By Jo Nova
The term “Net Zero” has become a dirty word
It’s a win. The climate wars will rage on, but the Net Zero spell isn’t working any more, so they will have to find a newer one without such a smell. The sacred propaganda term that was going to save all life on Earth until five minutes ago is more than just a worn out advertising slogan, the skeptics campaign against it has made it a toxic term. Like ESG, it’s become a liability.
The people know “Net Zero” is not just a fluffy footprint on a forest, but an attack on their wallet and their lifestyle. It’s a great credit to GWPF and NetZeroWatch in the UK for turning this phrase back against the infinitely well funded financial-house-and-government-alliance.
Net zero has become unhelpful slogan, says outgoing head of UK climate watchdog
The Guardian (of the ruling class)
The concept of “net zero” has become a political slogan used to start a “dangerous” culture war over the climate, and may be better dropped, the outgoing head of the UK’s climate watchdog has warned.
“Net zero has definitely become a slogan that I feel occasionally is now unhelpful, because it’s so associated with the campaigns against it,” he said. “That wasn’t something I expected.”
Politicians on all sides are now wary of associating themselves with the term, he said, which was inhibiting progress.
The scare stories worked. Look at the backpedaling on meat and flying:
Tackling the climate crisis has been presented as a massive change, but Stark was at pains to point out that it would not be. “The world that we’ll have in 2050 is extremely similar to the one we have now. We will still be flying, we’ll still be eating meat, we will still be warming our homes, just heating them differently,” he said. “The lifestyle change that goes with this is not enormous at all.”
Now they are trying to tell us it will be easy to change the weather?
This is part of the big backdown we’ve seen in so many theatres. First ESG became a dirty word, now “Net Zero” is too. Money is fleeing from “sustainable investments”. EV’s are on the nose. It’s the end of an era that started (as best as I can tell) around 2015 and the Paris agreement and has been hammered for the last five years.
…
But make no mistake, the freeloading barnacles of bureaucracy and banking will transmogrify, and they will hide their intent a little more carefully. In Australia, after the Carbon Tax became a dirty term (when Tony Abbott won in a landslide) the tax returned under many guises, but it was never called a Carbon Tax again. Among many names, it became The SafeGuard Mechanism, where an emissions trading scheme was legislated unbenownst to nearly everyone. Now they want to impose a fossil fuel tax. They are barely hiding it.
After years of failure at UN junkets to set up international emission trading schemes, which also got themselves a bad name, the EU has set up a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. These carbon tariffs will take money from foreign countries to make their own emissions trading scheme workable.
And just like all the other taxes, the media sycophants tell us we will “prosper” with an international carbon price. (Just as soon as we figure out how to smelt steel with solar panels.)
Another powerful hit on the ugly beast that in 2024 we call ” government “.
Maybe we can still use the term Net Zero.
Move it across to focus on the things in governance that need removing;
Corrupt politicians public service.
Hidden illegal taxes tucked away in our
electricity bills.
University indoctrination posing as
education.
Criminals on the streets and in positions of responsibility .
and so on.
Keep Nett Zero, just reapply it.
350
How about ‘Nett Zero Brains’??
30
Net Zero is often “justified” referencing LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity).
LCOE is an improper comparison for intermittent generation vs. dispatchable generation.
LFSCOE is a better comparison ( Levelized Full System Cost of Electricity).
If the intermittents are required to account for all of the costs to make them work, they are up to 40 times more expensive than LCOE analysis alone would indicate.
Wait until the Net Zero crowd has to answer to this one.
“Levelized Full System Costs of Electricity”
Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035
DOI link (permanent): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2022.124905
PDF: https://iaee2021online.org/download/contribution/fullpaper/1145/1145%5C_fullpaper%5C_20210326%5C_222336.pdf
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Hi Lance,
Thanks for pointing us to this paper.
Absolutely relevant to the topic and a clear, lucid argument highlighting the often-ignored real costs of the “intermittents”, let’s call them.
In doing so, it shows up, as but one example, the flaws in the CSIRO Gencost “study”.
Thanks Jo for highlighting here the work of the the GWPF and the NetZeroWatch group.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
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Yes, it is a good paper.
LCOE was originally intended only to compare different sources of dipatchable generation for a given site.
Ie, for a given site, is coal, gas, nuclear, or diesel, the least cost option for a utility.
LCOE cannot be rationally used to justify the use of wind/solar because the wind/solar are not dispatchable and do not participate in the infrastructure, maintenance, FCAS, surge/demand, and backup, costs. Thus, the use of LCOE is a convenient lie to avoid those very real and necessary costs to make a functional and reliable system.
The only way to make the intermittents economically viable is to pair them with dispatchable generation and classify the intermittents as having value only when their contribution is an economic grid benefit. Thus, Net Zero is economically unattainable using intermittents alone.
180
Well put and an excellent summary of the paper’s arguments.
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CSIRO doing detailed economic analysis – was never going to work was it? Best they stick to experimental science maybe.
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Because the CSIRO became involved in the politics of climate it should be defunded entirely. It has become a bunch of woke scientists finding whatever the grant determines. It is no longer a science organisation.
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Bank of America researchers did a comparison of “all in” costs for five different generators of electricity. Wind and solar were the most expensive.
See page 12 of this report.
https://advisoranalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/bofa-the-ric-report-the-nuclear-necessity-20230509.pdf
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In a virtual world finding difficulties with the realities of Net Zero,
why, change the nomenclature. – Problem fixed.
10
Turn it into a term of derision.
I’d love to see Planet Saver become the universal term of derision.
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Indeed. I think Chris Bowen would like the idea of becoming Captain Planet Saver, get his assistant to line up a superhero costume that he could wear to press conferences
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The future of “carbon missions” will be decided in Asia, Africa and South America by the poorest people on Earth, not the wealthy in Western Capitalist countries.
The poor greatly outnumber the wealthy and they are still trying to get enough warmth and heating, not to mention enough food, they are not thinking about carbon footprints and EVs. The leaders of China and India know that they need to continue to bring the poor in their countries into the 21st century and feed and house them, hence China is not talking Net Zero or doing anything about carbon emissions till 2060 or later, and they are the big emitters swamping the rest of the world.
Move on people!
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How about “nein zero”? I believe The Germans are using it now and NYC have cancelled two-thirds of their offshore wind factory. Meanwhile BO Bowen is having to charm Treasurer Chalmers for budget funding
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Tesla just laid off 2700 employees from its Austin, TX facility.
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Tesla have recently been increasing their ad spend and reducing either the leasing or up front costs of purchasing their BPV’s. All the sycophants think this is just normal. It’s normal in that like a lot of companies it’s now under pressure to sell its product(s). Which means the market is saturated. But there’s a further problem for Tesla. Once only rich people could buy them because they were expensive. Now, as they become more common on the road, the rich people will hate it. It’s exclusivity for them or nothing. Maybe the rich will go back to buying supercharged V8’s or V12’s again.
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The BBC is still on board with the carbon religion.
What is net zero and how are the UK and other countries doing?
We need a new catch phrase:
– CO2 is life
– Net Zero is a big Zero
– A Green World needs CO2
– Net Zero means Death
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Nutz Zero
100
Net Zero will be your wealth!
There will be no capitalists under net zero, you vill haff no savings…
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We “non-elite” humans are the carbon they are hell-bent on deleting. They see us as vermin, useless eaters, without any value at all apart from as some sort of slaves to them, even as “hackable animals”.
I refuse to call these people “elite”. They are just misanthropic mongrels with enough wealth and influence to get their way.
There’s nothing “elite” about them at all.
160
How about, “Plant food, mkay?”
10
As a contributor here has previously observed, “Net Zero” is simply a rebranding of Pol Pot’s “Year Zero“.
They might rebrand it, but the Left’s ultimate objective remains the same.
Admittedly, individual members of the “slave army of useful idiots” helping to promote the cause might not be fully cognisant of all the implications of what they do, but then again, ignorance is not an excuse. E.g. Child slave (now adult) school dropouts like Thunberg who was exploited for her popular appeal must have made a conscious decision to remain ignorant. Ultimately however, once the useful idiots have done their job, they will be treated/mistreated just like the rest of us.
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How about DILUTE W & S is TOXIC, UNRELIABLE and WRECKS the ENVIRONMENTS ONSHORE and OFFSHORE?
AGAIN here’s the last 34 WASTED years for their super EXPENSIVE, laughable lunacy of Net ZERO.
That’s if you’re worried about another 14 + BILLION Tons of NON OECD co2 emissions per year in 2022 compared to 1990?
Of course Aussies and the entire SH are already a NET ZERO co2 SINK, unlike the entire NH that is a NET ZERO co2 SOURCE. See CSIRO Cape Grim data. Here’s OWI Data link and check since 1990.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~OECD+%28GCP%29~AUS
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AGAIN here’s the CSIRO Cape Grim Tassie site and check under seasonal variation for the quote.
https://capegrim.csiro.au/
“Seasonal variation”
“Carbon dioxide concentrations show seasonal variations (annual cycles) that vary according to global location and altitude. Several processes contribute to carbon dioxide annual cycles: for example, uptake and release of carbon dioxide by terrestrial plants and the oceans, and the transport of carbon dioxide around the globe from source regions (the Northern Hemisphere is a net source of carbon dioxide, the Southern Hemisphere a net sink)”.
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I note that NO2, CO2 and CH4 have all increased in the past 50 years although according to the Law Dome data they were increasing for many years before that anyway. The world seems to be in better shape now so where is the problem? The increases were supposedly associated with agriculture which just happens to feed the 3 billion extra mouths created in those 50 years.
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Global surface temperatures will continue rising until net greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to zero. That will happen either voluntarily or whenever human civilization collapses.
150
Will I be able to go down to the beach and poach my eggs in the boiling ocean, LoL?
331
Good grief, he takes all that nonsense seriously.
Or maybe the /s is missing
321
So how long will your silly collapse take Simon? You’ll note that we’ve seen the greatest Human FLOURISHING in history since 1950 and now 5.5 billion more people in 2024 and much higher life expectancy and a drop of 98% in deaths from extreme weather events as well.
And why has poor Africa beaten all the records for Human flourishing since 1950?
Life expectancy for the poor 227 million Africans just 36 years in 1950 and today about 64 years and yet another 1260 million more people today as well.
So where’s your dangerous Climate change or EXISTENTIAL THREAT?
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The only way to stop the collapse of human civilization is for men to give birth.
Preferably to humans.
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Oh and I forgot, everyone must be vaccinated.
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Is Net Zero possible without universal vaccination?
72
Universal vaccination (of Covid 1984) is designed to bring about Net Zero (people).
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Simon >”Global surface temperatures will continue rising….[because GhG emissions]”
Not continuing to rise this year and GhG emissions were of no account last year.
GFS 2mT anomaly went from 0.2 Feb 2023 to 1.1 at end of year:
GFS 2mT 2023
http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/GFS_anomaly_timeseries_global_2023.png
GhG emissions were not the cause of that.
Now the anomaly is going in the opposite direction; 1.1 at beginning of year to 0.6 now and falling:
GFS 2mT 2024
http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/GFS_anomaly_timeseries_global.png
2015 also began the year with a 0.2 anomaly i.e. not long before the current anomaly is the same now as it was 9 years ago:
GFS 2mT 2015
http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/GFS_anomaly_timeseries_global_2015.png
A near decade of no change at the end from the beginning can in no way be construed to be “continue[d] rising”.
On the other hand, wishful thinking produces whatever notion the wishful thinker desires – factual or not.
90
The GFS anomaly progression 2023-2024 previous is mirrored in ERA5, best visualized with their ‘Climate Pulse’ page (click Anomaly bar):
Climate Pulse (ERA5)
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu/
The Earth’s “fever” (according to NASA’s cartoon for Dummies) seems to have abated somewhat.
And the chances of another “hottest ever” mid year (click Absolute bar) are diminishing rapidly.
That will have the WMO and Guterrez scrabbling for a Plan B scarathon I’m sure.
What to do when “hottest ever” becomes a distant memory?
50
Amusing to rotate to globe at Climate Pulse to see regions that are presently cooler than the anomaly baseline and by several degrees in some:
Much of Australia
Much of Antarctica
Much of Western Europe
Much of USA and Canada
Much of the Arctic
The offsetting warm anomalies are concentrated in relatively small areas. The entire Pacific is barely warmer if at all.
In other words, the current warm anomaly is extremely tenuous.
70
Depends, how good is your memory? There have only been a dozen or so days this year that haven’t been “hottest ever”.
012
Yawn your obsession over a misleading metric is making you foolish since the life of the planet is improving because of the warming trend which is still cooler today than it was during the Roman warm period and MWP as permafrost still here now but was largely absent then as the Viking settlements indicate clearly.
50
Simon >”There have only been a dozen or so days this year that haven’t been “hottest ever” ”
Totally agree and didn’t say otherwise..
My point is that the “hottest ever” period, driven by at least 3 factors of natural variation according to Gavin Schmidt, has run its course – it’s at the end now.
Current ERA5 Surface T is exactly the same as 2016 and not far off 2020 after being well above both in February:
Daily Surface Air Temperature, World
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
And the anomaly at Climate Pulse previous shows the current +0.58 is the same as most of June last year when the anomaly was rising. The 2024 convergence with 2023 comes about because the 2024 anomaly is falling as 2023 was rising.
And there is nothing short of a sea level volcano to reverse that falling anomaly.
A La Nina wont reverse it. Next solar cycle peak is 11 years away. You might however get lucky with another Hunga Tonga-type eruption disgorging huge amounts of the most effective and prolific greenhouse gas by far (water vapour).
So good luck with a volcano coming to your rescue.
00
Simon your obsession over the trace gas with a negligible WF at the 440 ppm level is hilarious since for most of the interglacial period it hovered around the 260-280 ppm for 10,000 years while large temperature swings of up to 3.5C were in evidence that had names attached to them such the following examples,
Climate Optimum period, Minoan warm period, Medieval warm period, LIA, Dark ages cooling, now Modern warming.
LINK
I chose to follow the evidence, why don’t you?
100
Simon, CO2 at 420ppm is now nearly saturated. There is only so much heat coming in from the sun and, consequently, only so much IR radiation coming off the Earth’s surface. The ability of CO2 to absorb the available IR is a negative log curve (that means the more CO2 the less absorption there is for each increment). Will Happer and others have calculated that a doubling of the present concentrations would lead to an increase of only 0.33°C. We need more CO2, not less.
60
If Happer did indeed compute an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 0.33°C, he got his sums wrong. The ECS 95% confidence interval is between 1.5°C and 4.5°C. Arrhenius estimated 3°C in 1897, the underlying physics have been understood for over 120 years.
012
Simon you are way out of date since the estimates have dropped significantly since the silly 2002 Gregory paper claiming a 6C ECS now it is commonly below 1.5C and still declining as shown here,
Recent CO2 Climate Sensitivity Estimates Continue Trending Towards Zero
LINK
The two charts reveals many published papers results on it.
60
Note that surface temperatures have increased by > 1.2°C in the modern era as CO2 has increased by 50% and we are not yet at equilibrium.
010
Meanwhile the worlds biota is getting better and better as shown by NASA,
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
Excerpt:
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
LINK
The planet clearly likes the warming trend how come you wants to fear it?
60
Simon,
Coincidence?
Correlation?
Causation?
Auto
40
Simon >”Note that surface temperatures have increased by > 1.2°C in the modern era”
And now they are stuck there except for fluctuations driven by natural variation i.e. CO2 is not the driver.
Maybe take a look at the GFS anomaly going back to 2015 (click on graph to go back):
GFS 2mT Anomaly
http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/GFS_anomaly_timeseries_global.html
“1.2°C in the modern era” above pre-industrial is about +0.48 on that graph so there’s been excursions to 1.7C above pre-industrial, 2023/24 being the most recent.
But now back down to 0.6 anomaly or 1.32 above pre-industrial and falling. Mid 2015 was 0.4 anomaly or 1.12 above pre-industrial.
Given the return to “normal” conditions later this year (say August per Gavin Schmidt) it is highly likely that the latter part of 2024 will be on par with mid 2015.
Where is the effect of rising CO2 in that?
00
Simon
Is that human emissions reduced to net zero, or all emissions?
If the latter, how will you persuade animals to stop breathing?
30
Are you aware of the carbon cycle? Plants photosynthesise CO2. The key word is net.
09
Simon are YOU aware that plant life of the planet is getting better and better and better as they have more of a key ingredient of CO2 for plant growth how come that bothers you so much are you jealous of your inability to use CO2 that you want to punish plants happiness over it.
50
‘Global surface temperatures will continue rising …’
Not on my watch, but don’t become disheartened, your side is winning in the boardroom.
https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/goyder-o-neill-show-faith-in-woodside-climate-plan-20240424-p5fm60
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You are 24 days late Simon.
Better luck next year!!
20
Some Governments in countries other than Australia may be becoming aware of the insanity and physical impossibility of running a country on wind and solar but that just means those profiting from the scam will redirect their energies to the country with the most gullibe “leadership” in the world, Australia.
Examples like engineering geniuses PM Albanese who says you can charge your EV for free overnight with solar panels (Ref 1) and simpleton anti-Energy Minister Chrissy Bowen who thinks that the sun is always shining or wind blowing somewhere in Australia (Ref 2). (Experiments at King and Flinders Islands show that isn’t true.) Or wasting staggering amounts of taxpayer money on follies like Snowy Hydro 2. Or destroying power stations. Or banning the use of gas. Etc..
One of the reasons the Australian Government is so keen to implement the Uniparty “misinformation” censorship bill is to shut down discussions on these matters. (Note: origins of the bill with the pretend-conservative Liberal Party.)
Australia is seen as an ideal place for implementing the devious plans of the Elites like Herr Kommandant Klaus Schwab of the WEF.
Hence the objective of the dumbed-down education system to produce people who are just smart enough to believe what they’re told and to follow orders but not smart enough to question anything (as we saw during the world’s most draconian covid lockups with the exception of a small minority who asked questions and were severely punished).
1) https://youtu.be/vyS9uqRLbB8
2) https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/speeches/address-national-press-club
“But across our country, it is normally blowing or shining somewhere when we need it –
And improved transmission will help us get that renewable energy where we need it.”
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Meanwhile in the Federal Government of Cuckoo Land of ACT where “Absent” Public Servants along with their Incompetent Politican Slaves in Federal Parliament destroy Australia with their Renewables
Taxpayers should be furious over public service’s ‘ghost’ offices
On a recent Friday in Canberra, a deflated public servant friend revealed that there were only three people at work on a floor space that can seat 30 to 40.
On a recent Friday in Canberra, a deflated public servant friend revealed that there were only three people at work on a floor space that can seat 30 to 40.
He usually enjoys working at the office – interacting with colleagues, mentoring younger staff, and gaining experience from executives.
But what’s the point in coming in if almost nobody else is?
The snowball effect can be real. If not many staff members come into the office, other workers feel less inclined to attend the ghost office. It feeds on itself.
The Albanese government has, inexplicably, embedded unlimited, five-day-a-week, work-from-home-rights in the public service enterprise bargaining agreement, under a deal struck by Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Finance and the Public Service.
Gallagher is a senator for Canberra on a thin electoral margin. Many of her constituents are content with their new entitlement, which was granted without any serious evidence or productivity offset.
Officials from at least one major government department are telling stakeholders not to schedule meetings in Canberra on Mondays and Fridays because public servants may not be there
If hard-working taxpayers knew the extent of the entitlement culture now pervading Canberra, they may feel riled enough to march with pickets on the streets.
Moderately paid police, nurses, teachers, aged care workers and retail employees, battling to pay for mortgages, rent and groceries, could be disgruntled at the two-tier system that the government has created.
It’s not like workers in Canberra have to put up with traffic jams and long commutes like people in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
What are all these public servants doing at home? Working as hard and productively as if they were in the office?
Undoubtedly, some of those “working” from home are looking after children, doing housework, working side hustles, going for a long lunch, heading to the golf driving range or nicking off for a long weekend.
– Candid conversations are required
– Benefits of ‘face-to-face’ work
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One senior bureaucrat, who has worked in private enterprise, shakes their head and says the public service is “living on a different planet”.
Some officials and contractors “working’” from home have devised schemes to keep their computer active to make it look like they are online. One strategy is to open up an old Teams or Google Meet chat from an expired date to stop the screen saver turning on.
It would be funny (and I’ve heard people laughing about it), if it wasn’t true.
Before the new uncapped work-from-home entitlement was locked in, 57 per cent of federal public servants worked from out of the office in 2023, up from 46 per cent in 2021, according to surveys by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC). It didn’t say for how many days a week which, anecdotally, varies markedly between employees.
The Commonwealth is paying rent for empty offices and desks.
100
That’s OK.
According to Uniparty “economics”, they can just print more money to pay for it…. It’s only the hardworking taxpayer who will suffer, not the politicians or public serpents.
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“The Commonwealth is paying rent for empty offices and desks.”
And their salaries.
40
That’s extraordinary, and present in the private sector where I’ve experienced the joys of dealing with somebody “working from home “.
“she’s not in today; working from home.”
The quality of input, which requires on the spot examination is very very substandard and sends everyone going around and round in circles.
Time, energy and money blown.
But hell, we live in an unreal world at the moment.
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Let’s not leave State Labor Governments behind – It’s Only Taxpayer Money
Premier Steven Miles, Police Minister Mark Ryan and new Qld Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski took two separate jets to make crime announcements
Queensland taxpayers forked out thousands of dollars to fly Premier Steven Miles, Police Minister Mark Ryan and new top cop Steve Gollschewski in two separate planes to two cities and a regional town, after the government legislated new emissions reductions targets.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles, one of his senior ministers and a new top cop have spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on two private planes to fly across the state to make a number of crime announcements ahead of the election later this year.
Mr Miles, including his staff and security, boarded a plane from Brisbane to Townsville and then onto Cairns on Monday, which takes about three hours in total.
The next day, he returned to Townsville, before jetting off to Hervey Bay and then returning back to the capital, adding another few hours onto the itinerary.
A second jet with Police Minister Mark Ryan, Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski and their staff flew the same route to join the Premier for the announcements.
According to The Courier Mail, it is not known exactly how much the planes cost taxpayers, however, the types of jets they used – an Embraer Phenom 300 and a Cessna Citation CJ2 – can average to about $6,500 per hour.
Some of the announcements the trio made included extra support for victims of crime across the state, a $28 million upgrade to the Hervey Bay Police Station and inspecting a PolAir helicopter in Townsville to assist in regional operations.
The three men are understood to have returned to Brisbane on Tuesday afternoon.
It has been reported Mr Miles will fly to Cairns on Wednesday morning.
Just a few days earlier, the state’s MPs agreed to enshrine new greenhouse emission targets after it reached the 30 per cent goal eight years ahead of schedule.
A new bill will make law to reduce emissions by 75 per cent by 2035 and net zero by 2050. It was backed by the state Opposition and the Greens last week.
“Enshrining these new targets into law shows business, industry and community that we’re serious about tackling climate change and provides the certainty they need to get on with the job of reducing emissions,” Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said.
“The Miles Government is serious about taking action on climate change and reaching 75% emissions reductions by 2030 – that’s why we’ve created the plan to get there.”
40
is the Sky Blue? – Labor Victoria Strikes again!
Victorian opposition launches another scathing attack on Allan govt’s financial management as state again tops tax list
The Allan government’s financial management has again been savaged following confirmation the state continues to have the highest per capita taxation revenue.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday released figures on the taxation revenue collected by the different levels of government across Australia.
The statistics confirmed Victoria again had the highest taxation revenue per capita in 2022-23 for state and local governments, at $5,795.
That was an increase of 2.8 per cent on the previous financial year. The average for all states and territories came in at $5,265.
Victoria first overtook New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory in 2021-22 to become the top tax spot.
“Whether through higher taxes on properties, rents, schools, jobs and even weekends away, Labor’s financial mismanagement continues to have real-world consequences for Victorian households and businesses.
“Instead of a punitive tax regime that makes life harder, Victoria needs a tax system that encourages investment, growth and economic opportunity across the state.”
A mid-financial report last month revealed Victoria’s net debt was $126.7 billion at the end of December last year, a 10 per cent increase over a six month period.
Net debt is anticipated to hit $177.8 billion in the 2026-27 financial year.
20
Working from home seems to be a mixed blessing.
Zoom or Teams meetings seem to be less unproductive than having everybody sitting in the room together.
We achieved at least as much on a big IT project during the Covid lockdowns as we would have if we’d all been in the office.
Part of this seems to be because the various levels of manglement have more difficulty in trapping you for impromptu meetings, and have to stick to the scheduled versions.
Oh, and the never-ending off-site “get all the troops together” “ra-ra” and “tell them what they already know” meetings are great as teleconferences. Log in, go on mute, turn the volume down, and do something useful.
In other cases, it could well turn out to reduce productivity.
20
Surely this is a good move. Why would anyone be encouraging public servants to produce anything. The stuff they produce just results in higher taxes. Produce less and tax take will reduce.
It might cost less if they were sacked but the court costs and payouts for wrongful dismissal would be a high hurdle.
If every public servant in Canberra stopped work the country would be better off. If they changed employer to a productive enterprise then the country might benefit.
More government is bad. Les government is good.
50
David,
Unfortunately the Damage done by engineering geniuses PM Albanese and simpleton anti-Energy Minister Chrissy Bowen continues in Australia unabated
Collier Homes collapses after 60 years in business
One of Western Australia’s biggest residential building companies has collapsed, with Collier Homes falling into liquidation after more than 60 years.
Collier Homes was created in 1959 by Raymond McCarthy.
In 1969, the business was sold to a national land developer, then in 1981 it was purchased by its senior executive, Ron Smith.
In 1996, Adelaide-based national home builder Home Australia acquired the business.
The brand assets were sold in November 2016 to the present owner, Dario Amara.
In a post on the company’s website before the ASIC announcement, there was a reference to industry challenges since the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
“We try hard to please our customers during these challenging times,” the post read.
“The post-Covid stimuli were well-intentioned, however they created massive supply chain shortages, delays and labour constraints — all translating to unpredictable cost escalation.”
Mr Amara is a second-generation builder with more than 40 years of experience.
Collier Homes follows dozens of other builders that have collapsed in the past two years.
A whopping 2349 construction firms have collapsed in the past year.
Of the 8471 business collapses last year, almost 28 per cent were in the building and construction industry, according to the corporate regulator.
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The small business collapses could easily be seen locally; these big ones take time but cause just as much pain.
No doubt there are a lot of people around with pitch forks looking for targets.
When will this madness end?
Perhaps when those pitch forks are finally buried?
30
And it continues!
Major roofing manufacturer in voluntary administration with $20m debt
It’s a big player in a key industry for Australia but its now looking for a bailout as its hit by a spate of problems affecting the sector.
Lutum is one of three manufacturers of roofing tiles in Australia and employs approximately 150 people.
It supplies roofing tiles and masonry products across Australia with manufacturing sites in NSW, Victoria and South Australia.
The company was previously a part of Boral, one of the largest construction materials manufacturer in Australia, before it broke out as a separate firm in 2021 after it was sold for $12 million.
“The challenges are weather delays with construction and scarcity of labour, challenges with labour shortages and the entire building industry is having a slowdown in payment terms and also activity.
“So if they don’t have enough in their balance sheet to wear those challenges it can become problematic for continual trade and that’s the situation that Lutum is facing and we are seeking to address though the voluntary administration process.”
News.com.au has reported on dozens of builders going into administration and liquidation over the past two years.
40
Nit wit Bowen is too stupid to realise that the sun takes roughly three hours to travel from East to West. Therefore, unless the longest night in Australia is shorter than three hours, the sun will not always be shining somewhere in Australia.
40
Oh, the damage done, though.
Nutz Zero isn’t just a money pit, it is a money black hole.
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Had to look up transmogrify. Apparently, it means to change or transform shape, sometimes in a magical fashion. Must have been in Harry Potter and I missed it. Talking of the Poms, I blame them for the term Net Zero, it seemed like it appeared from some British ad agency. Which is why that fool Boris Johnson seemed so keen on it. Glad now it’s the British trying to get rid of it. There isn’t a single facet of Net Zero that’s beneficial to humanity is there?
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Thanks, saved me looking it up. Had heard it before but had little idea of meaning.
50
It’s not a Harry Potter word, it’s been around since the 17th century.
12
I was being facetious David.
41
Ok
10
I seem to recall the word transmogrify was created in the “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoons.
The Transmogrifier is an invention of Calvin’s that would turn one thing into another. Like most of his inventions, it was made originally from a cardboard box, though a later model was made using a water gun.
20
“And just like all the other taxes, the media sycophants tell us we will “prosper” with an international carbon price. ”
The world will change the moment the United Nations gets its own tax base through this scam. Once they no longer rely on each country paying dues they will be a force in their own right.
It was going to be the financial transaction tax, the Tobin Tax, but they never managed to push that through. A border carbon tax will do just as well for their plans.
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Good point about the UBN.
We need to apply nett zero to it.
50
Its not fitting that the UN leadership should be beholding to people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin for their lavish lifestyles. Worst still, they could be cut off in a whim and have to go cap-in-hand to Xi Jinping. I am certain that would come with a lot more strings.
Democracy is such a messy affair as Kenin Rudd learnt. His role in the UN places him alongside failed politicians of similar ilk. All hopeful of taking control so they can build the world better for themselves.
If you really like New Zealand’s favourite person, you could sign this petition for the next UNGS:
https://jacindaardernforunsg.org/petition/
I think KRudd has missed the boat. On the other hand, is Julia getting the right exposure or is it also a dead end;
https://giwl.anu.edu.au/people/hon-julia-gillard-ac
Love the acronym GIWL. Phonetically better than girl.
If you really think it is below someone like the UNSG to beg for money, then you can make your donation here:
https://crisisrelief.un.org/donate
It will pay for his next meal maybe. Depends on the wine selected.
Remember, big government needs big money.
20
As Bob Dylan says “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind”. So when the wind ain’t blowing there’s no answer except to keep a diesel in the shed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itxY98A8wHQ&t=40s
https://richardsonpost.com/vivforbes/35729/diesel-in-the-shed/
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The left loves to have slogans and try to control language. When it doesnt work they drift on to the next option. The transition from “global warming” to “climate change” is an example.
Many of these terms become jokes or terms of derision. “Damn global warming” on a freezing morning, “Nut zero” , and the whole UN hysteria circus of “global boiling” that most sane people look at in the way they look at that weird uncle at family gatherings.
Oh by the way how is that “transition to renewable energy”going? (stand by for one of the faithful to proudly state that SA was 95% powered by wind and solar for 3 minutes last Tuesday)
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Simon
War, disease (including experimental vaccine mandates),and anything else you can dream up are more of a worry than man made CO2.
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Yes, but my personal worry, and more likely to affect us, are Politics and Stupidity.
..and really dangerous when the two are combined !
40
The Left love altering the language and its meaning, such as good is evil, evil is good etc..
Does the following commentary and quotes of Orwell sound familiar?
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As it says in Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who say of the evil that it is good and of the good that it is evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness, who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter.
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So, all those limits and restrictions listed under the UN “sustainability goals” are just fiction, eh?
Old Klauss telling us we will own nothing and be happy, that we need to eat insects etc., is a figment of our imagination?
Isn’t there some push on to outlaw mis- and disinformation (what most of us would just call lies)?
Perhaps the “We” referred to in the report means just these self-appointed would-be rulers of the world.
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Do insects and artificial meat come under the heading of “highly processed foods”, that we need to avoid because they are bad for our health?
20
Are we all gonna die because we want electricity or because we refuse to get vaccinated?
(It’s hard to stay current at my age.)
120
And will deaths due to cold from lack of electricity be blamed on failure to C-19 vaccinate?
110
So why were Human lives brutal and short for 99.9% of the last 300,000 years?
And why didn’t the average Human life expectancy not exceed 28.5 years in all of that time?
And why did Humans suddenly start to really FLOURISH in just the last 74 years?
Why are Humans so healthy and wealthy today, although we seem to be doing our best in the OECD countries to retreat and return to earlier times? NOTE the NON OECD countries are building BASE-LOAD power plants in record numbers since 1990. So why is that the case and what do they hope to achieve?
Why don’t they just build TOXIC W & S instead?
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Nuclear radiation/fallout is all I can come up with for extended life span.
10
>”…the tax returned under many guises, but it was never called a Carbon Tax again. Among many names, it became The SafeGuard Mechanism”
Wow. Points for audacity in that one.
Doublespeak: the way to communicate Doublethink (thought control).
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is still my personal fav though.
Followed by the US EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding for CO2 that followed the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA holding (only just, 5-4) that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act.
One of the SC Majority even claimed that IPCC reports were “peer reviewed” in their judgement.
EPA’S ENDANGERMENT FINDING:
THE LEGAL AND SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION FOR CLIMATE ACTION
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/epa-endangerment-finding-fs.pdf
So, under EPA/SC Doublethink, CO2 is a pollutant, actually.
But the “Basis in Science” is littered with – “projected”, “will”, “expected”, and “likely”.
The Latin root of “expected” is spec, from which we get speculation.
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Timely post Jo
I watched William Harper presentation this morning. This is how to fight back against the madness of crowds. Polite, make a statement, back it up with the real science and even include graphics for this that dont understand the maths. It is all there I would love to see black out bowen rebuff this.
William Harper on CO2
40
“Happer” not Harper.
30
you are correct please accept my apology
30
The Net Zero term to be dropped,
And with some other slogan be swapped,
To appease warmist fears,
But fall on deaf ears,
For those who wished Net Zero stopped.
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It seems as if J P Morgan supports “net Zero” that’s the return on investment of Big Money, money! So much so that their major media had to bale them out with millions of supportive words in MSM. “JPMorgan Chase has admitted to an unprecedented five criminal felony counts with Dimon at the helm and paid fines in the tens of billions of dollar”. Obviously the NYC Justice organisation has missed this crook to concentrate on Donald Trump.
https://richardsonpost.com/pam-martens/35734/billionaire-owned-media-and-megabanks/
40
Here is part of the conclusion from Willis Eschenbach about Climate Models.
He wrote this for “Net Zero Watch” and I’ll also provide a link to his full article.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/656f411497ae14084ad8d03a/t/6585d6450998666fbbe1f63b/1703269960081/Eschenbach-Climate-Models.pdf
“In conclusion, a half-century of programming and
decades of studying the climate have taught me a few
things:
• All a computer model can do is make visible and glorify
the under- and, more importantly, the misunder-standings
of the programmers. If you write a model under the belief
that CO2
controls the temperature…guess what you’ll get?
• As the scholar of semantics Alfred Korzybski famously said, ‘the map is not the territory’. He used the phrase
to poetically express the idea that people often confuse
models of reality with reality itself. Climate modellers have
this problem in spades, far too often discussing their results as if they were real-world facts.
• The climate is far and away the most complex system
we’ve ever tried to model. It contains at least six subsystems – atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere,
cryosphere, and electrosphere. All of these have internal
reactions, forces, resonances, and cycles, and they all interact with all of the others. The system is subject to variable forces from both within and without. My First Rule
of Climate says ‘In the climate, everything is connected to
everything else…which in turn is connected to everything
else…except when it isn’t.’
• We’ve only just started to try to model the climate.
• Iterative models are not to be trusted. Ever. Yes, modern
airplanes are designed using iterative models…but the
designers still use wind tunnels to test the results. Unfortunately, we have nothing that corresponds to a ‘wind tunnel’ for the climate.
• The first rule of buggy computer code is, when you
squash one bug, you probably create two others.
• Complexity is not Reliability. Often a simple model will
give better answers than a complex model.
Bottom line? The current crop of computer climate models
(which should really be referred to as ‘climate muddles’) is
far from being fit to be used to decide public policy. To verify this, you only need to look at the endless string of bad,
failed, crashed-and-burned predictions that they have produced. Pay them no attention. They are not ‘physics-based’
except in the Hollywood sense, and they are far from ready
for prime time. Their main use is to add false legitimacy to
the unrealistic fears of the programmers”.
Notes
1 https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/19/2/
jcli3612.1.xml.
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Good stuff.
The whole point of these “things they call Models” is supposedly to demonstrate a firm link between atmospheric temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels.
It doesn’t happen and the major focus is on creating enough fluff and bubble to cover up this fact.
The models are seen to be successful while ever the money keeps rolling in.
40
The real problem with modelling climates is that they are an effect, not a cause. The oceans contain 99.9% of all the surface heat, accumulated solar energy. They also contain masses of gas, 98% of the CO2 for example. As for mobile mass, 350x that of the air above. So what the ‘Climate’ models do not do is model the oceans. Which means you cannot follow what is going on because what we see as all powerful ‘weather’ is nothing more than a manifestation of what is going on in the oceans and the sun.
This is admitted in effect by deference to the all powerful El Nino, an ocean surface warming, the biggest single driver of climates including Australia. What is embarassing is that it is unpredictable because we do not understand it. And that led to the massive error by the BOM in advising Australians of the hottest, dryest summer in recent history. Which was completely wrong.
Otherwise such models are simply reading tea leaves. Even if the patterns repeat, they are useless for prediction because you do not understand why they form.
60
Is this NSW and Vic impact crater (???) the largest in the world?
If true this would’ve hit the Earth between 450 and 500 million years ago, but a lot more testing should be carried out to verify their speculation. Who knows?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsoVq-bE51s
30
Still no Iridium, so not a meteor. But the Iridium could be much deeper than normal if the crater is much bigger than normal.
20
How is nett zero possible? Humans are not nett zero. Even if they do nothing but live, eat and die. Even if we grew all food by hand. And sat naked in some very warm place because humans die of hypothermia at 20C.
A human may weigh 70kg but the CO2 output each year is 3000kg, 3 tons.
And there are 7 billion more humans on the planet than 100 years ago. So that’s 21 billion tons of CO2 output every year which was not output in 1900. That’s 60 million tons a day.
Nett zero human output is impossible.
Al Gore says human CO2 out is an additional 160 million tons a day.
The only solution is to wipe out the humans. And then the world will be saved! For whom is the question.
But I would suggest starting with the 80,000 people who work for the UN whose jet carbon footprint must be amazing. For example, the former head of the IPCC, former train engineer the late Mr Pachauri boasted that he flew 360,000km a year, so 1,000km every day of his life. And you paid for that.
And we need to look at animals, Australia’s 1 million wild camels. Wikipedia says that was false, that it was only 600,000. And many of those identify as aboriginals.
But the biggest offenders are termites, Trillions of them converting old cellulose to deadly methane. I think a program to eliminate all termites and all cockroaches would be the most effective. Starting again with the UN.
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And the old Common Market, now a hydra
The European Parliament employs ” about 8,000 officials and other staff members across Europe.” Strasbourg
The General Secretariat of the European Council is a team of more than 3147 people. Brussels.
The European Commission “Around 32,000 permanent and contract employees work in the Commission. These include policy officers, researchers, lawyers and translators.” Brussels and Luxembourg.
So another 43,147 people roughly. Who fly around a lot. And spend their days instructing others not to fly around and to stop all those cows farting.
Shutting them down would be more effective than getting rid of farms which actually feed people.
100
NZexit.
UNEXIT
50
White House Renews Internal Talks on Invoking Climate Emergency
. Youth activists push Biden for move ahead of November election
. Emergency proclamation could be used to halt exports, drilling
White House officials have renewed discussions about potentially declaring a national climate emergency, an unprecedented step that could unlock federal powers to stifle oil development.
Top advisers to President Joe Biden have recently resumed talks about the merits of such a move, which could be used to curtail crude exports, suspend offshore drilling and curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because a final decision has not been made.
White House advisers are divided over the idea of declaring a climate emergency, with some saying it wouldn’t provide Biden with enough newfound authority to make substantial changes, the people said. Others, however, argue such an announcement would galvanize climate-minded voters.
Emergency declarations could enable the president to halt or limit crude exports for at least a year at a time, suspend offshore drilling, and throttle the movement of oil and gas on pipelines, ships and trains. Industry experts have warned that such a measure would discourage investment in domestic oil production and stoke higher retail prices.
Youth activists, led by the Sunrise Movement, Fridays For Future USA and the Campus Climate Network, are planning protests nationwide on and around Earth Day to demand Biden proclaim climate change a national emergency.
As the world stares down “another summer of floods, fires, hurricanes and extreme heat,” Biden must declare a climate emergency “and use every tool at his disposal to tackle the climate crisis and prepare our communities to weather the storm,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, the Sunrise Movement’s executive director. “If Biden wants to win the youth vote, he needs to take forceful action on climate change.”
40
“another summer of floods, fires, hurricanes and extreme heat,”
Don’t forget drought! Somone’s flood is someone else’s drought. Both are caused by climate change.
As Professor Flannery says, they will both become more frequent. And droughts will become longer. In the same place. Perhaps until they all join up and become a flout, a perpetual flood/drought. And he’s a scientist. They know things.
50
And never forget, there is Climate Change somewhere in the world. You just have to find it.
70
By. the way. Windmills not turning near Port Augusta as the ‘Ghan rolls north.
51
Nut zero?
30
What is Nett Zero anyway according to the UN?
“net zero means cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere.”
“zero in the atmosphere”?
Fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is currently a tiny 3.0% (it was first measured by radio carbon methods as 2.03% in 1958). Is that close enough to “zero in the atmosphere”? And you must have some CO2 in transition into the ocean.
“Residual emission that can be absorbed?”
With an agreed atmospheric half life of 5 years (36 papers, Table 1) or atmospheric residence time around 10 years, 860 million tons a day of CO2 are exchanged anyway between the atmosphere and oceans in maintaining rapid CO2 equiliibrium, which is why CO2 is a constant from pole to pole within 1%. To this you can add the 165 million tons a day given by Al Gore (COP28).
Also there was an amazing story that the ocean could not absorb any more CO2. The vast deep oceans are full. Except that if 98% is already in the ocean the ocean CO2 would only rise a tiny 2% to absorb it all. CO2 has gone up and down many times. It would be an amazing coincidence that the oceans were precisely full of CO2 at this time.
“durably stored by nature”.
It is universally agreed that 98% of all free CO2 is already in the oceans. Stored by nature. This is fully automatic and dynamic, not static. The proposition is that we should force some more CO2 in the ocean or bury it somehow or put it in trees.
The fact is that there is no current limit on ‘absorption’ and 98% of all CO2 output will be in the ocean within 10 years.
“other carbon dioxide removal measures”.
What other measures? Carbon dioxide builds up nowhere, even China because of rapid CO2 equilibrium. CO2 goes straight into the ocean as the CSIRO noted after the 2019 massive bushfires and the massive algal bloom in the South Pacific. Other removal mechanisms like burying and tree growing do not work.
NASA says that between 1988 and 2014 by satellite measurements tree coverage of the planet increased by 14% of land. This is two Australias of trees, two Brazilian rainforests! in 26 years. Trillions of tons of CO2 sequestered since man made CO2 driven Global Warming was announced by Al Gore in 1988. Mankind cannot conceivably grow so many trees. And yet CO2 has not gone down in the slightest. It’s almost straight line growth has continued unabated. Amazingly CO2 growth in the same period was also 14% which means CO2 grows trees. Trees do NOT reduce CO2.
So by the UN definition, we already have Nett Zero. Or put another way, we cannot change CO2 no matter how much we try or how much we output. It is a constant set by the planet and the rules of Physical Chemistry.
And as for ‘carbon emissions’ how big are they? Al Gore says 162 millions tons a day! Sounds a lot.
Except CO2 in the atmosphere is 3,140 billion tons. So even a year of emissions is 59 Billion tons or relatively tiny at 5%. All this just goes in the ocean as CO2 existed before combustion engines. All CO2 goes in the ocean every 10 years. Thanks to the atmospheric testing in 1965 where C14 was doubled, we know there is no 1965 CO2 in the air today. So this is confirmed by perhaps the world’s biggest accidental experiment.
Science says that physical chemistry, not Al Gore, determines how much CO2 is in the air. And CO2 is increasing very, very slowly, which is very good. And not a bad thing at all. And certainly not our fault.
The UN will next demand that we alter the radius of the earth’s orbit around the sun. This also could be done with windmills.
50
And I find it so manipulative that the UN talks about controlling ’emissions’, not total CO2. Because the warming is supposedly connected to total CO2, not emissions. Emissions do not control CO2. And 500,000 windmills have not altered CO2. Two Brazilian rainforests have not altered CO2. Nor the explosive rise of China to more CO2 emissions than all other G20 countries together. Obviously humans do not control CO2.
But warming the oceans even slightly would obviously increase CO2. We see it in annual summer and winter seasonal variations in CO2. More in summer, less in winter. So man made CO2 driven Global Warming is a hoax, the biggest in human history. And Nett Zero is absolute science rubbish.
00
When the carnival float of Nut Zero, hits the tank stopping bollards of reality, the result was always going to be the same, whatever the name they put on the carnival float. No makeover is going to change reality … people hate Nut Zero … because it a blatant attack on our wealth lifestyles, by scientifically illiterate idiots.
There is no disguising nut zero now, people know what it is and will reject it whatever greenwash they apply.
20