These people are not good with numbers.
In a paper published in Nature Climate Change today, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, together with Greg Rau of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, and Elizabeth McLeod of The Nature Conservancy, say new tactics are needed to save oceans from CO2 emissions.
“It’s unwise to assume we will be able to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at levels necessary to prevent ongoing damage to marine ecosystems,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
“In lieu of dealing with the core problem – increasing emissions of greenhouse gases – these techniques and approaches could ultimately represent the last resort.”
In addition to using shade cloth over coral reefs, the paper suggests novel marine conservation options, including applying low-voltage electrical current to stimulate coral growth and mitigate mass bleaching; adding base minerals such as carbonates and silicates to the ocean to neutralize acidity; and converting CO2 from land-based waste into dissolved bicarbonates that could be added to the ocean to provide carbon sequestration.
Alistair Hobday Research Scientist – Marine and Atmospheric Research at CSIRO said novel solutions are required. “We need to be mature enough to listen to all sorts of arguments.”
To which Jo Nova, unfunded non government critic said: We need scientists who are mature enough to spot a plan that is bonkers.
The Great Barrier Reef has an area of 348,000 square kilometers. It’s bigger than the UK, Holland and Switzerland combined. So perhaps we could just cover 1%, that’s only three and a half thousand square kilometers and then ask the water to stay in one spot?
The idea apparently is not to drive thousands of pylons into the reef (phew), just to cover “hundreds of square meters” with floating shade material. One wonders how predatory sea-birds will feel about this, not to mention photosynthetic marine life. Air breathing mammals might not “feel right at home” under the shades. (But its not like anyone cares about whales and dolphins right?) Tidal and wave action, with floating material near lots of spiky coral and rocks suggests maintenance could be “expensive”.
The cost? Who knows?
I have no idea what floating shades will cost. It’s probably nothing like land shades, and doesn’t need the poles but will need anchor cables (or there will be a new hazard in shipping lanes). Failing any details, I’ve costed the land sails option here, just for a ball park, give or take $100m (or a billion here and there).
If shade sails on land cost $2,800 to cover 6m by 5m (30 m2), assuming bulk discounts can keep the price the same (even though the installation may be 100km offshore, in salt water, and pounded constantly by waves) that’s only 33,333 shade sails to the square kilometer, at a cost of $93m. All up, covering 1% of the reef (if that were the aim, though it appears not to be that ambitious) is about $300 billion. That’s more than ten times Australia’s annual defense budget. What could possibly go wrong?
The commenters at The Conversation are a case study in why free speech is its own reward. People are volunteering to correct the nonsense put out by paid scientists and paid journalists. It takes months of work to flesh out a really gonzo idea, and yet it takes people five minutes for free to explain the flaws. Why do we spend tax dollars to employ people to be silly? Why didn’t the “editor” run the idea past a skeptic? Why does Nature Climate Change publish this type of material? (And for that matter, when will The Conversation discover that they can add links in their articles?)
We paid $6m to set up The Conversation. Why?
What we do need is something novel — we need a practical review of the empirical evidence to figure out whether we need to bother doing anything to reduce CO2 levels.
Comments:
Wade Macdonald, Technician
No doubt the GBR faces some threats but the idea of putting up shade cloth in amongst cyclone ravaged reefs sounds like a great way to create plenty of ‘shade cloth drift nets’ and kill more biodiversity than it would save. What about all the international ships that pass through the area and other vessels?
Who are these people and where did they get the qualifications from?
Stop listening to the fear campaigners and learn the truth….
Quote… “At the scale of the whole GBR, there was no net decline in hard coral cover between 1995 and 2009.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3053361/
Trevor Ellice, Geologist
SHADE CLOTH OVER CORAL REEFS!!!!
– what are you guys smoking?
or this just an old fashioned doomsday cult?
REFERENCES
Rau, G., McLeod, E.L. & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2012) The need for new ocean conservation strategies in a high-carbon dioxide world Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1555
UPDATE: Anthony Watts thinks this could be the wackiest climate change technology proposal ever.
h/t George J. With thanks to the BOM Audit team for feedback.
Sounds like someone’s been out in the sun too much and needs that shade cloth over their head.
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Which gives me an idea, a big straw hat on a pole! That’s got to be heaps cheaper than shade-cloth, surely?
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Mabe Australia could save some money by hiring the artist Christo? I could see the bumper stickers now, What would Christo do?
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Jo I am beginning to formulate some theories as to why this global warming / climate change lie / fraud / hoax is happening.
1. Scientists at the very top (originating in NASA) became aware of an impending global catastrophe coming from space.
2. This information has been kept secret to avoid global unrest in the populace.
3. Climate change became the cover story to a) mentally prepare us for catastrophe, b) make money for one world government takeover/ clean up after the event/s c) enable earth defence systems to be trialled (eg cloth to protect barrier reef, geo-engineering, HAARP etc.)
I am much more inclined to accept the possibility of catastrophe from space (which could conceivably cause the warming / sea level rise / tipping point?) predicted that anything to do with a gas that I just burped up from the beer I am drinking.
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Then again, maybe I need to lay off the beer?
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We engineers have been building two Arks to carry the population of Earth to the Earth-like planet Golgafrincha. Ark A is to carry the engineers, the artisans, the technicians, those who know how to make the planet suitable to receive the passengers in Ark B.
This is to contain the bankers, telephone sanitizers, advertising executives, climate scientists etc, the cream of the advanced bourgeoisie so as to save them from the giant Sky Dragon that will soon breathe fire upon us as it destroys the planet.
Unfortunately, Ark A has developed a serious fault so we have decided to launch Ark B first. So, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Greg Rau and Elizabeth McLeod, here are your boarding passes. you will board in three hours time with takeoff soon after that. Bon Voyage…….
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🙂
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It behoves one to ask why other planets have experienced global warming recently.
This is even acknowledged by “sheeptickle science”.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system-intermediate.htm
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Ewe’re joking…..?
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No joke. It turns out that in our amazing solar system other planets orbiting our star can also fall victim to human induced climate change. And looking way back at earths history we have also been through cycles of relatively abrupt human induced climate change.
I blame space, the sun, the stars, the galaxy and the universe. Which is to say I blame humans of course.
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Now look here Sonny, because CO2 IR self absorbs by ~200 ppmV, with water vapour it’s ~900 ppmV [data from MODTRAN], there can be no significant warming for self-absorbing GHGs beyond that limit.
The mechanism is quite subtle though and I’m just doing the maths. But take it from me, there can be no GHE from IR absorption in the atmosphere. What happens is those bands are switched off at the emitter – the surface, which rises in temperature because convection and radiation is inhibited…..
PS Venus is all lapse rate because the sulphuric acid droplets backscatter 90% of the solar energy meaning its IR emission at ~180- W/m^2 is much leas than that of the Earth….
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If yu look at the Venusian atmosphere at the altitude where the pressure is 1 atmosphere, you will find that the temperature too is around about that of the Earth at sea-level. QED. It mostly comes down to the mass of the atmosphere. Venuses is pretty dense.
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Lapse rate = g/Cp so nothing to do with density. Cp for CO2 is a bit higher than for symmetrical molecules so lapse rate is lower…..
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Thats because the feedback effect of CO2 is so powerful, plus the telekenetic ability for heat to affect an area not obviously related to where the heat is generated, is causing other planets in the solar system to heat up (and explode – no joke…I’m totaly serial).
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You mean the projection from the Earth to the other planets of Hansen’s and Trenberth’s glorious reputations is causing other planets to warm?
I doubt it; if I were you I’d check for the thermometers being fiddled by GISS/NASA………
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Must be almost time for these drongoes to lace the Kool-aid. Even their most devout followers must be starting to see signs of increasing desperation for acceptance and acknowledgement for devout prophecy.
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I didn’t know shade cloth could stop back radiation.
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It would just absorb it and heat the water. The real effect is to absorb the visible making the algae work inefficiently so the reef would bleach…..
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…or, the sail cloth will act a giant self amplifying feedback mechanism. It works kinda like this: when you put two mirrors facing each other a few metres apart and then stand between them you see yourself a million times. The heat sees itself between the water and the sail cloth a million times and BOOM! World explodes in a thermonuclear fireball!
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http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/ipcc_oven.html
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… or warm water (currents) flowing from outside zones 🙂
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Adding chemicals to the ocean to change the pH? Once source I found says the oceans have 1.37 billion km3 of water in them. I did a calculation, one km3 of water weighs 1 x 10^15 kg. So to add just one part per million of any chemical to that cubic kilometer would take 1 billion kilograms of material. Do the math. What a ridiculous proposal.
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oeman50 you’re out by a factor of 10^3 in your calculations, but you’re still right, its a ridiculous proposal.
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But these people are terminally stupid. No-one capable of engineering calculations is allowed to work in climate areas because they’d soon rumble the frauds.
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OOPs, Rohan, you are correct, I put 10^6 L in a m^3 instead of 10^3. So it would take 1 million kg to make that change in 1 km^3. Yup, still ridiculous as you stated.
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Maybe they’re proposing a homeopathic change to the sea, where even a effectively zero concentration of the wonder chemical has a magical effect. 😉
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I guess coral has evolved beyond needing sunlight to grow…?
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Look at it this way; the “skeptics” ( e.g. Engineers, finance people, economists, people with some thought capability) have been telling anyone who will listen what a “limited applicability alternative” alternative energy is to Nuclear and Coal/Gas/Oil thermal power plants.
It’s too costly, too unreliable, scaling issues, has it’s own serious problems, etc.. etc… etc…
Has it had any effect on them? Feh.
Anyone who suggests “alt energy” as anything but a micro-scale solution to specific micro-problems should be laughed out of the room by any adult, and yet they continue to get study money/grants/subsidies and spew nonsense into the “debate.”
Until the solar cells get a LOT better ( wind is always a loser, and the others are even more hopeless), and energy storage technology improves dramatically ( unless you can store the equivalent of tank of gasoline in a gas tank sized object +/- and recharge it in under 5min, for a decent price, electric cars and solar cells are not serious.), then the alt energy versus thermal debate is over. Serious science and engineering grants to pursue the two things above, THAT makes sense, it’s called basic research.
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Um, no Fred solar is not viable for baseload at any efficiency, even at 100% efficiency you still will need 20 Sq km of solar panels per Gigawatt of production. The Power density of sunlight is just too low to be useful.
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If it wasn’t so expensive I’d subscribe to Nature Climate Change instead of Mad Magazine, they have better humorist content.
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Ah, but you get Spy-vs-spy in Mad Magazine. Always worth the cover price 😉
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This crazy plan did reach the media in Europe, reason to look for a more reliable source, in this case the JoNova pages, to know more about the background. It is even more crazy than I thought from the news in Europe… Thanks for the link to the evolution of the GBR (was there in 2002, when visiting Australia, from Cairns to Adelaide, including the sun eclipse in the middle of the desert)…
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Such a structure would, of cours, need to be anchored to something. There is only one thing out there to anchor the structure to.
Now imagine if a dive boat operator poked just one hole in this “precious reef” in order to safely anchor his boat? Imagine the outcry! Yet when these climate change Nazis wish to put a hole every 10 feet in order to anchor such a worthless structure, then there is not problem.
Of cours, I agree with them. There isn’t. The reef is very resiliant and has proved itself so over millineums. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of these madmen.
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Hey, they allow wind turbines, and all the environmental destruction that goes along with them, why not allow drilling anchor points in the reef. !!
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I think the shade cloth needs to be anchored to reality.
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Why not go the whole way and cover the globe with shade cloth. Anyway, covering just 1% of the GBR would require a lot of material sourced from oil (plastics) or similar. The tourists would be shaded but the joy would be very subdued. Maybe Ted Turner and co’ could fit the bill after destroying fishing in the GBR, but I doubt he even has the money needed.
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No holes necessary, just mandate all tourists wear Priscilla cloaks.
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But in their defense they can say that it is line with current standards. In fact, it is less ridiculous than Julia Gillard’s policies to save the planet. In the long term, $300bn flushed away on shading the Great Barrier Reef, might be less damaging to the Australian economy than the Carbon Tax – as it won’t work through destroying Australia’s competitiveness. It may also have a more significant impact on the problem it is supposed to be addressing.
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If it ain’t broke dont’ fix it!
I ask them to consider trying the idea on coral reefs that HAVE been damaged by change first.
These ones would be a good test. The Dolomites.
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Siliggy,
There have been numerous studies connecting smoking Mary Jane and delusional behaviour. It doesn’t necessarily diminish brain power but impairs logical thought. The Climate scam is perpetuated by so called scientists, journalists and academics in obscure and barely useful disciplines that spent long nights at universities discussing esoteric subjects such as the meaning of why. Perhaps it’s time for another study into the effects of dope smoking. It’s obvious these people are illogical as well as being paranoid when challenged. Poor old Ove can see his mates in Greenpeace looking for another “scientist” since Ove hasn’t produced much rubbish lately. This is his final throw of the dice.
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I wonder how much damage all these “scientists” fawning and crawling over the reef are actually causing thanks to their efforts.
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The thriving coral at Bikini Atoll suggests that acivity should be questioned if it will exceed the equivalent physical impact of 23 of the worlds largest nuclear explosions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORv0LCc0DDw
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Correct. The ‘scientists’ who went to see how the devastated reefs were going were gobsmacked to see them growing and thriving. Also, just the other night I saw a husband and wife team growing coral in warm temperate waters off WA. They sell the coral for a profit without damaging natural coral. But it shows coral can and does grow despite the gloomy forecasts.
I’m really ‘over’ the doom forecasts by marine biologists especially from the JCU who spend their days lolling around in cruise boats off Townsville with their young blond intern assistants.
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“… marine biologists especially from the JCU who spend their days lolling around in cruise boats off Townsville with their young blond intern assistants.”
Damn! I knew I should have become a marine biologist.
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Growing coral, Florida video
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A very good point Siliggy. In fact the French dropped (I think) 9 nukes back in 1995 at Moruroa Atoll (before they signed the comprehensive test ban).
According to Wiki, the French detonated 181 nukes in total on or under the atoll.
Thriving you say?
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“Five decades after a series of nuclear tests began, we provide evidence that 70% of the Bikini Atoll zooxanthellate coral assemblage is
resilient to large-scale anthropogenic disturbance.”
http://www.bikiniatoll.com/BIKINICORALS.pdf
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Up to now I thought Larry Niven’s RINGWORLD series posited the most ridiculous engineering job I’d ever seen — a complete world constructed in the form of a gigantic ring around a star with inward constructed walls along both edges to keep in the atmosphere and gravity provided by rotation of the ring. It was good reading for fun but that kind of stuff needs to be left inside the book, the movie theater or the TV. Those are the only places where it can exist. If you’ve read the series you know how ridiculous the idea really is.
As I said here…
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At least Niven, with Ringworld and the even more fantastic Ringworld Engineers gave flight to imagination. This is rather more akin to that ridiculous Costner vehicle, Waterworld. Actually, there might be something in that; if we could reel the cloth in at night, we could all get a feed of fish…….
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Actually Niven has some real understanding of physics, unlike Costner who just produces least common denominator stuff for a fast buck. Waterworld and this thread certainly go together. 😉
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These sort of news stories are a great litmus test to see if $CAGW$ believers have the morals and intelligence to at least condemn the sheer $ idiocy of these sort of ideas.
And prove they are not just mindless drones repeating media sound bites.
Judging on past events..they will just pick themselves up, dust themselves off and keep going..and not say a word.
Thats one of the reasons why so many people have no respect for them..
“Most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker, but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” – Michael Rivero
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Don’t warmer ocean temperatures lead to the gassing off of CO2, producing higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and subsequently a more basic ocean pH?
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Replying to Colin Henderson August 21, 2012 at 7:09 am
Yes, I think so. I have a co2 datalogger sitting in a 60% probability north-easterly airflow off the SPO at 19.19 S 146.67 E. I have detected spikes up to 550ppm on summer afternoons, well before the natural rise that occurs after sunset. Picked up a similar spike a few weeks ago when the fire service was back-burning on Magnetic Island 13km away.
A bit of interest in this locally, but I’m not popular with the “believers”. They try everything from Queensland Nickel (possible but wrong direction), the tavern and hot food shop (possible but wrong direction) even the RAAF bombing Rattlesnake Island (no, not those days, we get the shock-waves).
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Hi
Where did you source your CO2 sensor? Expensive?
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I never understood how we could have both warmer seas and more CO2 dissolved, but that is because I learnt my chemistry in high school in the early 60s. They taught us (and made us test by experiment) that warming up water reduced the amount of gas it could dissolve.
But I’m sure chemistry has changed since then.
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No chem is still the same… does this look familiar?
http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com/lessonplans/chapter5/lesson8
so you now need to move on to another aspect of this described in part by Henry’s Law. So which is greater the affect of partial pressure in air of the order of 10’s of ppm or the affect of temperature (1 degree C increase for arguement sake)
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The chemistry of water/CO2/temp never really changes. Open a warm bottle of soda water and you’ll get sprayed. A cold one on the other hand, holds its CO2 much better. This is why you’ll find differences in oceanic CO2 concentrations/acidity from pole to pole.
Note how CAGWists never try this experiment:
Place some eggshell in a bottle of soda water and replace the cap. I bet it never dissolves, even though it’s made of Calcium Carbonate – the very stuff CAGWists cry will dissolve from CO2-induced Cabonic Acid and hurt corals etc. They fail to understand that marine corals and shellfish evolved in high-CO2 oceans hundreds of million years ago.
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This may be true when I separate it like I have from the rest of your text. Do you want to know why this statement is a non-sequitur? Let me give you a simple example to think about of how this has nothing to do with modern day adaptation. You and I also evolved in high CO2 oceans.
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There you go offering a rational science based question. Stop doing that please, it confuses the poor warmists.
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I don’t know, but I think a saturated solution will behave differently from a very diluted one. In the case of a floating blanket of shadecloth though, I think oxygen availability would become an issue for the coral. Coral grows best where there is the most oxygen dissolved in the water, and this occurs where the most mixing occurs, ie the whitewater.
Don’t tell Hoegburg though- I wouldn’t want to deter him from his follies.
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That seems like a lot of work. Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to pump sulphur into the atmosphere above the reef as Flannery advises?
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It would be cheaper yet to simply do nothing.
Problem solved into the bargain.
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Can’t argue with your logic, Roy.
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Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, with what just might be the wackiest climate change technology proposal ever – it is his blue tarp moment.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/20/the-hoegh-guldberg-device-shades-of-rube-goldberg/
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Anthony, I like this comment on the WUWT thread 😀
jimboW says:
August 20, 2012 at 4:22 pm
OK,
I’m calling B.S. on this. I think Ove just got over confident and blew his cover. He is obviously a Koch funded denialist agent working deep, deep, undercover. His true aim is to discredit the warmist position.
Surely that makes more sense.
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He’s clearly gone over the tarp with this one.
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You win the Internet today.
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Jo, the factor of a billion howler is your friend Watt’s fault- WUWT has run just your 348,000 km2 number , not the ” “hundreds of square meters” referrred to by Rau et al .
I’m sure you will hasten to get him to correct this – I reported the error here because his
censorspay review panel bans critical commentary.00
You know, the only thing I’m thinking is: “I need to come up with something like that and get rich”
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Just get Julia to pay for the skyhooks you’re willing to sell to hold up the cover and claim a premium bonus for avoiding any construction damage!
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We had the “let’s cull all the burping farting feral camels” – presumably using gas-guzzling 4wds, trucks, helicopters.
2 days ago it was a $45,000 grant for dog-poo methane production at Yarra.
Embarrassment isn’t a problem for these people is it?
At this rate, Australia is a good bet to win the Global Climate Idiot of the Year Award.
With only 20+ million people, our per capita emissions are alarmingly high.
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Have these people ever actually been to the GBR? Or any place outside their taxpayer funded, air conditioned ivory tower?
Obviously they have no idea what world exists outside their protected colonies. In the past, they wouldn’t have been allowed outside the asylum and their papers would have been marked as “never to be released”, which only goes to show our ancestors were a lot more astute than we give them credit for.
That they get air time and/or column inches only shows either a complete lack of mental acuity or a desperate need for recognition (positive or negative) among the MSM.
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[…] now someone wants to protect the reef with shade cloth! You couldn’t make it […]
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These people on our payrole are behaving like they need a dose of Chairman Mao’s ‘cultural revolution’ cures. And while we are it, let’s privatise that now near defunct institution titled CSIRO [I know no one will pay us to take it off our hands, but that might waken up the insiders to add some value].
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Jim,
Couldn’t agree more. The CSIRO is no longer the paramount organisation I once respected. They can no longer be trusted to deliver unbiased science.
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That one is a real tragedy.
They still have some useful research programs but they are relatively poorly funded and get no attention.
The ‘best available science?
Climate change research rules absolutely.
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I am not sure that privatisation is the answer.
Anything with a forecast chance of a payoff will get researched elsewhere by the private sector.
There is still a place for fundamental research, real pie-in-the-sky stuff. Where unpredicted discoveries are made.
You need to fund crazy ideas for a long time to get this, it is a real research raffle.
So as wasteful as it sounds, there should be somewhere that this kind of activity happens and if it isn’t the private sector… there’s only one other option.
Surely a bit of clearing out the dead wood and internal process reform would kick start CSIRO again?
Actually, perhaps LESS process and bureaucracy is what’s needed. Let the inmates take over the asylum… 🙂
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Off Topic.
Michael Smith – a commentator courageous enough to put his job on the line – says that the authorities were deceived about the purpose of the sham not-for-profit entity, the “AWU Workplace Reform Association”, which Julia Gillard set up for her boyfriend Bruce Wilson as well as Ralph Blewitt. The relevant document can be seen in this video, just click here.
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Above info comes via Cando…..
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Martin Clark
August 21st @ 7:46 am:
I don’t know about Australia getting the Global Climate Idiot of the Year Award; Australia looks as though it is heading for the Inaugural National Darwin Award.
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Jim,
Couldn’t agree more. The CSIRO is a disgrace and no longer the paramount organisation I respected. Everything they pump out now must be suspect.
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I noticed yesterday that SBS had this story on their website, and they had comments open. So I commented, mentioning that AIMS in Townsville have found that coral actually adapts quite well to rising temperatures, and putting shade cloth over a beastie that needs light is perhaps not all that helpful to its ability to grow.
Checked back a few hours later, 8 comments were up. 100% critical & sarcastic but quite polite.
Checked an hour further on…comments gone. No commenting allowed. Story is still there though in all its insane glory.
I love our government broadcasters. If ever they get defunded the National Trust should class the whole of Ultimo as a listed cathedral to the religion of CAGW.
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Bruce, the ABC and SBS are becoming increasingly strident in their support of AGW, no matter how ludicrous. For instance, not only did they run this madness but also gave pride of place to the new Climate Commission report which was described by Flannery as proof that the world is sharing Australia’s lead in combating AGW with a carbon tax. Here is the ABC’s reporting of Flannery and the CC.
There are many defects in this reporting; for instance when Flannery gushes about the extent of the rest of the world having a carbon tax; this is entirely misleading; according to a survey done by Watts of how other nations are responding to AGW the vast bulk of the growing emitters either do not support AGW or are not introducing a carbon tax or similar measure.
But this does not stop Flannery from stating that China is at the forefront of efforts to combat AGW, especially in respect of its achievement with wind energy; Flannery says this:
The commission report also notes that China is a global leader in renewable energy.
“It’s doing hugely well,” Prof Flannery said.
“It’s got half the world’s installed wind capacity.”
This is an outrageous misrepresentation, exposed by Lomborg who says:
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Yes, ABC Newsradio had the Climate Commission report as its very first headline news item. It was funny because with their next breath they started saying “Commissioner Tim Flannery said…” whereupon I turned the radio off.
I wonder if they really understand how ridiculed Prof Flannery is out in voterland? He’s not helping their cause.
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He’s what’s known as a “Two-Shader”.
They need to put a shade cloth over his head just in case the shade cloth over his head breaks… 😉
(thanks Rodney)
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cohenite mentions here that Professor Flannery says, with respect to China:
What an outrageous thing for Flannery to say when it is so readily proved false. I think Flannery must be relying on people not knowing where to go to check.
The data current to end of year 2009 shows China with just on 25% of the total installed capacity (Nameplate Capacity) for Wind Power total for the whole World.
Wikipedia (and how I even hate mentioning that as a reliable source) says they have data current to end of year 2011, and even that says China has only got 26% of the World’s total for Wind Capacity.
Just going on the data at the EIA site, they may have 25% of the total Capacity, but here’s the kicker for that.
While most recent Wind Capacity Factor rates are close to 25%, and with newer wind towers coming on line, that CF can be around 30% in some cases, the Capacity Factor for ALL China’s wind towers barely manages 15%, which is poor at best considering China’s wind power construction rate is more recent than in most places.
So the statement that cohenite also links to about China’s wind towers not connected to grids looks pretty correct to me. Either that, or they are running very poorly indeed.
Again, see how data is fudged to make things look better than they really are.
15% Capacity Factor is an astonishingly low figure for generation of electrical power.
Tony.
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Most of the wind turbines mentioned by Flannery are connected to the local distribution network for towns that have been built, but are not occupied. The capacity may be installed, but it will be shut down.
China has concentrated its manufacturing industries along the eastern coast, primarily for logistical transportation reasons.
Manufacturing wages, although low, by international standards, are still relatively high in the industrialised east, when compared to the agricultural incomes in the interior (which is where the vast majority of Chinese live). Extended rural families therefore gather together what money they can, in order to send the young females of the family to the coast to find work in the factories. These young women then send most of the money they earn back to their families, while they themselves work long hours and live in very cramped conditions. This is at the very heart of the Chinese domestic economy.
But the down-side of this strategy is that a drop in manufacturing production will have severe economic impacts right throughout the country, with consequential civil unrest.
The Government is conscious of the fact that the majority of historic civil unrest and even revolutions, in China, has been caused by workers in the interior marching eastwards to challenge the established Government. The Long March, being just one example. They must therefore keep that economy going, no matter what. Hence the building of whole cities where nobody lives. It is busy work to keep people employed when the economy dips. Building wind turbines, and deploying solar panels is all part of that process. They keep the factories fully functioning, even when the order book is not as full as it might be.
The success measure used for factories is the number of units they produce. Whether those units serve any purpose is immaterial to the Chinese Socialist mind. But they will probably be the official figures that Flannery quotes.
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The report I have on windpower in China comes from Forbes in 2009, so is older than cohenite’s but it states the following.
Pierre Lau of Citi said.
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It’s time the media and other real scientists started to highlight the errors in Al Gore and Tim Flannery’s very poor forecasts.
The latest news I have is that the Snowy Mts have had the best snowfalls in 12 years starting earlier than usual and still some way to go. In 2000 we were seriously told that by now children would not know what snow was.
The 2010, 2011 years were as wet as one could wish…the QLD coal industry is losing money and production because they are still flooded. Only the Greens would be delighted about that but MRTs will be down.
On 4 Corners Kerry O’Brien introduced the koala crisis as a result of “climate change”. During the program the climate change example was a very small mention about some koalas found at the base of trees during 30’C + weather in 2009 in Gunnedah. Well gee whiz!
The term “climate change” now seems so ingrained in the minds of people that it is blamed on everything from A to Z that happens even outside the weather.
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That’s how you kill free speech in 2012.
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Bruce. Do you have a link to the coral adaptation study in AIMS?
btw… which is the beastie that needs light to grow?
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GA – The link I gave was to the Oz report of Ray Berkelmans work at AIMS a few years ago. At the time they also had a second article which was this one. I’ve not gone to their papers as I’m not sufficiently interested in the detail. But the comments on zooxanthellae behaviour were plausible. The algae are symbionts and are photosynthetic, which is where the corals get their lunch as I’m sure you know better than I.
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thanks and true about the algae… I didn’t think you meant the animals and really needn’t habve asked. I am thinking even less clearly than usual; this shade cloth thing is mind boggling/numbing.
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OK here we are. Two papers that come to conclusions that could be seen as contradictory by the uninitiated.
I’ve truncated the Abstracts to keep things brief but really the “blah blah” detail in these should be read in the actual article. My emphasis added.
A community change in the algal endosymbionts of a scleractinian coral following a natural bleaching event: field evidence of acclimatization Jones, AM et al PNAS 275 : 1359-1365
Abstract: The symbiosis between reef-building corals and their algal endosymbionts (zooxanthellae of the genus Symbiodinium) is highly sensitive to temperature stress, which makes coral reefs vulnerable to climate change. Thermal tolerance in corals is known to be substantially linked to the type of zooxanthellae they harbour and, when multiple types are present, the relative abundance of types can be experimentally manipulated to increase the thermal limits of individual corals. Although the potential exists for this to translate into substantial thermal acclimatization of coral communities, to date there is no evidence to show that this takes place under natural conditions. BLAH BLAH This change in the symbiont community structure, while it persists, is likely to have substantially increased the thermal tolerance of this coral population. Rhetoric rhetoric
Potential Costs of Acclimatization to a Warmer Climate: Growth of a Reef Coral with Heat Tolerant vs. Sensitive Symbiont Types. Jones, AM et al PLOS ONE Volume: 5 Issue: 5
Abstract: One of the principle ways in which reef building corals are likely to cope with a warmer climate is by changing to more thermally tolerant endosymbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) genotypes. It is highly likely that hosting a more heat-tolerant algal genotype will be accompanied by tradeoffs in the physiology of the coral. To better understand one of these tradeoffs, growth was investigated in the Indo-Pacific reef-building coral Acropora millepora in both the laboratory and the field. BLAH BLAH Irrespective of symbiont genotype, corals were affected to an even greater degree by the stress of a bleaching event which reduced growth by more than 50% for up to 18 months compared to pre-bleaching rates. The processes of symbiont change and acute thermal stress are likely to act in concert on coral growth as reefs acclimatize to more stressful warmer conditions, further compromising their regeneration capacity following climate change.
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Time is the variable here. The corals don’t like to change out the strain of symbiont because they don’t get fed in the changeover. The D type has to colonise the coral animal after the C2 type is spat out, that’ll take a while for the numbers to rebuild in the animal.
We’re talking slow warming vs rapid changes. Slow should be much more tolerable as the alga strain changes to the more heat tolerant variety then it adapts to the host. Or the C2 type, miffed at being kicked out, readapts to a different temperature range and then recolonises. The coral animal will take the one which makes the most food.
I don’t doubt that bleaching is stressful and takes a while to return from but the evolutionary dynamics mean the whole system will eventually catch up if there is a few degrees of warming. Cold, on the other hand, is a no no. They don’t seem to manage well to cooling or the GBR would extend south to Melbourne.
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I should add I’m being general. Specific species will do better than others. Extinctions of the less fit could certainly be expected, but the reef as a whole wouldn’t do a Norwegian Blue.
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Damn Bruce, i tried to post that and you beat me..
(I think mine got stuck in moderation?)
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Sorry, I think. The gremlins of WordPress have coffee break from time to time. Links seem to be the problem, gives them indigestion.
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Is the brother in-law of one of the authors the proud owner of a shady cloth business?
Does he also have a boat and a large number of star pickets that accidentally fell off the back of a truck and are now sitting in a pile in his back yard…
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Let’s hope that Gillard doesn’t get wind of this idea or more $billions of tax payer dollars will be thrown into the endless expenditure maw.
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are they serious II?
woke up to ABC RN news this morning, heard Labor up in poll 2 months after the carbon tax (are they going to mention the tax every time there’s an alleged favourable poll?
followed by the deceptive Climate Commission claim about 33 countries/850 million people “set to adopt”, “soon to be living” under a carbon price or “similar arrangement”! of course, there are 27 countries in the EU, population just over 500 million, which has an ETS so that takes care of most of their number no doubt:
21 Aug: ABC Radio Australia: More countries set to adopt carbon price: Climate Commission
Climate change commissioner Tim Flannery says he is surprised how fast the world is moving to tackle climate change – and hits back at criticism of some of his predictions…
Its latest report, released today, says nearly 850 million people in 33 countries will soon be living in economies with a carbon price or similar arrangement.
Read the full report on the Climate Commission website here…
Chief commissioner Professor Tim Flannery says the report proves the global approach to energy has changed for good.
“It’s the beginning I think of an irreversible shift,” he said…
“There’s about 33 countries around the world with some sort of carbon pricing scheme in place now covering about 850 million people – that’s almost one in seven people on the planet,” he said.
“It’s what the economists tell us is a very cost effective way of dealing with the problems.”…
The report says the cost of renewable energy continues to fall, and countries like China and Germany are investing heavily…
“Australia is the sunniest country in the world and one of the windiest, we are lucky to have some of the best renewable resources in the world,” Professor Flannery said…
Flannery hits back
Professor Flannery has come under intense criticism in recent months for a number of incorrect predictions.
But he says the attacks on his credibility have not interfered with his job of communicating climate change.
“I think I would have been much less miserable if I hadn’t done it, so you’ve got to get out there and do what you can,” he said.
“So I’m very very proud of having played that role.
“I think there’s certain people that are always trying to distract, you know, there’s certain lobbyists who are always trying to distract people, and one way they do it is play the man and not the ball … don’t deal with the facts but deal with other issues.
“But we’ve come through that and I think increasingly Australians are hearing the facts on climate change and I think the Climate Commission’s been an important part of that.”…
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2012-08-21/more-countries-set-to-adopt-carbon-price-climate-commission/1002708
greg hunt then adds his bit about US & Canada not having a carbon tax and the Europe’s bringing in far less than ours, but of course he’s not against action on “climate change”:
Climate Commission: The Critical Decade: International Action on Climate Change
Find out more:
•Watch this video from Al Gore
•Download the full report
http://climatecommission.gov.au/report/the-critical-decade-international-action-climate-change/
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So to save the barrier reef we need to cover them? …so when the living reef requires actual sunlight to survive we will need people to remove the covers for awhile and then put them back ….there you go a new “green job” created……. or do we add the fluorescent lighting powered by a wind turbines sitting above the water line…. yep! looking good so far (sarc)
I would imagine they will need to damage the reef some what so as to place anchor points and with the expected “climate change” induced bad weather the tethers of chains and ropes will no doubt cause more damage scraping the reef itself. Then more additional damage by the floating shade cloth rising and falling against the reef and who will be responsible when it breaks free capturing all in its path like a fishing net. Of course a “Reef Shadow Tax” will be needed to pay for it.
Over the time of this debate it’s clearer to me, to have a job in the “Climate Change industry” you need a good imagination and a complacent employer……”shade clothing the reef ” yep this has been thoroughly thought through, Not ! Seriously who comes up with this stuff.
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Colin Henderson
August 21, 2012 at 7:09 am · Reply
Jesus..Did you read the flipping article.?????
Here is some ph fun for you.
The shade cloth article here by Jo is pointing out how ludicrous this suggestion is…go back and read it..
Fail..
scaper…
August 21, 2012 at 7:17 am · Reply
” seems like a lot of work”???..
Is this a joke..???
You also manage to miss the point of the story.
How you did that is pretty bizarre..
Was it too much work to actually read the article.?????
I am not sure if you are being sarcastic re flannery..but pretending you are not..why would anyone listen to a guy whose predictions have failed over and over.
Or we could talk about Flannery book….which had so many mistakes that another book had to be done to try and fix all his mistakes.
The Weather Makers Re-examined
Yep..we should listen to Flannery.. 🙂
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Well, it does seem a lot of work. Have you ever built shade structures?
I’ve got even a better idea…we envelop the planet with a giant condom. Ribbed or non-ribbed will be the new debate.
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It is all very well laughing at these stupid ideas, but sceptics are not winning. Politicians who are sceptical are too afraid to say so.
What is needed to to get some punch into the main stream media, in language most people can understand, on a topic that will shock them.
I think the manipulation of temperature records by NASA, Hansen, CRU, Australian and New Zealand BOMs, is one that would resonate. You all have to look at the record of actual recorded temperature in Australia since the late 19th. century, and then look at the temperatures on the Australian BOM climate change pages to see this. And then ask them why they did it. The reason I was given does not stack up.
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Yes Peter I Have previously posted this, most greenies aren’t anti humanist even though some are and I make the best headway by showing the damage that the Greenie policy does.
EG at 140 sq KM to the Gigawatt, how much environmental damage would solar power create.
How many starving Africans could be fed using the corn we burn for fuel as ethanol
The best fuel for electricity after coal is Flour (17 MJ /kg)
Is it really ok that pensioners die every summer/winter because they cant afford to run heating or cooling
Should we really spend $100 billion over 10 year trying to achieve a 0.00002 degree reduction in temperature when thousands of people are dying of disease, much of it preventable (Eg Malaria and Dysentry)
Is it better to throw $100 billion at green schemes that do nothing or $200 million on a Proton Cancer Treatment facility at the University of Wooloongong that will cure Hundreds, if not thousands of people with cancer.
A warped sense of morality drives greenies, the left does not like to seem immoral, they love their “Causes”. The best arguments are to show how futile their position is, how immoral they are to burn food for fuel, and starve medicine of funding, how global warming is diverting attention (and dollars) from saving the whales (insert greenies favourite cause here), and show them a better cause that is much more worthwhile to support, like helping the Pensioners avoid death by fuel poverty.
Warmism is selfish, conceited and immoral – show them that, it works.
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Just thinking of the oil and energy needed to make that amount of shade cloth !!!
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Notice how many negative signs those reasonable comments on The Conversation got. I have no doubt the thumbs down came from scientists. A “true scientist” (recognized as such by his/her peers) never doubts that his/her mission is to save the world from the right-wing, Bolt-brainwashed plebs’ ignorance, and never worries about costs. A true scientist knows that the government will ALWAYS have enough money, if only they followed their advice of taxing the rich > 80%, expropriating all of Gina Reinhardt and Clive Palmer’s assets (because the Earth belongs to all of us), abolishing defence spending altogether (because it’s in place only to prop up our right-wing, nationalist, pro-US, anti-Asia, white racist regime), and stopping funding for private schools. If a true scientist were allowed absolute power for a day to implement those measures, there would be enough money to save the GBR, with enough spare cash for their next ARC grant.
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You are so funny.
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Bit hard on us scientists there Robbo. I could be insulted. On the otherhand I don’t draw a salary from our benign, omniscient, loving and caring government and have been in the private sector for over a quarter century. Might it conceivably be the government dime is a problem?
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It used to be called “The King’s Shilling”, back in the days with a shilling was worth a heck of a lot more than a dime.
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I had to check the date. Prehaps these guys misses the publishing deadline for the 1 April edition. Ha these so called scientists….are they for real?
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Sounds good to me. Just think of how long it would keep them all busy and out of everyone’s hair. The moon landing took nine years. This ought to take at least that long to figure out. Why, I bet it would take two or three years just to figure out how to keep a good strong wind from blowing it away. 😉
In the meantime you’ll have a new election!!!! 🙂
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I’m an engineer, and have possibly a superior geo-engineering solution subject to some physical research. There are immense amounts of expanded polystyrene used in packaging which present a waste disposal problem. If this were ground into its little balls and deposited over the GBR it would have an immense reflectivity at least for a while. It would present no hazard to creatures requiring to surface, and even if ingested by them I doubt if it would be a problem. Neither would it be an issue with sea going vessels. Of course it would be dispersed over the wider oceans but over a long period if we keep adding, it might keep up with preventing CAGW and acidification. If the entire oceans were covered the increase in albedo would be enormous. I will fall off my perch beforehand, but if I were still around and had nothing better to do, I would imagine that lying on a polystyrene beach might have some conveniences over that annoying sand stuff. Just think of all the green jobs this would create!
Unfortunately I would need an estimated initial $300,000 funding to conduct some elementary research though, and I wonder if one has to be an academic resident fruitcake in a university to secure such.
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the conservative UK Tele calls them “underwater ‘umbrellas'”!
who can take the MSM seriously?
20 Aug: UK Tele: Underwater ‘umbrellas’ should be used to protect Great Barrier Reef says report
By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney
The shade cloths proposed in the report would be anchored with ropes and float on the water surface to protect the corals from sunlight. In an experiment performed in Queensland several years ago, researchers deployed 15-feet by 15-feet sheets of plastic mesh, similar to those used by gardeners to protect vegetable patches.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg told the Daily Telegraph the technique was useful for protecting small patches of coral but would not “save the Great Barrier Reef” as a whole.
“We are recommending looking at these technologies because at current rate of warming we may need to use them in 20 over 30 years time,” he said. “We should test them now and see which ones work. Shading is not a strategy that can be used across hundreds of kilometres of the reef. But it might – at a local level – be able to influence how many corals die.”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9487095/Underwater-umbrellas-should-be-used-to-protect-Great-Barrier-Reef-says-report.html
tons more scary aussie CAGW worries in the above.
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how shameful. a carbon tax, the consequences of which won’t be felt for months, and in some cases years, has proven the PM right!
21 Aug: Australian: Dennis Shanahan: Prime Minister proved right on soft carbon tax landing
JULIA Gillard has always said it would happen and it has – two months after the introduction of the carbon tax and the handing out of billions of dollars in carbon compensation Labor’s primary vote is improving…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/prime-minister-proved-right-on-soft-carbon-tax-landing/story-e6frg75f-1226454544154
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omigod. CAUTION: FACT-FREE ZONE:
21 Aug: SMH: David Wroe: Al Gore praises inspirational Australia
The Gillard government’s carbon price has already ‘‘inspired the world’’ to press ahead with measures to tackle climate change, former US Vice President Al Gore says.
Labelling Australia one of the ‘‘canaries in the coalmine’’ for the effects of global warming, Mr Gore told a breakfast launch in Canberra of a new Climate Commission report there was much cause for optimism about global efforts to solve the problem.
Speaking via video presentation, Mr Gore said that the Queensland floods and Black Saturday bushfires of recent years showed that ‘‘we must act now’’…
‘‘This year in Australia, for the first time, in a move that has inspired the world – I hear it everywhere – carbon polluters are being held accountable for the global warming pollution they pour in the atmosphere every single day.
‘‘Policy actions like Australia’s historic achievement are beginning to unlock innovative approaches to the climate crisis that will provide new sources of sustainable economic growth and good jobs while simultaneously solving the climate crisis. We’re not there yet, but fortunately we are gaining momentum and we can solve this problem.
‘‘I salute Australia’s strong commitment to solving the climate crisis and I know it’s going to continue to be a crucial player in building a global solution to this global problem.’’…
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/al-gore-praises-inspirational-australia-20120821-24jh8.html
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Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Australia’s resident loon strikes again.
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Resident loon??
Nah man, Ove’s going to be a national treasure**.
—————-
** = According to unreleased Treasury modelling.
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Aside from the shade cloth, I love the idea of saving the marine life of the reef by electrocuting it.
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Works for eels.
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I note that in the actual report it includes the item
“Convert CO2 from land-based waste into dissolved bicarbonates that could be added to the ocean to provide carbon sequestration and enhance alkalinity.”
Can someone explain to me why alkalinity should be enhanced? If the ocean environment is pH sensitive, why isn’t ‘enhanced alkalinity’ as bad as ‘acidification’?
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Like Walter I checked the calendar to make sure it is now August and not April. Trying to slow the effects of climate change on a coral reef is a job for fools. It’s unfortunate that they weren’t around when the limestone around Canberra and Yass was about to be uplifted out of the then ocean. If we could transport our fools back in time they might have been able to provide enough mass to stop the ocean floor from rising. The chances of doing that are on a par with the prospect of keeping the GBR just the way it is now. Our current crop of fools must think they will have access to truckloads of OPM
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Hang on. Shade cloth reduces heat from the sun.
But GW is supposed to be caused by CO2.
The sun has nothing to do with it according to the AGW mob.
But if shade cloth will save the reef why are we taxing CO2?
Tax the sun instead!
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They have enough trouble trying to find the missing heat that is supposedly being ‘absorbed’ by the oceans already, but now shading part of the ocean is a good idea…
Do they even pay attention to their previous position/statements before they issue a press release from their latest thought-bubble?
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Good point Aard.
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In the previous thread I mentioned the characteristic lack of sense of proportion as a result of their refusal to do arithmetic.
The last time I read a paper from Hoegh-Guldberg, it proclaimed widespread damage to the GBR; from a photographic survey of a total of about 30 square metres of (easily accessible) reefs.
From his suggestion to shade the reef, ignoring the practical scale of the problem, the man shouldn’t even be allowed to dive because he’s apparently ignorant of ocean currents.
As an Engineer, I do have a scaleable solution for shading (aka starving) the reef for a tiny fraction of what it would cost to use tarps: An oil slick. It’s more durable in bad weather and, as we’ve observed in the Gulf of Mexico, it is bio-degradable.
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This piece grossly misrepresents what Rau et al have written – Nova literally exaggerates by a factor of a billion when she writes of shading ” 348,000 square kilometers.”
That’s 348 billion square metres , but Rau et al. write in Nature Climate Change that
That’s manifestly not in Nova’s words “
Rather than asking the authors if they ” expect the water to stay in one spot?” readers should ask Nova why she expects the cooling underwater shade to move ?
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“readers should ask Nova why she expects the cooling underwater shade to move ?”
Have you heard of the tide and/or currents ??
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I’ve spent a night floating in one place in the middle of craggy Cook’s Reef despite force five winds and a fifteen foot swell .
Used a wonderful new invention called an ‘anchor’
I’ve also seen Kings Cove in Newport covered over by a 4,000 square meterstretch of foalting polypropylene cloth – in the nameof art, not coral conservation by Christo.
It survived the summer hurricane season unscathed.
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So you’re suggesting drilling lots of holes it the GBR to mount ‘achor poles’ to keep the shadecloth from floating?
Yeah, like that’s not going to cause more damage to an already ‘fragile ecosystem’…
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I have an experiement for you Russell…
Go down to your local beach and spread a 1 square metre piece of cloth out on the water 10 mteres from shore, then watch what happens.
And don’t tell me that the open ocean doesn’t have waves, (or tides and currents as Ross mentioned), plus being unaffected by wind (both speed and direction).
Honestly, sometimes its like they don’t even bother with commonsense….
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Russell, quick, go tell the Australian Government they have the size of the GBR wrong. See my link… I got the number from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park uthority. And I did quote Rua et al “hundreds of meters”.
Tell us something we don’t know.
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Actually Jo,
Your referenced authority may be exaggerating at 348K Km^2. The ultimate authority Wikipedia gives it at only a mere 344K over 3,800 reefs and islands over a length of 2,600 Km.
Or, wait, hang on a mo, has it grown by 4K recently?
Some other interesting stuff there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef
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But Jo – the point is that you lampoon the idea of shading the entire reef, and thus lampoon Ove Hoegh-Guldberg… when the reality is the paper refers to spot shading of small areas simply to try and salvage something for tourism/posterity.
It is like arguing we should’t wear hats because you’d need a trillion hats to shade all of Australia.
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You men conserving nature; like seasonal vegetables and fruit?
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My grandma used to make the best plum conserve… Can’t get anything like that now.
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No Matt, I lampoon the idea of “protecting” even 1% of the reef, which is just barely big enough to make a difference if it were successful. And I lamppon the idea that it will work for photosynthetic life even on the 100m2 scale.
I also poke at The Conversation, which didn’t mention any of the finer details – (like I did) they didn’t quote the points that matter, ask questions that were serious, and probably didn’t read the paper themselves either.
I did quote Ove exactly.
Baa #48.4 Excellent. Thank you.
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10mtrs by 10mtrs is a hundred square metres, so hundreds of square metres wouldn’t be any more than 32mtrs by 32mtrs, otherwise we’re into the thousands of metres territory.
So what use will it be to “save” a patch 32m by 32m?
How much food would locals get from a piddling 32mtrs by 32mtrs area of sea? It’d be cheaper to send them a few pallets loaded with canned tuna and sardines each year.
Somehow I don’t see too many international tourists travelling thousands of miles and spending thousands of dollars to scuba dive in an area not that much bigger than an olympic sized pool or two.
Nor do I think the local fishermen- having prepared their boats and nets to go out on the vast 32metre X 32metre ocean -have ever been heard to say “Honey I’m off fishing, I’ll be back in a couple of days with a boat load”.
No matter which way this stooopid idea is spun, it’s…well…stooopid.
p.s. In any case, why are these rent seeking, grant grabbing, tax syphoning carpetbaggers trying to protect reefs from direct sunshine? The suns got nothing to do with it eh? It’s the back radiation (ROFLMFAO) from the CO2 in the air just a few metres above the surface that’s doing the damage eh? Have they developed CO2 shading cloth? (double ROFLMFAO get hernia)
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look baa tourists would travel a fair way to see the last giant redwood, or the last panda, mate if it is all that is left then tourists would come. It is why we have zoos.
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May I be the first to upvote that comment.
For the sheer astonishment factor.
In summary you are explicitly no longer part of any actual conservation movement, just interested in making money out of a captive audience.
So more Left than Green, basically. Cover: totally blown.
Please somebody alert Disney to this wonderful plan, because finding Nemo just got a hellavalot easier!
(32m x 32m)
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Yes, MattB is one of those people that would rather spend $100 Billion on an ill fated attempt to reduce warming in 50 years by 0.0002 degrees, rather than end world hunger, or build cancer treatment centers. He would rather turn corn into ethanol and burn it in his car instead of feeding the poor with it. He would rather burn flour for electricity than coal. He is OK that pensioners will die every summer and winter from Fuel poverty due to the carbon tax. He is fine with money being wasted on green schemes instead of immunizing kids in indigenous communities, Africa, and South America, or curing aids, and cancer. He is just fine that this money is diverted away from saving whales, or desalination of farmland, or protection of river systems and is given hand over fist to wealthy industrialists and their shareholders (like Tim Flannery) that are riding on the green gravy train.
Yep, MattB is one moral guy….
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Oh I get it now, so sorry Matt. It goes something like this eh?
“If you build it (the shade cloth), they will come”
(My sides hurt)
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Not to mention MattB that as the reef is destroyed by global warming and Ove’s 32 x 32 patch is all thats left the herding of 32 million crown of thorns starfish into Ove’s Starfish nirvana isn’t going to decimate the food supply (oops coral)
You are soooo funny, best laugh of the month
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And Ove Hoegh-Guldberg still has a job?!
Of course he does …. he says what the AGW fraudsters want him to say … the more he says it the more his job is secure.
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Gbees,
You raise a good point.
Where does his funding come from? Should not his university be embarrassedand worried about future funding? I’m thinking of making enquiries and/or asking them to take the credit for my idea at comment 38 above.
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I would think your funding is assured. Make sure you mention AGW continuously in your pitch to ensure you get the required funding. I am an engineer (electrical) also. If you need help with your brilliant idea let me know … I was thinking we could set up some massive electrodes and build a huge salt water chlorinator to ensure we maintain the correct pH in the GBR area. What do you think? Would that be a suitable project to attract funding?
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another engineered whitewash?
21 Aug: SBS: AAP: Flood findings ‘won’t derail class action’
The exoneration of three Wivenhoe dam engineers accused of misleading Queensland’s flood inquiry won’t derail plans for a class action by flood victims, lawyers say…
After a five-month review, the CMC said there was no evidence the engineers colluded to mislead the floods inquiry about how the dam was managed before Brisbane and Ipswich flooded in January 2011.
Retired judge John Jerrard QC, who conducted the CMC’s review, found the dam was operated in breach of its manual.
He said ambiguity in the manual provided an explanation for all of the engineers’ inconsistent statements and descriptions of what they did during the flood crisis.
“There is no evidence that I have seen which suggests that the conduct of Mr Tibaldi, Mr Ayre and Mr Malone relating to the preparation of documents surrounding the January 2011 flood event, and oral testimony given to the flood inquiry, evidences offences against the Criminal Code or official misconduct under the Crime and Misconduct Act 2001,” Mr Jerrard found.
In line with the flood inquiry’s recommendations, the CMC’s probe was limited to documents the engineers prepared about their actions, and their oral testimony to the inquiry.
It did not look at whether their management of the dam’s gates during the flood crisis could amount to a criminal offence or official misconduct…
IMF, a litigation funder for law firm Maurice Blackburn, says the CMC’s findings won’t derail plans for a potential class action on behalf of more than 4000 flood victims against Seqwater and the state government.
IMF says the CMC’s findings don’t deal with whether Seqwater, which is government owned, was negligent.
“Unfortunately, none of the inquiries to date that have been state-sponsored have addressed the state’s potential liability,” IMF executive director John Walker told AAP.
He said IMF was awaiting reports from experts in the United States about the dam’s operation and potential negligence. He’s expecting to hear back within four weeks…
Mr Tully, whose home was inundated during the 2011 flood, said the commission of inquiry earlier this year had found the dam had not been operated in accordance with its manual.
The CMC should have looked at whether this amounted to official misconduct instead of just considering the evidence that was given to the inquiry, he said…
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1684403/Queensland-flood-probe:-Wivenhoe-trio-cleared-of-misleading-inquiry
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Another case of panic-response-and-fergit-due-diligence. HG and Green Band et al, keep yer cotton picken’ fingers off our Barrier Reef!!
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20 Aug: Adelaide Advertiser: True impact of carbon tax only now beginning to show itself
For better or worse, the country is now locked into the Labor’s carbon tax until the election…
Indeed, Gillard strategists are now moving to reset the political stage as quickly as possible, before the carbon price returns.
And return it will because, in a sense, July 1, 2012, was always a false dawn. Nothing happened on that day.
The impact is more pernicious and widespread.
As The Advertiser reported last week, small businesses such as the Belair Hotel are just beginning to get their monthly power bills and see the so-called “carbon adjustment”.
Others will get an even bigger quarterly bill shock two months from now.
For many small businesses, these costs are harsh. For others, perhaps impossible.
Some larger ones have been compensated with free permits but, for the biggest employer of South Australians – small businesses – there is no protection.
The theory is that they simply pass on their costs to customers who have been compensated with tax cuts and pension increases.
But the reality for many shops and other high energy users is that they are already close to the unviability line and the loss of even a few customers could send them under…
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/true-impact-of-carbon-tax-only-now-beginning-to-show-itself/story-e6freabl-1226454453532
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my guess is they’ll choose Germany, but might get rebuffed:
21 Aug: IPS: As Green Climate Fund Finally Meets, Funding Remains Uncertain
Washington: Five months behind schedule, the board of the newest and largest international financing mechanism aimed at dealing with the effects of climate change, the Green Climate Fund, is finally slated to meet this week, just ahead of a late-summer deadline.
On Monday, however, insiders admitted that funding plans for the ambitious initiative – 100 billion dollars a year after 2020, in addition to dealing with a massive shortfall until then – remain unclear.
“We are expecting no serious discussion about the 100 billion dollars at this meeting,” Omar El-Arini, an Egyptian member of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board, told journalists Monday, speaking from Geneva.
“We have had very little time to discuss the architecture of funding.”
Given that the board’s responsibility lies in figuring out how to disburse, not raise, the eventual cash, El-Arini said that the upcoming meet, scheduled for August 23-25 in Geneva, would most likely focus on procedural issues. These would include rules for board meetings, the budget for a secretariat and a host country in which to house it…
Meanwhile, in the current environment of fiscal austerity, particularly in the United States and the European Union, coupled with a general international erosion in political support for climate-related projects, the question of where the GCF will get enough money to make its mandate realistic remains a pressing one.
Washington has already expressed dissatisfaction over the idea of financing so-called “middle income” countries, such as India and Brazil…
One issue expected to be decided upon this week – that of the GCF’s host country – could serve as motivation for figuring out the longer-term financing options. Six countries are currently in contention – Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland, South Korea and Switzerland – and analysts suggest that the winner would be expected to make the first substantial contribution.
With the GCF made up of just 24 full members (as well as 24 alternates) from across the globe, overarching conversations about representation and equity have reportedly been to blame for the three delays since the board’s scheduled first meeting…
The GCF is now said to be under massive pressure to sort out its ideological issues and financing framework before November, when the next international climate summit is set to begin in Qatar…
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/as-green-climate-fund-finally-meets-funding-remains-uncertain/
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Fairfax, Virginia-based ICF International get some $$$:
20 Aug: 4-Traders: ICF International Awarded $23.5 Million Multiple-Award Contract with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
ICF International, a leading provider of consulting services and technology solutions to government and commercial clients, has been awarded a multiple-award re-compete contract by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide technical and outreach support services for the Climate Change Division (CCD). The contract has a ceiling of $23.5 million for all task orders awarded to ICF and a term of five years.
Under this contract, ICF will support EPA’s CCD across a range of activities, including analysis and development of climate change science, economics, technology and policy; development of and capacity building for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories; and outreach, communications, education, and logistical support…
***”ICF has continuously supported EPA on this work since 1992. From the very beginning of EPA’s climate change work, ICF has played an integral role in developing and implementing its programs, starting with development of the U.S. GHG inventory that is submitted annually to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change…
About ICF International
ICF International partners with government and commercial clients to deliver professional services and technology solutions in the energy, environment, and infrastructure; health, social programs, and consumer/financial; and public safety and defense markets…
http://www.4-traders.com/ICF-INTERNATIONAL-INC-34108/news/ICF-International-Inc-ICF-International-Awarded-$23-5-Million-Multiple-Award-Contract-with-U-S-14465712/
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If not shadecloth maybe this will work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2taViFH_6_Y
Can I have my grant money now please?
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Open Sequence
Fade from Black…
Cut to: RAAF F-18s flying, the leader breaks right, the wings are filled with bombs, his wingman follows…
Cut to: Armidale class patrol boat, her Captain is keenly staring at a high resolution screen showing images from a remote camera, other naval staff are busy at their stations…
Cut to: Remote drone. The camera slung under the drone swivels…
Close up on Drone Camera: The lens shifts focus to…
Cut to: Exterior, GBR, The deck of the sloop “Panda III”.
Tim Flannery: Waves at Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, “Is it targetted?”, a howling smoke laden wind almost drowns out his words.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg: Adjusts a small knob on a laser range finder. His hands tremble… “Just a few seconds more… just a few seconds more…”
Tim Flannery: Screams over the wind, hacking and coughing from the smoke. “We must save the reef from Global Warming, hurry! – we must do it now.”
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg: Depresses a small switch on the laser range finder. “it’s done.”
Tim Flannery: Whirls around, his face is filled with heart felt purpose, smoke billows behind him. He touches an earpiece, “Boomer One, Boomer One – commence final bombing run.”
Cut to: Underside of an F18 diving towards the Great Barrier Reef, the bombs release and dive under the waves, Explosions, flash, debris, and smoke, lot’s of smoke…
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg: Looks stunned. “It’s done – we have saved the reef from Man Made Global Warming.”. A tear trickles down his smoke stained cheek. Tim Flannery claps him hard on the shoulder.
Tim Flannery: “Don’t cry mate – we had to destroy the reef in order to save it – it’s the right thing to do.”
Cut to: The Lodge: Queen Juliar, first queen of the royal green monarchy of Australia sips rose champagne from a silver and crystal flute. An official flunkie runs ups to her, with a missive on a gold platter, he pauses before the throne, bows deeply and presents the platter to the queens Flapper. The Flapper picks ups the missive and reads it.
The Flapper (played by Stephen Conroy): Consults the missive. “Marm! Units of the Climate Change Department have just completed efforts to save the great barrier reef from Man Made Global Warming.”
Queen Juliar: Leans back on her throne, purses her lips, “Jolly good show old man – Flanners and and that fellow Gildberg, ahhh what’s his name…, wasn’t it?”
The Flapper: Stands to attention. “Yes Marm, Flanners and Gildberger!”
Queen Juliar: Relaxes, sips more rose champagne, “Excellent, give them another gong – they deserve it.” … “now what will I do next.”
Fade to black.
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Spectacular.
Directed by Michael Bay, perhaps?
Could it even be called The Island? A movie where all the dear soft-headed ones are brainwashed from day one to believe they’re going to make a new and better world, while the whole time the promised land is just projections from a computer model…
I’m prepared to suffer the indignity of being cast as Flannery on the condition you also cast Scarlett Johansson as my character’s love interest.
That is purely for my professional career development purposes, of course.
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Arithmetic literacy, credibility and integrity are not on the prerequisite list for Climate “Scientists” and Prime Ministers. (Or so it would seem).
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The Drum is at it again – or is that ABC environment at:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/08/21/3572461.htm
My comment:
As someone who deals extensively with stats it annoys me no end when people contort them to support a political position. In my book it is tantamount to lying. Ironic that this is coming from a Big Oil man (the author is a former BP exec).
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Bulldust, why is that employees of the ABC are such ideologues?
I can only guess:
1. It is like Jon Faine says : “everyone is interviewed (prior to employment) to make sure they will fit in around the place”
2. Their super fund has invested in wind and solar?
3. Lack of education?
4. Stupidity?
5. Inability to understand statistics or basic science?
6. They believe that working for the ABC is a path to ALP endorsement? (lots of examples)
7. All of the above?
ABC employees seem to view integrity and credibility as inconsequential.
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🙂 good to see it pass moderation
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thanks for including my comment Jo. The Conversation is a truly a shocking site. I sometimes can be bothered the post a comment and the abuse I get leaves a very bad taste (I am justt sooo ignorant). The argument on this tread has no moved to ocean acidification – gawd. Do they know what the GBR is made of (not the living part) the structure underneath – the limestone bit. Anybody know what happens when you add acid to limestone. Anybody know of the buffering effect of the bicarbonate ion? Anybody care to guess how much limetone is in equilibrium with the world’s oceans – yet there they go with the links to NOAA the park authority and the rest saying the reef is in danger from CO2 caused ocean acidification. Incredible in the true sense of the word.
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There is some history about the development of protest in Australia, in which I was involved. It might help to explain why Oz features so much in Climate Change proposals, compared to population.
In 1969, by far the world’s largest and richest uranium mine (Ranger One) was discovered. This put new meaning to a nuclear powered global future. It also flushed out into the open a number of people opposed to it. One of these was a Brit import, Derek Ovington, who became head of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. In 1980 he reviewed submissions for a Plan of Management of Kakadu, which included a submission from me in my company capacity. About this time there were also hearings such as one headed by Senator Olive Zacharov (Lab, Tas, member of Communist party while at Melbourne University). During one of these inquiries, I ran into a former lecturer, Joe Baker, who wore a badge representing the World Wildlife Fund. He was a foundation member, IIRC, of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. There is a somewhat unflattering article about his activities on the Reef at http://jennifermarohasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Review55-1DeceitinNameConservation.pdf
I was surprised to hear Joe’s evidence – indeed, I was surprised to see him there as he had always appeared to be straightforward and a dedicated chemist.
It was this event that started me wondering about the extent of organisation in activists movements. Some were quite loud, like Friends of the Earth, but the WWF had a most respectable public front. Or so I thought. Later, we were in the Federal Court opposing the listing of Kakadu on the World Heritage Register. The Judge who wrote the majority opinion (and a rather poor one, I might now add) was Murray Wilcox, a former head of the Australian Conservation Foundation. Murray popped up again earlier this month, on board the ‘Sea Shepherd’ Greenpeace ship, http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2012/08/10/update-from-operation-kimberley-miinimbi-the-steve-irwin-encounters-the-worlds-largest-humpback-whal-1424 Captain Paul Watson of the ‘Sea Shepherd’ was arrested by Interpol in May this year for doing strange things at sea.
This little story is simply to show that that ‘debate’ about global warming, activism, etc., is not a randomly structured event. It has organised roots that go back a long time, some of them in very high places. However, it’s guite a job to assemble the jigsaw.
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It goes as far back as the 1970s to a guy named Maurice Strong …..
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Hi Geoff,
It’s not confined to the “green” movement.
Back in 1985 when I was writing “Dole Bludging, A Taxpayer’s Guide”, there was a certain minor head of what was, at the time, a minor sub-department of the Department of Social Security (DSS – now Centrelink), who, nonetheless was always the “talking head” who showed up on the TV or was quoted in the MSM, explaining the latest failure by DSS to actually exercise any control of taxpayer-funded benefits.
Today, over a quarter of a century later, despite this man having filled numerous, ever ascending positions at Centrelink he continues, to this day, to be “the man” you will see on TV or quoted in the MSN explaining away the latest DSS failure.
He also, incidentally, despite having far loftier duties today, nonetheless continues to exercise direct control over that once obscure little sub-department he was head of back in 1985 – that’s the department which keeps all the computer records for the Department which are constantly cross-correlated with the records from ATO and several other commonwealth and state departments, which are then fed into the conglomerate database now known as “Project Echelon” housed at the top security “Deakin Defence Offices”, Canberra.
Once I developed an interest in this gentleman, I looked further afield and discovered pretty-much EVERY major federal department had its Mr (or) Ms ‘X’.
And it isn’t just the green groups and government departments and it wasn’t just a “one-off” exercise in the 60’s to 80’s.
For instance, try finding out anything verifiable about Simon Sheikh, former head of GetUp, prior to around 2007. Apart from his personal claim of having attended a particular Sydney high school which unfortunately doesn’t seem aware of the fact, little Simon doesn’t seem to have even existed prior to graduating from uni and immediately starting work as a senior analyst for the Treasury Department.
Ditto pretty-much for his partner Anna Rose, and forget about finding anything at all relating to them ever getting married, although one would have imagined such an event would have been all over the
socialistsociety pages of the Fairfax media. Ditto many photos of them together.All very strange.
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Reading between the lines then… “GetUp” ≅⊆ “Manchurian Corporation”?
At least that gives us some idea of why he fainted on Q&A. They never did iron out all the wrinkles in MKULTRA. 🙂
Admittedly there are simpler explanations for his collapse. It was from man-made global warming. A man-made halogen globe probably.
But the tale of Mr X is quite intriguing. Sounds like a secret army of “X-Men” actually. Would the honourable Mr Combet be amongst them or is he just a union Johnny-come-lately? That Arbib fellow is also an intriguing character, being a dyed-in-the-wool unionist who somehow passed himself off as right wing in the ALP.
Also, in one case you are saying it is their long track record that makes them suspicious, and in another case it is their lack of any preparatory track record that makes them suspicious. What’s the tell-tale sign?
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Not really the contradiction you imply, Andrew. Back in the 80’s when I first became interested in Mr ‘J’ at DSS, and then Ms ‘M’ at the Human Rights Commission, and then others, the internet as the source of info that we have now, was still two decades away.
Back then it was relatively easy to go to print libraries that kept hard copies and microfilm records of newspapers and magazines, and find out what somebody who was “somebody” had been doing since they became a “somebody”. But it was virtually impossible to find out very much about what they were allegedly doing before they became a “somebody”. If it had been possible I have a sneaky suspicion their early backgrounds would have been discovered to to be as murky as our current generation of X-Men.
These days with the internet it’s very easy to establish that the man called Simon Sheikh never went to the high school he claims to have attended because they have records that are available online and he isn’t listed in them.
It’s easy to establish that there’s no actual record of Mr Sheikh being named “Young (whatever) Of The Year” by any organisation, only later articles claiming he was, all referencing one source – yet another article claiming he was.
It’s also easy to establish that the man young Simon claims as his father actually exists (there aren’t that many published industrial chemists with invention patents accredited to them with the surname Sheikh), but he doesn’t appear to have ever left the U.S.A – which makes it a tad difficult for him to have sired Simon in NSW, let alone have young Simon tend him through years of alcoholic depression from when Simon was a tender eleven years old – as Simon claims.
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Awww, way to end on a cliffhanger. I was only halfway through my popcorn!
It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?
And by that I mean “It’s Worse Than First Thought.”
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Google is your friend, Andrew – entertain yourself while you finish your popcorn.
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I did try before replying earlier. Couldn’t track down the relevant chemist. But plenty of other fodder to chew.
And Google is my friend? Really? (1,2,3,4)
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Good point – it certainly seems that adaptation is massively expensive and the solutions are absurd.
So I guess that leaves mitigation… oh rightiho you’ve all ruled that out too.
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.
Or we could simply do the obvious when confronted with a non-problem:
Nothing.
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What was it that chicken little wanted to do?
I remeber he said the sky was falling, but I cannot recall why?
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Doing nothing at all, even if it were a problem to begin with, is better than doing “something” ridiculously ineffective, hideously expensive, hopelessly ill-conceived, utterly nonsensical, totally counterproductive, drug addled fantasy-oriented, downright balmy, logistically challenged, sheltered workshop rejected, plain barking lunatic-fringe mad, ridiculously impractical, blindly panic-stricken, pyrrhically self-destructive, morally repugnant, ass- backwards completely illogical, or mass ritual suicide inducing!
Matt – doesn’t it strike you as odd that since CO2 is such a problem that all this money is being spent, and not one scrap of difference is being made to the supposed problem (no coal fired stations replaced with practical alternatives for the long term, anthropogenic CO2 output rising exponentially), that most of the solutions don’t work or are predicated upon miraculously finding some new technology that doesn’t yet exist? Taking “action” on climate change should involve- if we were fair dinkum, a well planned program of transitioning to alternate energy sources in clearly defined stages beginning with practical existing technology (eg Thorium or other nuclear, Hydro schemes) through to clearly defined framework of stages with strict parameters for development rather than some ad hoc, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants wish fulfilment- “Build it and they will come”- it’s reminiscent of “Field of Dreams” (one of the dopiest movies I’ve ever seen), but this seems to be the level at which our so called masters are aiming. If you were trying to discredit alternate energy and the whole environmental movement in general, you couldn’t plan or enact it any better, IMO.
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21 Aug: Reuters: EPA seeks input on ethanol mandate waiver requests
Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Gary Hill and Jim Marshall
The EPA asked on Monday for public comment on the need for an ethanol waiver. The 30-day comment period will begin once the notice is published in the Federal Register…
Aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on foreign oil, the Renewable Fuels Standard, or RFS, would require 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol to be made from corn this year…
U.S. livestock groups have argued that complying with the mandate at a time of historic national drought is causing major economic harm to meat and dairy producers.
It is unclear that a waiver would weaken corn prices. Refiners will likely continue buying almost as much ethanol even without the mandate since they use it as an additive to make cleaner-burning fuel required in much of the country.
Ethanol industry groups say the mandate offers some flexibility for fuel blenders responsible for complying with the RFS, including the ability to buy bankable credits if blenders cannot buy enough physical ethanol to meet requirements.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/20/us-usa-ethanol-epa-idINBRE87J0S720120820
19 Aug: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: AP: EPA to approve grain sorghum for cleaner ethanol
The federal government is on the verge of approving a grain mainly used as livestock feed to make a cleaner version of ethanol, a decision officials say could give farmers a new moneymaking opportunity, boost the biofuels industry and help the environment…
The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that ethanol made from grain sorghum can qualify as an advanced biofuel if it’s made at plants with the proper green technology. The agency has taken public comments and will issue a final determination later. No time frame has been set…
No groups have stepped forward in opposition to approval…
http://lubbockonline.com/agriculture/2012-08-19/epa-approve-grain-sorghum-cleaner-ethanol
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[…] Jo Nova Share this:PrintEmailMoreStumbleUponTwitterFacebookDiggRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in Climate Change, Coral reefs and tagged climate hysteria, really stupid idea. Bookmark the permalink. ← Robert Rapier: Climate Change and Developing Countries […]
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Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it!
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Here in the north island of NZ, we have to replace shades made from
shade-cloth regularly—about every 3 years. It’s made from plastics
Solar UV rots plastics pretty quickly—especially in the southern
hemisphere where UV levels in summer are at least 15% higher than
in the northern hemispere during its summer.
The shades would be falling apart long before the project could be
finished. Wot a waste!
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The more reliable and long life product grown greenly would be hemp, a half a life time shade cloth and jeans that last forever. In a life some time ago I was slightly involved in hemp stuff with a few fly by nighter’s but they did have some thing special, a way to extract the fibres without pollution. The results were a heap of fine fibres better than the best million dollar bales of wool.
Such is life where people are given money and opportunity to achieve an outcome that is of benefit to the world, and they benefit only themselves with monetary gain and a small portion of fame.
This Ove person seems to be in the habit of making some futuristic leaps that tend to be less than real in the fullness of time. Some one with a bit of clout or a bikie gang should take him aside and whisper in his ear. ” OVE your predictions are crap, give us a real one, if it does not work out, fade into the sunset, never to be heard of again.”
My question to Ove would be how do you sleep soundly at night without your soul biting your ar#e.
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Here in the north island of NZ, we have to replace shades made from
shade-cloth regularly—about every 3 years. It’s made from plastics
Solar UV rots plastics pretty quickly—especially in the southern
hemisphere where UV levels in summer are at least 15% higher than
in the northern hemispere during its summer.
The shades would be falling apart long before the project could be
finished. Wot a waste!
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I would like these idiots to float some shade cloth over a small portion of the reef as a test.
Has any one out there seen the milky waters of the sex life of coral, within two years the shade cloth would be a part of the reef and not able to be found. At what schools did these idiots learn their trade, or are they only propagandists of a larger cause?
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So I’m guessing the shade cloth would be an oil based plastic which uses coal fired electricity to produce it – probably made in a country with really lax pollution policies whilst paying some kids 50c a day to work in substandard conditions?
Yep – looks like a green idea to me for sure
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Maybe in a storm the shadecloth can be blown into the ocean and become a kind of dragnet for drowning the loverly little fishes.
They can even make the shadecloth green so that’ll make it ok.
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So from the actual paper.
Yup the authors seem to have actually spotted that issue before the skeptic community.
However, how they then go on to address it.
So, in context of its topic, its actually a pretty reasonable paper that isn’t actually suggesting anything like covering vast areas in shade-cloth. But it doesn’t take much to rattle the cage and get em screeching huh?? Just a bit of free speech that runs some out there ideas up the flagpole.
Has anyone pointed this out to Alan Jones? I’m sure he could come up with some truly classic and hilarious froth and bluster about it??
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It’s an unbelievably dumb thought bubble idea on any scale as it wouldn’t achieve anything positive to the health of the reef and probably would be deleterious if truth be told, while at smaller scales it would achieve nothing either way, while at larger scales it is monumentally impractical. This sort of speculative drivel doesn’t even survive a back of the beer coaster on a drunken night at “the Cross” level of debate let alone a supposed scientific paper. Probably sounds OK to you, Cat, but then you are easily pleased in this area as your history here amply suggests.
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Oh goody. We can can debate, free speech and anything approaching science, and who needs those pesky supercomuters for the SKA anyhow.
We have Winne and his beer coaster, newted in the Cross!!
All is well!
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Supercomputers sound soooo impressive to the fauning siccophantic left wing warmbots- somewhat like the term “supermodel” or other such hype exercises- one would expect something slightly more well thought out and substantial than the rubbish trotted out such as this for such a large investment in computer power don’t you think? Makes one dubious as to the limitations of computers without at least a modicum of intelligent human input, I would have thought.
I’ve had better ideas while sitting on the “can” reading the newspaper, but at least I have the dignity to spray afterwards. And you’re right, Cat, it is a case of “anything approaching science”, rather than “actual” science to which we are referring.
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DOH ! computers do just what the programmer tells them to. They just do it very quickly , in the case of arithmetic. etc.
Trouble is they are limited by the programmer and the data that is fed to them.
So a supercomputer…. “garbage in” means LOTS and LOTS of “garbage out”, very quickly.
This is particularly relevant to predictions of so-called “climate science”, which is more akin to a using a set of tarot cards.
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I would have thought that with rising sea levels, the potential for coral bleaching would have been significantly reduced.
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Where is Bruce Willis? He’s the man!
Is this from a Hollywood script?
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How much did these guys get paid to produce this stuff? Shade cloth indeed. Paper. That’s what’s needed. Great sheets of paper. You’d think scientists with their obviously high IQs would have thought of that.
Geez!
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Methinks the joke is on us when such stupidity is (in part or whole) taxpayer funded.
It would appear that we the moronic taxpayer do not mind funding universities and their “professors” (such as UWA, QLD, Melbourne) and pseudo scientists from the CSIRO.
I guess we fund them because they are smarter than us (at least when it comes to making money).
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Good grief… The amount of “stupid” that Ove generates, you could power a small country if you could convert it all to electricity……
Shade cloth the GBR!… Heck I know Queenslanders like their verandas, but this is getting abit outta control. That’d be one mother of all front patios…
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Here again, it is a shame how government subsidies pull potentially creative minds out of productive, free market-accountable work and rewards them for this kind of crap.
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Well maybe this post on WUWT will cool down the madness of Australian climastrologists.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/21/has-trenberths-missing-heat-been-found-southern-oceans-are-losing-heat/#more-69655
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I heard the mad prof on the radio – ABC Newsradio – and he also mentioned that the water temperature of the GBR varied three degrees between Cairns and Gladstone. Why the concern when we’re told by the experts that water temperatures may be close to one degree warmer in a hundred years time. And so what if reef fish are appearing down south. They’ve probably been doing that for yonks – just not been spotted perhaps until now with some specific funding.
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A few more points to consider.
• Covering large areas with shade cloth costs in the order of $200,000 per Ha. That’s on land using steel supports and cables. On the reef stainless steel would be required, the support structure would have to be much more elaborate and installation would be very costly. A conservative estimate would have to be well over $1 million/Ha. To cover just 10% of the GBR would thus come to around $3.5 trillion or about three times Australia’s GDP. Ongoing maintenance and repairs due to cyclones which cross the reef every year would surely amount to at least 10% of that cost annually. In addition, corrosion, metal fatigue and U/V degradation of the shade cloth could be expected to require total replacement at least every two to three decades.
• The suggested buffering against acidification is, if anything, even more idiotic. The volume of the GBR lagoon is in the order of 10,000 cubic Km or 10 trillion cubic M. Any meaningful buffering would require hundreds of millions of tonns of material spread more of less evenly over a vast area. Worse yet, the flushing time of the lagoon is only a few weeks so this effort would have to be ongoing at a rate of several million tonnes of buffering material every day.
• The projected increase in GBR SST and decrease in pH for 2100 which the reef saviours are so concerned about would make these about the same as they are now in the Coral Triangle area and this is where reefs reach their global peak in biodiversity.
I don’t know what these guys are smoking; but, if anyone can find out and get a patent on it they could buy Apple Computer.
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Well elucidated Walter,
At least the estimable Catamon is impressed with their logic, so certainly the taxpayers got their full coin’s worth out of it, didn’t they! Cheap at half the price.
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Scientists at the top of their game – Shade Cloth. Imagine this
What is plan B?
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What amazes me is the contradiction of believing that mankind in it’s current organization is capable of destroying the environment accidentally yet equally capable of repairing it intentionally. We should just leave the [snipp]ing skies alone (stop geoengineering) and oceans alone.
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What are people talking about ?? we have a natural sun shade over the GBR its called Seaweed, when there is plenty of nutrients in the water the weed grows to protect the coral underneath.
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/are-they-serious-shade-cloth-over-the-great-barrier-reef-to-save-it… […]
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