After some delays due to me getting COVID, and finally moving out of California, sorting through boxes, and other assorted delays, I’m please to announce that Winners of the ifrst ever WUWT Essay contest will be announced on Friday.
We had quite a number of great submissions from the professional and the general public, and choosing a winner is challenging. But unfortunately, we had none from the student category. We’ll try the contest again for students when summer break starts.
Watch this space.
Moving out of California? Is there a story here that I’ve missed?
All the smart/productive people are leaving CA.
The idle and/or historically wealthy are protected. The parasitic poor are protected. The productive classes are overtly and covertly relocating much like the year Hotblack Desiato was dead for tax purposes.
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Hotblack_Desiato
By the time Kalifornia wakes up from being “woke” it will be too late.
As but one tiny example of what you may have missed in the idiocy going on in California:
The California solar mandate is a building code that requires newly constructed homes to have a solar photovoltaic (PV) system as an electricity source. This code, which went into effect on January 1, 2020, applies to both single-family homes and multi-family homes that are up to three stories high.
The solar panel system needs to be large enough to meet the annual electricity usage of the building; builders use an estimate for each property that’s based on the building’s floor space and the climate zone in which it’s located. For a two or three story building, this means that the required solar panel area exceeds that available on the rooftop of such structures, and that means an addition area of those buildings’ lot size must be committed to site/supplement the required solar array system.
It is estimated that meeting this requirement for just a one-story single family house will add $8,400 to the sales price.
Estimates were as high as $30K per house, while Californians suffer from an housing affordability problem.
I’m raising a skeptical eyebrow at a price tag of $8,400. That might be the price for a homeowner having one installed after all the tax credits and incentives are tallied, but the builder who is reselling the home is not eligible for these breaks, unless I’ve missed something somewhere. It’s an elegant way for Kalifornistan to side step that revenue loss. My recollection is the same as Retired_Engineer_Jim’s.
You may have heard of the Gov Newsom proposal that a new solar fee/tax be implemented that would be based on each KW of the system (not production). If things got cloudy for an extended period or in certain foggy areas of the state, the fee would be the same, essentially any financial advantage to having solar.
Congrats on both recovery and the move.
I second that for Anth*ny.
“we had none from the student category”
They’re all brainwashed. What teachers at any level would dare challenge “the 97% consensus”? NONE
They have been “Taught” (using words lightly here Joe) that Climate Change started sometime around their inception and it is the direct result of greedy adults using fossil fuel to create luxurious lifestyles.
They are also unaware that the elimination of fossil fuel will completely destroy the quality of their life. But the devil is in the details which will not be found on college campuses but will get you cancelled on social media sites.
Just how thoroughly brainwashed are they on the “settled science” and the “crooked skeptic scientists” talking points? A few years back, I dissected a college student’s Honors English Composition paper titled “Climate Change Deniers: A Research Paper on the Misinformation Campaigns Spread by the Fossil Fuel Industry.” It was a predictable smear piece that her teacher liked so much that he shared it on the internet, despite how it was instead an embarrassing case study of how the hapless student applied exactly zero critical thinking to the research material in her composition. Please see: “Teach the Children Well (Gelbspan in schools).”
How does the enviro-left spread propaganda? They teach the children to dutifully regurgitate the talking points they feed them.
The hand which rocks the cradle, leads the nation.
Thank you Anthony Watts, and best wishes for a full recovery from Covid and for a successful move. And thanks also to CtM and all the others for making WUWT a go-to spot for climate sense.
I’m also happy you recovered from COVID Anthony. My wife had COVID over Christmas, and I think I got it the next week. Even though my wife was 79 at the time and has a myriad of health conditions, she had a very mild case, and became asymptomatic the day after she tested positive. She took cough drops for her condition. I think I had it the next week (also a very mild case), but didn’t get tested, since I had to quarantine anyway because of my wife. I took my favorite medicine, Benadryl, to deal with the symptoms.
“I took my favorite medicine, Benadryl, to deal with the symptoms.”
That’s what I would be taking if I got covid. I would take it even if I also had some Ivermectin. I would take both.
Be warned about potential problems from not being tested. If you have had COVID, you can test positive for up to 3 months and there is no test for not being contagious. Therefore, if you have to get tested for travel or other purposes, if you can’t show you had been infected at least 10 days prior to positive results, it’s likely you will be assumed as contagious. What CDC defines as a “Document of Recovery” will typically allow you to avoid taking a test. Fortunately, I figured this out 12 days before taking a cruise and quickly got a positive test and documentation from my local health department to avoid being denied boarding from a likely positive test.
I can barely write a one line comment.
Now you want an essay detailing all the things I’ve learned from your website during the last 15 years??.
Give me 10 years, and I might be able to compile it into an 8 book series, 500 pages per book 🙂
I would just put some old scrap solar panels on the roof to look good, but not connect the wires.
Anthony ==> You moved out of California?!? I still have a weather tab set to follow rainfall in Chico.
Best wishes Anthony on your recovery … wondering did you have the vaccinations?
Congratulations on making the move…to where?
Mr. Watts reported his move on a podcast posted at WUWT a few days ago.
If you’ve moved close to me I’ll provide the beer and venison backstrap (and cook it too) while we chat!
Anthony- you left the Chico area? Good for you. I’m in Redding and have thought of leaving too.
Anthony:
Apparently you did not receive any submissions that actually met the criteria of Essay.
Otherwise, why bother with later submissions from students?.
Best wishes Anthony!
From angech,
Could not find the time to get an entry in, do not mind, but think you could add this contribution to the discussion, maybe as a post .
The subject is Ocean Acidification which came up at our U3A [University of the Third Age] in the last 2 weeks.
Since the Ocean is basically in balance with the land they must have the same average Ph
Ocean Acidification
One of the vexed questions regarding Climate change is how increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will affect the acidification of the oceans and to what degree.
There is a belief that a change in acidity must cause changes in the marine environment that must then cause deleterious effects.
If this is so, then it would be sensible to restrict extra human addition of CO2 by reducing the use of fossil fuels.
This has led to a plethora of papers on the question of Ocean Acidification from the prospect of the atmosphere changes causing oceanic changes.
The problem being that this is putting the cart before the horse in terms of both Physics and Chemistry.
The Basic Ocean and Earth.
The arguments I put forward here are both clear and logical and lead to a viewpoint that greatly diminishes the risk of Ocean Acidification due to human activity.
There is a big difference between considering the CO2 in a test tube interacting with a solution of sea water and the actual real life test tube of the earth.
The first point to consider is why is the Ocean basic at Ph 8.07 [NOAA] averaged across the globe.
This is not a trivial question.
The answer is that the Ph of the surface of the globe, land and ocean averaged is 8.07 as well.
How do we arrive at this conclusion?
The earth and ocean surface to the depth that both water or atmosphere exist is in close and constant contact with the land surface.
When any two or more materials exist in association with water chemical reactions occur depending on the temperature and pressure which lead to the release of H+ ions and the development of a Ph in the vicinity of that reaction due to the presence of the molecules or chemicals in the non water component.
This could be sea floor, mountain top , desert or arable land or forest.
To give examples if the Earth was made of water and sulfuric acid as the solid component it would be extremely acidic.
If it were made of caustic soda it would be extremely alkaline.
The acidity reflects the Ph of the substances adjacent to and dissolved in the water.
Why is the Ocean basic?
Because the elements and compounds that dissolve in it from the earth’s surface, year after year, taken as a whole are at Ph 8.07 which is what the Ocean has to reflect.
The atmosphere on the other hand, being gaseous and at lower pressures the higher it goes, has a unique relationship with water and Land. This relationship extends further than the ocean edges as there is some water present in the earth surface to depth everywhere.
Its composition responds to the composition of the ocean and land, not the other way around.
Every gas in the atmosphere is present in a concentration that is totally dependent on the presence of that gas dissolved in water adjacent to the atmosphere.
This is a known physical property of all gases.
It applies to all gases including the big four, Oxygen, Nitrogen, H2O itself and CO2.
Why is this important?
The presence of CO2 in the atmosphere is actually dependent on the concentration of CO2 in the Ocean.
The Ocean holds vastly greater amounts of CO2 and its dissolved derivatives that can ever exist in the atmosphere.
Consequently a small change in a small and insignificant amount of atmospheric CO2 can never effect the Ph of the world’s Oceans.
The changes in Ocean Acidification come from other causes.
Local changes are due to the nature of the sediment being delivered into the ocean which depending on vegetation and chemical composition of the land can vary widely.
These are the same elements that have always existed and even out at Ph 8.07 eventually.
A change in temperature or pressure can lead to a change in acidity.
This is easily seen with the changes in Ph as one moves towards the poles and in night and day Ph measurements.
A massive volcanic eruption can alter the Ocean chemistry for a short time until the more acid or basic quality of the water reacts with enough of the rest of the surface materials to neutralise or buffer the change.
Consequently the right way to perceive the question of atmospheric CO2 is to consider it is being put into the atmosphere at the levels it is currently at by changes not in ocean uptake of the CO2 but by ocean release.
When the earth warms, a little more CO2 is released from the earth land and sub marine surface. This in turn is released into the atmosphere and is what is measured at Mauna Loa.
CO2 in the atmosphere, no matter how much is put in will have to go back into the ocean.
If the world was a little cooler the CO2 level would drop.
The interesting part of the CO2 rise is that it either reflects a very slightly warming sun over the last 40 years or a long cyclical change in cloud cover..
Hope this will attract some interest