China finds the odd 200 years worth of fuel

Who isn’t finding shale gas these days? To whom shall we sell all those super-costly solar units, that we will supposedly be “world leaders” in? China reveals 25tn cu metres of shale gas Financial Times

China announced the results of its most extensive official appraisal of shale gas reserves on Thursday, having found potentially recoverable resources of 25.1tn cubic metres – less than previous estimates.

Although the figure is lower than an earlier estimate of 31tn cubic metres, China is still believed to have some of the largest reserves of shale gas in the world and has been working to develop shale gas as a cornerstone of its energy policy. The new estimate is enough gas to meet the country’s current consumption for nearly 200 years if fully extracted.

As Richard North points out, this changes everything:

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Finkelstein — Yes please. Just try it…

Welcome to Australistan.

I haven’t read the whole 400 page Finklestein report, but Mark Steyn tells me that the Chinese government likes it. What more do you need to know?

As Steyn says, this is not a left-right thing, it’s a free-unfree thing.

Tim Andrews at Menzies House launches a New Free Speech Campaign: “This is a proposal that would seem right at home in North Korea or Zibmabwe. I never thought – as dark as things seemed- we could stoop this low here in Australia”.

People asked me if this would “affect your blog”. Ha ha, I laughed, Will it? Right now, I’m discussing whether I’d need to move to Fiji, or Florida, or become a citizen of the Dominican Republic in order to express my views. Could I split my blog into a different domain name each day to avoid being “monitored”? ( I could have 365 blogs: joannenova1.com.au, joannenova2.com.au… it would play havoc with the search engines.) Alternately, perhaps I write 100% satire, cartoons, irony, and the exact opposite of what I mean? Ho Ho. Who has the rule book on the Soviet black market for ideas? What can we learn and how does it translate […]

Monbiot — Steal things and be a “democratic” hero?

Showing the intellectual depth we’ve come to expect from progressives, Monbiot argues that the public debate on atmospheric dynamics would be improved by knowing who-funds-those-who dare speak against the government experts.

It’s as if the truth of future tropospheric warming comes not from weather balloons, but from bank accounts and budget papers.

What words do Heartland print that are so dangerous, forthwith, such a public hazard, that we must know who funds the paper they are printed on?

(Dear George, when private citizens choose to speak, it’s none of your business whether they got funding or not, and who paid them if they did. It’s about science, not motivations. Data trumps funding. Debate the message, not the man. If you think Heartland promote lies, just explain what they are. Your megaphone is bigger than theirs, and if you asked to speak at a Heartland Conference to correct their views, I’m sure they would welcome it. It’s called free speech and may the best argument win.)

According to Monbiot, stealing is not just alright, it’s heroic. Your goods are mine, comrade. Too bad if you object.

I see Peter Gleick, the man who obtained and leaked the devastating documents from the […]

The Moons’ influence on the atmosphere over Australia

We know the moon changes our tides, but can it also change our rainfall? Could the moon also cause tides in the atmosphere? Some researchers have found such periodic movements in air above 3000m. Some have suggested that the moon drives the cyclical shifts in the Length of Day (LOD) that occur on a fortnightly and seasonal basis.

Ian Wilson has been scouring the data quietly for years, following these ideas, and has found a link between lunar cycles and the sub tropical high pressure ridge that occurs in summer over the East Coast of Australia. He noticed there were 9.4 and 3.8 year cycles which match periods in spring tidal cycles. What matters is how close the full moon is to perhelion (the closest point Earth comes to the Sun). It’s yet another piece of the puzzle that the IPCC favoured models ignore.

The lunar forces are, not surprisingly, smaller than the solar one, and as the abstract points out: “it is not so much in what years do the lunar tides reach their maximum strength, but whether or not there are peaks in the strength of the lunar tides that re-occur at the same time within the annual […]

FakeGate beats DenierGate in google war: DeSmog disaster spreads

In the big battle for the meme-of-the-moment, Fakegate has won.

DeSmog can’t be too happy about this. Google “DenierGate” and get 67,000 results, but google “Fakegate” and get 168,000.

UPDATE #2 March 14: FakeGate is now 6 times as popular. (“FakeGate” 420,000 results v “Deniergate” 69,000)

What do you know? Stealing things, breaching privacy, and exposing nothing but tiny funding isn’t catching on. As a PR faux pas this is a case study in implosions. DeSmog have inadvertently shone a beacon on the real David and Goliath story here, where the Big-Oil funding isn’t so big, and the real money is on the side who pretends they are “doing it for the planet”. Worse, between them, DeSmog and Peter Gleick have arranged a public ethics challenge for ethically challenged scientists, and a mass-media bias-test for biased journalists. The spectacle of scientists debating if it is OK to steal, and journalists making excuses for criminal activity, is doing as much damage as the original theft and overreaction. It’s so bad, even the Koch Brothers (target-number-one) can take the unassailable high ground (see below).

 

 

Note the auto-prompts: When it’s “FakeGate” it’s news, but when it’s Deniergate, Google queries […]