A nasty two tenths of a degree
The usual trivia from Warmists
A steady and remarkable rise in average global ocean temperatures this year is now outpacing anything seen in four decades of satellite observations, causing many scientists to suddenly blare alarm over the risks and realities of climate change. But even those typically aligned on climate science can’t agree on what, exactly, triggered such rapid warming and how alarmed they should be.
They say there is so far no evidence that the planet has passed some climatic tipping point — though it is also too soon to rule that out.
“It’s a possibility, however small,” said Tianle Yuan, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He explained that the record warmth could instead merely reflect a temporary fluctuation on top of the long-term warming trend spurred by human-caused climate change.
Regardless of what is behind the spike in ocean temperatures, scientists are on edge about it. On Twitter, viral posts sounding alarm bells have triggered heated debates about the potential causes and whether the rise is reason to panic.
Some climate researchers suspect that a drastic reduction in air pollution from ships has allowed more sunlight to radiate into oceans, a conclusion others vigorously criticize. Meteorologists also say a weakening of Atlantic winds may be encouraging warming; normally these winds help cool waters and carry sun-blocking plumes of Saharan dust.
Scientists nonetheless agree on this: Conditions are ever ripening for extreme heat waves, droughts, floods and storms, all of which have proven links to ocean warming.
Whether air pollution and windblown sand have anything to do with the oceans’ rapid warming, it is occurring after years of gradual and accelerating heating, and just at the onset of the El Niño pattern, which is known to supercharge global warming and extreme weather.
That means more record-breaking conditions and events are to be expected, said Michael Mann, a climatologist at the University of Pennsylvania. That inevitability “underscores reasons for concern and the urgency of climate action,” he said.
Unprecedented warmth developed quickly
The trend has developed over just the past few months, with its duration and intensity elevating scientists’ concern in recent days.
The first signs of unusual ocean warming appeared in March, raising eyebrows among climate scientists. At the time, forecasts suggested El Niño might soon develop, bringing its own warming influence, but it wasn’t until last week that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that the ocean-atmosphere pattern had actually come to fruition.
By that time, temperatures averaged across Earth’s oceans, excluding polar regions, had surged two-tenths of a degree Celsius above observations at the same point last year — and nearly a full degree above the average from 1982 to 2011.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/14/record-warm-ocean-temperatures/
**************************************************Beware doctors who prioritize ‘sustainability’ over patient welfare
A recent article in Politico’s “Climatology” section is intensely disturbing, especially when taken to its logical conclusions. While the title on its own, “Can Hospitals Turn into Climate Change Fighting Machines?” might not be alarming at first glance, the content has sinister undertones that seem to be more common from those journalists most concerned with climate change.
It may be a good idea, as the article explains, for hospitals in the American Southwest to have more water-conserving landscaping, or patch up or replace nitrous oxide pipelines. However, I don’t want hospital staff who are devoted to “sustainability” foremost, and patient care second, treating me.
A San Diego hospital “medical director of sustainability” brags about stopping the use of one anesthetic gas, desflurane, because when it escapes into the atmosphere, it stays there for “a decade or more.”
Indeed, the “sustainability” crowd in medicine seems extremely concerned with our use of anesthetic gasses, the American Society of Anesthesiologists say that they are responsible for “0.01-0.10% of the total global carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions contributing to global warming.”
That’s right – 1/100 to 1/10 of one percent of carbon dioxide “equivalent” emissions.
The document I’m citing recommends that hospital staff mitigate this alleged danger, primarily by using less anesthesia, or opting for the use of less effective topical or more dangerous intravenous methods because “they have less of a negative environmental impact.”
A quick Google search of the phrase “reduce anesthesia for climate change” will find you dozens of articles touting the environmental virtues of reducing the flow of anesthesia to patients.
For you patients out there let me remind you, doctors don’t use anesthesia for fun, they do it to reduce pain during medical procedures. These misanthropic M.D.s are advocating nothing more nor less than allowing people to suffer in the name of sustainability. It seems the Hippocratic Oath of “do no harm” is being misapplied, from people, who can feel pain, to the Earth, which is not a living being and thus can’t be harmed by anesthesia use.
Some western doctors, hospitals, and medical schools are also pushing to “decarbonize” the hospital system, because as the Politico writer says:
The health sector is responsible for 8.5 percent of U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and ozone – an outsized impact compared to the rest of the world. (Globally, health care systems contribute roughly 4.6 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions.) Without huge new efforts, the U.S. will have trouble reaching its ambitious emissions reduction goals.
If these stories sound warm and fuzzy because it’s allegedly responsible, and you don’t get a cold chill, consider this: why does the health sector in the United States make up a larger percentage of our overall emissions, compared to the world as a whole?
It’s because we have the best health care services in the world (regardless of what the socialists say); we dominate in biomedical research, we have the highest cancer survival rate in the world. Currently, if extreme weather hits a city, the hospitals are able to keep working thanks to backup diesel generators. The United States and the western world at large are able to leverage energy use into high quality medical care, which translates to high survival rates of disease and injury, while applying proper care for child birth and other procedures 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Fossil fuels have made that possible. Unless a patient has no other choice, he or she does not want to wind up at a hospital or critical care center that relies solely on wind or solar power for its electric power supply. After all, you want top notch care when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
What does the “sustainable” “net zero” option look like?
For that answer, you can look at the countries that have the least access to electricity, and thus have the lowest emissions, like Liberia, which use mostly wood and dung for energy. There are few, if any, modern neonatal intensive care units in those countries.
How far do the Malthusians in our medical system want to go to reach sustainability?
No amount of green roofs, micromanaging time spent washing hands, composting, or forcing vegan food down patients’ throats are going to stop the earth from its very modest warming trend. Nothing will ever stop bad weather from happening, much less giving up reliable energy.
I’m sure that the old bottle of whiskey and a leather strap to bite down on is probably sustainable, except I guess that the leather would have to be vegan, but not made with petroleum byproducts, somehow.
And I suppose that whiskey, made from corn or rye, might be harder to come by because large-scale agriculture isn’t what they call sustainable.
We have protocols in place to limit medical tests on human subjects without their consent. Hospitals should be devoted to healing patients, not experimenting in loony sustainability projects on captive subjects.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/opinion/article_8c46b53c-0b90-11ee-960f-cb72e63a4fa4.html ?
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Wildfires aren’t getting worse because of climate change
More than 100 wildfires are sweeping their way across the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, sending waves of smoke into major cities in the northeastern United States, including New York and Philadelphia.
Predictably, the Biden administration and his alarmist allies in Congress are wasting no time in using the wildfires to call attention to climate change and for sweeping changes to the U.S. energy system.
For example, on June 7, Biden tweeted, "We’ve deployed more than 600 U.S. firefighters, support personnel and equipment to support Canada as they respond to record wildfires – events that are intensifying because of the climate crisis."
Also on June 7, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted, "Extreme weather. Drought. Massive wildfires that destroy our air quality. Evidence of a climate crisis is all around us and Northeasterners can look no further than out their own windows to find it."
However, despite countless statements from liberals and climate activists over the past two decades about the dangers of wildfires and extreme weather events caused by climate change, the available evidence overwhelmingly shows that no such connection exists. Wildfires are not becoming more frequent or burning more acreage. In fact, just the opposite is true.
The U.S. National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which has been tracking wildfires for decades, reports that the number of fires in 2022 was 68,988, and the amount of acreage burned was 7.57 million acres.
Democrats seize on wildfires to push green agendaVideo
That might sound like a lot of fires, but the NIFC data show that these figures are well within the historical norm. In 2017, for example, 71,499 fires were reported and more than 10 million acres were burned. One decade earlier, in 2007, there were 85,705 fires that burned 9.32 million acres.
How, then, do climate alarmists and Democratic politicians so often get away with asserting that wildfires are worsening? It’s all due to cherry-picked data.
In 2021, Biden’s first year as president, the NIFC, a group operated by several different federal agencies, altered its available wildfire data, eliminating data collected prior to 1983 from its website.
Since 1983, the average annual number of wildfires and acres burned has increased, albeit relatively modestly, giving some the impression that wildfires are becoming a bigger problem than ever before. But if you look at the NIFC data collected prior to 1983, you see that there is nothing disturbing about the current trend.
Prior to 2021, the NIFC provided wildfire data going back to 1926, and from 1926 to the early 1950s, the number of acres burned per year was significantly higher than what we’re seeing today. In many years, it was three or even four times larger.
Even if wildfires were worsening, though, it wouldn’t necessarily indicate that climate change is the cause. Many different factors can contribute to the frequency and severity of wildfires. America’s growing population, especially in Western states, is an important consideration. Even more vital is forest management practices.
The Center for Biological Diversity, a left-leaning environmental group, acknowledges that, "The vast majority of western dry forests are at risk of large, high-intensity fire because of the effects of poor forest management over the past century. The primary factors that lead to current forest conditions include logging large trees, fire suppression and livestock grazing. Since the beginning of the 20th century, all three of these factors have been present in western forests, and they continue to play a role today."
And who, you might be wondering, is the biggest manager of U.S. forests? The very same federal government that is now blaming the problem of wildfires on climate change. Thirty-one percent of all forest land in America is owned by federal agencies, about 238 million acres. And most of those forests are located west of the Mississippi River, where climates tend to be more arid and susceptible to wildfires.
There is no evidence that the number or severity of wildfires like those currently raging in Canada are increasing because of climate change. It’s pure propaganda designed to trick Americans into supporting additional Green New Deal-like policies and to deflect blame from the federal government, which is responsible for managing huge swaths of U.S. forests.
Policymakers should be debating ways to improve forest management, not spending their time spewing fairytales about global warming. Americans deserve better.
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Australia: Coal is a four-letter word
Coal is a four-letter word for Labor/Green governments in Australia where it can’t be used in polite company. Thank goodness it can still be exported and its royalties used to fill the Treasury coffers of our governments.
Queensland is the latest state to benefit from soaring global demand and sky-high prices for our high-quality thermal and metallurgical coal. The coal industry is the goose that is laying the golden egg but Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick is doing his best to strangle the poor fowl, just like his fellow Queenslander Jim Chalmers running the federal Treasury.
Last year Mr Dick imposed a new coal royalty rate regime which is the highest in the world. Yes, it yielded a bumper return this year, but as surely as night follows day, it will deter new investment. As Mrs Gina Rinehart observed in The Speccie last month, despite very high commodity prices, the investment in mining is much less than in the last mining boom a decade ago. High royalties, high taxes, sovereign risk, and red and green tape as far as the eye can see explain why companies are far more hesitant to invest in Australia these days.
Mr Dick is happy to crow about delivering the largest surplus of any Australian state government in the history of this country. Revenue from coal royalties more than doubled, soaring from $7.2 billion last year to $15.3 billion this -financial year.
Like Mr Chalmers, Mr Dick will use some of that revenue to cut the cost of electricity bills with government rebates. This is a testimony to the cloud-cuckoo land in which they live. Electricity prices wouldn’t be soaring if Australia wasn’t engaged in a reckless race to shut down its coal-fired power stations as soon as possible.
Federal Minister for Energy and Climate Change Chris Bowen never tires of telling anyone who will listen that wind and solar provide the cheapest energy. We should have guessed that Mr Bowen puts climate ahead of energy. He needs to take a trip to Denmark where around 50 per cent of electricity is supplied by wind and solar power and ponder why Denmark has some of the most expensive electricity in the EU. Here’s a hint. Wind and solar energy isn’t cheap once you include the cost of the subsidy provided by the sale of renewable energy certificates, and the costs of backing up intermittent power with dispatchable power to balance the grid when intermittent energy vanishes. And it isn’t cheap when you include the cost of transmissions lines.
It’s a sad day when Chinese communist dictator for life, Xi Jinping talks more sense on energy than Australian ministers. In 2020, Xi Jinping vowed to make China carbon-neutral by 2060, a decade later than Australia’s quixotic commitment. Then in 2021, China suffered huge power outages because its central government, like Australia’s, capped power prices. When costs rose power plants did the logical thing and cut supply rather than operate at a loss.
But unlike in Australia, the Chinese government did a radical reality check. China relies on coal for more than half of its energy. Heeding a report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air which advised that technologies for storing clean energy are simply not yet mature enough to be deployed at the scale necessary to expand the use of renewable energy, Xi said that coal would remain a mainstay of China’s energy mix that would be hard to change in the short term.
So while Australia hurries to close down its coal-fired power stations, local governments in China approved more new coal-fired power stations in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, with more than 20 gigawatts of new plants approved.
To put that in context, Eraring, the largest coal-fired power plant in Australia, provides less than 3 gigawatts of power and authorities are rushing to shut it down in 2025, seven years earlier than planned.
Whatever the imagined benefit might be to the environment, it will be drowned in the increased emissions in China. But the scarcity of baseload power in Australia will drive up prices and provide a profit bonanza for energy generators, many of whom are foreign-owned. Australian power bills will go up, imposing pain on consumers and driving businesses broke or offshore. What we no longer produce we will have to import from countries like China and India. It makes no sense but it seems our governments are determined that we learn this lesson the hard way.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/coal-is-a-four-letter-word/
***************************************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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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