Petition: Alan Kohler wants a Royal Commission into Climate Science (to convince the skeptics)

Alan Kohler (ABC economics guru) thinks there is so much overwhelming evidence that a Royal Commission would persuade the skeptics. Skeptics say, yes please, lets do the due diligence that’s never been done. Go on convince us.

Over 50% of Australians are skeptical of the IPCC explanations (think that’s changed? See the last election results). Over 60% don’t want to pay even $10 a month. So lay it out. We want a Royal Commission, some kind of public debate, based on scientific evidence, not “scientific opinion”. It’s not enough to show the climate’s changed, we expect to see evidence about cause and effect. Let’s get all the uncertainties laid bare, not buried behind models and hidden by indignant namecalling. What are they afraid of?

If you worry, like I do — that any institutionalized forum can be another waste of money — captured by the swamp — then view this as a play in the only court that matters, the court of public opinion. Let Alan Kohler know there are lots of skeptics and we want a debate. Ask why the ABC won’t tell the world that there are tens of thousands of scientists and engineers, including NASA stars, […]

Outside China 5% of cases are severe; Singapore may be three months away from running out of hospital beds

In short:

Outside China, 2% of cases have progressed to “severe”. But if the lag is eight days then progression to severe is more like 5%. In China about 1/5th of severe cases are “Critical” If that rate occurs in the West, hospitals will be overwhelmed if just 1% of the population gets infected. In Singapore, the doubling period for confirmed cases is about nine days. Currently the spread is not exponential outside China (most days)

News today: First victim in Europe — an 80 year old Chinese tourist.

Stats: Total cases outside China: 787 Deaths: 4 Severe cases: 18 (2%)

Early days of “outside China” data

The 2% rate of severe cases is an underestimate above. There is an eight day lag from diagnosis to “severe,” and then a longer lag to death. Total cases outside China on Feb 8th was 354. So a more realistic estimate is that about 5% of confirmed cases outside China have now progressed to “severe” (i.e. 18/354).

What does severe mean? It appears “severe” means hospitalized but not necessarily in ICU. In China, the rates issued in a Feb 7 press release were 82% mild, 15% severe, and 3% critical. From […]

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Let the Coronavirus disruption begin: planes held in London and prof warns “this is virus he fears most”

Partial post hoc reactive quarantine holds seven planes at London airport– seriously?

Madness. Eight planes have been held up for hours in London airports as they land with people with coughs and colds and try to check suspected cases. By the time people are symptomatic, its too late. Temperature checks may catch the most contagious people but now one person with a unrelated common cold can also cause a major and unnecessary disruption while other infective people can freely fly in and walk straight through.

Asymptomatic people can potentially infect 2 to 3 random people (or 10) who may then also infect 2 – 3 random people each before the Epidemiology SWAT Team realizes and starts testing and tracking. We play an impossible game of catch up in a race to isolate all possible contacts.

HOURS of misery in coronavirus lockdown at Heathrow:

DailyMail UK

Passengers endured hours of misery at Heathrow Airport this morning when up to eight planes were put on lockdown over coronavirus fears after passengers on board complained of symptoms of the deadly virus.

MailOnline understands a British Airways flight from Kuala Lumpur was held up on the tarmac for […]

#Walkaway from the hate — a democrat voter joins a Trump rally and realizes that’s where happy normal America is

What an excellent piece of writing.

Karlyn Borysenko didn’t like what she was seeing in the world of knitting — it’s hard to believe, but even there the Social Justice Warriors were mobbing people for innocuous offenses. Watching the anxiety and pain inspired her to get out of the echo chamber in an attempt to understand the deplorable Trump supporters. But in attending a Trump rally she discovered how toxic and out of touch the Democrats were.

These are just snippets — read the whole piece. This awakening and others like it could feed a deadly meme for Democrats. If the idea of attending both kinds of rallies catches on it’s a major breach in the wall. The idea of bridging the divide by listening to the unspeakables, by meeting them, threatens the whole freeloader elitist cult. Apostates face harsh punishments. Borysenko may need some support.

The parallels in the climate world are obvious. As I said ten years ago, it’s the overdone hate and namecalling that drives fencesitters to come seeking answers from skeptics…

As that hate invades every corner of life the Empty Left sows it’s own undoing.

h/t David E

After Attending a Trump Rally, I Realized […]

Coronavirus — early rates of severe cases in Hong kong and Singapore are over 10%

Global Markets were shaken by the sudden rise in numbers out of China yesterday. But the increase was not a surprise for anyone who has been watching social media and the measures being taken in China. That China is now allowing the WHO in may be an admission that they really do need help. The explanation for the jump is that China changed the definitions. They are also admitting that there may be many cases of people with low grade infections, but also unattributed deaths as well. For days the ratio of cases to deaths was suspiciously 2.1%, 2.1%, 2.1% … Now perhaps it’s a tiny bit closer to the truth.

The tally outside China continues to rise: there now 587 cases, with 3 deaths (1 new one in Japan) and 24 people classified as “serious critical”. These are the key figures to watch. We expected the number of cases that were severe to rise as the five to eight day lag unfolds from the first symptoms to the onset of breathing trouble. So at the moment 4% of cases outside China are headed for hospital intervention, perhaps ICU (does anyone know the definition of “Serious Critical”?). That will keep […]

Unprecedented panic: For the first time ever, half of life on Earth will be wiped out by tiny 0.5C rise

Life on Earth mostly made it through 500 million years of asteroids and supervolcanoes only to be wiped out by a half a degree temperature rise. This really will be unprecedented.

Climate change could destroy half of Earth’s animal and plant species in the next 50 years, disturbing study says

Despite animals surviving temperature rises of 20 degrees every day, a half a degree of warming in 50 years will kill off half the species on Earth.

A disturbing new study suggests that climate change could wipe out half of the planet’s animal and plant species by 2070.

The research notes that if temperatures rise 0.5 degrees Celsius around the globe, approximately half of the world’s species would become locally extinct. If temperatures were to rise 2.9 degrees Celsius, 95 percent of the species would become locally extinct.

Note the scale on the graph of the last 500 million years. I marked half a degree in the red box.

Image by Glen Fergus Wikimedia.

I’m not too concerned about life on Earth surviving the next 50 years. But at this rate of decay, science is cactus.

These researchers think Earth is a […]

ABC suddenly notices the ‘heat island’ effect in cities

Skeptics mention the Urban Heat Island and its crickets from the ABC.

A green group mentions the Urban Heat Island effect and the ABC is happy to advertise:

Australian cities are increasingly becoming concrete jungles as trees and canopy coverage disappear, according to experts who warn this is contributing to an urban “heat island” effect.

“We know a tried and tested strategy is the introduction of more trees and green roofs in urban spaces, reducing surface temperatures by up to 40 per cent,” Griffith University urban and environmental planner Tony Matthews said.

40% of what, we might wonder, but the ABC doesn’t.

Could this huge heat effect possibly affect temperature records creating a systematic century scale bias inflating and creating fake hottest ever records. Nothing to see here, nevermind.

What radiates like an oven but doesn’t heat thermometers?

A national initiative — called Greener Spaces Better Places — brings together academic, government and industry groups to promote further greenery in our cities. Its research says black bitumen and dark roofs compound the already-hot days by creating a so-called heat island effect, absorbing heat and radiating it back like an oven.

Radiating like an […]

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CoronaVirus more infectious, but we *hope*, less deadly. Without closed borders Covid-19 uncontainable

So Coronavirus is now CoVID-19.

We’ve been walking the cusp of containable versus pandemic for two weeks but the growth of infections outside China is just a bit too fast, a bit too random and the news suggests its easier to spread. At least the number of severe cases outside China is still only 2% of the total. But there’s a lag of a week or two, so that’s likely to rise. If it is even possible to stop, I suspect only the mass closure of borders will do.

World (ex China) Cases: 517 Deaths: 2 Recovered: 54 Severe: 12

Click to enlarge

While Australia and the US and even India have the illusion of stability, the rise in Singapore, and on that ship is hard to ignore. Singapore is doing advanced tracking, yet still it spreads (see the chart, right). The difference between Singapore and Australia may be part luck — one superspreader versus one man who didn’t infect anyone on a whole plane.What matters then, is just how many people are superspreaders? The one ray from Singapore is that 15 people on that list are already listed as recovered. When I say we hope it’s […]

IPCC moves goalposts from 2 to 1.5C — just a part of the PR plan to get more headlines

Pick a number, any number — the message is always the same. In 2018 the IPCC dropped the arbitrary 2C target to an arbitrary 1.5C target. The world hadn’t warmed fast enough, and worse, the new round of CMIP6 models were pushing their estimates of climate sensitivity up. But regardless, there are PR points to be made in every change. It’s an excuse for another round of “worse than we thought” press releases.

Commenter Joe teased:

Have the IPCC now become deniers? looks like we can only expect only .5 degrees C warming over the coming decades….

and Bobl sagely replied:

bobl February 11, 2020 at 5:31 pm

You’ve lost sight of the pea.

All the wild predictions are based on “Post Industrial” there has been about 0.95 deg since then, plus 0.5C brings us to the magic 1.5.

What you have to see is that all the $billions is about “preventing” an imperceptible and completely harmless 0.5 deg C change in temperature that might just come naturally anyway.

You are being duped. The aim frankly is to create an income stream via treaty that requires sovereign countries to levy […]

Australian grid has major near miss: SA Islanded for two weeks

Here in Renewables-World downunder, most people don’t know the grid has barely scraped through the last two weeks. We almost lost an Aluminium smelter, came close to a statewide blackout and South Australia is (possibly) still islanded from the rest of the National Grid.

The AEMO held a crisis meeting yesterday but this trouble started Friday week ago in what was described as a “white knuckle event” by energy analyst, Paul McArdle at WattClarity. A storm knocked down six large transmission towers on the high voltage interconnector line in Western Victoria which left South Australia suddenly islanded. This time SA had 1,000MW more energy than it could use, so frequency in SA suddenly rose to a near disastrous 50.96Hz and briefly perhaps even higher. (Wait for the official reports). The system teetered but managed to stay running. Prices rocketed up to the usual spike to $14,500/MWh in both Victoria and South Australia.

It would have been nerve-wracking in the control rooms. The Portland Aluminium Smelter in Victoria, which is the largest single user of electricity in Victoria, had a near death experience. Both pot lines shut down immediately. It appears emergency workers only managed to get 50% of the […]

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400mm of water dropped from God’s Water Bomber and puts out Australian fires

This sums up the chaotic Australian summer. #NSWFloods pic.twitter.com/ZN6QZC9RN5

— Sid (@koomai) February 9, 2020

 

 

Looks like the dams will still fill. Sydney’s main dam — the Waragamba was only 42% full a few days ago, now it’s 70% full, and most of the fires are out, or will be soon. 16 river systems have flooded, and 13,000 people are being evacuated. Where is that hotter-drier future when you need it?

Sydney rains: Record rainfall brings flooding but puts out mega-blaze

Sydney has been hit by its heaviest rain in 30 years, bringing widespread flooding but also putting out two massive bushfires in New South Wales. Australia’s weather agency said 391.6mm of rain had fallen in the past four days in Sydney, more than three times the average rainfall for February. About 100,000 homes are without power, and officials have warned flash floods could be life-threatening.

 

Source

 

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology predicted average rain just five weeks ago

Jan 2nd 2020: “February to April has roughly equal chances of being wetter or drier than average for most of Australia.

While outlooks for drier than average […]

Corona Virus — darkness in China. The West waits while reports come that a mild illness may progress badly

One day ago, the statistics were looking good but there have been a few ominous shifts. Another 26 infections have been recorded, some in a French ski chalet, some in Singapore —at least three of which are hard to explain. These appear to be transmissions outside China, which is what we are hoping to avoid. It’s bad, but could have been a lot worse. Fortunately the Diamond Princess tally hasn’t risen much — standing at 64. Another plus — it’s almost two weeks since one passenger on a Tiger Air flight in Australia flew as he was coming down with symptoms yet the other 157 passengers appear to be OK. Promising.

Just 2% of cases so far are severe outside China (but that may grow)

The all important statistics outside of China are starting to accrue — So far there are 355 infections. Of those, 35 have recovered and only eight are marked as severe (see the table below). It’s good news that only 2% are severe, however it’s too soon to know — 90% are still unwell.

The illness appears to be less severe outside China, but a new study reports that this virus often looks benign […]

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CoronaVirus hope: First sign of a slow down

Infected 34,887 Deaths 724 Recovered 2,076 John Hopkins CSSE

Assuming that these official statistics from China bear a faint connection to reality (in trend, if not number) this may be a sign that the draconian quarantine is starting to work. If real, it is only a slight slowing in the rate of growth, but it’s a good sign — one I have been looking for. It is a barely visible slowing of the rate of change in the cumulative tally of victims. The exponential curve is slowing. Of course, if this takes off in Africa this would be but a pause…

Graph by Worldometers.info

The virus which had been growing at 50% a day two weeks ago, slowed to 20% last week, and 11% today. One week was such a long time ago in exponential land. Last Friday night the tally was 9,700 infected, and 213 deaths. At that point, no nation had cut off flights or refused visas. UPDATED: Saturday.

..

Sadly the brave doctor who tried to warn the world has been taken by the virus. Ominously he was only 34 — presumably with no “underlying disease”. Instead of listening to him, the Communist […]

On cue — after droughts and fires, then come the floods

So much for the “hotter drier” future they were warning us about 3 weeks ago

As predicted, droughts in Australia often end in floods. It is the way it has always been. Today people are already being rescued from the rising water and possibly another 200 -300mm of rain may fall before Sunday warns the BOM. Many fires have been extinguished.

Climate change has made no difference to the drought trends in Australia in the last 178 years and climate models are totally skilless at rainfall. When will the climate modelers admit that these are natural cycles?

‘We’re only half way through’: East coast smashed by flashflooding and heavy winds

Forecasters become increasingly concerned that even more rain could fall even faster than expected as five people have been rescued from floods.

The NSW State Emergency Service issued a flood warning for Sydney’s metropolitan areas, saying forecast weather conditions were “likely to cause widespread flooding”.

Flooding has already occurred in Roseville in Sydney’s Upper North Shore and the north-western suburb of Putney, where commuters are advised to allow extra travel time.

Meteorologists have said they are increasingly worried about the unfolding weather events […]

The few places that escaped the Spanish Flu — lessons from Samoa

A fateful decision that led to many deaths

The Samoan Islands, 1896 | Wikimedia

Western Samoa and American Samoa are side by side islands in the Pacific. When the Spanish Flu arrived in 1918, one would instigate a quarantine while the other had a trading community that did not want to stop trade. American Samoa survived the Spanish Flu without a death. Western Samoa kept trading and lost a quarter of the population.

Influenza 1918: the Samoan experience

John Ryan McLane

In 1918 the Samoan archipelago was split between American Samoa (a United States territory) and Western Samoa (previously a German colony but under New Zealand governance from 1914). The 1918 influenza pandemic killed a quarter of Western Samoans, while leaving American Samoa unscathed.

The dangers of ship-borne disease were well known, and exclusion of many diseases, especially plague, had been implemented since the imposition of colonial governance nineteen years before.

On 30 October 1918 the Union Steamship Company’s Talune left Auckland for its run through Polynesia… The new, more lethal influenza variant had arrived in Auckland with the spring, and several crew members were ill.

Western Samoa was a German colony that […]

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