Open thread weekend

I just came across this dude a week ago. I have no idea who is he is but his posts are a revelation to me. Some of you might know him, others not. Here are two examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0KJ_dxp170&feature=youtu.be

Vince Causey says (February 16, 2013 at 7:09 am)
——
Your musings on MacDougall and the soul reminded me (in an off-topic sort of way) of what may be an emerging new branch of science in this century – quantum mechanics (QM) applied to life. Although QM is the basis of molecular chemistry, only recently has some work been done to see if the ‘wierdnesses’ of QM show up in life and living things.
Although ‘quantum’ and ‘magic’ are interchangeable in New Age/ hippy / econut mythology (as John Bell points out at February 15, 2013 at 3:01 pm), this is serious scientific speculation. Photosynthesis in some plants seems to be optimised with QM coherence; enzyme catalysis may make use of quantum tunnelling (going from one side of an energy barrier to the other without needing the energy to break through it); QM entanglement (where one of a separated particle pair ‘knows’ when the other has changed its spin) may explain bird and insect navigation via the Earth’s magnetic field.
Professor Roger Penrose has also suggested that QM processes in microtubules in the brain may allow it to ‘quantum compute’ at times (that is, check vast arrays of possibilities and get an answer quickly). This might explain how minds can ‘intuit’ conclusions, while computers remain piles of junk if left without the clever human-constructed programs running in them.
Well, it’s all still speculation, but perhaps who dismiss AGW sceptics as anti-science could note that many of us are always looking for the next ‘Big Thing’ in science, wherever it lies. We just suspect it won’t be AGW, which will end up in the ‘Fads and Fallacies’ section of humanity’s advancing ideas.
New ideas are always fun and exciting. In my time we’ve had chaos, fractals, complexity, dinosaurs killed by ‘incoming!!’, startling discoveries in materials science, extrasolar planets, the accelerating universe, M-theory, etc, etc. It all makes AGW seem banal as well as thoroughly unconvincing. Let’s have more genuine scientific brainstorming and barnstorming, and less of the pseudoscientific Malthusian maunderings from the nattering nabobs of nihilism and their satraps in the media.
Refs:
Quantum Biology http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110615/full/474272a.html
Quantum Fluctuations & Life http://arxiv.org/ftp/quant-ph/papers/0403/0403017.pdf
Roger Penrose, The Emporers New Mind, 1989.

I normally write to you under my real name, but today, just for fun, I am using an alias. I don’t think the cops are looking for me anymore but don’t want to tempt fate. I’m retired now due to bad nerves and increasing penalties but was once called ‘The Second Best Pot Grower Ever Seen!’ And that was by the Major Crime Unit. High praise indeed but I think they were just trying to get a rise out of me.
Up Close and Personal With CO2
A blog by: The Last Hippie (name and address withheld to protect the guilty)
Many times it has been asked ‘how much does carbon dioxide effect plant growth?’ and no one seems to know the answer so I will tell you of my ill-fated experiment.
The first question is ‘what is the normal level of CO2?’ and for that there is no clear answer. My first step was to buy a CO/CO2 meter and take it outside in January. Where I live, in a forest near a wetland and a river, it was snow up to my ass and -15C. The CO2 was 230ppm (parts per million). Then I took the meter inside and set it on the kitchen table to find it was 500ppm due to the pilot light on the gas stove. When four people came over for coffee and sat around bullshitting for a while the level shot up to 1,500. If you wonder why that plant over the sink near the gas stove blooms like crazy all winter wonder no more.
The level outside went from a winter low of 230, to a spring high of 450, to a summer steady of 320 with a sudden drop when the ground froze. After I saw that I really started to wonder about the global warming people and their insistence that the CO2 levels are increasing. How and where do they measure it? A forest or wetland nearby gassing off in the spring will upset any readings. Maybe they need to be looked at with the same critical eye as examining the veracity of the ground weather stations for temperature changes over time. Perhaps these are urban, or rural, CO2 islands.
Now back to the grow room. With the room vented to the outside my six light room produced 6 pounds during a winter crop. A poor but average performance but it did show me one important thing; plants are pigs when it comes to CO2. When the fans shut off the level plummeted to 200ppm in less than 20 minutes and at that level plants go dormant. The CO2 would barely make it across the room so the plants were only growing half time at best.
In the spring the outside air at 450ppm increased production to 7.5 pounds. When the fans shut off the levels again fell to 200 in less than an hour.
Next step was to introduce CO2 from a propane hot water tank to up the level to 500ppm and keep it there. This produced 8 pounds so although hardly stunning it was better than 6.
Finally, screwing up my courage, I upped the level to 1,000ppm not knowing what the toxic level of CO2 was. Turns out it is over 30,000ppm so I need not have worried.
Anyway, at 1,000 parts many things happened all at the same time. First off water consumption tripled as did fertilizer usage and putting all that water into the air now needed a dehumidifier. CO2 is hard to contain for being 1½ times as heavy as air will literally lay on the floor like a puddle and run down the drain like water so the room needed to be airtight especially along the base of the walls. Vertical circulation fans were needed to mix the air. A new air vent was needed exclusively for the hot water tank because it was sensitive to the CO2 level and suffering from the lack of outside air.
Bottom line on that was 12.5 pounds.
Next step was to bring in three aquarium aerators and bring the hydroponic nutrient up to 1,000ppm as well.
Bottom line on that was 14 pounds four ounces.
This proved to me that plants take up a lot of CO2 through their roots, use CO2 even at night, and preferentially use carbon monoxide as I found out when my propane burner got out of whack.
How long do CO/CO2 stay in the environment? If there is a growing plant nearby carbon is consumed in minutes if not seconds.
I really wondered how high I could get the CO2 level or if growth continued to increase above 1,000ppm.
Alas, disaster struck. The RCMP and the Major Crime Unit are no respecters of the scientific method and ruined my experiment.
The good news was it was Canada in the year 2000 so all that came of it was a $3,000 fine with no time or probation and a year to pay. If they could have proved over 12 pounds I could have received two years in jail but the judge did not believe that you could possibly grow more than 12 pounds with 16 plants, thank goodness.
So what I learned is this; if the nutrient and water are available plant growth will more than double. Also; although the wages of sin are good they are ephemeral.
The Last Hippie.
By the way, I like WUWT and how you go looking for facts and include the error bars rather than jumping to conclusions. But please don’t be so thin skinned when it comes to getting Gleeked, and the like. Rise above it for personal attacks prove they have no facts so are stooping to killing the messenger rather then facing the news.
Overall your comments section is well thought out and leads to interesting places. I don’t know how many comments end up in the trash but I can’t read any more than three of the ones that make it without finding my own point of view. To me this means your idea that we should clean up what we can, while we can, to prevent further environmental degradation and not worry about the CO2 so much is wide spread. Don’t let the collapse of the global warming alarmists throw out all environmental regulations along with the stupid ones.

How hard is it to put real gold, one molecule thick, on paper, also on the “paper” that is technically fabric we use for US “paper” currency? To impregnate it into the surface? Or perhaps do so with a suitable plastic?
With all the global economy worries, a lot of people are pushing gold, be it gold standard currency or actually possessing gold. But a gold standard requires the assurances of the currency issuers, ’nuff said.
Possessed gold, be it jewelry, coins, or bars, can be stolen, then melted down to hide its provenance. Fake gold, or gold plating on other metals, has also been used to scam people for millennia. Let alone the different purities of gold available with their varying worth.
But gold on paper? Hard to recover except chemically, uneconomical to do so except in bulk. At a measured single molecule thick, attempts at scraping are readily noticeable. You should also be able to tell it was real gold, as other similar-looking substances would readily oxidize at that thinness, and impure gold should also be detectable by an off appearance. Heck, get out the multi-tester and check the electrical resistance. There wouldn’t be much you could do with the gold paper but use it for trade, and all involved should easily know the gold really is there.
With economies of scale, price to make would only be pennies a “slip”. All slips get labeled with the weight and also the dimensions of the gold rectangle for that weight, easily measured with a set of machinist calipers, and also with the name of the “printer”. Makers would be vetted by reputation, backed by independent testing, anyone “going light” would get quickly shunned out of business.
For those who would like a real gold standard, this could be a backdoor version. Let’s say 24K gold is hovering around $1000 an ounce, and you want to set the price there. “Print” currency-sized strips with 1/50th of an ounce, labeled with the weight and also the dimensions of the gold rectangle for that weight, easily measured with a set of machinist calipers. In trade people like round numbers, that would become a default $20 bill equivalent. So the paper currency value would get tied to the desired value of the real gold slips, stabilizing it.
Can it be done? If such “gold slips” were available, would you want them? Would you use them as currency?

S. Meyer says:
February 15, 2013 at 3:52 pm
A friend of mine, in Germany, made me aware of this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-16833204
A “wind harvester”, apparently a new type of wind turbine, which can function at low and high wind speeds, can be scaled down to fit on a roof, and is less likely to kill birds. Any thoughts?
I heard them say they have patented it – patent held by Heath …. I didn’t catch the surname but assume it is Robinson.
Did the BBC get the time stamp on this item wrong? They have it as 1st February, should be April.

The Last Hippie says:
February 16, 2013 at 10:42 am
“By the way, I like WUWT and how you go looking for facts and include the error bars rather than jumping to conclusions. But please don’t be so thin skinned when it comes to getting Gleeked, and the like. Rise above it for personal attacks prove they have no facts so are stooping to killing the messenger rather then facing the news.”
Wise words; and I enjoyed your retelling of your growing experiments very much.

jabre says:
February 15, 2013 at 2:33 pm
I’ve previously espoused the virtues of the biofuels mandate (2007 Energy and Independence Act). My perception was the requirement to roll over to the cellulosic form of ethanol would spawn a strong and viable domestic ethanol fuel industry free from starch-based sources (corn/sugar beets/etc).
Unfortunately, even with the grand incentives to move forward on the table , the innovation has not kept up with the mandate….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of course not. Monsanto holds the patent on corn and if you DARE to plant anything but Monsanto corn, Monsanto will sue the heck out of you.
As a result of the biofuels mandate, Monsanto has been posting record profits.
April 5, 2007 Monsanto Profit Up 23% on Corn-Based Ethanol Demand
June 29, 2007: Monsanto reaps ‘high-tech’ corn switch …Monsanto has gained market share from rivals
Oct 10, 2007: For the fourth consecutive year, Monsanto Co. reported record sales, the company said Wednesday. With fiscal year 2007 sales of $8.6 billion and net income of $993 million, Monsanto easily eclipsed last year’s record-setting sales of $7.34 billion and profit of $689 million.
Oct 8, 2008 – Monsanto Sees Record Sales in Fiscal Year 2008
April 2, 2009: Monsanto posts record sales amid downturn
6/29/2011: Amid Record-High Food Prices, Monsanto Grows Q3 Profits 77% …. Revenue jumped 21%
April 4, 2012: Monsanto raises outlook as profits surge … Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed producer by revenue, raised its outlook for the year as it reported record profits in the three months to the end of February…
Monsanto doesn’t just sue the little guy either:
Seeds market clash: Monsanto wins one billion dollars lawsuit to DuPont: Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company won a one billion dollars victory over its arch rival in a lawsuit concerning patents in the agricultural seed market.
And then there is Archer Daniels Midland Co.
June 11, 1998; Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), the single largest beneficiary of a controversial federal ethanol tax subsidy, contributed more than $3 million in unregulated “soft money” to Republican and Democratic national party committees during the past 10 years
August 4, 2010: ADM profits soar 550 percent as ethanol margins improve
Dwayne Andreas, past CEO of ADM, was one of the most prominent political campaign donors in the United States.

Dwayne Andreas has made a fortune with the help of politicians from Hubert Humphrey to Bob Dole. But, he says, their talk of “free markets” is just wind.
…no other U.S. company is so reliant on politicians and governments to butter its bread. From the postwar food-aid programs that opened new markets in the Third World to the subsidies for corn, sugar, and ethanol that are now under attack as “corporate welfare,” ADM’s bottom line has always been interwoven with public policy. To reinforce this relationship, Andreas has contributed impressively to the campaigns of politicians, from Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey to Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.
…. Andreas announces that global capitalism is a delusion. “There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country.”
The first subsidy is the Agriculture Department’s corn-price support program. Despite ADM’s close association with corn, this is the least important subsidy to the company….
Of more benefit to ADM is the Agriculture Department’s sugar program….
The third subsidy that ADM depends on is the 54-cent-per-gallon tax credit the federal government allows to refiners of the corn-derived ethanol used in auto fuel. For this subsidy, the federal government pays $3.5 billion over five years. Since ADM makes 60 percent of all the ethanol in the country, the government is essentially contributing $2.1 billion to ADM’s bottom line. No other subsidy in the federal government’s box of goodies is so concentrated in the hands of a single company.
Robert Shapiro,…describes ADM’s federally supported journey this way: “ADM begins by buying the corn at subsidized prices. Then it uses the corn to make corn sweeteners, which are subsidized by the sugar program. Then it uses the remainder for the big subsidy, which is ethanol.”
The grease–or perhaps oleo–that helps keep these kinds of programs going is the money Andreas, his family, his company, and his company’s subsidiaries provide politicians who have influence over agricultural policy. During the 1992 election, Andreas gave more than $1.4 million in “soft money” (which goes to party organizations rather than individual candidates, and is exempt from limits) and $345,650 more in contributions to congressional and senatorial candidates, using multiple donors in his family and his companies. In the nonpresidential 1994 election, the company and its people gave $656,768 in soft money and another $224,170 in contributions to individual candidates

Did you really think the Global Warming scam was about weather? It has been about MONEY from the get go. Enron, joined by BP, invented the global warming industry. I know because I was in the room.
…It’s not surprising to most people that Enron delivered truckloads of money to politicians in an attempt to influence the political process….According to an internal Enron memo, quoted by The Washington Post, the Kyoto treaty would “do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.”
… it is common knowledge that Enron Corporation was lobbying the Bush administration for highly profitable policies relating to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. In fact, the tatters of Enron still want the administration to place a cap on carbon dioxide emissions so the company can broker the trading of “permits” to emit carbon dioxide under that cap.
Enron may have wanted to broker the trading of “permits” but so did the World Bank.
Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak. Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement… The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank

World Bank Carbon Finance Report for 2007
The carbon economy is the fastest growing industry globally with US$84 billion of carbon trading conducted in 2007, doubling to $116 billion in 2008, and expected to reach over $200 billion by 2012 and over $2,000 billion by 2020.

Every single one of those dollars come from the pockets of the laboring classes and finds its way into the pockets of the financiers with nothing given in return except the false promise that we are ‘Controlling the Climate’

world bank at work:
16 Feb; AFP: Climate change real economic risk, World Bank tells G20
The president of the World Bank on Saturday warned the finance chiefs of the world’s leading economic powers that global warming is a real risk to the planet and already affecting the world economy in unprecedented ways.
Adressing the G20 finance ministers at their meeting in Moscow, Jim Yong Kim called on the world powers to “tackle the serious challenges presented by climate change.”
“These are not just risks. They represent real consequences,” said Kim, calling the lack of attention to the issue by finance ministers and central bank chiefs “a mistake”…
“Damages and losses from natural disasters have more than tripled over the past 30 years,” said Kim, giving as examples the $45 billion of losses from the 2011 floods in Thailand, whose effects “spread across borders disrupting international supply chains.”
“Years of development efforts are often wiped out in days or even minutes,” Kim said, asking the G20 to “face climate change, which is a very real and present danger.”…
http://www.france24.com/en/20130216-climate-change-real-economic-risk-world-bank-tells-g20
obviously a climate expert:
Wikipedia: Jim Yong Kim…is a Korean-American physician and anthropologist who has been the 12th President of the World Bank since July 1 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Yong_Kim