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.
Senior climate experts are calling for an overhaul of the structure and powers of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in despair at the slow pace of climate action.
Senior climate experts are calling for an overhaul of the structure and powers of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in despair at the slow pace of climate action.
“I would like to see a situation where scientists make recommendations and then you track them. You ask governments to sign off on what they will do and then you evaluate how much progress they have made.”
We need power to prescribe climate policy, IPCC scientists say
Exclusive: Five IPCC report authors say scientists should be allowed to make policy prescriptions and potentially oversee implementation
Senior climate experts are calling for an overhaul of the structure and powers of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in despair at the slow pace of climate action.
Five lead authors of IPCC reports told the Guardian that scientists should be given the right to make policy prescriptions and, potentially, to oversee their implementation by the 195 states signed up to the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC).
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Yamina Saheb, the lead author of a chapter in AR6, said: “I would like to see a situation where scientists make recommendations and then you track them. You ask governments to sign off on what they will do and then you evaluate how much progress they have made.”
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“I think this Cop will demonstrate the impossibility of viable climate diplomacy while the fossil fuel industry runs so many governments and infiltrates negotiating teams,” Steinberger said.
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Not all IPCC scientists agree. Joyashree Roy, a coordinating lead author on AR6, argued that the IPCC was already becoming more independent and that transforming it into an oversight group would lead to “fragmented decisions [that] cannot solve this unique problem for humanity”.
Recently the International Energy Agency (IEA) told the world off for not preparing the Earth for the transition they want to force upon us. Apparently, we should have paid attention and built the right grid and now, due to our laziness, we will have to rush in another 80 million kilometers of interconnectors by 2040. Just like that.
Did they forget to mention a clean green planet is full of steel transmission lines?
Recently the International Energy Agency (IEA) told the world off for not preparing the Earth for the transition they want to force upon us. Apparently, we should have paid attention and built the right grid and now, due to our laziness, we will have to rush in another 80 million kilometers of interconnectors by 2040. Just like that.
All the high voltage lines we built in the last century, we have to build again in the next 17 years.
Remember, it’s not their fault that renewables need far more land, more space, more back up and more infrastructure — it’s our fault we didn’t build a world ready for their holy energy. Those sacred wind and solar gifts cannot be bestowed upon us! We are unworthy:
First-of-its-kind global study finds the world must add or replace 80 million km of grids by 2040, equal to all grids globally today, to meet national climate targets and support energy security.
Notice how these changes “are essential” girls and boys, and you should have paid for them already. It’s only half a trillion dollars a year for the next 7 years…
Achieving all national climate and energy goals will require adding or replacing 80 million kilometres of power lines by 2040 – an amount equal to the entire existing global grid – according to a detailed country-by-country analysis carried out for the report. Major changes to how grids operate and are regulated are also essential, while annual investment in grids, which has remained broadly stagnant, needs to double to more than USD 600 billion a year by 2030.
Issues are already emerging. The report identifies a large and growing queue of renewables projects waiting for the green light to be connected to the grid, pinpointing 1 500 gigawatts worth of these projects that are in advanced stages of development. This is five times the amount of solar PV and wind capacity that was added worldwide last year.
Just bill it to the wind and solar investors, says Jo Nova, and make them pay to put the lines underground so they don’t pollute the forests and farms and start fires.
Tell the children they’ve been lied to. The Green future is an industrial wasteland of concrete and steel built to line the pockets of billionaires and bankers.
Risk assessors looked at around 22,000 buildings and other infrastructure assets for Sky News using a “digital twin” of the UK to model how they fared at two different climates in the year 2100.
Risk assessors looked at around 22,000 buildings and other infrastructure assets for Sky News using a “digital twin” of the UK to model how they fared at two different climates in the year 2100.
Britain’s critical infrastructure will be more at risk from extreme weather if the world wavers on its commitment to net zero targets, according to exclusive analysis for Sky News.
Power stations, transport networks and airports are all more likely to be damaged or disrupted as global average temperatures climb higher, data from risk assessors Climate X shows.
The UK government recently watered down green commitments to save money on household bills.
But analysis suggests that, if other countries do the same, there will be higher long-term costs from shoring up or repairing infrastructure to keep the lights on and supermarket shelves stocked.
Navjit Sagoo, science engagement officer at Climate X, said: “Net zero is not as expensive as doing nothing. Doing nothing is always more expensive.
Climate X advises insurance companies and businesses on climate risks and resilience.
It looked at about 22,000 buildings and other infrastructure assets for Sky News using a “digital twin” of the UK to model how they fared at two different climates in the year 2100.
In the first, the global average temperature rose by 1.6C from pre-industrial levels and would only be achieved through rapid cuts to greenhouse gases.
In the second, the global temperature rose by 4.3C, consistent with much weaker climate action.
The results show that power stations, rail and Tube stations, motorway junctions and airports were all more at risk from at least one climate hazard at the higher temperature.
“Our infrastructure wasn’t built to withstand these kind of climate extremes,” said Dr Sagoo.
“We will have hotter weather, so things will be stressed more from the heat, and we’ll have wetter weather as well.”
Of the 4,000 energy facilities analysed, 100% were at risk from storm damage at 4.3C, compared with just 60% at 1.6C.
Climate X took a closer look at Pembroke and Staythorpe power stations, which provide electricity to nearly seven million homes.
With rapid cuts in carbon emissions, the Pembroke site is likely to flood every 60 years and Staythorpe every 40 by the end of the century.
But with weaker climate action, then Pembroke could flood every 42 years, and Staythorpe every 17.
Climate X also assessed the risk to more than 14,000 rail and Tube stations.
In the cooler of the two scenarios studied, 61% would be at risk from storms and 18% from subsidence by the end of the century.
But in a far hotter future, that increases to 100% and 28%.
Road transport could also become more difficult in the hotter of the two possible future climates, with 18% of motorway junctions at risk of river flooding.
Keeping the rise in temperature to just 1.6C would put 11% at risk of flooding.
“It definitely becomes more real when you think about climate change in terms of infrastructure rather than just warming,” said Dr Sagoo.
“The train station you rely on to go to work, that’s going to be flooded. Or the airport you use to go on holiday will be impacted.
“The more severe the warming is, the more frequently those events are going to happen.”
The UK is already seeing more extreme weather as global temperatures rise, so far up 1.1C since pre-industrial levels.
The final sentence is an outright lie, and the assumption of 4.3C is for the birds. Meanwhile Pembroke and Staythorpe power stations are gas-fired so they will have been long shut down by 2100!.
They also claim that airports will be badly hit by storms. Heaven know where they get that nonsense from, because storms are declining in strength because of global warming, not getting stronger.
But what really affects airports is snow and ice, which are responsible for most closures. And a warmer climate will mean less snow!
Climate X, who produced this bunkum for Sky, earn their money from advising businesses on climate risks.
In my opinion, any companies which pay this tin pot company a penny are throwing shareholders’ money down the drain. They’d be better off asking Mystic Meg!
Still, never mind all that, China is a developing country – apparently – so we must go easy on them. No, it’s you and me who have to pay, and here’s why. It’s because we have to take colonial rule into account. And (this is the good bit if you hate the west and love India and China), when we attribute all greenhouse gas emissions from colonial countries to their colonial masters, hey presto! Suddenly the situation looks very different. OK, the USA still tops the cumulative league tables, and China is still in second place, but France’s share increases by half, the UK’s doubles [so the article says, but persevere with the article, and actually it increases by 70%, which is a long way from doubling], the Netherlands’ nearly triples, Portugal’s more than triples, and the EU and the UK collectively see their contributions rise by “nearly a third”, to 19% [later on the article says they rise by 28%, which is nearer to a quarter than to a third. I struggle to take seriously an article with such internal contradictions].
And that’s not all. India’s share falls by 15%, while Indonesia and the whole continent of Africa also see their contributions fall by 24%. Isn’t that great? Now they can play the victim card with ever greater confidence, and it’s so much harder to blame them for anything. We can conveniently ignore the fact that India is now the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter on an annual basis, we can concentrate instead on the fact cumulatively it now drops to seventh place. Instead, the UK is in fourth place (leaping up from eighth place, and helpfully leap-frogging India in the process) and Germany is in sixth (sadly moving up only from seventh place, but I suppose it’s better than nothing). Excellent – make them pay!
There’s another sleight of hand that can be used to make the situation even worse for those former colonialists:
When weighted by current populations, the Netherlands (2,014tCO2 per person) and the UK (1,922tCO2) become the world’s top emitters on a cumulative per-capita basis. They are followed by Russia (1,655tCO2), the US (1,560tCO2) and Canada (1,524tCO2).
On this per-capita measure, China (217tCO2 per person), the continent of Africa (92tCO2) and India (52tCO2) are far behind developed nations’ contributions to warming.
This handily side-steps the fact that China’s current day per capita emissions are higher – more than 50% higher – than those in the UK.
Finally, give those former colonial powers a good kicking while they’re down:
Many former colonial powers are also net CO2 importers today. While data on CO2 imports and exports is limited, available figures further raise their shares of historical emissions.
Regarding that last point, not only would I – in fairness – concede that there’s something in it, it’s a point I have in the past made myself. I think it’s probably the best argument in the whole CarbonBrief piece.
The problem with the main thesis is that it largely seems to be based upon deforestation taking place under colonial rule. The issue here is that it seems to attribute it all to the decision-making power of the colonial master in each case, regardless of the reason the deforestation took place or of who ordered it. It seems historically ignorant, given how much of – for instance – modern-day India’s day-to-day rule under the British Empire was left to Indian princes. Thus, to attribute everything that went on in India during this period to the UK is simply inaccurate.
CarbonBrief’s analysis seems to assume that native rulers and inhabitants failed to receive any benefit from what went on in their lands during the colonial period, and it denies them any agency at all. It is in fact an analysis based on a colonialist mindset that assumes the locals could do – and did – nothing for themselves and the Europeans did everything, decided everything, and were the only beneficiaries. Clearly this isn’t the case.
CarbonBrief knows this, saying:
Arguably, the true share of responsibility for current warming lies somewhere between these two extremes, where emissions are fully assigned to either the colonial powers or their former colonies.
Arguably it does, but it doesn’t seem to be how CarbonBrief’s final analysis pans out. Instead, it’s all our fault:
This analysis assigns full responsibility for past emissions to those with ultimate decision-making authority at the time, namely, the colonial rulers.
CarbonBrief purport to rely heavily on the ideas expressed by Professor Beinert and Lotte Hughes in their 2007 book “Environment and Empire”, and sections of it are quoted about the colonial powers’ hunger for natural resources, which is fair enough, so far as it goes. Strangely, however, another more noble point is made:
Yet, as colonial forests were denuded of their ability to produce high-quality timber, colonisation also led to the beginnings of “conservationist practices and ideas”, Beinart and Hughes write:
“[W]hile natural resources have been intensely exploited, a related process, the rise of conservationist practices and ideas, was also deeply rooted in imperial history. Large tracts of land have been reserved for forests, national parks or wildlife.”
And it seems that the locals were not perhaps as denied of agency (or responsibility for forestry) as has been implied, since we are also told:
The book quotes Hugh Cleghorn, conservator of forests for the Madras presidency, writing in 1861 of the “careless rapacity of the native population…who cut and cleared [forests]…without being in any way under the control or regulation of authority”.
We seem to receive no (carbon) credit for putting an end to that with the creation of an Indian Forest Department in 1864, even though surely credit is due?
And although the next quote is thrown in presumably to damn the British, it actually strikes me as being rather more exculpatory than damning (at least so far as deforestation and associated greenhouse gas emissions are concerned):
“British imperial control of India had a major impact on its extraordinarily varied range of trees and forest products. It also restricted access to forests by poor people…That later exclusion of humans from wildlife parks was also partly rooted in the forest laws of the colonial people, which treated local people as wasteful and destructive…But pressures on the forest did not end with independence. The current rate of deforestation is said to be well over one million ha every year.”
A similar point could be made regarding the behaviour of the Dutch in Indonesia. (The poor Dutch, by the way, move up from somewhere below 35 on the cumulative emissions scale to thirteenth place).
We are treated to another quote:
The Dutch discovered the tobacco industry in Deli in the 1860s and created an industrial-scale plantation system. The local sultans collaborated and gave concessions of 1,000–2,000 hectares of land to each company in a 75-year lease. The Dutch colonial planters assumed that tobacco could only grow well in the soil that had just been cleared from the virgin jungle. Thus, the industry drove large-scale virgin forests clearing to produce tobacco leaves exported to Europe and America.”
So who is responsible? The Dutch colonial planters or the local sultans who leased them the land? Or should responsibility be shared?
Be that all as it may, CarbonBrief really make hay with the concept of historical per capita assumptions. Obviously if countries with large populations (such as India or Indonesia) can transfer a great deal of responsibility for their emissions to countries with much smaller populations (such as the UK or the Netherlands) then a massively distorted result can be obtained. And so it is, and CarbonBrief loves it. It tells us that on this (rather convoluted) basis, colonial powers are the top cumulative emitters per population in 2023, while the likes of China and India are far behind.
I have to say, it takes overwhelming chutzpah to give China a free pass in this way, given that it is the second greatest cumulative emitter of greenhouse gas emissions (behind only the USA), that its current day per capita emissions greatly exceed those of the UK, and that it is building new coal-fired power stations at a rate of knots. Despite all that, on this clever new basis of allocating responsibility for emissions, China has less than one eighth of the responsibility of the Netherlands, India appears to have barely 5% of the responsibility of the UK. Surely even CarbonBrief appreciate that this is an illegitimate piece of legerdemain?
Interestingly, the analysis seeks only to attribute responsibility from 1850, citing incomplete data among other reasons for this decision. However, read to the end of the article, and perhaps China isn’t so innocent after all (though of course this piece of information is omitted from the final figures in the analysis):
The picture is a little different for LULUCF. Figures from OSCAR, one of the three bookkeeping models used for post-1850 LULUCF estimates, extend back as far as 1701.
These figures show that some 93GtCO2 was released globally, during 1750-1850, equivalent to nearly 4% of the cumulative total from all sources during 1850-2023.
Nearly a quarter of this total originates in China and would not be reassigned on the basis of colonial rule.
But ignoring this in the analysis is OK, because “1850 is usually taken as the reference year for historical simulations and marks the starting point for temperature changes, which are generally measured against an 1850-1900 baseline.” Phew – that was close!
I conclude that the analysis is undoubtedly of interest, and I enjoyed reading it (honestly). However, it strikes me that its main purpose – especially given the timing of its release (26th November 2023) was to provide ammunition to developing countries with huge carbon footprints ahead of the “loss and damage” negotiations that are taking place at COP28. My only consolation is that it will probably prove to have been a waste of the authors’ time, insofar as they may have hoped that it would facilitate payment, based on climate guilt, from developed to developing countries. I very much doubt that this will come to pass.
This is a key premise of Daniel Church’s Winter Games, which starts out with a surfer suffering from hypothermia and leads onto a protest that will hopefully turn the tide of climate doom.
At 59 degrees Fahrenheit ambient temperature, without warm clothing or movement, your body temperature will drop, keep dropping and you’ll die in less than a day. 59 degrees Fahrenheit is also what climate scientists claim to be the average temperature of our planet which, they also claim, is burning up. This is a key premise of Daniel Church’s Winter Games, which starts out with a surfer suffering from hypothermia and leads onto a protest that will hopefully turn the tide of climate doom.
I found this an enjoyable read most of the way through and it is indeed an easy read. To a certain extent it has the whiff of a docudrama about it, with its asides concerning the state of climate science – the way that data is distorted by dropping past temperatures to make it look like there has been a steady climb to present temperature, being just one example. This is all pretty old news to me, ever since I started reading into the science more deeply several decades ago.
My interest had been prompted by a doom-mongering article, which shrieked about a huge sea level rise, but, unusually, quoted some figures. It only took a few minutes with a calculator to discover that the awful fate that the article implied was just around the corner was 14,000 years in the future. Thereafter I read and watched the long catalogue of lies and data manipulation that have led us where we are today: Climategate, the Mann Hockey Stick (where he tried to lose the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period), Al Gore’s film (where he pointed out a correlation between CO2 rise and temperature rise in ice core data but neglected to mention CO2 rose an average of 800 years AFTER the temperature rise), and the exposure of the Urban Heat Island Effect, which should have led to the dismissal of the whole warming farrago, but instead, after the scientists ‘homogenized’ the figures, resulted in it being ‘worse than we thought!’
I would recommend this book to those who would like some of the arguments against climate doom in an easily digestible fictional form. It’s a bit of an antidote to the “burning earth as accepted knowledge” idea you’ll find in most of what’s out there. It illustrates the craziness of killing our energy systems to stop a fire that simply is not occurring. It brings to light the fact, so often ignored, that cold kills orders of magnitude more people than warmth. It shows us the pressure scientists are under to conform – how they can lose their livelihoods and even their lives if they do not. And it shows us how the media, as we are discovering nowadays, are hardly the arbiters of truth. However, it does have flaws.
In the last quarter characters were dropped in who should have been introduced earlier, including, to my mind, an unnecessary villain. I understand the quandary faced here, because I’ve faced the same in one of my recent books. It’s difficult to tell a satisfying story when the villain of the piece is not a singular character to be defeated. In Winter Games, the true villain of the story is a system, a conjunction of media looking for drama and scientists looking for fame and consequent pay cheques, the growth of a zeitgeist about climate practically transforming into a religion that cuts down heretics – in this case rational scientists who see through the bullshit. I also note that the writer wanted to bring about a happy ending, when this would have been brought to a close better on the death of someone who had chosen to die, and from there opening out into the dystopia we might well be facing.
Much of Europe has been hit with cold temperatures and heavy snow falls so far this month, taking Europeans by surprise. “Experts” blame warming.
Rare early December snow at the German North Sea coast, December 2, 2023. Photo: P. Gosselin
Not “a thing of the past”
Don’t be surprised by all the surprise. After all, global warming-obsessed climatologists and media told us back in 2020 that snow and frost would be rare – a thing of the past!
Now with the heavy, record snowfall, global warming astrologists are looking a bit foolish and embarrassed. Their predictions are wrong. Already in November snow arrived and record amounts have already fallen, like in Munich. This has sent the media scrambling for an explanation, and they have concocted one, reports German news magazine FOCUS. Here’s the explanation:
Experts agree: Heavy snowfall is a sign of climate change!”
Strange how whenever there’s a winter with very little snowfall, that too is a sure sign of climate change. And when there are a couple of years of drought, it is the new climate normal. But when there’s too much rainfall, that too proves the climate is warming. No matter what happens, it’s a sign of climate change!
Snow now means it’s getting warmer
In a “fact-check” on ARD German national public television, Ms. Gudrun Mühlbacher of the German DWD national weather service basically said:
The opposite is true, say experts. Rather, they say, the snow is a sign of climate change: snow is becoming rarer, but when it does snow, it is heavy. One reason: due to global warming, it rains more, especially in the fall and winter. The completely rainy November confirmed this.”
More heavy snowfalls ahead!
FOCUS then goes on to explain precisely how our climate works, noting how important it is to distinguish between “climate” and “weather”. “Snowfall does not disprove global warming,” says Melania Botica from the Weather Channel.
“According to climate researchers, the atmosphere can absorb seven percent more moisture for every one degree Celsius increase. More moisture in the air also means more precipitation in the long term,” FOCUS writes. “In the fall and winter, this moisture is released in the form of heavy rainfall or snowfall.”
While climate scientists told us snow would be rare in the future, FOCUS and other German media outlets now report:
It will snow more heavily in the coming years.”
Yet at the same time, the DWD’s Gudrun Mühlbacher says “there will be 65 percent fewer days with at least three centimeters of snow cover at lower elevations.” For Oberstdorf in Bavaria, “it will, however, continue to snow in the coming years, sometimes even more heavily. And this is apparently also due to climate change.”
Junk science at its finest. No wonder Germany’s PISA results are plummeting. You can see it, especially in journalism.
Oil producers slammed the IEA for manipulating data.
The International Energy Agency said in its recent oil report that oil consumption is close to peaking, thanks to transition efforts and energy efficiency gains.
Goehring and Rozencwajg: In 12 of the past 14 years, the IEA has underestimated oil demand by an average annual of 820,000 barrels per day.
Goehring and Rozencwajg: “If the IEA’s error were a country, it would be the world’s 21st largest oil consumer,”.
This week, a report from a climate organization warned that emissions from the combustion of hydrocarbons are set for a record this year.
This is despite the massive buildout of wind and solar capacity, hundreds of billions of investments in alternatives of hydrocarbons, and pledges for a lot more.
There appears to be a gap between stated goals and ambitions and reality. It might be more difficult to see looking at the oil futures market, but it is there. And it may be getting deeper.
Like emissions, oil demand rose this year. Yet the International Energy Agency said it is close to peaking, thanks to transition efforts and energy efficiency gains.
Oil producers slammed the IEA for manipulating data.
The investment world was divided. And some recalled the Jevons Paradox as proof that the hopes being pinned on energy efficiency, especially as it related to oil demand, were empty ones.
In their latest quarterly market commentary, contrarian natural resource investment managers Goehring and Rozencwajg did just that: they reminded everyone watching COP28 and listening to all the talk about efficiency and demand for hydrocarbons that gains in the former never lead to a decline in the latter.
“It is a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” This is what William Stanley Jevons, a British economist and logician, wrote in the 19th century. He was talking about coal. Close to 200 years later, the paradox still stands.
Yet it is not just the mistaken belief that greater energy efficiency would lead to lower consumption of hydrocarbons that has led Goehring and Rozencwajg to predict that oil demand is set to continue strong for more than a decade yet. There is also an issue with the IEA’s demand forecasts: they have been underestimating oil demand for more than a decade.
In 12 of the past 14 years, the IEA, according to the investment firm, has underestimated oil demand by an average annual of 820,000 barrels per day. This is quite a substantial amount when something as important as oil demand is being estimated.
“If the IEA’s error were a country, it would be the world’s 21st largest oil consumer,” Goehring and Rozencwajg wrote. But this error can create a false narrative on the futures market that could end in a nasty surprise for many.
The IEA said in its latest World Energy Outlook that tripling generation capacity from wind and solar and other low-carbon sources must go hand in hand with an annual rate of energy efficiency improvements of 4%.
What it did not say is that even if this annual rate of efficiency gains is achieved, it will only lead to more energy demand, which would translate into more oil and gas demand. This is because the new low-carbon sources of energy that transition advocates favor cannot compete with hydrocarbons on supply reliability, at least not yet.
While all this is happening, the oil industry is not investing enough in future production, not least because of the transition pressures applied to it by activists, governments, and financing institutions.
As a result, Goehring and Rozencwajg write, “When the realization dawns that oil and gas demand is not in free fall, investors will be forced to confront how little the industry has invested to offset declines.” This will lead to a reversal in investor thinking and a rush to buy into oil and gas. Needless to say, this will not exactly be bearish for prices.
The rush will likely be a stampede, too, because of something else that tends to get overlooked amid all the transition commitment noise. China is the biggest wind, solar, and EV market. India has major ambitions in all three areas. Yet these two countries alone represent the biggest driver for oil, gas, and coal demand. And their role in global hydrocarbon demand growth is only going to become bigger.
Emerging markets as a whole currently account for 45% of global GDP. By 2040, this will rise to 53%, representing 70% of global GDP growth. And these markets are energy intensive, meaning energy demand will be rising over the next 17 years, at least, efficiency gains and all. With that, demand for hydrocarbons will be rising, too, whatever commitments current governments make at the COP28.
The reason for that last prediction is evident in the report on emissions cited earlier: when energy demand grows, so does hydrocarbon demand because they can supply energy quickly in the form of liquid fuels and reliably in the form of baseload electricity generation.
Predictions from the IEA and other transition-oriented outlets seem to assume that a reversal in these processes is possible. They seem to assume that it is possible to cut energy demand in the developed world by a significant percentage.
It is quite likely that these assumptions are wrong because they go against fundamental truths about human civilization, such as the fact that going from comfort to forced discomfort is not something many would readily embrace, to put it mildly. The implications of basing investment decisions on wrong assumptions should be obvious enough—as many offshore wind investors realized earlier this year.
When I first started studying ecology, the island of Surtsey off the southern coast of Iceland was quite inspirational.
Surtsey rocked up out of the sea in November 1963, and instantly became a mine of ecological data.
Here comes the science part [elementary ecology]:
In ecology, groups of species living in the same place at the same time are called communities. Communities change over time, even if there is no external influence. Eventually, in the absence of external influences, the community in question will converge on something called a climax community, which means that in the absence of external influences, no new changes will occur. Lots may be happening, but nothing changes. In practice this means a succession of species over time, from opportunistic types to more competitive types. If you abandoned London right now, the bare concrete would eventually end up becoming oak/ash woodland, which would be permanent until a new ice age or maybe catastrophic global warming.
I used the word succession there, and in ecology there are considered to be two types: primary and secondary. Secondary succession is like abandoning London. There are already plenty of trees around and plenty of other plants growing in gardens which would form the basis of the first ecological communities after the capital’s abandonment.
The other kind is primary succession, and for that, you need a completely blank slate. You need to start with nothing. Succession still occurs but every part of the community has to find its way in from outside. Such situations are quite rare in the real world.
[End of elementary ecology lesson.]
So, this is where Surtsey is so important, and so inspirational. Ecologists generally have an idea about how primary succession might go, without being able to observe it happening. But as soon as Surtsey began to cool enough for something to survive on it, primary succession began. We had a sterile surface, an island, onto which new life could only arrive by sea or by air.
Since its birth 60 years ago, plenty of ecologists have devoted a lot of time to the study of Surtsey. It has its own research society. Visitors are few, and they have to ensure that they do not accidentally contaminate the island with a new species. [According to Wiki, the first visitors were French journalists, who landed on the island almost exactly 60 years ago (6th December, 1963). They claimed it for France as a bit of a laugh.]
Interestingly most of the early species to arrive on Surtsey would have been familiar to any British ecologist as plants of the strandline – the difference in climate not seemingly too relevant. Later arrivals were potatoes – planted by some boys as a jolly jape and dug up by indignant scientists – and a tomato plant (again via Wiki):
An improperly managed human defecation resulted in a tomato plant taking root, which was also destroyed.
I don’t think they needed to bother there. I can’t ripen tomatoes in my back garden reliably. They ain’t gonna ripen on Surtsey. But the presence of a tomato plant is a useful indicator of a sewage spill on British beaches: worth taking note of when you see toddlers playing in that little stream of water coming out of the storm drain.
The Iceland Met Office has a webcam on Surtsey (available via the Research Society link). This is what it looked like at 3 minutes to four yesterday:
Surtsey is legendary in ecological circles. So it should not be too surprising to learn that this student of ecology was interested to read the news that a new island had breached the ocean’s surface near Japan. Here is a headline from the Japan News on November 10th:
New Island Created near Iwoto Island from Undersea Volcanic Eruption, Japan Meteorological Agency Says; May Disappear as Eruption Dies Down
It would be rather disappointing if the new island disappeared as soon as the eruption finishes. Why might that be? [Caveat: I know nothing about geology. I am prepared to be corrected if I abuse the nomenclature.] Well, when the molten rock hits the ocean water it is immediately quenched and turns to what is basically glass. But this material is not consolidated. It’s in bits. They call it tephra, which comes from the Greek for ash, and it is easily washed away.
But Surtsey is still there after 60 years. What gives? Well, if the eruption reaches the surface, the lava will not be instantly quenched, and may set as fairly sturdy lava flows. The tephra, given time and hot water, can become glued together to form tuff – which is rather more resistant to erosion.[Not very tough. Not granite. In fact it’s soft.] Surtsey has in fact shrunk markedly over the decades, but it is thought that its solid core of tuff will remain resistant to the briny for another thousand years or so. [Other islands in the Westman Isles are of similar or greater antiquity, and have become reduced to stack-like kernels of their former selves.]
After that very superficial overview, I wanted to mention that I had no idea where the island of Iwoto mentioned in the Japan News story was. The BBC covered the story and left me no less confused:
An explosive eruption last week sent volcanic rock hurtling into the sea around Niijima Island, located 970 km (600 miles) from the Japanese capital Tokyo.
Now, I admit to misreading this the first time, and to thinking that Iwoto and Niijima referred to the same island. But they don’t. The BBC was helpful in translating the meaning of the word Niijima as “New Island.” They also said it appeared ten years ago, but that is wrong. Maybe it’s a mistranslation.
The volcanic island was formed 10 years ago. Its name translates as “new island”.
Astute readers, even those with no passing acquaintance with Japanese, might have recognised parts of those two names. [My only knowledge of Japanese comes from watching large amounts of anime, with subtitles on and original voices, but sadly I am not learning much. I recognised parts of the names and merely thought them commonplace nouns that often form compound names. However, looking up Iwoto, I found that it is actually the island formerly known as Iwo Jima.
Everyone has heard of Iwo Jima – I’m sure every Cliscep reader has, at any rate – thanks to the events of February 1945, when the U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of the tiny island. Brutal is not a sufficient adjective for the ensuing fighting. What I was not aware of, or had forgotten, was what happened on Iwo Jima in 1985, 40 years later.
Veterans of both sides, and widows of the Japanese defenders, met on the island to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. Former bitter enemies shook hands and hugged. A monument was unveiled, inscribed in Japanese on the landward side, and English on the seaward side, representing the direction in which the fighting occurred. [This according to Wiki; they might in fact be separate monuments on the same site, and may pre-date the 40th anniversary.]
You can see part of the commemoration here, at the end of this contemporary documentary. [Should take you to the right moment.]
What this rabbit hole reminded me is that there are two kinds of war. The kind that ends, and the kind that never ends. Thankfully the war in which Iwo Jima featured was one of the former.
My appreciation for our freedom of movement was re-ignited recently when I finished up an engine swap into my rare-but-not-collectable 1995 Ford Thunderbird. It had blown a head gasket and had far more than 200,000 miles on it, so in went a junkyard-fresh 4.6L V8 with only 40,000 miles on the clock, or so said the yard I bought it from.
My appreciation for our freedom of movement was re-ignited recently when I finished up an engine swap into my rare-but-not-collectable 1995 Ford Thunderbird. It had blown a head gasket and had far more than 200,000 miles on it, so in went a junkyard-fresh 4.6L V8 with only 40,000 miles on the clock, or so said the yard I bought it from.
My use of the term “freedom of movement” on this site goes back to my article in March of 2022, where I pointed out that the Biden administration is hell-bent on forcing us into a mass-transit-heavy society, in part through regulations and restrictions that made it less convenient and more expensive to drive a car. I pointed out that subsidizing absurdly expensive EVs and forcing car makers to implement tech that shuts down cars (allegedly only for drunk drivers) are part of the plan. The totalitarian leftists at the Daily Kos promptly published a hit piece on me, calling me every name in the hysterical leftist playbook.
At the time, those on the fence might have considered this to be a conspiracy theory. Now, though, they’ll have to admit I was right. The NTSB recently floated the idea of limiting the maximum speed a car can be driven. The scolds in the press instantly jumped at the chance to wag their fingers at Americans who dare to drive above the speed limit. Some blatantly stated that anyone who might question giving the state this sort of power are part of some strange, fringe political minority that should be ignored by all sensible people. Of course, it’s easy to see how this might be abused, just like the aforementioned power to shut your car down at will.
A recently published article in the peer-reviewed academic journal Transportation Research tells us that cars, even the supposedly anointed battery electric variety, are far too convenient and that the state must be empowered to “restrict car use.” The authors tell us that converting car lanes to bus lanes have reduced car use in Oslo. No surprise there. The fact that academia is floating this sort of policy should concern anyone who has any inkling of mistrust of the federal government. Truly our freedom of movement is in peril.
Electric vehicles are not nearly as popular as their advocates would have had us believe, as sales are now slumping in the face of rising interest rates and a lack of so-called fast chargers. As we begin to bump up against mined mineral constraints and international relations complications, there’s no doubt the cost of making these glorified toys will continue to rise. A recent Consumer Reports publication shows that, over the last 3 model years, electric vehicles are less reliable than normal gasoline and diesel vehicles. So, several states want to ban the sale of reliable, inexpensive gas and diesel cars and force us to buy less reliable electric cars. Note well that the superior reliability of hybrids is likely down to the fact that car makers who are better known for their reliability make more hybrids. There’s nothing inherent to a hybrid that would make it more reliable than a gasoline engine vehicle.
Even our ability to travel using air travel is under the gun. A CNN op-ed recently floated the idea of limiting air travel through the use of carbon (read: sin) passports. We will be limited to traveling based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the flight. The author wants this applied to cruise ships as well. It’s not hard to see this applied to your car as well. Of course, such rules will not apply to the super-wealthy climate grifters. They’ll be jetting all over the globe for their very important climate conferences.
And it’s not just transportation. In September, Reuters “fact checked” a claim that US cities had agreed to limit meat consumption, finding the claim false. And yet, we are told on a nearly daily basis that eliminating beef consumption is necessary to save the planet. The sin of using coal (but not apparently to create steel) has become the sin of eating a steak. What’s next? Rice? Pork?
Beginning in 2024, the German government will empower local electricity providers to limit the flow of electricity to heat pumps and electric cars. Such limits were the stuff of alleged conspiracy theories mere months ago. Now they’re a reality. Germany’s suicidal attempt to power their grid with nothing but wind and solar, killing off their own nuclear power generation over the last 20 years, has led to energy rationing. It’s not as if this is unpredictable. The unreliability of so-called renewables is common knowledge among energy experts.
It’s sensible for those who are concerned about their ability to choose where and when they travel, what they eat, and when they turn on their heaters and air conditioners to be skeptical of every single attempt to accrue more power by state and federal governments. That skepticism should turn into activism against these power grabs. Anyone who tells you these power grabs aren’t coming is telling you not to believe your own eyes.
Levi Russell is an associate teaching professor at the University of Kansas School of Business.
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