Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
More than half of Germans had side effects after the corona vaccination. Young people in particular often report having severe vaccine side effects.
In Germany, 192.2 million vaccine doses have already been administered.
Every second German has side effects after corona vaccinations, which he attributes to the vaccination. This is the result of a representative INSA survey with 1,700 participants for Schuler! Fragen, was istout. Accordingly, more than 52 percent of respondents stated that they had suffered side effects. More than 23 percent even report having suffered severe side effects.
According to the survey, especially young people under the age of 40 often suffered from vaccine side effects. 36.6 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds and 45 percent of 30- to 39-year-olds had severe vaccine side effects. A trend can be observed: With increasing age, the proportion of vaccine side effects decreases drastically. In people over 70, not even 30 percent had mild or severe side effects.
The age trend also runs through other categories. For example, trainees and students are significantly more frequently affected by side effects than employed persons. But even among employed people, a majority of 63.5 percent reported side effects, 33 percent even of severe side effects. Only retired people get away relatively free of side effects.
Interesting:
Muslim respondents with 79.8 percent and Christians organized by the free church with 71.2 percent stated that they were affected by side effects of the corona vaccination.
In the case of Catholic (55.2 percent) and Protestant Christians (51.7 percent), however, only a slight majority stated that they were affected by side effects.
Only non-denominational respondents stated the majority (54.4 percent) that they had no vaccine side effects.
1,700 people were interviewed between March 10 and 13 and 84.9 percent said they had been vaccinated at least once against the Corona virus.
We believe that incorporating environmental and social considerations into the way we manage risk, govern our projects, and develop products and services will help us maintain our competitive advantage. As we move forward, we will leverage our intellectual capital and innovative capabilities to promote sustainable business practices around the world.
In the fall of 2001, Ken Lay set the tone for what would be Enron’s last Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Conference:
We believe that incorporating environmental and social considerations into the way we manage risk, govern our projects, and develop products and services will help us maintain our competitive advantage. As we move forward, we will leverage our intellectual capital and innovative capabilities to promote sustainable business practices around the world.
At this meeting, Enron’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) task force listed its “Accomplishments to Date,” which were:
Secured board oversight of social/environmental performance
Expressed support for Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Completed corporate responsibility task force
Developed and pilot-tested human rights audit
Developed security and human rights guidelines
Established formal partnerships with WBCSD [World Business Council on Sustainable Development], IBLF [International Business Leaders Forum], and CI [Conservation International]
Identified language to strengthen code of ethics
Providing project support—Calypso, Transredes, Dabhol and Cuiabá
Responding to stakeholder concerns on an ongoing basis
Specify social/environmental expectations in formal relationships with vendors and contractors
Review results of stakeholder survey and develop strategy to address outcome
Create awareness of social/environmental trends among [Enron’s] origination and investment groups
Add corporate responsibility performance attribute to PRC [Performance Review Committee] process
Present task force recommendations to Dr. Lay and senior management
Make no mistake—Enron was trying to practice CSR, so that it could monetize its “green” energy model. This had been Lay’s strategy for a decade with natural gas, as well as internationally, as with Enron Global Affairs’s 1999 launch of the Social and Environmental Responsibility Program.
Enron’s CSR initiatives came to a screeching halt in December 2001, along with all of the company’s other discretionary activities. The company was out of money and out of time. But the ship went down with its green lights on.
Shhhh! A Little Coal
“I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good,” Adam Smith cautioned in 1776. “It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.” Milton Friedman said the same in his 1970 essay on the social responsibility of business.
And on close inspection, Enron was trying to eat its cake and have it too. The company was building oil-fired power plants internationally and erecting (sans press releases) a profitable coal subsidiary. This created internal tensions, but Enron president Jeff Skilling assuaged the concerns of one of his coal executives with the words: “Mike, we are a green energy company, but the green stands for money.”
Still, with $300 million (and counting) invested in coal properties, and the imminent prospect of becoming the world’s leading coal trader, coming on top of a decision to sell the solar division, Enron’s head of European government affairs warned in 1999, “Our position as a ‘green’ company is getting thin.”
It was not easy being green in other ways too. Environmentalists lambasted Enron for building energy projects in pristine areas, even wind turbines in southern California. Wind (when blowing) was mostly backing out natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, which created a financial downside for natural gas giant Enron.
Enron stayed silent on the patent disadvantages of wind relative to natural gas in terms of cost and reliability. Wind is a free energy source, but turning wind into electricity is very capital intensive compared to generating electricity with relatively BTU-intensive fossil fuels. Wind power has been propped up by disproportionate tax subsidies, as well as by state-level mandates requiring that utilities buy renewable energy whether or not they need it.
In particular, the windpower boom in Texas was not about economics. It was about a successful lobbying effort by Enron Wind Company in 1997 to include the nation’s strictest renewable quota mandate in an electricity restructuring bill. Texas Governor George W. Bush aided Ken Lay on that one.
————–
This excerpt is taken from Robert Bradley, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (2009), pp. 309–310.
With a capacity of 1,400 MW, NorthConnect would have enabled the two countries to exchange renewable energies – wind power from Scotland, hydro power from Norway – via a 665-kilometre (413-mile) cable under the North Sea.
Soaring electricity prices in Norway have revived criticism about energy cables. Photo by Clyde Thomas on Unsplash
Norway’s government on Thursday rejected plans for an undersea electricity cable with Scotland amid a debate on the Scandinavian country’s energy independence and whether it should be exporting electricity.
The Norwegian oil and energy ministry said it was saying ‘no’ to the NorthConnect project because the country needed to meet its own energy needs at competitive rates.
“It is important for the government to ensure that we have a power system that can at all times fulfill the basic needs of power supply,” Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement.
“We need this hydro power and do not want to open it up for more exports,” he said.
Project details
The project had been proposed by three Norwegian municipal groups– Lyse, Agder Energi and Hafslund – and Swedish state-owned electricity group Vattenfall.
With a capacity of 1,400 MW, NorthConnect would have enabled the two countries to exchange renewable energies – wind power from Scotland, hydro power from Norway – via a 665-kilometre (413-mile) cable under the North Sea.
Rich in fossil and renewable energies, the Scandinavian country already has power links to several other countries – Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden – with a total capacity of around 9,000 MW.
Norway is not a member of the European Union but is integrated into the European market, including that for electricity, as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA).
Electricity prices cause concerns
Soaring electricity prices in Norway, largely sparked by skyrocketing prices on the continent, have however revived criticism about the cables, which have contributed to the price hikes.
“We need to use Norwegian energy to build Norwegian industry and contribute to competitive prices in Norway,” Norway’s minister for higher education, Ola Borten Moe, said in the same statement.
“After the last two cables abroad (Germany and Britain), experience has shown that we should not pave the way for more exports,” he added.
In January, the Norwegian government presented measures that allow it to reduce exports in the event of a significant drop in its hydropower reserves, a decision closely scrutinised by European authorities.
Norway’s state-owned electricity operator, Statnett, meanwhile announced on Thursday a reduction of its technical capacity on its North Sea Link cable with Britain, from 1,400 MW to 1,100 MW.
The group said the move brought it in line with the export ceiling on the British side.
The TGA in Australia* have handed Clive Palmer a dynamite story to use against them and Big Pharma
Palmer is in fine form below — shining a light on the pathological success of health regulation. Early use of HCQ could have saved thousands of people, but as readers here know, if there was a cheap useful treatment for Covid available, other expensive, barely tested, risky new drugs would not be given an Emergency Use Authorization, thus threatening to kill a $200 billion dollar cash cow.
Getting rid of safe competing drugs is just a part of the business plan for Big Pharma and they would be letting down their shareholders if they didn’t lobby like hell to make it happen.
Clive Palmer paid for 37 million doses of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and donated it to the Australian public.
But it arrived in Australia, it was all destroyed by the Morrison regime.
Clive Palmer also donated $1 million to fund a trial into HCQ – but the TGA shut it down and… pic.twitter.com/d1g0fIk4n4
— Craig Kelly:🇦🇺Foundation for Economic Education (@craigkellyAFEE) March 17, 2023
xxx
HCQ reduced death rates by 72% in 15 early treatment trials
The short video above could use one more slide so people know there are at least 466 studies of hydroxychloroquine with Covid-19 involving as many as a half a million people. Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine was adopted for early treatment in all or part of 41 countries.
Late treatment and high dosages may be harmful, while early treatment consistently shows positive results. Negative evaluations typically ignore treatment delay. Some In Vitro evidence suggested therapeutic levels would not be reached, however that was incorrect [Ruiz]. Recent: Spivak Mathew Llanos-Cuentas Delgado Alshamrani Nasri Viglione.
If the short video doesn’t show above watch from 2.30 here, and also hear how he was treated with ivermectin.
*The TGA — Therapeautic Goods Association, is equivalent to the FDA in the US.
Venus appears to have volcanic activity, according to a new research paper that offers strong evidence to answer the lingering question about whether Earth’s sister planet currently has eruptions and lava flows.
Venus appears to have volcanic activity, according to a new research paper that offers strong evidence to answer the lingering question about whether Earth’s sister planet currently has eruptions and lava flows.
Venus, although similar to Earth in size and mass, differs markedly in that it does not have plate tectonics. The boundaries of Earth’s moving surface plates are the primary locations of volcanic activity.
New research by University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute research professor Robert Herrick revealed a nearly 1-square-mile volcanic vent that changed in shape and grew over eight months in 1991. Changes on such a scale on Earth are associated with volcanic activity, whether through an eruption at the vent or movement of magma beneath the vent that causes the vent walls to collapse and the vent to expand.
The research was published today (March 15) in the journal Science.
Herrick studied images taken in the early 1990s during the first two imaging cycles of NASA’s Magellan space probe. Until recently, comparing digital images to find new lava flows took too much time, the paper notes. As a result, few scientists have searched Magellan data for feature formation.
“It is really only in the last decade or so that the Magellan data has been available at full resolution, mosaicked and easily manipulable by an investigator with a typical personal workstation,” Herrick said.
Altitude data for the Maat and Ozza Mons region on the Venus surface is shown at left, with the area of study indicated by the black box. At right are the before (A) and after (B) Magellan observations of the expanded vent on Maat Mons, with possible new lava flows after an eruptive event. Credit: Robert Herrick/UAF
The new research focused on an area containing two of Venus’ largest volcanoes, Ozza and Maat Mons.
“Ozza and Maat Mons are comparable in volume to Earth’s largest volcanoes but have lower slopes and thus are more spread out,” Herrick said.
Maat Mons contains the expanded vent that indicates volcanic activity.
Herrick compared a Magellan image from mid-February 1991 with a mid-October 1991 image and noticed a change to a vent on the north side of a domed shield volcano that is part of the Maat Mons volcano.
The vent had grown from a circular formation of just under 1 square mile to an irregular shape of about 1.5 square miles.
The later image indicates that the vent’s walls became shorter, perhaps only a few hundred feet high, and that the vent was nearly filled to its rim. The researchers speculate that a lava lake formed in the vent during the eight months between the images, though whether the contents were liquid or cooled and solidified isn’t known.
Maat Mons is displayed in this computer generated three-dimensional perspective of the surface of Venus. The viewpoint is located 634 kilometers (393 miles) north of Maat Mons at an elevation of 3 kilometers (2 miles) above the terrain. Lava flows extend for hundreds of kilometers across the fractured plains shown in the foreground, to the base of Maat Mons. The view is to the south with the volcano Maat Mons appearing at the center of the image on the horizon and rising to almost 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the surrounding terrain. Maat Mons is located at approximately 0.9 degrees north latitude, 194.5 degrees east longitude with a peak that ascends to 8 kilometers (5 miles) above the mean surface. Maat Mons is named for an Egyptian Goddess of truth and justice. Magellan synthetic aperture radar data is combined with radar altimetry to develop a three-dimensional map of the surface. The vertical scale in this perspective has been exaggerated 10 times. Rays cast in a computer intersect the surface to crate a three-dimensional perspective view. Simulated color and a digital elevation map developed by the U.S. Geological Survey are used to enhance small-scale structure. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Soviet Venera 13 and 14 spacecraft. The image was produced by the Solar System Visualization project and the Magellan Science team at the JPL Multimission Image Processing Laboratory and is a single frame from a video released at the April 22, 1992 news conference. Credit: NASA/JPL
The researchers offer one caveat: a nonvolcanic, earthquake-triggered collapse of the vent’s walls might have caused the expansion. They note, however, that vent collapses of this scale on Earth’s volcanoes have always been accompanied by nearby volcanic eruptions; magma withdraws from beneath the vent because it is going somewhere else.
The surface of Venus is geologically young, especially compared to all the other rocky bodies except Earth and Jupiter’s moon Io, Herrick said.
“However, the estimates of how often eruptions might occur on Venus have been speculative, ranging from several large eruptions per year to one such eruption every several or even tens of years,” he said.
Herrick contrasts the lack of information about Venusian volcanism with what is known about Jupiter’s moon Io and about Mars.
“Io is so active that multiple ongoing eruptions have been imaged every time we’ve observed it,” he said.
On a geological time scale, relatively young lava flows indicate Mars remains volcanically active, Herrick said.
This annotated, computer-simulated global map of Venus’ surface is assembled from data from NASA’s Magellan and Pioneer Venus Orbiter missions. Maat Mons, the volcano that has exhibited signs of a recent eruption, is within the black square near the planet’s equator. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“However, nothing has occurred in the 45 years that we have been observing Mars, and most scientists would say that you’d probably need to watch the surface for a few million years to have a reasonable chance of seeing a new lava flow,” he said.
Herrick’s research adds Venus to the small pool of volcanically active bodies in our solar system.
“We can now say that Venus is presently volcanically active in the sense that there are at least a few eruptions per year,” he said. “We can expect that the upcoming Venus missions will observe new volcanic flows that have occurred since the Magellan mission ended three decades ago, and we should see some activity occurring while the two upcoming orbital missions are collecting images.”
Co-author Scott Hensley of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory performed the modeling for the research.
More information: Robert R. Herrick, Surface changes observed on a Venusian volcano during the Magellan mission, Science (2023).
I sent the following letter to the Editor of the Telegraph at the end of February. Not heard anything since. I failed to mention that Senator Kennedy asked Dr. Rob Letterman whether he believed in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.
Dear Editor,
In the past decade this country has gone to the dogs. Politicians once had the population’s interest at heart and made tough decisions with that ethos in mind.
At the moment – and this goes for the USA as well – strange ideologies have been able to manifest themselves and thrive in the on-line world of ‘dogmatism’.
The most pervasive of these ideologies is ‘Climate Change’. I’ve reached the ripe old age of 80, so I remember the time before the term ‘climate change’ was coined and such phenomenon was referred to as the ‘seasons’.
I used to read Christopher Booker’s Sunday column in which he debunked the outlandish claims made by the UN’s propaganda machine, pompously known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
This whole circus was kickstarted by Al Gore’s DVD entitled ‘An Inconvenient Truth (2006)’. Regrettably, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007), was not given the same hype and the apocalyptic scenario of Al Gore’s DVD gripped the imagination of the UK and the USA.
As a result, the green blob now hold sway by dictating the government’s energy policies; which, put mildly, are catastrophic. In the US, at their Senate Budget Committee Meeting (15th Feb 2023) Senator Kennedy asked Dr. Oltz-Eakin the question, ‘What would it cost for the US to reach net zero’.
He estimated the cost to be, approximately, 50 trillion US dollars.
Senator Kennedy then asked Dr. Oltz-Eakin another question, ‘If the US spends 50 trillion dollars on climate solutions, how much would it reduce the earth’s temperature’. The answer was, ‘I don’t know’. The question was put to Dr. Rob Letterman – another climate expert – and his answer was, also, ‘I don’t know’.
I can only guess that if the same question was put to our own climate tzars the answer would be the same.
If that would be the case why is the government hell bent on bankrupting the country and making a nonsense of having an energy policy when they don’t know what it would cost for this country to reach net zero, or what effect it will have.
Is it because this ideological zealotry that has gripped the subconscious of our politicians, to such a degree, that to question the ‘consensus’ would upset ‘Extinction Rebellion’ and the rest of the ‘green blob’?
Surely, when the Country is experiencing an energy crisis, that in itself is causing other crises, the government should ask itself the same question, ‘If the UK spends X trillion pounds making the UK reach net zero, by how much will it reduce the earth’s temperature’?
If the answer is, ‘I don’t know’, then why are they taking the Country, and its population Soviet style, over the cliff like Lemmings?
Yours sincerely,
Brian O’Hara
Brilliant Brian!
I would add that the aforesaid Senator Kennedy is the GOP member for Louisiana, who has a reputation for not taking these fools lightly.
The expert science bubble has popped. New polling shows 60% of US voters agree that that Climate Change is a religion and has nothing to do with the climate. Even more shocking is that 47% of US voters strongly agree.
It’s an Exocet for the priests of Climate Science. Their power depends on people believing “they are The Science”, and The Science is sacred. But word is spreading that the experts are more like prophets-of-gloom than disciplined researchers. And once the idea is seeded, it won’t go away. People who didn’t notice before will suddenly see the failed predictions, the ice age that never came, the droughts that become floods and the snow that children wouldn’t know. Humans are excellent at pattern matching, just give them the right pattern to look for…
This is an idea that has barely been mentioned in mainstream TV yet half the nation are already 100% sold.
Ten days ago Vivek Ramaswamy talked about the climate religion on Fox News, and so Rasmussen asked the punters. And thus the emperor has no clothes — fully six out of ten agree that “Climate is a religion”.
…the climate religion actually has nothing to do with the climate. It is all about power, control, dominion and apologizing for America’s own success. And the reason why is that this religion looks the other way when PetroChina picks up the projects that American companies drop. Last time I checked, it was global climate change, and also it’s hostile to nuclear energy, which is truly bizarre because that’s the best form of carbon-free energy production known to mankind.
This Rasmussen question is Kryptonite
There is no pussy footing around the question, no ambiguity, no caveats:
“Do you agree or disagree with this statement: Climate change has become a religion that actually has nothing to do with the climate and is really about power and control?”
AGREE – by Party
DEM: 45%
IND: 59%
GOP: 79% All Voters: 60%
Even nearly half the democrats agree. Does anything show better that democracy is not about voters anymore? There are no vote winners for pushing the climate faith, instead there is a vast untapped sea of voters who think climate change is a money making scam. They want someone to vote for, not a politician who says I’ll be less of liar than the other guy.
Strong questions bring out strong answers
In a world of wishy-washy surveys, just saying the flagrant bleeding truth in full technicolor will bring out a stronger response than tip-toeing around the point. Sometimes just asking the question provokes the answer. How many people heard the question and went — oh yeah, now that you mention it…
The last dynamite poll in the world of surveys was in late 2015 when Donald Trump stepped out and said “climate change is a total hoax”, and when asked, 31% of US voters agreed, which was astonishing in an era when three quarters of Americans would also say “climate change is happening” and “was a threat” to the US.
Now, half the voters are so cynical they believe the media is actively trying to deceive them. And the meme is even more dangerous because it’s closer to the truth — “climate is a religion” not only includes the hoax, but also explains the blind passion of the teenage throwers of soup and glue. They are not hoaxers, they’re just deluded kids.
Live by the smear, die by the smear
For 30 years the Climate Crisis Team have talked about the dark influence of fossil fuel money, like it was Gore’s Law of Physics, and it worked to inure sleepy people against skeptical points. But now the tables are turning and the insidious suggestion that “it’s all about power, control and money” will work every bit as well against those who never once spoke up to stop the namecalling and demonization of other scientists.
They could have told the world there are no sacred cows in science, instead they created the cows — “there is a consensus!”. They could have said that science is not a religion because there is no bible, but instead they held up the IPCC reports like The Word of Mother Nature. Instead of debating skeptics, with their overwhelming evidence, they called them deniers and fled from the room.
97% of climate scientists acted like science was a religion. Karma comes back to get them.
The creed of the global warming craze, Can cause illness like mental malaise, While its arrogant dons, Pose as climate icons, As false mentors fool young proteges.
After years of studying Human Nature, I’m now pretty sure that we are going the wrong way toward saving the planet because we simply can’t be proactive.
I have a long-time friend and tennis partner who posted a comment on his Facebook wall yesterday, to which I posted a reply. An hour later my comment was gone. So I made another comment:
“Hey *******, my comment disappeared. Shall I post it again, or are you objecting to it?” So far no reponse. (Update: Now my question is gone as well, so yes, he objects to my comment and erased it.)
Below is most of what he wrote, followed by my response. Judge for yourself if I was disrespectful or merely being contrary, or in fact proposing an important alternative point of view.
Facebook Post by My Friend
After years of studying Human Nature, I’m now pretty sure that we are going the wrong way toward saving the planet because we simply can’t be proactive. It’s not who we are. Unfortunately, real change is seen by most of us as a menace. So instead of making the hard decisions, we try to make changes as painless as possible. As a consequence, we fail to make real changes. Meanwhile, we are destroying our children’s legacy. Your legacy. To be blunt, we have failed you. Not intentionally, but nevertheless, the damage is progressing. Regardless of your age, you know that as well as I do.
I can see priorities
I can see them all around me, here at home, in my province, my country and on this and every other continent. It looks like most nations are struggling with important priorities other than the planet such as poverty, discrimination, disease, desertification, famine, overpopulation, war, rule of law… to name a few. Those are, for better or worse, adult priorities.
Short term issues for adults and legacy issues for young people
While adults are struggling to keep things going, not breaking down and turning our lives upside down, young people are noticing that their future is being compromised. Two segments are in play: adults and young people. They are heading in different directions. That’s not a problem, in fact it’s a good thing. I call it the evolutionary gap. It’s a natural biproduct of generations living and dying. Call it evolution. Call it the survival of our species. Regardless of how you may wish to describe it, with each new generation of boys and girls, the reshaping of our future is triggered. We adapt and we survive.
However, this time, will we adapt fast enough?
Whether you’re in high school, a technical school or a university, what should you do? Because adults are not going to do the right thing quickly enough, the world will need you to nudge, to push, to jolt and to shove adults in the right direction. You must help them reorient and focus their priorities.
Here are a few suggestions: every Canadian high school, technical school and university should reserve one day every week to do the “pushing” around. Perhaps we should focus our teaching and research programs toward finding ways and means to accelerate the changes required to stop climate change before it becomes irreversible. Perhaps, we should close all high schools, technical schools and universities for a semester or two, or three, to provide our youth with the time to deal with adult priorities and claim their legacy now, while it’s still possible.
It’s clear to me
I have a notion that the future of our planet depends on what young people will do today. Now. As I said earlier, if we think about it, adults are too busy taking care of now and not of tomorrow. Tomorrow’s their job.
Question to the young So, what are you going to do?
My Facebook Comment in Response
On the other hand, it does not take someone with a degree in psychology to understand why children are depressed about the climate or starting a family. Every day, children are told by Trudeau, Harris, Biden, most journalists, entertainers, and other nihilists that humanity’s use of natural resources is destroying the planet and overpopulation is a dire threat to us all — impending doom and apocalypse is always just around the corner. Our “leaders” use words like “emergency”, “catastrophe”, and “crisis”. Girl Scouts dole out patches to girls as young as five that depict sad polar bears floating away on tiny, melting chunks of ice, and the media runs images of smoggy dystopian cityscapes, or just plain invention, deeply freakish in nature.
Our children are told the lie that species are dying rapidly because of humans. They are told that too many humans are breathing out too much CO2, and in turn, that clear, innocuous, non-pollutant gas is heating up the planet and causing the existential threat of “climate change.”
Why wouldn’t they be depressed if those talking points are all they hear? They are indoctrinated that the science is settled and anyone who dares tell the truth that the climate is and has always changed cyclically and naturally is a climate change denier who shouldn’t be taken seriously. They are taught to repeat what they are told instead of to ask questions or do research.
Liberals and Democrats seek to scare the public every day about a coming cataclysmic event — whether it’s an ice age or a burning hellscape they aren’t sure — by saying we only have a few years left. Then, they pretend they don’t understand why people, including children, are depressed.
It’s true that the future will be invented by the next generations, but the kids are not alright. Let’s hope, for their sake, that enough of them are able to rise above the rubbish stuffed into their heads, that they can address real problems instead of imaginary ones.
Footnote:
(Question to then IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri) “What do you see as the next tools you could utilize to create change? (Pachuri Response) “Children. I think we have to sensitize the young and tell them how their future is going to be affected if we don’t take action today. I think if we can get them to understand the seriousness of the problem they would probably shame adults into taking the right steps.”
Update March 14:
My friend phoned me yesterday saying he had not seen my comment, only my question about it. Apparently there was some glitch in Facebook. He asked me to repost, so I did. Of course he disagrees with much of it, but he’s pleased to have a contrary opinion there.
I should note that my friend does at times say and write things to be provocative, and he knows me well enough not to be surprised at my counter POV. So it shows that being needed as a tennis partner gets me latitude to have a maverick opinion. In organizations, this is called “eccentricity credits” extended to persons with indispensible abilities.
Many years ago, a CEO famously said, “Corporate cultures don’t exist. They were invented by consultants to make money.” However, more recently, Corporate HR departments have become hives of DIE activists, and there’s no margin for not conforming to the ideology. Maybe it confirms what the CEO said, when you see that DIE staff at universities are paid more than professors.
Far-Left activist and intolerant bully Tirien Steinbach, who is also Stanford’s associate dean of “diversity and equity,” attempts to shut up guest speaker Fifth Circuit Judge Duncan.
Much ink is spilled on this site, both in the articles themselves and in the threads that follow, on CO2 and its impact on long wave infrared radiation (LWIR). As a site visited by many skeptics of the CO2/global warming nexus, the bulk of these arguments seek to exonerate CO2 as a cause of a warming climate.
Figure 1. Differences in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) at the top of a tropical atmosphere between 260ppm and 420ppm CO2 concentration. The only apparent differences are near the atmospheric water vapor window
Much ink is spilled on this site, both in the articles themselves and in the threads that follow, on CO2 and its impact on long wave infrared radiation (LWIR). As a site visited by many skeptics of the CO2/global warming nexus, the bulk of these arguments seek to exonerate CO2 as a cause of a warming climate.
One common theme is that the relatively small effect a doubling of CO2 has on LWIR at the top of atmosphere (TOA) seems too small to produce the much larger effect needed for a 3K warming at the surface. Several articles from last summer called into question the claims of the IPCC versus the Stefan-Boltzmann law;[1][2] and many comments reflect this sentiment also. There appears to be a common misconception that was initiated and is perpetuated to the present time by the climate research community themselves. Let’s examine the problem of infrared transport in the atmosphere through some simple modeling. Some of these results may surprise folks.
Essence of a misconception
If the concentration of CO2 is doubled specifically from its present value of 400ppm to 800ppm, what results is a reduction in outgoing LWIR of about 3.7 W/m2 at TOA.[3] Almost everyone refers to this decline as a “forcing”. The impression made by this unfortunate phrase is that the 3.7 W/m2 at TOA combines with solar radiation heading to the surface and directly drives surface temperature higher. It suggests something like a heat flow vector, if you will, pointing toward the surface.
This is not what happens. The deficit of 3.7 W/m2 doesn’t beam toward the surface from TOA at all. It represents a deficit of outgoing radiation caused by the higher concentration of CO2 at every level of the atmosphere which absorbs more radiation and emits radiation more effectively into all directions. The figure of 3.7 W/m2 at TOA depends on the assumed temperature and composition of the atmosphere.
Near the Earth’s surface something similar occurs. LWIR is absorbed and emitted differently in this atmosphere because of our new CO2 concentration. Because the atmosphere is relatively opaque to LWIR (not completely opaque though; various models are 12% to 35% transparent over the column from surface to TOA), what goes on at TOA has limited effect on what happens at the surface. What matters at the surface is mainly absorption and emission of LWIR in the warmest and wettest part of the atmosphere near the ground. Climate forcing is the disturbance that CO2 causes on local LWIR transport; it is not the 3.7 W/m2 decline in LWIR that we might happen to observe at TOA because of this disturbance.
Radiation Transport
Radiation energy transfer is a complex problem. People often use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation alone as the basis of their radiation computations. This works only when the radiation is exchanged between surfaces with no IR active medium between them. In other words, depending on the Stefan-Boltzmann law alone severely restricts the problems one may legitimately tackle.
When a physical situation involves boundaries with fixed temperature, or fixed radiant flux, and a medium which can participate in the transfer through emission, absorption or scattering, the problem becomes hugely more difficult and requires a real solver of radiation transport. The only tool at my disposal is MODTRAN which can calculate transport between two points in space as long as temperature and composition are specified. It will not solve for unknown temperature because it isn’t a complete solver of the transport equation.
What the radiation transport problem entails is this: Radiation incident at any point within a space has traversed space on beams from other points along which there has been absorption, emission and scattering. Meanwhile some amount of emitted radiation originates at every point because of its temperature and this is propagated away into all directions. MODTRAN calculates the accumulated changes of radiant intensity along any specified direction of travel from all these factors.
This problem is nearly identical to that of calculating the flux of neutrons in a nuclear reactor delivering heat, transmuting elements, and emitting more neutrons along the way. Without a transport equation one would never understand what goes on in a reactor and the same is true of radiant heat transport in an active atmosphere.
Limitations of MODTRAN
The version of MODTRAN available at the University of Chicago consists of a legacy FORTRAN program written in the 1980s which a person may access in a limited way through a “wrapper” written in some other language. The wrapper provides a graphical interface (GUI) of edit boxes where one may change boundary temperatures, choose from a limited set of atmosphere models and set levels of greenhouse gasses or cloud cover. It is handy but prevents using the full power of the legacy FORTRAN code.
For one thing, one cannot choose at any viewing angle. Only vertical views are allowed. In order to transform from radiant intensity (I) along a vertical path to a true irradiance (flux) on a surface (G), one usually assumes isotropic radiation which makes the conversion as simple as G= pI.[4] This isn’t especially important except to say it is part of a list of issues [5] that prevent accuracy of MODTRAN being better than 5-10 W/m2. However, differences between models with only a parameter or two of distinction between them are probably more accurate than this.
Second, when a situation involves an infrared (IR) active atmosphere a temperature discontinuity occurs at bounding surfaces.[6] This makes a concept like surface temperature ambiguous. It complicates mixing convective heat transfer into a problem.
Third, after running many models, I have noticed an error in the legacy FORTRAN code. The error manifests itself in separate runs with different parameters which result in exactly the same solutions – and I mean exactly. This is an error. Forty years ago I was paid to rewrite legacy FORTRAN codes, of the same vintage as MODTRAN, to port them between machines using different word lengths, different languages and varying compilers. Just like MODTRAN, these codes came from Federal contracts or Federal agencies. Most contained some number of errors. In the case of MODTRAN the code seems to use single precision arithmetic in places it should use double precision.
Users beware.
The impact of CO2 concentration changes
MODTRAN offers several models of the atmosphere. Let’s take the tropical model as an example for no reason other than a huge proportion of solar input to the Earth takes place in the tropics. Furthermore, let’s look at differences between 260ppm (preindustrial) to 420ppm (nearly current) concentration of CO2. As our top of atmosphere (TOA) we will assume a height of 18km above the 1013mb surface. Our reference model is 260ppm. There are no clouds and we neglect any effects from convection. I focus solely on radiant transport.
As Figure 2 shows, MODTRAN calculates radiant transport differences caused by our chosen increase in CO2 as leading to a decline at TOA of 3 W/m2. The new atmosphere absorbs more LWIR. This decline in LWIR would be measured by satellites, except that it has taken place over 400 years and amounts to only a tenth watt per square meter per decade. It is immeasurable, in other words, within the resolving power of any instrument and noise contributed by the Earth.[7].
Figure 2. Reference model output and comparison to the model having higher (420ppm) CO2 concentration. Note that OLR has declined as a result of new absorption in the atmosphere.
The graph of OLR (Figure 3) in this recent WUWT essay shows that climate disturbances present far larger impacts. For example, two recent El Ninos and Mt. Pinatubo show up with far greater effect in this graph than our slow increase of CO2 ever could. As a consequence the graph doesn’t prove anything about the present influence of CO2.
Figure 3. Graph of satellite measured outgoing longwave. Temporary disturbances to climate like El Ninos and Volcanic eruptions are approximately 1-2W/m2; whereas the influence of CO2 preindustrial to now would be only about 10%-20% as large across the entire graph. This graph is from Dewitte and Clerbaux, 2018, Remote Sensing, 10(10), p.1539 and was referenced in this recent WUWT essay.
Meanwhile, near the tropical surface this increase in CO2 boosts downward directed flux by 1W/m2. If we assume that the tropical atmosphere and surface were in energy balance in our reference model, then the changes in LWIR flux as calculated at 420ppm will increase temperature of the atmosphere and surface until the outgoing LWIR at TOA reaches the reference value of 301.6 W/m2 again. To figure out how much temperature rise is needed to restore balance, we can use MODTRAN through a number of iterations.
Using first the Stefan-Boltzmann law we can calculate that a 1 W/m2 increase in downward longwave at the surface would boost surface boundary temperature by only 0.18K. This is far too small to balance energy at TOA, but even this small adjustment of surface temperature increases not only OLR but downward LWIR at the surface significantly. Repeated MODTRAN calculations with refined guesses of surface temperature reveal that energy balance at TOA is restored with a temperature rise of 0.7K. Figure 4 shows this. However, a 0.7K increase at the surface which is nearly black (e=0.97), is not possible to maintain without an increase of emitted power (calculated with the Stefan-Boltzmann law) of 4.2 W/m2. A much larger value than we began with.
Figure 4. Increasing boundary temperature by 0.7K energy balance is restored at TOA.
How does this happen? A small increase in irradiance at the ground surface increases its temperature. This, in turn, increases emitted power from the surface. The increased emitted power is absorbed in the atmosphere; near the surface particularly because this is the moist part of the atmosphere. Some of this absorbed radiation is re-emitted to ground. This, again, raises the surface temperature slightly. The process repeats ad infinitum. It’s an infinite series of re-radiation which eventually converges when there is a return to energy balance. Infinite series like this are common in problems of radiation exchange between surfaces with or without an active medium in between – the resonant cavity of a laser is an extreme example of the former.
Conclusion
Our experiment shows that radiant transport to the bounding surfaces of an IR active medium mainly involve re-radiant exchanges between the surfaces and nearby medium. Exchanges taking place in one part of the medium might have minor influence on other parts. The more that parts of the medium are isolated from one another, the slower the return to equilibrium through re-radiation and temperature adjustments.
In our test case, increasing CO2 concentration from preindustrial estimated values to the present time manifests itself first as a decrease of 3 W/m2 at TOA and an increase of 1 W/m2 at the surface. The disturbance from increased CO2 throughout the atmosphere passes through a chain of events that ends in energy balance restored at TOA and a temperature rise at the surface appearing to require an increase of 4.2 W/m2.[8] To some people this looks inconsistent with the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Yet, it is not. Such apparent inconsistencies occur commonly when an active medium is involved in transport.[9]
References
1.- A serious question. In this case the 3.7 W/m2 at TOA was compared to energy density required to maintain an increase in surface temperature of only 1K, calculated with the Stefan-Boltzmann equation which is 7 W/m2. The apparent contradiction is easy enough to see.
3.- This 3.7 W/m2 value of “climate forcing” is quoted in many places, but can be demonstrated by using MODTRAN with any of its summer atmospheric models by doubling CO2.
4.- Mostly from radiation not being isotropic. As an example, from a height of 16km above the Earth’s surface a view of the lower hemisphere will have 0.28 steradians filled with a background of cold space rather than the warm Earth surface of the remaining 6.00 steradians. This is plainly visible out the porthole of an airliner. Because of this change in background the flux value calculated by assuming G= pI will be biased too large.
5.- This long list mainly involves problems with the isotropic assumption in various contexts. Interestingly the wrapper doesn’t use p but the constant 3.14 instead. There is no time dependence in any of these calculations. MODTRAN calculations are instantaneous, but the true changes are delayed and take time.
6.- See for instance: Houghton, J.T., 1986, Physics of Atmospheres, 2nd Ed., Cambridge. P. 13. Or, M. Necati Ozisik, 1973, Radiative Transfer, Wiley-Interscience. p. 320.
7.- A person could almost say that the Earth’s surface temperature causes of much of its own greenhouse effect.
8.-The return to equilibrium can take a long time to achieve as it may involve changes at the Earth’s surface like melting ice or changing vegetation.
9.- Other apparent inconsistencies include that a rising concentration of CO2 can apparently act to cool the Earth rather than warm it especially when the IR active gasses in the atmosphere are concentrated in a thin layer near the ground and the remaining atmosphere above is especially transparent, such as in the Antarctic or winter-time Arctic, or at the ground surface of elevated regions.
Despite climatists’ insistance on “No Planet B”, their ideas and plans assume some reality other than this world. Judith Sloan explains the problem in her Spectator Australia article Greens off on another planet. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
Today’s Greens make their predecessors look sensible
Let me get back to the chasm that the Greens deliberately create by advocating much higher government spending while calling for all sorts of perverse measures, up to and including the banning of coal and gas projects. Without these projects, there is no prospect there will be sufficient revenue to fund their over-the-top spending aspirations.
The Greens’ wish list is close to endless: free childcare, free TAFE and university, free dental care, higher dole, higher rental assistance, more public housing, more public transport, more spending on government schools, more foreign aid and on and on it goes.
Unless you believe that government spending is costless and never-ending – OK, for a while the crazy advocates of Modern Monetary Theoryheld sway until the ugly face of inflation reared its head and the interest payable on government debt began to rise – the Greens cannot escape that perennial political question: how are you going to pay for it?
But here’s the thing: the main reason Australia is not completely in the fiscal dog-house is the surging company tax revenues from mining companies and high commodity prices. Now I know some Speccie readers are a little bit allergic to numbers, but bear with me if I point out a few simple facts.
Take iron ore, which is a mainstay of our budget. For every $US10 increase in the price of iron ore per tonne, there is a lift of $600 million in company tax receipts. The high prices of coal, both thermal and coking, as well as liquefied natural gas, have similarly led to rapid growth in company tax receipts.
At the time of the election last year, the Treasury expected company tax revenue for 2022-23 to come in at a tad over $90 billion. It now expects it to be $127 billion – a jump of nearly one third. Company tax revenue is now at an historic high which, in turn, is mainly because of the surging tax being paid by the mining companies so reviled by the Greens.
Talk about contradictory: it’s not just having your cake and eating it too; it’s about having the whole bakery.
This underscores my conclusion that the Greens are now living on a different planet rather than partying at the bottom of the garden. They want to shut down most of the resource sector but think that government spending can be jacked up big-time.
And let’s not forget here that federal Labor already has substantial spending plans. Next financial year, it expects to spend $666 billion and in 2025-26, the figure is $729 billion, an increase of over 9 per cent in real terms. The Greens’ ambitions are in addition to this increase.
Don’t get me onto some of the other proposals from the Greens. The geniuses in the party think that imposing national rental controls is the answer to our housing rental crisis. The fact that the attractiveness of residential real estate for investors has declined is regarded as neither here nor there by them. And this is before the full impact of the higher cost of investment loans.
They also want to achieve net zero by 2035, think that the ambition of B1(Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen) to reduce emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 is woefully inadequate and want 100-per-cent renewable energy by the end of the decade.
In Bernie Sanders’ style, they think that ‘taxing the billionaires and big corporations’ will release oceans of revenue and a 6 per cent annual wealth tax is the way to go.
Walshy must be spinning in his grave; he would surely conclude that the dotty Greens of his era were sensible pragmatists compared to today’s loopy lot.
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