The Grauniad surpassed itself recently (2nd May) with a headline “Revealed: British banks put £75bn into firms behind ‘carbon bombs’ ” quoting a study by the think tank ‘Leave it in the Ground Initiative’ that said nine London banks were financing companies “responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects in 28 countries between 2016 …… and 2023” The US, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia and China have the most carbon bomb plans with the UK having a minor role outside financing.
Well done those banks! However they did point out that the think tank quoted all the finance they gave to energy projects without any distinction. Nat West pointed out that of the £93bn it had lent since 2020 less than 0.7% had gone to oil and gas projects. But this didn’t deter the ‘Leave it in the Ground Initiative’ from issuing its stupid report.
Australian conservatives suffered the same fate the Canadian conservatives did. They were linked (rightly or not) to Trump. That resulted in wholesale slaughter at the polls.
However one significant difference with the man child running the US, was the mature way Dutton accepted defeat.
“Australian conservatives suffered the same fate the Canadian conservatives did. They were linked (rightly or not) to Trump.”
I think that is “seeing what you want to see”.
You really think this vote was an anti-Trump vote? Are leftists in Australia as crazy as Democrats in the United States. I suppose that’s possible.
All I can say is Australian voters should be careful what they ask for. They just may get it.
Australian voters are aware of Trump, but not aware of Spain and Portugal?
I guess that’s because Australian media concentrates on tearing down conservatives rather than on what’s really important.
Australians have no room to complain when everything comes crashing down around their heads. They voted for it.
Leftists in Australia and New Zealand are going to be shocked at the success of the “man child”. They are going to wish that maybe they had followed the same path.
This time next year, or sooner, the United States economy is going to be booming like “nobody has ever seen before”. You heard it here first. Well, maybe not, Trump has been saying that all along. But of course, leftists dismiss everything Trump says. Stay tuned.
All I can say is Australian voters should be careful what they ask for. They just may get it.
As does every country that votes in a free and fair election. I could say the same about the US at this point.
Australian voters are aware of Trump, but not aware of Spain and Portugal?
That is definitely the case across the world Tom. Trump is the most powerful person on the planet. His decisions of late have had an effect on most who live on the planet. I’m not sure you are aware of this but Trump is intensely disliked by most who like outside the US (with the exception of some in Russia and a handful of other people in a few countries). Probably the most disliked president in modern history. His sad childish dig at Catholics across the globe this week an example, of why he is so hated. And it goes without saying his tariffs have certainly not helped him make any friends. Even the penguins hate him. And as for his appalling treatment of Zelenskyy in the oval office…. apart from those who back Russia, it was condemned universally. I know his supporters still love him, but the latest polls are saying even those numbers are down with him now being the most lowly ranked president in US history at this point in time in a presidency at 44%. And that was a Fox poll… https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+poll+us+presidency&oq=fox+poll+us+presidency&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCggCEAAYChgWGB4yCAgDEAAYFhgeMgoIBBAAGAoYFhgeMggIBRAAGBYYHjIICAYQABgWGB4yCAgHEAAYFhgeMggICBAAGBYYHjILCAkQABgWGB4YxwPSAQk3MzAxajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBZxfxnMK7Chj8QWcX8ZzCuwoYw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I guess that’s because Australian media concentrates on tearing down conservatives rather than on what’s really important.
Australian media is like any. It has left it has right.
Australians have no room to complain when everything comes crashing down around their heads. They voted for it.
That my friend is called democracy. It is a delicate thing that is to be be valued and cherished and is brittle as we have learned of late.
Leftists in Australia and New Zealand are going to be shocked at the success of the “man child”. They are going to wish that maybe they had followed the same path.
Well that wasn’t the case first time round and it is looking a whole lot worse at this point this time round. And NZ has a conservative government. You would have known that though because you would have been aware of other governments round the world, like most US citizens are.
Australians seem very wary of nuclear energy.
Do you think the loss was because of nuclear or just the netzero nonsense in a country with ample fossil fuel?
Been going on for quite a while if “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute is any indication – probably because a number of ‘powers’ were A-OK with detonating H-bombs in their general vicinity.
Let me first say that AI has no authority about anything. But it can quickly respond to a question by assembling bits of what it has found and stored.
So with caution, I think it can be helpful to the earnest investigator of climate claims.
Here is an example from a few days ago:
===========
To Grok, the X AI agent:
Suppose it turns out that the dynamic response of the climate system to CO2 forcing is found to have overwhelmed any tendency to drive sensible heat gain on land, in the oceans, or in the atmosphere itself. How might climate scientists explain this result from the known physics of the general circulation of the atmosphere? A concise answer is requested.
Answer from Grok:
If CO2 forcing does not drive sensible heat gain in land, oceans, or the atmosphere, climate scientists might explain this through the physics of atmospheric general circulation as follows: Enhanced CO2 could alter radiative transfer, increasing outgoing longwave radiation or enhancing latent heat transport (e.g., via intensified convection or storm systems), which dissipates energy without significant sensible heat accumulation. Changes in circulation patterns, such as strengthened meridional heat transport or altered jet stream dynamics, could redistribute energy to high latitudes or upper atmosphere, where it is radiated away. Cloud feedback mechanisms might also increase albedo, offsetting surface heating. These processes, rooted in known atmospheric dynamics, could collectively suppress sensible heat gain despite CO2 forcing.
================
So there you have it. From what has been known all along about the atmosphere’s operation, must we expect the static radiative “forcing” effect of incremental CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. to end up driving sensible heat gain as a result? No.
P.S. Yes, I suspended my own rule of not conceding the “forcing” framing of the issue for this exercise.
It’s clear CO2 climate science isn’t very settled if an AI LLM has to speculate this much about it.
Ask it how can CO2 be causing sensible heat when it significantly lags every manifestation of sensible heat from the ocean and atmosphere?
Every climate scientist I have ever directly asked about this lagging circumstance has hand-waved their answer. This one image alone, below, should be enough to end the CO2 forcing tyranny. Since CO2 always lags sensible heat it cannot set the trend in sensible heat.
There is obviously no real sensible net CO2 radiative warming worth talking about even if there is a (small) effect that gets greatly overwhelmed by everything else as the AI LLM suggested.
All the AI LLM can do is fudge an answer like most scientists do, it’s answer was a smokescreen.
Bob,
We waste a lot of time with CO2 ppm, whereas its only importance is for growing flora, which supports fauna.
Flora is dormant in Vermont for 8 months.
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Scientist Digby Macdonald said politicians need to rethink carefully what they’re doing by condemning CO2
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Nuclear scientist Digby Macdonald has stated carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the primary driver of global temperature changes.
In a recent episode of EpochTV’s Bay Area Innovators program, Macdonald said temperature rises first, followed by CO2.
He pointed to the example of a carbonated drink and how a rise in temperature will cause the drink to release its CO2 faster, causing it to go flat.
“That’s the very reason why you put your beer in a refrigerator,” he said. “If you want the fizzy drink to be tangy … you put it in the refrigerator so the CO2 remains in the drink.”
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Macdonald said one of the reasons for the change in climate is the Milankovitch cycle—the regular variations in the elliptical path the earth travels around the sun.
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He said that cycle changes every 100,000 years and an ice age occurs when it’s the most elliptical because the earth is receiving a lot less solar .
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This cycle, combined with the earth’s wobble and sunspot activity, are the drivers of climate, he said.
“There’s nothing that you and I can do about that,” Macdonald said. “That’s okay, because, if we rely upon the historical record, we go through these maxima and minima.”
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He said during the Roman period it was one of the maxima, in which temperatures were about two to four degrees higher than now, and there was a large advance in civilization.
He said the changes can be traced in history, which shows the temperature has swung all over the place.
.
“Right now, as far as temperature is concerned, we’re about a quarter of the way up between the low minimum and the high maximum,” he said. “So we’re still on the low side. So we’ve got a long way to go, and the changes are very small. We’re talking about, for instance, fractions of a degree centigrade.”
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By analyzing the bubbles of gas trapped in arctic ice using spectroscopy, the concentration of CO2 can be found, while the temperature is reflected in isotopic distributions, Macdonald said.
Just released by Dr Roy Spencer (thank you again) is the temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere over Australia, for April.
To show some detail, I have plotted monthly temperatures for the last 15 years or so.
The current peak continues to be higher and/or higher than past peaks such as 1998.
Many researchers relate these peaks in part or in full to El Nino events.
Speculation. Is it possible that this broad peak comes from two El Nino events close together and overlapping?
Is there any rule that requires El Ninos to be a few years apart?
…
Apart from this, I have no idea why the peak is so broad. Hard to explain by CO2 control knob theory. Maybe underwater volcanism, or as Jennifer Marohasy speculates on her blog, slow currents interacting with wind patterns and seafloor variable volcanism to initiate observed sea temperature changes.
Geoff S
“Is there any rule that requires El Ninos to be a few years apart?”
No, but they are relatively unusual. A borderline example was the 2014-2015 weak event, followed by the 2015-2016 very strong one, with only one ONI data point just dropping into neutral territory (0.47). The only other one, which is also a more pronounced example, was the moderate 1986-1987 event which merged straight into the 1987-1988 strong event.
Generally, El Niiño events are limited to the period between May one year and May the next.
I honestly wonder about the long term future of the UAH dataset and the satellites from which the sensor data is processed. Spencer and Christy and others have made a valuable contribution in this respect for decades.
They should get some money together to hire some AI programmers to automate their work before they retire, and to train people to maintain it into perpetuity. It could be privately funded and hosted anywhere, including UAH as it is now.
“Is it possible that this broad peak comes from two El Nino events close together and overlapping? … Apart from this, I have no idea why the peak is so broad.”
Geoff, no, there were not two El Niños. It would’ve been pretty obvious by now if there was.
I’ve read and understood your objections to TSI datasets, and I wish for you to know the TSI community has done everything they can do to hammer out the differences into a merged dataset.
NASA’s CERES TSI composite is featured below, comprised mostly of SORCE and TSIS data, with the TSIS and other data adjusted to match SORCE TSI.
Please note the exceptionally high TSI during the broad UAH peak (which has followed SST).
Bob Weber,
Thank you for your comments on Total Solar Irradiation. I value them.
Much of my earth science measurement experience was in geochemistry such as stream sediment sampling to indicate locations of mineralisation, which are sparse. This differs from TSI measurement in one big respect – we were often able to return to a location if there were doubts about the data. Researchers of TSI cannot do quality control this way because time has passed and the parameter has changed.
We were able to learn about how often our second sampling was justified. In many cases, we found a mismatch showing that the first attempt was wrong. Sometimes we found a reason for this, often helped by a higher sampling density around the repeat location. This showed the danger of simply accepting the first result but even more, showed how attempts to adjust it by corrective assumptions was dangerous.
I do not doubt that the TSI adjusters are skilled, earnest and honest. That is not the point. Put simply, it is the old adage about making a silk purse from a sow’s ear. These adjusters could possibly make plausible adjustments that variously create answers that are a few units apart, to possibly some zero net TSI change, possibly some positive, possibly some negative. But there is inadequate hard data to choose between these. This created a situation where the mind of the adjuster which possibly has a feel for the “correct” value will influence the acceptance of that “correct” value.
There are documented ways to express measurement uncertainty. There is no shame to wear when an adjuster calculates an uncertainty so broad that results are of limited value, even useless. That is the way that science works. My past objections about TSI adjustments concern how well real uncertainty is estimated. Geoff S
If El Ninos are driven by quasi-periodic submarine volcanic events, then there is no obvious reason why there can’t be two-consecutive El Ninos with negligible time between them, albeit they would probably be rare.
Normal currents in the Pacific near the equator are from east to west
A strong enough El Nino reverses that current west to east.
Sliding of tectonic plates at 9000 meter depth does produce under water volcanos which release a lot of heat that that creates an upwelling of warmed-up water.
The sun does the evaporation part.
The sliding is influenced by tidal forces.
Bruce Cobb
May 4, 2025 3:16 am
May the 4th be with the Climate Realists. It does seem like we’re winning against the CO2 and humanity-hating Dark Side.
In some parts of the world.
In the UK, Mr. Miliband still has many, many thousands of millions of taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ hard-earned to spaff about without a care, a plan or a cost-benefit analysis.
Let alone an informed discussion
I expect some leaks to the BBC, XR, JSO, & a new one [same idea it looks] Yoof Voice, or similar.
Auto
Quondam
May 4, 2025 3:22 am
WUWT discussions largely focus on the fiascos of governments as opposed to the “science” proffered as justification. Carbon dioxide is the only acceptable explanation. Its correlation with surface temperatures is a thermodynamic dissipation problem. Instead, models presume thermal gradients are an equilibrium property induced by gravitational fields, “Radiative Convective Equilibrium”. This gradient, the adiabatic lapse rate, g/Cp, has dimensions of K/km and is a function of a heat capacity per unit mass. For helium, 1.9 K/km, for xenon 61.3 K/km – values independent of density?
Textbooks go into great discussion of the adiabatic lapse rate with a curious omission. The term, “Convective Equilibrium” traces back to Kelvin’s proposal of an isentropic calculation for tropospheric thermal gradients – replete with water vapor effects (1862). Within a few years, both Maxwell and Boltzmann had politely provided mathematical proofs equilibrium velocity distributions and temperatures were not altered by gravitational fields. “Convective Equilibrium” became a moot issue – until resurrected in the 1960’s.
Why is there a thermal gradient in the troposphere? Should we force electric current through a wire, we observe a potential gradient. Should we force water through a pipe, we observe a pressure gradient. And should we force energy through a troposphere? In the first case, as every student well knows, watts equal amps times volts, W=J*(V1-V2). For the last, what we don’t know that we know, W=(J/T1)*(T1-T2), Carnot’s Equation. These are equivalent expressions for thermodynamic dissipation. Both presume steady states. In the latter, (J/T1) has the dimensions of an entropy flux. (Rigorously, the ratio of a free energy flux to the temperature of the warmer interface.) Dissipation is wholly a boundary value problem – we need not know what’s in the box. It’s just the difference between free energy entering and leaving the system.
Path independence is an essential requirement for thermodynamic description. Imagine a closed surface with an array of thermal contacts. Should we apply a given set of temperatures to assigned contacts in some random order, the final state shall be independent of this order. The internal thermal profile then minimizes dissipation given internal constraints of flux and gradient. When T2=0, all flux is dissipated. At equilibrium, T1=T2 and dissipation is at a zero minimum. Should we then change T2, symmetry requires a flux proportional to the new gradient, linear dissipation theory. Given Carnot’s Equation, high-school math suffices to derive an equation relating a T1 change to one in J – Climate Sensitivity. (https://pdquondam.net/Linear_Dissipation_Models.pdf).
For linear dissipation,with characteristic values for J, T1 and T2, increasing J by 3.7 W/m^2 requires a T1 increase of 0.82K. Should we assume a flux independent of (T1-T2), e.g. a fixed lapse rate, 4.40K. Permitting the model the additional degrees of freedom with a variable lapse rate significantly reduces the work required to transport a given amount of energy from A to B. From correlations of ERBE data and sea temperatures, Lindzen and Choi (2009) estimated 0.92K. More recently Wijngaarden and Happer (2023) have inferred values <1K. RCE models, after extensive computation have narrowed results to a range >2K. Does an insulated column of an inert gas in a gravitational field have a temperature gradient? Think I’ll choose the thermodynamics of Maxwell and Boltzmann over that of our current academies.
….increasing J by 3.7 W/m^2 requires a T1 increase of 0.82K…. but you have ignored that the surface emits at about 390 W at average 288C while receiving input from the sun of about 240 W so there is about 60% increase in surface warmth IR emission due to the greenhouse effect of the atmospheric dome over us. So the answer is about 1/8 more than you calculate by SB alone. Still nowhere near a climate crisis….…
and……Does an insulated column of an inert gas in a gravitational field have a temperature gradient? You break hallowed ground here at WUWT. This topic caused dissension between Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Loschmidt and seems to remain contentious to this day. There are many who say isothermal. Personally, I am of the opinion that there must be a temperature gradient because the molecules must use energy to climb uphill in the gravitational field, so must have a negative temperature gradient….
Yes, equation 53, pg 176, does seem to be properly derived. A derivation from Kinetic Molecular Theory would likely be more acceptable to certain “no temp gradient for an ideal gas” officiandos.
Thanks Quondam for this article… I have several reference articles for this topic on file but this one wasn’t one of them…the discussion of Loschmidt’s objections to Boltzmann’s perpetual motion argument is better than most.
It was a discussion here at WUWT several years ago concerning “gravimetric” heating of the atmosphere of Venus and the various rebuttals that got me interested in this topic. It is however, a very poor topic of discussion at social gatherings, where one best stick to weather, baseball and hockey…
Here’s one for you… https://loschmidt.chemi.muni.cz/biography/web/location009.html
And another:
Feynman argued like this for a still atmosphere:
<i>Let us begin with an example: the distribution of the molecules in an atmosphere like our own, but without the winds and other kinds of disturbance. Suppose that we have a column of gas extending to a great height, and at thermal equilibrium—unlike our atmosphere, which as we know gets colder as we go up. We could remark that if the temperature differed at different heights, we could demonstrate lack of equilibrium by connecting a rod to some balls at the bottom (Fig. 40–1), where they would pick up 1/2kT from the molecules there and would shake, via the rod, the balls at the top and those would shake the molecules at the top. So, ultimately, of course, the temperature becomes the same at all heights in a gravitational field.</i>
In my opinion, once you put Feynmans conductive rod inside your adiabatic column, this is no different than putting a heat engine pumping heat from the warm end to the cold end until it runs out of driving force, which is a much different consideration than ideal gas molecules bouncing off each other until the total of their velocity energy and gravitational energy is constant.
You fail to take into consideration the rotation of the planet and the ability of water and ground to store energy for later release.
The earth is never in equilibrium and due to the earth’s rotation never can be. Given T^4, there can never be an average temperature relationship to emitted black body EM radiation.
Given gas temperature is related to density and density is caused by gravity with higher altitudes have lower densities and thus lower temperatures, yes. A temperature gradient on the macroscopic scale. What happens at the molecular level is a different discussion.
Given increasing the KE of molecules causes them to aspire to lower density, the equivalent of buoyancy occurs.
These styles of analyses basically actually are assuming the planet is spinning fast enough that the surface temperature can be considered constant. You’re right about my “ignoring” it, but there is only so much that one can get across in a few sentences that really needs a university semester to cover… after a degree in engineering physics and another degree in meteorology.
….side note, I find people claiming to be CliSci’s usually have neither of those degrees but have some “environmental studies faculty” courses bereft of any calculations that require solving equations that have logs or exponents in them…they have good government jobs though.
Ron Long
May 4, 2025 3:45 am
How exacting are the general title of “Scientists” in their data analysis and predictions? I am in the group of scientists referred to as mining exploration geologists, with BS and MS degrees. In this field the success rate is straight forward: either the recommended drill test encounters gold (or whatever target metal) or it does not (DM knows the same aspect for black gold). Several prominent authors, like Richard Sillitoe and Marco Einaudi, have assigned a success rate of about 20% to practicing mining exploration geologists, as either forming the discovery alone or as a significant contributor to the process. Of course there are luck issues in both directions, but that seems to be a reasonable number. So, here’s the question: how does that success rate apply to the studies or comments of other scientists in other catagories? In all of the different sectors of science there is a tendency for the other 80% to just follow the money, and that tendency appears to be writ large in the CAGW realm. Now that the money is drying up, what happens next?
“Now that the money is drying up, what happens next?”
Good points that resonate with my pet peeves, such as are climate scientists even 20% right?
We need a Great Climate Reset because truly objective science has now evolved beyond the capacity of those with the original CO2 climate science mindset from the 1980/90s to accept and understand because of vested interests, their financial interests, and silly human pride, in spite of copious contra evidence.
Climate science has to be reset or it will implode from no credibility and an expensive legacy, as no amount of climate action towards Net Zero is ever going to change the climate, ie never.
But they literally are the lemmings headed over the cliff and they are adamant they will take the rest of us with them, and so they are digging in in defiance to scientific, socioeconomic, and political pressures very much like the Democrats are doing with Trump, always fighting us in opposition.
The money hasn’t really dried up yet for them, as John Podesta said in his plenary speech in December 2024 at the Washington DC AGU annual meeting, they have “paid it forward” with billions from the IRA and other funding channels. He talked about resisting Trump and hunkering down for four years. Who will be in the White House after Trump? I walked out of his speech in disgust.
Then there’s the self-interested billionaire class that supports them as well with grants. The AGU has gone into action in Congress recently with a wave of scientists acting as activists and lobbyists in support of climate action policies, decarbonization, continued research grants, Net Zero – the list of policy objectives is long, and they’re not going to stop seeking more support any time soon.
This just proved to me how political the entire climate science system is and has been, and it’s why Trump is going after it, because he sees the reality of them as another fifth column destroyer of the American way of life at the behest of foreign billionaires and globalists who seek the unworkable Net Zero and more, besides the fact that CO2 emissions have no important role in climate change.
What happens next? From us, more and better communication about why climate science needs to be reset, even while it’s really a challenge to keep people’s attention on science when the media, the sciences, and politicians are working overtime to sell their one-sided political agenda.
He talked about resisting Trump and hunkering down for four years. Who will be in the White House after Trump? I walked out of his speech in disgust.
Podesta doesn’t understand why we have democracy and how it is supposed to work. He probably doesn’t actually support democracy. Obstructionists make implementing a political platform difficult at best. If both parties engage in the practice then they insure a political logjam for the country.
Don’t see the word “democracy” any where in the constitution. Will agree that no one in the government understands what was meant by “constitutional Republic”, and that has been the case for a real long time now. Politicians began nibbling at the edges almost from the git go, and the Lincoln disemboweled the whole thing. Would we be better off as a people had the founders ideas been followed??? Who knows–we live with what we let happen.
‘Politicians began nibbling at the edges almost from the git go, and the Lincoln disemboweled the whole thing.’
Damn straight. I’m always amazed that ‘conservatives’, many of whom hold Lincoln, as well as Hamilton, in almost religious regard, always seem shocked when the Federal government routinely discovers new powers to override our rights.
I never claimed that “democracy” is mentioned in the Constitution. However, it does explicitly, and in detail, describe how elections are to take place and what offices will be elected by a democratic voting process.
My point is that different ways have been tried throughout history to resolve differences of political opinion. Churchill observed that democracy is a terrible form of government but that it was the best we have found yet. One of the approaches that has been tried in the past is revolution or even assassination.
It is my sense that the point of democratically electing executives and their platforms is an attempt to prevent bloodshed by implicitly agreeing that the country follows the platform of the president who wins the election. However, if malcontents act as obstructionists, and prevent the elected president from implementing his programs, then the electorate doesn’t get a chance to see how things might have worked out. If they “hunker down” and just wait for their turn then neither party gets an opportunity to demonstrate what they can do. Improvements in government are difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish.
The way it should work is that members of the losing party should commit to acknowledging that they don’t think it is the right way but they will support the duly elected party and help to make it be successful because that means the country will be successful. If it turns out that things are worse then they can point that out during the next election cycle four years later. Sour grapes make for a poor ‘whine.’
and that tendency appears to be writ large in the CAGW realm
Climate science is made up entirely of sycophants. They do nothing other than support a religious meme promoted by globalist governments, led by the UN. People who despise the messy world of democracy and free markets..
Labor won the Federal election in Australia yesterday. Tomorrow I will get a few emails from businesses pedalling home batteries because the federal government has promised other people’s money to those willing to instal home batteries.
Government and their sycophants now outnumber the productive component of the Australian economy. The country has increasing reliance on China providing manufactured goods, for which Australia trades iron ore, bauxite, coal and a myriad other minerals that the productive portion of the economy extract from the ground.
Trump is progressively removing the Federal largesse that has supported the Climate Scientists. That action has global impact because USS has been the main promoter of the religious fervour around CO2 induced climate change.
I thought it was actually European countries that were the ideological supporters of the religion of Gaia, with some supporters among the political leftists in the USA. Why else would Spain and Portugal have experienced the massive electrical outage Friday?
It used to be that big generators turned at a speed that generated say 50Hz AC (or 60 in NA) To bring another generator on-line, care had to be taken that the speed and phases matched to prevent currents higher than a direct short. Today the grid add-ons typically result in DC generation that semiconductor switching chops into waveforms and constructs an AC waveform that matches the grid waveform. It is actually fairly easy for a technician with a laptop to change the trigger points on the ICGT switching, plus fairly easy on the shutdown of a “big” waveform generator to result in other ICGT controllers on the same grid to NOT realize they are sensing their next door buddy instead of the main grid waveform.
Nobody in Spain wants to admit that they typed some number with a + instead of a – and “enter” on their laptop. Serious lawsuits would result. Much better to blame on renewables in general…..
Rick,
Yes, there is no doubt that Australia’s net zero by 2050 policy has caused savage increases in electricity costs. Labor favours this policy, initially agreed by the Opposition when in power, by Josh Frydenberg quoting international banking pressure to agree.
Labor has not been indicated that it will continue with net zero, even though green votes dropped a lot. It will be interesting to watch Labor struggle to continue when President Trump has cut the heart out of international support, cancelled some US wind and solar, ceased a lot of past money supply. The unit price of windmills could well jump higher. Geoff S
It would be nice if the money were drying up. Do you really think that that happy outcome is assured, or even likely?
Executive action is a non-solution. Shudder at the thought of a Gavin Newsom – AOC ticket defeating the Republican ticket in 2028 and applying precedents of rule by decree set by the Trump administration.
I’ve been saying this since November. Republican majorities are far too small for Trump to succeed legislatively. Without legislation, DOGE can only nibble around the edges, and then in 2029 we could be back to the policies that the puppeteers ran through Dementia Joe.
Either we see some very bold moves very soon, or there will be no America Great Again. Trump 47 will have been just a false hope or a dead cat bounce for America.
If there is truly going to be an American renaissance, it must come from a series of historically improbable events.
First, in the next few months, Trump must get his ‘big beautiful bill’ through Congress, despite the razor-thin margins. It needs to make changes through the reconciliation process that can have time to show positive results by next autumn, and among other things forestall our impending bankruptcy.
Then 2026 must buck the norm that the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms. If the Democrats take back the House 18 months from now, it will be Impeachment Circus #3 and the effective end of MAGA.
The only way to get truly transformative change into law is to nuke the filibuster. So long as the filibuster rule exists, to pass legislation that cannot be passed through budget reconciliation, 60 senators must vote to end debate (cloture).
Yes, Republicans could theoretically win a net six Senate seats and be able to move legislation without nuking the filibuster or getting any Democrat votes. But how likely is that, and is waiting until January 2027 to act going to be early enough?
Lord knows, the next time Democrats control the White House, Senate, and House, lacking a Senate supermajority, there’s little doubt that they would go for nuking the filibuster. So, gradually I have come around to the idea that the ‘nuclear option’ is going to happen one way or another. It might as well be used as soon as possible, to achieve MAGA aims.
So the third improbable step is either a near-miraculous net-6 gain in the Senate, or holding on to a majority willing to eliminate the Senate filibuster. Then a series of sweeping legislative changes to finally drain the Swamp.
Then the fourth improbable step is that having made these changes, there are only positive impacts or at least sufficient net positive impacts that help JD Vance or whoever gets the Republican nomination in 2028 win and retain the White House, and retain or improve Senate and House majorities.
Then the fifth improbable step is never again letting Democrats control all the levers of power where they can reverse our every success.
In conclusion, we need to end the filibuster now because it can only be used against us and will be a false hope if we rely on it to protect against Democrat excesses in a future Congress where they have small majorities.
We need to take bold action now on measures that materially benefit the middle class and the working class who actually work (not the euphemistically named working class who are actually the occasionally working clients of government). Only by growing the economy can MAGA roll over into 2029 (or 2027 for that matter).
We also need to pass laws not possible under reconciliation to facilitate mass deportation. America cannot survive with 20 million unassimilated law-breakers costing us trillions. If there are not clearly constitutional laws on the books clarifying an expedited deportation process, Democrats will successfully use lawfare to run out the clock.
Then the fifth improbable step is never again letting Democrats control all the levers of power where they can reverse our every success.
That is the major flaw in trying to legislate by Executive Order rather than by Congress. EOs have been used excessively and unconstitutionally for decades. Rarely, when they have been intolerable, they have been repealed. We are, however, on the cusp of see-sawing back and forth in turmoil as one president attempts to undo what his predecessor did with over-reach.
I don’t know how it can be addressed other than for the Supreme Court to find justification in the constitution to limit what the president can do by executive order. For Congress to pass legislation, it would require the president’s support or a 2/3 majority to override a veto, or a constitutional amendment that would also require a 2/3 majority and ratification by 3/4 of the states.
Whipsawing policies every 4-8 years seem extremely likely going forward.
At the core of the political problem is a highly polarized electorate of nearly equal percentages. It is largely urban versus rural, with the urban element continuously pushing the boundaries of new and untried behaviors and mores that suggest liberals think that they are smarter than our ancestors. Presidents have been acting beyond their explicit powers for a long time and neither Congress or SCOTUS have done much to rein them in. The media has been effective in changing people’s opinions through propaganda. Perhaps some restraints on the news and entertainment media will be necessary before it does come to bloodshed.
“At the core of the political problem is a highly polarized electorate of nearly equal percentages.”
This is true. Almost half of the American electorate has been brainwashed sufficiently to think it is a good idea to vote for a Democrat. Even a doofus like Kamala Harris!
Nothing good comes from voting for a Democrat.
The majority of voters figured this out in 2024, and voted Republican. We got lucky. Or maybe my prayers were answered.
The Game Changer is Donald Trump. He turns unlikely things into reality.
I agree with your post. I think Trump’s policies are going to result in a big economic boost for the United States and I think this will make all the difference in the world as to who gets elected in 2026 and 2028.
If the U.S. economy is booming in 2026, and I think it will be doing so, this enhances the election of Republicans.
I am very optimistic about the future of the United States under Trump. And I think Republicans have a very good group of Trump successors. If Trump’s plans work out, I see good things in the Republican future, which means good things for the United States and the World.
The fly in the ointment is the Democrats are doing everything they can, legal and illegal, to try to thwart Trump’s every move. But I think their lawfare is about to run its course. Can you believe that the Democrats have filed 225 lawsuits against Trump! And now Democrat leaders are promoting violence against the Trump agenda.
I do think the Supreme Court will straighten out Judicial Overreach of the lower-court judges. I also think the Republican Congress is going to rein in the activist lower-court judges with legislation. The House of Representatives has already passed a bill to limit the jurisdiction of these lower-court judges and has sent it to the U.S. Senate.
The Truth is we are fighting for the survival of our Republic. The Criminal Democrats want to steal our country out from under us, and they are ruthlessly doing everything they can to tear down Trump and the United States. The Criminal Democrats are Traitors to their Country.
Duck Assist says: The name Sillitoe is of British origin, derived from a locational name in Nottinghamshire, England, meaning “miry ridge or hill.” It has roots in Old English, with the earliest recorded spelling found in the Domesday Book of 1086 as “Selitone.” And: The name “Alberts” is derived from the Germanic name “Adalbert,” which means “noble and bright,” composed of the elements “adal” (noble) and “beraht” (bright). It has historical roots in medieval German royalty and was introduced to England by the Normans.
In my case, my grandfather was Norwegian (he was 6’5″ and 300lbs, built US subs in Manitowoc, WI during WWII. And yes, they called him “Tiny”). I’ve heard that it was Albertson at one point, and Ericson before that. Don’t know if it’s true.
Although. When I was stationed in Germany in the early 80s, I found two towns with my name. Albertshausen and Albertshof.
Ron,
The Sillitoe analysis and others of its type are silly and wrong because they are ignorant of what happens with a new mine discovery.
In particular, to underscore my accusations, there is the factor of “persistence” relating to the Cascades of decisions about whether to stop or to continue spending money. Few new mines start with a drill hole good enough to claim it will certainly become a mine. Our Juno mine at Tennant Creek was an exception with our first hole showing 12.1 metres at 167 grams per tonne of gold (5.4 ounces/ton). At the other extreme, using money from the old Mount Morgan gold mine, Willian Knox d’Arcy went to the middle east in 1901 looking for oil. He drilled several hundred dry holes before 26 May 1808 his employee Reynolds struck a gusher, unearthing the world’s largest oil field and his director seat on the new British Petroleum.
Persistence is a mining concept that is nearly impossible to quantify by armchair analysts who these days often start with “dirty miners” in mind.
But Ron, you know this.
Geoff S
strativarius
May 4, 2025 4:19 am
Miliband was said to be fuming at Blair for a rather unhelpful intervention
Ed Miliband blasted over Dame Mary Archer sacking The Energy Secretary has been accused of ‘suppressing’ opposition to his green policies … While she attended board meetings chaired by Mr Miliband, Dame Mary is understood to widely share Sir Tony’s assessment of government policy – who earlier this week said it was “doomed to fail”. … Dame Mary spent more than 15 years as a lecturer at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and founded both the National Energy Foundation and the UK Section of the International Solar Energy Society. https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2050420/ed-miliband-blasted-dame-mary
A clear cut case of heresy.
Pat Smith
May 4, 2025 6:41 am
A question. Here in the UK, we are burning lots and lots of lovely Canadian trees to make electricity. The power station involved says they are just old bits of wood they found lying about but some people think that some of it is actual, real virgin trees. The output of CO2 from this process is vast but is set to zero because, you know, new trees will grow. I am traveling to Canada next week on holiday and wish to know the answer to the following question, in case I am asked.
Assuming that these are real trees that are being cut down: a tree absorbs a certain amount of CO2 in its steady state. You cut it down and absorption goes to zero. A new small tree is planted and CO2 absorption then grows so that, after 50 to 100 years, it is back to absorbing the same amount of CO2 as it did originally. So there is a dip in the CO2 absorption for that time. Is the total amount of this absorption dip more or less than the amount of CO2 that would be released by a lump of coal that would provide the same heat as burning that tree?
Apologies if this is an obvious question that has been dealt with many times – feel free to answer “you idiot, do you know nothing? Read this link ………. and cease to post on a website graced by the presence of Anthony Watts, Willis Eschenbach, Charles Rotter and other luminaries.” Shan’t take offense.
My understanding from what I have read, is that young trees absorb more CO2 than mature trees, so replacing one old one with many young ones is optimal. Also, I think the SE US is where UK gets most of its scrap wood pellets. Commercial tree farms. Lumber and paper feedstock are the primary outputs and there is lots of scrap for pellets.
Thanks for the response. Presumably a very small tree cannot absorb as much as a full grown one. There must be an absorption curve that starts at zero, grows as the tree grows, perhaps gets to a peak higher than the original tree (if what you say is right), then falls to the steady-ish state of the mature tree. Does anyone have the data on this?
… young trees absorb more CO2 than mature trees, …
Perhaps by unit weight, but certainly not individually. I would expect the individual sequestration to increase rapidly in youth, and then plateau for a few years before dying and releasing the CO2.
That’s a good question that is subject to debate. I’d throw out a couple of points for consideration.
A lot of wood pellets going to Drax previously would have ended up in paper, whose production and consumption is in decline, especially for print media. Coal burning in Asia on the other hand continues to grow, the rates and amounts of which dwarf the burning of wood pellets, making the answer to your question insignificant.
That doesn’t answer your question directly, but I would surmise that the Drax endeavor in any case is worse than pointless, as its impact locally is all pain and no gain, while its impact globally doesn’t matter.
For context and something to read over your morning coffee. Search with this string:
Wood pellet maker Drax denied pollution permit after Gloster Mississippi outcry
Go to the Drax website and learn about the nine step process for making wood pellets.
Scrap wood from the Southeast US is used for making the pellets.
The wood pellets have a large carbon foot print. Heavy machinery with big Diesel engines are used to get the scrap wood to the pellet mill. Some of pellets burned to provide process steam and heat for pellet manufacture. The pellets are then shipped to the UK in cargo ships with really big marine Diesel engines. At the UK port, the pellets are off loaded into trucks with big Diesel engines, which take pellets to the power plant. Without government subsidies, it would not be possible for Drax to operate this wood pellet sheme.
Thus, at no point in the process does anyone involved actually bother to give a flying fig about the great and terrible ManBearPig. Sounds about right. It’s just another made-up hipster quasi-industry.
I no longer have access to the library at UW as I did before retirement, but the following article looks interesting with regard to this topic. Auther says trees accelerate by mass continuously from sprouting to very old age.
Downing Street fury at Farage plot to tie up Starmer government in legal challenges David Maddox
Political Editor
Sunday 04 May 2025
Downing Street has reacted with fury to revelations that Nigel Farage plans to use Reform’s control of councils across England to launch a series of legal challenges to tie Sir Keir Starmer’s government in knots.
The announcement by Reform’s new mayor for Greater Lincolnshire Dame Andrea Jenkyns came as she spoke to The Independent in her first major interview since her victory was declared on Friday morning.
She said that high on the agenda were plans to take the Labour government to court in a bid to block net zero projects like solar and wind farms, as well as attempts by the Home Office to house asylum seekers in Lincolnshire.
end excerpt
Things are getting interesting in the UK. 🙂
So, if Nigel manages to block Net Zero, does that mean the Starmer government screeches to a halt? Don’t they have other things to do besides building windmills and solar?
Keir Starmer always has the option of charging Nigel Farage and his followers with hate crimes and then locking him and them up on that justification. What we have seen of Keir Starmer so far indicates he wouldn’t be averse to doing something like that.
The productive agricultural land of Lincolnshire is being overtaken by a new crop which unfortunately is not that nutritious – solar farms.
Several large projects were approved last year and already this year a further 7 have been proposed
Beacon Fen Energy -1300 acres
Fosse Green – 2400 acres
Heckington Fen -1600 acres
Leoda Solar Farm -2400 acres
One Earth Solar Farm – not specified
Springwell Solar Farm -4200 acres
Tillbridge Solar -3000 acres
House Republicans are clashing over the fate of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, which have led to over $130 billion in private investment announcements.
“A letter signed by 38 Republican House of Representatives members voiced “the urgent need to fully repeal the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Passed in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contains supply and demand-side tax credits for clean energy projects and manufacturing. Since its passage, over $130 billion in private investment has been announced, according to E2, which tracks clean energy manufacturing and project investment related to the IRA.
The letter refers to the IRA as the “green new scam.” It said the law burdens taxpayers, inflates energy costs and threatens the reliability of the U.S. power grid.”
The 2022 IRA also contains wording which identifies CO2 as a pollutant and which authorizes and funds the EPA to regulate America’s carbon emissions. It is this wording which climate activists will be using to challenge the Trump administration’s recent decision to end carbon regulation. The IRA must be repealed in its entirety, not just the tax credits.
E. Schaffer
May 4, 2025 8:18 am
Some fascinating stuff
In theory the lapse rate should decrease by over 2% for every K warming of Ts. You can get this from an emagram, but also from Santer et al 2005 Fig.3. Evidently as much as the tropospheric lapse rate shrinks, the delta between surface and emission temperature will also shrink. For instance if Ts = 288K and Te = 255K, with 2% shrink in the lapse rate you will get Ts = 289K and Te = 256.66K. Just to check: 1 – (289-256.66) / 33K = 2%
If the Te increases by that much, you get a massive negative feedback. First we need to calculate dOLR: (256.66^4 – 255^4)*5.67e-8 = 6.3W/m2. And then if we subtract a Planck Feedback of 3.3W/m2 from it, we are left with a negative LRF of -3W/m2 (=6.3-3.3). For instance..
An LRF of -3W/m2 is a negative feedback way larger than all thinkable positive feedbacks combined (WV-, cloud-, albedo-), so that overall feedbacks equally turn negative. That brought up the intriguing question how climate models could have overall positive feedbacks instead.
My first guess was they would simply have a different, much smaller reduction in the lapse rate. An LRF of only -0.5W/m2, as is the current central estimate, is consistent with a mere 0.3% lapse rate drop per Kelvin Ts. But checking the literature, as with Santer2005 f.i., revrealed that they actually do follow the theory with an according large rotation of the lapse rate. But then, why would they not have an according massive negative LRF?
Then I stumbled over this line in AR6:
Feedback parameters in climate models are calculated assuming that they are independent of each other, except for a well-known co-dependency between the water vapour (WV) and lapse rate (LR) feedbacks
(AR6 p.978)
Ok, so that is what is going on. Physically the lapse rate has to determine LRF and if you let it happen, you will get a massive negative LRF and negative FBs to the whole “climate system”, with climate sensitivity tanking below 1K. They just would not let this happen. Instead they link LRF to WVF and hard code that the sum of them needs to be a positive FB of about +1W/m2. This is violating physics.
And it is not just that. That“well-known co-dependency” is a blunder on its own right, for different reasons, already outlined here:
Warning! Stop burning fossil fuels or you’ll go blind!
Typical alarmist fare: Many/most of the catastrophes described in the article will come in the latter half of this century. According to models. Using silly emission scenarios.
Sure, India is getting a bit warmer, like many other regions. But crop production is doing just fine, in fact getting better and better (except one growing season of particularly bad weather).
One disturbing feature on here is the use in some posts of figures claiming to be from published sources which in fact are in fact falsely altered with no indication. It would be good if the moderators would indicate this and require the original data to be shown or refer to the alternate source and the reasons for the changes.
One recent example is this graph: ?w=977&ssl=1
It claims to be a plot of the data from S.A. Marcott et al, 2013, of the temperature during the Holocene Climate Optimum and show that it was “significantly warmer than the present day”, in fact that is not correct!
This is the data from the Marcott paper:
As you can see the original data shows a range during the HCO from -0.4 to 0.4ºC whereas the graph shown on the post is from -0.4 to 1.0ºC, a substantial increase with no source or explanation! Misrepresentations like this should be corrected and the actual source shown!
The best description I have heard of Reform’s stunning electoral success…
A Grand Coalition of the Thoroughly Pissed Off.
Last week Tony Blair took a pop at Mad Ed’s net zero – and then u-turned on it. Too late, Tone, The Guardian is very upset…
Blair’s net zero intervention invites scrutiny of his institute’s donors
Blair’s well-documented links to petrostates and oil and gas companies ought to alone be enough to disqualify this man as an independent and reliable arbiter of what’s possible or commonsense
…
The TBI is a bunch of tech bros who don’t care about social justice or fairness.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/30/blairs-net-zero-intervention-invites-scrutiny-of-his-institute-donors
A timely hand-grenade.
The Guardian’s distortions about Net Zero invites scrutiny.
The Grauniad surpassed itself recently (2nd May) with a headline “Revealed: British banks put £75bn into firms behind ‘carbon bombs’ ” quoting a study by the think tank ‘Leave it in the Ground Initiative’ that said nine London banks were financing companies “responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects in 28 countries between 2016 …… and 2023” The US, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia and China have the most carbon bomb plans with the UK having a minor role outside financing.
Well done those banks! However they did point out that the think tank quoted all the finance they gave to energy projects without any distinction. Nat West pointed out that of the £93bn it had lent since 2020 less than 0.7% had gone to oil and gas projects. But this didn’t deter the ‘Leave it in the Ground Initiative’ from issuing its stupid report.
The LNP in Australia was decimated yesterday. Labor had an overwhelming victory.
The LNP leader lost his seat. The populace firmly rejected his push for NetZer through nuclear.
Australia needs a leader willing to condemn the climate scam and embrace coal like Trump has.
Most western democracies are sclerotic, run by people who simply believe they know best because they are the better off chosen ones.
I think the [the people of the] UK are more in tune with Trumpism than most.
Australian conservatives suffered the same fate the Canadian conservatives did. They were linked (rightly or not) to Trump. That resulted in wholesale slaughter at the polls.
However one significant difference with the man child running the US, was the mature way Dutton accepted defeat.
Did you find the pee pee tape yet 😉
“Australian conservatives suffered the same fate the Canadian conservatives did. They were linked (rightly or not) to Trump.”
I think that is “seeing what you want to see”.
You really think this vote was an anti-Trump vote? Are leftists in Australia as crazy as Democrats in the United States. I suppose that’s possible.
All I can say is Australian voters should be careful what they ask for. They just may get it.
Australian voters are aware of Trump, but not aware of Spain and Portugal?
I guess that’s because Australian media concentrates on tearing down conservatives rather than on what’s really important.
Australians have no room to complain when everything comes crashing down around their heads. They voted for it.
Leftists in Australia and New Zealand are going to be shocked at the success of the “man child”. They are going to wish that maybe they had followed the same path.
This time next year, or sooner, the United States economy is going to be booming like “nobody has ever seen before”. You heard it here first. Well, maybe not, Trump has been saying that all along. But of course, leftists dismiss everything Trump says. Stay tuned.
All I can say is Australian voters should be careful what they ask for. They just may get it.
As does every country that votes in a free and fair election. I could say the same about the US at this point.
Australian voters are aware of Trump, but not aware of Spain and Portugal?
That is definitely the case across the world Tom. Trump is the most powerful person on the planet. His decisions of late have had an effect on most who live on the planet. I’m not sure you are aware of this but Trump is intensely disliked by most who like outside the US (with the exception of some in Russia and a handful of other people in a few countries). Probably the most disliked president in modern history. His sad childish dig at Catholics across the globe this week an example, of why he is so hated. And it goes without saying his tariffs have certainly not helped him make any friends. Even the penguins hate him. And as for his appalling treatment of Zelenskyy in the oval office…. apart from those who back Russia, it was condemned universally. I know his supporters still love him, but the latest polls are saying even those numbers are down with him now being the most lowly ranked president in US history at this point in time in a presidency at 44%. And that was a Fox poll…
https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+poll+us+presidency&oq=fox+poll+us+presidency&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCggCEAAYChgWGB4yCAgDEAAYFhgeMgoIBBAAGAoYFhgeMggIBRAAGBYYHjIICAYQABgWGB4yCAgHEAAYFhgeMggICBAAGBYYHjILCAkQABgWGB4YxwPSAQk3MzAxajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBZxfxnMK7Chj8QWcX8ZzCuwoYw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I guess that’s because Australian media concentrates on tearing down conservatives rather than on what’s really important.
Australian media is like any. It has left it has right.
Australians have no room to complain when everything comes crashing down around their heads. They voted for it.
That my friend is called democracy. It is a delicate thing that is to be be valued and cherished and is brittle as we have learned of late.
Leftists in Australia and New Zealand are going to be shocked at the success of the “man child”. They are going to wish that maybe they had followed the same path.
Well that wasn’t the case first time round and it is looking a whole lot worse at this point this time round. And NZ has a conservative government. You would have known that though because you would have been aware of other governments round the world, like most US citizens are.
You are a dope
Australians seem very wary of nuclear energy.
Do you think the loss was because of nuclear or just the netzero nonsense in a country with ample fossil fuel?
Been going on for quite a while if “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute is any indication – probably because a number of ‘powers’ were A-OK with detonating H-bombs in their general vicinity.
There is no rational explanation for why someone would vote for a radical leftist government.
I see in today’s press that Mad Ed sacked Lady Mary Archer from her job in his department. Allegedly because she has similar views to those expressed by Tony Blair.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14676005/Ed-Miliband-sacks-Dame-Mary-Archer-suppress-opposition-Net-Zero.html
Let me first say that AI has no authority about anything. But it can quickly respond to a question by assembling bits of what it has found and stored.
So with caution, I think it can be helpful to the earnest investigator of climate claims.
Here is an example from a few days ago:
===========
To Grok, the X AI agent:
Suppose it turns out that the dynamic response of the climate system to CO2 forcing is found to have overwhelmed any tendency to drive sensible heat gain on land, in the oceans, or in the atmosphere itself. How might climate scientists explain this result from the known physics of the general circulation of the atmosphere? A concise answer is requested.
Answer from Grok:
If CO2 forcing does not drive sensible heat gain in land, oceans, or the atmosphere, climate scientists might explain this through the physics of atmospheric general circulation as follows: Enhanced CO2 could alter radiative transfer, increasing outgoing longwave radiation or enhancing latent heat transport (e.g., via intensified convection or storm systems), which dissipates energy without significant sensible heat accumulation. Changes in circulation patterns, such as strengthened meridional heat transport or altered jet stream dynamics, could redistribute energy to high latitudes or upper atmosphere, where it is radiated away. Cloud feedback mechanisms might also increase albedo, offsetting surface heating. These processes, rooted in known atmospheric dynamics, could collectively suppress sensible heat gain despite CO2 forcing.
================
So there you have it. From what has been known all along about the atmosphere’s operation, must we expect the static radiative “forcing” effect of incremental CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. to end up driving sensible heat gain as a result? No.
P.S. Yes, I suspended my own rule of not conceding the “forcing” framing of the issue for this exercise.
It’s clear CO2 climate science isn’t very settled if an AI LLM has to speculate this much about it.
Ask it how can CO2 be causing sensible heat when it significantly lags every manifestation of sensible heat from the ocean and atmosphere?
Every climate scientist I have ever directly asked about this lagging circumstance has hand-waved their answer. This one image alone, below, should be enough to end the CO2 forcing tyranny. Since CO2 always lags sensible heat it cannot set the trend in sensible heat.
There is obviously no real sensible net CO2 radiative warming worth talking about even if there is a (small) effect that gets greatly overwhelmed by everything else as the AI LLM suggested.
All the AI LLM can do is fudge an answer like most scientists do, it’s answer was a smokescreen.
Bob,
We waste a lot of time with CO2 ppm, whereas its only importance is for growing flora, which supports fauna.
Flora is dormant in Vermont for 8 months.
Nuclear Scientist Says CO2 Is Not Causing Rising Global Temperatures
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/nuclear-scientist-says-co2-is-not-causing-rising-global
By Keagan Billings
.
Scientist Digby Macdonald said politicians need to rethink carefully what they’re doing by condemning CO2
.
Nuclear scientist Digby Macdonald has stated carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the primary driver of global temperature changes.
In a recent episode of EpochTV’s Bay Area Innovators program, Macdonald said temperature rises first, followed by CO2.
He pointed to the example of a carbonated drink and how a rise in temperature will cause the drink to release its CO2 faster, causing it to go flat.
“That’s the very reason why you put your beer in a refrigerator,” he said. “If you want the fizzy drink to be tangy … you put it in the refrigerator so the CO2 remains in the drink.”
.
Macdonald said one of the reasons for the change in climate is the Milankovitch cycle—the regular variations in the elliptical path the earth travels around the sun.
.
He said that cycle changes every 100,000 years and an ice age occurs when it’s the most elliptical because the earth is receiving a lot less solar .
.
This cycle, combined with the earth’s wobble and sunspot activity, are the drivers of climate, he said.
“There’s nothing that you and I can do about that,” Macdonald said. “That’s okay, because, if we rely upon the historical record, we go through these maxima and minima.”
.
He said during the Roman period it was one of the maxima, in which temperatures were about two to four degrees higher than now, and there was a large advance in civilization.
He said the changes can be traced in history, which shows the temperature has swung all over the place.
.
“Right now, as far as temperature is concerned, we’re about a quarter of the way up between the low minimum and the high maximum,” he said. “So we’re still on the low side. So we’ve got a long way to go, and the changes are very small. We’re talking about, for instance, fractions of a degree centigrade.”
.
By analyzing the bubbles of gas trapped in arctic ice using spectroscopy, the concentration of CO2 can be found, while the temperature is reflected in isotopic distributions, Macdonald said.
See URL for more
Yes we sure waste a lot of time on CO2, but for me it was worth it. Look at what we’ve all learned. MacDonald and I have similar views it seems.
Bob,
Here are four articles attesting to the small global warming role of CO2 in the atmosphere
.
Eight Taiwanese Engineers Determine Climate Sensitivity to a 300 ppm CO2 Increase Is ‘Negligibly Small’
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/eight-taiwanese-engineers-determine-climate-sensitivity-to-a-300
.
The Fairy Tale of The CO2 Paradise Before 1850…A Look at The Real Science
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-fairy-tale-of-the-co2-paradise-before-1850-a-look-at-the-real
.
Achieving ‘Net Zero by 2050’ Reduces Temps by 0.28 C Costing Tens of $TRILLIONS
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/achieving-net-zero-by-2050-reduces-temps-by-0-28-c-costing-tens
.
German Researcher: Doubling Of Atmospheric CO2 Causes Only 0.24°C Of Warming …Practically Insignificant
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/german-researcher-doubling-of-atmospheric-co2-causes-only-0-24-c
Just released by Dr Roy Spencer (thank you again) is the temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere over Australia, for April.
To show some detail, I have plotted monthly temperatures for the last 15 years or so.
The current peak continues to be higher and/or higher than past peaks such as 1998.
Many researchers relate these peaks in part or in full to El Nino events.
Speculation. Is it possible that this broad peak comes from two El Nino events close together and overlapping?
Is there any rule that requires El Ninos to be a few years apart?
…
Apart from this, I have no idea why the peak is so broad. Hard to explain by CO2 control knob theory. Maybe underwater volcanism, or as Jennifer Marohasy speculates on her blog, slow currents interacting with wind patterns and seafloor variable volcanism to initiate observed sea temperature changes.
Geoff S
“Is there any rule that requires El Ninos to be a few years apart?”
No, but they are relatively unusual. A borderline example was the 2014-2015 weak event, followed by the 2015-2016 very strong one, with only one ONI data point just dropping into neutral territory (0.47). The only other one, which is also a more pronounced example, was the moderate 1986-1987 event which merged straight into the 1987-1988 strong event.
Generally, El Niiño events are limited to the period between May one year and May the next.
I honestly wonder about the long term future of the UAH dataset and the satellites from which the sensor data is processed. Spencer and Christy and others have made a valuable contribution in this respect for decades.
They should get some money together to hire some AI programmers to automate their work before they retire, and to train people to maintain it into perpetuity. It could be privately funded and hosted anywhere, including UAH as it is now.
“Is it possible that this broad peak comes from two El Nino events close together and overlapping?
… Apart from this, I have no idea why the peak is so broad.”
Geoff, no, there were not two El Niños. It would’ve been pretty obvious by now if there was.
I’ve read and understood your objections to TSI datasets, and I wish for you to know the TSI community has done everything they can do to hammer out the differences into a merged dataset.
NASA’s CERES TSI composite is featured below, comprised mostly of SORCE and TSIS data, with the TSIS and other data adjusted to match SORCE TSI.
Please note the exceptionally high TSI during the broad UAH peak (which has followed SST).
Bob Weber,
Thank you for your comments on Total Solar Irradiation. I value them.
Much of my earth science measurement experience was in geochemistry such as stream sediment sampling to indicate locations of mineralisation, which are sparse. This differs from TSI measurement in one big respect – we were often able to return to a location if there were doubts about the data. Researchers of TSI cannot do quality control this way because time has passed and the parameter has changed.
We were able to learn about how often our second sampling was justified. In many cases, we found a mismatch showing that the first attempt was wrong. Sometimes we found a reason for this, often helped by a higher sampling density around the repeat location. This showed the danger of simply accepting the first result but even more, showed how attempts to adjust it by corrective assumptions was dangerous.
I do not doubt that the TSI adjusters are skilled, earnest and honest. That is not the point. Put simply, it is the old adage about making a silk purse from a sow’s ear. These adjusters could possibly make plausible adjustments that variously create answers that are a few units apart, to possibly some zero net TSI change, possibly some positive, possibly some negative. But there is inadequate hard data to choose between these. This created a situation where the mind of the adjuster which possibly has a feel for the “correct” value will influence the acceptance of that “correct” value.
There are documented ways to express measurement uncertainty. There is no shame to wear when an adjuster calculates an uncertainty so broad that results are of limited value, even useless. That is the way that science works. My past objections about TSI adjustments concern how well real uncertainty is estimated. Geoff S
If El Ninos are driven by quasi-periodic submarine volcanic events, then there is no obvious reason why there can’t be two-consecutive El Ninos with negligible time between them, albeit they would probably be rare.
Normal currents in the Pacific near the equator are from east to west
A strong enough El Nino reverses that current west to east.
Sliding of tectonic plates at 9000 meter depth does produce under water volcanos which release a lot of heat that that creates an upwelling of warmed-up water.
The sun does the evaporation part.
The sliding is influenced by tidal forces.
May the 4th be with the Climate Realists. It does seem like we’re winning against the CO2 and humanity-hating Dark Side.
And happy birthday to me!
The Green agenda feeds off other’s (taxpayer’s) $Green$ and that is beginning to dry up.
In some parts of the world.
In the UK, Mr. Miliband still has many, many thousands of millions of taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ hard-earned to spaff about without a care, a plan or a cost-benefit analysis.
Let alone an informed discussion
I expect some leaks to the BBC, XR, JSO, & a new one [same idea it looks] Yoof Voice, or similar.
Auto
WUWT discussions largely focus on the fiascos of governments as opposed to the “science” proffered as justification. Carbon dioxide is the only acceptable explanation. Its correlation with surface temperatures is a thermodynamic dissipation problem. Instead, models presume thermal gradients are an equilibrium property induced by gravitational fields, “Radiative Convective Equilibrium”. This gradient, the adiabatic lapse rate, g/Cp, has dimensions of K/km and is a function of a heat capacity per unit mass. For helium, 1.9 K/km, for xenon 61.3 K/km – values independent of density?
Textbooks go into great discussion of the adiabatic lapse rate with a curious omission. The term, “Convective Equilibrium” traces back to Kelvin’s proposal of an isentropic calculation for tropospheric thermal gradients – replete with water vapor effects (1862). Within a few years, both Maxwell and Boltzmann had politely provided mathematical proofs equilibrium velocity distributions and temperatures were not altered by gravitational fields. “Convective Equilibrium” became a moot issue – until resurrected in the 1960’s.
Why is there a thermal gradient in the troposphere? Should we force electric current through a wire, we observe a potential gradient. Should we force water through a pipe, we observe a pressure gradient. And should we force energy through a troposphere? In the first case, as every student well knows, watts equal amps times volts, W=J*(V1-V2). For the last, what we don’t know that we know, W=(J/T1)*(T1-T2), Carnot’s Equation. These are equivalent expressions for thermodynamic dissipation. Both presume steady states. In the latter, (J/T1) has the dimensions of an entropy flux. (Rigorously, the ratio of a free energy flux to the temperature of the warmer interface.) Dissipation is wholly a boundary value problem – we need not know what’s in the box. It’s just the difference between free energy entering and leaving the system.
Path independence is an essential requirement for thermodynamic description. Imagine a closed surface with an array of thermal contacts. Should we apply a given set of temperatures to assigned contacts in some random order, the final state shall be independent of this order. The internal thermal profile then minimizes dissipation given internal constraints of flux and gradient. When T2=0, all flux is dissipated. At equilibrium, T1=T2 and dissipation is at a zero minimum. Should we then change T2, symmetry requires a flux proportional to the new gradient, linear dissipation theory. Given Carnot’s Equation, high-school math suffices to derive an equation relating a T1 change to one in J – Climate Sensitivity. (https://pdquondam.net/Linear_Dissipation_Models.pdf).
For linear dissipation,with characteristic values for J, T1 and T2, increasing J by 3.7 W/m^2 requires a T1 increase of 0.82K. Should we assume a flux independent of (T1-T2), e.g. a fixed lapse rate, 4.40K. Permitting the model the additional degrees of freedom with a variable lapse rate significantly reduces the work required to transport a given amount of energy from A to B. From correlations of ERBE data and sea temperatures, Lindzen and Choi (2009) estimated 0.92K. More recently Wijngaarden and Happer (2023) have inferred values <1K. RCE models, after extensive computation have narrowed results to a range >2K. Does an insulated column of an inert gas in a gravitational field have a temperature gradient? Think I’ll choose the thermodynamics of Maxwell and Boltzmann over that of our current academies.
….increasing J by 3.7 W/m^2 requires a T1 increase of 0.82K….
but you have ignored that the surface emits at about 390 W at average 288C while receiving input from the sun of about 240 W so there is about 60% increase in surface warmth IR emission due to the greenhouse effect of the atmospheric dome over us. So the answer is about 1/8 more than you calculate by SB alone. Still nowhere near a climate crisis….…
and……Does an insulated column of an inert gas in a gravitational field have a temperature gradient?
You break hallowed ground here at WUWT. This topic caused dissension between Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Loschmidt and seems to remain contentious to this day. There are many who say isothermal. Personally, I am of the opinion that there must be a temperature gradient because the molecules must use energy to climb uphill in the gravitational field, so must have a negative temperature gradient….
You might be interested in “Tales of Thermodynamics and Obscure Applications
of the Second Law”
https://www.ifi.unicamp.br/~mtamash/f320_termo/continuum_mech_thermodyn12_151.pdf
Yes, equation 53, pg 176, does seem to be properly derived. A derivation from Kinetic Molecular Theory would likely be more acceptable to certain “no temp gradient for an ideal gas” officiandos.
Thanks Quondam for this article… I have several reference articles for this topic on file but this one wasn’t one of them…the discussion of Loschmidt’s objections to Boltzmann’s perpetual motion argument is better than most.
It was a discussion here at WUWT several years ago concerning “gravimetric” heating of the atmosphere of Venus and the various rebuttals that got me interested in this topic. It is however, a very poor topic of discussion at social gatherings, where one best stick to weather, baseball and hockey…
Here’s one for you…
https://loschmidt.chemi.muni.cz/biography/web/location009.html
And another:
Feynman argued like this for a still atmosphere:
<i>Let us begin with an example: the distribution of the molecules in an atmosphere like our own, but without the winds and other kinds of disturbance. Suppose that we have a column of gas extending to a great height, and at thermal equilibrium—unlike our atmosphere, which as we know gets colder as we go up. We could remark that if the temperature differed at different heights, we could demonstrate lack of equilibrium by connecting a rod to some balls at the bottom (Fig. 40–1), where they would pick up 1/2kT from the molecules there and would shake, via the rod, the balls at the top and those would shake the molecules at the top. So, ultimately, of course, the temperature becomes the same at all heights in a gravitational field.</i>
In my opinion, once you put Feynmans conductive rod inside your adiabatic column, this is no different than putting a heat engine pumping heat from the warm end to the cold end until it runs out of driving force, which is a much different consideration than ideal gas molecules bouncing off each other until the total of their velocity energy and gravitational energy is constant.
You fail to take into consideration the rotation of the planet and the ability of water and ground to store energy for later release.
The earth is never in equilibrium and due to the earth’s rotation never can be. Given T^4, there can never be an average temperature relationship to emitted black body EM radiation.
Given gas temperature is related to density and density is caused by gravity with higher altitudes have lower densities and thus lower temperatures, yes. A temperature gradient on the macroscopic scale. What happens at the molecular level is a different discussion.
Given increasing the KE of molecules causes them to aspire to lower density, the equivalent of buoyancy occurs.
These styles of analyses basically actually are assuming the planet is spinning fast enough that the surface temperature can be considered constant. You’re right about my “ignoring” it, but there is only so much that one can get across in a few sentences that really needs a university semester to cover… after a degree in engineering physics and another degree in meteorology.
….side note, I find people claiming to be CliSci’s usually have neither of those degrees but have some “environmental studies faculty” courses bereft of any calculations that require solving equations that have logs or exponents in them…they have good government jobs though.
How exacting are the general title of “Scientists” in their data analysis and predictions? I am in the group of scientists referred to as mining exploration geologists, with BS and MS degrees. In this field the success rate is straight forward: either the recommended drill test encounters gold (or whatever target metal) or it does not (DM knows the same aspect for black gold). Several prominent authors, like Richard Sillitoe and Marco Einaudi, have assigned a success rate of about 20% to practicing mining exploration geologists, as either forming the discovery alone or as a significant contributor to the process. Of course there are luck issues in both directions, but that seems to be a reasonable number. So, here’s the question: how does that success rate apply to the studies or comments of other scientists in other catagories? In all of the different sectors of science there is a tendency for the other 80% to just follow the money, and that tendency appears to be writ large in the CAGW realm. Now that the money is drying up, what happens next?
“Now that the money is drying up, what happens next?”
Good points that resonate with my pet peeves, such as are climate scientists even 20% right?
We need a Great Climate Reset because truly objective science has now evolved beyond the capacity of those with the original CO2 climate science mindset from the 1980/90s to accept and understand because of vested interests, their financial interests, and silly human pride, in spite of copious contra evidence.
Climate science has to be reset or it will implode from no credibility and an expensive legacy, as no amount of climate action towards Net Zero is ever going to change the climate, ie never.
But they literally are the lemmings headed over the cliff and they are adamant they will take the rest of us with them, and so they are digging in in defiance to scientific, socioeconomic, and political pressures very much like the Democrats are doing with Trump, always fighting us in opposition.
The money hasn’t really dried up yet for them, as John Podesta said in his plenary speech in December 2024 at the Washington DC AGU annual meeting, they have “paid it forward” with billions from the IRA and other funding channels. He talked about resisting Trump and hunkering down for four years. Who will be in the White House after Trump? I walked out of his speech in disgust.
Then there’s the self-interested billionaire class that supports them as well with grants. The AGU has gone into action in Congress recently with a wave of scientists acting as activists and lobbyists in support of climate action policies, decarbonization, continued research grants, Net Zero – the list of policy objectives is long, and they’re not going to stop seeking more support any time soon.
This just proved to me how political the entire climate science system is and has been, and it’s why Trump is going after it, because he sees the reality of them as another fifth column destroyer of the American way of life at the behest of foreign billionaires and globalists who seek the unworkable Net Zero and more, besides the fact that CO2 emissions have no important role in climate change.
What happens next? From us, more and better communication about why climate science needs to be reset, even while it’s really a challenge to keep people’s attention on science when the media, the sciences, and politicians are working overtime to sell their one-sided political agenda.
Podesta doesn’t understand why we have democracy and how it is supposed to work. He probably doesn’t actually support democracy. Obstructionists make implementing a political platform difficult at best. If both parties engage in the practice then they insure a political logjam for the country.
Don’t see the word “democracy” any where in the constitution. Will agree that no one in the government understands what was meant by “constitutional Republic”, and that has been the case for a real long time now. Politicians began nibbling at the edges almost from the git go, and the Lincoln disemboweled the whole thing. Would we be better off as a people had the founders ideas been followed??? Who knows–we live with what we let happen.
‘Politicians began nibbling at the edges almost from the git go, and the Lincoln disemboweled the whole thing.’
Damn straight. I’m always amazed that ‘conservatives’, many of whom hold Lincoln, as well as Hamilton, in almost religious regard, always seem shocked when the Federal government routinely discovers new powers to override our rights.
I never claimed that “democracy” is mentioned in the Constitution. However, it does explicitly, and in detail, describe how elections are to take place and what offices will be elected by a democratic voting process.
My point is that different ways have been tried throughout history to resolve differences of political opinion. Churchill observed that democracy is a terrible form of government but that it was the best we have found yet. One of the approaches that has been tried in the past is revolution or even assassination.
It is my sense that the point of democratically electing executives and their platforms is an attempt to prevent bloodshed by implicitly agreeing that the country follows the platform of the president who wins the election. However, if malcontents act as obstructionists, and prevent the elected president from implementing his programs, then the electorate doesn’t get a chance to see how things might have worked out. If they “hunker down” and just wait for their turn then neither party gets an opportunity to demonstrate what they can do. Improvements in government are difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish.
The way it should work is that members of the losing party should commit to acknowledging that they don’t think it is the right way but they will support the duly elected party and help to make it be successful because that means the country will be successful. If it turns out that things are worse then they can point that out during the next election cycle four years later. Sour grapes make for a poor ‘whine.’
Climate science is made up entirely of sycophants. They do nothing other than support a religious meme promoted by globalist governments, led by the UN. People who despise the messy world of democracy and free markets..
Labor won the Federal election in Australia yesterday. Tomorrow I will get a few emails from businesses pedalling home batteries because the federal government has promised other people’s money to those willing to instal home batteries.
Government and their sycophants now outnumber the productive component of the Australian economy. The country has increasing reliance on China providing manufactured goods, for which Australia trades iron ore, bauxite, coal and a myriad other minerals that the productive portion of the economy extract from the ground.
Trump is progressively removing the Federal largesse that has supported the Climate Scientists. That action has global impact because USS has been the main promoter of the religious fervour around CO2 induced climate change.
I thought it was actually European countries that were the ideological supporters of the religion of Gaia, with some supporters among the political leftists in the USA. Why else would Spain and Portugal have experienced the massive electrical outage Friday?
It used to be that big generators turned at a speed that generated say 50Hz AC (or 60 in NA) To bring another generator on-line, care had to be taken that the speed and phases matched to prevent currents higher than a direct short. Today the grid add-ons typically result in DC generation that semiconductor switching chops into waveforms and constructs an AC waveform that matches the grid waveform. It is actually fairly easy for a technician with a laptop to change the trigger points on the ICGT switching, plus fairly easy on the shutdown of a “big” waveform generator to result in other ICGT controllers on the same grid to NOT realize they are sensing their next door buddy instead of the main grid waveform.
Nobody in Spain wants to admit that they typed some number with a + instead of a – and “enter” on their laptop. Serious lawsuits would result. Much better to blame on renewables in general…..
Rick,
Yes, there is no doubt that Australia’s net zero by 2050 policy has caused savage increases in electricity costs. Labor favours this policy, initially agreed by the Opposition when in power, by Josh Frydenberg quoting international banking pressure to agree.
Labor has not been indicated that it will continue with net zero, even though green votes dropped a lot. It will be interesting to watch Labor struggle to continue when President Trump has cut the heart out of international support, cancelled some US wind and solar, ceased a lot of past money supply. The unit price of windmills could well jump higher. Geoff S
It would be nice if the money were drying up. Do you really think that that happy outcome is assured, or even likely?
Executive action is a non-solution. Shudder at the thought of a Gavin Newsom – AOC ticket defeating the Republican ticket in 2028 and applying precedents of rule by decree set by the Trump administration.
I’ve been saying this since November. Republican majorities are far too small for Trump to succeed legislatively. Without legislation, DOGE can only nibble around the edges, and then in 2029 we could be back to the policies that the puppeteers ran through Dementia Joe.
Either we see some very bold moves very soon, or there will be no America Great Again. Trump 47 will have been just a false hope or a dead cat bounce for America.
If there is truly going to be an American renaissance, it must come from a series of historically improbable events.
First, in the next few months, Trump must get his ‘big beautiful bill’ through Congress, despite the razor-thin margins. It needs to make changes through the reconciliation process that can have time to show positive results by next autumn, and among other things forestall our impending bankruptcy.
Then 2026 must buck the norm that the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms. If the Democrats take back the House 18 months from now, it will be Impeachment Circus #3 and the effective end of MAGA.
The only way to get truly transformative change into law is to nuke the filibuster. So long as the filibuster rule exists, to pass legislation that cannot be passed through budget reconciliation, 60 senators must vote to end debate (cloture).
Yes, Republicans could theoretically win a net six Senate seats and be able to move legislation without nuking the filibuster or getting any Democrat votes. But how likely is that, and is waiting until January 2027 to act going to be early enough?
Lord knows, the next time Democrats control the White House, Senate, and House, lacking a Senate supermajority, there’s little doubt that they would go for nuking the filibuster. So, gradually I have come around to the idea that the ‘nuclear option’ is going to happen one way or another. It might as well be used as soon as possible, to achieve MAGA aims.
So the third improbable step is either a near-miraculous net-6 gain in the Senate, or holding on to a majority willing to eliminate the Senate filibuster. Then a series of sweeping legislative changes to finally drain the Swamp.
Then the fourth improbable step is that having made these changes, there are only positive impacts or at least sufficient net positive impacts that help JD Vance or whoever gets the Republican nomination in 2028 win and retain the White House, and retain or improve Senate and House majorities.
Then the fifth improbable step is never again letting Democrats control all the levers of power where they can reverse our every success.
In conclusion, we need to end the filibuster now because it can only be used against us and will be a false hope if we rely on it to protect against Democrat excesses in a future Congress where they have small majorities.
We need to take bold action now on measures that materially benefit the middle class and the working class who actually work (not the euphemistically named working class who are actually the occasionally working clients of government). Only by growing the economy can MAGA roll over into 2029 (or 2027 for that matter).
We also need to pass laws not possible under reconciliation to facilitate mass deportation. America cannot survive with 20 million unassimilated law-breakers costing us trillions. If there are not clearly constitutional laws on the books clarifying an expedited deportation process, Democrats will successfully use lawfare to run out the clock.
Interesting times, isn’t it?
That is the major flaw in trying to legislate by Executive Order rather than by Congress. EOs have been used excessively and unconstitutionally for decades. Rarely, when they have been intolerable, they have been repealed. We are, however, on the cusp of see-sawing back and forth in turmoil as one president attempts to undo what his predecessor did with over-reach.
Yes, exactly!
I don’t know how it can be addressed other than for the Supreme Court to find justification in the constitution to limit what the president can do by executive order. For Congress to pass legislation, it would require the president’s support or a 2/3 majority to override a veto, or a constitutional amendment that would also require a 2/3 majority and ratification by 3/4 of the states.
Whipsawing policies every 4-8 years seem extremely likely going forward.
At the core of the political problem is a highly polarized electorate of nearly equal percentages. It is largely urban versus rural, with the urban element continuously pushing the boundaries of new and untried behaviors and mores that suggest liberals think that they are smarter than our ancestors. Presidents have been acting beyond their explicit powers for a long time and neither Congress or SCOTUS have done much to rein them in. The media has been effective in changing people’s opinions through propaganda. Perhaps some restraints on the news and entertainment media will be necessary before it does come to bloodshed.
“At the core of the political problem is a highly polarized electorate of nearly equal percentages.”
This is true. Almost half of the American electorate has been brainwashed sufficiently to think it is a good idea to vote for a Democrat. Even a doofus like Kamala Harris!
Nothing good comes from voting for a Democrat.
The majority of voters figured this out in 2024, and voted Republican. We got lucky. Or maybe my prayers were answered.
Don’t disagree in spirit, but you say
Rule by decree defined the Obama and Biden administrations, did it not?
The Game Changer is Donald Trump. He turns unlikely things into reality.
I agree with your post. I think Trump’s policies are going to result in a big economic boost for the United States and I think this will make all the difference in the world as to who gets elected in 2026 and 2028.
If the U.S. economy is booming in 2026, and I think it will be doing so, this enhances the election of Republicans.
I am very optimistic about the future of the United States under Trump. And I think Republicans have a very good group of Trump successors. If Trump’s plans work out, I see good things in the Republican future, which means good things for the United States and the World.
The fly in the ointment is the Democrats are doing everything they can, legal and illegal, to try to thwart Trump’s every move. But I think their lawfare is about to run its course. Can you believe that the Democrats have filed 225 lawsuits against Trump! And now Democrat leaders are promoting violence against the Trump agenda.
I do think the Supreme Court will straighten out Judicial Overreach of the lower-court judges. I also think the Republican Congress is going to rein in the activist lower-court judges with legislation. The House of Representatives has already passed a bill to limit the jurisdiction of these lower-court judges and has sent it to the U.S. Senate.
The Truth is we are fighting for the survival of our Republic. The Criminal Democrats want to steal our country out from under us, and they are ruthlessly doing everything they can to tear down Trump and the United States. The Criminal Democrats are Traitors to their Country.
That’s what we are up against.
“Richard Sillitoe”
That’s a rather unfortunate name.
Duck Assist says:
The name Sillitoe is of British origin, derived from a locational name in Nottinghamshire, England, meaning “miry ridge or hill.” It has roots in Old English, with the earliest recorded spelling found in the Domesday Book of 1086 as “Selitone.”
And:
The name “Alberts” is derived from the Germanic name “Adalbert,” which means “noble and bright,” composed of the elements “adal” (noble) and “beraht” (bright). It has historical roots in medieval German royalty and was introduced to England by the Normans.
In my case, my grandfather was Norwegian (he was 6’5″ and 300lbs, built US subs in Manitowoc, WI during WWII. And yes, they called him “Tiny”). I’ve heard that it was Albertson at one point, and Ericson before that. Don’t know if it’s true.
Although. When I was stationed in Germany in the early 80s, I found two towns with my name. Albertshausen and Albertshof.
Ron,
The Sillitoe analysis and others of its type are silly and wrong because they are ignorant of what happens with a new mine discovery.
In particular, to underscore my accusations, there is the factor of “persistence” relating to the Cascades of decisions about whether to stop or to continue spending money. Few new mines start with a drill hole good enough to claim it will certainly become a mine. Our Juno mine at Tennant Creek was an exception with our first hole showing 12.1 metres at 167 grams per tonne of gold (5.4 ounces/ton). At the other extreme, using money from the old Mount Morgan gold mine, Willian Knox d’Arcy went to the middle east in 1901 looking for oil. He drilled several hundred dry holes before 26 May 1808 his employee Reynolds struck a gusher, unearthing the world’s largest oil field and his director seat on the new British Petroleum.
Persistence is a mining concept that is nearly impossible to quantify by armchair analysts who these days often start with “dirty miners” in mind.
But Ron, you know this.
Geoff S
Miliband was said to be fuming at Blair for a rather unhelpful intervention
Ed Miliband blasted over Dame Mary Archer sacking
The Energy Secretary has been accused of ‘suppressing’ opposition to his green policies
…
While she attended board meetings chaired by Mr Miliband, Dame Mary is understood to widely share Sir Tony’s assessment of government policy – who earlier this week said it was “doomed to fail”.
…
Dame Mary spent more than 15 years as a lecturer at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and founded both the National Energy Foundation and the UK Section of the International Solar Energy Society.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2050420/ed-miliband-blasted-dame-mary
A clear cut case of heresy.
A question. Here in the UK, we are burning lots and lots of lovely Canadian trees to make electricity. The power station involved says they are just old bits of wood they found lying about but some people think that some of it is actual, real virgin trees. The output of CO2 from this process is vast but is set to zero because, you know, new trees will grow. I am traveling to Canada next week on holiday and wish to know the answer to the following question, in case I am asked.
Assuming that these are real trees that are being cut down: a tree absorbs a certain amount of CO2 in its steady state. You cut it down and absorption goes to zero. A new small tree is planted and CO2 absorption then grows so that, after 50 to 100 years, it is back to absorbing the same amount of CO2 as it did originally. So there is a dip in the CO2 absorption for that time. Is the total amount of this absorption dip more or less than the amount of CO2 that would be released by a lump of coal that would provide the same heat as burning that tree?
Apologies if this is an obvious question that has been dealt with many times – feel free to answer “you idiot, do you know nothing? Read this link ………. and cease to post on a website graced by the presence of Anthony Watts, Willis Eschenbach, Charles Rotter and other luminaries.” Shan’t take offense.
My understanding from what I have read, is that young trees absorb more CO2 than mature trees, so replacing one old one with many young ones is optimal. Also, I think the SE US is where UK gets most of its scrap wood pellets. Commercial tree farms. Lumber and paper feedstock are the primary outputs and there is lots of scrap for pellets.
Thanks for the response. Presumably a very small tree cannot absorb as much as a full grown one. There must be an absorption curve that starts at zero, grows as the tree grows, perhaps gets to a peak higher than the original tree (if what you say is right), then falls to the steady-ish state of the mature tree. Does anyone have the data on this?
Perhaps by unit weight, but certainly not individually. I would expect the individual sequestration to increase rapidly in youth, and then plateau for a few years before dying and releasing the CO2.
That’s a good question that is subject to debate. I’d throw out a couple of points for consideration.
A lot of wood pellets going to Drax previously would have ended up in paper, whose production and consumption is in decline, especially for print media. Coal burning in Asia on the other hand continues to grow, the rates and amounts of which dwarf the burning of wood pellets, making the answer to your question insignificant.
That doesn’t answer your question directly, but I would surmise that the Drax endeavor in any case is worse than pointless, as its impact locally is all pain and no gain, while its impact globally doesn’t matter.
Go to Paul Homewood’s site – use the search box (upper right) and look for “Drax”
Or, click this:
drax | Search Results | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
For context and something to read over your morning coffee. Search with this string:
Wood pellet maker Drax denied pollution permit after Gloster Mississippi outcry
Go to the Drax website and learn about the nine step process for making wood pellets.
Scrap wood from the Southeast US is used for making the pellets.
The wood pellets have a large carbon foot print. Heavy machinery with big Diesel engines are used to get the scrap wood to the pellet mill. Some of pellets burned to provide process steam and heat for pellet manufacture. The pellets are then shipped to the UK in cargo ships with really big marine Diesel engines. At the UK port, the pellets are off loaded into trucks with big Diesel engines, which take pellets to the power plant. Without government subsidies, it would not be possible for Drax to operate this wood pellet sheme.
Thus, at no point in the process does anyone involved actually bother to give a flying fig about the great and terrible ManBearPig. Sounds about right. It’s just another made-up hipster quasi-industry.
Why not just burn the REALLY old trees that are already dead instead?
If I remember correctly, DRAX used to be fed by (relatively) nearby coal mines.
I no longer have access to the library at UW as I did before retirement, but the following article looks interesting with regard to this topic. Auther says trees accelerate by mass continuously from sprouting to very old age.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112720312779
https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-reform-diversity-jenkyns-b2744343.html
Downing Street fury at Farage plot to tie up Starmer government in legal challenges
David Maddox
Political Editor
Sunday 04 May 2025
Downing Street has reacted with fury to revelations that Nigel Farage plans to use Reform’s control of councils across England to launch a series of legal challenges to tie Sir Keir Starmer’s government in knots.
The announcement by Reform’s new mayor for Greater Lincolnshire Dame Andrea Jenkyns came as she spoke to The Independent in her first major interview since her victory was declared on Friday morning.
She said that high on the agenda were plans to take the Labour government to court in a bid to block net zero projects like solar and wind farms, as well as attempts by the Home Office to house asylum seekers in Lincolnshire.
end excerpt
Things are getting interesting in the UK. 🙂
So, if Nigel manages to block Net Zero, does that mean the Starmer government screeches to a halt? Don’t they have other things to do besides building windmills and solar?
Keir Starmer always has the option of charging Nigel Farage and his followers with hate crimes and then locking him and them up on that justification. What we have seen of Keir Starmer so far indicates he wouldn’t be averse to doing something like that.
I suppose that is possible. Starmer will follow the German model.
I think doing something like that would cause a BIG blowup between the United States and Starmer and the authoritarian Labour Pary.
The productive agricultural land of Lincolnshire is being overtaken by a new crop which unfortunately is not that nutritious – solar farms.
Several large projects were approved last year and already this year a further 7 have been proposed
Beacon Fen Energy -1300 acres
Fosse Green – 2400 acres
Heckington Fen -1600 acres
Leoda Solar Farm -2400 acres
One Earth Solar Farm – not specified
Springwell Solar Farm -4200 acres
Tillbridge Solar -3000 acres
Letter from 38 Republicans calls for full repeal of “green new scam”
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/05/02/letter-from-38-republicans-calls-for-full-repeal-of-green-new-scam/
House Republicans are clashing over the fate of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, which have led to over $130 billion in private investment announcements.
May 2, 2025 Ryan Kennedy
“A letter signed by 38 Republican House of Representatives members voiced “the urgent need to fully repeal the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Passed in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contains supply and demand-side tax credits for clean energy projects and manufacturing. Since its passage, over $130 billion in private investment has been announced, according to E2, which tracks clean energy manufacturing and project investment related to the IRA.
The letter refers to the IRA as the “green new scam.” It said the law burdens taxpayers, inflates energy costs and threatens the reliability of the U.S. power grid.”
end excerpt
The 2022 IRA also contains wording which identifies CO2 as a pollutant and which authorizes and funds the EPA to regulate America’s carbon emissions. It is this wording which climate activists will be using to challenge the Trump administration’s recent decision to end carbon regulation. The IRA must be repealed in its entirety, not just the tax credits.
Some fascinating stuff
In theory the lapse rate should decrease by over 2% for every K warming of Ts. You can get this from an emagram, but also from Santer et al 2005 Fig.3. Evidently as much as the tropospheric lapse rate shrinks, the delta between surface and emission temperature will also shrink. For instance if Ts = 288K and Te = 255K, with 2% shrink in the lapse rate you will get Ts = 289K and Te = 256.66K. Just to check: 1 – (289-256.66) / 33K = 2%
If the Te increases by that much, you get a massive negative feedback. First we need to calculate dOLR: (256.66^4 – 255^4)*5.67e-8 = 6.3W/m2. And then if we subtract a Planck Feedback of 3.3W/m2 from it, we are left with a negative LRF of -3W/m2 (=6.3-3.3). For instance..
An LRF of -3W/m2 is a negative feedback way larger than all thinkable positive feedbacks combined (WV-, cloud-, albedo-), so that overall feedbacks equally turn negative. That brought up the intriguing question how climate models could have overall positive feedbacks instead.
My first guess was they would simply have a different, much smaller reduction in the lapse rate. An LRF of only -0.5W/m2, as is the current central estimate, is consistent with a mere 0.3% lapse rate drop per Kelvin Ts. But checking the literature, as with Santer2005 f.i., revrealed that they actually do follow the theory with an according large rotation of the lapse rate. But then, why would they not have an according massive negative LRF?
Then I stumbled over this line in AR6:
(AR6 p.978)
Ok, so that is what is going on. Physically the lapse rate has to determine LRF and if you let it happen, you will get a massive negative LRF and negative FBs to the whole “climate system”, with climate sensitivity tanking below 1K. They just would not let this happen. Instead they link LRF to WVF and hard code that the sum of them needs to be a positive FB of about +1W/m2. This is violating physics.
And it is not just that. That “well-known co-dependency” is a blunder on its own right, for different reasons, already outlined here:
https://greenhousedefect.com/the-holy-grail-of-ecs/the-incredibly-stupid-case-of-water-vapor-feedback
Story tip: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/how-climate-change-threatens-eye-health
Warning! Stop burning fossil fuels or you’ll go blind!
Typical alarmist fare: Many/most of the catastrophes described in the article will come in the latter half of this century. According to models. Using silly emission scenarios.
Sure, India is getting a bit warmer, like many other regions. But crop production is doing just fine, in fact getting better and better (except one growing season of particularly bad weather).
Anther exposition of false research:
A review of Charles Piller’s Doctored – by Tom Chivers
“The statistical methods used in science turned out to be churning out a lot of false positives: …”
One disturbing feature on here is the use in some posts of figures claiming to be from published sources which in fact are in fact falsely altered with no indication. It would be good if the moderators would indicate this and require the original data to be shown or refer to the alternate source and the reasons for the changes.
One recent example is this graph:
?w=977&ssl=1
It claims to be a plot of the data from S.A. Marcott et al, 2013, of the temperature during the Holocene Climate Optimum and show that it was “significantly warmer than the present day”, in fact that is not correct!
This is the data from the Marcott paper:
As you can see the original data shows a range during the HCO from -0.4 to 0.4ºC whereas the graph shown on the post is from -0.4 to 1.0ºC, a substantial increase with no source or explanation!
Misrepresentations like this should be corrected and the actual source shown!