Basin.

    The easily extracted reserve is 33 Billion tons.

    The volatiles can be separated from the coal at a rate over 60% of possible using new techniques at a cost of under US$10 BOE.

    Then there is the rest of the coal.

    George is just reserving his bit. Driving the price down per ton allows new ownership of the hydrocarbons.

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  • #
    F Ross

    Just goes to show that hypocrits come in all sizes up to extra, extra Large.

    170

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      I suspect it’s only his public appearance that is being hypocritical. I’m betting that this outcome was his actual intent all along.

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  • #

    You wonder why with so much political antagonism to coal in the U.S. just why any major company (and there’s a few of them in the U.S.) would be actively pursuing advancements in coal fired power technology.

    They’re not building them, (yet) just doing the analysis of what is needed for the higher temperatures associated with USC and Advanced USC coal fired plants, furnace technology, boiler technology, and downstream technologies as well.

    These companies are sinking quite literally, tens and hundreds of millions into all these things, and if coal is supposedly on the way out, then it would seem that this would be just wasted money. One of those majors is even doing the work on behalf of India.

    I might hazard a guess that somebody, somewhere, knows something that political interests would not even dare to say out loud to anyone.

    Going forward, I might also guess that when the time comes when all this coal vilification comes to a screeching halt, then it will be these Companies, ready to proceed at a moment’s notice.

    If these companies just stopped dead with their ongoing work, there might only be one place where the technology will be ‘ready to build’ when the go ahead is given, and that would be China, and perish the thought of the U.S. having to go cap in hand to China for the most up to date technology.

    If you want to know what’s going on, look way behind the scenes.

    People see no new plants and think, well, yep, coal is dying.

    Not true.

    That work is proceeding as it always has.

    When the time comes, it will happen quite seamlessly, and new plants will come into being at what might seem quite short time. They’re just waiting for the word.

    Luckily, because it has advanced without anyone really noticing, things will be a little easier.

    Instead of a large plant having to construct 4 units with 660MW generators, new generators of 1300 to 1500MW will be ready and proven. New turbines will be ready to drive these larger power generators, and so on back to where the coal gets fed in.

    That just leaves the coal.

    I look forward to the bewildered embarrassment of the green followers who have been used in all this. They think they are killing off coal.

    They think they have driven down the price of coal so no one will want to mine it any more.

    Instead, it looks like canny buyers are buying up coal stocks, and when all this kerfuffle ends, those stocks will be worth an awful lot of money, with proven humungous deposits still in the ground.

    Coal is just biding its time.

    China is just ahead of the curve here, that’s all.

    So many of those developing Countries are now moving into coal fired power in big ways, because they know it’s the only ticket out of poverty for their economies, and also knowing that any Climate deal agreed to in Paris is only aimed at getting money from the 20 or so already Developed Countries, and that agreement will mean that they can do whatever they like, without any comebacks.

    Tony.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Hey Tony, did you know that Indonesia has overtaken Australia in coal production.?

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      • #

        And when all this blows over, Australia has coal deposits that some of these Countries will be screaming for. When it does end, new deposits will be opened up at a bewildering rate, and heads will spin, wondering how they, umm, found them all so fast.

        We’ll be right.

        Right now it’s just a waiting game.

        An awful lot of people are going to be seriously embarrassed. There will be nowhere to hide. A lot of politicians will be happy that they have such huge taxpayer funded superannuation, because that’s all they’ll have. No one will want to employ someone who has so much embarrassment attached as baggage.

        What concerns me is the public feeling when they find out they’ve been fed so much spin.

        Tony.

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        • #
          gai

          Tony, the politicians are going to be in a world of hurt especially since the controlled media is dying.

          Al Gore and the rest will have to high tail it to China to avoid mob justice as Maurice Strong did after the Food for Oil scandal. George Soros will probably head for Brazil. I for one would not want to be an prominent academic when the fecal material hits the rotating blade.

          This blog post cites a lot of studies showing few in the USA trust the MSM any more. It really made my day coming across it this morning.


          It was not all that long ago that John Kerry and Zbigniew Brzezinski said that the Internet, simply put, is making it hard for them to govern. Secretary of Statism, John Kerry, before a group of State Department workers told the audience that the world has been “complicated” by “… this little thing called the Internet and the ability of people everywhere to communicate instantaneously and to have more information coming at them in one day than most people can process in months or a year.”
          According to Kerry, the Internet “makes it much harder to govern, makes it much harder to organize people, much harder to find [artificially create] the common interest.”

          That article also said

          Clearly the only valuable part of MSM media sites is in the comments section which debunks 90% of the articles published. Popular Science was so overwhelmed by people bringing facts into many of their articles that the site shut off its comments section.

          CNN’s viewership is at a record-low (the network recently laid off 40 journalists), while CNBC has suffered a viewership collapse as well.

          But once Larry King said that CNN would be better off showing re-runs of Spongebob Squarepants 24 hours a day, you knew it was over…

          Larry King left CNN because he knew it would collapse. He left CNN for the Russian government propaganda channel, RT,[Russia Today] because it is more respected and features more truth about the West. Twenty years ago, this would be have been unheard of for Larry King! A career-ender! Not today…Nope. Today it is a respect-earner. Oh, how things have changed…

          Oh My, no wonder my links to S*put*tnikn*ews was censored here, at Stevengoddard’s and at ChiefIo’s….
          It is wholly owned and operated by the Russian government (like RT) who wanted an international news agency to ” target global audiences with its non-mainstream take on world events.” (RT) It was launched in Nov of 2014.

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          • #
            Originalsteve

            Yep I’d agree – The Daily Bell often consider the internet as revolutionary as the rise of the printing press and the distortion in the power mecahnism that caused.

            This also explains why the powers that be want to censor the internet so much – because they cant control it and because it exposes the “white ants” at work bringing down democracy and holds them accountable.

            This is also why the NBN has been pushed so hard in Australia and why people are buying VPN connections to get around the Internet Filter Mk II – the NBN is sold as a “solution” but in fact makes it easier to monitor for dissidents, and the internet filter holds the threat of retaliation over peopels heads by holding 2 years of browsing history, to be used puntaively at some stage when more normal things become criminalized…..

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        • #
          James Murphy

          I don’t know Tony, The US has been buying rocket engines from Russia for a couple of decades, relying on them so much that there was talk of making them exempt from trade sanctions, as the US has dwindling numbers, but lacks the ability to build them locally.

          40

          • #
            Mike

            You are talking as if these countries had sovereign leaders. Everything is owned by whoever has the ability to print dollars. Politicians are privately owned. Rocket engine trade is between one privately owned entity and another privately owned entity. Nothing to do with countries making purchases as that would imply sovereignty.

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            • #
              James Murphy

              i don’t get your point about sovereignty – the US implemented trade sanctions against Russia, which included trade in rocket motors.

              (As far as I am aware, the Pentagon was the largest buyer of such motors – and this is what I found very amusing about the situation).

              My (multinational) employer has to (officially) abide by sanctions against Syria, Sudan, Russia, North Korea, and a few others… just like any company has to if they want to avoid fines, and the like. Obviously there are ways and means of getting around these, but officially, it doesn’t happen.

              (Strangely enough, the likes of SpaceX were happy, and indeed, encouraged the inclusion of the rocket motor trade in said sanctions, as this would provide them with excellent opportunities.)

              40

              • #
                Mike

                “i don’t get your point about sovereignty – the US implemented trade sanctions against Russia, which included trade in rocket motors. ”

                It means that companies, corporations, countries are owned by financial entities, usually creditors.

                When a country, company, corporation borrows money, it slowly looses its sovereignty. Like Greece for example. The web of debt is a Gordian knot few can unravel. Certainly not me. Observation has so far indicated to me it is a controlling force behind almost everything. Even the humble genetically modified corn flake.

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              • #
        • #
          el gordo

          ‘What concerns me is the public feeling when they find out they’ve been fed so much spin.’

          We shouldn’t be too concerned, it will be like a renaissance, but as we are few in number it might be an idea to talk more on this before hand.

          The masses generally are fairly indifferent to the scam, so a few good stand up comics should get them in the right mood.

          The hardened green/leftoids around the world will continue the struggle, yet their comprehension of climate change is negligible so we’ll have the upper hand in any debate.

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          • #
            Mike

            The people who want to keep emitting more CO2 than ever will be pretty annoyed about the stock market crash. Now they won’t be able to emit the CO2 they are accustomed to because they have lost their jobs/austerity or the like and will think there is a some kind of real [snip] to stop them from emitting CO2 other than the global warming one that has thus far failed.

            [If you want to predict a stock market crash we’d like to see your evidence to support the prediction.] AZ

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        • #
          Mike

          Bollocks. The scam is that Sorros is like a ‘buyer of last resort’ and is there to ‘window dress’ the coal industry which is heavily dependent on good economic conditions.It is doing very poorly at this time. No demand. Stock market crash and so on. If someone like ‘famous’ doesn’t buy, then a whole bunch of other sheep won’t buy. No skin of soros’s nose to do his mates a window dressing favor.

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  • #
    handjive

    Half a century ago, 153 people turned 100 years old in Japan. Last year 29,000

    Japan starts scrimping on its cosseted elderly (the economist)

    “and it calculates that around 39,000 (commemorative silver cups for drinking sake as 100th birthday gifts) will be needed by 2018.
    There are now more than 55,000 living centenarians in Japan, up from just a few hundred for most of the 20th century.
    ~ ~ ~
    Japan Defies Obama — Plans On Building 43 Coal Plants(dailycaller)

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    pat

    i’ve ignored all the criticism from the faux environmental groups in the following piece to focus on the official hypocrites:

    22 Aug: Santa Fe New Mexican: Staci Matlock: Amid push to cut coal, feds review mine lease program
    The Department of the Interior is leasing millions of acres of federal coal to private mining companies even as the Obama administration ramps up efforts to curb greenhouse gases from coal-burning power plants and natural gas pipelines under the president’s Climate Action Plan.
    To environmentalists and some Navajo activists living near coal mines in New Mexico, the disconnect between leasing the coal while clamping down on the climate-changing pollution it causes couldn’t be more stark…
    Still, (Interior Department Secretary Sally) Jewell hasn’t called for an outright end to coal. In her March comments, she said, “Coal is going to continue to be an important part of our nation’s energy mix in the future…
    Coal remains a primary, though dwindling, source of electricity nationwide. In New Mexico, coal accounts for about 60 percent of generated electricity. In the United States, about 40 percent of electricity is fueled by coal…
    About 40 percent of the coal produced in the United States is from public land. Almost 85 percent of it is from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
    In the past six years, the federal coal leasing program has approved mining more than 2 billion tons of federal coal, according to an analysis by the Sierra Club. The BLM’s recently released new resource management plans could open up 78.5 billion tons of coal from federal land for mining…
    http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/amid-push-to-cut-coal-feds-review-mine-lease-program/article_b4fb27d9-a95e-574b-af44-07a9f9b4c3e5.html

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    pat

    plenty of renewables rhetoric & so on, plus the obligatory anti-Abbott bit, but nonetheless some reality from a Labor MP with constituents to consider. ABC sticks this in Rural – not for the urban elite’s consumption, i guess

    21 Aug: ABC Rural: Michael Condon: Coal industry will still be a force says Labor MP for Hunter
    The coal industry in Australia may be facing some challenges, but it will still be a significant economic force, according to the federal Labor MP for Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon.
    Responding to talk that the coal industry in Australia was likely to head into “terminal” or “structural” decline, he admitted times were tough, but predicted a fightback in the future…
    “I believe that coal will continue to play a significant role in our economy and the international economy well into the future and I think that’s a view shared by the International Energy Agency.”
    Mr Fitzgibbon, whose New South Wales electorate includes a number of mines, said it was wrong to suggest that the Chinese were turning their backs on coal…
    “In India alone, as we talk, there are about 300 million people still without energy, without light, without power to heat their homes etc, so coal will continue to play a big role in filling that need.
    “In my own Hunter Valley, obviously we are under pressure because the price of coal has significantly collapsed, but this year we will ship a record volume of coal out through the Port of Newcastle.
    “So yes, it is right to say that the market is putting pressure on the sector and indeed people’s consumer decisions about where they want their power to come from is putting pressure on the market, but the sector has enormous sunk costs in places like the Hunter Valley and I have no doubt they’ll continue to ship coal out of the Port of Newcastle for many many years to come.”…
    …Mr Fitzgibbon said the former Labor Government had partnered with the rest of the world in incentivising a shift to the renewable sector.
    “Unfortunately Tony Abbott in government has unravelled that process,” he said.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-20/coal-industry-will-still-be-a-force/6710840

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  • #

    The Sage of Omaha has also bought a big holding in the coal industry. The stock prices are a fraction of what they were at the start of Obama’s reign, even allowing for recent reverse splits. Value investing …

    Pointman

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    • #
      Originalsteve

      Good to have powerful mates, no?

      Now I’d expect a huge jump later in an artifically depressed market and a big financial “clean up” later….

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  • #

    Why should George Soros, who supports environmentalist causes, start buying up shares in coal when many activist groups such as Greenpeace and the Guardian Newspaper are campaigning hard to encourage disinvestment?
    Coal will be needed into the future whatever the environmentalist agenda. The coal shares will likely rebound. They will do so if the Paris talks collapse spectacularly at the end of the year and/or a Republican Presidency rolling back some of the legislative obstructions to the providers of the cheapest form of energy. It is worth a punt. As a legacy, George Soros could leave the profits in a Trust Fund to provide legal aid to the activist organisations who are being sued by ordinary people for destroying the value of their pension funds.

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    pat

    the Michael Condon ABC Fitzgibbon coal article was first posted by ABC on Thu 20 at 10:44am & updated Fri 21 at 1:45pm.

    for some reason, Condon then updates a deceptive Tim Buckley piece first posted Tue 18 Aug at 2:05pm, updating it at 2.38pm 21 Aug, almost immediately following the updated Fitzgibbon article!!!

    China & India turning away from (seaborne) coal!!!

    21 Aug: ABC Rural: Michael Condon: Coal mining facing structural decline says finance analyst
    Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, says Adani, Peabody, BHP and Rio are all looking to offload Australian coal assets.
    He said he was not looking at coal as an environmental issue or a legal issue, but had done the numbers and it did not look good, with India and China now turning their backs on Australian coal…
    “I have not met anyone in the financial markets who thinks that the Galilee project is viable or probable,” he said.
    “I am a financial analyst and I look at it purely from a financial perspective and I think the politicians should look at the facts.
    “If you look at the absolute collapse of every listed coal company in the world, they don’t have any money to invest. If anything, they are about to go bankrupt…
    “The problem is that my analysis is showing that the Chinese and the Indians are moving away from a dependence on seaborne (imported) coal. That is a structural issue.
    ***”The big energy companies are also investing tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy like wind and solar.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-18/coal-mining-in-terminal-decline-finance-analyst/6705860

    the following is more in the style of ABC’s coverage of coal when it comes to the PM, as opposed to the likes of a Fitzgibbon:

    21 Aug: Crikey: Bernard Keane: Abbott brings religious fervour to his Old King Coal act
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/08/21/abbott-brings-religious-fervour-to-his-old-king-coal-act/?wpmp_switcher=mobile

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  • #
    Manfred

    When the eco-marxists collapse the Western economies and the well being of most, except of course the Green elite, an urgent return to prosperity will be required to restore law and order, after the lights are turned on again. A cheap energy dense fuel will do the job nicely, so much so that Soros’ progeny and their progeny will be guaranteed to thrive rather better than the Old Man.

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  • #
    Peter Miller

    Old stock market adage:

    Buy when there is blood on the streets.

    Another is:

    Sell when everyone is telling you to buy.

    Why does the first make me think of coal and the second of wind power?

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  • #
    ROM

    Soros’s timing is impeccable.

    The next United States presidential election of 2016 is scheduled for Tuesday, November 8, 2016.

    The news is that as one report put it, the American public are “sour”.

    They are sour on Obama big time and understandably when seen from a non American outsider’s view point

    They are sour on Hilary Clinton. Just one more of the same old, same old tired old corrupt politics based on nothing more substantial than political vaporware.

    In particular they are very sour on Washington in being now seen as the center and epitome of bad incestuous governance that is dragging down most of America.

    They are sour most particularly on America’s media which like the media of most of the western world has degenerated into little more than highly bigoted and biased propaganda sheets for any number of, when broken down and examined, totally irrelevant, viciously minded activist groups promoting their own fascist creeds as supposedly the only way to correct society and make it conform in their own arrogant and corrupted, selfish to the extreme, image.

    So there just possibly could be a major realigning of the political stars as the tired old morally corrupt political order is dispensed with at the next USA presidential election in 2016.
    If that happens America will get off its knees and start motoring.
    Soros wins!

    If Hilary Clinton is elected, she will find it imperative to make drastic changes in the USA political order for she will not want to be seen in the same basement legacy class of politics that is now almost firmly fixed for Obama’s presidential legacy.
    Change, big change will be the order of the day.
    Soros wins!

    If a significant, God forbid, globally spreading war breaks out America’s internal energy reserves ; ie Coal and fracked oil and Canada’s tar sands will be a vast advantage over just about every other nation again just as it was in WW2.
    Soros wins!

    If the much modeled and heralded and pending Climate Change just happens to have a minus sign in front of it instead of a plus sign!
    Soros wins!

    If the subsidies are wound back for American renewable energy systems under a new president, a highly likely possibility as everybody is running out of money and just starting to realise it including the USA which ran out of money a long time ago but being the global reserve currency, just kept right on printing the stuff to everybody’s relief, items like hard bankable assets such as vast tonnages of the prime energy producing coal will be at a premium.
    Soros wins.

    If Paris is a bust and the politicals from all over walk away thinking to themselves , no other b*******rd is going to honour anything or put their national economy at risk so we won’t either . We will crank up our economy, get our energy prices down and the hell with the climate change whackos. The kids can deal with it like we had to in our time.
    Soros wins.

    And if the Black Swan just happens to appear right when everybody was sure there was no such thing, [ ALL Swans are white,] ie; somebody somewhere cracks Fusion as a viable economic energy producing system then Soros will go his grave chuckling knowing that it will be almost at the end of the century before all those coal plants will be replaced even by clean immensely efficient Fusion.
    With all that coal from even beyond the grave-

    Soros wins!

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    • #
      Bill

      and your take on that Trump nutbar? Is he a straw horse for Soros or just a wacko?

      20

      • #
        ROM

        Trump doesn’t do anything at all for myself but the very fact he has got this far in American politics where some Americans and Trump himself are now beginning to take himself seriously as presidential contender gives a good indication of what the American people think of the so far high profile wannabe presidential candidates lining up at the moment.
        The fact that Trump is very obviously outside of and NOT a “respectable” member of the Washington/ east coast lightweight political and financial elite has gone quite some distance with the public in furthering his crazy bid for the presidency.

        One of the strange things in politics is that it is very rare indeed that the public ever gets type of presidential / prime ministership political leadership it thought it was going to get when it voted that leader in.
        In politics what you see is very rarely what you finish up getting.

        Since the beginning of WW2 for Americans in late 1941 with Pearl Harbor, Americans have had good presidents in Roosevelt then Truman who had to clean up Roosevelt’s political mess after Stalin had done him over but good, then the hand off Eisenhower who preferred to play golf and let America get on with being America , Kennedy’s early presidential period but he passed from the scene just before it all started to fall apart with Vietnam. Leaving Lyndon Johnson who finished Kennedy’s term and then did not contest the next presidential election, to try and clean up the Vietnam mess.

        And then Reagan, maybe one of the top presidents of the lot in modern post WW2 times.
        Reagan an ex B grade film actor was a classic case of not getting what you expected when the Americans voted him in but this time something quite a lot better than most expected.

        And if Trump ever makes it to president which I doubt very much, Americans might be in for an exciting ride for 4 years at least and maybe 8 years and a turn over of much of what they understood politics was all about.

        I would suspect that with Trump up front nobody would get what they expected presidentially, be it good, bad or both like the curate’s egg, good and bad in parts.

        As for Trump being a stalking horse for Soros, I suspect that if Trump and Soros got a sniff of a few tens of millions to be made by co-operating there would be no hesitation at all, providing of course you never ever let them get together in the same room without some heavies there to keep them well separated otherwise they might just tear each other’s eyes out.

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  • #
    TdeF

    There is no connection between CO2 and the temperature. However coal is vilified because it is black. This is racist.

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  • #
    ROM

    And just to rub salt into the wound of another great hype of the warmistas and the Paris bound [ at the public’s expense of course ! ] Paris-ites, it seems the great gaseous hope of the alarmists, another of the prime examples of what was going to be the solution to mankind’s excessive emissions of CO2 most particularly from Coal, the American CCS plants ,[ Carbon Capture and Storage ] one of which in Illinois was scrapped when then government pulled out and now the Mississippi Powers CCS project might even bankrupt the company after the CCS’s plants building development is two years behind Schedule and US$4.4 billion over budget and still not completed.

    Troubles With America’s First Clean Coal Plant Put Mississippi Power ‘on the Brink of Bankruptcy’

    A rate increase saved the utility. Will ratepayers and regulators stomach more?

    Carbon-capture technologies were supposed to help the battered U.S. coal industry turn around. Instead, they’re causing more problems than solutions.

    Months after a landmark carbon capture project in Illinois was scrapped after losing government funding, the builder of America’s first commercial-scale clean coal project in Kemper County, Mississippi is facing financial troubles due to soaring costs and long construction delays.

    Last week, state regulators approved an emergency rate increase for Mississippi Power in order to keep the company afloat as it completes the increasingly-expensive Kemper plant. Mississippi Power customers will see a temporary rate increase of 18 percent — a change that could become permanent, depending on the utility’s financial health.

    The 582-megawatt Kemper plant was hailed as an important step for the clean-coal industry in 2008, after receiving $270 million in government grants and eventual approval from the public service commission to build the facility. The integrated combined-cycle power plant is designed to create and burn synthesis gas made from lignite coal, while also pumping carbon-dioxide pollution into a nearby oil field.

    Building the first-of-a-kind commercial plant has been challenging for Mississippi Power and its parent, Southern Company. Kemper is two years behind schedule and $4.4 billion over budget. That has forced Mississippi Power to “the brink of bankruptcy,” explained an attorney for the commission during this month’s rate case.

    ——————-
    Also;

    FutureGen’s Demise Shows Carbon Capture for Coal Faces Woes

    &

    Norway abandons Mongstad carbon capture plans [ Sept 2013 ]

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  • #
    Ruairi

    When renewable systems go bust,
    And the greenie machine turns to rust,
    When the new public view,
    Wants more CO2,
    Then investments in coal are a must.

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    • #
      Matt Bennett

      And:

      When the delusional likes of our Jo
      Find their chamber is nought but echo
      Carboniferous beds
      Swirling over our heads
      ‘ll soon alter their capital’s flow…

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        And:

        When the warmists support the decree,
        Worshipping their gods on their knees,
        They will realize all too late,
        When brought to the gate,
        That their work did not make them free.

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        • #
          Matt Bennett

          And what is a ‘warmist’, pray tell?
          Is a doctor a ‘sickest’ as well?
          Absurd words, bad rhyming;
          Your meter lacks timing,
          But ‘skeptic’ – at least you can spell!

          06

          • #
            Mike

            The warmist and skeptic are disheveled
            When the economy and stock-market descended.
            The money is gone upon which they all depended.
            And so Carbon emissions are temporarily suspended.

            40

            • #
              Matt Bennett

              Now what does this mess even mean?!
              A poetic butchering scene;
              A dishevelled ‘L’
              Gone astray in the spell
              But a blip in this “Lim’rick” obscene..

              03

            • #
              Matt Bennett

              What of ‘Mike’ and dear ‘Yonniestone’s’ silence!?
              Hath their dignities both suffered violence?
              Turgid, timid and terse,
              Their badly-formed verse
              On false victory hath over-reliance.

              03

              • #
                AndyG55

                Poor Matt. You sound like a failed arts/lit student.

                All that meaningless verbal diarrhea.

                Inner city barista, making soya decaf lattes all day for your “buddies”.

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              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Oh Andy, your guesses fly wide
                (Though you carefully try to be snide)
                Lit, Socials and Arts
                I’ll leave to up-starts
                My degree lies in Science (Applied)

                Now what of those Qld snowflakes?
                You discerned what a difference ‘they makes’?
                The answer, my friend
                Is ‘none, to the trend’
                Best quit now for all of our sakes.

                12

              • #
                AndyG55

                Gees Matt, only a single degree.

                No wonder you are dragging the chain.

                40

              • #
                AndyG55

                You students say “P’s make degrees”

                We say “passes make asses”

                40

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Now when will you guys all agree
                On ‘appeals to authority’?
                One minute you say
                ‘Expertise holds no sway’
                Then bemoan my but single degree!

                Consistency ain’t your strong point
                Logic puts your nose out of joint
                My assumed GPA
                (All ‘Passes’ you say!)
                Would, I guarantee, disappoint.

                12

              • #
                AndyG55

                Yawn… BORING !!!

                10

              • #
                AndyG55

                Its your base-level brain-washed ignorance that is the problem.

                Your problem… You fix it.!!!

                00

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Again Andy enters the fray
                Again he has nothing to say
                Like a record that’s broken
                With comments so token
                This game just ain’t one he can play.

                00

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Matt Bennett,

                My response to your Limericks is here.

                Abe

                00

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Hey JAG,

                Just finished reading it – Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!! Had posted a quick comment below it already

                00

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    Two countries have proven that, under sufficient motivation, coal is a universal fuel; used as is or converted to liquid or gas.

    disclaimer – I own a few coal shares, and have picked up a few more recently.

    Normal events and eventual reality will make coal valuable again. Relatively low tech dispatchable power has been the core of bringing the third world to modest prosperity, and will continue so.

    Does anyone think there is no potential for Arabian oil to leave the market? Yes, there is plenty of oil in the world. There are also billions still awaiting the beginnings of industrial development.

    The balance needs need not be upset for long for gas lines to form and winter heat to become dear. Attitudes can change quickly.

    So, coal, at today’s prices, waiting for the irrational to move on to the next crisis, a good long term investment, with the possibility of a choke hold on the largest energy sink remaining in the reliable supplier world.

    This is no different than the Soros pattern; buy when chaos creates value. He is, of course, a bit more active than most in creating the chaos.

    When will things change? What level of suffering are you willing to tolerate to humor you neighbor’s beliefs? Seeing no sacrifice among those forcing others to brings out the pitchforks & pine tar.

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  • #
    Ossqss

    Seems Soros operates in many gray areas.

    https://www.intellihub.com/blacklivesmatter-ferguson-activists-were-paid-with-soros-money-to-protest/

    Soros has done the math on renewable energy and is positioning to profit from it. Ideology doesn’t keep the lights on.

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  • #
    Andrew

    Interestingly it shot up from $1 to $1.78

    50

  • #
    Victor

    Hi Jo. I’m with you. So glad I found your blog. Keep up the good work.

    Would it be inappropriate for me to ask you to review my new e-book? It’s called “The Unsettled Science of Climate Change: A Primer for Critical Thinkers,” and it’s directed at those who are not climate scientists, but intelligent, educated people with critical thinking skills. If you contact me with a request I’ll have a review copy sent to your online door. It’s available for purchase at the Kindle store: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YOARTPQ

    Email coming. Cheers – Jo

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    • #
      Matt Bennett

      Hahahahaha,

      You go right ahead Jo and further devalue your currency amongst those that actually try to follow some basic rational rules of enquiry, (sometimes referred to as the scientific method) but be warned the author here states, in the opening paragraphs:

      “Admittedly I have not read extensively in the more technical literature of climate science; nor do I intend to, because frankly this is a field that has never interested me.”….

      Just, wow!

      Anytime you can find some actual evidence to support your faith Matt. Don’t hold back. – jo

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        … amongst those that actually try to follow some basic rational rules of enquiry, (sometimes referred to as the scientific method)

        You seem to have overlooked the bit about empirical evidence. Computer models are human artifacts, so they don’t count.

        The same can be said for homogenised data, which has had the evil hand of mankind within its entrails.

        And don’t try to tell me that all of that is encapsulated in the literature. That is as maybe, but when you ask for definitive references, you are given a few, that lead to others, that point at others, that go around in circles, to arrive at the original references, again.

        In my opinion, any structure that is entirely self referencing is usually a sham, and possibly a fraud.

        Would you care to comment about that?

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        • #
          Matt Bennett

          Hi Rereke,

          Good to hear from you again, haven’t been around these parts for quite a while. I’d actually hoped someone as evidently switched on as you generally seem to be may have stopped running with the mob by now. Alas…. If you’re not too long in the tooth we can revisit this in a couple of decades. (It certainly seems your ‘hiatus’ line has run out of juice)

          Empirical effects of global warming are EVERYWHERE!! From direct measurements of decreased heat loss to space, poleward/peak-ward migration of species, rapid retreat almost all global glaciers (won’t do to cherry pick here!), changes to growing season lengths, migration timings and ecological bloomings/matings etc etc, relentless rising sea levels, the OBVIOUS rise in total ocean heat content, loss of Oz winter snow pack in the ‘Alps’ (for a local flavour), crash in Arctic ice volumes…. The list goes on. It’s what the collective evidence says ‘in toto’, would you not agree? Models just serve as extra confirmation and despite what you may have read around here, are actually quite accurate so far. Global warming theory was not born of computer models.

          Given (as I take it you admit) the Earth’s average temp is tens of degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be without a handful of GHGs, it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate how the simple nineteenth century physics that are herein relevant to rising GHGS are wrong and empirically show where the extra heat must hide if it’s not going to raise global temps. Really, this is all pretty basic stuff.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Empirical effects of global warming are EVERYWHERE!!

            That is an interesting comment. Effects are an observed outcome of some phenomina. But an outcome does not imply any cause, so you cannot say that the cause is “global warming”, unless you can empirically demonstrate the cause and effect relationship. Otherwise, that is no more than a preconceived and underlying assumption.

            From direct measurements of decreased heat loss to space

            Surely if we are measuring a decrease in heat loss, then that would imply that the source (i.e. the atmosphere) was cooling, rather than warming?

            … poleward/peak-ward migration of species …

            In order to claim that ‘observation’, as being due to climate change, you would need to demonstrate that there can be no other causal effects, including extrinsic influencing factors or the natural variability in local temperatures.

            … relentless rising sea levels, the OBVIOUS rise in total ocean heat content

            But it is not obvious to NOAA and NASA. Just recently, NOAA published a paper stating that there was no detectable change in the heat content of the deep oceans, and NASA also published a paper that said the surface temperature continues to flatline. As for sea level, the upper tide marker in my local marina hasn’t moved at all, in spite of us being told at school that water always finds its own level.

            … loss of Oz winter snow pack in the ‘Alps’ (for a local flavour)

            I can’t comment on the winter snow pack in Oz, but Coronet Peak Skifield in the South Island of New Zealand has had a bumper year, apparently. It all depends on which cherry you want to pick.

            So no, I wouldn’t agree that the above, is what the collective evidence says. I will however concede that it is what selective evidence implies, if you get the selection correct, which you did not, at least in this case. Your examples are a little out of date. That happens sometimes.

            As for the models … I am sure we have discussed this before … I used to work as a modeller. Jo’s other half is also a modeller (did you know?). We are well aware of what models can do, and cannot do, when faced with data that is inherrently noisy, and is subject to extrinsic and unknown influences.

            Having stated all that, I will freely admit that the Earth’s average temperature is, as it is, because of the so-called, green house gases, the foremost of which is water vapour, which has an effect on temperature that is orders of magnitude higher than CO2 and the other gases in the dock. Do you know why water vapour is never discussed in Climate Catastrophy circles? Neither do I.

            It is not incumbent upon me to prove a negative, and your asking me to do so is, itself, a logical fallacy. If you are as knowlegable as you would like people to believe, you should avoid such simple philosophical errors.

            The “nineteenth century physics”, as you call it, was based on a closed radiative system, with controls on convection and conduction. That is what I was taught at school. But, that is not the way the Earth works. Radiative heat that strikes the earth surface gets conducted and dispursed into the surrounding area, and then gets reradiated later when that surface is facing away from the sun, and cools down. In fact, what I describe here, is the process of cooling down. A similar process, involving convection works with the sea, and is the reason why only the uppermost few metres get warmed by radiation. The abyss is always at a constant temperature, a fact that I was taught at school, and which the Climate Scientists have only recently discovered.

            A final question: where in all of the climate change literature, is the paper or papers that account for geothermal gases that are emitted from volcanos and submarine vents? Some of the larger vents have extremely high temperatures. And it is estimated that we have only discovered a small proportion of them. How do they factor into the equation, I wonder?

            So, whereas, I have not proven the negative, I have instead, presented alternative ideas, that, following the principle of Occam’s Razor, in being more generalised and simpler, than the narrow one, that Climate Science prefers to consider.

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              Matt Bennett

              Hey Rereke,

              We could argue this ad nauseum, as we have before, but I’ll tell you what, I’m going with the people for whom this constitutes their life’s work (and who are constantly trying to prove themselves wrong), over a retired modeller who has shown some simple misunderstandings of the topic at hand.

              I dunno about you, but a “decrease in heat loss” to me and most other employers of the English language is a synonym for “heat gain”. When I chuck a blanket over me at night to decrease heat loss, I certainly experience a heat gain. So does Earth. This IS an empirical, measurable result of increased atmospheric GHG concentrations and agrees to a high degree of certainty with calculated predictions. As do the other listed empirical observations. I’ve got my theory as to why these observations ALL agree with climate science, while none disagree…. What’s yours? Can’t pick and choose… You must have an internally consistent theory which predicts all my listed outcomes, disagrees with none of them AND still tells us where that pesky extra heat trapped by increased GHGs is going if it’s not the culprit. That means you’ve got twice the work!

              It’s like hurling a stone straight through a glass window and claiming it wasn’t responsible for the shattered pane. You’re left to show BOTH what was instead responsible for the glass’ demise AND why the stone is now inside the house. That’s tough! As I said, parsimony tells me I’ve got my answer, what’s yours?

              Also, I don’t know if it’s a deliberate mis-reading but you’ve attacked an argument I never made. This NASA, NOAA stuff about whether there is any detectable heating signal in the deep ocean, what’s that got to do with total heat content of the ocean? As I said, this has OBVIOUSLY increased dramatically over the past three decades. Do you disagree? Given ocean circulation is in the order of hundreds of years, why would the ‘deep’ ocean be warming yet?

              Rereke, your misunderstandings are enormous. Water vapour IS discussed in the literature all the time, it is far and away the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect. Where’s the surprise here? We’ve known this since the nineteenth century. Water vapour, on climate timescales is a feedback, not a forcing. It evaporates and rains out again in days/weeks so cannot be a climate driver. Do you get this? On much longer timescales, CO2 can be a feedback as well but in the scale of our lifetimes, it’s a major and dangerous climate forcing.

              As for your ‘fugitive’ volcanic gases, my god, that’s been done to death. Besides the fact that we have our culprit GHG sources isotopically pinned down to anthropogenic processes, you’re now going to claim that THOSE ones are effectively thermally inert and can’t be the cause of global warming BUT we don’t know just how much is being released by undersea volcanoes/vents etc and THEY could be responsible for the warming? Huh? I thought this greenhouse gas theory was bunk?! But what, it works with ‘natural’ volcanic emissions?…. How does any poor given photon know just what it’s supposed to do when faced with a methane molecule? Remember what I said about internally consistent….

              And if it’s the actual ‘heat’ from underwater volcanoes that you wish to pin global warming to, as opposed to their ‘gaseous emissions’ (sounds to me like that’d be throwing mud to see what sticks) well, simple calculation shows you’re off by a mile on that one. The radiant energy received from our star is orders of magnitude greater than any thermal or radioactive heat that makes its way from our planet’s interior through the relatively efficient insulator that is our granitic crust. And supposing some secret source managed to get the enormous amount of energy required to heat our surface to the degree it’s been measured through from the deep sea; you’re telling me that happened without NOAA or NASA measuring ANY detectable change in deep ocean heat content? Your comment, remember?… Are we thinking yet?

              Anyway, I don’t really dare hope to change your mind here, it’s more for the benefit of waylaid lurkers who may just be finding their way on this topic. Cheers.

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              • #

                Your arguments are all innumerate. Since skeptics agree with believers over many things, but disagree over the amount of warming, your evidence merely shows what we both agree on. CO2 is a GHG. It absorbs and emits IR. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than 50 years ago. What you don’t have is evidence showing the models are correct in their estimates. The Pause is real. the hot spot is missing, the models are wrong on rainfall, clouds, temperatures, polar amplification etc — In all of these cases the errors of the models require sensitivity to be lower. WV feedback is too high in the models. 28 million weather balloons show that.

                You have nothing.

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                Bill

                Spare us the continual nonsensical ranting and provide ONE peice of verifiable evidence. Just one….. you can’t because it does not exist.

                31

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Matt,

                Where did I state that I am a retired modeller? All I said was, “I used to work as a modeller”. That does not preclude me still being a modeller. I now just prefer to work in areas that are more relevant, and considerably closer to the empirical world in which we live, and thus further away from the intellectual masturbation that exists in the ivory towers of academe.

                51

              • #
                AndyG55

                ” When I chuck a blanket over me at night to decrease heat loss, I certainly experience a heat gain.”

                rofmlao..

                Still trying to use the very silly “blanket” analogy.. how trite and child-like. 🙂

                Tell me what sort of blanket COOLS the surface when the surface gets warm.

                Its going to be very funny watching your bizarre rantings as the planet continues to cool slowly over the next several years.

                32

              • #
                AndyG55

                The fact is that in the whole of the reliable untainted satellite temperature record there is absolutely ZERO CO2 warming signature.

                The El Nino from 1997 – 2001 was a solar forced event, even the most brain-blind alarmista admits that.

                It added about 0.26C to the atmospheric temperature.

                The slight warming trend before the El Nino (at the end of a series of strong solar cycles) has been basically cancelled by the slight cooling since the El Nino (as the solar energy has reduced)

                http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:2001.2/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:2001.2/trend/offset:-.26

                I repeat… THERE IS NO CO2 SIGNATURE IN 36 YEARS OF SATELLITE DATA.

                And that is despite there being a huge boost in highly beneficial atmospheric CO2 during that time.

                The AGW hypothesis is destroyed.

                32

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                In answer to Matt’s response starting – “We could argue this ad nauseum:” [One of the comments numbered @ 26.1.1.1.1 – Fly]

                Paragraph 1: a) Slippery Slope Fallacy, b) Appeal to Authority c) Moralistic Fallacy d) Ad Hominem

                Paragraph 2: Arguing from Ignorance, (decreasing heat loss is not equal to heat gain – a blanket, decreases the rate of heat loss, but cannot, of itself, add heat, other than the latent heat it of the blanket itself). All the greenhouse gasses do, is lower the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere into space. But of themselves, greenhouse gasses do not, and cannot increase atmospheric temperature – it is the sun that does that – oh, I forgot, the sun doesn’t figure at all in what you typed, silly me.

                Paragraph 3: A stone, in and of itself, does not break a window. It is the kinetic energy of a moving stone, of sufficient mass, that breaks the window. The kinetic energy comes from the work involved, in the act of hurling.

                Paragraph 4: Find a good physics text book and look up thermoclyne. (or thermocline depending on where it is published).

                Paragraph 5: It is not my misunderstanding. It was your failure to mention “the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect”, anywhere in your previous comments that caused me to mention it.

                Paragraph 6: Now I am starting to think that you are being deliberately obtuse. I mentioned them because you had not included them in your previous comments, which I thought was very remiss of you. You are happy to blame the burning of extracted fossil fuels for variations in CO2, but neglect the significantly larger outgassing of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, from volcanic vents, most of which are unknown, and cannot therefore, be budgetted for.

                Paragraph 7: I am not talking about the temperature of the volcanic outgassing, but the relative volumes of the constituent gasses.

                Paragraph 8: So you are correct, you will not change my mind here, because I prefer to read widely in the scientific literature, rather than just toe a given party line.

                You will find that most sceptics are like that. Which is probably why we don’t still think the earth is flat. (You do know that the climate models assume a flat earth, don’t you?).

                51

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                In answer to Jo at 26.1.1.1.1

                Jo, my arguments as outlined above cannot be ‘innumerate’. I did not show any calculations or use any quantified numbers that would allow me to be numerically incorrect (ie innumerate). You could argue that I was ‘illiterate’, given that I used verbal argumentation but you probably wouldn’t want to do that.

                I could, on the other hand, argue that the description is a good one of you.
                I gave up trying to argue a point with you several years ago when, like all faux skeptics, you would not stick to the point we were arguing and admit what you were espousing was nonsense. Without going into too much detail but for the sake of those with a bit of nouse, I used an example to show that your understanding of the expectations for rising temps this century was flawed. You and David were taking the end-point temperature at 2100, dividing by the 9 decades roughly remaining at the time and saying we should see THAT exact average rise per decade. I pointed out that it was only an IPCC average for the century and that the real world would play out more like a bank account with compounding interest – slow rise at first, then ramping up to see an ever increasing rate of change towards century’s end. You weren’t, however, interested in understanding it because it meant you couldn’t make the stupid argument about ‘failed models’ stick. Typical.

                So, Jo, I ask both you and Rereke, yet again: what is YOUR underlying theory that explains each and every one of our observed effects with total internal consistency? (and tells me where that extra pesky heat went if not into raising global temps!) I have mine and its updatable as new information comes in, to boot!

                36

              • #

                Matt, the question is not does CO2 cause warming, yes or no, it’s how much warming does it cause. Hence your arguments give us no information about “how much”, they are still back at the Yes:No stage in climate preschool. Innumerate.

                As I discussed in “The Evidence” most of the observations suggest climate sensitivities of below 1.2C. Evidence that relates to CO2 wavelengths, increasing CO2, or the weak correlation of CO2 and temp are irrelevant. We need evidence that the assumptions in the climate models about feedbacks on clouds and humidity are correct, and you have none. You not only have none, but apparently you don’t even realize that’s what you need.

                As for your claims about past discussions, the only time I think I ever suggested temps should rise in a linear decadal fashion was when quoting verbatim from the FAR 1990 report for the first few decades. They said it. They have been proved wrong.

                And why, when your theory is so full of holes, and opposite to nearly all observations, why do you demand we solve a problem you cannot? Is it a/ to change the topic (because you don’t want to get too deep into the evidence) or b/ because it is mentally difficult for you to throw off a bad idea unless you can replace it?

                52

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Matt Bennett,

                You wrote:

                I pointed out that it was only an IPCC average for the century and that the real world would play out more like a bank account with compounding interest – slow rise at first, then ramping up to see an ever increasing rate of change towards century’s end.

                According to what we know and can all agree on, CO2 has a diminishing effect on temperatures as the concentration grows. IOW. Each additional ppm of CO2 has less effect than the previous ppm. IIRC, the reduction in CO2’s effect on temperatures follows a logarithmic progression. So your statement in bold italics above is wrong mathematically and therefore logically incorrect.

                Cheers,
                Abe

                42

              • #
                AndyG55

                “and tells me where that extra pesky heat went ”

                Again, that silly assumption based on a failed hypothesis.

                But you keep hunting for that NON-EXISTENT, MYTHICAL extra heat …

                …it will keep your brain-washed mind occupied.

                32

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Just-a-guy, CO2 shows your ‘diminishing returns’ only when saturated – it’s not. It continues to emit at steadily increasing altitudes. It’s not a closed system we’re dealing with here.

                Andy, where does the extra heat trapped by basic physical laws go again, you forgot to tell me… How about that Qld snow eh, where’s the relevance again? Oh what… there’s none.,?….

                15

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Jo, why would a theory ‘so full of holes’ and ‘opposite of nearly all observations’ hold the attention of 97+% of those working in the field?…. (Notably, you are not). Since when do working scientists form and revise their hypotheses to oppose nearly all observations? Not in any universe I inhabit.

                Care to explain?

                14

              • #

                Not really. It’s got nothing to do with science or logic and reason.

                But read http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf. It’s a start. You are 6 years behind. And if we are going to be fallacious, explain in “what universe” climate scientists could be so right but unable to convince half of meteorologists, and more than half of engineers and geos and chemists…

                There were only 62 people who reviewed Chapter nine of AR4 (on attribution) and yet 30,000 scientists and 9,00 pHds including 4 NASA astronautrs and 2 Nobel Prize winners (real ones, not “peace prizes) say their fears were exaggerated. If you want to argue (fallaciously) that numbers matter. We would win. We outnumber you, but that doesn’t make us right.

                61

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Jo, I’ll get to your longer post later, I’m back at work today. But just quickly, no time to see if what you’ve posted is even exact but I’ll grant your numbers correct for the sake of this point.

                I’d take the informed view of 6 of the leading, publishing scientists in any given field (let alone 62!) over 30,000 scientists ‘opinion’…. A PhD in dental cavities or some other such irrelevant stream does not qualify one to be a judge of the current state of climate science. Most of the people on your list are just those who have a BSc degree of some sort like me – that doesn’t mean diddly squat. If I want to refute what these guys are saying I’d have to publish findings that dispute them in THEIR respected journals, not mine or Dental Diseases Quarterly. Don’t you get that?!

                Those 30,000+ signatures represent less than a fraction of a percent of ‘scientists’ and many of them aren’t even working scientists. How is their opinion relevant? Then you turn around and say authority doesn’t matter, but why are you trotting out this tired list if not for authority? As I’ve said before, consistency isn’t a strong point around here…

                As for me, authority does have a place in science, but only in the sense that the level of one’s training, experience and expertise can grant a narrow form of authority in THAT particular field. This is really just common sense, it’s why normal people go to the doctor or take their mechanic’s advice. It’s nothing unusual, you guys just seek to make it so in this special case because it doesn’t suit you that these guys, in their field, can walk all over your ill-informed horse-shit if they could be bothered wasting their time even addressing it.

                12

              • #

                OK. So you have nothing. Thanks for clearing that up.

                We look at the evidence, you follow the herd.

                Like I said, if you want to argue that numbers matter we can name more skeptics than you can believers, and the skeptics we can name are higher achievers in science.
                We outrank and out-number you. We have less vested interests and are more independent too. Do you want to pursue this fallacy? We can…

                21

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Matt Bennett,

                You wrote:

                Then you turn around and say authority doesn’t matter, but why are you trotting out this tired list if not for authority?

                Clearly you’re not following the conversation here. You’re the one claiming authority based on consensus. What we’re saying is you’re claim to a consensus is false. The reason for ‘trotting out’ this list is not for authority but to show, conclusively, that your claim to having a consensus is false. Then we go further. We say to you, not only do you not have a consensus but using a consensus as a claim to authority is logically fallacious.

                Even if you had a consesnsus, which you don’t, you’d still be wrong because a consensus means nothing as fas as the validity of a scientific claim.

                That you can’t see the distinction between these two points, and how the’re interrelated speaks volumes about your inability to reason through a rational argument.

                Abe

                11

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Huh?! I said I’d listen to the informed opinion of six (6) people with more knowledge on a specialised topic than I and you trot out your 30,000+ and I’M the one following a herd? Really? REALLY?! Logic is not your strong point is it Jo….

                If you have some troubling health symptoms Jo, do you (a) ring to make a doctor’s appointment, (b) head straight to your accountant (c) do your own research on the internet and decide you have the most common cause of those symptoms (just like 30,000 other uninformed Google patients) because you don’t like the implications of some of the rarer causes for your medical presentation? Hmmmmm….

                12

              • #

                I won a prize for my hons degree in medical research. I search pub med. Sometimes I bring the latest papers to the specialists. If they don’t appear on top of things, I find a better doctor.

                My opinion on climate science has nothing to do with skeptics outnumbering or outranking you, which was obvious from my mention that it’s a fallacy. You are the one arguing the consensus matters and following the 97% herd. Do you have the intellectual honesty (or mental capacity) to admit that?

                30

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Matt Bennett,

                You also wrote:

                Those 30,000+ signatures represent less than a fraction of a percent of ‘scientists’ and many of them aren’t even working scientists. How is their opinion relevant?

                It’s obvious that you’re trying to peddle the ‘only the experts’ are allowed to have a say and they should be believed because only they understand the so called ‘science’.

                First of all, you’ve studiously ignored the simple refutation to this non-sense below. Why have you not replied?

                The fact is, that when it comes to any pseudo-science, such as ‘climate science ™’, the flaws are not buried deep within the intricacies of the specifics. The flaws can be found at the most fundamental level. Some of these flaws can be spotted by any average high-school student if they were just presented with the simple facts.

                Yes, Matt, it is that bad!

                So please, do yourself and all the others here, a favor and take some remedial courses in basic physics and statistics. Then, stop ‘believing’ what the so-called ‘experts’ are trying to sell you, and examine their claims for yourself.

                Or, as I often tell the ill informed around my way, “Wake up and smell the coffee!”

                Abe

                11

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Matt Bennett,

                You wrote:

                I dunno about you, but a “decrease in heat loss” to me and most other employers of the English language is a synonym for “heat gain”. When I chuck a blanket over me at night to decrease heat loss, I certainly experience a heat gain. So does Earth.

                I still remember the first time the difference between ‘reduced heat loss’ and ‘increased heat’ was explained to me as a kid. I was shocked at how what ‘appears to the senses’ as one thing is ‘in fact’ the exact opposite.

                Like looking up at the night sky and ‘seeing’ all those stars. The fact is many of those stars are no longer there. What we see is only the ‘image’ of those stars and not the stars themselves.

                That’s why we have science. To explain those things that appear to be one way, but are really someting else entirely.

                If you would like to continue relying on your senses and believing all the nonsense they present to you, that’s fine. I feel much more comfortable comprehending what’s really there and distinguishing between the real and the make-believe.

                IOW. Science doesn’t care what you ‘and most other employers of the English language’ . . . ‘experience’. Science only cares about what is.

                Furthermore. It’s because of the fact the you and most other employers of the english language consider a reduced loss of heat to be synonymous with heat gain and many other faulty narratives, that all those people can be fooled into believing the false claims made by the promoters of CAGW ™ and their adherents.

                Abe

                11

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Matt Bennett,

                My appologies to you and all the others here for not responding sooner to this obviously false statement you made:

                You wrote:

                Just-a-guy, CO2 shows your ‘diminishing returns’ only when saturated – it’s not.

                From the wikipedia article on radiative forcing:

                The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic[7] and thus increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.*

                From the source article given for that statement in wikipedia:

                It is interesting that the radiative forcing, i.e., the change in the radiation energy flux at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) or at the tropopause, caused by some greenhouse gases has a logarithmic dependency on the concentrations of these gases. For example, it is widely recognized that for every doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2), the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) is decreased by about a fixed amount (see Figure 1); logarithmic equations for calculating the radiative forcing of CO2 are given by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change . . .

                So you see, Matt, the decrease is logarithmic at all concentrations and not, as you stated, only upon saturation.

                Abe
                * Disclaimer – While this article claims increased warming, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, they must be referring to a reduction in heat loss. But even this reduction in heat loss can only be claimed if ‘radiative transfer of energy’ was the only process taking place in the atmosphere. It’s not.

                10

          • #
            AndyG55

            “loss of Oz winter snow pack in the ‘Alps’ (for a local flavour)”

            roflmao. ..

            Yep that snow is now falling in Queensland of all places.

            DOH !!

            How many of your feet can you fit in your mouth, Matt ????

            62

            • #
              Matt Bennett

              Wow, Andy, I think I’ll stick with Rereke, at least he can read.

              Last time I looked, anomalous Qld snowfall events (which happen every few years, I came from Brisbane originally) have about as much to do with the Australian Alps average snowpack volume as does the odd dustings of white that occur on WA’s Bluff Knoll, way south of Perth. ie nothing. And it’s implications for global warming are about as relevant. It’s the same as saying “I’ve got a juicy burger in my hand right now so there’s no such thing as global hunger” …. yeah.

              See below link for Oz snowpack trend, for those that drink the Internet a little deeper than Andy.

              http://gergs.net/2013/07/2013-aus-snow/spencers_mw_trend/

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Several, it seems. !

                http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1907

                No trend. Just the usually very noisy data from a marginal snow area.

                Poor Matt.. have you moved to Siberia yet?

                Or are you still living somewhere comfortably warm, using your car and you grid electricity. ?

                42

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Hey Andy, did you see that straight line in the link I posted? It runs downwards from left to right through a full and complete long term data set. It’s called a trend line and it stems from the longest running consistently measured and located snow data set in Australia. Unlike that hotch potch of mis-matched data sets that you alluded to, which are located (did you know, or just not care?) at completely different altitudes and locations…. Can’t just add them together mate, sorry

                34

              • #
                AndyG55

                Doh Matt, when you CHOOSE to start at the coldest period in the last 80 or so years..

                SO WHAT !!

                All un-tampered temperature records for Australian show a distinct curve downwards from 1900, minimum in the mid 20th century then up again.

                Have you any data snow from the late 1800’s or are you going to continue to rely on a very small period of the NATURAL climate cycle.?

                Gees Matt.. If you are sooooooo scared of a tiny amount of warming, maybe its time for you to move to Siberia… have you considered it yet?

                Protect you from the COOLING indicated this century in all untainted temperature records.

                21

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Let me get this straight Andy, I’ve demonstrated now that there IS a declining trend in Oz Alps snow, you’ve agreed there is and said some nonsense about it being due to coming out of a cold period. Fair enough, you believe what you want but I don’t think that cold period is coming back anytime soon (you seem to think it indicates cooling for the rest of this century, huh?)

                Now your last link suggested there was no downward trend using dud statistics. Now which is it – you agree with dud statistical inferences or you accept the science on this and just want to find another explanation? You can’t have both?! Or are you doing that mud throwing thing again?…

                Now what exactly does a dusting of snow in Qld have to do with Oz Alps snowpack trends or global warming in general? You forgot to tell me what relevance that held. Try again.

                15

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Jesus Christ Jo, the entirety of interlocking climate science since about 1824 supports my position and you want ME to point out one particular study or link that shows….. what?! It’s you that needs to do the reading – guess what – it’s all out there, I’m not gonna waste my time walking you through it, it took me over 12 years to get to grips with the ins and outs of my misunderstandings. I thought Lomberg’s ‘Skeptical Environmentalist’ was gold when I first read it and was enamoured of its unbounded optimism; that positivity is me, naturally speaking. But then I resarched it’s ‘findings’ …. What selectively ‘mis’-quoted bullshit!

                I ask again, trying to keep you to the question, what internally consistent theory do you envisage explains: decreased heat lost to space, increased tropospheric heat retention, increased stratospheric cooling, enhanced H2O greenhouse effect, dramatic arctic ice volume decrease, 80-90% of global glaciers in retreat, ALL the ecological/seasonal pattern changes I’ve outlined, increased Antarctic glacial loss (esp sub-marinal), steadily declining Oz snowpack, increase in meteorological heat records up to ten times that of cold records, massive increase in total global ocean heat content, ….. and on and on and on……

                Do you think this happens every time we move from a glacial period to an interglacial? I think not. If the extinction rate matched today’s every time we exited a glacial there’d be very little biological diversity left!!

                I note Andy has given up on linking anomalous Qld snowfall events with declining Oz Alps snowpack data – good for him, he might just be smarter than we think.. And Rereke, well he’s yet to explain how his magical submarine volcanoes work thermodynamically or through gaseous emissions that lie secretly undetected.

                Seriously, you guys! C’mon..

                13

              • #

                Matt, If you think “all evidence” since 1824 fits your case, that’s because you don’t understand the question.
                Focus on cause and effect. You assume all signs of warming means carbon did it. But natural causes of warming produce nearly identical effects on snow, ice, sea, species, butterflies,…

                The raw data much more often fits the skeptics. Isn’t it a bit odd, don’t you think, that in nearly every situation the instruments need to be adjusted in the same direction. The ground thermometers of the 1920s all read “too warm”. The satellites measures the sea rise as “too low”. The radiosondes found “too little” warming in the upper T. The Argo buoys found “cooling”. Some people think instruments should be biased randomly too high and too low, but others believe anything Tim Flannery tells them.

                I asked for specific evidence that the model assumptions of positve strong water vapor feedback are accurate, and I’ve been asking that since Jan 2010. This is critical, it doubles the effect of CO2 (in climate models). But if water vapor feedbacks are negative that means humidity undoes the warming that CO2 does. That means we get 0.5C not 3.5C. See what I mean about numbers? The upper Trop should be warming. It isn’t. W-Vapor feedback is net negative. Crisis over.

                CO2 has increased. tick. CO2 is absorbing more of the CO2-bandwidths, tick, but that doesn’t tell us if the atmosphere is responding by letting the heat escape through different ways (water vapor, cloud tops, etc) The temperature rises started long before the CO2, and don’t correlate all that well — T rises just as fast in the 20s and 30s as in the 80s and 90s, and just as fast in the 1870s. But CO2 has an effect after WWII and should have had it’s biggest effect in the last 20 years. It didn’t. Almost all of the evidence since 1700 (and before adjustments) fits skeptics. Glaciers were shrinking and seas rising before we got coal fired stations.

                The warming started in 1680 or so , what caused that? You don’t know. How do you know it isn’t happening today? You don’t.

                The climate models leave out everything to do with solar magnetic effects, cosmic rays, spectral changes in sunlight, solar wind, lunar cycles… I could go on. Any of these could be affecting our climate. But hey, it’s only the sun…

                PS: The last interglacial was much hotter. You might want to drop that line of argument.

                PPS: Extinctions? Natural climate change would do that too. Humans do cause extinctions, but for other reasons. Do you want to save species? Start by thinking clearly.

                PPs: The stratospheric cooling can be caused by ozone depletion and it hasn’t really cooled much since about 1996. Bit of a problem? Yes, just another hole in your theory.

                52

              • #
                AndyG55

                No data from the late 1940’s yet Matt?

                No data from the late 19th century yet Matt?

                Just short term data covering the period of a series of very strong solar maximum.

                That’s called PROPAGANDA.

                In your graph, the snow depth on 2014 was deeper than in.

                1954,1957,1965,1967,1969,1973,1976,1979.1982,1987, 1988, 1989, 1993 etc etc

                Yes we haven’t had the deep peaks that occurred in the very cold 1950’s, but everything is well with natural variability, and absolutely NO PROOF of anything except that the latter half of last century warmed because of the series of strong solar cycles.

                Next you are going to tell be that the sun doesn’t affect snow. DOH !!

                Have you bought your ticket to Siberia yet?

                If not………. that’s called HYPOCRISY.

                32

              • #
                AndyG55

                Instead of cherry-picking one small, very marginal snow region, why don’t we look at the whole of the northern hemisphere…

                http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/images/nhland_season1.gif

                Oh dear.. upward trend.

                Matt’s little propaganda ploy… destroyed yet again.

                21

              • #
                Matt Bennett

                Jo, I do not assume all signs of warming mean carbon did it. What a ridiculous straw man assumption.

                [Your quote here did. Para 2. -Jo]

                Warming and cooling can have ALL sorts of causes under different conditions and working out which of these are dominate at any one time (or in combination) is what attribution studies are all about.

                [Blah blah. I follow the herd and whatever they say about “attribution studies” says matt. – Jo]

                Your contention that natural causes of warming all have the same effects, such that you can’t figure out what’s going on under any given set of circumstances just shows how little you know about actual working climate science.

                [Natural warming melts snow / ice, changes seasonal patterns, melts glaciers. You asked about these. I answered. Do you have the honesty to say so? – Jo]

                I don’t know if you just gobble up whatever Anthony Watts leaves out for you but raw data is CONSTANTLY corrected in both directions to make it a more accurate presentation of reality. You’d prefer that predictable systematic errors were left uncorrected in any data set?

                [As usual, you provide nothing. Bluster. waste of time petty insults and speculation. – Jo]

                All this stuff about temps rising since X date, see above. All rises in temp are not due to CO2 and no climate scientist asserted otherwise. Again, your straw man.

                [No. Actually, they do assert that all rises in temp that they can’t explain with their limited ignorant list of forces in their models, must be due to CO2. It’s argument from ignorance. I expect you don’t know what that is. – Jo]

                CO2 is CURRENTLY the dominant force for warming, thought to contribute a little over 100% of the increase over the last few decades, due to the fact that, all other things being equal, we should have seen a slight cooling given the state of the other natural forcings. There is yet more heat to come, due to the lag in the system, from carbon released during these decades.

                [See my last point. Plus the models don’t work. But you keep ignoring the evidence. – jo]

                Your statement about the last interglacial is also strange and nothing new to scientists. It is generally posited that earth was up to a degree or more warmer than today and, guess what? Sea levels were 4-6m higher then. You want that in today’s coastal-based civilisation? If we stopped emitting all carbon today and let the short to medium-term feedbacks run their course, historical data suggests that sea levels corresponding to our current CO2 level would be 20+m higher than now. I’m not too comfortable with committing future generations knowingly to that sort of disruption in a crowded world.

                [Strawman. You were wrong about interglacials. Do you have the honesty to admit it?. – jo]

                Current extinctions are several orders of magnitude greater than under natural pre-human conditions so, yeah, not really relevant the comparably small, natural climate-driven extinction levels that actually acted as part of the engine of evolution. Again, you seem to think that because everything has happened or can happen under natural conditions, it can’t therefore happen at a dangerously increased rate under anthropogenic conditions that don’t allow any natural systems time to adapt. This seems strange.

                [Read my answer to you again. More carefully this time. I am still a step ahead of you. – Jo]

                10

              • #

                Here’s your exact quote that I responded to, you are not engaging in an honest conversation.

                I ask again, trying to keep you to the question, what internally consistent theory do you envisage explains: decreased heat lost to space, increased tropospheric heat retention, increased stratospheric cooling, enhanced H2O greenhouse effect, dramatic arctic ice volume decrease, 80-90% of global glaciers in retreat, ALL the ecological/seasonal pattern changes I’ve outlined, increased Antarctic glacial loss (esp sub-marinal), steadily declining Oz snowpack, increase in meteorological heat records up to ten times that of cold records, massive increase in total global ocean heat content, ….. and on and on and on……

                This has becoming timewasting bluster, not a meaningful conversation. You have no evidence, you don’t substantiate anything, you avoid answering my very specific questions, while I answer all of yours. You need to answer my question about empirical evidence for assumptions about water vapor feedbacks in the upper trop, not just dodge it. If you don’t know, then say so. You make logical fallacy after fallacy (argument from authority, argument by popularity, mix cause and effect, ad hom, and so on and on, then suggest I’m illogical.

                You put forward weak insults, baseless irrelevant speculation, and more fantasy bluster. I hoped you had more ammo (and ability) than this.

                You need to answer my question before I publish anything else. We are all at risk of dying of boredom. You don’t have to know a lot, but if you pretend you do, then you fail to deliver, you need to be honest. – Jo.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            “Empirical effects of global warming are EVERYWHERE”

            No Matt..

            Empirical effects of absolutely normal global variability are EVERYWHERE.

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            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              I don’t think Matt has heard of the Null Hypothesis. Perhaps we should ask him to prove it? 🙂

              42

          • #
            AndyG55

            “Earth’s average temp is tens of degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be without a handful of GHGs”

            NO.. you have it wrong… still.

            Some reading educations for you if you have the brain matter left after the high-pressure brain-washing you have obviously been subjected to.

            http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/new-paper-confirms-gravito-thermal.html

            63

          • #
            AndyG55

            “crash in Arctic ice volumes”

            Ummmm .. again.. absolutely wrong.

            Biomarkers clearly show that the Arctic sea ice is actually anomalously HIGH compared to all but the last few hundred year (the Little Ice Age) of the Holocene interglacial.

            During the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the last 10,000 years, the Arctic was regularly ICE FREE in summer.

            The ONLY reason that the Arctic sea ice has been declining slightly in the last couple of decades is that that the Earth has been at the very tail end of a small rise out of the COLDEST and nastiest period in human history.

            Do you REALLY want to go back to those times?

            Then move to Siberia.. !!!

            63

          • #
            AndyG55

            “empirically show where the extra heat must hide if it’s not going to raise global temps”

            Well, little ranter.. where IS it hiding, because it sure isn’t in the atmosphere or the oceans. !!

            Poor Trenberth is having one heck of a problem finding it.. such a travesty…

            .. perhaps you can go and help him. 😉

            63

          • #
            AndyG55

            “It certainly seems your ‘hiatus’ line has run out of juice”

            Yep.. Cooling is indicated in all un-tampered data sets since 2001.

            No juice what-so-ever. 🙁

            Bring back the absolutely beneficial warming, please. !!!

            The planet needs it, just as much as it needs the extra CO2 we humans have thankfully released from its accidental sequestration.

            63

          • #
            AndyG55

            Here’s a little video for you to watch, Matt..

            Its from REAL scientist.. doing REAL science.. so listen and LEARN.

            https://vimeo.com/14366077

            73

          • #
            AndyG55

            “rapid retreat almost all global glaciers ”

            And they are finding tree stumps and other similar artefacts under many of them.

            That’s because the current small amount of warming from the series of strong solar maxima has lifted the planet out of depths of the COLDEST period of the current interglacial.

            If you really want to go back to those bitter, freezing times.. then move to Siberia.

            Me, I wish the slight warming had continued, very beneficial for the majority of the planet.

            Unfortunately it looks like we have reached the top of the small molehill, and are starting to head back downwards 🙁

            33

        • #
          Frank

          RW
          Would you care to comment on the yet to be produced evidence from the skeptics ?, extraordinary claims running counter to everyone else require extraordinary evidence.
          The burden of proof is with you.

          36

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Frank,

            I am not about to be drawn into a request for me to prove a negative. That is a logical fallacy.

            I make no extraordinary claims, I merely point to the null hypothesis, and the fact that, in empirical terms the climate has not materially warmed for many years, in spite of constant tinkering with the climate models.

            And while we are on the subject of climate models, could you remind me of the date when are they due to be published, and placed in the public domain for review? The burden of proof, sits with the authors, who need to demonstrate that the models account accurately, and consistently, with empirical observations; and also that records of the empirical observations have not been arbitrarily adjusted post hoc.

            I also observe, that in days pre-Hansen, we had something called Climate Variability, that had complex patterns, and a air of the ineffable, about it. Those were days of wonder, to a skinny kid who insisted on asking, “Why?”, all of the time.

            40

      • #
        Matt Bennett

        Haha, you can lead a horse to water Jo…..

        28

      • #
        Matt Bennett

        That’s pretty light-weight as a response Jo. My quote is directly from this gentleman’s book and should strike shock into hearts of anyone intending to take him seriously. Would you be happy with someone critically deconstructing relativity, calculus or, say, all of neurosurgery without taking the time to familiarise themselves with the technical aspects of the field? I dare say even you wouldn’t but I could be wrong. It’s a joke to say something like that, but I daresay he sincerely believes it’s all irrelevant just because he probably has a beef with the implications – just like you all do. More likely he couldn’t be bothered to put in the enormous hours required and learn the necessary maths to get across the subject (or simply couldn’t). Neither is an excuse if you’re going to pan an entire branch of well-evidenced and still expect to be taken seriously.

        28

        • #
          Matt Bennett

          …”well-evidenced science”… yadda yadda

          110

        • #

          My response was not just lightweight — I’ve made no comment at all about the book.

          80

        • #
          AndyG55

          “entire branch of well-evidenced science”

          So.. which branch of science are you talking about????

          …definitely NOT “climate science™”.

          The current farce that is “climate science™” is all based on failed hypothesis after failed hypothesis.

          52

        • #
          Just-A-Guy

          Matt Bennett,

          You wrote:

          Would you be happy with someone critically deconstructing relativity, calculus or, say, all of neurosurgery without taking the time to familiarise themselves with the technical aspects of the field?

          Watch carefully and learn:

          This is what you did:

          Would you be happy with someone critically deconstructing this author’s book without taking the time to familiarise themselves with the actual contents of the book itself?

          IOW, Matt, you yourself are guilty of doing what you accuse the author of doing. IOW, Matt, your actions are self-contradictory.

          Furthermore . . .

          You wrote:

          I dare say even you wouldn’t but I could be wrong. It’s a joke to say something like that, but I daresay he sincerely believes it’s all irrelevant just because he probably has a beef with the implications – just like you all do. More likely he couldn’t be bothered to put in the enormous hours required and learn the necessary maths to get across the subject (or simply couldn’t).

          The entirety of your response is based on attacking the person writing the book and not on the facts contained within the book. IOW, Matt, all you have are personal attacks and no facts. No argument. No rational discourse.
          Notice too that I don’t need to know squat about climate science ™ to recognize the logical fallacy and self-contradiction in what you wrote. Your words speak for themselves. IOW, Matt, the author of this book does not need to know ‘the technical details’ of ‘an entire branch of well-evidenced science’ to spot the logical flaws and internal contradictions inherent throughout this so called ‘climate science’. Those flaws stand out and speak for themselves. Everywhere. All the time.

          If the basic premise is flawed, the details are irrelevant.

          Abe

          40

        • #
          Just-A-Guy

          Matt Bennett,

          Which reminds me; this comment you wrote.
          On consensus opinion you gloat.
          Ninety seven percent,
          Just-A-Farce to present,
          That ridiculous claim you promote.

          No Matt! Science ain’t done by conensus.
          Nor fallacious appeals to the senses.
          It’s the facts we adore.
          Observations galore!
          To dispense with your silly pretenses.

          You allude to that paper of Cook’s.
          Who was found to be cooking the books.
          Using slippery stats,
          to obscure what the facts,
          even shnooks comprehend if they looks!

          In his abstract* he tells us the tale.
          How he cleverly went through the bale,
          of the papers he found.
          Then, set out to confound,
          with an error as huge as a whale!

          You see, Matt, Cook, et. al. was a failure,
          Just-A-Bit, he cut out. Like a tailor!
          The majority view,
          from this research, he knew,
          didn’t ‘toe to the line’ like a sailor.

          Fully two thirds, they had no opinion.
          Neither for nor against, the dominion,
          of humanity’s works,
          on the cycles and quirks,
          of the climate machine and it’s pinion.

          Having not an opinion, be clear!
          The majority does not adhere,
          to the climate alarm,
          and irreperable harm,
          done the tenets of science, so dear!

          Come on Bennett! (Who’s first name is Matt).
          Won’t you finally wake to the fact?
          That the Limerricks and prose,
          you astutely compose,
          hold no sway, nor convince, nor distract.

          When a skeptic, they gander the swagger,
          of the CAGW wagger.
          They can see well within.
          The exterior? Thin!
          Cutting through their finesse like a dagger.

          Just-A-Layer beneath, the deceiver,
          the corruptor of truth. True Believer!
          In their effort to grab,
          all that’s there to be had,
          Any means to those ends cry, “Achiever!”

          So return to that place whence you came.
          To that La-La-Land out on the plain.
          Where the facts are ignored,
          and all reason abhorred.
          Don’t come back ’till you’re perfectly sane. 😉

          Abe

          From the Cook, et. al. abstract:

          We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.

          When John Cook found that two thirds of these papers neither endosed nor rejected AGW ™, what did he do? Well, naturally he just threw them out! Why let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?
          And he tells us right there that only 32.6% endorsed AGW ™!
          How do you, Matt, or anyone else(that means you, Frank), for that matter, fall for this nonsense?

          21

        • #
          AndyG55

          “without taking the time to familiarise themselves with the technical aspects of the field”

          You mean.. like you. ? !!!!

          00

      • #

        Really Matt,you who is an obvious CAGW believer think all those computer generated climate models that runs to year 2050 and 2100 will meet the SCIENTIFIC METHOD?

        Really,you believe that nonsense?

        Matt,way back at 26.1 wrote what he thought was pretty words for skeptics:

        You go right ahead Jo and further devalue your currency amongst those that actually try to follow some basic rational rules of enquiry, (sometimes referred to as the scientific method)….

        But he fails to realize that he destroys the credibility of all those computer generated playstation climate models to year 2100 and yes even 3100 (It is the IPCC report!) if he really wants to stand by the Scientific Method.

        What is the Scientific Method and does it indeed work in support of climate models that run far into the future?

        From Science Buddies:

        Steps of the Scientific Method

        “The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.
        The steps of the scientific method are to:

        Ask a Question
        Do Background Research
        Construct a Hypothesis
        Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
        Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
        Communicate Your Results”

        Oh oh, it looks bad here Matt, since it says you have to run experiments to test the veracity of the hypothesis. But doing that with computer generated climate models that runs decades AHEAD into the future can’t be tested at all.

        Maybe you do have a working time machine,but slyly withholding the data for money or you are just another confused warmists who have a bad habit of shooting themselves in the foot with idiotic statements?

        Climate models that runs another 85 years into the future is junk science because it is NOT TESTABLE (oh dear another word warmists seems unaware of!)

        Maybe I should be saying Falsifiable results instead?

        What is Falsifiable and how it pertains to those far into the future dart board quality climate models,that have 85 years to go?

        Lets stick with Testable for warmists to learn and understand instead,as it is simpler:

        From Understanding Science

        Only testable ideas are within the purview of science. For an idea to be testable, it must logically generate specific expectations — in other words, a set of observations that we could expect to make if the idea were true and a set of observations that would be inconsistent with the idea and lead you to believe that it is not true.

        There it is again, it has to be based on actual observation to check if it is true or not,which is impossible with 85 years into the future climate models left, that is completely untestable, it is junk science.

        10

  • #
    Dariusz

    Soros has done more damage to free capitalism than years of communist propaganda. He is the symbol of unabridged greed that capitalism is supposedly to be based on. The “greed is good” meme reverberates in an average mind and he is stands behind like the old Michael Douglas persona.
    This however is not capitalism. Capitalism is about repeat business. If you screw me I will never do business with you and hence unabridged greed has no place in this system and hence Soros.

    If you think that Coles and Wollies have anything to do with capitalism again, you wrong as these creatures were allowed to evolve through government support and protection and now having no other competition they can screw anyone, supplier and customer alike.
    For anyone to think that we live a free capitalist society think again. Soros is like sore on the flesh of humanity.

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    • #
      gai

      Two things killed capitalism. Fiat money and regulation.

      #1. REGULATIONS. See E.M. Smith for a good explanation on why corporations love regulations as long as they get to write them and enforce them. (It is not by chance that Monsanto, ADM and the other big boys have a revolving door with the FDA and USDA and run the WTO.)

      #1. Free fiat money for ME but not for Thee.

      Small business is self-financed “While movies and television might have us believe that small business owners raise capital by throwing impromptu parties à la Empire Records, in reality most rely on their personal savings and informal loans from friends and family to open the doors and expand the business” (Note the propaganda put out by the MSM)

      Compare that to not only corporate loans but the Leveraged Buyouts/Hostile Takeovers that take well run, debt free medium size corporations, use fiat funny money to buy stock and then either breaks up the company and sells the assets or transfers the debt to the corporation. The bankers and financiers walk away with the equity built up in the company whose workers are now in for a very hard time.

      A leveraged buyout (or LBO, or highly-leveraged transaction (HLT), or “bootstrap” transaction) occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company’s equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage (borrowing). The assets of the acquired company are used as collateral for the borrowed capital, sometimes with assets of the acquiring company. Typically, leveraged buyout uses a combination of various debt instruments from bank and debt capital markets…

      The leveraged buyout boom of the 1980s was conceived by a number of corporate financiers, most notably Jerome Kohlberg, Jr. and later his protégé Henry Kravis. Working for Bear Stearns at the time, Kohlberg and Kravis, along with Kravis’ cousin George Roberts, began a series of what they described as “bootstrap” investments… WIKI

      So where was the US government when US mid-sized corporations were being gutted?

      …Both economic and regulatory factors combined to spur the explosion in large takeovers and, in turn, large LBOs. The three regulatory factors were the Reagan administration’s relatively laissez-faire policies on antitrust and securities laws, which allowed mergers the government would have challenged in earlier years; the 1982 Supreme Court decision striking down state antitakeover laws (which were resurrected with great effectiveness in the late eighties); and deregulation of many industries, which prompted restructurings and mergers. The main economic factor was the development of the original-issue high-yield debt instrument. The so-called “junk bond” innovation, pioneered by Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham, provided many hostile bidders and LBO firms with the enormous amounts of capital needed to finance multi-billion-dollar deals…. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/TakeoversandLeveragedBuyouts.html

      It was a US Secretary of the Treasury that started the massive sellout of our economy

      …..In January 1982, former US Secretary of the Treasury William Simon and a group of investors acquired Gibson Greetings, a producer of greeting cards, for $80 million, of which only $1 million was rumored to have been contributed by the investors. By mid-1983, just sixteen months after the original deal, Gibson completed a $290 million IPO and Simon made approximately $66 million.[9] [b]The success of the Gibson Greetings investment attracted the attention of the wider media to the nascent boom in leveraged buyouts.[10] Between 1979 and 1989, it was estimated that there were over 2,000 leveraged buyouts valued in excess of $250 billion….. WIKI

      There is a lot more on this mess:
      http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/mergers/2010/10/statutory-fiduciary-duties-unocal-and-revlon-outside-delaware.html
      “…In the 1980s during the great takeover boom and hollowing out of the industrial heartland….”

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        gai

        While we are talking about stocks, take a good hard look at mutual funds.

        You will hear things like ‘Monsanto is owned by the public, mainly pension funds’

        However when you dig you find individuals (and pension funds) have invested via MUTUAL FUNDS and it is the mutual funds that actually own and control the stock! For example, when you look at Monsanto it is Mr Johnson who is voting the shares held by various ‘Fidelity’ mutual funds.

        A study was done recently “The Network of Global Corporate Control”

        …one could expect inequality of control to be comparable to inequality of income across households and firms, since shares of most corporations are publicly accessible in stock markets. In contrast, we find that only 737 top holders accumulate 80% of the control
        over the value of all TNCs (see also the list of the top 50 holders in Table S1 of Appendix S1).
        ….This means that network control is much more unequally distributed than wealth. In particular, the top ranked actors hold a control ten times bigger than what could be expected based on their wealth.

        more here: http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/10/03/whistleblower-karen-hudes-how-the-global-elite-rule-the-world/

        from “a Yale-educated attorney that worked inside the World Bank for more than two decades.”

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    gai

    The Broken Window Fallacy writ large.

    It pays big time for the glaziers guild to egg on and even fund the juvenile delinquents to break windows while controlling who can enter the field. (The real function of regulations)

    …Bastiat posed the story of a young man who throws a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. We’re told that this may have a bright side — that the baker must now pay a glazier to fix the window, who will then use that income to spend elsewhere, creating a ripple effect that benefits many.

    Such thinking is reminiscent of what would later be used to justify the logic behind the Keynesian multiplier. Keynes would later write in the General Theory, “Pyramid building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth.”
    The Opportunity Cost of Fixing Things

    As many readers already know, such logic fails to take into account the opportunity cost of the broken window. Had the window not been broken, the baker wouldn’t have paid the glazier, but maybe he would’ve spent the money on a pair of shoes instead. The shoemaker would then have income to spend elsewhere, and the same multiplier would take place — but society would be better off by exactly one window….

    Unfortunately we are seeing many, many broken windows and the elite’s ‘glazier guild,’ the owners of the big transnational corporations and their political suck-ups are the only ones benefiting.

    The US federal government collects between 15 and 20 percent of GDP in income tax alone. Figuring a very conservative 10% of the GDP from 1970 to 2013 that is 32.461 trillion in just in your face income tax. Last I figured my tax rate in 1982, it was 65.4% in combined overt taxes not including Reagan’s 151 taxes on a loaf of bread (1975.) Figuring a real tax rate of 50% that equals 160 TRILLION DOLLARS and on top of that we now have a 16 trillion dollar debt.

    So what do we have to show for these trillions and trillions of dollars? A crumbling infra-stucture, a school system, which William Schmidt, a statistics professor at Michigan State University, says ranks “at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa.” A welfare system that pays women NOT to get married, Not to get a job but instead pop out a baby every year and politicians, bureaucrats and other ‘public servants’ with nice fat pensions.

    At this point we have half the labor force paying the other half to sit on their fat rumps and suck on the public teat.

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    Doubting Rich

    Who will take a bet that when he sells the shares he will boast that he is divesting from fossil-fuel companies?

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Absolutely not me.

      I would have thought that that was blindingly obvious. Do not play chess with this man – especially for money.

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    Svend Ferdinandsen

    It could be a conspiration theory, but anyway.
    If he controls the coalproduction sufficiently, he could close it down, and then just wait a few weeks untill also the most green feel the lack of energy.
    I suppose the powerplants have contracts and so on, so it would not immidiately be possible.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      A lot of industry is highly reliant on a continuous and constant power supply. These are industries that he hold investments in. Ergo, he will not make any moves to shut down the root source of the energy supply chain.

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    Manfred

    Drifting OT.
    Climatologist: We Have a ‘Moral Imperative’ to Burn Fossil Fuels
    Thank God, some seriously refreshing common sense makes it to publication from Dr John Christy.

    And in the other hemisphere, Auntie is dumping the Met Office weather spigot (and saving herself a few dollars). The bad news is that apparently NZ climate weather propaganda services may be under consideration.

    The BBC said it was legally required to open up the contract to outside competition and secure the best value for money for licence fee payers.

    Dutch and New Zealand firms are said to be in the running for the contract, which is believed to make up a sizeable share of the £32.5 million a year the Met Office receives from commercial organisations, according to the Mail on Sunday.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “We Have a ‘Moral Imperative’ to Burn Fossil Fuels”

      And if you believe that God built this Earth for us to humans to live on…

      … then one must assume that He put those huge coal seams and the oil beds there for us to use once we had or needed the technology.

      Not only is the anti-CO2 crusade moronically stupid because it threatens to stall world food supplies and destroy economies….. but it is also very much against the will of God.

      nb.. this is a logical conclusion.. I am not religious in any way.

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    Dave in the states

    If one wonders why rich and elite hypocrites, often support Eco-Marxists agendas, stifling environmental and economic regulations, energy and transportation taxes, and crony capitalism with government, two things come to mind.

    One is vanity. It’s good PR in the MSM.

    The other is that it skews the “game” to their advantage. Energy (carbon taxes included) and transportation taxes shift the tax burden away from the elites and on to the wider tax base of the poor and the middle class. These increased costs are nothing to the elites in their daily lives. If it costs more to do business or to produce goods and services the increased costs are passed on to the customer. Once again the poor and the middle class pay the most with the least. Regulations, depress innovation and competition in the market place, which protects the established business and industries they are invested in, and keeps new comers mostly outside looking in.

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      David Maddison

      Excellent points Dave in the states. Obama is also benefitted because it helps him achieve his political objective of the destruction of thevsupremacy of the United States and Western Civilisation along with it.

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    David Maddison

    I think I might buy some coal shares.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    OT, I am about to make a formal complaint to their ABC about not publishing my comment on their story at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rnafternoons/scientists-say-how-they-27feel27-about-climate-change/6698622 or explaining to me why they did not and also allowing another email to go unanswered.

    Before I do, could anyone else that commented but did not have their comment published, please let me know. Thanks.

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    David Maddison

    It’s amazing. They keep talking about CAGW as though it were a real thing.

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/europes-former-climate-commissioner-connie-hedegaard/6719298

    Europe’s former Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard on Paris climate talks

    Monday 24 August 2015 8:06AM (view full episode)

    In December this year, world leaders will gather in Paris in an attempt to nut out a global emissions pact.

    Many countries, including Australia, have recently announced their pledges for reducing emissions post 2020.

    But late last week, the EU warned that the technical talks were proceeding too slowly, and even lagging behind the political announcements.

    Europe’s former and first ever Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, is in Australia for a series of speaking engagements.

    Connie Hedegaard joins Fran Kelly on RN Breakfast.

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    Ursus Augustus

    I found the gem below in a paper/course handout regarding the Navier Stokes equations written by a Steven Dobek

    “I began this project through a desire to simulate smoke and fire through the use of programming and graphics rendering. To do this, I researched the concepts of vector calculus, fluid dynamics, and the Navier-Stokes equation. Upon finding such useful and insightful information, the project evolved into a study of how the Navier-Stokes equation was derived and how it may be applied in the area of computer graphics.”

    No insult intended to Mr Dobek but it seems to me that if you replace “smoke and fire” with “global climate”, the final reference to “computer graphics” still makes perfect sense, well at least to a rent seeking CAGWarmist.

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    • #

      Seems like Steven Dobek is trying to give some understanding to the Navier Stokes equations via visual presentation. More power to him.
      The rent seeking CAGWarmist only present maximum confusion never some understanding! With understanding folk would stop sharpening the pitchforks and come running at someone that really needs severe poking.

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    • #

      You have already expressed your insult to Steven Dobek! The reference to “smoke and fire” involves concepts readily observable in this atmosphere.
      The religious meteorologists your “rent seeking CAGWarmist” cannot even adequately explain the obvious. Total incompetence for profit and political gain.
      Perhaps those at CalTech using computational fluid dynamics including continuum theory and the very complex NS equations can do much better. At lease they understand much of this atmosphere. The current hang up is interpretation of result, without fast and meaningful visual presentation.
      You seem to be familiar with Mr. Dobek.
      Who is he? Why the insults?

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  • #
    Angry

    George Soros uses the Useful Idiot greens to talk down coal so he can snap up shares in it at bargin basement prices before they rise massively due to the demand for coal in the coming little ice age………….

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    • #
      David Maddison

      As I said in another post, it reminds of villan Lex Luthor in a Superman movie buying up cheap Nevada desert land because his plan was to activate the San Andreas fault and cause California to slide into the sea and he would then have valuable coastal real estate.

      Soros must be so grateful to those useful Green idiots.

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    pat

    David Maddison links to Fran’s Breakfast chat with Europe’s FORMER climate chief, Connie Hedegaard. Connie said she could see ” “institutional investors, pension funds, really starting to change their investments now” (watch your Super). on 14 Aug, Guardian had: “EU climate chief Hedegaard backs fossil fuel divestment”, so that was no surprise.

    however, Fran/ABC did not bother to say who Connie worked for now, or who brought her to Australia. Connie she didn’t want to involve herself in political talk about Australia’s emissions reductions target, BUT Fran said she would be speaking at Sydney Town Hall Tuesday night on the topic – “The Politics of Climate Change”! no hint of who was organising said talk.

    i will provide some details:

    The Greens, NSW: CityTalks 2015: The Politics of Climate Change
    We’re bringing Connie Hedegaard, former EU Commissioner on Climate Action, to Sydney for a special CityTalk: The Politics of Climate Change.
    Greens Senator Larissa Waters will be speaking, along with Mark Butler MP, Shadow Minister for the Environment, and Senator for Queensland and Dr John Hewson AM, former Leader of the Liberal Party. The event will be hosted by Adam Spencer.
    August 25th at Sydney Town Hall.
    Tickets are free, but book your seat now to secure your spot
    http://nsw.greens.org.au/event/nsw/citytalks-2015-politics-climate-change

    13 Aug: City of Sydney: Former EU Commissioner for Climate Action to discuss Australia’s emission targets in Sydney
    Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the public is invited to the first free major public debate among climate experts and political leaders following the release of the Australian Government’s climate targets…
    Clover Moore: “We are the last generation that can make a difference for future generations. Yet the Abbott Government’s target effectively puts Australia last compared with other developed countries.
    “It is shocking that in the year 2015, Australia’s leader can say that taking action on climate change would hurt our economy. Failure to transform Australia’s economy for the low carbon future will be infinitely more damaging…
    This CityTalk event is supported by the City’s official media partner, The Guardian, and event partner, the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney…

    23 Aug: SMH: Nicole Elphick: Your entertainment guide to what’s hot in Sydney from August 23
    Tuesday, August 25
    TALK Former European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard​ is the headline speaker at The Politics of Climate Change. She appears alongside Mark Butler, Larissa Waters and John Hewson to discuss Australia’s emission targets.

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    Bulldust

    I see Andrew Denton has joined the Climate Change brigade:

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/comedy-can-help-change-attitudes-about-climate-change/6708862

    Yes, the denier word is dropped with gay abandon, and this is how the ABC choses to promote scientific debate? I see the 97% statistic was accepted as gospel as well… a lost cause that man.

    Perhaps he shoud do an “enough rope” interview with Monckton. I know Chris would be funnier and more erudite.

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘…a lost cause that man.’

      It does appear so, but he is right about this.

      ‘When you’re laughing, you’re listening—so that’s half your conversation right there.’

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      • #
        Bill

        we only listen so we can hear the next joke in the series….after all, greenies make poor mimes, they make too much noise.

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  • #
    pat

    ***where is Connie working now?

    14 Aug: Guardian: Former EU climate chief Hedegaard backs fossil fuel divestment
    Shifting funds out of coal, oil and gas could make ‘a very important contribution’ to Paris deal, says Connie Hedegaard.
    by Megan Darby for RTCC, part of the Guardian Environment Network
    Connie Hedegaard, who now chairs the ***KR Foundation, a climate focused funding platform, praised the movement to shift finance flows away from climate-polluting sectors.
    In an exclusive interview with RTCC, recorded for a new Road to Paris podcast, she revealed it is a priority for the fund over the next 18 months…
    The KR Foundation has issued grants to organisations ranging from grassroots campaign group 350.org to Oxford University’s stranded assets research programme….
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/14/former-eu-climate-chief-hedegaard-backs-fossil-fuel-divestment

    CAGW psyops specialist Leiserowitz/Yale is on the Board!

    KR Foundation – Board
    Anthony Leiserowitz, Director
    Founder & Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Communication. He is also a research scientist at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and an expert on public climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and behavior
    http://krfnd.org/kr_foundation/board/

    from the website:
    KR Foundation was established on 21 December 2014 by VILLUM FONDEN and the descendants of civil engineer Villum Kann Rasmussen.
    KR Foundation collaborates closely with The ***Velux Foundations and the ***V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

    remember this lot:

    European Climate Foundation: Funding Partners
    Core Funders includes ***Velux Foundation
    Chairman: Caio Koch-Weser
    Currently, he is Vice-Chairman and senior adviser with Deutsche Bank…
    Board Member: Laurence Tubiana
    Laurence Tubiana is founder of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) in Paris. She is professor and director of the Sustainable Development Center at Sciences Po Paris. She is also Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). In May 2014, Laurence Tubiana was appointed Special Representative for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference and Ambassador for Climate Change by Laurent Fabius, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs…
    CEO: Johannes Meier
    Prior to joining the ECF in February 2011, Johannes was a partner with McKinsey & Company, executive board member of the Bertelsmann Foundation in Germany, and CEO of GE CompuNet Computer AG.

    Oct 2014: Renew Economy: Sophie Vorrath: Queensland coal projects bring ‘unprecedented’ investor risk
    In an industry brief published today by IEEFA – a New York-based NGO funded by philanthropic organisations including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the ***V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation – analyst Tom Sanzillo says proposals for new coal-production facilities in the Galilee Basin are too risky to attract adequate investor support.

    (all links are easily found online)

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    pat

    finally on this topic, some classic Connie comments on Lomborg last month!

    16 July: Local Denmark: Denmark to fund climate sceptic Lomborg
    The government plans to include funding for the Climate Consensus, an organization founded by Danish statistician and climate debater Bjorn Lomborg, in its upcoming budget.
    Lomborg is an outspoken critic of prevailing climate change projections, which he dismisses as exaggerated and based on selective evidence…
    Denmark’s minister for the environment, Lars Christian Lilleholt, told Berlingske that the purpose of funding the organization was to add more voices to the discourse on climate change, which he feels has become too “one-sided” and “elitist”.
    Other parties in the blue bloc have applauded the proposal and have indicated that they are likely support it when it comes to a vote.
    The libertarian-leaning Liberal Alliance’s climate and energy spokesman, Vilum Christensen, is among those who look forward to Lomborg’s return to the Danish climate change debate.
    “The government will not be missing our votes if the intention is to develop a more nuanced discourse on climate challenges,” Christensen told Jyllands-Posten…
    Several Danish climate researchers have found the decision baffling, however. Katherine Richardson, leader of the Sustainability Science Centre at Copenhagen University, wonders why the government would fund Lomborg, who has made quite the international name for himself.
    ***Connie Hedegaard, the former EU commissioner for the environment and current chairman of the KR Foundation, also questioned the proposal, finding it odd that a liberal government feels that it is necessary to provide funding to Lomborg.
    “Lomborg has done quite well for himself with grants that he gets around the world and from his private earnings,” Hedegaard told Information, adding that she thought liberal parties were generally against subsidizing endeavours that could stand on their own.
    “And as far as I can see, Lomborg has quite a few income sources, including from various climate-sceptic think tanks,” she said.
    http://www.thelocal.dk/20150716/denmark-to-fund-climate-skeptic-bjorn-lomborg

    seems like good sense is prevailing among the politicians in Denmark.
    good news for Lomborg too.

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    Amber

    So .. you meet the person you intend to finance for president ,get the policy commitments you want .ie to drive down the price of coal, via EPA regulatory punishment , …
    short the stocks on the way down and then buy big at the bottom . Coal isn’t staying in the ground and the Chinese reserves are good for 30 years max before they will be coming and getting what they want .
    The Obama admin is outsourcing American jobs to cover political debts to hedge fund bankers . When you destroy the USA manufacturing sectors you destroy the USA ability to defend itself .

    Trump may be a goof at times but he will not sell out USA interests and more and more Americans know it . The huge cost to run for President ensures low life billionaires call the shots .

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Chinese reserves are good for 30 years max before they will be coming and getting what they want ”

      Thing is, that China don’t need to get it from the US.

      Both Australia and Indonesia have massive reserves of coal and are just waiting for the right time increase output, once this very stupid anti-CO2 campaign get circular filed.

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    el gordo

    Is there any truth in the rumor that Soros funds Greenpeace, Economist, RealClimate and ClimateProgress?

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    ScotsmaninUtah

    The China Syndrome …

    what is interesting are the models that the economists are using to predict how the markets are
    trending and these are very similar to the climate models ( all are based on stochastic systems)

    Given the following basic numbers

    China foreign exchange reserves remain high at 4 trillion (USD)
    China’s GDP remained above 9.0% until 2011
    China’s GDP expanded by 1.7% QoQ in Q2 averaging 7.2%
    China’s GDP dipped to 7% in the post Q2
    GDP has been decreasing on average 1%+ year on year since 2011
    China’s currency exchange rate is controlled by China not FX dealers

    The economist’s financial models predict a steady “decline” in GDP for the next few years..

    Meanwhile…
    Jun to mid Aug the Dow Jones remained fairly flat
    Then…
    China central bank “unexpectedly” decided to devalue the Yuan ( August 11th)
    The result, since Aug 17th (last week) the Dow has lost more than 1,000 points

    It is still Sunday here in the U.S and we are waiting for the Stock Markets to open tomorrow
    and we are waiting to see what they do …

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    el gordo

    ‘The president of Kiribati has criticised Australia’s commitment to new coalmines on economic grounds as a “very selfish perspective” that illustrates the “fundamentally unjust” dynamics of climate change.

    ‘Anote Tong, whose small Pacific island nation is threatened by rising sea levels, has written to other national leaders calling for a worldwide moratorium on new mines ahead of UN climate talks in Paris in December.’

    Robertson / Guardian

    ——

    A moratorium would push up the share price of old mines.

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    Would someone please loan me $12 billion so I could find out if I also were susceptible to the greed of wealth and power? 🙂

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    Here’s my educated guess.
    I have a Finance MBA,
    but that didn’t help
    figure this out at all:

    Soros knew for sure he would be criticized and ridiculed for this coal investment no matter how small it was.

    Soros must not have been very bullish on coal because his investment was tiny relative to his net worth.

    Therefore, there must be a reason Soros wanted attention for this investment, even though the small investment shows he didn’t really care much about the coal companies.

    Since he is a leftist, I will assume that for Soros lying and misleading are his standard operating procedures.

    Here is one logical reason that might explain Soros’s actions.

    My best guess is that Soros also invested in other things that he did not want the public to know about.

    The tiny coal investments were to distract people.

    This was an inexpensive (for him), or even profitable, distraction (the news he bought some shares boosted the prices of those coal company shares enough for Soros to sell his relatively small positions the next week and laugh all the way to the bank).

    My best guess is Soros simultaneously made other investments — perhaps buying an ETF that rises when stock averages fall, in anticipation of a stock market correction — investments he wanted to be “under the radar” … and if he did make bearish-on-the-market investments, today Soros has profits on those investments !

    I accuse Soros of ulterior motives … just like the ulterior motives of the climate doomsayers, who demonize CO2 mainly because they hate population growth, economic growth, and capitalism, not because a small rise in the average temperature would actually hurt anyone — common sense says more Co2 and more warming would be good climate news, just like they have been since 1850.

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    jorgekafkazar

    This was the plan all along: to drive the price of coal down to bargain prices, then sell the asset to China. They’re stealing US coal.

    00

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    gai

    Matt Bennett says:

    “….Empirical effects of global warming are EVERYWHERE!!”

    Actually it is evidence of the return to Wisconsin Ice age condition that are every where. The Laurentide ice sheet is the same shape as the ‘Polar Express’ that has been visiting the USA indicating a return to the jet stream pattern that created the massive glaciers.

    It is not the cold but the snow that is key and we certainly have been seeing the massive amounts of snow needed to build glaciers.

    Lets take a look at the snow history in Central Park NYC where the Laurentide glacier terminated.

    Decadal (ten year) totals:
    Ending Sum
    1880 355.2
    1890 328.3
    1900 347.3
    1910 302.2
    1920 326.6
    1930 260.5
    1940 256.6
    1950 316.3
    1960 226
    1970 306.4
    1980 212.5
    1990 197.4
    2000 247.3
    2010 314.7
    Average is 285.5 so the last decade was above average in snow.

    For the last six years:
    2010 ..(51.4)
    2011 ..61.9
    2012 ..7.4
    2013 ..26.1
    2014 ..57.4
    2015. 50.3

    From 1869,only three seasons had more than 60 inches of snow and the 2011 season was one of them.
    In 145 years only 18 seasons had more than 50 inches of snow and four have been in the last six years.

    You are completely off the mark. Do you think we do not pay attention to other Countries?

    You can go to IceAgeNow and see all the cold and snow records broken in the last half dozen years all over the world. The thousands of animals frozen to death and the crops lost.

    This is just two months in 2014.
    DECEMBER
    Heavy snowfall shuts down six highways in China
    Early Winter Storm Hammers Vermont – Power Outages “Unprecedented”
    Heavy snow shuts down Trans Canada Highway east of Quebec City
    Algeria – Heavy snowfall brings complete paralysis of most educational institutions
    Japan – Heavy snowfall kills eight
    Kazakhstan – 530 people rescued from snowdrifts since the beginning of winter

    Heavy snow knocks out power to 10 municipalities in Bulgaria
    Heavy snowfall traps people on the road in Mersin, Turkey
    Austria ice storm – So bad that authorities use tanks to move supplies
    Heavy snowfall continues in Japan
    Six greenhouses collapse under heavy snow in NE China
    Waist-deep snow in China – Most severe snowstorm in years
    Record snowfall in Juneau, Alaska

    Serbia – Ice storm and deep snow – People experiencing mental breakdown after 48 hours without electricity, water and heating
    Austria – Rare ice storm hits Waldviertel
    100,000 Czech travelers stranded due to freezing arctic weather
    Romania – More than 1,000 people stuck in snow
    Eastern Turkey – Heavy snowfall reduces visibility to 16 feet (5 m)

    NOVEMBER
    Iran – Snow and blizzards began in early November and still continue
    Turkey – Heavy snowfall knocks out power for 4 days – and still counting
    Russia – Minus 32 degrees and Heavy Snow in Tomsk
    One meter of snow in eastern Turkey
    Buffalo – 30 major roof collapses, 100 minor collapses (SEVEN FEET of snow in one storm)
    Ice on the Mississippi River in Iowa (Nov 20)

    All these snow events resulted in Northern Hemisphere snow cover this fall highest ever on record. (November)
    http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Fall-Snow-Cover-2014.png

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