Weekend Unthreaded (with 200,000 mile chasm of fire on the sun)

Photograph by NASA/SDO

Read about it, and watch the video below:


As described on the NASA Goddard Youtube channel

Published on Oct 24, 2013

A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. Visualizers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. combined two days of satellite data to create a short movie of this gigantic event on the sun.

In reality, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma: particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off, creating a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields.

These images were captured on Sept. 29-30, 2013, by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which constantly observes the sun in a variety of wavelengths.

Different wavelengths help capture different aspect of events in the corona. The red images shown in the movie help highlight plasma at temperatures of 90,000° F and are good for observing filaments as they form and erupt. The yellow images, showing temperatures at 1,000,000° F, are useful for observing material coursing along the sun’s magnetic field lines, seen in the movie as an arcade of loops across the area of the eruption. The browner images at the beginning of the movie show material at temperatures of 1,800,000° F, and it is here where the canyon of fire imagery is most obvious.

By comparing this with the other colors, one sees that the two swirling ribbons moving farther away from each other are, in fact, the footprints of the giant magnetic field loops, which are growing and expanding as the filament pulls them upward.

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11379

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8.8 out of 10 based on 36 ratings

50 comments to Weekend Unthreaded (with 200,000 mile chasm of fire on the sun)

  • #
    handjive

    Two completely un-related links.

    The rare and legendary last edition of Ortelius’ Theatrum, the 1612 Latin edition. in pristine condition and gorgeous original colour.
    A breathtaking example of one of the most spectacular and desirable of all early maps.
    AREA SHOWN Iceland

    ‘Viking sunstone’ found in shipwreck
    Vikings were seafarers from Scandinavia who used their longboats to explore and conquer parts of Europe, Greenland, Iceland, Russia and North America.

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  • #

    Radiation from the sun assumes that a) the Stefan=Boltzmann equation applies b) the sun has a surface c) the surface area is equivalent to the optical projection d) the surface has black body properties e) that the surface temperature is constant f) the sun’s surface temperature (as seen from Earth)using Planck’s Law & Wien’s Displacement law is estimated at about 5760K and g) this later temperature can be used to determine the sun’s heat flux.
    There are a number of papers that indicate that the sun has a core and an atmosphere. The NASA video shows that there is a plasma belt which could confine an atmosphere.
    However, one has to doubt the correctness of any calculation about radiation from the sun. There is no instrument that measures directly the sun’s heat flux. All measurements are indirect making assumptions which are including in an assumed calculation process.
    With probes to and around the sun our knowledge is improving but there is much to learn and we may never have a final answer because of the high temperatures involved.

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    • #
      Dave

      Why the time delay in releasing this?

      Is there any reason why the image was acquired on Sept. 29-30, 2013 by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, and yet it gets released a month later.

      NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is also monitoring the situation. The SWPC says there’s no sign of a coronal mass ejection from the latest flare , and that they’re unlikely to cause geomagnetic storm activity that will affect Earthlings?

      Will this one event (sounds huge to me) have any effect on the weather, and I thought we were at maximum of Solar cycle 24 (a very weak one) and is this canyon of fire unusual (or is it a solar flare)?

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      • #
        Eddie Sharpe

        The world superpower that brings us all this marvellous stuff had an impromptu shutdown for over 2 weeks remember. There might have been a bit of a backlog from that.

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        • #
          Joe V.

          You reckon it might have been the US Govt. ploughing a furlough on the Sun too ?

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          • #
            Bite Back

            I recon the publication delay could have been because Obama closed down everything he could find that would cause the most public pain. But no, we do not yet control the sun. I expect they would like to but they can’t. I could easily applaud the closure of NASA or at least a large part of it, starting with GISS.

            BB

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    • #
      Peter C

      I did not know that. I thought that the figure of 1640W/m2 was a direct measuerement from some sort of radiometer on a satellite.
      The radiation spectrum from the sun does seem to vary somewhat from a perfect black body spectrum.

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  • #
    ceetee

    Absolutely stunning, great post.

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  • #
    ceetee

    Just wondering. does anyone know if the sun has tectonic plates?

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Obviously not. The surface isn’t solid. Perhaps you meant “does the sun have heat circulation like the interior of the Earth?”

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    • #
      WhaleHunt Fun

      There are no solids on the surface so no, at least not like the ones on earth.
      But as the surface surely is affected by the convections of material deeper, then some of the motion of the “stuff” at the surface must be due to those convections. So to that extent there will be at least some similarity to tectonic plates.

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      • #
        ceetee

        I just wondered because the eruption seemed to follow some sort of linear path suggesting perhaps a fracture.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “if the sun has tectonic plates”

      They’d be darn good for cooking pizza !

      ummmm… maybe a bit quick..

      31

  • #
    crakar24

    Here is a question……..

    The Pakistani Taliban and the Pakistani government had arranged to conduct peace talks tomorrow in an effort to avoid more civilian bloodshed etc however the peace talks are now cancelled because the US government used a drone to blow up the taliban leader.

    So my question is who wants peace and who does not? Who benefits by endless wars?

    61

    • #
      Truthseeker

      There are movers and shakers on both sides that what hostilities to continue. However making peace with the Taliban is like sleeping with scorpions. You are trusting them not to sting you.

      40

    • #
      Tim

      Who benefits by endless wars?

      The military – industrial complex corporations benefit big time supplying armaments, infrastructure, private mercenary armies, fuel, pipelines etc. And then there are profits from valuable natural resources like heroin, oil, gas…and you can install your own friendly leaders into the bargain.

      So who needs peace talks, already?

      31

  • #
    AndyG55

    “with 200,000 mile chasm of fire on the sun”

    Its CO2 what done it,……really it is !!!!!!!

    Just ask the ABC

    83

  • #
    PeterS

    Much more detailed info and more up to date observations on our Sun can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/Suspicious0bservers/videos?view=0

    20

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    Crikey. Forgive me for thinking that must be a satellite image of NSW at the moment, at first glance.

    60

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    Is it too soon for a stocktake on the LNP/Abbott government?

    See, we were told, in uncertain terms, that Tony Abbott becoming PM was a scary proposition and he would make everything awful, the sky would fall, dogs and cats would be living together… etc.

    I haven’t taken much notice of what’s been going on since the election, but from news headlines it does sound like… the troops are being brought home from Afghanistan, at least one Climate QUANGO has been scrapped, and a carbon tax repeal is still brewing.

    The illegal immigrants are being stopped although it’s not clear if Rudd’s “Bali process” agreement with Indonesia deserves more credit than the LNP’s new Navy interception scheme. A policy that went as far as requiring the Navy to intrude into Indonesian waters was hardly a careful plan. I wonder if that was just autocratic myopia or was symptomatic of there being such a groundswell against the LaboGreen symbiosis that the LNP knew they’d get elected even without developing a credible alternative.

    The appointment of Ziggy as the NBNCo CEO so soon after the LNP takeover smells of cronyism and yet I struggle to imagine what actually is going to result from it that will be so bad. It’s probably a case of installing someone who was previously friendly to the Howard government and who can be relied on push the more economical and functional Fibre-to-the-Node + LTE Wireless combo.

    Sure, the LNP acquiesced to the Bank Levy, and that’s wrong, but it’s hard to get too upset about it when its less than a 0.01% tax on accounts.

    Maybe I’m just not fully “ABC-informed” on the issue, but it does seem like… the Abbottcalpyse is proceeding very slowly if it’s even happening at all.

    As for the sun’s eruptions, Piers Corbyn claims to be doing quite nicely at predicting extreme weather in the UK due in part to solar activity.

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    • #
      MemoryVault

      .
      This government was never “elected” to deal with any of the issues you have mentioned. Most of them, like “climate change”, and the “boat people” were already passe anyway, regardless of the supposed wailings of Shorten, the ABC, and others.

      This government was elected to:

      1) – Change various Commonwealth laws to allow States’ assets to be privatised sold off to multinationals.
      2) – Change various Commonwealth laws to allow superannuation funds to be invested in siphoned off to multinationals.

      Both objectives are progressing very nicely, thank you.

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    • #
      Joe V.

      Piers Corbyn claims to be doing quite nicely at predicting extreme weather in the UK due in part to solar activity.

      While the UK Met Office is saying here’s what we think its doing just now (after failing to notice the Great Storm of 1987 until it was past) , piers Corbyn is saying :- ‘here’s what I was saying 6 weeks ago, and happening now’..

      The Met Office continues to fudge & hedge, while admitting it is not possible for IT to predict more the 5 days in advance, while claiming the science just doesn’t exist for anyone else to predict it either.

      It has to be said that the Met Office did see this one coming though, from 3 days ahead, and that no doubt did save lives.

      60

  • #
    janama

    On dear – here we go again, James Cameron on streoids!

    Youtube Promo of new 8 part TV series on climate change

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      It was to be expected.

      A lot of people have made some very public statements, and reputations are on the line (or so they think). And that is not to mention their investment portfolios.

      They are like a gambler, who wins some, and looses some, and then comes to realise that they are starting to lose more often than they are winning. So they go all in, on one huge bet, in an attempt to recover their losses.

      But the world is moving on. People will watch, see it is entertainment, shrug, ask their friends what they thought the best bits were, and then discuss something else.

      It is a counter-counter revolution that will only resonate with the remaining believers, but will not win back anybody who has realised that the whole thing was a scam.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I might add, that in the way An Inconvenient Truth gave us lots of things to critique, this movie will probably give us lots of ammunition as well. I can hardly wait.

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      • #
        Bite Back

        Mr. Whakaaro,

        As I watch what’s going on I see the screws being tightened even as the public begins to realize the truth. I wonder which of us will be proved correct. Frankly I hope it’s you. But I have serious doubt at this point.

        BB

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Nothing is ever certain, of course.

          But in the intersecting patterns of events, decision makers only ever have a finite set of options. They will make decisions on the basis of least damage, or most benefit. Or they will look for a compromise between the two. The timing of the decision is either made immediately, or is dependent upon the occurrence of other events.

          All of the people involved with this movie have been outspoken in the past, and have publicly taken a position. Hollywood never forgets. And it is the public, that are tightening the screws. So the number of options available for continuing with this scam is diminishing.

          I suggest that this movie will prove to be a compromise between damage limitation, and making a final pass at the box office, to squeeze any remaining revenue out of the system.

          10

          • #
            Bite Back

            …compromise…

            Compromises with the devil can prove fatal. I would like a clear win-lose endgame where the climate change alarm is buried under the dead weight of its mistaken predictions, faulty science and lies, so deep that no one will ever be able to find it again. These people are not our friends.

            Instead we may end up being the ones grateful to even be alive. I respect your thinking and as I said, I hope you’re right. But they are now at a point where they appear to have no fear of being stopped and talk about their agenda openly. And the number who show some return to sanity is too small and too late. If they become cornered like an animal being stalked almost anything can happen. In the USA, Homeland Security has its private army, complete with tanks. Who do you suppose that army will be used against?

            BB

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    • #
      Bite Back

      I could very easily want to shoot every last vestige of climate change believers off into that big solar storm shown in the video at the top of this thread. I think that would teach them to be grateful they live on this planet and should get on with their lives instead of complaining.

      The more their case collapses the louder they get. I fear a revolt of the people eventually that will certainly result in violence on a grand scale. If that’s what it takes then so be it. But I don’t like the prospect in the slightest.

      BB

      20

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        But, it you fired them into the sun, you would not get the olfactory satisfaction of burning them at the stake.

        11

        • #
          Bite Back

          But, it you fired them into the sun, you would not get the olfactory satisfaction of burning them at the stake.

          Far too messy!

          BB

          00

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    • #
      MadJak

      Good grief. Here we go again.

      It is soo easy to string together every major natural disaster and blame it on something like AGW. And this looks like it’s exactly what they’re doing. It is wrong, dishonest and unethical.

      Maybe we can put together something about the majority of non natural disasters and make a film about that – only it doesn’t get the attention.

      00

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    Happy Diwali day today. As if celebrating Guy Fawkes on Bonfire Night, (5 November) wasn’t enough living in England my dog has to put up the with fireworks celebrating the Hindu Festival of Light tonight as well.

    50

  • #
    pat

    3 Nov: UK Daily Mail: David Rose: Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover
    Study says warmer temperatures are largely due to natural 300-year cycles
    Actual increase in last 17 years lower than almost every prediction
    Scientists likened continuing pause to a Mexican wave in a stadium
    Even IPCC report co-authors such as Dr Hawkins admit some of the models are ‘too hot’.
    He said: ‘The upper end of the latest climate model projections is inconsistent’ with observed temperatures, though he added even the lower predictions could have ‘negative impacts’ if true.
    But if the pause lasted another ten years, and there were no large volcanic eruptions, ‘then global surface temperatures would be outside the IPCC’s indicative likely range’.
    Professor Curry went much further. ‘The growing divergence between climate model simulations and observations raises the prospect that climate models are inadequate in fundamental ways,’ she said.
    If the pause continued, this would suggest that the models were not ‘fit for purpose’.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485772/Global-warming-pause-20-years-Arctic-sea-ice-started-recover.html

    3 Nov: UK Mirror: 340 MPs get their energy bills paid on EXPENSES to heat second homes – with one claiming £5,822
    A Sunday Mirror investigation exposed millionaire Tory who claimed a staggering £5,822 in just 12 months – more than four times the average household energy bill
    By Dominic Herbert, Ben Glaze, Alex Clarke
    Old Etonian Hugo Swire, minister of state for the Foreign Office, claimed a total of £3,198 on gas and oil in 12 months on his second home. Writing in his local paper, the Tory MP for East Devon said: “The reason we are not introducing a price freeze is it simply won’t work. If we want the lights to stay on, consumers and taxpayers are, by some means or other, going to have to pay for it.”
    Conservative MP Tim Yeo, who has temporarily stepped aside as chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, claimed £979.68 on gas and electricity on his London flat. Last year he said an extra £3 a week on fuel bills was a “reasonable price” to pay for green and nuclear power…
    National Pensioners Convention spokesman Neil Duncan-Jordan said the energy claims were “hypocrisy and double standards” from these MPs.
    He said: “Pensioners will be disgusted at how out of touch many MPs are, when many older people will have to choose between heating and eating.”…
    Mr Davey came under fire for suggesting people should wear jumpers to save on bills while Sarah Newton, deputy chairman of the Tory Party, has written an energy-saving guide for constituents telling them to shut their curtains…
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/340-mps-energy-bills-paid-2671053

    11

  • #
    crakar24

    Big Brother wont let me look at this so here it is for others to see

    Go to this link then scroll down to the link for the paper

    http://iceagenow.info/2013/10/earths-climate-controlled-magnetic-variations-sun-paper-suggests/

    It should be an interesting read

    10

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  • #
    pat

    3 Nov: CNN: Top climate change scientists’ letter to policy influencers
    Editor’s note: Climate and energy scientists James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Wigley released an open letter Sunday calling on world leaders to support development of safer nuclear power systems. For more on the future of nuclear power as a possible solution for global climate change, watch CNN Films’ presentation of “Pandora’s Promise,” Thursday, November 7, at 9 p.m. ET/PT…
    http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/

    ***LOL:

    3 Nov: CNN: Thom Patterson: Climate change warriors: It’s time to go nuclear
    Cavanagh (Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council) said the “movie (Pandora’s Promise) attempts to establish the proposition that mainstream environmentalists are pouring into nuclear advocacy today. They aren’t. I’ve been in the NRDC since 1979. I have a pretty good idea of where the mainstream environmental groups are and have been. I’ve seen no movement.”
    ***Selling nuclear energy to environmentalists is a tough pitch. Hansen acknowledged that many of them won’t easily buy into it. Parts of the community operate like “a religion of sorts, which makes it very difficult,” Hansen said. “They’re not all objectively looking at the pros and cons.”…
    http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists/index.html

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  • #
    pat

    3 Nov: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: ‘To Those Influencing Environmental Policy But Opposed to Nuclear Power’
    Four climate scientists, three of whom have published in peer-reviewed literature on energy issues (a sampler from Wigley, Hansen and Caldeira), are pressing the case for environmental groups to embrace the need for a new generation of nuclear power plants in a letter they distributed overnight to a variety of organizations and journalists.
    Amory Lovins, Joe Romm and Mark Jacobson would disagree, I’d bet. I certainly know many other energy and climate analysts who would sign on in a heartbeat, including the physics Nobel laureate Burt Richter and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz…
    There’s more from Caldeira in a recorded video chat we had awhile back…VIDEO
    http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/to-those-influencing-environmental-policy-but-opposed-to-nuclear-power/?_r=0

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  • #
    pat

    1 Nov: UK Daily Mail: Hannah Roberts in Rome: Toxic nuclear waste dumped illegally by the Mafia is blamed for surge in cancers in southern Italy
    Italian Senate investigating link between pollutants and 50 per cent rise
    Classified documents from 1997 reveal poison would kill everyone
    Nuclear sludge, brought from Germany, was dumped in landfills
    The Italian Senate is investigating a link between buried pollutants and a rise of almost 50 per cent in tumours found in the inhabitants of several towns around Naples.
    In classified documents from 1997, only now released to the public, a mafia kingpin warned authorities that the poison in the ground would kill everyone ‘within two decades’.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2483484/Toxic-nuclear-waste-dumped-illegally-Mafia-blamed-surge-cancers-southern-Italy.html#ixzz2jQTNprrW

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  • #
    pat

    1 Nov: A Statement from U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz Regarding Fukushima
    “On Friday, I made my first visit to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. It is stunning that one can see firsthand the destructive force of the tsunami even more than two and a half years after the tragic events”…
    “They (TEPCO) face a daunting task in the cleanup and decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi, one that will take decades and is being carried out under very challenging conditions.”…
    http://energy.gov/articles/statement-us-secretary-energy-ernest-moniz-regarding-fukushima

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    pat

    worth reading all:

    4 Nov: Bloomberg: Pankaj Mishra: India Shouldn’t Buy What Japan Is Selling
    An obsession with nuclear power makes many political elites secretive, ruthless and delusional, even as their cherished projects threaten millions of people with disaster. But the egregious examples I have in mind here aren’t Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. They are Japan and India, two countries with democratic institutions.
    Last week in the south Indian city of Pondicherry, I met a friend who had managed to penetrate the security lockdown around Kudankulam, the Russian-built nuclear power station in Tamil Nadu that began partial operations late last month despite strong protests from local villagers.
    Kudankulum lies only a few miles away from a coastline that was ravaged by a tsunami in 2004. Opposition to the plant intensified after another intense earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused meltdowns at three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. Since then, Indian police have deported the few journalists who have tried to report on the protests, sequestered entire villages and levied criminal charges against tens of thousands of locals, some of whom have been accused of sedition and “waging war on the state.” …
    It is also true that, as Japan scholar Jeff Kingston points out, the export of technology by Japanese companies is key to Abenomics. Japan is at the center of the global nuclear-industrial complex, which stands to benefit greatly from the continued sale of an outdated and demonstrably dangerous technology to wannabe nuclear powers such as India and Turkey.
    Toshiba Corp. owns 87 percent of Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC, which is helping to build a nuclear plant — again, against intense local protests — in the Indian state of Rajasthan; Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Group are in collaborations with General Electric Co. and the French company Areva SA, whose multiple deals with India make it the real beneficiary of the country’s U.S.-assisted admission to the nuclear club in 2008.
    In this scramble for large profits, democratic values such as oversight, accountability and transparency are likely to be trampled into the dust. The case of Tepco shows how a large and networked company can buy the silence of the media as well as of politicians and regulators. Thus, while Fukushima remains volatile, another nuclear catastrophe seems to be developing in India. As in Japan, the full-throated advocacy of nuclear energy by its leaders, and the absence of debate within the Parliament or the mainstream media, reinforces the bitter truth of a line from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek that Ramana quotes in his book: “It is indeed true that we live in a society of risky choices, but it is one in which only some do the choosing, while others do the risking.”
    (Pankaj Mishra is the author of “From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia” and a Bloomberg View columnist.)
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-03/india-shouldn-t-buy-what-japan-is-selling.html

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  • #
    pat

    1 Nov: Redd-Monitor: Chris Lang: What to do if you’ve been scammed into buying carbon credits as an investment
    Over the past 18 months, REDD-Monitor has written a series of posts about companies selling carbon credits as investments. From the comments it’s clear that a large number of people have been taken in by the scam and many have handed over their life savings.
    In the discussions following these posts, there has been some repetition of advice about what to do if you have bought carbon credits. This is an attempt to collect that information in one place. There may be more options and I’ll update the post as necessary…
    http://www.redd-monitor.org/2013/11/01/what-to-do-if-youve-been-scammed-into-buying-carbon-credits-as-an-investment/

    31 Oct: Redd-Monitor: Chris Lang: Why does the Serious Fraud Office not take action on carbon credit scams?
    Surely, then, the SFO must take an interest in the large number of companies in the UK that are selling carbon credits as investments?
    Apparently not…
    http://www.redd-monitor.org/2013/10/31/why-does-the-serious-fraud-office-not-take-action-on-carbon-credit-scams/#more-14501

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    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      Do you think they might call themselves that because they have difficulty being taken ‘Serious’ly ? Like Climate ‘Scientists’ for instance. More of as aspiration all title. The SFO – I wonder what they do all day.

      10