Weekend Unthreaded

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165 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

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    scaper...

    Has anyone got a link to a recent CO2 emission percentage for Australia? The 1.3% was in 2011. Surely, due to China and India’s increase in emissions it should be lower now.

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      Graeme No.3

      scaper:

      Not a link but saw the figure 1.1% about a week ago. (Something to do with bush fires).

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        scaper...

        Thanks No3. I was under the impression bush fires, being natural was not to be included in our CO2 emissions. I suppose because a fair few fires were anthropogenic (arson) it could be accounted. Just like I do my tax returns. Very creative.

        The reality is…due to the high fuel loads the natural process of bush fires would be inevitable.

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        scaper...

        Speaking of fuel loads…my observations. I flew from Brisbane to Sydney five days before Christmas. Was pretty smoky up there above the clouds. Spent a week in Sydney then drove to Thredbo. I just could not believe how much dead wood that was left lying in paddocks that should have been collected and burnt.

        Have not been down thereabouts for near on ten years. Never in my life have seen so much tinder. It got worse when we entered the National Park. Was like a dead zone of wood on the floor and every fire trail was either blocked by boulders or gates. To prevent four drive vehicles (campers and the like) from entering.

        Our lodge was next to the site of the Thredbo landslide in 1997. It is now a memorial. As new year approached we were getting surrounded by fires, albeit…not too close but the shifting winds were drawing the fires closer. The park kicked all the campers out before the new year. New years eve was the smokiest I endured on my adventure. A couple of days later we had to evacuate.

        We holed up in Canberra for a few nights in a luxury hotel. Ovolo, the mini bar is free and copped the abuse, believe me. Went to see the War Memorial. A very sobering experience. Was not comfortable with the Japanese tourists taking selfies with the exhibits but it is a free country.

        Also visited the art gallery. Matisse and Picasso. Absolutely marvelous! They said that day Canberra was the most polluted place in the world. I call “Hyperbowl'” sic I recovered about four months ago from a chronic lung infection. In my travel Mittagong and Thredbo were far much worse.

        My brother gifted me his last four wheel drive. A fully modified Nissan Patrol. Nothing but the shell and sub frame is original. Has a 6.4 litre GM diesel V8 squeezed in under the bonnet. Seven kms a litre. Noice.

        On my return to Brisbane I could not believe the transformation in three weeks. Went from brown to verdant green. I believe not only the extra CO2 from the Qld fires but also the fine ash deposits are responsible. Besides the hard trades, my background is agricultural and horticultural. I have never seen such growth rates before.

        All is good.

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      hatband

      Emissions don’t matter, so why play their silly game with the ever changing Goalposts?

      Man is a Carnivore, so long as he’s eating Meat with plenty of Fat on,

      he’ll be happy and contented.

      Force him to eat Grains and Vegetables and he’ll get old and worn out before his time

      earning his bread by the sweat of his brow.

      So, yeah, the kids have got a point, they just don’t understand the issues that caused us

      to end up in a soulless dystopia where lies are the truth and Truth is against the law.

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      TdeF

      And does the figure include the biosphere? In a drought or bushfire, we output much more CO2. In the recovery, we are a massive sink. In Sweden the biosphere is included. Really emissions mean nothing.

      It is the indoctrination that ’emissions’ for which read ‘noxious emissions’ are measured, not total CO2. There is no visible evidence in the CO2 record that now 400,000 windmills and the elimination of cheap electricity in Australia have made any difference at all to CO2 levels in Australia. There’s no effect from the bushfires. As it takes 2 years for CO2 to cross the equator and only 2% of the world’s population live where we live, we should have seen some effect, but we have seen nothing. Our smoke reaches NZ but not our CO2?

      So what has been achieved apart from the destruction of manufacturing in Australia? Is there any sign of mankind’s fires, windmills, solar panels, switch to natural gas, crippling of industry in Australia in the CO2 level in Australia? Even South Pacific volcanoes which spew CO2. No.

      The barely plausible theory of CO2 driven warming is busted. Not only because there is no hot spot and no scientifically valid proposition at all, but because nothing we are doing is having any effect to the steady growth of CO2.

      So why are we measuring ’emissions’? Why not CO2? We are told climbing CO2 is our fault and cannot be natural. We told warming oceans stuffed with 98% of all CO2 do not release CO2 and that it’s all our fault and the answer is massive taxes and more windmills.

      There’s one born every day. Australia, the not clever country.

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        TdeF

        In fact how would you measure the success of the massive $1,500Billion program now running for 32 years except by measuring its effect on total CO2? Where is the effect on total CO2 from the world population increasing 6 billion since 1900? Where is the bump in CO2 in NZ. They get our brown smoke but not our CO2? Why isn’t our CO2 lower than in the Northern hemisphere? Why is the ozone hole in Antractica and not the arctic? Are the penguins using hairspray? They can’t be using airconditioners?

        Are we being told the truth about anything? Or is it just manipulation? Carbon ’emissions’. A fake measure to support a made up and debunked theory and based on the ridiculous idea that CO2 is the only gas not in rapid equilibrium with the oceans.

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          sophocles

          Where is the bump in CO2 in NZ

          It wasn’t me.
          I didn’t do it.
          I had nothing to do with it.
          It’s just a nasty rumour.
          False accusations.
          All false.

          Psst … don’t ask about the bump in methane, whatever you do!

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          sophocles

          The ozone hole is in Antarctica because the air column under the hole is so cold — c. -50°C
          The Arctic got pretty cold once about six or seven years ago and a small ozone hole formed, but it didn’t last more than a day or two.

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        StephenP

        Australia is surrounded by a lot of water. How much of the CO2 emitted in Australia gets taken up by the surrounding oceans?

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          Graeme#4

          With 98% of the world’s CO2 sequestered in our oceans, surely a lot?

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            TdeF

            The question is how quickly?

            The IPCC says man made CO2 stays in the atmosphere ‘thousands of years’ in one place and 80 years half life in another.

            Both are ridiculous and also contradictory.

            Firstly the ocean has enormous amounts of oxygen and fish breathe, pulling the oxygen out of the water with gills. Then CO2 is far more soluble and easily compressed, as we know from champagne, soda water, lemonade, spritzers etc. The idea that CO2 is trapped is ridiculous but it is more than that. And with one atmosphere every 10 metres the CO2 is compressed.

            Then so much comes out all the time that our contributions are negligible. Warm surface water will release a lot of CO2. Cold surface water will see CO2 go into the ocean.

            Consider scale as well. The IPCC says the 50% increase since 1900 is man made, so they admit man made contribution is 50/120 or 0.45% a year. Firstly the IPCC agree our annual ’emissions’ are tiny. Secondly, the only way this could accumulate to 50% is that the CO2 is trapped for 120 years. Otherwise all our trains and trucks and cars and people and animals amount to nothing, less than 0.5% of the total. And that is assuming CO2 is not in rapid equilibrium with the oceans.

            So the whole thing is nonsense. We humans contribute nothing to CO2 levels and spending $30 billion dollars a week has achieved nothing. Still we continue. Why?

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              Graeme#4

              Thanks for the info Tdef. Surely the atomic tests showed that CO2 doesn’t have a long lifetime in the atmosphere? I had a small win when somebody told me that our oceans absorb CO2 when warm. I then raised the analogy of warm beer outgassing.

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          sophocles

          I looked at the OCOO satellite’s data when it first flew and most of the CO2 over Australia appeared to be coming out of the Indian Ocean to the West South West of OZ about a thousand or so miles off shore. It looked as though there was a deep current surfacing there.

          I haven’t looked since.

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      Jonesy

      Dont forget, that percentage refers to our share of the human input. Too many fail to finish the quote. 1.1% of the 3.4% of total CO2 output..cycle…The quote lets people believe we have a larger footprint if not quoted in full.

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    Aussie Pete

    Bushfire hysteria is driving wedges into society. A message for the “convertibles” using the KISS method at http://www.dinosaurdiary.com.au Share if you like.

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    Graeme Bird

    Do people really have a good idea about clouds? Why they are shaped that way? Why the little droplets stay aloft and don’t bob around, (but more down-bobbing then up-bobbing) until all the white clouds are gone by next Wednesday? Perhaps clouds are fully understood and I haven’t been paying attention. I think Joni Mitchell was fantastically insightful to figure out that she couldn’t figure clouds out. I like Donald Rumsfelds view of epistemology where the important stuff is known unknowns and unknown unknowns. But have the meteorologists got it all sorted by now?

    Why don’t the little droplets sashay their way down to the ground, bumping into each-other as they do? They never bump into each-other, the clouds keeps some sort of identifiable form most of the time, and banks of clouds tend to find a pretty identifiable sweet spot for their height.

    For my part I think you have negative charges created from the earths centre and positive charges coming down from the ionosphere and that its something to do with that. Something to do with the difficulty of absorbing these positive charges that keeps the winds blowing and the small droplets aloft. But it would be nice to know if someone had this all done and dusted and in the textbook already.

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      Graeme Bird

      From a methodology point of view I think one of the key things is to transfer unknown unknowns to known unknowns so that we can dwell of them. If Joni hadn’t pointed out that she couldn’t figure out clouds, then I wouldn’t have realised that I couldn’t figure them out either, and then I wouldn’t have become suspicious that other people might not have it clear in their what clouds are about likewise. So from a scientific point of view thats transferring an unknown unknown to a known unknown.

      These people who make artificial snow might need an electrical field to do so and may have thoughts on how snow production works in the greater scheme of things. People who fly over the desert prospecting for precious metals with gravity meters may be in the position to help us develop a long overdue rewriting of our understanding of gravity. Because we don’t have an understanding of gravity. We merely have outdated formulae related to gravity. Some sort of moratorium is clearly in place.

      If there are any outstanding known unknowns than the likelihood is that its akin to building 7. Its not just some small thing that you can put into the background as an unimportant question mark. What it really means is that almost everything you think you know is wrong.

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      Two bob’s worth here, (my bolding)

      Why don’t the little droplets sashay their way down to the ground, bumping into each-other as they do?

      “The hail was as big as golf balls, tennis balls, etc etc.”

      I have only seen this once, and they were between golf ball and tennis ball size. I wasn’t actually ‘in’ the hailstorm when it happened. My good lady wife was, and it smashed holes through our hardened plastic Pergola roof, and also smashed around ten or so tiles on the roof, all replaced by Insurance, and quite quickly as well.

      My good lady wife collected four or five of those huge hail ‘globs’, and put them in the freezer for me to see when I got home from work. She told me that the hail fell without any rain, something I sort of knew as you don’t usually get hail at the same time as rain.

      When I looked closely at the large hail, you could easily see it was many many smaller normal pea sized hail stones all joined together in one lump, and that reinforced another thing I had been told many years before about hail like this.

      I was told that the small hail fell as usual, and because it was usually associated with a very hot front at the fore edge of the hail storm, then those smaller pea sized hail stones were caught up in the huge updraft of hot air and ‘rolled’ upwards. As they were wet and very prolific in number, that wetness surrounding each pea sized hailstone caused them to join together and as they reached the top of that immense swirling updraft of hot air into the freezing top of that huge cloud bank, they froze together into much larger hail stones, and now much heavier, and coming from a larger height, then their impact when they reached the ground was bigger, naturally, because of their new size. The higher the cloud bank top was, the larger the hail stones.

      The second thing I was told about hail storm clouds was that they were green in colour. Every time I heard a hailstorm warning, I would look up at the clouds, and more often than not you could almost ‘imagine’ a green tinge to them, and that was usually spurious as for all the ones I did see, hail never eventuated. When I finally did see a monster hail storm, (on the Gold Coast, at Helensvale) then I was concerned no longer, because that really was a vibrant green, and now, having actually seen the green clouds, I knew exactly what to see in the future, and I have never seen that telltale green since, but at least now I know what a real hail bearing (green) cloud looks like.

      Tony.

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        Graeme Bird

        If we are seeing green clouds and we don’t know why, then thats not a detail to leave in the background. There isn’t the algae there to turn a cloud green. Its got to be some sort of electrical phenomenon. I associate fusion with strong electrical fields, is there a gas where electrical energy produces a green colour? See I would say that this is something to focus on and put a lot of time into. Because if you can solve it how a cloud can be green, and how this can stop the little drops being habitually forced apart and instead clump together …. once that square is circled we might wind up rewriting everything.

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        • #

          Ha ha, that’s really good.

          I also see what you are doing here.

          Here in Australia, we call it ….. “taking the pi$$.’

          Nice try.

          Tony.

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            Graeme Bird

            I’m not talking the piss at all. This green cloud business is serious stuff. I think its excited argon leading to turquoise light generation since I cannot think of anything else. Elsewhere people were trying to say that it was a reflection off the grass. This is not small news Tony this is big. I’ve never heard of green clouds until the second you mentioned them.

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        Graeme Bird

        “In a clear glass tube argon gas gives off blue light….. blue-glowing argon gas in a yellow tube creates a green light” These storm chasers are saying that a turquoise light is created but its usually late in the after noon and the yellowish light from the sun makes the clouds seem green. I think the electrical energy must be lighting up the Argon else its hard to figure out where the turquoise light could be coming from. But anyway its not like we would be able to solve that mystery now. Its just that by solving unknown mysteries the entire picture will have to change. Else the small mystery would have been solved a long time ago. If the big picture wasn’t substantially wrong the small mystery wouldn’t have survived.

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        Sceptical Sam

        Green Aye?

        What is it about that green?

        have you seen the “Green Flash”?

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        Graeme Bird

        Here is the Guardian on this green cloud business. They didn’t mention Argon. But they were able to rule out a few theories.

        https://www.theguardian.com/news/2013/sep/29/weatherwatch-green-clouds-tornadoes-hail

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      Graeme#4

      Certainly the IPCC modellers don’t. I believe that the smallest area they use in their GCMs is a massive 100x100kms, so all they can do is to “assume” (read “guess”) a value for their models. I believe everybody knows that clouds can have significantly different effects over just a few kms. And they wonder why we deride their useless models…

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    Graeme Bird

    The other thing that is a known unknown to me is the reversal of the lapse rate in the stratosphere. So I mostly get the lapse rate in the troposphere. Sort of. But I don’t get that reversal. Is that all sorted and easily understood by most?

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      Graeme Bird

      Easily understood by the person who just downvoted me? He’s the gentleman I’ve been looking for clearly. On the other hand someone may have explained it to me a couple of weeks ago. But I’m a bit worried to go back and look at what I may have written.

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      el gordo

      No sir, not a bit.

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      Peter C

      The reversal of the lapse rate in the stratosphere

      I believe it is due to the sun heating the air directly. The far UV is absorbed by ozone, which occurs in the upper stratosphere.

      The lower stratosphere is isothermal.

      What sets the lapse rate of the Troposphere? It seems to be a complex balance between; gravity, solar heating at the surface, evaporation of water at the surface, the latent heat of water condensation at altitude, radiative heat loss at all levels and mixing of the air.

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        Graeme Bird

        From wikipedia:

        The ozone layer is mainly found in the lower portion of the stratosphere, from approximately 15 to 35 kilometers (9.3 to 21.7 mi) above Earth, although its thickness varies seasonally and geographically.[1]

        Lower stratosphere. So that cannot do it.

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        Graeme Bird

        Plus by definition it would have to be the tropopause that is isothermal. So I still think the mystery persists somewhat.

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    jack

    The new millennia, maybe it is a Brave new world.

    A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned… to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.
    Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

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      PeterS

      Conditioning of the mind has been happening in our schools for some time. Their goal is to be a brick in the wall without looking like a brick in the wall. Free to be aligned to any thought or idea as long as it’s aligned to the wall. I shudder to think what will happen eventually if a kid dared to disagree with say the climate change story. As in the ad not long ago they might have their heads exploded, literally. The way I see it though is we will end up with two groups with opposing views clashing violently, thanks to our so called educators.

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        OriginalSteve

        The best thing we can do is teach kids the govt is often wrong…about a lot of things…..

        Unless they hear an opposing voice, their frame of reference will always be Statist collectivism dressed up as “news”

        As the Russians used to say: “They pretend to give us “news” and we pretend to believe it”

        The stupid thing is, once some group of demented sociopaths have conquered the world with Demonic help, what then? What is there left to do?
        And then eventually the serfs will find a way , as per history teaches, to put their heads on spikes for the rest of the previously oppressed to laugh at….
        Much better to let everyone share in the spoils of a good life, than be greed ( or stupid ) and try and kick the bulk of the population in the guts.

        The irony is this , from my Christian perspective, we realize that the Devil will and is misleading powerful people, telling them they are “masters of the universe”, giving them expensive trinkets or power, but in reality are just mislead but apparently willing wealthy fools, who have fallen for the lies from the kings of lies, Satan.
        Satan is very good at dressing up as a “good guy”

        “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
        ( 2 Cor 11:14 )

        “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.
        “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.
        “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
        ( Eph 2:44 )

        So we now watch as yet another batch of mislead, power hungry people, follow their demonic master into the Abyss……

        Its sad really, which is why Christians like to talk about the Gospel, as gospel means “good hope”.

        Have a good weekend…..

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          PeterS

          All good advice. The trouble is too many are not willing to listen. They will start to listen only when things go pear shaped as per history. That includes many so called Christians, many of whom are also being side-tracked by evil forces. Some are even outright rejecting the Gospel and teaching a false one for a fake salvation. Jesus warned this would happen.

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          StephenP

          C.S.Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters that cover the subject of Satan giving instructions to a junior devil on how subvert mankind.
          I haven’t seen a copy for many years, but it was quite popular sixty years ago and recommended reading for a young person.

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            Annie

            I read The Screwtape Letters many years ago. Quite depressing and thought-provoking. C. S. Lewis also wrote Men Without Chests; that too is very thought-provoking.

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        Surftilidie

        I’m a maths teacher at a high school in Perth. I am often seen as the spawn of Satan for my heretical views on climate change. There is little doubt that students get only one point of view from their Science and Humanities classes. As a maths teacher, I tried to put together some of the figures relating to how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere, and how big our (humanity’s) biomass is, and had this article

        https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/06/a-remedial-lesson-in-climate-education/

        published in Quadrant a while ago.

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          AndyG55

          “with some perspective on 400 ppm”

          4 cents in $100, up from 3 cents in $100. 🙂

          Also, many plants basically “turn off” around 250ppm.

          That is when their stomata are as densely packed as they can be.

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          Bob-l

          I sent a letter to the maths master of my sons school a few years ago with math problems that disprove global warming. For example working out the simultaneous equation that allows you you work out what the historical rate of warming is from 1850 to now which of course allows you to take a close look at the feasibility of high sensitivities forecast by the models. There is also a CO2 saturation problem. Estimation of energy requirements for melting west Antarctica compared with energy availability of back radiation.

          By tasking the kids with checking the claims themselves they start to ask questions. I’m writing a short book with a large bunch of mathematical problems related to AGW. For example estimating the number of 200W solar panels and batteries needed to power the NEM and the required install/replacement rate needed to keep pace with failures and demand growth ( with and without EVs ) this shows the utter impracticality of Solar.

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    • #

      Nice interview. What’s the most enduring lesson of the 20th century re what works and what don’t work?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crkPK_CU1qY

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  • #

    I actually thought something like this might have been big news, but there’s a secret with that. There’s so much other news around, like the Coronavirus, ans the bushfires, so when we high power consumption it just doesn’t rate any more.

    Why is that?

    Well you see, everything ran smoothly. Nothing major failed. The NEM coped, and the AEMO planned the power supply like they always do. It all worked as designed.

    So, the clueless journalists in the media had no ‘disasters’ to cover in the electrical power generating sector, and with no idea about where to look, they just didn’t report it at all.

    Thursday just gone was the biggest day for power consumption in Australia’s history. The grid coped, and it coped really well in fact.

    Then, on the following day, the Friday, it was even bigger. Thursday’s total power consumption was a whopping 692GWH across the whole day. Friday’s power consumption was 727GWH across the day, a full 5% larger. That 727GWH for the day is higher than the year round daily average for power consumption by 29.8%, almost a third higher than the average.

    That 727GWH was at an hourly average of 30290MW. The overnight low on that Friday morning at around 4AM was 21700MW, 3700MW higher than the 18000MW year round average for that Base Load. The daily peak for Friday was 37900MW, also the highest peak in our history.

    The grid coped. They used heaps of hydro, they used heaps of gas fired power. They used the usual tiny contribution from solar plants, and wind had a lower than average day, so it didn’t deliver much either. And coal fired power just hummed along like it always has. There were only four of the 48 Units off line across the whole of Australia. For almost 16 hours those 44 operational Units ran close to their maximum, delivering between 19200MW and 19900MW.

    Now having said that coal fired power delivered that 19500MW average for 16 hours, I’d like to show you an anomaly here on how a large amount can be made to look somewhat less than it actually is, even though it’s the same.

    Okay then, here I’m going to use the NEM data only, and in doing that, I want you all to consider this.

    Remember how often we are told that Rooftop Solar Power (RTS) is the way we need to go. Across the whole year, RTS only delivers 5.3% of all power, and that is consumed only in the Residential sector ….. 5.3%.

    So, when it comes to power consumption 94.7% of power is actually being consumed where it always is being consumed ….. 94.7%.

    There’s no way to under emphasise that. It’s virtually all of it in fact. So of the daily average of 23344MW per hour, 22107MW of that is NOT generated on some home’s roof’s. It’s power that has to be in place ALL the time, not just occasionally, but ALWAYS there.

    Okay then, so now I have shown how little RTS actually contributes towards the total, all the following is just from actual power plants, the REAL power required to run the Country, the REAL power that the NEM details as what is actually being produced for consumption.

    I have often said that coal fired power is delivering around 70% of all power on a year round basis. That takes RTS into consideration because the NEM tells us the data shows that coal fired power delivers 74% of all the power being generated by power plants across Australia

    Well on that Friday of huge power consumption, coal fired power only delivered 62% of that total.

    See the anomaly? That’s because the total is so high, and what it does is lower that contribution from coal fired power even though it delivered 19500MW average for 16 hours.

    So, here’s the figures for comparison.

    Data for the AVERAGE daily power consumption for the full year.

    Hourly average – 22120MW per Hour. Total Daily power generation – 531GWH. Coal fired power contribution – 16370MW per Hour. Daily contribution 74%. Yearly average Capacity Factor 71.17%

    Data for Friday 31Jan2020

    Hourly average – 28710MW per Hour. Total Daily power generation – 689GWH. Coal fired power contribution – 17790MW per Hour. Daily contribution 62%. Daily average Capacity Factor 77.35%

    When there are days when a lot of power is required, then only coal fired power can deliver that.

    Truthfully, every day is a day when we need a lot of power.

    They can’t replace it in fact. Without it, the Country just stops.

    And speaking of stopped, Macarthur Wind Plant, the largest in Australia, went back to zero output power at around 9AM on that Friday, and here we are two days later and it’s still not delivering any power, zero output for 48 hours and counting.

    Tony.

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      Peter C

      Did everything work as expected on the two hot and very high power use days?

      I have heard of a few blackouts, not widely reported. One interstate link to SA was down and some businesses in SA may have been asked to cut back their usage. That puts people out of work, which is not a good result.

      Coal underpins our economy as you say Tony, but do we have enough Coal fired power stations to provide for our needs?

      Terry Mcrann, writing in the weekend Australian was calling for urgent consideration of Nuclear power plants. It is either that or new coal plants. Faced with that choice the Greens just might agree (maybe only some of them could agree).

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        AndyG55

        “but do we have enough Coal fired power stations to provide for our needs?”

        I would say that at the moment, the answer is…. “JUST ENOUGH”.

        But the Australian population is expanding, and only coal/gas or nuclear can RELIABLY cater for that population increase and the extra electricity that will be required.

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        Bright Red

        Power went off in a lot of rural and suburban areas around Bendigo at 6:00pm for up to a couple of hours. No mention of this on their ABC/MSM as it is not in line with their we can do it message. When I check the Powercor site there were also other large areas in VIC without power.

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      jack

      Why is that?

      Tony you live in a world of Watts and Joules.
      You knowledge of Power distribution is impeccable.
      But in the world of the human psyche,
      things like potential lethal pandemics, and homes burning down,
      take a bit of precedence over the cost of energy for now.
      Go figure.
      As for me, I have 6.6Kw of solar and home built storage, the price of elect can go through the roof, or be cut off totally I really don’t care.

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        Peter C

        I am ok jack.

        I suppose with 6.6kW of solar you are ok, sort of.

        Those of us without our own solar, who want to work should be a lot more worried than most seem to be right now.

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          jack

          I had no confidence in the supply and price of electricity, so I did something about it.
          I take responsible for my own life, and in that position have done a great deal to help others, including payed for the education of a young girl in Africa.
          The fact is I find I have done much more for other people than any moral high horse altruist.
          I worked hard and honestly earnt very thing I got, that is why jack is OK.
          If you have a superior moral code, good luck to you.

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            Chad

            Jack, i assume you have some back up generator capacity also ?
            Because otherwise when you get a 7 + day powercut in a bushfire smoke clouded area …..your solar and battery will be of little use………
            ……as we recently discovered !

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              jack

              Chad
              I have my own system using Lead Acid.
              I design and build drones, that’s the only place I use Lithium.
              The home system is run by an arduino processor, connected to current, voltage senors and outputs to relays, plus WiFi.
              The software, which I wrote myself, is smart enough to warm me of future problem, even warn that panels are getting to dirty, a real problem.
              If worst comes to worst I can go 7 days of running the fridge/freezer with zero solar input.
              But even on the worst over cast/smoke days, if the happened in winter, I still get minimum 8 kWhrs of energy per day, from the PV cells.
              They have a 12 year warranty, woth over 10 years to go, have more than paid for themselves already.
              It cost many hours of my time and about $3K for the home built storage system.
              I am also building a electrolysis hydrogen producer, run off the always excess energy from the solar, to run the BBQ.
              I hate it when my energy goes back into the grid, they don’t pay enough.

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              • #
                Chad

                Jack..
                Presumeably you have bypassed the “anti islanding” protection in your inverter to allow your solar to continue working during a power cut ?.

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              • #
                toorightmate

                Sorry Jack, but I am sick of subsidising unreliables – and you are one of the many I subsidise.

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            • #
              jack

              While I have mentioned solar.
              I am also developing, at my own cost, a solar drone that will continuously stay up during the day, even in overcast conditions, for search and rescue, fire spotting, etc
              This is a long term project, but when I succeed I will give the technology away for nothing, it is a hobby to me.
              I am open to alternate technologies, I just don’t believe they should be subsided by a false agenda.

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              • #
                Dave

                That’s fine Jack!

                But try to run 8 roll forming machines 24 hours a days to make metal roofing products!
                Each one at least 10Kw each per hour, plus lights and sundries!

                The hourly average is nearly 100 Kw per hour for 24 hours a day?

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              • #
                jack

                Dave
                I was not talking about the grid, I was answering a question asked, why I have no concerns about the price of electricity rather than other events that would have more impact my families life.
                I appreciate the commercial problem, even though there is more to the decline of Australian industry than just the price of energy.
                I’ve worked in the nuclear industry, spat at by Protesting Greens, who had no care about coal at the time.
                I worked in the Bowen basin and the pilbera, I have no problem with coal (or iron ore), but if the Australian public is going to allow the government to shut down coal fired station,I cannot do much about it. It is not a battle of science, it is a battle of ideologies, and their are very few in Australia who are standing strong in that battlefield. This is why 17 year old Thunberg has more influence in the global warming decisions than a noble prize winning physicist.
                I have just ensured that I have reliable supply and are comfortable for my time remaining on earth.

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      Robber

      Well said Tony. The grid coped, but it is interesting to see the daily price spikes – were emergency supplies called on and big consumers asked to reduce their offtake in return for some compensation?
      On Friday 31/1 Vic average price for the day was $2189/MWhr, NSW $1540, SA $304, Qld $201 and Tas minus $35??
      On the Thursday, Vic $$756, NSW $185, SA $774, Qld $140 and Tas $14.
      Those two days pushed the monthly averages up: Vic $143, NSW $152, SA$83, Qld $67, and Tas $57.
      And averages for the last 7 months, Vic $96, NSW $90, SA $73, Qld $63, and Tas $70.
      SA is doing way better than the previous year at $110. Has SA managed to negotiate a better deal on gas prices, or have more wind and solar had more impact?
      At 6pm last Friday, coal was delivering 18.6 GW, gas 7.8 GW, hydro 5.5 GW, wind 2.0 GW, and solar 2.5 GW.
      And at 7.30 pm, coal 18.6 GW, gas 7.7, hydro 5.4, wind 1.9, and solar 0.3.
      Despite the massive (wasted) capacity in wind mills of 6.7 GW (nameplate), 3.4 GW (nameplate) of large solar, and an estimated 10 GW (nameplate) in rooftop solar, the AEMO grid is absolutely dependent on coal, gas and hydro. But when the wind blows and the sun shines, those intermittent supplies reduce the utilisation of the reliable generators, nett result more investment seeking profits, ergo higher prices.

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      Graeme#4

      Tony, would the states have coped if folks and businesses didn’t reduce their power usage? I guess we’ll never know.

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      • #
        Robber

        Graeme#4 – couldn’t have been much in the way of cutbacks as the peak consumption of 37.9 GW is a record high. Previous high for January 32 GW, and last year 35 GW.
        Last year the average maximum was 26.7 MW, minimum 18.5, average 23.1 GW.

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  • #
    el gordo

    The inquiry into the NSW bushfires will conclude…

    ‘While climate change is not the direct cause of the bushfires, scientists have long warned that a hotter, drier climate would contribute to Australia’s fires becoming more frequent and more intense.’

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      Graeme Bird

      The other idea is to put some actual truth in the body of the report. But to make the report this huge data-dump that only a few fringe characters will ever get around to reading.

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    • #
      Annie

      Aided and abetted by the (wilful?) neglect of proper forestry work with proper fuel reduction activity.

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      • #
        farmerbraun

        A smoky old sun in NZ this evening suggests that there is quite a bit of fuel reduction activitry still going on somewhere to the west.

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    Zane

    The sides of Geelong buses now read in huge lettering ” DRIVING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE This bus is carbon neutral “. The propaganda is relentless.

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    Aussie Pete

    The BOM forecast 37c for Parramatta to-day. It maxed out at 33c. I suppose four degrees is not much of an error, except perhaps when you are predicting the end of the world. Shall I forgive them one more time?

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    Peter C

    The Great Global Warming Symposium -In Your Dreams
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/climate-notes-3/

    Writing in the Spectator, John Ruddick reflects that the last time the Western World was so divided over science was in the mid 19th century, when Charles Darwin published Origin of the Species.
    The public was gripped and deeply polarized.

    Things came to a head when a public debate was held at Oxford University, known as the Huxley-Wilberforce debate. The debate was high theatre. 1000 people packed the hall and hundreds more were turned away.

    Samuel Wilberforce (the bishop of Oxford) was regarded as one of Britain’s finest orators. Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s bulldog) was a poor public speaker, unfamiliar with the formal rules of debating. But he spoke with conviction and plainly and he won.

    John Ruddick imagines a new Oxford Debate, to be held on the 160 anniversary of the first debate (30 June 2020) and running over 10 days, covering a number of broad topics; temperature, CO2, the sun, geological record, polar ice, caps, sea levels, frequency of extreme events etc. A dozen of the world’s top scientific minds (half for each side), would give 20 minute TED talk presentations, followed by rebuttal from the other side and then public questions at the end of each day.

    It would be hugely entertaining and informative and make great TV.

    Unfortunately it will not happen. The Climate/media/political complex will make sure that it doesn’t..

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      Graeme No.3

      Peter C:

      There is some doubt about that ‘trial’. The room was crowded but more like by 700 and hearing was difficult, esp. as Huxley was not a practiced public speaker. There were no contemporary reports (despite the presence of 3 reporters) confirming the P.C. report and the (P.C. accepted) version was told to Huxley 23 years later by a women correspondent who claimed to have been there.
      There were 3 ‘contemporary’ versions which contradict each other, and Wilberforce, Huxley and Hooker jnr. all claimed to have ‘won’ the debate.
      To have insulted a person’s mother was considered ungentilmanly then, and Bishop Wilberforce certainly thought himself a gentleman. Also, a few years later, both Huxley and Wilberforce were on a public commission and on good terms.
      There is little doubt that the event reinforced the acceptance of Darwin’s ideas, but colourful reports (as per Captain Fitzroy waving a Bible as he spoke) seem to be later embellishments.
      In any case Darwin did NOT invent Evolution as that had been put forward by others, including his Grandfather, before he was born.

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        Peter C

        I was prompted by Graeme No.3 to read the Wikipaedia entry about the debate.

        I especially liked this bit;

        Next, Henslow called upon Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who had been Darwin’s captain and companion on the voyage of the Beagle twenty-five years earlier. FitzRoy denounced Darwin’s book and, “lifting an immense Bible first with both hands and afterwards with one hand over his head, solemnly implored the audience to believe God rather than man”. He was believed to have said: “I believe that this is the Truth, and had I known then what I know now, I would not have taken him [Darwin] aboard the Beagle.”[23]

        True or not it is a good story. Fitzroy himself was a considerable man of science,. He adapted the Toricelli barometer for predicting near term changes in the weather. Given that they spent 2 years together Fitroy must have had a good idea what was going on in Darwin’s thoughts.

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          Graeme No.3

          Peter C:

          I have no doubt that Fitzroy was sincere. He was a superb sailor and very brave, but prone to depression and a few years later committed suicide leaving his wife and daughter destitute.**
          He founded what became the Met Office in the UK, and probably the forecasting of the coming weather.

          BUT, as I said there were no contempory reports written about the BAAS meeting. The room was crowded and hearing was difficult. Many people seem to have had contradictory ideas about what was said, and the legend was manufactured later.

          **The Admiralty, usually tight fisted, was shamed into supplying £3,000 and a public appeal. Darwin gave £50 from his annual income of £6,000.

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      • #

        incorrect. Evolution was known about well before Darwin. It was not under contest or controversial. saying evolution was known about before darwin is like saying planets were known about before copernicus. Evolution is the observation (like planets), natural selection is the sciency bit.

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    RickWill

    AGL has commitments for AUD1.9bn investment in battery storage and another AUD2bn in the pipeline:
    https://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/media-centre/asx-and-media-releases/2019/october/agl-signs-innovative-large-scale-battery-deals

    AGL is pleased to announce it has signed four innovative battery derivative agreements with Maoneng Group (Maoneng), which will provide security of pricing to benefit customers during peak periods.

    The deal will see Maoneng develop four large-scale batteries, each 50MW/100MWh in capacity in New South Wales.

    Selling 100MWh at $14,000/MWh would require about 60 cycles to recover the capital cost. If the price arbitrage is only $250/MWh then it takes 3200cycles – that’s 10 years and probably near the limit of cycle life.

    With current price volatility I expect they can get a handsome return on investment. That puts pressure on gas generators as the batteries will become their main competitor.

    The test of the economics will depend on the achieved cycle life. Tesla offers 8 year warranty on car batteries to 70% of capacity and present rate of deterioration indicates they will not be paying out much on these warranties. AGL has locked in pricing for 15 years so Maoneng’s Chinese backed capital will be burdened with the costs of underperforming batteries.

    The probability of Australia building new coal power stations is somewhere between zero and Buckley’s. Likewise the probability of power price reducing is in a similar range. Actually reduction in LGC prices (to $42.10 from $51 peak last year) should be flowing through to households so that might mean better than Buckley’s for price reduction in State’s not badly affected by fires.

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    el gordo

    The Haiwatha Crater is obviously from the Younger Dryas, but its apparently not newsworthy.

    https://cosmictusk.com/hiawatha-crater-story-comletely-disappears-from-press/

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      We should thank that asteroid for making a real world full scale controlled experiment on the Henry’s Law relationship between temperature and CO2 concentration.
      http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/graphs/vostok-ice-core-50000.jpg

      You can see after the impact the temperature went down sharply and stayed low for a while.
      The CO2 did not go down, it just kept increasing but very slowly.
      This implies that the CO2 prior to impact was already very nearly in equilibrium with the post-impact temperature. This shows how long the lag is between a temperature change and the CO2 reaching equilibrium, because the CO2 was still trying to catch up, and the only reason it caught up with temperature was because temperature was brought down quickly to meet it.

      And you see from before de-glaciation to just after the impact in the cool hiatus that this is about a rise from 190ppm to 238ppm resulting from a 4 degree temperature rise.
      That is 12 ppmv per 1 Celsius degree.

      Applied to the whole Holocene transition of a 8 degree rise, this predicts a 96ppmv rise in CO2.
      Add that to the initial 190ppmv, it is 286ppmv, and from the data that’s almost exactly what CO2 ended up being. So the 12ppm/degree checks out.

      If it weren’t for that impact we may still be wondering whether some other source or sink of CO2 had disrupted things at the start or end of the deglaciation, or some other noise was obscuring the true temperature change etc. But with that impact we get two equilibrium points to measure from and virtually no chance the noise was the same at both times. Thanks, Hiawatha impactor!

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    • #
      Another Ian

      The YSM thought it had to do with something of Elizabeth Warren’a anatomy?

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  • #
    pat

    2 Feb: Daily Mail: Prince Charles flew 125 miles in the Queen’s helicopter before riding in a Bentley for a speech on cutting carbon emissions
    •It is estimated that his total journey of 368 miles cost at least £12,000
    •Clarence House said the carbon footprint left by his travel was offset every year
    •He could have cut emissions down to just 0.2 tonnes if he had travelled by car
    By Amelia Wynne
    The royal flew 125 miles from Highgrove to Cambridge to speak to scientists from Cambridge University’s Whittle Laboratory, who are leading research into the decarbonisation of air travel.
    It is estimated that his total journey of 368 miles cost at least £12,000 and caused about 2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions.
    PIC: Charles with Greta

    Clarence House Spokesperson: ‘In order for him to undertake as many engagements as he does across the UK and around the world he sometimes has to fly. As he has often said, as soon as there is a more sustainable way of making these journeys, he’ll be the first to use it.’
    It is estimated that Charles could have cut his emissions down to just 0.2 tonnes if he had travelled by car.
    During a speech to researchers Charles urged them to ‘act quickly to rescue this poor old planet’…
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7956993/Prince-Charles-caught-eco-row-flying-125-miles-Queens-helicopter.html

    behind paywall, where it should stay:

    Meet the British Greta Thunbergs who shoot from the lip
    The Times – 31 Jan 2020
    She has energised the climate debate, mobilised teenagers around the globe into peaceful protest and shamed those who fail to heed her call to arms. All the while, Greta Thunberg has retained the charm of a humble Swedish schoolgirl, even when exchanging barbs with world leaders such as Donald Trump on social media.
    It is no surprise, then, that every green group wants its own Greta.
    British groups are finding theirs in the shape of four young women who are passionate, eloquent and determined to effect change. Elizabeth Fiennes, Bella Ramsey, Elsie Luna and Bella Lack echo their heroine in many ways, giving electrifying speeches and upstaging their elders…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/meet-the-british-gretas-who-shoot-from-the-lip-3656vdj7j

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    pat

    31 Jan: PopularScience: Snow is the only thing keeping some plants and animals from freezing to death
    There’s a secret refuge beneath the snow.
    by Erin Blakemore
    Beneath the snow lies the subnivium, a busy microclimate where plants thrive and animals scurry to and fro.
    This microhabitat turns traditional thinking about snow on its head…
    Its surprisingly constant climate can be much warmer than conditions above, protecting animals and plants insulated within…

    On average, snow covers almost 18 million square miles of the planet each year. But climate change is upsetting that chilly balance. Snow cover is expected to decrease with a warmer climate, melting earlier each spring and sometimes melting and freezing into ice instead of snow, which can affect water supplies and animal habitats. As the world warms, climate scientists also expect more intense snowfall fueled by pockets of warm air. But as the BBC’s Colin Barras notes (LINK), that won’t necessarily translate into more snowfall overall. Instead, scientists predict more extreme snowfall events, but shorter snow seasons and less snowy weather over time…
    https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/why-animals-need-snow-subnivium/

    links to old BBC piece:

    27 Jan 2016: BBC Earth blog: Will snow become a thing of the past as the climate warms?
    New York and Washington, DC have just been smothered by another massive snowstorm, which seems strange when you remember that the world is getting hotter
    by Coln Barras
    Snowmageddon has become something of an annual tradition. Barely a year goes by without someone, somewhere, finding themselves on the receiving end of a severe snowstorm. The latest unlucky people, of course, are the inhabitants of New York.
    Given that the world is getting steadily warmer as a result of man-made climate change, this strikes many people as pretty weird. Surely we should not be seeing so many extreme snowstorms if the world is getting warmer?…
    The real answer is rather surprising. Extreme snowfall is actually an expected consequence of a warmer world…

    “It is possible that the Arctic could become ice-free for short periods in about 30 years in deep summer, but in winter the Arctic will still ice over mostly,” says Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “So cold continental air will indeed form still.”…
    The snow season itself may also shorten in future. Both the beginning and end of winter are likely to be warmer across the Northern Hemisphere, so at these times any precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow, according to Trenberth…

    ***”Many [US] east coast snow resorts will be out of business owing to the more sporadic nature of the snow storms, unless they can somehow become opportunistic,” says Trenberth.

    ***no concern here about big changes in snowfall; sounds like it’s about the same as ever:

    19 Nov 2019: Planetware: 15 Top-Rated Ski Resorts on the East Coast, 2020
    by Barbara Radcliffe Rogers and Stillman Rogers
    Skiing on the East Coast is a bit different from skiing in the west. Elevations are lower, and knee-deep powder is almost unheard of. There may be more of a mix of natural and man-made snow, but snowmaking is so advanced at most mountains that you might have trouble telling the difference…

    3. Stowe Mountain Resort, Vermont
    Stowe’s snow record is one of the best in the East, ***with an annual snowfall of 314 inches; that said, it’s also the most expensive ski resort in the East…

    Best Ski Resorts for Experts
    Wildcat Mountain, New Hampshire: In addition to some of the most challenging terrain in the East, skiers at Wildcat also get one of the most breathtaking views…
    Wildcat usually gets the highest annual snowfall in the area, ***with an average 200 inches of natural snow blanketing its bumps and glades…
    https://www.planetware.com/usa/top-rated-ski-resorts-on-the-east-coast-us-vt-35.htm

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      Graeme No.3

      pat:
      Current snow prevents animals freezing to death.
      No snow so animals will freeze to death.
      Global Warming will lead to more or less snow.

      There doesn’t seem to be any comment that 97% of Climate Scientists agree that this will happen (or not).

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    RickWill

    I found this interesting reference site on fusion energy:
    http://www.firefusionpower.org/fpa_annual_meet.html
    It has links to the presentations at the Fusion Power Associates conference late last year. A lot of detail on ITER.

    The presentation from General Fusion is a large file for what it has in it. This is the latest news:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-16/bezos-backed-fusion-start-up-raises-100-million-for-demo-system
    This is the General Fusion reactor detail:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3zcmPmW6dE&feature=emb_logo

    TAE appear to have the shortest path to net energy and their developments are already providing a source of revenue in high energy plasma equipment. They aim to have a net energy reactor, aptly named Copernicus, in operation by 2023. That may be something I get to see. If it produces net energy by then it could really shift the focus to that technology.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHiyHBO-4pk&feature=emb_logo

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    • #
      Peter C

      I will believe when I see it!

      What is the attraction of Fusion? Does it really produce No Radioactive By-products?

      What about all those neutrons flying around. They must do something?

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    • #
      Graeme Bird

      I’m watching the Copernicus fusion youtube now. I don’t think its ever going to work. I like thorium. But I think we need another generation of high tech coal stations ahead of a big rollout of nuclear.

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    • #
      Graeme Bird

      The alleged Boron fusion sounds like fission to me. Because as I understand it, you are supposed to add a proton to a Boron atom. Then the boron atom is supposed to become an unstable carbon isotope which breaks down into three alpha particles. Helium Nuclei. Without their electrons these helium nuclei will bundle along constituting an electrical current. Also x-rays are given off and they want to be convert these x-rays to electricity. I like the Eric Lerner version the best. The rest of these guys seem full of hot air. The iron law of oligarchy is that they always fund the energy source that isn’t going to work. Which is why Lerner has no billionaire sponsor and finds it hard to pick up funds. I interpret this as meaning there is a chance his one will actually work. But it never sounded like fusion to me.

      So if it were up to me I’d be encouraging permaculture so that agricultural activities would become energy positive. I’d be going for just one more generation of coal stations. But slowly slowly with the floating uranium and thorium. The Lerner version of this “fusion” looks good so you’d want to fund it. But I wouldn’t be betting the house on it.

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    pat

    google headline:

    30 Jan: KCCI: Wind Crisis: Iowa cardiologist shares health concerns over wind turbines

    changed to:

    30 Jan: KCCI Iowa: ‘The silence is gone’: Iowans search for solution regarding noise from wind turbines
    by Tommie Clark
    VIDEO #1: 3m25s: Wind turbine safety debate
    “You get up every day. You go to work with it every day. I mean the silence is gone, and it’s forever gone. Yeah, it’s gone,” said Tanya and Mike Lamb, of Greenfield.
    The Lambs live 500 feet down from a wind turbine and can’t forget the seven surrounding their property.
    “It’s so loud and it hurts my ears that I mean we can’t sit outside,” Tanya Lamb said.
    Inside their Greenfield home a grassroots effort is growing…

    “People will pay dearly for what’s happening,” said Dr. W. Ben Johnson, a cardiologist.
    Johnson hears Tanya Lamb’s concern. He’s coming at the issue from a landowner and medical professional perspective.
    “My concern has been around environmental noise and how it can adversely affect health,” Johnson said. “Wind is another form of environmental noise.”

    Iowa State University graduate professor James McCalley, an expert in wind energy, said the wind turbines do not affect health.
    “Not with sufficient setback,” McCalley said. “I don’t see that wind turbines pose a significant health impact in any way, as long as noise and shadow flicker are addressed.”

    Johnson said while the issue is obvious to him, others may not understand.
    “We just need to have an epiphany of understanding what the dimensions are. What don’t people get? They don’t see it as a real threat because they aren’t burned out villages and piles of bodies,” Johnson said. “There are people who are quietly saying, ‘I can’t handle this,’ so they pack up and leave. They sell their farm at a loss.”
    “Nobody knows until they live around them,” Tanya and Mike Lamb said. “You don’t know. You might think you know. You might think it’s good and it may be good around certain places, but not around somebody’s home.”

    VIDEO #2: 2m41s: Madison County residents plead for end to windmill construction
    https://www.kcci.com/article/the-silence-is-gone-iowans-search-for-solution-regarding-noise-from-wind-turbines/30719453

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    pat

    16 Jan: Elgin Review: Commissioners again discuss wind tower ice sling
    By Lynell Morgan
    Wind turbines and winter storms sometimes mean ice sling, particularly in Antelope County.
    The issue of ice sling was again front and center before the Antelope County Commissioners (ACC) for their first meeting of 2020.
    Zoning Administrator Liz Doerr told commissioners established procedures to follow when there are reports of ice sling were followed. Once notified, she said she contacted the ICC number for Invenergy, located in Chicago, to alert them of the situation.
    By the time she contacted the ICC, they had also been contacted by the Antelope County Sheriff’s Department. Doerr said she was notified of the problem by ACC Chairman Dean Smith and county resident Judy Wilcox.
    Doerr said, by the time she contacted Chicago, Tower 222 had been shut down and Tower 223 was in the process of being shut down…

    If there are no financial repercussions, then there’s no incentive for wind farms to shut down towers slinging ice on roadways…
    Doerr said there is nothing on the books which would allow her to fine wind farms in such instances, adding that any penalties or fines need to be handed down by the court system…
    The matter was not resolved as discussions will continue on ice sling and how best to handle conditions here in Antelope County…
    http://www.elginreview.com/commissioners-again-discuss-wind-tower-ice-sling/

    31 Jan: StopTheseThings: Icy Killer: Motorists Forced to Dodge Huge Chunks of Ice Thrown From Wind Turbine Blades
    Throwing 10 tonne blades hundreds of metres, and chunks thereof, for kilometres (LINK) isn’t the limit of the wholly unnecessary risk created by giant industrial wind turbines.
    No, in cooler climes, neighbours are trained in the art of dodging lethal flying chunks of ice, too…

    In the 2017 northern Winter, we reported on a family of Germans (see above) who were lucky to survive their icy brush with so-called ‘green’ energy: Wind Turbine Ice Capades: German Wind Farm Neighbour Cheats Death, Dodging Flying Ice Chunks (LINK)

    In February 2018, students were lucky to survive when huge chunks went through the roof of a College in the US: Deadly Cool: Wind Turbine Throws Ice Chunks Into US College (LINK)

    Shortly after we’d reported on the frozen and potentially lethal chunk lobbed at College Students in Gardner, Massachusetts, another report emerged of a truck and its driver being turned into a frightening form of renewable energy ‘target’: New Ice Age Begins: Ice Chunks Thrown from Wind Turbines Threaten Lives, Smashing Buildings and Passing Trucks (LINK)

    In an effort to downplay the deadly seriousness of huge chunks of ice flying from the tips of 60m wind turbine blades (those tips travelling in excess of 350 km/h), threatening life and limb, the euphemism “ice throw” has been replaced by the even more playful “ice sling”. [Note to Ed: perhaps an ice sling would be even more fun with gin and lemon?]
    https://stopthesethings.com/2020/01/31/icy-killer-motorists-forced-to-dodge-huge-chunks-of-ice-thrown-from-wind-turbine-blades/

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    Mikky

    Four years after reading about ACORN-SAT on this blog I have finally worked out my own answer, ACORN-SATv2 is badly wrong, here is “the right answer”, also covers New Zealand:

    https://diymetanalysis.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/australia-nz-tmax/

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    Mal

    BOM predicted 44c for Bega for Saturday
    It reached less than 39c

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      AndyG55

      42ºC predicted for Newy, only reached 37ºC,

      then a nice cooling breeze sprang up, its now about 24ºC

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    Chad

    And dont forget how when the peak of “ global warming induced”. bush fires in early January, ..the BOM were predicting no significant rain until the end of February / early March…..
    ….then by the 2nd week of Jan , it rained so hard across the whole eastern states that some areas were flooded .!
    They could not have been more wrong.

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    pat

    reminds me of theirABC:

    2 Feb: Daily Mail: Outrage at BBC Horrible Histories Brexit show for ‘trashing Britain’ with song that says ‘your British things are from abroad and most are stolen’ on day UK left EU
    •Horrible Histories Brexit suggested Britain failed to produce anything of note
    •Episode discusses how goods in Britain during 19th-century produced overseas
    •Disgust was shared by other users including veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil
    By James Heale and Chris Hastings
    The BBC has provoked outrage by screening an ‘anti-British’ children’s programme on Brexit Day.
    Hosted by Left-wing comedian Nish Kumar, Horrible Histories Brexit suggested Britain had historically failed to produce anything of note, relying instead on imports…
    Leading political commentator Andrew Neil last night called it ‘anti-British drivel of a high order’ and asked: ‘Was any of the licence fee used to produce something purely designed to demean us?’…

    Historian Andrew Roberts described the ten-minute show – released on Friday on BBC iPlayer to coincide with the departure from the European Union – as ‘a stream of bigoted hatred directed against this country’.
    He added: ‘These sneering attitudes to all things British should not be forced down the throats of children by the BBC. It is an attempt to make us despise our ancestors in a purely ahistorical way.’
    Kumar, who hosts the comedy satire show The Mash Report on BBC2, begins the show by talking sarcastically about Brexit…

    The row came as a BBC reporter faced criticism for describing the Brexit crowds celebrating in London on Friday night as ‘very white’…
    One viewer said: ‘Anti-British propaganda like this has led people to stop paying their licence fee.’…READ ON
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7952841/Piers-Morgan-blasts-BBCs-Horrible-Histories-trashing-Britain-Brexit-themed-song.html

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      GD

      Hosted by Left-wing comedian Nish Kumar, Horrible Histories Brexit suggested Britain had historically failed to produce anything of note

      No wonder there is a medical condition known as Coulrophobia. This supposed comedian is an evil clown of the biggest order. Unfortunately, like our ABC, the BBC will protect him from any criticism or censure.

      Why is it that people from failed countries move to successful countries and then try to destroy what made that country great in the first place?

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    In case you missed my announcement:
    the mystery of two hemispheres has been solved:

    https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/north-and-south-hemisphere/

    See “Update”

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      Graeme Bird

      A 110 views and 2 dozen comments later nobody has solved the mystery. The best answer was the heat capacity difference of land and water, but as pointed out, heat capacity controls both the heating and cooling rate.

      So the Northern Hemisphere has more land. The Southern Hemisphere gets more solar energy. Yet its not warmer. The answer is geothermal but why? After all most of the ring of fire would be in the South? I think land accepts electrical energy much better than the ocean does. After all if you have a hurricane out to sea thats when it picks up energy. When it comes all the way over the land it tends to short out and lose power. So I think we have a greater acceptance of electrical energy, and that will be reconverted as thermal energy, some as geothermal, but probably most of it converted prior to that. Just as electricity through a partial conductor creates some heat.

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      Graeme Bird

      Also we would want to look at if evaporation off the ocean is a net cooler or a new warmer. I think it would be a refrigerant except where there is a pre-existing column of saturated air. Basically everywhere outside of the tropics on average. So under that circumstance the extra water surface of the southern hemisphere would be a net cooling factor. Also if the thermal energy is invested more in the latent heat of evaporation, then it is in high temperature per se, the thermal energy in the presumably more moist air of the southern hemisphere might not be being fully picked up. 28 degree air at 4.00 pm in Cairns probably holds more energy than the same temperature in inner Mongolia.

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      Graeme Bird

      People if you haven’t seen Zoe’s place you would want to check it out. I am reminded of Jack Nicholson’s Joker when he looks on at the Batman with envy “Where does he get such wonderful toys.” Where does she gets such wonderful tools. You are going to like it because she accesses all these databases, thinks about things, writes a small software program and has everything at her fingertips. So Jealous.

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      • #

        I also made $84.5 million for ~1200 clients while I worked on Wall Street, ages 21-31. I can’t help it, I’m just a gift to the world. Too bad I stutter, and you will never hear me speak.

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          Graeme Bird

          That solves one mystery. I was expecting a whole lot of fascinating youtube lectures.

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          Graeme Bird

          “I also made $84.5 million for ~1200 clients while I worked on Wall Street, ages 21-31. ”

          So its time you went further and made 90 million dollars for an unemployed person. I promise to only do patriotic things with 95% of that loot. Things which further the well-being of the species. Turn the brown lands green. Wage war against the economics of cartelised finance. Promote energy positive agriculture. All the good stuff. The 5% off the books budget is just to see to it that I am incorruptible to third parties.

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        el gordo

        I’m stumped by the Info-Pacific Warm Pool, is it geothermal energy?

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          Peter C

          The Indo Pacific Warm Pool is where the warm surface water ends up after it has been driven westward across the Pacific Ocean by the trade winds. Then has to get through the gap between Australia and SE Asia and it gets slowed down by the myriad islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

          Wikipaedia says that the IPWP has been warmer during the last two decades because of increased atmospheric CO2, which I think is very doubtful.

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            Graeme Bird

            So is it like a fan in a bath tup blowing one way so the warm water cannot circulate. Then because the water would be higher on one side, gravity would wind up making deep water waves flow the other way. But since the deep water waves would be cold water that would only exacerbate the problem. Just tossing a few ideas around.

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              el gordo

              Hydrothermal vents in the Solomon region seem to be implicated in ENSO behaviour.

              http://www.plateclimatology.com/further-proof-el-nios-are-fueled-by-deepsea-geological-heat-flow

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                Graeme Bird

                Yeah though thats more of a general thing than just the Solomon region. General and more intermittent. Geothermal behaviour and solar weather are not unrelated. Thats just another way I say that the voltage difference between the ionosphere and the deep earth is resolved. I used to be able to prove this using the Space Weather site but something has happened to that site. Others might be able to dig out the solar wind and solar eruption data better than my luddite self.

                I remember seeing a description of these underwater waves that these winds indirectly lead to. Cold water travelling in the opposite of the wind being as the sea level ends up higher than it ought to be. But I’ve forgotten what they are called and it can be hard to find things from a dozen years ago sometimes. That Solomon region must be a massive source of both water vapour, as well as radiation into space.

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      Peter C

      Good work Zoe,

      I like your numerical approach.

      Two questions;
      1. When you correct for the slightly higher surface level of the Norhtern Hemispere, do,you use the Standard atmosphere lapse rate?
      2. Do you take Antactartica into account. The issue is that Antartica is not only quite high, it is permannently covered in highly reflective ice. Also the surrounding ocean, which takes quite a bit of the summer to melt. So the increased solar irradiation due to perigee is simple reflected away back to space and does not get to do any warming. Net effect the Southern Hemisphere gets less solar energy.

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    Richard Ilfeld

    The American political process is currently in the throes of its quadrennial pandering to Iowa; a population atypical of the country, but one that takes retails politics seriously and in turn is taken seriously be those who have no life. The candidates are falling all over one another to be greener than thee. Realty is forbidden in this discussion.
    All of the BS is well known to this group. The level of seriousness of the overall conversation is exemplified by the Senator from Mass., who promises that a nine year old transgender child will vet her selection for Secretary of Education. She is silent on how she will choose an energy secretary.

    It seems to me that no sentient being can take these people seriously.

    Consider: if they do what they say they’ll do, they’ll collapse our economy. If they are going to do something else, then we’re trying to nominate the most persuasive liar.

    And so I return to my shopworn theme; less government is better government. I prefer none-of-the-above…in today’s world a preferred candidate in most democracies, I believe.

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    timo soren

    @tony oz: anyone with fibreglass or these types of materials on a pergola, obviously lives in a high sunshine state! {and violates the Athenian c!ode of pergola construction!} Second a good sized golf ball almost always has a good ‘brain look’ to it. Don’t know if it is from unions of balls or the collision of a drop of rain on the surface of the freezing ball creating a ‘bump’ which then gets exaggerated.

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  • #

    This from Oz: https://theconversation.com/media-impartiality-on-climate-change-is-ethically-misguided-and-downright-dangerous-130778?fbclid=IwAR2fAZe_XgZVDpH97jgwgBbj5xLI8zjTy5wmE6PCuYG54KmTg6J4An_OFCA

    Comments are closed. A lot of comments are listed as removed and all that remain are alarmist, so the goners are likely skeptical.

    The claim is that skepticism is false and dangerous so ought not to be mentioned by media. That there never had been media impartiality is not mentioned. Fortunately there is lots of skeptical media. This blog for example.

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    el gordo

    Barnaby wants his job back.

    “If there is a spill, I will stand. It is entirely up to them if they wish to spill,” he said. ABC

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      No Their ABC will never tell Australians
      The cold wave hitting Western asia, Saudi Arabia, Iran. Khazakstan, Afghanistan & Pakistan
      Is NOT happening in ‘ABC land’
      Dopey Dumbnuts !

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    robert rosicka

    Just listening to ABC Goulburn Murray regional radio they have a “scientist ” from the CSIRO bragging about the accuracy of their predictions on climate change .
    He even mentioned that their predictions on snow were accurate .
    Good job I’ve put a grill in front of the radio .

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    • #
      Elgorza Narce

      The weekend Australian had an opinion piece written by CSIRO “Chief Research Scientist”, Pep Canadell.
      Headline was “Fire weather worsening: more heat less rainfall”

      Professor Canadell predictably drones on and on about how AGW is responsible for the bush fires, but completely fails to acknowledge fuel load buildup due to green/ALP policies as a major contributing factor.
      He also totally ignores the high level of arson related fires.

      Both of these things are fundamental (primary), causes of the recent fires, and ignoring them can only serve to lower CSIRO further into the junk science category.

      Sorry Professor, with a one dimensional report like this, one can only assume that you are firmly on the gravy train and don’t want to give up your ticket.

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        Bill In Oz

        Yet more evidence also that only
        The folk who live in the bush
        Understand the bush
        And know how to manage it
        Cool burning,
        Fuel reduction burns
        Even aboriginal Cultural burns
        Are essential to prevent huge bushfires !

        Cannadel probably lives in Canberra
        And watched the fires around Canberra last week
        Yet still she spouts academic gibberish !
        Do they put something in the cafe late’s in Canberra ?

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    Stuart Jones

    Breaking NEWS, Richard Di Natale resigns as Greens leader and plans to quit federal politics.

    Party party Party !!!!!

    The old excuse, to spend more time with my family ?????

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    robert rosicka

    Di Natalie has quit so some good news .

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    Chad

    ??? .. what happened to the text in that reply ?
    To repeat..

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    Chad

    ,, and again ??…
    It could not happen to a more deserving Politician..But the bad news is…
    ..who gets to be “Top Watermelon “now ?
    ..SHY ??

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      robert rosicka

      I believe it’s going to be between Bandt and Waters both of which are as unpopular as the other .

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        hatband

        Anyone know the origin of the name Larissa?

        I’ve never heard it before.

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          Graeme No.3

          Larissa is a female given name of Greek origin that is common in Eastern European nations of Orthodox church heritage OR

          Origin of the name Larissa: (for the paranoid)
          Borrowed from the Russian, Larisa is a name of uncertain derivation. Some believe it to be derived from the name of an ancient city of Thessaly; others feel it may be derived from the Latin hilaris (cheerful) NOTE not hysterical which would seem more appropriate.

          In most european languages (English, German etc.) it is given as Lara.

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    yarpos

    Been reading some of the doom sites in regard to Coronavirus. Latest count seemed to be 15,000 infected 300 dead, but who knows what reality is.

    Just out of interest I looked up how many people are killed by flu each year. Seems to be about 500,000 or about 1,300 a day.

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    Greebo

    A few years old now but it popped up un my YT recs. Worth another look, imo.

    Prof has some wise words.

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    John

    Anyone see Media watch?

    Paul Barry was really going for it. The part that annoyed me was him straw manning and mocking EVERYONE on the wrong side. Eg Mahorosy. Portrayed her as a straight out looney conspiracy theorist not even worth listening to.

    Barry’s idea of media honour is to simply accept what our superiors at BoM etc tell us. Any journalistic questioning is FORBIDDEN.

    And on Q+A. Ugh. Weren’t they just fawning over Michael Mann…

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    Chad

    I had to force myself to keep watching QA…..always looking for a political angle, no matter what the subject.
    Using Mann without a contrary spoksperson was a particularly low act.
    Molin was far too polite and PC to really argue the point
    I find it disappointing that everyone seem to expect the Government (federal) to solve all their problems……and prevent bush fires !

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      John

      I suspect like the Guardian, The Conversation, Media Watch, the rest of ABC etc that Q+A is in the process of officially eradicating “contrary spokespeople”.

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    cedarhill

    The Lessons from this will be clear in another few weeks:
    The coronavirus show why governments using quarantines will never, ever, not in you wildest dreams ever “stop” or “protect you” from a virus that is really, truly, some what contagious. It’ll be even worse for a highly contagious, airborne virus — say, the seasonal flus.
    Reports: Wu virus deaths about 300-400. In the same period, CDC reporting 10,000 to 25,000 deaths from seasonal viruses (mostly the flu). The Wu is a “pandemic crisis” the seasonal flu not even a whiff of a crisis.

    Everyone needs to know thrwoing money at a system (quarantines) that has failed and failed for over 100 years will not “protect” you. Throwing money at treatment and vaccines and drugs to mitigate the downstream effects of respiratory viruses will help people avoid premature deaths.

    And maybe, the “activists” can somehow convince the Chinese people to clean up their lifestyles. One should explain how one quarantines will be effective in this environment coupled with modern transportation:
    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/wuhan_revisited.html

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    Annie

    I’ve been wondering what will happen to those in quarantine if one of their number, previously symptomless, starts to show signs of the virus shortly before the end of the quarantine period? Does the 14-day period start all over again from that time?

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    Annie

    How about not hand-shaking for a while? Not hand-shaking might do wonders for reducing the rate of colds and ‘flu too. It was stopped in church during the swine ‘flu panic in England. I found a markedly reduced susceptibility to colds during that time. As colds often lead on to a chest infection for me, I continue to refuse the handshake at the ‘Peace’ in church; the rubrics say only ‘a sign of peace’; doesn’t have to be a handshake!

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    Annie

    It would help a lot if people stopped holding cups and glasses by the rims; they often haven’t even washed their hands or used handgel before doing so. I see nursing-trained people doing this too. 🙁

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