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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I don’t know how many of Joanne’s Blog readers recall the Outer Limits television series (1963 to 1965). I suggest the AGW community produce a modern-day version of that series. The first episode might go something like:
There is nothing wrong with your climate. Do not attempt to adjust the weather. We are controlling your perception of reality. If we wish to make a logical point, we will use Mannian logic. If we wish to frighten you, we will manufacture AGW out of whole cloth and scare you to death. We will control what you see. We will control what you hear. We control tree rings, make them tell us what we want to hear. With a wave of our magic hockey stick, we can make them wider or narrower or play ring-around-the-rosie. For the next few minutes, sit quietly and we will control all that you read. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your climate. You are about to become immersed in a great hoax. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Great AGW Snow Job.
You can thank your lucky stars that the Earth’s atmosphere contains greenhouse gases—primarily water vapor but also carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Without atmospheric greenhouse gases instead of being a livable 15 centigrade the average Earth surface temperature would be 33 degrees centigrade colder. How do we know this? Simple.
First we measure the average Earth surface temperature. Don’t ask us to describe our measurement process, it would only bore or confuse you and might make you question our claim. Just trust us–the measured average surface temperature is 15 degrees centigrade.
Second, we built a model to tell us what the Earth’s surface temperature would be in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse. Our model predicts an Earth surface temperature of -18 degrees centigrade. Our model implicitly includes the presence of atmospheric greenhouse gases–specifically, (a) our model uses an albedo of 0.3 for the Earth; (b) an albedo of 0.3 correspond to an Earth atmosphere with clouds, and (c) an Earth atmosphere with clouds implies an Earth atmosphere with water vapor—the dominant greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. You must ignore this inconsistency because in our world it is logical to build a model that includes the presence of atmospheric greenhouse gases and then use that model to tell us what temperatures would be like in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Third, we assume any temperature difference between our measured average Earth surface temperature and our model Earth surface temperature is primarily, if not solely, attributable to the presence/absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases. You ask: How can we make such a claim? Again, the answer is simple. It suits our purpose to do so; and we can’t (or more to the point, don’t want to try to) attribute the temperature difference to any other effects.
We now return control of your climate to Mother Nature. Until next week at the same time, when our climatologists will again take you to – The Great AGW Snow Job.
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“I don’t know how many of Joanne’s Blog readers recall the Outer Limits television series (1963 to 1965).”
The Outer Limits was one of my favorite TV shows in the early 60’s (one of the local TV channels is currently showing Outer Limits reruns!)
Nice job of using that show to help explain the mindset of The Great AGW Snow Job.
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YouTube of The Outer Limits intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CtjhWhw2I8
90
I’ve been watching the old B&W and newer series in colour over the past few weeks. Also been watching The Twilight Zone series but I prefer Outer Limits.
60
The story I remember most from the new colour series of Outer Limits is one where a student is taking a final exam in Physics and one of the problems is to prove that cold fusion is impossible and while answering the question he realize not only is it possible but it’s easy. The thought of how easy it would be to make a thermonuclear weapon using cold fusion drives him insane and causes him to threaten to blow up the university. It is a thought provoking episode.
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I bought the boxed set (and The Twilight Zone as well)
20
‘a model that includes the presence of atmospheric greenhouse gases and then use that model to tell us what temperatures would be like in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases.’ no difference at ALL.
20
When I studied physics and in my professional career when (a) you build a model to predict how the world behaves, (b) you make measurements to validate/invalidate your model, and (c) the measurements wildly differ from your model predictions, you must conclude one of three things: (a) your measurements stink, (2) your model stinks, or (3) both stink*. The last thing, and I mean the last thing, you do is claim your model predicts how the world will behave under conditions NOT REPRESENTED by your model. Welcome to Climate Science. To be fair, some skeptics (maybe even a majority) have used the same line of reasoning to conclude that in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases the Earth’s surface temperature would be 33 degrees centigrade cooler than it is.
* I left off a fourth possibility: (4) you stink.
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Reed, right but nowdays theres alot of “we know our models are correct”, therefore all data that disagrees with it must be flawed data. Total contradiction to R Feynman’s ” If your theory doesnt agree with the data then its your theory that is wrong (stinks)”.
And not just climate (psuedo) science either.
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Pretty amusing for paras 1 & 2, and enjoyable.
but this tells you what it’s all really about. It’s Not nice.
Do you remember the “we’re going into another Ice Age and we’re all gonna die!” from the 1970s? Turns out it was the same crowd who is running CAGW and now Climate Change. The world “is gonna burn up and we’re all gonna die.” Same MO, different words on the song sheet.
Hmm. And everything will be sustainable, including you. The world has no idea yet what is about to hit it nor what that’s going to be like. Watch and see.
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Sophocles: I have vague memories of the term “Nuclear Winter.” At that time I was much younger and heavily focused on making a living so I didn’t track what was going on. Thus, I can’t confirm that it’s the same crowd; but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. If your goal is to become famous by saving the world, you’ll latch onto whatever “Earth-destroying-issue” is most popular at the time. You’ll have no problem espousing different arguments at different times even if your arguments are self contradictory.
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Reed:
Why would I want to become famous? It has too many downsides.
“Nuclear Winter:” came from a group of North American Scientists including Carl Sagan (who may be the originator of the term).
The global cooling at the end of the 1950s and into the 1970s was initially thought to have been caused by atmospheric atomic bomb testing and the hypothesis grew from there. It was used to force nuclear testing underground and to harness or rein in aggressive Anti-Communist Presidents to “not destroy the world.” Remember the Doomsday Clock? It’s still with us and assiduously adjusted. (I don’t accept any liability for that!) Then it all changed to “burning fossil fuels and we were going into a new Ice Age and we were all gonna die.”
There is an improving probability of a nuclear exchange occurring sometime in the next 10-20 years considering the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and especially who has them. There is a good chance we will find out first hand whether we want to or not.
I’ll also point out that two of the world’s (at least, I haven’t looked at the other 5 yet) Supervolcanoes seem to be awakening: Campi Flegrei in Naples and Yellowstone in the Western USA. Whether or not either or both will erupt soon is moot. But I find it interesting. Perhaps you don’t.
Maybe they’ll go off together and then we’ll really be deep in the brown muck! FimbullWinter!
We’re coming to the end of a Grand Solar Cycle. So what goes down now is whatever is going to happen. I will point out: None of them are susceptible to any human intervention or amelioration at all. None.
There’s a lot going on.
You claim my arguments are “self-contradictory?” How? Do tell me …
“ The world is doomed! We’re all gonna die!
Nothing self-contradictory there: we all die. It’s called End Of Life. Even planets and stars have an End of Life. Our Sun is thought to be halfway through it’s life. So it’s actually a matter of `when’ not `if.’
May your God go with you.
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Thanks Sophocles for the Technocracy link. You’re right, it’s not nice, but it helps reveal the enemy. A good start. ToM
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That’s pretty chilling Sophocles.
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Too real to be a joke. I love it.
10
I was about 6 years old and a episode of The Outer Limits had a guy freaking out because he landed on a planet that was highly foggy (of course) and he was seeing aliens outside the window. I remember one part of the episode he put his hand on the window and an alien put his as well.
Don’t remember much else but I had nightmares for a week!
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My favorite episode was “Controlled Experiment” which was about two Martians trying to understand why humans commit crimes of passion by studying a wife shooting her husband by using a time machine to run the scene forward and backward in time multiple times while watching the scene unfold. It starred three people who would later be known for other roles (Barry Morris – The Fugitive, Carol O’Connor – All in the Family and Grace Lee Whitney – Star Trek [Yeoman Rand])
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I remember watching ‘Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea’ when I was about seven or eight.
One episode started with the crew finding a membrane in the Antarctic that showed that the Antarctic was once a tropical forest. At that point, Mum interrupted my viewing and said, ‘it’s time for bed’.
Plead as I might, she wouldn’t let me watch the rest of the show.
I’ve never forgiven her for that.
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Mother’s know best and you’ll just have to remember that, GD. Maybe it will reappear sometime. Check youtube, it’s amazing what has been posted there.
00
This is one very high impact presentation by the Heartland inst. That requires maximum circulation! It addresses the key points we are aware of,
Affordable energy is a moral issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqHBjqFed5w&feature=youtu.be
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South Australia leads the world in market share to intermittent grid generators. It has the highest power prices in the developed world and that is despite exploiting the high capacity grid connector to Victoria and dramatically forcing electricity price increases in Victoria as well as gaining income from LGCs sold to other states. The added intermittency into Victoria and the transfer payments for LGCs and STCs are felt throughout the Australian economy. Other states are accelerating their efforts to emulate South Australia. It is difficult to see any shift in the upward trajectory of electricity and gas prices through 2019. There is a massive increase in investment in the industry all looking for a return. One glimmer of hope is the collapse of LGC and STC prices unless the RET is not increased but their cost is minuscule compared to the cost of intermittency. Shorten in almost certain to gain power in 2019 and that will accelerate the rise in electricity prices. Nothing will change until there is sufficient economic shock to beg the question why intermittents force up prices.
At this time of year it is useful to look at how the stock market analysts performed with regard to their yearly predictions:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-02/asx200-in-2018/9271032
The ASX200 is currently 5602 so the Morgan Stanley prediction of 5800 is the closest. This is a quote from the link:
My view is that energy cost, both electricity and gas, has become a massive drag on the Australian economy. 2018 saw the demise of banking as the principle blood suckers in Australia with energy companies now vying for that role. As long as the RET remains, the only way to beat the energy companies is to make your own. My objective for 2019 is to install an efficient wood burner to all but eliminate gas consumption. I already have years of wood accumulated so time to free the carbon.
On the subject of wood burners, I wonder what California will do with its 120+M dead trees. It would seem a shame to let them just fuel massive wild fires in the future.
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You are ignoring Germany, Denmark , erc …why ?
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It’s true, but South Australia not Australia overall.
See this article in the Australian.
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Residential tariffs combined with the connection fee (or network charges) are on top of the world. Danes and Germans come second and third in this race to set astronomic power prices.
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“My (i.e. Rick’s) view?
Don’t isolate yourself, Rick, you are not on your own. This is a bald fact.
Meanwhile, don’t imagine that you will be permitted to generate your own power without paying the RET tax. Which will be determined on numbers that they, not you, will calculate.
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I am a RET beneficiary. The reduction in gas usage will increase my income from household energy.
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I think you’re right on that.
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from California to you https://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/12/pg-corprewards-with-share-growth-of-257.html
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okay, all on the line now https://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/12/ukraine-facing-greatest-danger.html
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Puzzling. Crimea is only 2% of Ukraine and an economic basket case where almost all the people are Russian. Anyone over 62 was born in Russia. They are fiercely Russian. It is no surprise that they seceded. This was a sensible solution. One major motivation is that the Russian military pension is triple that in Ukraine. Ukraine is a basket case.
Then blocking the water for the Crimea is as serious as anything you could do to provoke a neighbour. Imagine if South Sudan or Ethiopia blocked the Nile? Or China blocked the Bhamaputra? Or Hungary blocked the Danube? As well millions of Russians died in WW2 from the Caucuses to the Donbass. These are Russian lands. You can only conclude that Poroshenko like so many corrupt dictators is intent on avoiding the coming election. He has already created a situation with gun boats into the sea of Azov. Imagine if Macron had declared Martial law like Pereshenko? Some democracy! The Russians see Ukraine as a government of crooks.
It is an incredible situation and very dangerous, but Ukraine is in no position to pick a fight with Russia. Taking sides is equally absurd and dangerous for Nato and the US.
Most importantly a lot of Europe’s gas flows through Russian pipelines in energy starved Ukraine in the middle of winter where a bag of coal costs $US100 to stay alive. The first thing to go in even a limited war would be the gas pipelines and then Europe would freeze. Trump pointed this out to the Germans, that they have made themselves utterly dependent on Russian gas.
The only solution is for Ukraine to stop blocking the entire water supply to tiny Crimea. Poroshenko is the one playing dice with Russia, to save his job and avoid an election. You can only think he is prepared to challenge a Russian takeover of the Donbass with its coal and iron ore. Now that would be a real invasion with real popular support from the locals who hate the government in far away Kiev. The war in East Ukraine continues. A terrible stalemate in sub zero weather. The West knows all about it as the French, Germans and English have invaded the region before.
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Poroshenko (leader of ‘NAZI’ regime in Kiev) is playing with fire.
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He sees it as nothing to lose. The next stop is usually jail, even for Yulia Timoshenko.
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Crimea was the Russion version of Australia’s Gold Coast. Everybody who was anybody holidayed in the Crimea … Gorbachev and Yeltsin tried fixing that but it hasn’t worked.
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Even that’s gone. Any Russian with money goes to Crete or Cyprus or the South of France. In Nice the menus are in French and Russian
The beaches in Yalta are terrible, concrete. Steep cliffs into the water. It’s no holiday spot by modern standards and freezing in winter. Crimea is a place with no resources and not at all attractive to the jet set of any country. Sochi is much more attractive and you can water ski and snow ski from the same city.
As for a warm sea port, all that is silly in a modern missile war. It is near landlocked with only Istanbul as an exit, 40km of 1km wide Bosphorous. There was no financial or military gain for Russia or anyone in the Crimea. It was just a case of the people wanting to go home, portrayed as an invasion.
00
Sorry TdF, bloody thumb drifted too close.
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Think about crop cultivation in the incoming Grand Solar Minimum. The Ukraine is one of the best wheat growing areas in the world. I don’t think the Russian excuse is anything but an excuse. They want the Ukraine for the food it can grow.
I was amazed they backed off the first time but I’m not surprised now. I’ve been waiting for it.
00
oh no, Americans take over China!
The Chinese article warned of “eight guardian warriors” – Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Qualcomm, Apple, and Google – that “have seamlessly infiltrated China.” https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2016/0131/Why-China-hacks-the-world
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“Huawei, ZTE” – that “have seamlessly infiltrated
ChinaUSA.”00
“‘Our study shows that organic peas, farmed in Sweden, have around a 50 percent bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed peas’, said lead researcher Stefan Wirsenius, an associate professor from Chalmers.
‘For some foodstuffs, there is an even bigger difference – for example, with organic Swedish winter wheat the difference is closer to 70 per cent,’ he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6496777/Organic-food-WORSE-environment-study-suggests.html ”
Via http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/12/15/december-15-2018-reader-tips/#comment-1167340
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Ah organic food. Another great lie like climate change. The claims made by consumers of these products are many and unsubstantiated. They apparently taste better although comparison taste tests can’t detemine any difference, they don’t use chemical fertilizers yet the plant doesn’t care where the elements for life come from. Nitrogen, calcium, potasium, carbon etec. etc. have to be sourced from somewhere, and they grow bigger and better if these are more freely available. The claim that honey is natural and therefore better for you is a favourite of mine. A wet, sticky substance produced by partial digestion in the stomach of an insect of unknown health status, ( honey is linked to clostridium infections in infants ) lets not think about these things. When I get the chance to mess with peoples heads I ask if they would use a chemical called beta-D-Fructofuranosyl-alpha-D-glucopyranoside, the anserws is always a resounding NO. The fact that this is common suger, produced by drying and washing the juice of a plant ( i.e. therefore organic ) is met with disbelifef . Got to go now, my self diagnosed gluten intolerance may have kicked in, or did i forget to take my tumeric capsule this morning.
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Sambar,
And that beta-D-Fructofuranosyl-alpha-D-glucopyranoside is used commercially is used in the manufacture of food products as a preservative, antioxidant, moisture control agent, stabilizer and thickening agent.
Dangerous stuff
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2nd try….
Sambar,
And that beta-D-Fructofuranosyl-alpha-D-glucopyranoside is used commercially is used in the manufacture of food products as a preservative, antioxidant, moisture control agent, stabilizer and thickening agent.
Dangerous stuff 🙂
Also of not is that many people feed solutions of beta-D-galacto-hexopyranosyl-(1->4)-beta-D-gluco-hexopyranose mixed with other oligosaccharides, glycerides, phospholipids, glycolipids, phosphoinositides as partial esters of glycerol, and dozens of carotenoids and several varities of tocopherols, and other chemicals to infants. 😉
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Yes Tom all true, I guess the point I was trying to make is, Just because it’s natural, or organic, doesn’t mean it’s any better better for you. Brown snake venom is completely natural, it doesn’t do you much good at all, however, like sugar consumption, it’s all in the dose size. Interesting research into snake venoms may yield some benifits in a number of areas of medicine. Like the parents used to say, “everything in moderation”
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You are right. And ” natural” is not a criterion used in determining permitted substances for organic so.
That is not to say that stupid and inappropriate , unscientific decisions are not made by the High Priests.
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When I started in Health and Safety the Technical Director said “Graeme, remember that 6 out of 7 of the most dangerous chemicals are organic”.
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97% , surely?
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Some soft containers of that stuff have been known to be marketed as “Carbon Free” … 🙂
Imagine that: Carbon Free sucrose.
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I have carbon free sucrose on tap in my house..
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I cook with coconut oil and I’m always amused by the “organic” label they put on it. I can’t think what you might do to a coconut tree to disqualify it from being organic.
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Depending on the protocol being invoked , it probably means that the oil is not refined, bleached , and deodorised ; that the tree was not subjected to any biocidal treatments ; and that the soil in which it grew was not contaminated, and was adequately fertilised.
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And also the terminology with coconut oil being “extra virgin”. Does this mean that coconuts are harvested at various stages of ripeness like olives are? Probably not, but it will impress those gullible enough to just read the big writing. I guess being “extra virgin” must be better that just “plain old, common or garden variety “virgin”.
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Sambar:
Extra virgin is swiped from the olive oil market. There it just means olive oil with less than 1% free fatty acids.
The olive oil the “health conscious” is usually rubbish fruit in Spain, high pressure sqeezed and possibly solvent refined, and treated with decolourising agent (CARBON Black is a good choice).
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maybe that tree can be guaranteed to have never partaken of any form of pollen exchange with any other tree 🙂
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I have a big problem with the claim of organic honey, how do the bees know which flowers are organic?
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It easy: if it’s blue, it’s just great, choice, and gotta be attended to.
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Sure Ian the good professor says that organic farmers knock down forests to grow their crops..That’s why the organic peas and wheat cause more CO2..Really ? I was an organic farmer from 1985-2016 on 2 different farms.Never cleared any bush or forest. And that is not just me. It’s not permitted under the world organic certification standards.
Sooooooo…
That’s crap mate…Dopey research based on dopey academic sssumptions.
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“Their research found the reason why organic food is so much worse for the climate is that the yields per hectare are much lower, primarily because fertilisers are not used.”
Bill,
Don’t miss this bit when you read it again
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But that is bullshit too: organic farmers use fertiliser.
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Whoops ! Too agricultural, but true nonetheless.
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I dont worry about the fertilizer but I’m no so keen on the sprays used.
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Organic farmers can’t “sow through stubble” because they can’t use “nasty” chemicals for weed control so they must plough and harrow, which burn diesel.
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Much better to burn the stubble and the straw aftermath, and drill straight in with an appropriate catch crop.
Get that carbon back into the air where everyone can get a share.
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And the soil into the creeks again
10
Well that might be an argument against all forms of soil disturbance, but your basic triple disc drill, working in burnt – over stubble, disturbs bugger all, unless you are cropping steep land.
Riparian strips would be required under those circumstances.
I guess burning straw is a no- no on the West Island.
20
It became a no-no in the UK…too much acrid smoke in people’s homes…you should have seen the state of the washing on the line!
Actually, in Gloucestershire our main problem with washing came from the low-flying RAF, ditto in Yorkshire…horrible oily splodges. It rarely happened but when it did I cursed!
00
This is a post I found by the farmer who “educated” me re no-till farming:
sailor said: ↑
Excuse the newbie question: What does zero-till mean please?
It means that we no longer plough or cultivate the soil. The soil is left as is, weeds are sprayed with roundup, and the next crop is drilled straight into the old crop residue with minimal disturbance.
It is what has led to the big yield gains grain growing has had in Australia. Ploughing the soil just dries it out so much. All the moisture is lost. The soil turns to fine dust and blows away. It is why the big dust storms of twenty years ago are no longer. Drive through most grain growing areas and you now travel past vaste stubble paddocks, not bare ploughed paddocks.
It has increased yields, and decreased labour. I can spray 400 hectares in a 8 hour day, using not much diesel. 20 years ago it was a 14 hour day to plough 40 hectares and burn massive amounts of diesel.
The stubble on the surface provides shade and decreases evaporation. It reduces soil erosion. Soil microbes thrive in the undisturbed soil. Organic matter is increased.
One disadvantage is that you need much more expensive planting gear to get through the stubble, and in winter, even the best gear can’t plant at night, as everything gets blocked up with trash. That photo of me planting, see the stubble? 20 years ago it was bare soil.
Australia is a world leader in zero till because we are so dry. Every bit of moisture saved means a lot. A lot of Australias old soil is prone to wind.
Some farming areas are almost all zero till, and others aren’t. Where I am, we are.
00
The question really is where do these critics of organic systems get their information: certainly not from those in the field.
Maybe they talk to hippies at the Food Co- op, or something.
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One of the questions most asked by sceptics is “Where do they get their information?”
In this era of fake news we should all be asking that, all the time.
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And the fight against online trolls/disinfo agents is the other problem
10
Organic food? Another lie. There is no food that is not organic.
However, allowing for the hijacking of the language, this meets expectations.
The reason why industry does not employ the rules of “organic farming” is that industrial methods seek to maximise efficiency in production. ‘Organics” do not.
Thus with both systems having the same plant characteristics but one yielding twice as much as the other, the “other” would be halving its efficiency.
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I haven’t heard that one before: the EROEI is halved for systems using “organic” protocols and third party verification for QA purposes.
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Another take on this
““Organic” Is The Latin Word For “Grown In Pig Shit””
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/12/16/organic-is-the-latin-word-for-grown-in-pig-shit-2/#comments
And don’t miss the comments
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It is interesting that anyone would think that annual mono- cropping would have any place in an even half- pie sustainable system.
But here in Godzone we have something similar in the dairy industry, where most of the ” organic” farmers are clustered in the least sustainable dairy sector i.e. seasonal dairycommodity production..
The official(Ministry of Agriculture) view here is that organic farming is somewhere on the sustainability/ viability spectrum where all current agriculture sits.
Only time will tell which forms of agriculture are building or conserving capital , in all its forms.
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Can anyone explain the disconnect between these two maps of SST?
The first is NOAA
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2018/anomnight.12.13.2018.gif
And this is the BoM.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Sea-surface
Which one is correct? Supposedly an El Nino is coming but the SOI is in the neutral range at the moment.
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Indeed. Last week there seemed to be a very warm anomaly near the dateline. Modoki? I usually check all these representations on a weekly basis but for all intents and purposes it could be out of a childs colouring book.
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Not a Modoki, otherwise there would be cool water in the eastern Pacific.
Its a modest El Nino, but next year we could see a major event.
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Yes indeed el gordo, modest to th point of being shy
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Try this one
https://weather.gc.ca/saisons/animation_e.html?id=year&bc=sea
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Thanks, AI.
All different really. Child’s colouring book – spot on, glen.
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Seems to be a year out of date the French one.
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The BoM is going for a lower than average number of TC’s this Summer. East of Ingham,QLD – 660mm in 24hrs. Even the Bureau is marching out the hyperbowl. Just goes to show that the weather doesn’t go to plan. So many variables at play and our weather boffins do not take all into account.
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The BoM is predicting an El Nino and that typically means less cyclonic activity.
‘The 2015–16 Australian region cyclone season was the least active tropical cyclone season since reliable records started during 1969, with only three named tropical cyclones developing in the region. Reasons for the low activity during the year included a positive Indian Ocean Dipole occurring and the 2014–16 El Niño event.’
At the moment the IOD is heading into positive territory but SOI is in the neutral range.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=SOI
We’ll see.
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A looming “monsoon” trough with some blobs imbedded ATM. Being somewhat of a heurist I’ll back an active wet this high sun period.
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The collapse of the subtropical ridge is creating blocking highs, dampening cyclone activity because of the cool south easterly wind flow onto Queensland’s coast.
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Residents of Halifax know to keep plenty of beer on hand at this time of the year. They just sit on the porch, out of reach of the crocks, and fish for barra.
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Im not unconvinced there is a geomagnetic connection to the formation of tropical storms, not just El Ninos etc, meaning movement of warm water although you need it for them to feed off.
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That would make sense, whenever I put a magnet in water all the water sticks to the magnet.
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theRealUniverse
Water is indeed affected by both magnetic and electric fields, see http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/magnetic_electric_effects.html.
Of course those whose knowledge is built on a belief system (aka cAGW believers) think that all the attributes of water are known and understood in science. They are not. Water remains yet another mysterious substance on our planet.
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To an extent, also olivine, common mantle mineral, responds to electric fields, next link, geomagnetism to earthquakes. There have been papers publish showing good correlation.
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From your source:
“Water is diamagnetic and may be levitated in very high magnetic fields (10 T, compare Earth’s magnetic field 50 μT) ”
Do let me know if you need the maths explained to you.
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“Do let me know if you need the maths explained to you.”
Where are you going to copy/paste it from this time, CT?
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Water is truly an amazing substance.
Horn, sometimes known as toenails and fingernails is actually water.
It may be hard to believe but water has several molecular forms, one of them being horn.
Ain’t science wonderful.
KK
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That’s mean, Keith, Andy’s going to repeat that to everybody he knows now, and they will sn!gger even more loudly behind his back than they already do.
Seriously guys, are you running this website from yank-land or something? Sort it out.
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Andy, I’ve snared the Prize!
He thinks I’m wrong.
Normally the two H atoms are in an unstable arrangement and move: water.
When the H atoms are forced together and immobilized, we get Fingernail.
KK
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“Seriously guys, are you running this website from yank-land or something? Sort it out”
Instead of dishing out advice, Mr Thomas might be better off if he spent his energies sorting himself out
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A very WEAK, EMPTY response from CT, yet again
Notice his ZERO EVIDENCE, just yapping mindlessly ! 🙂
Poor petal couldn’t even manage a cut and paste 🙂
So funny
21
Glen
If you mean the one I posted you’re risking a sealers club – it is Canadian!
And goes to 07 Dec 2018
20
most apologiesAnother Ian.
20
No worries Glen.
Actually I thought afterwards that the threat might more likely be a string of “Eh’s”
As in the Canadian equivalent of “Lets Talk Strine” was “Canajan Eh”
20
They use different colors/colours in their temperature anomaly scale.
20
Maybe should introduce a pasty pink into the mix.Then again…
20
Over at WUWT, commieBob comments that you can no longer access the Third Assessment Report on the IPCC web site and a comment by vukcevic notes that his searches show that it now “Out Of Print”. This is the report that contained the statement “we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. IPCC” Interestingly enough, you can still access the Second Assessment report.
180
The lack of funds from the USA must be starting to bite – cannot afford the computer memory to store this version of their fairy tale.
Anything that references back radiation from a cold atmosphere to a warmer surface is a fairy tale. Any model based on that belief is not rooted in physics and is just made up junk.
91
Delusion is an expensive thing….
50
Ric, I just found the TAR at the IPCC site.
00
Maybe a little off topic, but in my opinion not really. I have recently been studying the roots of WWII in the Pacific, since this is the month that the Pacific war started with pearl Harbor, and the invasion of the Philippines and of Malaya. I see so many parallels to the military dictatorship take over of Japan’s government during the 20s and 30s and the modern Klimateriat and the stranglehold on academia and government agencies around the world, by the AGW group think religion.
Japan had only relatively recently come out from being a feudal society. The government was part parliamentarian and part monarchy. However, the real power lay with military bureaucracies. In particular the Imperial Japanese Army. These are the most dangerous kind on bureaucrats, because they not only have the power to make and interpret their own rules and impose them on the remainder of society, but also the power to enforce their rules as they see fit-lethally. There are no checks and balances.
The real power lay with the large group of young military officers from the middle and poor classes who had been through the military academies and schools from a young age. These young officers had been in the system, so to speak, since they were 12 years old and were thoroughly indoctrinated in the kind of radical nationalism and racialism that infected societies of the time. Among their goals were direct control of both the private and public sectors to control alleged corruption, a command economy eschewing free markets, coupled with some kind of socialist economic system. Above all their own standard of living and career security was what they were most concerned with.
Those that disagreed with them or were not part of their cabal not only risked the loss of jobs and social standing, but their very lives. Assassination become common place. In one case a premier was assassinated but those that carried out the foul deed got off with no jail time and were heralded as heroes by the main stream media. By 1936 they went too far with an assassination, and the emperor demanded justice. The trigger men were rounded up and prosecuted and made the scapegoats, but those behind the trigger men actually benefited. The farce was used to help consolidate power by the military bureaucrats by promising that giving them greater police power would bring security.
By the early 30s elected officials had been made answerable to the unelected government class and military bureaucrats who remained in power from elected administration to administration. The cabinet had members appointed from the military and police forces who could overide and veto the elected minister. If they did not get their way, they could and did collapse the government. By 1939 the cabinet was made up by generals and admirals. Not all the military officers went along with the slide toward a police state. Indeed the famous Admiral Yamamoto was sent to sea and given command of the Combined Fleet to save him from assassination. In 1934 mid level army officers manufactured an incident in Manchuria as an excuse to go to war. The Japanese government proved powerless to control their own army.
The scary thing about the military dictatorship that developed in Japan was that it really had no strong individual personality such as an AH, or a BM, or a Stalin. It was a collective of bureaucrats.
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Dave in the States: Thanks for this interesting piece of history. The parallels to the modern Klimateriat reminds me of the quote “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes”.
101
Interesting Dave.
The second to last para sounds similar to the EU and Brussels.
Also overall there are similarities to a fascinating post on here last week about the French elite and how they all come out of the very elite French University.
140
I hate to say it, but the US has the rogue military industrial complex the Ike warned about some years ago, which is very good at maintaining a state of perpetual war, and is the USAs equivelent of what you mention about Japan….
52
Some in the military are certainly part of the Deep State. Of greater concern is the rogue FBI and EPA …ect and those in the gov that are attempting to destroy a duly elected president, because of doing stuff such as getting us out of Paris.
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I often wonder what would happen if the Deep State are sufficiently stupid enough to fabricate “charges” against Trump, and the fact it would likely kick off another American Revolution.
The Left I think will get routed – the average Joe, after patiently enduring years of stupid PC laws and Marxist oppression, will likely vent years of frustration and completely shred the Left where they stand…..and not begore time too.
Gun confiscation? Dream on. There would be caches of guns and ammo buried all over the USA. Surrender to the Left? – yeah right…dream on….I can Deep State collaborators executed in the streets as America cleans house.
72
Australia has been subjugated by its polity for some decades now. Howard, the p.M introduced a fatwah on firearms in the 1990s that proscribed the use of SLR firearms. I submitted my .22 Gervarm semi-auto as an offering. I maintain my view that at some time something will spill over and this complacent, insular country will have something dreadful to contend with.Remember, every rubber band snaps eventually.
62
I read the biography of Keith Payne, VC. He was a kid on the banks of the Herbert R. going to school at Halifax [mentioned above] He would hunt among the crocks and snakes taking his .22 to school.
It was then he learned the skills that saved some of men. A very different upbringing to Mark Donaldson, VC but neither were “accidental” heroes, both did it tough.
100
Did cadets in the early seventies…learnt rule .303!
A single well placed shot will do more damage than spraying bullets to keep the target’s head down. Had rifles, got a licence and then just gave up on the hobby. Sold rifles when I moved. Should have persevered, lots of places to shoot down here in Vic…only problem is, the bush is full of armed Lebs…now why would that be?
40
If your Gevarm was the same mag emptying POS that mine was you did yourself a favour…
00
Agreed. As long as the leftists dont have access to firearms, it will be nasty but likely survivable. I suspect a grid down/damaged scenario will kill a lot of people through disease and rioting.
Those of us who know bushcraft and campcraft and handling dangererous stuff will have a much better chance of surviving.
20
most people I know submitted there old crap to the buy back and went out and bought more guns. I would suggest that there are many non approved firearms buried in PVC tubes in the bush , but what would I know. I guess we wont know until the zombie apocalypse arrives.
10
There is no topic today mate speak freely
70
Politics Australia, the opinion of a respected Professor of Laws including how he intends to vote at the next federal election;
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/12/christmas-in-australias-political-poorhouse/
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A surprisingly enlightened view for a Professor of Law. He makes a highly valid point with regard to NOT giving your vote to Liberal because they are better than Labor. Much more effective to give first preference to a party that is not PC so they get more funding. (I know this has been mentioned in earlier threads – make certain your vote counts by giving a party or individual that supports your views your first preference. The current PC libs do not deserve support. You vote does actually count as it is almost $3 in the coffers of your first preference.)
Found this quote in the comments:
A more mature Abbott sans knighthoods would be someone to vote for.
114
Knighthoods?
A recommendation for a knighthood to be awarded, by the Queen, to Prince Phillip for his many decades of service to the Commonwealth of Nations, a request sent from the Palace to all Commonwealth governments.
Not reported by the ABC/MSM and the PM was not at liberty to speak about the nomination request.
Automatic knighthood for the Queen’s ceremonial representatives, recommended by the government of thee day, permanent head of state Governors General and head of the ADF, people who must have a history of public service, awarded by the Queen on recommendation from the Commonwealth of Australia.
No other knighthoods revived.
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Sir Peter, a military general and Governor General sounds OK to me.
51
Dennis we’ve been over this Sir Prince Philip — or is it Prince Sir Philip? — nonsense before. Abbott was under no obligation to acquiesce to the Palace’s request for a knighthood for the useless old coot. As a constitutional monarch the Queen is obliged by convention to take the advice of her ministers, not the other way around. Abbott could and should have politely declined, rather than going along with the charade at a time when he needed to give no further excuses to the antagonistic press to attack him. It was pure stupidity that played into Turnbull’s hands. I’m a bit of a Tony fan, but Peta Credlin should have kept a tighter rein on him in such matters. Abbott didn’t have to speak about the request, merely decline it.
And before someone resurrects the twaddle that the knighthood was for Philip’s 90th birthday — wrong. Philip was already 93 ½ when it was proposed; his 90th birthday over 2 years before Abbott even took office as PM.
Knighted . . . “for his many decades of service to the Commonwealth of Nations”. What service would that be????? Putting his foot in it every time he meets someone? Walking 2 paces behind and to the left? Wearing the Garter on his left knee? Driving a carriage and four around Windsor? If the Queen wants to idolise her husband that’s her affair, not a commonwealth matter. It’s like a re-run of Victoria and Albert — another useless royal fawned over by his lover, his mediocrity memorialised with his own grandiose statue.
52
beowulf:
It’s old stuff but Philip did a lot of hard work during WW2. Ship he was on was sunk by German bombers, years of escorting convoys to and from Australia – someone had to do the less glamorous work. After the War he was a career Naval Officer and had to abandon any hopes of rising up the ranks (although getting the Admirals hat – non functional version may have softened the disappointment). He also was in many organisations and not just as a figurehead.
And don’t forget he has often expressed scepticism about wind turbines.
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It’s a great pity Graeme that he didn’t express that scepticism more robustly to his eldest son and his wife, given that the Duchy of Cornwall and the Crown Estate (which owns the sea bed around Britain where the offshore wind farms are) are both major beneficiaries of wind subsidies.
As to his other activities, I think he has been more than adequately compensated over the years, even if he didn’t get to wear the First Sea Lord hat.
30
I suggest that you learn about the Commonwealth of Nations (earlier British Commonwealth of Nations) and its functions and purposes.
Prince Phillip has been very much involved in the Commonwealth and member nations.
The Queen is a ceremonial position as Head of State in Australia and the permanent Head of State of our Governor General who is nominated by our Government and and appointed by the Queen – we are a “crowned republic” and our Parliament creates the laws and the highest court of appeal is the High Court of Australia. If the Governor General acts on the Australian Constitution the Queen is asked to sign the document but the decision is made in Australia.
As for PM Abbott responding a request from the Queen, what would you suggest? Tell her to go jump? That wouldn’t be either polite or diplomatic would it. After all she does have a constitutional role here, albeit very limited and cannot interfere in our nation’s affairs, and is our ceremonial Head of State.
53
By the way, the nominations came from Commonwealth of Nations including the Commonwealth of Australia Government.
31
Dennis, I suggest you face reality. The Commonwealth is nothing more than a boys club; an anachronistic farce where African dictators and Pacific micro-state wannabes get to rub shoulders with the leaders of the dominions for a couple of days every second year and achieve what exactly? To be ignored by the rest of the world, and rightly so. CHOGM — what a joke. It’s a climate conference by another name. It does nothing other than provide an excuse for taxpayer-funded jaunts, hand-shaking and mutual back-slapping.
List all these great achievements of the Commonwealth. Hint . . . there aren’t any. They put South Africa and Fiji in the naughty corner for a few years; they run a second rate Olympic games clone. WOW the world couldn’t do without input like that. I think the Commonwealth’s ONLY achievement is that a former colonial power is on reasonably good terms with most of its former colonies, unlike Spain or Portugal.
As to Abbott’s response to the Queen, allow me to cut and paste what I actually said, as you seem to have reading issues: “Abbott could and should have politely declined . . .” as is his right as the PM of a dominion. No mention of telling the Queen to go jump.
You state “. . . she does have a constitutional role here, albeit very limited and cannot interfere in our nation’s affairs, and is our ceremonial Head of State.”
.
Dennis, the monarch CAN interfere in our affairs. I suggest you go and study constitutional law for a year or two mate. Start with S 1.1.3 of our Constitution which affirms the right of the monarch to appoint and to grant (or withdraw at a whim) powers to that Governor General. The royal prerogative prevails. She doesn’t interfere, purely by convention, not by any constitutional prohibition. If the Queen wanted to appoint Daffy Duck as GG and tell Daffy not to sign any Australian Acts into law, there is not one damned thing the government could do about it constitutionally. There would be a riot if she did, but the Australian Constitution was written specifically so as to give Britain veto rights over our laws. That was modified to some extent by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 and Bob Hawk’s Australia Act 1986. The first took away the right for the British Parliament to make laws directly for Australia and the second ended appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, thus making the High Court the highest appellate court in the land. Neither of those diminished in any way the theoretical power of the monarch over Australian laws. It will be interesting to see what happens when Charlie gets the crown.
30
Very interesting reading Beowulf , did not know most of that but knew Abbott was enthusiastic about giving Phil the knighthood after all didn’t he admit it was a Captains pick ?
10
Sounds like you may have read the British republican movement web site. They have similar statements. Such as “the monarch CAN interfere in our affairs.” Interesting not many actually know that.
30
According to a review in The Spectator a few weeks back treating the book Robert Jobson’s “Our Future King: Prince Charles at 70” Charles III intends micromanaging his realm and will himself define the limitations of monarchy –these present interesting times may become very much more so.
30
T.R.U.
I know nothing of the British republican movement. I just studied constitutional law inter alia as a whipper snapper. In fact it happened to be at the time of the Whitlam dismissal, an Australian constitutional crisis which the Queen stayed right out of. Had a more political monarch been at the helm, things could have gotten messy.
SERP
Given Charles’ propensity for trashing conventions, and given he is the most politically intrusive royal since George III, he will indeed bear watching closely.
30
Is “Professor of Laws” a real degree or more an honorary thing? I just did a search and there were a lot of people listed but no explanation.
21
A professor is an accomplished and recognized academic. In most Commonwealth nations, as well as northern Europe, the title professor is the highest academic rank at a university. In the United States and Canada, the title of professor applies to most post-doctoral academics, so a larger percentage are thus designated. In these areas, professors are scholars with doctorate degrees (typically Ph.D. degrees) or equivalent qualifications who teach in four-year colleges and universities. An emeritus professor is a title given to selected retired professors with whom the university wishes to continue to be associated due to their stature and ongoing research. Emeritus professors do not receive a salary, but they are often given office or lab space, and use of libraries, labs, and so on.[citation needed]
40
True in the US a Prof is often just a lecturer. Not so in the Anglo system, as you say.
30
I don’t know why he’s so upset at government subsidy of renewable energy generation, when for every government dollar spent on renewables, $20 is handed out to dole-bludgers.
23
Ah yes, but they will spend it locally.
Wind farms only benefit rich multinationals, the monies would be better spent on building a bullet train network
30
You are confusing coal-fired power stations (which benefit rich multinationals) with wind power, which benefits the farmers whose land they sit on.
Sadly, our government handed over our electrical infrastructure to rich multinationals, so the only way for us mere mortals to get power from wind farms is to be connected to the rich multinational-owned grid.
16
We’ll need coal fired power stations to run the bullet train network and new satellite cities along the way. The whole box and dice will be owned and operated by multinationals.
The Lancet came out recently with proof that wind farms are injurious to health, so those farmers are on a slippery slope.
41
The only evidence of any injury to health from wind farms is in the category “psychological distress”, other wise known as hysteria, a problem wind farm hysterics share with animal rights nutters and gender bender experts.
There is no chance anybody is going to invest in new coal-fired plants in this country. When the creaky old existing ones shut down, they are not being replaced. Coal power is at least 60% more expensive than wind or solar power now, it can’t even begin to compete, even with all the subsidies and externalised costs it receives.
29
“Coal power is at least 60% more expensive than wind or solar power now”
Well that explains why 59 countries are building, or planning to build, over 1,000 HELE coal fired power stations around the world. And why reducing subsidies for wind in Germany, the UK, Spain and China has resulted in a severe drop off in new wind projects.
All their engineers, economists and politicians are delusional whereas only Craig knows what is reality.
91
They should put them up in capital cities if it only causes psychological distress.
With the coal versus renewable argument, we need baseload for satellite cities and bullet trains. All the states are onboard with Morrison’s decentralisation plan and we are back in surplus.
The people want bread and circuses, would you deny them?
20
Land is really cheap near wind turbines CT
Off you go, buy it up and go live there.
But you WON’T, will you.
Because you KNOW there are serious health problems caused directly by them.
You just can’t bring yourself to admit it.
Your WILFUL DENIAL of known, measured science is quite childish.
Can you bring yourself to admit that there is no empirical evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming, CT, or will you just DENY the LACK of science backing up the AGW scam..
52
So Craig,
That is why Australia is the envy of the world with its price of electricity.
If only Australia got rid of the last few expensive coal generators and installed even more wind and solar, electricity would be too cheap to meter. People would just have to pay a little more subsidy tax.
That’s how it works eh, Craig?
40
You Know Nothing.
10
On an energy produced basis, the tiny subsidies for coal are dwarfed by subsidies by wind and solar.
Wind and solar would not exist without subsidies and forced usage
You know that CT, so why continue to push your deceit and lies !.
42
Poor little craig,
Once again confuses a subsidy with a tax break.
The greens/leftists love to do that.
They love getting unearned money.
In a subsidy, the government gives you unearned money;
with a tax break, the government lets you keep earned money.
CT wouldn’t comprehend the difference.
32
Tell us, CT, how much revenue have wind and solar brought to Australia?
32
You are welcome to disconnect and use totally unreliable electricity, CT
But you won’t, will you.
You need that RELIABLITY OF SUPPLY to get through every petty day of your empty existence..
62
only because thats who they were sold to.
the public paid for and built them , and could again
00
Too big to fail – not
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-powered-the-american-centurythen-it-burned-out-11544796010
20
That is via a comment in this comparison with IH – you could include Allis Chalmers as well
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/118295-ge-stock/
30
On that redpower site someone said:
But, but, GE’s core businesses are flourishing. They make jet turbines for a thriving aircraft business, same for a booming gas-turbine electricity industry and surely there must be a big niche in the wind turbine industry.
No! If they are in trouble it would self-inflicted in the boardroom. I remember decades ago GE was mainly a finance company, there was a GE Finance shopfront in every town, bordered on pay day lending. If I had to guess now they over-gorged on cheap finance to buy back stock. Now they have to pay back that money.
00
On Thursday 13 December ABC 7.30 Report featured a segment on climate change. Guess it was to coincide with the COP 24 conference.
As usual it looped the typical violent weather scenes such as bushfires, palm trees bending over, floods, etc. It even suggested CO2 was known to change climate from the early 20th C.
As proof they inserted a B&W movie scene of the infamous London killer smogs. The air was black and dirty and not clear as it is now. One person seemed to be forecasting doom which, to me anyhow, looked like a scene from a 50s sci-fi movie.
120
the day the earth caught fire trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKk3rAR2c3k
Twilight Zone – The Midnight Sun Clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbQJDBQzgwM
“Zombies of the Stratosphere” Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYUS0qN1NFU
How Do Aliens Solve Climate Change?
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/how-do-aliens-solve-climate-change/561479/
20
Funny, tonight they were covering the COP24 outcome with the triumphant announcement of new rules to guide us forward (apparently). This was described as ensuring governments “keep their promise to reduce global temperatures”.
Wow! they have direct control now, we dont even have to refer to the imaginary CO2 mechanism
70
Prat of the Year declared
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/prat-of-2018-we-have-a-winnah-theresa-may/
120
Well deserved by TM. I still think MT should be well up there too but for some reason he didn’t make the final selection; then that little girl from the US snuck in.
81
If Malcom swam in a bigger pond he would be a shoe in to display his pratliness on a global scale. Hiding down here in Oz he would never make the list, which is a shame.
80
Y
Actually he was in the original list but got run out of the finals selection by Trudeau
30
We should give him credit then. Punching above his weight in the prat ranks.
50
Annie
I’m thinking that she sounds like the US’s answer to our “Hyphen”
30
It would seem so, wouldn’t it?!
11
Good choice!
20
Triggered by President Donald Trump, angry Germany says carbon (sic) will make ‘entire stretches of this planet uninhabitable.’
But NASA satellite data show that CO2 is making the planet greener …
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said Friday that “if we let entire stretches of this planet become uninhabitable then it will trigger gigantic costs.”
https://www.citynews1130.com/2018/12/14/the-latest-germany-says-trump-wrong-on-climate-change-costs/
NASA: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
h/t junkscience@twitter
90
Mark M,
The major thing wrong with “NASA: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds” is that CO2 is NOT a fertilizer its much, much more important than that, it’s an essential food for plants.
120
Yes – Carbon dioxide is THE fundamental building block of life as we know it on Earth. Fertiliser, by definition, increases fertility and usually accelerates growth. Referring to carbon dioxide as fertiliser grossly diminishes its role as nothing lives on earth unless carbon dioxide is present in the biosphere.
120
So…pumping CO2 into greenhouses does not increase fertility?
20
Depends what the meaning of “is” is.
Increasing CO2 above marginal starvation allows the plant to divert more plant resources to the root system than the leaves. It can then gather more food and water, thus becoming more drought resistant.
60
As I stated, describing CO2 as a mere fertiliser grossly understates its function.
This is the Britannica definition of a fertiliser:
CO2 is a gas that is the prime source of carbon that forms the structure of plants. No CO2 means no biosphere on Earth.
60
Credit where it’s due, BOM is pretty good at predicting the track of cyclones. In fact they have been spot on with both track and intensity [which they normally exaggerate] with TC Owen.
I can’t recall when we last had a classic wet day here. Innisfail had a lot of rain, but they are used to that, but generally there hasn’t been much nor has it been as widespread as one would expect.
41
Its been patchy, but the standout is a return of mild onshore winds to Queensland and also the weather turmoil in midlatitudes caused by low pressure. Its climate change.
30
Hanrahan,
I dare to disagree on one significant point.
Owen was a tropical low for about 9 days before it actually became a cyclone, yet BoM was calling it a cyclone. Pressure was 993hPa and wind strength was 70kph. THAT WAS NOT A CYCLONE.
What the North has experienced for the past 5 days IS a tropical cyclone with pressure below 965hPa and winds > 90kph.
62
Yet again the BoM demonstrates that it never lets facts get in the way of a good scare.
Audit it and clean it out. The truth’s not in them.
32
Given what they were calling that storm in SA a couple of years ago maybe they’ve changed the definition… It’s the usual way.
21
Funny argument, this one. There are already HUGE tracts of land that are uninhabitable. Deserts , frozen tundra, permafrost affected lands. Maybe global warming will enable these areas to become more productive. Does it matter that uninhabital land areas move around? On a personal or national basis, it probably does, on a global basis, probably not, provided the areas remain much the same.
80
You forgot to include Canberra – infested with backstabbing rodents hosting a variety of parasites. Totally uninhabitable!!
60
Mind boggles..one minute CO2 is evil then “NASA: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds” no kidding!
10
Tony Heller again reveals fr@ud in climate data, this time in the “National Climate Assessment” report. No wonder Donald Trump rejected it.
https://youtu.be/j46mnIcz330
112
He has Round 2 up now
https://realclimatescience.com/2018/12/fraud-in-the-national-climate-assessment-part-2/
20
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/15/the-social-benefit-of-carbon/
FTA: A real analysis is where you draw a vertical line down the middle of a sheet of paper. At the top of one side of the paper you write “Costs”, and under that heading, you list the costs of whatever you are analyzing … and at the top of the other side of the paper you write “Benefits” and beneath, you list those benefits. This is what is called a “cost/benefit analysis”, and only considering only the “Costs” column and ignoring the “Benefits” column constitutes scientific malfeasance.
110
I read the article a WUWT regarding The Social Benefits of Carbon; It was a very good article. I’ve thought about why the people who created the Social Cost of Carbon did not also enumerate the Social Benefits of Carbon and I’ve concluded that they probably did get a blank sheet of paper, write the Social Benefits of Carbon at the top of the sheet of paper then they puzzled and puzzled until their Puzzler was sore but their Puzzler just couldn’t come up with anything more (apologies to Dr. Seuss).
31
Ian Plimer on Outsiders today is still trying to get Flannery to debate him on CAGW , me thinks he is wasting his time , no debate required , the evidence is in etc etc etc etc .
Good argument about the one molecule in 85,000 though .
115
It helps the average punter digest the magnitude of human involvement.
His new book is out just before Xmas and hopefully with the backing of Rowan Dean it will sell well.
Good to see him nail Flannery to the mast head, $10 billion for desalination plants we didn’t need. It was particularly cheering to see Plimer say global cooling is coming, Outsiders will soon be saying it has already begun.
155
Imminent Global Cooling is still a matter of faith for the faithful. To say it has begun is jumping the gun.
The facts are currently not with you.
To get any cooling trend of 17 years or more at this point you would need the next 7 years to cool at -0.43°C/decade. That would be nearly 3 times the rate of the last thirty years and in the opposite direction. It could happen, but please recognise how far away that is from being a fact.
32
I prefer Roy’s graph and you can see clearly that we are on our way down.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_November_2018_v6.jpg
Observe the weather and what the oscillations are doing, convince me that the loss of intensity in the subtropical ridge isn’t a global cooling signal.
20
The north pole ice cap should have disappeared by now, but it appears Al Gore was wrong.
https://4k4oijnpiu3l4c3h-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/N_stddev_timeseries1.png
Plimer remarked that the sun is the main driver of earthly climate and CO2 is a harmless trace gas, what is your opinion?
63
Andrew, I dont totally agree, cooling may occur almost catastrophically. Evidence for some ice ages is that they took only 1 or 2 years to be fully blown. The LIA came on fairly fast. Once the albedo at the poles increases so does the ice.
20
The situation could change quickly but it would need a trigger.
10
What was the trigger for Meltwater Pulse 1A?
The whole period from glacial conditions to the Holocene was extraordinary, Oldest Dryas, Bolling dissected by the Younger Dryas, then Allerod and the start of civilisation.
And how does the Antarctic Cold Reversal fit in?
Some of these transitions happened within a couple of decades. Terrifying stuff.
30
Citation needed.
00
I recall when Ian Plimer was championed by many who call themselves “progressives”, as he waged his war on creationists, and the ABC was very happy to give him air time on the subject, as they are very much anti-Christian, and anti-Jew.
When I asked someone who has turned against Plimer about this, their only vaguely coherent response was “He’s being paid to attack the science”.
Funny how the tide can turn like it has…
100
FakeNewsMSM is touting the success of COP24.
at least a couple of “left” websites are revealing its failure:
15 Dec: UK Independent: COP24: Environmental groups criticise ‘morally unacceptable’ climate deal reached after major Poland summit
‘A year of climate disasters and a dire warning from the world’s top scientists should have led to so much more,’ says Greenpeace
by Tom Batchelor
And the meeting postponed decisions on pledging more ambitious action to fight global warming and on regulating the market for international carbon emissions trading…
Alarmed by efforts to include this in the final text of the meeting, the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked an endorsement of the IPCC report mid-way through this month’s talks in the Polish city of Katowice…
The final text at the UN talks omits a previous reference to specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and merely welcomes the “timely completion” of the IPCC report, not its conclusions…
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cop24-climate-change-deal-poland-emissions-global-warming-katowice-paris-agreement-a8685411.html
15 Dec: CommonDreams: ‘Morally Unacceptable’: Final Deal Out of COP24 Sorely Lacking in Urgency and Action, Climate Campaigners Say
“The weak outcome of this COP runs contrary to stark warnings of the IPCC report and growing demand for action from citizens.”
by Julia Conley
Climate action groups slammed the outcome of the 24th annual Conference of the Parties (COP24) in Katowice, Poland on Saturday…
The final agreement left out directives on specific reductions in emissions by 2030.
***While it calls on wealthier countries to clarify how they will provide aid to less well-off countries, many of which are on the front lines of the climate crisis, more in-depth talks about developing countries needs were put off until next year…
“The weak outcome of this COP runs contrary to stark warnings of the IPCC report and growing demand for action from citizens,” said Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe. “Governments have again delayed adequate action to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown. The EU needs to push ahead and lead by example, by providing more support to poor countries and increasing its climate pledge before the UN Secretary General Summit in September 2019. It must be a significant increase, even beyond the 55 percent reduction some Member States and the European Parliament are calling for.”
The inadequate agreement, said the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), was the result not of a lack of understanding at COP24—but a lack of political will…
“In Poland, there’s a clear rift between political elites who are guilty of a lack of ambition and are supporting the continued use of coal while people are calling for strong climate action,” said Greenpeace Poland campaigner Pawel Szypulski…
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/15/morally-unacceptable-final-deal-out-cop24-sorely-lacking-urgency-and-action-climate
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I will keep saying this – the UN is a direct threat to Democracy, and the quiet enjoyment of this planet by all humanity….
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If you were one of the 400 delegates from Guinea, it was a raging success, whatever it might have been about.
60
They have a good excuse for further binges.
41
I wonder how many actually attended a session?
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I guess that ‘Green’ AGL thinks that there must still be money in coal fired power.
I started doing the data for the Base Load around 18 Months ago now, and now I’m onto the daily data for all electrical power generation, so I have been watching all of those coal fired power plants for all that time, every day now, except for when I moved home.
On Saturday, just yesterday, I saw something for the very first time.
ALL four Units at Liddell are on line and generating and delivering power to the grid. At Midday, Unit 3 came back on line and by 5PM, had struggled back to half
ratpower delivery. So all up, that plant is now delivering around 1450MW of power to the grid. So, just using yesterday’s wholesale cost for electricity, that’s making AGL around $3.3 Million ….. per day, just selling their electricity generated at Liddell.Incidentally, at AGL’s nearby Bayswater plant, two of their Units are off line. The two that are on line are generating a (virtual) flat line maximum of 650MW each, so around 1300MW not much less than Liddel’s total for all four Units.
See how good the engineering is for those coal fired Units at Bayswater 650MW from an original design spec of 660MW. Still operating at almost 99% of capability after 33 years, well more than the best case scenario for life span of any wind or solar plant.
Tony/
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“See how good the engineering is for those coal fired Units at Bayswater 650MW from an original design spec of 660MW.”
Tony, this is from an announcement from AGL in Feb 2018.
“By replacing the original turbines with modern turbine technology, Bayswater will have an additional 100MW capacity”
I don’t know any more but it could be new turbines you are referring to.
Graham
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A design so good they can still be upgraded with ease.
Sure beats solar panel chances of surviving 33 years. The costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance history was a hail storm and large hail from severe thunderstorms is predicted in three states today. Medium hail is predicted in a further two.
This guy gets it.
“I was planning that I will make a video about solar panel system. But few night ago there was a….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpJKM65tsCo
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15 Dec: AFP: Nations agree milestone rulebook for Paris climate treaty
But states already dealing with devastating floods, droughts and extreme weather made worse by climate change said the package agreed in the mining city of Katowice lacked the bold ambition to cut emissions the world needed.
Egyptian ambassador Wael Aboulmagd, chair of a the G77 & China negotiating bloc, said the rule book saw the “urgent adaptation needs of developing countries relegated to a second-class status.”
Executive director of Greenpeace Jennifer Morgan said: “We continue to witness an irresponsible divide between the vulnerable island states and impoverished countries pitted against those who would block climate action or who are immorally failing to act fast enough.”…
At their heart, negotiations were about how each nation funds action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as how those actions are reported.
Developing nations wanted more clarity from richer ones over how the future climate fight will be funded and pushed for so-called “loss and damage” measures.
This would see richer countries giving money now to help deal with the effects of climate change many vulnerable states are already experiencing.
Another contentious issue was the integrity of carbon markets, looking ahead to the day when the patchwork of distinct exchanges — in China, the Europe Union, parts of the United States — may be joined up in a global system.
The Paris Agreement calls for setting up a mechanism to guard against practices, such as double counting emissions savings, that could undermine such a market.
A major sticking point, delegates eventually agreed Saturday to kick the issue down the road until next year…
One veteran observer told AFP Poland’s presidency at COP24 had left many countries out of the process and presented at-risk nations with a “take it or leave it” deal.
Progress had “been held up by Brazil, when it should have been held up by the small islands. It’s tragic.”
One of the largest disappointments for countries of all wealths and sizes was the lack of ambition to reduce emissions shown in the final COP24 text.
Most nations wanted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to form a key part of future planning.
It highlighted the need to slash carbon pollution by nearly half before 2030 in order to hit the 1.5C target.
But the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected, leading to watered-down wording.
The final statement from the Polish COP24 presidency welcomed “the timely conclusion” of the report and invited “parties to make use of it” — hardly the ringing endorsement many nations had called for.
“There’s been a shocking lack of response to the 1.5 report,” Greenpeace’s Morgan, told AFP. “You can’t come together and say you can’t do more!”…
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who made three trips to Katowice over the course of the talks, said the world’s climate fight was just beginning.
“From now on my five priorities will be: Ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition,” he said in a message read out by UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa.
With the political climate process well into its third decade sputtering on as emissions rise remorselessly, activists have stepped up grassroots campaigns of civil disobedience to speed up action.
“We are not a one-off protest, we are a rebellion,” a spokesman for the Extinction Rebellion movement, which disrupted at least one ministerial event at the COP, told AFP.
“We are organising for repeated disruption, and we are targeting our governments, calling for the system change needed to deal with the crisis that we are facing.”
https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/nations-agree-milestone-rulebook-paris-climate-treaty-doc-1bm8ty2
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The sad part of this is that the poor nations are putting resources into this effort to extract blood from a stone. The UN has made promises it cannot keep.
US has been visible with leadership in pulling out of the Paris accord. Other “wealthy” countries carry on with the deception giving hope to the “poor” nations that their efforts to extract money is not in vain. For example, what chance has Macron got of making meaningful contributions to the UN so it can dole out welfare with its high administrative costs while yellow vests in France protest rising cost of living. I will be more than disappointed with any Australian government that donates to the UN climate fund. My $3 vote will go to any party that has policy to get out of the Paris accord.
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A small glitch in part of a very long running plan …
Technocratic Dictatorship. https://youtu.be/0kw5AtHyxNc
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TWEET: UN Climate Change @UNFCCC
Euphoria in plenary of #COP24 as the #ParisAgreement Work Programme, the operating guidelines of the agreement, are adopted by all governments, three years after the historic agreement was clinched
VIDEO 47secs
15 Dec 2018
FIRST REPLY:
Felipe Ponce Aragon, Forex trader: You should explain in much greater detail because Reuters says the only agreement was to do reports about the disaster and no agreement was reached about avoiding it. That would be a nazi tactic. Explain.
https://twitter.com/UNFCCC/status/1074052322282622982
short and fake – McGrath’s heart’s not in it:
15 Dec: BBC: Climate change: COP24 deal to bring Paris pact to life
By Matt McGrath
Delegates ***believe the new rules will ensure that countries keep their ***promises to cut carbon…
Is this enough?
Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the Paris agreement, and now with the European Climate Foundation, said the agreement was a big boost for the Paris pact…
She said that countries like Russia which had refused to ratify the Paris agreement because it wasn’t sure about the rules, could no longer use that excuse…
Business is also looking for a signal from this meeting about the future.
“Companies are ready to invest and banks are ready to finance,” said Carlos Salle from Spanish energy conglomerate, Iberdrola.
“So we need that greater ambition in the policy to enable business to move further and faster.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46582025
30
the CAGW mob will continue to dream in trillions…oops, it’s “HUNDREDS OF TRILLIONS” now!
15 Dec: The Intercept: From Obama to Trump, Climate Negotiations Are Being Run by the Same Crew of American Technocrats
by Kate Aronoff
Now, as the $100 billion target grows closer and with even less of a contribution from the U.S., developed countries, including the US, have been pushing back on setting a new target for 2025, despite need far greater than the initial goal…
Now, without a major course correction on mitigation, the need for adaptation is estimated to reach up to ***hundreds of trillions of dollars as soon as 2030…
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/14/cop24-climate-change-talks-paris-agreement/
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I hope “NOT” re Australia
“The Climate Junketteers could not reach agreement on who’s pocket would be picked to fund all their desired bribery fraud money laundering development funds for the “3rd World” now that the USA has taken its pocket away from the table, so extended their “meeting” and “discussions” into the weekend.
Haven’t heard yet if they came to any conclusion on their proposed “rulebook for implementing the Paris accords”. I doubt France will be a good plum to pick, and UK is likely going to be distracted elsewhere. China doesn’t expect to pay and wants to continue claiming they are “special” as a very rich “3rd world” country… Russia isn’t going to do it, as they don’t have money to spare. Africa, South America, and much of Asia is also in the “3rd World give us money” group, not the Deep Pocket group.
Near as I can tell that leaves Germany & Australia as the folks ripe for the picking. Plus maybe some of the Northern Europeans – at least if they can take a break from their migrant riot policing… (Mediterranean EU and Eastern Europe are not particularly brimming with spare change…)
I guess we’ll find out eventually who was the Rube in the Room…”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/cop24-it-is-all-about-3rd-world-development/#comment-105240
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SA power prices rose by 22% this year, we are spending 11% of our income on power bills. 10k disconnections this year 20k for last 2 years.
The lib government are gunna fix it by handing out free batteries to the poor. There is no one left to vote for now.
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The Shorten battery plan is a con job in so far as electricity prices would have to double ( to roughly 70¢ a kWh) to just pay for the setup in 10 years.
The SA Liberal battery plan is less so, in that the State will fork out a $6,000 subsidy to the lucky? recipient, so they would have some hope of getting their money back EXCEPT the State Government DOES NOT have the money so will have to increase taxes and charges so they will get stung anyway. In any case it is supposed to be aimed at the less well off who will be “assisted” to getting finance. I suspect that interest charges will swallow any benefit.
Incidentally, at lunch with a city dwelling mate today and he mentioned the number of shops closing down, even in the fast food courts which are usually busy in Adelaide.
40
Am I correct in remembering that BoM (echoed by ABC and Fairfax) told us in October that Australia would experience its hottest and driest summer EVVAH?
It was all going to be due to the formation of el Nino!!!!!!!!
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Yep they said that Adelaide just had its coldest December day in 50 years
130
On Friday night, we had our wood fire going….
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Just look at their (BoM) summer outlooks (issued in November) to see that have got their below average rainfall predictions wrong for December in Northern Queensland and SE Australia. Except for about one or two days, I would say December has been cooler than normal in Perth and the SW.
Recent rainfall and temperature maps and anomaly maps may be found on the BoM website: here.
90
Looked at the BOM anomaly maps for the last three months, which appeared to indicate that Perth has had “normal” temps. Rubbish! Perth has been a LOT cooler – September had average minimums 3.5 degrees lower than normal. Will look at the averages for October and November soon, but I’m betting that they will be well down compared to the average. And December so far has been cool and very cloudy, much the same, if not more, than the previous two years.
20
The Klimatariat has maintained that an intense high pressure belt is a sign of global warming, but what we observe is the exact opposite.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
So I am unequivocal in my belief that low pressure from the tropics to Antartica is a climate change signal.
10
Outsiders again covered the Maunder Minimum underway and Ian Plimer was asked for his comments.
How much longer must be tolerate ignorant politicians pushing man-made global warming?
162
I guess until enough people wake up to the sc@m and don their y3llow j@ck3ts. 🙁
52
Oops again!
At least 3 construction-related fires broke out at Ontario wind farm weeks before massive wildfire
50
Oops again!
At least 3 construction-related fires broke out at Ontario wind farm weeks before massive wildfire
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/parry-sound-wildfire-wind-farm-1.4930354
50
“Surging levels of greenhouses gases are making people tired and stupid, scientists claim”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/15/surging-levels-of-greenhouses-gases-are-making-people-tired-and-stupid-scientists-claim/
Did they happen to check the CO2 levels in the office where that was written?
160
I wish the ABC would look up the word “Unprecedented” , I’m sure it doesn’t mean what they think it does .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-16/dead-tree-detectives-asked-to-record-impact-of-drought/10623912
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October 19, 1998 …
ANCIENT MASTERPIECES FOUND IN THE SAHARA
At the time the engravings were made the Sahara was a far more hospitable place.
Rather than the parched landscape it is today, it was covered with trees, grasses, rivers, and lakes.
The Sahara began drying some 3,000 years ago, reaching its current state around 2,500 years ago.
“This art depicts another world,” says Coulson, “one in which diverse cultures flourished alongside herds of game.”
https://archive.archaeology.org/9901/newsbriefs/giraffe.html?platform=hootsuite
50
Around 9,500 years ago, the climate in Svalbard was T-shirt weather, much warmer than it is today.
And the paleoclimatologists think that climate could be where the Arctic is headed again
Expedition Braves Arctic Perils for Climate Science
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-scientists-take-ice-cores-svalbard-lakes/
10
On the subject of ‘fake’ Science.
I’m a huge fan of (some) Science Fiction, starting in the early 1970s when I got hold of the (original) 3 book Foundation Series from Isaac Asimov. (where someone, Hari Seldon, a mathematician uses Maths to plot the future history, and here Asimov gave even that a name, Psychohistory) It was, and still is, probably some of the best SF ever written.
That series sort of spoiled me for SF from then on, because I started with the best I guess, but I also liked Bob Heinlein, and EE (Doc) Smith, (but just his seven novel Lensman Series) and more recently, the English author Peter F Hamilton. I prefer (infinitely) Science Fiction over Science Fantasy.
Isaac Asimov is actually a Biochemist, and he had to write a Paper for his PhD, well, naturally, and he had already spent years honing his writing ability to be so good at it, and was worried that he could not write a REAL paper in the usual dry manner of those science papers, so he set about inventing a Paper, and then writing it in as dry a manner as was possible.
He even invented the compound, Thiotimoline.
Read what happened after he did just that. (shown at this link)
Tony.
Incidentally, my name, Anton, came from a SF short story. I am the first born, and both Mum and Dad, both barely 22, were big SF fans and while Mum was heavily pregnant with me, Dad was reading a book of short SF stories. In one of them, the main character was called Anton, and after reading the story, he gave it to Mum, and asked her what he thought of the name. They both loved it, hence ….. me. I had to wait until I was 18 years old before I actually met another person with that same name.
110
Who would believe it? I forgot the link. (here)
Tony.
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16 Dec: SMH: Climate deal falls short, fails to set binding targets
By Brady Dennis, Washington Post
Katowice: Weary climate negotiators have limped across the finish line after days of round-the-clock talks, striking a deal that keeps the world moving forward with plans to curb carbon emissions. But the agreement fell well short of the breakthrough that scientists – and many of the conference’s own participants – say is needed to avoid the cataclysmic impacts of a warming planet…
“In the climate emergency we’re in, slow success is no success,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “In an emergency, if the ambulance doesn’t get you to the hospital in time, you die. If the fire truck doesn’t get to your house in time, it burns down.”…
(Jochen Flasbarth, a top German delegate) said the minimised US role was particularly apparent in negotiations with China, which did not feel as much pressure to ramp up its ambition in fighting climate change as it otherwise might have because the United States was not applying…
“The US role here is somewhat schizophrenic – pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules,” said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Virginia-based nonprofit group…
In another sign of a more difficult environment for climate negotiations this year, text establishing a large part of a planned carbon trading system was scuttled after Brazil, one of the world’s leading greenhouse gas producers, blocked proposals for counting certain emissions.
Brazil led a push for lenient rules that other nations said would weaken the system, which is intended to encourage emissions cuts by creating a market price. With negotiators unable to reach a deal, the issue was punted until next year – a move that Boston College environmental law professor David Wirth said could “delay or undermine confidence among the private sector in undertaking climate-friendly investments – ***one of the most important purposes of the Paris Rulebook”…
After two weeks under the cold, unremittingly gray skies of a December in Poland, negotiators are due to meet in the sun and warmth of Santiago, Chile, next winter.
In between, the UN is hosting a climate summit next September that observers say now takes on crucial importance as a measure of whether countries are serious about upping their ambition.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who led a previous round of UN climate talks and is now leader of the World Wildlife Fund’s global climate and energy practice, said world leaders will need to come through in New York on the promises they have made in Katowice.
“Anything less,” he said, “is a failure in political and moral leadership.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/climate-deal-falls-short-fails-to-set-binding-targets-20181216-p50mje.html
10
15 Dec: Inquirer Philippines: UN climate talks: ‘Rich countries playing cruel joke on developing nations’
By Jhesset O. Enano
KATOWICE, POLAND–Loss and damage appear to remain a lost cause in the recent draft text released during the UN climate talks, gaining the ire of civil society groups who accused rich nations of trying to spin the rules in their favor…
But financing loss and damage, which refers to the irreversible effects of extreme weather events caused by climate change, remained in limbo.
Harjeet Singh, who leads the global climate advocacy of the group ActionAid, said the language of the draft text remained weak.
“The fact is, rich countries are playing a cruel joke on developing countries,” he said during a press briefing on Friday. “The language on the overall text on loss and damage is not operational at all. It just refers to what we already have in the Paris Agreement.”
“The rulebook is about implementing the Paris Agreement; it’s not about picking the same language or diluting it further,” he added.
Loss and damage remained a sticky point in the climate negotiations, with developed countries pushing back against vulnerable countries who strongly demand that these impacts be addressed.
Climate justice expert Julie-Anne Richards expressed disappointment over the continued neglect over loss and damage, which was a standalone article in the Paris Agreement.
“It ignores the dire situation of vulnerable countries who face increasing climate impacts, with stronger intensity of typhoons and droughts,” she said…
In COP23 in Bonn, Germany, last year, financial discussions on loss and damage had also been stalled, with developed countries deflecting discussions on creating a fund that will be used to address the disastrous impacts of climate change.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1063455/un-climate-talks-rich-countries-playing-cruel-joke-on-developing-nations
20
14 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: As it happened: Final scramble for deal at climate talks in Poland
21:58 – Megan Darby – ‘It is so decided’
The room holds its breath as India intervenes to express reservations about the structure of the 5-yearly global stocktake – then sighs with relief when the negotiator adds that it will put that objection in writing and not sink the deal.
The gavel drops and the rulebook to bring the Paris Agreement to life is agreed. Cheers and applause…
21:47 – Megan Darby – NGOs are calling it
As Kurtyka gavels through some of the smaller decisions, press releases from campaign groups start dropping into inboxes.
Most of the NGOs here coordinate through the Climate Action Network and issue their reaction statements at the same time. The fact they are calling it shows they expect the presidency’s text to be adopted.
“No one is entirely happy with this rulebook, but it is an important step,” says Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief. “The foundations of the rules are still the Paris Agreement, which remains as strong as ever. Next year is critical. The 2019 UNSG summit offers all governments the opportunity to report on progress towards new, enhanced targets by 2020. A Latin American COP hosted by Chile in partnership with Costa Rica will also bring new energy and new urgency to these talks. Two clean energy leaders on the frontline of climate change. We look forward to their leadership.”…
21:22 – Megan Darby – This is happening
China’s Xie Zhenhua has walked in with his entourage, so I think they mean it this time…
20:23 – Megan Darby – Turkey acts up
Well, clearly I spoke too soon. Apparently Turkey is using everyone’s desperation to go home as leverage for its pet peeve: changing its official status as a developed country.
Regular readers will recall they raised this same issue on the first day of talks, delaying the opening plenary by two hours.
Whether the result of a clerical error or a misguided negotiating strategy – see this article in Scientific American by Lisa Friedman for context – the country now finds itself ineligible for some sources of climate finance. It is understood to be in discussions with the secretariat on how to fix that.
While this is annoying for those stuck here until the bitter end, it should not fundamentally alter the outcome of the talks…
19:09 – Megan Darby – The end is in sight
Three sources tell us the negotiation over article six, the carbon trading piece, has been resolved. Everyone agreed it was best to defer the substantive decisions to 2019, but the question was what parameters to put on that debate. There was some convergence in the final days of this summit, so should they pick up where they left off or start from scratch? We will have more on the battles to come after this is all over.
In a tweet thread, Nat Keohane from Environmental Defense Fund explained that the impasse need not deter countries from trading carbon in the meantime. Negotiators anticipated this in Paris and “Brazil-proofed” the language, he said.
You can find background on Brazil’s attachment to a carbon market approach that lost favour with the rest of the world in this EDF blog.
Without wishing to jinx it, this should clear the way for the full rulebook to go to the plenary…
15:59 – Megan Darby – Carbon trading talks drag on
The carbon market section of the rulebook – article 6 – will certainly be deferred to 2019, EU commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete tells CHN, but they are still negotiating under what conditions.
The plenary has been deferred to 18:00…
14:34 – Megan Darby – The full text is out
The presidency has published a compilation of all the Paris Agreement rulebook proposals, which run to 160 pages.
It includes a section on the contentious article 6 rules, addressing carbon markets and trading.
There is a low hum of chatter in the plenary hall as delegates file in. Are they ready to do a deal? “Let’s hope, let’s hope,” says Spain’s energy and environment minister Teresa Ribera, looking cheerful enough…
13:09 – Megan Darby -…The last-hour wrangling is over carbon markets (article 6) and the political signals on raising ambition.
Kicking carbon markets to 2019 is far from ideal, said campaigners, but better than accepting the latest version, which was riddled with loopholes. The standoff is between Brazil and a broad coalition of European and climate-vulnerable countries. Brazil is heavily invested in the old clean development mechanism and wants to carry over those projects and a similar approach into the Paris Agreement, while the latter group sees it as unacceptably flawed. As Jair Bolsonaro takes the Brazilian presidency, the political fight is unlikely to get any easier next year…
13:01 – Karl Mathiesen – The plenary, which was scheduled for 1pm has been pushed again. At this stage, we are not going to give any more updates on when the final meeting may begin ***because it’s just too emotional…
12:26 – Karl Mathiesen – The long goodbye that is Brexit continues. Many have wondered whether Britain and the EU would continue to negotiate together at the UNFCCC after the country leaves the union next year. Maybe not.
In a now-deleted tweet, European Commission climate advisor Isaac Valero said the UK delegation made a speech to delegates in the EU coordination meeting saying it may be their last. The speech was met with sustained applause, he said…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/12/14/live-final-scramble-deal-climate-talks-poland/
10
Love the ABC version Pat , complete with the fires in California and Queensland as harbingers of the doom that awaits us all .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-16/united-nations-climate-talks-reach-agreement-on-paris-agreement/10624848
21
ABC were running Matt McGrath’s BBC upbeat COP24 report on radio this morning. as were the Macquarie Network news bulletins.
yesterday, ABC Brisbane, which broadcasts across Qld, spent about half an hour with a BoM guy, an SES guy and someone else I forget, explaining why everything BoM and ABC had been breathlessly reporting about cyclone Owen for days didn’t come to pass:
Cyclone Owen to reach category four today as it closes in on Queensland’s coast
ABC – 2 days ago
ABC totally changed that story once you link on it.
the BoM guy went on about how it didn’t cross as a 4. ABC woman asked about serious flooding to follow. he said there wouldn’t be any because it was just a small system. he also pointed out the BoM advisories on their website needed to be replaced with the less exciting reality.
that didn’t deter ABC. when she finished with him, the presenter followed up by reading the entire BoM website stuff on Owen and how extreme it would be etc.
talking to the SES guy, she tried every which way to make it still sound like a major cyclone, but the guy sounded like he’d just been woken up by ABC and was still drowsy.
utter madness.
50
should have mentioned Macquarie Network followed McGrath with a piece about a single doctor who is planning to protest Adani, because of climate change. can’t find any mention of such a story online.
however, what if a single CAGW sceptic, or simply a pro-coal advocate, announced they were planning a pro-Adani protest. would they find themselves being quoted on the nation’s news bulletins? we know the answer is no they wouldn’t.
20
All part of the ABC sensational over egging of doom and gloom , should have heard them interviewing people caught in the floods around Wangaratta.
20
All happened before. My daughter lives in Wang, she went shopping over in Shepparaton with my wife. No hold ups anywhere. Later she helped friends witha bit of flood damge , which they have had before in North Wang.
01
Does anyone else find this report just a little disturbing?
https://www.intellihub.com/u-s-navy-to-release-genetically-engineered-organisms-into-the-ocean/
And the long term consequences are to be imagined.
70
They’ve been using Dolphins for years and I think seals as well .
40
Aren’t dolphins too smart for kamikaze missions?
31
Sounds like the notes that would scroll across the screen at the start of a Godzilla movie (or is that Godzirra?)
20
Yes rather disturbing
00
so predictable, so phony:
16 Dec: The West Australian: Scientists address climate change and what it really means for WA
by Peter Milne
Climate scientists need to master two atmospheres — a physical one warmed by increasing levels of carbon dioxide and a political one of misinformation and denial.
US President Donald Trump said recently he did not believe parts of a climate change report written by experts from 13 of his own Government’s agencies.
Other leading Republicans dismissed the findings, saying climate scientists were just doing it for money.
It’s a claim that surprised three Perth scientists who worked free of charge for two years to help author a landmark report released last month. The report, by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, looked at the implications for a world that was 1.5C warmer.
Murdoch University atmospheric scientist Dr Jatin Kala, like many climate scientists, is frustrated that so many people reject the findings of their work.
Dr Kala, whose wife is an oncologist, likens deciding on the merits of climate change to seeking medical advice.
“You will always find one doctor who will claim something completely bogus, and there you go, you don’t have consensus,” he said.
He said people who thought the IPCC work came from “just a bunch of greenies and tree huggers” did not appreciate how thorough the process was.
University of WA geographer Professor Petra Tschakert specialises in rural development. She said writing the report “was like a pressure cooker” as the team reviewed vast amounts of scientific literature, went through three reviews and considered more than 42,000 comments.
The final report was more than 700 pages long and referenced more than 6000 scientific papers. “It’s an enormous task but … it’s only through that process of very rigorous draft and review and implementing changes that we can actually guarantee the rigour of the science,” she said.
And extreme temperatures would increase more than the average. “We’re adding more complexity to the system, it becomes more variable,” Dr Kala said.
For a Mediterranean climate such as the South West of WA, which experiences hot summers, the extremes would be severe. “That is why every fraction of a degree of warming matters. We don’t feel the mean temperature, what we feel is the extreme.”
The future for the South West will be drier and hotter.
“What the science is telling us, is with climate change ***these cold fronts are moving further south … we are missing out on the rain,” Dr Kala said…
Curtin University sustainability specialist Professor Peter Newman wrote in the report about responses to climate change and said there was some cause for optimism.
The tremendous increase in solar and wind adoption in the energy sector was unforeseen a few years ago.
“You can bring it on very quickly, so the old ways of building big coal-fired power stations or even nuclear, which takes 17 years on average to build, is just no longer appropriate,” he said.
***Professor Newman said a lot of heavy industry had moved from coal to gas but progress was slow and the sector needed to break away from fossil fuels…
Professor Newman is motivated by his three grandchildren.
“When I look at them and see what the world is going to be like in 2050, it’s touch and go, we have to be serious about it for them,” he said.
“I understand why people would like to think there is a simple future based on what they know from the past, and that this climate change stuff has got to be wrong,”
“But it’s not, it is something we have to face.”
https://thewest.com.au/technology/science/scientists-address-climate-change-and-what-it-really-means-for-wa-ng-b881003330z
50
The IPCC report does come from a bunch of tree hugging greenies .
82
Few folks take Prof Newman seriously in Perth. He keeps coming up with improbable suggestions for public transport. Murdoch Uni is very much a leftist Uni.
12
Is there one that isnt?
00
Lol! That says volumes about what you dont know. 🙂
11
16 Dec: Hindustan Times: COP24 talks: Some countries unhappy with Paris rulebook, say it doesn’t mention urgency of climate change
There are some bright spots in the text, though. It talks about setting a new collective finance goal post 2020, ***higher than the current goal of 100 billion USD per year. The text also urges developed country parties to channel more grant based resources for adaptation to climate change as against loans.
by Jayashree Nandi
The new document, which runs into 156 pages, is marginally stronger than the previous draft and has managed to incorporate some crucial issues related to ‘loss and damage,’ ‘climate finance’ and ‘differentiation.’…
“Each interested Party ***may provide, as appropriate, information related to enhancing understanding, action and support, on a cooperative and facilitative basis, to avert, minimize and address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts,” the text states…
Experts said the text says developed countries are expected to voluntarily inform the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and developing nations about the finance that will come in for adaptation which is a weak link. They are also not expected to share how much of the finance will be in grants or in loans. The text only urges developed countries to channel the substantial part of funds through grant based funding.
Civil society organisations were expecting ‘loss and damage’ to be incorporated in most of the text which didn’t happen…
“Our governments have failed us. Some of the most powerful countries in the world are led by reactionary climate deniers… Rich countries have a moral and a legal responsibility… Instead of taking this seriously, they pushed through a rulebook riddled with loopholes allowing them to avoid this responsibility,” said Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change for Action Aid International. He added that “You have to understand that with the current agreement we are set for 3 degree warming.”…
NH Ravindranath, climate scientist from the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) who has authored several IPCC reports, said, “IPCC’s findings are based on science. Extreme climate change is a fact. The governments have to recognise the findings, and reduce global emissions by 45% by 2030. This is the biggest challenge which is not acceptable by petroleum exporting countries (PLENTY OF THEM) and coal based economies…” (INCUDING INDIA AND CHINA, & MUCH OF SE ASIA, ETC?)
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/cop24-talks-least-developed-countries-unhappy-with-paris-rulebook-say-it-doesn-t-mention-urgency-of-climate-change/story-FooO55xbb3bZDuq2IKmeWO.html
20
Was Cyclone Owen actually a cyclone?
It wandered about in the Gulf of Carpentaria and did not go too close to any of the BOM measuring stations. The maximum gust I found in the record at Mornington Is was 26 kts which is a stiff breeze.
TC Owen crossed the coast near the aboriginal community of Kowanyama. The ABC report said:” There have been no reports of any damage”.
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-15/cyclone-owen-downgraded-to-tropical-low-over-cape-york/10622920
62
Outsiders interviewed Pauline Hanson from North Queensland somewhere on the coast and there was bugger all wind and steady rain like you’d expect this time of the year .
52
Robert rosicka – just remembered it was a priet, not a doctor, who was featured on Macquarie Network news bulleting, in tandem with the COP24 item. behind paywalls:
Priest vows to block Adani bulldozers
Queensland Times-11 hours ago
Priest vows to block Adani bulldozers … Dr Catt is a member of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change which plans to send … Religious leaders standing up to stop new coal mines is a powerful statement to …
Leading Christian Dr Peter Catt vows to block Adani bulldozers
One of Queensland’s leading Christian figures has vowed to go to extreme lengths in a bid to stop Adani’s mega-mine going ahead, and called on followers of other religions to join him…
10
this is a small, unelected group of activists, empowered by the MSM, evidence once again by the amount of wuotes in the following:
16 Dec: news.com.au: Sam Clench: Protesters ambush Bill Shorten at Labor’s National Conference
Seconds after walking on stage for his speech to Labor’s National Conference, Bill Shorten was suddenly ambushed by protesters.
The audience of 400 delegates and 1000 observers at the Adelaide Convention Centre had been thoroughly warmed up by Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, national president Wayne Swan and South Australian opposition leader Peter Malinauskas when Mr Shorten finally strolled onto the stage.
A protester, 25-year-old Isaac Astill, quickly appeared next to him. As Mr Shorten took his position behind the lecturn, Mr Astill stood beside him and unfurled a banner bearing the words “Stop Adani”.
“Will you please stop the Adani coal mine? There are bushfires across Queensland, heat records are tumbling, the Great Barrier Reef is heading for a third bleaching event, we have to stop the Adani coal mine,” he said.
“Oh mate. Alright,” Mr Shorten said, before letting Mr Astill make his point.
“Thanks for making that statement. Do I get to keep the flag?” he asked.
“You can keep the flag if you like, absolutely, of course,” the protester replied.
“Good on you mate, cheers. See ya,” Mr Shorten said…
“I think our visitor should leave the stage now,” Mr Swan said. “Show him the way out, thank you.”
But the fiasco continued, as more protesters appeared at Mr Shorten’s other shoulder.
“OK. Which one’s this?” he quipped.
“We’ll call for the escorts,” Mr Swan interjected.
“We’re Australia’s oldest political party. We have a proud history of democracy, we all understand the right to protest. But that doesn’t include the right to drown out the leader of the opposition. So could you please leave the stage?”…
News.com.au spoke to Mr Astill after the incident. He rejected the idea that his protest was disrespectful towards Mr Shorten.
“I thought it was a funny thing to say that the Labor Party supports the right to protest, but doesn’t support the right to interrupt the leader of the opposition,” he said.
“If they support the right to protest, they should support my protest.
“What’s disrespectful is the Labor Party standing idly by while bushfires sweep across Queensland. While heat records tumble. While the Great Barrier Reef heads for its third bleaching event.
“Civility isn’t working. The major parties aren’t working. We do need to escalate. We need to make them realise we won’t back down.”
Mr Astill was complimentary of the way Mr Shorten handled the encounter — with one major caveat.
“I appreciate his respectful response, but we’ll appreciate it a whole lot more when he finally shows some leadership and comes out against the Adani coal mine,” he said…
In a statement, the Stop Adani protesters revealed why they had interrupted the Labor leader.
“80 per cent of Labor supporters believe new coal mines are no longer in the national interest. Yet Bill Shorten and the Labor Party still support Adani’s mine, opening up one of the largest untapped coal reserves on Earth,” Mr Astill said.
“Bill Shorten wants to be our next prime minister. Australians are looking for political leaders who will stand up to the mining billionaires who are keeping our economy in the dark ages and putting our future at risk.”
Another of the protesters, 49-year-old Donna Smit, said she disrupted Mr Shorten because “he refuses to pay attention to our climate emergency”.
“Coal is fuelling climate change, resulting in deadly heatwaves, bushfires, droughts and storms. We need Labor to take the lead on climate change by committing to stop Adani’s coal mine now,” Ms Smit said…
Yesterday, while he toured Adelaide Central Market and spoke to the media, he was confronted by more Adani protesters who heckledy him and urged him to “take action on climate change”..
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/protesters-ambush-bill-shorten-at-labors-national-conference/news-story/ff5218b2d55f8b0a580957beed4bb1ad
the MSM has a history of totally ignoring protests when they don’t suit their agenda, so they’ve really exposed ther bias in such reports.
20
Lil Bill has already worked out he can’t stop Adani by conventional means when he gets in next year so he has come up with a proposal to have a federal EPA with the last say on any venture that may affect ground water .
Not sure if the states will agree on this but after next years NSW election there won’t be many liberal states left to complain .
70
just more entitiled richard_heads that think their bellowing 15 minutes of fame trumps everyone else right to have a meeting and talk to one another. Can you imagine how they go through life and what a pain they must be to know?
00
Thanks Australia for recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel. It didn’t go quite as far as most would like but it’s nice to have another traveler on the right road. It can get mighty lonely when you do the right thing instead of the wrong one or do nothing at all.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Useful graphic to show global land use…
https://7gigzxopz0uiqxo1-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/25fd4374-8393-4f15-bd62-38bda24041f9-1143×800.png
Ummm, 1% urban.
30
Definitely a “Who’d have thunk it”
“Californian Climate Scientists Discover Farmers Adapt to Changed Conditions”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/16/californian-climate-scientists-discover-farmers-adapt-to-changed-conditions/
50
Poor review of literature in that discovery by the way – it has been written about before re modelling of farming and what happens in practice.
And generalised to “not only corn”
30
Sydney mentioned again
“What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
https://realclimatescience.com/2018/12/what-could-possibly-go-wrong-4/
20
For the purposes of compiling data for determining global air temperature trends I fail to see the difference between using thermometers located in such places and the ones placed near active volcanoes. Do they use them as well?
20
The drop in temperatures around 2000 (on the island) is an anomaly worth further investigation.
20
“The Twisted Religion of the Radical Left”
“Commentators have accurately noted how social justice seems to take the form of a religion. This captures the meaning and fulfilment I found in protests and occupations. It also captures how, outside of these harrowing festivals, everyday life in radical communities is mundane but pious. As a radical activist, much of my time was devoted to proselytizing. Non-anarchists were like pagans to be converted through zines and wheatpasted posters rather than by Bible and baptism. When non-radicals listened to my assertions that nazis deserved death, that all life had devolved into spectacle, and that monogamy was a capitalist social construct, they were probably bewildered instead of enticed.
No worldview maps reality perfectly. But when a worldview encounters discordant knowledge, it can either evolve to accommodate it, or it can treat it as a threat to the worldview’s integrity. If a worldview treats all discordant knowledge as threat, then it is an ideology. Its adherents learn to see themselves as guardians rather than seekers of the truth. The practical consequences of such a worldview can be devastating.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/12/16/the-twisted-religion-of-the-radical-left/
20
What a lot of weasel words out of COP24 in Katowice.
Governments have adopted a robust set of guidelines.
The agreed ‘Katowice Climate Package’ is designed to operationalize the climate change regime contained in the Paris Agreement. Under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, it will promote international cooperation and encourage greater ambition.
The guidelines will promote trust among nations including a process for establishing new targets on finance from 2025 onwards to follow-on from the current target of mobilizing USD 100 billion per year from 2020 to support developing countries.
Countries are encouraged to factor the outcome of the dialogue into efforts to increase their ambition and to update their nationally determined contributions, which detail nations’ climate actions, in 2020.
I can’t see any information on specific actions planned by the G20 nations. G20 countries account for 74% of current global greenhouse gas emissions. None of the countries that make up the G20 group of major world economies is on course to adequately reduce climate change, with 82% of the bloc’s energy supply still coming from fossil fuels.
70
So how is the UN going to stop the building of several hundreds of new coal fired power stations by Asian nations?
80
They will turn a blind eye, because CO2 has nothing to do with climate change and its really all about the transfer of wealth from the first world to the upwardly mobile third world.
You won’t see an island nation criticising the building of new coal fired power stations outside of Australia.
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Of course. It was a rhetorical question in case you didn’t know. Even a child of average intelligence would understand the truth if given all the real information. Clearly that means there are many adults running around with too much to say who are either of very low intelligence or deliberately telling lies to perpetrate a scam. The only unknown is the proportion represented by both.
40
Its not low intelligence, more to do with the big lie as told through the MSM.
40
A tip for Xmas reading from an email just received
Gabrielle Chan “Rusted off: why country Australia is fed up”
30
A documentary on extraterrestrials is due out next year, here is the trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q2kYGro4DI
Further to this, why is China putting a rover on the dark side of the moon?
40
“why is China putting a rover on the dark side of the moon?”
They have just discovered Pink Floyd, of course.
54
One story going the rounds is that ‘the Chang’e 4 landing site has not been confirmed, but it is widely expected to be inside the South Pole-Aitken basin. At 2500 km in diameter and 8 km deep, this is the largest impact basin on the moon. Unlike those on the near side, it has for some reason not been flooded by lavas, so it offers us a window deep into the Moon’s crust for study of the lunar interior.’
IFL Science
20
The main aim is to prove or disprove the NASA pics of alien structures.
00
ba-dom-tish!! if you liked that folks, he is here all week
30
bits & pieces:
16 Dec: Daily Caller: POWELL: New Facts Indicate Mueller Destroyed Evidence, Obstructed Justice
by Sidney Powell
(Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor and veteran of 500 federal appeals, is the author of “LICENSED TO LIE: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.” She is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and senior policy adviser for America First)
https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/16/mueller-destroyed-evidence/
16 Dec: GatewayPundit: Jim Hoft: DEEP STATE CROOKS: Mueller Took Down Strzok’s 302 Report AFTER STRZOK WAS CAUGHT in Text Messages PLOTTING AGAINST TRUMP
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/deep-state-crooks-mueller-took-down-strzoks-302-report-after-strzok-was-caught-in-text-messages-plotting-against-trump/
Gaetz implicates some Republicans:
Youtube: 4min24ec: (Repubican Rep. Matt Gaetz Appears on Hannity 12-14-18
Rep. Gaetz appears on Hannity with Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) to discuss Comey (AND ROSENSTEIN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz6_nGgPOSY
14 Dec: Judicial Watch: Judicial Watch: Documents Reveal Obama State Department Urgently Provided Classified ‘Russiagate’ Documents to Multiple Senators Immediately Ahead of Trump Inauguration
Judicial Watch today released two sets of heavily redacted State Department documents, 38 pages and 48 pages, showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN)…
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-documents-reveal-obama-state-department-urgently-provided-classified-russiagate-documents-to-multiple-senators-immediately-ahead-of-trump-inauguration/
40
One for the investors &/or gamblers.
This post is written by someone in Aussie for a NZ political site (mainly political).
https://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2018/12/98-of-climate-predictors-agree/
20
A bit of a risk considering NOAA temperature and real global temperature have very little in common. 😉
53
a totally demoralised Nitin Sethi’s only tweet since COP24 came to an end. he still hasn’t written anything about the outcome:
TWEET: Nitin Sethi, Business Standard India
Cant figure who to tell, the ones inside that the outside world faces a crisis. Or the ones outside: please understand the geopolitical realities of today. Do not let some fool you. #COP24 #ParisAgreement #UNFCCC #ClimateChange
18h ago
still, there’s not a single google result – MSM or social media – showing up about Nitin’s blockbuster expose on Climate Analytics/Bill Hare. believe, me virtually all the thousand-plus “journos” at COP24 know Nitin and they know about this article.
Climate Analytics hasn’t tweeted anything since 14 Dec when Nitin published his piece.
https://twitter.com/nit_set/status/1074180916984078337
Bill Hare has only re-tweeted on his Twitter page since Nitin published, with the only one since 15 Dec being a re-tweet of a 3min55sec Channel 7 video on the anti-Adani protest at the Labor conference, which is almost entirely without sound (scroll down):
7 News Sydney
Hundreds of angry protesters have marched outside the National Labor Conference in Adelaide, calling for @AustralianLabor to take action on climate change. It comes after @billshortenmp’s big moment was hijacked by activists this morning. #LabConf18 #auspol #7News
7 News Adelaide
VIDEO
https://twitter.com/7NewsSydney/status/1074159061082361857
10
one important COP24 piece by Nitin Sethi which was originally behind a paywall. much of what he writes went unreported elsewhere.
while the FakeNewsMSM blame Trump, Nitin reports ***otherwise:
6 Dec: BusinessStandardIndia: Katowice climate talks: US, EU refuse disclosure on climate finance
***The developed countries instead demanded that developing countries provide information on how they would also contribute to climate finance
by Nitin Sethi
Katowice climate talks: US, EU refuse disclosure on climate finance
The developed countries instead demanded that developing countries provide information on how they would also contribute to climate finance rules to the Paris Agreement not ask them to divulge how much money they would provide in future for loss and damage caused to poor countries by climate change.
They instead demanded that developing countries provide information on how they would also contribute to climate finance – something the Paris Agreement does not have provisions for.
Developed countries also refused to set a baseline year to which their future financial contributions under the Paris Agreement could be compared to see if they are contributing more to the funds than what they do pre-2020.
The Paris Agreement, which is to be implemented from 2021, requires the developed countries to enhance their contributions.
“We do not understand what a baseline is,” the US said…
All rich countries and their country groups also said they would not set a date by which they would start providing this whittled down information on climate finance.
Drawing deeply contentious red-lines, developed countries additionally vetoed any proposal that countries systematically assess and review their upfront information on future climate finance flows under the Paris Agreement.
The developed countries took these positions in a ***closed-door meeting held on December 5. This led to heated debates with developing countries, including India, the Africa Group, China and others who accused developed countries of walking away from the commitments they had made under Paris Agreement in 2015.
Business Standard reviewed records of the meeting maintained by negotiators internally…
On December 6, when the first formal draft of the climate finance rules was released, the hard red-lines developed countries had drawn showed up as bracketed text. Any text in the draft documents that is presented within brackets indicates that consensus does not exist on those issues.
“This is plain ridiculous. They said they shall start negotiating on climate finance but all they want is to have a carte blanche. They want the freedom to provide whatever information they want to. They do not want anyone to review it. They do not want to even indicate how much money they might provide for loss and damage caused to poor vulnerable countries. Instead, they say we should tell how much developing countries will provide,” said a developing country negotiator present in the meeting.
Developing countries did not mince their words even within the meeting, show records.
South Africa, speaking for all African countries said, “We are operationalising obligations of developed country partners under the Paris agreement. This (the provisions under Paris Agreement for providing upfront information on climate finance) does not apply to developing countries. This deadline is not for us. This deadline is you. There is no going back on Paris agreement. This is a red line for us – we will not be party to any decision that lumps us together again. We are not going to renegotiate Paris Agreement.”
Along with India, China and other like-Minded Developing Countries, the Africa Group insisted that the developed countries start providing indicative upfront information from 2020.
Even as Africa Group, India and China insisted that the rules adhere to the Paris Agreement, developed countries listed out more red-lines and deletions they wanted from the rules on climate finance.
They insisted there should not be a post-facto review of how developed countries actually deliver against the finance they promise to provide – what is referred to as the ex-ante information on climate finance under Article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement.
Brazil countered this by stating, “This is not information not just for the sake of information but it is linked to the issue of ambition from developing countries. More ambition on finance means more ambition on climate action,”
Ecuador, speaking for the Like-minded Developing Countries asked how would the world be assured that there was progression on climate finance fund flows over time, as the Paris Agreement requires, if a post-factor assessment was not provided for in the rule-book.
India also pointed out that the developed countries should be required to clearly say how much of the future financial flows would be new and additional and not double accounting of their existing financial obligations such as overseas development assistance.
By the afternoon of December 6, the deep divide between developed and developing countries had spread to other elements of climate finance rule-book as well.
“After a year of stonewalling, on December 4 they (developed countries) said they will finally start talking of climate finance. This might sound harsh, but they are negotiating in bad faith. ***It is not just the US, ***all developed countries have come together on it while in public some of them claim to be leaders on climate change,” said another developing country lead negotiator present at the closed-door meeting.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/katowice-climate-talks-us-eu-refuse-disclosure-on-climate-finance-118120600819_1.html
20
Maybe a large part of the CO2 increase was caused by termites awaking after the LIA made them drowsy…
From https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-11/cp-4tm111318.php
4,000-year-old termite mounds found in Brazil are visible from space
This natural source of methane and CO2 could not be in the IPCC original assessment as it was unknown at the time. Will they reconsider the assessment taking this and many other natural CO2 sources into consideration — I doubt it.
40
from an earlier comment:
14 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: As it happened: Final scramble for deal at climate talks in Poland
21:47 – Megan Darby – NGOs are calling it
As Kurtyka gavels through some of the smaller decisions, press releases from campaign groups start dropping into inboxes.
***Most of the NGOs here coordinate through the Climate Action Network and issue their reaction statements at the same time…
—
UNLESS ALL THE UNELECTED NGOs UNDER CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK (CAN) ARE REMOVED FROM FUTURE CLIMATE TALKS, PEOPLE SHOULD TELL THEIR GOVERNMENTS NOT TO ATTEND, BECAUSE CAN IS SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE IPCC.
Influence Watch: Non-profit: Climate Action Network International (CAN-I)
Washington DC Formation: 1989
Over 1,100 member organizations
The organization was founded shortly after the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). While its original intent was to serve as the coordinating committee for the IPCC, the group slowly evolved into a policy and activism network…
Some chapters of Climate Action Network-International are involved in questionable activities. For example, three members including the head of the Chesapeake chapter were logged in a police database as being “suspected of involvement in terrorism” for a 13 month stretch while others were arrested for disrupting government functions in Maryland and dumping coal on the U.S. Capitol lawn…
CAN chapters have a reputation for aggressive leftism: the Washington Post noted that anti-Trump administration groups were raising funds for its D.C. area chapter. The organization has even challenged and protested the Washington Nationals for receiving financial support from ExxonMobil. Exxon’s funds were directly supporting the promotion of a more environmentally friendly stadium…
Further, CAN even quarrels with other green groups for not being extreme enough. The New York Times notes members of CAN-I have feuded with other environmentalists about wind energy…
While at odds with less extreme environmentalists, CAN-I is has a working relationship with labor unions. At the recent Paris COP21 climate meeting, CAN-I organized a panel discussion and press briefing to discuss “getting human rights and labor provisions embedded in the Paris climate agreement.
CAN-I’s attempt to integrate the labor movement into the green movement was successful, with the Paris agreement becoming the first climate accord to feature labor relations language. Because of CAN-I’s actions, the AFL-CIO endorsed its first climate agreement since its string of opposition all the way back to the Kyoto Protocol…
Climate Action Network International was founded in 1989 a year after the creation of the (IPCC by the) World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environmental Program…
While CAN-I has a massive reach, it achieves this by means of a very short and select donor list, some of whom are anonymous. Its declared funders for 2015 were:
•Avaaz
•Beyond 2015
•Brot für die Welt
•Christian Aid
•CISU
•Climate Vulnerable Forum
•ClimateWorks
•European Climate Foundation
•ForUM
•Fundación Integral de Desarrollo
•Global Health Alliance
•Greenpeace
•GSCC
•HELIO International
•Misereor
•Res Publica
•Sierra Club US
•Sticht Global Climate Action
•Union of Concerned Scientists
•USCAN
•WEDO
•WWF
Affiliated Organizations
The international Climate Action Network claims to represent 120 countries and contain over 1100 member organizations. Some are progressive groups from outside the environmentalist movement, like the Center for Social Inclusion, which aims “to dismantle structural racial inequity”. One reason CAN-I has such a large member participation is that any non-governmental organization can fill out a Google Doc form to apply for membership…
Further, CAN-I counts chapters of an organization in its membership number. For example, Greenpeace inflates CAN’s member count by 17 for each nation Greenpeace has a presence in while also counting the United States twice. CAN-I member organizations include:
•350.org: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, United States
•ActionAid: Australia, Bangladesh, India, UK, United States
•Arise for Social Justice: United States
•California Student Sustainability Coalition: United States
•CARE: Bangladesh, Denmark, Switzerland, Uganda, Vanatu, United States
•Center for Climate Protection: United States
•Center for Popular Democracy: United States
•Center for Social Inclusion: United States
•Climate Justice Program: United States
•Climate Reality: United States
•Earth Justice: United States
•Friends of the Earth: United States
•Greenpeace: South Africa, Australia, Fiji, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Greece, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
REFERENCES…
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/climate-action-network-international/
WMO History: 1988: WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change established.
Wikipedia: IIPCC: Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)…
30
Farmers for Climate Action
FCA is an associate member of the National Farmers Federation, a member of the Climate Action Network Australia, and we work closely with stakeholders within the agricultural and climate realms…
We are a not-for-profit public company (ACN: 617 941 376) limited by Guarantee…
FROM BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Anna Rose
Anna Rose is an Innovation Fellow with one of Australia’s major philanthropic funds, the Myer Foundation. Anna previously co-founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition…
https://www.farmersforclimateaction.org.au/
16 Dec: ClimateActionNetwork: COP24: Countries struggle to muster political will to tackle climate crisis
Submitted by D Parthasarathy
The United States and a handful of rogue nations like Saudi Arabia sought to routinely disrupt the process but far too many countries came unprepared to strengthen the international climate regime and chose to stay on the sidelines…
The overbearing presence of the fossil fuel industry combined with a weak Polish Presidency cast a dark shadow over these talks…
The dearth of adequate finance of most countries continues to undermine trust…
Developed countries must also honour the $100bn in the next two years…
Outside the isolation tank of the COP is the real world ***where thousands of children are boycotting school to demand action, people are taking on fossil fuel lobbies, risking arrest and bringing cities to a halt and farmers are marching against escalating impacts…
The arrest, detention and deportation of participants entering COP24 by Polish authorities shows how civil society voices are actively stifled and people are prevented from doing their work on climate change. It is the responsibility of the UN to ensure this can never happen again and guidelines are in place in host countries for international conferences…
Members from Climate Action Network react…CHECK WHO IS QUOTED
http://www.climatenetwork.org/press-release/cop24-countries-struggle-muster-political-will-tackle-climate-crisis
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easy to find online that Michael Oppenheimer co-founded Climate Action Network, but only Richard Lindzen (after a long search) gives a hint, perhaps as to who he co-founded it with:
Cornell Uni Library: Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?
by Richard S. Lindzen Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(Submitted on 22 Sep 2008 (v1), last revised 8 Oct 2012 (this version, v4))
RIGHT COLUMN DOWNLOAD 36-PAGE PDF
Abstract
(p6/7) In 1989, following the public debut of the issue in the US in Al Gore’s famous Senate hearing featuring Jim Hansen associating the warm summer of 1988 with global warming, the Climate Action Network was created. This organization of over 280 ENGO’s has been at the center of the climate debates since then. The Climate Action Network, is an umbrella NGO that coordinates the advocacy efforts of its members, particularly in relation to the UN negotiations. Organized around seven regional nodes in North and Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, CAN represents the majority of environmental groups advocating on climate change, and it has embodied the voice of the environmental community in the climate negotiations since it was established.
The founding of the Climate Action Network can be traced back to the early involvement of scientists from the research ENGO community. These individuals, including Michael Oppenheimer from Environmental Defense, Gordon Goodman of the Stockholm Environmental Institute (formerly the Beijer Institute), and George Woodwell of the Woods Hole Research Center were instrumental in organizing the scientific workshops in Villach and Bellagio on ‘Developing Policy Responses to Climate Change’ in 1987 as well as the Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in June 1988. It should be noted that the current director of the Woods Hole Research Center is John Holdren. In 1989, several months after the Toronto Conference, the emerging group of climate scientists and activists from the US, Europe, and developing countries were brought together at a meeting in Germany, with funding from Environmental Defense and the German Marshall Fund. The German Marshall Fund is still funding NGO activity in Europe…
(p8) Perhaps the most impressive exploitation of climate science for political purposes has been the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by two UN agencies, UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) and WMO (World Meteorological Organization), and the agreement of all major countries at the 1992 Rio Conference to accept the IPCC as authoritative….
https://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3762
Jan 2011: Climate Depot: Marc Morano: UN IPCC’s Michael Oppenheimer: ‘An activist first — A scientist a distant second’ — Scientific work ’roundly trashed’ even by fellow warmists!
Scientist to the Hollywood Stars: Oppenheimer ‘was the holder of the ‘Barbra Streisand Chair of Environmental Studies’ at EDF
http://www.climatedepot.com/2011/01/04/un-ipccs-michael-oppenheimer-an-activist-first-a-scientist-a-distant-second-scientific-work-roundly-trashed-even-by-fellow-warmists/
Wikipedia: Michael Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is co-founder of the Climate Action Network…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Oppenheimer
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am sure everyone is thoroughly SICK AND TIRED of almost every MSM CAGW report including quotes from Greenpeace and/or WWF:
ClimateActionNetwork: Wael Hmaidan – Executive Director
The Executive Director of CAN develops and implements strategic plans for CAN, which assist in guiding the CAN Network and its membership…
Wael Hmaidan is the Executive Director of CAN International, the largest network of International and national NGOs working on climate change with 20 offices around the world.
He is also expert advisor to the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 45 developing countries working on climate change…
***Mr. Hmaidan also advises various other governments, UN Agencies, and other institutions on climate change policy.
He is a regular speaker on climate policy in various forums, including UNFCCC, UN General Assembly, UNDP, UNEP, OECD, etc. Mr. Hmaidan has more than 20 years of experience in climate change policy.
***His work on this issue started in his capacity as the Greenpeace campaigner for the Arab World…
CAN INTERNATIONAL BOARD INCLUDES:
Elina Doszhanova, Anti-harassment/Anti-bullying focal point, CAN EECCA
Christian Holz, Anti-harassment/Anti-bullying focal point CAN-Rac Canada
Sven Harmling, CARE International
Ram Kishan, Christian Aid, India
Xiajie Li, CANGO, China
Julie-Anne Richards, CAN Australia
Harjeet Singh, Action Aid
Mandy Woods, WWF International, South Africa
http://www.climatenetwork.org/profile/wael-hmaidan-executive-director
ClimateActionNetwork: Stephan Singer – Senior Advisor Global Energy Policies
The Senior Advisor Global Energy Policies works with the CAN members and external influential institutions such as IEA, IRENA and the IPCC on analysis of implementation of and advocacy for clean energy policy that is based on 100% renewables and strong energy efficiency for all people by mid-century and critique on governments and institutions that oppose that necessary target for meeting the ultimate objectives of both, the Paris treaty and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The position supports for CAN international Initiatives such as REN21 and the African Renewable Energy Initiative…
Dr Stephan Singer has spent the last 23 years with ***WWF Germany, ***WWF Europe and ***WWF International. His last role, starting in 2009, was ‘Director Global Energy Policy’…
Before joining WWF he was a strong anti-nuclear activist in Germany, a journalist, and he also worked for four years for GIZ in India and Kenya on poverty alleviation with subsistence farming in semi-arid tropics.
***Stephan has been driving the global move to 100% renewables in WWF for the past few years. He is a strong supporter of a Just and Fair Transition to 100% Renewables in all countries, coupled with significant public and private financial shifts away from fossil fuels and nuclear, towards a much more equitable world…
Stephan is a regular and invited peer-reviewer of the annual IEA World Energy Outlook, a regular CSO reviewer of some of the IPCC work (WG III, mitigation), and chairperson of the Renewable Grid Initiative (RGI) in Europe. He will be working from Brussels where he lives with his family.
http://www.climatenetwork.org/profile/stephan-singer-senior-advisor-global-energy-policies
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If all companies involved with fossil fuels got together and pulled the pin for just 12 hours even six , attitudes would change pretty quick smart .
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some updates on Lindzen’s names:
AUDIO: 23 Nov: PBS: ‘It’s happening, it’s now,’ says U.S. government report on climate change
On Friday, the federal government released its most dramatic report yet on the effects of climate change. According to scientists, the country is already experiencing serious consequences from rising global temperatures, including more frequent and severe storms, fires and flooding.
John Yang talks to Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.
Read the Full Transcript
(EXCERPT)
Michael Oppenheimer: I think the skeptics really aren’t a factor anymore. The science is so compelling and the consequences have been so vivid that in a way this has liberated to allow scientists doing these kinds of assessments to really say I think what’s been on their minds for the whole time.
I think the scientific community, while it’s done yeoman’s service, has also to a certain degree been a little timid. And, in this report, in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a couple of weeks ago, you see the clear messages coming through, unvarnished, unhidden by fancy scientific language. They’re calling it like it is, for a change…
John Yang: The report also seems to take special note or a special warning that the effects are uneven, that the poorer communities are going to be affected more, according to the report, and coastal communities will be adversely affected more, according to the report.
Michael Oppenheimer: Well, for the poor, it’s really a double whammy, unfortunately. BLAH BLAH
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/its-happening-its-now-says-u-s-government-report-on-climate-change
2008: Guardian: Obituary: Gordon Goodman
Ecologist with an early interest in environmental issues
by Miles Chadwick
Long before the words environment or ecology were on everyone’s lips, (Welshman) Gordon Goodman, who has died aged 82, was engaged scientifically, professionally and socially in these fields…
In 1972 Gordon moved to the chair of applied biology at Chelsea College, University of London. He established a research centre there with close links to the UN environment programme…
He also wrote the terms of reference of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, a worldwide network of scientists, and presented the submissions that persuaded governments to establish a global environmental monitoring system.
Gordon visited Sweden on a Winston Churchill memorial fellowship to learn methods of measuring mercury in aquatic ecosystems, and in 1977 he was invited to become the founding director of the Beijer Institute in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The institute was set up to study the problems of energy use, environmental impacts and economic growth and development. Under Gordon’s direction, it studied the environmental impacts of increased coal use in Europe, energy risks worldwide, including climate change, nuclear waste storage and management, renewable energy technologies, including the extensive Kenya Woodfuel Development Programme and rural electrification. He also drafted the energy chapter of the Brundtland Commission’s Our Common Future, convened by the UN in 1983. In addition, he established working groups on the science, effects and socio-economic aspects of climate change.
In 1989, the Swedish government set up a new agency, the Stockholm Environment Institute, and Gordon was invited to be its first director. It covered much of the ground dealt with by the Beijer Institute but widened its remit to include environmental and development issues. The UN Conference on Environment and Development was being planned, and Gordon was appointed an honorary science adviser to Maurice Strong.
His advice was always soundly based on scientific evidence, practical and given in such a way that the receivers came away with a spirit of determination and a vision of possibilities for the future. All this was done with an engaging sense of humour and an unerring eye for the ridiculous…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/26/1
Wikipedia: George M. Woodwell
He co-founded the Environmental Defense Fund…
Woodwell founded the Woods Hole Research Center in 1985 in Woods Hole…
He is retired, but retains the title of Director Emeritus.
He was one of the first scientists to sound the alarm on climate change, and he first testified to Congress about climate change impacts in 1986…
His research on pesticides focused on DDT where he and other fellow scientists were one of the first to document about the harmful effects of DDT on wildlife which led to the ban of DDT in the US. The banning of DDT gave rise to the Environmental Defense Fund along with the Natural Resources Defense Council which Woodwell contributed significantly to…
Woodwell has done extensive research on carbon budgeting in North American forests, and estuaries. He applied the knowledge of Dr. Charles David Keeling’s carbon monitoring work to develop a theory that climate change was associated with human activities where he raised concerns to the US Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Woodwell
Woodwell may be “retired”, but he’s still busy! this dispute has been going on for years:
15 Oct: CapeCodTimes: What’s next for Falmouth turbines?
by Christine Legere
On Monday, the public will get a glimpse of what the future holds for two 400-foot wind turbines that have stood silent and unused since a Barnstable Superior Court judge ordered them to never again operate at their wastewater treatment plant location 18 months ago…
One turbine won’t be allowed to operate again in town, but the the second may one day spin on some other local land…
The two wind turbines proved to be a source of bitter debate – and attracted several lawsuits – since the day they started spinning…
***George Woodwell, a Woods Hole scientist and member of The Green Center, has a different opinion. His group currently has an appeal of Moriarty’s ruling in Massachusetts Appeals Court and wants the turbines to be restarted rather than dismantled.
Woodwell called the decision to erect the turbines, which powered the wastewater treatment plant, “a really magnificent moves early on by the town”.
https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20181014/whats-next-for-falmouth-turbines
nothing found so far to suggest any of them co-founded CAN. (Lindzen didn’t say they did).
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Lindzen may not have made it clear, but it would seem these men did create CAN:
PDF: 15 pages: 2008: Organising to Influence the Global Politics of Climate Change
by Ian McGregor, School of Management, UTS, Sydney, NSW
(p4/5) In order to better understand their role of CAN and GCC within the competing international policy coalitions in the international environmental governance process on climate change, it is useful to initially review why and how CAN and GCC were formed and their initial objectives.
CAN
The German Marshall Fund “saw the opportunity in the late 1980s to foster European US cooperation on the emerging issue of climate change. In 1989, there was a 2 or 3 day meeting at a Church sponsored Conference Centre in Loccum, Germany” (Marshall Fund Interviewee 2005). This meeting was attended by a group of pioneering climate advocates who recognized the need for a coordinated international policy response to climate change and the need for an international coordinating organisation.
Cooperation between Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) was already in place at the Toronto Conference in 1988. On the opening day of the Toronto Conference, a group of ENGOs circulated a draft statement entitled, “Escaping the Heat Trap: An NGO Statement of Policies to Prevent Climate Change,” which highlighted the serious nature of the threat of climate change. The statement concluded, “Unilateral reductions of CO2 emissions by the world’s leading economic powers and CO2 producers should start now, reaching 20% by the year 2000” (Michelle Betsill 2000, p75).
Many of the attendees of the Toronto Conference also attended the meeting in Loccum at which CAN was formed. At the meeting, it was decided to set up CAN as a network for NGOs who share a common concern for the problems of climate change and wish to cooperate in the development and implementation of short-term and long-term strategies to combat these problems.
***CAN was set up under the auspices of the Stockholm Environmental Institute. (CAN Interviewees).
The agreed CAN strategy coming out of the Loccum meeting was to influence governments and others to make changes to address climate change concerns. These NGO representatives saw themselves as working on behalf of the world and its people. Although all from NGOs, they represented a wide range of organisations, such as the “scientific and research” organizations like ***Woods Hole Research Institute and the ***World Resources Institute. Many of the participants at Loccum had already been involved in the World Climate Programme and were working on the scientific assessment of climate change through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There were also representatives of the big three “activist” ENGOs – Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF…
Once CAN was established under the auspices of the Stockholm Environmental Institute, it began to coordinate preferred policy positions and views on issues in the emerging international climate change policy regime…
https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=qEnAa0EAAAAJ&hl=en
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an interesting sidenote:
23 Feb: Stockholm Resilience Centre: Johan Rockström appointed director at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
A unique opportunity to increase collaboration between climate and ecosystem scientists
After 12 years as director of Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), Johan Rockström has announced he will step down in October 2018. Rockström will become joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), based in Germany, together with PIK’s current deputy director Professor Ottmar Edenhofer. Rockström and Edenhofer replace PIK director Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber…
In his new role, Rockström will continue to work closely with SRC’s leadership and researchers, leading several major research projects at Stockholm University, including “Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene” funded by the European Research Council. He will also continue to be a focal point for several strategic centre collaborations such as the Global Resilience Partnership on global development and EAT on sustainable and health food…
His new position with PIK will strengthen the already close collaboration between the two institutions on global sustainability science, planetary boundaries and global commons…
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/news–events/general-news/2018-02-23-johan-rockstrom-appointed-director-at-potsdam-institute-for-climate-impact-research.html
10 Oct: PIK-Potsdam: Rockström appointed as chief scientist by Conservation International
Conservation International appointed the Director Designate of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Johan Rockström, as their new Chief Scientist. While assuming PIK leadership together with the climate economist Ottmar Edenhofer this year, Rockström serve the renowned US-based Conservation International probono. This position will also provide support for research at the Potsdam Institute.
17 Dec: Irish Times: New climate action rulebook is not sufficient, say scientists
UN summit in Poland signs off on implementation plan for Paris Agreement
by Kevin O’Sullivan
Johan Rockstrom, director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said his biggest concern was that “the UN talks failed to align ambitions with science”.
“We continue to follow a path that will take us to a very dangerous 3-4 degrees warmer world within this century. Extreme weather events hit people across the planet already, at only 1 degree of warming.”…READ ON
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/new-climate-action-rulebook-is-not-sufficient-say-scientists-1.3733411
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great piece:
Dec 2016: WUWT: The Command & Control Center of Climate Alarmism
Guest essay by Leo Goldstein
The existence of a foreign command & control center within climate alarmism has long been ignored, despite palpable evidence. The obvious deterrent to recognizing it was ridicule, as the Left label anybody making such claims as a believer in a “conspiracy theory.” It is time to stop listening to fools and scoundrels. Yes, climate alarmism has a single command and control center, comprising leaders of the WWF (*), other huge environmentalist groups, and United Nations politicians. I will call this center the Climate Alarmism Governance (CAG). The best evidence comes from authors sympathetic to climate alarmism…
First, from Jennifer Hadden, Networks in Contention: The Divisive Politics of Climate Change (2015):
“As one interviewee explained to me regarding the strategy of the international climate coalition: “We work together quite a lot. But we know that we all represent different brands, so we have to be careful to give the appearance of not working together all the time” (Interview, WWF European Policy Office 2008).”
As one environmental activist explained it to me, “climate change isn’t just an issue anymore, it’s the issue, a meta-issue for everything we work on” (Interview, Danish 92 Group, 2009).
Starting in 1989, these organizations came together to form a coalition: the Climate Action Network (CAN). CAN was founded as a vehicle for transnational coordination…
CAN has a large influence on the kinds of strategies which organizations choose to use: “It seems like in CAN, a lot of the large groups set the tune, and we all tend to follow that. But when we work at home, we can’t always sell that, so we might do different things” (Interview, Greenpeace Germany 2010)…
… the major international NGOs in CAN – WWF, FOE (pre-2008), Oxfam, and Greenpeace – are extensively consulted before proposals are drafted. Most members acknowledge that the big groups have a de facto veto over CAN positions. If these groups approve of a position, the proposal is then circulated to the entire membership …
Likewise, the members are organized in a top-down fashion, like military units, not volunteer organizations. Consider this excerpt from Thomas Lyon, Good Cop/Bad Cop: Environmental NGOs and Their Strategies toward Business (2012): ETC…
I. “Speaking with one voice”
Based on this evidence, climate alarmism is the product of a very large, well-coordinated, and centrally controlled entity. That explains its ability to forcibly spread a perfectly synchronized message, despite its internal inconsistencies, disagreements with high school science, and frequent flip-flops in response to shifting international alliances and focus group research results.
One example is the unprecedented saturation of the mass media with certain patently false statements, such as “97% of scientists agree.”…READ ON FOR FUNDING, INCL SOME FOR MSM
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/the-command-control-center-of-climate-alarmism/comment-page-1/
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“Josh says COP24 is a “huge success” ”
“As many of you know, the past two weeks have seen the 24th “Conference of Parties” aka COP24 where a bunch of folks get together to “save” the climate of planet Earth. Apparently, they have some sort of agreement as outlined in the press release here, but I’ll be darned if I can figure out what it is from the language.”
Then Josh explains.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/16/josh-says-cop24-is-a-huge-success/
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Powers of the Queen
With all those mentions, the Constitution gives the impression that the Queen has a lot of power. However, in reality, the Queen exercises very little power. The key power that the Queen does exercise is to appoint the Governor-General, however this must be done on the advice of the Prime Minister.
This wasn’t always the case, but Australia has become more independent since Federation in 1901.
In 1930 Prime Minister Scullin asserted his recommendation that the Australian born Sir Isaac Isaacs be appointed Governor-General. The King had wanted to appoint the English Baron Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood, but reluctantly agreed on the advice of his Prime Minister, making clear his displeasure.
Prior to the appointment of Sir Isaac Isaacs, all Governors-General were chosen by the English Monarch. This was a turning point and since that appointment in 1931, the Monarch has been generally bound to accept the Prime Ministers advice of Governor-General through constitutional conventions. We still had a lot of English Governors-General after this time, but they were all chosen by the Prime Minister.
A couple of sections of the constitution that many people bring up when discussing the Queen’s powers in our democracy are:
Section 59 Disallowance by the Queen
The Queen may disallow any law within one year from the Governor‑General’s assent, and such disallowance on being made known by the Governor‑General by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is so made known.
And:
Section 60 Signification of Queen’s pleasure on Bills reserved
A proposed law reserved for the Queen’s pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to the Governor‑General for the Queen’s assent the Governor‑General makes known, by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, that it has received the Queen’s assent.
Section 59 has never been used and section 60 has been used ten times. However, both sections ceased to operate in the 1930’s when the UK Parliament introduced the Statute of Westminster. This Act gave all the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth more independence from the Crown and the UK Parliament. Here’s a snippet:
No law and no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act by the Parliament of a Dominion shall be void or inoperative on the ground that it is repugnant to the law of England…
The Statute of Westminster gave Australia’s Parliament equal status to the UK Parliament and after a period of time where discussions raged about the independence of Australia, we ratified the Statute of Westminster in 1942.
Another part of the Constitution that looks like the Queen has significant power is section 74, which allows for judicial appeals to the Queen in Council.
During the drafting of the Constitution there were strong opinions for and against allowing appeals to the Privy Council. Josiah Symon a South Australian delegate stated that the Privy Council, as a court of appeal for the colonies was:
An anachronism and an absurdity.
While the Victorian delegate Henry Wrixon supported the continuation of appeals to the Privy Council as this would ensure:
A unity of law over the whole empire.
In the end, appeals to the Privy Council were limited to those with leave of the High Court. However, with the introduction of the Australia Act in 1986, we gained even greater independence and all appeals to the Privy Council were abolished. Our High Court is now the end of the road when it comes to appeals.
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History brought to life. We’ve all seen the grainy images of WW I. Those old images get the general idea across but somehow the grainy and too fast films from the time fail to bring forth the human aspect of the Great War. Now that is about to change. A great documentary titled The Shall Not Grow Old premiers in the UK today (Dec. 17th). Here is a link to the trailer. It was Peter Jackson, think Lord of the Rings, who put this together and what a work it is! What modern technology can do to bring 100 year old film back to life in color and turn those who were filmed into real people and not just grainy images.
https://torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/peter-jackson-revives-100-year-old-war-footage-for-they-shall-not-grow-old
It really is quite amazing. I’ll have the DVD as soon as it’s available.
40
I watched the opening sequence of All Quiet On The Western Front a little while back [wasn’t in the mood to watch it all] . On it’s own it told of the futility. It started with one side going “over the top” for a frontal attack on the other, being repelled and then having to defend their own line before repelling the counter attack. What futility, what waste of young men’s lives.
My dad and his brothers were there. Oddly they all returned.
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A point Peter Jackson made about what he learned reviewing 100 hours of film footage and 400 hours of audio from those that fought is that in general THEY didn’t think their lives were being wasted. It is we of past generations which have characterized that war as soldiers needlessly being fed into a meat grinder and that has elicited the pity we feel for them. The soldiers of the time saw it as a job that had to be done and did not express self pity or a feeling of their lives being needlessly squandered.
10
I should qualify the above statement. The soldiers of the commonwealth did not feel their youth and lives were being wasted. Obviously, eventually many of the French soldiers did as mass numbers of them mutinied in 1917.
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Interview of Peter Jackson about the making of They Shall Not Grow Old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfomV9GrL6c
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Check out the letter in today’s Australian digital version by William Kininmonth on an interesting development for COP24.
Oz emissions now include emu flatulence (equal to half a goat).
He concludes “Rather than reducing emu emissions to meet Australia’s Paris obligations , it would be more productive to remove the goats from Canberra. ”
How long till they openly include the native vegetation sinks in these calculations?
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Or the methane emissions from termites and Craig Thomas? The first are reputed to match those from cattle.
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Like these
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181120073648.htm
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There are 1 million wild camels in Australia. Dangerous. Much bigger than goats or emus. Still you cannot expect people overseas to know that, so Koalas will be next.
50
met some in the middle of the night once travelling back from the deep SA desert.
Got too drunk at Stuarts Well and decided it was somewhat foolhardy to continue to Alice.
So we decided to put the swags out at Henbury Meteorite craters.
Midnight in a Landcruiser, too drunk to drive, doin’ 60k in the pitch-black moonless desert and I’m looking out the driver’s side looking at the camel and the camel is doin’ 60 looking at me.
was a little surreal
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There is a track from Kings Canyon to the highway that cuts the trip to Alice Springs by many kilometres which I used around 2002. The gravel becomes a creek bed , really rough conditions.
Around a bend and standing in the way was a Bull Camel with his Cows nearby grazing. As I drove around him he lunged at my 4WD and then chased it for a coupled of minutes before returning to his family.
It would’t be fun on foot or even riding a Horse.
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Seen a few through the same country the worst was where the Tanami track becomes sealed , we came across three very big dead camels and about five metres of skid marks .
Most trucks have bullbars but I can only imagine the damage to the truck .
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Hot on the heels of being told we in the back waters of nowhere are getting the pineapple when it comes to power bills I bring good news.
I will be able to save $30 to $40 a year in 2020….wow just wow these people really are out of touch or they just don’t give a toss
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Don’t spend it all at once.
30
Crakar
Do your calculations on the periphery of that very carefully.
Years agone there was a departmental pay rise of a token amount. One bloke did that and worked out that it put him into a higher house rental bracket and various other similar and in the end overall he was behind – the rise had cost him.
30
“A Christmas mercury miracle”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/16/a-christmas-mercury-miracle/
And done without fancy gear
10
Feynman
01
the COP24 main document doesn’t appear to be online as yet, but here’s the final list of participants – 298 pages long.
Climate Action Network’s various regions take up from pages 205-209, with another 7 or 8 listed elsewhere.
Climate Action Network – International has:
Mr. Richard Merzian Climate and Energy Director Climate and Energy Program The Australia Institute Ltd
WWF has a huge contingent, as does Friends of the Earth.
Australian Youth Climate Coalition has 3:
Mr. Harrison Pierce Tunks
Mr. Joshua Hale
Mr. Joshua William Rayner
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forgot the link:
UNFCCC: Documents: List of participants 298 pages
Download
https://unfccc.int/documents/187488
00
lol:
VIDEO: 2min21sec: 17 Dec: UK Independent: Scientists who revealed cause of ‘great dying’ mass extinction call for action to halt climate change
Exclusive: ‘There is no way we can pull the heat out the ocean’
by Andrew Buncombe Seattle
The scientists who revealed what caused the “greatest crisis in the history of life of Earth”, have called for immediate action to halt the further warming of the planet through human caused climate change.
Oceanographers based in Seattle said the largest mass extinction in the planet’s history – what has been termed the “great dying” – was caused by extreme global warming that saw ocean temperatures rise by as much as 10C around 252m years ago.
The scientists said (LINK) this resulted in the seas losing as much as 80 per cent of their oxygen. As much as 95 per cent of marine species, and 70 per cent of life on the land, perished as a result.
In an interview with The Independent in their offices at the University of Washington, associate professor Curtis Deutsch and co-author Justin Penn, said the reaction to their paper in Science had been a mixture of excitement and fear – excitement at the discovery and fear of the prescient dangers if people did not act.
“I think this work has identified the leading factor in what led to the largest crisis in the history of life on earth,” said Mr Penn, a doctoral student, asked how he hoped policy makers would respond to the discovery.
“The hopeful message is that despite doing do(?), it also identifies the solution to that problem – which is the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. So my hope is we decide to do something about it.”
The scientists based their discovery about the Permian period on computer modelling and calculations that took months. They also made use of information provided by chemical changes in the fossils of eel-like creatures more than 250m years old to show the extent of temperature change…
“Under a business-as-usual emissions scenarios, by 2100 warming in the upper ocean will have approached 20 percent of warming in the late Permian, and by the year 2300 it will reach between 35 and 50 per cent. This study highlights the potential for a mass extinction arising from a similar mechanism under anthropogenic climate change.”
The scientists’ discovery comes as a succession of experts raise warning sounds about the imminent threat presented by climate change, something Donald Trump has called a hoax…ETC
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/great-dying-mass-extinction-permian-scientists-action-climate-change-science-curtis-deutsch-justin-a8686306.html
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15 Dec: UK Telegraph: Boss of collapsed energy supplier returns to market under new brand
By Jillian Ambrose
A senior executive at one of Britain’s most complained about energy suppliers is planning a new gas and power venture, just weeks after his former employer collapsed.
The energy regulator has granted a licence to Extra Energy’s former managing director, Ben Jones, just one week after it was forced to put in place a bailout plan for the company’s 100,000 stranded customers.
At the time of its collapse, Extra Energy ranked among the worst for customer service, had lost almost three quarters of its customers, and failed to pay millions for renewable energy subsidies, which were claimed through customer bills.
Mr Jones applied for the gas shipping licence through a holding company called Callesti…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/12/15/boss-collapsed-energy-supplier-returns-market-new-brand/
looks who has written this letter to The Guardian! lol.
17 Dec: Guardian: Questions over energy firms’ £58m debt to renewables obligation scheme
Letter: The energy regulator Ofgem has announced a shortfall of £58.6m in this year’s renewables obligation schemes, because several suppliers have been unable to pay. The shortfall is to be recovered from other suppliers. So prudent suppliers, and ultimately their customers, will have to bail out imprudent ones…
Surely questions should be asked about the administration of this scheme. How were some suppliers allowed to build up debts of £58m? Should there not be more frequent monitoring, say at quarterly or monthly intervals rather than annually, with payments on account throughout the year?
To protect customers, renewables obligations need to be managed as commercially as networks and wholesale markets.
Stephen Littlechild, Former chief energy regulator
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/dec/16/questions-over-energy-firms-58m-debt-to-renewables-obligation-scheme
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Jeremy’s always good for some fun:
15 Dec: Jeremy Leggett: Why the UN Secretary-General is right to say that it is “immoral and suicidal” not to accelerate greenhouse-gas emissions
In 24 pictures and charts
https://jeremyleggett.net/2018/12/15/why-the-un-secretary-general-is-right-to-say-that-it-is-immoral-and-suicidal-not-to-accelerate-greenhouse-gas-emissions-reductions-in-24-pictures-and-charts/
can’t resist posting this as well:
17 Oct: Jeremy Leggett: God, Man, Tech and Climate: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber paints a picture for the Club of Rome
Some four hundred souls gather in muggy Rome, in an airless auditorium in the shadow of the Vatican. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, one of the world’s greatest climate scientists, has been asked to discuss the future in a keynote lecture…
He does so in a contained tone with a hint of sadness. He is devoid of any shred of the pomposity that men who have led great research institutions often tend to. I have heard him deliver meta-analyses of the climate problem before, most memorably at a German-British gathering of experts in Berlin, to mark the Queen’s state visit to Germany in November 2004. He didn’t pull his punches then, and he doesn’t today. He gives an overview of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent landmark report, wherein the world’s climate scientists summarised the clear and abundant evidence for intolerable risk above a global-warming ceiling of 1.5˚C. But he takes it further than they did, with an account of the many amplifying feedbacks that so many climate scientists have worried about for so long. These the IPCC has underplayed, he implies. He has detailed 14 of them, in a recent paper (LINK) co-authored with a star chamber of peers from around the world…READ ON
https://jeremyleggett.net/2018/10/17/god-man-tech-and-climate-hans-joachim-schellnhuber-paints-a-picture-for-the-club-of-rome/
above links to Stockholm Resilience Centre: Planet at risk of heading towards “Hothouse Earth” state
Citation: Steffen, W., Rockström, J., Richardson, K., Lenton, T.M., Folke, C., Liverman, D., Summerhayes, C.P., Barnosky, A.D, Cornell, S.E., Crucifix, M., Donges, J.F., Fetzer, I., Lade, S.J., Scheffer, M., Winkelmann, R., and Schellnhuber, H.J. (2018) Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (LINK)
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The annual Climate Conference finished over the weekend. Here in the UK the BBC’s Matt McGarth incorrectly reported the outcome when he stated:-
If this had been the result it would have been sensational. But I give four reasons why this is not the case.
https://manicbeancounter.com/2018/12/17/bbcs-misleading-reporting-of-cop-24-katowice-agreement/
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He should have consulted Josh
“Josh says COP24 is a “huge success” ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/16/josh-says-cop24-is-a-huge-success/
The cartoon shows you why
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Direct to the cartoon
https://4k4oijnpiu3l4c3h-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/josh-cop24.jpg
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17 Dec: Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Faces First Criminal Charges in 1MDB Scandal
By Anisah Shukry
Malaysia seeks $2.7 billion and $600 million in criminal fines
Former employees Tim Leissner, Roger Ng also charged
Goldman has blamed rogue employees for any wrongdoing in relation to 1MDB, a state-owned investment fund…
“Their fraud goes to the heart of our capital markets,” Malaysian Attorney General Tommy Thomas said in a statement in announcing the charges on Monday. “If no criminal proceedings are instituted against the accused, their undermining of our financial system and market integrity will go unpunished.”…READ ON
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-17/malaysia-files-criminal-charges-against-goldman-its-employees
17 Dec: Carbon Pulse: COP24: Divisive Article 6 talks pushed to next COP as nations agree Paris rulebook
Negotiators in Katowice reached agreement on a Paris rulebook late Saturday night, but Article 6 left a gaping hole as a decision on carbon markets was left for the next major round of negotiations in Chile.
earlier:
17 Dec: Carbon Pulse: COP24: Article 6 talks face postponement to avoid collapse of Paris rulebook -sources
Governments look set to resume talks next year on a framework for international emissions trade under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6, as negotiators seek to postpone the issue rather than risk collapsing the entire Paris rulebook, numerous sources close to the process told Carbon Pulse on Saturday.
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guess reality has been messing with the data:
7 Dec: Reuters: UPDATE 1-Brazil likely to produce another large coffee crop in 2019 -company
Brazil is likely to produce another large coffee crop next year after the record output of 60 million 60-kg bags in 2018…
14 Dec: Springer: Why could the coffee crop endure climate change and global warming to a greater extent than previously estimated?
Coffee, one of the most heavily globally traded agricultural commodities, has been categorized as a highly sensitive plant species to progressive climatic change. Here, we summarize recent insights on the coffee plant’s physiological performance at elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration [CO2]. We specifically (i) provide new data of crop yields obtained under free-air CO2 enrichment conditions, (ii) discuss predictions on the future of the coffee crop as based on rising temperature and (iii) emphasize the role of [CO2] as a key player for mitigating harmful effects of supra-optimal temperatures on coffee physiology and bean quality. We conclude that the effects of global warming on the climatic suitability of coffee may be lower than previously assumed.
We highlight perspectives and priorities for further research to improve our understanding on how the coffee plant will respond to present and progressive climate change..
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2346-4?utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter
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