You people in the US are in the process of liberation from some needless oppression found in daily life. Removal of horrible words like Endangerment Finding and Net Zero and United Nations agency and Paris Agreement are being removed from the common vocabulary, heading for the history book resting place.
My colleagues in Australia and I are envious. We have our fingers crossed that the US will value these moves, adopt them and show the world a brighter future. Then, other countries will be pressured to follow, even UK under Sir Keir Starmer and Australia under Albanese.
Of course, there will be quite an attempt to fight against the catalogue of changes already under way. Too many people have for too long been fed well for doing little of value. I do not have any idea if this resistance will succeed. For the moment, it seems from here that there is a shocked silence.
What do you people in the US see as the most likely form of opposition to the Trump/Vance initiatives? Will it be in law courts, politics, mass expression of voter sentiment, whatever? What is the US mood felt by you WUWT commenters, optimistic or pessimistic or nuanced?
Geoff S
The only real opposition to Trump is coming from Democrats filing lawsuits in front of selected judges who try to slow Trump down, but Trump is on solid legal ground and eventually the higher courts will rule in his favor. They have already ruled in his favor in a number of cases.
The only real “voter” opposition at the present time seems to be financed by George Soros. In other words, professional protesters are what you are seeing on television.
Trump’s actions so far are very much approved by the majority of Americans.
The Leftwing Media is trying to make every Trump employee cut out to be a serious mistake putting crucial operations at risk Trump is actually only cutting probationary workers, in most cases, who haven’t been on the job very long so don’t occupy critical positions. This will be realized as time goes along.
Other than that, Trump has pretty smooth sailing and it’s going to get better. If Congressional Republicans can get it together to pass Trump’s new legislation then things are really going to be looking good for the United States and the world.
Representative Massie needs to get on board the Trump Train. Give Trump a chance and he will reduce the deficit, like you want. All he needs is a little support now.
Speeding up the exodus of 15 million of illegals to where they came from is going to be quite a task.
Any future walk-ins have to be fully vetted and documented in their country of origin, and be fluent in English, and have at least a high school diploma, and have ten years of modern work experience.
Only meritorious, contributing, not government-tit-sucking people would be allowed in.
Contrary to what is being stated by some, one does not have to be fluent in English to be a US citizen. First, many of our fellow native-born and natural-born citizens are not fluent in English. Second, when applying for naturalization, the English proficiency test is waived if the applicant is over 55.
It is a great idea, however. Both English proficiency and the equivalent of a US high-school education. Shouldn’t be that hard.
“Trump’s actions so far are very much approved by the majority of Americans.”
Hmmmm . . . I can’t find any objective evidence that that is true.
“President Donald Trump’s approval rating at the end of February was lower than that of former President Joe Biden at the same point in his presidency, according to recent polls . . . On Friday, an average of 47.7 percent of Americans approved of Trump, compared to 47 percent who are giving his administration negative marks so far . . . On the other hand, an Ipsos/Reuters poll showed Trump with a -6 approval rating (44 percent approve v. 50 percent disapprove).”
— https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-compared-joe-biden-2037910 , article updated Mar 02, 2025 at 8:50 AM EST
“Trump approval rating holds steady at 44%, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds . . . U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating held steady over the past week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday that found 44% of respondents approved of his performance over his first month in office . . . The poll found 50% disapproved of the job he was doing, down from 51% last week, a change well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
— https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-approval-rating-holds-steady-44-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-02-25/
“The pre-election polls were shown to be pretty far off.”
That’s another assertion that is not supported by objective facts.
Here, for your benefit:
“How accurate were the polls in the 2024 election? Overall, high-quality polls were quite accurate. For example, the final national New York Times/Siena of likely voters conducted October 20-23 showed a tie (48%-48%). As of Monday, November 11, with most votes now tallied, former President Trump holds a 50.2%-48.1% lead nationally — a result which is within that poll’s margin of error of 2.2%. “Although one might initially think a final election result differing than the final polls indicates that polls were incorrect, this is why polls publish their margin of error: it tells the reader how much variability we might expect in the result. This year, our final election results largely appear within that margin of error, indicating the polls were in fact quite accurate. We also know that some voters make their final voting decision on election day.”
— https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2024/11/13/were-2024-election-polls-wrong-ucr-expert-weighs (my bold emphasis added)
“Despite the early narrative swirling around in the media, 2024 was a pretty good year to be a pollster. According to 538’s analysis of polls conducted in competitive states* in which over 95 percent of the expected vote was counted as of Nov. 8 at 6 a.m. Eastern, the average poll conducted over the last three weeks of the campaign missed the margin of the election by just 2.94 percentage points. In the seven main swing states (minus Arizona, which is not yet at 95 percent reporting), pollsters did even better: They missed the margin by just 2.2 points. “This measure, which we call ‘statistical error,’ measures how far off the polls were in each state without regard for whether they systematically overestimated support for one candidate. And by this metric, state-level polling error in 2024 is actually the lowest it has been in at least 25 years. By comparison, state-level polls in 2016 and 2020 had an average error close to 4.7 percentage points. Even in 2012, which stands out as a good year for both polling and election forecasting, the polls missed election outcomes by 3.2 percentage points. “At this early juncture, we can only speculate as to why error was so low this year.“
— https://abcnews.go.com/538/2024-polls-accurate-underestimated-trump/story (my bold emphasis added)
Of what value is a poll that can’t reliably predict an outcome and has to seek cover for its inability to provide useful information by appealing to “margin of error?” It’s like owning a tool that breaks every time you try to use it.
Polls rarely matter if they aren’t any better at predicting than the people who could actually put the information to good use, like ‘day traders.’ If the polls aren’t credible, the only purpose they serve is for propaganda.
Was the ‘margin of error,’ so highly thought of by you, provided? If not, it supports my view that both sides use polls for propaganda because they are unreliable for anything else.
“American taxpayers saw things differently. David Burrell of Wick Insights polled 1,000 registered voters after showing them an 11-minute video of the conflict between the presidents. Even though Republicans and Democrats were represented in the poll at the same percentage as in the voting public, only one-third of those voters strongly disapproved of how Trump behaved. Meanwhile, nearly half felt that Trump and Vance had a stronger argument than Zelensky. As for Zelensky’s comment that really set off Trump—that the U.S. would “feel it in the future” if it failed to ensure security guarantees to Ukraine—fully 62 percent of respondents said they found Zelensky’s comments “offensive.” Furthermore, 69 percent of those polled believe the United States has the most negotiating leverage to end the conflict.
This poll joins others that suggest cratering support among the American people for the war in Ukraine—and for its president.”
Public opinion is heavily influenced by what the public reads on the internet and hears on TV. They are mostly exposed to the liberal spin so it isn’t too surprising that polls are showing Trump doing poorly. However, it has been shown repeatedly how fickle public opinion can be. The election poles were wrong about Trump in 2020 and 2024. I don’t put much stock in them. It seems to me that their greatest value is to those who control the ‘news’ outlets and want to appeal to the sheep that like to be seen riding on the band wagon.
“It seems to me that their greatest value is to those who control the ‘news’ outlets and want to appeal to the sheep that like to be seen riding on the band wagon.”
Fair enough, but then I take note of the number of previous articles presented on WUWT that discussed polling data showing “climate change” ranking very low among the issues of most concern to US citizens, to wit:
These articles, and other preceding ones, were generally favorably accepted by the WUWT readership, based on comments posted under each . . . not much questioning of their validity or possible errors. Hmmmm . . .
Maybe polling capabilities have degraded lately (despite objective evidence to the contrary), but I think it much more likely that one’s opinion on polling data actually reflects that person’s confirmation biases related to perceived reality.
A poll that can’t resolve the outcome of something like an election, or what people value, is of no practical use. I think it is the political polarization of the country that has made traditional election polling unpredictable, without changing the sampling protocol.
The polls I have seen asking people about what they value or care about do not have a binary outcome. They are typically rankings where it might be difficult to distinguish two adjacent rankings, but it is generally quite clear what the public wants if two rankings have a separation of more than two or three rankings. If the extremes of a spectrum of choices consistently separate two choices, it is pretty clear what the public wants.
That is to say, predicting the outcome of a coin-toss election is probably not practical when the country is so polarized, and the pollsters should make that very clear. People are better at making choices that involve evaluating multiple things, but still have difficulties separating things that are nearly equal in desirability.
Personally, I’ve generally found it easier to know what I don’t like versus what would make me happy. That is probably why the old saying exists that, “When the gods wish to punish us, they grant us our wishes.”
Yes, and it is all too common to prepare propaganda polls that are along the lines of, “Do you think that the opposition candidate should stop beating his wife?”
Well, I saw a poll the other day that showed Trump’s actions were favored by 90 percent of Republicans and about 56 percent of Independents and about 10 percent of Democrats.
That gives Trump a majority approval rating.
In fact, it is estimated that Republican voters now outnumber Democrat voters nationwide, which was not the case previously.
I don’t follow polls that closely, since they’re usually skewed, but using overall approval ratings are misleading for the polls out there. If you go issue by issue (border, inflation, economy, etc.), something like 60% of Americans like Trump’s approach and results on them so far. This leads one to conclude that the overall 47% approval is largely personal and has nothing to do with substance.
My mood is optimistic, but with the cautious anticipation that the massive effort to defeat the mind-locked “climate” error is only just beginning. Therefore I aim to contribute to this effort however I am able, mainly by explaining why there never has been a good reason to worry about CO2. So at present I am hoping for a cascading rejection of the “climate crisis” messaging and all its misguided policy prescriptions.
There’s a lot of propaganda to overcome, in addition to the bureaucracy holding on to power in various corners of the corrupt enterprise known as government.
Just an example, they try to foist off USAID as foreign “aid” for feeding starving children or what have you, when in reality it’s a number of orchestras of money laundering and psyops, and its conductors are still at it.
Start making the argument CO2 is THE essential gas for photosynthesis, and to grow flora and fauna, and to increase crop yields to feed billions of hungry people
Much of the money rooted out in NGO entities like USAID was used to propagandize and influence society and elections in many foreign countries. Perhaps with that funding cut off you will be unburdened from our deep state influence. Sure they will find other means, but there might be enough of a respite to make inroads on course correcting towards truth, morality, and political change for the better.
Remember when VP Biden bragged about getting the Ukraine to fire the guy investigating Burisma (The company that had hired Hunter.) by threatening to withhold $1 Billion in aid from the US? That $1 B was via USAID.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/there-are-at-least-8-provocations-that-led-to-the-ukraine-russian
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1) The US-led NATO expanded beyond East Germany to the borders of Russia, after promising Gorbachev not to expand by “one inch” beyond East Germany in 1990. Russian leaders were lied to again.
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2) At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO agreed, Ukraine and Georgia would become members, but did not specify how or when this would happen. Russian objections were ignored.
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3) The US fomented, organized, and financed the illegal Coup d’Etat in Kiev in 2014, which deposed Yanukovych, a legally elected President, and left about 100 people dead and severely wounded.
The US spent at least $5 billion from 1990 to 2014, per Victoria Nuland, to set up Ukraine NGOs, subsidize Ukraine Media, buy West-leaning politicians, to lead many parades with flags, etc., in preparation of the Color Revolution that would push Ukraine into the EU and NATO, in due time.
From 1990 – present, thousands of West European companies expanded their operations to Ukraine and other East European states, and to Russia.
The “Revolution” often became violent during 2013 and 2014, because a major part of the population, likely of Russian origin, wanted to continue the status quo.
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4) From 2014 to February 2022, the Kiev government armed forces, UAF, with NATO arms, decided to attack, kill and severely wound about 15,000 of its own citizens in East Ukraine over an eight-year period, because those citizens, did not agree with the US-installed clique in Kiev in 2014.
Russia supported the ethnic Russians to prevent increased genocide.
The UN/EU/US/UK/NATO encouraged Ukraine by staying silent, or saying “Ukraine has a right to defend itself”.
Those ethnic Russians have been living there for about 400 years
5) Ukraine Presidents Poroshenko and Zelensky sabotaged the Minsk Agreements, with silent approval of NATO and Merkel and Sarkozy/Hollande, the “guarantors”.
The frequent Minsk meetings by the parties were futile. Russian leaders were hoodwinked again.
The West’s aim was to give Ukraine time to build its armed forces with NATO training and weapons.
Those Agreements would have given limited autonomy to East Ukraine, while remaining part of UKRAINE
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6) In early February 2022, an army of at least 100,000 of the Ukraine Armed Forces, UAF, increased its long-distance shelling of East Ukraine by a factor of 3 to 5, likely a prelude to an assault on East Ukraine.
This was subsequently confirmed by captured Ukraine POWs.
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7) On February 22, 2022, Russia finally said “enough is enough”, and invaded Ukraine to put an end to the ethnic cleansing in East Ukraine.
Russian troops entered Ukraine 1) with the aim of forcing Kiev to halt military attacks on East Ukraine, 2) to ensure its own security, and 3) dismantling a regime that fostered the growth of neo-Nazism in the country
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8) During March/April, 2022, a Russia-Ukraine agreement was partially negotiated and initialed in Turkey, but PM Johnson interrupted the peace process by visiting Kiev to tell Zelensky to keep on fighting with NATO backing.
Zelensky, with no military skills, agreed to fight a war of attrition against a much larger and better-armed opponent
Ukraine, remaining population about 25 million in Kiev-controlled areas, of which 10.7 million are pensioners, could never win the war of attrition.
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The forces of Russo-phobia, propagated by the subsidized, government-controlled Corporate Media in the US and EU, were working overtime to keep the US/EU populations in hate-Russia mode, while falsely claiming Ukraine was “winning”.
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After 3 years of fighting, East Ukraine is in total ruins.
Russia annexed over 20% of Ukraine, and its own real GDP is growing at 3.5 to 4.0 percent, far in excess of the US and the EU, despite sanctions.
Russia, with many highly educated STEM graduates, became more united, due to the war effort, and more sovereign, due to a huge increase of “Made in Russia” products and services that used to be imported from Europe.
A major return of Western companies to Russia would “increase dependency/decrease sovereignty”, as happened after 1990.
Both sides lost a total of about 2 million dead and seriously wounded.
Russia has annexed 4 provinces, where the people voted by 90% or more, to rejoin Russia, as they did in Crimea by over 96% in 2014.
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On the other hand, invading another country is a significant action to correct grievances, and one that should be severely discouraged lest it should become an acceptable form of ‘diplomacy’ by all nations. Russia is a member of the UN, but I don’t recollect hearing anything about Russia bringing its asserted grievances to the UN for action. It would be easier to be sympathetic to Russia if they had raised complaints that were ignored by the UN. An overt aggressor, like a bully, is always going to find it difficult to convince others that they had no choice.
This is exactly my issue with the whole thing. If Russia had legitimate grievances and evidence of violence against these ethnic Russians in Ukraine, why not present that to the UN? They’re a charter member, after all, so ignoring that forum to present their grievances and justification for using force seems odd. They could have built international support instead of being the aggressor, first starting a border skirmish and then invading a sovereign nation
I think Operator meant to say that USAID routed money through NGOs, rather than rooted. (Many English speakers pronounce routed like rooted, just a spelling error to write rooted rather than routed).
The main point is that USAID is NOT a US government Foreign Aid agency. It is a money laundering machine routing our tax dollars to Deep State operatives.
Yes. The way these entities act makes the distinction between them very small. The government entity USAID was funding thru NGOs propaganda, political hit jobs, exporting absolute degeneracy to sovereign foreign nations.
Let’s not be too naive. I for one don’t believe that most or in some cases any of the money supposedly allocated to disadvantaged LGBTQIA+XYZ youth went to anything other than CIA black ops. In a similar way to how literacy programs might have been used for black ops in prior administrations.
An alternative is to pass a budget cutting funds to the offending agencies, bureaus, commissions, etc, and they will have to reduce their manpower and their institutional footprint.
All of the crimes and all of the criminals must be exposed and the Deep State discredited for at least a generation.
This means an end to allowing each side’s criminals to maintain their deterrence regime of mutually assured destruction. Republicans must skewer their own criminals along with the Democrats’ criminals. Anything less and we continue the downward ratchet toward final destruction.
Yes, there aren’t enough jail cells for all the people DOGE could prosecute. So they will have to make some very prominent examples. There’s one US Senator I would have top of my list and, if he’s not top of Kash Patel’s list, he’s gonna be high up there.
Adam Schiff: The biggest Liar in Congress. And that’s saying something.
Another delusional politician elected by a delusional California electorate. A majority of Californians are too stupid to govern themselves properly. They think voting for idiots like Adam Schiff is a good thing to do.
There are several Democrat politicians that need to be investigated for interfering in U.S. foreign affairs and undermining President Trump’s ability to carry it out.
It seems that right before Zelenskyy met with Trump in the Oval Office, he met with a bunch of Democrat politicians that urged Zelenskyy not to settle for the deal Trump was offering him that day.
And the rest is history.
How many people will die between now and the time the Ukraine war finally ends because of this huge mistake/delay by Zelenskyy and the American Democrats? The American Democrats have blood on their hands. They don’t care about ending the Ukraine war, or stopping the bloodshed, they only care about undermining President Trump. That’s their focus. Dispicable human beings they are.
“All of the crimes and all of the criminals must be exposed and the Deep State discredited for at least a generation.”
I think Trump’s appointees are headed in that direction. An investigation of former FBI Director James Comey is in the works. The results. of this one ought to be real interesting.
This is a key point. The Deep State had already settled in sufficiently to concern President Eisenhower in 1961 before I was born. Sixty-four years of retrenchment, several thus-far-successfully-covered-up political assassinations and blackmail operations (Epstein, Diddy, others?), billions or trillions of dollars in money laundering through NGOs to Deep State operatives…
The Deep State is nowhere near defeat. If it is to be defeated, it will require decades of hard effort.
Everything that Trump has done or may still do can be undone in the same manner after another stolen election and puppet presidency. This must not be allowed to be a brief interlude before the final collapse of the American experiment.
“This must not be allowed to be a brief interlude before the final collapse of the American experiment.”
That’s right! We need to get on top of the Deep State quickly, and stay on top.
That can happen if Republicans continue to be the majority and continue to win the presidency.
At this time, it looks like Republicans have a very good chance of electing another Republican to the presidency in 2028. A lot of this will depend on how well the Republican Congress sticks together, and how the legislation they pass is seen by the people to be beneficial to them.
If Trump gets his agenda confirmed, I think the future is very bright for Republicans and for the United States and the world.
Republicans have a slim majority in both Houses of Congress now, so that is the weak point in this plan. If all Republicans stick together, then we can get this done, but if a few go their own way, they can cause serious harm to the agenda, which will mean serious harm to the United States. Trump should be given the benefit of the doubt in these first essential votes.
Republicans need to show solidarity, not disarray. Solidarity will give Republicans control of the next Congress. Disarray will make things extremely difficult.
You are correct. Representative Massie is one of them.
Let’s hope he can put aside his personal desires for a few votes and get Trump’s agenda over the top, and then he can talk about reducing the debt, which is his main focus.
Trump is already talking about reducing the debt, and is offering a number of ways to do it, and Rep. Massie, should give Trump a little time, and I will bet Rep. Massie will be very happy with the end result. A little patience will go a long way here.
Republicans in the House can still get a bill passed without Massie, but they can only lose one and no more.
I think Republicans are going to pick up a couple of House seats in the near future. New York State is putting off holding an election for as long as they can to prevent another Republican from being elected. Democrats are the worst! They are Poison for our nation.
Lawsuits by unhappy doomers. Hopefully, the courts will decide to remain out of the picture, otherwise they will end up supervising and micromanaging the entire energy industry. That IS NOT in their purview as defined in the Constitution.
The biggest impediment to what Trump is doing will be the Constitution. Then there will be the innumerable and never-ending lawsuits. In many parts of the country, the populace is awaking to what they voted for, and they aren’t liking it – their ox is being gored, so, yes, popular dissatisfaction on a large scale is emerging.
The “Rent a Mob” companies are doing well.
Most people don’t want guys in Women’s sports or bathrooms.
They don’t want taxpayer dollars fund DEI programs in Nepal of drag queen shows in other countries or the weaponizing of the DOJ, the FBI, etc., as has happened since Obama.
It is not unlike the NIMBY attitude towards environmental changes. Everybody gives lip service to ‘improving’ the world, until they personally are inconvenienced by it.
“so, yes, popular dissatisfaction on a large scale is emerging.”
No, I don’t think so. That’s the impression the leftwing media and Democrats are trying to give, but most of the protests you see are financed by George Soros.
As I said above, the last poll I saw showed Trump with 90 percent approval by Republicans and a majority approval by Independents and of course, a small, 10 percent approval by Democrats, but that’s to be expected.
A majority approve of what Trump is doing despite all the lies and distortions being told by the leftwing media and the Democrats.
And Trump doesn’t have a problem with the U.S. Constitution. He is following it to the letter.
On the other hand, the Judicial Branch is interfering in the president’s ability to control and direct the Executive Branch, of which he is the head. They are telling the president he can’t be the president. One unelected podunk federal judge is trying to tell the President of the United States how to run the government.
Eventually, all these lawsuits will be settled in the president’s favor.
Frivolous lawsuits are all the radical Democrats have. They have filed about 95 lawsuits against Trump so far. But that won’t stop Trump for long. Watch and see.
Geoff: Our side has a big advantage in that 30 years of trying and trillions in investment has completely failed to make the slightest difference in carbon dioxide emissions. This failure has not made any difference in the weather – it’s as variable as it has always been. Sadly, some politicians and their supporters are either corrupt or slow learners. We can only hope that they don’t damage their economies so severely that they can’t recover.
I’ll be surprised if Net Zero lasts five more years.
Only really delusional people like UK and German politicians will still hold on to this idea, while the rest of the world passes them by, on to bigger and better things, while the UK and Germany bankrupt themselves to no good purpose. (I don’t consider crony capitalism to be a good purpose).
“What do you people in the US see as the most likely form of opposition to the Trump/Vance initiatives?”
I saw a local news channel report (as distinct from institutionalized lie machine crap) with National Parks employees protesting being laid off. I love National Parks and all the wonderful smaller parks in the US, so contiunued watching.
They were carrying signs and chanting, so that’s one thing that’s happening. One guy was saying it was illegal and he expected to get his job back.
My thoughts on this are that DOGE are so busy they did a scorched earth firing job and will hire back to fit government efficiency.
Do you think there’s lots of scope for DOGE to identify widespread replication of standard back-office admin functions across multiple agencies and locations?
I mean, consolidation of back-office admin functions is the first thing that businesses do when they merge with or acquire other enterprises.
It’s the lowest hanging of all the low-hanging fruit in these situations.
And the least risk exposure to loss of corporate knowledge / expertise.
The visual below shows the Hansen 1999 United States regional surface temperature chart on the left, along side a Hockey Stick global temperature chart, on the right.
As you can see, the U.S. chart shows that the temperatures were just as warm in the 1930’s as they are today. All original regional surface temperature charts from around the world show a similar temperature trend, where it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today. What this means is that CO2 has had little effect on the Earth’s temperatures because even though there is more CO2 in the air today, than there was in the 1930’s, it is no warmer today than then
The Hockey Stick chart shows a completely different temperature profile than what the regional charts show. The Hockey Stick chart shows the temperatures getting hotter and hotter and hotter since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, and it shows that today is the hottest period in human history.
So these two temperature charts are completely at odds with each other. One temperature trend is real, the regional charts, and one is not.
Since the Hockey Stick global chart was created in a computer and uses regional temperature data as its input, the question is “How does one derive a Hockey Stick “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile out of regional temperature data that does not show a “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile? The original, regional, written, historic temperature data is the only data available to the Hockey Stick creators, so what computer method transforms a benign “just as warm in the recent past” temperature profile, into a very scary “hotter and hotter and hotter” Hockey Stick temperature profile?
The answer is: Temperature Data Fraud on the part of those who created the Hockey Stick Abomination. These Temperature Data Mannipulators wanted to create a temperature profile that correlated with CO2 increases in order to sell the Human-caused Climate Change narrative. And that’s exactly what they did. See Climategate. They have fooled much of the world into believing CO2 is causing atmospheric temperatures to increase and their only “evidence” is this bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick temperature profile.
Here’s the way to recognize if you are looking at a bastardized Hockey Stick chart: Look at the 1930’s. If the 1930’s don’t show to be just as warm as today, then you are looking at a bastardized Hockey Stick chart. Somebody is trying to fool you.
You can thank Phil Jones for most of this Hockey Stick deception.
I ask this question all the time, but none of the Climate Alarmists seem to want to try to answer this question. How do you get a Hockey Stick profile out of regional data that does not have a Hockey Stick proifle?
o what computer method transforms a benign “just as warm in the recent past” temperature profile, into a very scary “hotter and hotter and hotter” Hockey Stick temperature profile?
It is not necessarily fraud, more likely it is simple ignorance. These are time series. You can not just average time series that have varying means and variances and then do a linear regression.
Time series analysis accounts for the fact that data points taken over time may have an internal structure (such as autocorrelation, trend or seasonal variation) that should be accounted for.
Does autocorrelation or seasonal variation ring a bell?
Invision a graph of temps in the NH, from January to December you have a sine wave. However, in the SH you have a cosine wave over the same months. Can you average these and obtain an accurate trend to forecast with?
“It is not necessarily fraud, more likely it is simple ignorance.”
No, it’s fraud.
The people creating this global temperature chart were wringing their hands over what to do with the warm “blips” they found in the land and sea surface temperatures.
Why would they need to do something about the warm “blips” in the temperature record? Why would they worry about them? Because warm blips in the past blow up the Human-caused Climate Change narrative, because if it was just as warm in the recent past with less CO2 in the air than today, and the temperatures today are no warmer than in the past with much more CO2 in the air today, then logic would tell you that CO2 has had little effect on the Earth’s temperatures.
So these advocates didn’t want that, and talked to each other about how to handle the warm “blips”. Mike’s “Nature Trick” was mentioned, among other things. See the Climategate emails. These people had/have an agenda and that agenda was selling the Human-caused Climate Change narrative. Bastardizing the temperature record was how they did it.
Tom, I’m not sure why you’d expect the US, which occupies 2% of the Earth’s surface in a 20 degree mid-latitude band to be a proxy for global temperature. If the point is there’s bias in the data, I won’t argue that point, I just don’t think your plot proves anything.
The temperature records that I trust because of the integrity of the scientists behind them come from UAH (Spencer and Christy).
“Tom, I’m not sure why you’d expect the US, which occupies 2% of the Earth’s surface in a 20 degree mid-latitude band to be a proxy for global temperature.”
Why not ?
If one tree is good enough , one country damn sure is .
But I don’t need just one tree (regional chart), I have regional charts from all over the world that show the very same temperature profile as the U.S. regional chart, i.e., that it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today.
Not according to the bastardized Hockey Stick chart. It only shows a cooling of about 0.4C at the coolest point in the late 1970’s.
Whereas, the U.S. regional chart shows a cooling of about 2.0C from the high point of the 1930’s to the low point of the late 1970’s.
In the late 1970’s the climate scientists were worrying that the temperatures had dropped so much that the Earth might be entering a new Ice Age.
I don’t think climate scientists would get exercised over a 0.4C drop in temperatures. Temperatures have dropped that much since the high point of 2024.
Climate Scientists would get exercised over a drop of 2.0C, which equaled the cold of the 1910’s.
So this small cooling in the 1970’s depicted by the Hockey Stick is just more proof that the Hockey Stick chart does not represent reality. it’s not scary enough for an “Ice Age Cometh!”
Compare the two charts I supplied above. Look at the differences in cooling.
“Tom, I’m not sure why you’d expect the US, which occupies 2% of the Earth’s surface in a 20 degree mid-latitude band to be a proxy for global temperature.”
Well, as I said, all regional, written, historic temperature records from around the world have basically the same temperature trend as the Hansen 1999 U.S. chart, where it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today. That says to me that this trend is global.
Here you go. Here are 600 regional charts from around the world that show the same thing the U.S. chart shows, namely, that it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today, which means CO2 has had no noticeable effect on the Earth’s temperatures, as it is no warmer today with more CO2 in the air, than it was in the past with less CO2 in the air.
And the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick supposedly used the regional data to formulate their global temperature chart. I say supposedly because they couldn’t use that data and come out with a “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile because that temperature profile does not exist in the regional data.
So the Temperature Data Mannipulators used some bogus data in the mix in order to get the temperature profile they wanted. The thinking is that Phil Jones added in bogus sea surface temperature data to the mix to get the temperature profile he wanted. Btw, there was very little sea surface temperature data until about the middle of the 20th Century so prior to that was just about all speculation.
But there’s not any “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profiles in the regional surface temperature data, so Jones either changed the surface temperature data, or he injected bogus sea surface temperatures into the computer to get the profile he wanted.
And of course, Phil Jones refused to provide the data he used to created his global temperature chart, saying if he did, some people might criticize it.
That’s the state of current climate science. It’s all built on a lie.
While I was at it I made this plot to have a closer look at our little temperature spike. The oceans are cooling, but land hasn’t caught up. Any predictions?
I’ll update this in the next day or two when UAH updates their data. The MET office still hasn’t published January HadCRUT5 data. Watts Up With That?
Interestingly, the US temperatures seem to have greater year-to-year variance than global temperatures, which is surprising because Third-World countries are not as well monitored.
It’s true that in the past a lot of places were not well monitored, but the places that were monitored all show the same temperature profile, which is that it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today.
And, let me point out,now that a little time has passed, that no Climate Alarmist has offered to answer the question:
How do you get a “hotter and hotter and hotter” Hockey Stick temperature profile out of regional data that does not have such a profile?
I wasn’t really expecting an answer after asking this question numerous times to dead silence.
That makes sense since there’s really no logical explanation for how the Hockey Stick chart was created based on the data available for its creation.
There has to be fraud in there somewhere, and I think the silence says volumes.
Not one rebuttal. Not one explanation for how this could come about.
The bogus, bastardized, instrument-era Hockey Stick chart is the BIG LIE of Alarmist Climate Science.
Don’t believe this lie. As you can see, the Climate Alarmists can’t explain how it was created even when challenged to their faces. Crickets. We know why: Because there is no good explanation.
Yeah, and here we are another day later, and not a peep out of any Climate Alarmist. They have no answer.
I would like to know what goes through their minds when they read this. it probably doesn’t make them feel very good. Reality rears its Ugly Head and True Believers are faced with not having an answer, which should be disturbing to their assumptions/world view.
Sometimes when a True Believer realizes he doesn’t have the answer, he has an epiphany. Let’s hope enlightenment ensues.
strativarius
March 2, 2025 2:54 am
The other day I heard a sound I hadn’t heard since~2003 when Yo Blair extracted his head from George W Bush’s fundament – a very loud pop. I’m quite convinced Kweir Starmer could see Trump’s tonsils.
And then it all went horribly wrong. If only Zelensky was as adept at fawning supplication as our Kweir most definitely is. This has more or less completely sidelined the usual climate messaging service we have come to expect; quite literally moment by moment. Kweir finds himself sat squarely on the fence.
On the one side we have the voices of progressive, er, conservatism:
“Calls to cancel Trump’s state visit to Britain: Put arrangements on hold until US President provides assurances about Ukraine’s security, say politicians and military leaders
[Who] [Tory] shadow home affairs minister Alicia Kearns last night said: ‘State visits should be conferred to the most honourable of allies, not to curry favour.
Note I didn’t have to include any of the many Labour voices on that one.
This is a new form of climate denial, the geo-political climate has changed and they are stuck much like Hiroo Onoda; the guy who continued fighting for 28 years or so after the war’s end in 1945.
Trump has turned off the money taps. We had a £22 billion black hole that needed filling and more, hence all those nasty tax hikes and increased charges, fines and protests etc. And then suddenly…
“Ukraine and UK sign US$3bn defence loan agreement” – Yahoo etc
On top of: “£18 trillion – what Britain owes in reparations. Time to pay up.” – Voice Online
I did a rough check on the costs of ending slavery, who else has? It goes pretty big. The West Africa Squadron was active between 1808 and 1867 (59 years) and accounted for ~2% GDP – 50% of the Navy’s budget. westafricasquadron . org /
The Ashanti wars on land (From 1826 to 1900) are harder to pin down on expenditure, but given that the wars lasted 74 years, they can’t have been cheap in money or lives.
I have no idea what this new Trumpian paradigm will shape up to be, but can it really be any worse than the one passing?
On top of: “£18 trillion – what Britain owes in reparations. Time to pay up.” – Voice Online
The thing about reparations for the slave trade is where does it stop?
Do we deduct monies to offset the number of native Africans who were selling their own people and people from other tribes to the slave traders? And what about the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese and the Spanish, do they have to chip in?
Can we offset UK reparations for the French enslaving some English in the years after 1066? The Danes? The Romans?
What about my African ancestors who were likely enslaved or slave traders 2 million years ago?
Where does it stop?
Note: I am not condoning the slave trade, it was and is morally wrong.
The point I was making is that we spent the equivalent at least on ending the trade. And let us not forget that the Squadron was only set up because other European parties to the agreements did not entirely honour them.
If anybody owes anything it is the Ashanti empire. Where? Ghana. And don’t forget, not only did they export captured slaves to the west, they also sent them to islamic lands.
“Note: I am not condoning the slave trade, it was and is morally wrong.”
Obviously, opinions vary. George Washington owned most of his slaves, but also rented many. Morality might be a movable feast, depending on who is doing the moralising.
I better stop moralising, I suppose. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel offended, and burst into tears because I dare to have opinions of my own.
The local chieftains in Africa, rounding up future slaves, were handsomely paid by slave traders, who sailed their valuable cargo to eager buyers in the NEW WORLD.
The local chieftains should pay reparations!
The best way to make amends for the lingering effects of past injustice is to build a prosperous future for all.
The average standard of living even of the plantation owners or the lords and ladies of the manor was in most respects inferior to the lowly welfare recipient today.
If you compare the lifestyle of the 17th century West African villager to his modern day descendant, it would be objectively clear that despite the grave injustices along the way, the average American descendant of slaves is far wealthier than the average Ghanian or Nigerian descendant of villagers who got away from the slavers.
You forgot the Islamic slave trade. It lasted from about 650 to about 1900, it probably transported 15-20 million people. Mostly sold by fellow Africans. Also involved slave raids by the North African states on the UK and other European countries. The trans-Saharan trade resulted in such high death rates that it isn’t unreasonable to class it as a form of genocide. Also featured large scale genital mutilation of males along the way.
If there is to be a serious global reparations movement, the present Arab states and Turkey should be contributing on a grand scale, and should also be acknowledging their historic wrongs..
The British of course did gravely wrong in permitting their nationals to engage in the trans Atlantic trade. But there is more joy in Heaven…. and they finally had the famous court ruling that confirmed there was no status of slavery in Common Law, they set up the West Africa Sqadron to intercept slaving ships, they sent a squadron to North Africa to shell the coastal cities where the raiders came from, they abolished slavery in all their possessions, they fought wars against the African slaving states in West Africa to force them to stop.
The British abolished the Atlantic slave trade and indeed much slavery almost single handedly. Everywhere at least that they had power to do it.
Let us agree that slavery is an ancient abomination. An equally ancient abomination is war. Most ancient wars were genocidal. We are probably all the descendants of slaves, slave owners, genocidal warriors, and orphans of genocidal wars. Slavery was a form of mercy as much as a market response to senseless killing.
Should we thank Britain for fighting the slave trade? Should we also thank my abolitionist ancestors or our Union soldiers? But it was also their (our common) ancestors who initiated the slave trade to North America.
I have no recollection of ever buying, selling, owning, freeing, or liberating a slave. Neither have I ever killed anyone under any circumstances. I deserve no punishment nor any praise for the actions of my ancestors.
The Northwest Ordnance of 1787 specifically stated that slavery was prohibited in the territories covered by the Ordnance. This law was passed while the US was governed by the Articles of Confederation, so anti-slavery sentiment was pretty strong in parts of the US from the beginning.
I’m not sure why you raise that Erik, but I don’t think that you’re right that there was broad consensus against slavery in all US regions during the 1780s. Don’t neglect that the NWO also included the Fugitive Slave clause. This was also legislated in the midst of the Constitutional Convention where slaves were reckoned as three-fifths of a man and the abolition of the slave trade was delayed for two decades. It seems more like part of a grand compromise than a sign of abolitionist consensus.
The thing about reparations for the slave trade is where does it stop?
It stops when everyone is put back in the condition (and continent) they would have been in, had history been different. That should end the conversation in about 20 seconds.
“The thing about reparations for the slave trade is where does it stop?”
And where does it start.
‘The View’s’ Sunny Hostin calls everything racist and wants reparations.
Upon finding out that her ancestors from Spain were slave holders, dismissed it by saying words the effect, “I guess they did that back then.” 😎
(There’s video out there of it but I couldn’t find it.)
Calls to cancel Trump’s state visit? Let me add my voice.
Trump should not deign to talk to the demented old fool who for so long has championed Green insanity and is wishing us a wonderful Ramadan yesterday. On St David’s day!
And certainly don’t spend any more time letting Sir Stalin appear as more than the tinpot dictator that he is.
What we should do is pull all our troops out of Europe, exit NATO and then eject the UN as we quit that corrupt body.
Trump is not going to agree on NATO membership for Ukraine, and he is not going to put American troops in Ukraine. This is what Zelenskyy was arguing for and what Trump rejected.
Trump, instead is offering to sign a business deal with Ukraine which would bring in Americans to work in Ukriane, and Trump thinks an American presence will serve as a deterrent, and the business deal will benefit both the U.S. and Ukraine, which will share its profits.
Trump is not opposed to the UK and France and any other NATO nation putting their own troops into Ukraine as a security force. And Trump wants NATO to increase its defense spending to enhance European security.
So Ukraine won’t have direct NATO support from the United States, but if any of the NATO members get into a shooting war, the United States is obligated to come to their aid, so that also serves as a deterrent to Putin. That’s almost as good as NATO membership.
I think I hear noises that Zelenskyy is going to sign the agreement after all, and he should.
I understand that he wants as much protection as he can get, and I understand why, but he should not have let the American Democrats talk him into not signing the deal Trump had made. That it was ok to argue for more while in the Oval Office.
Obviously, it wasn’t ok.
Zelenskyy seems to be a rather difficult person to deal with. I think he is under a lot of pressure from all sides, so I don’t know if it is the pressure, or a personality problem, but it is said that Trump does not like him personally for some reason. And a lot of Trump’s people say the guy is a problem to deal with. Trump’s Envoy to Ukraine, General Kellogg, recommended that this Ukraine deal NOT take place in the White House. Apparently, he had some apprehension about how Zelenskyy would behave.
Someone, besides me, sees the mineral deal as a huge security guarantee for Ukraine.
Ron Long
March 2, 2025 2:56 am
NORMAL. Excuse me for revisiting the theme of “normal” again. Some time ago I commented about normal, in the context that if it rains 1 inch one year and 100 inches the next year, then 50 inches of rain per year is normal, but 1 and 100 inches of rain are also normal (don’t remember the exact numbers). Six days ago Kip Hansen posted a report “California: Rise And Fall”. Kip presented some interesting data apparently showing subsidence along the North America Pacific Coast. Here’s the problem: The report was led off with an image of an emergent coast. The entire Pacific Coast of North America (and also South America) is an emergent coast. I’m not attacking Kip, who presents great stuff, I’m only presenting this idea: the Pacific coast is in an emergent state, marked by cliffs into the sea, mudslides and rockslides, highways with tunnels (think Route 1 versus Route 101), and great fishing off the “beach”. Kip shows that there is recent, and ongoing, subsidence, but is that normal? When a geologist examines the geologic record, and identifies a 50 meter emergent history, there is no way that some millimeters, centimeters, or even a few meters of subsidence will be detectable. Probably this is the case with California, it is emerging, but not smoothly, and that is normal.
I would vote for “normal” as being the statistical mode of a probability distribution, or some reasonable range around the mode. A more exact definition would be dependent on the intended application of the word “normal.”
Consider what is happening in the upper half of the atmosphere. Horizontal accelerations and decelerations are prevalent all over the globe.
So what? It relates to energy conversion, which I have posted about often.
[internal energy + potential energy] <–> [kinetic energy]
When a kg of air accelerates, the kinetic energy increased at the expense of internal + potential energy. And vice versa, when that kg decelerates, there is an increase in internal + potential energy at the expense of kinetic energy.
From high altitude, longwave radiation escapes to space more readily from each kg of air, powered from its internal energy – i.e., from its sensible heat, characterized by a temperature. But the internal energy state and the kinetic energy state, characterized by mass and velocity, are constantly subject to a dynamic interchange.
Again, so what? The incremental radiative absorbing power of the atmosphere from rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, influencing only internal energy directly, cannot be isolated so as to realize a “warming” result, because of how energy conversion works in a compressible fluid.
What to do? Recognize that the “forcing” + “feedback” framing of the question of what to expect from incremental CO2, CH4, N2O has been a misconception all along. Because energy conversion is active throughout the entire depth of the troposphere, as we can readily appreciate from the winds, there is no good reason to expect the incremental radiative effect to drive sensible heat gain as an end result.
Can it really be that straightforward to leave the entire misconception about “greenhouse gases” behind? I say yes.
“the question of what to expect from incremental CO2, CH4, N2O has been a misconception all along. . . “
Replace 100% of an air sample with any “greenhouse gas”, and the temperature doesn’t change at all. Anyone who states otherwise is a fool, a fraud, or unbelievably gullible!
You might be aware that nobody (even “climate scientists”) can provide any experimental support for claims that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter!
You say “When a kg of air accelerates . . .”, from whence comes the force to cause this air to accelerate? From the Sun, of course. Without the Sun, the surface temperature of the globe would be about 35 K. No “air” at all in gaseous form – just a very cold mostly solid mixture lying on the ground.
If the current US administration shows that nothing much changes by getting rid of all government funded “climate scientists” and “climate researchers” (and others of their ilk), then this silly preoccupation with the unspecified perils of “carbon” will quite possibly wither and die – to be replaced with another popular delusion.
We humans are a strange lot, prone to belief in all sorts of impossible things.
The only physical property that can be attributed to CO2 warming the air is the specific heat capacity. CO2 is a little different than air and a minute increase in CO2 concentration will affect the over all Cp in that 1 joule of energy will raise the temperature slightly in a decimal place deep in the noise.
Thank you (again) for reminding us that kinetic energy is part of the “energy transport” package that defines the atmosphere’s contribution to “climate”. This is not negligible, because the equatorial and tropical atmosphere that absorbs the most direct energy from the sun starts off with a speed of around 1000 mph! As this hot, humid air rises, trading kinetic for potential energy, it starts the transport process by drifting West. As it cools and becomes denser, it spills over to higher latitudes where its retained kinetic energy moves it East against the surface (the so-called “Coriolis effect”). Meanwhile, the cooler, denser surface air from the higher latitudes moves in to replace the rising hot air, but with lower kinetic energy (speed) to create the tropical “Easterlies.” Much of the atmospheric turbulence that annoys the meteorologist can be traced to the kinetic energy differentials typical of a rotating body.
A bit deceptive – initially, the speed of sun-heated air is zero. Heated air just rises, like warmer water in the ocean.
All the usual stuff about “heat transport” is mostly nonsensical. Air is low density – about 800 times less dense than water. Not terribly effective at “transporting heat”. What you write is true-ish, but possibly misleading.
Just bear in mind that during the night, the surface loses all the heat of the day (plus a wee bit of internal heat). I agree that the effect of lots of little bits of leftover air motion results in jet streams, trade winds etc.
However, as Lorenz pointed out, it is possible that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil might cause [or prevent] a tornado in Texas.
Adding CO2 to air does not make the air hotter. No GHE.
Oh, please! “Still” air at the equator has kinetic energy based on its velocity (relative to “still” air at the poles) of about 1000 mph! Like in the Looking Glass, “It takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place!” Air (and water) moving from the equator towards the poles (decreasing circumference with latitude) has excess KE that must be considered in energy transport, which, by the way, includes evaporating, lifting, moving, condensing, and precipitating over one trillion metric tons of water every day. Pretty effective, wouldn’t you say? Those who have experienced the KE of hurricane winds (a mere 100-150mpn) will not belittle the KE change of air moving towards or away from the poles.
I explained this in some detail in my two part comment to Kevin Kiley’s recent post on energy balance. My comment was on Feb 25 near the end of the comment section.
The short version:
Absorption and thermalization plus direct conduction from the surface provide sensible heat to drive the atmospheric heat engine from the bottom up
ALL of the surface radiation outside of the atmospheric window is converted to sensible heat. It is annihilated. It no longer exists. It is not “transported” through the atmosphere.
The atmospheric heat engine creates its own field driven by collisions only. There is a constant exchange energy within that field, but no transport of radiation energy. It is most intense at the surface and diminishes with altitude as a function of density and pressure.
The spectrum of the atmospheric field measured at any point and in any direction will be characteristic of the temperature, pressure, and relative concentration of IR active species.
Radiation to space occurs when for any given spectral peak, the rate of spontaneous emission exceeds the rate of collisional de-excitation, aka thermalization.
For water vapor in the subtropics, this occurs over an altitude range of ~2.9-6.6 km, and accounts for almost all the radiation to space. The latent heat of water vapor released by condensation adds sensible heat to the system along the way, reducing the lapse rate.
You can see the emission spectrum of water vapor in Harde(2013), figure 17.
CO2 emission is not possible until we get to the mesopause. That is the tiny peak at the bottom of the “divot” in the TOA IR spectrum.
The fraction of the “missing energy”, so-called “forcing”, seen in the one-dimensional models is the remaining sensible heat that drives weather/climate.
The over-simplified one-dimensional “radiative equilibrium models have no resemblance whatsoever to the real earth. The folly begins with the expectation by humans of a “radiative balance” in a single atmospheric column.
You can read Schwarzschild’s oft-cited paper on Andy May’s site, where my colleague Markus Ott has provided an English translation.
Schwarzschild understood that for a “radiative equilibrium” there can be no convection.
Radiative transfer applied to the Earth atmosphere creates an illusion that the surface radiation somehow propagates upward and a fraction of it is released to space. That is not what is happening and it belies the real atmospheric processes at work.
Those who apply it believe that because it can reproduce the satellite spectrum that is an adequate justification. That it can reproduce the spectrum is easily explained within the discipline of radiative transfer theory, but that is not a sufficient condition to claim it represents the processes in the atmosphere.
The real problem is that our atmosphere is driven by convection, and the tools to model a convecting atmosphere in a “predictive” manner do not exist, and likely never will. This can be difficult to accept for many.
Perhaps I should have been more precise and said “Q-branch emission to space”. The evidence is in the spectrum and even van Wijngaarden and Happer recognize this.
What is your “experimental evidence” to the contrary?
It is a given that radiation from CO2 emission exists everywhere in the atmospheric radiation field. I was specifically referencing where the radiation from CO2 can escape to space in the upper atmosphere.
Deconstructing what Feldman et al actually accomplished, they showed that using modeled AERI spectra and long term measurements from AERI instruments they can create a less precise version of the CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa. This about downwelling radiation and has nothing to do with my comment.
A discussion of the mostly misunderstood “downwelling IR” is entirely different but relevant as well.
You claimed “CO2 emission is not possible until we get to the mesopause.” It now appears you really meant upward directed CO2 escaping to space.
But then you also claim
“Radiative transfer applied to the Earth atmosphere creates an illusion that surface radiation somehow propagates upward and a fraction of it is released to space. That is not what is happening “
Yes, it is. Emissions from CO2 escape the atmosphere from every altitude. That is due to the reduction in density as one goes up. That’s why it gets colder.
Convection is important but that does not override the fact that radiative processes are also occurring.
The radiative processes move a fairly constant percentage of the available energy upward. Convection then kicks in when that is not sufficient to cool the low level atmosphere.
I meant the same thing which I believe many would understand in the context of my narrative. I was clarifying for you because you apparently were looking for a “gotcha” rather than understanding the meaning of my statement.
Based on your response, your understanding could not be more in conflict with reality. Van Wijngaarden and Happer in their 2023 paper state that heat transfer in the troposphere is via convection, even though it is logically inconsistent with their clam of radiative transfer. Have you read any scientific papers on this topic? Did you look at any of the references in my post?
if your post reflects your understanding of atmospheric dynamics, you need to do some homework.
Professor John Tyndall’s meticulous experiments demonstrated that gases (including CO2) can both absorb and emit radiation.
Of course, if you don’t accept that the obvious heat radiated by a hair dryer or heat gun contains heat radiated by CO2, you will be greeted by howling from those who claim that only CO2 could possibly radiate IR.
CO2, like all matter, radiates IR. If it radiates to space, space is where the radiated photons go, unless they interact with matter along the way.
It may not matter much – as you say “our atmosphere is driven by convection, and the tools to model a convecting atmosphere in a “predictive” manner do not exist.”
I wish I could say that I understand what you are trying to communicate in the above post. Is there some way you can clarify what you are trying to say?
“CO2 emission is not possible until we get to the mesopause”, which is complete and utter nonsense. CO2, like all matter, continuously emits IR while above absolute zero.
What do you mean by “CO2 emission” – I assume you don’t mean emission of CO2, so I guess you mean IR radiation emitted by CO2. There seems to be a belief that CO2 does not obey the physical laws that apply to other matter.
This leads to some weird delusion that adding CO2 to air makes the air hotter! You don’t share that delusion, do you?
Nope. His sensor was a thermo-electric pile, one side heated with steam.
His container was glass with salt end caps. The energy source was a metal container at 100 C space some distance form the salt end cap.
What gives it away is the funnel at the sensor input. Tin no less.
Fascinating that 100% CO2 had the same results as water saturated air.
No thermometers. So no idea of the consistency of surrounding air temperature day to day, experiment to experiment.
He did excellent work, but the technology of the day had limitations.
His efforts to have equivalent internal pressures were the best that could be done, but they are like reading a wet bulb thermometer.
Thank you for your reply. I am interested in how you interpret the Band 16 visualizations of radiance data from the geostationary satellites. I know you are on X. This thread explains what I am talking about/asking you about.
Part 1 – Shorter part 2 to follow. I’ll post as a reply to this.
Hi David. Thanks for responding to my comment and the most intriguing question.
I have been ruminating on this most of the day, getting up to speed on GEOS, and trying to integrate all of this so I can explain my interpretation as concisely, but thoroughly as possible. Some may be repetitious for you, but hopefully others will find benefit.
I noted that in the “product information” for Band 16, they call it the “Carbon Dioxide” channel, in quotes. The frequency band they chose is unusual. If you checked out Figure 17 in the Harde paper I referenced in my comment, or if you are familiar with Figure 7 in van Wijngaarden and Happer where they overlay a zero CO2 spectrum in green, you will note that the peak emission of water vapor is pretty close to 13.3 microns.
It is my impression that many interpret the TOA spectrum as an attenuated version of the surface emission with a “bite” taken out by CO2 absorption. This is not unreasonable, given that the radiative transfer models create the illusion that the radiation is propagating through the atmosphere.
The strong overlap of water vapor and CO2 activity from ~14-16 microns has not been addressed effectively in the explanations of the models, and creates confusion regarding from what gas species the radiation to space is coming from. It should be apparent from Harde’s figure 17 that with regard to the contribution from surface energy, virtually all of the energy released to space is from water vapor emission, at altitudes from the mid-troposphere to the tropopause. The “bite” in the spectrum is from CO2 partial absorption in the water vapor band. That absorbed energy is converted to sensible heat and returned to the atmosphere. Overall, we are left with the infamous missing “151 Watts/m^2”.
We’re getting close to band 16, but where is that 151 W/m^2? We have to now understand that the world is not flat, energy transport is not one-dimensional, and we have night and day, not 24 hour constant insolation. There is a net loss of radiation energy at night, and there are regions on the planet where the net outgoing radiation energy exceeds the incoming energy, the Antarctic plateau in winter being the most notable location. If all of the above were enough, I suppose we would be in “radiative equilibrium”. We still have atmospheric circulation and weather, so there is still energy in the system driving that.
I have a perspective on clouds that is not mainstream, and I believe trying to explain the role of clouds using radiative transfer is yet another case of “barking up the wrong tree.” Clouds effect the radiation field in three ways:
Because the water droplets or ice crystals are “condensed matter”, they will emit Planck radiation, albeit not much due their low temperature. In a small way, this emission from cloud tops will somewhat enhance cooling, while emission from the bottom will somewhat reduce cooling. It is a small effect.
Clouds scatter and reflect radiation. From the cloud tops, the reflection of sunlight back to space will reduce heating. From cloud bottoms, reflected radiation from the surface and atmosphere will reduce cooling. Regarding the cloud bottoms, some of the reflected radiation from the atmospheric window will return to the surface, reducing the surface cooling rate. This is what your pyrgeometer sees when a cloud passes overhead. The GHG frequencies that are reflected downward will be absorbed by GHGs and thermalized. This returns sensible heat to the atmosphere, and reduces its cooling rate.
This is the phenomenon that I have not seen discussed. In the near neighborhood of clouds, there must be an increased concentration of water vapor relative to the clear sky in order to maintain equilibrium between the liquid (or solid) and gas phase. The water vapor molecules are subject to collisional excitation, and because of the altitude there will be little thermalization. They will emit fiercely. The emissions that are not directed upwards will be quickly absorbed, but from the cloud tops there will emission directly to space. In band 16, the areas of intense cooling appear to be associated with dense clouds, and particularly storm cells. This is the ultimate “check valve”, so to speak, to release any additional radiation to space in order to maintain thermal balance in the atmosphere. I think that Band 16 is showing us localized, intense water vapor emission that would not appear in a clear sky spectrum.
None of this should be controversial. Meteorologists have understood for a long time that storms release tremendous amounts of radiation to space. Hurricanes occur in their “season” because tremendous amounts of heat accumulate during the summer and it must be shed in order to maintain balance in the upcoming winter.
The processes that drive the atmosphere cannot be explained by radiative transfer theory. The models are able to mimic the spectrum because the boundary conditions of temperature profile, concentrations, and line-by-line calculations of local conditions predetermine what the spectrum will be. They do not mimic the real atmospheric processes, but they produce the so-called “greenhouse effect.”
In the real atmosphere, there is no barrier to radiation energy. There is also no “law of conservation of radiation energy”, as said by Heinz Hug many years ago. Atmospheric energy is moved around by circulation, and heat is released by weather according to the Earth’s whims.
In another comment, someone asked how the Earth can stay warm if there’s no “greenhouse effect”. It’s very simple.
Energy arrives at Earth at the speed of light. It leaves the surface at the speed of convection. This is a natural “atmospheric speed limit” for sensible heat to traverse the lower atmosphere. It is eventually converted to radiation, but not necessarily in the atmospheric column where it started. That’s weather.
The atmosphere is driven solely by the hydrologic cycle. CO2 is a nothing burger with respect to energy transport, but it provides the basis for life. Ozone helps limit our exposure to UV. Any other so-called “GHGs” are of no consequence. The concept of “radiative forcing” is BS.
Neither the mathematical tools nor the computing power exist to model convective processes in the atmosphere on long time scales, and it’s likely they never will.
This is difficult for many to accept.
I thank you again for your thoughtful question. Today’s mental exercise has helped me connect more “dots”. I hope that my narrative hasn’t strained your patience, and I’d be interested in your thoughts regarding my perspective on Band 16.
Thank you so much, Tom, for your replies. In respect to Band 16, I will just say it’s important to note that whatever IR emission the imager on the geostationary satellite detected and reported as a radiance value in that range of wavelengths obviously was “free” to escape to space. I note the overlap of partial absorption/emission by CO2 and by H2O in this band. I also note that whatever portion of the near-black-body IR emission from the surface and from cloud tops in this band that was not absorbed in the atmosphere is included in the detected signal.
Again, your replies are much appreciated.
‘Can it really be that straightforward to leave the entire misconception about “greenhouse gases” behind? I say yes.’
The average radiance from the Earth’s surface has widely been estimated to lie somewhere in the region of 390 W/sq.m but the surface is only receiving something like 240 W/sq.m from the Sun. The traditional explanation for the 150 W/sq.m extra power-input to the surface that is required to balance the 390 W/sq.m power-output is that it comes from the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?
Thank you for your reply.
“If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?”
The concept of the atmosphere, including clouds, as an emitter toward the surface is not in dispute here. The misconception I refer to is the expectation that the incremental IR absorbing power of the atmosphere, from rising concentrations of CO2, etc., must result in sensible heat gain on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere itself. There is no way to isolate the incremental radiative effect for attribution of a reported warming trend. And after considering the dynamic response of the atmosphere, my conclusion is that no good reason remains to expect a detectable sensible heat gain – and most certainly not to any harmful extent.
I note that this is essentially the same response as meteorology Professor David Brunt gave in 1938 to the attribution of reported warming proposed by Guy Callendar.
“Prof. Brunt agreed with the view of Sir George Simpson that the effect of an increase in the absorbing power of the atmosphere would not be a simple change of temperature, but would modify the general circulation, and so yield a very complicated series of changes in conditions.”
More here. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/02/open-thread-52/#comment-3703255
I agree that we have no good reason to expect any long-term detectable sensible heat gain in response to the microscopic incremental increases in GHG concentrations that are occurring continually these days – at least in so far as the so-called ‘non-condensing’ greenhouse gases (CO2, etc.) are concerned. That is not because there is no greenhouse effect, in my view, but because the warming effect of the increasing greenhouse agents is necessarily offset by negative feedbacks (primarily from the planetary water-cycle) to an increasingly great extent as the greenhouse-warming proceeds.
“If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?”
Complete nonsense. The Earth is losing heat at a rate of about 44TW, based on admittedly sparse measurements. The surface loses all of the heat of the day at night. Adding CO2 to air does not make it hotter. The Earth’s surface is no longer molten If you are not a fool or a fraud, you are simply gullible.
If you disagree, you might care to provide a fact or two in support.
What is your claimed mechanism for “all the heat of the day” being radiated away at night? Why exactly the same amount rather than a little more, or a little less?
Why not all the heat of the day and a bit more? After all, the earth is no longer molten, so over the long term it must be so?
There’s some kind of a quasi-equilibrium or steady state pattern, right? Somehow that is physically established by the mass and composition of the atmosphere, the configuration of the continents and oceans, right?
And there is satellite evidence that the atmosphere has warmed mildly (beneficially) over the past 44 years. Something caused that right?
I see you just assert that there is no greenhouse effect, so how does the earth maintain its temperature? Why 15°C and not -18°C?
You Wrote – “Why not all the heat of the day and a bit more? After all, the earth is no longer molten, so over the long term it must be so?”
I agree. I usually include the 44 TW energy loss from the internal heat, but I tried to be less verbose. Sorry. As Fourier put it – “Thus the earth gives out to celestial space all the heat which it receives from the sun, and adds a part of what is peculiar to itself.”
You also wrote –
“There’s some kind of a quasi-equilibrium or steady state pattern, right?” Wrong. The Earth is slowly cooling – as it must.
And “I see you just assert that there is no greenhouse effect, so how does the earth maintain its temperature? Why 15°C and not -18°C?” Hopefully you jest. The Earth has cooled to its present temperature, whatever that happens to be. When the average was 500 K, that’s what it was. When it was 373 K, that’s what it was. And so on.
You might believe that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter. It doesn’t. Warming is due to additional heat. If you look around after the Industrial Revolution, I’m sure you will find plenty.
In most cases, “Greenhouse Effect” can be replaced “atmosphere” with no real difference to the meaning.
You’re being non-responsive. Clearly it is not the case that the earth is continuously cooling at its surface. The satellite evidence shows that it has been mildly warming for 4-1/2 decades.
CO2 doesn’t make the atmosphere or the surface hotter. Greenhouse gases in general, but primarily water vapor, make the night-time cooling take longer. It is the sun that makes the surface hotter.
Whether our long-term contribution to CO2 concentration is wholly or partially responsible for the mild benefit is an open question isn’t it?
“If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?”
and your dismissive reply was:
“Complete nonsense…..(etc)”
It is not nonsense. It is the still-unanswered question that necessarily arises as a logical consequence of removing the concept of the atmospheric greenhouse effect from the conventional physics-based theoretical explanation for the radiant energy emitted from Earth’s surface being roughly 150 W/sq.m greater than the energy-input to the surface that is provided by the Sun.
If we reject the concept of the greenhouse effect as the source of the extra 150 W/sq.m that is needed, then what viable alternative source can we conceive of instead? I can’t think of one. Can you? Can anybody?
No, they are based on a spherical earth energy model. They are theoretical average values and do not need to represent what actually happens with a rotating sphere in order to make my point.
On that point you are wrong. The models that manifest the “greenhouse effect” are one-dimensional plane parallel models with constant irradiance equivalent to 1/4 of the total solar irradiance. This is well understood.
They are based on Schwarzschild’s “radiative equilibrium” model of the solar atmosphere.
On which specific point are you saying I’m wrong? And why do you say it?
You should not expect me to read your mind, Tom.
“The models that manifest the “greenhouse effect” are one-dimensional plane parallel models….”
That is irrelevant as far as I can see. Look, the issue I’m seeing is a matter of simple energy-accountancy, not the mathematical complications of model-dimensions, models of the solar atmosphere etc.. Just some elementary applied mathematics is all that is required to understand this.
‘I thought it would be obvious that it was in response to your comment just above where you stated: ”No, they are based on a spherical earth energy model.” ’
Actually, I made two points in that comment and you did not specify which one of the two you were referring to when you said it was wrong, so it was not obvious to me at all.
‘Those same flat Earth models are the basis of the “radiative energy balance” diagrams.’
Watch my lips, Tom. The figures I used are based on a spherical Earth model (singular), NOT flat Earth models (plural).
How can we possibly be talking about ‘Those same flat Earth models’ when the method which I used to produce my figures is based on a single, spherical Earth model while you are referring consistently to multiple flat Earth models?
Sorry, but your flat Earth models are definitely not the same as my spherical Earth model. So, in the interests of clear communication between us, I’d be grateful if you would clear up another point of ambiguity that exists between us. Are you saying that it is my spherical Earth model that is wrong or your flat Earth models that are wrong? If it’s the former, please explain what you find to be wrong with it. If it’s the latter, though, you needn’t bother to explain what you find wrong with those models because I haven’t been using those models anyway. Thanks.
To explain further why I am posting about this, I asked Grok3 (the AI agent on X) this question:
“In a free stream flow of air at constant altitude, what happens to the internal energy of a unit of mass of that air, as it experiences acceleration flowing toward lower pressure, or deceleration flowing toward higher pressure?”
Here is the answer, leaving out a lot of analysis and jumping to the end:
***************** …So, in a free stream flow at constant altitude:
Acceleration toward lower pressure: The air’s kinetic energy increases, temperature decreases, and the internal energy of a unit mass decreases.
Deceleration toward higher pressure: The air’s kinetic energy decreases, temperature increases, and the internal energy of a unit mass increases.
This makes sense energetically: the air trades internal energy for kinetic energy (or vice versa) while conserving total energy in an adiabatic process. If the flow weren’t adiabatic—say, heat were added—the internal energy could behave differently, but the question’s context supports this conclusion. Final Answer: In a free stream flow of air at constant altitude, assuming an adiabatic process:
When the air accelerates toward lower pressure, its internal energy per unit mass decreases.
When the air decelerates toward higher pressure, its internal energy per unit mass increases.
********************
There is more to it, of course, when air is descending in a high pressure system, or ascending in a low pressure system, or when there is turbulence, wind shear, etc. But this establishes what should be understood first about the horizontal winds we observe.
Quondam
March 2, 2025 3:49 am
Whenever greenhouse gas models are discussed, understanding why black-body and tropospheric back-radiation are not deus ex machina phenomena should be of concern. Both follow from the same physics. A CO2 molecule in its ground state may be kicked into an excited state, e.g. the 667 cm-1 bending vibration, either by collision or photon absorption. Eventually it will return by either collision or spontaneous isotropic photon emission in about 1 second. In the Kiehl-Trenberth cartoon, one notes similar up/down radiative fluxes (396/333 W/m^2). https://geoexpro.com/recent-advances-in-climate-change-research-part-ix-how-carbon-dioxide-emits-ir-photons
Einstein has shown radiative half-lives are inversely proportional to oscillator strengths, the stronger the absorption, the shorter the lifetime. (Einstein Coefficients, Wikipedia). In a metal, absorption occurs within microns of the surface and integration over a quasi-continuous energy spectrum with varying, but correlated, lifetimes and absorption distances yields a result independent of material parameters – the Stefan-Boltzmann (kT)^4 expression.
The troposphere is not a black-body. Absorption distances are measured are measured in meters and kilometers, distances comparable to its thickness. Looking down from the tropopause, calculated emission spectra, e.g. MODTRAN, show a nominal Stefan-Boltzmann contour but with distinctive dips due to stronger absorptions with shorter lifetimes. Qualitatively, one may correlate the background shape with photons originating from warmer regions and the 667 cm-1 dip, cooler regions.
One needs to have a good understanding of antennas work in order to understand photon emission. The emission of a photon from the bending vibration of a CO2 molecule or the emission of a gamma photon from a nucleus is NOT isotropic with respect to the orientation of the CO2 molecule or gamma emitting nucleus. The radiate “half-lives” and “oscillator strength” are another way to describe the ‘Q’ of the antenna system.
The W&H paper describes how the rotation of the CO2 causes line broadening by the effective amplitude modulation of the probability of an emission going in a given direction.
One other thing about “radiative half-lives”: An earlier emission can be stimulated by interaction with another photon of the same energy – as in laser.
“The emission of a photon from the bending vibration of a CO2 molecule or the emission of a gamma photon from a nucleus is NOT isotropic with respect to the orientation of the CO2 molecule or gamma emitting nucleus.”
However, the orientation of a CO2 molecule in a parcel of gas is completely unknown, so your statement is completely pointless, I suppose.
On any case, adding any amount of CO2 to air does not make it hotter.
Erik,
Dipoles whether folded or molecular have equivalent interactions with electromagnetic fields, functioning both as transmitters and receivers. I should have cited both stimulated radiated absorption and emission above. A ‘natural’ linewidth of 1 sec implies a Q of 1012 for a 667 cm-1 antenna. As Michael points out, the atmosphere is a composite of a multitude of randomly oriented dipoles, hence isotropy. Non-stimulated emission has long been realized necessary to explain radiative decay (Einstein). Its my understanding it’s now considered a QED quantum relaxation process.
Scissor
March 2, 2025 4:11 am
How did we get here? Democrats used to be against war, against child genital mutilation, for women’s rights, etc. There’s crazy everywhere.
Europe is Not Our Ally
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Europe tried to scare the US, with help of the leftist Biden clique, into going down the black hole of expensive, highly-subsidized, weather-dependent, grid-disturbing wind/solar/battery systems.
The W/S systems would have produced electricity at about 15 c/kWh, about 2.5 times greater than from domestic US gas, coal, nuclear, hydro plants, which would have made the US even more uncompetitive in world markets
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European Conglomerates would finance, build, erect, own and operate almost 30,000 MW of offshore windmills, providing work for many thousands of European workers for decades, and multi-$billion profits each year.
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That ruse did not quite work out, because Trump was elected.
The European, hate-Trump elites are furious. Projects are being cancelled. The European wind industry is in shambles, with multi-$billion losses, lay-offs and $billions of stranded costs.
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The US was saved from the leftist, woke folks by Trump, who declared a US National Energy Emergency, and put W/S/B systems at the bottom of the list, and cancelled their licenses and cut their subsidies, and put their rubber-stamp, environmental impact statements under proper scrutiny.
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Europe was using the IPCC, which claimed to own the science, to conjure up a global-warming/climate-change hoax, so the US would also deliver electricity to users at high c/kWh, to preserve Europe’s extremely advantageous trade balance with the US. https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/international-trade-is-a-dog-eat-dog-business
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the other, traditional generators, as they inefficiently counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
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W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDPs
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
UK and Germany have hit the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
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Base-load nuclear, gas and coal, hydro plants are the only rational way forward, plus the additional CO2 is very beneficial for additional flora and fauna growth and increased crop yields to feed hungry people. https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine . Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of 10 percent – Federal tax credit of 30 percent – State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
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The subsidies reduce the owning and operating cost of a project by 50%, which means electricity can be sold at 50% less than it costs to produce.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixed offshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
. Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in such big do-do
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower
Europe did well from 1945 to about 1990.
Look at the growth of real GDP
Then Brussels began to tie it into knots
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The GDP became flatter, then it decreased after 2010
Events in Ukraine made it worse
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Having tens of million of illiterate walk-ins made it a lot worse
Now France, Germany, the UK, etc., will be in a death spiral until underlying factors, and waste, fraud, abuse, are dealt with.
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In the meantime, the US will be in MAGA mode, courtesy of Trump
MAGA mode ? You mean Trumps new policies of causing unemployment in the economy of neighbors for US gain…when US unemployment is half of theirs, veiled threats of annexation of Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal ?….or by trading ownership of mineral rights for military ordnance in Ukraine, ….threatening to break complex and long considered agreements because he “read them and wonders why anyone would have signed” when we know he hires lawyers to read his contracts ?
DOGE’s firing of key employees that could only be based on the rate they produce emails…..This can only result in resentment instead of respect. And will back-fire on Trump badly…His new car smell is turning into “eau de New Year’s Eve taxi” rather quickly, with his uprooting of CC nonsense being about the only sensible arrow in his quiver.
21 Kg of phentanyl caught by US officers at the Canadian border in the last year. Not likely that they are simply bad at their job. $150 billion in tariffs on goods ordered by US citizens using a phentanyl as a “national security” excuse. Does that sound like anything other than political lipstick on a pig ?
Tariffs probably will affect cars. Yet US internally can’t gear up in 5 years to produce enough additional iron ore, steel, aluminum, fertilizers, lumber, to internally meet their own consumption, so US consumers will now simply have to pay the tariffs. US companies will simply raise their prices because they don’t need to compete any longer. US government will collect part of the additional corporate profits in corporate tax. An all around win for US government coffers.
Those neighbors have been facilitating a massive drug flow into the US. Trump has asked them to stop it. He is using tariffs as a bargaining tool. We will see if they are good neighbors by the way they respond.
Looks like you get most of your ideas from radical, leftwing media sources. They lie constantly.
Just pragmatic Richard. Drugs and their export are already illegal in those foreign countries. And it would be a lot easier to curtail the smuggling… if the demand for illicit drugs in the US wasn’t so completely insatiable. Maybe the US needs to work on that aspect.
Stopping Hollywood from basically being a free advertisement for drug abuse might be a good start. Oops a free speech problem. How about making drug dealers accessories to mass murder then ? There have been about 100,000 phentanyl deaths. Seems pretty clear that Supreme Court judges can call it manslaughter at least…
DOGE is making the biggest waste, fraud, abuse spender in the US more efficient. that is major MAGA
Prior to NAFTA, Mexico always had annual trade deficits with the US
After NAFTA, Canada and Mexico have huge annual trade surpluses with the US.
After NAFTA, foreign (and US) companies shipped parts to Mexico and assembled cars, with their entire production shipped into the US DUTY-FREE, that is not MAGA, but exploitation to the disadvantage of the US and US workers
After NAFTA, Dutch companies shipped automated greenhouses, the size of airplane hangars, to Canada (which provides nearly free gas), with their entire production shipped into the US DUTY-FREE, that is not MAGA, but exploitation to the disadvantage of the US and US workers.
Dutch/Belgian companies own more than 50% of the food supermarkets on the US East Coast; plenty of shelf space for European farm goods to the disadvantage of US farmers.
Europe has been doing the same since the Kennedy Round, which opened US markets, without the US getting lower tariffs from Europe.
Euro elites loved Kennedy
You are so confused Wilpost. US Tariffs mean US consumers will pay MORE for what they are buying. The idea that it is protecting US jobs, when US unemployment is already low is just political bafflegab. The US government needs the money. It’s basically broke and can only borrow and print money as long as they can make big investment houses think they have the taxing power to pay back their borrowings at rates that are better than inflation (which they also use to inflate away their debt). Even Trump’s MAGA smokescreen can’t hide the problem for long.
Russia and China have economic issues as well. Why is that ? Because governments everywhere generally believe themselves to be benevolent, yet their actions indicate they are mafia like entities with public displays of grandeur to cement their control, who extract as much money out of their populace and resources as possible to further their domination of ever more people, not always within their own borders. Been this way forever.
If you are a foreign manufacturer, you likely can’t manufacture in the US due to labor shortage and cost unless you hire illegal immigrants. QED. Most businesses are pretty low profit and sprang up organically due to particular local advantageous conditions, not because of tariffs, and tariffs should only be used to protect those low profit Mom and Pop businesses. If you are a US retailer, you are still going to buy widgets from China for a buck, soon to be a buck twenty and sell them for $15 in the US, cuz it costs $15 to mutilate that metal with US labor. Trump’s reciprocal EO is fraught with unintended consequences, admittedly sounds good and fair to everyone with grade school brain cells, but ignores many years of diplomacy and trade negotiations by very dedicated people simply as a home voter popularity excercise.
He has a table in this issue that answers the question I have repeatedly put to Nick Stokes: how much and what kind of generation is proposed to meet UK demand. Look at it carefully. As Homewood says, this is a recipe for blackouts. Its not open to dispute that this is what the plan will lead to, In fact, the document itself admits that, though it calls them by another name. They are so much more palatable when they are called Demand Side Reduction…
You cannot run the country on wind and solar. Its not going to happen.
Meanwhile the Mail is running a small story that maybe Starmer is getting ready to ditch Miliband and Net Zero. We shall see, but there are surprising signs of backbone there.
“Ed Miliband could be the most high-profile victim of a spring reshuffle as Sir Keir Starmer sidelines the Net Zero environmental agenda as part of the Government’s ‘dash for growth’, senior Whitehall sources have said.”
It doesn’t, of course, mean that Free Gear Kier is going to abandon net zero – simply that he may put someone else in the post. We could get someone even more fanatical but with a brain. There’s hazard around every corner…
The exchange in the Oval Office between the two presidents has been the subject of much hand wringing an angst by many commenters.
After everyone settles down they might realize that this just a part of Trump’s long term strategy to get the rest of Europe to do the heavy lifting to support Ukraine instead of the USA.
It’s already working since most of EU countries have already pledged support to Ukraine since the meeting and has now resulted in an EU plan to support Ukraine. All due to Trump.
The eUSSR can’t ‘support Ukraine’. It can’t even support itself.
Trump is trying to put an end to wars, and sure, force the lazy leeches to pay for their own defense. He’s not looking for someone else to pay for the slaughter.
Europe is risking nuclear war and the US needs at minimum to state unequivocally that if Europeans provoke a Russian attack on their countries by putting combat troops in Ukraine, that will not trigger Article 5 and we will provide no support. If that doesn’t put a stop to the insanity then we should withdraw from NATO altogether.
I decided to ask Grok what would be the result of California eliminating CO2 emissions from power generation and transportation. The final answer was:
If California eliminated CO2 emissions from power generation and transportation, the global temperature reduction would be on the order of 0.00019°C per year in avoided warming. This is a tiny fraction, reflecting California’s small share of global emissions and the slow response of the climate system. Over decades, the cumulative effect would grow (e.g., ~0.01°C by 2050), but the annual per-year impact remains minuscule due to the global scale of the problem.
For the UK 0.0001°C per year
You people in the US are in the process of liberation from some needless oppression found in daily life. Removal of horrible words like Endangerment Finding and Net Zero and United Nations agency and Paris Agreement are being removed from the common vocabulary, heading for the history book resting place.
My colleagues in Australia and I are envious. We have our fingers crossed that the US will value these moves, adopt them and show the world a brighter future. Then, other countries will be pressured to follow, even UK under Sir Keir Starmer and Australia under Albanese.
Of course, there will be quite an attempt to fight against the catalogue of changes already under way. Too many people have for too long been fed well for doing little of value. I do not have any idea if this resistance will succeed. For the moment, it seems from here that there is a shocked silence.
What do you people in the US see as the most likely form of opposition to the Trump/Vance initiatives? Will it be in law courts, politics, mass expression of voter sentiment, whatever? What is the US mood felt by you WUWT commenters, optimistic or pessimistic or nuanced?
Geoff S
The only real opposition to Trump is coming from Democrats filing lawsuits in front of selected judges who try to slow Trump down, but Trump is on solid legal ground and eventually the higher courts will rule in his favor. They have already ruled in his favor in a number of cases.
The only real “voter” opposition at the present time seems to be financed by George Soros. In other words, professional protesters are what you are seeing on television.
Trump’s actions so far are very much approved by the majority of Americans.
The Leftwing Media is trying to make every Trump employee cut out to be a serious mistake putting crucial operations at risk Trump is actually only cutting probationary workers, in most cases, who haven’t been on the job very long so don’t occupy critical positions. This will be realized as time goes along.
Other than that, Trump has pretty smooth sailing and it’s going to get better. If Congressional Republicans can get it together to pass Trump’s new legislation then things are really going to be looking good for the United States and the world.
Representative Massie needs to get on board the Trump Train. Give Trump a chance and he will reduce the deficit, like you want. All he needs is a little support now.
Great comment.
Speeding up the exodus of 15 million of illegals to where they came from is going to be quite a task.
Any future walk-ins have to be fully vetted and documented in their country of origin, and be fluent in English, and have at least a high school diploma, and have ten years of modern work experience.
Only meritorious, contributing, not government-tit-sucking people would be allowed in.
Contrary to what is being stated by some, one does not have to be fluent in English to be a US citizen. First, many of our fellow native-born and natural-born citizens are not fluent in English. Second, when applying for naturalization, the English proficiency test is waived if the applicant is over 55.
It is a great idea, however. Both English proficiency and the equivalent of a US high-school education. Shouldn’t be that hard.
The US is a magnet for people.
We can set the bar high, allow in only the best, meritorious people, who are of greatest use to MAGA.
The people in foreign lands doing the vetting must be MAGA/America First people
Strictly speaking, you are correct. However, declaring English as the official language may result in some other changes as well.
Hmmmm . . . I can’t find any objective evidence that that is true.
“President Donald Trump’s approval rating at the end of February was lower than that of former President Joe Biden at the same point in his presidency, according to recent polls . . . On Friday, an average of 47.7 percent of Americans approved of Trump, compared to 47 percent who are giving his administration negative marks so far . . . On the other hand, an Ipsos/Reuters poll showed Trump with a -6 approval rating (44 percent approve v. 50 percent disapprove).”
— https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-compared-joe-biden-2037910 , article updated Mar 02, 2025 at 8:50 AM EST
“Trump approval rating holds steady at 44%, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds . . . U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating held steady over the past week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday that found 44% of respondents approved of his performance over his first month in office . . . The poll found 50% disapproved of the job he was doing, down from 51% last week, a change well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
— https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-approval-rating-holds-steady-44-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-02-25/
“Poll question: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?
Results:
2025 Jan 21-27, 47% approve, 48% disapprove
2025 Feb 3-16, 45% approve, 51% disapprove”
— https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx
Facts matter.
The pre-election polls were shown to be pretty far off.
Claiming poll results as “Facts” is quite a stretch.
That’s another assertion that is not supported by objective facts.
Here, for your benefit:
“How accurate were the polls in the 2024 election?
Overall, high-quality polls were quite accurate. For example, the final national New York Times/Siena of likely voters conducted October 20-23 showed a tie (48%-48%). As of Monday, November 11, with most votes now tallied, former President Trump holds a 50.2%-48.1% lead nationally — a result which is within that poll’s margin of error of 2.2%.
“Although one might initially think a final election result differing than the final polls indicates that polls were incorrect, this is why polls publish their margin of error: it tells the reader how much variability we might expect in the result. This year, our final election results largely appear within that margin of error, indicating the polls were in fact quite accurate. We also know that some voters make their final voting decision on election day.”
— https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2024/11/13/were-2024-election-polls-wrong-ucr-expert-weighs (my bold emphasis added)
“Despite the early narrative swirling around in the media, 2024 was a pretty good year to be a pollster. According to 538’s analysis of polls conducted in competitive states* in which over 95 percent of the expected vote was counted as of Nov. 8 at 6 a.m. Eastern, the average poll conducted over the last three weeks of the campaign missed the margin of the election by just 2.94 percentage points. In the seven main swing states (minus Arizona, which is not yet at 95 percent reporting), pollsters did even better: They missed the margin by just 2.2 points.
“This measure, which we call ‘statistical error,’ measures how far off the polls were in each state without regard for whether they systematically overestimated support for one candidate. And by this metric, state-level polling error in 2024 is actually the lowest it has been in at least 25 years. By comparison, state-level polls in 2016 and 2020 had an average error close to 4.7 percentage points. Even in 2012, which stands out as a good year for both polling and election forecasting, the polls missed election outcomes by 3.2 percentage points.
“At this early juncture, we can only speculate as to why error was so low this year.“
— https://abcnews.go.com/538/2024-polls-accurate-underestimated-trump/story (my bold emphasis added)
Of what value is a poll that can’t reliably predict an outcome and has to seek cover for its inability to provide useful information by appealing to “margin of error?” It’s like owning a tool that breaks every time you try to use it.
Facts matter but do polls?
Polls rarely matter if they aren’t any better at predicting than the people who could actually put the information to good use, like ‘day traders.’ If the polls aren’t credible, the only purpose they serve is for propaganda.
Polls only show what the pollsters and whoever paid for the poll want,
Like votes, it’s who counts the polls answers that matters.
Most Americans believe Zelensky was ‘offensive’ in Trump meeting, new poll reveals.
Boldly stated without any link to, or name of, that “new poll”.
Why am I not surprised?
Was the ‘margin of error,’ so highly thought of by you, provided? If not, it supports my view that both sides use polls for propaganda because they are unreliable for anything else.
You could do your own search.
Here, I did it for you:
This was the third hit behind a couple of youtube videos.
https://www.thefp.com/p/what-average-americans-think-of-trump-zelensky-showdown
“American taxpayers saw things differently. David Burrell of Wick Insights polled 1,000 registered voters after showing them an 11-minute video of the conflict between the presidents. Even though Republicans and Democrats were represented in the poll at the same percentage as in the voting public, only one-third of those voters strongly disapproved of how Trump behaved. Meanwhile, nearly half felt that Trump and Vance had a stronger argument than Zelensky. As for Zelensky’s comment that really set off Trump—that the U.S. would “feel it in the future” if it failed to ensure security guarantees to Ukraine—fully 62 percent of respondents said they found Zelensky’s comments “offensive.” Furthermore, 69 percent of those polled believe the United States has the most negotiating leverage to end the conflict.
This poll joins others that suggest cratering support among the American people for the war in Ukraine—and for its president.”
end excerpt
Happy Now?
Public opinion is heavily influenced by what the public reads on the internet and hears on TV. They are mostly exposed to the liberal spin so it isn’t too surprising that polls are showing Trump doing poorly. However, it has been shown repeatedly how fickle public opinion can be. The election poles were wrong about Trump in 2020 and 2024. I don’t put much stock in them. It seems to me that their greatest value is to those who control the ‘news’ outlets and want to appeal to the sheep that like to be seen riding on the band wagon.
“It seems to me that their greatest value is to those who control the ‘news’ outlets and want to appeal to the sheep that like to be seen riding on the band wagon.”
Fair enough, but then I take note of the number of previous articles presented on WUWT that discussed polling data showing “climate change” ranking very low among the issues of most concern to US citizens, to wit:
— https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/01/13/monday-mirthiness-cnn-freaks-because-polls-show-most-people-dont-think-climate-change-is-responsible-for-the-la-fires/
— https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/28/climate-change-weekly-478-backlash-polls-confirm-climate-change-is-low-priority-issue/
— https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/05/dueling-polls-one-says-most-americans-care-deeply-about-climate-change-another-says-not/
— https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/11/biden-is-spending-1-trillion-to-fight-climate-change-voters-dont-care/
These articles, and other preceding ones, were generally favorably accepted by the WUWT readership, based on comments posted under each . . . not much questioning of their validity or possible errors. Hmmmm . . .
Maybe polling capabilities have degraded lately (despite objective evidence to the contrary), but I think it much more likely that one’s opinion on polling data actually reflects that person’s confirmation biases related to perceived reality.
Is WUWT pretty much a “band wagon” as you see it?
A poll that can’t resolve the outcome of something like an election, or what people value, is of no practical use. I think it is the political polarization of the country that has made traditional election polling unpredictable, without changing the sampling protocol.
The polls I have seen asking people about what they value or care about do not have a binary outcome. They are typically rankings where it might be difficult to distinguish two adjacent rankings, but it is generally quite clear what the public wants if two rankings have a separation of more than two or three rankings. If the extremes of a spectrum of choices consistently separate two choices, it is pretty clear what the public wants.
That is to say, predicting the outcome of a coin-toss election is probably not practical when the country is so polarized, and the pollsters should make that very clear. People are better at making choices that involve evaluating multiple things, but still have difficulties separating things that are nearly equal in desirability.
Personally, I’ve generally found it easier to know what I don’t like versus what would make me happy. That is probably why the old saying exists that, “When the gods wish to punish us, they grant us our wishes.”
Public opinion poll results are also heavily influenced by the wording of the questions.
Yes, and it is all too common to prepare propaganda polls that are along the lines of, “Do you think that the opposition candidate should stop beating his wife?”
Well, I saw a poll the other day that showed Trump’s actions were favored by 90 percent of Republicans and about 56 percent of Independents and about 10 percent of Democrats.
That gives Trump a majority approval rating.
In fact, it is estimated that Republican voters now outnumber Democrat voters nationwide, which was not the case previously.
That’s just perfect!
/sarc
I don’t follow polls that closely, since they’re usually skewed, but using overall approval ratings are misleading for the polls out there. If you go issue by issue (border, inflation, economy, etc.), something like 60% of Americans like Trump’s approach and results on them so far. This leads one to conclude that the overall 47% approval is largely personal and has nothing to do with substance.
My mood is optimistic, but with the cautious anticipation that the massive effort to defeat the mind-locked “climate” error is only just beginning. Therefore I aim to contribute to this effort however I am able, mainly by explaining why there never has been a good reason to worry about CO2. So at present I am hoping for a cascading rejection of the “climate crisis” messaging and all its misguided policy prescriptions.
There’s a lot of propaganda to overcome, in addition to the bureaucracy holding on to power in various corners of the corrupt enterprise known as government.
Just an example, they try to foist off USAID as foreign “aid” for feeding starving children or what have you, when in reality it’s a number of orchestras of money laundering and psyops, and its conductors are still at it.
Start making the argument CO2 is THE essential gas for photosynthesis, and to grow flora and fauna, and to increase crop yields to feed billions of hungry people
Much of the money rooted out in NGO entities like USAID was used to propagandize and influence society and elections in many foreign countries. Perhaps with that funding cut off you will be unburdened from our deep state influence. Sure they will find other means, but there might be enough of a respite to make inroads on course correcting towards truth, morality, and political change for the better.
USAID funds were being used to subsidize all the Ukraine media, that were spouting brainwashing nonsense to deceive the Ukraine people
Remember when VP Biden bragged about getting the Ukraine to fire the guy investigating Burisma (The company that had hired Hunter.) by threatening to withhold $1 Billion in aid from the US?
That $1 B was via USAID.
Wow. USAid money from Obama’s slush fund kitty
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/there-are-at-least-8-provocations-that-led-to-the-ukraine-russian
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1) The US-led NATO expanded beyond East Germany to the borders of Russia, after promising Gorbachev not to expand by “one inch” beyond East Germany in 1990. Russian leaders were lied to again.
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2) At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO agreed, Ukraine and Georgia would become members, but did not specify how or when this would happen. Russian objections were ignored.
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3) The US fomented, organized, and financed the illegal Coup d’Etat in Kiev in 2014, which deposed Yanukovych, a legally elected President, and left about 100 people dead and severely wounded.
The US spent at least $5 billion from 1990 to 2014, per Victoria Nuland, to set up Ukraine NGOs, subsidize Ukraine Media, buy West-leaning politicians, to lead many parades with flags, etc., in preparation of the Color Revolution that would push Ukraine into the EU and NATO, in due time.
From 1990 – present, thousands of West European companies expanded their operations to Ukraine and other East European states, and to Russia.
The “Revolution” often became violent during 2013 and 2014, because a major part of the population, likely of Russian origin, wanted to continue the status quo.
.
4) From 2014 to February 2022, the Kiev government armed forces, UAF, with NATO arms, decided to attack, kill and severely wound about 15,000 of its own citizens in East Ukraine over an eight-year period, because those citizens, did not agree with the US-installed clique in Kiev in 2014.
Russia supported the ethnic Russians to prevent increased genocide.
The UN/EU/US/UK/NATO encouraged Ukraine by staying silent, or saying “Ukraine has a right to defend itself”.
Those ethnic Russians have been living there for about 400 years
5) Ukraine Presidents Poroshenko and Zelensky sabotaged the Minsk Agreements, with silent approval of NATO and Merkel and Sarkozy/Hollande, the “guarantors”.
The frequent Minsk meetings by the parties were futile. Russian leaders were hoodwinked again.
The West’s aim was to give Ukraine time to build its armed forces with NATO training and weapons.
Those Agreements would have given limited autonomy to East Ukraine, while remaining part of UKRAINE
.
6) In early February 2022, an army of at least 100,000 of the Ukraine Armed Forces, UAF, increased its long-distance shelling of East Ukraine by a factor of 3 to 5, likely a prelude to an assault on East Ukraine.
This was subsequently confirmed by captured Ukraine POWs.
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7) On February 22, 2022, Russia finally said “enough is enough”, and invaded Ukraine to put an end to the ethnic cleansing in East Ukraine.
Russian troops entered Ukraine 1) with the aim of forcing Kiev to halt military attacks on East Ukraine, 2) to ensure its own security, and 3) dismantling a regime that fostered the growth of neo-Nazism in the country
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8) During March/April, 2022, a Russia-Ukraine agreement was partially negotiated and initialed in Turkey, but PM Johnson interrupted the peace process by visiting Kiev to tell Zelensky to keep on fighting with NATO backing.
Zelensky, with no military skills, agreed to fight a war of attrition against a much larger and better-armed opponent
Ukraine, remaining population about 25 million in Kiev-controlled areas, of which 10.7 million are pensioners, could never win the war of attrition.
.
The forces of Russo-phobia, propagated by the subsidized, government-controlled Corporate Media in the US and EU, were working overtime to keep the US/EU populations in hate-Russia mode, while falsely claiming Ukraine was “winning”.
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After 3 years of fighting, East Ukraine is in total ruins.
Russia annexed over 20% of Ukraine, and its own real GDP is growing at 3.5 to 4.0 percent, far in excess of the US and the EU, despite sanctions.
Russia, with many highly educated STEM graduates, became more united, due to the war effort, and more sovereign, due to a huge increase of “Made in Russia” products and services that used to be imported from Europe.
A major return of Western companies to Russia would “increase dependency/decrease sovereignty”, as happened after 1990.
Both sides lost a total of about 2 million dead and seriously wounded.
Russia has annexed 4 provinces, where the people voted by 90% or more, to rejoin Russia, as they did in Crimea by over 96% in 2014.
.
Thank you. That is such a great post to counter the “Trump falsely claimed that Russia did not start the war ..” garbage in the usual suspect media.
On the other hand, invading another country is a significant action to correct grievances, and one that should be severely discouraged lest it should become an acceptable form of ‘diplomacy’ by all nations. Russia is a member of the UN, but I don’t recollect hearing anything about Russia bringing its asserted grievances to the UN for action. It would be easier to be sympathetic to Russia if they had raised complaints that were ignored by the UN. An overt aggressor, like a bully, is always going to find it difficult to convince others that they had no choice.
This is exactly my issue with the whole thing. If Russia had legitimate grievances and evidence of violence against these ethnic Russians in Ukraine, why not present that to the UN? They’re a charter member, after all, so ignoring that forum to present their grievances and justification for using force seems odd. They could have built international support instead of being the aggressor, first starting a border skirmish and then invading a sovereign nation
This is exactly what I mean about there being legitimate grievances on Russia’s part. I don’t have to like Putin to be intellectually honest about it.
I thought it was a loan guarantee, not a direct payment.
Let’s all imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been.
USAID is not an NGO. It is an agency of the US Government.
I think Operator meant to say that USAID routed money through NGOs, rather than rooted. (Many English speakers pronounce routed like rooted, just a spelling error to write rooted rather than routed).
The main point is that USAID is NOT a US government Foreign Aid agency. It is a money laundering machine routing our tax dollars to Deep State operatives.
Yes. The way these entities act makes the distinction between them very small. The government entity USAID was funding thru NGOs propaganda, political hit jobs, exporting absolute degeneracy to sovereign foreign nations.
Let’s not be too naive. I for one don’t believe that most or in some cases any of the money supposedly allocated to disadvantaged LGBTQIA+XYZ youth went to anything other than CIA black ops. In a similar way to how literacy programs might have been used for black ops in prior administrations.
Some conspiracy theories are real, but most are delusional. It’s hard to tell which is which.
It’s getting harder to hold that view except that the conspiracy delusions are infinitely creative.
JFK was definitely killed by the Deep State and the Warren Commission definitely covered it up, right?
That’s one of the theories.
I don’t know the answer.
I do know that Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, because I saw him do it on national television, along with millions of other people.
When President Kennedy was shot, school was let out and everyone went home and started watching the television.
“Climate” has only ever been another avenue for socialists’ ‘Long March Through The Institutions’.
Pruning back all the tentacles that sprout throughout the bureaucracies is a herculean task, but Trump has made a good start.
The job will be never- ending though.
Some people with the same resolve will have to succeed Trump for many terms to come.
An alternative is to pass a budget cutting funds to the offending agencies, bureaus, commissions, etc, and they will have to reduce their manpower and their institutional footprint.
Yes, but such a strategy will quickly reverse.
All of the crimes and all of the criminals must be exposed and the Deep State discredited for at least a generation.
This means an end to allowing each side’s criminals to maintain their deterrence regime of mutually assured destruction. Republicans must skewer their own criminals along with the Democrats’ criminals. Anything less and we continue the downward ratchet toward final destruction.
Yes, there aren’t enough jail cells for all the people DOGE could prosecute. So they will have to make some very prominent examples. There’s one US Senator I would have top of my list and, if he’s not top of Kash Patel’s list, he’s gonna be high up there.
Does he have a pencil neck and weird schiff-ty eyes like some kind of alien?
Adam Schiff: The biggest Liar in Congress. And that’s saying something.
Another delusional politician elected by a delusional California electorate. A majority of Californians are too stupid to govern themselves properly. They think voting for idiots like Adam Schiff is a good thing to do.
There are several Democrat politicians that need to be investigated for interfering in U.S. foreign affairs and undermining President Trump’s ability to carry it out.
It seems that right before Zelenskyy met with Trump in the Oval Office, he met with a bunch of Democrat politicians that urged Zelenskyy not to settle for the deal Trump was offering him that day.
And the rest is history.
How many people will die between now and the time the Ukraine war finally ends because of this huge mistake/delay by Zelenskyy and the American Democrats? The American Democrats have blood on their hands. They don’t care about ending the Ukraine war, or stopping the bloodshed, they only care about undermining President Trump. That’s their focus. Dispicable human beings they are.
“All of the crimes and all of the criminals must be exposed and the Deep State discredited for at least a generation.”
I think Trump’s appointees are headed in that direction. An investigation of former FBI Director James Comey is in the works. The results. of this one ought to be real interesting.
This is a key point. The Deep State had already settled in sufficiently to concern President Eisenhower in 1961 before I was born. Sixty-four years of retrenchment, several thus-far-successfully-covered-up political assassinations and blackmail operations (Epstein, Diddy, others?), billions or trillions of dollars in money laundering through NGOs to Deep State operatives…
The Deep State is nowhere near defeat. If it is to be defeated, it will require decades of hard effort.
Everything that Trump has done or may still do can be undone in the same manner after another stolen election and puppet presidency. This must not be allowed to be a brief interlude before the final collapse of the American experiment.
Speaking of political assassinations, didn’t Trump promise to immediately release the JFK files? I wonder what is holding that up?
I wonder too. Maybe the files are in the Epstein folder.
“This must not be allowed to be a brief interlude before the final collapse of the American experiment.”
That’s right! We need to get on top of the Deep State quickly, and stay on top.
That can happen if Republicans continue to be the majority and continue to win the presidency.
At this time, it looks like Republicans have a very good chance of electing another Republican to the presidency in 2028. A lot of this will depend on how well the Republican Congress sticks together, and how the legislation they pass is seen by the people to be beneficial to them.
If Trump gets his agenda confirmed, I think the future is very bright for Republicans and for the United States and the world.
Republicans have a slim majority in both Houses of Congress now, so that is the weak point in this plan. If all Republicans stick together, then we can get this done, but if a few go their own way, they can cause serious harm to the agenda, which will mean serious harm to the United States. Trump should be given the benefit of the doubt in these first essential votes.
Republicans need to show solidarity, not disarray. Solidarity will give Republicans control of the next Congress. Disarray will make things extremely difficult.
But there are those Republicans who would rather be ideologically pure rather than get things done.
You are correct. Representative Massie is one of them.
Let’s hope he can put aside his personal desires for a few votes and get Trump’s agenda over the top, and then he can talk about reducing the debt, which is his main focus.
Trump is already talking about reducing the debt, and is offering a number of ways to do it, and Rep. Massie, should give Trump a little time, and I will bet Rep. Massie will be very happy with the end result. A little patience will go a long way here.
Republicans in the House can still get a bill passed without Massie, but they can only lose one and no more.
I think Republicans are going to pick up a couple of House seats in the near future. New York State is putting off holding an election for as long as they can to prevent another Republican from being elected. Democrats are the worst! They are Poison for our nation.
Yes Yes Yes and Yes to all those comments ^^^^^^
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Lawsuits by unhappy doomers. Hopefully, the courts will decide to remain out of the picture, otherwise they will end up supervising and micromanaging the entire energy industry. That IS NOT in their purview as defined in the Constitution.
The biggest impediment to what Trump is doing will be the Constitution. Then there will be the innumerable and never-ending lawsuits. In many parts of the country, the populace is awaking to what they voted for, and they aren’t liking it – their ox is being gored, so, yes, popular dissatisfaction on a large scale is emerging.
Democrats love other people’s money
How is that different from Obama’s ‘pen and a phone” or Biden’s multiple attempts at student loan forgiveness?
The “Rent a Mob” companies are doing well.
Most people don’t want guys in Women’s sports or bathrooms.
They don’t want taxpayer dollars fund DEI programs in Nepal of drag queen shows in other countries or the weaponizing of the DOJ, the FBI, etc., as has happened since Obama.
It is not unlike the NIMBY attitude towards environmental changes. Everybody gives lip service to ‘improving’ the world, until they personally are inconvenienced by it.
“so, yes, popular dissatisfaction on a large scale is emerging.”
No, I don’t think so. That’s the impression the leftwing media and Democrats are trying to give, but most of the protests you see are financed by George Soros.
As I said above, the last poll I saw showed Trump with 90 percent approval by Republicans and a majority approval by Independents and of course, a small, 10 percent approval by Democrats, but that’s to be expected.
A majority approve of what Trump is doing despite all the lies and distortions being told by the leftwing media and the Democrats.
And Trump doesn’t have a problem with the U.S. Constitution. He is following it to the letter.
On the other hand, the Judicial Branch is interfering in the president’s ability to control and direct the Executive Branch, of which he is the head. They are telling the president he can’t be the president. One unelected podunk federal judge is trying to tell the President of the United States how to run the government.
Eventually, all these lawsuits will be settled in the president’s favor.
Frivolous lawsuits are all the radical Democrats have. They have filed about 95 lawsuits against Trump so far. But that won’t stop Trump for long. Watch and see.
Geoff: Our side has a big advantage in that 30 years of trying and trillions in investment has completely failed to make the slightest difference in carbon dioxide emissions. This failure has not made any difference in the weather – it’s as variable as it has always been. Sadly, some politicians and their supporters are either corrupt or slow learners. We can only hope that they don’t damage their economies so severely that they can’t recover.
I’ll be surprised if Net Zero lasts five more years.
Only really delusional people like UK and German politicians will still hold on to this idea, while the rest of the world passes them by, on to bigger and better things, while the UK and Germany bankrupt themselves to no good purpose. (I don’t consider crony capitalism to be a good purpose).
“What do you people in the US see as the most likely form of opposition to the Trump/Vance initiatives?”
I saw a local news channel report (as distinct from institutionalized lie machine crap) with National Parks employees protesting being laid off. I love National Parks and all the wonderful smaller parks in the US, so contiunued watching.
They were carrying signs and chanting, so that’s one thing that’s happening. One guy was saying it was illegal and he expected to get his job back.
My thoughts on this are that DOGE are so busy they did a scorched earth firing job and will hire back to fit government efficiency.
Do you think there’s lots of scope for DOGE to identify widespread replication of standard back-office admin functions across multiple agencies and locations?
I mean, consolidation of back-office admin functions is the first thing that businesses do when they merge with or acquire other enterprises.
It’s the lowest hanging of all the low-hanging fruit in these situations.
And the least risk exposure to loss of corporate knowledge / expertise.
I don’t really know, but what I do know is that Musk appears to have good experience in the art of firing from his X purchase.
Did he mention that his job was to counsel the gender dysphoric wildlife and help organize their Pride parades?
Yes, it would be good to know exactly what jobs were cut.
No, even local channels wouldn’t go there (it is California) but yes, that’s what I was thinking.
The visual below shows the Hansen 1999 United States regional surface temperature chart on the left, along side a Hockey Stick global temperature chart, on the right.
As you can see, the U.S. chart shows that the temperatures were just as warm in the 1930’s as they are today. All original regional surface temperature charts from around the world show a similar temperature trend, where it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today. What this means is that CO2 has had little effect on the Earth’s temperatures because even though there is more CO2 in the air today, than there was in the 1930’s, it is no warmer today than then
The Hockey Stick chart shows a completely different temperature profile than what the regional charts show. The Hockey Stick chart shows the temperatures getting hotter and hotter and hotter since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, and it shows that today is the hottest period in human history.
So these two temperature charts are completely at odds with each other. One temperature trend is real, the regional charts, and one is not.
Since the Hockey Stick global chart was created in a computer and uses regional temperature data as its input, the question is “How does one derive a Hockey Stick “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile out of regional temperature data that does not show a “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile? The original, regional, written, historic temperature data is the only data available to the Hockey Stick creators, so what computer method transforms a benign “just as warm in the recent past” temperature profile, into a very scary “hotter and hotter and hotter” Hockey Stick temperature profile?
The answer is: Temperature Data Fraud on the part of those who created the Hockey Stick Abomination. These Temperature Data Mannipulators wanted to create a temperature profile that correlated with CO2 increases in order to sell the Human-caused Climate Change narrative. And that’s exactly what they did. See Climategate. They have fooled much of the world into believing CO2 is causing atmospheric temperatures to increase and their only “evidence” is this bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick temperature profile.
Here’s the way to recognize if you are looking at a bastardized Hockey Stick chart: Look at the 1930’s. If the 1930’s don’t show to be just as warm as today, then you are looking at a bastardized Hockey Stick chart. Somebody is trying to fool you.
You can thank Phil Jones for most of this Hockey Stick deception.
I ask this question all the time, but none of the Climate Alarmists seem to want to try to answer this question. How do you get a Hockey Stick profile out of regional data that does not have a Hockey Stick proifle?
Anybody?
Torture
It is not necessarily fraud, more likely it is simple ignorance. These are time series. You can not just average time series that have varying means and variances and then do a linear regression.
NIST says the following at 6.4. Introduction to Time Series Analysis
Does autocorrelation or seasonal variation ring a bell?
Invision a graph of temps in the NH, from January to December you have a sine wave. However, in the SH you have a cosine wave over the same months. Can you average these and obtain an accurate trend to forecast with?
Jim, if you don’t subscribe to TWTW, be sure to catch it when it shows up here in a day or two. Note especially the article about NIST.
“It is not necessarily fraud, more likely it is simple ignorance.”
No, it’s fraud.
The people creating this global temperature chart were wringing their hands over what to do with the warm “blips” they found in the land and sea surface temperatures.
Why would they need to do something about the warm “blips” in the temperature record? Why would they worry about them? Because warm blips in the past blow up the Human-caused Climate Change narrative, because if it was just as warm in the recent past with less CO2 in the air than today, and the temperatures today are no warmer than in the past with much more CO2 in the air today, then logic would tell you that CO2 has had little effect on the Earth’s temperatures.
So these advocates didn’t want that, and talked to each other about how to handle the warm “blips”. Mike’s “Nature Trick” was mentioned, among other things. See the Climategate emails. These people had/have an agenda and that agenda was selling the Human-caused Climate Change narrative. Bastardizing the temperature record was how they did it.
Tom, I’m not sure why you’d expect the US, which occupies 2% of the Earth’s surface in a 20 degree mid-latitude band to be a proxy for global temperature. If the point is there’s bias in the data, I won’t argue that point, I just don’t think your plot proves anything.
The temperature records that I trust because of the integrity of the scientists behind them come from UAH (Spencer and Christy).
I made this plot for you.
“Tom, I’m not sure why you’d expect the US, which occupies 2% of the Earth’s surface in a 20 degree mid-latitude band to be a proxy for global temperature.”
Why not ?
If one tree is good enough , one country damn sure is .
😉
Yeah!
But I don’t need just one tree (regional chart), I have regional charts from all over the world that show the very same temperature profile as the U.S. regional chart, i.e., that it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today.
This is a global phenomenon! 🙂
Exactly, the 70s were cold.
“Exactly, the 70s were cold.”
Not according to the bastardized Hockey Stick chart. It only shows a cooling of about 0.4C at the coolest point in the late 1970’s.
Whereas, the U.S. regional chart shows a cooling of about 2.0C from the high point of the 1930’s to the low point of the late 1970’s.
In the late 1970’s the climate scientists were worrying that the temperatures had dropped so much that the Earth might be entering a new Ice Age.
I don’t think climate scientists would get exercised over a 0.4C drop in temperatures. Temperatures have dropped that much since the high point of 2024.
Climate Scientists would get exercised over a drop of 2.0C, which equaled the cold of the 1910’s.
So this small cooling in the 1970’s depicted by the Hockey Stick is just more proof that the Hockey Stick chart does not represent reality. it’s not scary enough for an “Ice Age Cometh!”
Compare the two charts I supplied above. Look at the differences in cooling.
“Tom, I’m not sure why you’d expect the US, which occupies 2% of the Earth’s surface in a 20 degree mid-latitude band to be a proxy for global temperature.”
Well, as I said, all regional, written, historic temperature records from around the world have basically the same temperature trend as the Hansen 1999 U.S. chart, where it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today. That says to me that this trend is global.
Here you go. Here are 600 regional charts from around the world that show the same thing the U.S. chart shows, namely, that it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today, which means CO2 has had no noticeable effect on the Earth’s temperatures, as it is no warmer today with more CO2 in the air, than it was in the past with less CO2 in the air.
https://notrickszone.com/600-non-warming-graphs-1/
And the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick supposedly used the regional data to formulate their global temperature chart. I say supposedly because they couldn’t use that data and come out with a “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile because that temperature profile does not exist in the regional data.
So the Temperature Data Mannipulators used some bogus data in the mix in order to get the temperature profile they wanted. The thinking is that Phil Jones added in bogus sea surface temperature data to the mix to get the temperature profile he wanted. Btw, there was very little sea surface temperature data until about the middle of the 20th Century so prior to that was just about all speculation.
But there’s not any “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profiles in the regional surface temperature data, so Jones either changed the surface temperature data, or he injected bogus sea surface temperatures into the computer to get the profile he wanted.
And of course, Phil Jones refused to provide the data he used to created his global temperature chart, saying if he did, some people might criticize it.
That’s the state of current climate science. It’s all built on a lie.
While I was at it I made this plot to have a closer look at our little temperature spike. The oceans are cooling, but land hasn’t caught up. Any predictions?
I’ll update this in the next day or two when UAH updates their data. The MET office still hasn’t published January HadCRUT5 data. Watts Up With That?
I have faith in the UAH data. I think they are doing things right.
I just wish we had UAH data back to about 1850. 🙂
Interestingly, the US temperatures seem to have greater year-to-year variance than global temperatures, which is surprising because Third-World countries are not as well monitored.
It’s true that in the past a lot of places were not well monitored, but the places that were monitored all show the same temperature profile, which is that it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today.
And, let me point out,now that a little time has passed, that no Climate Alarmist has offered to answer the question:
How do you get a “hotter and hotter and hotter” Hockey Stick temperature profile out of regional data that does not have such a profile?
I wasn’t really expecting an answer after asking this question numerous times to dead silence.
That makes sense since there’s really no logical explanation for how the Hockey Stick chart was created based on the data available for its creation.
There has to be fraud in there somewhere, and I think the silence says volumes.
Not one rebuttal. Not one explanation for how this could come about.
The bogus, bastardized, instrument-era Hockey Stick chart is the BIG LIE of Alarmist Climate Science.
Don’t believe this lie. As you can see, the Climate Alarmists can’t explain how it was created even when challenged to their faces. Crickets. We know why: Because there is no good explanation.
They only answer the easy questions.
Yeah, and here we are another day later, and not a peep out of any Climate Alarmist. They have no answer.
I would like to know what goes through their minds when they read this. it probably doesn’t make them feel very good. Reality rears its Ugly Head and True Believers are faced with not having an answer, which should be disturbing to their assumptions/world view.
Sometimes when a True Believer realizes he doesn’t have the answer, he has an epiphany. Let’s hope enlightenment ensues.
The other day I heard a sound I hadn’t heard since~2003 when Yo Blair extracted his head from George W Bush’s fundament – a very loud pop. I’m quite convinced Kweir Starmer could see Trump’s tonsils.
And then it all went horribly wrong. If only Zelensky was as adept at fawning supplication as our Kweir most definitely is. This has more or less completely sidelined the usual climate messaging service we have come to expect; quite literally moment by moment. Kweir finds himself sat squarely on the fence.
On the one side we have the voices of progressive, er, conservatism:
“Calls to cancel Trump’s state visit to Britain: Put arrangements on hold until US President provides assurances about Ukraine’s security, say politicians and military leaders
[Who]
[Tory] shadow home affairs minister Alicia Kearns last night said: ‘State visits should be conferred to the most honourable of allies, not to curry favour.
‘No state visit should proceed until the steadfastness of the US’s commitment to her allies is assured. His Majesty should not have to carry the weight of Keir’s diplomatic failings.’
…
[Tory] Former Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood, a joint British-American national, said: ‘It would be inappropriate to place the King in the position of hosting the President if US foreign policy shifts away from its long-standing support for Ukraine and toward alignment with Russia’s security objectives.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14451227/Calls-cancel-Trumps-state-visit-Britain-arrangements-hold-US-President-provides-assurances-Ukraines-security-say-politicians-military-leaders.html
Note I didn’t have to include any of the many Labour voices on that one.
This is a new form of climate denial, the geo-political climate has changed and they are stuck much like Hiroo Onoda; the guy who continued fighting for 28 years or so after the war’s end in 1945.
Trump has turned off the money taps. We had a £22 billion black hole that needed filling and more, hence all those nasty tax hikes and increased charges, fines and protests etc. And then suddenly…
“Ukraine and UK sign US$3bn defence loan agreement” – Yahoo etc
On top of: “£18 trillion – what Britain owes in reparations. Time to pay up.” – Voice Online
I did a rough check on the costs of ending slavery, who else has? It goes pretty big. The West Africa Squadron was active between 1808 and 1867 (59 years) and accounted for ~2% GDP – 50% of the Navy’s budget. westafricasquadron . org /
The Ashanti wars on land (From 1826 to 1900) are harder to pin down on expenditure, but given that the wars lasted 74 years, they can’t have been cheap in money or lives.
I have no idea what this new Trumpian paradigm will shape up to be, but can it really be any worse than the one passing?
The thing about reparations for the slave trade is where does it stop?
Do we deduct monies to offset the number of native Africans who were selling their own people and people from other tribes to the slave traders? And what about the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese and the Spanish, do they have to chip in?
Can we offset UK reparations for the French enslaving some English in the years after 1066? The Danes? The Romans?
What about my African ancestors who were likely enslaved or slave traders 2 million years ago?
Where does it stop?
Note: I am not condoning the slave trade, it was and is morally wrong.
The point I was making is that we spent the equivalent at least on ending the trade. And let us not forget that the Squadron was only set up because other European parties to the agreements did not entirely honour them.
If anybody owes anything it is the Ashanti empire. Where? Ghana. And don’t forget, not only did they export captured slaves to the west, they also sent them to islamic lands.
Yes.
The Arab slave trade in Africa started centuries before the European slave trade and as you say many in Africa exploited it.
Slavery has been part of the human condition for millennium, and still goes on.
“Note: I am not condoning the slave trade, it was and is morally wrong.”
Obviously, opinions vary. George Washington owned most of his slaves, but also rented many. Morality might be a movable feast, depending on who is doing the moralising.
I better stop moralising, I suppose. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel offended, and burst into tears because I dare to have opinions of my own.
But then the destination was the Americas
The local chieftains in Africa, rounding up future slaves, were handsomely paid by slave traders, who sailed their valuable cargo to eager buyers in the NEW WORLD.
The local chieftains should pay reparations!
The best way to make amends for the lingering effects of past injustice is to build a prosperous future for all.
The average standard of living even of the plantation owners or the lords and ladies of the manor was in most respects inferior to the lowly welfare recipient today.
If you compare the lifestyle of the 17th century West African villager to his modern day descendant, it would be objectively clear that despite the grave injustices along the way, the average American descendant of slaves is far wealthier than the average Ghanian or Nigerian descendant of villagers who got away from the slavers.
You forgot the Islamic slave trade. It lasted from about 650 to about 1900, it probably transported 15-20 million people. Mostly sold by fellow Africans. Also involved slave raids by the North African states on the UK and other European countries. The trans-Saharan trade resulted in such high death rates that it isn’t unreasonable to class it as a form of genocide. Also featured large scale genital mutilation of males along the way.
If there is to be a serious global reparations movement, the present Arab states and Turkey should be contributing on a grand scale, and should also be acknowledging their historic wrongs..
The British of course did gravely wrong in permitting their nationals to engage in the trans Atlantic trade. But there is more joy in Heaven…. and they finally had the famous court ruling that confirmed there was no status of slavery in Common Law, they set up the West Africa Sqadron to intercept slaving ships, they sent a squadron to North Africa to shell the coastal cities where the raiders came from, they abolished slavery in all their possessions, they fought wars against the African slaving states in West Africa to force them to stop.
The British abolished the Atlantic slave trade and indeed much slavery almost single handedly. Everywhere at least that they had power to do it.
And get no thanks for it
Let us agree that slavery is an ancient abomination. An equally ancient abomination is war. Most ancient wars were genocidal. We are probably all the descendants of slaves, slave owners, genocidal warriors, and orphans of genocidal wars. Slavery was a form of mercy as much as a market response to senseless killing.
Should we thank Britain for fighting the slave trade? Should we also thank my abolitionist ancestors or our Union soldiers? But it was also their (our common) ancestors who initiated the slave trade to North America.
I have no recollection of ever buying, selling, owning, freeing, or liberating a slave. Neither have I ever killed anyone under any circumstances. I deserve no punishment nor any praise for the actions of my ancestors.
I wasn’t there, I didn’t do it.
The Northwest Ordnance of 1787 specifically stated that slavery was prohibited in the territories covered by the Ordnance. This law was passed while the US was governed by the Articles of Confederation, so anti-slavery sentiment was pretty strong in parts of the US from the beginning.
I’m not sure why you raise that Erik, but I don’t think that you’re right that there was broad consensus against slavery in all US regions during the 1780s. Don’t neglect that the NWO also included the Fugitive Slave clause. This was also legislated in the midst of the Constitutional Convention where slaves were reckoned as three-fifths of a man and the abolition of the slave trade was delayed for two decades. It seems more like part of a grand compromise than a sign of abolitionist consensus.
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli”
It stops when everyone is put back in the condition (and continent) they would have been in, had history been different. That should end the conversation in about 20 seconds.
Exactly, American Indians would be going back to Asia
Actually Africa is a really big continent so maybe we can all fit back there. But of course there’s no justification to demand that.
“The thing about reparations for the slave trade is where does it stop?”
And where does it start.
‘The View’s’ Sunny Hostin calls everything racist and wants reparations.
Upon finding out that her ancestors from Spain were slave holders, dismissed it by saying words the effect, “I guess they did that back then.” 😎
(There’s video out there of it but I couldn’t find it.)
That $3 billion loan from UK to Ukraine is offset by interest stolen from blocked Russian government assets.
Calls to cancel Trump’s state visit? Let me add my voice.
Trump should not deign to talk to the demented old fool who for so long has championed Green insanity and is wishing us a wonderful Ramadan yesterday. On St David’s day!
And certainly don’t spend any more time letting Sir Stalin appear as more than the tinpot dictator that he is.
What we should do is pull all our troops out of Europe, exit NATO and then eject the UN as we quit that corrupt body.
“until US President provides assurances about Ukraine’s security,”
Why is it up to Trump the provide those assurances ??
If they want that, they gotta give something in return…
Trump is not going to agree on NATO membership for Ukraine, and he is not going to put American troops in Ukraine. This is what Zelenskyy was arguing for and what Trump rejected.
Trump, instead is offering to sign a business deal with Ukraine which would bring in Americans to work in Ukriane, and Trump thinks an American presence will serve as a deterrent, and the business deal will benefit both the U.S. and Ukraine, which will share its profits.
Trump is not opposed to the UK and France and any other NATO nation putting their own troops into Ukraine as a security force. And Trump wants NATO to increase its defense spending to enhance European security.
So Ukraine won’t have direct NATO support from the United States, but if any of the NATO members get into a shooting war, the United States is obligated to come to their aid, so that also serves as a deterrent to Putin. That’s almost as good as NATO membership.
I think I hear noises that Zelenskyy is going to sign the agreement after all, and he should.
I understand that he wants as much protection as he can get, and I understand why, but he should not have let the American Democrats talk him into not signing the deal Trump had made. That it was ok to argue for more while in the Oval Office.
Obviously, it wasn’t ok.
Zelenskyy seems to be a rather difficult person to deal with. I think he is under a lot of pressure from all sides, so I don’t know if it is the pressure, or a personality problem, but it is said that Trump does not like him personally for some reason. And a lot of Trump’s people say the guy is a problem to deal with. Trump’s Envoy to Ukraine, General Kellogg, recommended that this Ukraine deal NOT take place in the White House. Apparently, he had some apprehension about how Zelenskyy would behave.
Someone, besides me, sees the mineral deal as a huge security guarantee for Ukraine.
NORMAL. Excuse me for revisiting the theme of “normal” again. Some time ago I commented about normal, in the context that if it rains 1 inch one year and 100 inches the next year, then 50 inches of rain per year is normal, but 1 and 100 inches of rain are also normal (don’t remember the exact numbers). Six days ago Kip Hansen posted a report “California: Rise And Fall”. Kip presented some interesting data apparently showing subsidence along the North America Pacific Coast. Here’s the problem: The report was led off with an image of an emergent coast. The entire Pacific Coast of North America (and also South America) is an emergent coast. I’m not attacking Kip, who presents great stuff, I’m only presenting this idea: the Pacific coast is in an emergent state, marked by cliffs into the sea, mudslides and rockslides, highways with tunnels (think Route 1 versus Route 101), and great fishing off the “beach”. Kip shows that there is recent, and ongoing, subsidence, but is that normal? When a geologist examines the geologic record, and identifies a 50 meter emergent history, there is no way that some millimeters, centimeters, or even a few meters of subsidence will be detectable. Probably this is the case with California, it is emerging, but not smoothly, and that is normal.
Normally I would….
I would vote for “normal” as being the statistical mode of a probability distribution, or some reasonable range around the mode. A more exact definition would be dependent on the intended application of the word “normal.”
Three weeks ago I posted about the NOAA Derived Motion Winds visualizations from the geostationary satellites.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/09/open-thread-131/#comment-4034695
Consider what is happening in the upper half of the atmosphere. Horizontal accelerations and decelerations are prevalent all over the globe.
So what? It relates to energy conversion, which I have posted about often.
[internal energy + potential energy] <–> [kinetic energy]
When a kg of air accelerates, the kinetic energy increased at the expense of internal + potential energy. And vice versa, when that kg decelerates, there is an increase in internal + potential energy at the expense of kinetic energy.
From high altitude, longwave radiation escapes to space more readily from each kg of air, powered from its internal energy – i.e., from its sensible heat, characterized by a temperature. But the internal energy state and the kinetic energy state, characterized by mass and velocity, are constantly subject to a dynamic interchange.
Again, so what? The incremental radiative absorbing power of the atmosphere from rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, influencing only internal energy directly, cannot be isolated so as to realize a “warming” result, because of how energy conversion works in a compressible fluid.
What to do? Recognize that the “forcing” + “feedback” framing of the question of what to expect from incremental CO2, CH4, N2O has been a misconception all along. Because energy conversion is active throughout the entire depth of the troposphere, as we can readily appreciate from the winds, there is no good reason to expect the incremental radiative effect to drive sensible heat gain as an end result.
Can it really be that straightforward to leave the entire misconception about “greenhouse gases” behind? I say yes.
Thank you for listening.
“the question of what to expect from incremental CO2, CH4, N2O has been a misconception all along. . . “
Replace 100% of an air sample with any “greenhouse gas”, and the temperature doesn’t change at all. Anyone who states otherwise is a fool, a fraud, or unbelievably gullible!
You might be aware that nobody (even “climate scientists”) can provide any experimental support for claims that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter!
You say “When a kg of air accelerates . . .”, from whence comes the force to cause this air to accelerate? From the Sun, of course. Without the Sun, the surface temperature of the globe would be about 35 K. No “air” at all in gaseous form – just a very cold mostly solid mixture lying on the ground.
If the current US administration shows that nothing much changes by getting rid of all government funded “climate scientists” and “climate researchers” (and others of their ilk), then this silly preoccupation with the unspecified perils of “carbon” will quite possibly wither and die – to be replaced with another popular delusion.
We humans are a strange lot, prone to belief in all sorts of impossible things.
And we delude ourselves into believing that we are rational creatures.
As “scientists” and politicians delude themselves into thinking we can control the weather.
The only physical property that can be attributed to CO2 warming the air is the specific heat capacity. CO2 is a little different than air and a minute increase in CO2 concentration will affect the over all Cp in that 1 joule of energy will raise the temperature slightly in a decimal place deep in the noise.
Thank you (again) for reminding us that kinetic energy is part of the “energy transport” package that defines the atmosphere’s contribution to “climate”. This is not negligible, because the equatorial and tropical atmosphere that absorbs the most direct energy from the sun starts off with a speed of around 1000 mph! As this hot, humid air rises, trading kinetic for potential energy, it starts the transport process by drifting West. As it cools and becomes denser, it spills over to higher latitudes where its retained kinetic energy moves it East against the surface (the so-called “Coriolis effect”). Meanwhile, the cooler, denser surface air from the higher latitudes moves in to replace the rising hot air, but with lower kinetic energy (speed) to create the tropical “Easterlies.” Much of the atmospheric turbulence that annoys the meteorologist can be traced to the kinetic energy differentials typical of a rotating body.
” . . . off with a speed of around 1000 mph!”.
A bit deceptive – initially, the speed of sun-heated air is zero. Heated air just rises, like warmer water in the ocean.
All the usual stuff about “heat transport” is mostly nonsensical. Air is low density – about 800 times less dense than water. Not terribly effective at “transporting heat”. What you write is true-ish, but possibly misleading.
Just bear in mind that during the night, the surface loses all the heat of the day (plus a wee bit of internal heat). I agree that the effect of lots of little bits of leftover air motion results in jet streams, trade winds etc.
However, as Lorenz pointed out, it is possible that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil might cause [or prevent] a tornado in Texas.
Adding CO2 to air does not make the air hotter. No GHE.
Oh, please! “Still” air at the equator has kinetic energy based on its velocity (relative to “still” air at the poles) of about 1000 mph! Like in the Looking Glass, “It takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place!” Air (and water) moving from the equator towards the poles (decreasing circumference with latitude) has excess KE that must be considered in energy transport, which, by the way, includes evaporating, lifting, moving, condensing, and precipitating over one trillion metric tons of water every day. Pretty effective, wouldn’t you say? Those who have experienced the KE of hurricane winds (a mere 100-150mpn) will not belittle the KE change of air moving towards or away from the poles.
Yes, David, it is that simple.
I explained this in some detail in my two part comment to Kevin Kiley’s recent post on energy balance. My comment was on Feb 25 near the end of the comment section.
The short version:
Absorption and thermalization plus direct conduction from the surface provide sensible heat to drive the atmospheric heat engine from the bottom up
ALL of the surface radiation outside of the atmospheric window is converted to sensible heat. It is annihilated. It no longer exists. It is not “transported” through the atmosphere.
The atmospheric heat engine creates its own field driven by collisions only. There is a constant exchange energy within that field, but no transport of radiation energy. It is most intense at the surface and diminishes with altitude as a function of density and pressure.
The spectrum of the atmospheric field measured at any point and in any direction will be characteristic of the temperature, pressure, and relative concentration of IR active species.
Radiation to space occurs when for any given spectral peak, the rate of spontaneous emission exceeds the rate of collisional de-excitation, aka thermalization.
For water vapor in the subtropics, this occurs over an altitude range of ~2.9-6.6 km, and accounts for almost all the radiation to space. The latent heat of water vapor released by condensation adds sensible heat to the system along the way, reducing the lapse rate.
You can see the emission spectrum of water vapor in Harde(2013), figure 17.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1155/2013/503727
CO2 emission is not possible until we get to the mesopause. That is the tiny peak at the bottom of the “divot” in the TOA IR spectrum.
The fraction of the “missing energy”, so-called “forcing”, seen in the one-dimensional models is the remaining sensible heat that drives weather/climate.
The over-simplified one-dimensional “radiative equilibrium models have no resemblance whatsoever to the real earth. The folly begins with the expectation by humans of a “radiative balance” in a single atmospheric column.
You can read Schwarzschild’s oft-cited paper on Andy May’s site, where my colleague Markus Ott has provided an English translation.
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2025/02/15/schwarzschild-about-the-equilibrium-of-the-solar-atmosphere/?amp=1
You can also read a summary of our work here, penned by Andy and me:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2025/02/01/energy-and-matter/?amp=1
Schwarzschild understood that for a “radiative equilibrium” there can be no convection.
Radiative transfer applied to the Earth atmosphere creates an illusion that the surface radiation somehow propagates upward and a fraction of it is released to space. That is not what is happening and it belies the real atmospheric processes at work.
Those who apply it believe that because it can reproduce the satellite spectrum that is an adequate justification. That it can reproduce the spectrum is easily explained within the discipline of radiative transfer theory, but that is not a sufficient condition to claim it represents the processes in the atmosphere.
The real problem is that our atmosphere is driven by convection, and the tools to model a convecting atmosphere in a “predictive” manner do not exist, and likely never will. This can be difficult to accept for many.
Proven false by literally hundreds of experiments.
Perhaps I should have been more precise and said “Q-branch emission to space”. The evidence is in the spectrum and even van Wijngaarden and Happer recognize this.
What is your “experimental evidence” to the contrary?
Feldman et al 2015 is probably the most referenced.
A discussion of the mostly misunderstood “downwelling IR” is entirely different but relevant as well.
You claimed “CO2 emission is not possible until we get to the mesopause.” It now appears you really meant upward directed CO2 escaping to space.
But then you also claim
“Radiative transfer applied to the Earth atmosphere creates an illusion that surface radiation somehow propagates upward and a fraction of it is released to space. That is not what is happening “
Yes, it is. Emissions from CO2 escape the atmosphere from every altitude. That is due to the reduction in density as one goes up. That’s why it gets colder.
Convection is important but that does not override the fact that radiative processes are also occurring.
The radiative processes move a fairly constant percentage of the available energy upward. Convection then kicks in when that is not sufficient to cool the low level atmosphere.
I meant the same thing which I believe many would understand in the context of my narrative. I was clarifying for you because you apparently were looking for a “gotcha” rather than understanding the meaning of my statement.
Based on your response, your understanding could not be more in conflict with reality. Van Wijngaarden and Happer in their 2023 paper state that heat transfer in the troposphere is via convection, even though it is logically inconsistent with their clam of radiative transfer. Have you read any scientific papers on this topic? Did you look at any of the references in my post?
if your post reflects your understanding of atmospheric dynamics, you need to do some homework.
Tom,
Professor John Tyndall’s meticulous experiments demonstrated that gases (including CO2) can both absorb and emit radiation.
Of course, if you don’t accept that the obvious heat radiated by a hair dryer or heat gun contains heat radiated by CO2, you will be greeted by howling from those who claim that only CO2 could possibly radiate IR.
CO2, like all matter, radiates IR. If it radiates to space, space is where the radiated photons go, unless they interact with matter along the way.
It may not matter much – as you say “our atmosphere is driven by convection, and the tools to model a convecting atmosphere in a “predictive” manner do not exist.”
Well said.
I wish I could say that I understand what you are trying to communicate in the above post. Is there some way you can clarify what you are trying to say?
Tom, you wrote –
“CO2 emission is not possible until we get to the mesopause”, which is complete and utter nonsense. CO2, like all matter, continuously emits IR while above absolute zero.
What do you mean by “CO2 emission” – I assume you don’t mean emission of CO2, so I guess you mean IR radiation emitted by CO2. There seems to be a belief that CO2 does not obey the physical laws that apply to other matter.
This leads to some weird delusion that adding CO2 to air makes the air hotter! You don’t share that delusion, do you?
Please read my exchange with Richard M, starting currently about 8 comments above this one.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/02/open-thread-134/#comment-4043929
Nope. His sensor was a thermo-electric pile, one side heated with steam.
His container was glass with salt end caps. The energy source was a metal container at 100 C space some distance form the salt end cap.
What gives it away is the funnel at the sensor input. Tin no less.
Fascinating that 100% CO2 had the same results as water saturated air.
No thermometers. So no idea of the consistency of surrounding air temperature day to day, experiment to experiment.
He did excellent work, but the technology of the day had limitations.
His efforts to have equivalent internal pressures were the best that could be done, but they are like reading a wet bulb thermometer.
Thanks for putting the science message straight,
Combined with David’s work, you show that air movement and the gas laws control the atmosphere.
And that CO2 plays no part except as a gas within those gas laws.
I link to your Tom Nelson podcast on a regular basic 🙂
Thank you for your reply. I am interested in how you interpret the Band 16 visualizations of radiance data from the geostationary satellites. I know you are on X. This thread explains what I am talking about/asking you about.
https://x.com/i/status/1690480266874105857
Part 1 – Shorter part 2 to follow. I’ll post as a reply to this.
Hi David. Thanks for responding to my comment and the most intriguing question.
I have been ruminating on this most of the day, getting up to speed on GEOS, and trying to integrate all of this so I can explain my interpretation as concisely, but thoroughly as possible. Some may be repetitious for you, but hopefully others will find benefit.
I noted that in the “product information” for Band 16, they call it the “Carbon Dioxide” channel, in quotes. The frequency band they chose is unusual. If you checked out Figure 17 in the Harde paper I referenced in my comment, or if you are familiar with Figure 7 in van Wijngaarden and Happer where they overlay a zero CO2 spectrum in green, you will note that the peak emission of water vapor is pretty close to 13.3 microns.
It is my impression that many interpret the TOA spectrum as an attenuated version of the surface emission with a “bite” taken out by CO2 absorption. This is not unreasonable, given that the radiative transfer models create the illusion that the radiation is propagating through the atmosphere.
The strong overlap of water vapor and CO2 activity from ~14-16 microns has not been addressed effectively in the explanations of the models, and creates confusion regarding from what gas species the radiation to space is coming from. It should be apparent from Harde’s figure 17 that with regard to the contribution from surface energy, virtually all of the energy released to space is from water vapor emission, at altitudes from the mid-troposphere to the tropopause. The “bite” in the spectrum is from CO2 partial absorption in the water vapor band. That absorbed energy is converted to sensible heat and returned to the atmosphere. Overall, we are left with the infamous missing “151 Watts/m^2”.
We’re getting close to band 16, but where is that 151 W/m^2? We have to now understand that the world is not flat, energy transport is not one-dimensional, and we have night and day, not 24 hour constant insolation. There is a net loss of radiation energy at night, and there are regions on the planet where the net outgoing radiation energy exceeds the incoming energy, the Antarctic plateau in winter being the most notable location. If all of the above were enough, I suppose we would be in “radiative equilibrium”. We still have atmospheric circulation and weather, so there is still energy in the system driving that.
I have a perspective on clouds that is not mainstream, and I believe trying to explain the role of clouds using radiative transfer is yet another case of “barking up the wrong tree.” Clouds effect the radiation field in three ways:
Part 2
None of this should be controversial. Meteorologists have understood for a long time that storms release tremendous amounts of radiation to space. Hurricanes occur in their “season” because tremendous amounts of heat accumulate during the summer and it must be shed in order to maintain balance in the upcoming winter.
The processes that drive the atmosphere cannot be explained by radiative transfer theory. The models are able to mimic the spectrum because the boundary conditions of temperature profile, concentrations, and line-by-line calculations of local conditions predetermine what the spectrum will be. They do not mimic the real atmospheric processes, but they produce the so-called “greenhouse effect.”
In the real atmosphere, there is no barrier to radiation energy. There is also no “law of conservation of radiation energy”, as said by Heinz Hug many years ago. Atmospheric energy is moved around by circulation, and heat is released by weather according to the Earth’s whims.
In another comment, someone asked how the Earth can stay warm if there’s no “greenhouse effect”. It’s very simple.
Energy arrives at Earth at the speed of light. It leaves the surface at the speed of convection. This is a natural “atmospheric speed limit” for sensible heat to traverse the lower atmosphere. It is eventually converted to radiation, but not necessarily in the atmospheric column where it started. That’s weather.
The atmosphere is driven solely by the hydrologic cycle. CO2 is a nothing burger with respect to energy transport, but it provides the basis for life. Ozone helps limit our exposure to UV. Any other so-called “GHGs” are of no consequence. The concept of “radiative forcing” is BS.
Neither the mathematical tools nor the computing power exist to model convective processes in the atmosphere on long time scales, and it’s likely they never will.
This is difficult for many to accept.
I thank you again for your thoughtful question. Today’s mental exercise has helped me connect more “dots”. I hope that my narrative hasn’t strained your patience, and I’d be interested in your thoughts regarding my perspective on Band 16.
Thank you so much, Tom, for your replies. In respect to Band 16, I will just say it’s important to note that whatever IR emission the imager on the geostationary satellite detected and reported as a radiance value in that range of wavelengths obviously was “free” to escape to space. I note the overlap of partial absorption/emission by CO2 and by H2O in this band. I also note that whatever portion of the near-black-body IR emission from the surface and from cloud tops in this band that was not absorbed in the atmosphere is included in the detected signal.
Again, your replies are much appreciated.
‘Can it really be that straightforward to leave the entire misconception about “greenhouse gases” behind? I say yes.’
The average radiance from the Earth’s surface has widely been estimated to lie somewhere in the region of 390 W/sq.m but the surface is only receiving something like 240 W/sq.m from the Sun. The traditional explanation for the 150 W/sq.m extra power-input to the surface that is required to balance the 390 W/sq.m power-output is that it comes from the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?
Thank you for your reply.
“If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?”
The concept of the atmosphere, including clouds, as an emitter toward the surface is not in dispute here. The misconception I refer to is the expectation that the incremental IR absorbing power of the atmosphere, from rising concentrations of CO2, etc., must result in sensible heat gain on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere itself. There is no way to isolate the incremental radiative effect for attribution of a reported warming trend. And after considering the dynamic response of the atmosphere, my conclusion is that no good reason remains to expect a detectable sensible heat gain – and most certainly not to any harmful extent.
I note that this is essentially the same response as meteorology Professor David Brunt gave in 1938 to the attribution of reported warming proposed by Guy Callendar.
“Prof. Brunt agreed with the view of Sir George Simpson that the effect of an increase in the absorbing power of the atmosphere would not be a simple change of temperature, but would modify the general circulation, and so yield a very complicated series of changes in conditions.”
More here.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/02/open-thread-52/#comment-3703255
Thanks for that clarification, David.
I agree that we have no good reason to expect any long-term detectable sensible heat gain in response to the microscopic incremental increases in GHG concentrations that are occurring continually these days – at least in so far as the so-called ‘non-condensing’ greenhouse gases (CO2, etc.) are concerned. That is not because there is no greenhouse effect, in my view, but because the warming effect of the increasing greenhouse agents is necessarily offset by negative feedbacks (primarily from the planetary water-cycle) to an increasingly great extent as the greenhouse-warming proceeds.
“If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?”
Complete nonsense. The Earth is losing heat at a rate of about 44TW, based on admittedly sparse measurements. The surface loses all of the heat of the day at night. Adding CO2 to air does not make it hotter. The Earth’s surface is no longer molten If you are not a fool or a fraud, you are simply gullible.
If you disagree, you might care to provide a fact or two in support.
What is your claimed mechanism for “all the heat of the day” being radiated away at night? Why exactly the same amount rather than a little more, or a little less?
Why not all the heat of the day and a bit more? After all, the earth is no longer molten, so over the long term it must be so?
There’s some kind of a quasi-equilibrium or steady state pattern, right? Somehow that is physically established by the mass and composition of the atmosphere, the configuration of the continents and oceans, right?
And there is satellite evidence that the atmosphere has warmed mildly (beneficially) over the past 44 years. Something caused that right?
I see you just assert that there is no greenhouse effect, so how does the earth maintain its temperature? Why 15°C and not -18°C?
You Wrote – “Why not all the heat of the day and a bit more? After all, the earth is no longer molten, so over the long term it must be so?”
I agree. I usually include the 44 TW energy loss from the internal heat, but I tried to be less verbose. Sorry. As Fourier put it – “Thus the earth gives out to celestial space all the heat which it receives from the sun, and adds a part of what is peculiar to itself.”
You also wrote –
“There’s some kind of a quasi-equilibrium or steady state pattern, right?” Wrong. The Earth is slowly cooling – as it must.
And “I see you just assert that there is no greenhouse effect, so how does the earth maintain its temperature? Why 15°C and not -18°C?” Hopefully you jest. The Earth has cooled to its present temperature, whatever that happens to be. When the average was 500 K, that’s what it was. When it was 373 K, that’s what it was. And so on.
You might believe that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter. It doesn’t. Warming is due to additional heat. If you look around after the Industrial Revolution, I’m sure you will find plenty.
In most cases, “Greenhouse Effect” can be replaced “atmosphere” with no real difference to the meaning.
You’re being non-responsive. Clearly it is not the case that the earth is continuously cooling at its surface. The satellite evidence shows that it has been mildly warming for 4-1/2 decades.
CO2 doesn’t make the atmosphere or the surface hotter. Greenhouse gases in general, but primarily water vapor, make the night-time cooling take longer. It is the sun that makes the surface hotter.
Whether our long-term contribution to CO2 concentration is wholly or partially responsible for the mild benefit is an open question isn’t it?
Add to your comment that not all of the energy entering the earth’s energy is solar.
Hi Michael. My question was:
“If you discard the concept of the greenhouse effect, then, how do you explain where the extra 150 W/sq.m of power-input to the surface is coming from?”
and your dismissive reply was:
“Complete nonsense…..(etc)”
It is not nonsense. It is the still-unanswered question that necessarily arises as a logical consequence of removing the concept of the atmospheric greenhouse effect from the conventional physics-based theoretical explanation for the radiant energy emitted from Earth’s surface being roughly 150 W/sq.m greater than the energy-input to the surface that is provided by the Sun.
If we reject the concept of the greenhouse effect as the source of the extra 150 W/sq.m that is needed, then what viable alternative source can we conceive of instead? I can’t think of one. Can you? Can anybody?
Those numbers come from a flat earth energy model and are not representative of what actually happens with a rotating sphere.
No, they are based on a spherical earth energy model. They are theoretical average values and do not need to represent what actually happens with a rotating sphere in order to make my point.
On that point you are wrong. The models that manifest the “greenhouse effect” are one-dimensional plane parallel models with constant irradiance equivalent to 1/4 of the total solar irradiance. This is well understood.
They are based on Schwarzschild’s “radiative equilibrium” model of the solar atmosphere.
“On that point you are wrong.”
On which specific point are you saying I’m wrong? And why do you say it?
You should not expect me to read your mind, Tom.
“The models that manifest the “greenhouse effect” are one-dimensional plane parallel models….”
That is irrelevant as far as I can see. Look, the issue I’m seeing is a matter of simple energy-accountancy, not the mathematical complications of model-dimensions, models of the solar atmosphere etc.. Just some elementary applied mathematics is all that is required to understand this.
I thought it would be obvious that it was in response to your comment just above where you stated:
”No, they are based on a spherical earth energy model.”
Those same flat Earth models are the basis of the “radiative energy balance” diagrams.
‘I thought it would be obvious that it was in response to your comment just above where you stated:
”No, they are based on a spherical earth energy model.” ’
Actually, I made two points in that comment and you did not specify which one of the two you were referring to when you said it was wrong, so it was not obvious to me at all.
‘Those same flat Earth models are the basis of the “radiative energy balance” diagrams.’
Watch my lips, Tom. The figures I used are based on a spherical Earth model (singular), NOT flat Earth models (plural).
How can we possibly be talking about ‘Those same flat Earth models’ when the method which I used to produce my figures is based on a single, spherical Earth model while you are referring consistently to multiple flat Earth models?
Sorry, but your flat Earth models are definitely not the same as my spherical Earth model. So, in the interests of clear communication between us, I’d be grateful if you would clear up another point of ambiguity that exists between us. Are you saying that it is my spherical Earth model that is wrong or your flat Earth models that are wrong? If it’s the former, please explain what you find to be wrong with it. If it’s the latter, though, you needn’t bother to explain what you find wrong with those models because I haven’t been using those models anyway. Thanks.
…
To explain further why I am posting about this, I asked Grok3 (the AI agent on X) this question:
“In a free stream flow of air at constant altitude, what happens to the internal energy of a unit of mass of that air, as it experiences acceleration flowing toward lower pressure, or deceleration flowing toward higher pressure?”
Here is the answer, leaving out a lot of analysis and jumping to the end:
*****************
…So, in a free stream flow at constant altitude:
This makes sense energetically: the air trades internal energy for kinetic energy (or vice versa) while conserving total energy in an adiabatic process. If the flow weren’t adiabatic—say, heat were added—the internal energy could behave differently, but the question’s context supports this conclusion.
Final Answer: In a free stream flow of air at constant altitude, assuming an adiabatic process:
********************
There is more to it, of course, when air is descending in a high pressure system, or ascending in a low pressure system, or when there is turbulence, wind shear, etc. But this establishes what should be understood first about the horizontal winds we observe.
Whenever greenhouse gas models are discussed, understanding why black-body and tropospheric back-radiation are not deus ex machina phenomena should be of concern. Both follow from the same physics. A CO2 molecule in its ground state may be kicked into an excited state, e.g. the 667 cm-1 bending vibration, either by collision or photon absorption. Eventually it will return by either collision or spontaneous isotropic photon emission in about 1 second. In the Kiehl-Trenberth cartoon, one notes similar up/down radiative fluxes (396/333 W/m^2).
https://geoexpro.com/recent-advances-in-climate-change-research-part-ix-how-carbon-dioxide-emits-ir-photons
Einstein has shown radiative half-lives are inversely proportional to oscillator strengths, the stronger the absorption, the shorter the lifetime. (Einstein Coefficients, Wikipedia). In a metal, absorption occurs within microns of the surface and integration over a quasi-continuous energy spectrum with varying, but correlated, lifetimes and absorption distances yields a result independent of material parameters – the Stefan-Boltzmann (kT)^4 expression.
The troposphere is not a black-body. Absorption distances are measured are measured in meters and kilometers, distances comparable to its thickness. Looking down from the tropopause, calculated emission spectra, e.g. MODTRAN, show a nominal Stefan-Boltzmann contour but with distinctive dips due to stronger absorptions with shorter lifetimes. Qualitatively, one may correlate the background shape with photons originating from warmer regions and the 667 cm-1 dip, cooler regions.
For mathophiles, https://pdquondam.net/Black_Body_Radiation.pdf
One needs to have a good understanding of antennas work in order to understand photon emission. The emission of a photon from the bending vibration of a CO2 molecule or the emission of a gamma photon from a nucleus is NOT isotropic with respect to the orientation of the CO2 molecule or gamma emitting nucleus. The radiate “half-lives” and “oscillator strength” are another way to describe the ‘Q’ of the antenna system.
The W&H paper describes how the rotation of the CO2 causes line broadening by the effective amplitude modulation of the probability of an emission going in a given direction.
One other thing about “radiative half-lives”: An earlier emission can be stimulated by interaction with another photon of the same energy – as in laser.
“The emission of a photon from the bending vibration of a CO2 molecule or the emission of a gamma photon from a nucleus is NOT isotropic with respect to the orientation of the CO2 molecule or gamma emitting nucleus.”
However, the orientation of a CO2 molecule in a parcel of gas is completely unknown, so your statement is completely pointless, I suppose.
On any case, adding any amount of CO2 to air does not make it hotter.
No GHE.
Erik,
Dipoles whether folded or molecular have equivalent interactions with electromagnetic fields, functioning both as transmitters and receivers. I should have cited both stimulated radiated absorption and emission above. A ‘natural’ linewidth of 1 sec implies a Q of 1012 for a 667 cm-1 antenna. As Michael points out, the atmosphere is a composite of a multitude of randomly oriented dipoles, hence isotropy. Non-stimulated emission has long been realized necessary to explain radiative decay (Einstein). Its my understanding it’s now considered a QED quantum relaxation process.
How did we get here? Democrats used to be against war, against child genital mutilation, for women’s rights, etc. There’s crazy everywhere.
https://x.com/i/status/1895299014838665402
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/australias-woman-year-is-man/
Ugh.
Fake News
Fake Data
Fake Women
Europe is Not Our Ally
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Europe tried to scare the US, with help of the leftist Biden clique, into going down the black hole of expensive, highly-subsidized, weather-dependent, grid-disturbing wind/solar/battery systems.
The W/S systems would have produced electricity at about 15 c/kWh, about 2.5 times greater than from domestic US gas, coal, nuclear, hydro plants, which would have made the US even more uncompetitive in world markets
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European Conglomerates would finance, build, erect, own and operate almost 30,000 MW of offshore windmills, providing work for many thousands of European workers for decades, and multi-$billion profits each year.
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That ruse did not quite work out, because Trump was elected.
The European, hate-Trump elites are furious. Projects are being cancelled. The European wind industry is in shambles, with multi-$billion losses, lay-offs and $billions of stranded costs.
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The US was saved from the leftist, woke folks by Trump, who declared a US National Energy Emergency, and put W/S/B systems at the bottom of the list, and cancelled their licenses and cut their subsidies, and put their rubber-stamp, environmental impact statements under proper scrutiny.
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Europe was using the IPCC, which claimed to own the science, to conjure up a global-warming/climate-change hoax, so the US would also deliver electricity to users at high c/kWh, to preserve Europe’s extremely advantageous trade balance with the US.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/international-trade-is-a-dog-eat-dog-business
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the other, traditional generators, as they inefficiently counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
.
W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDPs
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
UK and Germany have hit the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
.
Base-load nuclear, gas and coal, hydro plants are the only rational way forward, plus the additional CO2 is very beneficial for additional flora and fauna growth and increased crop yields to feed hungry people.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
.
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of 10 percent – Federal tax credit of 30 percent – State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
.
The subsidies reduce the owning and operating cost of a project by 50%, which means electricity can be sold at 50% less than it costs to produce.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixed offshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
.
The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in such big do-do
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower
Europe is slowly breaking down
Europe did well from 1945 to about 1990.
Look at the growth of real GDP
Then Brussels began to tie it into knots
.
The GDP became flatter, then it decreased after 2010
Events in Ukraine made it worse
.
Having tens of million of illiterate walk-ins made it a lot worse
Now France, Germany, the UK, etc., will be in a death spiral until underlying factors, and waste, fraud, abuse, are dealt with.
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In the meantime, the US will be in MAGA mode, courtesy of Trump
MAGA mode ? You mean Trumps new policies of causing unemployment in the economy of neighbors for US gain…when US unemployment is half of theirs, veiled threats of annexation of Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal ?….or by trading ownership of mineral rights for military ordnance in Ukraine, ….threatening to break complex and long considered agreements because he “read them and wonders why anyone would have signed” when we know he hires lawyers to read his contracts ?
DOGE’s firing of key employees that could only be based on the rate they produce emails…..This can only result in resentment instead of respect. And will back-fire on Trump badly…His new car smell is turning into “eau de New Year’s Eve taxi” rather quickly, with his uprooting of CC nonsense being about the only sensible arrow in his quiver.
“MAGA mode ? You mean Trumps new policies of causing unemployment in the economy of neighbors for US gain”
Yes , those dope /drug producers deserve to be out of work.
21 Kg of phentanyl caught by US officers at the Canadian border in the last year. Not likely that they are simply bad at their job. $150 billion in tariffs on goods ordered by US citizens using a phentanyl as a “national security” excuse. Does that sound like anything other than political lipstick on a pig ?
Tariffs probably will affect cars. Yet US internally can’t gear up in 5 years to produce enough additional iron ore, steel, aluminum, fertilizers, lumber, to internally meet their own consumption, so US consumers will now simply have to pay the tariffs. US companies will simply raise their prices because they don’t need to compete any longer. US government will collect part of the additional corporate profits in corporate tax. An all around win for US government coffers.
Those neighbors have been facilitating a massive drug flow into the US. Trump has asked them to stop it. He is using tariffs as a bargaining tool. We will see if they are good neighbors by the way they respond.
Looks like you get most of your ideas from radical, leftwing media sources. They lie constantly.
Just pragmatic Richard. Drugs and their export are already illegal in those foreign countries. And it would be a lot easier to curtail the smuggling… if the demand for illicit drugs in the US wasn’t so completely insatiable. Maybe the US needs to work on that aspect.
Stopping Hollywood from basically being a free advertisement for drug abuse might be a good start. Oops a free speech problem. How about making drug dealers accessories to mass murder then ? There have been about 100,000 phentanyl deaths. Seems pretty clear that Supreme Court judges can call it manslaughter at least…
DOGE is making the biggest waste, fraud, abuse spender in the US more efficient. that is major MAGA
Prior to NAFTA, Mexico always had annual trade deficits with the US
After NAFTA, Canada and Mexico have huge annual trade surpluses with the US.
After NAFTA, foreign (and US) companies shipped parts to Mexico and assembled cars, with their entire production shipped into the US DUTY-FREE, that is not MAGA, but exploitation to the disadvantage of the US and US workers
After NAFTA, Dutch companies shipped automated greenhouses, the size of airplane hangars, to Canada (which provides nearly free gas), with their entire production shipped into the US DUTY-FREE, that is not MAGA, but exploitation to the disadvantage of the US and US workers.
Dutch/Belgian companies own more than 50% of the food supermarkets on the US East Coast; plenty of shelf space for European farm goods to the disadvantage of US farmers.
Europe has been doing the same since the Kennedy Round, which opened US markets, without the US getting lower tariffs from Europe.
Euro elites loved Kennedy
Finally, the US has a hard-nosed businessman in the White House, who cannot be $bought, instead of a senile, grifting/grafting idiot, or a cackling word salad.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/international-trade-is-a-dog-eat-dog-business
You are so confused Wilpost. US Tariffs mean US consumers will pay MORE for what they are buying. The idea that it is protecting US jobs, when US unemployment is already low is just political bafflegab. The US government needs the money. It’s basically broke and can only borrow and print money as long as they can make big investment houses think they have the taxing power to pay back their borrowings at rates that are better than inflation (which they also use to inflate away their debt). Even Trump’s MAGA smokescreen can’t hide the problem for long.
Russia and China have economic issues as well. Why is that ? Because governments everywhere generally believe themselves to be benevolent, yet their actions indicate they are mafia like entities with public displays of grandeur to cement their control, who extract as much money out of their populace and resources as possible to further their domination of ever more people, not always within their own borders. Been this way forever.
Your comment is raising other issues
I did not mention tariffs.
I live and breathe international trade, because I grew up in the Netherlands, lived in various countries in Europe for 23 years
Europe has an 8% blanket tariff wall for everything, plus many other restrictions peculiar to each country.
It is nearly impossible to import cheese into Norway.
I tried, but was unsuccessful
It is impossible to import a Harley Davidson into Italy, or India
The US has 2% import duty for cars
Products produced in the USA do not face a tariff. !
If you don’t want to face a tariff into the USA, manufacture in the USA. !
Trumps “reciprocal tariff” EO makes total sense.
If you are a foreign manufacturer, you likely can’t manufacture in the US due to labor shortage and cost unless you hire illegal immigrants. QED. Most businesses are pretty low profit and sprang up organically due to particular local advantageous conditions, not because of tariffs, and tariffs should only be used to protect those low profit Mom and Pop businesses. If you are a US retailer, you are still going to buy widgets from China for a buck, soon to be a buck twenty and sell them for $15 in the US, cuz it costs $15 to mutilate that metal with US labor. Trump’s reciprocal EO is fraught with unintended consequences, admittedly sounds good and fair to everyone with grade school brain cells, but ignores many years of diplomacy and trade negotiations by very dedicated people simply as a home voter popularity excercise.
Paul Homewood’s latest piece on the UK Climate Change Committee Report is here:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/03/02/cccs-carbon-budget-does-not-add-up/
He has a table in this issue that answers the question I have repeatedly put to Nick Stokes: how much and what kind of generation is proposed to meet UK demand. Look at it carefully. As Homewood says, this is a recipe for blackouts. Its not open to dispute that this is what the plan will lead to, In fact, the document itself admits that, though it calls them by another name. They are so much more palatable when they are called Demand Side Reduction…
https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/the-seventh-carbon-budget/#publication-downloads
You cannot run the country on wind and solar. Its not going to happen.
Meanwhile the Mail is running a small story that maybe Starmer is getting ready to ditch Miliband and Net Zero. We shall see, but there are surprising signs of backbone there.
That the Climate Change Committtee’s Report cannot be taken seriously is aptly demonstrated by this small quote from page 306 of the 394 page report.
“For the typical household bills will be lower in 2050 than in 2025 for heating and driving with minimal changes to food costs”
You have to believe in fairy dust to accept that!
I saw this headline from the Dailky Mail last night. Could it be true?
Ed Miliband could face axe in the Spring Reshuffle
“Ed Miliband could be the most high-profile victim of a spring reshuffle as Sir Keir Starmer sidelines the Net Zero environmental agenda as part of the Government’s ‘dash for growth’, senior Whitehall sources have said.”
It doesn’t, of course, mean that Free Gear Kier is going to abandon net zero – simply that he may put someone else in the post. We could get someone even more fanatical but with a brain. There’s hazard around every corner…
Too much CO2 for trees to consume?
While I can believe trees can only consume so much, what the Guardian is selling seems like really bad Kool-aid:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/26/plants-losing-appetite-for-carbon-dioxide-amid-effects-of-warming-climate
Another Exxon know lawsuit.
Hope this is another GNDN (goes nowhere does nothing lawsuit:
https://www.cpr.org/2025/02/11/boulder-climate-lawsuit-suncor-exxon-colorado-supreme-court/
The exchange in the Oval Office between the two presidents has been the subject of much hand wringing an angst by many commenters.
After everyone settles down they might realize that this just a part of Trump’s long term strategy to get the rest of Europe to do the heavy lifting to support Ukraine instead of the USA.
It’s already working since most of EU countries have already pledged support to Ukraine since the meeting and has now resulted in an EU plan to support Ukraine. All due to Trump.
The eUSSR can’t ‘support Ukraine’. It can’t even support itself.
Trump is trying to put an end to wars, and sure, force the lazy leeches to pay for their own defense. He’s not looking for someone else to pay for the slaughter.
Europe is risking nuclear war and the US needs at minimum to state unequivocally that if Europeans provoke a Russian attack on their countries by putting combat troops in Ukraine, that will not trigger Article 5 and we will provide no support. If that doesn’t put a stop to the insanity then we should withdraw from NATO altogether.
Europe (inclusive of the UK), is a lost cause.
Atricle 5 is not “triggered.” The offended country has to ask for it to be instantiated.
A distinction without a difference. We must make clear that we will not honor such a request.
Well worth listening to if you have the time.
“We Can’t Even Defend Kent Let Alone Kyiv ” David Starkey – YouTube
I decided to ask Grok what would be the result of California eliminating CO2 emissions from power generation and transportation. The final answer was:
If California eliminated CO2 emissions from power generation and transportation, the global temperature reduction would be on the order of 0.00019°C per year in avoided warming. This is a tiny fraction, reflecting California’s small share of global emissions and the slow response of the climate system. Over decades, the cumulative effect would grow (e.g., ~0.01°C by 2050), but the annual per-year impact remains minuscule due to the global scale of the problem.
For the UK 0.0001°C per year