Earth Hour

Earth hour approaches for the United States, with enough participation in the shut off everything campaign, we would actually be able to hard-stop the electric grid.   How cool would that be!  Days of restarting, tens of millions in cost, now that would send a real message.  To um….someone.

I fully intend to ramp up our usage to do my part to offset the morons of the world.  The money isn’t important, the CO2 is less so, but the reality is that electrical energy availability is the single greatest advance of humanity in our entire history.   Our lifespans have improved so much over the last century that the stupid among us have forgotten why.

They really don’t remember. They cannot recall that people washed clothes with their hands or how important clean clothes are to our health.  They take for granted that the lights will go on after Earth hour is finished,  so we can learn, read, stay warm, play.  Our children used to be enslaved to menial labor that machines do now with a blink. They have forgotten how we used to burn whatever was in our reach for heat, light, dishes.  The fools have gone so far now that they actually walk to the control for the previously impossible convenience that they purchased themselves,  to turn it off and deprive themselves of the very thing they worked for!

I think we should protest food next.

Nothing in this world is dumber than limitation of energy production.   Contrary to public school belief, opposable thumbs are not what saved us from unquantified millennia of strife, the reality is that low cost energy was what saved us.  Were we humans a smarter people, we would look at our recent history and do everything in our  power to create more of the same.  Instead, we have public schools across the globe teaching our children that limitation and conservation are the way to the future.

E=mc^2!  We are surrounded by more energy than we could ever hope to use, yet CONSERVATION of energy is what we discuss!

There is the other side effect of cheap energy which goes unmentioned.   Cheap energy guarantees power to the individual instead of power to the government.  The ability to travel, the ability to communicate, pay for your health, stay warm.  Just what is the purpose of government in a world without energy shortage?  What do you need government for when everything is being manufactured and provided already?

I wonder if that explains the across-the-globe government resistance to industrial progress.

 

 

 

Roy Spencer finds Scientific Proof of UHI, Chooses blog post rather than formal publication.

McKitrick & Michaels Were Right: More Evidence of Spurious Warming in the IPCC Surface Temperature Dataset

How can one explain such results, other than to conclude that there is spurious warming in the CRUTem3 dataset? I already see in the comments, below, that there are a few attempts to divert attention from this central issue. I would like to hear an alternative explanation for such results.

I would love to write this work up and submit it for publication, but I am growing weary of the IPCC gatekeepers killing my papers; the more damaging any conclusions are to the IPCC narrative, the less likely they are to be published. That’s the world we live in.

Roy has given blanket permission to use his posts here but this is already being covered at WUWT and his blog linked above.

Extreme Opinions

From a Bob Ferguson email, here is a collection of links to today’s great denier story.   A key theme expressed at skeptic blogs including this one is that the climate extremes predicted for so many years doesn’t exist.  It seems that the IPCC was forced to admit that non-alarmists have been right all along.  Bob also attached a few other links from stories earlier this week.

Source and full stories here:  http://sppiblog.org/news/ipcc-confirms-we-do-not-know-if-the-climate-is-becoming-more-extreme

 1) IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme – Omnologos, 28 March 2012
2) The IPCC & A Handy Bullshit Button On Disasters and Climate Change – Roger Pielke Jr, 28 March 2012
3) Cold Feet: UK Government Halts Plan To Force Reporting Of GHG Emissions – Financial Times, 28 March 2012
4) Benny Peiser: Green Debate In Europe Has Reached ‘Deadlock’ – Public Service Europe, 28 March 2012
5) London Debate: EU Climate Policy – Priority or Backseat? – European Centre for Energy and Resource Security
6) Australia’s Green Agenda Unravelling – The Australian, 29 March 2012
7) Ashamed Of Their Work: Depressed Green Bureaucrats – The Sunday Telegraph, 25 March 2012

Icicles in my livingroom

This is a repost from Luboš Motl’s blog, the Reference Frame, with permission.   I read this when it was originally posted and believe that its message is far too often overlooked in the midst of the global warming alarmism.  In all likelihood, we will be working into an ice age in the next 10,000 years and the ice age will be far worse for our survival than any problems we can create by CO2 emission.  The Reference Frame’s post is based on a new blog (which I don’t know how Lubos found)  sporting the statisticy title “most-likely”.   Be careful with this one, it has some serious math behind it.  I recommend looking at the spreadsheet linked, although too much of the calculation is missing for my liking, it is very interesting and unlike AGW, does scare me!  Er, it scares my (kid’s kids)^20  anyway.

A very interesting model.

— Jeff

————-

Cross post from the Reference Frame with permission:

Next peak of ice age: year 60,000 AD

Glaciation cycles – swings of temperature that change the global mean temperature from a maximum to a minimum that differ almost by 10 °C and back – occur in quasiperiodic cycles with periodicities between 20,000 and 100,000 years or so. They may be reconstructed from the concentration of oxygen-18 in the Antarctic ice core.

The time goes to the left on the graph above. Note that the cooling is usually slower and the warming appears more abruptly. Concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are nicely correlated with the temperature. The reason is that warmer oceans can’t keep gases inside so well, so they release them after a few centuries when the ocean temperature adjusts to the land temperature.

Rational Environmenalism

I’ve had quite a bit of time to consider what I call rational environmentalism. There is a lifestyle that we live that I don’t believe we need to give back even one bit of comfort on. For instance, not showering when you want in order to save energy, cannot save enough energy to be worthwhile unless you are personally flat broke. Today in America, we have crossed that threshold of reasonable environmentalism into the realm of self-inflicted industrial harm, an area which the politicians of climate science are miserably bad at quantifying. Gas prices are a perfect example. With hundreds of different mixtures, all producing the same CO2 and similar emissions, certain blends have reached shortfall. Prices are therefore skyrocketing, as intended by the president along with supportive members of congress, and the result is a repression of personal lifestyles – for the low income earners. It also results in less jobs for the middle and high income earners but of course they go second.

Most of these effects are unnoticed by the public, as the circular fingerpointing can go on forever. The point should be to get back to what worked but that is not the subject of this post. I do believe in AGW although I’m unconvinced it is dangerous. At this point, I believe warming has been greatly beneficial – not just a little. Still, new energy sources will be found, new high-efficiency devices will be created, new paradigms of better living will occur. Notice I wrote will, rather than must. Even over-controlling government cannot stop it.

These sources will happen out of the general drive for people to make money and better lives for their families, whether we governmentally encourage them or not. This is one more aspect of the IPCC which is completely missing from the discussion. Do nothing IPCC scenarios don’t properly recognize the incentive that drives new energy exists without government. Sure, biofuel might not win, nor would solar implementation, but development and study is more than healthy. The failure of the self-appointed elite to notice the intellect of the masses has gone on since the beginning of human culture. Certainly, there is a lot of dumb in the world. Many people you meet can’t even grasp the simple concepts of a post like this yet there are enough in the world, degreed or not, who are not part of the elite, yet have the wherewithal, and more importantly, the intent to change the world.

This mass of self-improving public intellect set free to improve themselves, is what set America apart in the past. The result was NOT bad for the environment, although SWAG and others would beg to differ. Cleaner power, friendlier farming, better air, have all resulted from the excess profits of capitalistic society, yet we Americans live in an all encompassing media-sponsored message of guilt. Guilted to turn over rights, such that the completely fabricated possibility of global warming doom, doesn’t happen.

The worst part about extremist AGW, is that there is no solution to the problem. Infinite money can be spent, and we still cannot stop the emissions. If everyone on earth were made an instant millionaire for conserving their usage, none of our millions would be worth a sandwich because the economic flow would stop. Redistribution, does NOT work to create wealth.

The goal for the Super Warming Advocates Guild, in my opinion, should be much different than it is. Instead of trying to repress the lifestyles of those who they openly consider ‘overconsuming’, they should be focused on solutions with emphasis on minimal impact to the economy, and general funding of research into new energy. Research for energy, is entirely different than implementation of new energy, and is FAR different from blatantly false “all of the above” rhetoric. Implementation of fake solutions in the form of all of the above, is simply a swag at the true goal of repression of lifestyles. Either a solution works, or it doesn’t, there is not much middle ground.

Despite what the AGW alarmists sell, we can change energy production, without giving anything up. Not one penny. In fact, I fully believe the change will happen, with or without our intent.

Economically, nothing could be more important than providing endless cheap energy to society. The ability to ship, travel, heat and cool are paramount in the improved living standards of humanity. Any brief review of the history of energy reveals this.

The inventions of smelting, steam engines, liquid fuel IC engines, turbines, home electricity, pumped water, centrally retailed goods, all have worked to achieve a better lifestyle for the globe. Free to pursue new interests aside from feeding themselves, scientists study climate, medicine, physics, math, philosopy, etc. at their leisure. This was not possible at our present scale even 100 years ago. A true sign of the excesses of productivity.

From all of this, I truly believe a philosophy of limitation of energy, from any source, is very much counterproductive for the environment, for long-term limitation of CO2 emission, and for the quality of life of our children. I have seen no evidence which contradicts this thought process, and more telling, no evidence which makes a real attempt at it. The IPCC takes a very generalized swing though.

So what is rational environmentalism? It is the minimization of damage to our surroundings while prioritizing the collective health of our economic productivity. Maximizing our economy, naturally leads to maximization of technological growth.

Do you avoid eating meat? – Oh hell no. That’s crazy. Eat what you like and live your life. Cow farts do nothing ‘damaging’ to the environment and the very concept is ludicrous to the point of stupidity.
Do you avoid using paper? – No way! It is a farming industry like corn.
Do you build a solar powered home? No again. The cells take a lot of energy to make and are often dirty. They also cost more than the energy they make. Why? Well if you want to do it, sure, but there is little reason. Wait 20 years and we will all change our minds.
Do you build a more efficient home? Sure, if you have the option, this is cheap and saves cash. Insulation, smart design, can all lead to improved lifestyle and save money. Smart stuff.
Do you buy energy efficient lighting? Sometimes it makes sense, others, it does not. If you heat your house around the clock, the old light emitting incandescent heatball, is hard to beat for efficiency.
What about a green clothes dryer? No way. Water requires a certain amount of energy to evaporate. Use the power.

The whole environmentally friendly decision process I personally recommend boils down to whether you can maintain, or improve your lifestyle, while changing how you live. Our company sells energy efficient products. We sell them on longevity and quality, the efficiency is just another bonus. We are all amused that our company has saved more CO2 than Michael Mann or Jim Hansen ever will. Sure they may have influenced the public, but we have designed, produced, sold and distributed actual product in large quantity. Our customers usually don’t even think about the CO2 they are saving, but they are happy about the secondary savings from lower energy usage.

When you are choosing to conserve, I hope you consider that the saving of CO2 emissions may have NO positive impact on the environment. Despite the known warming signal, the percentage of natural vs CO2 warming is unknown, and not one single instance of environmental damage has ever been directly attributed to the fraction of a degree C we have experienced.

Nothing.

Also, when you choose to recycle, consider that Waste Management makes billions sorting garbage for the good stuff already. When you choose to buy recycled paper, you are driving down the cost of pulp from fresh trees, sustainably farmed everyday, by capitalist necessity, across the world. Sure a few areas are treating their forests poorly, but when they lose their production, the process stops and the trees grow back.

Conservation is a complicated sport which most people get wrong in my opinion. Instead of conserving usage, we should be focused on conserving low cost production and directing some of that profit toward more efficient technologies, expansion of a better way of life across the globe, while insuring that obvious damage to the environment is minimized. By obvious, I mean things like chemical spills, river pollution, particulate emission, etc. If you are a believer in destructive warming, you and I have a big difference of opinion and one of us is wrong, but my point is that by stopping limitation policy and allowing the global economy to continue, technology will develop far faster and we all will realize a new paradigm in energy production far more rapidly than if we pursue the government forced policies of limitation. Less NET CO2 will be emitted and we can all go back to fighting about the important stuff like whether we evolved from monkeys or whether we should be able to defend ourselves in our homes.

Green Climate Fund

Does anyone here really think that annually handing four times the GDP of North Korea to a bunch of unelected individuals, who exist completely outside of the law, could cause any problems at all?

It sounds like something straight from a science fiction novel.

WUWT is covering this now.  — finally 😉

It is beyond imagination that the request to be immune from law for a giant eco-fund, isn’t front page news for everyone.  These are people who have NO respect for personal property rights, and no respect for industry whatsoever.    Giving them no oversight, would be an insanity beyond anything we have seen out of the UN to date.  Even the request for no-oversight, should be enough to start the investigation.

Is there NO common sense anymore?

 

 

Green Climate Fund Deserves Double 0 Status

You have to wonder why Fox News would make a big deal about a UN created international fund of a hundred billion dollars per year, having complete immunity from national law.  This shouldn’t even be news IMHO. The fund is to protect the Earth, it shouldn’t have to pay taxes, or operate inside the whims and quirks of national governments.

Green climate fund – protectors of Earth.

The Green Climate Fund, which is supposed to help mobilize as much as $100 billion a year to lower global greenhouse gases, is seeking a broad blanket of U.N.-style immunity that would shield its operations from any kind of legal process, including civil and criminal prosecution, in the countries where it operates.

Mother Earth has rights too and so far, nobody is standing up for them. The Fox News idiots act like the earth doesn’t own its own property.

In the case of something like the GCF, this is “an issue of extending privileges and immunities to property rights,” in the opinion of Allan Meltzer, a distinguished professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University. “And these privileged people will not necessarily protect the property rights of others,” he adds.

It is for the good of the planet though. If we don’t take a stand to protect the Earth, the Earth has no reason to protect us. This is only 0.15 PERCENT of global GDP. We can do better people! We must do better.

Why shouldn’t those tasked with protecting the Earth, be properly protected from human laws?! They are doing the good work for all of mankind, giving guidance, funding, and technology, to the poor nations who are most affected by climate change. We cannot expect Zimbabwe to stand up on its own, without the help of rich nations, to the problems created by those same RICH nations.

The propaganda spread by Fox News drives me crazy.

No Time

Sorry folks but I am way to busy for blogging right now.   Perhaps I will get something useful up tonight but political venting is boring now and I want to work more with sea ice  – sorry to all SWAG members for both points.

 

 

Capitalism, Probability, and The Second Law of Human Dynamics

Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” is in sharp contrast to, “all men are created equal.”

Both concepts are inherently similar, yet have stark differences. Both pre-define humanity with a fundamental understanding. Both have the best of humanity in their intent.

One of the two says – Government can equitably chose both individual ability, and need, based on rational, careful, considered observation. The other conveys simply, that government cannot. The second, more simple statement, is more insidious in nature. Far more cold and devious in fact. Instead of saying, “Here is your comfortable and/or livable future which we guarantee”, capitalism says, “Here are a set of equitable rules. Good luck! We the people, hope very much that you find your way”.

Which is more accurately representative of our human nature?

As solidly factual as the second law of Thermodynamics, Capitalism has a fundamental motivation. Embedded in the meaning of the now-ancient American message is, “give us a ‘governmentally’ equitable opportunity to succeed, and on average, more of us will.”  Like hot and cold, the net flow of success will be maximized. It is as much a part of our intrinsic nature as the unstoppable second law of thermal energy.

Across the globe, we must realize by now that sentence wasn’t written by morons. At this point in history, the most control centered person cannot ignore the incredible effect of that first sentence of the US Declaration of Independence on global lifestyle. Give freedom to succeed to everyone, and the poorest of ability, also gain success. A maximization of the collective, through freedom of self-improvement for the individual.

Capitalist freedom is  by no means a friendly message, as there is NO guarantee. None for me, none for you, none for even Bill Gates or Elon Musk. In the truest sense, capitalists are individual quanta in a sea of tough love. If Elon Musk keels over tomorrow, he will have left a fire hot source of economic development in his wake. The entropy of which has had a positive effect on the wealthy and poorest of our society, and he did it in America because our government didn’t remember to say, “NO, you may not create a bank, or a ‘stupid fast’ and overpriced short range car, or launch giant explosive cylinders into the sky!”

Like thermodynamics, the capitalist contribution of motivated and wrong-direction individuals (money losing quanta) always contribute to the whole economic energy (temperature) and by the guaranteed laws of probability, are offset by the gains of the successful attempts.  Do you think Elon might be working at 9 pm or is he watching Oprah network with the leftist couch dwelling minions of welfare?

So in the Scientific American article linked above, the intellectually elite writer (Gary Stix  – likely also not working) failed to recognize what makes us human, and decides the ‘answer’ to the coming global warming, isn’t to understand how to work with human nature but rather to fundamentally change human nature. How insane is that!  The mechanism he chooses is as unimaginative as you might expect – build a powerful global government that no human can possibly resist.

How do we overcome our hard-wired tendency to “discount” the future: valuing what we have today more than what we might receive tomorrow? Would any institution be capable of instilling a permanent crisis mentality lasting decades, if not centuries? How do we create new institutions with enforcement powers way beyond the current mandate of the U.N.?

He continues his un-inventive solution to save the world with ever greater clarity.  This guy should have a blog!

But they have never taken on a challenge of this scale, recruiting all seven billion of us to act in unison. The ability to sustain change globally across the entire human population over periods far beyond anything ever attempted would appear to push the relevant objectives well beyond the realm of the attainable. If we are ever to cope with climate change in any fundamental way, radical solutions on the social side are where we must focus, though.

Anyway, read the article linked above at your own risk. Like many on the intellectual left, Gary has no understanding of how the world actually works.  Also, like far too many on the left, he has a well-funded megaphone.

I wonder why blogs like this are still winning the argument?

Conservative Fantasy World

On the last thread Kevin O’Neill left this post.

Conservatives live in a fantasy world. Their myths are etched in stone and actual facts can never sway them from their beliefs.

For instance: “Per Capita Government Spending by President: Ranking since Johnson (starting in 1968), and using the first-quarter comparisons, and calculating growth under Obama through 2011Q4, Clinton is the most austere, followed by Obama. The most spendthrift are (1) Nixon-Ford, (2) Reagan, and (3) Bush II. ”

Now, can a conservative deal with those facts? No. They stick to their myth that liberals are the big spenders. Yet history tells us that Democratic Presidents have been *far* more fiscally responsible than Republicans.

Kevin left an unsourced link to a chart which doesn’t seem to match federal budget data. Whether his graph is true or not, spending increases are not the same as deficit spending which is America’s true problem. When you can’t pay your bills, his point is a non-sequitor. If we actually had the money to pay for Obama’s programs, we would be having an entirely different discussion. Either way, as one of those ‘fantasy world’ conservatives. it seems necessary to take a few minutes to correct the record.

From the budget of the US government, the data is easily downloaded. I still wish more people would look at the data themselves rather than trust some leftist newspaper or even a blog. I may have made some mistakes here after all.

Below is the budget deficit by President. I wonder if anyone (on the left) can see any differences?

Now there are all kinds of things wrong with the federal numbers. Certain Military spending and the economic bailouts for instance are not included. Obama has actually spent far MORE than what is shown here. This economic bailout is a post for another blogger but if you are a liberal, and haven’t explored the nature of Obama’s theft and redistribution of wealth under the guise of a bailout, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.

High gas prices have always been part of the plan

For those with short memories.

Obama – “energy prices would necessarily skyrocket.”

While cap and trade auto-corruption scheme didn’t make the cut, gutting production doesn’t do terribly badly either. I recently heard the stat that the US used to produce 10 million barrels a day and now produces 6. I don’t have time to check the stat. With such massive reserves as we have, this is an insanity forced on us by the envirowhacko left.

We’re still using the oil, there can only be one reason why we don’t use our own. I really hope Americans start paying attention to people who would do something good for the country rather than the constant stupidity this albatross of a government represents. They are killing our future, one stupid policy at a time.

Sea Ice – Overlapping Satellite Record Analysis

Despite criticisms from the super warmist advocacy guild (aka SWAG), this post is a continuation of our investigation into  sea ice from the satellite data.  I have never thoroughly vetted the knitting of satellite data from the 5 satellites which form the curves “n07″,”f08”, “f11”, “f13” and  “f17” are the designators.  Unfortunately, the task is quite daunting in that necessary data to do it thoroughly is not readily available on line.  Still, we can start with what we have, so to that end,  I have re-written the sea ice code again, this time the anomaly is taken over the whole range and leap years are accounted for.   It still isn’t terribly clean but it is improving.

Craig Loehle – 10 US Climate Disasters Which are NOT happening

We all know the media constantly reports the standard climate change mantra of increased storms, droughts, flooding, warming, cooling and basically anything they can find and attribute it to climate change – by man.  Craig Loehle wrote an interesting post on WUWT which calls out what I describe as the 10 major lies of IPCC climate science.  Despite the known – complete lack of damage – caused by global warming, they still insist we shut down CO2 based energy production NOW!

What is a ‘known’ looming disaster is the pending economic strife, poverty and starvation which will be created by these environmentally false policies.  As the fat scientific coffers explode with money, those unbiased people demand we listen to the consensus duma, it is for our own good.  They know best.

Hu McCulloch – Climate Audit

I finally had time to read Hu McCulloch’s guest post at CA on Mann’s fancy new book. His reveiw shows more of that Mannian honesty we’ve all come to know and love.  My reading of it brings up some of my favorite history at Climate Audit.

Good stuff

Taminos Trick

Tamino has his crowd all whipped up about sea ice.  He has done two posts now declaring how stupid I, Anthony Watts, and by association, all of you, are.   Sorry folks, it was a drive-by incident! For him, I’m not enough of a believer and for others, I’m too much. Is it is a good sign when you get it from all angles? Either way, he has made deliberately erroneous claims in an attempt to discredit this blog, and WUWT, which I suppose means we have struck a nerve.

The first thing I would like to clarify is my opinion on sea ice in general. Like many readers here, I have read a large number of papers on the topic, unlike most, I have also taken the time to download and plot satellite Sea Ice data, replicated the trends and examined sea ice on a regional basis. With help, I have identified evidence of minor trend inducing error and will soon be looking at how the online satellite data is knitted together during transitions. From all of these many hours of time, I’m completely unconvinced that man made global warming is causing very much of the observed sea ice decline. I’m also willing to be wrong but the literature appears to support that a substantial portion of the Northern hemisphere decline is caused by a weather pattern change in the Arctic. This opinion is reasonably standard in the mainstream although it is often mixed with the claim that warming weakened the ice and allowed it to flow out of the polar region. The possibility that warming or weather are primary causes of the declining sea ice creates a need for disaggregation. Of course the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive so there is a lot of room for some combination of a variety of factors to be the cause. We also know that something the believers often conveniently forget is that not all warming is CO2 based.

So with all of that said, I don’t think that the effect man is having on the globe is detectable in the ice trend.  Detectable being statistically differentiable. That is very different from whether a trend can be detected or whether a trend is caused by natural warming. In his recent two posts, Tamino (aka Dr. Grant Foster) mixes everything together in what has been a successful attempt to whip up his followers. Unlike the Air Vent and WUWT, his crowd is comprised primarily of non-technical readers who often jump at any statement they can find with literally zero understanding of why or what they are attacking.

So, if you have a region like the Arctic, where sea ice is often, but not always, multi-year and that ice is being affected by being either pushed out of the region and melting, simply warming and melting or some combination, and you want to understand the trend in ice levels for the globe caused by surface temperature warming, then disambiguation of the effects is necessary. Therefore measuring ice which melts completely and re-forms annually should provide a cleaner temperature signal than a region reacting to something else.

To that end I made the plot below from gigabytes of satellite data which identified 72 degrees North Latitude as the line where multi-year ice is nearly non-existent. Layman Lurker confirmed this latitude independently (and with less effort) before I finished. Now “nearly non-existent” is different from “completely non-existent” but not by much (see how that works!). Engineers and scientists often approximate things but some in Tamino’s crowd show their inexperience and called this as an error despite having no evidence.

So I then added up all of the single year sea ice south of 72 North latitude in the Northern and Southern hemisphere, plotted all of it including the pole-hole part left out, and referred to it as global single year ice. Unfortunately, the global ice didn’t have enough trend for Tamino (wasn’t quite 95% significant) and he completely wigged. (“Wigged”, is a psychiatric term used to describe the reaction of believers when they discover something is unhelpful to the “cause”. ) What he did to “fight back” was misrepresent the work and show a ridiculous annual refreeze plot in the North region implying that somehow that is equivalent. That was Grant Fosters trick on his readers, who were unwilling or unable to point out the deception. Several of them fell for it completely and their acerbic comments went uncorrected by Grant.