Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H.L.Mencken
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) failed to prove human CO2 is causing global warming as evidenced by their incorrect projections. Their hypothesis said global temperature would rise as CO2 levels increased. It hasn’t for 15+ years. It doesn’t matter where the heat went, their hypothesis that human CO2 is driving temperature and climate is disproved. The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.
CO2 was the premeditated IPCC target because it was the exhaust of industrialized developed nations. Maurice Strong said those nations were the problem for the planet and it’s our responsibility to get rid of them? Show their exhaust is causing runaway warming and you achieve the goal. The IPCC failure means CO2 and climate lost their potential as the vehicle for political change. What’s next?
Exploitation of fear about environmental problems kept shifting from ozone depletion, acid rain, desertification, rainforest destruction, global warming, sea level rise, climate change, and climate crisis, among others. In Farad Manjoo’s[1] post-fact society, water, like all previous environmental issues is used to push an ideology or political agenda with experts providing the ‘facts’. A synopsis of his book wonders,
“Why has punditry lately overtaken news? Why do lies seem to linger so long in the cultural subconscious even after they’ve been thoroughly discredited? And why, when more people than ever before are documenting the truth with laptops and digital cameras, does fact-free spin and propaganda seem to work so well?”
Once the problem is falsely established, control is not far behind. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) needs a replacement. It must be a natural global resource, little understood by most so they can easily mislead transcend national boundaries and quickly raise passions and concerns. The target, water, is already in play.
Figure 1
UNEP, the agency that brought you Agenda 21 and the IPCC established The International Decade for Action ‘WATER FOR LIFE’ 2005-2015. On the 20th anniversary of World Water Day UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said, “Water holds the key to sustainable development,” “We must work together to protect and carefully manage this fragile finite resource.” The UN established a base of declining water quality, not of quantity, as shown in Figure 1. The focus is quality because there are no water shortages. There are regions of deficit and surplus, which change over time.
Environment Canada (EC) produced the map information, but their credibility is close to zero because of involvement in the IPCC from the start. (Notice “Insufficient data” is the largest region.) EC Assistant Deputy Minister Gordon McBean chaired the founding meeting of the IPCC in Villach, Austria in 1985. He was also instrumental in creation of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) that provided most of the IPCC 2007 Report on that region. It is a very inadequate Report.
Recently Gregory showed on Watts Up With That how EC’s climate model is the worst of any used by the IPCC. EC display their failures on their web page. Figure 2 shows their 12 month precipitation forecast on the top half and a map of the accuracy of previous forecasts on the bottom. Notice it is ”Not significantly better than chance” for over 90 percent of the map. Publishing these results shows either an incomprehensible level of arrogance or knowledge they won’t be held accountable.
Figure 2
As a climatologist I learned early that droughts are the most devastating climate events. One list of the top 20 world weather disasters of the 20th century illustrates the point. Two extremes dominated, first drought and second flooding. This led to teaching a Water Resources course at university for 20+ years. I served on the Manitoba Water Commission for 17 years resolving water conflicts. I was appointed Chair of the Assiniboine River Management Advisory Board charged with developing a management strategy for an entire drainage basin. The need was triggered by the severe drought of 1988/89 that produced the lowest flow on the river in 90+ years of record. Fortuitously, the river’s highest flow occurred just six years later, providing the basis for planning for natural extremes.
Figure 3
Water is not lost, only taken out of the Water Cycle (Figure 3) in one place and returned elsewhere. Like with the Carbon Cycle, we have virtually no measures of any segment. I discussed the limitations of precipitation data previously. They are worse for river flows, lake volumes or any other water data.
At the 2011 Heartland Institute Sixth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, DC somebody asked about the next major environmental scare. I said, overpopulation would continue as the underlying theme, as it has from Malthus to the Club of Rome (COR) to Agenda 21, but water was the next target.
Malthus argued population would outgrow food supply. The COR argued it would outgrow all resources accelerated by industry, hence the demonizing of CO2 to achieve Maurice Strong’s goal. Paul Ehrlich linked food and water in his completely flawed book The Population Bomb. The COR listed water third after pollution and global warming as its target in the 1991 publication The First Global Revolution.
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
In UN’s Agenda 21 it’s a separate category in Chapter 18 – The Water Page.
18.3. The widespread scarcity, gradual destruction and aggravated pollution of freshwater resources in many world regions, along with the progressive encroachment of incompatible activities, demand integrated water resources planning and management.
It’s a false claim, like most assumptions made when environment and science are used for a political agenda. However, if the science doesn’t work there’s the standard fall back of the precautionary principle covered in Agenda 21, Principle 15.
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
They define “lack of full scientific certainty” and it becomes a conflict between genuine uncertainty and what is required to promote the political agenda.
All the terminology familiar to the CO2 issue is now in use for water. The Water Footprint of a product is the volume of freshwater appropriated to produce the product, taking into account the volumes of water consumed and polluted in the different steps of the supply chain. Like the Carbon Footprint it is a totally contrived and meaningless measure, but allows environmental guilt finger pointing.
Peak Oil was created to imply we were running out of the resource – as the COR Limits to Growth predicted. The term Peak Water has been put forward as a concept to help understand growing constraints on the availability, quality, and use of freshwater resources. Neither “Peak” is valid.
World Water Day was established at Rio 1992 but implemented first on 22 March 1993. On Water Day June 2012 in conjunction with Rio +20 they identified the following objectives as they already knew climate change was not unfolding as they predicted.
• Demonstrate to the broad range of stakeholders, particularly decision makers, that some of the major challenges facing humanity today relate to water management; this will be based on findings of the major UN-Water reports.
• Identify major water issues that connect with the themes of the Rio+20 Conference, particularly its link with the notion of green economy.
• Focus on the means of implementation, especially the action areas where UN organizations and agencies can act together through UN-Water.
These are similar global policy directions and takeovers promoted by the IPCC through the Summary for Policymakers (SPM).
In the US recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began the process of control over water similar to the one they followed for CO2. One commentator says this is ongoing.
A full scale attack by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to take control of all water from any source whatsoever is under way. What these agencies are attempting is an end run around water and land rights. These agencies are constructing regulations and fictional jurisdictional control.
Calling it carbon then defining it as a pollutant created deliberate confusion over CO2. The Canadian government listed it as a toxic substance – the terminology changes to suit the legal definitions in place. The EPA defined it as a “harmful substance” and arranged for the US Supreme Court to agree on that term thereby giving them control. The focus with water is quality under existing laws.
According to senior EPA officials, the rule, crafted by both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, will provide greater clarity about which waters are subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction and greater certainty about which activities require CWA permits.
Environmentalism was a necessary new paradigm hijacked by a few for a political agenda. The goal was political control with subjugation of individuals and their rights to a world government through the UN. Elaine Dewar, author of The Cloak of Green explained,
“Strong was using the U.N. as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.”
Neil Hrab wrote,
“What’s truly alarming about Maurice Strong is his actual record. Strong’s persistent calls for an international mobilization to combat environmental calamities, even when they are exaggerated (population growth) or scientifically unproven (global warming), have set the world’s environmental agenda.”
Strong appeared to achieve his goal with CO2 through the UN, particularly the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that gave the IPCC effective control of national weather agencies and therefore national policy. Global warming seemed like an easy control agenda until nature took over. Instead of acknowledging their science was wrong the UNEP, IPCC and national environment agencies simply moved the goalposts to climate change and more recently to climate crisis. Now that is failing a move to a new goalpost, water, is underway to pursue the real objective – total control. As always it is cloaked in righteousness (green). Who could oppose a desire for clean air or water?
[1] Manjoo, F., 2008, True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-fact Society.
It is VERY important for people to realise that there IS NOT, and NEVER CAN BE, a ‘water shortage’.
There are cubic kilometers of water for every person on the planet, and there always will be, because water just passes through people. It is never destroyed when it is consumed.
What there can be, and often is, is a shortage of water storage, processing and distribution infrastructure. This, of course, is not a real ‘shortage’ – it is a lack of investment. If we had the money (a small amount of what is being spent on AGW) we could provide water in abundance for every person on the planet, and no one need go short.
However, green plans involve NOT investing in new water infrastructure, but rather making people live with less water than they currently use. In the UK the EU is requiring people to use 20% less water – and the UK government are enforcing this simply by not building any new reservoirs as the population expands.
This is madness, but when you complain about it you are told that you ‘have to save water’. You don’t. Water is never destroyed. All you are doing if you don’t use so much of it is saving the water companies investment budget….
They’re dropping the CO2 meme because they knew all along it was all wet.
The Menken quote was absolutely spot-on. I feel certain that, if he were alive today, he would be laughing himself silly. It reminds me, sadly, of the old saying about the “leading cause of death” — even if the top 10, 50,heck 100 “leading causes” were successfully eliminated, there would always be another danger from which we *must* be protected. (“Leading cause of death now identified as slipping on wet leaves and falling on a random garden implement, during a weekend, in the months between September and November. Women and the poor most at risk.”) As a full-time freelance writer, I find myself baffled by the challenge presented me — I don’t seem to have the imagination to top any of this. I should just pack it in and do something easy, like be a scientist. I understand they are issued cool white lab coats and get to go on television.
Experience says that this “green” nonsense will slow down (but not stop) progress. To be sure, many will die because of “green” policies, policies that will enrich a new breed of charlatans. However, humanity will work around them all and will be better off tomorrow than it is today.
Dr. Ball: “.. moved the goalposts to climate change and more recently to climate crisis.”
I always saw it that the last of those was moving the goalpost fro ‘weather’ to ‘climate crisis.’ They’re synonymous in either case.
Bryan Johnson: “It reminds me, sadly, of the old saying about the “leading cause of death””
In software engineering, there’s an interesting discussion about this. If you keep going after the biggest flaws, you eventually get a system where all flaws are equally flawed. And from there where do you go? The solution in politics has been to go after causes of death that aren’t leading. That keeps a handy leading cause about for any time your poll numbers are sagging.
” I understand they are issued cool white lab coats and get to go on television.”
Even better if you thereafter put on a strange looking hat. Then they issue you a bullet-proof car, millions of loyal fans, and call you the Pope.
PLEASE team, be aware that we are talking about the crisis which will result from severe
mal-distribution of DHMO. DHMO must be regulated, as any fool already knows. Now, the UN has, at long last, recognized the DMHO issue as the priority it should always been.
Texas is leading the way, with a proposed constitutional amendment, prop six, to replumb excess from “rainy day” capacity into DHMO sequestration areas. Millions of dollars are being spent to persuade Texas voters to commit B -with-a-BIG-BEE billions of dollars to this heretofore unconstitutional goal. It’s somewhat odd for certain “coastal” thinkers (who don’t acknowledge Texas has a coast of its own) to consider that Texas might be in the historical vanguard of the political management of DHMO. But there it is.
We need to remember that the West, especially the US, is where the Marxian criteria of reaching a stage of technological development that would supposedly allow redistribution was met. Rather than admit the Governed/Governors/Redistribution to Latin America and Africa gambit, the bureaucrats just keep coming up with excuses of why administration via the OECD and the UN is necessary. And the rationales need to extend beyond nation-stat borders and thus require international administration by bureaucrats who can tout their links to local (ICLEI), state (eco devt schemes with China usually), and national.
Water also pulls in the desire to build regional societies around river watersheds instead of state or national boundaries. Like Cascadia extending into British Columbia. The Great Transition docs tied to the Stockhol Environmental Institute and its US arm, the Tellus Institute, outline 3 type of societies in the 21st century-Acadia built around self-sufficient communities built around watersheds is one of them. It may sound pie-in-the sky and it is but the OECD is using ed to try to create Mindsets in children that all these Statist controls and plans are necessary to Save the Planet.
The Low Band of the UN Population Survey is the only one that’s ever been close to accurate, and usually at the low edge. It now shows peaking at ~<8bn. in 30 years, declining thereafter, indefinitely. Absent Huxley's cloning vats or transhumanist antisenescence discoveries, the problem by 2100 will be depopulation, not over-population.
Countries far and wide need to start electing Libertarian types as their leaders who won’t be afraid to pull the plug completely on these ongoing scams. They also won’t be afraid to turf the UN and order them all out of their countries so that real prosperity can take place and freedoms restored.
The Republicans have to move considerably to the right or the TEA Party message is really going to start to resonate among regular people in the coming years.
For those inclined to demand credentials, it should be noted that Dr. Ball’s in this subject, as with Climate Science in general, clearly exceed and trump those of the UN sock puppets.
Ground water and surface water management would be a much better use of our tax dollars than tracking/attacking CO2.
Far easier to blame the bill paying population for water shortage than privatised companies for failing to invest in water resource infrastructure. The UK govts allowed the population to be increased through unchecked immigration, but doesn’t negotiate with the water companies to build more reservoirs.
There is no shortage of rainfall at the moment, so the issues will be ignored, until we have a dry spell.
Resources, especially water, have been fought over for centuries. Wars (large and small) have been waged over them.
Premise: When competition for resources is on the political agenda, war is not far behind.
Full disclosure: I am a shooter. I’ve been in a war, and I have killed. I don’t look forward to participating in another. Unfortunately, warfare over ideology, resources, etc. is what we as a species do, despite the wishes of various groups, and in many cases because of the wishes of various groups.
That said, I’m quite certain that warfare will continue to be waged into the foreseeable future and beyond. It will come to every nation and every continent, including the USA, in the future as it has in the past. Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I met Maurice Strong in the 1970s when I was a mineral economist with Canada’s Energy Mines and Resources department. He had just been appointed the first president of Petrocanada, a government owned oil company and he was being courted by the director of the division I worked for. He had come from launching UNEP and this new job was the beginning of his becoming a billionaire. He just seemed like a well connected civil servant at the time. Petrocanada’s HQ in Calgary was (is?) a rich red brick high rise with about an acre of red brick plaza around it. It was affectionately known as “Red Square” in the oil industry at the time. He blossomed into a world control freak after that gig. He’s ~85 – hopefully his water use isn’t far from over.
tallbloke: “There is no shortage of rainfall at the moment, so the issues will be ignored, until we have a dry spell.”
Interesting you should say that. In Colorado, for example, catching rain water in a bucket is illegal as it infringes on water usage rights. In the classic sense of ‘you took too much upstream to be permitted by those downstream.’
Either last year or the year before, I saw a report of the CBS evening news about possible problems with the earth’s supply potable fresh water. I knew right then and there the econs had their next scare when the CAGW fad passed. I don’t remember, but I might (or might not) have commented on it on this website. I guess in a few years the name of this website will be wetsupwiththat.com.
It will always be some environmental catastrophe that only de-modernizing and heavy taxation can fix. A leopard cannot change his spots, a tiger cannot change his stripes, and these people cannot change who they are.
“Demodernising” is exactly the goal. Not to sound too much of a conspiracy-minded observer (although I’m often enough accused of that), but aren’t the people who want *any* human influence on the earth to be banned — reversed — following a goal of the return of humans to a paleolithic level of hunter-gatherer civilization? It seems so, to me.
You could also include food as an item of control because there is a global attempt to improve people’s behavior towards food waste
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
illiterate.
The following treatise explains the rationale supporting global warming extremism – and it’s not about the environment.
In just a few more days it will be the 24th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall was opened on November 9, 1989.
Five months earlier, in July 1989 I had travelled through the Wall via Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin
I was with colleagues on a business trip. It was not a fun trip , but it was highly educational. East Berlin and East Germany were everything Ronald Reagan said they were – repressive, backward, and evil – families were spying on each other and ratting to the Stasi, the dreaded East German Secret Police. We left a day earlier than planned – none of us could stand the place any longer.
The reason I raise this point is that Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, made particular mention of the fall of the Berlin Wall in this essay written in 1994 – see paragraph 2 below.
Keep in mind that I am not saying this, rather I am quoting Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace – but I tend to accept his analysis.
For more evidence, read http://www.green-agenda.com/
Regards, Allan
***************
[excerpt]
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agenda by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environmentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable development” and took a strong “anti-development” stance.
Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments.
These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are:
• It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a “cancer” on the face of the earth.
The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology; that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be “good” if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population.
• It is anti-technology and anti-science. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural’. The Sierra Club’s recent book, “Clearcut: the Tragedy of Industrial Forestry”, is an excellent example of this perspective. “Western industrial society” is rejected in its entirety as is nearly every known forestry system including shelterwood, seed tree and small group selection. The word “Nature” is capitalized every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the trees”. Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.
• It is anti-organization. Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental movement itself. Corporations are criticized for taking profits made in one country and investing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to local communities. Where is the international environmental movements allegiance to local communities? How much of the money raised in the name of aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to helping loggers thrown out of work by environmental campaigns? How much to research silvicultural systems that are environmentally and economically superior?
• It is anti-trade. Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas – – too bad. Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the importance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems it is absurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbours. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia.
• It is anti-free enterprise. Despite the fact that communism and state socialism has failed, eco-extremists are basically anti-business. They dislike “competition” and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone engaging in private business, particularly if they are successful, is characterized as greedy and lacking in morality. The extremists do not seem to find it necessary to put forward an alternative system of organization that would prove efficient at meeting the material needs of society. They are content to set themselves up as the critics of international free enterprise while offering nothing but idealistic platitudes in its place.
• It is anti-democratic. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liberal representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-centered”. In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species” we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” would “answer to no one but Mother Earth herself”.
• It is basically anti-civilization. In its essence, eco-extremism rejects virtually everything about modern life. We are told that nothing short of returning to primitive tribal society can save the earth from ecological collapse. No more cities, no more airplanes, no more polyester suits. It is a naive vision of a return to the Garden of Eden.
**************
Cutting down trees is a very effective way of creating a water shortage.
1. Trees keep soil and air humid .
2. Trees intercept rain and reduce intensity of rain . Often rain intensity is greater than percolation rate , so run off occurs.
3. Rapid surface water flow Water run erodes soil and especially removes organic rich topsoil. Organic material helps to hold water.
4. Material from tree provides food for fungi which holds water in soil.
5. Providing cheap kerosene means people do not have to cut trees down to provide fuel for fire -major source of deforestation.
6. Increased CO2 causes deeper rooting of plants which makes them cope with less water .
Support planting of trees, affordable kerosene and increased CO2 in atmosphere will increase plant growth, rainfall in most drier areas and help to increase percolation of water into the ground.
Warmer, increased CO2 and more humid climate will increase plant growth and help to feed a growing population.
Satellites have shown a noticeable greening of sub Saharan Africa which means food for humans. As the fertile regions are probably reaching maximum production, any increase in crop yield from the much larger areas of lower fertility grassland ,Savannah and semi-desert will greatly help-after CO2 is often pumped into green houses!.
Decades ago, David Stephen, author of “String Lug the fox”, guardian of a nature reserve near Cumbernauld and friend of Marquis the wolf (who caught crows by twitching his tail to attract them until they were close enough to catch) said that the next great crisis for humanity would be over the availability of water.
He wasn’t talking about the total amount available, he was talking about the availability to people with regard to the control of supply by others – for example the diversion by people upstream denying access to people downstream – like on the Euphrates.
So maybe there is a grain of truth in this paper.
I like to think that he would have been a sceptic. He was certainly a realist.
At some point it will be necessary to purge these people – environmental extremists – from the government, the educational system and the media, if we don’t want them to drag us down to oblivion. Harsh? Not half as bad as what they intend to do to those of us that believe in liberty and prosperity. Why should we apologize for defending ourselves against them?
It is vital, then, for all countries to disconnect from the UN, ignore its directives, cut off its funding and let it die a death. It is the UN and its agencies which are the true enemy of mankind and civilization.
@Dodgy Geezer at 2:35 pm
there IS NOT, and NEVER CAN BE, a ‘water shortage’.
There can be a shortage of POTABLE water.
There can be a shortage of FRESH water.
There can be a shortage of FRESH water when and where you need it.
This is even under the classical economic paradigm that if the price is allowed to float, there cannot be a shortage of anything. If, as in The Flight of the Phoenix, you can be stuck in a desert, and be unable to offer any price to increase the supply of water to fill your needs.
All I need to know is just how much worse than we thought is it?
The problem with all these crying wolf scare stories is that, one day, there actually will be an existential threat to mankind and the chances are that no-one will believe the messenger.
There should be no fresh water problems on Planet Ocean. Fresh water issues in the developing world can all be solved with technology. Here are just two –
1. For small dwellings without water infrastructure, fresh water can be drawn from the air itself using technology principles hundreds of years old. Take one cheap vertical panel of corrugated aluminium sheet 2m tall by 1m wide. Use a light frame to stand it vertically outdoors. Insulate the sunlit side with EPS foam and foil. Cover the aluminium on the non sunlit side with LDPE clear film with an air gap over the aluminium surface. Draw air through a dust filter and through the air gap day and night over the radiativly cooled aluminium surface using an off the shelf “solar vent” commonly used for boats. Collect the fresh water.
2. For villages with access to salt water, technology similar to the “solar chimney” power station concept can be used. Create a bed of black ceramic tiles covered by a sloping polycarbonate roof. Flow a thin layer of salt water over the black tiles. Sunlight heats the tiles, the thin layer of water and the air under the plastic roof. The heated saturated air can then rise to the high point of the roof, and up a vent to the storage tank and condenser coils. Partial insulation on the elevated storage tank then allows radiative cooling of the stored water overnight. This is required as the condenser coils are cooled with stored water during the day. The solar chimney design allows for solar energy to lift the water to a suitable storage height to allow sufficient head for village sized distribution.
There are simply to many technological solutions for improving access to fresh water. None of which require extra-sovereign taxes for “water guilt” to be collected and redistributed under a framework of UN global governance.
The simplest solution for the “fresh water crisis” is of course vicious and sustained public floggings for all UN kleptocrats. You know it makes sense. 😉
I recently downloaded the streamflow data from Environment Canada to verify some of these trends myself. Data is pure noise with trend sign determined by start and end dates. Data can be found here for anyone who wants to play with it:
http://www.ec.gc.ca/rhc-wsc/default.asp?lang=En&n=4EED50F1-1
We went through this before. In the late 1980s Scientists convinced Congress that the US was running out of water. The result? Low flush toilets.
Rhys Jaggar says:
November 1, 2013 at 4:03 pm
The problem with all these crying wolf scare stories is that, one day, there actually will be an existential threat to mankind and the chances are that no-one will believe the messenger.
***************************************************************************
The last time there was an existential threat to mankind was ~ 65,000 years ago. There have been localized threats – the black plague for example – since then, but nothing that would render humanity extinct. Which is not to say there never will be. So in the interim, the objective is to win against competing tribes, nations, races, cultures. Choose your side.
Mr Ball is likely correct.Water could be a good emotional issue and just think it could be taxed
without most people really knowing they are being fleeced by the same global warming scam team. Easy transition too…Global warming ….Climate Change ….Water Crisis.
Crisis reinvented and no one the wiser…..unlikely .We are hip to their tricks.
What would M Mann do ? Throw rocks and count ripples at ancient lakes.
Steven Mosher says:
November 1, 2013 at 3:42 pm
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
illiterate.
>>>>>>>
Mosh, thanks so much for the humor you provide.
@Chad Wozniak 3:53 pm
will be necessary to purge these people
What would you do? Send them to re-education camps?
I sympathize with the goal. But whatever method you think right to apply to them will be the least they will apply to you.
The only suggestion I have is along the lines of “Starship Troopers” where Citizenship and Franchise (to Vote) are earned</b. through successful completion of “Federal Service” and not just a right of birth. And that only happened after the “Revolt of the Scientists” ended in tears. See Chapter 12 in wikiquote.
The summary of fear used by government left out the right’s use of the tactic. From the fear of the USSR and China (two 3rd world countries) taking over the world with the weapon called ‘”Communism” to fear of the “terrorism” of Saddam Husain who used chemical weapons sold to him by the U.S. to attack Iran, a U.S. enemy.
The right uses fear to fund its perpetual war every bit as much as the left uses it to push for centralized government. Plenty of serious and valid criticism can be rightfully placed on the left’s agenda, but centralized government does not send young men around the world to have their limbs blown off so that a corporation selling weapons can profit. Nor does it drop plastic yellow bags containing food along with plastic yellow bags containing cluster bombs on civilian populations.
I respect attempts to alert people to the abuses heaped upon by their own governments. But only pointing out half of the abuses paints a (deliberately?) deceiving picture.
The leading cause of death is birth.
We’re already down that road. With birth control came birth avoidance. Minivans became socially silly because it implied that there was a family with more than one child. The family itself is now becoming passe; hook-ups, partnerships and short-term relationships are now ever more in vogue.
New on the horizon? The good old do-it-yourself movement. Women are just too darned much trouble. And so are men. With a few good porn sites, fresh batteries, and a good vinyl repair kit who really needs the opposite sex? One-on-(the same)-one is cheaper, too, which helps meet the ever-increasing tax burden. It’s easiest to follow that old, sage advice: “Go f^ck yourself!”.
How far down this road will the Maurice Strongs, Club of Romes, the environmentalists of this world really go before they discover they’re running out of people to control? By the time they notice, it might be too late. The fateful Tipping Point may be long past.
Cheers! And piece!
I wonder why the UN keeps avoiding the real threat to humankind. It is an inevitable one:
http://www.freeoboi.ru/images/882543935.jpg
Is the purpose of the environmental crises really to fix a “problem”? Are these crises no different from the military crises the Americans have been creating since Korea, not adventures to speed/support/expand democratic principles and free-market economies, but to keep The Others weak? To spread confusion and maintain conflict, not to dispel confusion and create harmonious societies?
This is how it seems to me, just as the Keystone XL opposition is not about an environmental problem or pushback against oil consumption: the American appetite for finding, developing and using AMERICAN oil is not under attack. Just Canadian, and why? Because a lack of market for our oil keeps prices down and the Canadian sector in turmoil and weak.
So if Bill McKibben a “useful idiot”? I’d say so. And if my view is correct, then we should never expect a solution to any of these crises, because the crisis is how you keep foe and competitor off-balance. Just as he gets his place, you move yours. The rules never stabilize.
Yes, acid rain, ozone, and all these things HAVE been helped in the environmental crises. But they are the pleasant side-effect. Right now Europe has a huge economic and financial dilemma. They can’t compete with the Americans because they actually did with eco-green laws what the Goreists said should be done. But the Americans didn’t do. Fresh water? Nice regional problem, you can target those who don’t rise to your standards.
China clearly isn’t buying into the eco-green, low-carbon future. Does this mean that American politicans will be able to use the co-green Code as a weapon against China? Restrict market access, perhaps even seize assets for non-compliance – a grand gesture of global environmental responsibility? The green Code could do this.
So I say: we are perhaps fooling ourselves in the fight. Yes, we have to fight it, but it is a fight with substitutions – on only one side. Defeat CO2 scares, and there is water. Defeat water and there is … global cooling.
Hmmm.
I remember reading a book as a kid which showed ships in the future towing icebergs from the poles to supply fresh water to the nations that were predicted to be dying due to lack of water. Big tugs with giant blocks of ice in tow were shown entering San Francisco, from memory. I wish I still had it.
We’ve heard this song many times before in Canada – usually over preventing the United States from getting their hands on Canada’s fresh water resources. With respect – if one were to wonder why so many dry land cities were built in desert country in the US where none should have ever been considered is beyond me to be honest. At the same time millions more illegal aliens are flooding into the US even as I write with the Obama administration throwing open the doors and taking already strained resources. There is a water shortage is the US and rapidly growing, strict water laws and water rights and so on south of the border even as I write – fresh water is an ongoing concern for the US – and it will come down to the US wanting access to Canadian fresh water – which Canadians are dead set against. So this is indeed a real issue between Canada and the US – it will raise its ugly head. If this can happen between neighbors then look out for those who are not friendly neighbors. This really is the future issue.
I hate to rain on this love fest but water from underground aquifers for use in growing food and fodder is running out in many sections of the world including China. Tube well levels are dropping rapidly in India and the western USA. Ground water is primarily returning to the saline oceans. Desalination plants to produce irrigation water rates are really not feasible and require too much energy as well.
To ignore diminishing fresh/potable water resources is simply ignoble.
It is not CO2.
Proved.
There are other experiments and hypotheses, with other Nulls. They have not been tested, and the default is, by definition, for each, ‘It’s something else; unspecified natural causes.’
FAH;
I think you are teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. Juvenile and presumptuous.
I have a little discomfort with the statement “The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.” I don’t disagree with the philosophical import intended, which I think is that some kind of well formulated hypothesis to the effect that atmospheric temperatures are predicted by atmospheric CO2 levels to some quantified level, can be rejected by the historical record. I think an unbiased observer would conclude that, although I have reservations as to the detail with which the underlying data (or model outputs) have been specified and the degree to which probability distribution assumptions have been addressed. I think a more traditional statement concerning the null hypothesis is that the data does not reject it but the data does reject the CAGW hypothesis at a fairly conclusive level.
Even with well defined hypotheses and controlled experiments there is room for slipperiness in statistical interpretations. The climate problem (in particular hypotheses concerning trends) seems particularly difficult to address in a statistically unbiased manner since controlled experiments are virtually impossible and there seem to be a wide range of changing assumptions underlying the quality of the historical data. In addition, the “models” people seem interested in testing are far from simple or free from arbitrary assumptions.
I think statements concerning the frequency of so-called “extreme” events being affected by CO2 levels are much easier to address, at least as far as my comfort level goes. The statistics of extreme events looks well able to pass some reasonable tests of normality of distribution and appear well defined enough to do some calculations. There I think the statistics in this case fairly conclusively reject any positive hypotheses and only the null hypothesis can not be rejected.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not disputing Dr. Ball’s excellent discussion in the slightest. I just keep thinking that the CAGW advocates misuse statistical notions so atrociously that dispassionate observers need to be bend over backwards to be as rigorous as possible, at least among us dispassionate observers. I have tried to point out some of these issues in less dispassionate venues with very little success. My experience with CAGW advocates is that they feel the “science is settled” and seem unable to discuss the statistics separately and dispassionately, which is the essence of statistics, if not science.
All the water that was here 4.4 billion years ago, is still here.
Hydrogen loves its oxygen.
The #1 cause of death is cessation of respiration.
Not much of anything leaves the planet, but it’s my understanding that water from space is continually falling to earth.
Interestingly every barrel of oil burned produces 1.5 barrels of water vapour into the environment
Going to be tough to argue that one….
Not at all. The statement should be “it is not CO2 at level X.” Otherwise the statements are as unsupportable statistically as those of the CAGW advocates.
JFD says:
November 1, 2013 at 5:33 pm
To ignore diminishing fresh/potable water resources is simply ignoble.
————————————————–
It’s difficult to make a judgement of the seriousness of the issue without data. For example, the raw sewage of the suburbs around Philadelphia is collected via government owned pipes to a government owned plant who’s government employees clean the sewage to meet government defined regulations on cleanliness. The reulting water is then redistributed at a government defined rate to the citizens of the fair city of Philadelphia for their consumption.
Does this practice offset the loss of potable water elsewhere? Without data, it’s impossible to know.
JFD says:
November 1, 2013 at 5:33 pm
I hate to rain on this love fest but water from underground aquifers for use in growing food and fodder is running out in many sections of the world including China. Tube well levels are dropping rapidly in India and the western USA. Ground water is primarily returning to the saline oceans. Desalination plants to produce irrigation water rates are really not feasible and require too much energy as well.
To ignore diminishing fresh/potable water resources is simply ignoble.
==========================
You doubt the resourcefulness of your species ?
Life must suck.
“Publishing these results shows either an incomprehensible level of arrogance or knowledge they won’t be held accountable.”
I beg to differ. There are some real scientists at EC and they are probably sneaking real data out because they know their bosses are happy with pictures and headlines. This is getting to be a lot like the old Soviet Union where truth could come out but not in the headline or anywhere noticeable.
magicjava, there is a humongous amount of data available on water resources. One of the largest data files is one the UN commissioned which covers the water resources in every nation. I don’t particularly like it because it is difficult to use and I question a couple of its bases, but it illustrates that available groundwater in arable land is being depleted rapidly.
Fresh water produced from no or slow recharge aquifers is about 100 cubic kilometers per year. Ninety three percent of this water winds back up in the oceans where it becomes saline and thus unsuitable for production of food and fodder. The problem is real. The solutions are difficult and costly. Desalination is technically feasible but only at relatively slow rates, certainly not at irrigation rates. Storage is not feasible due to evaporation from the surface. There is lots of water in the world but not lots of fresh, potable, irrigateable water.
Now that all the various government departments ostensibly established to monitor CO2 “pollution” are drowning in a pool of stagnant global temperatures, it should be a sinmple matter for them to clutch at the lifelines of water quality in order to maintain their irrelevant government lives.
Steven Mosher says:
November 1, 2013 at 3:42 pm
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
illiterate.
—–
Simple then, prove it.
Can you?
Of course you can’t.
Who’s the fool then?
You speak of things you know nothing of. The SARIN owned by Saddam had Cyrillic serial numbers so fact one dead. The cluster bomb units do not come in “yellow plastic bags”, they are loose packed inside a metal shell, so if there were booby-trapped relief bags, they did not come from the US. The USSR was a first world military riding on a 2nd world country (not quite 3rd), and was a threat – ask those in Eastern Europe that Roosevelt condemned to Soviet Rule. Nothing you cited had even a grain of truth in it, but you have a right to say whatever drivel you want and we have the right to refute it.
Build more dams. Maybe even stick a turbine on it.
I know that won’t solve all the water and power problems everywhere but it would help in some places. Why aren’t the Enviros pushing for them? A three-spotted mollusk might have to live somewhere else?
u.k.(us), I have done many difficult things in my lifetime including many involving water. I start with a technical and economic feasibility study. I don’t assume that something can be done as you seem to. It took millions of years to charge many of the major aquifers in food and fodder growing areas in our world. Humans don’t live millions of years.
I really wish people would stop stating that tempos have stopped rising for ’15 years’. This makes it look as if it is starting from a cherry-picked 1998. This is easy for warmists to refute.
As I understand it, it has been 17 years, and is not from 1998.
JaffP says:
November 1, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Interestingly every barrel of oil burned produces 1.5 barrels of water vapour into the environment
That is an excellent point! For anyone that may be interested, the balanced equation for the complete combustion of gasoline is 2C8H18 +25O2 –> 16CO2 + 18H2O. So since our added CO2 does not cause catastrophic warming, should we be encouraged to burn as much gasoline as possible to increase the global water supply?
Good presentation!
I suggest that there IS a problem of excess depletion of certain aquifers, for example the Ogallala.
Regards, Allan
Ogallala Aquifer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast, shallow water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world’s largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 mi² (450,000 km²) in portions of eight states: (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas). It was named in 1898 by N.H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. The aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer System, and rests on the Ogallala Formation, which is the principal geologic unit underlying 80% of the High Plains.[1]
About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies the aquifer, which yields about 30 percent of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%. Depletion is accelerating, with 3% lost between 2001 and 2008 alone. Certain aquifer zones are now empty; these areas will take over 100,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall.
There is enough waste heat produced in nuclear fission plants to provide a great deal of fresh water. The water and electricity problems could both be solved by additional nuclear power stations (oh, say pebble bed reactor technology for instance) configured to desalinate water with its cooling water stream. Then pump the water inland and inject the excess into the aquifer far inland – instantly solving both the electricity shortage and the water shortages.
(Pebble bed reactors are salt cooled, with the salt used to heat water to generate electricity, which has to be cooled to complete the Carnot cycle for the next round about the system, that cooling water could be salt water flashed into steam and condensed for distilled water feeding the fresh water system. Effectively, this gives fresh water as a bonus to the production of mains power. Of course, you still have to pump it up hill to the mountain river/aquifer source, so some losses go to this component.)
???
One wonders a) where you picked that up (secondary ed, HS, college, self-study, 6 O’clock news, The Beeb, The Daily Worker, your ‘union local’, etc) and b) what military crises? Can you name four or five in chronological order?
.
=================================================================
Water problems, whether in supply or treatment, are regional, not global.
Man can do something about about that.
(Maybe we will when Al Gore figures out a way to make a buck from it.)
Owen in GA says:
November 1, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Magicjava says:
November 1, 2013 at 4:54 pm
You speak of things you know nothing of. The SARIN owned by Saddam had Cyrillic serial numbers so fact one dead.
——
The CIA had already warned that Iraq was using chemical weapons almost daily. But Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry, still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html#ixzz2jRuHwGyJ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402174/CIA-helped-Saddam-Hussein-make-chemical-weapons-attack-Iran-1988-Ronald-Reagan.html
The cluster bomb units do not come in “yellow plastic bags”, they are loose packed inside a metal shell, so if there were booby-trapped relief bags, they did not come from the US.
——–
Because of their bright yellow color, the bomblets often attract children. Some Afghans have mistaken the bombs for relief supplies because they are the same color as food packets dropped by American cargo planes.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-02-06/news/0202060324_1_cluster-bombs-explode-aid-agencies
(I stand corrected that the cluster bombs didn’t come in plastic bags. But they were still easily mistaken for food packages.)
The USSR was a first world military riding on a 2nd world country (not quite 3rd), and was a threat – ask those in Eastern Europe that Roosevelt condemned to Soviet Rule. Nothing you cited had even a grain of truth in it, but you have a right to say whatever drivel you want and we have the right to refute it.
———
List of countries defeated by USSR:
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Georgia
Estonia
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Poland (with help from Germany)
Germany (with aid from U.S., Britain, et al)
Japan (with aid from U.S., Britain, et al)
Korea (North)
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Their only major accomplishments came with a large degree of help from Western allies.
You can add their communist allies to the list, Cuba, Vietnam, etc, and it’s still a big pile of nothing, militarily speaking. Even China had little more than regional influence until it recently incorporated elements of capitalism into their system.
JFD says:
November 1, 2013 at 6:21 pm
magicjava, there is a humongous amount of data available on water resources.
——-
Then post a few links so those of us not familiar with the data you speak of can have a look.
We’re taking care of it, in Texas anyway … we, the voters in the state, have up before us a proposition on the November ballot a measure to appropriate $2 billion from the economic stabilization fund to water projects … links below have more info.
http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/newsmedia/swift/index.asp
http://www.texasfuture.com/proposition-6-questions-answers/
.
Next the UN will insist we ban the use of DHMO as it is the number one chemical found in our water.
The gas is dissipating. When the liquid flows away, will they turn to rocks?
JFD says:
November 1, 2013 at 6:32 pm
“……It took millions of years to charge many of the major aquifers in food and fodder growing areas in our world. Humans don’t live millions of years.”
==========
Millions of humans don’t make it thru their first year, millions more never reach their potential due to a lack of basic necessities, millions more due to political strife.
Maybe we should remove the roadblocks, instead of building more.
Owen in GA, both nuclear and coal fired power plants need cooling water but the problem is in the quantities of water used. Here is a quote relative to quantities:
“Despite many coal and nuclear plants using wet cooling towers, in the USA electric power generation accounts for only about 3% of all freshwater consumption, according to the US Geological Survey – some 15.2 gigalitres per day (5550 GL/yr).”
Three percent is not to be sneezed at but replacing fresh water used for production of food and fodder is a tough one since the quantities and flow rates are so high.
How many here played monopoly on those rainy days and what did you learn. What I learnt was that the bank never gave out a loan when you went broke so the game eventually ended with one winner . And guess what we are closing in on the end of the game. Lending money is the only thing that’s keeping the game going. While your in debt you have to play the game and will do anything it takes to protect your toys from being repoed by your lender. You become a slave to your dept NO freedom when were enslaved. Governments are the farmer that farm humans and understand animal husbandry and control us through our emotions. The media is the place that is letting us all down. It’s become nothing more then a PROPAGANDA machine. We think in pictures not words, we have to convert written and spoken words into pictures to create understanding. TV is the biggest tool because it uses pictures. Have you ever heard the phrase a picture paints a thousand words, that’s why climate science like to use graphs , just look how much mileage they got from the hockey stick scam. If you control were water falls from the sky you also control food production along with animal farming, without water both are not going to produce a desirable outcome. Hydroelectric dams have been spraying the sky above dam catchments for years NO water no electricity provided. If you control water you control life on this planet.
The Maurice Strong discussed here wouldn’t happen to be the same Maurice Strong who received a cozy $1,000,000 check from Tariq Aziz for the purpose of shepherding favorable treatment through the UN for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, would it? Nah, couldn’t be. An environmental savior wouldn’t do such a fraudulent thing. Accept a bribe? No way. Must’ve been a different Maurice Strong at the UN.
magicjava, start your reading with this one, which also has an extensive set of references.
http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=76
JFD says:
November 1, 2013 at 7:48 pm
magicjava, start your reading with this one, which also has an extensive set of references.
http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=76
———
Thanks, JFD.
u.k.(us), not recognizing a problem is the biggest obstacle to solving the problem. Many in this forum have been pooh poohing the problem, which is classic road block building. A few have recognized the problem exists, for example in the Ogallala that runs from West Texas to southern South Dakota. At one time, the Ogallala Aquifer had 10% of the fresh water in the world but has been in substantial decline now several decades. You might want to read this:
http://www.naturalnews.com/031658_aquifer_depletion_Ogallala.html
JDF, may I suggest that you check out this http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html so that it’s easier to tell when you’re quoting a comment or adding a response? You do very well but sometimes quotation marks aren’t as clear as “blockquotes”.
PS Don’t confuse “fresh” water with “potable” water. “Potable” water is “fresh” water suitable for drinking after treatment.
When you turn on your tap you don’t want “fresh” water. You want potable water.
Thanks, Gunga Din.
1. Your 2002 Daily Mail article is interesting, but does not say that Rumsfeld sold chemical weapons to Saddam. It does say that Rumsfeld negotiated on behalf of the Reagan administration to provide Iraq material support to defeat Iran. We had a little beef with Iran at the time, but did not want a tiff with the USSR in that flashpoint to start WWIII. If we had directly intervened, WWIII would have commenced with Nuclear Armageddon the sure result. The article implies, but does not provide any details of transfer of supplies of Anthrax and “other biologic agents” which is a little strange considering that Anthrax is endemic to the fertile crescent region. A later article on the same subject by the Guardian (with an obvious ax to grind) implied that a Reagan administration authorized shipment of insecticide was the basis of the Iraqi Sarin, but while the precursors are similar, they are not the same thing. The timing of this also seems a trifle odd as the build up to the Iraq war was beginning and the Mail had a gleeful time trying to paint Mr Blair into a corner. (Always assume the papers in the UK have picked a party and will praise their partisans and condemn their opponents – there are a few glaring exceptions but that is usually a safe bet – and as a conservative I tend agree with the Mail – except when they are being too pigheadedly partisan). I doubt Mr Rumsfeld’s actions were nearly as diabolical as you have implied. (And having served under him, I don’t agree with much of his strategy for prosecuting the Iraq war and didn’t appreciate my suggestions based on intelligence and history being rejected out of hand in favor of a blitzkrieg type offensive that left the army free to melt into the population and form the core of the trouble spots after we “won”.)
2. Cluster bombs are painted with Zinc Oxide ( a yellow-green color) to prevent corrosion – and are painted so by just about any nation that develops such weapons as a rusted mass is not an effective weapon. (So what type of cluster munitions did the Soviets use in Afghanistan?) They tend to be rather small, but if half-buried, could be thought a partially covered relief bag. The lighting would have to be pretty bad as the colors are quite different in their parts of the yellow spectrum. I would think the larger threat to people in those areas would be the mine fields that still largely litter that area from both the Soviet and Taliban armies/militias and the Afghan civil war. Most of those fields are not marked and exist in agricultural areas or at least flat, not too rocky patches of ground someone might find tempting to plant. The death and maiming of innocents has happened in every war. The question of whether or not the intent to injure innocents and what actions were taken to prevent it once the threat to innocents is known are the guiding policies of “war crimes”. All of this hand-wringing after the fact is offensive to all who take such things seriously.
3. Prior to WWII, the economies in free Eastern Europe were in pretty good shape for rural provinces. They of course suffered from the trade barriers that were the main cause of prolonging the depression in the 30s, but were buoyed by the restriction on Germany and lulled into a false sense of security about their safety. As a result they did not invest in modern weaponry, but had a decent quality of life. All that changed with the war and what they had was destroyed. The Soviets did not really rebuild any of it and did not allow the Marshal plan to be used in any of the areas they controlled. So Eastern Europe was condemned to the third world for two generations. That does not mean that the Soviets weren’t formidable. They used their influence to change the politics of Central and South America – helped by the inept US policy in that area that supported dictators because it was easier to know who to buy.
4. While it is true that China had only a regional role, the veterans of the Pusan campaign might have a little beef with you on whether or not they were a threat. Large numbers of troops will eventually cause defenders to run out of ammunition and have to retreat, and China definitely had people and weren’t afraid to lose them at horrendous rates. That bloody minded thought pattern was what made them an enemy to fear.
Hi guys I have no clue how to get an article onto this site but a few minutes ago Obama issued another Friday night special Ex Order re climate change just saw on the Fox news site.Help me out and find it , thanks.
There is more than enough food and water in the world. It’s a question of distribution. It was recently discovered that Africa has huge, previously hidden aquifers – estimated to be 100 times what’s on the surface.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17775211
Recently water used to be a problem in parts of Australia. So much of a problem they had to mothball de-salination plants because of ‘Biblical floods’ and overflowing dams. They started the schemes because they were promised more drought due to global warming.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12102126
The water ain’t going anywhere but back on and inside the ground. It’s a cycle.
============================================================
Is this it?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/01/obama-creates-climate-change-task-force/
The problem isn’t the water used by the power generation, it is that we don’t use the excess heat to produce potable water. Releasing the heat directly to the atmosphere in the form of the APs favorite stock photograph of backlit steam isn’t an effective use of the heat, particularly if folks are going to hand-wring over “water depletion”. Building a large number of low pressure high temperature pebble bed nuclear power stations in coastal areas using the waste heat to desalinate and the excess electricity to pump the water to agricultural areas kills two birds with one stone, without actually killing any birds at all. The pebble bed technology does not have the melt down problems of traditional fuel rod systems, doesn’t have the pressure vessel problems and even in catastrophic cooling failure undergoes neutron-poisoning (stops the reaction) at temperatures far below the melt point of the fuel casing. Right now its only problem is pipe corrosion from the corrosive salt solution, but they aren’t far from clearing that hurdle as well.
More nuclear can clear both hurdles, but coal plants can use their excess heat as well if need be. The point wasn’t about the water vapor evaporated off to fall as rain somewhere else, but about capturing all that heat in a concerted way and using entropy to our advantage for a change.
Reminds me of the time I went to the LA Harbor to see the ceremony for the new Fire-boats being put into service. As part of the ceremony, the fire-boats shot out their water jets way up into the air. However one woman was upset and said, “They’re wasting all that water!!!” You can’t fix stupid. :-))
Owen in GA says:
November 1, 2013 at 8:19 pm
There was method to the madness behind China’s human wave assaults in Korea. The Communists put captured Nationalist soldiers in the first waves to soak up Allied fire. UN troops learned to let the first wave into their positions, which tactic naturally forced the Communists to change their tactics, too, aided by the fact that so many prisoners had already been killed. The Red Army did the same thing in WWII with their penal battalions, which also were used to clear mine fields.
Allan MacRae says: November 1, 2013 at 6:48 pm
I suggest that there IS a problem of excess depletion of certain aquifers, for example the Ogallala.
=================================================================
Gunga Din says: November 1, 2013 at 7:02 pm
Water problems, whether in supply or treatment, are regional, not global.
Man can do something about that.
=================================================================
Allan again:
Yes we probably can, but the Ogallala is one huge aquifer, part of the even larger Great Plains Aquifer and we’ve been pulling it down for a long time. Even if we started now, it would take many decades to improve and many more to resolve.
Foolish “green energy” schemes like corn ethanol have exacerbated the problem due to increased irrigation.
Further afield, the greens are also behind clearing the rainforests for palm oil plantations for biodiesel and sugar cane plantations for corn ethanol.
Furthermore, the greens have crippled the energy systems of entire countries through their aggressive promotion of ineffective and costly wind and solar power schemes.
Since about 1990, the greens have been a highly destructive force, causing great harm to both humanity AND the environment.
How is it that since about 1990, almost every green energy scheme that has been widely adopted is inefficient, ineffective, wasteful and destructive?
We clearly stated this point in an article published in 2002, but since then more than a trillion dollars off scarce global resources have been squandered on green energy nonsense.
How is it we confidently knew all these facts then, clearly stated these facts widely and publicly, and yet it all happened anyway?
Apparently, we are led by scoundrels and imbeciles.
We wrote in 2002:
[PEGG, reprinted at their request by several other professional journals , the Globe and Mail and la Presse in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae]
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
[Calgary Herald, September 1, 2002, based on a phone conversation with Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson]
On global cooling:
“If (as I believe) solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
______________
Bundle up, good people. It’s going to get colder out there.
Regards, Allan
OT, but you have to hear this.
It provides irrefutable evidence that angels walk among us.
With no prior vocal training or coaching, a nine-year-old girl stuns judges on “Holland’s Got Talent” with her breathtaking opera voice.
Watch and hear the video at: http://www.wimp.com/girlleaves/
_________________
The song is a favorite: “O mio babbino caro” from the opera Gianni Schicchi, composed by Giacomo Puccini in 1918.
Here is Kiri te Kanawa singing the same piece
Enjoy, Allan
“Their hypothesis said global temperature would rise as CO2 levels increased. It hasn’t for 15+ years”
You leave OHC out of that analysis, without a justification, so the reader is left to guess as to why. Also, what about the 15 year periods you can pick where the earth was warming faster than the models?
Bill Illis says:
November 1, 2013 at 5:42 pm
Hi Bill, you may find this interesting……full article is open access so just click on the pdf.
http://m.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/02/1115705109.abstract
Anyone wish to know a profitable way to save 12 to 15 percent of the worlds need for agricultural water?
Increase the CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 to 400 PPM.
It is estimated that around 15,000 tons a year of extraterrestrial objects enter Earth’s atmosphere. What percentage of the ablating molecules from these objects is H2O? I remember a few years ago there was some excitement about H2O being found in some of the spectral studies of meteoroid ablation, but then further studies refuted this. To the extent that some stony meteoroids do contain H2O molecules, it seems to me that the Earth could be receiving a small amount of extraterrestrial water every year. But then maybe it loses just as much or more to outer space in the upper reaches of its atmosphere. Are there any studies that have investigated the Earth’s water budget that includes its setting in the cosmos?
Good to see so many people joining the dots. MMGW wasn’t a mistake or an isolated example of the UN’s war on humanity. It is part of an organised, sustained, orchestrated campaign to extend it’s control & simultaneously destroy truth, science & reason. It’s going on in many, many other areas of science. Fluoride, vaccines, GMO’s, cancer causes & treatments… Someone has declared a war on our minds & bodies. The MMGW myth is just one aspect of this obscenity. I urge others to seek the truth & go wherever it takes you, regardless of how uncomfortable that is…Our lives & our liberty depends on it.
Google “Agenda 21 Eugenics Huxley Depopulation” I dare you. Double dare you. This is just the tip of the MMGW iceberg… Until we see the true nature of the attack we are unable to defend ourselves & for my children & yours I post this & hope truthseekers will take action…
Reblogged this on Head Space and commented:
Coming to an Executive Order near you.
The cost of desalination has plummeted from $6+ per cubic meter in the early 1990s to now getting around $0.50/m^3 and below already for some recent projects, about $0.002 per gallon, which, for industrialized countries, is cheap enough even for agriculture if needed. (If a country isn’t industrialized, its root problem for almost everything under the sun is not being so; economic growth is what solves most problems called environmental, like parasite-infested drinking water is the case in poor but not rich countries).
U.S. cities using water from ordinary sources, not desalinated, typically have municipal water prices of such as $24 to $73 per month for a household using 12000 gallons a month (400 gallons a day), meaning a total of $0.002 to $0.006 per gallon … a figure which would be raised somewhat if sourcing from desalinated seawater but not greatly.
A cost example for desalination (though one built recently in Singapore is even cheaper than the following figure): http://www.water-technology.net/projects/israel/
Desalination cost figures include energy costs, of course, and nuclear is among options, with literally billions of tons of uranium in seawater (extractable for a cost not causing more than a small price rise in total electricity generation expense in itself) and more fissionables (thorium too) in the crust. As a paper by Dr. Cohen illustrates, such are the equivalent of many millions of years of supply in today’s terms ( http://sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad11983cohen.pdf ).
Such is not to imply that desalination of seawater is usually necessary, given how much fresh water and rainfall continues to circulate as always, but to counter global peak water BS.
Like the CAGW movement being destroyed in coming decades by global cooling ( http://img176.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=81829_expanded_overview_122_424lo.jpg ), it will be a pleasure to watch further expansion in and advancement of increasingly inexpensive desalination wipe out other dishonest propaganda memes.
Steven Mosher said:
November 1, 2013 at 3:42 pm
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
illiterate.
——————————————
It may be a awkward sentence, but an illiterate person would not have been able to write it.
By your own “standard” you would be likewise “illiterate” for having misused the word “illiterate”, for having used a sentence fragment, and for not having capitalised “illiterate”.
Depleted water aquifer?
Easy
Frakking and direct excess flood waters back to the aquifer. End of problem and reduced flooding
They do say that if you drink a glass of water in London, it’s been through at least half a dozen other people since the earth last had it. If there are problems managing water elsewhere, they are political, not technical, period.
It’s also way past time for the human race to consider the legitimacy of the UN. None of us ever voted for any of these arrogant fascists, therefore they have no more authority to do anything “on behalf of the human race” than have you or I. Those of us who get to vote (even in our carefully neutered Western “democracies”) should be sure to inform our would-be representatives that acceptance of the UN will result in no job for them, non-negotiable. The provision of a neutral table around which nations can try to settle their differences is one thing, and a good thing; the arrogant generation of anti-human ukases by unelected bureaucrats who represent nobody is quite another.
As for those who believe that “the enemy is humanity itself”, they are thereby self defining as enemies of humanity, and should accordingly be treated like any other terrorist by the appropriate national government, which is the highest authority yet devised (however imperfect all real governments are). The longer we allow them to go on poisoning the well of human discourse, the greater will be the difficulty of eliminating their vile prejudices from our future.
Their slogan for the stupid was invented some time ago.
“What do you switch to when you run out of water”. Voilà, every little girlie greenie and every little boysie greenie is now primed.
thingadonta says:
November 1, 2013 at 5:28 pm
I remember reading a book as a kid which showed ships in the future towing icebergs from the poles to supply fresh water to the nations that were predicted to be dying due to lack of water. Big tugs with giant blocks of ice in tow were shown entering San Francisco, from memory. I wish I still had it.
***********************
Hi All – the document referred to is…
Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory – Research Report No 200 – January 1973
“Icebergs as a Fresh Water Source: An Appraisal”
by W.F. Weeks & W. J. Campbell
I see that I received my copy in Nov 1973!
You can read it at…
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924067511422;view=1up;seq=6
cheers edi
Thank you, Dr Ball, for a thought-provoking article; the spooky thing is that only this morning, while making my breakfast, I heard on BBC radio news a report on ‘concerns’ about global water supplies. The strategy, it seems, has already begun – and once again we will find the shameless, politically-driven, Agenda 21 supporting BBC at the forefront, willing (as always) to propagandise this next new ‘global crisis’ for the sake of the Common Purpose.
Will this idiocy never end?
Also, Dr Ball, if you should ever write a book on this and/or other climate change related matters you can count me as your first sale – you write clearly, so that even a complete layman like myself can follow your points with ease.
Someone has had a theory for decades that Earth is being bombarded by thousands of snowball sized comets daily, contributing significantly to the Earth’s water.
@tallbloke says:
November 1, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Far easier to blame the bill paying population for water shortage than privatised companies for failing to invest in water resource infrastructure. The UK govts allowed the population to be increased through unchecked immigration, but doesn’t negotiate with the water companies to build more reservoirs.
Alas, Tallbloke, you have it slightly the wrong way around.
In the UK, the water companies had proposed 8 new reservoirs to service the increase in population on SE England. Government inspectors stopped ALL of them, using the grounds that the government plans required people to use 20% less water, so those reservoirs were not necessary.
Stephen Rasey says:
November 1, 2013 at 3:56 pm
There can be a shortage of POTABLE water.
There can be a shortage of FRESH water.
There can be a shortage of FRESH water when and where you need it.
Now that is a classic example of a green argument – willfully misunderstanding what I have been saying.
I repeat again: There can NEVER be a shortage of water
There are many places in the world where you cannot get fresh, clean water when you want it. But this is NOT because WATER is short. It is because the Infrastructure is short. That means it is NOT a natural resources problem. It is an economic one.
The green trick is to point out places where people are short of water, and then treat this as a resource problem. It is not. If we wanted to, we could run a string of fresh-water swimming pools across the Sahara in case another ‘Phoenix’ crashed, and we wouldn’t waste any water at all. We would have wasted a large amount of money. Unless, of course, this created a new tourist attraction… 🙂
Where fresh water is short, the appropriate response is NOT to ‘save water’. It is to consider the economics. If you have only enough water for 50 people in one spot then your choice is to either keep to that number, or spend more money to provide a better supply (which you will ALWAYS be able to do). You many not be able to do it cheaply. But the thing that is short in this case is NOT water. It is money, and the economic/political ability to provide it.
What this means is that the appropriate response when told that you are ‘short of water’ is to consider how to address the problem, and the two available ways will always be:
1 – limiting local population
2 – providing more water
In practice, for a typical town, item 2) above will be the answer, and the discussion will centre on how best to pay for that. The one thing that is NOT an answer is to get everyone to cut back on consumption so as to service more people with the same infrastructure. All that does is lower people’s standard of living and ensure that when the problem arises again it will be more dangerous, because everyone will be living that much closer to the critical point where they cannot survive…
“We must work together to protect and carefully manage this fragile finite resource.”
Since when did water become a finite resource? Properly managed it is the fuel for all life on earth. If it is finite then God help us all.
David A says:
November 1, 2013 at 10:22 pm
Does anyone wish to know a profitable way to save 12 to 15 percent of the worlds need for agricultural water?
Increase the CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 to 400 PPM.
———————————————————————————————
I forgot to add that all naturally green places on earth also require less water to stay green. If CO2 was still 280 PPM it is very likely that we would now be engaged in WW 111.
Steve C says, “As for those who believe that “the enemy is humanity itself”, they are thereby self defining as enemies of humanity, and should accordingly be treated like any other terrorist by the appropriate national government…”
As Steve’s statement, and several other astute comments above have pointed out, energy is the life blood of EVERY economy. The way to NATURALLY limit population growth, solve environmental, economic, and health problems, and prevent wars, is to make energy abundant, industrialize backward places, and severely limit GROUP power over individuals. (Google Rommel & Democide) (Does not mater if the GROUP, is a Government group, a private enterprise group, a religious group, it is power over OTHERS, that is a fundamental evil.)
The above wisdom, best expressed by the founding Fathers of the United States of America, is currently lost to the world. The “Light on the Hill” is a dimly flickering bulb. Very soon crashing worlds will sadly learn that massive centrally planed governments are not the answer. “Pain is a prod to memory.”
Don’t forget the other molecule that is formed when a fossil fuel is burned. In the case of methane – CH4, there are two molecules of H2O formed and one molecule of CO2 formed. So, let’s burn more fossil fuel and create more water in the atmosphere.
F.A.H. says:
November 1, 2013 at 5:42 pm
The statistics of extreme events looks well able to pass some reasonable tests of normality of distribution and appear well defined enough to do some calculations.
============
Extreme events are statistically misleading because they are not normally distributed. This has caused many a disaster as people assume that 1/100 year events will not occur for 100 years, so it is safe to build.
Dodgy Geezer says:
November 2, 2013 at 4:10 am
The one thing that is NOT an answer is to get everyone to cut back on consumption so as to service more people with the same infrastructure.
================
Excellent post. Making do with less is the Al Gore solution. He wants us to make do with less so he can make do with more.
The major use of fresh (low salt) water in the world is farming irrigation. Much of the farming practices are very inefficient in use of the water, either by choice of crop or method of irrigation. There are much more efficient watering methods such as drip irrigation, and choice of crops that use less water. It is often the low cost and easy availability that drives inefficient use (especially in the US), so a considerable part of the problem is fixable by a little sanity and forethought. Many third world countries are so inefficient in crop production, that very little help would go a long way to fix their problems. The issue of potable water is mainly a combined knowledge and economic issue. In the US, fully potable water is used to flush toilets, wash cars, water lawns, and for many other uses, that non-potable would have done equally well. As has been pointed out, making potable water from salt water, or from the air, is not hard, and the actual need for potable water is a relatively small fraction of total fresh water needs. The water issue is a technological issue that could be relatively easily addressed if the will existed.
CAGW is a beat up. it should be included in the next edition [if there is one] of Charles Mackay’s
” Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”.
Local water shortages due to all sorts of mismanagement are a real and continuing problem.
Usually solutions are available but are politically or socially unattractive to managers/leaders with a short term perspective [the next election for instance].
@Dodgy Geezer says:
November 2, 2013 at 4:10 am
The “Geez” hits it out of the ballpark. You rock!
Kind of a warped perspective, overall, don’t you think? Certainly not a theory embracing any kind kind of appreciation of life.
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Kind of a warped perspective, overall, don’t you think? Certainly not a theory embracing any kind kind of appreciation of life.
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Perhaps better stated: “With no prior formal vocal training or coaching, …”
She apparently made good use of resources-at-hand and learned quite well (i.e., ‘Youtube’ instruction et al) and learned well.
http://bolstablog.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/amira/
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Bryan Johnson commented on November 1, 2013 at 2:40 pm
“The Menken quote was absolutely spot-on. ”
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H.L.Mencken
On the contrary, it’s an extremely dangerous generalization that should never be quoted in a scientific discussion.
Were Chernobyl and Fukushima imaginary? Was the German E. Coli scare of 2011 imaginary? Is the possibility of losing the entire North American power grid for months, years, perhaps for ever, through a Solar EMP event, imaginary?
Too often otherwise intelligent and erudite posters here succumb to illogical mantras such as “if so and so agrees with it, then it must be wrong”. I’m afraid that for a cheap chuckle from the choir, the OP has tarnished his credibility and diminished the informational impact of his post.
Yes, pretty much. You didn’t get the memo. This a meme* created in the ‘popular press’ (and it does quite well in attracting attention). The truth is dull and without much fanfare negates the hype surrounding the meme. Look up the term “islanding” as it relates to power transmission.
PS. There is no “North American power grid”.
PPS. There are three “grids”, in fact: East, West and Texas. Long live Texas!
* meme – “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.”
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@ferd berple
Agree completely looking for any information from extreme events is tough. The extremes usually are not considered to be distributed normally. The normal distribution referred to was the underlying distribution of data, from which the “extreme” departs somewhat. For example one could look at the average or highest daily temperature at a specific location over a long period of time and find that the distribution of such measurements was close to normal. The question then becomes whether an “extreme” event, which would be in this case a temperature more (or less) than say 3 sigma (or -3sigma) away from the mean was indeed representative of the process producing the normal distribution or whether some other phenomena was involved. In other words, is the extreme event actually an N-sigma event from the distribution or is it due to some other process, which may be unknown? The trouble is that the frequency of such events, if the distribution is normal, is very small and very large amounts of data would be needed to develop a reliable statistical test. Hence a great deal of statistical gymnastics has been devoted to test (a critic might say justify) whether throwing out the data point from the analysis of the mean should be done. Usually known as discarding the outlier.
If anything, the distribution of extremes (or outliers) has been treated in some analyses as roughly uniform over time and there is some sketchy evidence supporting that view. The other perspective is that extremes usually comprise a small number of points, e.g. one or two depending how the underlying distribution is defined, and the information content of a set of points can be viewed as being proportional to the log of the number of points. So the information content of one point (i.e. an “extreme” event) would be the log of 1, which is fairly little.
Want to go ‘halfsies’ and rent billboard space across from the UN building in New York and run daily-changing/hourly-changing material refuting their nonsense (we can watch from afar with binocs as the ‘blinds’ on the windows on various floors with their high-level managers/bureaucrats occasionally snap open to view our messaging)? Maybe we can get Donald Trump to join us in this ‘venture’ … just thinking out loud on this …
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It is deemed to be ‘inefficient’ ONLY after the fact … one must be aware of some level of sewerage engineering to understand the necessity to maintain a certain rate of liquid ‘flow’ in order to assure proper operation of various sewerage mains and even the the main plant itself. As time has progressed, better engineering (through the development of better engineering tools) has allowed improved, lower-water methods to be developed and implemented; many ppl seem to miss or overlook these points and skip straight into the “water use has been wasteful” stage. A case of an anachronism or an anachronistic-error which in this case is the decoupling of the developments over time which *have* been keeping up with demand (or need).
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Sorry for saying “uniform over time” in the above. More correctly it would be “uniform over sample size”, but climate science appears to deal with time series data largely and it just seemed more intuitive here to say time.
Bravo!
Dodgy Geezer, Bravo!
November 1, 2013 at 2:35 pm
It is VERY important for people to realise that there IS NOT, and NEVER CAN BE, a ‘water shortage’.
You, Geezer, nailed it! And with the very first post. No need for further comment.
This gives me the creeps. Water is the other half of photosynthesis. Having harmed the entire biosphere with attacks on CO2, they will do even more damage with this one.
We are simply going to have to teach people to grow a brain.
Dodgy Geezer said:
November 1, 2013 at 2:35 pm
It is VERY important for people to realise that there IS NOT, and NEVER CAN BE, a ‘water shortage’.
——————————————-
Depends upon where one lives. If in the middle of Death Valley, then a water shortage could most certainly occur. Location, location, location.
But that is the underlying scheme: redistribution of resources, redistribution or wealth, redistribution of fairness. UN wants to be the Authority that determines and apportions “fairness”.
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“Depends on where one lives. […]”
All of the residents of Death Valley can have all the water they want. It’s an infrastructure problem, as the Dodgy Geezer points out.
From the article:
Once the problem is falsely established, control is not far behind. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) needs a replacement.
The UN needs to be de-funded. We must be insane to pay $billions into an organization that is virulently anti-U.S. They take our money, and they hate us more, and they use our money to cause us problems, and then they put their hands out for more. Always more.
There is no rational need for the UN. We can easily support countries and organizations that help us, and we should cut off all aid and support to any country or organization that does not support us in return. Help your allies, starve your enemies. That is the only way, unless someone thinks it is smart to hand our heads to the enemy on a silver platter.
If anyone thinks de-funding tha UN is a bad idea, I would like to hear their rationale.
Jim says: November 2, 2013 at 8:12 am
Thanks for your informative comment Jim – no FORMAL training then.
Still, not your everyday nine-year-old voice…
My friend Hans in Holland provided me with the child’s name – Amira – not a Dutch name, it means “Princess” in Arabic and Persian – coincidentally, the same name as my five-year-old daughter.
Small world, but really quite wonderful.
With respect, Dr. Ball, I do not for a moment doubt that the “water-scare” (the pet peeve promoted by the scurrilous Peter Gleick) may well be included in the next moving of the UNEP’s scary goal-posts. In fact, I had blogged about this several months ago (and more recently, today when your post reminded me to update my draft and bring this post from back-burner to blog!)
But the UN (and certainly the UNEP, promulgator of scary stories since 1972) follows a distinct template when it comes to elevating a “potential threat” of the day/week/month/year/decade to that of “greatest threat to the future of the planet”. And water hasn’t yet flown through all the UN’s bureaucratic hoops. This week, it seems to be competing with “Food supplies”.
IMHO, the “threat” which has passed through all these hoops, is that which falls in the purview of the IPCC’s, waiting in the wings, younger sibling: the IPBES and its “inclusive” all-encompassing “cause” of “biodiversity”.
Biodiversity has all the bases (climate change, ocean “acidification”, food security, water, “extreme” weather events. etc. etc.) covered with a new, improved paradigm – and most importantly “mechanisms” (translation: “send more money to the UN”) to “put nature on the balance sheet”. Equally importantly, IMHO, as I had noted a few years ago, the IPBES has already published the “new testament” of the climate bible: TEEB.
Last I heard, btw, is that Bob Watson (former chair of the IPCC and big man at the steering wheel as IPBES navigated the locks of the UN’s birth canal) is now a Vice-Chair of IPBES.
All these scare stories are leading many Warmists into trace gas (co2) induced madness. What did you expect after decades of indoctrination? They really are the gloomiest, saddest bunch of people you could ever meet. It’s quite frankly pathetic.Our grandchildren will laugh hysterically at our time of great delusion.
Circa 2002, Maurice Strong was reputed to have purchased a home in Ottawa so he could be close to his protégé, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Chretien was about to pass the Kyoto Protocol because, as he said, “h’it felt like da right t’ing to do”.
Canada did indeed sign Kyoto, but then we largely ignored it – except for Premier Doltan McGuinty of Ontario – who only recently realized that Wind Power doesn’t just blow – it sucks!
Anyway, I wrote an article for the Calgary Sun, expressing my concerns about this fellow having an influence on the Chretien government. One thing about the editors at most papers – they almost always change the titles to your articles. They called this one something really down-market, like “Maurice Strong is a stupid poo-poo head!” or something similarly embarrassing. My discarded title was perhaps too subtle for the Sun – I had entitled my article “Strong reservations“. 🙂
Allan MacRae says: November 2, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Alan, McGuinty wasn’t the only Provincial Premier to be … uh … Strong-armed! Thanks to (then Premier) Gordon Campbell here in BC … with more than a little nudge from IPCC-nik, Andrew Weaver (now former faux Nobel Laureate and currently BC Green Party MLA and longtime CBC climate idol), BC residents have been saddled with a carbon tax since 2008 – along with other legislated lunacies, cobbled together in far too much haste by Weaver and others See, for example:
Wastelandia: Andrew Weaver et al‘s big green choru$ and $ymphony … in the key of Gore
H.R. said:
November 2, 2013 at 2:26 pm
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“Depends on where one lives. […]“
All of the residents of Death Valley can have all the water they want. It’s an infrastructure problem, as the Dodgy Geezer points out.
———————————————————–
I was expanding on that point HR. Death Valley residents can have all the water they want IF they can afford it. There are third-world nations that don’t have the money to provide infrastructure. The UN wants to tax the rest of the world and anoint the have-nots with their plundered largess.
And if the UN officials and their friends happen to become morbidly wealthy as a side-effect of this process, well, don’t they deserve it for setting things “right”?
Water supply is an engineering and economic issue.
There is plenty of water, just not necessarily where people want it, when they want it and in the quality they want it.
Down here in Australia, the only water problems faced in any of the capital cities are because of the long term embargo on new dams because of the Greens agenda.
Its stupid and its highly irresponsible.
@ Dodgy .
The reason for water restrictions and cut-backs is nearly always because of inadequate planning of water storage infrastructure.
Allan MacRae says: November 2, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Canada did indeed sign Kyoto, but then we largely ignored it – except for Premier Doltan McGuinty of Ontario – who only recently realized that “Wind Power doesn’t just Blow – It Sucks!”
Hilary Ostrov says: November 2, 2013 at 8:18 pm
Alan, McGuinty wasn’t the only Provincial Premier to be … uh … Strong-armed! Thanks to (then Premier) Gordon Campbell here in BC … with more than a little nudge from IPCC-nik, Andrew Weaver (now former faux Nobel Laureate and currently BC Green Party MLA and longtime CBC climate idol), BC residents have been saddled with a carbon tax since 2008 – along with other legislated lunacies, cobbled together in far too much haste by Weaver and others.
********
Agreed Hilary although Doltan was the most foolish. My home province of Albert has a $15/tonne carbon tax on industry, applied several years ago to suggest that we take this carbon-demon really seriously. It is politically-correct nonsense, a sop to placate the Greens around the world who portray our oilsands as a terrible blight on the planet and Alberta as the enviro-bogeyman.
The Greens have probably published more outright lies and deliberate deceptions about the Canadian oilsands than any other subject, except of course their big favorite, “catastrophic humanmade global warming”.
Here are some of the lies and deceptions spread by the Greens about the oilsands:
Greens: “The oilsands will totally drain the Athabasca River of water.”
Actually, the entire oilsands industry consumes only 1% of total annual river flow, and natural seasonal variation of the river is a factor of 10 (1000%). [Interestingly, the river flows of the Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rockies seem to vary with the PDO – warmer is dryer and cooler is wetter.]
Greens: “The oilsands mining projects are horrifically contaminating the Athabasca River.”
Actually, the river cuts right though the oilsands and has been eroding the oilsands riverbanks for millennia. Early explorers reported that on hot days, rivulets of tar ran down the exposed oilsands cliffs down into the river. It is reasonable to expect that this natural contamination has been reduced by the oilsands mining projects.
Greens: “What about the demonic mutant two-jawed fish found near Fort Chipewyan?”
Actually, it was a 100% normal dead fish and everyone knew this within minutes – it was a dead goldeye, and the goldeye has a toothed tongue. The tongue had fallen (or was pulled) through the rotted throat tissue and gave an appearance a second jaw – a total fraud that the global media picked up and spread around the world.
Greens: “What about all those horrific and rare cancers at Fort Chip?”
Actually, the alleged cancers did not happen; they were the invention of an out-of-province doctor who was disciplined for his hoax by the Alberta Medical Association.
Greens: “What about all those poor little dead ducks at Syncrude?”
Syncrude had several hundred ducks die in its tailings pond one year and were fined many millions of dollars for this unfortunate accident. The oilsands is the backbone of the Canadian economy and yes, it did kill some ducks. The nonsensical wind power industry kills zillions of birds and bats each year and is not fined. A ridiculous double-standard, thanks to our imbecilic politicians.
Greens: “Oilsands oil is dirty dirty oil!”.
All crude oil is dirty – you should definitely avoid drinking it or bathing in it.
***********
I chaired the Syncrude Technical Committee decades ago and sat on its Management Committee. Some may suggest that I am biased. Yes, I certainly am, in that I actually know what I am talking about, unlike the greens, who make up new lies daily to suit their latest fundraising scams.
The modern energy industry keeps those of us who live above the tropics from freezing and starving to death.
When imbecilic politicians fool with their countries’ energy systems, they put entire societies at risk. This is particularly true today in Britain and Western Europe, where these fools have compromised their energy systems through the widespread adoption of nonsensical grid-connected wind and solar schemes that produce little or no useful net energy. We predicted this energy debacle in several articles published in 2002. We said:
““The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Apparently that blunt statement was not clear enough.
Sadly, it will take a catastrophe to enlighten these fools, and I fear we will see it soon, in the form of an increase in excess winter mortality in certain European countries.
I hope I am wrong. However, our predictive track record on this subject is infinitely better than that of the IPCC and the greens – they have yet to get anything right, and we have yet to get anything wrong ( well OK – maybe one thing – I failed to predict the shale gas revolution in North America).
Regards to all, Allan
There’s a good chart on this site http://co2action.org/t/global-warming-v-climate-change-v-apathy/38 showing how people’s concern with environmentalism (couched in the terms ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ peaked around mid-2007 and has declined since. No doubt those that stand to gain from the fear-mongering have realised this and are looking for the next cash-cow to come along. Water seems an obvious choice.
Global Warming Scoundrels and Imbeciles of the Week:
Ontario’s Doltan McGuinty and successors
Germany’s Angel Merkel
Britain’s “Red Ed” Milliband
More on where “Red Ed” got so screwed up here (don’t ralph).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2440691/Marxism-just-did-Ralph-Miliband-influence-Red-Ed.html
Regards, Allan
Excerpts from FriendsOfScience.org:
Blame Solar for Ontario’s Sky-high Power Bills
Solar energy is one of the key pillars of Ontario’s Green Energy and Economy Act, and it is casting a dark cloud over electricity bills. This year, solar projects caused bills to be about $550 million higher than they would otherwise have been. By year end the province will have an estimated 1,100 MW of solar capacity installed, with another 900 MW to be added in 2014. This 900 MW will add another $435 million to power bills.
World is Spending Nearly $1 Billion a Day to Tackle Global Warming
A new report from the Climate Policy Initiative, Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013, says that the climate industry takes in nearly $1 billion a day, with taxpayer money being the “engine room.” Even though the public contribution to climate finance is only 38%, it is essential to attracting private investment because the taxpayer subsidies reduce risk and costs to the investors. Or as Joanne Nova puts it: “Without government policies hoping to change the weather, the industry collapses.”
Germany’s Defective Green Energy Game Plan
Despite the country’s green revolution, or Energiewende, with rooftop solar and wind turbines everywhere, in 2013 coal consumption jumped 8%, and people are surprised. Structural flaws in the Energiewende ensure that renewable energy and the coal boom are causally linked. These flaws include the fluctuation/storage problem, requiring coal-fired backup; the brake on investments meaning that only cheap coal can compete on price; the and right to pollute provided by a surplus of cheap emissions allowances. Finally, Germany has created a bureaucracy monster, with 4,000 different subsidy categories for renewable energy, putting a brake on any innovation where no subsidies exist.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/commentary-why-germany-is-waging-its-green-revolution-wrong-a-929693.html
UK Parliamentary Inquiry: IPCC’s AR5
The House of Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee has initiated an inquiry into the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, calling for submissions by December 10. Among the terms of reference: how robust is the report’s conclusions; to what extent does it reflect a range of views among climate scientists; can any areas of science be considered settled as a result of AR5; does AR5 address the reliability of the climate models; does it strengthen or weaken the economic case for action to prevent dangerous climate change; to what extent did political interventions influence the conclusions of the AR5 summary.
I just googled “two jawed fish” (in quotes) and got 4550 hits. (See above post for context).
Congrats to the Green BS-ers on the success of their lies.
However, the Greens’ avid audience consists of the gullible, the ignorant and the foolish.
Fortunately for the Greens (and the Canadian Green, Liberal and NDP Parties), 50% of our population is of less-than-average intelligence, and they will always be with us.
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
Please forgive me, for I am young and callow, but isn’t it more accurate to state that, given the evidence, the null hypothesis can’t be rejected?
Somehow I got it in my head that the null hypothesis was never proved, only either rejected or not rejected. However, I’m not a scientist, so I would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable than I could correct me if I have this wrong.
Thank you.
Kate.
Kate Forney says: November 3, 2013 at 9:21 am
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
Please forgive me, for I am young …
…but isn’t it more accurate to state that, given the evidence, the null hypothesis can’t be rejected?
______________
Allan says:
First, there’s nothing wrong with being young, Kate. Young is good. Given my age, I suggest that young is very good. I wish you success and happiness in your life.
My response to you will probably be “improved upon” by others. I will not attempt to be overly precise in my commentary; rather I will seek to provide an overview of the “big picture” climate change debate.
“In statistical inference of observed data of a scientific experiment, the null hypothesis refers to a general or default position: that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena.” (wiki)
First, let’s agree with your implied definition of the null hypo – something like this:
“The observed global warming of the period circa 1975 to 2000 was NOT primarily caused by increasing atmospheric CO2.”
Both sides of the “mainstream climate debate” agree (probably incorrectly – see below) that atmospheric CO2 drives global temperatures and their oft-factious disagreement centres on the magnitude of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) to CO2. The global warming alarmists say ECS is much greater than 1 and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly due to the combustion of fossil fuels, will cause catastrophic global warming. The skeptics say ECS is much lower, probably less than one, and any resulting global warming will be moderate and even beneficial to humanity. I used to subscribe to the skeptics’ position and wrote about it in 2002:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
The absence of any significant global warming for more than 15 years tends to supports the skeptics’ position. The climate models used by the alarmists to support their position are not credible. Their climate models, which typically employ high-ECS values, have greatly over-estimated actual global temperatures of recent decades.
Furthermore, the modelers knowingly fabricated aerosol data to force-hindcast their models to fit the global cooling that occurred circa 1940 to 1975. I suggest that no rational scientist can respect that nonsense.
Nevertheless, these facts do not prove the null hypo – they merely support it. But current reality could change – for example, as many alarmists believe, runaway global warming COULD start again tomorrow (but it won’t).
I changed my position in 2008 when I demonstrated that in the modern data record, the only clear signal in the data is that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. Also, CO2 lags temperature by ~800 years in the ice core record over much longer cycles.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
So CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales. While some may suggest that this observation does not prove the null hypo, the contrary alarmists’ argument now suggests that the future causes the past. This logical inconsistency is problematic for the alarmists, and will continue to be so.
I further suggest that within a decade, conventional climate wisdom will shift to the view that CO2 drives temperature, and CO2 does not drive temperature. This observation does not preclude the possibility that human activities, whether the combustion of fossil fuels and/or deforestation and other factors, are also driving the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 (but we cannot rule out the possibility that the increase in CO2 could also be primarily natural).
Finally, please examine the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
Regards, Allan
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.“
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 10:11 pm
H.R. said:
November 2, 2013 at 2:26 pm
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“I was expanding on that point HR. Death Valley residents can have all the water they want IF they can afford it. […]”
Sorry. It wasn’t clear to me in your original comment. The rest of your clarification is quite good, too. Sticky fingers and a salary. Nice work if you have no moral compunctions and can get it.
Allan MacRae says: November 3, 2013 at 11:37 am
Clarification:
The global warming alarmists say ECS is much greater than 1 DEGREE C and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly due to the combustion of fossil fuels, will cause catastrophic global warming. The skeptics say ECS is much lower, probably less than 1C, and any resulting global warming will be moderate and even beneficial to humanity. I used to subscribe to the skeptics’ position and wrote about it in 2002:
I’ve seen the ex-nuts grousing on about water here in BC. For some reason they made it on TV news protesting Nestle’s “abuse” of our water for bottled water products. And our Environment Minister Mary Polak fell for it:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/new-rules-forcing-nestle-other-bottlers-to-pay-for-b-c-water-1.1503536
oops meant meant eco-nuts, stupid auto-correct…
Thank you Allan. I appreciate your effort!
It has seemed to me, with the meager understanding I have of climate science, that the entire CAGW argument rests on a collection of climate models, each of which as accepted as being incorrect, yet, somehow, the average of their outputs is accepted as accurate. I have invested many sleepless nights in trying to understand just how that could be so, but have so far failed to discern the logic. I thought it might be because of my poor grasp of the scientific method, hence my question on exactly what one was doing when performing an experiment.
You said that the facts tend to support the null hypothesis — presumably that’s simply by failing to support the alternate hypothesis?
What I’m still a little worried about is whether I understand correctly that, in general, failing to reject the null hypothesis is NOT the same as ACCEPTING the null hypothesis,
Kate Forney says: November 3, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Kate: It has seemed to me, with the meager understanding I have of climate science, that the entire CAGW argument rests on a collection of climate models, each of which as accepted as being incorrect, yet, somehow, the average of their outputs is accepted as accurate. I have invested many sleepless nights in trying to understand just how that could be so, but have so far failed to discern the logic.
Allan: Please Kate – no more sleepless nights – there is NO logic in the IPCC’s practice of averaging bad climate models – when they average many small piles of crap they just get one big pile of crap – please forgive me for using overly technical jargon – the term crap is used herein as it is formally defined in the Engineering Manual :-}
Kate: You said that the facts tend to support the null hypothesis — presumably that’s simply by failing to support the alternate hypothesis?
Allan: I believe the answer to your question is yes ( I need some sleep too). The balance of probabilities suggests that the opposite of the null hypo (“The observed global warming of the period circa 1975 to 2000 WAS primarily caused by increasing atmospheric CO2.”) is false.
Kate: What I’m still a little worried about is whether I understand correctly that, in general, failing to reject the null hypothesis is NOT the same as ACCEPTING the null hypothesis.
Allan: Again, I think yes, but I’ve been awake since about 2am my time, so please take my comments with more than the usual ton of salt.
Let’s both get some rest. It will all be clearer in the morning.
Best regards, Allan
The water shortage is a problem that already has a solution. If you have enough money, you can desalinate water at the nearest ocean and pipe it where you please. Once that became true, the only long term water shortage can happen at all is the area of the world insufficiently wealthy to desalinate or which war has blocked the transport of clean desalinated water from the sea, an area of the world that is shrinking and I hope and pray will eventually be eliminated.
Water has an effective price ceiling and the trick simply is to ensure that one can afford it. Once that happens, while you may prefer cheaper sources, there is never a water shortage, merely a disagreeable price.
Very good summary concerning the next (from global warming) “mencken threat”. As is made abundantly clear in various bloggers contributions, water will also be a short lived problem, given the quantities available and the rapid advancing technologies to clean it. What remains in the control church is the ill defined label: sustainability.
Regarding Allan MacRae says at November 3, 2013 at 8:01 pm
Good morning Kate,
It is 330am here – I must have slept in.
I’ve re-read my meanderings of last evening and they appear relatively sane and rational to me.
Mind you, in the acrimonious global warming debate there is very little said that IS sane and rationale.
I suggest that in less than a decade, the current statements of most world leaders on the subject of global warming will be widely viewed with derision – as the lunatic ravings of scoundrels and imbeciles.
If I have made any serious errors in my aforementioned commentary, I expect that my friends here will gladly point them out. However, be cautious, because they will not necessarily be correct.
My primary concern at this time is that Earth is about to enter a period of global cooling that could be severe, and could result in significant loss of life, especially among the elderly of Britain and Europe, since the fearless leaders of those countries have created “the perfect storm” by damaging their energy systems with costly and ineffective grid-connected wind and solar power schemes – “solutions” to a false global warming crisis in a cooling world.
We warned of this debacle in 2002, but to no effect. It has all, regrettably, unfolded as it should not have.
We wrote in 2002:
[PEGG, reprinted at their request by several other professional journals , the Globe and Mail and la Presse in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae]
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
[Calgary Herald, September 1, 2002, based on a phone conversation with Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson]
On global cooling:
“If (as I believe) solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
Best regards Kate, be well, strive to be happy, Allan
Yeah the low information people have found a new cause celeb 🙂
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/03/1252277/-No-water-no-life
I have no problem building reservoirs, desalination plants, water processing plants (clean dirty water) you can even tax me for that and have the UN help people around the world (ok Maybe NOT) but the Peace corps and other groups can do it …. BUT we are not and never will run out of H2O ever ever ever.
jp
OOPS!
This belongs here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/01/mann-and-lewandowsky-go-psychotic-on-skeptics/#comment-1466010
Thank you, Allan, for your thoughtful and comprehensive responses. And thank you for your hard work in trying to bring a rational point of view to the climate “debate”. I’m proud to be a fellow Albertan!
Dear Kate,
Thank you for your kind response.
It’s 1:30am here and I have started my work day. As one ages one sleeps less and less – perhaps that is why we don’t live forever. But we do get a lot done. :-}
I just stumbled across a post that was snipped as OT in mid-2012.
It points out why I feel obliged to pursue this subject. As a P. Eng., I believe it is consistent with my professional obligations. As a humanitarian, it falls within my duties to all of you.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/a-response-to-dr-paul-bains-use-of-denier-in-scientific-literature/#comment-1016213
Why have I posted the above two posts? (c/w SNIP SNIP; my apologies Moderator)
Because a trillion dollars of scarce global resources has been squandered on catastrophic humanmade global warming (CAGW) nonsense.
Investing these squandered resources in clean drinking water and sanitation alone would have saved the ~50 million kids who died from drinking contaminated water in the past 25+ years of CAGW hysteria.
Intelligent use of these scarce global resources could have easily saved as many people as were killed in the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.
50 million people died in Hitler’s WW2. Josef Stalin killed another 50 million of his own people in internal purges. Leftist hero Mao gets the prize, killing as many as 80 million Chinese during his Great Leap Backward.
The radical environmental movement has done equally well, rivaling Mao for fatalities caused by the banning of DDT and the misallocation of scarce global resources on the fraud of catastrophic humanmade global warming (CAGW).
Since many of them are latter-day Malthusians, Club of Rome types, etc., perhaps this was their intention.
Again, my apologies Moderator – but I trust you get my point.
Sorry for being a bit piqued at the unnecessary deaths of 50 million kids – I’m just having a bad day.
***************
Positive Post script – 5 November 2013
We have a wonderful organization founded here in Calgary called CAWST that helps to provide clean drinking water and sanitation to the third world.
I suggest that anyone that want to contribute to humanity might want to look into their activities and support them as you see fit. http://www.cawst.org
***************
No man is an island, alone unto itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is diminished,
even as a promontory were,
even as a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:
every man’s death concerns me, because I am concerned with mankind,
and therefore send not to know for whom the bells tolls;
it tolls for thee.
– John Donne (1624)
From Meditations, XVII
Corrections to Allan’s post above on November 3, 2013 at 11:37 am :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/01/water-is-replacing-climate-as-the-next-un-environmental-resource-scare/#comment-1465185
Kate Forney says: November 3, 2013 at 9:21 am
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
Please forgive me, for I am young …
…but isn’t it more accurate to state that, given the evidence, the null hypothesis can’t be rejected?
______________
Allan says:
First, there’s nothing wrong with being young, Kate. Young is good. Given my age, I suggest that young is very good. I wish you success and happiness in your life.
My response to you will probably be “improved upon” by others. I will not attempt to be overly precise in my commentary; rather I will seek to provide an overview of the “big picture” climate change debate.
“In statistical inference of observed data of a scientific experiment, the null hypothesis refers to a general or default position: that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena.” (wiki)
First, let’s agree with your implied definition of the null hypo – something like this:
“The observed global warming of the period circa 1975 to 2000 was NOT primarily caused by increasing atmospheric CO2.”
Both sides of the “mainstream climate debate” agree (probably incorrectly – see below) that atmospheric CO2 drives global temperatures and their oft-factious disagreement centres on the magnitude of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) to CO2. The global warming alarmists say ECS is much greater than 1 degree C and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly due to the combustion of fossil fuels, will cause catastrophic global warming. The skeptics say ECS is much lower, probably less than 1C, and any resulting global warming will be moderate and even beneficial to humanity. I used to subscribe to the skeptics’ position and wrote about it in 2002:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
The absence of any significant global warming for more than 15 years tends to supports the skeptics’ position. The climate models used by the alarmists to support their position are not credible. Their climate models, which typically employ high-ECS values, have greatly over-estimated actual global temperatures of recent decades.
Furthermore, the modelers knowingly fabricated aerosol data to force-hindcast their models to fit the global cooling that occurred circa 1940 to 1975. I suggest that no rational scientist can respect that nonsense.
Nevertheless, these facts do not prove the null hypo – they merely support it. But current reality could change – for example, as many alarmists believe, runaway global warming COULD start again tomorrow (but it won’t).
I changed my position in 2008 when I demonstrated that in the modern data record, the only clear signal in the data is that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. Also, CO2 lags temperature by ~800 years in the ice core record over much longer cycles.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
So CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales. While some may suggest that this observation does not prove the null hypo, the contrary alarmists’ argument now suggests that the future causes the past. This logical inconsistency is problematic for the alarmists, and will continue to be so.
I further suggest that within a decade, conventional climate wisdom will shift to the view that temperature drives CO2, and CO2 does not drive temperature. This observation does not preclude the possibility that human activities, whether the combustion of fossil fuels and/or deforestation and other factors, are also driving the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 (but we cannot rule out the possibility that the increase in CO2 could also be primarily natural).
Finally, please examine the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
Regards, Allan
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.“
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
Water for human consumption requires only four things . . .
Capture
Storage
Treatment
Distribution
These four things require money. To get the money you only need the political will to enable it.
Water shortages are caused by politics and absolutely nothing else.
Anti-atomic power may be a contender for the process used to establish world power. For over 50 years this campaign has been dependent on the scare that there is “no safe limit”. This (known as thee Linear No Threshold or LNT theory) is completely false. not only has there NEVER been any scientific evidence for it but there has always been evidence for the opposite, known as hormesis, that low levels of radiation are beneficial. The fact that significant areas of the world have background radiation above the “official” danger level shows what a lie this scare is,
But it has been very useful for creation a large number of international institutions with power over us all,
It has also meant that we have less than half the power and thus less than half the world gdp to be expected on trend before the nati-nuke movement took power.