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A place for discussion.
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Do it.
Make what you will of any response.
Power demands are going to be disruptive. But that’s self-limiting.
AI (whatever you think the term means) is going to bring about an economic catastrophe, but not for the reasons most people seem to think. Misallocation of capital and borrowing power, and premature work-force shedding will be brutal. The problem isn’t AI’s “intelligence” or its energy demands. The problem is the stupid decisions that will be made in the over-confident expectation AI is the answer. (Kind like the damage from over-confident expectation in Net Zero.)
Maybe once the euphoria blows off in a decade or two we will be left with a glowing remnant that will do useful things, but it won’t solve our problems for us. We’ll get general AI about the time we get economically viable fusion power—long after we’re all dead.
Hopefully AI will point out that this claim is false. Existing data centers process the Internet not AI. In the U.S. the AI growth is a modest 6,000 MW a year compared to peak national demand around 750,000 MW. The supposed enormous demand is just AI hype.
https://www.cfact.org/2026/04/17/the-data-center-energy-threat-is-way-overblown/
May 31, 2026 2:20 am
We’ve had some fantastic weather this week after the long cold slog of March, April and up to mid May.
Incredibly, there are those who have sworn an oath of misery…
the worst May heatwave on record – Fiona Harvey
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/28/tony-blair-fossil-fuel-advice-bizarre-energy-climate-crises-experts-say
A lovely day? Bah humbug.
Prone to spikes…
Serious Doubts Arise About Kew Temperature ‘Records’ as Recent UK Heatwave is Weaponised to Drive Net Zero
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/05/31/serious-doubts-arise-about-kew-temperature-records-as-recent-uk-heatwave-is-weaponised-to-drive-net-zero/
#MetOfficeCensors
You might not like the hype and climate change assertions, who does on this site, but making up a false narrative, counter to actual fact, is silly.
In England, March and April were both exceptionally warm. The first 3 weeks of May were slightly chilly until the heatwave made the month warm on average.
It was another top 10, probably top 5 warmest springs on record for England, the majority of the top 10 are now post 2000.
It was an exceptional heatwave (in the affected areas, not the whole UK obviously) by even summer standards.
Kew and Heathrow readings may over-egg the peak heat, but the heat was real with stations all over the shop easily exceeding 30C and breaking dozens of records.
It was not even confined to England, with 4 or 5 European nations breaking all time May records and 100s of station records falling.
There was a heat dome over Western Europe including the U.K. the temperature rise was nothing to do with any anthropogenic events but adiabatic heating due to down flow of air. For an explanation see https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/2025-06-20-death-ridge-heat-dome-explainer
This has been the coldest spring that I can remember in Glasgow. I have kept records of the amount of gas that I have used and this spring is the highest amount in the last 20 years which is how long that I have been keeping records. All of my plants in my garden are at least one month behind the norm. I planted grass seed in my front lawn and it was May before it germinated. If the Met Office says otherwise, they are lying their heads off.
May 31, 2026 2:26 am
For some time now I have been posting about “dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation” as computed by the ERA5 reanalysis model in the hourly parameter “vertical integral of energy conversion.” It is understood conceptually in classical meteorology.
What is it that drives the atmosphere to maintain its circulation against the dissipation of kinetic energy to heat (internal energy) and the radiative loss to space? Mainly, it is “horizontal heating gradients.” And also the convective response to “the vertical gradient of diabatic heating.”
“1 An overview of the kinetic energy cycle in the atmosphere
Atmospheric fluid motions may be divided into two broad classes, both of which owe their existence to the uneven distribution of diabatic heating in the atmosphere:
1. Motions driven either directly or indirectly by horizontal heating gradients in a stably stratified atmosphere account for more than 98% of the atmospheric kinetic energy. Nearly all this kinetic energy is associated with the synoptic- and planetary-scale horizontal wind field, which has a globally averaged root mean square velocity of about 12-15 m s-1.
2. Motions driven by convective instability account for the remainder of the atmospheric kinetic energy. Convection is continually breaking out within discrete regions of the atmosphere as a consequence of the vertical gradient of diabatic heating.”
Source: University of Washington graduate level course “The General Circulation of the Atmosphere” as of 2010.
First page here. https://a.atmos.uw.edu/academics/classes/2010Q2/545/545_Ch_1.pdf
So here is the main point for consideration today: Incremental trace IR-active gases CO2, CH4, N2O should slightly improve the IR coupling of the lower atmosphere to the land and ocean surfaces. This makes the atmosphere a bit more responsive to the horizontal heating gradients. Those gradients across latitudes and longitudes during the daily pulses of sunshine can be visualized from space in Band 16 as the surface warms and cools under clear or partly cloudy skies. Logically, it should also promote the vertical heating gradient that drives the onset of convection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yarzo13_TSE
MUST the same incremental IR absorbing power “force” the land and ocean surfaces to come to a perceptibly higher temperature to maintain the overall radiative loss to space? No. Not if it works to promote the kinetic energy cycle of the general circulation, in which dynamic energy conversion massively overwhelms the minor static effect to begin with, as it operates throughout the depth of the troposphere.
Explained and demonstrated more completely here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
David,
If you accept the official story that planet earth has warmed about a degree C in the last century, what would you speculate to be the likely (scientific) mechanism for such a change? I accept that there is an existing system for sending heat to space, but what controls the set point or allows it to change and re-stabilize?
Geoff S
Thanks for your question, Geoff. It seems reasonable to me that the combination of multiple timed dynamic cycles suffices to explain both the longer term trends and the shorter term variations – those cycles originating mainly from orbital and ocean circulation dynamics.
About the constraints on the physical response of the climate system, mainly they would be the melting temperature of ice, the fixed vapor pressure vs temperature characteristics of liquid water, the fixed mass of the non-condensing compressible atmosphere, and the relatively stable irradiance intercepted by the fixed area of the planet facing the sun. The combination imposes a highly self-regulating characteristic on the system, as I would describe it.
May 31, 2026 2:36 am
The following is something I posted a few years ago on WUWT, updated to reflect current figures.
I invite MyUserName, TheFinalNail, and all the other worriers about the “climate crises” to give me their thoughts on the “climate crises” V the lack of clean water.
This year, hundreds of thousands of children will die from preventable diarrhoeal diseases linked to lack of clean water and poor sanitation – far more than any direct deaths attributed to climate change.
According to the World Health Organization, diarrhoeal disease still kills around 444,000 children under 5 every year. Unsafe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are major contributing factors.
Climate change doesn’t kill 444,000 children annually.
Yet we take clean water for granted in developed countries. Turn on the tap and instantly there is a flow of clean, parasite-free, we take water for granted.
We are so used to our abundant water, many people turn on the tap to brush our teeth and leave the tap running. We water our gardens, wash our cars, brew beer, and play in our swimming pools without acknowledging this easy access to fresh water is a luxury.
In some parts of the world, safe water is not so easy to access.
The figures make for stark reading.
According to the World Health Organisation:
- In 2017 1 in 4 of the global population lack easy access to safe, uncontaminated drinking water. Of these 2.1 billion people, 1,000,000, including 444,000 children under 5, died from diarrhoea alone.
- 785 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service, including 144 million people who are dependent on surface water.
- Globally, at least 2.1 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces.
- In the least developed countries, 22% of health care facilities have no water service, 21% no sanitation service, and 22% no waste management service.
- Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to the transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio. Absent, inadequate, or inappropriately managed water and sanitation services expose individuals to preventable health risks.
Diarrhea is mostly preventable and yet we waste billions of dollars every year “fighting” climate change, arguably a fight that has only claimed energy-poor victims. Not a single person has on their death certificate “Cause of Death: Climate Change”.
The demand for more money to fight climate change has risen inexorably to the extent we are projected to spend trillions of dollars on a non-issue, whilst the annual cost of a genuine, fixable issue providing clean, safe water is estimated at $131 billion.
I accept recorded temperatures are rising. I don’t accept the mild warming we are experiencing in some parts of the world will be anything but benign.
Our species was born in Africa, only migrating out of Africa around 60,000 years ago when the climate became dryer and colder. We seek warmth, which is unsurprising since we are essentially hairless apes.
My issue with recorded global temperatures being lumped together on an annual basis and presented as a catastrophic road to hell is, I don’t think there is a global average temperature. I’m not even sure if there is a local average temperature. There are local average daytime temperatures and average nighttime temperatures for days, weeks, and possibly months of the year. The concept of a single global average temperature for a whole year seems far-fetched to me.
A global average temperature is a complete red-herring.
Helping the clean water impoverished millions is a relatively cheap and easy task compared with “fighting” climate change, a fight only nature will win.
So why aren’t we doing it?
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences went to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for research into why rich countries are rich and poor countries are poor.
The reason why poor countries are poor is because of the governments that govern the poor countries.
Aid to poor countries does not help when the governments of poor countries are the cause of the poverty.
If you want to help poor countries, you must inform them about the cause of poverty and how these causes can be addressed.
They have helped us understand differences in prosperity between nations.
This year’s laureates in the economic sciences – Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson – have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity. Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better. The laureates’ research helps us understand why.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/press-release/
May 31, 2026 2:39 am
We are having a “Stop the Wind Wall” rally in Wyoming this Thursday. Here is some press on it:
“Wyoming deserves the full picture on energy projects”
https://wyomingnews-wy.newsmemory.com/?publink=0eb2f240f_13520d6
“On Thursday, June 4, at noon, Wyoming residents from across the state will gather on the front steps of the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne for the Wyoming Wind Wall Rally. This event is not about opposing any single project. It is about asking whether Wyoming is honestly confronting the cumulative impacts of the unprecedented industrial expansion now occurring across southeastern Wyoming.”
This unprecedented industrial expansion is going on all over the nation.
Here in Oklahoma, there are three new Data centers in the works near my house, with more proposed, and there is a new aluminum plant going up in Tulsa.
All of these new industries are coming in for criticism from locals from a combination of misinformation about AI, and from Democrats who want to turn AI into the next boogey man, along with their efforts to blame AI for higher energy costs when the real problem is adding windmills and solar to the grid.
May 31, 2026 4:17 am
Trumps influence on renewables and the world
Liebreich: The Great Clean Energy Acceleration 2.0
https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/liebreich-the-great-clean-energy-acceleration-2-0/
Why the World Is Boycotting ‘Made in America’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k18q_8zEWlA
Maybe it is intended and trump is secretly an US hating environmentalist.
