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Midweek Unthreaded
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9.3 out of 10 based on 16 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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This popped up on FB last night;
Read more;
http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2018/05/26/an-oil-company-just-earned-a-huge-settlement-after-environmentalists-brought-false-charges/
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“The Supreme Court of Gibraltar” Must have gone judge shopping and miscalculated.
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From what I understand from the report, the ‘environmental group’ that first brought up the charges formed a company in Gibraltar in order to handle all the cash they assumed they would win.
There original claim against Chevron seems to have been rejected in a New York court, and now the Gibraltar courts seems to have come out and stated that forming the company in Gibraltar was dodgy as drokk and was only formed to ‘win’ money out of Chevron.
Or something similar.
I think this is less a case of judge shopping and more a case of greedy ‘environmentalists’ trying to get rich quick.
Schadenfreude.
160
Yes. I commented before reading the article, again. Note to self ….
40
If this guy’s history lesson is anything to go by it’s a fascinating story:
Chevron Ecuador Lawsuit: Steven Donziger Fraud Leads To Him Footing the Bill In Litigation
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Donziger threatened the judge to the point that he had to leave the country and go into hiding. Chevron found him and convinced him to testify in court against Donziger, which is what finally overturned the original finding.
Bloody Hell. And Donziger originally won the first case, worth $18 billion.
20
Here is a lawsuit with a bit more meat in it.
From: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-29/more-evidence-lawyers-are-ruining-america-you-wont-believe-what-mcdonalds-being
“Apparently, some lawyers in Miami believe that McDonald’s is being “unjustly enriched” because the price is not reduced for those that would like the cheese left off their Quarter Pounders…
According to the lawsuit, filed by Andrew Lavin of the Miami-based Lavin Law Group, McDonald’s used to sell four items in the Quarter Pounder family, with and without cheese, with prices adjusted accordingly — about .30 to .90 cents more for cheese than without.”
10
Someone please fix Wikipedia on Steven Donziger related articles now. This s*** needs to be exposed. With sources.
PeterS. The video was great.
20
A little win for the big guy ?
I thought there was an oil spill in the amazon or was it fake news as usual ?
50
There were leaks before Chevron bought Texaco, and the state of Equador is responsible, according to an existing agreement exposed in the video above.
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If you believe justice is a blindfolded woman with a set of scales, then Chevron is entitled to fair judgement.
10
Ping.
Trying to imagine the taste of that chocolate.
KK
30
I lol’d …
Adam Bandt says Tony Abbott MHR is holding Australia’s energy policy hostage.
‘We are still writing this country’s energy policy to satisfy Tony Abbott. I am sick of it.’
“The latest Newspoll has revealed more voters trust Labor to deliver lower power prices and secure supply than the Coalition.
The poll shows 39 per cent trust Labor, 37 per cent back the coalition, while 24 per cent remain uncommitted to keeping prices down and securing supply, the Newspoll conducted for The Australian showed.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_5790597733001
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Oops.
Twitter link for Adam Bandt:
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsAust/status/1001607065553461248
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Adan Brandt need a Twitter account BECAUSE he is an A Grade Twit.
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Don’t flatter the creep.
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‘…while 24 per cent remain uncommitted to keeping prices down and securing supply …’
A quarter of the electorate, that is a large number.
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Yes. To me that is the significant number.
It needs to be remembered with polls such as these that a significant percentage of the Labor/Liberal ‘supporters’ are polling the way they do out of a mixture of blind brand loyalty and fear of the ‘other mob’. The more interesting question in this context would be ‘Do you understand the energy policies of XXX?’
My take is that the vast majority of the 39% and 37% groups do NOT understand the policies while the vast majority of the 24% ‘None of the above’ pollees do. If this is correct then the ‘Coal Vote’ is probably about 20% of the voting population and it is a landslide election win for the first political group to realise this.
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Interesting points you guys are making. 39 + 37 + 24 = 100. Surely there must have been at least 1% of voters that would have said that they do not agree with the ALP or LNP? What questions were asked in this poll? This is a significant indicator and a wake up call for this countries voters.
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The 24 percent faction maybe Informalists.
10
In polling, you get the answers to the questions you ask.
By structuring the questions in specific ways you can get answers and opinions that support any side of any case you might be polling on.
Putting financial gains and losses re political parties into dollars and cents otherwise known as the Hip Pocket Nerve, and you will more likely find the real feelings of those polled and questioned.
“Those” questioned?
Which is what the american media did before the 2016 Presidential election;
They polled around the local neighbour hood of the east and west coast democrats where the and came up with the cast iron, fixed for eternity answer that “Shake down Hilary” was going to walk it in vote wise and presidentially.
The American and even our MSM still haven’t got over the fact that they blew it big time ,and all of it entirely and without exception being of their own makings.
———-
In polling, you get the answers to the questions you ask.
By structuring the questions in specific ways you can get answers and opinions that support any side of any case you might be polling on.
Putting financial gains and losses re political parties into dollars and cents otherwise known as the Hip Pocket Nerve and you will more likely find the real feelings of those polled and questioned.
.
“Those” polled and questioned?
Which is what the american media did before the 2016 Presidential election;
They polled around the local neighbour hood of the east and west coast democrats where the MSM have their headquarters and came up with the cast iron, fixed for eternity answer that “Shake down Hilary” was going to walk it in vote wise and presidentially.
The American and even our own MSM in their hubris and outright arrogance that they were not the king makers, still haven’t got over the fact that they blew it big time and all of it entirely and without exception being of their own making.
40
‘…while 24 per cent remain uncommitted to keeping prices down and securing supply …’
what does that even mean, it would be good to see the question that was asked
30
Adam Bandt says Tony Abbott MHR is holding Australia’s energy policy hostage.
‘We are still writing this country’s energy policy to satisfy Tony Abbott. I am sick of it.’
In reality the Australian Government is holding Australian consumers hostage to ever increasing costs of high priced electricity.
Can anybody, anybody tell me when renewables will drop the price of electricity as we are constantly being told? I would like to know the month and year that this amazing feat will be achieved. Anybody?
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In reality both major parties are holding Australian consumers hostage to ever increasing costs of high priced electricity AND an increasingly unreliable grid.
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In my opinion, Adam Bandt single-handedly lowers the national average IQ via his steadfast inability to comprehend even the most basic scientific concepts.
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Lawyer
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See the editorial about electricity supply in The Australian today. It isn’t kind to either major party.
O/T but I put in my bit and it went through censorship. It seems The Australian is fed up with stupid politicians.
Once upon a time a young couple were dismayed by their electricity bill. Suddenly a magician appeared and asked what were they complaining about?
They knew he was a magician because he wore the cloak of implausibility, embroided with unicorns, dragons and flying pigs. When told Freudingberk waved his magic wand Snowy and said “instead of that quarterly bill of $900 you will not pay more than two thirds that on your bills from now on”
And sure enough, from then on they paid only $600 on the new monthly bills.
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Asking when will the price of electricity will fall is like asking by how much will the world’s temperature be lowered by reducing CO2 emissions. The latter has been asked many times and they keep answering in riddles so expect the same response for the former question.
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True. Also true to my mind that whatever we do will have no bearing on what mother nature will, or can do.
The other problem is that when a renewables advocate spruiks that it is now the cheapest form of generation and electricity bills are going to come down, nobody in the media has the sense to ask…when?
Correction they should not ask, they should demand to know when.
This whole renewables industry has been built on lies. It’s long past time that the media should actually do their jobs for a change, instead of believing the press releases.
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When will they fall? That’s an incomplete question they won’t dare to answer since it might be to the effect they will fall from a much level from where they are now. WHat’s the point of expecting prices to fall if they first double from here? It’s a bit like many people who have been asking the question of the years, when will our real-estate prices fall? Well when they do eventually fall hard they will/are falling from a much higher level than when the question was first asked some 15 years ago. Nobody has a crystal ball that can answer any of these questions so expecting even a half decent answer is a waste of time. Also, when will the DOW crash? No one really knows but it will eventually. It might crash next week, next year or after it has reached 60,000+ or anything in between.
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Incomplete sentence at the start: …. much higher level from …
I think I’m typing too fast for the computer and words are being left out! This is happening too often of late. Or more likely I’m getting too old.
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“I’m getting too old;”
Ditto from this end.
Trying to teach myself keyboard skills when I was is my mid 60’s doesn’t help.
And I get half way through correcting my innumerable typing mistakes in a post and have to leave in a hurry for something else in my life. Sigh!
Glad all of you denizens here are generous enough not to take me to task over my bad typing and spelling.
Plus trying to use a trackpad on my Mac instead of a mouse.
The trackpad has these bloody panels popping up all the time which for the life of me I can’t seem to find anywhere how I might cancel those damn unwanted bloody highly disruptive trackpad panels that supposedly are there to help you by prompting you with all sorts of unwanted and irrelevant suggestions as to what to do next.
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But Wal, the media writes the press releases.
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I’m sick of Adam Bandt…
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Annie!
Are you fair dinkum?
Are you one of those skeptics who don’t want to be on any planet that Adam Bandit er! Bandt is currently so industriously and intent on saving?
Are you one of those who don’t want to anywhere near one of those Slave Planets of Sci Fi legend that Adam Bandt and his Green Eco-fascist watermelon Shape Changers are trying to create and develop right here and now ?
🙂
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Yup!
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I met this communist lawyer when he wanted to be elected to the Melbourne City Council. I asked him if he really believed what he was saying and his reply was “you tell them what they want to hear and when you get power, you do what you want”. I was shocked.
The Greens are full of such power hungry opportunists who care nothing for the environment. Often avowed communists like Lee Rhiannon who was trained in Moscow at the Lomonosov University and Bandt whose PhD is on communism. Green means nothing to them but $200K a year, fame and a great superannuation and a chance to wreck the joint. As for CO2 and electricity and science, Bandt could care less. I suspect Lenin is his hero.
Peter Garrett said much the same thing when Minister for the Environment. He wore the blame for the lethal Rudd Pink Batts fiasco. Again in the name of ‘saving the planet’™. I think he learned the enormous difference between wanting to preserve the environment, do good and the reality of opportunistic politicians.
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Watts Up With That now blocked on both Google and Mozilla.
They both say that third parties can interfere or block the website.
Perhaps that is what is happening now.
A new website has been put up today so possibly there are ‘Teething problems’.
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Firefox works for me just now
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/notice-wuwt-to-begin-migration-to-new-cloud-server-opening-up-new-horizons/
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Comes up number 4 on DuckDuckGo using the Yandex browser!
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More solar panels feeding grids are able,
To overload them and leave them unstable.
As wind and solar drive up power prices,
Australia shows us how to make a crisis.
It’s great to hear some reasoned balanced views,
From Joanne, Ross and Rowan on Sky News.
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‘If the government can intervene to build Snowy 2.0, why not intervene to build Hazelwood 2.0 on the site of the coal-fired power station in Victoria that’s now being dismantled?’
Monash Forum manifesto
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Yes that would be very commendable for any party to do but expecting either major party to do it is like expecting either party to sell off the ABC. It ain’t going to happen.
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For those following the Qld vegetation management scene.
This grazed woodland area is mostly used for rangeland grazing, with plenty of evidence that woody vegetation in that area is thickening. But we have from
https://dnrme.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1395201/relevant-purpose-determination-application-form.pdf
Page 7 at the start of the section “Managing Thickening Vegetation”
“Note: ‘Managing thickened vegetation’ is defined in the Vegetation Management Act 1999 (VMA) to mean the selective clearing of vegetation at a locality (that does not include clearing using a chain or cable linked between two tractors, bulldozers or other traction vehicles):
a. to restore a regional ecosystem to the floristic composition and range of densities typical of the regional ecosystem in the bioregion in which it is located; and
b. to maintain ecological processes and prevent loss of biodiversity.
The VMA does not permit clearing for the purpose of grazing. ” (My bold)
!!!!!
“ALP – From Tree of Knowledge to Forest of Ignorance”
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Pity. There would be a good market for grass fed beef in the US if marketed properly. Americans are getting health conscious, and don’t like it that their lot fed beef is fed GMO corn.
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There is a good US market for certified grass-fed beef. A local grazier gets premium prices for his beautiful animals.
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“When Eruptions Don’t”
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/when-eruptions-dont/
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try, brave ones, these 3 posts on Chinese economic/military espionage/theft worldwide: http://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/05/global-positioning-system-receivers.html http://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/05/si-chen-arrested-chinese-pirating.html http://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/05/rationalizing-chinee-hacking-at-top-of.html
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Beijing plays hard ball, too easy.
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Indeed. They also play by a different set of ethical and moral laws from those of the West. However, the West is fast catching up 🙂
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Confucianism and Daoism are alright, the European deity is a fallacy.
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Rob they want to take over the world commercially, an economic revolution unparalleled in human history. Beijing comes in peace.
They have invented a new form of capitalism, which we are unfamiliar, and you can get a glimpse of it in Indonesia. Old school Japan up against the new kid on the block who has no interest in the norms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Indonesia
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Ah! We come in peace Shoot to kill Shoot to kill We come in peace Shoot to kill Shoot to kill!
from The Firm – Star Trekkin
– economically speaking of course.
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This is the point I was trying to make: ‘On late September 2015, Indonesia awarded the rail project to China, much to Japan’s disappointment. It was said that China’s offer to build the Jakarta–Bandung line without requiring an official loan guarantee nor funding from Indonesia was the tipping point of Jakarta’s decision.’
They want to take over the world commercially, not militarily.
10
The markets are worried about Italy and Spain, and Donald threatens to renege.
‘Chinese tabloid the Global Times said the United States was suffering from a “delusion” and warned that the “trade renege could leave Washington dancing with itself.” China Daily
US Isolationism against Chinese Expansionism, only one ultimate winner.
00
I have been doodling a little about the cost of storage for intermittent electricity and I reached a cost of $41.51 per MWh from lithium batteries as per Tesla. (7 year battery life, 89% recycle efficiency, and a 77.5 % depth of discharge every day for 7 years.
That I would think is pretty optimistic performance for the battery.
My conclusion being that renewables would have to sell ‘surplus’ electricity at less than $50 per MWh for the wholesale price to remain the same (or slightly below) current costs, and that without the RET subsidy.
Given that Finkel doesn’t see cost from wind turbines falling below $79 per MWh by 2030 it seems that the efforts of the Canberra Cabal will see extra renewables increasing electricity bills for the next 13 years.
There remains the claim that battery costs will drop in that time, mostly coming from wishful thinking rather than any acquaintance with batteries. Even Finkel currently rates storage costs at $47 and thinks they may drop to $26 by 2030. The Snowy Mountains people have just claimed that Snowy 2 will cost $40 for storage when, and if, it starts operating. (That is assuming that the Government project comes in on time and within budget).
Reworking the cost at the above assumption, it seems that we will still being slugged higher electricity costs in 13 years.
Vote for the Australian Conservatives.
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Taking those figures further, the achieved price of a battery is the arbitrage between the spot price when in glut and the spot price in scarcity.
Accepting your calc. of $41.51 the operator must be able to predict the market and buy/sell at that profit every day. That’s an impossibility. If they were that good they would already be trading futures.
Besides, if they were to discharge to 12.5% every day the battery has no value as an emergency supply. Again it is unknowable when an emergency occurs, that’s the definition of “emergency”, and it has as much chance of occurring when the battery is low as it has when high ergo it has no value as insurance.
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The SA battery operator seems to be doing a far job of playing the arbitrage game
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Money for jam. The price peaks occur in the morning and evening ($100+), the lows overnight ($53).
10
wonder of wonders. ABC’s The Science Show is talking about the Great Barrier Reef, JCU and the money for the Foundation…but NOT a word about Peter Ridd:
AUDIO: 26 May: ABC The Science Show: Robyn Williams: Reef restoration projects for GBR
The recent Australian federal budget included a substantial allocation of $535 million over five years for work and research to aid the Great Barrier Reef. Adam Smith, director of consultants Reef Ecologic and research scientist Lisa Bostrom Einarsson describe their work on reef restoration. Adam Smith says the general prognosis for the reef is poor and declining. There is a range of threats to the reef, including over fishing and runoff from agriculture. But even if these problems are solved overnight, nothing will save the reef if it continues to be hit by hot ocean currents. Lisa Bostrom Einarsson says reef restoration needs to be paired with meaningful action on climate change.
Guests:
Adam Smith, Adjunct Associate Professor, James Cook University; Director Reef Ecologic
Lisa Bostrom Einarsson
TRANSCRIPT:
Robyn Williams: This is The Science Show on RN. The reef, the Great Barrier Reef. This week there has been argument about the money and the Foundation. But what are all those millions being used for? Meet Professor Adam Smith and Lisa Boström-Einarsson at James Cook University in Townsville. And they’re pleased of course.
Adam Smith: Fantastic, in fact almost unbelievable, $500 million. I’ve sent a number of congratulatory emails to previous colleagues and the GBR Foundation.
Robyn Williams: How much is known about corals which could be more resistant to the changes?
Adam Smith: Look, I think there’s a fair bit of knowledge on particularly corals that are more resistant to warm water. What we are interested in is taking those corals, fragmenting them, seeing if they can grow, and we can do that on small scales now, but the challenge is to scale it up so that it’s regionally significant…
Lisa Boström-Einarsson: Definitely, there’s a whole suite of threats, but as the last few years of bleaching has shown us, the primary threats against the Great Barrier Reef is climate change and bleaching and we need to address that before we address other things…
Lisa Boström-Einarsson: I think it’s absolutely critical and I think that that’s why some of the larger solutions that we need to solve, like climate change, they are absolutely critically important, but they require solutions at a government level, obviously solutions at a personal level as well but we need government action on that, and I think that that’s why these coral restoration projects are really exciting because it’s a tangible thing that people can get involved with on the ground, and that has an incredibly important social dimension to it. And it’s important to give people hope that we can do something to help promote the resilience of the reef.
BIG RESPONSE, ONE COMMENT, BY (SURPRISE) richard le sarcophage…
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/reef-restoration-projects-for-gbr/9801228
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how many of these incidents before the FakeNewsMSM get over their excitement about autonomous cars and cashless societies?
29 May: LA Times: Tesla in Autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser
by Brittny Mejia; with AP
The collision happened at 11:07 a.m. at 20652 Laguna Canyon Road, according to Laguna Police Sgt. Jim Cota. The officer was not in the cruiser at the time of the crash. The Tesla driver suffered minor injuries, but refused transportation to the hospital.
“Thankfully there was not an officer at the time in the police car,” Cota said. “The police car is totaled.”
Cota said that a year ago in the same area there was another collision involving a Tesla running into a semi-truck.
“Why do these vehicles keep doing that?” Cota said. “We’re just lucky that people aren’t getting injured.”
Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assist feature has come under scrutiny following other collisions.
A Tesla driver in Utah crashed while using Autopilot and looking at her phone earlier this month. Two fatal crashes while the system was being used also have occurred: one in California in March and a 2016 crash in Florida…
The Palo Alto-based automaker, led by Elon Musk, has said it repeatedly warns drivers to stay alert, keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of their vehicle at all times while using the Autopilot system.
“Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents, and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that ‘Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings,'” a Tesla spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tesla-collision-20180529-story.html
30 May: CoffCoastAdvocate: ‘I got $1000 from one phone call’
by Natalie Wolfe
NATIONAL Australia Bank has taken an extraordinary step to “make things right” with its customers, paying for full-page newspaper ads to apologise for last weekend’s outage…
For a little under six hours, a “technical glitch” stopped any NAB customers from using its ATMs, mobile app and EFTPOS machines…
https://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/news/national-australia-bank-starts-repaying-customers/3428420/
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theirABC and Fairfax told me everyone hates him!
29 May: WZTV Nashville: WATCH: President Trump supporters line up ahead of Nashville rally
by Kaylin Jorge
NASHVILLE, Tenn.- The line outside Municipal Auditorium continues to grow as supporters await President Trump’s arrival…
Doors for the event open at 4 p.m. Road closures will be in place from 9 a.m. and lasting throughout the day…
UPDATE: Some supporters who arrived nearly 24 hours early for President Trump’s visit in Nashville will have to move while Metro Police do a security sweep.
Folks starting showing up outside Municipal Auditorium at 9 p.m. on Monday night – in preps for the rally at 7 p.m. Tuesday…
Metro Police arrived on scene just after 8 a.m. Tuesday and told supporters that they would have to move while officers set up a security border and metal detectors. Fences are set to be brought in at 10 a.m…
There are also concerns with weather as heavy rain is expected Tuesday afternoon and evening from remnants of Alberto…
People made the trek to Nashville from places as far as California, New York and Minnesota…
http://fox17.com/news/local/the-latest-line-grows-for-president-trumps-visit-to-nashville
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This is courtesy of someone with way too much time on their hands .
LAB PROVES EXISTENCE OF DARK SUCKERS
For years it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light. However, recent information from Bell Labs has proven otherwise. Electric bulbs don’t emit light; they suck dark. Thus they now call these bulbs dark suckers. The dark sucker theory, according to a spokesman from the Labs, proves the existence of dark, that dark has mass heavier than that of light, and that dark is faster than light.
The basis of the dark sucker theory is that electric bulbs suck dark. Take for example the dark suckers in the room where you are. There is less dark right next to them than there is elsewhere. The larger the dark sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Dark suckers in a parking lot have a much greater capacity than the ones in a room.
As with all things, dark suckers don’t last forever. Once they are full of dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the black spot on a full dark sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You will notice that after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the dark which has been sucked into it. If you hold a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, the tip will turn black because it got in the path of the dark flowing into the candle. Unfortunately, these primitive dark suckers have a very limited range.
There are also portable dark suckers. The bulbs in these can’t handle all of the dark by themselves, and must be aided by a dark storage unit. When the dark storage unit is full, it must be either emptied or replaced before the portable dark sucker can operate again.
Dark has mass. When dark goes into a dark sucker, friction from this mass generates heat. Thus it is not wise to touch an operating dark sucker.
Candles present a special problem, as the dark must travel in the solid wick instead of through glass. This generates a great amount of heat. Thus it can be very dangerous to touch an operating candle.
Dark is also heavier than light. If you swim deeper and deeper, you notice it gets darker and darker. When you reach a depth of approximately fifty feet, you are in total darkness. This is because the heavier dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the ligher light floats to the top.
Finally, we must prove that dark is faster than light. If you stand in an illuminated room in front of a closed, dark closet, then slowly open the door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet, but since the dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the dark leave the closet.
In conclusion, dark suckers make all our lives much easier. So the next time you look at an electric light bulb, remember that it is indeed a dark sucker.
20
Is it April the 1st? (Again).
10
Pure CAGW logic and no you can’t see the math because you will just find something wrong with it
10
I always thought that this had something to do with Joseph Lucas – The prince of darkness – http://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html
00
Thanks for that
There was one that started
Left Us Caught
and I don’t remember the rest
00
There’s a sucker born every minute.
10
meant to excerpt this bit from ABC The Science Show transcript (comment #13):
Adam Smith JCU: We are trying to bring a whole lot of people together for a coral reef symposium in Cairns in July, we’re figuring somewhere between 200 and 300 people. This will be an amazing opportunity for us to share knowledge and map the future, what works, what doesn’t, how we can collaborate…
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/reef-restoration-projects-for-gbr/9801228#transcript
20
Oh, a symposium! Say, a JCU Age of Acquari-as luv in! )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxonNvuCFRY
10
Oh dear! I hope they are going to wear clothes. 🙂
20
Suit de Jour. 🙂
00
The inexcusably excess carbon footprint of all these save the planet types flying criss-cross on the globe is nothing short of astounding hypocrisy.
I guess that video/tele-conferencing doesn’t produce the same vibe as flying to be at a warm tropical Queensland knees-up and talkfest during the southern hemisphere winter in this case.
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I wonder if Cairns airport has hardstanding for all the private jets. Will some have to park on Hayman Is.?
10
Heard a snippet on ABC radio about a demolition of a power plant I think in Victoriastan that went wrong but can’t find anymore news about it .
10
On the Australian website behind the Murdoch wall for me
10
They blew up the Angelsea (Vic) Power station. They rejoiced in the act. The idiots.
The plant closed a few years ago. It had its own coal mine (still there). It supplied the Point Henry Aluminium Smelter (closed at the same time). No more jobs in Geelong, Vic (Home of the Point Henry Smelter).
31
Apparently it didn’t go real well so assuming a big hole in something and it didn’t fall , defiant to the end .
30
Sounds good.
🙂
00
Peter,
The demolition is tragic but the far greater tragedy is that no federal government has the nous to maintain a core functioning industrial complex.
It needs only be minimal size but is, I believe, essential in maintaining contact with progress in the rest of the world.
The only functioning aluminium smelter in Australia that I know of is at Tomago. There may be others.
I can’t name an iron making plant, nor associated steelmaking.
Motor vehicle manufacturing/assembly, gone?
Our electricity generation capacity is 1950s technology.
There are so many national “essential industry” type projects that the government could encourage in the national interest but all they are worried about is getting that next photo opportunity at the destruction of a Coal Fired power plant.
Apparently when all of the country’s industrial capacity is “demolished” we are going to “transition” to becoming a “smart nation” which I think has something to do with being “online”.
Won’t that be great.
KK
30
Absolutely Keith. The loss of productive capacity leaves Australia ever more vulnerable if there is war or if China decides to turn the tap off.
We produce very little oil, can’t refine it, don’t store remotely enough of it. We use little of our own coal and gas resources. We’re toast.
Our steel-making capacity is a joke. I was doing some project work for Onesteel last year. All of the structural steel: girders, heavy bar, plate etc was coming in to the Newcastle docks from China.
Port Kembla still produces coiled black and gal sheet and I’m not sure what else, but was almost shut down in 2015.
The entire production from Whyalla steelworks was being shipped/trucked to Newcastle, to be turned into deformed bar and continuous coil and wire in the remnants of the old BHP Rod & Bar Mill. The coil went to Sydney to be made into mesh for the building industry and for underground mine roofing. Some steel was siphoned off to make tube. The wire went across to the wire mill where it became either cable or fencing wire.
The whole operation was a model of inefficiency with product being triple and quadruple-handled backwards and forwards hundreds of miles across the country before distribution to retailers.
We have vast mineral resources; we have mines and an abundance of heavy engineering workshops here in the Hunter and elsewhere, but we are missing the middle tier of production. The refining, smelting, casting and rolling has almost gone.
Before WWII arrived we had Essington Lewis, manager of BHP Newcastle who unilaterally set up a new gun production line in preparation for the war he could see looming, but which the politicians couldn’t see until their noses were rubbed in it. He and others like him gave us a head start and a fighting chance when the poo hit the fan. If things turn nasty now we have 3 weeks of fuel, a skeleton BHP, and no Essington Lewis types to save us. On top of that we have all the modern red tape on safety and environmental impact studies, development permissions etc. We’d still be getting our pants on when the Chinese strode into Canberra.
20
That’s about it, and from what you say it seems that our primary expertise is in road and rail haulage.
Long ago I worked at the Newcastle wiremill for nine years and at that time I guess it would have been less than two miles, as the crow flies, from offloading iron ore at Newcastle port, through BHP iron and steelmaking to finished wire.
Politicians could turn the CSIRO climate change resources into a national industrial coordinating group to help develop a modern, efficient, “smart” industrial backbone.
People might then actually feel that they are contributing something useful.
The current quick fix of importing our needs from overseas leaves us frequently with poor quality product and puts us in a bad place strategically.
We are an isolated nation and need to take the necessary steps to make us capable of greater independence.
KK
20
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/damp-squib-demolition-of-anglesea-power-plant-falls-flat-20180530-p4zigv.html
From whence comes this policy that it is necessary to destroy a power plant built on a coal deposit? Xstrata dismantled the equipment at Windimurra vanadium mine to inhibit competitors reactivating the operation but I don’t see that as a commercial motive at Anglesea. War on Coal I guess.
10
You can see the video at the link.
I find the demolition of working proper power stations sickening.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/victorian-power-station-demolition-boom-a-bust/news-story/f61158da35e2b27a1a43372e299ca9ae
21
It’s only for those with subscription.
10
watch it here:
Failed Anglesea Power Station Demolition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66WtKaPpQt
00
🙂
That’s blocked too.
20
Pointman puts the Boot into William Connelly (aka Stoat)
Pointman comments here occasionally. He writes essays on subjects that he likes or thinks are important.
This time he is dealing with a TROLL. and he takes vicious delight in doing so!
“Getting rid of this clown will be as difficult as shaking off a little doggie that’s madly and insanely determined to hump your leg.”
It is a bit long and perhaps over the top.
Directed to those who have heard of William Connelly.
21
American company Solar First in Wellington.
https://www.wellingtontimes.com.au/story/5432048/project-approved/
00
Jobs, jobs, jobs!
“THREE JOBS” during the operational phase.
40
But the bureau-cratz are doing okay.
10
Three cleaners to keep the solar panels clean.
30
These are the smart jobs of the future labor and the greens bang on about , cleaning panels and spraying weeds .
40
why are we blowing up coal-fired power stations?
China’s carbon emissions set for fastest growth in 7 years
Highly Cited-Financial Times-15 hours ago
Blow for global climate change effort as Greenpeace data show 4% rise in first quarter…
30 May: ChinaEconomicReview: China’s carbon emissions on track for fastest growth in 7 years
The study, conducted by US environmental charity Greenpeace, showed that China’s carbon emissions rose 4% in 2018 Q1. Should this rate persist for the remainder of the year, then it would be the fastest yearly increase for China in seven years…
The study was based on Beijing’s own data, casting doubt on the efficacy and seriousness of the government’s anti-pollution policies. Repeated talk of improving air quality and shifting from coal to natural gas may seem cheap if this accelerating trend continues. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that China was also considering upping its coal imports from the US to help it reduce the countries’ trade imbalance.
https://chinaeconomicreview.com/73045-2/
29 May: Bloomberg: China considers more U.S. coal to cut deficit
by Bloomberg News; With assistance by Ben Sharples, Steven Yang, Martin Ritchie, Aaron Clark, and Joe Ryan
Chinese officials are currently looking at boosting purchases from West Virginia in particular, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly. They didn’t say whether Beijing is looking at buying more supplies from other states. A final decision hasn’t been made, they said.
The country’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, referred questions to the National Energy Administration; officials there didn’t reply to an email seeking comment…
China’s Coal Imports
U.S. shipments counted for just a sliver of China’s total 2017 imports of the fuel
CHART
China this month pledged to increase purchases of U.S. energy and agricultural goods as a way to reduce its $375 billion merchandise trade deficit and diffuse an escalating trade war between the world’s biggest economies. More imports by the Asian nation would be a boon for American coal-producing states — including West Virginia — that supported Donald Trump’s presidency on the back of his pledge to revive the ailing industry…
The U.S. more than doubled coal exports to Asia in 2017 to 32.8 million tons, while total overseas shipments rose 61 percent year-on-year. India was the biggest importer of thermal coal, used in coal-fired power stations, according to the EIA…
In October, his (Trump’s) administration proposed the repeal of the Clean Power Act, which was designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation…
Asia Calling
U.S. coal exports to Asia including China have surged year-on-year
CHART
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/china-is-said-to-consider-more-u-s-coal-imports-to-cut-deficit-jhrf6jaz
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29 May: Toronto Star: Justin Trudeau’s $4.5 billion Trans Mountain pipeline purchase met with a storm of criticism
By Alex Ballingall, Ottawa Bureau
Bruce Campion-Smith, Ottawa Bureau
Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa Bureau
“We are absolutely shocked and appalled that Canada is willingly investing taxpayers’ money in such a highly controversial fossil fuel expansion project,” said Grand Chief Stewart Philip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, in an emailed statement. “We will not stand down no matter who buys this ill-fated and exorbitantly priced pipeline.”
On Parliament Hill, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called the purchase “an historic blunder with taxpayer dollars,” citing a document from the National Energy Board that says Kinder Morgan bought the existing pipeline from its previous owner for $550 million in 2007 — a far cry from what the Texas company will get by selling it to Ottawa, she said.
She also accused Trudeau’s government of writing a “blank cheque” for the pipeline’s construction costs, which Kinder Morgan has previously pegged at $7.4 billion.
“It seems completely insane,” May said. “I’m quite certain that this will go down as an epic financial, economic boondoggle.”
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the decision leaves taxpayers on the hook for Trudeau’s “failure” to manage the energy file. “Kinder Morgan wasn’t asking for the money. They were asking for certainty and a pathway to get the get the project built,” he said. “The prime minister is forcing Canadian taxpayers to pay for his failure.”…
Greenpeace, in its own statement, said Trudeau’s government has “signed up to captain the Titanic of tar sands oil pipelines, putting it on a collision course with its commitments to Indigenous rights and the Paris climate agreement.”…
There were voices of support, however. Canada’s Building Trades Unions lauded the “courage and vision” of the government and said Ottawa can expect to sell the pipeline in the future so that taxpayers won’t lose out.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce was also supportive of the move, arguing in a statement that it will allow oil companies to sell Alberta bitumen at higher prices and thus bring economic benefits to the country…
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/05/29/justin-trudeaus-45-billion-trans-mountain-pipeline-purchase-met-with-a-storm-of-criticism.html
29 May: Marketwatch: Tomi Kilgore: Kinder Morgan’s stock surges after sales of Trans Mountain Pipeline system for about $3.5 billion
Shares of Kinder Morgan Inc. KMI, +0.94% surged 2.9% in premarket trade Tuesday, after the energy infrastructure company announced the sale of the Trans Mountain Pipeline system and expansion project (TMEP) to the Government of Canada for the equivalent of about $3.46 billion (C$4.5 billion)…
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VIDEO: 3mins36secs: 30 May: Bloomberg TV: Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion in National Interest, Trudeau Says
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discusses the federal government’s purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline, terminal and expansion project for C$4.5 billion with Bloomberg’s Stephanie Flanders.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-05-29/trans-mountain-pipeline-in-national-interest-trudeau-says-video
re above from Carbon Brief:
Justin Trudeau told Bloomberg Television that “there is a very strong business case for this pipeline,” and the government takeover meant “a lot of the legal barriers and a lot of the challenge points actually disappear”.
00
30 May: Bloomberg: Trudeau’s Pipeline Takeover Is a Bittersweet Win for Oil Sands
By Robert Tuttle and Kevin Orland
Canada’s purchase of Kinder Morgan Inc.’s embattled pipeline is good news for the oil patch, so long as it doesn’t become the norm.
While the $3.5 billion Trans Mountain takeover keeps alive a project seen as critical to expanding markets for Canada’s crude and improving the price oil-sands producers get paid, it also reveals how key infrastructure projects can be stymied by local opposition and regulatory hurdles.
“We would desperately hope this is not the model of how future projects get done,” Chris Bloomer, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said in a phone interview, adding that he is nonetheless pleased that the project can now go ahead.
Long after getting federal approval to almost triple the capacity of its six-decade old conduit in 2016, Kinder became the latest pipeline operator to come against fierce local opposition in Canada. The much more ambitious Energy East project was abandoned by TransCanada Corp. amid outcry in Quebec — and no government move to save it.
“We think that today’s announcement is based on extraordinary circumstances,” Tim McMillan, chief executive officer of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said in a press conference Tuesday. “We don’t want to find ourselves in this situation again.”…
Alberta’s oil sands, the world’s third-largest crude reserves, are a crucial part of Canada’s economy. The existing Trans Mountain line has been operating since the 1950s, carrying as much as 300,000 barrels a day of oil and refined fuels from Alberta to the Vancouver area, where it connects with a line carrying crude to refineries in Washington state.
The planned expansion to 890,000 barrels a day could open up exports to growing markets in Asia, lessening Canada’s almost exclusive dependency on the U.S. as a market for its oil and reducing the discount energy companies receive from the crude…
Critical Infrastructure
Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s biggest oil company, welcomed the government’s move, saying it “reinforced the criticality of this infrastructure to all Canadians,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Williams said in a statement. “We support improving market access to ensure Canada achieves fair recognition and full value for its energy resources.”
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, who has threatened to curtail petroleum exports to British Columbia in retaliation for the neighboring province’s battle against Trans Mountain, said “sometimes, on a big national project, the government has to step in and play a role.”
“That does not in any way, shape or form, mean that we are not a good place for private investment,” she said. “In fact, I would argue that we are a more stable place for private investment because we make sure the job gets done.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-30/trudeau-s-pipeline-takeover-is-bittersweet-win-for-oil-sands?in_source=video_page
00
Does this mean that Climate Ken and Climate Barbie could soon be getting a divorce?
00
the new, green, ethical financial sector! LOL:
29 May: UK Telegraph: RBS pulls support for coal power ahead of AGM
By Iain Withers
PHOTO: NIGHT SKY, CHIMNEYS, “SMOKE”
Royal Bank of Scotland has joined the rush of finance firms pulling funding for dirty industries, ahead of its annual general meeting in Edinburgh tomorrow.
The state-controlled bank said it would no longer fund new coal-fired power stations, as well as projects to extract oil from tar sands or the Arctic.
HSBC made a similar commitment ahead of its own investor meeting last month, following a path set by rival European lenders ING, BNP Paribas and BBVA…
Financial institutions are under growing pressure to play their part in honouring the Paris Climate Accord, which set out a path for a global shift towards low carbon power.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has also urged City firms to protect themselves from environmental risk, warning that climate change could destablise financial systems.
RBS’s commitment comes as speculation intensifies that the Government could begin selling its remaining 71pc stake in the bank as early as this week, following the resolution of a long-standing $4.9bn (£3.6bn) fine for past misconduct in the US this month that had been a roadblock to a sale. All parties declined to comment.
RBS’s updated green policy could reduce the chances of its AGM being disrupted by climate protesters…
Kirsty Britz, director of sustainable banking at RBS, said: “We want to help build a cleaner, more sustainable economy for the future.”…
The UK has pledged to end all coal-fired power generation by 2025, while last month Britain set a new record by powering the national grid without any coal-fired power for two days, the first 48-hour stretch since the industrial revolution.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/05/29/rbs-pulls-support-coal-power-ahead-agm/
00
Japanese school children are learning modern martial arts at school.
Japanese children can now learn ‘jukendo’ bayonet style fighting at school
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2090077/japanese-children-can-now-learn-jukendo-bayonet-style-fighting
I find this disturbing, maybe because I was born at the time of the Coral Sea Battle, and Japanese brutality was an open topic as I grew up. *
Do the younger generations feel as I do? It is their problem, not mine
* see A Town Like Alice.
10
I make no guarantees about movies being clean, I would be cautious on windows especially. But this is a link to the movie.
https://www2.fmovie.pro/watch/a-town-like-alice-1956-fmovies.html
00
30 May: Bloomberg: Trans Mountain Could Attract Pension Funds, or Return to Kinder
Morneau says interest in Trans Mountain has been high
By Scott Deveau, Kevin Orland, and Josh Wingrove; With assistance by Naureen S Malik, and Greg Quinn
So now Justin Trudeau owns a pipeline. Who will take it off his hands remains an open question.
Canada said Tuesday it would buy Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain pipeline, with its expansion project and shipping terminal, for $3.5 billion before eventually selling the project to a new buyer. Finance Minister Bill Morneau, speaking Tuesday in Ottawa, said it was too soon to say if Canada would sell in the short or medium term, but didn’t want to hold the project in the long term.
Finding a buyer for Trans Mountain could be tricky amid ardent opposition from British Columbia, the Pacific Coast province it crosses, along with environmental and some indigenous groups. That opposition was enough to make Kinder throw up its hands and halt construction last month. Even as Morneau struck an upbeat tone on the potential pool of buyers, he didn’t give a specific time frame for a deal.
“Many investors have already expressed interest in the project, including Indigenous groups, Canadian pension funds, and others,” he said.
One analyst floated another potential home: Kinder Morgan itself.
Canada’s purchase may “‘be a vehicle to indemnify the project against regulatory risk,” Katie Bays, an analyst with Height Securities LLC in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “Once the construction is complete or once regulatory risk evaporates, whichever comes first, the project could be repurchased by Kinder Morgan.”…
If Kinder doesn’t want it back, some investors have shown interest in the project in the past.
Before deciding on taking the Canadian unit public, Houston-based Kinder Morgan ran a dual-track process that also entailed exploring a joint venture of the pipeline project. That possibility attracted interest from U.S. private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners and Australia’s IFM Investors Pty Ltd., people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Brookfield Asset Management Inc., which was said to be another bidder on the joint venture and eventually became one of Kinder Morgan Canada’s largest investors, could be a potential partner in Trans Mountain now. The Toronto-based alternative-asset manager already has a joint venture with Kinder Morgan, Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America, through its publicly traded Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. A representative declined to comment.
Among pension funds, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and the Alberta Investment Management Corp. could also be interested in the project. OMERS’ infrastructure arm is invested in several pipeline assets, including the Czech Republic’s NET4GAS sro, CLH Pipeline System in the U.K. and Spain, as well as the U.K.’s Scotia Gas Networks.
OMERS also appointed Michael Ryder as the senior managing director of its infrastructure unit, OMERS Infrastructure. Ryder joined in January from U.S. private equity giant Blackstone Group LP, where he was responsible for leading the firm’s midstream energy and oilfield services investment strategy. A representative for the fund declined to comment.
AIMCo, as the Alberta fund is known, is supportive of measures to boost investor confidence and address market uncertainty, Denes Nemeth, a spokesman for the fund, said in an email, while declining to comment on whether AIMCo would be interested in investing in the project.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the country’s largest pension fund, said in an emailed statement it was not “actively assessing an investment in the extension opportunity.”
Largest Investor
Meanwhile, Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, Canada’s second-largest pension fund, last month disclosed holdings of 10.2 million shares in Kinder Morgan Canada, making it the largest investor outside of its parent company. A spokesman declined to comment on whether the Caisse would consider an investment in the Trans Mountain pipeline Tuesday…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/trans-mountain-seen-drawing-pension-funds-or-returning-to-kinder?in_source=video_page
00
winning:
30 May: Guardian: Nasa full of ‘fear and anxiety’ since Trump took office, ex-employee says
Those still at the agency fear climate science funding will be cut since it is now considered a ‘sensitive subject’
by Oliver Milman in New York
Laura Tenenbaum, a former science communicator for Nasa, said she was warned off using the term “global warming” on social media and restricted in speaking to the media due to her focus on climate change.
“Nasa’s talking point is that it’s business as usual, but that’s not true,” said Tenenbaum, who departed Nasa in October after a decade at the space agency.
“They have stopped promoting or emphasizing climate science communication, they have minimized it. People inside the agency are concerned Trump will cut climate science funding. There is a fear and anxiety there and the outcome has been chaos.”…
“I was told verbally by media relations it was because with Trump as president, climate change is now a sensitive subject,” she said. “There was confusion about what to do now we have a president who doesn’t believe in climate change. Everyone was scrambling. It was chaos.” …
Planned blogposts on coal plants being turned into solar plants, “reasons to be positive about Nasa” and an interview with Gavin Schmidt, a senior Nasa climate scientist, were all either halted or scrapped due to interference from career staff nervous about provoking the new administration, according to Tenenbaum…
Figures show there has been a notable decline in Nasa’s output of climate information since the election of the Trump administration. During 2016, Nasa posted frequently on its climate change Facebook page, peaking at 122 posts during August of that year, according to CrowdTangle.
There were 53 Facebook posts in January 2017, the month of Trump’s inauguration, and Nasa hasn’t come close to this total since, posting 21 times this March and 31 times in April.
This drop off in posts has resulted in dwindling interactions with the public on Facebook. During January 2017 there were more than 61,700 interactions – defined as likes, comments and shares – on the climate page. This has slumped dramatically since then, totaling just 7,000 in April. In April 2016, under the Obama administration, there were more than 100,000 interactions.
Nasa’s Earth Right Now blog, which Tenenbaum wrote for, has also seen a decrease in activity, with just two originally-produced posts since Tenenbaum’s last entry in August 2017…
A Nasa spokesman said there has been “no policy change about how we communicate out science to the American public”.
“Nasa Communications has not received any directive to change how we communicate about agency research, which includes climate change,” he added.
“The frequency of blogposts on climate.nasa.gov has always varied depending on personnel availability and other factors including mission activities (launches, expeditions in the field, etc).”…
Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia University and the Nasa Goddard Institute of Space Studies who said she was speaking in a personal capacity, said no one has told her to “shut up” about her work…
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/30/nasa-climate-change-sensitive-subject-since-trump-former-employee
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Is there something wrong here?
“Those still at the agency fear climate science funding will be cut since it is now considered a ‘sensitive subject’”
When was it the job of NASA to be in control of the Earth’s Climate? What happened to Space Administration? What happened to putting a man on Mars? Is every government agency, news channel, State Government, politician and bureaucrat now in charge of the World Climate?
How is it possible that Climate, world climates (as they are infinite) are the most important aspect of everyone’s lives and administration?
Can anyone truly say that in their lifetime, their climate has changed, the seas have risen or storms are worse or there are more droughts? So what is the problem? Why is every dollar going to this instead of hunger, education, peace, quality of life and actual preservation of the environment.
Why is NASA bemoaning the loss of funding for Climate Change, when that has never been their job?
70
Several thousand years ago there were warnings about the dangers of keeping graven idols and worshipping false gods.
We need to be reminded that humans too easily get in a rut and can’t remain in touch with reality.
In 50 years time future societies will be trying to work out the religion which spawned the massive fields of glass sheeting and huge bladed bird and bat killers that cover the hills.
We need direction and leadership but the current gods say no.
KK
60
This is a reply to TdeF but it comes up in the wrong place.
I’m well past my allotted three score and ten but can go back to the street where I lived as a boy, on the banks of a tidal creek. Then, the spring tides used to come up the gutter in front of the house, today the spring tides come into the gutter but the old house has not been abandoned. That whole low lying suburb has gentrified and RE prices are still solid. No one thinks they will be forced out any time soon.
20
dumber and dumber. ***McKibben still holding out that Justin baby could be a climate hero! how gullible are the CAGW mob?
30 May: Guardian: Bill McKibben: Say hello to Justin Trudeau, the world’s newest oil executive
by Bill McKibben
The Canadian prime minister presents himself as a climate hero. By promising to nationalise the Kinder Morgan pipeline, he reveals his true self
In case anyone wondered, this is how the world ends: with the cutest, progressivest, boybandiest leader in the world going fully in the tank for the oil industry…
Lots of carbon: Trudeau told oil executives last year that “no country would find 173bn barrels of oil in the ground and just leave it there”. That’s apparently how much he plans to dig up and burn – and if he’s successful, the one half of 1% of the planet that is Canadian will have awarded to itself almost one-third of the remaining carbon budget between us and the 1.5 degree rise in temperature the planet drew as a red line in Paris. There’s no way of spinning the math that makes that okay – Canadians already emit more carbon per capita than Americans. Hell, than Saudi Arabians…
His predecessor, Stephen Harper, probably would not have dared try – the outcry from environmentalists and First Nations would have been too overwhelming. But Trudeau is banking on the fact that his liberal charm will soothe things over.
***Since he’s got Trump to point to – a true climate denier – maybe he’ll get away with it.
But it seems like a bad bet to me…
I was in Vancouver two weeks ago to help activists raise money for lawyers, and I would guess that the civil disobedience will continue…
We know now how history will remember Justin Trudeau: not as a dreamy progressive, but as one more pathetic employee of the richest, most reckless industry in the planet’s history.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/29/justin-trudeau-world-newest-oil-executive-kinder-morgan?CMP=soc_568
10
once more. why are we blowing up coal-fired power stations?
can’t find the report online as yet:
29 May: CarbonPulse: Japan’s coal plans to blow nation off Paris track -report
Japan’s plans to add 40% to its coal-fired power generation capacity will push the nation off track to meet its already inadequate Paris target unless it considers a raft of new energy policies such as carbon pricing, a report said Tuesday.
the chart does not appear for me:
25 May: Bloomberg: India’s Power Capacity Seen Overtaking Japan This Year: Chart
by Stephen Stapczynski
Fueled by a rapid rollout of coal-fired power generation, India is expected to have Asia’s second-largest power capacity at 363.32 gigawatts in 2018, overtaking Japan, according to data compiled by BMI Research. The nation’s capacity will increase by another 69 percent through 2027 and coal will remain the mainstay, making up about 75 percent of the mix.
https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/05/24/india-s-power-capacity-seen-overtaking-japan-this-year-chart
20
cricket boards need to keep the CAGW mob at bay. I can’t think of anything that would kill cricket faster than letting them near the game:
29 May: Guardian Sport: The Spin: Cricket is natural choice to be a world leader on climate change
The sport has a bond with the land that few other field sports do and Thursday’s game at Lord’s can put the environment centre stage
by Tanya Aldred
In September 2017 Roosevelt Skerrit, the prime minister of Dominica, stood up in front of the UN general assembly. “Eden is broken,” he said.
Skerrit had travelled to New York from his devastated island nation, battered to bare-root nakedness by Hurricane Maria…
The storm also razed the island’s Windsor Park cricket stadium – and on Thursday a Rest of the World team take on the West Indies at Lord’s to raise money for its restoration, and that of James Ronald Webster Park in Anguilla, ruined by hurricane Irma just two weeks earlier…
The game is being held during the half-term holiday and will be shown on Sky. It brings together players from around the globe…
But there is something missing. There has been no discussion of the reasons why the weather seems to be changing, what might be done to prevent it or why the hurricane season of 2017 was both so unprecedented and so brutal…
No one weather event can be categorically labelled as “caused by climate change”. But scientists are confident that climate change is bringing more extreme weather events, and that it increases the severity of hurricanes, like Irma and Maria, as greenhouse gases trap energy in the atmosphere driving more powerful winds. Rising temperatures have led to higher sea levels, which in turn means bigger storm surges. Higher water temperatures lead to more evaporation of water into the air, and that means more rain and therefore a higher risk of flooding…
There is for the game both a responsibility and an opportunity in tackling climate change. Cricket, and its followers, have an emotional and physical bond with the land in a way that few other field sports do. From the dustbowls of Ahmedabad to the lush pastures of the Somerset levels, cricket is its environment. It affects the batting conditions, the way the ball moves, the choice of players on the field, the way the game is played…
Cricket must adapt to what the ***World Bank calls “the new climate normal” but it must also become part of the solution…
Becoming a world leader, a shining example of good environmental practice ***would attract to cricket the much-desired growth audience – as well as being the right thing to do. Young people, in particular, care about the future of the planet in a way they might not care about, say, 100-ball cricket. Increasingly sponsors too are likely to look at environmental performance when calculating where to put their money…
So many things could be done quite easily – large and small – from carbon audits to sensible tour planning to reduce the number of flights, from encouraging spectators to travel to matches in sustainable ways to curbing single-use plastic use. Some grounds, Lord’s and the Oval particularly, but also Edgbaston and Cardiff, are acting unilaterally, but cricket, and sport in general, is crying out for environmental leadership – how fabulous it would be if Thursday’s match banged heads together. With 2.5bn fans worldwide, cricket has the potential to influence human behaviour in profound ways.
• This is an extract taken from The Spin, the Guardian’s weekly cricket email.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/may/29/cricket-natural-choice-world-leader-climate-change
00
30 May: Reuters: Pipeline move a risk for Canada’s Trudeau, but inaction worse
by David Ljunggren, Andrea Hopkins; Additional reporting by Leah Schnurr in Ottawa
Canada’s decision on Tuesday to buy a troubled oil pipeline is a big risk that could cost Prime Minister Justin Trudeau important voter support in a major province, but insiders say failure to act decisively to boost energy exports might hurt his chances to win re-election in 2019…
Liberal insiders hope the move will help dispel criticism that Trudeau dithers on big issues, ditching some campaign promises and consulting endlessly on others with little actual achievement after three years in office…
The main opposition Conservative party is becoming more competitive in polls, and even took the lead in one Nanos Research survey released on Tuesday, which showed Conservatives at 36 percent public support and the Liberals at 33 percent.
“It is better in this case to take action – even if it turns out to be the wrong choice – than do nothing,” said a well-placed Liberal source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation…
https://ca.reuters.com/article/idCAKCN1IU2OW-OCABS
00
In the August science grouping here, please forgive my naivety and old fashioned
‘science’ from school days; days when thermometers measured temperature and random movement of molecules were barely known of.
In those days, cold water held more gas, CO2, than warm water.
As the atmosphere warmed from external heat sources therefore, CO2 would be released to
the atmosphere, slowly due to the high specific heat of water. Thus [CO2]atm would rise after
the warming began. The CO2 greenhouse effect would slowly therefore be added to the
warming occurring and not the cause. I have read somewhere that this effect of CO2 is actually
highest at low concentrations of CO2, after which, like the dose -response curve of some drugs,
it becomes very flat.
The corollary is, when the next world cooling comes, the reverse will happen.
CO2 in water changing to the weak acid, carbonic acid and its dissociation is a very slow process.
Respiration in humans requires enzyme specifically to speed the process (carbonic anhydrase)
The reaction is a reversible one, so presumably acidification of oceans also should not be
presumed to directly follow the [CO2] of the atmosphere as the oceans warm. Warming
changes the equilibrium such that there may only be small changes in acidification, almost
like a buffering. Then there are the winds and tides and volcanoes……
If this all seems like a juvenile idea of things, I apologise, but it seems to be a reasonable
construction even if simplistic, based on what I seem to remember about the simple physics
of my day. I appreciate the complexity of atmospheric sciences of today and am simply an
observer of the arguments on AGW. Not a participant nor pretender at understanding most
of the finer points put.
70
Spot on DOC.
Like Newton’s Laws – NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
The CO2 horses*t has to stop.
30
Doc, that outline shows that you have a greater grasp of scientific reality than 97% of climate scientists.
Don’t ever underestimate the value of simplicity in scientific analysis.
🙂
KK
30
I have 2 more questions, somewhat related to each other.
1. If the sun, the moon and the stars have little or no influence on Global Warming, and its primarily warming under the influence of green house gases, CO2 in the main, what forces come into play that result in ice ages. As in the anaesthetic machine, are there sodalime canister equivalent meteors hurtling around the universe that simply aspirate all the CO2 from planetary atmospheres as they fly past thus inducing ice ages? How do worlds freeze in the warmers’ universe? Is the reason the hockey stick had the mini ice age disappear due to the fact that it was an unexplainable phenomenon in the CO2 theory of everything?
2. A couple of years ago the media reported scientists had found the surfaces of other planets in our solar system were also warming. Haven’t seen it again, probably because it doesn’t take an Einstein to work out why. If the sun the moon and the stars and all the cosmic forces have zilch to do with Earth warming, on balance or otherwise, do the warmers suggest Earth somehow has become a sun, a radiator that shines its rays upon the rest of the system without our noticing. Or is the atmospheric water vapour in clouds reflecting such energy back into the system, warming other planets but not the Earth? The warmers must have some explanation besides the energy forces of the universe that only effect Earth in steady fashion.
A further factor has me puzzled. The warmers say, if the expected cooling period of the solar scientists, does come soon, it will have little effect on the warming trajectory currently in effect ie warming will continue after such an event. The question is, if the warmers figure they have to account for such a cooling event, don’t they then lose the argument about the effects of in-coming radiation, unless they have some theory in which cooling as well as warming can happen under their CO2 theory?
We have as much to learn about such mysterious and counter intuitive events as we have with the complexity of the human brain and its thought processes.
20
FYI to anyone interested. 🙂
simon holmes à court @simonahac · 20m20 minutes ago
interesting milestone: tonight’s ABC’s weather segment will include the “the first ever graph of climate trends to be presented in a TV weather segment in australia”. #auspol
20
Caught the channel 9 weather report last night, and the BOM has forecast a hotter than average winter for south east Australia. This was supported by a map of Australia showing that there is an 80% chance of above median maximum temperature for June to August and coloured red. It used to be that red was reserved for scorching temperatures above 40, but recently it seems to regularly appear for temperatures above 30, and now for winter temperatures above median. But by how much? The median maximum for Vic is about 12, and for NSW/SA about 15. The median minimums are about 3 degrees. I couldn’t find on the BOM report how much hotter than the median the winter is expected to be.
And of course they will be using their non-standard new temperature measuring equipment that eliminates temperatures below -10 and measures maximums for 1 second during the day.
What pathetic posturing by a supposedly scientific bureau to get a global warming religion headline. The report went on to say that it is expected to be a cold start to winter.
10
Hi Robber,
Couple your comment with that of TdeF above, about the green/communist mentality of public life, and the only word that comes to mind is,
Disgusting.
KK
00
ANZ bank, it’s Treasurer and sundry others to be charged with racketeering, or so I’m told.
A search yields nothing and it is not in the headlines. Anyone seen the reports?
10
My son told me this and he’s a lefty. Prolly heard this from lefty business haters as it seems to be BS.
00
Santos to spend $400m on Qld gas project
I don’t recall any labor governments discussing Adani in this way. It was always described as a threat to the GBR with no redeeming properties.
00