Billionaire Sea Level Hype

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Here’s how billionaire hype works.

Without presenting a scrap of evidence to back up his claim, Bill Gates, multi-billionaire inventor of the blue screen of death and Mr. Rogers impersonator, says:

“All cities will be affected by climate change, but coastal cities will have the worst problems. Hundreds of millions of people could be forced from their homes as sea levels rise and storm surges get worse. By the middle of this century, the cost of climate change to all coastal cities could exceed $1 trillion . . . each year.”

Source

A trillion dollars each year? Really? Let’s take a look.

Per the tide gauge records, the sea level rise has been around 2 mm (0.08 inches) or so per year for about a century. There MAY have been a slight rise in that in the last couple of decades, although the data is unconvincing. The rise is due to the splicing of the satellite data onto the tide level data. I wrote about this in a post called “Inside The Acceleration Factory“.

But for the sake of Bill’s claim, let’s suppose that sea-level rise was to double by 2050. Highly doubtful, of course, but let’s pretend it could happen. That would mean that over the period until 2050, the average rise would be 3 mm (0.12 inches) per year.

It’s 29 years until 2050. So even with this high estimate, that means that the sea level would only rise by about 9 centimeters (3.4 inches) by 2050.

So I ask you—how is a 3.4 inch (9 cm) rise in sea level going to cost coastal cities a trillion dollars? The smallest waves are that large. And how will that slight rise force “hundreds of millions of people” from their homes?

Obviously, it won’t. Even if the rise were 50% greater than my figures, it still won’t. That’s just billionaire sea level hysteria. In most cities the tidal range is on the order of six feet or so (a couple of meters) from top to bottom … so unless you had an accurate tide gauge, you would never even notice the difference.

But heck, it’s Bill Gates, and he’s rich, so well-meaning fools believe him.
As I’ve mentioned before … math. Don’t leave home without it.

And let me add a second rule—don’t trust billionaires. Guess what? They just might not have your best interests at heart …

w.

PS—An alert commenter points out that despite his hype about seaside buildings being flooded, it didn’t stop Señor Gates from buying a house on the beach in lovely San Diego.

Yessiree, that’s not hypocritical at all.

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alastair gray
February 16, 2021 2:45 pm

To be honest Gates wasn’t that smart as a computer programmer. He just took over other people’s work and capitalised on it. He was very good at that and seeing business opportunity. He wrote a book in 2000 “at the speed of thought” and all he said about the internet was that it could enable you to watch a film starting at a time of your choosing and have 500 channels of bollocks online, No insight into the radical changes wrougyt in our society by internet. The guy really does not have any futuristic vision

Larry in Texas
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 2:58 pm

In the case of Apple, more like Gates stole other people’s work and capitalized on it.

Trying to Play Nice
Reply to  Larry in Texas
February 16, 2021 3:31 pm

Gates uses other peoples’ time and resources to make his money. He stole computer time for his partners to write software, which is one of the reasons Microsoft if so aware of software piracy.

Carlton Yee
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
February 16, 2021 7:43 pm

Microtheft was known as “Not Invented Here” for decades. Look up the history of the Zoom, their iPhone knockoff, or their first attempts at icon based desktop computer. dismal failures….

Harry Passfield
Reply to  Carlton Yee
February 17, 2021 10:55 am

Gates managed to get the icon-based system courtesy of IBM. in the late 80s/early ’90s, he was contracted by IBM to develop their new, ground-breaking OS/2 OS (which really was great!). When IBM finally packed up their PC division Gates got to keep the development work and W95 was the result. But it was never as good as OS/2.

RicDre
Reply to  Harry Passfield
February 18, 2021 6:11 am

The first few versions of OS/2 were awful, mostly because IBM insisted it be comparable with the Intel 286 which had some very serious shortcomings (Microsoft wanted OS/2 to be based on the Intel 386 chip but IBM overruled them on this point). By the time OS/2 got to version 3 it was a very good product but it didn’t matter because Windows had taken off on the IBM compatible PC on the strength of Excel and Word. IBM didn’t help maters by creating the PS/2 line of computers (which were incompatible with older IBM computers and also much more expensive) to be the exclusive OS/2 platform.

Mike O
Reply to  Larry in Texas
February 16, 2021 4:04 pm

Keep in mind Apple stole it first from Xerox Menlo Park.

Scott W Bennett
Reply to  Mike O
February 17, 2021 2:27 am

Apple purchased the Xerox patents, that makes a very big difference!

RicDre
Reply to  Scott W Bennett
February 17, 2021 3:35 pm

If that’s true, then why did XEROX sue APPLE for copyright infringement in December, 1989?

COMPANY NEWS; Xerox Sues Apple Computer Over Macintosh Copyright
By Lawrence M. Fisher, Special To the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/15/business/company-news-xerox-sues-apple-computer-over-macintosh-copyright.html

RicDre
Reply to  Larry in Texas
February 16, 2021 4:09 pm

In the case of Apple, more like Gates stole other people’s work and capitalized on it.

True enough, but then so did Apple; both companies stole their ideas from XEROX PARC. Steve Jobs tacitly admitted this when he said in 1996: “Picasso had a saying — ‘good artists copy; great artists steal’ — and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

Reply to  Larry in Texas
February 16, 2021 6:54 pm

The real genius of Microsoft early days of innovation and writing code was Paul Allen. It was Allen who convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard and join him in writing and developing an operating system for intel’s new microprocessor coming to the consumer market.

Roger
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
February 17, 2021 2:02 am

They bought an operating system….

Reply to  Roger
February 17, 2021 4:15 am

I believe Gates paid some young programmer in Seattle $500 for MSDOS 1. Then he fooled IBM into paying him for every copy on their first PCs.

RicDre
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
February 17, 2021 3:46 pm

Microsoft originally did not have and did not want to license an OS to IBM and instead suggested they talk to Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. about licensing CP/M. When Gary Kidall would not meet with IBM, they went back to Microsoft for an OS. Since Microsoft did not have an OS to license to IBM, Microsoft purchased “QDOS” from a company called Seattle Computer Systems and that became the base code from which MSDOS was created.

Mike Lowe
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 3:05 pm

His Foundation certainly capitalised on the decades-long work done by Rotary International to eradicate Polio. I wonder who will get the credit if that battle is eventually won?

Reply to  Mike Lowe
February 17, 2021 3:32 am

Gates. RI is more concerned that it happened than who gets the credit for it. I was a club president the year Gates offered to match Rotary’s fundraising. As an ex-polio sufferer (very mild but I was one of the lucky ones) I made End Polio Now our N°1 charity for that year and I was proud of how much we raised.

But as for credit, who cares??

John the Econ
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 4:15 pm

For a time, he self-titled himself as Microsoft’s “Chief Software Architect”. As anyone in IT who has taken a deep-dive into the design of Microsoft Windows can attest, one could only conclude that his is one messed-up mind.

Reply to  John the Econ
February 17, 2021 8:03 am

Ray Kroc used to call himself McDonald’s”founder”. And people would wonder why he didn’t call his hamburger joints “Kroc’s”. History is written by the best thieves.

Philip
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 5:44 pm

A long time ago, I worked for a French (Unix) workstation manufacturer. One of the things we needed (of course) was software. I, and one of the company execs visited a company in Berkley. They had developed a small, fast (compared to Oracle) relational database. We were discussing licensing/porting it to our system. They were making most of their money selling their database on Windows. They were telling us about all the help they were getting from Microsoft, who took their code and optimized it for Windows.

About six months later we visited again. Most of the staff had been laid off. Seems that Microsoft came out with their own relational database, which as far as you could tell from the outside looked like a chinese copy of this company’s product. Of course, they dropped their distribution agreement, technical support, and sold their own product at half the price.

I had heard stories … but never really believed them until that point.

Jim Whelan
Reply to  Philip
February 17, 2021 7:58 am

I worked for that company and your story is incorrect. The actuality is that the company produced and made their money off of Unix systems but wanted to get into the PC market. A deal was made with Microsoft so that Microsoft would port the code to Windows and then share the profits with the company. Microsoft did that and then refused to share the profits.

They claimed that the agreement gave Microsoft rights to any code that Microsoft wrote and that Microsoft had “changed” all the code as part of the revisions. They, therefore owned it all. This was challenged in court but Microsoft deep pockets were enough to make the originating company give the suit up.

The company actually failed due to management incompetence (I left the company during that period) and it was sold to a major business suite producer who merged the Unix database product into their business suite.

Rick C
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 5:52 pm

Gates didn’t even graduate from college. Two years at Harvard playing video games instead of attending class. If IBM had not pooh-poohed the idea of a market for personal computers, no one would have ever heard of him.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Rick C
February 16, 2021 6:54 pm

It was the LACK of vision and insight by IBM that enabled Gates to make his “great leap forward” (so to speak). They simply gave the game away fully convinced that the main frame was the way forward. Hubris did the rest, with Gates. He started to believe his wealth translated into great genius.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Rory Forbes
February 16, 2021 9:33 pm

Funny how that works with even Hollywood entertainers.

hiskorr
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
February 17, 2021 7:13 pm

And sports figures.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
February 18, 2021 7:47 am

And politicians.

griff
Reply to  Rick C
February 17, 2021 2:04 am

and what exactly are we all typing these comments on?

Jim Whelan
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 7:57 am

Linux, I hope.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 17, 2021 12:47 pm

FreeBSD and NetBSD, blended – actually. :^)

Paul Penrose
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 9:33 am

Linux, you fool.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 10:31 am

Surely you aren’t suggesting that Gates invented the personal computer! But, we can thank Gore for ‘inventing’ the internet, which allows computer-to-computer communication. /sarc

On a more serious note, do you trim your toenails with your teeth? You seem to have an exceptional talent for putting your foot in your mouth.

fred250
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 12:24 pm

“what exactly are we all typing these comments on?”

.

A fossil fuel power and built piece of modern technology.

A buggy operating system stolen from XEROX and made hugely cumbersome and loaded with a whole lot of disorganised junk code that takes up space without actually doing anything

Russ Wood
Reply to  fred250
February 18, 2021 2:57 am

Wayyy back in the 1970’s, when each personal computer make was different, I had a Commodore PET. My wife and I were both members of the Transvaal Amateur Computer Club (TACsquared), and long before Internet, email and the like, I was part of a discussion about who, what and HOW we could write an operating system for the proliferation of personal computers. This never got beyond arguing, which was stopped by the release of DR’s CP/M and the concept of a machine dependent BIOS.
Later I had the listing of the Apple II’s operating system, and I marvelled at Steve Wozniak’s solution to the 8-bit limitation – i..e. to write a 16-bit operating system run by an 8-bit interpreter.
Ah! The old days when REAL men wrote in machine code! (I was writing an assembler for the PET!)

Reply to  Russ Wood
February 18, 2021 7:43 am

Did you ever notice how the Apple OS code “overlapped”? There were parts that were interwoven in such a way that it had different “functions” depending on the entry point, but sharing the same memory space.

Reply to  Russ Wood
February 18, 2021 7:53 am

Got a Commodore Vic-20 when it came out. Typed in & ran programs from the monthly Commodore magazine. Ran saved programs from a cassette tape player at first, then a bulky disc (floppy) drive. Can still run some of the games on Windows w/a Vic-20 emulator.

Reply to  griff
February 18, 2021 7:48 am

Xenial Puppy Linux. Always root.

Phil
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 8:06 pm

Gates has made at least two excellent choices in his life. He chose as his father a wealthy, politically connected banker, and for his mother, a good friend of the chairman of IBM.

waza
Reply to  alastair gray
February 16, 2021 11:06 pm

It was my understanding that the early key success of Microsoft was the idea of selling the software not the whole computer.
I remember an interview with Lord Sugar about the persistence of Gates to flog him invisible code.

whiten
Reply to  waza
February 17, 2021 2:05 pm

waza

That is my understanding too, mostly.

As I think I know it, the MS Windows had the best DMA code.
Billly kept Copyright protecting it, like forever, through MS Windows Upgrades and new versions of Windows… to keep selling his MS Windows OS and have it dominate the market.

Technically that code was the best only way to instantly map address and access large and very large size RAM by the CPU.

Simple but extraordinary efficient-sufficient code for that task… kinda of the best only one there… genius.

Now, whether Billy bought that code from someone else or invented it himself I do not know.
But one thing, he kept over protecting it like forever… and have the MS OS overrule the market for PC.
Don’t think he ever patent protected that code as his invention.

Oh well maybe my understanding could not be that correct!!!

cheers

Stevek
Reply to  alastair gray
February 17, 2021 2:09 pm

Apparently the blue screen of death happened to Gates when he was doing a presentation. He then demanded that the company track down programmer responsible and fire them. After much searching they tracked the bug to some code he himself put in. Just kidding… though who knows, might be true

Peter W Watson
February 16, 2021 2:57 pm

What a waste of space our Billy is. How many oceanside houses has he fled? QED. He’s in full megalomaniac mode now folks: the Gates of Hell, himself.

John Tillman
Reply to  Peter W Watson
February 16, 2021 3:41 pm

Bill and Melinda are so worried about the effect of global warming on coastal cities that they moved from Lake Washington to Laguna Beach.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 16, 2021 6:55 pm

We can adapt. Your articles are always welcome…. timely or not.

February 16, 2021 3:27 pm

The minuscule rise in sea level is of no concern. There will be real concern when the inevitable drop begins – hopefully at least a few millennia off. That means Earth is at the end of the interglacial rebound and on the cusp of the slide into the cool zone.

The Atlantic warm pool is not making the controlled temperature of 30C right now. The whole ocean surface is energy deficient. The tropical Atlantic warm pools are the canary for the inevitable next glaciation.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2000PA000506

Reply to  RickWill
February 16, 2021 4:31 pm

Here’s a prediction (Oh yeah!) Rate of rise will soon ( a decade or 2?) slow then slowly to zero.

Reply to  Mike
February 16, 2021 6:58 pm

The glaciers in the Himalayans and Alaska’s coastal region glaciers will be in unmistakable massive growth too, but you can bet the climate scammers will call it “a temporary condition”.

Reply to  Mike
February 16, 2021 8:09 pm

Right now, there is a lot of water being stored on Australia. That usually stems the slow rate of rise for a year or so. However I am hopeful that there will be no glaciation for the present decline in orbital cycle. The orbit is getting close to circular so the Northern Hemisphere is not down as much on insolation during aphelion as previous periods of glaciation.

Whatever happens, I am unlikely to be around to see it. I do know that Earth treads a fine line between reaching its controlled average temperature of 14C or being colder, which brings accumulating snow to Europe and North America.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Mike
February 16, 2021 8:29 pm

Better hope not.

griff
Reply to  RickWill
February 17, 2021 2:06 am

I’ve been reading predictions like this on climate skeptic sites now for well over a decade… and still no evidence of a shift.

I note that research indicates the next glaciation has been postponed centuries by human warming

MarkW
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 6:59 am

So, the models that have predicted 2 to 3 times more warming than has been seen, have predicted that the ice age has been delayed.
Really.

Paul Penrose
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 9:41 am

So CAGW is a good thing then griff? After all, the next glaciation is a an existential threat, and that’s no theory. So pushing it off for a few centuries can only qualify as a positive effect.

fred250
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 12:27 pm

“I note that research indicates the next glaciation has been postponed centuries by human warming”

.

ABSOLUTELY GREAT NEWS… !!

You mindless twerp.

If that is true, then we definitely need to be doing MORE OF IT.

Wouldn’t you agree, microbe ! ?

Lrp
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 6:35 pm

Geez! You can’t be real; nobody’s this supid.

Reply to  griff
February 18, 2021 8:10 am

Grifter sez:

I note that research indicates the next glaciation has been postponed centuries by human warming

IF that were so, any semi-intelligent person would welcome it.

dennisambler
Reply to  RickWill
February 17, 2021 3:43 am

Wapo calls the severe cold right now “another climate change spasm”

Reply to  RickWill
February 18, 2021 8:05 am

The minuscule rise in sea level is of no concern.

Exactly. Under just shallow scrutiny, this has to be the lamest choice for scaremongering, tho the indoctrinated buy it of course. But they’ll buy anything…..

Bubba Cow
February 16, 2021 3:35 pm
Scissor
Reply to  Bubba Cow
February 16, 2021 3:47 pm

Anti-pie in the face glass has been installed surrounding the ocean/beach facing patio.

Peter W
Reply to  Bubba Cow
February 16, 2021 3:55 pm

My observation is that the inevitable drop is likely to start any day now.

Reply to  Bubba Cow
February 16, 2021 4:46 pm

Barack Obama also bought se=front property. I pointed Gates’ house out to climate disaster believer and they Gates was confident the problem would be fixed in time to avoid problems for Bill.
The Obamas Just Purchased a Martha’s Vineyard Mansion for $11.75 Million (townandcountrymag.com)

Reply to  Ralph Dave Westfall
February 16, 2021 5:30 pm

Anyone know how the Obamas went from middle class to mega-wealthy one year after he left the presidency? Where did the money come from?

Scissor
Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 5:59 pm

Money laundering via book sales.

Reply to  Scissor
February 16, 2021 7:03 pm

The same way the Clintons did, promotional speeches and his own twist golf tournaments involving a lot of travel.
Thats why I think ‘you know who’ wont be back, its a goldmine being a former president but not for him the corporate track

Reply to  Scissor
February 18, 2021 8:14 am

True, but there’s far more money-laundering being carried out by the Obamas by just book-sales. The DNC uses the Obama foundation to launder enormous amounts (w/the Obamas taking their cut), just like they used to use the Clinton foundation.

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 6:26 pm
Rory Forbes
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 7:01 pm

Three million isn’t very many books, even at today’s prices. The writer only gets a small share. For instance, more than 500 million Harry Potter books have been sold.

Obama got his money the same way Al Gore did … by funding Big Climate Change industry.

Felix
Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 7:15 pm

Speeches. I think usually $100K a pop, but some were supposedly for a lot more.

Hivemind
Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 7:29 pm

He was mega-wealthy before he became president. He just pretended to be middle-class. Just like all the others.

Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 7:40 pm

Netflix paid Obama a kick-back for pushing the FCC to adopt Title II and Net Neutrality rules.
The Obama’s got a $60million kick-back from Netflix to make a series of documentaries that no one would ever watch. The money was clearly a pay-off that Obama couldn’t take while sitting as the President, so they hid it as “producer’s fee” to the Obama’s after he left.

sky king
Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 8:12 pm

Money laundering through the Netflix Propaganda Ministry.

Reply to  sky king
February 16, 2021 8:57 pm

He had to be worth at least $100 million to afford the purchase, staffing, and upkeep of his Cape Cod manse. No way he made that selling books.

I figured he got his money like a Texas sheriff’s bribe. Invite the sheriff to play poker and then lose. Your description of the Netflix gambit seems to be a variant of that ploy, Joel.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 9:37 pm

Pat
You know the old joke: Republicans get rich and go into politics. Democrats go into politics and get rich.

AntonyIndia
Reply to  Bubba Cow
February 16, 2021 8:00 pm

2808 Ocean Front | Del Mar, 92014 is ~ 8m above sea level according to Google Earth. That is one of the lower locations on that stretch, with 45 m the highest ocean front there.

Reply to  Bubba Cow
February 16, 2021 8:19 pm

Nor Australian past Prime Minister Rudd with his beachside property near Brisbane:
https://noosatoday.com.au/news/05-07-2020/ex-pms-17m-buy-at-sunshine-beach/
2m of sea level increase would have waves lapping into the swimming pool. Not a great legacy for his grand children as it will be inundated by the time they inherit it! Or maybe not.

Rudd is now one of the drivers of Climate Ambition at the UN. He is well matched to the autocratic rule of the UN. Dictator types are always after the means to “legally” separate people from their wealth. Climate Change is the perfect religion to achieve that.

Palaver
Reply to  RickWill
February 16, 2021 9:50 pm

Sunshine Beach property is on an escarpment plateau at least 20m above sea level. Have you ever been there?
comment image

ozspeaksup
Reply to  Palaver
February 17, 2021 5:54 am

ah yes, he likes to look down on others

February 16, 2021 3:38 pm

How about Mr Gates lends his attention to improving Windows 10 ? It must be the slowest, least reliable operating system ever devised.

Reply to  Bevan Dockery
February 16, 2021 3:45 pm

C’mon man! Anthony should let us click that upvote button just as many times as we want! Voter suppression!

(Written on my Firefox browser, running on Windows 7 – the last reasonably decent OS to come out of Redmond.)

Monna Manhas
Reply to  Bevan Dockery
February 16, 2021 6:28 pm

8.0 was far, far worse than Windows 10.
In fact, it was so bad that I put off installing 10 for a year, just to make sure they worked the bugs out of THAT one before I had to deal with it.

Reply to  Monna Manhas
February 16, 2021 9:29 pm

2003 server was the best windows system ever, done by the evil empire (XP without the bugs, which itself was based on win2k).

The entire NT thing was stolen from DEC to begin with, and still remains the basis of Gates’ crap OS today.

However just as everything that works well, requires least maintenance & stops the money flows into M-shaft, they found a way to kill off everything that was good, and win2k3 was one of them.

It reminds me of the “beta” windows 2000 for DEC-Alpha, which made the official x86 version look so pathetically slow & clunky, a combo of HP & Compaq had to kill it before release, and claim Itanium would be better. It was called Alphacide!

Where are HP & Compaq now?
All “has beens” defeated by a little chip sold by the billion invented in Cambridge UK called the Acorn (now ARM).

The fact that Gates refused to see the future belonged to Torvald’s Linux, and ARM was way better than Intel, proves the guy had no vision of the future except by manipulating the record of the past.

My little Raspberry pi is a fraction of the size of a PC, uses 1/10 of the power, costs 1/20 of the price, the FOC Linux system on it makes windows 10 look stupid, the audio system is 10x better, and it doesn’t need either a mouse or a display to work perfectly.

What is even better, it’s substantially made in England, far more secure, has no known viruses, and can be delivered to my door in days in a small jiffy bag.

I don’t understand why anyone believes anything Gates says.
Nothing he ever says makes sense.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Monna Manhas
February 16, 2021 9:41 pm

They still haven’t worked the bugs out of 10!

ozspeaksup
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
February 17, 2021 5:57 am

theyre not bugs
theyre the features~!

MarkW
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
February 17, 2021 7:03 am

Every operating system I’ve ever worked with had bugs.
I remember working with HPUX, we discovered that if you tried to delete a named pipe that still had a process attached to it, you would crash the OS.
Another time I had a program that was operating in real time mode. I was trying to develop a logging system. I was using 3 files in a rotating queue. The program would open one file to write, write for a set number of minutes. Close that file, then open the next in the queue. After about a dozen times, the operating system would crash.
This would only happen if your program was operating in real time mode.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  MarkW
February 17, 2021 10:44 am

Mark,

Yes, there is an old joke: “All non-trivial computer programs have bugs.”

However, I have been working with personal computers since about 1978. In the beginning, I could attribute problems to being an early adopter working with an immature technology. However, Windows 10 has consistently given me more headaches than any Microsquish OS preceding it, which includes the original DOS and the first Windows OS, followed by all the upgrades except Windows 7 & 8, which I resisted installing. The biggest problem is the forced monthly ‘upgrades’ that are a mix of bug fixes and installation of new programs and drivers that I have no need for.

ozspeaksup
Reply to  Bevan Dockery
February 17, 2021 5:55 am

yup its utter crap! cant send links via edge once opened n used its NONremoveable too
updates that choke everything
linux rules!!!

February 16, 2021 3:38 pm

Billy is a busy boy these days….he also made a video on what the world should do about the next pandemic…he admits it will cost lots of money but says it’s an insurance policy….and includes a Pandemic Response Team to head anywhere in the world at the first sign of Pandemic! What a guy!….his fortune came due to IBM’s short sightedness….IBM thought hardware was everything and allowed Billy to license microsoft to others….IBM could have easily bought Microsoft.

RicDre
Reply to  Anti-griff
February 16, 2021 4:16 pm

IBM could have easily bought Microsoft.

True and if I remember correctly at one point Microsoft was so short off cash they offered a good chunk of shares to IBM but they turned them down.

griff
Reply to  Anti-griff
February 17, 2021 2:07 am

He was speaking on pandemics long before the present one. Perhaps we should have taken notice.

Kit P
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 17, 2021 10:54 am

It was a panic demic.

If everything is a crisis, then nothing is a crisis.

The reason to think there would not be a pandemic in our lifetime, is because there has not been one unless you are 105 years old.

Old people dying is expected. Thanks to modern medicine we have a lot of old people. That is a good thing.

I think some exaggerate trivial things like sea water level is because trivial problems are the only problem many have faced.

Jim Whelan
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 17, 2021 11:39 am

Typical Gates: take somethign obvious or someone elses and act like it’s his.

Peter
February 16, 2021 3:42 pm

Hey..hey…hey…..Billionaires are smartest people in the world. They wouldn’t buy beach front property if they thought the sea levels were going to be in their bedrooms soon..
Two Hedge Fund Billionaires Spend Over $200 Million On Palm Beach Mansions | ZeroHedge

Scissor
Reply to  Peter
February 16, 2021 3:52 pm

I thought Gates got a crappy deal on his Del Mar beach house for about $50 million, but the weather is definitely better in Del Mar.

JontheTechnologist
February 16, 2021 3:42 pm

Willis Has anybody a direct line to Bill Gates to ask these questions: What should the earth’s perfect temperature be and has it ever been and for how long; and what should the correct level of CO2 be and do you believe like some that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant. And most important who amongst us should be forced to hold our breath to stop CO2 from getting into the atmosphere???
Last but not least, Bill, is there a published or otherwise empirical paper or experiment linking CO2 to the Earth’s temperature? I think NOT.

Willis Thank You for the Education and your marvelous life stories.

Bill
February 16, 2021 3:53 pm

It is debatable whether Bill Gates is well-meaning or not. What is not debatable is that he is a fool, and becoming a dangerous one as well.

When a person doesn’t accept the good fortune God gives them with grace and humility, they are not worthy of our approbation. We should not heed his platitudes as he has done nothing but buy and sell other peoples ideas and loyalty.

bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 4:17 pm

Hey Willis, been to Miami?
..

..
Only will get worse 30 years from now.

Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 4:23 pm

Miami is sinking and eroding coz it was built on a swamp and the ocean is re-claiming it. If sea levels fall it would probably be just as bad or worse.

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 5:25 pm

bethan, if you knew half as much as you believe you do, you would know that Miami has been flooding for well over 100 years. It’s nothing new.

Do you want to deal with the fact that SLR is only 2mm a year, it’s unchanged over the last 100 years (starting long before any significant increases in CO2 levels) and the rate of rise shows no sign of accelerating.

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  MarkW
February 16, 2021 6:27 pm

Still stalking me?

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 6:28 pm

MarkW, SLR is accelerating

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 8:32 pm

No it isn’t.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 9:48 pm

bethan
Sea level rise has been almost linear for about 7,000 years. There are short-term ups and downs through out that time, similar to the ‘acceleration’ you believe exists.

Post-Glacial_Sea_Level[1].png
bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 6:33 pm

New Orleans is already below sea level, it’ll only get worse (which will cost $$$$$)

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 8:33 pm

New Orleans has been below sea level for well over 100 years. I’m not surprised that you didn’t know that.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 9:49 pm

You apparently are unfamiliar with the word “subsidence.”

Carlo, Monte
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
February 16, 2021 10:42 pm

Along with “stalking”.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Carlo, Monte
February 17, 2021 10:50 am

There are a lot of things that griff is unfamiliar with. It has been my experience that a world view with blinders, and unfamiliarity with science, is a common trait of our resident trolls, with a couple of exceptions only being afflicted with the blinder syndrome.

fred250
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 11:11 pm

bethy….. with a MASSIVE display of ignorance.

So expected…

Couldn’t argue against Mark’s FACTS so went on a PETTY VICTIMISATION whinge

So funny !!

Lrp
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 6:43 pm

Sea levels have been going up and since the earth started. Stop whining

Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 19, 2021 3:13 pm

And the bottom of the Mississippi River is in places above the surrounding ground level (channel aggradation).
So what?
Those facts pertain to physical geography.
Processes such as sedimentation, compaction, oxidation, how flood plains and river deltas form and shift around over time (avulsion), and what happens when these processes are interrupted or prevented from occurring by channelizing a mature sediment-bearing river.

Nothing whatsoever to do with sea level, CO2, global warming, or anything else being discussed here.
But I can learn you all about it Jethro, iffen you dig the wax out of your years and commit yourself to becoming educated about something you are completely ignorant of.

BTW, less than half of the city is below sea level.
But you need to have specific information to know that.
The worst culprit for sinking NOLA is the people who tried to dry it out by pumping water out from the swamps that used to exist in areas where the city expanded into. These are the parts that are below sea level.
When you pump water out of saturated alluvium, it compacts and subsides.
The old parts of the city, including the French Quarter, which used to be the whole city, are well above sea level.

NewOrelansCross-Section.gif
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 7:16 pm

Even National Geographic has pinned it on the long time sinking of Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is rising. Since Captain John Smith settled Jamestown, Va., near the shores of the Chesapeake in the 1600s, the bay has risen 0.9 meters (three feet). This rise in sea level has drowned many islands where small fishing communities once thrived…
Sea level in the Chesapeake Bay rises at a faster rate than average because the land underneath the bay is sinking. During the last ice age, glaciers pushed the land surrounding the Chesapeake Bay upward. After the glaciers melted, the land slowly retreated to its original position through a process called land subsidence. …
This is a contribution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_impact_crater

fred250
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 11:14 pm

Navy scared their ships won’t float because of sea level rise, hey !

If the navy construction engineers can’t keep up with 2-3mm/year sea level rise, they ought to sink anyway. !!

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 8:32 pm

Like everything else you know, your knowledge of that word is quite defective.
You seem to think that responding to your stupidity is stalking.

fred250
Reply to  MarkW
February 16, 2021 11:15 pm

Poor SJW, pleads for attention..

…. then whinges when he/she/it gets that attention it so yearns for.

Scissor
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 6:06 pm

I see a lot of boaters getting their feet wet. Oh the horror.

MarkW
Reply to  Scissor
February 17, 2021 7:10 am

It’s also a launching ramp, it’s supposed to be in the water.

Mr.
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 6:29 pm

Dave, now would be a good time to post your “implied face-palm”.

Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 7:09 pm

Only will get worse 30 years from now.”
Venice is sinking because its on an estuary and they withdrew the ( fresh) ground water
Meanwhile Stockholm is rising because its on bed rock and has glacial rebound.
If Miami really was rising sea levels it would be the same up most of the east coast but its not

LdB
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 7:49 pm

That you think that photo shows a problem tells us how brain dead you really are 🙂

sky king
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 8:18 pm

You are a clown. 3.5 inches over the next 30 years. New Orleans, already under sea level, has apparently figured out the solution. Can’t they add 3.5 inches to that solution?

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 17, 2021 9:37 am

Nice graphic Willis. Note the slope of the line from 1970 to 2010. Notice the kink upwards from 2010 to the present. That is clear evidence of “acceleration.”

Jim Whelan
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 17, 2021 11:46 am

Don’t ignore the start of a downward “deceleration” around 2018.

fred250
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 12:30 pm

1925-1950 is steeper than recent rise.

Continue to display that ignorance of yours, petal !

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 16, 2021 8:39 pm

The sad thing is that bethan doesn’t have sufficient knowledge to know that the clip she copied actually refutes the point she thinks she’s making. What are the odds that bethan doesn’t have the foggiest clue what a king tide is.

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  MarkW
February 17, 2021 9:40 am

What are the odds that MarkW doesn’t have the foggiest clue that there is no scientific definition of “King Tide?”

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
February 17, 2021 10:45 am

What are the odds that Willis doesn’t know what “scientific term” means? https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/kingtide.html

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 10:48 am

“popular” doesn’t mean “scientific”

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 3:04 pm

I see you’ve forgotten the first rule of holes again.
You are so anxious to disagree with me, that you have once again made a fool of yourself.
I hope you don’t start charging rent for that the space I’m taking up in your brain.

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 3:03 pm

Poor, poor bethan, she can’t quit, even when she’s behind.

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  MarkW
February 17, 2021 3:21 pm

Still stalking me ?

MarkW
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 3:03 pm

Are you now going to take the position that unless something has an agreed upon scientific definition, it doesn’t exist?
Regardless, it was your post that brought up the term, and as you have now admitted, you don’t know what it means.

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  MarkW
February 17, 2021 3:22 pm

OK Professor MarkW, why don’t you provide us all with the scientific definition of “King Tide?”

bethan456@gmail.com
Reply to  MarkW
February 17, 2021 3:32 pm

MarkW, I correctly posted that you do not have a clue about the scientific definition of “King Tide.” I was correct because there is no scientific definition. I made no assertion as to the existence of a referent to “King Tide.”

Derg
Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 1:36 am

You are so dumb.

Reply to  bethan456@gmail.com
February 17, 2021 10:15 am

Miami Beach was built as a seasonal vacation destination with streets below king tide 100 years ago. It was wiped out by a hurricane in 1926 and rebuilt a few years later.

John the Econ
February 16, 2021 4:24 pm

I’m old enough to remember when Progressives scoffed at the opinions of millionaires, much less billionaires.

Reply to  John the Econ
February 16, 2021 7:02 pm

That’s because Gates, like Carnegie building libraries over a century ago, has a long history off throwing big money around.

ResourceGuy
February 16, 2021 4:28 pm

I liked the good old days when billionaires wasted their tax write offs on useless ventures like Biosphere 2 instead of trying to drag down the rest of us in the exercise.

Reply to  ResourceGuy
February 16, 2021 7:13 pm

Ed Bass got his family money start in life from oil money. Like the much richer Rockefellers, they seem to forget how they got rich off their daddy’s and granddaddy’s hard work.

February 16, 2021 4:42 pm

He has acquired 242,000 acres of farmland plus 27,000 acres of ‘other’. Looks like a hedge against inflation.

Richard M
Reply to  Dan Pangburn
February 16, 2021 5:00 pm

If CO2 continues to rise we won’t need as much farmland. If fossil fuels were not the cause of a climate crisis we wouldn’t need ethanol so even less farmland.

Sounds like Bill is trying to protect his investment.

Reply to  Richard M
February 16, 2021 6:52 pm

Fossil fuels are not the cause of climate change and we don’t need ethanol. But they keep making more people.

Reply to  Dan Pangburn
February 16, 2021 5:33 pm

Bill bought his farm so that when food distribution collapses, he’ll still get his.

Reply to  Pat Frank
February 16, 2021 7:18 pm

Bill Gates is probably all too aware of the Soviet collectivization of farms in the 1930’s. The Russian, Ukraine, and Belorus kulaks were sent to gulags, and if they refused to go and turn over their property, they were simply beat to death behind their own barn with shovels and axes.
So in my take on what Bill Gates goal is, he is trying to stay on the “good side” of the coming Marxist-Bolsheviks that are hiding in plain view in the Biden White House. Not any different than a billionaire oligarch in Russia who has to stay on Putin’s good side if he doesn’t want to end up in a Russia jail where HIV and MDR-TB are rampant.

markl
February 16, 2021 4:49 pm

The notion that if someone has a lot of money they are capable to suggest/dictate anyone else’s lifestyle is the peak of arrogance. Because they live in protected bubbles I would say they are less knowledgeable about peoples’ needs than most.

observa
February 16, 2021 4:59 pm

Well to be fair to Bill going along with the climate changers he does mention nukes as the answer to electricity generation. Won’t work getting invited to all the right soirees Bill as you’re still a heretic with the nukes.

Rich Lambert
February 16, 2021 5:01 pm

Billionaires are cloistered away from everyday life of the people on the planet. They are out of touch but touted as brilliant and almost omniscient by their paid followers and handlers. They don’t know what they are talking about but their wealth allows them much control. They are not to be trusted.

Richard M
February 16, 2021 5:16 pm

Sea level rise is likely to decelerate when the AMO turns negative. It’s also going to start cooling a little since the AMO is the primary factor behind Arctic warming.

What’s even more obvious today is CO2 has a very small warming effect. A recent paper has shown that with a clever experiment.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=99608

I consider this to be a complete refutation of AGW and probably the most important paper we will see related to climate. It demonstrates clearly that increased back radiation does not necessarily lead to warming.

The key factor that has been left out of greenhouse warming is the heat capacity of the surface acts as a safeguard. It prevents downwelling IR energy from returning to the atmosphere long enough for night time cooling to eliminate it.

Scissor
Reply to  Richard M
February 16, 2021 6:10 pm

Nice work.

Reply to  Richard M
February 16, 2021 6:17 pm

Such an experiment is fraught with error possibilities. There is little mass of gas in the box, the specific heat of the aluminum foil liner is significant and its emissivity low, the thermal conductivity of the styrofoam and the difference in temperature between the bottom of the box and the top with convection is a problem, and the fans they added to make the temperature “constant” inside make forced convection calculations inaccurate. Notice the first thing they did was double the insulation, probably to get anything close to sensible readings. Probably a passing grade in an undergrad course for effort though. We made about 10 garbage bags full of methane out of a pail of cow manure when I was that age.

Richard M
Reply to  DMacKenzie
February 16, 2021 6:55 pm

Small problems.

Convection isn’t an issue if all you are trying to see is how much initial warming occurs. Convection would lessen the warming so this is like a worst case situation.

I think they were surprised by the lack of warming so they kept going in and trying to improve the experiment to produce more of the expected warming. They couldn’t do it.

I think they would get more warming if they could replace the wall with a low heat capacity surface. That would be a great test of my hypothesis.

Ron Long
February 16, 2021 5:20 pm

OK, I read the bill gates story and all of the comments and I can’t help but jump in. I worked for an internationally known billionaire, setting up a research department, and he was smart and professional and I would not hesitate to work for him again. Then I guided another billionaire on the Nevada Governors Bighorn sheep hunt, also smart and professional. Maybe these obnoxious billionaires are too much publicity hounds? Or very insecure? Or enroute to the Howard Hughes syndrome?

Reply to  Ron Long
February 16, 2021 7:21 pm

They used to collect stamps or renaissance art for their ‘golden years’
But at least Gates is calling the carbon neutral in the next 20 years a ‘fanatasy’ as he knows there isnt some magic sauce to replace the real big users of fossil fuels

February 16, 2021 5:50 pm

“…$trillion…per year…”. Really now, Bill, its 10,000 km from equator to pole, with a temp range of -40 to plus 35 C. That’s about 150 km. per degree C. So to adapt, approximately, to the next degree of warming, everyone is going to have to get used to the temperature of where-ever is 150 km south of their present location (in NA). Like moving Boulder to Colorado Springs, Amarillo to Lubbock, Milwaukee to Chicago, etc. You might dispose of a sweater at the goodwill sometime over the next half century to fully adapt…but you’ll probably keep that sweater in case of a cold snap…not really sure how that is going to cost a trillion…

Kevin kilty
Reply to  DMacKenzie
February 16, 2021 7:22 pm

About 100 meters vertically.

February 16, 2021 6:08 pm

My sister is a world class professional bridge player.
She played in a tournament years back in which Gates was also playing.
He cheated.
She caught him and reported him.
He was sanctioned.
This is the kind of person he is.
Also, let’s not forget he is personally responsible for the educational disaster called common core. He was somehow allowed to redirect how math was taught to every child in the country, and it has been an abysmal failure. Despite his having zero background in education, the program was instituted with no testing and no studies that indicated it would help and not hurt math education.

Herbert
February 16, 2021 6:31 pm

Willis,
Here is The Times column on “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” as syndicated in my local newspaper-
“No Lecture, but here’s my climate book”
”Bill Gates is worth US $122 bn.($157bn.), so he’s not as rich as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
But unlike them,he’s ready to apologise for his contribution to climate change.
Mr. Gates admits that his carbon footprint is “absurdly high”.He owns big houses,
he flies in private jets- “so who am I to lecture anyone on the environment?”
But Mr. Gates said he went to great lengths to mitigate these excesses- using sustainable jet fuel, buying carbon offsets.
Speaking ahead of the release of his book,” How to Avoid a Climate Disaster”, Mr. Gates said that his approach to the “climate catastrophe”did not mean that he simply bought into every green idea in circulation.
Planting billions of trees,for example, would not work-if you left the land untouched , trees would grow there anyway, and to absorb the emissions of the US alone you would have to cover half the landmass of the world in trees.
Part of the solution could lie in going nuclear, he said.
It kills far fewer people than fossil fuel extraction and it is reliable.
No serious decarbonising strategy exists that does not include more nuclear power.
Also we have to do something about cow burps and farts. Cattle emit high emissions of methane, the worst greenhouse gas- the equivalent of two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and 4% of global emissions.
Mr. Gates said that the challenge was not apocalyptic- if we do nothing,climate change will be as deadly as COVID-19 by 2050.”
I found this report quite amusing.
Although Mr. Gates was too savvy to buy into “ every green idea in circulation” he accepts the “climate catastrophe”!
And his carbon footprint.Apology accepted,Bill.
But no mention of rising sea levels.The Times didn’t go there.
Would it be fair to say that Greta Thunberg will not be purchasing a copy and will publicly declare it another “Fail”?

Ed Tyler
February 16, 2021 6:32 pm

Wealth and character seldom choose the same transport.

rickk
February 16, 2021 6:42 pm

I will liquidate my real estate holdings right after Obama and Kerry sell their properties in Martha’s Vineyard – then I know it’s real

February 16, 2021 6:46 pm

I agree Willis on the sentiments about today’s billionaires not having the Average Joe’s and Jane’s best interest in mind when they spew that kind of nonsense. Their money simply buys them a bigger megaphone for influencing money-hungry politicians and the ignorati-class of journalists.

Bill Gates is smart enough and has teams of advisors and assistants so he certainly knows the whole change change thing is a scam on the sending the middle class to serfdom. It helps the elites down the road by conserving the fossil fuels their grandchildren trust babies will need for the private jets and megayachts they will inherit by virtue of birth.

My take on gates is that he is intelligent enough to read the Liberal woke mob that currently occupies the White House and many academic institutions now. I suspect Mr Gates sees the current Arc of History that has the woke-crowd on ascendancy right now. And Mr Gates does not want to be on the wrong side of that wokeness crowd with their Marxist-climate dogma when they come to his mansion gates confronting his Army of personal security guards.

And even if the woke crowd doesn’t physically tear down his mansions one day in the future, if they occupy the political halls of power, like Putin does in Russia, or Xi in China, then a billionaire oligarch on the wrong side of the rulers is simply dungeon bait… or worse.

eck
February 16, 2021 6:47 pm

“Mr. Rogers impersonator”. No. Look-alike perhaps, but Fred Rogers was a lovable, soothing to the kids, kind of person. One begins to suspect that his one-time astute mind, is going “south”. There was many more wild “evidence-free” assertions he also made. Plus, see above comments, he was definitely not a tech guru, but an astute business one. Ala Zuckerberg.

Rory Forbes
February 16, 2021 6:48 pm

The “authorities” have been pulling most of the “science” from their well upholstered bottoms for years. I’m starting to wonder whether there ARE any models or actual climate scientists behind all those press releases of accelerating this and catastrophic that. They’re all doing exactly what Gates has been doing for years … just making it up to suit their agenda. People are buying it anyway, so why bother with expensive science.

Reply to  Rory Forbes
February 16, 2021 7:36 pm

Groundhog Day, an American tradition modeling the observed reaction of a ground hog looking out from it’s burrow in early February as a predictor, predates university majors in climate.The settled lore is that, because of atmospheric conditions, if the groundhog can not see it’s own shadow before going back inside then spring will come early. On the other hand, if it is spooked by seeing it’s own shadow & retreats inside it’s burrow then winter will be longer.

17BDA256-A91C-4B21-AF3B-3E2158682312.jpeg
Rory Forbes
Reply to  gringojay
February 16, 2021 8:21 pm

I’ve been watching the classic film, ‘Groundhog Day’, each February 2nd for over two decades, just to remind myself of that very thing 🙂 … and because I get a bit more from it each time.

Here in Canada we had a remarkable medicine man, among the Iroquois. His weather predictions were near perfect. Shortly before his death an envoy from the CBC was sent to get his story … “How do you manage to be right so often?”, the reporter asked.

After a long pause the great man answered … “I watch my white brothers. When he cut lot of wood for winter fire, it going to be pretty cold winter.”

Reply to  Rory Forbes
February 16, 2021 11:56 pm

An old tale comes to mind about when an American settler asked a Native American Indian about keeping warm. The response was that they kept warm by being close to the fire & feeding small pieces of wood into it. While they notice the White man kept warm by chopping a lot of wood for a fire.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  gringojay
February 17, 2021 12:12 am

There are many more layers of meaning to your anecdote than it would first appear.

Cheers, that’s a keeper.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  gringojay
February 17, 2021 10:59 am

The original version was building a big fire and standing back from it instead of being up close.

Dennis Kuzara
Reply to  Rory Forbes
February 16, 2021 10:03 pm

87% of all statistics are made up.

I just made that up.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Dennis Kuzara
February 17, 2021 10:59 am

It is obvious that you made it up because the correct number is 97%!

Jim Whelan
Reply to  Dennis Kuzara
February 17, 2021 11:52 am

Something I didn’t make up and it’s origin is lost in time (to me anyway): “80% of everythign is crap.”

Reply to  Jim Whelan
February 17, 2021 12:15 pm

Theodore Sturgeon, and it’s 90%.

PeterD
February 16, 2021 6:51 pm

Sea levels rise, but in places they fall. Where I live in Queensland, the continent is going north. This causes it to rise. Once it was possible to row a boat around our littl;e township, but with falling sea levels, most of the waterway has dried up.

February 16, 2021 6:55 pm

I take this personally. We live (mostly) directly on the Atlantic on its ocean side barrier island east of A1A in Fort Lauderdale. BTW, so does Trump at Mar a Lago a bit further north in Palm Beach.

We monitor beach erosion, and just did a 7 mile restoration ( problem is prevailing currents sweep sand toward the Keys, so all the artificial IC boat inlets interrupt nature. At the present rate of rise, my lowest sub-basement garage spot will be wet oh, about 2200 maybe. Meanwhile, my place plus two garage spots continue to go up in value, a lot. Reality prevails.

griff
Reply to  Rud Ist
February 17, 2021 2:12 am

A unified projection by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact shows a three to seven inch increase in sea level in our region in the near term, and up to 24-inch rise by mid-century. This is a conservative estimate compared to some.’ (sea level rise, Fort Lauderdale).

(? is there actually a fort in Fort Lauderdale?)

MarkW
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 7:16 am

Based on computer modeling.

Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 8:04 am
Clyde Spencer
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 11:08 am

You asked, “(? is there actually a fort in Fort Lauderdale?)”

See History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

fred250
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 12:35 pm

One thing RELIABLE about griff posts…

… they are always based on ignorance and always counter to REALITY

Poor little creature lives in a hallucinogenic-based fantasy world.

William Haas
February 16, 2021 7:02 pm

The reality is that if we could somehow stop the Earth’s climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue unabated so why bother. A bigger concern to those living near the water is whether the land is rising or falling and what is erosion doing. Those living near ocean cliffs have to be very concerned about rates of erosion. LIving close to the ocean can be very dangerous in terms of the possibility of huge waves caused by a number of possible events that have nothing to do with climate change. Rather that wasting money trying to stop Mother Nature from changing the Earth’s climate we would be a lot better off improving the global climate so we can better deal with extreme weather events and other possible calamities.

Felix
February 16, 2021 7:12 pm

$1T/year mitigation is cheaper than several $T/year in prevention, especially when the prevention is probably useless and the $1T/year will never happen.

February 16, 2021 7:16 pm

The tide around here runs 4.8 meters, 9cm means nada

waza
February 16, 2021 7:18 pm

Willis
thanks for the article.

The failure of SLR to accelerate should be the key quantitative evidence to falsify the whole CAGW scam.

i think it is important for WUWT readers to be aware of the official legislated sea level projections for their local area.

i think the following is the official projections for New York.
The low projection for Long Island is 2” for the 20s
Thus an annual rate of 5mm/yr for the lowest projection.

https://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/103877.html.

Here in Melbourne, Australia SLR has been officially legislated to be 200mm above current (2010) levels by 2040. No ifs, but, maybes, the government has said 200mm. This requires 6.66mm/ yr, but after 10 years of less than 3mm/yr, SLR needs to accelerate to 8mm/yr

waza
Reply to  waza
February 16, 2021 7:43 pm

Oops, I stand corrected for New York the baseline is 2000/04 average, so low projection will probably be met.

Reply to  waza
February 16, 2021 8:07 pm

The needed acceleration in SLR, just like the claim of accelerating temperature trends, is going to falsify the entire climate scam in less than 10 years.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  waza
February 17, 2021 11:11 am

There is more to sea level stands than just the thermosteric component.

Jim in NEF
February 16, 2021 8:38 pm

I live 2000 feet from the Atlantic Ocean because I can’t afford to live 200 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

Dennis Kuzara
February 16, 2021 8:52 pm

Why would Bill Gates buy an island in Belize with an elevation of 9 feet above sea level? Does he expect that sea level rise will only affect the east coast of the US?

Аn аrtісlе рublіѕhеd оn ‘СNВС Маkе Іt’ rероrtѕ thаt Місrоѕоft со-fоundеr аnd bіllіоnаіrе, Віll Gаtеѕ, оwnѕ а рrіvаtе іѕlаnd іn Веlіzе

Тhе аrtісlе, рublіѕhеd уеѕtеrdау, gаvе а brеаkdоwn оf Gаtеѕ’ fоrtunе, whісh СNВС rесеіvеd frоm а glоbаl hіgh nеt wоrth іntеllіgеnсе аnd dаtа соmраnу, саllеd Wеаlth-Х. Тhе соmраnу ѕаіd thаt оf thе multі-mіllіоn dоllаr рrореrtіеѕ Gаtеѕ оwnѕ, hе hаѕ а рrіvаtе іѕlаnd іn Веlіzе саllеd Grаnd Воguе Сауе, whісh іѕ vаluеd аt аbоut $25 mіllіоn.

Тhе іѕlаnd, whісh іѕ rероrtеdlу thе lаrgеѕt іn thе Тurnеffе Аtоll, іѕ lосаtеd аrоund 24 mіlеѕ еаѕt оf Веlіzе Сіtу. Тhе еntіrе іѕlаnd ѕраnѕ аррrохіmаtеlу 400 асrеѕ.

https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2019/04/27/bill-gates-owns-private-island-in-belize/

Apr 27, 2019

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Dennis Kuzara
February 17, 2021 11:14 am

When you are as rich as Gates, you can mentally write off the cost of beach front property or an island as rent until you die, or decide to sell. It is all a matter of perspective.

James Walter
February 16, 2021 9:08 pm

Do you know why they call it “Microsoft”?

Gate’s is tiny and he can’t get it up

John in Cairns
February 16, 2021 10:32 pm

Anyone who believes that cows can manufacture carbon, oxygen and hydrogen to create CO2 and CH4 probably failed math anyway.

Reply to  John in Cairns
February 16, 2021 11:24 pm

Yes. They have never explained its recycled gases not fossil gasses.

February 17, 2021 1:21 am

Yep… Flee the Coastal regions… so that we can buy them cheap…
That’s not a climate warning, that’s a billionaire real estate acquisition strategy…
Just like all those shutdowns and “organized riots” in the opportunity zones of big cities
under Democrat control… Make’em bankrupt, then buy them out at discount prices… and tax-free!
See the interview of Catherine Austin Fitts, “Planet Lockdown” (already banned by big-tech) for obvious reasons…

griff
February 17, 2021 2:03 am

‘Without presenting a scrap of evidence to back up his claim’ – I think his book references the evidence?

MarkW
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 7:17 am

What, you haven’t read the book? You just make assumptions about what is in it.

fred250
Reply to  griff
February 17, 2021 12:38 pm

show us this evidence, ameoba-mind.

Or is it just another one of your fantasies.

Scott Anderson
February 17, 2021 4:12 am

If it does rise catastrophically what will happen is the peons owning property on the 3rd and 4th rows will then own much more valuable beach front property.

February 17, 2021 4:39 am

Bill Gates, as far as I can see, has never produced anything in his life, except misery. His “genius” consists of being handed information and technology by state, defence and corporate institutions, which he then pretends to market. Every single one of his “products” either spy on you, steal from you or depopulates your culture.
I especially like the story where he “started Microsoft in his mother’s garage”. Soenone is spending a lot of money telling us this entity is human, I wonder why.

Al Chemy
February 17, 2021 6:53 am

An alert commenter points out that despite his hype about seaside buildings being flooded, it didn’t stop Señor Gates from buying a house on the beach in lovely San Diego.”

OR, BARACK & MICHELE OBAMA…….(IN 2019) The Obamas Purchased a Martha’s Vineyard Mansion for $11.75 Million: The seven-bedroom estate sits on 29.3 waterfront acres.
That “waterfront” being the Atlantic Ocean.

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a30169311/barack-michelle-obama-buy-marthas-vineyard-house/

Coach Springer
February 17, 2021 7:15 am

To be fair, it would be easy for cities to blow another trillion a year. In fact, I predict it regardless of sea level.

Beta Blocker
February 17, 2021 7:44 am

Building 4th Generation nuclear as opposed to new-build gas-fired generation is strictly a public policy decision. Bill Gates is expecting the US Federal Government to become a major investor in his 4th Gen reactor technology demonstration project. From the Wikipedia article on TerraPower:

“In October 2020, the company was chosen by the United States Department of Energy as a recipient of a matching grant totaling between $400 million and $4 billion over the next 5 to 7 years for the cost of building a demonstration reactor of their “Natrium” design, which uses liquid sodium as a core coolant (this reduces the cost by having a non-pressurized primary loop). It then transfers that heat to molten salt which can be stored in tanks and used to generate steam for electricity production on demand, enabling the reactor to run continuously at constant power while allowing the electricity generation from the power station to be dispatchable.”

Every one of the 4th Gen SMR projects is using climate change as one of their principal justifications for developing their technology. Neither the NuScale SMR project nor the TerraPower project would be moving forward without government support.

Nor would the UAMPS customer for the NuScale SMR have chosen to go nuclear had the Utah state legislature not dictated that the state become carbon neutral by 2045.

Here in the US, every current project for developing 4th generation small modular reactor technology is relying to one extent or another on government support to build their first commercial-scale prototype plant.

So if you are Bill Gates and you need four billion dollars from the federal government to build that first TerraPower plant, you will be telling Biden-Harris whatever it is they want to hear about climate change.

February 17, 2021 7:48 am

I remember when it was fashionable to hate Bill Gates.

I wonder if his “greening” was a response to that?

John Kelly
February 17, 2021 7:51 am

Why do people with money think they know everything and can pontificate to the world?

Beta Blocker
Reply to  John Kelly
February 17, 2021 9:33 am

Because even Bill Gates doesn’t have the several billions of dollars needed to build his very first commercial-scale TerraPower nuclear power reactor. See my comment above.

February 17, 2021 10:00 am

” Bill Gates, multi-billionaire inventor of the blue screen of death and Mr. Rogers impersonator ”
! LoL !

It is distressing that someone smart enough to have supposedly considered offering APL on the original PC ( like IBM did on its original 5100 desktop ) instead of the Basic he wrote would go over to the determinedly innumerate dark-side like he has .

The absolutely stupidest keynote talk I’ve ever seen was by Richard B. Alley at the 2017 NOAA/ESRL conference where he showed slides of Katrina to illustrate the danger of sea level rise .

Wojciech Langer
February 17, 2021 10:07 am

This sick megalomaniac must go, somehow dissapear, vanish- or human lives will be in danger. He should be trialled in court.

Gary Pearse
February 17, 2021 11:00 am

What special knowledge do Gates, the Hollywood set, Billionaire ex fund managers..
have that convinces even the simplest of minds on global warming theory. I refuse to believe that most people buy this stuff. I do believe that the elite set wouldn’t know what to do with a math book. They think ‘proof’ and ‘truth’ are manufacturable

Jim Whelan
Reply to  Gary Pearse
February 17, 2021 11:53 am

What you do with a math book is find an equation that can be misused to “prove” whatever you want.

Stevek
February 17, 2021 2:04 pm

Bigger threat is a huge tsunami. Historically there is evidence major ones do happen. Stopping fossil fuels won’t do a thing to save the coasts from a tsunami.

Ed Mitchell
February 17, 2021 2:07 pm

I worked on a Scientific Research drilling vessel in 1990 era, and we made a trip to the Arctic, at 82 deg North, above Iceland. There was a 6 story laboratory on board and about 50 scientists of various disciplines. The Core samples returned from the ocean floor at a depth maybe 50-250 meters below the sea floor, were full of the same creatures and plant life as now exists at the sea floor in the Amazon river basin in northern Brazil around the equator. This tells us that the Arctic was once tropical, and that there are cycles in temperature unrelated to human activity, always have been and always will be. The global warming phenom/obsession will likely one day to be found to be the biggest hoax perpetrated on mankind in history, and we are maybe closer to the next Ice-age than we are to catastrophic global warming. When did Gates become an Environmental expert and a Virus/vaccine expert anyways? He is rich and that is the only reason some gullible people listen to him. I’d rather take environmental or health advice from my local fisherman or taxi driver. Gates couldn’t even prevent a virus on his own invention…. 😉

james Fosser
February 17, 2021 2:13 pm

It is simply called the authority fallacy.

fred250
February 17, 2021 3:47 pm

If the catastrophic sea level rise was a genuine risk, there isn’t a bank in the world that would loan money on beachfront property.

Retired farmer.
Reply to  fred250
February 17, 2021 9:04 pm

Strangely, the biggest Agricultural manufacturer in the world, John Deere, was unable to make their own stuff work so they too have a long history of either stealing or attempting to steal, or using their market power to force/buy out those that got it right. From their first internal combustion tractor through to the satellite guidance they use today.

Kpar
February 18, 2021 10:05 am

Could some wag with an artistic bent give us a photo of DC under water- with only the Capitol dome and the Washington monument rising out of the waves?

Give us something to look forward to, just in case they are right and we are wrong.

Joe
Reply to  Kpar
February 19, 2021 1:32 am

Plus the photo needs to show all the rats in Washington drowning, that would be a great image indeed!

Joe
February 18, 2021 11:42 pm

25 years ago Algore was screaming we would all be 20 feet under water by 2020, well, here we are and sea levels are just about the same.

So the climate change cult keeps moving the goal posts, now it will be 30 years in the future when we will all be under 20 feet of water.

One question to the climate change cult: What is the ideal sea level?

Miami is about 1 foot above sea level, but you dont see people heading for the hills.

Dennis
February 19, 2021 1:21 am

Ha ha….gates and his dumb chum Obama sound like a one string banjo warning about “sea level rise”. So what does Obama do – he goes out and buys a million dollar mansion close to the sea! Now Gates and Obama are either liears or very ignorant and stupid. Some say both.

Joe
February 19, 2021 1:39 am

Bill Gates – definition of an idiot savant.