Nobel Prize has committed suicide

Says physicist Lubos Motl

So far, the hard scientific prizes, and especially the Nobel Prize in Physics, were largely shielded from toxic worthless garbage. This is over because the other one-half of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was given to Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann

"for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming".

Wow, just wow. You may click at the names to confirm the expectation that these men did some influential early work on climate modeling. And I think that these men aren't even the most radical activists who would love to exaggerate the projections more than others.

But don't make a mistake about it. The climate modeling hasn't led to any new yet reliable insights. In those 50 years, while the short-term weather models have made some progress, the long-term models have made virtually none and it is especially the case of the question about the magnitude of the influence of CO2 on the climate. All the relevant quantities (like the climate sensitivity) remained about as uncertain as when these modelling efforts were launched and the claim about the "reliable prediction of global warming" is a pure lie.

So there is no reason for a Nobel Prize, especially not one that would go to somewhat random "physicists of the climate".

But even if the two men deserved such an award, which they don't, it is absolutely unforgivable how the prize was justified. It was justified by buzzwords (I especially mean the nonsensical superstitious phrase "global warming") that are almost identical like those in the justification of the Nobel Prize in Peace for pure scammers such as Al Gore.

In this way, the Nobel Prize has committed suicide and I don't want to hear about it again. The political motivation of this prize is 100% obvious. These people have been picked to steal a part of the credit accumulated by physics, the hardest discipline of sciences, and give it to one of the worst pseudoscientific superstitions of the contemporary era.

I reserve the right to ban any commenter who mentions the Nobel Prize in a positive sense.

It is no coincidence that my 2011 blog post which included the quote (about the order and chaos) from Feynman's book was discussing an insane UN climate conference that looked maximally similar to the conference that drove Feynman up the wall. This link between "complexity" and "global warming" – which was made very explicit in the Nobel Prize today – has never been a coincidence.

As I mentioned in numerous blog posts including very recent ones, the worshiping of complexity and muddy thinking has been one one of the key pillars underlying the climate religion. The deceitful statements about the climate change are driven by people with a muddy thinking and the shortage of integrity who love to hide in the chaos. They know that whenever things are done properly or there are real scientific expectations, they lose any influence because they suck as thinkers, especially as honest or accurate thinkers.

https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/10/global-warming-nobel-prize-in-physics.html

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Nevada Lithium Mine, Key To “Green” Energy, Opposed By Greens

In a drama involving two conflicting goals of the environmental movement and the Biden administration – “saving” the planet from climate change and “saving” an endangered species — a proposed lithium mine on federal land in western Nevada may be brought low by – of all things — buckwheat.

Two international companies – Australia’s ioneer Ltd. and South Africa’s Sibanye-Stillwater – want to exploit a site on Rhyolite Ridge in Esmeralda County, Nevada, which they say holds the largest deposits of lithium and boron in North America.

The mine would be “the most advanced lithium project in the U.S., and will become a major domestic supplier of refined lithium products, with enough supply of lithium materials for 400,000 electric vehicles a year for another quarter of a century,” ioneer executive chairman James Calaway said in a press call (Washington Times, Sept. 21).

Electric vehicles (EVs) are one of the pillars of the push by the Biden administration and governments of other industrialized nations to decarbonize their sources and use of energy in the name of combatting climate change. About 230,000 EVs were sold in the U.S. in 2020, accounting for two percent of new vehicle sales. As demand for EVs powered by lithium-ion batteries grows, so, too, will the global appetite for lithium.

Currently, the U.S. has only one active lithium mine, Silver Peak, located in Nevada, even though the country is thought to have 10 percent of the world’s estimated 80 million tons lithium reserves.

The proposed mine on Rhyolite Ridge looks like a bonanza. But standing in its way is the Tiehm’s buckwheat, a flowering plant whose entire habitat is a 10-acre stretch of land located right where the new lithium mine would be operating.

Responding to a 2019 petition submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) on June 3 proposed protecting the Tiehm’s buckwheat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The FWS will undertake a 12-month review to determine whether the buckwheat will be listed as threatened or endangered.

Regardless of which designation the FWS decides on, the mining project is facing headwinds. In addition to seeking an ESA listing, CBD is also suing to stop the mine, a process that could tie up the project for years. Furthermore, many Tiehm’s buckwheat plants were recently destroyed by rodents, further imperiling the species’ chances of survival.

Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director for the CBD left little doubt about his group’s position on the matter. “There’s only one way forward, and that’s to protect Tiehm’s buckwheat and stop this destructive mine from driving a species to extinction,” he said in a statement.

Even more ominous for the developers is a finding by the FWS that “dust deposition, generated from increased vehicle traffic associated with mine operations, may also negatively affect the overall health and physiological processes of the subpopulations remaining after full implementation of the project.”

Shaky Lithium Supply Chain

Approval of the Nevada mine project would enable the Biden White House to say the U.S. is fully participating in the global lithium supply chain, a major step on the way to replacing gasoline-powered vehicles with EVs. But the mine’s dubious prospects are only one of the problems undermining a smooth transition to an all-electric future.

Lithium, the linchpin in the transition to green energy, is in short supply. And as automakers, utilities, and the public they serve become increasingly dependent on this soft, silvery-white alkali metal, the shortage will become even more acute, and the metal’s price will rise accordingly.

As the Macquarie Group, an Australian financial services company, recently noted: “In the longer term, we believe the lithium market is likely to be in a perpetual deficit. As a result, lithium prices are expected to continue to rise, moving to an incentive price by 2024.”

A July 2021 article in Forbes highlighted a Credit Suisse prediction that that lithium demand could triple well before 2025, with higher prices required to “provoke the required supply response.”

And where will all this lithium come from? “Most of the world’s dominant lithium suppliers are aligned with hostile powers – such as China/Mongolia, Congo, Bolivia … and, now, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where China is expected to win an estimated $1 trillion in lithium mining contracts,” notes Lee Bellinger in the September issue of Off-Grid Confidential.

Bellinger points to a recent, little-noticed 287-page International Energy Agency (IEA) report on what the shift from fossil fuels to metal-dependent renewable energy will entail. “Lithium, graphite, nickel, and rare earths face a huge demand curve rise of 4,200 percent for lithium, 2,500 percent for graphite, 1,900 percent for nickel, and 700 percent for are earths,” he points out. IEA found that all-electric cars require six-times the minerals of a conventional gasoline-powered vehicle.

All these materials will have to be mined in support of intermittent wind and solar power, which will put huge strains on an already rickety electric grid that will not be able to supply reliable and affordable power, no matter how much Wall Street investors pour into green energy.

Biden and his handlers, the same wizards who masterminded the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, are trading American energy independence from the Middle East for energy dependence on China, our chief geopolitical rival. And the energy we get in this bargain, assuming we get any, will never suffice to power a highly developed nation of over 330 million inhabitants.

https://principia-scientific.com/nevada-lithium-mine-key-to-green-energy-opposed-by-greens/

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Greenies waking up to the limits of "sustainability"

Sustainable development is a priority for anyone genuinely concerned about the environment. Unless we as a society rethink our use of global resources, life, as we know it, will one day cease to exist.

The United Nations has made this an international imperative, setting out a series of 17 broad sustainability goals which it hopes can be met by 2030.

The corporate world has also come on board, with an ever-growing number of companies developing their own green reporting standards and committing to a sustainable future. Meeting those objectives is now a trillion-dollar industry.

The UN set out the Sustainable Development Goals "to achieve a better and more sustainable future."(Getty Images: SOPA)
The problem is, there's no consensus about what "sustainable development" actually means and how it should be measured.

Some researchers believe it's little more than corporate "greenwashing."

While others see it as a misplaced ideal that could exacerbate — rather than avert — social and environmental destruction.

Is sustainability even possible?

Academic Christopher Barnatt, from the website ExplainingTheFuture.com, describes sustainability as a "dangerous" concept.

"It gives the impression that we could all go on living exactly as we live today but sustainably — with this sort of magic thing wrapped around it," he tells ABC RN's Future Tense.

Sustainable development may be "politically convenient", he argues, but it has no real meaning in a world driven by exponential consumption and powered by unlimited extraction.

"As a physical concept, [sustainability] is impossible. Life itself is a physically consumptive process.

"The only way we can actually preserve things for the future and look after the environment is to change how we live, to use fewer resources, to value things in another way."

Climatologist Chirag Dhara agrees. While a focus on reducing fossil fuel use is laudable, he says, we have to be careful not to ignore the greater threat posed by the exponential consumption of resources.

"Our economy is highly extractive, whether it's agriculture [or] manufacturing. What's happening is our use of the raw materials, our material footprint, is growing in lockstep with the growth of GDP, our economic growth."

And that, says Professor Dhara, an assistant professor at Krea University in India, can't continue forever.

Even renewable energy technologies eventually need to be replaced, he points out. While they might be better for the environment, they're not cost neutral. They consume resources over the course of their lifespan and through the systems constructed to distribute the energy they generate.

"All of this technology is made possible through principles of physics and chemistry and mathematics that allows them to happen, but the same principles inevitably limit them.

"That means that if we want to preserve the current paradise of limitless economic growth," he says, "it has to be completely decoupled from the use of material resources."

And under the current system of global consumer capitalism, he warns, that's never going to happen.

An instrument of division

For Melissa Checker, the term sustainable development conjures up very different thoughts – ones of displacement and social inequality.

"The way it's playing out, it's undermining its stated intention," she says. And there are contradictions in its application.

Building a perfect Green Star-rated building loses all sustainable credentials, she says, if the land it's built on is a converted wetland.

An associate professor of urban studies at City University of New York, Dr Checker believes true sustainability and environmental justice are incompatible with dominant forms of urban development.

"Sustainability became a very useful concept in an effort to market New York city to more affluent residents and to promote the redevelopment needed to attract those upscale residents."

But, time and again, says Dr Checker, the end result has been a rise in property values which, in turn, has forced residents from lower socio-economic groups out of their homes and neighbourhoods.

It's also led to growing inequality in the provision of services and opportunities, she contends. "As some neighbourhoods are being greened, other neighbourhoods are becoming more brown.

"Neighbourhoods that are not slated for gentrification or redevelopment are getting more toxic facilities, more industrial facilities and no green amenities. They are being sacrificed for the sake of redevelopment in these other places."

No consistent measurements

Dr Checker argues the concept of sustainable development has been hijacked by corporate interests. In the case of New York, she cites the powerful real estate and development sectors.

Her suspicions chime with recent research from Renard Siew, a climate change advisor with the Centre for Governance and Political Studies, headquartered in Malaysia.

Dr Siew, who also advises the World Economic Forum, says a lack of global consistency in the way sustainability standards are measured has allowed companies to game the system by picking and choosing the assessment tools that best suit their corporate interests.

"It's not surprising to see common indicators, common criteria such as carbon emissions reported differently. Which means it's very difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison."

A lack of standardisation, Dr Siew says, is also an issue with the rating systems used to assess the eco-credentials of new and refurbished buildings. But at the heart of the problem, he says, is the voluntary nature of reporting.

"It should be made mandatory, with really detailed requirements of what is expected in terms of certain criteria, to avoid situations where a company can cherry-pick indicators that they want to report on to put them in a good light."

He notes that both the European Union and the UN are now making moves toward compulsory sustainability reporting measures. But progress is slow.

Back to the future

Design expert Stuart Walker from Lancaster University advocates a return to the original concept of sustainable development.

The UN's Brundtland Commission developed the term as a way of structuring international assistance to the developing world. It provided a framework to ensure future development in countries didn't inadvertently destroy people's livelihoods and the environment.

It was a multi-faceted approach, says Dr Checker.

"They called for prioritising of ecological, economic and social sustainability.

"European cities really took it on. Also environmental justice activists really embraced the term as a way to think about the kind of calls they were issuing for racial justice and social justice along with environmental justice."

But, according to Professor Walker, the embrace of the sustainability ethos was soon corrupted and is now predominantly viewed through the lens of business and finance.

"It's very easy to create a nice, green annual report about all the environmental things a company might be doing – but what is that in proportion to the whole of their operation?" he says. "If you separate them out, you're not getting that holistic picture."

For Christopher Barnatt, the elephant in the room is modern capitalism and the theory of planned obsolescence, where objects are deliberately manufactured to be disposable in order to maximise the potential for future sales.

"Economics basically tells us to consume as much as we want and it doesn't cost-in the consequences: recognising there isn't an infinite supply of resources and that there are implications for the planet and the environment."

The answer, he says, is not only to consume less but to value more. "We don't have to go back that far to find generations of people who saved up to purchase objects which they kept, in many cases, for a lifetime. They valued the things they had."

"Consuming less doesn't necessarily mean having a less material world," says Dr Barnatt. "It just has to be a material world in which we have the things we have for a longer period of time."

A world where disposability is once again considered a waste, not a virtue.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-07/the-myth-of-sustainable-development/100504448

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Corals Appear Bleached From A Distance, Not Close-Up

Written by Jennifer Marohasy

I lent my underwater camera (Olympus TG-6) to a dear friend who recently visited Lady Elliot Island at the Great Barrier Reef. She came over last Sunday to return the camera, and to show me some of her photographs.

My favourite is of the Parrot fish just beyond the magenta-coloured corals, shared above. Over the ledge the water is deeper, and the corals have a blue haze. This is because wavelengths in the blue part of the visible light spectrum penetrate water to some few metres, while all the wavelengths in the red part of the spectrum are absorbed by 5 metres under the water.

For those who have never snorkelled or scuba-dived, and who like to lament the dying Great Barrier Reef, the corals beyond the parrot fish in Jessica’s picture might all look bleached. But that is how corals look in the distance when visibility is good, because the water is so clear. It is only when you swim up to them, when you are nearer to the corals, that you can see their real colour.

When I see photographs online and in newspapers of corals described as bleached, I often wonder how the photograph was taken – at what depth and whether it was colour corrected. I wrote to a journalist, Michael Foley from the Sydney Morning Herald, back in April about a picture purportedly showing bleached coral.

Hi Michael

I’m really impressed with your interview with Terry Hughes and particularly how much online media has republished your article ‘Reef on path to destruction and clever science can’t fix it’ and that photograph.

I was curious about the image of the bleached corals. Where it was taken, and how it was colour adjusted. I sent an email via the Catlin Seaview Survey contact page, asking for this information last Tuesday (13th April) and to Sara Naylor at UQ. The email to Sara bounced, Catlin hasn’t replied.

What I would really like is the original full resolution raw image. Could you please send me this?

Also, where was the image taken/which reef, and when/which year?

If it was taken back in 2015 or 2016 or 2017 it would be important to know the state of that coral now?

Michael Foley never replied.

There is a wonderful library on Lady Elliot Island, at the resort in a room tucked behind the museum. I spent some time there most evening when I was on the island for a week back in May. I found a photograph very similar to the one I queried Michael Foley about. It is in a book entitled ‘Coral Whisperers’ by Irus Braverman published by the University of California Press in October 2018.

The caption to this photograph provides a lot more information than the Sydney Morning Herald article by Michael Foley published on 8th April this year (2021). So, the photograph used in the article by Michael Foley was perhaps taken at Heron Island and back in February 2016.

It would seem somewhat disingenuous for a news story published on 8th April 2021 to be accompanied by a photograph from 2016 but without including this important information: that the photograph is five years old. It would also be useful if the publisher explained that visible light of a blue wavelength penetrates water, while red is absorbed, so corals even just a few metres away can have a blue haze and even appear bleached.

Also, if the Sydney Morning Herald are going to include a photograph from five years ago in a news story, why don’t they also show a more recent photograph – so we have some idea whether the coral is still there, or not?

Of course, beige is the most common colour of corals at reefs around the world, as I explained in my short documentary film ‘Beige Reef’, that you can watch on YouTube.

Update

Much thanks to Steve Messer for finding a higher resolution image of the ‘bleached corals’ here:


It is apparent that the branches are a dark tan in colour with white axial corallites and/or white tentacles extended from the corallites. This coral is not bleached at all.

The Sydney Morning Herald/ Catlin Seaview Survey photograph with the coral changed to beige by my friend Michael who first alerted me to this photograph and how easy it was for him to ‘fix’ what he described as the ‘blue cast’.

So, if we could lift this coral to the surface the stems would perhaps be orange/beige and covered in white corallites with white tentacles extended.

https://principia-scientific.com/corals-appear-bleached-from-a-distance-not-close-up/

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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