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Unfortunately this survey closes Saturday Sunday at 5pm EST. One DAY to go now. [Correction: Day was wrong, go for it. h/t Eric Worrall].
Apologies to those who would have liked to send in a submission. Hopefully I covered much on your behalf.
The National Environmental Science Programs wants feedback and to figure out priorities for environmental research in one specific program. This funding is $145m, among other things they fund David Karoly at CSIRO. The form promises a receipt and a PDF reply.
NESP is seeking your feedback
The National Environmental Science Program (NESP) is scheduled for completion in 2021. Early planning for a future environmental research program to succeed NESP has commenced. The details of a future program are subject to Government decisions.
Feedback on key aspects of NESP will help inform the design and administration of a future program. A survey is now available via the Department’s online consultation hub. The survey will close on 30 June 2019.
Consultation on the National Environmental Science Program
h/t Darren Nelson
________________________________________________________________________________________
6. What have been the barriers to engagement [with NESP research]?
1. Data and methods are not always publicly available. […]
Let’s set national policy by “Embarrassment”? Great way to run the country (into the ground).
Skeptics: send in your submissions before July 12.
A coal generator has asked the Emissions Reductions Fund to pay for carbon credits if it upgrades its turbines and makes less CO2. “The Specialist Reporting Team’s” Penny Timms, of the ABC, quotes two activists, asks no skeptics, no engineers, no electricity consumers, and no hard questions. They call the owner of the generator a “coal baron”. Where are the “wind and solar barons”?
Here’s the ABC standing up for their own ideology:
The chief of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Kelly O’Shanassy, said “it would be a mistake.”
“We would be the only country in the world to be using a climate fund to fund coal-fired power, and that would just be a global embarrassment,” she said.
So a know-nothing activist sayth it would be embarrassing. Who cares? Does it reduce CO2 or doesn’t it? Japan the World Bank and the UN green fundshave funded coal power.
Hypocrisy unbounded — does CO2 matter or not?
If CO2 is reduced by upgrading a coal station is it really a CO2 reduction or it is an unthinkable […]
Oregon’s Eleven Update: The eleven Republican Senators remain in hiding to block a vote on the HB2020 Cap N Trade bill. The ruling Democrats have now said the bill is dead — even suggesting that they don’t have the numbers in the Senate themselves. But Republicans are wondering if that’s just a ploy to trick them into returning. After all, if the Democrats didn’t have enough votes from their own Senators why did they put the bill up for a vote?
If the State Troopers caught them, would they detain them “in the Chamber”?
So much for a high trust society:
Top Oregon Democrats Say Climate Change Bill Is Dead After GOP Senators Fled the State
Chip Browlee, Slate
9.3 out of 10 based on 66 ratings […]
Once upon a time Australians were rich enough to afford electricity on demand
Now obedient Australian’s are impressed with getting tiny refund for having voluntary mini-kinda-blackout.
Presumably, people are either desperate or already so trained in paying unnecessarily exorbitant electricity bills that they are grateful just to get a tiny fraction of their electricity payments back as an incentive for switching off when it suits those managing our inadequate infrastructure.
Demand response is a sales term for a voluntarily “doing without”. The ABC describes it as a wonderful new market force held back by selfish corporate greed (wouldn’t you know it?). The ABC doesn’t mention that electricity used to cost much less before we artificially forced renewables onto the grid and drove out the cheap reliable baseload generators or make the remaining ones less efficient and more expensive. But who remembers 1995? Were ABC researchers even born then?
It’s like 50 years of history doesn’t exist:
Another graph the ABC won’t show on TV
Behind-the-scenes battle over future of Australia’s energy market
It’s called demand response – it allows customers to save thousands of dollars by switching their appliances to lower electricity use at peak times.
[…]
Religious leaders dump coal, declare “no faith”
There goes my world. Who knew they had faith in coal?
So forget science, climate change is a moral problem. Is climate sensitivity 1 degree or 3? Ask a priest.
A group called Australians Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) has badgered 150 soft targets in the religious world to sign a grandiose letter making coal into the new Lucifer.
The Guardian
In an open letter headed “no faith in coal”, the leaders say the climate crisis is a profoundly moral problem and Australia’s response will be crucial in addressing it.
Signatories to the letter include bishops, rabbis, theologians, the grand mufti of Australia and the heads of the Uniting Church, the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils, Muslims Australia and the National Council of Churches.
Remember the alarmist maxim: ask a plumber to do the plumbing, a heart expert to do the surgery and when you want to predict the climate, ask an Imam.
Or failing that — ask a school student — which is what the religious leaders have done. Let’s quote their letter:
As you know, thousands of school students have been protesting […]
State troopers have been called in to get Oregon’s Republican senators back to vote on a climate change bill, but all 11 senators are in secret locations apparently interstate. No vote can take place on anything without at least one of those senators being in the chamber to vote.
…
Oregon’s Republican state senators go into hiding over climate change vote amid militia threat
ABC News USA.
Eleven Republicans refused to show up to work on Thursday and went into hiding in protest of HB2020, a bill that establishes a carbon cap, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Industries that emit carbon dioxide — power plants, manufacturers, etc. — would have to buy an “allowance” for each metric ton emitted, thereby reducing the incentive to produce carbon dioxide in the first place.
The goal of the bill is to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 versus 1990 numbers.
It’s a question of democracy: On the one hand, if Oregonians voted for this draconian cut, they ought get it. On the other, the Republicans are incensed and want a democratic solution — a state wide ballot. The legislation is such a disaster for a […]
The Climate Change River of Gravy is so wide and so fast it pulls other Big-Gov religions into the flow. Kind of like a Bernoulli Effect of Bureaucracy. The vacuum of common sense sucks. Or fast flowing nonsense attracts more nonsense.
Anthropologists of the future will study UNFCCC meetings
Here, two deep state clan members fly to a joint junket in Bonn. The climate sect does a feminist-indigenous handshake as a test of social rank. Will Australia pass?
Gender issues top Bonn climate summit
Graham Lloyd, The Australian
Australian officials attending climate change talks in Germany are being grilled on how the country is tackling global warming by addressing gender and indigenous issues.
The Canadian is proving their value to the other dependents of Big-Gov (though not to Canadian taxpayers):
In written questions to Australia about its climate change response, Canada has asked whether indigenous or traditional knowledge was taken into consideration in developing domestic policies or implementing measures to address climate change.
This gives the Australian a free pass to brag about similar pointless flag waving to an imaginary God that preferentially burns down the houses of single indigenous mothers. Should the […]
The IPA team interview Peter Ridd. He explains that what’s happening on the Great Barrier Reef with coral bleaching is a normal cycle. He tells his story of being censured at James Cook university, but admits the state of free speech at universities in Australia is non-existent — even after his win. They discuss how we might reform science with audits (universities are almost a lost cause). We’ll probably never know how many scientists think similar thoughts to Peter Ridd. We know that they’ll need a $250,000 legal fund if they say so.
UPDATE: Importantly — Ridd says that the admin are still utterly convinced they are right. They have no remorse, no recognition of why they were wrong. Does this mean admin staff now decide what science is, not Profs? Apparently so. They hold the purse strings, not the Profs. Power follows the money. Indeed, JCU has no commitment to free speech; they’ve now removed the clause that ensured Ridd won. In their minds, their mistake was not in being draconian, but being careless with legal clauses. The Deep State tightens its stranglehold on science.
Peter Ridd: Of all the ecosystems in the world, the reef is one that’s […]
Humans are a gregarious species. Most people do the right thing, and it’s this altruism, or self-identification as a “good person” that the climate industry preys on.
In a new study, researchers pretended to be tourists dropping 17,000 wallets they’d “found” into banks, offices, theatres and such, then tracking which ones got returned. To most people’s astonishment (lay person and expert) not only were a lot of wallets returned but the ones with the most money ($94) in them were returned more often.
What nobody seems to have remarked on is that these wallets were just plastic pouches. Which makes it all the more amazing that in so many nations a mere $13 in a plastic envelope might prompt half the population (or more) to send an email. How many people couldn’t be bothered, not because they are dishonest, but they figure, with petrol and parking, it’s not worth the owners time to come collect this? Indeed, people even sent off an email to return the “wallets” which didn’t have money to begin with.
Ed Cara at Gizmodo inadvertently summed up the zeitgeist of Western self hate, saying that this new study shows ” …maybe we’re not as awful a […]
Expensive birds
California Valley Solar Ranch Photo Credit: Sarah Swenty/USFWS
Oops. On June 5th, an event described as “an avian incident” started a fire at the California Valley Solar Ranch plant in California. The 250MW plant was reduced to 40MW of generation. It’s expected to be back up and running on July 1. By then the incident will have cost the company $8m.
‘Avian Incident’ Knocks Out 84% of Massive California Solar Farm
by Millicent Dent, Blomberg
An “avian incident” sparked a fire at one of California’s biggest solar farms, affecting 1,200 acres and knocking out 84% of the California Valley Solar Ranch’s generating capacity.
Impressive company spin:
” incidents such as these give us continued confidence in our risk prevention and mitigation plans.””
It’s not clear if this was one bird, or a flock.
The plant covers 2000 acres (8km2) was built in 2013 at an estimated cost of $1.6b using a $1.2b loan from taxpayers through the DoE. It makes about 550 GWh a year at times that may or may not suit Californians. No doubt readers here will help out comparing the output of an equivalent coal plant built at […]
Generic wind turbine near farm. Photo: @gonz_ddl
Finally, a study looks at data on nine houses within ten kilometers of an old (probably small) wind turbine. What’s amazing about this research is not the result but that this study is so tiny, yet it’s still a “world first”.
There are already probably around 400,000 wind turbines installed around the world.* So you might think that there would have been scores of studies involving hundreds of people and followed up for a year or two. They would have looked at the effect of wind turbines upwind, downwind, side wind, in low wind, high wind, and at different times of day. They’d check for altered sleep patterns, lack of deep sleep, REM sleep, cognitive performance, blood pressure, cortisol levels, and school marks. Dream on. It’s like everything with climate change — who needs data?
Renewables are a $300 billion annual global industry. This work was done with a $1.4 million National Health and Medical Research Council grant. Where is the precautionary principle when we need it?
Can wind turbines disturb sleep? Research finds pulsing audible in homes up to 3.5km away
Nicole Hasham, Sydney Morning Herald
[…]
Congratulations to Malcolm! It’s great news. Six more years for the die-hard skeptic in the senate.
I know Malcolm has some big plans.
One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts will rejoin the Senate, almost two years after he fell victim to the dual citizenship saga and was kicked out of parliament.
This time they can’t run the fake news line that “he only got 77 votes”.
Meanwhile: Worst result in 70 years: meet Nita Green, Labor’s sole new Qld senator
Labor has recorded its worst Senate result since 1949 in the battleground state of Queensland, securing just one seat after One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts and the Greens’ Larissa Waters managed to win the fourth and sixth spots.
Meanwhile prophetic words on Q&A on Monday night:
DAVID KAROLY: There are certainly some people in the governments that understand the science. There are also a range of different people, including, I guess, Malcolm Roberts, who had very different opinions when he came on Q&A and had discussions with Brian…
TON Y JONES: But he’s not in the government.
DAVID KAROLY : He is not.
TONY JONES: Yes.
[…]
Master Plan: Let’s fight extinction …by gluing ourselves to a road.
Lo! Australia voted, and the large Adani coal mine magically emerged from eight years of red tape. But the anguish has just begun. Rebels are gluing themselves to main roads to stop traffic in Brisbane. The Environment Minister admits she shed tears and just yesterday was caught using the word “devastated“. On Friday, there’s a national day of “action” (or inaction perhaps, on crosswalks).
This is only going to get worse. Its the logical end in a country with no conversation. It makes sense if you think the world is going to end. In a mature community they’d hear other voices. In Australia, they hear The ABC.
So what does it take to get in the national media these days? Two people lie down…
Climate change protesters glue themselves to Brisbane’s busiest street
Rage away. The passers by are not enthused.
Two climate change activists have shut down one of Brisbane’s busiest streets this morning after they glued themselves to a zebra crossing.
by Natalie Wolfe
Brisbane commuters are furious …
Ebony, glue girl, speaks:
“I’m not fighting, I’m speaking […]
Squid, “surprise” are going to do well with climate change. (If only it was going to happen).
In the new post-CO2 world, corn and soy may become weeds, but squid may take over the oceans:
Squid will survive and may even flourish under even the worst-case ocean acidification scenarios, according to a new study published this week.
Dr Blake Spady, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University (JCU), led the study. He said squid live on the edge of their environmental oxygen limitations due to their energy-taxing swimming technique. They were expected to fare badly with more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the water, which makes it more acidic.
No academic could have guessed that squid would have evolved ways to control their own blood pH:
“Their blood is highly sensitive to changes in acidity, so we expected that future ocean acidification would negatively affect their aerobic performance,” said Dr Spady.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from 280 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution to more than 400 ppm today. Scientists project atmospheric CO2 — and by extension CO2 in […]
New research shows that the impending climate disaster puts the world in danger of growing too much corn and soy. People won’t know what starving is!
H/t to CO2Science
Qiao et al discovered that when temperatures are raised by a “catastrophic” 2 degrees C, and CO2 is raised to 700 unthinkable ppm corn (aka maize) increases its yield by a remarkable 25%. When hit by both high temperatures and extra CO2, soy bean yield increased even more — by 31%.
Presumably this means crop prices will fall and corn and soy may take over your garden. (So make sure you put in a solar panel to control those new weeds!)
Rumour that nutrient densities will fall — proved to be false. Increased temperature raised the oil content of both crops. And the combo of warmer weather plus CO2 increased most of the nutrients as well. Both crops had more phosphorus, potassium, iron, and zinc. There was a statistically small decrease in calcium in maize, so small it may not be there. The only mineral that definitely declined was manganese in soybeans, and as far as humans go, there is apparently no one on Earth who has a clinical manganese deficiency […]
UPDATE: Commenters point out that there is more to this story.
Shutting down Eraring (which is a term the operations manager there used) makes no sense at all, and they are probably talking of a “hot idle”, though they do that already, so it’s not a “totally new operating model” as described. Read their comments. Graeme No. 3. TonyfromOz and Lance below.
—————————————————————————-
Solar power destroys efficiency of the rest of the system
All this will sit around doing nothing? Eraring Coal Plant, NSW
The Eraring power plant produces up to 2,880 MW. That’s 20 per cent of Australia’s largest state’s (NSW) electricity and about the same (percentage-wise) as the entire fleet of 94 wind farms in Australia plus our couple-of-million solar panels. It’s been running four giant turbines almost non-stop for 35 years. But the intrusion of subsidized mass solar energy arriving in the middle of the day means it is now testing whether it should stop and start the turbines during lunch time. These turbines weigh hundreds of tons, and spin at 3,000 rpm.
There are hundreds of small and large hot metal parts with operating temperatures above 500 degrees C. As the temperature changes, all of […]
Playing with Fire! Greenpeace are calling for a climate debate among democrats in the US presidential campaign (just like they never do with the science, eh?).
There are a billion sensible reasons the Democrats don’t want a climate debate
And it’s not because they’d lose debating science. There’s no chance they would debate science — every candidate already agrees there is a climate emergency de facto, or they’d be thrown out of the party. So, any debate would start with “what should we do” and instantly turn into a high risk competition to outbid each other. Who can promise more, squander more, or cry bigger tears on stage on cue?
The last thing on Earth the Democrats want is public policy analysis on climate change. Lord forbid, what if one candidate suggests “going nuclear” and starts pointing out how solar and wind are less effective at reducing CO2? There’s a danger democrat voters might be paying attention (unlike when a “fossil-fueled right winger” says the same thing). Democrats might learn what money-sucking boondoggles wind turbines and solar panels are, and how many birds, bats and forests get fried? That’s a big loser for the Big Gov team — they don’t […]
The annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy has been released. Global demand for energy is speeding up again — mainly thanks to China, India and the US. Tellingly, all fuels — coal, oil, gas, nukes and hydro — grew faster than their ten year averages, but not renewables. So the momentum has shifted back to fossil fuels, especially gas which was up a remarkable 5.3%, one of the fastest rates of growth in the last 40 years. Coal grew at 1.4% — twice as fast as the average for the last decade. Coal still supplies 27% of the total energy mix.
Is peak coal yet to come?
Graham Lloyd, The Australian
“As a result, the peak in global coal consumption which many had thought had occurred in 2013 now looks less certain. Another couple of years of increases close to that seen last year would take global consumption (of coal) comfortably above 2013 levels,” the BP report said.
Thank shale gas for saving the world eh?
…without shale gas in America and LNG exports to Asia, notably from Australia, greenhouse gas emissions would be much higher.
Frack for the planet.
The […]
The UK leads the way with more radical rain-dance
h/t James Delingpole, Eric Worrall
If people work only one-day-a-week, they will need to spend the other six days growing food and feeding the chickens in their own back yards.
The head of the so-called conservative government, Theresa May, wants to spend $1,000 billion dollars on fashionable weather, and the leader of the opposition, who may be the next PM, says Brits should work less to save the world. Jeremy Corbyn’s plan last week was to cut working hours to 34 per week, and bring in lots of robots. This week, oh-so-conveniently, a Labour-leaning think tank announces that if a four day week was good, a one day week would be better, and if people worked 10 hours, and got paid 75% less, there will be no more droughts in England and the oceans will fall. Apparently money causes climate change.
Keep your eye on the ball — not on the gambit
The one working day plan is the usual wild gimmick, unmistakably timed to make Corbyn’s plan appear to be in the sensible center. It’s the bread and circuses marketing plan.
Radical scheme to tackle climate change
Rory […]
UPDATE: This beautiful graphic doesn’t show on the home page in some browsers. Click to open the post. Best way to protect the environment? Save the children. Cheap energy and clean water go a long way…
h/t @mattridley
When babies are at high risk of dying prematurely, parents respond by having lots of kids. Once medical conditions improve and infant mortality goes down parents have fewer kids. Overpopulation is solved by improving healthcare. Source: https://t.co/GLzfzzZ8KL pic.twitter.com/oeM4ofXCXe
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) June 6, 2019
The original creator was Robert Wilson @countcarbon May 14 who went on to split the regions:
This infographic proved popular. So I have split it out to show changes in child mortality and fertility in Europe, Asia and Africa pic.twitter.com/xKq9ovdlGN
— Robert Wilson (@countcarbon) May 18, 2019
The data in the cool graphics come from GapMinder. Love those graphics!
So what will it be? On the one hand some predict the global population will level and start to decline this century. See Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline by John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker. They argue the global population is headed for a steep decline—and in many countries, […]
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