Humans have a hard time grasping concepts of very large things
Scientists have latched onto Carbon Dioxide (CO2) as the marker of the climate change problem. Ingeniously, they cored through deep ice in Antarctica and some of the big glaciers and measure not only the age of the ice but the CO2 content. From what they can see, CO2 is higher now than it was even during the dinosaurs’ time on the planet. That yields their conclusion that Mankind’s emissions of carbon are upsetting the balance.
But the explanation doesn’t make much sense to most of us. A single volcanic eruption can spew out more carbon pollution than man has tossed into the atmosphere since the start of the industrial age.
And here is where the problem lies. The atmosphere is big, really big and believing that puny little humans can do anything to upset the atmosphere just strikes most humans as farfetched.
When someone does give the scientists the benefit of the doubt, they look for the sources of emissions-burning fossil fuels and determine that replacing the burning of fossil fuels with non-combustion sources will solve all the problems.
It won’t.
It just shifts and changes the problem to become a different imbalance at some point in the future.
The Earth is a closed system that seeks to remain in equilibrium.
Solar energy hitting the planet isn’t just gifted energy from the sun to the planet. The planet is positioned in space so it gets just the right amount of solar energy for the life and planet-wide processes that make it hospitable to life as we know it. Move the planet closer to the sun — too much energy. Move it away — not enough.
The energy powers the planet.
Solar heating causes wind. Solar heating drives the water cycles that cause rain and evaporation. It is solar energy that powers the plant transpiration processes converting CO2 to O2. It is solar energy that powers the hydrogeologic cycles. For all we know, solar energy also has a deep impact on keeping the molten core of the planet spinning.
Capturing the solar energy and the wind energy is simply robbing it from a different part/process of the planet.
Put in a solar farm and there’s a lot of ground that no longer absorbs solar energy and can’t be used for agriculture.
Put in a wind farm and there’s some area down wind that no longer gets the cooling and moisture it needs.
It isn’t solving the problem.
Is there a solution?
The most proximate solution is to capture solar energy that wouldn’t otherwise hit the planet. Science Fiction has examples of solar arrays beaming energy back to the planet. Of course the disaster movies also show what happens when that beam of energy gets weaponized or mis-aligned so the idea might not be without its consequences.
We could limit solar farms to being on buildings and other solid structures that people have erected that already disrupt the planetary processes. The utility companies hate that idea because if people generated their own power the company has nothing left to sell them!
But thinking that wind and solar energy and electric cars are going to solve the climate crisis? Nah. It just creates a different problem and we aren’t able to anticipate the long term impacts from that yet.
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Gallup survey once again finds ‘global warming’ dead last among U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL issues – — 6th out of 6 environmental concerns
'Global warming or climate change' ranked dead last among seven environmental issues in the 2022 Gallup survey. Americans ranking of environmental concerns found the quality of drinking water, rivers, and lakes were ranked as one and two respectively. Followed by concern over "the loss of tropical rain forests"; "air pollution," species extinction, and finally at the very bottom, "global warming or climate change."
Climate Depot's Morano: "It is fascinating the American public still ranks climate change dead last among Envrinlmental issues despite billions in relentless propaganda pushed about the issue. The other key to this Gallup poll is many Republicans actually believe that the Republican base is clamoring for some kind of 'climate action'. That is a complete falsehood according to Gallup. Americans have repeatedly ranked 'climate change' dead last among all environmental issues.
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Diesel: The broken link in America's supply chain
America’s disturbing supply chain problems aren’t near to being fixed. On the news we hear of store shelves not having baby formula. At the center of such breakdowns is trucking. Everything but everything is transported to stores by trucks, semi-trucks. Semi-trucks run on diesel, not petrol (gasoline), and the price of diesel is much higher than the price of petrol. Some truckers are reportedly at the point where they may have to shut down due to the price of diesel. On May 7 at LewRockwell, James Howard Kunstler wrote:
The $6.49 price on a gallon of diesel is enough alone to tell you that the nation can’t do business the way it’s set up to do, and there isn’t a new model for running things ready to launch -- not even Klaus Schwab’s utopia of robots and eunuchs. …
US-inspired sanctions on Russia have quickly blown-up in America’s face. How’s that ban on Russian oil working? Do you understand that US shale oil -- the bulk of our production -- is exceptionally light in composition, meaning it contains not much of the heavier distillates like diesel and aviation fuel? ‘Tis so, alas. Truckers just won’t truck at $6.49-a-gallon, and before long they’ll be out of business altogether, especially the independents who have whopping mortgages on their rigs that won’t be paid. The equation is tearfully simple: no trucks = no US economy.
It is apodictic that the price of diesel is incorporated into the price of everything transported by diesel. And again, everything is transported by diesel. Kunstler’s reference to “U.S. shale oil” is on point, because it is shale oil from fracking that turned the U.S. oil business around in the decade from 2008 to 2018 and enabled America to become energy independent. Without shale oil, America would not have enjoyed her brief moment of energy independence, which Joe Biden destroyed with his monumentally stupid and vindictive energy policies.
But, as Kunstler noted, shale oil doesn’t contain as much of the distillates that can be made into diesel as do other types of crude oil, what the industry calls “conventional oil.”
So what are we gonna do about our little diesel dilemma? The answer should involve those products that compete for the same distillates? According to a chart that breaks down the different products from a barrel of crude oil, it appears that heating oil uses the same distillates as diesel. If we’re to get baby formula to America’s stores, perhaps the government should mandate (and the current regime is always ready for another mandate) that folks who heat their houses with heating oil must switch to something else.
Short of that, is it too early in what may turn into a galloping crisis to think about rationing diesel? A rational rationing system for diesel would give priority to truckers who are transporting essentials, like baby formula. Truckers transporting baby toys would go to the back of the line when fueling up.
Kunstler was all over the “supply chain” issue years before our present problems. Indeed, he uses the term in the third chapter of the third novel in his World Made by Hand series:
Meanwhile the supermarket shelves grew bare as the jobbers quit their resupply deliveries… state government affected to distribute food, but diesel fuel was in short supply, too, and the few trucks sent out were easily hijacked.
Even if one rejects Kunstler’s central premise, these books are terrific reads, quite pleasurable, and I highly recommend them.
Back on April 4 in these very pages, I mydamnself warned about the price of diesel. Since then, the price has only risen. It should be obvious now to all fair-minded Americans that the weakest link in the supply chain is our senile sclerotic central government
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/5_8_2022_19_49.html
************************************************BBC climate editor made false claims on global warming
A BBC Panorama documentary about global warming made a number of false claims, an internal investigation by the broadcaster has found.
The programme Wild Weather, presented by climate editor Justin Rowlatt, said deaths worldwide were rising due to extreme weather caused by climate change – whereas the opposite is true.
It also claimed Madagascar was on the verge of the first famine caused by climate change – despite other factors being involved.
The programme, broadcast last November to coincide with the COP26 climate conference, sparked two complaints investigated by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU).
Last year Rowlatt's sister Cordelia was among a number of Insulate Britain activists arrested for staging a protest at junction 3 of the M25.
Miss Rowlatt, who once appeared on TV advising her brother on how to be more environmentally friendly, pleaded guilty by post at Crawley Magistrates' Court. She was fined £300 with £85 court costs and a £34 surcharge for committing a public nuisance on a highway.
The introduction of Wild Weather said 'the death toll is rising around the world and the forecast is that worse is to come'. The ECU said this risked giving the impression the rate of deaths from extreme weather-related events was increasing.
In fact, as noted by a recent report from the World Meteorological Organisation, while the number of weather-related disasters – such as floods, storms and drought – has risen in the past 50 years, the number of deaths caused by them has fallen because of improved early warnings and disaster management.
Cordelia Rowlatt was charged with a public order act on Waterloo Bridge in April. She pleated not guilty at court
BBC News said 'it accepted the wording in the programme was not as clear as it should have been and a public acknowledgement was put on the BBC's Corrections and Clarifications website before the complaint reached the ECU'.
The ECU said this was appropriate but 'an oversight meant the programme was still available on BBC iPlayer without a link or reference to the published correction, and for that reason the complaint was upheld'.
The ECU also considered the language used in the programme about drought. It agreed the evidence showed southern Madagascar had suffered lower-than-average seasonal rainfall in recent years, and that climate change was one factor contributing to famine in the country.
It also noted the reporter's language mirrored that used by the UN's World Food Programme.
But the ECU added: 'The statement that Madagascar was on the brink of the world's first climate-induced famine was presented without qualification, whereas other evidence available prior to broadcast suggested there were additional factors which made a significant contribution to the shortage of food.
The complaint was therefore upheld.'
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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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Jim Hansen and his twin
1 comment:
Diesel shortage? The answer for that is simple, we just need to stop using the corn that's being made into ethanol and instead use it to make diesel. But wait! We can also use soybeans, sunflowers and canola to make diesel too which means more crops can be used and get into the action.
Refining those oils to make the best possible diesel is already a well known process so let's stop wasting good corn on useless ethanol and put it to work instead transporting the goods that make modern life so much better.
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