Climate change may cause mass extinctions, new report shows

Calling this "research" is a joke.  It is just modelling games -- using models of no known predictive skill.  Reality tells us that life on earth has survived many great extremes in the past, from the steamy age of the dinosaurs to great ice ages


New research has found that extreme climate change risks an extinction effect that could annihilate all life on earth.

The extinction of plant and animal species from extreme climate change could lead to a "domino effect" that annihilates all life on earth, new research has found.

The worst-case scenario is outlined in the journal Scientific Reports and describes how organisms die out because they depend on other doomed species in a process called co-extinctions.

The study found just five to six degrees in average global warming would be enough to wipe out most life on the planet.

"Our paper demonstrates that even the most tolerant species ultimately succumb to extinction when the less-tolerant species on which they depend disappear," lead author Giovanni Strona said.

In their work, researchers from Italy and Australia simulated 2000 virtual earths, linking animal and plant species.

Using sophisticated modelling, they subjected the virtual earths to catastrophic events including extreme environmental change, an asteroid strike and nuclear war.

While all such events could be devastating, the research found that climate warming creates extinction "cascades" in the worst possible way when compared to random extinctions or even from the stresses from a nuclear winter.

Co-author Corey Bradshaw, from Flinders University, said failing to take into account co-extinctions underestimates the loss of entire species from events like climate change by up to 10 times.

"Not taking into account this domino effect gives an unrealistic and exceedingly optimistic perspective about the impact of future climate change," Professor Bradshaw said.

SOURCE





Climate contrarian uncovers scientific error, upends major ocean warming study

Dr. Roy Spencer comments: 'For decades now those of us trying to publish papers which depart from the climate doom-and-gloom narrative have noticed a trend toward both biased and sloppy peer review of research submitted for publication in scientific journals.'

'If the conclusions of the paper support a more alarmist narrative on the seriousness of anthropogenic global warming, the less thorough will be the peer review. I am now totally convinced of that. If the paper is skeptical in tone, it endures levels of criticism that alarmist papers do not experience. I have had at least one paper rejected based upon a single reviewer who obviously didn’t read the paper…he criticized claims not even made in the paper.'

The peer review process, presumably involving credentialed climate scientists, should have caught the error before publication.'


Researchers with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University recently walked back scientific findings published last month that showed oceans have been heating up dramatically faster than previously thought as a result of climate change.

In a paper published Oct. 31 in the journal Nature, researchers found that ocean temperatures had warmed 60 percent more than outlined by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

However, the conclusion came under scrutiny after mathematician Nic Lewis, a critic of the scientific consensus around human-induced warming, posted a critique of the paper on the blog of Judith Curry, another well-known critic.

“The findings of the ... paper were peer reviewed and published in the world’s premier scientific journal and were given wide coverage in the English-speaking media,” Lewis wrote. “Despite this, a quick review of the first page of the paper was sufficient to raise doubts as to the accuracy of its results.”

Co-author Ralph Keeling, climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, took full blame and thanked Lewis for alerting him to the mistake.

“When we were confronted with his insight it became immediately clear there was an issue there,” he said. “We’re grateful to have it be pointed out quickly so that we could correct it quickly.”

Keeling said they have since redone the calculations, finding the ocean is still likely warmer than the estimate used by the IPCC. However, that increase in heat has a larger range of probability than initially thought — between 10 percent and 70 percent, as other studies have already found.

“Our error margins are too big now to really weigh in on the precise amount of warming that’s going on in the ocean,” Keeling said. “We really muffed the error margins.”

A correction has been submitted to the journal Nature.

According to the most recent IPCC report, climate emissions need to be cut by 20 percent by 2030 and then zeroed out by 2075 to keep warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

Authors of the recent study had previously claimed that emissions levels in coming decades would need to be 25 percent lower to keep warming under that 2-degree cap.

While papers are peer reviewed before they’re published, new findings must always be reproduced before gaining widespread acceptance throughout the scientific community, said Gerald Meehl, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

“This is how the process works,” he said. “Every paper that comes out is not bulletproof or infallible. If it doesn’t stand up under scrutiny, you review the findings.”

The report relied on a novel approach that still has the potential to revolutionize how scientists measure the ocean’s temperature.

Much of the data on ocean temperatures currently relies on the Argo array, robotic devices that float at different depths. The program, which started in 2000, has gaps in coverage.

By comparison, Keeling and Laure Resplandy, a researcher at Princeton University’s Environmental Institute who co-authored the report, calculated heat based on the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide rising off the ocean, filling round glass flasks with air collected at research stations around the globe.

Keeling said they will continue to experiment with the data in coming years in an attempt to fine-tune the data.

“It’s a promising new method, but we didn’t get the precision right on the first pass,” he said.

The study is still the first to confirm that the ocean is warming using a method independent of direct ocean temperature measurements.

SOURCE





The Chill of Solar Minimum

The sun is entering one of the deepest Solar Minima of the Space Age. Sunspots have been absent for most of 2018, and the sun’s ultraviolet output has sharply dropped. New research shows that Earth’s upper atmosphere is responding.

“We see a cooling trend,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”

These results come from the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air 100 to 300 kilometers above our planet’s surface. By measuring the infrared glow of these molecules, SABER can assess the thermal state of gas at the very top of the atmosphere–a layer researchers call “the thermosphere.”

“The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,” explains Mlynczak, who is the associate principal investigator for SABER.

When the thermosphere cools, it shrinks, literally decreasing the radius of Earth’s atmosphere. This shrinkage decreases aerodynamic drag on satellites in low-Earth orbit, extending their lifetimes. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it also delays the natural decay of space junk, resulting in a more cluttered environment around Earth.

To help keep track of what’s happening in the thermosphere, Mlynczak and colleagues recently introduced the “Thermosphere Climate Index” (TCI)–a number expressed in Watts that tells how much heat NO molecules are dumping into space. During Solar Maximum, TCI is high (“Hot”); during Solar Minimum, it is low (“Cold”).

“Right now, it is very low indeed,” says Mlynczak. “SABER is currently measuring 33 billion Watts of infrared power from NO. That’s 10 times smaller than we see during more active phases of the solar cycle.”

Although SABER has been in orbit for only 17 years, Mlynczak and colleagues recently calculated TCI going all the way back to the 1940s. “SABER taught us to do this by revealing how TCI depends on other variables such as geomagnetic activity and the sun’s UV output–things that have been measured for decades,” he explains.

Mlynczak and colleagues recently published a paper on the TCI showing that the state of the thermosphere can be discussed using a set of five plain language terms: Cold, Cool, Neutral, Warm, and Hot.

As 2018 comes to an end, the Thermosphere Climate Index is on the verge of setting a Space Age record for Cold. “We’re not there quite yet,” says Mlynczak, “but it could happen in a matter of months.”

“We are especially pleased that SABER is gathering information so important for tracking the effect of the Sun on our atmosphere,” says James Russell, SABER’s Principal Investigator at Hampton University. “A more than 16-year record of long-term changes in the thermal condition of the atmosphere more than 70 miles above the surface is something we did not expect for an instrument designed to last only 3-years in-orbit.”

SOURCE





Green Energy is the Perfect Scam

Green energy is an incredible money-making scam. The promoters of green energy make billions of dollars promoting dumb energy schemes that are completely useless.

What makes the scam extremely clever is that the scammers have convinced the public that the purpose of their scam is to improve the environment. The scammers pretend to be earnest environmental advocates.

Any really good scam needs endorsements from authoritative-sounding sources. In the case of green energy, the authoritative sources are in on the scam. The beneficiaries of the green energy scam go way beyond the wind and solar industries.

Non-profit environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, need to be seen as fighting against an urgent looming catastrophe. If they don’t have something dreadful to fight against, no one is going to join their organizations or give them money.

Global warming, allegedly caused by carbon dioxide, is the looming catastrophe and green energy is the solution. When the globe failed to warm they renamed the looming catastrophic climate change in place of global warming.

Now they blame every instance of bad weather on climate change created by burning coal and oil. What were formerly acts of God are now the fault of the oil and coal companies.

Scientists are a special interest group largely financed by the federal government. Global warming is a magnificent gift to the science industry.

The industry has been corrupted by pathological science that is primarily intended to increase the flow of money from Washington. Science directed toward discovering the truth is out of fashion.

The many scientists that are global warming skeptics don’t exist as far as the science industry is concerned.

Government agencies, and the politicians that give the agencies money, have embraced the threat of climate change.

It gives them something to do that is more noble, even romantic than highways and making the trains run on time. The government spends billions on subsidizing wind and solar energy.

Ironically, electric utility companies love wind and solar green energy. They know perfectly well that wind and solar are useless because wind and solar generate electricity erratically and have to be backed up by reliable conventional electric generating plants.

The only economic benefit is the fuel saved in the backup plants when wind or solar is actually generating electricity. But the cost of the wind or solar electricity is much higher than the benefit of fuel saved.

Thus, the more wind or solar that you have, the more money you lose. But, electric utilities are regulated by public utility commissions. The amount of profit they are allowed is calculated as a fraction of the utilities’ capital investment.

So, the utilities want to make capital investments, even if those investments are wind and solar plants that waste money on a grand scale. The electricity consumers bear the cost and the utilities are allowed a larger profit.

In some parts of the country rooftop solar is fashionable. Homeowners who install rooftop solar often save money because the reduction in the cost of electricity from the utility is greater than the cost of solar electricity.

These homeowners brag to their friends about how clever they are, and the purveyors of rooftop solar place advertisements claiming that rooftop solar is cheaper than buying electricity from the electric company.

This is part of the scam. Rooftop solar is profitable because it is heavily subsidized and because the electric utility is forced, by the governmental authorities, to provide a connection to back up the solar without compensating remuneration.

The real cost of rooftop solar electricity, exclusive of subsidies, is around 30-cents per kilowatt-hour and the real benefit is around two cents per kilowatt hour from fuel saved in the utility’s backup plants.

The subsidy, financed by taxpayers and electricity consumers, is greater than ninety percent.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners, under the delusion that they have discovered cheaper electricity, are walking and talking advertisements for solar energy.

The biggest victim of the green energy scam is the public in general. Everybody pays more taxes and pays more for energy as a consequence of the scam.

But the waste of billions of dollars may not be noticeable when spread over the 320 million Americans.

The public has been exposed to relentless propaganda promoting green energy as beneficial and less expensive.

The public is the greatest victim, but most people don’t know that they are being victimized, so there is little incentive to organize against the scam.

There are certain other victims such as the coal industry and coal miners. But these groups mostly don’t understand that they are victimized by a scam.

Due to the propaganda, they may actually believe that burning coal is undesirable and dangerous. Thus, they lack a clear mandate to organize against the scam. (Modern coal generating plants are environmentally clean.)

The manufacturers of fossil fuel generating plants are beneficiaries, not victims. Wind and solar don’t reduce the demand for fossil fuel plants because wind and solar have to be backed up by traditional plants.

A campaign against coal, by the Sierra Club, has resulted in the closing of many coal plants. The closed plants are typically replaced by new natural gas plants.

Due to the strain imposed on the electric grid by erratic wind and solar, there are many commercial opportunities for upgrading the traditional components of the electricity grid.

Rather than hurting the manufacturers of fossil fuel generating equipment, the green energy movement actually helps them.

The green energy scam is the perfect scam because the beneficiaries include many influential individuals and institutions, while the victims are dispersed among large numbers of unorganized people.

The few concentrated groups of victims, like coal miners, are psychologically handicapped by propaganda that has convinced them that they, rather than the scammers, are at fault.

Wind and solar are truly useless, like having a 6th toe or an appendix. A detailed exposition on the uselessness of wind and solar is given in my book – Dumb Energy: A Critique of Wind and Solar Energy.

Green energy is often justified on the grounds that it reduces carbon dioxide emissions and thus prevents global warming. Of course, global warming, now called climate change, is itself a scam.

The science on which the predictions of global warming doom are based is incredibly weak. But, the weak science is presented as if it is reliable by self-interested parties.

In any case, wind and solar are very expensive methods of reducing CO2 emissions. Other, far more practical, strategies for reducing CO2 emissions are available.

Anyone who criticizes the green energy scam is ruthlessly attacked. Critics are often accused of being in the pay of fossil fuel companies. Fossil fuel companies are too timid to risk the wrath of the green movement, so they hardly ever give money to the critics of the green movement.

A favorite line of attack is to accuse the critics of using tobacco company tactics to cover up the danger from using fossil fuels.

Critics are often depicted as being mental cases, as when Al Gore said that critics of his global warming promotions were like people who think the moon landing was filmed in a Hollywood studio or think that the Earth is flat.

James Hansen, often considered that father of the global warming movement suggested that executives of fossil fuel companies should be sent to jail for crimes against humanity.

Green energy is the perfect scam because it is disguised as a do-good movement and the victims are dispersed, unorganized and disarmed by propaganda.

Green energy is endorsed by government agencies, environmental non-profits, and scientific groups.

These are people that are often seen as sources of reliable information but that, in reality, work to promote their own parochial interests. This is a scam that needs to be exposed.

Norman Rogers is the author of the book Dumb Energy and writes often about political and environmental issues.

SOURCE





Australia: Greenies protect their own

Greenies can do no wrong, apparently

Let’s re-imagine, just for a minute, last week’s furore around the alleged sexual assault of ABC journalist Ashleigh Raper by former NSW Labor leader Luke Foley.

Let’s imagine that instead of resigning from the leadership within 24 hours, that Foley and the Labor Party instead branded Ms Raper a drug-using slut. Deeply offensive, I know, but stick with me.

Let’s imagine that after levelling those allegations, Foley refused to stand down and the Labor Party refused to even debate internally whether or not he should.

Now let’s try and imagine the public and media response to Ms Raper having her character assassinated for having the audacity to speak out against a politician in a position of power who sexually assaulted her.

The fact is, you don’t actually have to try particularly hard to imagine it. You only need to know the story of Ella Buckland, a former Greens NSW staffer who earlier this year levelled startlingly similar allegations against Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham.

Like Ms Raper, Ms Buckland alleges that after a work function, she was sexually assaulted by a drunken politician.

Like Ms Raper, Ms Buckland alleges that following the alleged assault, she received a phone call from her alleged attacker.

Like Ms Raper, Ms Buckland waited a considerable period of time to air those allegations.

Like Ms Raper, Ms Buckland was the subject of defamation threats when the issue became public.

Those are the commonalities. The differences, however, are stark.

In Ms Raper’s case, Luke Foley allegedly slipped his hand down her dress and between her underpants, resting his hand on her bare buttocks. In Ms Buckland’s case, Mr Buckingham allegedly approached her from behind, grabbed her “roughly on the vagina” and kissed her neck.

In Ms Raper’s case, she was dragged into the public fray by a Coalition politician seeking to exploit a political advantage. In Ms Buckland’s case, her motivation in coming forward was publicly and falsely ascribed to her being involved in a factional move against Mr Buckingham. Ms Buckland has not been a member of the Greens for several years and has no day-to-day involvement in politics.

In Ms Raper’s case, she received a phone call from her alleged abuser, who apologised and promised to resign. In Ms Buckland’s case, she received a phone call from her alleged abuser who threatened that she should be ‘careful in her job’.

In Ms Raper’s case, she subsequently received threats of defamation when the issue became public, only to have those threats widely shouted down. In Ms Buckland’s case, she received threats of defamation before the issue even became public, and Mr Buckingham has gone on to threaten to sue – and actively sue – multiple people.

In Ms Raper’s case, there was a startlingly swift resolution to the issue. Luke Foley announced his resignation almost immediately. Ms Buckland made her complaint internally through the Greens in April. It took months to progress, but not before a subsequent internal investigation finally turned the blow torch on Ms Buckland herself, investigating the baseless allegations that she was a ‘promiscuous drug user’.

The other glaring differences, of course, included the reactions of media and politicians.

In terms of the media response, the alleged assault on Ashleigh Raper was a major news story that dominated news coverage last week. The fall out is still being felt a week later. Ella Buckland’s alleged assault attracted far less interest. With the exception of the ABC, who broke the Buckland story in August and followed it up on Radio National just a day before the Foley allegations broke, no other mainstream media outlet has seen fit to report a syllable of the allegations levelled by Ms Buckland.

The most unkind interpretation of that silence is that when women are allegedly sexually assaulted, media interest is optional. But when journalists are allegedly sexually assaulted, it’s stacks on.

Fortunately, in the brave new world of social media, mainstream news outlets no longer control all the channels of public communication. That’s where the reactions of politicians come into focus.

Over the past week, anger at the difference in the treatment of Ms Buckland and Ms Raper has been blowing up on social media, with a growing number of people doing the job of the mainstream media by calling out the obvious hypocrisy between the two approaches.

Square in the gun of that growing public outrage has been the actions of Greens politicians, most of whom stayed silent for months over the Buckland allegations, but wasted no time in coming out to condemn Luke Foley.

Greens MLA Cate Faehrmann weighed into the Foley issue last week. The condemnation of her obvious hypocrisy was swift.

That public condemnation of Faehrmann comes in the absence of all the facts, which are actually much worse than they appear. Not only has Faerhmann said nothing publicly about the alleged assault on Ella Buckland, she recently voted in a Greens NSW State Delegates Council meeting against any debate on whether or not Mr Buckingham should stand down from his position while an internal investigation was ongoing.

Read that again: Faerhmann didn’t just vote against any action being taken against Buckingham, she voted to suppress any debate about any action being taken against Buckingham.

Greens MP for the seat of Newtown, Jenny Leong has also seen fit to weigh publicly into the fray around Foley, while having nothing to say about Jeremy Buckingham.

Labor, obviously, handled their crisis much better. Even Bill Shorten, the federal leader of the Labor Party and a man known for his inability to avoid spin at every available opportunity, weighed into the debate, saying, “Modern society has no tolerance for the behaviour described.”

So how did the Greens federal leader, Richard Di Natale respond to the Buckland allegations?

Helpfully, he was asked about them by Fran Kelly, on ABC Radio National less than 24 hours before the Foley allegations broke. The response is telling.

FRAN KELLY: Are you satisfied this matter has been dealt with appropriately?

DI NATALE: Well as you’ve said Fran, that was the subject of an independent external investigation and obviously it’s a matter for the NSW Greens to respond to that.

KELLY: Have you intervened in any way?

DI NATALE: We have very clearly protocols about how these are dealt with. We’ve respond based on the advice of a number of women’s groups, a number of experts in this field. We’ve got clear protocols. We had an independent investigation take place and we’ve made it very clear the party needs to take these cases, treat them really seriously, create an environment where women come forward and are supported in taking action, and we’ve done those things, and now this is a matter for the NSW Greens.

KELLY: Does Jeremy Buckingham have your confidence?

DI NATALE: Well, as I said Fran this is now a matter for the NSW Greens…

KELLY: Well you’re the leader of the Greens, does he have your confidence?

DI NATALE: Well I’m the leader of the federal party. And our federal party has made it very clear there is no role for members of parliament to be making judgements about cases that have been thoroughly investigated, and that’s as it should be.”

The deafening silence and spin aside, that last statement – about a ‘thorough investigation’ – is the claim on which Di Natale should perhaps stand most condemned.

It is that very ‘thorough investigation’ which led directly to the allegations against Ella Buckland that she was a ‘promiscuous intravenous drug user’.

If that’s what a ‘thorough Greens-led investigation’ looks like, you have to wonder what hope there is for the party.

Having said that, there are good people within Greens NSW, and the party more broadly, who have worked hard internally to take the right path on this issue. I acknowledge that sometimes, the right path is a difficult one to map out.

The Greens have, to some extent, been frozen by a strong belief in affording procedural fairness to Jeremy Buckingham, while also supporting Ella Buckland. But that begs one simple question: Why have Greens MLA’s been prepared to afford Jeremy Buckingham that ‘procedural fairness’, but not Luke Foley?

Why did Greens politicians who had nothing to say about the alleged assault of one of their own, by one of the own, not feel the same weight of ethical constraints when it came to a member of the Labor Party?

The answer is obvious: politics.

While that plays out, in all its unedifying glory, the Greens continue to tie themselves in knots, determined to ‘respect the process’, despite the outcome.

As we speak, fresh moves are afoot within the party to remove Jeremy Buckingham from the Greens’ ballot in the March 2019 state election. We’ll have that story in a day or so, and there are more revelations to come. New Matilda’s investigation into the Greens handling of sexual assault allegations is ongoing, albeit moving at the snail’s pace for which we’re famous (you can help speed it up by clicking on the link directly below and contributing to our fundraiser).

Whatever the outcome though, the Greens, as a party, has clearly lost its way. On this issue at least, it is hopelessly compromised.

The last word belongs to Ashleigh Raper, whose dignified and moving statement should be required reading for all men in power, and for all political parties.

“It is clear to me that a woman who is the subject of such behaviour is often the person who suffers once a complaint is made,” Ms Raper wrote.

“I cherished my position as a state political reporter and feared that would be lost. I also feared the negative impact the publicity could have on me personally and on my young family. This impact is now being felt profoundly.”

I’m sure Ella Buckland, who did lose her dream job, can empathise.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************