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In 1964 an earthquake made some parts of the Pacific into ponds on a few islands. Fifty years later and the fish in those ponds are now freshwater fish. Apparently the genes for dealing with that sort of wild extreme change are held by some of the fish in the crowd and natural selection can work its wonders in a decade.
In terms of ocean acidification, this is as catastrophic as it gets, not only did the ocean become “more acidic” but it stopped being an ocean.
It can’t get much worse than this for a fish, and yet somehow life on Earth had the answer.
What’s the pH of those ponds — The ocean pH is 8.1, rain is 5.5. Those ponds will be somewhere in between.
And some people think a man-made “ocean acidication” that’s smaller than this and slower, will devastate the ocean.
Science Daily
Evolution is usually thought of as occurring over long time periods, but it also can happen quickly. Consider a tiny fish whose transformation after the 1964 Alaskan earthquake was uncovered by University of Oregon scientists and their University of Alaska collaborators.
The fish, […]
Wow. Just wow. Tony Thomas has uncovered the material the AAS provides to thousands of Australian teachers and students under the guise of science education resources.
As far as climate science goes, they might as well have hired Greenpeace. Mining is a questionable activity, Bob Brown is a hero, students should be lobbyists, and climate activists are champions. Forget the calculator, just whip out the placards. Science is not about evidence or thinking, but about following “reputable web sites” (which is code for “give me your brain and I’ll tell you what to think”). Coal is not so much a combustible mineral, as the number one “climate killer”. Not quite the dispassionate, logical path we used to think an Academy of Science might pursue.
“Ask students if they have ever taken action or advocated for a cause.” — AAS advice to teachers.
Or how about this:
Lesson outcomes: At the end of this activity students will … appreciate the need to lobby at all levels of government to ignite and lead change – even if it is unpopular with the voters.”
Because 15 year olds obviously know more than the voters, right?
But the young ones […]
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8.4 out of 10 based on 13 ratings
The December 12th Draft on UN web site.
h/t Andrew McRae and Pat in comments
Here are some rough preliminary thoughts on the latest version of the COP21 document.
The Australian ABC news made it sound like Moses was just about to come back from the Mount. “There were tears!”.
James Hansen, though called Paris talks ‘a fraud’
“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”
It’s a rare moment when I am on the same side as he is.
On the other hand, The Wall St Journal writes that it is watered down but will “transform” the economy:
If approved and implemented, the agreement would force businesses and citizens to sharply reduce their use of fossil fuels like oil, gas or coal and could fundamentally transform the global economy.
Both James Hansen and the […]
COP21 won’t get a meaningful agreement, but they will get “breakthrough success”
Don’t think China, India and Russia can save us. They won’t give up fossil fuels in a meaningful way, but they all have a price and buying them off is a lot cheaper than you might think. That’s because the goal is not for them to reduce CO2, but only for them to give the appearance of doing so.
It’s not about CO2, but about PR
Paris is a theatre– a grand show, and China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Jianmin said as much. He “laughed when the ‘High Ambition Coalition’ was mentioned. “It is a kind of performance,” he said, “It makes no difference.”
The 1.5C “high ambition” target is a perfect PR win. The Green Machine will be able to claim a major success getting X number of countries to sign up for a breakthrough pledge to do something “more ambitious”, something that “far exceeded our hopes” but that is really decades away and likely to happen even if nobody did anything at all. It’s the do nothing, unaccountable promise that politicians love to make.
All three nations have publicly poured cold water on the Paris solutions, […]
Everything about Climate Fear is just PR
You will never guess. Not only does no one care if carbon credits don’t cut carbon emissions, but hardly anyone cares if so called climate money is even spent on the climate. As many as 66% of climate projects funded by the developed world have nothing to do with “climate vulnerability”.
It’s the bragging game — politicians want to make out they are doing a lot for the climate, but there’s barely any accountability to check whether they get value for money — by how many thousandths of a degree did that policy cool the world? So they inflate their spending promises by claiming random other projects are “climate projects” or they use accounting trickery.
University of Zurich’s Axel Michaelowa, who studies climate aid grants, found “there was a huge misrepresentation. Governments were actually really not able to report properly” on aid that was supposed to help countries reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
His study, conducted on specific climate grants four years ago, showed a list of “projects without any conceivable climate change connotation,” such as Belgium funding for a “love movie festival” in the early 2000s in Africa, a […]
Bravo for the full gloss, hi def, professional production, top editing, audio and camera work. It probably cost a motza, paid for by Climate Truth (formerly Forecast the Facts). So the side with lots of vested interests pumps the myth that the unfunded volunteer grassroots opponents are all funded by fossil fuels. (Projection anyone?) It’s the one and only cannon in their arsenal.
They use all the best intellectual weapons of the leftie toolkit: namecalling, bad manners and swearing.
If only it had a joke?
Like other attempts to be funny — the big-gov-pandering-fans-of-authority just can’t do political satire. (It’s by definition, really.) The video works as pap entertainment to keep believers from straying — it’ll help keep the Gullible Smug feeling smug. But on the rest of the population it will help skeptics more than hurt them. It takes a special kind of brainwashing to “know” droughts are worse and summers have never hit “ninety” degrees before. (Lordy!) But without any real surprises or ironic insights there are no gags for the mainstream audience. How funny is the line “fossil fuels are useful”? Laugh your socks off.
You can rate it “Funny” or “Die” at bottom of the video.
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The full 2 hour 40 minute testimony of Ted Cruz and his invited guests.
Don’t underestimate the importance of what is going on in this testimony to Congress. It captures why the USA is the best hope for defeating the religious climate meme. Which other western democracy comes close to this? As Mark Steyn says, the most important form of competition is the competition of ideas. Paris will not get a binding agreement mostly because the USA congress stands in the way. (Though that doesn’t mean they won’t get billions; more on that in the next post.)
The landscape of the US presidential campaign has undergone a phase change. Watch this and think back to the bland weakness of Mitt Romney in 2012. In 2015 the top Republican candidates are competing to be the most skeptical, and to demonstrate how they don’t pander to political correctness. And Ted Cruz surely is the best informed on the climate topics.
Judith Curry ” I can no longer get government grants….”
Please copy your favorite quotes below so those who can’t watch the lot can pick up the gems.
UPDATE: Best short parts are around 2:14 – 2:20 with Steyn and Curry. […]
A new seismic survey shows there is a blob of superheated rock 60 miles below West Antarctica. To describe it, the researchers use the phrase “like a blow-torch”. Of course, just because the parts of Antarctica that are warming are near or over this hot blob does not mean it’s causing the melting. It could be a coincidence. ; -)
… this is the first detailed look at the Earth beneath this region.
Not surprisingly, the maps show a giant blob of superheated rock about 60 miles beneath Mount Sidley, the last of a chain of volcanic mountains in Marie Byrd Land at one end of the transect. More surprisingly, they reveal hot rock beneath the Bentley Subglacial Trench, a deep basin at the other end of the transect.
The Bentley Subglacial Trench is part of the West Antarctic Rift System and hot rock beneath the region indicates that this part of the rift system was active quite recently.
The study really highlights how little we know about heat flow in Antarctica:
While heat flow through the Earth’s crust has been measured at at least 34,000 different spots around the globe, in […]
When asked about paying for developing nations to adapt to climate change, the 1066 British people surveyed said they were willing to give an average of only £27 ($30US) a year. This is far below the UN gambit that hopes to take as much as $150 per head per year. But even that £27 figure is deceptively high. The real story is that the number was skewed up by a few people who were willing to pay a lot each. Nearly half the crowd didn’t want to give a cent. The median value was a paltry £6 per year. And this was in a test loaded with nice and authoritative messages about how useful those payments would be. Fully 45% of Brits surveyed did not want to contribute anything at all. (The figure is probably similar in the US, and people wonder why Trump is so popular?)
The question is about the public Willingness to Pay (WTP) and the answer is “negligible”:
Overall, taking all responses together, results show that respondents are willing to pay about £27 per year in income taxes to support adaptation efforts in developing countries. This is equivalent to $29.37, using purchasing power adjustments […]
In the years to come historians will note the remarkable role played by the Heartland Institute in the global scientific debate. Heartland didn’t start out to be a scientific group, but the NIPCC report is more comprehensive, balanced and will stand the test of time while the IPCC reports have already failed… And all done with a tiny budget compared to the billions squandered on mainstream universities.
Likewise Marc Morano, CFACT and Climate Depot. I never fail to be impressed with Marc’s professionalism and relentless good humour as he fends off the propaganda. Watch the schedule below for the World Premier of the Climate Hustle movie. I’m very much looking forward to seeing that!
See also Willie Soon, Bob Carter, James Taylor, Fred Singer, Christopher Essex, Jim Inhofe, Patrick Moore, Christopher Monckton, Tom Harris…
Kinda amazing to be in the room from so far. The playback can be replayed.
The Schedule
Monday, Dec. 7, 09:00 GMT+1
9 out of 10 based on 82 ratings […]
Bask in the hypocrisy — the concern about CO2 is faked
Climate change is The Greatest Threat on Earth but the Merchants of Panic don’t really care if we reduce CO2. Follow what they do, not what they say. This is our last chance to save the planet, but they won’t consider nuclear energy — apparently the planet is just not that important. Nor will they consider Ultra Super Critical hot burning coal, which could reduce emissions by 15% at a stroke. Likewise fracking. Instead, the answer to everything is always inefficient, government-dependent industries and trading schemes. These schemes don’t reduce much CO2, but they reward the patrons of big-government and punish the opponents. They suck money from independent corporations, and churn that cash through the “renewables” cheer-squad, the financial houses, and the groups that profit from keeping the climate scare going. Ponder that the EU had a monster emissions trading scheme, but the USA cut far more emissions — thanks to fracking and no thanks to any fake “free market”. The bottom line is that we may face the Anthropocene Mass Extinction Event, but apparently things are not so bad that the Greens will consider fracking. The big […]
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7.7 out of 10 based on 23 ratings
Toss any idea that some people actually care about reducing CO2. Apparently the only thing that matters is the appearance of reducing it.
EU carbon markets are being horribly rorted, and almost no one is checking. (Only the silly, honest UK, and even then only about 1% of sites are audited.)
All up, something like “£14 billion has been lost to fraud”. The system was corrupted at every level — in Denmark at one stage, 4 out of 5 carbon trading accounts were fraudulent. The Ukraine and Russian governments gave away too many carbon credits, which flooded the market (and the price fell from £20 to £4). Credits were also given for things that would have happened anyway and shouldn’t have got them. (How can anyone base a market on “intentions”?) In the end, even though credits were cheap, a lot of companies didn’t bother buying credits, because no one was checking to see if they met their supposed requirements. And then there was the huge VAT Tax fraud across borders.
Where are most Greens, most NGO’s and activists, where is the outrage?
The fakery around the CO2 scare is legion. It is supposedly the evil pollution set to destroy […]
This study really reinforces how important it is for skeptics to be heard. Just get out there, write letters to the editor, email your MP, and speak up at public events. It does help.
There’s a new long detailed study out struggling with how to keep Climate Fear alive. Oh, the disappointment, exposing people to both sides of the story created more skeptics. The researchers tried all their best angles, like pretending that using expensive energy would “help the economy”, or “free the nation from a dependence on foreign oil”. They tried the religious frame “we’re protecting god’s creation” and they tried what they thought was a nationalist frame (but which was really just another gonzo economic claim dressed up with US-flattery) “Innovative technology will keep our nation’s economy strong”.
Not surprisingly these dud messages don’t work. McCright et al miss the point that if they are selling schemes to change the weather, the best salesman would list the direct benefits — like how much nicer a cooler world will be, with fewer storms and floods, less heatwaves, and more cold days in winter, stuff like that right. (I can’t think why they don’t?) Could it be that no matter […]
It’s an upside down world. Now, to be allowed to speak freely, dissident scientists depend on Russia.
Phillipe Verdier was France’s main weatherman on the big public TV channel. In October he released a skeptical book, and immediately got told not to come back to work. Sacked for holding the wrong opinion.
Now, Verdier is working for Russia Today.
French news outlet Le Figaro reports Philippe Verdier is covering the United Nations climate summit in Paris for Russia Today France. Verdier has a daily news segment dedicated to covering what goes on during the U.N. climate talks.
“Hello I am very happy to talk to you about the daily COP21 … in freedom,” Verdier said in his first segment on Russia Today, according to a translation by The Daily Caller News Foundation, clearly taking a swipe at the French media for firing him. 9 out of 10 based on 116 ratings […]
And you thought we’d heard it all. Not so, get out the plastic bags.
Seventy percent of the oxygen on Earth is made by phytoplankton, so the little critters do matter. A new study suggests that the phytoplankton pretty much fall apart if the worlds oceans heat by just six degrees. They stop making the good O2. We all die. Puppies, kittens, kids, and krill — it’s all over.
There are a couple of caveats — the study involves only binary phytoplankton (the kind made of zero’s and ones and which lives in hard discs at the University of Leicester). And the other one is that six degrees is an Awful Lot of Warming.
As best as we can tell (which is not very well) the oceans are warming at four hundreth of a degree per decade (give or take a lot). The all new Gee-Whizz Argo buoys are neat little robots, but the error bars are still a scandal, being somewhere from one tenth to one half a degree — ha-d-ha — too big to fit on the graph.( See all the white stuff — the errors are probably larger than that.)
Taking that single point of highly uncertain […]
Got no actual data-trail on “big-oil” dollars? That’s no reason not to run another name-calling smear article. A Yale group has spent countless months reading through the tea-leaves of old worn out climate themes and think they’ve discovered that the Kochs and Exxon carried the most influence.
What’s really remarkable is that the Yale group had so much funding they could trawl through 40,000 documents, track 4556 people and 164 “contrarian” organisations across 20 years and through 39 million words. Yet despite this, they found nothing. There’s no smoking gun, no proof that anyone was being dishonest, that the messages were wrong.
What the Yale team found was that “documents produced by lobbyists backed by two key corporate benefactors (Koch and Exxon) — proved to have been reproduced more often and with more “semantic similarity”. Justin Farrell (of Yale) thinks that means the Koch’s and Exxon are artificially skewing public opinion. Here’s another hypothesis — Exxon and the Kochs are smart businessmen. They spotted the leading skeptics in the 1990’s and gave them some help. The messages stuck with the public because they were good ones, not because they were “oil funded”. Farrell gets cause and effect confused.
Despite running […]
Never before has there been so many egos in the one room:
It was the largest single-day gathering of heads of state or government in history, the UN said.
“Never have the stakes of an international meeting been so high because it concerns the future of the planet, the future of life,” French President Francois Hollande said in an opening speech.
“The hope of all of humanity rests on all of your shoulders.” –– Paris Climate Change Talks begin, The Australian, Graham Lloyd.
Glory be. Pray to our Elected Fathers (and Mothers) who have come to save us from our sins.
The Chosen Ones shall rescue us with full gloss PR. For it is only in the world of Mass Marketing that we can call China a climate saviour:
[Obama] then met Chinese President Xi Jinping before the summit started, with his focus turned to deepening co-operation between the world’s two biggest emitters of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
“As the two largest carbon emitters, we have both determined that it is our responsibility to take action,” Mr Obama said as he sat alongside Mr Xi.
And so […]
Here’s the full copy of a half page advert in The Australian. In a normal world, this would be discussed at conferences, and reported by science reporters in magazines like New Scientist or Scientific American, or on shows like Catalyst. Instead, private citizens have to fork out thousands to pay for an advert. — Jo
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT CLIMATE
The climate cooled for 37 years during the period 1940 to 1976. Books were written expressing alarm. Lowell Ponte’s 1975 book warns: “Global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for 110,000 years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance: the survival of ourselves, our children, our species.”
We now have a new climate alarm and similar statements are being made. Climate models used by authorities forecast that CO2 emissions will cause dangerous global warming, now referred to as Climate Change.
Sources: Various, as described in the “State of the Climate in 2012” in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society1, August 2013.
PSYCHOLOGY, BIAS ERRORS AND CLIMATE
Recent findings in the area of psychology, “Psychology and Economics” by […]
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