JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support AT joannenova.com.au
Statistics
Merry Xmas to all the Jonovians.
250
at true jonovian celebrates the birth of jo, not jesus’s!
34
Yes, Merry Christmas Novas – will Jo be getting Davey-Babe a notch filter? Or are they a little hard to come by when they predict several years of cooling, commencing from the very year that the 1997 El Niño outlier global temperature is surpassed? I guess the Christmas shelves can’t be stocked with defective toys that break the day they are sold?
Maybe a lump of coal for each of you – we know you love it so.
214
“I guess the Christmas shelves can’t be stocked with defective toys that break the day they are sold?’
Gees there’s 100 or so of those models, none of which worked from day one !!
“Maybe a lump of coal for each of you’
A whole trainful please.
Let’s help those plants grow.. give them Christmas as well 🙂
132
I didn’t understand the comment but I think we are NF1 about now
11
?
00
Does this mean I’m now a Jonovan Witness?
20
Nah, the only religious fruit cakes that hang here would be of ‘Jonovian Witless’.
10
From an inline comment by moderator FLY
“3. The burden of proof does not rest on the questioner, since it is not possible to prove a negative.”
So, it’s not possible to prove that anthropogenic CO2 is not causing global warming?
Or that anthropogenic CO2 is not causing sea level rise?
Or not causing ocean acidification? etc., etc.
By trying to prove the above negatives, are we sceptics attempting the impossible?
I have attempted many times to get those who say, “one cannot prove a negative” or even that it is a logical fallacy, to explain and clarify their assertion.
I ask those who hold such a belief; please identify the name of this “fallacy” so that I can better understand how it fits in with a law of logic which itself is a negative; The law of non-contradiction – A proposition cannot be both true and not true. Nothing is both true and false.
Surely, if the law of non-contradiction cannot be proven then the basis of all logic collapses?
[That is a fair criticism, as it was used in that particular instance – there was a lot going on at the time. mea culpa. However, I still cannot prove that Nargles do not exist.] -Fly
110
” to prove that anthropogenic CO2 is not causing global warming”
Max, maybe look at this latest paper from Miskolski
To quote from the abstract…
212
Thanks Griss,
So do you agree that proving a negative is possible?
30
All the real science seems to point to the null hypothesis that CO2 has no effect on atmospheric temperatures.
There is no science I have seen that proves otherwise.
A few spurious coincidental correlations is about all they seem to be able to come up with. Certainly nothing indicating any causation.
192
So, Griss.
You seem to believe that carbon dioxide, man-produced or not, has NO greenhouse gas properties.
Hmm. Thank you. That makes me feel much less lonely now.
100
That is what all the real science is pointing to.
Yes is absorbs then releases so radiation, maybe, if its not already fully energised.
But the temperature is regulated ONLY by the atmospheric pressure gradient.
The only molecule that can provide any temporary “blanket” is H2O, and it can only do that once it has transferred energy up to that “blanket” (called clouds), in doing so COOLING the surface.
Sorry for using the word “blanket”.. a bit of a liteweight humour 😉
123
I can’t believe this comment has thumbs up – even at this site.
Please enlighten us Gristler – which real science points to CO2 not being a GHG?
And not a “sceptic” at this site contradicts him.
You must be so proud, Jo. Thanks for saving science. We should all give you more money.
210
I have given some links from very eminent scientists…… none of them refuted.
(go hunting, and come back when you have read and understood all of them.)
And yet when I ask for even one paper that proves that CO2 causes warming in an open atmosphere.. not one taker.
The real science only points one way, and that is to the null.
Knowledge is my Christmas present to you, don’t be scared to open it. 🙂
123
You’re the gift that keeps on giving all year round, Gristler. Unfortunately though, all you have to give is BS.
Name an eminent scientist that claims CO2 is not a GHG.
18
Poor Chester.
Yes, CO2 is used in greenhouses. !
But it does not “trap” heat in the atmosphere.
As I said, look for the papers I linked to and try to get past the first paragraph for a change. 🙂
I give you the chance to increase your knowledge past primary school, but you reject it. That’s your problem, not mine.
41
And another link for you to read..
I know you are going to really struggle with some of the science and physics concepts and certainly with the basic maths….
… but please, do make the effort, for yourself, if not for us. 🙂
21
“Trap” doesn’t explain the physics but, for the layperson, it is an accurate description of the resulting effect. But your clear claim that CO2 is not a GHG is utter BS and reveals you for what you are.
The nature of CO2 as a GHG has been proven in the laboratory. To claim otherwise is deception.
But Nova welcomes all paying customers.
02
Chester,
Self evident truths:
A green house creates the environment for CO2.
CO2 does not create the environment for a green house.
32
Who said that proving CAGW is not causing climatechange/global warming a negative,it could be the other way round that proving CAGW is the cause could be considered a negative?(this is the dog chasing its tail)
Besides how does it become a negative to prove something wrong that is abstract like the term “climate”?
50
Hi MacSual,
I think you’re using the word “negative” in a different context. I think you are referring to the horrific negative consequences if we blindly follow the totalitarian CAGW meme.
I’m using negative in the context of negation.
I apologize for the Wiki reference but it does give a reasonable explanation.
I would only add that the statement: 2 + 2 ≠ 5 is a true statement. It is a negative because it tells us what 2 + 2 is not.
On the issue of right and wrong, these are ethical/moral questions. Logic is amoral.
10
That’s really interesting, thank you Griss.
I have been butting heads with a bunch of alarmists who all believe that the 40% rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely due to anthropogenic emissions.
Does anybody have some solid numbers/references on this?
20
“all believe that the 40% rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely due to anthropogenic emissions”
Who cares where its coming from, the more CO2 in the carbon cycle the better, within the limits of anything we can ever accomplish
Just say to them……
“Well done humans.. you are saving the world’s plant life from starvation”
Ask them if they want their children and grandchildren to have a reliable supply of food and electricity.
That always seems to annoy them 🙂
91
There are some papers disputing that position but I haven’t them to hand. They are swamped by those claiming what your friends believe. In any case the amount of manmade CO2 is dwarfed by natural circulation. Salby debunked the isotope ratio theory.
http://uscentrist.org/platform/positions/environment/context-environment/docs/Revelle-Suess1957.pdf
is an old but good paper showing that the residence time is less than 10 years.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/ed-hoskins-the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-co2-on-temperature/
might be useful to counter claims of warming to come.
You might also ask how natural processes can distinguish between CO2 molecules from natural sources from those manmade.
40
Or you could look at this paper.Quote from the conclusion.
“The AGW theory claims the earth is warming because rising CO2 is like a blanket, reducing Earth’s energy loss to space but the NOAA data shows that, at least for the last 30 years, Earth’s energy loss to space has been rising. The last 30 years of NOAA data is not compatible with the theory of AGW. It would appear that either 30 years of NOAA data is wrong or the theory of AGW is very severely flawed.”
91
The total amount of CO2 that humans have contributed to the CO2 greenhouse is only 2% (~0.08ppmv/year) when applying Henry’s law. This is a mathematical certainty. The reason as to why CO2’s adjustment time is so long is because the IPCC apply the Revelle Factor which is in direct violation of Henry’s law. The Revelle Factor only allows the surface ocean to absorb 10% of any increase in atmospheric CO2 which would also suggest that the sinks are behaving in a discriminatory way. For an explanation see my article ‘Digging into the core: Why the increase in CO2 is probably natural’. My article is actually probably one of the most comprehensive arguments on the web for why the increase in CO2 is natural.
70
Thank you Richard, I will read your article. I have heard of “The Revelle Factor” and as soon as I saw it I though “these people have set out to invent something”. Are there any good rebuttals of it?
00
Excellent article Richard, this is exactly what I was looking for!
00
I have a question on one thing in your article:
Where does the 30 come from?
00
Figured it out, it’s the 30 gigatonnes/year.
00
@MaxL
“3. The burden of proof does not rest on the questioner, since it is not possible to prove a negative.”. ..yes indeed.
Bought the book Jo, my holiday reading if it arrives in time. There’s so much of the nuts and bolts that I don’t understand that I feel I should.
Have a wonderful Christmas and a fantabulous New Year.
50
You need to distinguish ‘proof of a negative’ and ‘negative proof’.
Douglas Walton in ‘Arguments from Ignorance’ (p16) gives the following example from DeMorgan (‘Formal Logic’):
As to FLY’s comment, which was directed to Frankie: Frankie is making an assertion that something (CAGW) is the case. The onus is therefore on him to provide evidence that it is the case. Instead of doing so he relies on an argument from authority (more specifically: ad verecundium, eminence or awe) and attempts to shift the burden of proof by demanding that those who are not making an assertion that something is the case provide evidence that it is not the case. However, he has not discharged his evidential burden. There is no case to rebut.
200
Lord Jim,
Yes, I agree that “negative proof”, aka “argument from ignorance” is a fallacy. Further, that Frankie was indeed asserting that he was right because no one could prove him wrong (in his eyes).
However, I thought that the examples I gave were sufficient to demonstrate that just because a claim has the words not or no etc., did not make the claim unprovable.
When someone makes a claim and another questions that claim, then the maker of the claim should be grateful for the opportunity to explain and give the evidence to support his claim. Once that is done, if he who questioned the claim still does not accept the claim then he has the opportunity to give evidence refuting the claim.
As such, the “burden” of proof swaps between opponents.
Of course, Frankie doesn’t play by these rules because he is incapable of rational debate. But with FLY stating that “since it is not possible to prove a negative.”, FLY has implied that any counter argument is invalid.
I wonder when some warmist will say; CO2 causes global warming, and if you try to argue that it does not, then you are using a logical fallacy because – you can’t prove a negative.
71
Yes, I’m not generally in disagreement…
If we have (e.g.) p and -p we can show -p to be the case (i.e. ‘it is raining’ and ‘it is not raining’)
IIRC Argumentum ad ignorantum runs for illegitimate shifts of the burden of proof. I imagine it is something like: you cannot provide a refutation of (contradict) an argument that has not been asserted. You could provide a refutation of all the reasons you think P is not the case and still not hit on the reason why X believes P to be the case.
60
Agreed M’Lord.
I think the best explanation is: Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur – What is asserted without reason may be denied without reason.
130
Aristotle (Metaphysics IV.4, 1006a5-22) defines negative proof as follows:
30
He’s still at it, and I suspect he will continue until he is either banned or finally moves on. It’s all he has. It’s okay though because as I have mentioned elsewhere it doesn’t matter which side of the debate someone is on anyone with any background and training in the hard sciences will recognize in Frank someone who doesn’t know a thing about science.
90
Maxi, confusion arises because of the imprecision of the concept of “proving a negative”. All your “negatives” are but the null hypotheses of “positives”. If a “positive” hypothesis is provable then so is its null, and visa-versa. Fly (reacting to “Frank”) covers this in point 4.
Prediction is a test of hypothesis, it is not a hypothesis in itself. Most of Frank’s assertions are in fact predictions and cannot be disproved (or proved for that matter) until the process has completed , till then any hypothesis is a assessed as a probability based on the “evidence” which itself is subject to null hypothesis.
The beauty of the Global Warming Narrative is that its core issue – the climate catastrophe – is a prediction and therefore both unprovable and irrefutable.
What you should ask yourself is “what do you want to believe?” and is that justifiable? Until you have admitted to, and addressed your own bias and fallibility you cannot rationally address the issue. The trolls contributions are obvious proof of this.
100
diogense2, yes, my “negatives” are just the null hypothesis of a “positive”. Which goes to the Anthropogenic aspect of AGW. Most sceptics that I know of would accept the concept of Natural Global warming (NGW) or Natural Climate Change (NCC).
Please don’t get me wrong here, I’m in no way supporting Frank’s “argument” nor am I disagreeing with most of FLY’s response. I simply wish to discuss the assertion that “one can’t prove a negative”.
I’m reminded of a presentation by James Randi, where he claimed to prove that one can’t prove a negative. His argument involved throwing imaginary reindeer off the World Trade Center to test if reindeer could fly. Noting that none of them flew, he asserted that this doesn’t prove that reindeer cannot fly. Why? Because you can’t prove a negative!
If you haven’t seen it before : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI
40
I would say this is negative proof: to give negative proof you have to provide proof of all the diverse reasons that could counter what you are trying to show is not the case. This is not practically feasible. For instance, how would you show that the reindeers are not just ‘faking it’ and deliberately falling to their deaths in order to make the proponent look bad?
Negative proof also seems related to Hume’s problem with induction (it doesn’t matter how many black crows you see, it doesn’t prove that all crows are black).
However, there is no need to resort to carnage to prove reindeer can’t fly, it can be done with a simple syllogism:
You need wings to fly
Reindeer don’t have wings
Therefore reindeer can’t fly.
30
Crows are black because those that aren’t are black banned.
30
White Crows (as with other species) are caused by albinism …….
10
I’m trying to think of things that can fly that don’t have wings.
So far I have spiders; they spin out a long thin strand of web that catches the wind and they lift off, floating to another destination. Not quite flying but it’s pretty effective.
Then there are flying fish. They don’t have wings either, they are fins. And they do indeed fly quite long distances (up to 400m, 1,300 feet, according to wiki).
Does a hot air balloon fly?, or a blimp? They aren’t natural I know, but they do fly without wings.
20
If reindeer cant fly how can Father Christmas deliver my children’s presents? Yet they always arrive (except via Amazon). What more proof do you need? Both you and Lord Jim are Rudolf deniers.
60
Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
Tony.
50
Reminds me of the Russian weather forecaster who everyone knew was highly accurate in his forecasts.
When his employer’s wife asked how these guy was so accurate all the time, he replied.
Rudolph the red knows rain, dear. ! 🙂
41
typo: these = this 🙁
01
Sadly my very witty retort appears to have been lost in cyberspace…
20
1. There are three logical states of the truth value of a proposition: True, False, and Arbitrary. To be arbitrary means to be without any connection to reality, to be a mere assertion, to have no identified context, content, or process. As such, there is nothing to analyze because it is merely a word salad without a reality based referent. THIS is the reason that someone who asserts the affirmative of a particular proposition MUST prove their assertion or their assertion can rightly be considered nothing but a meaningless (without referent in reality) word salad and can be considered as indistinguishable from noise.
2. To prove a particular proposition means to adduce the full context, content, and process that the proposition implies. If the context is lacking relevant factors, if the content is incomplete, or the process does not specify in sufficient detail, the proof is not complete.
3. Every proposition can be stated as a positive or a negative. Hence, if you can’t prove a negative, all one must do is restate the negative as a positive and proceed to present the necessary context, content, and process for its proof.
4. There are propositions that are implicit in all knowledge. They are called axioms. They are said to be self evident but this is an imprecise and incomplete statement of their nature. In particular, any attempt to disprove an axiom will by necessity require that it be true in order for it to be proven false.
5. The law of noncontradiction is the foundational axiom of logic. To prove that the law is false, one must first presume it is true – meaning that it is what it is and not what it is not. Anyone who asserts that a thing can both be and not be in the same respect at the same time has removed himself from rational discourse and from contact with realty.
6. The ground truth is that reality is what it is and is filled with entities that are what they are and can do only what they can do. If this were not true, we would not be here discussing the issue. Identifying what is and can be is our fundamental challenge. How to do that correctly is not given to us automatically. We must discover the process and choose to execute the process rigorously. To the degree we fail to do that, the quality and quantity of our life will be seriously degraded. Why? It is because we are what we are and can do only what we can do. Any attempt to act counter to that will fail.
50
Question for Lionell: Does,”I always tell lies!”, have any logical value? If the statement is true, then it must, itself, be a lie, etc., etc., etc..
30
I am going to presume you have a serious intent behind asking that question. Otherwise, it is merely a sophistry intended only to misdirect and confuse.
Not all random collections of words, even if grammatically correct, have meaning. Your presented statement is simply a self reflexive meaningless word salad without connection to reality. It is neither true nor false. It is not even a statement about statements. It is simply arbitrary.
It is the responsibility of the producer of the words to assure his words have a clear and verifiable connection to reality. It is not the responsibility of the receiver of the words to guess their meaning nor to read the mind of the producer of the words for that meaning. The meaning of the words is directly dependent upon that reality connection. If that connection does not exist, there is no meaning, no cognitive content, no communication. It is nothing but noise.
To mean is to refer to an objective existent. A foggy miasma of confusion, that far too many people take as meaning, is nothing but an unexamined subjective intent. Such intent is not available for others for inspection or analysis. Only the words presented are capable of being examined and analyzed.
10
I was being serious, Lionel.
Read Spencer-Brown’s “Laws of Form” (or view Louis H. Kauffman’s slide presentation) to see some of the possibilities.
Kauffman identifies the fictional speaker as Epimenides, a Cretan, who reportedly stated: “The Cretans are always liars.”
It’s an interesting take on the Mobius Strip, which is not a paradox; it is how we think about it that confuses us about whether it has an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ (or a ‘top’ and ‘bottom’). Hence the “True or False dilemma” in the question.
Are we really ‘down-under’ in Australia?
00
Down at the quantum scale that statement becomes a little vague. The cat is both dead and alive. The process of observation which is the foundation of our sciences starts to have an affect on the true or false nature of that being observed. Wave equations collapse and Schrödinger’s cat’s fate is decided with a peek.
00
Happy Xmas to all and my brother in law and cousins around Melbourne.
Just to cheer you all with the good news… it seems Australia could be a world leader in CO2 production. I have read you guys have LOTS OF TERMITES. Read what these little blighters can do.
http://termitedetector.com/detection.cfm
60
WOW!!!
Thanks Richard111
I will spend some time on this. Great material.
Looks like it is time to open up the national parks for free non commercial fallen timber gathering.
30
“it seems Australia could be a world leader in CO2 production”
Nice, but we are going to need one heck of a lot of termites to keep up with China and India.
Thing is, that termites don’t actually add CO2 to the carbon cycle because they are part of that cycle.
It is up to us to release the buried carbon back into the carbon cycle.
We should not be shirking that responsibility.
61
Growing more trees is the best option and then cutting them down and burning them as firewood for heating and cooking or just throwing them on a bloody big bonfires and releasing those poor trapped carbons back to where they belong.
It’s called recycling,that’s something the green types are in love with.
10
YEs, but that only keeps the carbon in the carbon cycle.
What we really need to be doing is adding carbon to the carbon cycle.
(The atmosphere is still dangerously low in CO2 concentration.)
Actually, badly worded..
We should be returning buried carbon to the carbon cycle.
That can only really be done using fossil fuels.
42
Good point,and here’s me thinking I had a good idea,well back to the drawing board.
ps I still like the idea of a bonfire!
BTW does anyone know how to start a volcanic eruption?
21
“start a volcanic eruption” Try sticking your fingers down your throat. 🙂
01
There are plenty of websites with photos of scantily clad females that should help in starting an…. Oh wait, you said eruption.
Well, come to think of it, they can probably do that to.
11
Ah, thanks Griss. That hadn’t occurred to me. Termites are PART of the carbon cycle.
00
“Thing is, that termites don’t actually add CO2 to the carbon cycle because they are part of that cycle.”
What about the methane?
10
The methane does not add any extra carbon to the atmosphere either. Each methane molecule contains one atom of carbon. (Methane is CH4, that is, one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen). The source of the carbon atom in the methane molecule is the wood and other cellulous material the termites break down and use as food. The same applies to ruminant such as sheep and cattle which break down tough cellulous in their rumen.
In both cases, the carbon in the methane molecule comes from plant matter. In turn the carbon in the plant matter comes from the atmosphere by the process of photosynthesis, a process powered by solar energy. This is a terrifically important point as it is contrary to what many people think. Let me state it again, The carbon in a plant comes from the atmosphere, not from the ground. The function of the roots of a plant is not to ‘dig’ out carbon from the ground and send it up into the trunk and leaves of a tree, bush of grass. It is the leaves that source the carbon and push it down to the roots and to all other parts of the plant.
Any carbon that is then emitted by a life form that eats and digests food, is not an addition to new carbon in the atmosphere. Not even one atom of new carbon. And this principle applies to both the carbon in the CO2 the termites and other animals emit as well as the CH4 (methane) the termites and other animals emit.
The methane molecule is basically unstable in the presence of oxygen (oxygen is excluded from the rumen in ruminant animals) . When the methane molecule comes into contact with vast quantities of oxygen in the atmosphere, it oxidises and the carbon atom combines with oxygen to form a carbon dioxide molecule – exactly the same molecule as existed before the sun shone and powered photosynthesis in the leaves of plants.
CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O + energy release (heat)
In this form the carbon dioxide becomes available to plants again as food. It is a truly marvellous phenomenon of nature.
As noted in an earlier post, it is all a part of the atmospheric carbon cycle. It may be possible to stand at the top of a chimney stack of a coal fired power station and put an argument that the carbon being emitted in the form of carbon dioxide is ‘new’ carbon to the atmosphere. It may be possible to argue that this ‘new’ carbon load is a contributor to global warming. It is not possible however to stand next to a termite nest – or stand in a pen of sheep or cattle – and put the same argument. The carbon from termites or sheep or cattle is not ‘new’ carbon to the atmosphere. It is, if you like ‘old’ carbon that is being continually recycled over-and-over again as the sun shines, plants grow and get eaten by other life forms.
60
It could be argued that fossil fuels are old carbon that has come from the atmosphere and that burning it only returns it to whence it came from.
So what we need to do is turn something that isn’t made of carbon into carbon,any ideas?
Could “rock dust”be the answer,get more farmers to use rock dust to condition their plants/grasses and feed it to animals which will turn it into meat,it’s the best I can come up with?
10
David Mason-Jones
One word. Desertification.
I clicked on your name link and realise you wrote the book “Should meat be on the menu”! You are about to see that I agree with you in a way you do not expect.
Your theory above is great but assumes a non existant constant. Change happens and the carbon cycle is complex with multiple paths.
If it is true that termites produce ten times the CO2 that humans do then surely if the number of termites increases by 10 percent then the carbon on the ground is now moving from the ground into the air 1.1 times faster. Thus reducing the amount on the surface and increasing the amount in the air until something else changes to alter this.
Surely wood has many possible alternate futures and being eaten by termites is just one of them. If the wood was not eaten by a termite then it may be broken down by something else into a different mixture of things instead. So the cyclic inconstant UV light from the sun as it assists the methane breakdown you describe above may have more or less of a job to do.
As usual Greens are the main problem especially the ones who buy land and lock it up to go feral fire hazard. This guy in the video below has nailed it.
Please watch you will not regret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
00
Nailed it apart from the need to increase CO2 that is. I think the Griss aims too low 4000ppm would be good!
00
Dear Siliggy,
Thanks for your comments. I have definitely watched the TED Talk by Allan Savory in the YouTube link you posted at the bottom of your comment. I have met the guy several times and quoted him in the book ‘Should meat be on the menu?’. I respect his work enormously.
The encouraging thing is that many rangeland farmers and graziers all over Australia – and in many other parts of the world – are using the insights Allan has enunciated to build up soil carbon levels in their soils, to improve their local farm environments, improve ground cover, counter the potential trends towards desertification, lift the health of the herbivores on their farms, increase the nutrient density of the food they produce and improve the food security of the world. I could go on and on about his insight and the wonderful work he is doing to communicate those insights.
A couple of follow on comments from your post. You make the point that, if termite numbers increase then the amount of carbon in the air will also increase. This is not really the case because, if more termites produce more carbon in the air (mostly in the form of methane CH4) then they had to get that carbon from ‘somewhere’.
They cannot make/create new carbon atoms. And the only ‘somewhere’ they can get this carbon from is from the air. They get from plants which get it from the air by photosynthesis. They do not get it from the ‘ground’ as your comment seems to imply. So, for every extra tonne of carbon they send to the atmosphere in their methane emissions, they had to ‘get’ an extra tonne of carbon from the atmosphere via the photosynthesis process.
I agree that the actual speed of the operation of the atmospheric carbon cycle can be sped up or slowed down by things like variations in the amount of sunlight and variations in the amount of water.
I also agree with the implication of your last statement that many people who self-identify as ‘Greens’ may not be as green as they would like to think they are. I have met people who stridently self-identify as Green but who have no concept whatsoever of how the atmospheric carbon cycle works. They are baffled by the concept that solar energy is fundamental and kicks off the atmospheric carbon cycle, the water cycle, plant growth, animal growth and human existence. Many of them believe that carbon is just a bad thing – something toxic – and have no concept of its importance to life on Earth.
20
Thanks David.
I really enjoy these discussions with fellow skeptics. Far deeper and more intelligent than a debate with a blind believer.
That being said. termites do not directly eat wood. They eat fungi that digest the wood but can they also eat the fungi that digest limestone?
“heterotrophic mycoflora could be relying for its carbon source
on the organic matter provided by the cyanobacterial
populations dominating these epilithic biofilms and which,
themselves, contribute to limestone biodegradation (Ortega-
Morales et al., 2000, 2005).”
http://revistamexicanademicologia.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/6-TR-223-VOL-33-43-51-FINAL.pdf
Ants eat termites and also do weird things with limestone and fungi. My father used to make a bush alternative to concrete using a mixture of ant nest and termite mound.
http://www.livescience.com/47151-ants-trap-carbon-weathering-minerals.html
00
Dear Siliggy,
Thanks again for your comments. Yes, I was aware that termites do not directly eat wood and produce the methane in their own digestive system within their own bodies. I was aware that they somehow ‘ferment’ the wood and other tough cellulous. I have not before drilled down deeply into the system by which they ‘ferment’ their food.
But the really interesting thing is that they use other biology – microbes and bacteria – to do the fermentation. They then feed on the microbes and bacteria. There is an interesting cross-over here with what happens in the digestive system of ruminant animals such as sheep and cattle. The ruminant animals have a separate ‘rumen’ which is like a fermentation flask which is placed in front of the stomach of the animal. This rumen – this ‘fermentation vat’ – is packed with bacteria and microbes and it is these that break down the tough cellulous. (‘Breakdown’ is possibly a misleading term. What they really do is eat the cellulous as a source of food and energy) Anyway, this produces a huge population explosion of microbes and bacteria and their waste products. It is these things the cow then digests in its digestive system. It is really an interesting process and raises the fascinating question, ‘Are cows really carnivores – in part at least?’ (Better to leave that one for another day).
So the role of these ‘fermentation vats’ the ‘internal’ ones in cows and the ‘external’ ones in termite nests, is an absolutely fascinating and little understood aspect of the atmospheric carbon cycle. But again, I like to hammer the point, all the carbon that is produced in these ‘fermentation vats’ comes from the atmosphere in the first place, not from the ground. Nothing in the whole process adds any new carbon to the air above us.
10
David this just gets more interesting. I have spent time that should have gone to other things and people will be let down but when I get my teeth into something it is hard to stop. so I have been watching lectures on Fungi, reading papers and looking at related products for sale.
You say “But the really interesting thing is that they use other biology – microbes and bacteria – to do the fermentation.”
Fermentation is a great word for it. As yeast is a fungus, leavened may also be a good word for the state of the materials” the ‘external’ ones in termite nests”.
It appears that it is not the termites that produce the CO2 at all but this leavening/fermentation that is done by the fungi.
Fungi not being plant or animal behaves differently to both. Fungi like us exhale CO2 but unlike us live mostly underground. Note from this video (at 0.22)how the fungi (farmed by termite or not) excrete Oxylic acid. This acid will react with sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous carbonate rock to form CO2.
http://youtu.be/xXOXk56tRW0
This means the carbon is coming from what they eat and this is not just wood.
“Termites don’t just attack timber houses. The overall risk of major damage to houses is low, but all types of houses are at risk. A recent CSIRO study (Cookson 1999) found that steel and masonry houses had virtually the same chances of attack as timber houses.
Termites don’t just infest structural timbers. Termites can also damage plasterboard, carpets, plastics, books, artwork, clothes, electrical insulation and fitout timbers”
http://www.timber.net.au/index.php/termite-management-for-builders/termite-behaviour.html
Fungi will grow on limestone, marble and coal. Termites will surely have no problem eating all of these fungi and making fungi infected mud with earth that contains them.
So your claim that “all the carbon that is produced in these ‘fermentation vats’ comes from the atmosphere in the first place, not from the ground.” has a sort of hollow ring of reguritated half truth about it…but is just wrong!
00
Ooops Oxalic acid not “Oxylic”.
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/790119O/crystallization-vs-oxalic-acid-polishing.pdf
00
Thanks David. Have saved your comment for future reference.
00
“it seems Australia could be a world leader in CO2 production”
I remember reading several years ago that termite “farts” are high in Hydrogen.
If there is any truth in this then GE of termite gut bacteria should be a boon for the “H2″fuel spruikers!
/sarc.
10
Hydrogen………
Oh no, Panic….. we can’t go adding Hydrogen to the atmosphere..
imagine the consequences !!!!
11
Yeah! Imagine …
Being lighter than air, all that hydrogen will rise to the North Pole …
And then it will lift the earth out of its orbit …
OH NO! It IS worse than we thought.
30
Is that why all the CFCs cause Ozone hole at the South pole, because they are heavier
20
This is a pretty amazing find from Norway (as reported by NRK).
It is a largely complete wooden ski, which recently emerged from a glacier.
It is estimated to be c. 1300 years old and was recovered from a site that has produced hundreds of artefacts in recent years,
due to the receding ice sheet.
http://irisharchaeology.ie/2014/10/ancient-ski-discovered-in-norway/
. . .
All right.
Which one of you skeptics put that there?
160
Looks like it got caught in bushfire first.
50
Olaf did on his way to collect coconuts at Svalbard.
70
The Roman Warm Period.
20
That deserves a grin and a chuckle! 🙂
21
It certainly does. Now the alarmists need to show us all the catastrophe that happened during this period, since clearly it was warmer than today (we haven’t reached the end of the artifacts as yet, they pick them up all the time the article notes).
10
No comment from Frank or BA4 to explain this?
00
In the beginning of a well known science magazine 2015 January edition, Tom Yulsman writes
So the scare is far far away after all.
No doubt here that Humans cause warming. But what are these tools spoken about and how do they actually measure the human contribution?
Funny. The records show that ever since the 1950s wheat production has steadily risen all the way to the present with no drop in sight. Ask the farmers who get less than before. There is enough cotton stockpiled to make 3 pairs of Jeans for every person on earth. Wow, cotton seasons must have been lousy/ sarcasm off.
(emphasis mine)
130
If they are really worried about a drop in food production…
…they should stop using good land to grow food for biofuels.
Again, the hypocrisy and stupidity of the alarmist anti-CO2 agenda shines like a putrid green light.
141
So basically the sheet has ALREADY broken off. It can’t be glued back on because, well, it weighs 4 billion tons. As it melts, it will inundate any dwellings within 10′ of sea level.
So we can already take as read that over a century cities will have to move. The marginal cost of more gerbil warming impacting sea level is essentially zero.
That means the real cost is basically adapting to a slightly warmer climate of 2-3C hotter, which many people do voluntarily by retiring to Queensland. Amirite?
70
I find it quite funny that the sea ice around Antarctica is at record levels yet they try to blame the melting in one small area, which just happens to be subject to a lot of underwater volcanic activity, on “global” warming.
Quite bizarre really. 🙂
32
If the ice shelf has already broken off and is floating, that will surely make no difference to SL? If on the other hand it is resting on the sea bed….? Am I just suffering from Pre-Christmas brainlessness?!
00
It does make a difference to sea level, because the proportion below the surface displaces the water. The real point is that, if it is floating, about four fifths (can’t remember the exact ratio) displacement has already happened.
00
” No doubt here that Humans cause warming. But what are these tools spoken about and how do they actually measure the human contribution? ”
I hope they are betters than the ‘tools’ that came up with the likes of the Hockey stick.
Tools of advocacy & persuasion, rather than tools of inquiry.
30
“global wheat production has dropped 2% per decade in the last 30 years” No it bloody hasn’t! Yields per hectare have increased so that the global production has increased despite in land under cultivation decreasing.
IPCC AR5 WG2 Chapter 7: Food security and production systems:
The IPCC recognises that “more than enough food is currently produced to feed the worlds population”.
The issue of “food security” is redefined to focus on “access” – that is re-distribution of the surplus and economic issues (ie local prices).
The only decline is in the Rate of Increase in yields per hectare. Declines in production are only shown by computer models based on the “worst case” scenarios, not allowing for adaption of crop choice or the admitted “stimulating effects of CO2 concentration”.
The author, Tom Yulsman, either does nor know this, in which case he is a fool, or he does and is a deceiver, like all the others peddling this untruth.
50
Seems like IPCC are using the reduced area of wheat cultivation (given over to other more profitable crops)as a DELIBERATELY MISLEADING scare story to try and convince the public that food production is being reduced.
That shows all that needs to be known about the (dis)honesty of the IPCC.
00
Ok for any computer aficionados out there, opinions on basic Linux systems for a very basic operator 🙂
I’m running windows 8 ATM but want to try Linux, Lite, Mint, PCLOS, Zorin? I can use an old computer to trial run them but I recall some people here had lots of experience with Linux, the Kernel OS idea seems sound and I wouldn’t mind moving away from MS if you know what I mean, cheers.
30
Try an apple Yonnie I am old and almost computer illiterate but I can use it. I have also downloaded Linux for free, not hard
30
I’ve used Linux Mint for the last 18 months. I liked the interface better than the recent versions of Ubuntu. Mint has been alright but only because of various tweaks and tricks I’ve used to make it tolerable. eg there was no such thing as drag and drop between network drives in Linux Mint 16. Having drives mounted on startup was also not an off-the-shelf feature.
Aside from that I can’t complain. What do you expect for free?
But you still have to try some different ones. You’re the only one who knows what you like best.
20
You could try out Knoppix. Download and burn a bootable CD or DVD; boot using it and it will start up Linux without installing anything on your PC; gives you a chance to try it out and see if running Linux is what you want. I know that Ubuntu is another popular distro and it will do the “live CD” thing like Knoppix. But I haven’t run Linux itself for a while – as another poster suggests, I get enough UNIX features running a command line window on my Mac.
20
Mint seems to be the current favourite, but it isn’t foolproof. (Advice of computer literate nephews).
I’m a bit out of date as I looked closely at several around 2009 and went out and bought an Apple Mac, which I have never regretted. The claim that they are expensive should be balanced against the cost of a Windows machine PLUS all the software etc. you have to add to do the same, and the time savings as “things work”.
Are you using Win 8 or the newer (and more stable) Win 8.1?
P.S. The catalyst for change was Windows Vista, the dud successor to Windows 98, 2000, and the original 8; which last induced red rage when I tried to use it on a club computer. (It got replaced by Win 7).
20
Windows Vista had deep underlying structural changes that made Windows 7 possible.
20
Linux comes from the basic Unix operating system invented by Digital Equipment Corp for their PDP series of mini computers – same people who invented the C programming language. It’s very popular but the problem with it is not software but support. It’s an open source product that anyone can contribute to and sometimes anyone does, with the usual result of ill considered changes. The support problem is that when you download it there may be no support coming along with what you download.
I know many swear by Linux, so maybe I’m not the best one to give advice, being a Microsoft specialist for so many years. But Linux does carry a certain risk with it.
20
Propaganda, almost every university IT / Engineering graduate knows Linux, and just about anyone can provide support – even I could do it. Not only that, typing dmesg or browsing syslog usually tells you exactly what’s wrong with a Linux system while descriptive error messages like “general protection failure” or “Error 986754392” or “Windows needs to close XXX” tells you bugger all about what’s wrong with Windows.
Windows carries a much higher risk than Linux.
Windows would have died out years ago if it were not for the lockin power of interoperability, particularly MS office.
10
Bob,
I will grant you that Windows has all the faults you mention. I’ll also say that the root of the problem is the same thing that ultimately kills any software product. You keep modifying and adding to it until it’s too broken to fix. In the meantime so many depend on it that you can’t give it up and start over either.
I’ve lived this with an application I wrote for one product that I had to then “upgrade” to run the next generation box. The required changes were major and it was a monumental job to get it all “working”. And it’s all done under the pressure of a deadline. Make something work and then, if you’re lucky, you’ll get time to go back and design it right — only you never get the time. So god only knows what problems are in there lurking around just waiting for the user to try something we didn’t provide for and test. And Linux won’t be able to escape this problem either. And the more hands in the soup the greater the probability of trouble.
It’s remarkable that Windows and Linux are as good as they are. Truly remarkable.
10
I use and highly recommend PCLinux, which you download in either CD or DVD size versions.
It’l boot from your optical drive, and you can play around with it until you feel like installing it, which it will do with a few very simple questions along the way (and it automatically sets up dual boot with windows).
You’ll need about 20 Gb free on a hard drive somewhere, and waaay less time than a full windows install…!
I’ve used the KDE version for about 10 years now, and it has flawlessly detected and installed whichever hardware I’ve had.
20
Linux is wonderful if you want to run a server and aren’t concerned with being able to run every software package you’re used to using coming from Windows. A lot of the Windows software can be run, but it’s more involved than just inserting the CD and running setup.
If you go Linux giving it a “test drive” with a Knoppix disk isn’t a bad idea. Ubuntu seems to be one of the main “entry level” packages for people new to Linux.
The BSD’s are good if you want a serious server, but they don’t really play nice with people new to the *nix style of systems from Windows. Depending on your use look at hardware support, some packages are more current than others. A primary advantage if Linux IMO is you can get very good performance out of older hardware that would choke on Windows.
At some point I’ve run Mandrake, Slackware (first Linux I had), RedHat (still used when at work), Ubuntu, Kubuntu, SuSe, some others I forget, and eventually settled on Gentoo which has been my server at the house for 12 years or so.
If you stay with Linux you’ll find some are more BSD’ish where some are more Unix’ish (BSD vs System V for their roots basically) than others as far as system configuration. Mostly this is dealing with POSIX compliance/conformance and things that programmers and administrators worry about more so than users do. But once you have everything setup and running well where you can just boot up, the desktop manager loads and gives you a login, and you’re in a Windowed environment it’s pretty easy to deal with.
Here’s a nice timeline on the Unix evolution if you’re curious: History and Timeline
Invest a little time in looking at the different window managers before you commit, some are a little easier to transition to from Windows than others.
Like Graeme above, I’m a bit out of date on all the flavors available these days. I’m fine with my Gentoo box even though it has quirks I’d be happy to be rid of like any system. But I wouldn’t recommend it for a first Linux system.
20
Why not try out Windows 10 :
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/preview
20
Thanks for the replies everyone, I’ll give the basic ones a try and give some feedback on my experiences, Merry Xmas. 🙂
20
more evidence that carbon taxes have nothing to do with lowering the earth’s temperature or reducing CO2 emissions. just throw in some rhetoric about doing it for the “children & grandchildren”:
17 Dec: NewsTribune: AP: Phuong Le: Washington (State) governor proposes carbon pollution cap
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday proposed an ambitious cap-and-trade program to require the state’s largest industrial polluters to pay for every ton of carbon they release.
The proposal was part of a broader package that the Democrat said would help the state meet a 2008 mandate to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming…
“It is primarily and foremost an issue of health for our children and our grandchildren,” said Inslee…
The proposal must be approved by the Legislature and is certain to face resistance…
Inslee, who has made tackling climate change a key issue since taking office two years ago, said the plan would raise nearly $1 billion in its first year, which would begin in July 2016…
***Money raised by selling allowances to pollute would pay for transportation projects, education-funding requirements imposed by the state Supreme Court, and assist low-income families and industries that are most affected by higher energy costs…
Inslee said legislators in both parties will have to face stark realities as they confront a projected budget gap of more than $2 billion during the next two-year period. “They may conclude it’s better to tax pollution than voters, that it’s better to tax polluters than drivers,” he said…
(Republican state Sen. Doug) Ericksen called it “a general fund tax increase” that will hurt working families and businesses. He said he’ll work to come up with clean energy solutions that aren’t so costly…
The key part of the (Inslee) plan is cap-and-trade…
The overall cap on greenhouse gases would decrease over time, so fewer permits are issued, increasing their value on the market… http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/12/17/3545375_gov-inslee-announcing-environmental.html?sp=/99/289/&rh=1
21 Dec: HeraldNet Editorial: In Our View – Gov. Inslee’s tax proposals
Tax policy shift worth debate
But Inslee likely faces bigger battles over how he recommends paying for his education and transportation budgets and the rest of the state budget. Most controversial are a capital gains tax and a carbon tax on industrial polluters…
***The carbon tax, which would charge the oil, gas and other industries for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit, would provide an estimated $379 million annually to the general fund, a 40 percent share of the revenue the tax would generate…
Inslee’s tax proposals were quickly criticized, first because he campaigned in 2012 on a pledge to veto new taxes, then on the taxes themselves. The Association of Washington Business criticized the carbon tax as an “untested, unsustainable solution to the state’s long-term needs.” …
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20141221/OPINION01/141229932
20
” Inslee’s tax proposals were quickly criticized, first because he campaigned in 2012 on a pledge to veto new taxes, then on the taxes themselves. ”
Isn’t he the one who displayed such poor manners & ill breeding when Lord Monckton was invited to give evidence before Congress ?
How does such a clown (complete with brightly coloured bow tie) get to be Governor ?
50
It’s not hard at all. If it was, Jerry brown would never have been governor of California, not ever. Not the first time or the second.
60
I always made allowances for California as being something of a special case.
Not unlike Brighton in UK with its loony leftie Council & only Green Member of Parliament.
40
From US Congressional hearings into CAGW 2010
(Can skip the bit from 30seconds in till 4mjn45secs, when the abuse resumes.)
Pse. forgive the bow tie reference. I was thinking of some other clown on the same panel. The one at 7minutes and 38near the end of this clip
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=08SVnB_PBNQ
30
I’d forgotten how good these were, looking back.
Here is the evidence Monckton was presenting being explained again for the unscientific panel.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-EvsPXA4z8U
The evidence that Inslee began by seeking to evade in the first clip
30
Hey, I know I’m a Floyd tragic, but have any of you got hold of their latest album, The Endless River?
Magic stuff, mostly recorded during the Sessions for The Division Bell, and all but one song Instrumentals.
I also have an order in for a vinyl, in this case, a double LP. No particular reason really, other than to say I have all their studio albums (14 in all) bar one, on vinyl, and that 14th album, Momentary Lapse Of Reason never went to vinyl.
While The Endless River debuted in the U.S. at Number 2, (same as here in Oz, while it debuted at Number One in the UK) three earlier Floyd albums also went back into the Top 200 albums on the Billboard album chart, and Dark Side got as high as Number 12.
Dark Side has now spent 889 weeks in that Top 200 Albums chart, and that’s not a misprint, and, all up that comes in at 17 years, for an album released in March of 1973, a record that will never even be approached at a far back distance, let alone surpassed.
Tony.
80
Hi Tony, I prostrate myself in the presence of Floyd so I guess I’m far more tragic than yourself. I’m not sure what to make of this album because as yet I can’t find the theme which was in the past a Floyd hallmark. I guess if it’s there I will find it eventually. It kind of sounds like an epilogue that encompasses all the themes they’ve done and maybe thats deliberate. End of a remarkable era and the swan song of what I believe are some of the greatest musicians of all time. A compelling soundtrack for the lives of many millions of people worldwide. True art.
30
Seen them in concert twice, have all the albums, currently enjoying The Endless River.
20
My daughter is a Floyd tragic too. I believe the music will live forever.
10
ugly!
21 Dec: Sydney Morning Herald: Nick O’Malley: Warming world’s rising seas wash away some of South Florida’s glitz
What was not so widely reported was that South Beach stank of shit. There is no nice way to put it. The place smelled of human waste. There had been a brief, heavy downpour but the water could not escape, so the sewers backed up and filled the roads…
A couple of days later I stood on a sealed road in a park in the southern suburbs of Miami – again ankle deep in water – with Harold Wanless, chairman and professor at the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami, to discuss why the place was so wet. The answer was not complicated. “The ocean has risen,” he says with laugh. “It is what it is.”…
While much of the nation argues about whether or not California’s once-in-a-thousand-year drought or the $US71 billion devastation of Hurricane Sandy might have been caused or exacerbated by climate change – or indeed whether or not the phenomenon even exists – in Southern Florida today you wander about in the water and see what it looks like when rising seas hit a modern western city.
As with every other serious issue facing the United States, the acceptance of climate science has fallen down along partisan lines.
It is generally accepted among leading Democrats and often denied – or at least ignored – by Republicans…
Back in America there are some signs that popular concern about climate change is beginning to increase.
A 2014 poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication shows majorities of women, minorities and young people support candidates who strongly endorse climate action, the New York Times reported earlier this week. “That poll found that 65 percent of Hispanics, 53 percent of blacks and 53 percent of unmarried women support candidates who back climate-change action.”
As the Times noted, those were all groups crucial to the outcomes of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections…
http://www.smh.com.au/world/warming-worlds-rising-seas-wash-away-some-of-south-floridas-glitz-20141220-129wub.html
sydney-based journo Paul Wallis likes it!
20 Dec: Digital Journal: Paul Wallis: Op-Ed: Climate change denial wading in sewage in Miami
Miami- It doesn’t NEED to get much more bizarre than this. High water in Miami caused sewers to back up in America’s Retirement and Organized Crime Mecca. The local governor, a Republican, of course, says there’s no problem.
Sydney Morning Herald reporter Nick O’Malley has a truly hilarious report on the solemn denial of any environmental issues related to the long-predicted high water in Miami. It would be a real shame and insult to the guy’s journalistic chutzpah to synopsize a great article, which you can read on this link…
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/environment/op-ed-climate-change-denial-wading-in-sewage-in-miami/article/421580
30
Isn’t it instructive that it is rarely if ever possible to comment on nutball articles like this. Fairfax’s version of free an fair speech. Sooner Gina buys them out the better.
40
It sounds to me as though some folks don’t know much about south Florida. Consider:
“A post driven into the soil outside the center in 1924 demonstrates the problem vividly. There was 9 feet of soil in 1924. Over the last 90 years the post has registered a loss of six feet of soil. This subsidence rate, currently at a half-inch each year, has naturally raised concerns.”
http://evergladesreview.com/tag/soil-subsidence/
Now tell me again how much the sea level has risen and how they know?
30
A major feature of South Florida is Lake Okeechobee. To the southeast are sugar cane fields, then urban places (north to south: Jupiter, Palm Beach and West Palm, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton; Miami a bit farther south). Between the urbanized area and the Lake is a northern part of Everglades. My father and uncle lived between this wetland and the Atlantic Ocean. Miles from the ocean the land is crisscrossed with ditches and one can see the rising and falling of the water with the east coast tide. This is not sea water, rather it is the water draining from the land being held back by the ocean water. Search on Google Earth for Greenacres, FL and zoom in to see all the water features, and zoom out to see Lake Okeechobee and the lands between.
20
Floridian Aquifer – It is under all of Florida ,most of the domestic water for Florida comes from this source.
So the question that could be asked is Florida sinking?
10
Yes it is. It is also the land of sinkholes.
As they pump out the aquifiers to supply water the land sinks…. it is all porous.
10
off topic but poll related.
For some unknown period between 2008 and 2012 the reader polls on news.com.au were being rigged.
Here are some blogs by one person who did it. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/151pur/i_spent_three_weeks_fixing_polls_on_newscomau/
The only way to prevent rigging is requiring each vote to be taken from a logged-in user, each user is CAPTCHA-verified on each vote, each user’s account has a verified email address, and a limit of votes per source IP address per day is imposed per poll question.
News.com do not seem to have polls any more.
I can’t find any polls on the 9news site. However NineMSN’s jumpin9 web site has polls which can still be voted upon multiple times as simply as clearing cookies.
00
The 2014 McKitrick and Vogelsang study found that the balloon temp series from 1958 to 2012 didn’t trend smoothly but achieved the increase in temp because of the Pacific climate shift in about 1977. Here is a summary from their Climate Audit post. This again is completely at odds with the climate models and temp change due to co2 increases.
“Bottom Line
Over the 55-years from 1958 to 2012, climate models not only significantly over-predict observed warming in the tropical troposphere, but they represent it in a fundamentally different way than is observed. Models represent the interval as a smooth upward trend with no step-change. The observations, however, assign all the warming to a single step-change in the late 1970s coinciding with a known event (the Pacific Climate Shift), and identify no significant trend before or after. In my opinion the simplest and most likely interpretation of these results is that climate models, on average, fail to replicate whatever process yielded the step-change in the late 1970s and they significantly overstate the overall atmospheric response to rising CO2 levels.”
And here is their blog post link. http://climateaudit.org/2014/07/24/new-paper-by-mckitrick-and-vogelsang-comparing-models-and-observations-in-the-tropical-troposphere/
80
NICE..
It looks as though O’Barmy has been block from sending $3B to the United Nations Green Climate Fund. 🙂
61
Notice the “Scientific” (sic) American spends a page wailing about all the Climate Justice!!! we won’t be having thanks to EPA blocks. But $500m to NASA gets a line at the end. Priorities?
50
NO, I didn’t and won’t notice as I stopped even looking at copies of S.A. after their edition attacking Bjorn Lomborg. Not that I completely agree with the latter, but I considered that behaviour corrupt, false and designed to intimidate.
40
You know, I find out more about what’s going on here in the US where I live from reading an Australian blog than I find out from local sources here in the US. I stopped paying any attention to our news media because, as I suspect will be seen over the next few weeks, our media is just an excuse machine and cheer leading organization for the Democrats.
60
Me too!
20
Well, that’s a start in the right direction. But there are a long 2 years to go. And Obama still has that pen, his phone and cares not for what’s written in the law.
60
Aussie sweeps the this year’s Climate Prat award.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/climate-prat-of-2014-we-have-a-winnah/
Congrats to Prof Turkey and the SoF.
Pointman.
100
And for some strange reason he couldn’t raise the funds for a repeat expedition.
50
Just as well, so he can stay at home and enjoy his Turkey with his family in comfort this year.
Has Pointman considered perhaps recasting the award as an annual Climate Turkey Award after this year?
60
A late climate irony entry surely is the group with the Peru climate conference who carelessly damaged the country’s ancient Inca hummingbird image to promote sustainability. They received lots of media and police attention of course with their blatant disregard for the sustainability of ancient monuments.
40
They should have stuck to photoshop, like fen beagle – 2nd. Image
50
Fenbeagle’s cartoons are brilliant once again. Thank you C. J. Richards.
20
It is the “Summer Solstice” tomorrow here in Perth WA (22 December) – and certainly there has been no evidence of “hot oppressive weather here of late” – in fact November & December 2014 in Perth have been very mild, ie well below average maximum temps – of course you will not hear much about this in the MSM because most are still obsessed with “non-existent AGW” (News Corp newspapers & network 10 excepted – they have not been consumed by the AGW hysteria).
40
I was recently shivering in Perth, in summer. It should be 100F every day till Easter. Ground zero of Global Cooling.
50
A couple of weeks ago there was a low pressure trough off the east coast, producing cool onshore winds from the southern ocean, but the MSM didn’t connect it to climate change. We should keep a weather eye on Cold Air Outbreaks (CAO), they might be regional cooling signals.
30
What happened to all that heading for being the wsrmest year on record narrative that was buoying up the otherwise catastrophic Lima climate conference ?
40
Your largely unremarked…by the ABC…lower temps didn’t go unnoticed by my other half and me. We commented to each other every time the ABC went on about anywhere slightly warmer than average while studiously ignoring those that were cooler.
10
“We commented to each other every time the ABC went on about anywhere slightly warmer than average while studiously ignoring those that were cooler”.
So so right Annie and we are paying for the pleasure of this “biased ABC Warmist propaganda” – at least the Fairfax Group “biased Warmist propaganda” is gratis, that is assuming you take the time to view their biased dribble online.
00
What better thread to wish one and all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year?
And if you celebrate some other tradition than Christian, then may that celebration be in every way the equivalent of a Merry Christmas.
Roy
90
And a Merry Christmas to you and yours Roy.
KK
30
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you Roy and to Jo and all here.
20
Hyvää joulua kaikille!
Feliz Navidad a todos!
Merry Christmas to all!
That’s all the languages that I know! 😛
00
Merry Christmas to Jo Nova and readers, from Fen Beagle….
https://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/merry-christmas-2014/
100
Happy Christmas Fenbeagle! Thank you for those cartoons again.
10
Merry Christmas, Fenbeagle.
I love your work and the sense of humor behind it. 🙂
00
It’s a Merry Christmas from me, with a Happy New Year.
50
I’m with Bradley, Merry Christmas to all.
70
Me too, Happy New Year to all.
60
I don’t believe in Christmas.
Why do I always gotta get the broken one…
[You already said that] -Fly
02
Suck it up backladder, you make me puke, you wimp.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, grunts.
30
What evidence do you have that it is Christmas, more Judeo-Christian mumbo jumbo.
Oh alright, but I’ll have me own greeting.
Happy *Festivus to all as you gather with your families round Christmas Dinner.
*apologies to Sienfeld.
21
And Happy Festivus to you Miriam.
20
Why do I always gotta get the broken one…
11
An oldie but a goodie.
21
Merry Christmas, Grissler, lets do it all again next year…
10
An interesting article on CO2 as a neuro-reglator of our breathing.
Healthy people have higher levels of CO2 in their bloodstreams.
Also: we are currently in a period of low CO2 levels in the atmosphere which, from an evolutionary point of view, presents a few issues for us.
http://www.normalbreathing.com/CO2-breath-control.php
KK
40
“we are currently in a period of low CO2 levels in the atmosphere which”
How true that is.
I knew plants were struggling will low CO2 levels, but hadn’t realised that the low CO2 levels also affected us humans.
Does make sense though, the human physiology did evolve under much higher CO2, and imbalances always have effect on something.
Why, oh why, are the anti-CO2 brigade sooooo blind to reality !!!
Let’s hope that this idiocy ends soon, and the African countries can join the rest of the world in helping to release carbon back into the carbon cycle, while reducing their real pollution, by using nice clean, life-giving USC coal fired energy and incidentally massively increasing their standard of living.
81
Holiday costs fall due to low oil prices and global upturn.
It seems that the resources sector boom fueled by fracking, and the lower energy costs that have resulted from it, are contributing to a much awaited global upturn. Will ANU be selling off their ‘stranded assets’ in renewable energy?
Hah! We all know the answer to this question.
People often refer to global warming as a new religion. In fact, it is more a matter of global warming zealots exhibiting exactly the same mental attributes as religious zealots:
– they both are absolutely certain of their cause, even though all the empirical evidence and simple logic demonstrates that it is flawed;
– they both are so certain that their cause is right that they believe any means are justified by the end. For example, the people who murder doctors performing abortions genuinely believe that what they are doing is right and proper. Similarly, when global warming zealots call for censorship of skeptics, or even advocate for criminal penalties or a suspension of democracy, they genuinely believe what they are proposing is right and proper;
– they believe their cause is superior to that of pagan non-believers, and that the virtue of their cause entitles them to privileges such as a greater right to be heard;
– the virtue of their cause excuses any flaws in their character or behaviour. For example, religious zealots believe that when they sexually abuse boys the ‘bad’ they do is more than outweighed by the ‘goodness’ of their belief. Similarly, when global warming zealots choose not to practice what they preach – such as flying around the world to all their conferences – they conveniently convince themselves that the ‘bad’ is more than outweighed by the ‘goodness’ of their cause.
Generally, religious and global warming zealots display exactly the same flaws in their character and mental processes, and, in the more extreme cases, exhibit exactly the same mental illnesses.
40
How do you create a hyperlink in text?
Christmas reading for me
10
Just copy the http://… address into the post and the hyperlink will be created automatically
20
Thanks,
How about the words that you want to highlight in the place of the internet address?
10
OK – when you want to get fancy,
1) select/highight the text you want to attach the hyperlink to
2)press the underlined link Button above the comment box
3) copy the http://… address into the box that pops up and Click OK
Job done.
You can admire the result with the Preview button before posting
30
Peter,
While Jo has a site that helps you do an in-text link, not all sites do. You can learn to do the code for simple things. Here is an example of a 2-word phrase you can click on:
Happy Holidays
Below is most of the code::
Oa href=”http://animal-backgrounds.com/files/Koala/Koala-australian-animal-hd-wallpaper.jpg”>XWXHappy HolidaysXZX O/aC
To get the link to work it has to have an open bracket (the less than sign < ) followed by the letter a; that's the Oa that needs to be replaced. And then to close it off it needs both brackets (the close bracket is the same as the greater than sign) with slash and a inside; O/aC That's O for open and C for close.
The word strong is used to get bold, so for XWX substitute strong between brackets;
the XZX that follows will be open / strong close.
To see this using a 2-button mouse, right click on the bold Happy Holidays (above) and a menu should appear — the last item is Inspect element. Click on that to see the code, should be 3 lines; middle one highlighted. Over at the scroll bar there will be an X for you to get rid of this view.
Read more at this link, scroll waay down to Formatting in comments.
Ric’s WUWT stuff
10
It added a few things, so there are now 5 lines.
10
http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/20/ipcc-lead-author-and-the-nazca-vandalism/
20
Taken to Teske ?
With Greenpeace declaring oh so nobly that it doesn’t identify activists, does that make them accessories ?
30
I see Tony Abbott on tv, after his cabinet reshuffle, crowing how he got rid of the carbon(sic) tax, and saved Australian Families $550 a year.
What Abbott fails to mention is he also gifted the UN-IPCC (Bob Brown International Bank) with $200 million borrowed on interest, to stop the climate from changing.
That is known as ‘pissing on my leg whilst telling me it is raining’.
Good luck with that.
40
That $200 Million, would be ‘just’ $36 per family
( assuming 5,584,000 families in Australia)
30
Even @$36.00 per family, when can they begin planning for perfect weather?
I hear it’s gone be a hot Christmas day, with storms.
20
This small donation is just political maneuvering. I would not read too much into it.
00
I thought it was happy no 11!
I haven’t contributed much but do enjoy reading all your comments.
So Jo and all contributors – Have a very Merry New Year!
40
A bit late -Should have been up with 16.5
30
***”irreversible” decline, but how long will it “continue”…
21 Dec: Guardian: The 12 most important moments in science in 2014
Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Two crashed – and then, 300m miles away, Philae landed on a comet. From the distant origins of humans to our future on the planet, 12 leading scientists pick their key moments and stories of the year
PHOTO CAPTION: An Antarctic ice shelf: in 2014, three huge glaciers showed ‘irreversible decline’.
by Tamsin Edwards, Sophie Scott, Jim Al-Khalili, Liz Bonnin, Helen Czerski, Athene Donald, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Mark Miodownik, Adam Rutherford, Alice Roberts, Andrea Sella
1 The West Antarctic ice sheet enters irreversible decline.
In January and May we heard news of the “irreversible decline” of the West Antarctic ice sheet…
***The big questions are: how long will this decline continue, how fast will it happen, and could it begin in other parts of Antarctica? I’m researching this fascinating story right now, so watch this space…
Dr Tamsin Edwards, environmental scientist, the Open University…
12. Solar panels approach 40% efficiency
But even without these developments, the price for silicon cells has dropped so dramatically that you can even buy panels at Ikea. Spread the word. Green electricity is here to stay.
Andrea Sella, professor of materials and inorganic chemistry, UCL
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/21/12-most-important-moments-in-science-2014
10
Hello. As a kiwi climate change skeptic, I thought Jo’s readers would be delighted to see a couple of Aussie lecturers from Australian National University giving their tuppence worth on climate “deniers”. The comments chain is quite interesting but it is obvious most of the readers are affirmed climate change alarmists.
Merry Christmas all.
http://theconversation.com/12-ways-to-deal-with-a-climate-change-denier-the-bbq-guide-26291
50
David,
Thank you for that. I have had a go at decoding each of the points made:
1. Avoid a real discussion if you can, and instead, play to the gallery with something witty, or a put-down.
2. Try to change the subject, and if necessary, resort to using an appeal to majority.
3. Agree that not everything is known, and then use that to lead into the precautionary principle (remember, you are playing to the gallery).
4. Use the slippery slope fallacy, but implying that inaction will cost more than taking some action.
5. Appeal to the authority (and trust) that the medical profession enjoys, and extrapolate that specific example into the generalisation fallacy.
6. Extrapolate the Medical profession’s use of second opinions to lead into a bandwagon fallacy. Remember to say that 97% of Climate Scientists agree, thus affirming the consequent.
7. Agree that not all scientific discoveries were accepted immediately, but use circular reasoning to show that they were eventually accepted.
8. Use the strawman fallacy to disguise the fact that the vast majority of climate scientists are paid to demonstrate than climate change exists.
9. Use an appeal to pity, to make it seem that climate scientists are doing their job out of duty, and for a very small income. If necessary, back that up with a red herring fallacy regarding how successful professional investors are.
10. Use the Sweeping Generalisation Fallacy to imply that Climate Science is no different to other disciplines, despite the fact that Climate Science is a solution looking for a problem.
11. Use an Appeal to Pity, to make people feel sorry for the awful job you have to do, but somebody has to.
12. Use a Weak Analogy to turn the objection into a self-inflicted Ad Hominem attack.
Other people might have a different view on which logical fallacies are used where, but it makes little difference. The whole piece is pure propaganda. So if this is the state of climate science, and the practitioners thereof, our money is not being spent well.
170
Very good Rereke, can I copy that as a standard list?
00
22 Dec: Daily Telegraph: Miles Godfrey: Greedy councils pocket our cash as NSW government calls for a ‘please xplain’
ENVIRONMENT Minister Greg Hunt has demanded an explanation after it emerged that savings from the carbon tax repeal will not filter down to NSW ratepayers until at least mid-2016.
NSW’s 152 councils are being allowed to increase rates by 2.4 per cent next year — though 23 authorities, including Ashfield, Blue Mountains, Mosman, Marrickville and Ryde councils, have applied for special permission to charge even more…
The earliest any council rates reductions are likely to be felt is mid-2016 and Mr Hunt has written to IPART chief Dr Peter Boxall demanding to know why savings are not being passed on immediately.
“I would appreciate further explanation of why ratepayers in NSW shouldn’t benefit immediately from the price reductions that have been observed since the repeal of the carbon tax,” Mr Hunt wrote.
IPART wants to wait for the full savings from the carbon tax repeal to flow through the economy before deciding how to adjust council rates.
The pricing regulator bumped up rates before the carbon tax was introduced and Mr Hunt has suggested the regulator could act in advance again…
The pricing regulator was unable to respond immediately to Mr Hunt’s letter but Dr Boxall has defended its rate decision, saying it will provide greater certainty…
The Daily Telegraph can also reveal that private landfill operators and 29 councils across Australia who operate landfill sites will use millions of dollars collected during the tax regime for carbon abatement schemes…
Landfill operators increased fees between 2012 and 2014 to account for future emission liabilities.
But with the carbon tax now scrapped, about $70 million of those fees are sitting idle in company and council bank accounts.
The supply chain has been deemed too complex to refund that cash to its original source and the federal government will publish plans today outlining how it should be ploughed into carbon abatement schemes.
Organisations will be expected to use the money on things like energy efficient light bulbs or purchasing carbon credit units.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/carbon-tax-rates-rip-off-greedy-councils-pocket-our-cash-as-nsw-government-calls-for-a-please-xplain/story-fnpn118l-1227163753808
20
read it all if you must, but you will only enjoy it if you believe the climate hasn’t been changing for millions of years:
22 Dec: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: Tony Abbott appoints climate skeptic to “help” on environment
Bob Baldwin, a man who once compared the impact of Australia’s man-made greenhouse gas emissions to that of a single strand of human hair on a 1km bridge, has been appointed parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment…
In a speech in China in 2010, at the APEC SME summit, Baldwin said that the climate had been changing for millions of years – a favourite meme of the climate denier community …
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/tony-abbott-appoints-climate-skeptic-to-help-on-environment-57657
20
An interesting link…especially the comments. The Griss is having some fun there. I see they abuse instead of rising to his challenge. Tools!
I should catch up with Greg to get his take on the appointment of Baldwin. Yep.
20
Score:
Griss (the troll) – 1
the rest – 0
Even Pedro had to concede that co2 was essential.
Go the Griss!
20
Could have kept going, but I had to go shopping (no beer in the fridge.. shock, horror!)
…and had wasted enough time with their lack of anything vaguely intelligence.
A non-thinking warmist echo chamber. 🙂
11
ignore my typos.. I meant … “lack of anything vaguely intelligent”
11
You have your priorities right!
10
Wow! They banned me! I didn’t even say anything controversial.
The thought police are everywhere……
10
Antarctic sea ice still traveling well above average.
https://sunshinehours.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/antarctic_sea_ice_extent_2014_day_351_1981-2010.png
40
Rather FUNNY..
here is a NASA “simulation/model” of atmospheric CO2 concentrations
and here is the measured concentrations from the new carbon observatory satellite.
Make of it what you will. 🙂
21
not-so-smart meters:
19 Dec: ABC: Electricity and gas disconnections reach five-year high in Victoria
Around 24,000 people had their gas disconnected, marking a 26 per cent increase on the previous year…
There had also been a 38 per cent increase in the number of people accessing hardship programs offered by retailers…
Electricity bills usually rise by about 3 per cent a year but the larger increase will be due to an increase in tariffs and new charges for smart meters…
Victorian Council of Social Service chief executive Emma King: “We are absolutely seeing Victorians choosing between putting food on the table or using their electricity.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-19/electricity-and-gas-disconnections-reach-a-five-year-high/5978200
13 Dec: Herald Sun: Karen Collier: Bill shock: Smart meter charges set to cost most Victorians more in 2015
VICTORIANS will be slugged smart meter fees of up to $226 on their electricity bills next year.
The Australian Energy Regulator has approved charges for 2015 of $109.40 to $226.30, plus GST, for the most common type of smart meter, depending on where consumers live…
Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio: “Labor is seeking advice to see if there is an opportunity to appeal this decision to ensure customers are not being ripped off and paying for the potential mismanagement of the companies,” she said…
“It’s another blow to the hip pocket,” said Gavin Dufty, an energy expert from the St Vincent de Paul Society. “We have paid a huge amount for these meters and it’s time we saw some benefits.”…
The full smart meter bill for homes and small businesses could exceed $2.4 billion, once inflation and the GST is factored in…
Smart meters are read remotely rather than manually, and allow consumers to opt to be charged different rates for use at different times of day…
The overspending companies blamed stalled installations caused by the former Liberal government’s project review, public resistance to the meters’ introduction, shortages of installers forcing up wages, and the delayed introduction of time-of-use electricity tariffs…
The rollout, ordered by Labor and continued by the Coalition, has been plagued by cost overruns and safety and privacy concerns. Victorians have been paying annual smart meter fees since 2010…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/bill-shock-smart-meter-charges-set-to-cost-most-victorians-more-in-2015/story-fni0fit3-1227154633835
20
not-so-smart meters 2.
Herald-Sun allowed Labor to play the blame game &, like ABC, doesn’t link the roll-out of smart meters to CAGW policy. Canada’s Goldstein at least provides some context:
21 Dec: Sun News Canada: Lorrie Goldstein: Smart meters, stupid Liberals
Reading Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s evisceration of the Ontario Liberal government’s smart meter scandal in December 2014, reminded me of reading former auditor general Jim McCarter’s evisceration of the Liberal government’s green energy scandal in December 2011.
In both cases, the same thing happened and both are part of the same bigger problem.
That is, the Liberals, first under Dalton McGuinty, now under Kathleen Wynne, have wasted billions of our dollars because they rushed into green energy without knowing what they were doing.
Without developing a business plan or doing a cost-benefit analysis in either case, trapping us in an ongoing financial disaster that is relentlessly driving up the cost of electricity…
In the case of smart meters, the energy ministry belatedly submitted a business plan to the cabinet after the plans to install 4.8 million smart meters in homes and businesses were already announced.
But it was so bad it underestimated their $1.9 billion cost by $900 million and overestimated savings by at least $512 million — claiming $600 million when the actual number was $88 million.
After the program was announced in 2004, then premier McGuinty told consumers they would be able to save money by using smart meters in conjunction with time of use (TOU) electricity pricing.
But that was never the main purpose of smart meters.
As Amy Tang, spokesperson for then energy minister Gerry Phillips, told the Sun in January, 2010: “The smart meters are more about creating awareness of energy use, rather than helping people to save money. It’s about creating a culture of conservation.”…
Not only are smart meters and TOU pricing not saving Ontarians money, there’s considerable evidence that in many if not most cases, the reverse happened.
That is, smart meters and TOU pricing resulted in people paying more for electricity, to say nothing of the billing chaos many customers have experienced, particularly those with Hydro One.
In addition, smart meters and TOU pricing have failed to significantly change electricity consumption patterns in “on-peak” (heavy use) hours, the main thing they were supposed to do to make the system more efficient…
But the biggest factor increasing electricity rates today is the “Global Adjustment” (GA), which is hidden from consumers on their hydro bills.
That’s the difference between the market price of electricity and the extra billions of dollars Ontarians are forced to pay for it because of the Liberals’ sweetheart deals with certain energy providers, especially wind and solar developers…
The Liberals blew another $249 million on a provincial data centre to gather information from smart meters…
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/12/20141221-080306.html
30
Xmas is a good time for self contemplation and ordering one’s mind to make some sense of the world and it’s machinations. Hence I casted my mind back to the beginning of my tertiary education ,16 years old doing the first year of a six year civil engineering course. The thing that most stands in my mind now was the English literature a compulsory study of George Orwells 1984 and Shakesperes Macbeth. Looking back I now marvel at those setting the curricular as they warned my young generations impressionable minds of the pitfalls of the future.
I now understand that then as now a large proportion of all populations are devoid of original thought and are followers of isms and fads, these can be harmless or with the right manipulators down right dangerous. Isms have been the cause of death of hundreds of millions of people.
Environmentalism is no different, with hive mentality and ,almost all the same goals a centralised master race [UN] running every facet of our lives . Looking at the greens in particular one can see a strange similarity to the goals of Nation socialists and communists and a seeming affinity to islamic terrorists a dislike of anything Jewish is like an alarm bell ringing.
This climatism stuff being pushed from on high makes me wonder if they are not using the book 1984 as an instruction manual. I have seen enough propaganda in my life to see that AGW is not science but another tilt by an ism to control the world. Merry Christmas to all.
80
Great perspective.
My compulsories were Humanities 1 and Humanities 2 with analysis of “proofs for the existence of God”, the Popes and so on.
KK
10
Wayne Job @ # 32
Interesting comment and you sort of beat me to commenting on something similar.
I usually go for a 3 to 4 km walk each evening along the tracks and paths along the local Wimmera River here in west Vic.
Its usually dead quiet with just myself for company which is how I like it and it does allow one’s mind to delve into all sorts of odd corners of life and existence while walking for that 40 odd minutes.
Last evening, Sunday evening, while walking I, like you have just noted, was also was running through all the “isms” that have created so much hate, so much suffering and so many terrible deaths and so much destruction during the course of my lifetime of 76 years.
It almost seems that if an “ism” is attached to a movement it seems there is a fair chance that the described movement will be another embodiment of some form of evil which cares not at all for human life other than their own,
Psychological surveys and analysis has confirmed that most senior executives, but far from all senior executives of major companies and particularly the various movements ending in ‘ism” show strong signs of a narcissistic psychopathic personality.
History most definitely confirms this with the various movements that arise with names ending in “ism” and then disappear again over a few decades are for the most part ruled by an ruthless psychopathic hierarchy intent on assuming power by any means possible and little, particularly the death of a few hundreds or few tens of thousands or far more will not be allowed to stand in the way of those narcissistic psychopaths who are central to the existence of that particular “ism”.
50 million deaths from malaria over the last half century due to the banning of DDT.
Up to two million deaths a year in Asia amongst the rice eaters from illness created by Vitamin A deficiency, solved by the Golden Rice project with genes from Sunflowers and a common bacteria that restore vitamin A to rice grains .
Banned and still being fought against by the same organisations implicit in banning of DDT and all because they ”Claim” that golden rice is a GMO.
The two million deaths a year don’t count with these psychopaths.
It’s called “Environmentalism”.
I’ll leave you to guess the organisations involved who are also prepared to ride rough shod over the sensibilities of less developed nations and over the pride of their peoples in their past as we have just seen in Peru just to push their own narcissistic and increasingly bankrupt ideology of environmentalism
And that “ism” is only the start of a whole host of equally psychopathic “isms”
20
ROM
More great PERSPECTIVE.
I have a walking spot where I have spent too much time just looking at the next bit of bush around the corner.
plugged into goog earth
32°57’45.08″ S 151°44’03.63″ E
Seems like as a 38 you have few years on me as a 46
KK
00
Born mid 1938; KK so 76 coming up to 77 years old
Saw the horse teams.
Started driving tractors at 14.
Was put on the old ground drive HST header with the tractor in front steered by a long shaft from the header ie Extension steering and did the entire harvest at 16 1/2 years old by myself while the old man drove the truck carting grain to the local silos.
No cabins. No dust masks so have COPD now. No sunshade . Even the flies use to give up by about two ‘o’clock. Water was a canvas water bag covered in about a 1/2 inch of dust and chaff but it sure tasted good.
Winter tractor work about a 1000 hours a year for myself cultivating before much in the way of herbicides for weed control in crops was available in the 1950’s.
Winter tractor clothing was two pairs of socks plus boots. Long underwear. Trousers singlet plus skivvy plus woolen shirt plus heavy jacket . All covered with a kapok tank suit with a canvas WW2 flying suit outer plus a leather flying helmet to top things off.
Ten hours out there in anything from about 3 degrees on up to a max of about 12 degrees plus wind chill . and you got cold as in cold.
180 lb bags of grain and fertilizer were carried by this 16 year old across my shoulders through 50 metres of mud in winter to the seeder when sowing.
Nothing unusual in that for farm boys of those days.
We survived and those of my generation and both before and after helped create the Australia that so many now benefit from but who just couldn’t give a damn and often denigrate all those old timers, the men and most particularly the women who created all those marvelous advantages they now enjoy as Australians but never think or ask just how did we ever get the way we Australians live.
70
ROM,
A lifestyle unfamiliar to city dwellers, as most of us were, very tough.
I don’t think that Politicians want stories about “the past” with its’ harshness and deprivation to become common knowledge because
it would spoil the forty year old narrative of a rich land of milk and honey where work is optional and there is abundant free money
for those who choose not to work.
Corrupt politics hiding behind phoney compassionism and environmentalism.
KK
10
Hi Rom and all those that joined in. I am away on a different computer and just read your responses, now is a good time to add more.Being a hermit for most of my life, I recently met a wonderful women and in our talks mentioned that my life has followed what was written in a book titled Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. She gave me a new copy as a gift from Santa. I have always ridden motorcycles and re reading it in later life shows me I followed a good path. May Jo and all here have the joy of living that I have been fortunate to have had. Merry Christmas all.
20
happy christmas & a wonderful new year to jo & david & mods & all who gather here.
here’s a little present!
egged around 1 min 10 secs, plus some grovelling earlier:
Youtube 1 min 23: Peru: Greenpeace Director Naidoo egged for Nazca lines action
Greenpeace’s International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo faced the local court of Nazca after activists damaged the Nazca Lines in an awareness stunt, Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEwboT3xV-U
60
‘Nimbus’: Nasa releases old satellite images
They were forgotten in NASA archives: Scientists discovered satellite images from the 1960s. A huge hole in the Arctic sea ice, large masses of snow, intact lakes – the images offer some surprises.” – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.XTRmrs4S.dpuf
30
It has just come to my notice that termites ‘produce more Carbon Dioxide (CO2) each year than all living things combined and scientists have calculated that termites alone produce ten times as much carbon dioxide as all the fossil fuels burned in the whole world in a year.’
30
It’s always the Perspective that’s IMPORTANT!
40
Well actually farmers have been returning carbon back to the soil in a permanently fixated form for a very long time.
And it is a natural biological system which has been in existence since the first grasses, the monocotyledon flowering plants, appeared probably around 65 million years ago.
Carbon is both taken up from the soil and also accessed by grasses and all plants by using photosynthesis to split the CO2 molecule to access the Carbon atoms in the CO2 to create the carbon based sugars and starches that provide the skeletal cell frame work for the plant as well as proving the energy from the sugars and starches to enable to plant to accomplish rapid cell division and multiplication which we know as growth.
And THAT is what all of humanity eventually by various tracks and processes often indirect such as through animals, eats to provide our own systems with the energy to live and and survive.
Another product of plant cells is silica in the form of minute crystals in the cell walls of the grasses such as wheat, sugar cane, bamboo and all of the other 10,000 plus species of grass.
These silica crystal structures in the cell walls of grasses and some other non grass species of plants are known as Phytoliths or “Plant Stones”.
Being Silica crystal structures, Phytoliths are extremely resistant to erosion and fire and to break down by natural means and in quite substantial deposits in New Guinea are known to have exceeded at least 30,000 years without breakdown.
Within the molecular structure of the Phytoliths the plant sequesters “organic carbon” which is then locked up for the entire existence of the Phytoliths.
Sugar cane is very high in Phytoliths and so locks up quite large amounts of carbon .
Like wise wheat is another prolific sequester of carbon in the Phytoliths in the wheat plants straw which even burning of the harvested stubble ,[ not much burning of stubbles done today but sometimes essential tool for non chemical weed control on chemical resistant weeds ] doesn’t release that carbon from the Phytoliths.
Some varieties of wheat with very brittle straws which give one some nasty straw splinters if you have to handle any stubble have a high content of Phytoliths / Plant Stones and so sequester much greater amounts of organic carbon within the Phytoliths in their cell wall structures, organic carbon that will be locked up for the duration of the phytolith’s existence which might well be thousands to tens of thousands of years.
An Australian company started by a couple of Australian Ag researchers was set up to exploit this ability of the agricultural grasses, the wheats, barleys, sugar cane and etc to sequester carbon but as it was that very unglamorous agriculture which nobody wants to know about in climate science and never will while they can walk into a super market and just keep on selecting from an incredible range of food products from the shelf without ever giving any thought to what happens if agriculture ever ceases for any reason and that most of that food on those shelves is no longer there when they walk in to stock up again.
Rather than myself repeating a lot of information on carbon sequestering by the grass plants I suggest you read both of the following articles on grasses, the very basis for the continuing existence of most life on this planet. And the Phytoliths and the way in which they can near permanently lock up that absolutely essential to the existence of ALL life on this planet, that nefarious “Carbon” of the utterly ignorant eco-fascists and the climate alarmists.
Carbon Bio-sequestration Solution
Sequestration Of Phytolith Occluded Carbon PhytOC
The global potential for bio-sequestration via phytolith carbon
(from bamboo and/or other similar grass crops) is
estimated to be ~1.5 billion t-e-CO2 y-1
&
Plant Evolution: When Did Grass Evolve?
40
foolishly switched to SBS where the top news headline was being promoed –
“ABBOTT UNDER FIRE”
what’s that about, i thought. on SBS homepage there were top stories about –
“Madonna speaks of “crazy times” after album leak”
and
“5-year-old favours Princess Leia’s “slave outfit”
A younger girl’s discussion with her father about the merits of Jabba The Hutt’s tase in fashion has gone viral on YouTube”
way down the homepage was “Carbon tax repeal was my best gain for women: PM”, but i read it and there wasn’t mention of any attack!
thought i’d check that other taxpayer-funded outfit, ABC, where the PM is always under attack:
22 Dec: ABC: Cabinet reshuffle: Julie Bishop defends Tony Abbott over achievement for women comments
Greens Leader Christine Milne said the Prime Minister’s comments had shown him to be small-minded on climate change and women.
***”He might as well have said that by abolishing the carbon price he’d been able to give women more money to buy a better iron and so they could stay home and iron more often,” Senator Milne said.
LINK: Reshuffle paranoia, not progress
Tony Abbott’s reshuffle may appear to be a reset, but in reality it is more about the PM’s paranoia and tenuous leadership than the Government’s rejuvenation, writes the Drum’s Paula Matthewson.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-22/julie-bishop-defends-abbott-over-achievement-for-women-comments/5982948
***Milne/ironing???
“thank” in the Ch9/AAP headline is sarcasm, of course. nothing like a Twitter attack to grab the headlines tho and i now understand this is what SBS was on about!
Channel 9: AAP: Women take to Twitter to ‘thank’ Prime Minister Tony Abbott
Two hashtags – #thankstony and #PutYourIronOut – soon began trending.
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2014/12/22/14/55/women-take-to-twitter-to-thank-pm
20
Mr Abbott should be pushing that the proposed parental leave scheme brings working mothers up on par with the entitlements in the ABC and Public Service.
20
This is Doug Cotton again isn’t it? I’m not convinced you have even read the book, Doug. – Jo
A review of the book “CLIMATE CHANGE THE FACTS 2014”
The best and most relevant chapter in this new book is that by William Soon, namely Chapter 4 “Sun Shunned” in which he discusses things such as the eccentricity of the Sun’s orbit that I have also pointed out as the principal regulator of glacial periods.
The rest of the chapters on the “science” do not discuss the valid physics which is really what does determine Earth’s surface temperatures. Instead the “lukes” all reiterate the false claim that carbon dioxide causes significant warming of the surface by radiative forcing. Nowhere is the assumed process of forcing actually discussed. We just get the usual false paradigm that carbon dioxide traps outward radiation and thus supposedly makes the surface warmer.
Carbon dioxide does not trap thermal energy. It disposes of what it absorbs either by subsequent radiation or by sensible heat transfer (via molecular collisions) to other air molecules which outnumber it by 2,500 to 1. It also helps nitrogen and oxygen cool through such collisions, and may subsequently radiate the energy thus acquire out of the atmosphere.
All radiation between regions at different temperatures can only transfer thermal energy from the warmer region (or surface) to a cooler region. This means all heat transfer in the troposphere is generally upwards to cooler regions, with a proportion always getting through to space. There is no thermal energy transferred to a warmer surface. The energy transfer is the other way. The Sun’s radiation is not helped by radiation from the atmosphere which is only sending back some of its own energy now with much lower energy photons. Radiating gases reduce the insulating effect by helping energy to escape faster, and that is why moist air in double glazed windows also reduces the insulating effect, just as does water vapor in the troposphere.
Nowhere is the book do we see the surface temperature explained correctly using Stefan Boltzmann calculations. No one ever does this, because it is an absolute stumbling block for climatologists. The mean solar flux entering the surface is only about 163W/m^2 after 52% of the solar radiation has been either absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected by the surface, clouds or atmosphere. But such a low level of radiation would only produce a very cold -41°C. That’s even colder than what the IPCC claims would be the case, namely -18°C without greenhouse gases. They deduce that by assuming that the whole troposphere would be isothermal due to convective heat transfer, including sensible heat transfers by molecular collision.
Hence all the “luke” authors fall for the trap of not actually explaining the existing surface temperature, let alone what carbon dioxide might or might not do. How could you work out the latter if you don’t know your starting point? The truth is that you cannot calculate the surface temperature of any planet that has a significant atmosphere by using radiation calculations.
Hence all the considerations pertaining to radiation and absorption by carbon dioxide are totally within a wrong paradigm.
That assumption by the IPCC (and thus by the “lukes” who have written this book) that the troposphere would be isothermal was rubbished in the 19th century by some physicists who understood the process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is still being rubbished to this day, and even more so, now that physicists realise that the Second Law is all about entropy increasing to the point where there are no unbalanced energy potentials. In a gravitational field this state of thermodynamic equilibrium is attained when all the energy potentials involving gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy and radiative energy balance out. That is when the environmental temperature gradient is attained, and the very fact that it exists enables us to explain all planetary surface temperatures (and the required energy flows) without the slightest reference to back radiation, let alone trace gases like carbon dioxide. Only water vapor has a significant effect in lowering that gradient because of its radiating properties. It thus cools the surface, and that puts a big spanner in the works for the IPCC et al.
10
In the past I have approached the Human Origin CO2 effect from a different direction, but we sseem to come to the same end point which is that there is no point admitting that CO2 “causes” warming.
From your analysis “any” gas could substitute for CO2 and the gravitation al effect would still keep us warm.
From my analysis there are two points and this is where most people get caught up:
1. There is definitely a mechanism by which CO2 absorbs ground origin IR ENERGY which is INSTANTANEOUSLY TRANSFERRED TO NEIGHBOURING GAS MOLECULES BY STAND MECHANISMS OF GAS PHYSICS.
2. The problem is that Human Origin CO2, despite the reality of the IR absorption mechanism, is effectively a non-starter when it comes to a quantitative input. It just doesn’t rate against natural origin CO2 and water.
I think your assessment is better scientifically but mine still tells the story and eliminates Human CO2 as a player.
KK
00
Sol remains in slumber mode.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Cycle22Cycle23Cycle24big.gif
20
Monthly Smoothed Sunspot Count
Compares 1775-1809 (entry into Dalton Minimum) to Present (1986-Aug2014)
International sunspot Number(Data Source: SIDC)
> Hope Ol’ Sol gets busy soon.
A 3,000-Year Record of Solar Activity
The first fully adjustment-free physical reconstruction of solar activity” covering the past 3,000 years, which record allowed them “to study different modes of solar activity at an unprecedented level of detail.”
30
Hj
This is bad news for us Ham Radio freaks. It means less ionisation in the atmosphere therefore less ‘F’ layer reflection and HF skip around the world. What’s a Ham Operator to do?
Seriously tho’ this is one of the reasons I’m a AGW skeptic. I follow the ups and downs of ‘ol Sol as it effects my hobby and noted the Maunder and Dalton mins equated to zero and very low Sun Spot numbers.
Cycle 24 has been particularly low and predictions are that 25 will be even lower. What will the IPCC do then?
R-COO- K+
00
And if SC25 is as predicted…….. brrrrrr. !!!
33
Sprung big time !!
How inconvenient for the alarmistas !!!!
50
Now this is fun.. in fact, it ROCKS !!
50
t G
I found that article very interesting.
Cheers
R-COO- K+
10
The news on nine 2 metre sea level rise in Australia and global warming in France because of the snow.
10
From Greg’s site “Greg Laden December 21, 2014
The vast, vast majority of tree ring data can not be used to reconstruct temperature. Most of it simply does not carry that signal. It wasn’t collected to look at temperature, it has other uses, etc. Also, many tree ring sequences look at climate related data other than temperature, and carry virtually no temperature signal as well.
The MWP is real, but it is not what many say it is. It is not global, for example.”
Very funny, but not very interesting? How can he say this and then defend tree ring records?
40
THe MWP correlates very well with the fall of civilisations in South America due to drought. It was global.
00
A should have said “The Americas”, because I believe that in Central and North America also.
00
Hi. MC AND A HNY. So brief a visit that I am not correcting caps lock. Stay healthy, sane and sceptical.
00
You will probably manage the first..
the other two…. not so much. ! 🙂
00
Georgina Hall
Finance and Administration Officer
The Conversation Media Group
Level 3, 33 Lincoln Square South
Melbourne VIC 3010 Australia
+613 9008 6168
+61417 297 620
Hello Georgina,
I find that I have now been banned from posting to The Conversation.
My posts have been civil and non abusive and I can see from the policy statement written by Cory Zanoni that I have been banned simply because I do not hold the same views as he does.
Australia is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and my right to freedom of opinion and expression is protected by international treaty:
http://www.info.dfat.gov.au/Info/Treaties/treaties.nsf/AllDocIDs/8B8C6AF11AFB4971CA256B6E0075FE1E
The right to freedom of expression extends to any medium, including written and oral communications, the media, public protest, broadcasting, artistic works and commercial advertising:
http://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/HumanRights/PublicSectorGuidanceSheets/Pages/Righttofreedomofopinionandexpression.aspx
I expect that the suspension on my account will be lifted forthwith and that you will notify me immediately of the same.
Kind Regards,
Matti Ressler
20
Very Interesting!
00
Hi All
Help needed, pls explain.
I have been asked about the lack tropospheric hot spot and how that was demonstrating co2 greenhouse effect failure. If co2 is not a major greenhouse gas and water vapour is why don,t we have a similar hot spot caused by water?
10
There is very little water vapor in the troposphere. Consequently increased CO2 is supposedly way up there in the troposphere (never mind that it is heavier than air) causing more “back radiation”, thus both warming the planet and the troposphere.
An imagined increased tropospheric CO2 is the major driver of increased warming according to AGW theory, not CO2 further down in the atmosphere where water vapor dominates.
The lack of warming in the troposphere shows this theory to be false.
20
More correctly there is very little water at the top of the troposphere above the tropics. The water has condensed into clouds, releasing the latent heat of evaporation. The CO2 was supposed to absorb this radiation from the water and back radiate it, warming the top of the troposphere (hence hot spot).
More CO2 more back radiation, more warming.
No warm spot has ever been found, no evidence of back radiation that stands up to examination, no warming for 18 years and the admission by Phil Jones that the rate of temperature rise from 1979 to 1995 was the same as 1850 to 1885 and same as that in 1920 – 1940 all add up to CO2 warming is crap
20