Via Tom Nelson:
“For “the biggest climate rally in history,” attendance was remarkably sparse. Those of us in the Light Brigade guessed 5,000”
It was really, really cold the whole time. I was surprised that everyone we ran into was wearing oil-based clothing. I figured a couple people would try to symbolically wear “natural fibers,” I didn’t see any. When I pointed out to people that their clothes were made of oil, they blamed “the system.”
…
For “the biggest climate rally in history,” attendance was remarkably sparse. Those of us in the Light Brigade guessed 5,000. We were heartened by the lack of real enthusiasm by the protesters. The Light Brigade, as our videos will show, had real passion–we love energy with conviction, while they hate it with confusion.
“Forward on climate” was personified by the shivering, emotionally muted, and fairly sparse crowd leaving early in their oil clothing to get to their coal and gas homes.
The lesson of the protest was clear: Nature, untamed by fossil fuels and other affordable, reliable energy is an often uncomfortable and dangerous place to be. That’s why the protesters left as early as they could, and why the whole production was ridiculous. Who wants to stand outside in the middle of February, freezing to “send a message” about “global warming”? Resolve faded to the point where by the 4:00 closing time, I could shoot footage right next to the stage with no one within 20 feet of me.
Stunning: 40,000+ Rally in DC for Forward on Climate | 350.org
What a day! Over 40,000 people poured into the streets of Washington, DC today to push President Obama to take our nation “Forward on Climate” and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Our team here at 350.org had expected a crowd, but this was MASSIVE. Volunteers from around the country organized 130 buses to get people to the rally and it showed: there were people of all ages from Florida to Wisconsin to California here today.
Washington DC Climate Rally – February 17, 2013 « Suwannee – St. Johns Sierra Club
Contact our bus coordinators to sign up for a seat on the bus. We are asking everyone to contribute $72.74 towards the actual cost of $130. [So who paid the rest of the “actual cost” and why?]
Charter Bus Prices and Bus Options
[Typical capacity around 50 people]
It seems highly unlikely that all the buses were chock-full of people. 130 buses at 30 people per bus would be about 4,000 people. If 36,000 other people actually attended this rally, how did they get there?
Even the organizers photos show a sparse crowd. 5000 seems like the MAX that were there. Desperate Stalinsist propoganda unleashed during the death throes of the movement.
Isn’t 350.org financed by the Rockefellers aka Standard Oil money?
Of course the oil companies want us to stop using coal in power plants. of course they want to stop the keystone pipeline from bringing oil from a reliable neighbor and thus drive up oil prices in the US. the oil companies want the US to be dependent on middle east oil, because this is not a reliable supply. this leaves the consumer ready to pay any price.
Stop importing middle east oil. Stop the money flowing to the waring parties and they will be forced to reach a peace agreement. So long as billions in US $$ are going the the Arabs and Israelis under the status quo, why would they want peace? they will of course talk about it. but why would they want to end the gravy train?
At the same time why would those in the US making billions as a result of the ongoing conflict want to change? Why would they want the US to have a secure supply of oil? Thus while every US President talks about ending the conflict, everyone around them is giving them advice to ensure it never ends.
Here’s something from Huffington:
Do these people think their lies won’t be noticed? Why, yes, yes they do.
I watched this McKibben … person.. on Al Jazeera a couple days ago – he downright lied several times. He blinked a lot while he claimed “the oceans were 30% more acidic recently” and he couldn’t articulate why Canadians shouldn’t clean up the biggest oil spill in North America and turn it into usable fuel. He appears to be a very well paid mouthpiece for someone(thing) unsavoury.
So who paid the rest of the “actual cost” and why?
Who has the most to lose from a switch from OPEC oil to Canadian oil?
surprise, surprise, surprise
VW microbuses powered by wishful thinking and Unicorn Farts(TM).
It’s exactly the same formula as used when evaluating climate sensitivity you have to multiply by six to get the actual figure, in CAGW attendance figure reporting it’s called ‘crowd sensitivity’ you get a doubling per attendees to account for their ego and you multiply it for each online trolling account they have so times 3.
Which leads to the joke, “how many nitwits does it take to freeze their appendages off to protest global warming?”
Haven’t got the punchline yet . . . feel free . . .
Protester in clip: “Whether that means there’ll be a planet for us [points at people], or not, I think the planet will be better..”.
I didn’t realise the ‘350’ stood for the number of humans the ‘org’ want remaining after the glorious global blackout.
When I typed “washington dc climate” just now into Bing it didn’t offer “rally” as the end of a phrase. It doesn’t seem like there is much interest.
You’d think that these people would want to time their rallies for the warmer summer months, but then it would probably be too hot for them to venture out from their climate controlled homes.
A bus would cost around $1000/day, so for Fri-Sat-Sun hire, the $130 cost would mean about 23 people expected in the bus. Not a lot.
Off topic but not much news about James E Hansen being arrested last week for the second time protesting the Keystone Pipeline. How can that guy still have a job at NASA Anthony?
Just some thoughts on that oil-based clothing about which we are supposed to experience guilt. I grow the species of bamboo that is used for “natural” fibre, and I do very much like my bamboo underwear. Yet it’s hard to keep a straight face using the word “natural” while knowing how the stuff is turned into fabric, and how much synthetic substance is required for the many other things bamboo is used for. Just as a lot of fossil fuel goes into producing (and supplementing) the comforting hum of wind turbines, there are very few “natural” or “oil-free” products that don’t depend massively on oil and worse for their manufacture and distribution. (It’s a bit like Earth Hour really. Where would it be without massive urban infrastructure supported by fossil fuels?)
As most know, before synthetic winter clothing was common and warmth became cheap, there was an Animal Apocalypse in places like Hudson Bay and Siberia. What many don’t know is that, in one year in the 1920s, two million koala pelts were exported from Australia. Makes one feel a bit better about donning the Goretex and Dupont fibres, does it not?
The WaPo reports the head-count (so to speak) at 35,000 AS reported by the organizers. Are there any photos of the crowd?
I went to 350.org to see the article, which said no more than the few lines above. It was interesting to see it is purely a propaganda site, with no place for discussion. I suppose who needs discourse when you have consensus.
The photos so far on the 350.org do not suggest much more than a couple of thousand people….. If they had photo evidence of a far vaster crowd why would they not be showing it???
One thing we see over and over again is that groups like 350.org simply lie when convenient or helpful to “the cause” (as Michael Mann might say).
[snip . . site rules. I suppose you are being ironic, but there are many here for whom English is not their first language and so might misinterpret your comment. Perhaps it needs a /sarc tag, perhaps not . . mod]
Just more proof that you have to be arithmetically challenged to be a Believer in Global Warming.
Just like a Decline that needs to be Hidden is interpreted to be an increase in temperature, 5000 magically becomes 40,000.
Maybe they are auditioning for a job in Obama’s administration, where a ten $trillion dollar increase in planned spending is magically a $2.5 trillion dollar cut when you don’t increase the deficit as much as planned.
I was hoping it was going to be a science related fudging 🙁 To compensate for the fudging IBD and Taylor did recently, which hurt the skeptical side. Hippies always gonna be hippies.
” We were heartened by the lack of real enthusiasm by the protesters. “
I wonder if they were like the Seabrook Nuclear Plant Protesters, PAID to show up. (The Boston Globe had a want ad advertising $10/hr for protesters in the mid eighties. It paid better than a lot of other jobs)
Here is a humorous video about paid activists/protesters.
Even 40,000 is chump numbers for a DC rally.
This movement isn’t going anywhere, they say proudly. Correct.
They drove? They took the train?
I do not think more than 5K were there, that said DC has great trains and public transportation and 1000s of parking spots.
Of course the liberal media did their typical job. The clips I saw on the news were shot cleverly to make it look like there were literally tens of thousands there!
Dealing with these people is a lose-lose proposition. They are firmly committed to blaming naturally occurring changes that have been going on for millions of years (before humans were ever on the earth) on human activity. If we implement the taxes and draconian regulations they want, we all lose! Additionally, if we implement these measures, when (not if) they fail to change anything it will be because “Its too late – we waited too long!” Just because it seems warmer or colder than it did when we were a kid means nothing in comparison to the age of the earth. The one thing we can count on is that climate does and will change!
Ok, yes I was being ironic. Sorry. Once upon a time people would have known me for a frequent commenter, and laughed (or not, possibly). It’s been a while, though.
[sorry, but we have a lot of B-Ark types pitching up too. . . mod]
Of course they fudged the numbers. Number fudging is all they know how to do…
They seem so pitifully confused. Oil and coal have real conviction; it’s wind and solar that are tentative.
“It seems highly unlikely that all the buses were chock-full of people. 130 buses at 30 people per bus would be about 4,000 people. If 36,000 other people actually attended this rally, how did they get there?”
The largest intercity coach buses seat 55 to 60 people. Even if all 130 buses were in this class and were all at capacity that is still < 8000 people, still a long ways short of the 40,000 claimed by 350.org.
I have a question. When has 350.org produced anything other than fudge?
I saw someone here in NC looking for people to carpool to catch the bus in Durham early in the morning. From NC they were making a daytrip, not a three day excursion, so those were some expensive buses. The post I saw did say they were biofuel powered buses.
Off topic, but just a thought on “oil based” clothing. When I joined the U. S. Army, cold weather clothing was made of mostly “natural” fibers (cotton, wool and fur). Cold weather operations in Alaska, Korea, Norway and Germany were usually pretty miserable affairs, with frostbite and hypothermia common injuries. Then the “oil based” (nylon, gore-tex, etc.) extended cold weather clothing system (ECWCS) came along. Cold weather operations were a lot easier, especially for the Special Forces, who operated mostly on foot, skis and/or snow shoes. The CAGW crowd had better pray that they never have to live in freezing conditions without oil, coal or nuclear energy.
A link to CBS, who said that more than a thousand protesters rallied in DC. Now let’s find the missing 34000 people they claim were there.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57319383/thousands-in-d.c-protest-pipeline/
Network37 says:
“I watched this McKibben … person.. on Al Jazeera a couple days ago – he downright lied several times. He blinked a lot while he claimed “the oceans were 30% more acidic recently” and he couldn’t articulate why Canadians shouldn’t clean up the biggest oil spill in North America and turn it into usable fuel. He appears to be a very well paid mouthpiece for someone(thing) unsavoury.”
The House of Saud has played a double game with civilised nations* since we liberated them from Ottoman rule.
On the one hand they take our money in exchange for allowing us to extract oil under where they have pitched their tents, on the other hand they fund Wahabbi missions that underpin anti-Western dreams of a new Caliphate, world-wide. On the one hand they promote sale of oil in the West but on theother they are happy to see Environmentalists undermine the basis of our societies, which is industry. Its the same long term agenda really.
*I say “civilised” nations. The word civilised basically means living in cities. The Saud Arabs are proud of their nomadic heritage and continue to use tents wherever they can. Ridiculous pretense though that may be when these tents are carpeted and air-conditioned. Nonetheless, they like to think of thmselves as Bedouin-like people of the desert.By definition they cannot also be “civilised”.
pottereaton says:
February 18, 2013 at 8:02 am
Which leads to the joke, “how many nitwits does it take to freeze their appendages off to protest global warming?”
14.1 – but Hansen will round them up to 15 for the children.
A satellite image of the event would quickly settle the question regarding the number of participants at this “rally”.
The most ironic part about the idiots that actually engage in supporting the political pawns of the Democrat Elite is they don’t understand that they are actually ushering in the destruction of everything that makes their miserable lives even moderately comfortable.
Yet they sit their in their clothing and everything else whose manufacture would be impossible without modern energy and oil derivatives and scream, whine and handcuff themselves (and worse) to things for a purpose they have not the slightest understanding of. Mr. McKibben and all the others like him are pawns in a game they either don’t understand or simply don’t care while they garner their 15 minutes of fame.
Sad and disgusting. The inmates are running the asylum. Aside from a handful of Republicans their isn’t much real opposition to these folks designs.
This was the email I got (i always let the enemy inform me what they are going to do)
Friends —
Today, the largest climate action in United States history is happening in Washington, D.C.
People are standing in solidarity throughout the world, and calling on their leaders to move #ForwardOnClimate.
There’s a lot more work to be done tomorrow, but today we need to get really loud, and grab the world’s attention.
Henry says
Glad to hear it was cold so not too many turned up…
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
global cooling is here,
I am sure in due time they will find something to blame humans for the coming cold….
It’s pretty much a constant that you can halve the organizers’ claim and double the police’s claim to get a number that is approximately accurate, in any big protest in a free country. So we’re talking a significant number of people by US standards (in France, this is what happens whenever the sun shines or fails to shine).
I’m amused at this wondering where the others came from. DC is a city, and the mall is in the middle of it. There’s lots of ways to get there — fly, drive, take a commercial bus, take Amtrak — and lots of people who live there already.
Many just flew in their private, corporate or public hydrocarbon / CO2 emitting jets.
Many, many more must have had to drive their SUVs, circling the block looking for a close parking place to keep from freezing during this Global Warming Rally.
We’re in trouble!
cn
I understand that the refining of the tar sands involves technology available in Texas but not (yet) in Canada hence the “need” for the pipeline.
Being one of those people who prefers to do the processing close to the source of the raw material I have to ask: why don’t the Canadians get the technology, refine the sands and send the downstream products to the US (or elsewhere for that matter)?
It is not that this refinery operation would be used for just a year or two.
It would leave them in a far better market position and the options of sending the refined products directly to multiple markets where they are to be used rather then piping it to Texas and then from there to the various markets.
Does anyone know why this is not considered, or is it but the pipeline takes all the media attention.
j ferguson says:
February 18, 2013 at 8:23 am
“The WaPo reports the head-count (so to speak) at 35,000 AS reported by the organizers. Are there any photos of the crowd?”
Good old WAPO – as blind as Bill McKibben.
It’s not the first time the left/greens have lied about their numbers at a demonstration. In the link above they estimated more than 2.5 times the actual number.
I want to know who produced the fuel for the coaches. Surely they wouldn’t pay the oil companies.
So desperate to prevent climate change they deliberately created 130 bus journeys worth of totally avoidable CO2. Yet another example of the joined up thinking coming from these people.
I used the term “nitwits” to describe these people above, and this quotation from their website confirms it: “The march today looked like the movement that elected President Obama. Now, it’s time for him to join us in standing up to Big Oil and saying no to Keystone XL. Because this movement isn’t going anywhere. We’re, to borrow a phrase, fired up and ready to go. And we’re not stopping until the President takes action.
“Because this movement isn’t going anywhere.”(?) LOL. Of course we all know they did go somewhere. They went inside and got warm.
As McKibben says (but never actually seems to show how) “Do the math.”.
Matt says:
February 18, 2013 at 9:17 am
I have a question. When has 350.org produced anything other than fudge?
If they actually produced fudge, it’d be something useful – I like fudge. I also like seeing loonies freezing to death to stop – what? A pipe being built. A pipe which would help their country to become self-sufficient in oil, and stop their dollars being donated to undemocratic regimes in the middle-east. A pipe – my God, what’s the world coming to.
Interesting contrast; look at a photo of any “grass-roots” Tea Party rally and note that most of the signs are home made; suggesting folks thought about what they were assembling to promote beforehand. Now look at the signs for 350 (or ANY left wing protest) and you will see professionally designed and printed posters.
I best most of these 350 protesters could not explain the meaning of the signs they carried. (E.g. What is “Climate Justice”? It certainly isn’t science.) Do they realize they are useful idiots for those with an income redistribution or an extreme socialist agenda?
We backpacked past 5,000 of these folks camped out at Hopkins Prairie down here in warmth challenged Florida this past weekend. 5,000 freezing hippies in the woods burning every branch in sight. Welcome Home guys!
There are some techniques that Fenton Communications actually teaches (or did) in their literature. First of all, official crowd estimates are usually made by the area covered by the crowd so they tell you that in events drawing a less than expected number of people, to put more space around the individuals. So you might see, in a sparsely attended event, people putting 3 or more feet around each other in order to spread out the area of the crowd and increase the estimate by increasing the covered area. Another thing they teach is to find specific places to escort journalists to so that you present your protest in the best way possible for photojournalists and tv cameras. They teach you to make a press packet, tell the journalists where to arrive to connect with protest organizers, and then escort them to the desired location.
It’s all just plain propaganda.
The money attached to commercial, not so much political, interests is disturbing on both sides of the story. We know of the WWF, the Sierra Club, The David Suzuki Foundation, Al Gore, and we hear of the money behind The Heartland and Competitive Tradition Institute. How are we to determine who speaks from their moral beliefs and not their pecuniary desires?
Each of us wishes to support those who share our values, our sense of fairness, justice and – less comfortably, perhaps – our way of life. Yet you can get the sense that we are manipulated all the time. Even by those who feel they are doing it for our best interests.
Why are lies so essential when you proclaim you are fighting for the truth?
The world is portrayed as black or white. This is, my opinion, the actual scourge we face. The McKibben’s see what they see as Good; all others see, by definition, is Bad. There is no sense in pulling your punch when your world is divided into those who, if not helping you, are working to harm you.
George Bush said that those who are not with us (in the Iraq I war) are against us. Love me, love my dog, as the kids on the block would say. The scary part is not that McKibben says it, or Al Gore or Marc Morano (perhaps less, because his trump card is skepticism, not force of argument), but that their strongest supporters act as though they believe it.
In this spirit of Us vs Them, it comes to the individual to do his own homework, to distrust generally, to always know that the Wizard stands behind a curtain even if we can’t see the curtain. We are in a moral universe of misinformation and private agendas that give the benefit of doubt, however slight, to the prevailing personal better interest. What a sad situation to be in!
There is a school of thought that says the more sociopathic, the less empathic members of our society rise to the highest levels. The aristocracy rules because they believe themselves a higher form of life, with an intrinsic entitlement that used to be God-derived and now is simply Darwinian: those who make the decisions are “better” in a circular way than those for whom they make the decisions. Truth or lies are simply tools to achieve what is, by the fact that it is achieved, the ultimately endorsable end.
Political spokesmen, company presidents, political leaders: the great give power to the lesser great by ambitious, all self-directed to prey on the gullible crowd, not just because great power deserves great reward, but because the weak are capable of nothing and so – Darwin again – deserve nothing. What the weak get is what the strong, in their magnanimity, provide them.
I have worked hard to educate myself to the level I have. Which has shown me that 95% certainty is nothing more than the level of emotional comfort developed around a boardroom table when a project of high visibility is being pushed onto the group that controls the purse strings, be they the directors of a company or the taxpayers of a nation. The McKibbenesque lies are not unique, just less sophisticated because he is less sophisticated. Generals in every war need foolish but fervent officers to encourage young and naive soldiers to rush the enemy.
So far widespread education hasn’t lead to widespread understanding of the difference – and importance – between what we are told and what is. If McKibben says there are 50,000 demonstrators, and the MSM repeats it because it suits they purpose or because they really don’t think critically, we come to accept the unacceptable: our own manipulation for purposes that, truth be told, we would not support.
And is that not the reason that lies, mis- and dis-information are in the common arsenal of the activist? That the truth is not sufficiently strong to drive us in the direction that the narrowly purposed, self-interest of the activists want?
So how much revenue in the form of donations to 350.org and other “organizations” has this protest generated? They do this for money. If the publicity results in more in donations than it took to ship busloads of people down from Canada, it’s a win.
4000 or 40000, what’s the difference? We already know that there is a surplus of useful idiots in the climate cult and a plethora of paid activists. Do they lie? Of course they lie, all the time. Do they repeat their lies often? Hey that’s just what propagandists do. At the end of the day, history will judge this cult for what it is. Unfortunately we are living that history now and this cult controls the legislative system.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
Adam,
The CBS story you linked is from November.
November 2011. 😉
I wonder what was the percentage of attendees who went because they felt a religious need to go, versus the percentage who went because the foundations and government institutions they work for told them to go?
MostlyHarmless,
My question was a take on the article’s title.
Pull the Tides Foundation Grantee list, look for alternative energy groups. Look at their boards of directors and notice how many are executive level employees of alternative energy companies who stand to make money based on the political activism of the group of which they are a member. Al Gore has a mansion in Nashville, Tennessee and one in Santa Monica, California. He was a politician. His father was a politician. Politicians don’t make that much in salary.
“Environmentalism” at the scale of 350.org is about corruption and graft and political influence. It isn’t about “the environment” at all.
Wamron,
Where did you get your definition of “civilised” from?
I checked three different on-line dictionaries
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/civilised
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civilised
http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/civilised.htm
There’s not one word about cities in any of them.
Why freeze trying to estimate crowd size by observation when you can stay warm and use a model to obtain the results you want? It also gives you the advantage of being able to adjust the number upward over time by tinkering with the model.
LOL! What do they want? Blackouts! When do they want them? Now!
I guess “Forward on Climate” wants mankind to go backward on energy, and backward on living standards.
Outtheback, you understand wrong. You refine crude into ten or more different products close to market, not close to source. Whether it is a tanker or a pipe, one product is easier to transport in bulk than ten which must be kept separate.
outtheback says:
February 18, 2013 at 10:28 am
“Does anyone know . . . ”
It is all on the web. Key words are investors, markets, efficiency, profits.
Then politics intervenes – see Obama!
Also, British Columbia wants to benefit from Alberta oil.
Consider your phrase “the options of sending”:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2012/2012-07-23-01.html
They will get it all worked out and the oil will be used.
They rode on sheep which they sheared and hand wove on wooden looms into loose shawls tied with hemp . They slaughtered the sheep and ate the raw meat in celebration of natures bounty. Really, who needs fossil fuels.
It’s interesting that they’re protesting the keystone pipeline, wouldn’t Canadian oil lower prices in the US thus challenging OPEC? So here we have these ‘Green’ groups protesting something that OPEC do not want to happen either. You can see how the controlled opposition works.
97% of the people there felt that 97% more people attended than really did therefore making it a consensus that cannot be argued against unless you are a denier. (Cormac McCarthy would be proud of that sentence)
Has any climate scientist publicly stated that 350 ppm is the “safe” value? I want names.
Yes, but, they did extensive modelling and the models consistently confirmed that attendance was between 35,000 and 50,000.
I’ve read on this site that the year-round The heat on the Gulf Coast assists the refining process, which requires lots of heat for distillation.
Red noise.
from the link on prices:
Deluxe Motor Coach 40 – 57 [places] $875 – $1295 (full day 10-12 Hrs)
Sierra club:
“Contact our bus coordinators to sign up for a seat on the bus. We are asking everyone to contribute $72.74 towards the actual cost of $130. ”
So let’s take an average bus capacity of 50 for an average price $1000 …. ermm that’s $20 per head, not $130 or even $72. And they’re not saying “this is way over our cost price but don’t forget you are investing in your children’s future”. They’re trying to make out their doing you a favour and only charging you half what it really costs to hire a bus. Incredible.
Not only are these jerks trying to screw everyone with their phoney alarmism, they are first and foremost screwing their loyal eco-followers.
I wouldn’t be the first to see a similarity to telly-evangelists.
After the rally they got in their SUVs and drove home and turned up the heat a bit to take off the chill. Good grief, I could not be such a hypocrite.
The 350.org lobbing group is made up of green fanatics. Fanatics create their own reality complete with a flexible moral code. The flexible moral code allows fanatics to lie (for example inflating the estimated number of demonstrators at a Climate change demonstration, the climategate affair, and so on) and ignoring facts (see the list of scientific observations and logic that supports the assertion that there is no extreme AGW problem to solve) if that helps their “cause”.
I am curious how long it will take before the liberal media and the general public become aware there is no extreme AGW warming problem to solve and spending money on green scams is ludicrous.
A massive tax on energy will further reduce the US’s competiveness. Spending billions of dollars on green scams that do not significantly reduce total CO2 emissions and increase the cost of electricity and transportation fuel will increase unemployment.
The EU has provided an example of what happens economically if countries spend billions of deficit dollars on green scams.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/
Observations do not support the extreme AGW paradigm. There is not extreme AGW warming problem to solve.
1. The missing heat is not in the ocean 8 – 14
2. Satellites show a warmer Earth is releasing extra energy to space 15 -17
3. The models get core assumptions wrong – the hot spot is missing 22 – 26, 28 – 31
4. Clouds cool the planet as it warms 38 – 56
5. The models are wrong on a local, regional, or continental scale. 63- 64
6. Eight different methods suggest a climate sensitivity of 0.4°C 66
7. Has CO2 warmed the planet at all in the last 50 years? It’s harder to tell than you think. 70
8. Even if we assume it’s warmed since 1979, and assume that it was all CO2, if so, feedbacks are zero — disaster averted. 71
9. It was as warm or warmer 1000 years ago. Models can’t explain that. It wasn’t CO2. (See also failures of hockey sticks) The models can’t predict past episodes of warming, so why would they predict future ones?
http://www.johnstonanalytics.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/LindzenChoi2011.235213033.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000- 2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. The present analysis accounts for the 72 day precession period for the ERBE satellite in a more appropriate manner than in the earlier paper. We develop a method to distinguish noise in the outgoing radiation as well as radiation … …we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. ….
…The heart of the global warming issue is so-called greenhouse warming. This refers to the fact that the earth balances the heat received from the sun (mostly in the visible spectrum) by radiating in the infrared portion of the spectrum back to space. … ….However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2. Models predict warming of from 1.5C to 5C and even more for a doubling of CO2. Model predictions depend on the ‘feedback’ within models from the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds. Within all current climate models, water vapor increases with increasing temperature so as to further inhibit infrared cooling.
Doug Proctor says:
February 18, 2013 at 11:09 am
“The world is portrayed as black or white. This is, my opinion, the actual scourge we face. The McKibben’s see what they see as Good; all others see, by definition, is Bad. There is no sense in pulling your punch when your world is divided into those who, if not helping you, are working to harm you.”
The world is black and white. There are the statists / collectivists /warmists who want a total state – in the case of warmism, a state that has control over EVERY ENERGY GENERATING PROCESS. They see the state as the father of all things, as the only inventor, as their protector; they often work for the state (for instance IPCC scientists). NGOs love the taxpayer money they get from the state (In the EU, the EU comission tops up the money of NGO’s; they collect 30%, the EU gives them the remaining 70%.)
This is the Hegelian all-channels-controlling dialectic bloc; the Total State is their goal, The Republic as envisioned by Plato 2,500 years ago; the destruction of the family; the molding of children by the state. ALL OF THIS.
On the other side are people who believe they are free.
There is NO compromise.
Some cold weather gear is made from recycled plastic, which is made from petroleum feedstocks.
Plastic fabric or fleece as it is called is made from recycled plastic bottles. But, how is fleece made of plastic bottles? It is an extensive process, definitely but it is definitely worth it. Generally, it takes about 25 disposed plastic bottles to make enough polar fleeces for an adult to sew a piece of clothing out of it. — http://www.snvplastics.com/articles/How_is_fleece_made_of_plastic_bottles.php
Marc Marano: FoxNews 16:10 EST
Jim Hansen is “NASA resident ex-con”
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/19693/NASAs-resident-excon-Top-NASA-global-warming-scientist-James-Hansen-arrested-again-in-White-House-protest-over-pipeline–180000-taxpayerpaid-salary
Want to plug the March I attended this year. 😉
[snip . . OT . . mod]
Andrew
What do you mean natural fibers for clothes? If its is from animals, it is cruelty to animals even if the animal is not killed in the process like sheep shearing. If it is from plants, to meet the large demand from from demonstrators who would like to demonstrate in cold weather, the fibers have to come from plants grown in plantations. This means clearing forests, displacing wild life and displacing indigenous population. The most important thing is for them to use common sense, that is plan their demonstrations in warm weather or even go more natural through out the year.
I guess support for their Cause is worse than they thought.
I shot a lot of footage walking throughout the main areas of the protest during the official time of the protest: 12:00-4:00. When it comes out tomorrow, it will be clear that this was a complete failure of a “rally.” It’s possible they paid a bunch of people to come in for a few minutes; that or PhotoShop could explain a picture McKibben posted that made the attendance look like a full house. It was never impressive, and well before the end of the rally the two words that came to mind were “ghost town.” Perhaps needless to say, McKibben, the “Hip Hop Caucus” et al quickly retreated into fossil fuel comfort; they were nowhere to be found after their fire-and-brimstone sermons. Four hours in nature is obviously too high a price to pay for “solidarity.”
DirkH says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:54 pm [ … ]
Exactly right.
Nick in Vancouver says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:20 pm
They rode on sheep which they sheared and hand wove on wooden looms into loose shawls tied with hemp . They slaughtered the sheep and ate the raw meat in celebration of natures bounty. Really, who needs fossil fuels.
*
Nick, I found this to be a piece of poetry – Hope it’s okay, I’ve saved it to put on my wall!
🙂
Bamboo clothing is made out of rayon. The rayon is made by breaking down the bamboo. This of course only requires natural sunlight and sea water. /sarc
As one of “those Canadians”, I can give some input on why “we” don’t preprocess the bitumen coming from Alberta:
1. Oilsands production is already being scrutinized under a microscope. The tiniest increase of emissions or smallest pond that a few ducks get mired in makes headlines. Refining is not on the table right now because we’re inundated by Luddites too
2. Sending the raw bitumen, at a discount I might add, is more economical. Oilsands production is still at an early stage, and although things are MUCH better than 10 years ago the focus at the moment is still just getting anything marketable out of the ground
3. It’s far more efficient for both the producer and consumer to work with raw materials, It would be far more complex to refine product and ship it than it is to ship bitumen.
It’s not just that there is more capacity to refine near the Gulf, it just makes the most sense to produce a finished product nearer the point of consumption. Keystone XL is designed to transport bitumen, which is not sweet, or light, and requires further processing.
The whole thing is ironic, really. Alberta IS cleaning a massive natural spill, and there are amazing “reclamation” rules in place for these developments. The land WILL be better than it is now…. cleaner, more productive, better for wildlife. And I’d like to see that stuff cleaned up BEFORE the area is under ice again, because it will be eventually. And EVEN IF there was a Keystone XL related leak or spill, the product moving through the pipe is heavy and thick, much less likely to do any of the harm that people are afraid of.
Again, the whole thing is either motivated by self-interest by the extremely wealthy left, or motivated by ignorance of facts, or motivated by an essential failure to understand how puny human activity really is relative to the planet. On a related note, how is the Gulf dealing with the horrible aftermath of the “devastating” blowout? Lost all the fish yet?
Well said CodeTech. It is the largest ever clean-up of a natural oil release that we know of. It may have happened in Venezuela too a long time ago.
Protests are promoted against pipelines because of corporate and national interests. It is a surprise to me that so many Canadian NGO’s will take money to act as sleazy shills for narrow foreign interests. The head of one admitted to Anna-Marie Tremonte they took $3.6m in US funds to agitate against the pipeline to the BC coast on behalf of US interests. You can hear the interview on line (CBC radio) if you missed it. Anna-Marie’s response to this? Nothing whatsoever. Not an investigative question, not any sign of alarm. Is that high-level collaboration with foreign interests or journalistic incompetence? Hard to tell.
The best solution? Pipe it to the East Coast along existing pipeline routes.
outtheback says:
February 18, 2013 at 10:28 am
——————————————–
If the Texans have the technology to refine the tar sands why would they share it with Canada? There is money in refining. Plus the investment cost of building a refinery to ship oil down to Texas where such a refinery already exists? Seems like a waste of infrastructure investment. I’m in the mining industry and not oil & gas but I do know that high capital costs kill projects.
I feel that a data smoothing event has just occured.
Silly 350ers, global warming events are for summer!
I think the crowd was mostly from the lonely Occupy swine. They thought the large pipeline carried through the crowd was a giant reefer and they did not want to miss out.
Reminds me of The Guardian’s pictures of 350’s demos around the world in 2009. Thrill to the sight of literally dozens of people flooding major cities!
I’m sure The Guardian would love to have had every picture full of thousands of committed activists – in Boston the picture contains a whole 2 people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/oct/27/350-campaign-climate-change-protest?INTCMP=SRCH#/?picture=354767634&index=0
The Newshour program on PBS just had on a spokesman from NRDC. He claimed 30,000 protesters, so they are already walking it back. But then he said 3.1 million new jobs from renewables in the last decade, and I swear his nose grew.
It was funny, the news only spent about 5 seconds on this story before moving on to something else. I was wondering why their footage was only of a single group of protesters instead of a wide view shot of a large crowd.
DirkH says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:54 pm
###
Brilliantly said!
I am sure the data points were ‘homogenized’ ….
Smoke, Lots of mirrors and a huge bucket of alarmist Bull Shit. Walla 40000 climate zombies. LOL
I’m reminded of an English football (soccer) team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. A club with great history and tradition, regularly drawing crowds of over 30,000 to their matches, they found themselves relegated to the bottom tier of the football league in the 1980s.
One dismal Tuesday night during this dark part of their history they found themselves playing a knockout FA Cup tie away at an amateur club called Chorley. They lost. The total crowd was 2,000 and it was not a long trip, even by English standards.
Fast forward to now. They’re doing well again, crowds aplenty. You will not find a fan amongst them who does not claim he went to Chorley. Anecdotally that crowd would have been 20,000!
To make this relevant, I’m thinking 350.org counted those who were there in spirit, as well as fact, much like the Wanderers!
Network37 says:
“I watched this McKibben … person.. on Al Jazeera a couple days ago – he downright lied several times. He blinked a lot..”
At least he’s learnt to blink, his doctors are making progress:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/tick_tick_tick/
It is a technical definition from anthropology. Check any introductory anthro text.
350, of course. 😉
ferd berple says:
February 18, 2013 at 7:52 am
Gee Berple, what a maroon. Your take on the “Big Oil” rape of the world (conspiracy) is childish. There is enough of an energy market for all of the fossil fuel companies to take care of themselves for centuries. What liberal clown BS are you reading. They don’t want to put the other industries out of business. The longer society is perpetuated on this eff’ed up planet, the more money they will make. And me too.
They’ve always been carpeted. For centuries.
Tidbit: Carpets can take dirt and sand, and dirty shoes. It’s bare feet that destroy carpets. Feet oil and toxins damage the fibers. A rich friend had an Aubusson carpet on his floor, paid $50Gs for it in the 1960s. He asked me to keep my shoes on, then explained the science of carpets and their use as traditional protection against radiant heat in the desert.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Sending different downstream products along a pipe line is easy, that is done all the time. You put a “pig” in between and way you go again.
The heat to refine issue could be, but you need to heat it up (and dilute it) all the way from Alberta, so what is easier refining at source or inTexas?
Politics and ROI, yes I can see that being an issue as it always is.
Canadians being happy being rid of the “oil spill” and any residue? Yes that could be. That is a bit like the West Australians wanting to do the rare earth mining but the polluting refining in SE Asia (which they do not want there either).
I have no problem thinking about why Canada would not want it or why the US would want it.
The issue is that there is no pipe line at the moment and until there is one or an alternative action is taken the tar sands will remain just that and Alberta will not make a dime. Until there is something in place there is no ROI for those involved.
This was the big thing in Alberta in the 80’s but the price was not right. Man, there was a buz in Edmonton in those years.
In my opinion Alberta has to face the facts, there will always be a determined action against a pipe going anywhere, Texas, BC or the East. Real issues or imagined. Refining at source will kill a lot of those issues. If there is no pipe other people (or the same) will object against road or rail transport of the stuff (with the volumes involved that is not really a choice anyway).
Why not get on with it?
And like it or not, Canada has to do what is right for Canada. Whatever that is.
(I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in this matter, although a US blackout would mean sourcing some of my raw materials elsewhere).
Jim Mayer,
You are the moron. You assume that Ferd believes that we must buy oil from the Middle East. That is not what he said.
Robert A. Taylor,
I don’t have access to an introductory anthropology text.
Talking about fudging numbers, this slightly off topic article, details what the EU are trying to do with their carbon permits.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/eu-poised-to-set-fate-of-carbon-market-20130219-2eotk.html
Do these people think their lies won’t be noticed? Why, yes, yes they do.
It does not matter if the lies are noticed or not if they are not reported in the mainstream media. The BBC here is committed to presenting the case of AGW positively so they automatically pick the most positive figure their reporters can find. The BBC were caught out with their lies but who knows how many other media sources are equally dishonest.
I’d like to see the source of the money that is used to oppose North American fuel development. Could it be Saudi??
In Canada, the Prime Minister is pushing for the closure of many of the country’s coal power plants under the excuse of saving the planet. What most frost bitten Canadians don’t realize is that coal is a competitor of oil, and when the coal plants are closed they will be replaced by oil. Alberta oil. It’s not merely a coincidence that the Prime Minister is from Alberta.
Canada’s PM is Alberta’s best oil salesman. He should be paid a healthy commission for his efforts. Lol!
Alberta oil will save the planet…sniff…
DirkH says: @ February 18, 2013 at 12:54 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well put. It is about a world wide totalitarian state where our every move is dictated and freedom.
See my comment here
In addition to the fictitious numbers for 350’s protest, they are abject failures at giving an intelligible argument for why stopping this Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to be of environmental value.
Activists are trying to choke off new or expanded supplies of evilll fossil fuels in order to force changes to ‘renewables’…. But transporting bitumen by rail and relying upon supplies from Venezuela, the Middle East, etc. is not a better course than having the Keystone XL pipeline in service.
Meanwhile, similar nuts in the EU/UK have pushed the UK into a predicament in which they will face a 10% drop in electrical output almost overnight at the end of March:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/2/19/what-next.html
The combination of aging coal power plants, destroyed incentive for building new gas or coal fired plants, and growing but highly unreliable “renewable” sources such as wind, are pushing the UK toward wrenching changes. That is what groups like 350.org want, of course, although they hope that a compliant media will not place the blame on them if too much of the public becomes annoyed or worse.
Sounds like the bus ride cost $72 and each rider probably got $75 to stand in the cold for a few hours….
Jim Mayer says:
February 18, 2013 at 8:17 pm
“Gee Berple, what a maroon. Your take on the “Big Oil” rape of the world (conspiracy) is childish. There is enough of an energy market for all of the fossil fuel companies to take care of themselves for centuries. What liberal clown BS are you reading.”
Well the Gas industry paid the Sierra club to fight against coal. This is documented. You can call it a conspiracy – they tried to keep it secret.
Why, Jim, did they do that? What do you think?
I don’t get the remarks about quantity of chartered busses.
If transit busses and rapid transit were running that’s a lot of capacity able to bring people into the city from an area population of many times 40,000.
Perhaps they couldn’t get many people from the DC area to attend.
As for “commieBob”s remark “Do these people think their lies won’t be noticed? Why, yes, yes they do.” there are some phenomenon at work:
– telling a lie as an offensive measure. For example, call someone on their behaviour on the street or in a store and they’ll tell lies
– their perceived audience of people who will believe them and not those corporate fat casts/oil industry patsies/etc.
– delusionary mentality (evasion)
– Alex Epstein of Centre for Industrial Progress suggests it is shame that they did so poorly (that would fit confusion about self-esteem)
outtheback says:
February 18, 2013 at 10:28 am
“I understand that the refining of the tar sands involves technology available in Texas but not (yet) in Canada hence the “need” for the pipeline.”
Although there are several useful replies above, permit me to add a few more facts;
– Serious commercial production from the Athabasca oil sands started in 1967, with Suncor, then Great Canadian Oil Sands. (yes, 45 years ago)
– the GCOS plant included an upgrader; they upgraded essentially all their bitumen production for many years.
– the second plant, Syncrude started up in 1979, also included an upgrader, and Syncrude has upgraded essentially all its bitumen since then. The product is marketed as “Syncrude Sweet Blend”, and even today attracts a market price similar to West Texas Intermediate (WTI). (the discount of $30 per barrel we a hear about applies to diluted bitumen).
Figures for 2011 (from Government of Alberta) are total bitumen production of 1.7 million barrels per day, of which 57% was upgraded in Alberta – so some 700,000 barrels per day of bitumen (plus the diluent to make dil bit) already shipped out of Alberta (as far as I know, it all goes to the U.S.)
So obviously there is no technology gap, and has not been one for 35 or 45 years.
CodeTech provided some good points as to why the trend has been to more shipments of dil bit, such that, as total production has increased, the percentage upgraded within Alberta has dropped from perhaps 90% as recently as 2000 to the 2011 figure of 57%. Note current production is closer to 2 million barrels per day, so the upgraded portion is probably now down around 50%.
I will add one more reason. Refineries are tailored to the expected feed – yes, they do have some flexibility, and yes they can migrate with further capital investment towards a different crude slate. Regardless, certain Gulf Coast refineries were optimized for Venezuelan crude, which is much like Athabasca bitumen. The owners of those refineries are concerned Chavez will run the Venezuelan industry in to the ground (with good reason, perhaps – some very competent Venezuelan engineers have already voted with their feet and are making solid contributions in Alberta) – and are concerned their refineries will require substantial capital investment to suit some other crude slate. Solution? Get the same stuff from Alberta.
Paul Jackson said:
“Silly 350ers, global warming events are for summer!”
Well, it used to be global warming, but it’s worse than that now, it’s Climate Change!
Don’t you know it’s so cold because the CO2 is over 350 ppm?
My Dog, think of the children.
Has anyone analyzed and published photo or video evidence of the actual turnout numbers on Feb. 17?? From what I saw in 350’s own photos there may have been only a few thousand people max., nothing like the 40,000 that is still being claimed. This is going to go into media/contemporary history as another inflated activist fraud if someone with photos and details can’t establish the facts.
btw, fascinating profile of McKibben in which he displays an utterly nutty obsession with the Keystone XL pipeline as though it’s the key to the entire future of the human race (who knew that an enviro-whacko could say we have “infinite” hydrocarbons available when usually they are telling us we are just about to run out):
[h/t Tom Nelson]
Bill McKibben is a fanatic
Yet again I search but fail to find any photo or video evidence that there were more than a couple of thousand people at the 350.org event:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/8483599573/in/photostream/
are any journalists or bloggers of a critical bent investigating the possible fraud of ongoing claims that 35,000 or 40,000 demonstrators were present??
I find it difficult to believe there would not be even one photo or video giving a sense of such a large crowd ……