Author: Jo

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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations

CURRU : Launch of the Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit

Tiresome ?

You know the feeling. As a scientist or lay person with some inside knowledge on Climate Change, you’re reading your favourite daily newspaper or checking the news online, when an article with outright falsehoods in it really leaps out at you, grabs you by the throat and makes you very, very annoyed and FTB.

Being Full To Bursting, you make a mental note to write a letter to the Media organisation, or phone somebody and be very stern with them, but during the course of the day you are forced to engage with your normal duties and you reach nightfall tired and unable to pen the letter or lift the phone to make a complaint.

It’s really wearing.

Continue reading “CURRU : Launch of the Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit”
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Carbon Capture Political Nightmare Regulatory Ultimatum

No More Coal

The options are clear : either rapidly commence the largest, most complex and resource-hungry engineering infrastructure ever conceived to do Carbon Capture and Storage, or simply halt the burning of Coal to generate electricity.

Simple choice, you would have thought; yet governments around the world have been sucked in by the slick allure of the all-expenses-paid lobbyists for Old King Coal. Politicians and civil servants roam the halls of power with that glazed look in their eyes as they recite the mantra “Clean Coal. Clean Coal. Clean Coal…”

Yet all is not a done deal. In Scotland, common sense and good, open debate have led to a rejection of all that is lumpy and sooty; and that can only bode well for the future of Energy policy.

Coal is not clean. It never has been and it never will be.

We can’t afford cheap Coal. It’s time to ban it.

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Big Picture Climate Change Screaming Panic

Uncle Tom’s Cabal

This man :-

said this :-

https://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5716/176666

“The Climate Change Commitment : Even if atmospheric composition were fixed today, global-mean temperature and sea level rise would continue due to oceanic thermal inertia. These constant-composition (CC) commitments and their uncertainties are quantified. Constant-emissions (CE) commitments are also considered. The CC warming commitment could exceed 1°C. The CE warming commitment is 2° to 6°C by the year 2400.”

This man :-

said this :-

https://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289310

“”Even if all man-made greenhouse gas emissions were stopped tomorrow and carbon-dioxide levels stabilized at today’s concentration, by the end of this century, the global average temperature would increase by about 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 2.4 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, which is significantly above the level which scientists and policy makers agree is a threshold for dangerous climate change.””

You can read it all here :-

https://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/23_1/23-1_greene.pdf

It’s a very inconvenient truth indeed. What will Uncle Tom Wigley’s conservative cabal make of that ?

Categories
Climate Change Extreme Weather Media

The Church of Climate Change

Clue for the Climate Change “sceptics” (“skeptics”) who pass by here : The Reverend Billy is not an ordained minister, and his organisation is not part of a religious sect. Billy Talen is a “performance artist”.

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Climate Change

Entropy : One-Way Change

On the big red sofa with a highly intelligent polyglottal friend after a smoking vegan roast supper, discussing the notion of pricing Carbon Dioxide emissions, with some mint tea.

She said “like, ‘the Polluter pays’ ?”

“Yes”, I said, “that ‘Polluter pays principle’; except it should be ‘the Polluter pays to clean up’, but it doesn’t work like that. Either the corporates mess up and the governments take the money and don’t clean up; or the corporates mess up, pay the money, then try to recoup the cost from their customers, and don’t clean up; or they get told to clean up, but they don’t do a proper job.”

“It’s always so much more expensive to clean up environmental messes than to prevent them happening in the first place. It’s a Law of Physics – Entropy.”

Continue reading “Entropy : One-Way Change”
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Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Capture Climate Change Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change Technological Sideshow Voluntary Behaviour Change Wind of Fortune

Hot Start

Hot Start
by Jo Abbess
04 February 2010
An assessment of the technology and policy for de-Carbonising the Energy systems of developed societies

1. The Aligned and Related Risks from Climate Change and Peak Fossil Fuels

1a. Key Conclusions
The Low Carbon Transition in Energy in developed countries is inevitable (Climate Change Act, 2008; EU Package, 2008; UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol, 1997); yet policy thinking and decision-making seems to still focus on the debateable “how to do it” rather than the more essential “how long do we have ?” If the window of opportunity for industrialised society to de-Carbonise proves to foreshorten rapidly, then the next few decades could be a story of economic collapse, unless there is concentrated, concerted endeavour (Sustainable Business, 2010).

Continue reading “Hot Start”
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Big Picture Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Carbon Rationing Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Growth Paradigm Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Social Change

BP : After the Gas and Oil are Gone

Together with a couple of my peers, I’ve been taking a look at BP’s “sustainability”, both from a business point of view and from a Climate Change point of view.

We’ve just given a presentation, of which I offer you a couple of the slides and the script to accompany them.

The central point of issue is : what will BP do after the Gas and Oil are gone ? There may be decades of reasonable hydrocarbons left to exploit, but how will Pension Funds get their return on investment after that ? Where is the future thinking ?

And what about Climate Change ? Retreating from Alternative Energy back into its core business of Oil and Gas means that BP plc will not be able to make substantial cuts in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the products that they sell – which means that sooner or later, when Carbon Energy is rationed, their business will start to implode.

Continue reading “BP : After the Gas and Oil are Gone”
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Big Picture Climate Change

The Gospel According to NASA

Here at the Church of Holy Science, we believe the precept of Following the Truth of the Data, wherever that data leads us.

The two month period January to February 2010 was the (wait for it…) third warmest January-February out of the whole 131 years of the instrumental record.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. It was cold where I was, as well. But cold here does not mean cold everywhere.

Continue reading “The Gospel According to NASA”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Amazongate : Why Investigate ?

The Climate Change “sceptics” are calling it “Amazongate”. I’d rather like to rename it “Investigate”, because of the appalling lack of investigative journalism that surrounds latest news of the Science of the Amazon basin.

Why is it that so many mainstream newspapers repeat the same lazy accusation that somebody has uncovered “yet another error” in the IPCC report ? This looks like a flawed attempt to create a narrative of scandal, where there is actually nothing to find.

Many expert commentators have tried to explain that, yes, the IPCC had a couple of problems, where they have used information that was not peer-reviewed Science, and findings that other experts disagree with. But no, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report still stands, and is still the best statement that Sciencekind can give on the subject of Climate Change.

There is no evidence of the kind of wrongdoing in the work of the IPCC that the Climate Change “sceptics” claim. So why do the journalists carry on with the narrative of doubt ? Could it have something to do with the fact that they don’t check the facts ?

And why do most of the mainsteam news organisations take the same line, with the same sloppy thinking and poor arguments replicated in article after article ? Could it be that there is no investigative journalism left these days ?

Why does it have to fall to the independent web loggers to point out the facts ? Why can’t the newspapers at least hire Environment writers who have studied Climate Change Science ?

Continue reading “Amazongate : Why Investigate ?”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Amazongate : Media Entanglement

[ UPDATE 15 MARCH 2010 FROM JOABBESS.COM ]

There’s this crazy effect in sub-atomic Physics, where bits and bobs (to give them their proper names) get “quantum entangled” under certain scenarios, and can affect each other at a distance, immediately, without any apparent need of communication.

This effect seems to happen in the Media, too. Perhaps journalists talk to each other. They certainly all read the same Press Releases and draw research from each others’ articles.

This must explain why the Daily Telegraph repeats all the errors of other articles this week about the Amazon and Climate Change :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7437016/UN-climate-change-claims-on-rainforests-were-wrong-study-suggests.html

AND THE DAILY EXPRESS, OF COURSE :-

https://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/162987/Climate-fanatics-are-totally-wrong-about-rainforest-

“CLIMATE FANATICS ARE ‘TOTALLY WRONG’ ABOUT RAINFOREST : Climate fanatics are ‘totally wrong’ about rainforest : Monday March 15,2010”

Read my corruscating, scintillating, penetrating analysis of the “greeniness” of the Amazon, here :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/12/amazongate-redux-jonathan-leake-still-misguided/

Categories
Climate Change Eating & Drinking

Curry and Rice

The Royal Statistical Society publishes a truly readable magazine called “Significance”, and until today I hadn’t realised it’s available online.

The front cover of the March 2010 Volume 7 Issue 1 edition shows an artist’s mock-up of severe drought and the headline question is “After Copenhagen : What can be done ?”

Continue reading “Curry and Rice”
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Climate Change

They Put You On The Moon

NASA put you on the Moon, and they’ve been listening very carefully to their pinging satellites and they’re warning you about Climate Change. Are you going to listen to the clever Space guys and gals ?

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Climate Change

Extreme Science

https://www.youtube.com/user/ClimateHitsHome

I invite you to open your mind to the possibility that the “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States Report” is not based on political ideology but fairly conservative projections :-

https://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts

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Bait & Switch Climate Change

Fear and Loathing in Sceptico-Vision

I still cannot get my head around exactly why we need a House of Commons Inquiry into the “goings-on” at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

It’s not as if Professor Phil Jones has done anything wrong. In fact, he’s been behaving like any other productive and fruitful researcher, getting on with the work and trying to brush off unhelpful distractions, including a deliberate smear campaign.

OK, so he wrote a few contentious e-mails, using casual language and a frustrated tone. This was not Science, and should not be considered representative of his work. Take a look at his work, results of painstaking and in-depth analysis of raw data :-

https://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003RG000143.shtml

Continue reading “Fear and Loathing in Sceptico-Vision”
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Big Picture Climate Change Media

Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided

I was going to entitle this little web log post “Yet More Proof Journalists Can’t Read” but I thought that might seem a little too rude, and anyway, I wanted to be clear about the subject of the content of the post in the title, so I changed it.

I have just received an e-mail from Jonathan Leake of the Times of London and the Sunday Times. By order of his e-mail signature, I am not permitted to share entirely the contents of that e-mail with you, however, I can relate to you that it concerns the latest Climate Change “sceptic” bunkum story, to which you can find extensive reference plastered all over the Internet like some ugly, testosterone-fuelled teenage graffiti :-

https://news.oneindia.in/2010/03/12/amazonrain-forests-were-unaffected-from-once-in-a-centuryd.html

“Amazon rain forests were unaffected from once-in-a-century drought in 2005 : Friday, March 12, 2010”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311175039.htm

“New Study Debunks Myths About Vulnerability of Amazon Rain Forests to Drought : ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010)”

Continue reading “Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided”
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Climate Change Freak Science

Gravity Causes Global Warming

Oh yes, it does !

Without gravity, that strange attractive force that keeps chunks of solid matter, and even gas, falling towards each other, there would be no Atmosphere to speak of, because all the little Carbon Dioxide molecules, and Methane molecules and all the other little Greenhouse Effect Gases would all zither and wiggle off into Space and there would be no radiation trapping and no extra heating of the Earth’s surface.

There would be nothing to breathe or exhale, there would be no life, no fish, no trees, no puppy dogs, no lichen, no sunflowers, no Polar Bears, no humankind or human-unkind and all the injustices of History would just not have happened.

Mind you, if there were no gravity, imagine ! There would be no spinning around the Sun and no accretion of planets, so the Earth wouldn’t be here, either. And nor would the Sun. In fact, there wouldn’t be much of anything that we could call a Galaxy, if we were there, which we’re not.

And so you see, QED, quad erat demonstrandum, gravity causes Global Warming.

For challenges to this theorem, please annotate the Comments box below. Please keep it clean. I have to scrub messages of rudeness every day, and it’s tiring.

Categories
Climate Change

Let’s Do Some Science Communication

Imagine, if you will, that we can peer deep into a solid object, and looking very, very closely, smaller than the eye can actually see, we can begin to make out the internal structure of that object, and zooming even closer in, we find what appear to be the smallest things that make up this object.

Let’s call these things ATOMS.

That’s a bit of Ancient Greek (or Jain) philosophy, the theory of the atomisation of matter, the idea that there are small things that make up large things, and that these small things cannot be made any smaller. This is a fantastic theory, as it explains a lot of things that happen around us. In several thousand years, nobody has seriously been able to challenge this theory; however, it has undergone continuous refinement.

Besides ordinary solid objects there are also things that you can’t hold in your hands; things like light and heat and the little electric shocks you get when you comb really dry hair.

Heat appears to be what happens to ordinary solid objects when the tiny atomic parts are moving wider or further or faster. Most things expand but stay holding together when they get hotter, which confirms this idea. There are special cases, like water, which expands as it freezes, but that can be explained by thinking about how atoms move in relation to each other…

Anyway, back to light.

Light is a different matter altogether. It appears to be able to pass through some objects without changing radically. It travels very long distances without being stopped. It seems to cause ordinary matter to heat up. It doesn’t rest anywhere.

Continue reading “Let’s Do Some Science Communication”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Bringing Physics Into Disrepute

I first commented on the suspected link between the Institute of Physics and the noted Climate Change “sceptic” Piers Corbyn in a previous post :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/02/fred-pearce-still-crucifying-phil-jones/

One of my commentators challenged what I had written, so I edited it out, awaiting the opportunity to discover more.

More has now been uncovered; not my me, I hasten to add, but by another commentator :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/06/institute-of-physics-nosedive/#comment-600

Continue reading “Bringing Physics Into Disrepute”
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Advancing Africa Big Picture Climate Change Media

The Dutch Will Get Wet

When are the Media going to get their own School of the Environment, where all the journalists can come and learn the Science of Climate Change ?

The Times of London continues to mangle the facts, it seems to me; this time from the pen/fingers of Ben Webster, perhaps a Mini-Me version of that accreditable journalist Jonathan Leake :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7056173.ece

“[The IPCC]…also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim…”

I don’t think that quite pins it down accurately.

Continue reading “The Dutch Will Get Wet”
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Bad Science Climate Change Non-Science Political Nightmare Social Change

Zombie Climate Change Sceptic Arguments

Some bad ideas just won’t die.

Here’s Skeptical Science’s regularly updated list of the hottest and battiest Climate Change “sceptic” arguments :-

https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

And here’s the full, and updateable list of nearly 250 “sceptical” arguments that have been weighed in the balance and found erroneously wanting :-

https://www.skepticalscience.com/resources.php

Why do these arguments keep coming back from the grave with their great big evil green zombie eyes and their matted, bird’s nest zombie hair and their outstretched murderous arms ?

Who is promoting and protecting these vampire lies ?

Who are the stinking, rotting funders of disinformation on Climate Change ?

I think we should find out, and ask them to stop.

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change Political Nightmare Social Change

Permanent Session of the Climate Security Council

Ed Miliband put on his favourite suit, shirt and cufflinks today and ruminated at the Environmental Audit Committee in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom Parliament (all you Americans can stop reading now : none of what follows will concern you) :-

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=6084

One of his many views was that there should be a more permanent nature to the ongoing international Climate Change negotiations, and I entirely agree.

Ed Miliband said he didn’t think that there should be a “repeat” of what happened at the Copenhagen UNFCCC conference in December 2009. I also agree with that.

Goodness gracious me ! I find myself in agreement with Ed Miliband !

Categories
Big Picture China Syndrome Climate Change

Don’t You Just Love China ?

I really love China. It’s a country with noble ambitions, to protect and prosper its people, and to advance its economic development through trade across the world.

The rest of the world love China, too. They have outsourced all their manufacture, and other services such as recycling, to the powerhouse that is China, where the labour is cheap and the people work willingly.

Continue reading “Don’t You Just Love China ?”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations

Imagine There’s No Medicine

Imagine there’s no Medicine; no doctors, nurses, hospitals, surgeons, ward administrators, paramedics on bicycles in bright yellow and green jackets, ambulances, medical technology or pharmaceuticals. It’s not easy, even if you try. What would your life be like ? Pretty painful and quite possibly nastily shortened, I’d hazard.

There are people in the world who still do not have access to medical care (let’s think…all those Americans without basic health care insurance), so they know the grim realities of it all – but the reason I’m considering this is there could have been a point in human history where the development of Medicine was thwarted by sceptics and people with ulterior motives.

“You’re sick because you’ve sinned”, a portion of humanity used to believe; the wealthy throughout history have sometimes been keen for disease to wipe out the scum of the poor. Appeals to Nature and to God to explain sickness and accidental damage could have been followed by a refusal to care for or treat people – as it was not what the Laws of the Universe dictated.

Continue reading “Imagine There’s No Medicine”
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Bad Science Climate Change Non-Science

Open Season on Science

Like several commentators, I am picking out a trend in Internet communications that indicates that there is a tribe of “doubt believers” out there, proselytising for their cause : bringing down the Science of Climate Change.

These evangelists often write and reply to web posts with statements of alarmingly high confidence levels, assuming authority they cannot possibly claim, sometimes using anonymity to cloak their network connections.

Continue reading “Open Season on Science”
Categories
Climate Change Social Change

Earth Hour 2010

Earth Hour 2010 will be on Saturday 27 March 2010 20:30 8.30pm everywhere

Being involved in a collective effort may yet help the human race overcome its problem with excessive emissions.

It will look like the United Nations’ Climate Change Conferences, yet it will be an standing session, not just one fortnight a year. And it will be distributed over the entire world, not just in one location. And it will involve a whole lot more people than just official national delegates.

Help start the process by taking part in a token gesture of support for a cleaner, greener, cooler Earth : switch everything off for an hour on Saturday 27 March 2010, starting at 8.30pm 20:30 where you are, in your time zone :-

https://www.earthhour.org

https://earthhour.wwf.org.uk/

Remember, small gestures can be significant, momentous, even spiritual, if everybody gets involved.

Continue reading “Earth Hour 2010”