|
|
The Foodbank press release: Financial stress pushing millions of Australians into food insecurity
One in six or, 15% of the Australian population, apparently has experienced “uncertainty” around food in the last 12 months. For some, that’s only one episode in a year but still, in a first world country which is a major food exporter, it’s not a sign of wealth and good times. If the survey is to be believed, fully 9% of Australians are experiencing a food shortage every month or even more often. Surprisingly, half of those experiencing food uncertainty have jobs — working serfs. Foodbank blames it on living costs — like rent and power bills.
A nation in decline: A ten percent increase in people seeking food relief across the nation
One thing is sure “bill shock” is hurting people, and it’s getting worse:
Foodbank provides food for over 652,000 people a month, however, the front-line charities report that demand for food relief has increased by 10% in the last year and they are forced to turn away 65,000 people every month due to lack of food.
How much does renewable energy contribute? Hard to say — all the factors are confounded and […]
Cambridge University Press
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology may not be meeting WMO, UK, US standards
Since the Australian BOM allows for one second “records”, it’s not clear it is even meeting guidelines recommended for amateurs.
The key question: How much of the warming trend in Australia is due to the switch in the mid 1990s from older slower thermometers to new electronic zippy ones that could record every waft of hot air? How many records today are just noise?
If the BOM would release its calibration and comparison data instead of deleting it, we might know. Why won’t they?
Here’s an example graph from Maryborough where the daily maximum was 1.5C above every thirty minute reading. Ouch — are we writing outliers and noise into our history books and climate data bases?
Add “sampling method” and averaging to your skeptical vocabulary. There will be a lot more discussion on these.
Maryborough. Graph by Ken Stewart.
Let’s consider some basic standards in the meteorology world
The Weather Observer’s Handbook 2012 tells us the new electronic sensors are more sensitive than the old mercury thermometers. The author, Stephen Burt, explains that the new electronic sensors can be too sensitive, […]
Apparently human emissions of CO2 have stopped growing in the last few years, but atmospheric levels of CO2 are rising anyway.
IEA data shows CO2 emissions stopped rising:
Global Carbon Emissions, 2017, IEA, Graph.
Pop-Quiz — The correct conclusion from this is:
1/ Human emissions are irrelevant — global CO2 is controlled by ocean currents, phytoplankton, other stuff. Efforts to control global CO2 through windmills and electric cars are a complete waste of money. 2/ Natural sinks have suddenly filled up, the ocean is full, and we are near a tipping point. Panic. Give us your money. 3/ Pretend not to notice, instead, rejoice that Global GDP is still increasing which means that for the first time in 100,000 years, humans have disconnected economic development from burning carbon based stuff. This is proof finally, in your faith that renewables will not cripple economies. (See Scientific American.) 4/ Declare that global emissions are still rising rapidly anyway. (Here is the same award-winning Peter Boyer not researching his claims in 2016. When will he start?)
Global atmospheric CO2 levels at Mauna Loa are still rising:
Global CO2 Levels, Mauna Loa, graph, 2017, NOAA. | Source NY Times
[…]
Transcript by Melbourne reporter Tony Thomas, writer for Quadrant.org.au.
____________________________________________________
I am going to show some pictures and tell the story of the climate crisis and its solutions. There are really only three questions remaining to be addressed – first is must we change, we have had tremendous benefits from our reliance on fossil fuels, poverty has declined, living standards have increased and we still depend on fossil fuels for 80% of the world’s energy, so naturally it occurs to people when confronted with the issue of climate to ask, do we really need to change, must we change?
The second question is , can we change? If the answer to the first question is yes and the second, no, I don’t want to hear any more about it, it’s a formula for frustration and anxiety and depression. And the third question is, the most important , will we change.
Must we change? That necessarily involves looking at how high the stakes are, and how grave the risk we are running is, to build the necessary consensus and resolve to answer that third question, yes we must change, quickly and I hope you will be convinced.
Some of the […]
Oh the irony. What if “fossil fuels” were driving the climate debate, but on the Warmie side?
Fossil fuels is a misnomer, there is no collective fossil industry, just a bunch of massive multi-conglomerates competing. And the biggest competition for oil and gas comes from coal. Gas wins two ways: not only do “carbon schemes” help gas and oil compete, but the more windmills there are, the more gas we need to cope with the intermittency.
William Kay joins some interesting dots. Rex Tillerson, he argues, is a dark knight, painted as the enemy of climate deals yet pushing Exxon belatedly into the BP and Shell mould as another giant gas company that lobbies for carbon credits. The war waged on skeptics for their “fossil fuel” funding was a red herring to distract from the real direction of the lobbying.
REX TILLERSON: DARK KNIGHT OF THE OIL & GAS LOBBY
Let’s cut to the chase. The coal lobby and the natural gas lobby are dueling over the captain’s share of the U.S. electricity-generating market. As The Donald would say, “The stakes are yuge.” Americans spend almost $400 billion a year on electricity.
Recent figures have natural […]
More Fake News from the NY Times
Here’s a creative effort to sell the story that the people with billion dollar industries, all the academic positions and a sympathetic media entourage are going underground, forced to disguise their belief about “climate change”.
This is a death-throes type article, clutching for ways to pretend Global Worriers are still relevant, and to feed a fantasy that they might be the underdog.
In America’s Heartland, Discussing Climate Change Without Saying ‘Climate Change’
So while climate change is part of daily conversation, it gets disguised as something else.
“People are all talking about it, without talking about it,” said Miriam Horn, the author of a recent book on conservative Americans and the environment, “Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman.” “It’s become such a charged topic that there’s a navigation people do.”
What really happened is that climate change is overused agitprop and people are tired of being beaten over the head with it. The first most compelling example the NY Times can find is a farmer called Doug Palen who talks about “carbon sequestration” in his soil (and what crop farmer wouldn’t?) Palen is painted as a “believer”:
Bigger than Brexit: This is a win for workers and the middle class.
It’s a major loss for the old media and political correctness. Corruption finally gets pegged back.
Trump beat both political parties, almost every government organisation, Wall Street, and media outlets. — Jo
UPDATE: Listening to the ABC, commentators are talking about the fear of a Trump victory. But the only people who ought to be afraid are the corrupt, the freeloaders and the illegal immigrants. People phoning in were talking about the grassroots movement of those who are fed up with the establishment. The ABC academic, given the last word, replied that this wasn’t a real grassroots movement –“that narrative is false” — because “political parties have been trying to seed doubts about institutions for years”. Sure thing. Which political party supported Trump?
The Trump victory is a win for democracy. This is as grassroots as it gets. Without the internet and a passionate crowd of people on the street how could Trump have defeated the non-stop demonization from the media?
Trump Wins
The Victory Speech
Mike Pence Introduction
The speech:
(Live streaming) Watch (maybe) here or here or here.
6.30pm AEST NY […]
Big bankers are helping to save the poor from nasty storms. Sure…
In the climate debate, not much is bigger than this US election. If Clinton wins, it’s more of the same tax-funded gravy train supporting a trillion dollar industry that aims to change the weather and hold back the tide in a hundred years with special electrons from windmills and solar panels. Historians will giggle and mock us for falling into the grip of the pagan religion that sapped so much of our productive blood, sweat and tears.
Trump is promising to turn off that tap, though this “nuclear-wipe-out-option” (which is common sense) is barely even noticed about the furious noise of this election. Clinton wont mention it because she knows most voters would like the climate swamp drained too. But the effect could mark the beginning of the end for this particular shade of taxpayer-parasite. The effect on the EU voters of watching Trump pull back and demolish the industry would be electric and infectious as industry, money and jobs fled the EU to the US. Even if Trump doesn’t win, he’s changed politics and made it so much easier for other candidates to stand up and […]
As I said, “It’s the Corruption, Stupid“. The US election is far beyond policy disputes. Do the people care if their leaders make personal profits by selling out the nation? As Linda Tripp says: “That this is not chilling to much of the nation is the most chilling of all.”
We are in danger of being swamped in the details and emails: too much to process, when so many sub-parts would be election-changing on their own.
“FBI Clinton Foundation probe finds ‘avalanche’ of corruption evidence against her – but agents fear Justice Department will stop her going on trial” Clintons are accused of running a pay-for-play operation out of State that favored donors to their charity – a charge they have denied Feds are ‘actively and aggressively pursuing’ a case, Fox’s Brit Hume said Wednesday, and they have an ‘avalanche’ of evidence FBI’s pursuit of the case is rooted in recordings of a suspect in a different corruption case who spoke about foundation’s alleged dirty dealings The FBI, under the leadership of director James Comey, believed those conversations were enough to move forward with the probe Justice Department prosecutors disagreed because the source was not an employee of the […]
The Blockbuster rolls on. Books will be written about this week in politics. The FBI have apparently found a gargantuan 650,000 emails. They have also got a search warrant. The news rattled markets and currencies. It’s being called a bombshell, and political TNT. Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile said it was “Like an 18-wheeler smacking into us.” At least one mainstream columnist says the Democrats should ask Clinton to step aside before the election.
Excuses are flowing but the Clinton campaign has only itself to thank for this PR disaster
Count the ways the Clinton’s could have prevented this trainwreck. 1,2,3…
The Clinton’s raised the stakes from the start — earning something like $57 million on-the-side during the four years that Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State. This is not illegal, but it raises red flag questions of “conflict of interest”. Anyone playing this game while in charge of trade deals for the largest economy on Earth had better play straight, be careful, and be totally transparent. Hillary apparently did none of the above. The combination of an incoming river of money, with the mysterious disappearance of 30,000 emails added a radioactive glow to what was just a […]
The US election continues to surprise. It breaks all the rules. Who stands up for the workers now, for the disaffected middle class — Donald Trump, and that’s according to Michael Moore, dedicated progressive. He gave a speech that is going viral with conservatives and has even been used to make an advert for Trump. Moore is telling the world that Trump will win (which he fears). Perhaps Moore was trying to get complacent Clinton fans worried and and get them out to vote. It may have the opposite effect. Even Moore sounds like he admires Trump. Perhaps he is hoping the left will pick up the same memes — even as he calls Trump voters “legal terrorists”.
Bits of the Transcript:
Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of the Ford Motor executives and said: if you close these factories, as you are planning to do in Detroit, and rebuild them in Mexico, I am going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody’s going to buy them.
It was an amazing thing to see.
No politician — Republican […]
There are hours of entertainment today with the radioactive fallout from Australia’s “census night”. In terms of Australian drama, running an online census produces more laughs than anything ScreenAustralia is subsizing. The 2016 Australian CensusFail is the stuff of legend.
In theory, last night 10 million Australian Households were meant to log in to one site, and fill out sensitive personal details which the government would guard in perpetuity. We were threatened with 180 dollar per day fines for not filling out the form and told the site was secure and private and could not fail. The system was tested to handle a million submissions an hour which was supposedly “twice as many as needed“. But do the numbers — it was utterly predictable that five million households would try to fill out the form between 7 and 9 pm on the East Coast. By 7:30pm Australia’s first online census had collapsed, the site was closed. “The service won’t be restored tonight. ” As of lunch time the next day, it’s still down. h/t ColA, Dave B.
The ABS tells us proudly that “2 million people” were able to fill in the form. Bravo for the 20% success rate, […]
Remarkably, a US Court found a completely sensible, obvious answer (and it only took two and half years) — government agency heads can’t hide their work emails on a personal computer. (Life could get tough for Hillary.)
Thank the CEI:
The DC Circuit court today ruled that agency records including “departmental emails on an account in another domain” must be searched or produced in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In the FOIA case brought by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) against the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) over OSTP Director John Holdren’s use of non-official email accounts for work-related emails, the DC Circuit overturned a district court ruling, and remanded that case back to the district court for further proceedings.
Imagine if tax invoices, receipts, and other bank accounts could be stored in “my other car” and not available for the IRS?
For the sake of the environment, people need to be able to see the emails of the people supposedly looking after it.
9.1 out of 10 based on 37 ratings […]
The Guardian are in hot pursuit of the nickel and dime Coal-Yeti.
Analysis of Peabody Energy court documents show company backed trade groups, lobbyists and thinktanks dubbed ‘heart and soul of climate denial’
The thing is, if Peabody was keeping the heart and soul of climate denial alive, it is now flat broke — it’s over for climate denial. No heart. No soul. Denial is dead! But can anyone spot the difference… ?
Poor Guardian schmucks. Peabody were funding people who write what they believe, so Peabody came and went and the same people are still writing what they believe. If climate skeptics were in it for the money, they’d be alarmists.
Yes, Do. Lets talk about the Funding If climate skeptics were in it for the money, they’d be alarmists.
Suzanne Goldenberg and Helena Bengtsson repeat all the usual sacred incantations completely blind to the real money. At one point they are so stuck for “big money” they whip out a $10,000 figure, and in an article about Peabody, that’s not even from Peabody, but from Arch Coal. General Electric make $20 billion a year in profits from “renewables” — when is The Guardian going to expose […]
August 31, 201. This coronal mass ejection just missed Earth, according to NASA
There were two mysterious sudden spikes in carbon 14 in tree rings around a thousand years ago. Now some researchers at Lund University say they’ve matched those to beryllium layers in ice cores from the Arctic and Antarctic. Some wild event made these changes across continents all over the world at the same time, and about the only thing that could have done that was a massive solar storm (or two). There are estimates these extreme storms would have been ten times stronger than the biggest solar storms we have had in the last few decades. The two big bad storms are described as a few times bigger than even the largest solar storm in modern history, which was The Carrington Event in 1859. The radioactive spikes specifically show up in tree rings in 774/775AD and 993/994AD. It’s pretty cool that we can pin those years down so accurately, and as an aside, I imagine it makes a fairly handy calibration point for tree ring researchers now that we know it was global.
Unfortunately, if one of those happened now, it would not be fun. The […]
Carbon markets = corruption
Fake markets are easy to scam, because no one really wants or cares about “the product”. Fake markets are dangerous tools. Judging by the way people act, the point of carbon markets is to feed bureaucrats and bankers, not to change the weather. If that’s true, it’s entirely predictable that yet another scandal has run for years, and no one “noticed” or acted to stop it. Not only were diesel cars scamming the lab tests for pollution, but other cars were built to exploit loopholes (that may be legal) in the lab tests for fuel economy as well. The audacity is remarkable — real car CO2 emissions are often a gobsmacking 40- 50% higher than reported, even in top brand, expensive cars.*
As much as two-thirds of CO2 cuts since 2008 may have been imaginary and made by cars that were only fuel efficient in the lab. CO2 “pollution” doesn’t hurt anyone, but misleading fuel economy figures may have cost owners €450 a year more in fuel to run. The companies known to get suspiciously good results on fuel economy (so far) are BMW, Mercedes, Renault and Peugeot. Companies using software to get around other pollution […]
The pattern continues. Do voters matter? Obama hardly mentioned Climate Change in the 2012 election campaign, but climate zombie suddenly appeared in the victory speech. Major climate regulations get delayed til after elections. Days after the 2014 midterms, Obama announced “big deals” on climate change with China. We all know why he didn’t announce them before.
In Australia, Julia Gillard said there would be no carbon tax, barely won, and burned her political capital to bring in a carbon tax she didn’t need to bring in.
Tony Abbott won on a “blood promise” to get rid of the carbon tax, and yet here we are again with a PM who believes the whole kit and caboodle, and in 2009 he wanted to bring in a bigger more poisonous version of the carbon tax. Voters obviously don’t want carbon action anymore or Democrats and Labor parties would take it openly to elections. When they get the choice, like they did in Australia in 2013, voters vote to axe the tax.
If Turnbull signs us up to carbon trading in Paris, those 54 Liberal MPs and Senators who elected him will have totally sold out the […]
The book Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes, was made into a box office bomb (it crashed). But, darkly, it has an ongoing life in our schools. Tony Thomas uncovers the push to put propaganda in front of children, dressed up as education. The director of the film tells the world that his aim is to stop skeptics from being broadcast on TV. (Because that’s what you do when you can’t win a fair debate eh?)
This film was never about science, but about doing exactly what it claims to “expose”. (It’s projection all the way down.) The real merchants of doubt are those that seed doubts about honest whistleblower scientists, using character assassination, namecalling, tenuous associations, innuendo and allusion instead of scientific arguments. They don’t find a scientific fault in anything skeptics say, but resort to twenty year old false tobacco smears.
What we need are resources for teachers to help students critically analyze propaganda like this. How do children spot what isn’t said? What clues do we see in this movie that reveal its anti-science, political nature? Is it that they don’t let their skeptic targets talk about climate science at all? Readers suggestions are welcome. How do […]
Matt Ridley: Africa Needs To Be Rich – Rather Than Green Some people pretend to care about the worlds poor and how they will be affected by a hypothetical climate shift decades in the future. But African’s don’t want climate action as much as they probably want food, fridges and free markets. No electricity means indoor smog and real pollution coming to your kitchen. How many dead Africans is enough to appease the climate Gods? It’s good to see Australia and Japan may help build some coal fired plants in Africa.
The Times UK (see also Matt Ridley’s Blog)
A survey of more than two million Africans finds that climate change comes dead last of 16 concerns they were asked about.
OK, It’s an internet survey. But who would take cold meals and cholera now so their great grandchildren live in a world a tenth of a degree cooler?
Just to get sub-Saharan electricity consumption up to the levels of South Africa or Bulgaria would mean adding about 1,000 gigawatts of capacity, the installation of which would cost at least £1 trillion. Yet the greens want Africans to hold back on the cheapest form […]
During the recent warmest decades on record, Earth suffered under the highest CO2 levels of the last 800,000 years. Life responded to this devastating situation by — flourishing. There are now some 4 billion tons more living matter on the planet than there was in 1993. What a calamity. (And what a lot of carbon credits.)
It has, naturally, got nothing to do with warmth and aerial fertilizer. The researchers tell us it due to that force of nature known as “good luck”. Remember, human CO2 emissions were pollution that was going to afflict life on Earth. After twenty years of predicting the loss of forests and species, it turned out that biology bloomed instead. Notch up another model “success”. The press release headline: Good luck reverses global forest loss. (What else would we expect from UNSW?)
To those who know basic biology — and that almost half the dry weight of plants is carbon, sucked straight out of the air — this is not so much good luck as one entirely foreseeable and foreseen consequence of rising CO2. Acquiring carbon is often a plant’s hardest task. When the sun comes up, a cornfield begins sucking, and by lunch time […]
|
JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support AT joannenova.com.au
Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
|
Recent Comments