Richard & RePete in Oct UV thread.
You state “This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that.” Okay. So you are saying global average temperature is not relevant but that “feedback, acceleration and everything” is relevant. Taking the first two of those relevant measures (the third being a bit silly), what quantity is it that is undergoing “acceleration”? And what is that this “feedback” is acting on?
zebrasays
MA, I don’t know what point R&R is actually making, but I responded to someone last month along these lines. Two statements.
A. The increase in GMST is accelerating.
B. The increase in Climate Change is accelerating.
There’s no reason that A could be false but B could be true, if we understand that GMST is a proxy for increasing energy in the climate system. And that’s why we should be thinking in terms of a more detailed presentation of what is happening. That’s why “the need for pluralism” should not be ignored, and we should incorporate EEI and OHC and whatever other metrics are available.
No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.
There’s nothing wrong with refining modeling based on GMST, as an academic endeavor, but it isn’t particularly helpful in terms of communicating with the public, or planning for adaptations.
Davidsays
Zebra, yeah, last month, that was me, mr. ice floe guy ;-)
In your comments last month you offered: “The point is that there is no way to define “the change rate of the climate itself”, if you think about it. That’s why I thought the “need for pluralism” post made sense, and why I’ve been suggesting change… It may be pointless to try to communicate with “the public”, but from my experience it is possible if you do it right.”
As one of “the public” I wish to say that efforts like this certainly are not pointless. I’m grateful for both what I’ve gained reading RC’s many posts through the years, but additionally by perspectives of so many fine commenters (like yourself) here on various topics that come up in RC “comment land.”
zebrasays
Thanks David.
I like to think that there are members of “the public” who can understand and internalize clearly (and concisely) presented concepts, but are not interested in statistical vagaries and +/- .05C differences in a couple of academic papers.
One can express my statement
“No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.”
in language and with references that many individuals without formal physics backgrounds would relate to.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: “No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.”
BPL: It doesn’t have to be linear for GMST to be a valuable index.
Vendicar Decariansays
On short enough scales, even non-linear systems are linear.
zebrasays
Vendicar,
I said:
“No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.”
So let’s hear your example of an individual phenomenon that is a linear function of GMST in the short term. And why it is necessarily so.
zebrasays
BPL,
I didn’t say it wasn’t a “valuable” index… for a long time, it was the best validation of the physics predicting energy increase.
But we have other, more convincing metrics now, and it would be useful to see more discussion of the smaller scale dynamics of the climate system. Rather than playing along with the denialists pretending their is still a question about the global effect and its causes to be “debated”.
Piotrsays
Zebra: “ But we have other, more convincing metrics now,”
Which are those “the smaller scale dynamics ” metrics, and how more understandable and therefore “more convincing” to the public and politicians they are ?
Zebra: “ Rather than playing along with the denialists pretending their is still a question about the global effect and its causes to be “debated”. ”
So you are saying that your “smaller scale dynamics” metrics have been …. much better studied, are much better known, AND have much less uncertainties than GMST trend (a.k.a. Global Warming) ??? Because ONLY THEN they would be less vulnerable to the deniers “Science is not settled” line of attack.
Vendicar Decariansays
On short enough scales, even non-linear systems are linear.
John Pollacksays
Vendicar, it is not true in principle that on short enough time scales, non-linear systems can be linearized.
The divergence from a linear trend can be reduced (in most cases), but that does not make it linear. For example, if you are at a bifurcation point, you will not come up with a linear relationship by sampling on either side of the point, no mater how close you get. Lorenz showed this many decades ago with a highly simplified nonlinear model of convection. It was known to mathematicians well before that.
zebrasays
B could not be true even if A is false.
Piotrsays
Richard and RePete says: “This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. “
– zebra “I don’t know what point R&R is actually making”
Really? I’d thought for you it should be more obvious than to anybody else:
The point RR he is making is GMST is just an vacuous number signifying nothing , hence “Nobody cares about that.” and therefore we can safely ignore its rapid rise (a.k.a. Global Warming”).
And he wants to REDIRECT the public discourse AWAY from something tangible, well defined, well measured, scientifically significant (measure of the energy in the system), and understandable to the public, “Global Warming” – to something that is its opposite – poorly defined, poorly (if at all) quantifiable, and incomprehensible to the majority of the public. i.e. to “ feedbacks, [their] acceleration, and everything“.
And by redirecting discussion from the observed and projected AGW – to “ feedbacks and everything” the fossil fuel lobby hopes to STOP any action on GHGs based on AGW and WAIT until science is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN on the rates of increase in ALL possible aspects of “feedbacks and everything”.
Until then – ” the science is not settled, and because uncertainty surely will be our friend – let’s do nothing about GHGs reductions, and instead keep buying as much fossil fuels as the oil multinationals, Russia and Saudi Arabia want us to buy.
And when the effects of unmitigated GHGs emission become too strong to ignore, the deniers will pick up the doomers mantra “it is too late anyway”, so we may just as well enjoy our fossil fuels while we can, and “ After us, Deluge!”
So that’s the “point R&R is actually making”.
Radge Haverssays
Nigelj,
Interesting points. Harvard University did a study that found that humans are inherently hierarchical, but are capable of learing to be egalitarian in the right circumstances. This probably explains why hunter gatherer culture was egalitarian because it suited the circumstances of small population size and simple economies to organise and minimised the conflcits you get with hierearchies. We moved back towards hierarchies with the invention of farming and particularly industrial society, perhaps because the size and complexity of modern society and the vast number of products, required hierarchies and bureaucracies to work efficiently.
And something curious in recent times is Kurdish democratic-confederalism in Rojava, Syria. Nobody seems to have come up with a proper way to characterize it, but looks like a definite flattening of hierarchy.
Nigeljsays
Radge Havers, thanks for the article on bonobos. They appear to use very liberal sexual relations even with adversaries as a way of diffusing conflicts and tensions, and their societies are gentle and more egalitarian than Chimps. Im sure we would like to be like bonobos ha, ha.
Its not clear why they are so different from other chimps but the study noted that “The subsequent divergence of the chimpanzee and the bonobo lines came much later, perhaps prompted by the chimpanzees need to adapt to relatively open, dry habitats.” so the physical separation lead to evolution of different behaviours.
Humans can more consciously and deliberatively choose how to organise our societies, but we have created a system that works best with quite a lot of hierarchies, and basic system change is difficult. So we are unlikely to solve the the climate problem with basic system change, although we could make small changes to the system to make it more environmentally friendly and just, and maybe with a moderately flatter hierarchy. Rome wasnt built in a day.
Killiansays
Harvard is wrong. Link or it didn’t happen.
Nigeljsays
Killian, I can’t find the Harvard study that said humans are innately hierarchical but learn to be egalitarian in some circumstances. its quite an old study now. I did find thiis which may be of interest:
“Are humans by nature hierarchical or egalitarian? Hierarchy in the Forest addresses this question by examining the evolutionary origins of social and political behavior. Christopher Boehm, an anthropologist whose fieldwork has focused on the political arrangements of human and nonhuman primate groups, postulates that egalitarianism is in effect a hierarchy in which the weak combine forces to dominate the strong.”
I just think that humans are innately hierarchical based on all I’ve read. The book I just quoted is further support for this. I also look at “patterns”. Hierarchies are very obvious across the animal kingdom and many human societies especially modern societies. There are exceptions like the relatively egalitarian hunter gatherer society and bonobos, but the pattern for animal life forms as a whole on planet earth, seems to be hierarchies. This just suggests to me that animals and humans are innately hierarchical, but humans and bonobos being clever characters and capable of learning use egalitarianism when it suits them. Hunter gatherers had simple societies and technologies that didnt require complex hierarchies to orgainse things, and perhaps they were egalitarian because it helped reduce conflicts.
Its fairly self evident surely that a society producing complex goods and services uses hierarchies because they are efficient forms of decision making. We could of course run organisations in an egalitarian way if we wanted, and there might be less personal conflcits and greed as a result, but the price would probably be much reduced efficiency and very cumbersome decision making. That is a tradeoff that seems both obvious and unavoidable. Maybe its a trade off people would be prepared to make, I dont know.
Personally I dont like rigidly and excessively hierarchical / authoritarian structures but some people apparently crave this sort of thing like Trumps supporters. Theres a ton of research on this. But this does not mean we should necessarily go to the other extreme with no hierarchy at all. I think that would be very impractical especially with a large population and at least some modern technology because it would slow decision making down to a crawl. But I do think we could move a bit more towards egalitarianism in some specific ways depending on the situation and its better to lean towards egalitarianism than towards rigid and dictatorial hierarchies. In fact many organisations use hierarchical decision making for some things and group / egalitarian decision making for other things. Which seems good to me. Its sort of a hybrid system.
One-time AGW denier Curry now claims that global heating is inexorable, and that she has been stating this for 10 years, fooling her followers and numerous congressional testimonies where she claimed that climate change was no big deal. https://x.com/curryja/status/1852391605048905960
Paul Pukite: One-time AGW denier Curry now claims that global heating is inexorable, and that she has been stating this for 10 years, fooling her followers and numerous congressional testimonies where she claimed that climate change was no big deal.
;-) . Another denier turning into it’s-too-late-to-do-anything doomer?
Les extrêmes se touchent so the jump from the one extreme to the other – is not difficult and, in fact, expected – as the traditional denial is getting harder and harder to sustain in the face of the mounting evidence of the climate change.
Piotr: “-) . Another denier turning into it’s-too-late-to-do-anything doomer?”
Could be right about that. The timing is a few days before the USA presidential election. She may want a position in the admin? Hope not.
Adam Leasays
I have heard an argument along those lines in that even if anthropogenic emissions stopped right now, warming would continue because the global heat balance will still be out of equilibrium and it takes time for that equilibrium to be reached, which to me is analogous to flooding where the flood doesn’t imediately recede when the rain stops falling, and might continue to get worse before it gets better due to the peak river levels making their way downstream. It sounds logical to me although is not an excuse for giving up, because lowering emissions will ultimately make the peak less bad than doing nothing.
Dharmasays
if anthropogenic emissions stopped right now so do anthropogenic cooling aerosols. There’s plus 1C globally right there.
D Condliffesays
It is an interesting thought experiment but has little to do with the real world in which fossil fuel use is still increasing, with no reduction in total fossil fuel use at all likely within the next decade.
Vendicar Decariansays
The oceans will remain in thermal disequilibrium for a few hundred years.
As they warm so too with the average surface temperature – obviously.
zebrasays
I assume your sentence was intended to be “as they warm so too [will] the average surface temperature”
I am not sure this is correct. Thermal energy goes down as well as up, and I believe from a previous RC post that surface temp will stabilize.
But what matters here is that we actually measure these things now… you know, as if we are doing physics, not handwavy speculation. We have instrumentation to measure OHC at various depths and locations with the ARGO system, and we can also measure the net energy gain of the climate system with satellites for EEI.
But people remain obsessed with GMST, perhaps because it offers the opportunity for that handwavy stuff.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: But people remain obsessed with GMST, perhaps because it offers the opportunity for that handwavy stuff.
BPL: Attribute motive when you can’t argue on the basis of facts.
zebrasays
BP, not sure what facts I’m supposed to prove. I’m pretty sure there was a post here that said GMST would stabilize if we stopped increasing CO2, while OHC would increase.
And ARGO and the satellites are facts as well.
My speculation about people’s motivation has nothing to do with those facts.
zebra,
You say “I’m pretty sure there was a post here that said GMST would stabilize if we stopped increasing CO2, while OHC would increase.” Perhaps you could just read the paper that lies behind all this blather (King et al (2024) ‘Exploring climate stabilisation at different global warming levels in ACCESS-ESM-1.5’. The message it presents is that net zero will give a tiny increase in global SAT over the next millennium but, as climate is not in equilibrium, there will be a pile of other stuff that could/would come and bite us. Global land SAT will fall but Global SST will rise, global precipitation will rise, and Antarctic SIE will fall. The guts of their Abstract runs:-
Under the Paris Agreement, signatory nations aim to keep global warming well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and preferably below 1.5 °C. This implicitly requires achieving net-zero or net-negative greenhouse gas emissions to ensure long-term global temperature stabilisation or reduction. Despite this requirement, there have been few analyses of stabilised climates, and there is a lack of model experiments to address our need for understanding the implications of the Paris Agreement. Here, we describe a new set of experiments … and we present initial results. Seven 1000-year-long simulations were run … As the climate stabilises under net-zero emissions, we identify significant and robust changes in temperature and precipitation patterns including … An analysis at specific Global Warming Levels (GWLs) shows that significant regional changes continue for centuries after emission cessation and that these changes are stronger at higher GWLs. Our findings suggest substantial long-term climate changes are possible even under net-zero emission pathways. …
I would also highlight a caviat set out in the paper, (this additional to the importance of reaching net-zero quickly).
We must note that stabilised simulations are unlikely to represent plausible future scenarios, since it is unlikely that we would stabilise at net-zero without then immediately going to net-negative emissions (including carbon dioxide removal). However, stabilised simulations are a useful baseline and reference for understanding stabilised climates before then exploring different plausible scenarios of net negative emissions.
zebrasays
MA Rodger,
I guess my ageing memory is still working at least a little, since what I said, and what I’ve said multiple times by now in other comments, is exactly what the paper says.
Not sure at all how you think you are contradicting me… GMST stabilizes, and OHC continues to increase, and EEI continues. That’s why I keep saying we should be talking more about EEI and OHC, and how local and regional effects might play out. GMST is an effect, not a cause.
I don’t want to channel Killian and start quoting myself, but I apparently did read that paper and have been providing my shorter and simpler versions of the fundamentals, as I like to do.
If you think my conclusions on that are wrong, please elaborate.
Mr. Know It Allsays
The article in “the conversation” says:
“…..For example, Australia is close to the Southern Ocean, which is projected to continue warming for many centuries even under net-zero emissions. This warming to Australia’s south means even under a net-zero emissions pathway, we expect the continent to continue to warm more than almost all other land areas on Earth.
For example, the models predict Melbourne would experience 1°C of warming over centuries if net-zero was reached in 2060……”
So one of the worst places for warming will warm only 1 C after net zero is achieved. I’m not gonna get hysterical about 1 C warming. That isn’t much. We are told that we’ve already experienced more than that already. I’d call 1 C a big old Nothing-Burger.
Dharmasays
To Mr. Know-It-All,
The “devil is in the details” when it comes to this paper, thanks to the effects of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) and the intent or design behind this so-called “experiment.” Red flags are present throughout, and in my opinion, it’s not worth the time it takes to read. The takeaway on Melbourne’s warming is unfounded, unscientific, and illogical—simply “garbage” that’s best ignored, though unfortunately, it won’t be.
Curry’s comment is shockingly misguided given her previous positions; I suspect she hasn’t thoroughly read or thought through the paper’s actual content – only looking at the headline falsely assuming it’s supported by the work – which, frankly, adds nothing of substance climate science knowledge and has no relevance to her prior comments. This work is certainly incapable of predicting Melbourne’s warming centuries into the future.
This isn’t “real climate science”; it’s “fake news.” The so-called “models” in this “science paper” are a classic example of Upton Sinclair’s words: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” A complete waste of time, money, limited resources, and effort. But at least the authors can tick a box on their career metrics. Hooray!
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: I’m not gonna get hysterical about 1 C warming.
BPL: 1) We’re on course for 3 C warming. 2) 1 C warming is enough to move agricultural growing belts by hundreds of miles. We’re talking about the global mean annual surface temperature, not the weather. 3) Your individual reaction is not the phenomenon itself.
Scott Nuddssays
1’C of warming on top of 1.5’C of warming is………………
.2.5’C of warming, which is pretty close to 3’C of warming. and since 2’c of warming is now the least amount of warming now considered possible, a further 1’C of warming will bring the total to… Ummmmmmmmmmm
3’C.
It’s astonishing what you can come up with when you know how to add.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Yup, 3 C. So, the South Pole will be about -114 F in the winter instead of -120 F. Not a big deal.
Instead of the average temperature being 85 F on a summer day somewhere in the USA, it will be 91. Not the end of the world.
But for those who think it is, solar PV panels are cheap, cheap now days. Get ’em installed. Don’t wait for the goobermint.
John Pollacksays
Mr. KIA, keep in mind that the average temperature difference between the coolest and wettest years of the 1920s and the hottest years of the 1930s Dust Bowl was around 3C. If you don’t like grocery prices now, imagine what they will be like if the average rises 3C – and that’s not counting the temperature amplification you get over mid-latitude continents.
Piotrsays
KiA: So, the South Pole will be about -114 F in the winter instead of -120 F. Not a big deal.
and how many millions of people live there? Unlike the extra 3 degree in Delhi, Singapore, Lagos, Beijing, Riyadh, Phoenix, Miami. Particularly that it is the extremes that kill not the averages, so the importance of +3C is not when id adds to the average day&night average over summer – but when these +3C add NOT to the early afternoon temps during a heat wave – since all the future heatwaves will ride ON TOP of much higher average summer temperatures.
To use the archaic units of temperature your brain could understand:
61 consecutive days with temps of 110 F or more (Phoenix, 2024) becomes ” 61 consecutive days with temps 116 F or more (Phoenix, 2024), And that’s the temperature in the shadow – when you step out of it you add on top of it the direct heating by the sun.
A.k.a. “Not a big deal” (c) KiA.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: Yup, 3 C. So, the South Pole will be about -114 F in the winter instead of -120 F. Not a big deal. . . . Instead of the average temperature being 85 F on a summer day somewhere in the USA, it will be 91. Not the end of the world.
BPL: You still haven’t grasped the difference between mean and variation. If the temperature in a given location changes permanently from 85 to 91, the effects on the local climate can be drastic, especially if the heat waves are more frequent.
And a failure to “get hysterical” (in the dismissive and inappropriate KIA phraseology) is as good a way as any of failing ever to achieve net zero, and therefore of keeping the harm to a KIA-assessed “nothing burger.”
Paul Pukite (@whut),
(It’s interesting to see Judy Curry happily agreeing with a tweet from David Wallace-Wells.)
It seems to me that Judy Curry has gone entirely vegetarian in that she now serves up word salads rather than meaty argument. So it’s difficult to nail-down what she has been saying “for over a decade now.”
I would suggest she is here agreeing that post-net-zero “Earth’s climate will change for many centuries to come” because she is a biggist-wobblologist. That is, pre-vegetarian she argued that the size of the twentieth-century warming results from a big natural wobble amplifying the AGW. So here she is simply saying that such big natural wobbles will, of course, continue post-net-zero.
I note she was rubbing shoulders with the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy speaking at their AGM back in May. The GWPF dodged another investigation into its charitable status and its lie-spreading, Charitable status meaning it is part-financed at the public expense (ie given tax breaks).
Just yesterday GWPF will have been again pleased to see Kemi Badenoch** being elected as the new leader of the UK Conservative Party. She is someone with close ties to the richman who runs NZW, the campaigning arm of GWPF.
(**Apparently Badenoch is sensitive about how her name is pronounced, insisting it is BayDenoch and not BadEnoch, the latter being how the area of Scotland of that name is pronounced.)
The actual paper behind this David Wallace-Wells tweet is King et al (2024) ‘Exploring climate stabilisation at different global warming levels in ACCESS-ESM-1.5 (I’m not sure why this paper would reference “studies (which) suggest that an emission level very near zero is required to halt global warming in line with the Paris Agreement.” The studies I recall showed that post-net-zero there should be a century-or-more of net-negative if the goal was an AGW of +1.5ºC max.)
MAR, The wobbleology of Judith Curry relates to the actual mystery of the multidecadal variations in indices such as AMO. The working assumption is that natural variations always show a reversion to a mean of zero, while AGW will reveal a long-term trend. It’s a trick box unless you make that assumption because otherwise someone will assert that there’s a natural variation that will extend for centuries. If Curry believes now that the warming is a result of that and not the fat-tails of CO2, it needs a proper analysis to put it to rest.
In that regard, it’s becoming obvious that the mystery in these indices can be unlocked by considering tidal forcing. Tidal forcing is actually multi-scale, so that it will map the multidecadal variations as well as the more rapid interannual fluctuations observed in the AMO index — all of them, not just that 60-year modulation. Like conventional tidal analysis, there’s a unique fingerprint that can be identified by adjusting the tidal factors to match the data, and then cross-validated to unfitted regions. https://geoenergymath.com/2024/09/23/amo-and-the-mt-tide/
Importantly, tidal forcing has a mean of zero so that a tidal forcing model is really the best way to discriminate the secular AGW trend from natural variability.
Curry has become a non-player in all this. She has no idea as to what causes the “stadium wave” and is struggling to remain relevant with that tweet.
Scott Nuddssays
Well, Curry is 71 and her mind doesn’t work as well as it once did.
Do I understand correctly that your predecessors escaped either from the territory or former Soviet Union, or from a territory violently attached thereto during its expansion? I assume that your family name is not of Russian origin. May I ask where your parents came from?
Dear Piotr,
I respectfully disagree with your view. I trust Paul that he has not intended to compare you with Soviet secret police. I do not think that anyone can and must be any time perfectly accurate in his/her posts on Real Climate. We are humans and have our faults. Do you wonder what a horrible material we are if you consider dire circumstances under that life originated on Earth, as surprisingly revealed during Ijon Tichy’s visit to the Organization of United Planets?
See
All from Latvia. Within the last year I found various records of each of my relatives displacement history on the https://arolsen-archives.org document archive. Recommend it to anyone that may have a connection to Europe during WWII.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: “ Dear Piotr, I respectfully disagree with your view. I trust Paul
Your feelings about science and people are irrelevant on a scientific blog. Here counts what you can argue – in this case:
====
– Tomas Kalisz: Oct. 30 “ Hallo Piotr, I do not think that Dr. Pukite intended to portray you as an agent of totalitarianism
– me Oct. 31: ” Let’s see. Your “Dr. Pukite”
– in the discussion about TOTALITARIANISM
– replies to your criticism of TOTALITARISM
– by warning you that I am enforcing TOTALITARIAN repression,
– accusing me of the persecuting opponents for “the thought crimes“, a phrase made known by the novel “1984”, written by a classic antagonist of TOTALITARIANISM, George Orwell
So WHAT ELSE can your “Dr Pukite” be accusing me of ?
=====
You have offered no MORE LOGICAL, nor MORE PROBABLE explanation for the accusations by Paul Pukite. But since you can’t bring yourself to admitting it, you try to save your face by implying that P. Pukite is a … simpleton who does not know what he says: that by accusing me of totalitarian persecution of opponents for “the thought crime” he didn’t mean to accuse me of that. And who has NO idea that the phrase he used: “the thought crime” comes from the seminal work about the totalitarianism – Orwell’s “1984”.
Thank you very much for your replies. I am not that long on Real Climate to know the entire story of your dispute in very detail, however, I think that I know enough to be able to add some personal remarks.
1) From my perspective, it is not important if a better prediction of climate oscillations like ENSO, AMOC, PDO etc. saves human lives or not. I will be happy even if it merely makes human lives easier. And I think that at least for climate scientists, it could indeed bring some relief, if they were able to say with more certainty if an observed development is a “natural fluctuation” or part of a longer-term trend.
2) I am aware of the climate definition as a (local) weather average through a long (at least 30 years long) time span. Nevertheless, it appears that from another perspective, averaging local weathers over a large region or entire globe is practically used as an alternative climate definition. For example, it appears that global mean surface temperature (GMST) does not necessarily need to be averaged over 30 years. Oppositely, it appears that studying much shorter-term changes in such “global” or “globalized” climate parameters makes also sense, because there are even “monthly climate predictions” released by quite respectful institutions like NOAA and/or WMO:
3) For the reasons I tried to explain above, I would be very happy if we could desist from further analysing and discussing the wording used in older posts. It is, in my opinion, time and energy wasting. Instead, I would like to repeat a few questions which I already asked months ago and have not obtained an answer yet:
Paul, could you clarify how mature is your theory? Does it already enable better ENSO predictions, or is it clear enough that it could be possible to implement it into computational climate models and check if better ENSO / PDO / AMOC etc predictions can be achieved this way?
If so, have you already approached some climate modellers to discuss how to proceed?
If not, how much work still remains to be done? Do you have any followers or collaborators who support your efforts and further develop or modify your approach by bringing further ideas?
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: 1) From my perspective, it is not important if a better prediction of climate oscillations like ENSO, AMOC, PDO etc. saves human lives or not.
Your “perspective” is irrelevant here – you are not deciding on moving the finite amount of money from studying the consequences of AGW trend to studying … an oscillation around the mean (ENSO). For the society, and funding agencies – the answer to which direction of studies has a better potential to save MORE lives IS important.
And the author itself – obviously thought it WAS important since he made “saving COUNTLESS lives” the centerpiece of his argument in favour of the said switch of the research priorities and funding from AGW to ElNino.
TK:” it appears that global mean surface temperature (GMST) does not necessarily need to be averaged over 30 years ”
If you want to talk about AGW or global climate change – it has to be. This is the scale dominated by the CLIMATIC forcing – mainly an increase in GHGs. In contrast to that – shorter time scales are either weather or short-term oscillations around the mean, like ENSO – are dominated by DIFFERENT factors – weather by the non-linear chaotic, interactions (e.g. position of Jet Stream, interactions between high and low pressure weather systems), while ENSO by the oscillations in the heat fluxes between ocean and atmosphere)
In another words – anything shorter than several decades is driven by different factors than increase in GHGs, and therefore constitute NOISE around the AGW (climate) trend. Fortunately
we can remove most of this noise from CLIMATOLOGICAL trend in GMST by averaging out the short-term noise over long enough time scale.
I realize that this may be too difficult for you to follow so I have found a scientific resource commensurate with your level of knowledge, and written in the language you just might be able to comprehend, fingers crossed:
When you look out the window, you’re seeing what the weather is like today.
Weather is only temporary. For example, a blizzard can turn into a flood after just a few warm spring days.
Climate, on the other hand, is more than just a few warm or cool days.
Climate describes the typical weather conditions in an entire region for a very long time—30 years or more.
======
I grieve for the people of Ukraine, and now starkly the Baltics for what may come next. Countless, indeed. I can only imagine what’s in store.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: I grieve for the people of Ukraine, and now starkly the Baltics for what may come next”.
Sure, the same way you grieved for the victims of Stalinism by implying that the oppression they faced was comparable with, i.e. NOT WORSE THAN, that of Paul Pukite, being asked to defend his claims, and who a=unable to do that – portrayed himself as …. a victim of the persecution for the thought crimes“.
And who brought up … the suffering of his parents and grandparents at the hands of the Stalinists. AS IF this were relevant to him being asked to defend his own claims on a discussion group.
And you couldn’t resist using your “grieving” as a … pretext to a backdoor reference to your original claim of “saving countless lives by a better prediction of the timing of the next EL Nino“), as if your grieving for the people of Ukraine and the Baltics … vindicated that earlier claim about El Nino:
PP: “I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”
“ Countless ” as in “a very large number of people” or as in “an unknowable number of people – maybe many, maybe few, maybe none at all”?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
PP: I grieve for the people of Ukraine, and now starkly the Baltics for what may come next”.
P: Sure, the same way you grieved for the victims of Stalinism by implying that the oppression they faced was comparable with, i.e. NOT WORSE THAN, that of Paul Pukite, being asked to defend his claims, and who a=unable to do that – portrayed himself as …. a victim of the persecution for the thought crimes“.
BPL: Piotr, I wish you would let him have this just this one time. I, too, am sick at the thought of what’s going to happen to Ukraine now that Putin’s Puppet is president of the United States.
“NOT WORSE THAN, that of Paul Pukite, being asked to defend his claims,”
Piotr has learned well from the current Trumpian landscape where Trump-like bullying has been normalized by the media. But why he thinks I would ever appease to a bully is a mystery.
Cripes, I’m listening to MSNBC this morning and they claim that if only Harris had catered to a few more Midwest swing-state voters by softening on some issues, ignoring that the bullies in charge gerrymandered the districts, guaranteeing a Republican outcome independent of any issue. This is automatic gatekeeping, something that Piotr can only aspire to.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: “ Piotr has learned well from the current Trumpian landscape where Trump-like bullying has been normalized by the media.
So after trivializing the suffering of victims of Stalinism to protect his ego – Paul Pukite implying that being persecuted for “ the thought crime” by the Soviet system Is … comparable, i.e. NOT WORSE, than asking Paul Pukite … to prove his claims made on RC,
now the same P. Pukite trivializes what Trump is doing to the fabric of the US society by implying that it is NO WORSE than me …. asking Paul Pukite to own up to his own claims on RC..
PP: “ But why he thinks I would ever appease to a bully is a mystery.”
said a brave Pukite, who won’t yield to any bully, and to prove it retreated into silence, by not answering the direct question to his Nov. 6 statement:
====
– PP NOv. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”
my “bullying” question:, Nov. 6: “ Countless ” as in “a very large number of people” or as in “an unknowable number of people – maybe many, maybe few, maybe none at all”?
And the reason for Pukite’s non-answer is rather obvious:
– if he answered the first – his entire line of defense that by “countless” he DOES NOT mean “very large number of people” would have collapsed.
– if he answered the second – why would he GRIEVE for the … impossibility to count the victims of the war INSTEAD of grieving for the scale of the pain inflicted (“very large number” of victims”?
No wonder that having painted himself into the corner – he didn’t want to chose either and INSTEAD decided to pose as … a victim of bullying, Paul Pukite – everyone! ;-)
Piotrsays
BPL: Piotr, I wish you would let him have this just this one time. I, too, am sick at the thought of what’s going to happen to Ukraine now that Putin’s Puppet is president of the United States.
Barton, I would have let him – if his concern for people was genuine, and he wasn’t USING them as merely a tool to protect his fragile ego – trying to win a 3-yr old discussion that he COULD HAVE ENDED with a simple admission “I failed to provide a plausible mechanism in which a better prediction of timing of a next El Nino could “save COUNTLESS lives”””.
But he can’t admit it -so instead he tries to snatch victory from the jaws of 3-year-old defeat:
PP Nov. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”
which is all about him, not about Ukraine – the suffering of the people of Ukraine is only a PRETEXT to relitigate the definition of the word “countless”, on which he based his original defense. Ukraine has had enough of false “friends” using its plight for their own ends.
And yes I share YOUR concern for the people of Ukraine, betrayed by the West (the US, Britain and France – GUARANTEED the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its post-Soviet nuclear weapons that had made it the third nuclear power in the world at the time), prevented them from winning the war (delivery of 10%? of the promised military support, allowing Russia to bypass the economic sanctions), and now facing the US ruled by an isolationist and a fan-boy of despots, who described the Russian tanks entering Ukraine – a “genius”, and “very savvy” move.
Susan Andersonsays
Piotr: Please get a sense of proportion. That was a disgusting and untrue remark.
You appear to like to frame your comments in the most hostile way. It does make me (and perhaps others) wish to pass by your otherwise interesting point.
[mods?]
Piotrsays
Susan Anderson: “ Piotr: Please get a sense of proportion. That was a disgusting and untrue remark.. You appear to like to frame your comments in the most hostile way.
[…] [mods?] ”
That’s: calling spade a spade. And my “remarks” are a conclusion of a falsifiable argument which invite the opponents, or a reader, to falsify, if they can.
Contrast this with your post which is a 100% OPINION – NOT a single fact, single quote, or single falsifiable argument. Heck, I don’t even know to which of my words your are referring to, thus preventing me, and the reader, from testing whether your accusations toward me are, unlike mine, ethically-pleasing (?) and true.
And seeing Paul Pukite in the discussion about the victims of totalitarian systems warned others: Be careful, Piotr is on the look-out for the thought crime,
– uses the victims of the war in Ukraine as a chance to score points … in 3yr-old discussion about his claims on ENSO
– and portrays me holding him to account for those claims as:
PP “ Piotr has learned well from the current Trumpian landscape where Trump-like bullying has been normalized by the media” … and accuses my of “aspiring to automatic gatekeeping of the information.
seeing all that, you accuse …me. on “disgusting and untrue remarks” and call the “mods” not on him, but on me. But please, do continue lecturing me on my lack of “a sense of proportion”.
A few intrepid NASA JPL alumni have ventured down this path, but none with the kind of results I am seeing, Eventually this analysis will be applied in climate models and will save countless lives, and save countless $$$ in computer simulation cycles.
This is the stuff that makes research fun and challenging
“Paul, could you clarify how mature is your theory? Does it already enable better ENSO predictions, or is it clear enough that it could be possible to implement it into computational climate models and check if better ENSO / PDO / AMOC etc predictions can be achieved this way?”
Rhetorical questions are questions to that the asking person in fact wants to answer himself/herself, am I right?
If so, it was not my case. If I knew answers, I would not have asked.
“If so, it was not my case. If I knew answers, I would not have asked.
Greetings
Tomáš”
Classic sealioning behavior. From how you have commented in the past here on RC, you have zero actual interest in any response I would make. I will answer one of your questions
“Do you have any followers or collaborators who support your efforts and further develop or modify your approach by bringing further ideas?”
Thank you very much for showing your respect to all creatures of Nature, by your willingness to answer a question asked by a sea lion :-)
Fingers crossed for your efforts.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz 7 Nov. “ Dear Paul,Thank you very much for showing your respect to all creatures of Nature, by your willingness to answer a question asked by a sea lion :-)”
I wouldn’t read too much into it, Mr. Kalisz – your “Dear Paul” is happy with answering questions from sealioning trolls, IF they suit his narrative:
Hence his “Yes” to your question whether he has “ any followers or collaborators who support his effort ” – thus proving that he is not some strange fellow obsessed with an issue on the sidelines of the climate change science, but has followers who value the importance of his work for humanity – “could save countless lives” ! [Paul Pukite, modestly, in 2021]
And hence his two posts answering your questions about …. his family – since the questions gave him a chance to portray my asking him to prove claim of “saving countless lives” as if
it was … comparable to the totalitarian persecution experienced by his grandparents at the hands of Stalin.
Nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz
“Rhetorical questions are questions to that the asking person in fact wants to answer himself/herself, am I right?”
No you are not right. Definition of a rhetorical question from Oxford Dictionary: “a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer….the presentation was characterized by impossibly long sentences and a succession of rhetorical questions.”
Describes TK quite well.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
TK: 2) I am aware of the climate definition as a (local) weather average through a long (at least 30 years long) time span.
BPL: You got the time period right, but strictly speaking climate is not local (although there is such a thing as “microclimate”). It’s average weather over a whole region or the entire globe. Weather is local and short-term, climate is regional or global weather averaged over 30 years or more.
Chuck Hughessays
BPL, Are we still expecting societal collapse within 10 years?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
CH: Are we still expecting societal collapse within 10 years?
BPL: 2040 according to the British Foreign Office, 2050 or so according to my article. But the article contained a flaw: I failed to account for the difference in area of a grid square as one moves toward the poles. Corrected, the collapse occurs about 2060.
Dharmasays
Barton Paul Levenson says
5 Nov 2024 at 10:48 AM
BPL: 2040 according to the British Foreign Office, 2050 or so according to my article. But the article contained a flaw: I failed to account for the difference in area of a grid square as one moves toward the poles. Corrected, the collapse occurs about 2060.
Ms Dharma says:
I was not aware that Barton was a verified self-identifying ‘Doomer’ and possibly a Casandra Malthusian and Catastrophist as well. Please do not tell Michael E. Mann. But I would love to see that ‘article’.
Scott Nuddssays
“Are we still expecting societal collapse within 10 years?” – chuck hughes
In the U.S. for sure.
Piotrsays
Piotr: “P.Pukite uses the victims of the war in Ukraine as a chance to score points … in 3yr-old discussion about his claims on ENSO”
Paul Pukite: “ It’s not just ENSO. A unified model of forcing mechanisms will help explain many different geophysical behaviors,”
Too bad that your ORIGINAL claim from 14 Oct 2021 promised “saving countless lives” SOLELY thanks to the “ long range predictions of the next El Nino or La Nina“, So your CURRENT ADDITION of a a unified model of forcing mechanisms [to] explain many different geophysical behaviors,” is a rather extreme^* case of l’esprit de l’escalier
===
^* three years after the fact …
Dharmasays
Trolling and harassment on social media forums involve deliberately provoking, insulting, or intimidating other users to disrupt conversations or cause distress. Trolling typically includes making inflammatory or off-topic comments to trigger emotional responses or derail discussions for amusement. Harassment is more targeted, involving persistent or aggressive behavior—such as personal attacks, threats, or repetitive unwanted messages—intended to intimidate, demean, or silence the targeted individual. Both actions undermine constructive dialogue and can create hostile online environments.
Piotrsays
Darma: “ Trolling and harassment on social media forums involve deliberately provoking, insulting, or intimidating other users to disrupt conversations or cause distress.
Seeing a straw in the eye of the other and not a beam in his own, AGAIN?
Irrespective whether or not the research carried out by Paul finally brings the immense breakthrough in which some of us in secret hope, or perhaps fails: I think that in your absurd dispute about the word “countless”, you are wasting your time and energy, valuable resources that you could certainly exploit much better.
What about burying the war tomahawk now?
Please.
Greetings
T
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: “ I think that in your absurd dispute about the word “countless”, you are wasting your time and energy,:
Tell this to your Dr,. Pukite – it was him who 3 years ago advocated shifting research priorities and resources away from modelling AGW and to the research of EL Nino, claiming that it could save “ countless lives. I
t was him who then failed to provide a plausible mechanism for saving countless lives. And having failed 3 years ago, reopens this discussion again and again – here on 3 separate occasions in the last several weeks. And each time digging himself into even a deeper hole.
But I don’t think it was a complete waste of time – if we can see a World in a Grain of Sand – surely we can see a Man in a Single Thread. A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it, A man uncapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – he doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.
And if does it even in such a simple, open and shut case, as this – what are the chances that he will behave differently in less obvious cases, and/or when much more is on the line for him?
I am not going to search the history of your dispute. I have not noticed that Paul proposes that climate science should redirect available resources to studying solely oscillations like ENSO. If he has in fact never done so, I propose that he simply confirms it. In return, Piotr can accept it as a truth. This way, the 3 years long dispute could be concluded.
Hopefully it will not take many years until Paul’s theory will be tested by modelling experiments and their accordance or discordance with observations. Let us wait and see.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite Nov 14: “ Quoting Piotr: “A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it,”, “A man uncapable of introspection.”, “A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions”
Almost Shakespearean.
And this is supposed to falsify my diagnosis of you which I based on your posts – how?
I criticize the claims you have made on RC. I am not interested in your posts elsewhere. I am not that into you. And apparently, neither are others (“ No takers after 5 years “).
It doth seem that the more that Piotr tries to make some sort of point, the more a claim that a valid predictive model ENSO could save countless lives makes sense. Certainly, improved models of AGW have certainly had diminishing relevance in the life-saving department, as they have changed little since circa 1980. In fact, AGW models have remained relatively consistent, with a climate sensitivity estimate of approximately 3°C per CO₂ doubling, reflecting their focus on long-term climate trends rather than immediate, actionable outcomes. Improving the precision of climate sensitivity is kind of a moot point at this time wrt next year’s forecast
So, perhaps a model of reversal of AGW could save countless lives at some point through feats of geoengineering, such as showing that injecting aerosols into the stratosphere could have a beneficial outcome… But that could just as well backfire via Murphy’s Law and lead to massive unintended consequences.
And certainly AGW models that claim to create greater extremes in variability may save lives, but they are generally worthless without the benefit of a foundational understanding, as with a fundamental ENSO model of why extremes of natural variability can occur.
In summary, the distinction between models of ENSO and AGW lies in their immediate applicability and impact. ENSO models, with their potential for real-time predictions, can directly save countless lives by informing disaster preparedness and mitigating the effects of extreme weather events like floods and droughts. That’s one of the reasons that scientists continue to work on models of natural variability such as ENSO. Of course, it’s not the only rationale, as scientific curiosity and (as I said) establishing a solid foundation for geophysical fluid dynamics understanding is vitally important as well.
Onward with climate science research!
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: 15 Nov: “ Dear Piotr, dear Paul, I am not going to search the history of your dispute. I have not noticed that Paul proposes that climate science should redirect available resources to studying solely oscillations like ENSO.
If you bothered to inform yourself, before offering your opinions on a given subject,
you would have known that it is precisely what he did.
So spare us your baseless opinions on things you know nothing about, and can’t be bothered to learn about them. Garbage in, garbage out.
PP: models of AGW have certainly had diminishing relevance in the life-saving department, as they have changed little since circa 1980.
BPL: The models have changed immensely since 1980. Did you mean the results haven’t changed?
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz 16 Nov: “ Hallo Piotr, I tried to interfere with your dispute with Paul Pukite, because it reminded me of one old song you might have known and loved ”
And what this song says about an arrogant ignoramus, who can’t be bothered to learn the facts, and yet he interjects himself into the discussion and tells everybody his opinion about the content of the posts he didn’t bother to read? As in:
“ Dear Piotr, dear Paul, I am not going to search the history of your dispute. I have not noticed that Paul proposes that climate science should redirect available resources to studying solely oscillations like ENSO. Tomas Kalisz
“the models have changed immensely since 1980. Did you mean the results haven’t changed?
Yes, I think the climate sensitivity of 3°C per doubling of CO2 has remained consistent since the NRC’s Charney report in 1979. Of course the details of the model have changed quite a bit.
“Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979. By that year, data collected since 1957 confirmed what had been known since before the turn of the 20th century: Human beings have altered Earth’s atmosphere through the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. The main scientific questions were settled beyond debate, and as the 1980s began, attention turned from diagnosis of the problem to refinement of the predicted consequences. ” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
In that article, Ken Caldeira was paraphrased
“Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., has a habit of asking new graduate students to name the largest fundamental breakthrough in climate physics since 1979. It’s a trick question. There has been no breakthrough. As with any mature scientific discipline, there is only refinement. The computer models grow more precise; the regional analyses sharpen; estimates solidify into observational data. Where there have been inaccuracies, they have tended to be in the direction of understatement. Caldeira and a colleague recently published a paper in Nature finding that the world is warming more quickly than most climate models predict. The toughest emissions reductions now being proposed, even by the most committed nations, will probably fail to achieve “any given global temperature stabilization target.””
Yet, there can still be breakthroughs in the Earth sciences. This blog post presents several candidates. One a breakthrough that has been a mystery since 1891. Another a mystery since the pattern was revealed in the 1950’s. And then there’s the mystery of ocean cycles, which ENSO is the hallmark https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
Alas, they don’t have anything to do with models of GHG, hence the endless back-and-forth as to what is deemed “important” in climate science research.
Piotrsays
Piotr: “So spare us your baseless opinions on things you know nothing about, and can’t be bothered to learn about them. Garbage in, garbage out.”
Tomas Kalisz: “[that reminded me a] song is about two academics, fighting with each other on a parking lot for a laughable reason.”
A superficial analogy from a superficial mind. Which part of my earlier answer, why it is NOT trivial, “laughable” matter – you didn’t understand?
Piotr Nov. 13: “if we can see a World in a Grain of Sand – surely we can see a Man in a Single Thread. A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it, A man incapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – who doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.”
You still need to prove that these are “laughable” conclusions. Mr. Kalisz.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: It doth seem that the more that Piotr tries to make some sort of point
Specifically, which point? Do tell, Paul. Is it the point:
a) that you failed in Oct 2021 to prove your claim that better prediction of ENSO “could save countless lives”?
b) that unable to show the plausible mechanism for a) – you then escaped into semantics, claiming that by “countless” you DIDN’T mean “saving very many lives”, but that the selling point of your research was the … impossibility to evaluate its impact (“uncountable lives”)?
c) that unable to admit of being wrong even in such a trivial case 3 years ago, you tried recently to revive the discussion on 3 separate occasions in several weeks?
d) that in each of these occasions – you shot yourself in the foot – because the presumed importance of El Nino was in the LARGE numbers of potential victims, NOT in their uncountability ?
e) that even if the PT extinction was caused by “Mega-ElNino lasting decades” resulting in …. very many deaths (“90% of life”) – it won’t happen today (different position of continents) and even if it happened – we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it regardless whether we would know better when it would start or not
f) or what all the above tells about you as a man (“A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it, A man uncapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – he doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.”)
So which of these points I only TRY to make, Paul? And if I only “try” to make them, how hard would be to refute them? So why haven’t you?
” that you failed in Oct 2021 to prove your claim that …”
I don’t have to go any further than this because in the physical sciences, nothing can be proven. Certainly, one can prove a theorem in math. But in physics, all one can do is offer up a model and see if it works better than the others.
Paul Pukite: It doth seem that the more that Piotr tries to make some sort of point
Specifically, which point? Do tell, Paul. Is it the point [7 falsifiable points here]
Paul Pukite: “ I don’t have to go any further than this because in the physical sciences, nothing can be proven
Says Paul Pukite. PROVING again that he has not balls to own up to his claims, and instead hides again behind semantics – by applying the extremely narrowing definition of an absolute proof OUTSIDE the area of its applicability – formal mathematics.
Yours are NOT articles in the mathematics journal, Paul, they are your posts in Internet discussion, hence the standard of “proof” is that of any discussion forum – making a more convincing, more logically consistent, and a better supported with facts and/or quotes, argument than your opponent. And you MUST know the intellectual dishonesty of your trying get away on a semantics technicality – were we to accept your narrowing absolute definition from the formal mathematics onto Internet discussions – it would make ANY discussion IMPOSSIBLE – instead we would have a …. loose collection of MONOLOGUES with subjective opinions, with NO way to determine which of them is defendable, and which of them is garbage.
So not only you failed to REFUTE any of my 7 points, if anything – your strengthen them – adding additional example do my p. b), and reinforcing my concluding p. f):
============= Piotr, Nov. 24 ===================
a) you failed in Oct 2021 to prove your claim that better prediction of ENSO “could save countless lives”
b) unable to show the plausible mechanism for a) – you then escaped into semantics, claiming that by “countless” you DIDN’T mean “saving very many lives”, but that the selling point of your research was the … impossibility to evaluate its impact (“uncountable lives”)
c) unable to admit of being wrong even in such a trivial case 3 years ago, you tried recently to revive the discussion on 3 separate occasions in several weeks?
d) in each of these occasions – you shot yourself in the foot – because the presumed importance of El Nino was in the LARGE numbers of potential victims, NOT in their “uncountability :
e) even if the PT extinction were caused by “Mega-ElNino lasting decades” resulting in …. very many deaths (“90% of life”) – it won’t happen today (different position of continents) and even if it happened – we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it regardless whether we would know better when it would start or not
f) all the above tells all we need to know about you as a man: “A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it (hiding instead behind semantics). A man uncapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – he doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.”
So which of these points I only “try” to make, Paul? And if I only “try” to make them, how hard would be to refute them? So why haven’t you?
=========================
Sabine Hossenfelder shows how only science can fix Americas political delinquency
Secular Animistsays
Dharrma: “Is the USA a Democracy or a Republic?”
Is an apple round or red?
Mr. Know It Allsays
She gives an admirable attempt at answering the question, but like most who do not live in the USA, really does not understand how it works here, but neither do most of our citizens. This is probably a better explanation of whether we are a Democracy or a Republic:
(no need to watch the video – just read the article)
To suggest that apps will fix our democracy is ludicrous. That will instantly become a propaganda war much like the false warnings we saw on COVID videos, Climate Change videos, etc.
In the USA our biggest problem is that the public schools are now turning out the dumbest group of humans to ever populate any nation. How dumb? They BELIEVE that men can get pregnant, that boys can become girls, and now kids actually go to school acting like dogs and cats AND THE TEACHERS GO ALONG WITH IT! No nation can be successful with this level of idiocy.
Our system sucks, but is better than all of the others tried to date. Our system has produced the greatest good for the most people around the world BY FAR, up to this point at least. That may change as the dumbed down ones start to run the country – may become another 3rd world failed state – we are on that path right now, but have the opportunity to START to change course on Tuesday by electing TRUMP.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: They BELIEVE that men can get pregnant, that boys can become girls
BPL: I’ve never met a kid who thought men could get pregnant. As for boys becoming girls (or vice versa), trans folk don’t bother me. One of my friends is trans (M->F), and you couldn’t meet a nicer, more intelligent person.
It’s best to think about individuals and not groups.
Interesting. I watched a couple of the videos. I liked the Sci Show one and learned some things. Thanks!
Moderators would not allow discussing the details of how it fits in with politics, public schools, etc. My position would be that discussions in public schools on the topic should be limited to a video such as the Sci Show video in a biology class no earlier than say 7th grade, and that should be the end of it just to let the kids know it exists. Other than that, it’s a topic for the student, their family, and if they choose, their doctor. School personnel should not recommend a student do anything other than talk to their parents about it.
I saw another YouTube video on the topic that was good. She recommended not having surgery. That is good advice for any elective surgery since it can cause problems. Here’s the video:
What I’ve learned from having balls. | Emily Quinn | TEDxProvidence
“ Yes, good point”… but of course it varies with the person, the condition, and the surgery/treatment/meds/etc. Even without side effects (link to 20+ year old abcnews special pending…), I imagine the surgery/etc. might be unwanted(?) (eg. conformity is not everyone’s most important desire). Others may benefit from it (depending on what “it” is) greatly.
Susan Andersonsays
Hossenfelder once again shows she can get an audience to listen to her opinions which leave out a lot of stuff.
Kevin Anderson is great. Dharma is so convinced that only he knows the truth and we are almost all to blame that he undermines material with which most of us are familiar and which most of us admire.
Dharmasays
It’s intriguing how some people feel entitled to presume they know my thoughts or motivations. To suggest that I believe “only I know the truth” or that I am blaming everyone is completely misguided and a delusional sick caricature of my perspective.
I engage critically with ideas and analyses, especially on complex subjects like climate science, because thoughtful critique drives understanding. I don’t presume to hold the “ultimate truth” on these matters. I do, however, place a high value on factual accuracy and evidence-based discourse, and I’m willing to call out flawed assumptions when I see them.
To be clear: Kevin Anderson (is brilliant) and others in the field offer valuable insights, and I don’t undermine that. What I do question is the uncritical acceptance of some research that relies on hypothetical or improbable scenarios, as it often misleads the public and policymakers. There’s a significant difference between debating methodology and challenging someone’s work versus making sweeping accusations about their beliefs or integrity.
A little less mind-reading and a bit more intellectual rigor would go a long way. (will not hold my breath) Let’s stick to discussing the evidence and ideas, not inventing unfounded motives? I foolishly asked, in my dreams.
Susan Andersonsays
Sick and tired of reams of insults and self-righteousness. Clutter accompanied by blame does not contribute to our understanding, it makes us scroll past. It’s not the material, with which most of us are familiar, it’s the nasty tone and personal attacks.
Some rigorous editing and tolerance of your fellow sufferers might help.
Referring to your words “fellow sufferers”, I would wish you that Dharma, Complicius, Sabine, Escobar, cj, Ned Kelly etc indeed belong to such kind of people.
I am afraid, however, that we rather face a genuine troll, who in fact enjoys suffering inflicted to others and does not have any empathy, nor positive feelings to anyone.
Best wishes
Tom
Ray Ladburysays
Best answer to the US form of government: Since the media determines who does and does not come in through Overton’s bathrooom window (apologies to the Beatles), the proper term for our form of government is “mediocracy”.
And with the collapse of mainstream media, perhaps that should be modified to “anarchy”.
Andrew Simmonssays
… a quick note just to thank MA Rodger for the highly illuminating response to my question on October’s Unforced Variations, not just clearing up for me that climate models don’t account for carbon cycle changes due to warming (eg reduced sink capacity), and went on to put excellent context around the paper that was picked up and reported by the Grauniad as “carbon sinks have stopped working!!”
Dharmasays
Well then, carbon sinks stopped working or they didn’t in 2023, or now in 2024, or potentially next year or soon.
What does the climate science actually say on the matter?
Mr. Know It Allsays
What about the increased plant growth around the world as CO2 increases. Is that in the models?
Rising air surface temperatures will exterminate plants and animals long before rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations become toxic. See the graph titled A phase diagram of habitability for residents of the Earth in the YouTube video titled Mirrors for Earth’s Energy Rebalancing (MEER:refEction) | Dr. Ye Tao | 2019NSSUS at: https://youtu.be/fwvPJnPP9KI?t=925
Until the late 20th century, the Holocene period global mean surface temperature (GMST) was 14 ± 0.5 °C.
The Earth System has left the climate of the Holocene (last 11,700 years of the Earth’s history), transiting towards a warming climate similar to the Mid-Pliocene (circa 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago) by mid-century, on the way towards the Mid-Miocene (15.97 ± 0.05 million years ago to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma, with GMST of 17 °C to 19 °C) by perhaps the end of this century. https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
Prof. Andy Pitman notes that global mean warming is badly understood: as a general rule of thumb, a GMST warming of +4 °C (covering land and ocean) is consistent with +6 °C over land, and +8 °C in the average warming over mid-latitude land. That risks +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves. Western Sydney has already reached 48 °C. If you add 12 °C to the 48 °C peak temperatures that have already happened, then you likely get summer heatwaves of perhaps 60 °C in a +4 °C warming world (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline). https://www.climatecodered.org/2023/02/faster-higher-hotter-what-we-learned_24.html
The ideal temperature for cooking red meat using the sous vide method for Medium doneness is 135–144 °F (57–62 °C).
Mr. Know It Allsays
See? It’ll all work out. Democrats will take away our gas stoves, and AGW will mean we can cook without them. Win-win for everybody!
:)
John Pollacksays
The risks of extreme high temperatures supposedly justified by Prof. Pitman’s “rule of thumb” stick out like a sore thumb to me. It is certainly true that the mean temperature over land will warm faster than over the oceans, essentially due to higher thermal capacity of water. Also true that the mid latitudes will warm faster than the mean, and higher latitudes even faster, with arctic amplification.
However, much of that amplification takes place in the winter. Summer temperatures are rising more slowly than the annual mean. Extreme mid latitude high temperatures are rising even more slowly,overall. One general reason is that extreme high temperatures occur when the ground is dry, and evapotranspiration is reduced – allowing solar energy to be converted more efficiently to sensible heating. If you make a mid latitude summer climate drier, you will raise the average temperature faster than the extremely hot days, which occur when it is already dry. Another is that extreme maximum temperatures occur under “heat domes.” These are characterized by high pressure and warm air aloft. However, the upper troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface. The hottest temperatures that can be sustained at the ground are limited by the propensity of hot air to rise and cool until it hits a “lid” of warm air aloft. If that lid isn’t warming very fast, the rise in extreme high temperatures will be similarly limited.
So, if there is a +8C warming in average mid latitude warming, the risk for the summer average is closer to +6C, and perhaps 4C in heat waves.
The warming problems are bad enough. I see no need for this type of exaggeration to dramatize them further.
Geoff Miellsays
John Pollack: – So, if there is a +8C warming in average mid latitude warming, the risk for the summer average is closer to +6C, and perhaps 4C in heat waves.”
Chatham House published on 14 Sep 2021 their report titled Climate change risk assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating. Page 14 included:
By the 2030s, more than 400 million people globally each year are likely to be
exposed to temperatures exceeding the workability threshold.²⁶ Also by the 2030s, the number of people exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold²⁷ is likely to surpass 10 million each year.²⁸, ²⁹
Globally, the central estimate indicates that over 8.2 billion people will experience
a heatwave of two or more consecutive days per year by 2050 (Figure 3a), equivalent
to 90 per cent of the global population.³⁰ This climate risk impacts a far greater
proportion of the global population than any other direct risk assessed.
I note in the Chatham House report, per Figure 2, in 2050, the expected change in global surface temperature is +2.5 °C (relative to pre-industrial temperatures).
In the Summary (on page 2):
– If policy ambition, low-carbon technology deployment and investment follow current trends, 2.7°C of warming by the end of this century is likely, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. A plausible worst case of 3.5°C is possible (10 per cent chance). These projections assume Paris Agreement signatories meet their NDCs. If they fail to do so, the probability of extreme temperature increases is non-negligible.
– Any relapse or stasis in emissions reduction policies could lead to a plausible
worst case of 7°C of warming by the end of the century (10 per cent chance).
John Pollack: – “The warming problems are bad enough. I see no need for this type of exaggeration to dramatize them further.”
The “warming problems” as you put it are only going to get worse as the Earth System inevitably exceeds the +1.5 °C GMST anomaly threshold and continues on towards +2.0 °C. That’s the undeniable reality. I’d suggest being aware of the possible worst case situations should be sufficient motivation to attempt to avoid them. I think being ignorant of or denying them is not a helpful strategy.
John Pollacksays
Geoff Miell – So you wish to refute Professor Andy Pitman’s “rule of thumb”? (Followed by profile of Andy Pitman)
JP – Maybe. First off, this is an ad hominem argument, to the effect that Prof. Pitman must be right because he has better academic qualifications than I do. I’d rather have references to his scientific writings that address my objection, not simply his profile. I do have a couple of meteorology degrees, and 30+ years of experience as a forecaster, so I have some idea of what I’m talking about. I am well aware that there are researchers who know a lot more than I do, but they show it by knowing what they are writing about, not by waving their degree.
Second, it is not clear to me what the actual “rule of thumb” is. If it’s the idea that 4C GMST warming is consistent with 6C of continental warming, and 8C over mid-latitude land areas, then I am okay with it as a rough estimate. The way the article is written, it leaves me uncertain whether the risk of ” +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves” is Prof. Pitman’s idea, or the idea of David Spratt, the author of the piece you linked. Can you reference any publications or writings that make it Prof. Pittman’s idea?
I do wish to refute the +10C/+12C assertion as a consequence of +4C GMST. It appears to be a wild exaggeration, for the basic reasons I outlined before. If you can refer me to anything peer-reviewed that says otherwise, I’d be glad to see it.
I did not intend to state or imply that the warming problems aren’t going to get worse. They clearly are going to be a lot worse on our current trajectory. Examining just how much worse things could get, and how fast, is a very important issue for both science and society.
Geoff Miell – ” I’d suggest being aware of the possible worst case situations should be sufficient motivation to attempt to avoid them. I think being ignorant of or denying them is not a helpful strategy.”
John Pollack – I agree. But I don’t see that being ignorant of the meteorology involved in producing heat waves, to the extent of making serious exaggerations, will be helpful.
Geoff Miellsays
John Pollack: – “The way the article is written, it leaves me uncertain whether the risk of ” +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves” is Prof. Pitman’s idea, or the idea of David Spratt, the author of the piece you linked. Can you reference any publications or writings that make it Prof. Pittman’s idea?”
See the Breakthrough Discussion Paper titled Faster, Higher, Hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022, published Mar 2023, on page 9, and footnote #58. https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/papers
See also the Breakthrough Report titled DEGREES OF RISK: Can the banking system survive climate warming of 3˚C?, published Aug 2021, on page 10, and footnote #23. https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/dor
It seems you would need to ask Andy Pitman about his apparently personal communication with David Spratt on 6 Jun 2021. Presumably, Andy Pitman has allowed that information to be included in those two referred publications.
John Pollack: – “I am well aware that there are researchers who know a lot more than I do, but they show it by knowing what they are writing about, not by waving their degree.”
Per the transcript of the public hearing on 27 Oct 2024, conducted by the NSW Parliament Portfolio Committee No. 7 – Planning and Environment, for the Inquiry into the Climate Change (Net Zero) Bill 2023, on page 6:
ANDY PITMAN: I did a PhD in the mathematical modelling of terrestrial processes—energy, water and carbon in land atmosphere processes, working within the climate modelling area. Then I’ve spent 30 years working on multiple aspects of climate, with an emerging interest in extremes for the last seven years as the Director of the Centre of Excellence; prior to that, more average-type processes when I was the director of a former centre of excellence; and now moving much more into trying to keep people honest in their use of climate information. There are some bad actors out there who are selling a lot of information to do with future climate that isn’t defensible from a climate science perspective.
Whether the extreme heatwave temperatures reach as high as 60 °C, or in the low- to mid-50s °C range, in a +4 °C GMST anomaly world, they are still extremely dangerous for humans. A +4 °C GMST anomaly world is likely incompatible for human civilisation. https://www.climatecodered.org/2019/08/at-4c-of-warming-would-billion-people.html
John Pollack: – “The warming problems are bad enough. I see no need for this type of exaggeration to dramatize them further.”
Exaggeration? Climate change is happening faster than expected.
Leon Simons tweeted on Nov 7:
It’s quite something to see more and more climate change communicators turn into low-key climate science deniers as the truth turns out worse than they thought.
While millions of people trust them and their platforms to get it right.
Geoff Miell says in a Reply to John Pollack listing multiple references about / from Prof. Pitman’s climate science work, experience, qualifications, and expertise levels.
8 Nov 2024 at 12:33 AM
Well done Geoff.
John Pollack may like to educate himself about the difference between the fallacies of an ad hominem and an (faux) appeal to authority. Especially realising when someone is an authority and their work is being referenced in an article or science paper it is not ‘an appeal to authority’ logical fallacy . Being ignorant of a person actual credentials and level of expertise is easily solved before criticising their “authority” by looking up google scholar, using google search etc or asking your nearest AI LLM offering. Or even “phoning a friend”.
John Pollacksays
Thank you for your references, Geoff. Unfortunately, they don’t shed any light on the physical mechanism(s) that would be required to generate a +12C mid latitude increment in extreme summer temperatures from a +4C change in GMST. This is the exaggeration I am referring to. These would have to include a large preferential warming in the upper troposphere over continental landmasses, in order to accommodate diabatic warming near the ground without simply dissipating most of it through enhanced convection. I am not aware of any modeling that suggests enhanced upper tropospheric heating relative to the surface – which is where greenhouse heating is the most intense..
zebrasays
John Pollack,
John, you are one of very few here who is willing/able to do what I keep asking for… deal with the physics, explain how the elements of the climate system actually work, and what we might expect at the local levels that actually affect humanity.
I expect most people with the background to do so, who look in here, simply roll their eyes at the level of spam that is allowed, and move on.
It would be really great to have an actual meteorologist show up who disagreed with you, so people could see what an actual scientific debate is like. Instead you just get endless words that mean less and less as their quantity increases.
Geoff Miellsays
John Pollack: – “Unfortunately, they don’t shed any light on the physical mechanism(s) that would be required to generate a +12C mid latitude increment in extreme summer temperatures from a +4C change in GMST. This is the exaggeration I am referring to.”
Perhaps you may wish to explore the circumstances/processes leading to the lethal heatwave conditions experienced by Lytton BC, Canada, on 29 Jun 2021, where the temperature reached 49.6 °C? During this time, western Canada experienced temperatures up to 20 °C above normal (my emphasis), with provinces recording more than 103 all-time heat records. The BC Coroners Service confirmed that there were 619 heat-related deaths during the heat dome, which took place from June 25 to July 1. https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/blogs/science-health/surviving-heat-impacts-2021-western-heat-dome-canada
If you are genuinely keen to understand the processes for the possibility of extreme summer heatwaves in Western Sydney of perhaps 60 °C in a +4 °C warming world (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline), I’d suggest you may wish to email Prof Andy Pitman? His email address is easy enough to find. Perhaps Prof Pitman may be gracious enough to respond to your query?
Piotrsays
Geoff Miell.: “So you wish to refute Professor Andy Pitman’s “rule of thumb”?”
John Pollack: “I do wish to refute the +10C/+12C assertion as a consequence of +4C GMST. It appears to be a wild exaggeration, for the basic reasons I outlined before. If you can refer me to anything peer-reviewed that says otherwise, I’d be glad to see it ”
Geoff Miell … failing to provide “anything peer-reviewed that [proves] the “+10C/+12C assertion as a consequence of +4C GMST”
John Pollack: “Thank you for your references, Geoff. Unfortunately, they don’t shed any light on the physical mechanism(s) that would be required to generate a +12C mid latitude increment in extreme summer temperatures from a +4C change in GMST. This is the exaggeration I am referring to. These would have to include a large preferential warming in the upper troposphere over continental landmasses, in order to accommodate diabatic warming near the ground without simply dissipating most of it through enhanced convection. I am not aware of any modeling that suggests enhanced upper tropospheric heating relative to the surface – which is where greenhouse heating is the most intense.. ”
Darma, to the same no-answer from Geoff:
:” Well done Geoff.
John Pollack may like to educate himself about the difference between the fallacies of an ad hominem and an (faux) appeal to authority. Being ignorant of a person actual credentials and level of expertise is easily solved before criticising their “authority” by looking up google scholar, using google search etc or asking your nearest AI LLM offering. Or even “phoning a friend”.
“‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”, eh?
John Pollacksays
Geoff Miell – Perhaps you may wish to explore the circumstances/processes leading to the lethal heatwave conditions experienced by Lytton BC, Canada, on 29 Jun 2021, where the temperature reached 49.6 °C?
JP Yes. I followed this event intently as it was unfolding. So, let’s have a look at it.
By June, 2021 conditions across the western U.S. extending into southwest Canada were quite dry. Mountain snow pack was far below normal, and spring precipitation was also quite deficient.
A mid tropospheric anticyclone (sometimes called a “heat dome”) began to form over the interior western U.S. in late May 2021. These anticyclones can be viewed as extensions of the prevailing subtropical anticyclones, extending the Hadley circulation into mid latitudes. As a serious manifestation of climate change, these extensions have become stronger and more persistent, also reaching higher latitudes and occurring in off seasons. (e.g. The current 500 hPa heights exceeding 5840m to the west of Ireland are normally found south of 30N this time of year, and are about a 3 sigma anomaly.) Anomalous anticyclones are associated with mid and higher latitude droughts, unusual heat, and fires, especially in the warm season. (Cool season anticyclones in mid latitudes often produce persistent inversions with light winds, such as that currently affecting the U.K.)
The heat dome grew stronger and hotter in June 2021. This process was enhanced by the dry antecedent conditions, which allowed anomalous diabatic heating from the higher terrain in and around the Rocky Mountains to be convected into the mid troposphere. There were three episodes of intensification. The first was in early June. On June 3, daily heat records were set from Michigan to Idaho, with scattered early season heat records. The second intensification was around mid-June. Heat records were set in the interior West of the U.S. Significantly, all-time heat records were tied in Salt Lake City UT and Sheridan, WY. This is several weeks earlier than such extremes are usually reached in this region, attesting to the unusual intensity of the heat dome.
The final, and most intense stage, affected in Pacific Northwest U.S. and adjacent southwest Canada. All-time heat records in were shattered in numerous locations, including major urban areas, in addition to the above-referenced record in Lytton BC. Despite preparations several days in advance, there were numerous fatalities – also referred to by GM. (I talked to a meteorologist friend also part of a first-responders group in Portland, OR, four days before the worst heat. He told me that cooling centers were already set up, and transport being arranged.) Some of the fatalities were probably due to a common lack of air conditioning in the region, and the early and intense nature of the heat wave. Probably most people had never experienced that intensity of heat, and didn’t realize how lethal it could be.
An important additional factor in producing the extreme heat records was a small low pressure system to the west of the heat dome area. The resulting pressure gradient from inland regions to the coast helped weaken or entirely eliminate a maritime inversion almost always present over the region. Temperatures in low elevations reached similar levels to areas well inland east of the Cascade Mountains, or even warmer with adiabatic heating. Lytton BC was the most extreme example. Another was Quillayute, on the western Washington state coast. Previous to this event, their all-time high temperature had been 99F (37C) set on August 9, 1981. Their new record was 110F (43C)!
What are the implications for temperature records around Sydney, Australia? Drought conditions would certainly enhance high temperatures. Sydney often receives adequate summer rainfall, but droughts are not unknown, and records are already preferentially set during droughts. Erasing the marine layer with strong winds from the continental interior would have the greatest potential to raise temperature records, since summer temperatures in the Outback can exceed 50C. But, they don’t exceed 55C, let alone 60C. This leaves the intensification of the subtropical anticyclone under global warming as a way of producing new records. However, this is not a rapid process overall. The largest changes are happening in the higher mid latitudes, where the poleward extensions of these anticyclones are growing stronger and more common. Nearer to the source area, such as Sydney at 34S latitude, the further heating of anticyclones is limited by negative feedbacks. These are already among the warmest mid-tropospheric temperatures for the entire planet, and thus more efficient in shedding heat via longwave radiation to space. Australia also lacks large highland regions where diabatic heating can directly warm the mid troposphere.
I still see no way to produce 60C temperatures from 4C of GMST.
Dharmasays
John Pollack says
11 Nov 2024 at 10:10 PM
No where does JP address the relevance of any changes in GMST (year or seasonal) in the examples he discusses or for any future scenarios in different regional areas on Earth.
He merely posits without evidence or argument “I still see no way to produce 60C temperatures from 4C of GMST” without providing any data or any logical analysis of why he thinks that is the case. JP has an unfounded opinion of X, and that is all. OK, it’s fine to have an opinion.
So let’s discuss some data instead. In 2021, Australia’s average mean temperature anomaly was approximately 1.47°C above the pre-industrial average (which is typically defined as the average temperature between 1850 and 1900). This figure is based on data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and international climate monitoring organizations like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
This anomaly reflects the broader trend of warming experienced by Australia and the world due to human-induced climate change. Australia has been warming at a rate roughly 1.5 times the global average, with 2021 continuing this trend. The warming has contributed to more extreme weather events, including longer and more intense heatwaves, droughts, and bushfires.
The following Data is based on this +1.5C MST warming trend for Australia. The hypothetical discussions above were questioning what might happen when this warming increases to +4C MST in the future? How hot could summer peak heatwaves become then? This is very hard to answer, but let us look at the recent history with only a +1.5C MST increase in Australia.
Western Sydney’s average mean high temperature during summer typically ranges from 28°C to 32°C (82°F to 90°F), though it can often be hotter than coastal areas due to its inland location. Let us call it 30C for the regional mean average.
Cities like Penrith and Parramatta can experience average highs around 30°C (86°F) in the summer months (December to February), and it’s not uncommon for temperatures to spike above 40°C (104°F) during heatwaves, which have become more frequent in recent years.
Yes, Western Sydney’s record high temperature is 49.0°C (120.2°F), which was recorded at Penrith on January 7, 2018. This temperature was part of a heatwave that affected much of the region, and it stands as one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Sydney and its surrounding areas.
This temperature is 19C above Western Sydney’s average summer temperature high. And it was also 9C above the average for prior summer Heatwaves in the region. Such extreme temperatures are rare but have occurred more frequently in recent years due to the broader trend of rising temperatures associated with climate change.
Remember, this is based on an existing Australia wide warming anomaly of only +1.5C at present. How high might these future heatwaves in Western Sydney increase – with more than 2 million people in an urban environment only 35 klms from the coastline – when the warming anomaly increases to 4C on the year average temperature for Australia as a whole?
Dharmasays
Remember that – Australia has been warming at a rate roughly 1.5 times the global average, with 2021 continuing this trend.
So when the GMST anomaly has risen to +4C for the planet it may be possible that the temperature anomaly for Australia as a whole increases to +6C.
What could a +6C Australian Climate do to Western Sydney’s extreme summer heatwave temperatures by then I wonder?
Geoff Miellsays
John Pollack: – “What are the implications for temperature records around Sydney, Australia?”
Per SBS News:
The western Sydney suburb of Penrith was the hottest place on Earth on Saturday [4 Jan 2020], reaching a high of 48.9 degrees Celsius.
The highest-ever temperature for the area, recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology just after 3pm, smashed a record that had stood for 80 years.
The ABC article published on 6 Oct 2017 by Liz Hanna headlined Dehydration, death and power cuts: What 50C days would look like in Australia, began with:
Australia is hot. But future extreme hot weather will be worse still, with new research predicting that Sydney and Melbourne are on course for 50 degrees Celsius summer days by the 2040s if high greenhouse emissions continue.
That means that places such as Perth, Adelaide and various regional towns could conceivably hit that mark even sooner.
This trend is worrying, but not particularly surprising given the fact that Australia is setting hot weather records at 12 times the pace of cold ones. But it does call for an urgent response.
Most of us are used to hot weather, but temperatures of 50℃ present unprecedented challenges to our health, work, transport habits, leisure and exercise.
Western Sydney, specifically Penrith, has already experienced record extreme temperatures up to 48.9 °C, on 4 Jan 2020, in a +1.2 °C GMST anomaly warming world.
Research suggests Sydney and Melbourne are on course for 50 °C summer days by the 2040s if high greenhouse emissions continue. I interpret that to mean the possibility of multiple summer days peaking at around 50 °C. I’d suggest that’s likely in a +2 °C GMST anomaly warming world.
So why is it too difficult to imagine the possibility of extreme peak temperatures of up to 60 °C in Western Sydney in a +4 °C GMST anomaly warming world?
John Pollacksays
After giving a fairly lengthy review of conditions leading to the record-smashing heat wave in the U.S Pacific Northwest and B.C. Canada (culminating June 29, 2021) it seems that at least one person missed the connections I made between this specific heat wave and rising GMST – as well as how it applies to other heat waves. So, I’ll give a more broad survey of the main contributors to exceptional mid latitude heat waves and extreme temperatures, as I understand them.
The aggressive effects of greenhouse warming as it applies to heat waves are being manifest in the development of strong mid and higher latitude anticyclones. These contain unusually warm air in the mid troposphere, and are frequently accompanied by droughts and fires.
In continental areas with large expanses of elevated surfaces, drought conditions result in positive feedback, in which more warm air is generated and injected by (dry) convection into the mid troposphere. (As warming intensifies the hydrologic cycle, many mid latitude areas are also becoming more drought-prone.)
At the periphery of a heat dome, deep mixing and higher temperatures are often enhanced by the proximity of an upper trough supporting a surface cyclone. This enhancement is frequently strong at higher latitudes, but less intense in the subtropics.
The most extreme increments of high temperature compared to normal or previous records can be found in locations which are near the edge of a continent in a prevailing marine inversion regime. On the rare occasions where the marine inversion is weakened or dissipated, high temperatures will resemble the hot continental interior. This situation applied to the heat records set in the northwest U.S. and southwest Canada in 2021. It also applied to records set in the western suburbs on Sydney, Australia.
Heat records in coastal regions are relatively easy to raise as the result of general warming – to the extent that they resemble the continental interior. Heating the already hot and dry continental interiors is not so easy. It requires warming the core temperatures of subtropical anticyclones. These are already the among the warmest air masses on the planet, and subject to negative feedbacks. I can see no reason for these temperatures to rise much faster than MST in the subtropics, probably a bit slower than GMST.
If I were planning climate resiliency measures for extreme heat in the Sydney Australia region in the face of rising GMST, I would have little concern that temperatures in the western suburbs would reach 60C in the next several decades. I would have great concern that the temperatures already seen to approach 50C in the western suburbs could spread all the way to the coast. This would be in a situation of strong winds from the interior, extreme fire danger, and an overloaded power grid that could be sparking more fires.
Nigeljsays
Dharma said “No where does JP address the relevance of any changes in GMST (year or seasonal) in the examples he discusses or for any future scenarios in different regional areas on Earth. He merely posits without evidence or argument “I still see no way to produce 60C temperatures from 4C of GMST” without providing any data or any logical analysis of why he thinks that is the case. JP has an unfounded opinion of X, and that is all. OK, it’s fine to have an opinion.”
JP does seem to implicitly accept a gmst increase of 4 degrees where he questions how you would get from somewhere between 50 – 55 degrees c up to 60 degrees c. JP does provide a logical analysis of why it is unlikely you would see 60 degrees, specifically in his last paragraphs. He discusses the implications of ” erasing the marine layer with strong winds from the continental interior ” and “the intensification of the subtropical anticyclone”. He might be wrong but he has explained a mechanism.
However if Australia already gets somewhere between 50 – 55 degrees c peaks and you add gmst 4 degrees c, but with 6 degrees over land, you are starting to get ominously close to 60 degrees. Apparently 60 degrees is possible by 2050 in some places as below, although they dont mention Australia and it appears to be countries on the equator:
“Prof. Andy Pitman notes that global mean warming is badly understood: as a general rule of thumb, a GMST warming of +4 °C (covering land and ocean) is consistent with +6 °C over land, and +8 °C in the average warming over mid-latitude land. That risks +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves. Western Sydney has already reached 48 °C. If you add 12 °C to the 48 °C peak temperatures that have already happened, then you likely get summer heatwaves of perhaps 60 °C in a +4 °C warming world (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline).”
Rules of thumb are a crude tool and fall short of a “logical analysis”. Why does it “risk 10 degrees in the summer ” and “12 degrees in heatwaves”. Is Pitman right? Can an expert please explain. .
That said its clear Australia faces severe climate change problems regardless of whether temperatures surpass 6o degrees or not.
John Pollacksays
Geoff Miell – Research suggests Sydney and Melbourne are on course for 50 °C summer days by the 2040s if high greenhouse emissions continue. I interpret that to mean the possibility of multiple summer days peaking at around 50 °C. I’d suggest that’s likely in a +2 °C GMST anomaly warming world.
So why is it too difficult to imagine the possibility of extreme peak temperatures of up to 60 °C in Western Sydney in a +4 °C GMST anomaly warming world?
JP- To get to 50C, Sydney and Melbourne would have to do all the easy stuff, the hard stuff, and the difficult stuff to raise the temperature within a meteorological setup optimized to produce their maximum temperature. Then, you have to throw in a couple of decades worth of additional strong greenhouse warming to allow it to get to 50C in the 2040s..
To get to 60C, you have to do what is even harder – raise the prevailing temperature of the mid tropospheric anticyclones by another 10C or more from what is currently observed. Anything less will not support a maximum temperature of 60C at these locations. The peak temperatures in those anticyclones are quite stable, with negative feedbacks acting to suppress higher temperatures. We would need something like 10C of general GMST warming, at a minimum, to achieve this. Considering that the mid troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface, it would probably take even more than 10C of surface warming. I find it difficult to imagine how you would do it with 4C GMST warming, because I don’t see a physical mechanism that would allow those anticyclones to warm another 10C with a mere 2.5C increment to the existing GMST warming. Nobody has provided me with one, either.
Many thanks for your explanation of the “heat domes” mechanism.
Have I understood correctly that the atmospheric circulation that establish in such situation resembles that of atmospheric circulation above hot deserts like Sahara or Arabian Peninsula?
If so, I would like to ask a few questions regarding our options for mitigating it:
1) There are modelling experiments suggesting that massive solar power exploitation in such hot deserts should, paradoxically, bring more precipitation thereto:
Is it possible to infer therefrom that massive installation of dark solar panels (that could power air condition during heat dome situations without further contribution to greenhouse gas emissions) would even itself bring some relief, perhaps by helping sea breeze to come and cool the hot coastal cities?
2) Let us, for a comparison, imagine another mode of solar energy exploitation in the same situation, the mode characterized by conversion of the unexploited (“waste”) absorbed solar energy into latent heat instead of the sensible heat. Is it possible that even though there would have been no surface cooling by the “oasis effect” because the latent heat would have absorbed merely the excessive heat released by solar panels, the rising water vapour could still somehow break the “heat dome” situation – perhaps, at least in coastal regions, by interacting with the sea breeze to form clouds and, maybe, to bring some precipitation that might cool the hot region a little bit?
3) Is it possible to compare these two options simply by using your meteorological expertise and weather forecaster experience?
4) Should a such assessment be difficult, might these theoretical scenarios deserve a comparison by a modelling study?
Best regards
Tomáš
DasKleineTeilchensays
you are posting here @ realclimate for how long now? a decade? stop f****g around, KIA, you f****g know the answers, no matter how often you repeat your “questions” about AGW over and over only to deny them answers afterwards anyway..
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: What about the increased plant growth around the world as CO2 increases. Is that in the models?
Warmer air holds more moisture, not less. Absolute humidity of the air is going up I believe due to warming, but perhaps relative humidity is going down.
Aren’t some of the big floods supposed to be because of more moisture in the air?
Piotrsays
Mr. KiA: “ Aren’t some of the big floods supposed to be because of more moisture in the air?
Massive downpours at some times/locations do not compensate for the droughts at other times/locations. See Valencia that in some places got a year-worth of rain in 8 hours and most of this water is back in the Mediterranean, thus no longer available to plants,
Or in Poland, the state of “agricultural drought” was declared for the entire area of the country between 11 July and 10 September (defined as periods that lead to the loss of more than 20% of the usual agricultural yields). The subsequent massive rains between 12 and 16 September – caused the worst flooding in Central Europe in at least two decades, but didn’t restore the crops lost to the drought in summer.
It’s the extremes that kill. not averages. at least directly. Indirectly, the warmer average temp,, reflects higher energy in the system, which in turn is more likely to spawn more extremes, plus increases the intensity of the heat waves.
And the extremes in low rain are often amplified by concurrent extremes in heat (and its not a coincident – the higher temps reduce relative humidity from the same amount of evaporation). Hotter temps mean higher plant demand for water while at the same time limiting its supply – some of the rain evaporates in the hot air before even hitting the ground, or the part that hits the hot ground evaporates before making it into the soil, and only there it could be picked by plant roots.
So you may have higher average ANNUAL precipitation and still have lower soil moisture in spring and summer when plants because of the growth and warm temps – need it the most.
So no, all is NOT for the best in this best of the all possible worlds.
Pete bestsays
Have we answered the question of climate change acceleration as yet ? November now and is La Niña here or not yet. Have we got to the bottom of the 24/24 warning anomaly?
Dharmasays
Stefan Rahmstorf one of the real climate hosts (still?) is a member staff at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). He was one of the reviewers of this report below
Earth exceeds safe limits: First Planetary Health Check issues red alert
09/24/2024 – The Planetary Boundaries Science (PBScience), a new initiative led by PIK director Johan Rockström and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), supported by the Planetary Guardians and other partners, has launched the Planetary Health Check (PHC), a first-of-its-kind scientific report and tool for the health of the Earth’s vital organs that serve as humanity’s life support system.
The PHC combines pioneering Earth science, Earth observation data and multi-disciplinary thinking to quantify the planet’s health and inform solutions to reverse the impact of human activity on the planet.
Typically, environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution have been addressed separately but these issues are interconnected and collectively impact our planet’s health, as well as human health. The Planetary Health Check report documents the latest scientific information on the diverse Planetary Boundary processes, identifies the underlying causes and the interconnectedness of various processes and connects Planetary Boundary processes to different tipping points, emphasizing the need for a whole Earth approach to ensure humanity’s future.
Planetary Boundaries such as climate change, change in biosphere integrity and ocean acidification are defined for the nine critical Earth system processes that regulate life support systems on Earth. They outline a safe operating space within which humanity can thrive while keeping the planet stable and resilient. Once a boundary is breached, the risk of permanently damaging Earth’s life support functions increases as does the probability of crossing tipping points that cause irreversible changes. If multiple boundaries are breached, risks sharply increase. The Planetary Health Check shows, that these critical Earth’s systems functions are at risk, with six of nine Planetary Boundaries breached and the imminent breach of a seventh, and a clear trend towards further transgression. While a boundary transgression is not equivalent to drastic changes happening overnight, they mark entering territory of rising risk.
“The overall diagnostic is that the patient, Planet Earth, is in critical condition. Six of nine Planetary Boundaries are transgressed. Seven PB processes show a trend of increasing pressure so that we will soon see the majority of the Planetary Health Check parameters in the high-risk zone,” .Johan Rockström adds
and note this part – Here is the last 2023 years of data for CO2 (from Antarctic ice core data) and global temperature (from numerous sources of proxy data from around the world, such as sediment and ice cores). Check it out: https://pastglobalchanges.org/science/wg/2k-network/intro
plus – global temperature for the past 24,000 years – since the last Ice Age!
SR – “Earth is now warming 20 times faster than at the end of the last Ice Age. “
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite “ If both of my parents and all 4 of my grandparents hadn’t escaped from Stalin’s clutches and being sent to Siberia, I wouldn’t be here today,
the greater your disservice to their memory – when to save your face you TRIVIALIZE the totalitarian oppression – by implying that its victims …. couldn’t have that bad – since their suffering CAN BE COMPARED to Paul Pukite having …. his claims challenged with falsifiable arguments – which P. Pukite likened to him being persecuted for “the thought crime“.
PPukite: “ Piotr, grow a pair”
I see my earlier “Three years later and you still haven’t grown a pair… ” must have landed … ;-)
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, eh?
PPukite: if you think my physics models are wrong, then go to PubPeer.com and make your case.
Nobody is discussing your physics models, I challenged your claim, made not on PubPeer.com, but on RC – that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could save countless lives”. After failing to prove so, and not having the balls to admit it – your tried to get out on semantics: claiming that by “countless” you didn’t mean saving a “very large number” of lives, but an … “unknowable number”, i.e. maybe many, maybe few.
And it is not me but YOU who tried to relitigate this discussion – by bringing up 3 years later a new paper
speculating about a decades-long mega ElNino at the K-T boundary. And not realizing that you are shooting yourself in the foot with it – the KT mass extinction attracts attention because of the extinction of “nearly 90% of life”, i.e. of a “very large number of species”, not because of the extinction of an “unknowable number, maybe many, may be few” species.
Piotr said: “Nobody is discussing your physics models, “
Top to bottom, every dynamical geophysical process on the Earth responds to the gravitational torque of the moon and the gravitational torque and unequal heating provided by the sun. It starts with the domination of the gravitational forces on surface ocean tides and continues through to the domination on the differential changes in the Earth’s rotation rate due these same tidal forces. It continues on to every known cyclic geophysical behavior and across varying time scales. Starting with the observable effects of surface ocean tides, the forces penetrate into deeper layers of the ocean, influencing subsurface waves at a longer time scale. These forces also induce thermal gradients that drive atmospheric circulation and seasonal variability, ultimately affecting the entire climate system. Combining the Moon’s 27.212-day Draconic cycle non-linearly with the Earth’s annual cycle, it can cause atmospheric phenomena such as the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation or solid body dynamics such as the Chandler Wobble, and contribute to long-term variations in the Earth’s rotation rate.
Mathematically, these interactions can be described through tidal equations coupled with periodic forcings that account for solar and lunar gravitational torques. This is an obvious research direction to pursue, so perhaps you can tell me why no one else is doing it?
patrick o twentysevensays
“Combining the Moon’s 27.212-day Draconic cycle non-linearly with the Earth’s annual cycle, it can cause atmospheric phenomena such as the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation or solid body dynamics such as the Chandler Wobble, and contribute to long-term variations in the Earth’s rotation rate.”
Patrick O 27,
Your brain appears to be going through erratic synaptic firings. I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by overloading a comment with all these links to other context-free comments. I’d strongly recommend that you get yourself a blog or a github page where you can create a well-reasoned critique that features decent equation markup and image posting for graphs and diagrams. What you’re trying to do is not scientific criticism, it’s more stenography using your own encoded shorthand within a jigsaw puzzle of logic.
“Oh, God, not this again…”
Typical gatekeeping via the “exasperation” dog-whistle.
You are going to have to deal with the fact that what I recently wrote in https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/ is a review of what I already published in Mathematical Geoenergy, and it’s not going to make a whit of difference in what you are trying to cryptically imply in dashed-off comments. If you want to make any kind of impact, try writing a critique on PubPeer.com linking it to that specific title and perhaps you can convincingly debunk the entire approach. That’s the way post-peer review is done these days. See the work of Elizabeth Bik https://x.com/Einstein_Berlin/status/1858482097448468706
She is able to debunk at will, with a kill count of 7600 so far.
Like it or not, but the way it’s set up, research advances only by peer review, and it’s best to follow a process. If you want to discuss why PubPeer is not the way to go, that’s fine, but I’m not going to try to dissemble what amounts to fragmented commentary by yourself.
To be fair, I can counter Patrick O 27’s Gish gallop with a solid elevator pitch that’s difficult to refute. Consider the QBO and the Chandler wobble, a pair of mysterious geophysical behaviors that — contrary to anything you may have read — are not yet resolved as to their origin. In terms of group symmetry, these two share the geometrical property of longitudinal independence, i.e. they appear the same no matter the observer’s location in longitude. This is referred to as SO(2) group symmetry, with wavenumber=0 spatial frequency. ONLY ONE declination-related lunar cycle shares this same property — the Draconic/nodal period whereby the moon crosses the ecliptic plane, maximizing the lunar+solar torque at an arbitrary longitude. As I have published, the sub-band periods calculated for the Draconic cycle match EXACTLY that for the observed mean QBO cycle and also independently for the observed mean Chandler wobble cycle. End of elevator pitch.
OTOH, the tropical/synodic lunar cycle is longitude-specific, which means it will apply for oceanic behaviors as these occur at different locations , thus breaking SO(2) symmetry. Th e sub-band period calculated for the tropical period matches that of the mean ENSO period. End of elevator pitch, part 2.
Patrick will first need to refute this argument, which is based on fundamental geometry. All the Gish galloping in the world won’t change that.
Dharmasays
Reply to Paul Pukite (@whut) et al
I think the greater question here could be: Are the IPCC’s public communication language skills, and patrick o twentyseven comments, Piotr the incendiary haranger, and Paul Pukite(@whut) as bad as each other?
OR another enigma of a mystery entwined in a riddle wrapped in a paradox?
______________________________________________________________________
In good faith, Paul Pukite’s observations draw upon intriguing connections between geophysical cycles and lunar influences, using group symmetry as a framework to propose relationships between seemingly unrelated phenomena. Here’s a breakdown of the key ideas and the background of the terms:
1. What are the QBO and Chandler Wobble?
-QBO (Quasi-Biennial Oscillation):
A periodic oscillation of stratospheric winds over the equator.
Alternates between easterly and westerly directions approximately every 28-29 months.
Its drivers aren’t fully resolved, though it’s influenced by atmospheric waves and possibly external forcing like lunar cycles.
-Chandler Wobble:
A small, irregular deviation in Earth’s rotation axis relative to its surface.
Cycles with a period of about 433 days (around 14 months).
It’s caused by Earth’s imperfectly spherical shape and variable mass distribution (e.g., changes in oceans and atmosphere).
Why its period stabilizes and what sustains it remain partially unexplained.
2. Paul’s Argument:
– SO(2) Group Symmetry: Both the QBO and Chandler Wobble share a symmetry independent of longitudinal positioning. This means their dynamics don’t favor one specific longitude; they are global phenomena.
– Lunar Declination Cycles: He ties these phenomena to the Draconic/nodal lunar cycle (about 27.2 days), where the moon crosses the ecliptic plane. The lunar torque, he argues, applies globally and matches sub-band periods within both QBO and Chandler Wobble observations.
– ENSO and Symmetry Breaking: On the other hand, oceanic behaviors like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) depend on longitudinal variations (e.g., Pacific dynamics), tied instead to the tropical/synodic lunar cycle.
3. What’s New or Interesting Here?
Paul claims to have shown a mathematical match between lunar cycles and these geophysical behaviors, particularly:
This idea challenges traditional geophysical thinking by suggesting lunar influences — previously deemed secondary — may play a more fundamental role.
4. How to Respond:
If you’re impressed and intrigued: “Golly, Paul, this is fascinating! Thanks for explaining this so succinctly. The connections you’re drawing between symmetry and lunar cycles are compelling. I’ll have to dive deeper into your work on these matches. The idea of the Draconic cycle driving global phenomena like QBO and the Chandler Wobble is eye-opening.”
If you’re confused or skeptical: “Paul, thanks for the pitch! It’s a lot to process, but I appreciate the symmetry argument you’re making. The links between the Draconic cycle and geophysical phenomena are intriguing, though I’ll admit I need to read more on how these sub-band periods align mathematically. Would love to see more about how your symmetry-based perspective compares to more traditional explanations.”
5. Why This Matters:
Understanding such connections could deepen our grasp of Earth’s complex systems, potentially influencing climate models and our comprehension of Earth-Moon dynamics. Paul’s work seems to suggest an overlooked yet fundamental relationship between lunar cycles and terrestrial geophysics.
And, you’re welcome.
Paul feel free to make corrections to any errors or misunderstandings above
That’s a decent explanation and essentially what something like ChatGPT would respond with, as it tries to ever-so politely reconcile the conventional wisdom with new insight.
The additional issue with gaining any headway is that the original model for QBO is over 50 years old, so am dealing with the legacy of scientists such as Richard Lindzen and his acolytes, such as Tim Dunkerton. Consider that Lindzen (the father of QBO) has said this about CO2:
“It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that carbon dioxide, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” — Richard Lindzen
Why would anyone believe in anything Lindzen says, given that assertion — man-made climate change as the greatest mass delusion in human history — is so over-the-top? I have to wonder, was Lindzen always this over-confident in his assertions? As so much of his kind of science is observational narrative, it certainly doesn’t carry the weight of detailed quantitative agreement. So why buy any of the stuff that Lindzen’s been selling over the years, including his half-baked QBO model? He’s no longer going to respond to anything on the topic, so it’s probably as good a time as any to get some fresh blood looking at it.
Dharmasays
Reply to Paul Pukite (@whut) and his pushback about Lindzen’s QBO work and “Why would anyone believe in anything Lindzen says?”
Thanks for the comment Paul. What I have heard is that the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) is widely regarded as one of the most robust patterns in atmospheric science, characterized by its alternating easterly and westerly winds in the equatorial stratosphere. The foundational work by Richard Lindzen and Tim Dunkerton in the late 20th century proposed that the QBO results from vertically propagating atmospheric waves that interact and deposit momentum at different altitudes. This hypothesis, known as the wave-driven mechanism, has been influential in explaining the phenomenon.
Evaluating the Reliability of Lindzen’s QBO Hypothesis
Legacy of the Model:
The wave-driven mechanism remains a cornerstone of QBO research. Despite the controversies surrounding Lindzen’s views on climate change, his contributions to the QBO hypothesis are largely separate from his climate denialism. The QBO model has been supported and refined by subsequent research and observations.
Tim Dunkerton, a co-author and collaborator, and many others have worked to test and expand this hypothesis, which suggests the theory has undergone significant scrutiny independent of Lindzen’s broader scientific reputation.
Criticisms of Lindzen’s Approach:
Paul Pukite’s criticism highlights a lack of “quantitative agreement” in some of Lindzen’s models. This may reflect broader debates about the mechanistic details of the QBO rather than wholesale rejection of the foundational theory.
Pukite’s own argument suggests lunar forcing (e.g., the Draconic cycle) as a potential driver of the QBO, challenging the wave-driven mechanism. This is a minority position compared to the consensus view that internal atmospheric dynamics dominate.
Separating the Science from the Scientist:
While Lindzen’s skepticism / denialism about anthropogenic climate change has undermined his credibility in some circles, his earlier work on atmospheric dynamics is not inherently invalidated. Much of the QBO research community acknowledges the wave-driven hypothesis as a baseline, even as alternative theories, like those involving lunar cycles, are explored.
The Importance of Fresh Perspectives: Noting Pukite’s call for “fresh blood” is a healthy scientific sentiment. The QBO’s complexity — and instances where it has deviated from its regular cycle, such as in 2016 — indicate that there is room for additional mechanisms or nuances beyond Lindzen’s original model.
Recent studies have examined potential connections between the QBO and factors like global warming, stratospheric volcanic eruptions, and even solar or lunar cycles.
Why Buy Lindzen’s QBO Theory Despite His Climate Denialism?
The QBO hypothesis has stood up to decades of observational data and theoretical refinement by the broader scientific community. The merits of Lindzen’s contributions in this area rest on empirical validation, not his personal beliefs about climate change.
However, skepticism towards Lindzen’s broader scientific claims, especially those unrelated to atmospheric dynamics, is warranted, given his tendency toward contrarian positions without strong empirical support.
Indeed. So now my response to Paul Pukite is: “Thanks for raising this perspective, Paul. It’s true that Lindzen’s controversial climate stance raises questions about his reliability on other topics. That said, the wave-driven QBO hypothesis has been extensively tested and remains central to understanding the phenomenon, even as alternative explanations like lunar forcing gain attention. Fresh insights like yours could help resolve the gaps in understanding, particularly the deviations observed in recent years. I’d love to see how your quantitative matches hold up under further scrutiny.”
Dharma, Why are you replying with obvious ChatGPT responses? Statistically, any LLM responses will support the consensus and so will not produce an emergent finding outside of that realm.
At best, one can use ChatGPT as an an inductive or deductive tool, applying to pure logic or validated knowledge such as working software or algorithms.
Here is an example. How would you respond to the following two geophysics puzzles:
The SAO is to the solar nodal cycle, as
the QBO is to the ____ nodal cycle.
The annual wobble is to the solar nodal cycle, as
the Chandler wobble is to the ____ nodal cycle.
Fill in the blanks, really not that hard. ChatGPT will give an answer, because logically the possibilities are limited.
patrick o twentysevensays
“ Gish gallop”
Links to what I’ve stated before, and quotes from various scientific articles, some math, etc.
“Patrick will first need to refute this argument, which is based on fundamental geometry.”
Well, I would, woundn’t I. (And I did.)
The Earth rotates once per just under 24 h, and nearly/roughly as fast relative to the direction to the Sun, the direction of Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity), the direction to the Moon, to the nodes and Moon’s orbit, and to the periapses of both orbits involved; this is many times faster than any of the months or years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon#Lunar_periods . And Earth’s axial tilt is several times that of the inclination of the Moon’s orbit (both measured relative to the ecliptic/ Earth’s orbital plane or its normal (axial tilt relative to ‘axis of orbit’). Therefore:
Aside from the effects of longitudinal dependence of features on Earth, even the semidiurnal and diurnal tides (the forcing of them – ie the perturbations of the gravitational field, not counting feedback from the tides) could be considered zonal-wavenumber 0 (taken over the course of ~ a day),
and certainly the amplitude modulation of them,
as well as the zonally-symmetric tides: the cycles over the anomalistic month and year (cycles of distance), and over the cycle in solar declination (tropical year) and variations lunar declination –
which is dominated by the tropical monthly cycle,
with a contribution from the draconic monthly cycle, are all longitudinally invariant in principle. You may be confusing longitude of the rotating Earth with a celestial coordinate. If the tropical monthly cycle is not longitudinally invariant, neither is the draconic monthly cycle. Or please explain how it could be otherwise (a near rational ratio (to Earth’s rotation period WRT the Moon) for one and not the other?).
And there are a spectrum of waves that drive the QBO. (Offhand, I’m not sure any are zonal-wavenumber 0).
I actually would expect tidal torques to add something to the Chandler wobble, but I would think one could try modelling this with the physics and some parameterizations of the visco-elastic and fluid effects.
Dharma: Pushing Lindzen on the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ seriously undermines your support of a number of credible scientists like Kevin Anderson (no relation).
You might also look up the Cato Institute. It is my understanding that Lindzen did some decent science for which he was hired by MIT. He then proceeded to join with other fake skeptics to discredit real science.
Being sour about not getting enough attention is no excuse for pushing fake skepticism, nor for attacking the vast reams of real science and scientists.
Now I think it’s likely you will attack me and because I said this in advance you might try to avoid using insult as argument and might even avoid the more nasty descriptors that are your habit in attack. There is nothing in the above that is abusive or incorrect, so don’t bother.
Patrick O 27,
Wow. You certainly have been brainwashed well. The problem with geophysics is that no controlled experiments are possible. One can’t create a lab experiment with a mini-moon gravitationally attracted to a mini-earth and the mini-earth orbiting a mini-sun and control the parameters.
Yet, one can do that with equivalent electromagnetic forces with spinning orbs and controlled EM forcing. In that case, you will find that an oblate magnetized spheroid will wobble related to the draconic (nodal) period, and not the tropical period when configured similarly to the Earth-Moon-Sun orbital system. This can be confirmed by experiment and is the same group symmetry argument I use above https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827479. However in geophysics, lacking a controlled experiment and given the agreement to what is predicted and what is observed in the Chandler wobble period, this is the best that we can do — observe what is happening and cross-validate to predictions.
The same can be done with toroidal magnetic fluxes encircling an orb, which is the E-M equivalent to the QBO . The fluxes will only uniformly (longitudinally wavenumber=0) modulate or reverse with forces of a specific group symmetry. It will not respond to tropical cycle (which would break SO(2) longitudinal symmetry), but only to an equivalent draconic (nodal) cycle. Same result as with the Chandler wobble. Again, lacking a controlled experiment and given the agreement to what is predicted and what is observed in the QBO period, this is the best that we can do — observe what is happening and cross-validate to predictions.
So if you want to debunk this, and once again you are free to try via PubPeer.com, you will need to falsify the EXACT quantitative agreements with predictions along with negating the group symmetry arguments, and invalidate the emulated experiments with analogous electro-magnetic configurations of your own. I wonder if you Patrick are up to the task, or should it be some budding graduate student that’s curious?
And the argument that “If this is such a good idea, why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?” won’t cut it either. It never has. I gave you my interpretation of why those circumstances never occurred and gave you the questionable thought process of Richard Lindzen. Fortunately, that’s not my problem.
Piotrsays
Piotr: “Nobody is discussing your physics models, I challenged your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could save countless lives”. After failing to prove so, and not having the balls to admit it – your tried to get out on semantics: claiming that by “countless” you didn’t mean saving a “very large number” of lives, but an … “unknowable number”, i.e. maybe many, maybe few.” ”
Paul Pukite sees the above, quotes the beginning and then proceeds to … explain his physical model:
“ Top to bottom, every dynamical geophysical process on the Earth responds to the gravitational torque of the moon and the gravitational torque and unequal heating provided by the sun. etc. etc. etc. ‘
How much do you think a funding agency would be willing to pay for research leading to a unified model of natural climate change, given that a proposal claims to explain El Nino, AMO, QBO, MJO. and other climate indices?
This includes a guarantee that the research would pan out. Would the US gov’t offer up $1M, $100M ?
What’s the worth of such a model? It’s kind of an inane thing to do, but ask the question to ChatGPT. The upper end may not be far off. It’s actual worth is probably unlimited, if it was as predictive as promised.
Piotrsays
– Piotr: “Nobody is discussing your physics models, I challenged your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could save countless lives”.
– Paul Pukite sees quotes the beginning and then proceeds to … explain his physical model:
“ Top to bottom, every dynamical geophysical process on the Earth responds to the gravitational torque of the moon and the gravitational torque and unequal heating provided by the sun. etc. etc. etc. ‘
-Piotr: “Can you read, Mr. Pukite?” (“Nobody is discussing your physics models”)
– Paul Pukite: “ How much do you think a funding agency would be willing to pay for research leading to a unified model of natural climate change?”
Still haven’t learn to read? Nobody is discussing how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for your physical model. The discussion is about your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “ could SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES”
And to that subject you referred to when you included the “countless, indeed” in a an unrelated discussion: PP Nov. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”:
And true to the form – your NEED to be right at any cost (even though nobody would have thought less of you, if in the original discussion 3 yrs ago you just admitted that you overstated your case) – made you blind to the fact that you in reviving the old discussion you have shot yourself in the foot: your _original_ defense was based on saying that you use word COUNTLESS as NOT meaning “very many”, a claim that your Nov.6 2024 line directly disproves.
Unless you wanted to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to establish (your _alternative_ meaning of “countless”) whether “very many” of Ukrainians indeed have suffered as a result of this war.
Dharmasays
A unified model of natural climate variability that successfully explains phenomena like El Niño, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) would indeed be groundbreaking. Such a model could improve climate predictions, help manage the impacts of extreme weather, and support long-term climate resilience strategies.
Estimated Funding Scope
$1-10 Million: Small to medium funding for exploratory or proof-of-concept stages, often seen in government research grants. Agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) might invest this amount for preliminary research that shows strong potential.
$10-50 Million: For research with well-defined objectives and evidence of feasibility, larger grants could come from agencies such as the Department of Energy (DOE), NOAA, or international bodies like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This level of funding supports collaborative efforts across multiple institutions and extensive data collection, modeling, and analysis.
$50-100 Million: If the model has passed early validation stages and can be scaled, this level of funding would be plausible for a highly impactful, collaborative project. Such an investment could support a major national research center or even a joint effort across global agencies, with the involvement of climate scientists, data scientists, and computational resources.
$100 Million+: A project with a “guarantee” of success (assuming this is feasible and demonstrable) and the potential to transform global climate science might attract upwards of $100 million, especially if it also enables significant economic benefits. Given the critical impact of climate-related events on agriculture, infrastructure, and public health, an investment of this magnitude might be within reach if the proposal could also support actionable policies.
Determining the Worth of Such a Model
The value of a unified climate variability model is substantial. Enhanced prediction accuracy for natural climate patterns could provide benefits such as:
Economic Savings: Improved forecasts for agriculture, energy, and water management could save billions annually.
Disaster Preparedness: Better understanding of phenomena like El Niño would enable more accurate early warnings for extreme weather, reducing disaster response costs and saving lives.
Scientific Advancement: A unified model would be a major milestone, potentially accelerating other research fields (e.g., oceanography, meteorology) and fostering innovations in data analytics and computational methods.
While exact valuation is complex, considering the scale of benefits in climate prediction, economic stability, and disaster management, a successful model could indeed justify funding of $100 million or more over a multi-year period.
Dharmasays
regarding: and saving lives.
I did not give a number of how many lives could be saved because it is uncountable!
That lives would be saved by such a new and successful Climate Science Model as described is logically indisputable at face value.
“Nobody is discussing how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for your physical model. “
Well, apparently you are ;) It’s a moot question anyways, since the model is in the can. Be foolish to pay for something already completed.
The rule for funding agencies, is that its easier for them to spend millions of $$$ on a crap-shoot proposal, than to look at something laid at their feet. I’ve had direct experience with RFP bids marked high simply because a lower bid would not be considered “serious:”.
Alas, the next 4 years will be tough times for USA science agencies.
Piotrsays
Darma: A unified model of natural climate variability would indeed be groundbreaking.
and still irrelevant to the subject of the discussion you are joining in – the original claim by Paul Pukite that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES”. The claim he couldn’t defend 3 years ago, and unhappy with that, tried to relitigate it now, using as jump off point – his …. grieving for the people of Ukraine and Baltics.
Piotr is complaining about something I wrote on this blog’s commenting section 3 years ago, yet this is what I wrote in the book Mathematical Geoenergy published by Wiley/AGU in late 2018
“One of the primary contributors to the nonseasonal natural variability of the climate is the ENSO phenomenon. This is an erratic dipole‐like wave oscillation in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that oscillates between the extremes identified as El Niño and La Niña episodes. For example, strong El Niño episodes can lead to record‐breaking temperature extremes in other parts of the world.
….
Understanding the ENSO phenomenon has enormous benefits for economic planning, as local officials have time to prepare for any coming change in climate, in either preparing for higher temperatures, implementing flooding safeguards, fish harvests, or stockpiling water for irrigation. This is no different, except in scale, in having knowledge of local tidal patterns so that extra precaution can be taken with watercraft in ports and harbors.”
The book contains a geophysical fluid dynamics (GFD) model that has been applied to mapping the detailed characteristics of the ENSO time-series. What I did a few days was reinforce the idea that there are unifying elements to the model that extend to several other geophysical and GFD behaviors : https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
I’m always happy to discuss the ideas here, and welcome any criticisms via http://PubPeer.com which exists for just that reason. And if anyone wants to add to the countless criticisms to my use of the modifier “countless” in a blog comment, sure, you can do that here too. Bullying doesn’t work though.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: “ Piotr: “Nobody is discussing how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for your physical model. “ “Well, apparently you are ;) ”
Read the next sentence:
P: “[model. ] The discussion is about your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “ could SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES”
See? And if you didn’t get it, how about the next sentences that followed that one:
P: “And to that subject you referred to when you included the “countless, indeed” in a an unrelated discussion: PP Nov. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”:
And true to the form – your NEED to be right at any cost (even though nobody would have thought less of you, if in the original discussion 3 yrs ago you just admitted that you overstated your case) – made you blind to the fact that you in reviving the old discussion you have shot yourself in the foot: your _original_ defense was based on saying that you use word COUNTLESS as NOT meaning “very many”, a claim that your Nov.6 2024 line directly disproves.====
So you …. read the above – and, what, think to yourself:
“A ha! He is writing about how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for my physical model! Oh golly, I got him! Now, all I need is to cleverly point it out, Hmm, how about:: Well, apparently you are ;) ” See my smile – I wouldn’t be smiling, if I weren’t 100% right, now would I?” ?
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite “Piotr is complaining about something I wrote on this [blog]
complaining? Nah, holding you to account.
PP: 3 years ago, yet this is what I wrote in the book Mathematical Geoenergy published by Wiley/ AGU in late 2018.
Which does not prove your claim about “saving countless lives” either. And the best proof that it doesn’t – it is in what YOU did in 2021 – you DIDN’T call onto your 2018 paper, but INSTEAD you tried to lower the bar of the proof – by lecturing the readers of RC than when one promotes the importance of one’s research area by saying it could “save countless lives“- then it should be obvious to the reader that this research is important NOT because it could save a HUGE number of lives, but it it is important because its effects …. can not be quantified. ;-)
And you thought people here are so dense that they would swallow such an absurd claim ?
Piotrsays
Darma: 11 Nov a successful model could indeed justify funding of $100 million or more over a multi-year period. regarding: and saving lives. I did not give a number of how many lives could be saved because it is uncountable!
Let’s see – we have two identical proposals, proposing shifting the research funding from the AGW to ENSO, and to justify this massive switch – both of them promise that a better prediction of the time of the next El Nino “could COUNTLESS LIVES”.
Now which of the two has a better chance to get the funding –
a) that one that sells saving “too numerous lives to be counted : myriad, many”
b) or the one that sells the … “unknowability of the life-saving effect – maybe many, maybe few, maybe none at all”.
Paul Pukite started with a), but after failing in his initial attempt to offer a plausible pathway toward a), retreated to b),
And now Darma, pretending to be on Paul’s side, reminds everybody the absurdity of Paul’s claim, implying that if it were for Darma – he would have given Paul $100 mln or more for the study which main selling point was the … inability to quantify the number of lives it promised it could save:
Darma: “ a successful model could indeed justify funding of $100 million or more […] I did not give a number of how many lives could be saved because it is uncountable!
To borrow from an oceanographic classic: “ With fronds like these who needs anemones!“
Piotr
It’s important for you and others to appreciate that a predictive model of ENSO (if it exists) could aid in saving countless lives world-wide.
Consider another hypothetical case — that if Hillary Clinton had been president instead of Trump at the start of the pandemic, her actions (had they existed) could have aided in saving countless lives.
You’re never going to win this argument Piotr, and I suggest you stop digging that hole.
My wife and I voted early (took in our ballots to the County Office building in Pittsburgh), and we voted the straight Democratic ticket. I urge everyone voting today to vote Democratic. If Trump and the “drill, baby, drill” crowd get in the future is even bleaker than it is already.
Davidsays
As things stand now, a little past midnight (EST), it appears likely that the veil of anti-science thought will fall upon the federal government of the country I love.
This will not be a simple rerun of his first term. It will be so much worse this time. There will be little to no adults as before to help curb his inclinations. The damage that will now happen will last longer than the next four years.
The Senate is gone (which everyone expected), leaving only the House as a potential firewall if the D’s can somehow pickup six or more seats to regain control (currently D’s are +2). Maybe in the long run it is best if R’s maintain House control. With control of both Executive and Legislative branches, there will be no escaping accountability for all the pain that is going to be felt by so many Americans in so many ways by the time 2026 & 2028 come.
But tonight, just on the climate front, I want to express my thanks and warmest wishes to the men and women at NOAA, NASA, and other parts of the government who work so hard to research climate change and try to educate the public on what mankind is doing to our planet.
You don’t deserve what is coming.
Radge Haverssays
Indeed.
But
“…there will be no escaping accountability for all the pain that is going to be felt by so many Americans in so many ways by the time 2026 & 2028 come…”
Escaping accountability is how the system was gamed in the first place. That’s not likely to change. What the system will even look like in a couple of years?
Hopefully NOAA, NASA and the rest have been preparing for this event, the likes of Buzz Aldrin aside.
Scott Nuddssays
“Hopefully NOAA, NASA and the rest have been preparing for this event, the likes of Buzz Aldrin aside.” – Radge Havers
While PBS ‘fact check” rates the claims about Project 2025 as- “We rate this statement Half True.”
I wonder which half? (smile)
And despite the article also verifying “Trump has disavowed (Project 2025)”
But of course Trump always lies, right? So nothing he says should be believed. Right? Unless you choose to or want to believe it. Meanwhile ‘the people’ have voted for their ‘representatives’ in Government. Kamala Harris and the Democrats have lost.
So if you believe Project 2025 “does” represent Trump’s promised policy’s he took to the election then clearly he has an overwhelming huge mandate from the people to do what Project 2025 presented in 900+ pages of text. Right?
Which way do you want this to be? (smile)
Mr. Know It Allsays
Project 2025 is not Trump’s agenda. Here is his agenda:
Our nation will have a greater chance at success if voters are informed.
Piotrsays
Darma: “ So if you believe Project 2025 “does” represent Trump’s promised policy’s he took to the election then clearly he has an overwhelming huge mandate from the people to do what Project 2025 presented in 900+ pages of text. Right? (smile)
Because all those who voted for Trump have done so after reading that 900+ pages of text. Right? (smile)
Darma: “ despite the article also verifying “Trump has disavowed (Project 2025)” But of course Trump always lies, right? So nothing he says should be believed. Right?”
See also:
“Mr. Know It All: “ Project 2025 is not Trump’s agenda. Here is his agenda: https://www.donaldjtrump.com Our nation will have a greater chance at success if voters are informed.”
So again – not far from a doomer to a denier, not far at all. Les extremes se touchent.
Davidsays
A major thank you to the good folks at Skeptical Science (SkS) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School for the creation of a large resource tackling “solution denial.” Consisting of 33 individual intermediate level rebuttals, it is quite informative and, I think, very useful.
Rapid shift in methane carbon isotopes suggests microbial emissions drove record high atmospheric methane growth in 2020–2022
Abstract:
“The growth rate of the atmospheric abundance of methane (CH4) reached a record high of 15.4 ppb yr−1 between 2020 and 2022, but the mechanisms driving the accelerated CH4 growth have so far been unclear. In this work, we use measurements of the 13C:12C ratio of CH4 (expressed as δ13CCH4) from NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network and a box model to investigate potential drivers for the rapid CH4 growth. These measurements show that the record-high CH4 growth in 2020–2022 was accompanied by a sharp decline in δ13CCH4, indicating that the increase in CH4 abundance was mainly driven by increased emissions from microbial sources such as wetlands, waste, and agriculture. We use our box model to reject increasing fossil fuel emissions or decreasing hydroxyl radical sink as the dominant driver for increasing global methane abundance.”
What drove the very high microbial emissions of methane between 2020 and 2022?
An excellent question. The unusually high levels of methane emissions from microbial sources between 2020 and 2022 were likely influenced by a combination of natural and climate-driven factors. Here are some key contributors identified by scientists:
Rising Global Temperatures: As global temperatures increase, wetlands—major sources of microbial methane—become warmer and often wetter. Higher temperatures accelerate the metabolism of methanogenic microbes, which produce methane in anaerobic (low-oxygen) conditions typical of these environments. This climate feedback loop makes wetlands more productive in methane release.
Enhanced Wetland Extent and Activity: Many regions experienced unusual weather patterns during this period, such as heavy rainfall and flooding in areas that contribute to large wetland expansions. For example, parts of the tropics, including South America, saw conditions that temporarily expanded wetland areas, providing more habitat for methane-emitting microbes.
Decreased Methane Destruction: Methane removal from the atmosphere depends heavily on the hydroxyl radical (OH), which is responsible for breaking down methane. There are indications that OH levels might have decreased slightly during these years, leading to longer methane lifetimes in the atmosphere and contributing to an accumulation effect.
Changes in Tropical and Arctic Wetlands: The tropics and the Arctic have both shown notable increases in methane emissions due to microbial activity. In the Arctic, thawing permafrost has led to more wetland formation, increasing methane production as microbial communities respond to warmer and wetter soils.
Fewer Anthropogenic Reductions Due to the Pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced industrial activity and emissions of certain pollutants, but the impact on methane emissions was complex. In some cases, reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which influence OH levels, might have indirectly affected methane concentrations by altering the atmospheric processes that remove methane.
The combined impact of these factors has likely contributed to the recent observed spike in atmospheric methane from natural, microbial sources. This period of high emissions underlines the importance of wetland dynamics in climate feedback processes, as methane is a potent greenhouse gas with significant warming potential.
I wonder what JCM knows or thinks about this given his expertise in the field of wetlands and so on?
Secular Animist,
The 2020-22 annual CH4 growth rates were high, in excess of the rates back in the 1980s when the good old FF industry was happily spewing CH4 into the atmosphere with gay abandon. But this rate is also greatly affected by ENSO. Thus the NOAA numbers show the annual increases in global CH4 levels running (June-to-previous-June ppb/y):-
2013 … … +8
2014 … … +10
2015 … … +9
2016 … … +11
2017 … … +5
2018 … … +9
2019 … … +7
2020 … … +13
2021 … … +17
2022 … … +17
2023 … … +11
2024 … … +6
The ENSO wobbles make calculating a ratio ΔCH4-to-ΔSAT a bit rough but it looks something like 250ppb/ºC. That would imply, with ΔSAT running at, say +0.025ºC/y, the underling ΔCH4 = +6.8/y. This data could easily be hiding an acceleration in natural CH4 emissions/ΔSAT, hidden by both to the wobbles and the potential for wobbles in other sources and the sink.
The paper you reference, Michel et al (2024)might shed some light on that.
This paper is smoothing out the CH4 wobbles but also giving the wobbly annual growth rates. They are more interested in the mechanism driving of these changing growth rates. They are not able to point a finger at geographical location or type of material, just that the increase is microbial and not FF emissions or a bunged up CH4 sink mechanism.
The study operates on an unrealistic assumption where CO₂ emissions are cut to net-zero instantly, and the climate then continues to evolve as if other greenhouse gases (such as methane) and cooling aerosols were frozen at 1850 levels for the next 1,000 years. This isn’t just highly speculative; it’s practically impossible. The authors themselves admit that this scenario is “not plausible,” yet they proceed with predictions based on this hypothetical setup.
Moreover, there’s currently no evidence that achieving a true net-zero emissions scenario on this scale is even feasible, let alone instantly. Yet the study’s simulations project this assumption across several target years—2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, 2050, 2055, and 2060—referring to each as an “NZ” (Net Zero) scenario, with each year representing an imagined point of complete emission cessation.
Because these models are based on scenarios that cannot occur in reality, the outputs don’t reflect actual possibilities. For instance, projecting that Melbourne might warm by 1°C post-net-zero by these simulated dates offers a misleading sense of predictability and feasibility. Instead of grounded scientific forecasting, this study becomes more of a “thought experiment” with limited relevance to real-world climate policymaking.
In short, these scenarios are built on hypothetical models without real-world constraints, leading to results that fall into the category of “garbage in, garbage out.” While such hypothetical modeling can sometimes help in academic exercises or speculative “thought experiments,” presenting these results as actual potential futures risks misleading the public and policymakers alike.
In fact they already do mislead readers via their Conversation article. The people of the world deserve better than this.
Dharmasays
Sabine’s at it again, bad girl, bad! Science is failing – call the fire brigade! And you will
have no idea what they’re talking, you’ll think it’s just over your head, so better not ask.
I want to strongly encourage you: please do ask. As them what it’s good for. Ask
them what we’ve learn from it. Ask them what we can do with it. Ask them why
your taxes should pay for them producing papers. I think they owe you an answer.
I get hate mail every time I talk about this. Some scientists don’t want me to mention this because,
they say, it fuels the fires of science deniers. It does. But that’s because science deniers are
right when they say that academia has a big problem. Ignoring this problem won’t make
it go away. We need to talk about it. And we need to do something about it.
And it should give you a pause that scientists and certain YouTubers don’t want me to talk
about this. Because they’re causing a lot of pressure on other scientists to toe the party
line. I don’t give a shit what others want me to say, or not say as it were, but then
again I also eat instant coffee powder with a spoon, so maybe I’m not a good sample group.
To come back to the issue of my videos sometimes lacking nuance, which is true. I’ve talked about
these problems with academia literally hundreds of times in seminars, and public lectures,
and podcasts. I’ve done interviews, I’ve written about it, and of course
I have done videos myself. And sometimes, you know. I just get tired of repeating myself.
This channel is basically my living room, and you are all my family. Indeed, if I record videos,
I like to imagine I’m talking to my brother. My brother’s an engineer and a big nerd,
and he’s usually interested in what I say, or at least he’s good at pretending
he is. So basically I think of all of you as my brothers and sisters.
Of course I rationally know that you aren’t actually all my siblings. Unless
there’s something my parents didn’t tell me. But this is why, in videos on my own
channel, I often don’t repeat what I’ve already said a dozen times before. I find it boring and
I’m afraid you will find it boring too. It doesn’t help that I try to ignore how
much this channel has grown because I find it psychologically difficult to sit
in front of a camera knowing that some nine hundred thousand people might watch it.
I’m not sure about the physics but I give an A+ for her self-deprecating humour.
MA Rodgersays
Dharma,
And the relevance of that Sabine Hossenfelder YouTube to climate science is?
If you are going to spew stuff in here at RC from your nerdy trawling of the inerweb, at least make sue it has some relevance to climatology. (Sabine Hossenfelder’s YouTubing has made a couple of forays into criticism of climatology although more in the vein of “Look! Weird numbers!!” than serious comment.)
Dharmasays
Reply to MA Rodger
I cannot explain everything. Nor answer every question posed, so I ignore almost all of them. Maybe you will have to put it down to one of life’s mysteries.
Or lean on Sabine who had a good response that more or less fits: (from above text) “I don’t give a shit what others want me to say, or not say as it were, but then again I also eat instant coffee powder with a spoon, so maybe I’m not a good sample group.”
Susan Andersonsays
MA Rodger: She’s not altogether terrible, but she makes her living there and being critical in a sciencey way while ignoring large amounts of material gets a lot of approval from people who wish to claim scientists aren’t honest. It encourages far too many gullible people to believe they don’t need to accept vast reams of science (largely pursued with rigor) because she claims it’s biased. She doesn’t take into account the quantity of material which often has long since covered her material for complaint.
Please also note she includes sales talk for her book and her platform. I’m sympathetic with her struggles with male-based academia, which are real, but I wish she wouldn’t be so ready to condemn science.
—
Will Happer, by the way (not related to Sabine H), is a guy who is driven by resentment. He’s right to be annoyed with prejudice, but wrong to try to use science to discredit the pursuit of science.
Akshully, it is related. Because having a legitimate axe to grind is no reason to try to uproot dedicated scientific endeavor. In the age of Trump, replacing expertise will be a problem, and we will all suffer. We need to acknowledge the genuine pursuit of knowledge rather than joining people who wish to throw it out root and branch.
Adam Leasays
Sabine is a very good communicator and is using her poorer experiences of academia, which include only a tiny subset of science as a whole, to discredit all of science and scientists. This provides ammunition for denialists and the anti-intellectual subset of society to challenge and/or ignore anything scientists say that they don’t like, and therefore puts a ball and chain around the ankles of progress. This includes climate change but extends to things like COVID and vaccines, where ignoring the scientific evidence can be deadly. The relevance is that Sabine and people like her are very effective at fueling climate change denial, and climate scientists need to acknowledge this and think of ways to counter it, ignoring/dismissing it won’t make it go away.
The whole thing is concerning for me as it seems there is a substantial subset of current human civilisation that wants to drag us back hundreds of years when religion, not logic, was used to explain the world around us.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
Religion is not the only source of distorted thinking. And religion and logic are not opposites.
You were doing well until you brought your religious prejudices into it.
Steven R Emmersonsays
BPL, replace “religion” with “science” in Adam’s last paragraph and it should make more sense.
patrick o twentysevensays
Yes, it is not religion per se but ‘vaporized religion’ that is the problem (as Darth Nedious alerted us); indeed, even atheism has a nonzero vapor pressure.
1) I wonder if the brilliant Greens will tell us we need to buy milllions more Teslas to transition away from the ICE. Thereby giving Elon Musk $billions more to spend on electing Trump. Although millions of blue collar workers enraged at $60,000 Ford pickups might not need much urging from Elon.
2) I keep telling you people — there is a lot more to the energy transition than just climate science. A person may be brilliant in his chosen field -=- yet be ignorant of many inportant factors that affect political feasibility and popular support. A political faction which ignores the misery of the workers gets what coming to it in a democratic election.
3) If the Greens really think that climate change is a lethal threat then why are they indifferent to the rising conflict among the major powers? A conflict that may well make the energy transition infeasible?
Mr. Know It Allsays
The left loved Elon for building Tesla, Starlink, Space-X, etc UNTIL he bought Twitter and made it a fairly free speech platform. Ever since then, they’ve hated him. It’s hilarious to watch. They loved it when THEY controlled the opinions that were allowed to be heard on Twitter. They are all about control of other people’s lives.
If leftists put their energy into producing solutions to AGW that people wanted, they might be able to make a dent in the problem. They don’t. Instead they propose taking away our gas stoves, gas vehicles, etc and basically mandating how we live. People get tired of that. They need to do like Elon and Trump – create a product people are willing to pay for voluntarily.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: Instead they propose taking away our gas stoves, gas vehicles, etc and basically mandating how we live.
BPL: Well, they tried to provide market-based solutions such as cap and trade, or a CO2 emissions tax, but your beloved right voted all that down. Regulation was all that was left.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Nope, the only thing that will fix AGW is free market innovation that creates solutions to it that people are willing to pay good money for. Tesla, for example. Maybe that paint that reflects heat so that sunlit surfaces are cooler than ambient temperature.
In some countries, people may be willing to have government mandate solutions, but in the USA we are not ready for that yet.
The good news is that if a smart person creates a good solution, it will also be a big hit around the world. That person will become a trillionaire, and get a Nobel Prize – unless Trump does it – then, he will not get one.
Nigeljsays
KiA. What a laugh. Tesla is the result not of free markets but of huge government subsidies. Not that subsidies are a bad thing if you want to encourage new tech.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: the only thing that will fix AGW is free market innovation that creates solutions to it that people are willing to pay good money for.
BPL: The market cannot handle externalities. Econ 101.
And counting on a technological breakthrough that hasn’t happened yet is just plain stupid.
And as if that weren’t enough, note all the fossil fuel-backed antagonism toward solutions that we already know will work–wind and solar. Every time a wind farm is proposed, people show up to testify against it–usually the same people, rather than locals.
Dharmasays
Kevin Anderson was recently recorded answering three questions:
1) Why are we facing a climate emergency?
2) Are scientists transparent when reporting results on climate change?
3) Will the commitments about carbon emissions be enough? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpHVNOes5_Q
(<10 mins)
A new contribution by Jason Hickel
@jasonhickel Nov 4 NEW PAPER:
Climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate large inequalities between global North and South. But theories used to "justify" inequalities do not hold when scaled internationally. In fact, scaling up makes arguments for egalitarianism stronger!
Large inequalities in climate mitigation scenarios are not supported by theories of distributive justice
Abstract
Existing global climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate large inequalities in energy and income between countries and regions for the rest of the century, and modellers have recently begun to assess these dynamics in light of distributive justice theories. However, these theories are intended to describe inequalities within nations and cannot straightforwardly be applied to inequalities between nations or world regions. Indeed, an analysis of key distributive justice theories suggests that, in contexts of international or interregional inequalities, moral justifications for inequality cannot be sustained, while arguments in favour of egalitarianism become stronger. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629624004043
OpenAccess
not all bad especially within the EU countries. However as emissions are falling in the Europe it makes you wonder how emissions for the moment are still rising globally ?
Plenty of technology to come though and what is available can be accelerated: EV, Semi trucks, HVDC wind and connectivity across Europe, Smart Gridsm using your car bidirectionally, heat pumps and more.
Dharmasays
Reply to Pete Best “However as emissions are falling in the Europe it makes you wonder how emissions for the moment are still rising globally ?”
It doesn’t make me wonder. The reasons (and data) are obvious and clear.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Yup, probably China, India, etc.
Dharmasays
Well well well, now what? All the takes about the result are correct and yet they also miss the larger point.
Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this. But we’re used to it because they have been like these for decades since the Clintons gutted the party of all progressive elements.
But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that American liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.
Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even *basic* steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee – things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance banking strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.
Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation of wealth, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.
The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of “mistake” but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.
And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time – this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Bernie Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class elites here) don’t really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter also ensure the conditions for more capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative that helps everyday people across the nation or the world.
So, pseudo-progressives have to face reality. The dream of “converting” the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force that truly represents working class people and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
But it won’t begin. Because this is America. We don’t do that here. We lie to ourselves instead.
Piotrsays
And when you thought they can’t be any MORE deluded, comes that:
Ubiquitous D. Nov. 6 Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest
As opposed to a … soulful Trump, who would never “ belittle and crush those who have enough morality to protest ” ?
I can already see Trump, who attacked Harris for not supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza enough, who : declared himself “ The ‘most pro-Israel’ US president ever” – will stop the genocide carried out by his good friend Netanyahu. And I can see how he stops his idol in Moscow, whose starting the war on Ukraine, that already did cost 100,000s of lives, Trump described as a “genius” and “savvy” move, and tried to shine by association with that genius, adding that he “knows him very well”.
And this is the guy, who vowed that America will never forget the sacrifice of “tens of thousands” of Kurds lost in the fight with common enemy – the genocidal Islamic State, only a year later to turn
around and leave the same Kurds at the mercy of their mortal enemy, and justified this betrayal by saying that the Kurds …didn’t help America in Normandy.
Thus making it clear to the entire world how much the friendship and gratitude of the US are worth.
compared to, say, a friendship of Russia and Iran – who went to bat for their ally Assad and won for him the war on his own people. And encouraging war-mongers everywhere with the promise of impunity.
Susan Andersonsays
Piotr: Given my other complaint (perhaps too severe), thought I should say I agree with you here. And the idea that Harris was soulless and offered no vision is just blind. Given the constraints under which she operated (including doubling down on lies, extreme threats and wild promises by T, and being VP to Biden) she did well. The biggest problem was how many won’t listen to a woman.
If you want to know why Democrats lost, that ain’t the place to go. He claims that Harris wasn’t progressive enough. So they voted for Trump instead? Nope. They didn’t vote for Jill Stein in great numbers either. Trump’s policies are what more people wanted, not more progressive policies. Duh!
Strangersays
I’ve lurked here since this site came on line. I have no science expertise so I don’t post. But I just couldn’t resist.
MKA, Can you believe that the majority of voters believed that tariffs are paid by China and other nations that export? Doesn’t it seem likely that Trump somehow got through the Wharton School of Economics by shady means? Anyone who took high school economics learned how tariffs worked. He sold them on the idea that they believe Haitians in Springfield< Ohio are eating people's pets?
The Friday before the election the Monthly jobs report showed that 12K jobs were created in October. Later in the day Trump said, "Kamala Harris just had the worst jobs report in history." In fact the worst jobs report was April 2020 when the economy lost 3.5 million jobs.
Donald Trump was masterful and getting low information voters who never voted to turn out because the biggest issue was owning the libs. They forgot or didn't care what a catastrophe his first administration was.
When Obama came to office he faced economic hurricane force winds. The auto industry was comatose nearly dead on the floor. The banks weren't lending and the consumers weren't spending. The Republican prescription was for government of quit spending as well. In addition Bush (The second worst president in history) handed the new president a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit as he went out the door. The administration got a floor under our sinking economy which produced 127 consecutive months of economic expansion. When he left office Obama gave Trump a whittled down 538 billion dollar deficit.
So Trump comes to office with the economic winds at his back. He ran on ending deficits and upgrading our infrastructure. He did neither! He also said he would cut taxes. He maintained that the cuts would benefit middle-class families and that the rich would actually end up paying more in taxes, because he would eliminate unspecified deductions and loopholes. By Trump's third year he had the deficit back to a trillion, before COVID. When he fumbled the COVID response our economy took a deep dive. In the third quarter of 2020 we lost 30% of our gdp. China with a complete lockdown grew 3%.
So when Trump left office the administration had run up 7.8 trillion in 4 years. We didn't get much for all that spending. Trump was the first president since Hoover to leave with fewer jobs than when he came to office. Were we better off then we had been 4 years earlier?
When Biden came to office he made important investments in America's future. The world inflationary situation saw America doing just about the best. Trump plays up Viktor Orban who's administration had the highest inflation in Europe. Nearly 50% in the same time period as our 20%. But his citizens don't have the ability to express their outrange so much because the government controls the media to such an extent that they've closed down many broadcasters who criticize Orban.
It wasn't the Democrats agenda. It was low information and misinformation. The right wing media protects it's viewers by lying to them. But they want to be lied to. That way they get to own the libs. The fact that our government is going to be run by armatures and grifters. We will squander our greatness.
Nigeljsays
Good analysis Stranger. Trump lies his way into government. Hard to counter that especially when half the country don’t seem to care.
Biden did well with the economy and kept unemployment low. Recognised by independent experts like The Economist Journal. Not anything he could have done to stop inflation occurring it was a delayed reaction to covid in 2020 but some people can’t understand that.
But the democrats hurt their vote with bad policy ideas like defunding the police and they let in too many immigrants legal and illegal. Puts pressure on infrastructure. Immigration is good but numbers need care. And Harris kept on demonising Trump when it obviously wasn’t winning her votes. Took focus off her policies which were good.
zebrasays
Stranger, your input would be appreciated on the science as well; it sounds like you would ask good actual questions. To me, that’s something missing here.
I’ll just point out re your comment that you are 100% correct about everything; you only missed the fact that for MKA as well, owning the libs is what provides meaning to life. Probably the only thing.
As I keep reminding people, a very large proportion of the population is characterized by Authoritarian psychology. They do not care about anything but having someone “below” them, having more power than someone.
And even lots of folks with science backgrounds can’t accept that, for these individuals, winning by lying and cheating and thuggery is a feature-not-bug. It’s chimps v bonobos, all the way down.
Dharmasays
Stranger says: “produced 127 consecutive months of economic expansion.”
Economic expansion of a very high per capita GHG emitter is what is driving global warming faster, higher and cumulatively polluting and destroying the environment, ecosystems and life on the planet.
— “We will squander our greatness.” Seriously?
The correct way to frame this is that Trump is not the cause and Biden was not the solution to America’s deep dysfunctional problems. Whatever “greatness” the American people may have had was squandered long ago. Now you’re collectively rushing head long over the cliff like lemmings and into oblivion. As is the rest of the world as well including China, Europe and everyone else. but not as fast as America is.
Meanwhile it is not only the “right wing media” that is corrupted — the establishment pro-Democrat Corporatist MSM and oligarch-celebrity mega donors “protects” it’s viewers / voters by lying to them 24/7 about everything. The entire edifice is a fraud. Willingly accepted by almost the entire population.
comeuppance
noun
1. a punishment or fate that someone deserves
“A man reaps what he sows.” — So does a nation.
That’s what we need to understand and not continue to be so utterly ignorant and foolish about.
Dharmasays
Another very serious intelligent perspective worth considering objectively–that and whether it is Trump, Biden, the US or China, all are driving the world over the cliff with their economic growth madness and political ideologies and irrational myths. Everything connects back to climate change, global warming, energy and elite economics via international geopolitics today (including Ukraine v Russia and nuclear missile deployment and defunct treaties)
by Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand 23h on X
This video is a must-watch. I rarely agree with @brhodes but he’s 100% correct here.
He says he’ll “always be haunted” by a comment that Xi Jinping made to Obama in 2016 when referring to Trump: “If an immature leader throws the world into chaos, the world will know who to blame”.
Why does it haunt him? Because in his words “we’ve kind of been dealing with that ever since”.
He mocks Biden’s foreign policy of trying to restore a “Liberal rules-based order with the U.S. at the center of it” (i.e. U.S. primacy) as “designed for the world that doesn’t exist anymore”. Remember Rhodes was Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, so it’s quite something to hear him say that…
He illustrates this with the contrasting performances of China and the U.S. at APEC in Peru: on one side you had China’s multibillion-dollar port and on the other Blinken’s “few million in diesel engines”. It really illustrates two different worldviews: one stuck in a patronizing past of small-scale ‘aid’, the other focused on serious development partnerships.
In fact when you think about it, Biden and Trump are really two sides of the same coin on foreign policy: their platforms – “Make America Great Again” and “America is Back” – both represent different flavors of nostalgia for a world that structurally cannot exist anymore; we’re in a multipolar world now. As Rhodes says, this leaves the U.S. swinging erratically between two obsolete visions while the rest of the world moves on. The Global South isn’t ‘aligning with China against the West’ as much as it’s choosing predictability and development over chaos and condescension.
He’s right that “there’s opportunity in a rebuild” of America’s foreign policy. In fact there’s no other option, you need to deal with the world as it is: as such the “opportunity” is in adapting, and in not persisting in wishing reality away and fighting windmills
He could not be more “liberal democrat / media / think tank / elite establishment”
Benjamin J. Rhodes (born November 14, 1977) is an American writer, a political commentator, and a former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama. With Jake Sullivan, he is the co-chair of National Security Action, a political NGO.[1] He contributes to NBC News and MSNBC regularly as a political commentator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rhodes_(White_House_staffer)
Barton Paul Levensonsays
N: they let in too many immigrants legal and illegal.
BPL: I don’t agree. Our social security system depends on there being more workers paying into the system than there are retirees, and at present our worker/retiree ratio is decreasing every year. More immigrants would help. The stuff about them being diseased and criminal is just racist slander (I know you didn’t say any of that, just commenting on the Republican take).
Dharmasays
Barton Paul Levenson –
Your American pro-growth social security system and massive immigration levels are increasing the destruction of humanity’s life support system.
Being the world’s largest Oil producer doesn’t help. Nor does all the LNG exports, the tar sands oil pipelines and refining or the Coal mining.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: Your American pro-growth social security system and massive immigration levels are increasing the destruction of humanity’s life support system.
Yes, economic growth without a change in technology or lifestyle or how the economy is defined is a problem. I suppose both major US parties may tend to fall into the trap of believing in growth for the foreseeable future; I’d be curious to see who the exceptions are, if any.
Most people here, I believe, understand that the economy must ultimately have some upper sustainable limit, at least on Earth (and we don’t yet have space elevators or warp drives so…) (and that may shrink with longer time frames (mineral scarcity)) – though there is disagreement on where the limits are. Up to a point, reduced growth or degrowth (as conventionally defined**) could speed the energy transition as we could reduce fossil fuel consumption faster.
(**a wholistic measure of the economy may be held back by pollution and other things and perhaps could conceivably grow with changes in lifestyle even if GDP shrinks in affluent countries.)
Note, though, that simply maintaining wealth or GDP per capita would require growth with immigration a nation (unless balanced by sufficiently low fertility rate + etc.); this would only directly add to global growth via the wealth or GDP per capita of the immigrants. (re https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827324 ) Demographic change (aging) will eventually require some shift in how Social Security is funded; Social Security itself is not necessarily ‘pro-growth’ and in some cases could mitigate incentives for population growth.
I agree many people are holding onto the past (economic growth: an opiate for the masses) ( … https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826828 ). I’ve learned (“Adam Ruins Everything”: “Adam Ruins the Economy”) that historical factors gave U.S. manufacturing an edge over other nations in post-WWII period, but now China has some natural advantages, and a global free market system, in the process of optimization, would favor manufacturing in China to some extent. That being said, 1. don’t put all your eggs in one basket – ie. we should have backup options for when ‘stuff happens’ (Covid, Volcanos, droughts/floods/etc.) and 2. China’s labor policies are not the same as the US; some regulation of trade is for moral/ethical, safety and environmental and social justice/fairness purposes. Also there’s national security. (Of course, the U.S. must import cacao, unfortunately (I’ve had a pipe dream of growing my own in a greenhouse. PS I read that someone discovered a blue-pod variety in the Amazon, but when they went back, that part of the forest had been destroyed. I would have liked to know how it tastes.))
China(‘s government) is also holding onto the past (Taiwan), as is, very much, Emperor Palpatine – I mean Putin (Ukraine – or is it ‘cause the population in the Eastern half is entirely Larry Summers?; …), and also AIUI, India(‘s government) and some variants of some religions… on that last point, the GOP is holding onto the past much more (gender; also race, fossil fuels); Democrats tend to be forward looking in those aspects of life, at least. I’m not so sure Biden’s “America is Back” was intended as an announcement of a return to the 1950s/60s/80s etc. global order. (PS when Obama became POTUS, conservative commentators criticized his ‘apology tour’, as they called it. I don’t remember/know everything but … I tend to think of GOP politicians as being less interested in being fair on an international level eg. Mitch McConnell complaining about Chinese CO2 emissions as if they didn’t have a much larger population, … etc. ( cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827234 )
The U.S. could still be, if not the leader, a leader, in the energy transition, and other good causes and necessary changes, if only enough of my fellow Americans could be so generous and enlightened. Individual states and companies and people/NGOs/etc. in the U.S. might still play an important role.
Hi, and thanks for your comment in response to mine. You said some interesting things, but I’m not quite seeing how they relate to me or my earlier comment. That’s okay, though—maybe you just wanted to share your thoughts, which is totally fine.
But if there was some point you particularly wanted me to get, feel free to restate it. Cheers!
We are not Demigods — who get to decide what is best for the people. simply because we have a PhD, etc. We must convince the people that a program is good for them. And have some humility when doing so.
Otherwise we can lose 4 years. Maybe 8.
Dansays
“Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it.”
Very few sentences here have ever contained more disgusting lies than that one. Seriously.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.
BPL: Yes, blame the victim. For you, that’s pretty typical.
Naturally, none of what you say about the Democrats is valid. We’d expect that from you. Doesn’t stop you, though. You’ll always be here to pour salt in the wounds.
Piotrsays
BPL to Ubiquitous D: ” Naturally, none of what you say about the Democrats is valid. We’d expect that from you. Doesn’t stop you, though.”
The lower the others, the higher the D(h)arma(h) in comparison.
Susan Andersonsays
Dharma, you are so superior I wonder you can bear to live on a planet with us ordinary mortals. Your insults can do harm and are not helping, aside from the simple fact that many of your ;claims are just plain wrong.
I wish you would take people like Kevin Anderson as your model rather than spraying insults in all directions.
We’re all upset, but blaming all Democrats for what Republicans do only helps deniers.
Nigeljsays
I like the Scandinavian economic model used in countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland. It is based on capitalism but they combine it with several socialist ideas and some government ownership of key services. Its a practical compromise model more than a purist doctrinaire model. Their societies have very good social, economic and environmental data on the whole. Americans seem very suspicious of socialism, and I dont think it works at huge scale, but when applied in a partial form it works well..
Kamala Harris would have easily got my vote if I lived in America. I feel a key reason she lost is she made it about personalities rather than policies. This was a bad move especially given the Democrats are supposed to be “inclusive” and a Party about ideas. We all know Trump is dreadful and anti democratic. Just repeating that wont achieve anything. Trumps policies are mostly really bad This got lost in the discussion about his personality and values.
Radge Haverssays
Nigelj,
If you actually mean “personalities”, you’ve got that backwards.
There’s a lot of punditry going on about why she lost with some good points here and there, but mostly it’s just hot air.
I could go on at great length about how I think we got here and why she lost. I’ll just point out one thing, though, from my personal perspective here in a swing state. She somehow squandered a large chunk of her campaign war chest. I don’t know where it went, but it didn’t go far enough,
Basically her tone was moderate and relatively quiet when compared to Team Trump’s belligerent, loud, relentless hyperbolic character assassination, gaslighting, and lies– all delivered in blunt, simple language. It was demoralizing to potential opponents, and energizing to anyone who finds that sort of thing a sign of strength. I admit that I certainly felt the pressure myself.
That’s the crux, Harris aimed at the adult brain, Trump was yelling at the inner monkey brain. It’s a quirk of evolution that dictators love to exploit.
Radge Havers, yes Trump insulted Harris and was far more impolite than Harris. However thats not the point. Harris’s strategy was to PRIORITISE attacks on Trumps personality, such as his danger to democracy and human rights, rather than talk about her policy proposals and Bidens achievements and Trumps dreadful policies.
Many people said that while they didnt like Trump the person and his anti democratic values, their main concern was the economy and policy. So it looks like Harris campaign strategy was wrong, and the election results are on my side.
Thanks for the comments about how Trump appeals to the monkey brain. So true. We call it the back part of the brain or the lizard part of the brain.
Piotrsays
Nigel Harris’s strategy was to PRIORITISE attacks on Trumps personality, such as his danger to democracy and human rights, rather than talk about her policy proposals and Bidens achievements and Trumps dreadful policies.
If running against Mussolini – would you prioritize your campaign on criticism of … his economic program?
That said, the may have tried to use facts to question the narrative appealing to perception = like comparing whether other countries facing with the same challenges (COVID, rising global oil prices and war in Ukraine) – have done economically better than US or not.
But whether this would have been effective in the post-truth landscape brought to us by social media – where there are no objective truths, but only opinions weaponizing emotions against facts it’s an open question, In the opinion market – to borrow from Copernicus treatise on the monetary policies – the bad money drives out the good money.
Radge Haverssays
Nigelj,
The reason Harris lost is definitely not monocausal; it’s way more complicated than you may imagine, and it will take a long time to properly dissect and analyze.
That said, the main criticism of Harris’s priorities was the emphasis on abortion (not that other issues weren’t brought up). I’m not seeing how pointing out Trump’s very real threat to Democracy, even if you believe it took up more space than necessary, was about personalities. It’s very much about policies, whatever else gets layered in with that.
A couple of things about the economy. For instance, the NBC exit poll shows that concern over the state of democracy edged out the economy as the top issue. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nbc-news-exit-poll-voters-express-concern-democracy-economy-rcna178602
If I’m not mistaken this represents a shift from what polls were saying prior to the election, which might suggest what you may already suspect, that most people don’t really have a clue about the economy, and that “The Economy” is also a proxy for other things that people are feeling– with the emphasis on “feeling.” I’m not sure you get just how crazy things are on this side of the pond.
Personally I’d like to have seen more about climate change, though I may have to accept that that’s just not a flier with the electorate as a talking point.
Nigeljsays
Piotr
“If running against Mussolini – would you prioritize your campaign on criticism of … his economic program?”
This is probably an apples and oranges comparison or at least red apples and green apples, because Mussolini was very fascist and locked up his opponents. Trump is fascist leaning, and has threatened to lock up his opponents but is all hot air at this stage. And Americas constitution does limit Trumps powers something that Italy didnt have to the same extent.
I think this is why a lot of people said they dont like Trumps fascist tendencies (or words to that effect) but dont think its an overwhelming concern. Many also said they dont like his fascist tendencies but voted for him anyway because they believed he was better for the economy. (from various media interviews and analyses). They are of course deluded but thats not the point. Of course many LIKE his fascist tendencies but thats his hard core base and perhaps not the swing voters.
Even if I was in Italy opposing Mussolini, I would have focused primarily on policies, because simply pointing out the obvious about his fascism, probably wouldnt be enough to convince people, and its hard to outdo Mussolini in terms of being a fascist monster of a person, so you need other weapons such as better policies and attacks on his policies. Of course you would still also criticise his personal political ideology, but as a seconday thing..
And remember I didnt say Harris should IGNORE Trumps personal tendencies. I just think it should have been a secondary thing and I definitely agree with your previous comments she is better to do that in a polite and rational way than get down in the gutter. I did also point out that Democrats claim to be ‘inclusive’. So openly insulting Trump in rude ways would be hypocritical and very obviously so to the public.
I hate Trumps fascist tendencies, and his bigotry and missinformation etc,etc.. He stands for everything I oppose. However I dont need to consider his personal tendencies too much in my decision making. One look at his policies and thats enough reason not to vote for him. And also the fact he failed last time to fullfill most of his promises. This is another card Harris could have played more strongly, although of course she might get similar criticisms in return, but I still think it was a card worth playing.and she had the better hand.
“That said, the may have tried to use facts to question the narrative appealing to perception = like comparing whether other countries facing with the same challenges (COVID, rising global oil prices and war in Ukraine) – have done economically better than US or not.”
Yes agreed. I suspect her strategists and PR people told her to avoid doing that because its too wordy and complicated for the public to grasp, and not a punchy one line argument like “Trumps anti democratic” and starts to shift focus onto Bidens less than perfect record. Again I think they made a mistake. The argument could have been made quite simply and boldly and Bidens record had some big positives.
Our own Labour Party had a similar election startegy to Harris in that they avoided their record in government because there were some problems and they were criticised and they didnt want to leave themselves open to attack. But there were a lot of positives they could have campaigned on, and they were attacked anyway on their record. They lost the election quite badly. So it looks like their strategy may have been a mistake. Of course I realse there were several reasons they lost,, but I have reasons to believe that particular strategy didnt help.
“But whether this would have been effective in the post-truth landscape brought to us by social media – where there are no objective truths, but only opinions weaponizing emotions against facts it’s an open question, In the opinion market – to borrow from Copernicus treatise on the monetary policies – the bad money drives out the good money.”
Yes thats a real problem. I read your other comments on it.I think we just have to hope its effective and also fight against post truth, lies, missinformation and of course climate denial and hope sanity wins in the end.
Nigeljsays
Radge Havers
“The reason Harris lost is definitely not monocausal; it’s way more complicated than you may imagine, and it will take a long time to properly dissect and analyze.”
Agreed its not monocausal. I did say that her focus on personal issues was “ONE key factor” in why she lost. . But I think Im right in questioning her strategy of focusing on personality rather than policy. Have now heard a expert say the same.
” I’m not seeing how pointing out Trump’s very real threat to Democracy, even if you believe it took up more space than necessary, was about personalities. It’s very much about policies, whatever else gets layered in with that.”
Maybe personality was a bad choice of words. Its about his personal approach to politics. His ideology if you like. Polices would be a manifestation.
“A couple of things about the economy. For instance, the NBC exit poll shows that concern over the state of democracy edged out the economy as the top issue.”
Thats what people said. But it appears they didnt vote that way. Remember a lot of polls showed Clinton would have easily won.. People said they preferred Clinton but voted Trump. Sadly to say.
“If I’m not mistaken this represents a shift from what polls were saying prior to the election, which might suggest what you may already suspect, that most people don’t really have a clue about the economy, and that “The Economy” is also a proxy for other things that people are feeling>”
Agreed. Politics in America seems to have got so strongly tribal and so focused on leadership qualities and culture wars issues and social issues that people have forgotten what the economy even is, let alone how it really works, thus they cant see the dangers in excessively high tariffs and unfunded tax cuts and silly ideas of deporting millions of people. (Not that I approve of illegal immigration because I dont, and this was the one thing I feel the Democrats were weak on and didnt get right, at least until this year)
“Personally I’d like to have seen more about climate change, though I may have to accept that that’s just not a flier with the electorate as a talking point.”
I would have liked to see Harris talk more about climate change. Its such an important issue and it creates a point of difference with the Republicans and its been a major policy of Biden, and not mentioning it made her look weak or like that they never believed in their own policy.
I can understand why she wouldnt prioritise it in her campaign policies because the main thing on peoples minds right now is cost of living, but she hardly even mentioned climate change at all!. That was unfortunate and may have actually hurt her election chances.
Piotrsays
Piotr: “If running against Mussolini – would you prioritize your campaign on criticism of … his economic program?”
Nigel: “This is probably an apples and oranges comparison or at least red apples and green apples, because Mussolini was very fascist and locked up his opponents.”
No analogy is perfect – Mussolini never subjected himself to the election, hence my question was purely hypothetical: “_IF_ running against Mussolini” – would you point to his fascist rhetoric and attacks on democracy – or ask the voters to reject him on his economic program?
If you prefer a better analogy for an narcissistic autocrat, who despite having contempt for democracy got to power as a result of the very democracy he disparaged (election), one who got to power on stoking the resentment against other races, and on promising restoring the nation to its past glory (Make country “X” Great Again!), and who made strict anti-abortion legislations possible – then we could go with JD Vance who wrote that he goes: “ back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon, or that he’s America’s Hitler. ”
In the latter case – if we asked Germans in 1933 why they voted for the Nazi Party, many would blame the previous government for the poor state of the economy (which deteriorated not because of the actions of that previous government but due to international economic crisis started abroad). And they would shrug off Hitler’s anti-Jewish rhetoric as a mere political posturing, something Hitler says, but doesn’t mean, that he just exaggerates as a negotiating tactics, that all the democratic checks and balances won’t let him do what he wants to do, and he would have to settle on something much less extreme.
Furthermore, as some hypothetical author, let’s call him: “Herr Weiß Alles” , could have pointed out:
“ The genocide of the Jews is not Hitler’s agenda. Here is his agenda: https://www.adolf_hitler.com/platform
Our nation will have a greater chance at success if voters are informed. ”
Indeed, in his 1933 platform, Hitler didn’t call for the Holocaust – at most he mused about … deportation from Germany of the members of the race that didn’t rightfully belong there: those who didn’t share the German values, who took away jobs from the German working class, and who were bringing to Germany nothing but diseases -moral and the real ones (like typhus) ^*.
====
^* compare with : “They’re coming in as terrorists. Many, many terrorists are coming in, and people are coming in with very contagious disease” DJ Trump in an interview with New York radio station WABC.
=====
But all this not to imply that JD Vance was right thinking that Trump is “American Hitler”. You can’t step into the same river twice, and given his advanced age – even IF he wanted – he may not have enough time to so. But there may be the ambitious younger ones, the “mini-me Trumps, for whom power is more important than democracy, and who may use Trump presidency as a jump-off to move the US toward the Russia model – a democracy in the name only, where elections still happen, but nobody has any doubts who will win.
For these reasons, rather than JD Vance’s “American Hitler”, I’d go with Trump being a cross of Idi Amin and Charles Lindbergh (minus the achievements of the latter, of course).
Nigeljsays
Piotr
“No analogy is perfect – Mussolini never subjected himself to the election, hence my question was purely hypothetical: “_IF_ running against Mussolini” – would you point to his fascist rhetoric and attacks on democracy – or ask the voters to reject him on his economic program?”
Ok I accept all that about analogies, but to answer your question and clarify my view, I would certainly criticise Mussolinis / Trumps fascist rhetoric, but I would ALSO critiicise his economic programme and trumpet my own economic programme. However I would prioritise or lead with the economic policy issues, – and make that the main issue, and strongly criticise his fascism as a secondary thing.
For most people economics and mere survival is more important than syle of leadership or government.
Harris tried the opposite: she attacked Trump primarility on his personal tendencies and policy took second place and it certainly didnt win her the election now did it? It looks like a bad strategy and interviews with Americans tend to support my contention where they essentially said they dont like Trump the person but preferred his policies. Suggesting that if Harris had focused more policy she might have been more persuasive.
Of course Harris lost for several reasons. IMO these include at least the following:
1) Bad campaign strategy as I stated. Too much primary focus on demonising Trump the person and too little on policy.
2) The economy was at least perceived to be in bad condition. And when economies are in bad condition the governments or presidents tend to often loose the election.. But the economy was in very good condition relative to other countries (The Economist Journal did an analysis). If only Harris had explained that rather than focusing mainly on demonising Trump the person. I notice that you seemed to allude to the same thing.
3) Some racism and mysogeny. But I doubt that was too significant. Obama won an election and Hilary Clinton came close and was beaten mainly because the email issue exploded like a grenade in the last week of the election, and lost her about 5% in the polls.
4) While the Democrats have done some things helpful to ordinary workers they are perceived to be out of touch with workers.
5) The Democrats immigration policy was bad. They let in too many immigrants and without enough checks. They tightened up this year but the damage was done in terms of perceptions. Now I fully support robust immigration and multiculturalism, but anyone with more than half a brain should be able to see you can have too many immigrants per year, such that it overwhelms the infrastructure and just makes (some) people afraid and feeling alientated. Its happened in New Zealand and quite dramatically with near the highest immigration rates per capita in the world.
Of course Trump is at the other extreme and seems to loathe immigrants unless its a small number of white people . Immigrants tend to have LOWER crime rates but he is incapable of seeing that.
However if the the Democrats focus on blaming leaders fascist tendencies, and blaming peoples inherent racism mysogeny, and idiocy, and if the democrats ignore their self inflcited wounds like bad election strategy and bad immigration policy, they will loose AGAIN. I promise you.
Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton focused on policy and postivity. And they won. This does not mean you ignore the personal failings of your opponents, but they did not make that a primary focus.
I agree about Vance and the rest of what you said. In many ways hes like Trump, but more intelligent. He could actually be even worse for America than Trump because he might get more stuff actually done.
Piotrsays
Radge: “ Nigelj, If you actually mean “personalities”, you’ve got that backwards. Harris aimed at the adult brain, Trump was yelling at the inner monkey brain.“.
Couldn’t agree more. Radge. I would add that Trump appealed to what’s worse in the people – resentment, racism, misogynism, division and egoism. Has Harris tried to meet him in the race to the bottom, she would have been morally no better than him, and probably wouldn’t beat him in his own game anyway.
And I am not sure whether Dems could have won at all – this in post-truth era ushered by the social media, in which shameless lies no longer disqualify a candidate, And without the test of being true – one opinion as as good as any other, and then you choose one more convenient to you (e.g. blaming your problems on the immigrants, minorities, wokeizm, environmentalism etc.).
And post-truth, the attention span limited to a chantable slogan – you can be convinced to blame the affordability crisis on Biden and NOT on the global factors – massive disruption of the global economy by pandemics, rising prices of oil and war in Ukraine. So blaming Biden, even though the other countries have had the same or higher inflation than the US. Plus forgetting the pandemic – also helps to forget the terrible performance of Trump in the main test of his leadership – dealing with the emerging COVID threat..
This willful ignoring the global drivers of the affordability crisis to blame the government in power for it is not limited to the US – in Canada Conservatives are on a way to power by blaming prices on Liberals, and specifically – on the carbon tax they introduced. This is of course a bold-faced lie as:
– the carbon tax is revenue-neutral, meaning that all the money collected is paid back to the households
– countries without carbon tax have had since pandemics often similar or higher inflation than Canada.
But the Conservatives “Axe the tax” slogan is much more catchy than the REAL message “Axe the tax rebate thanks to which 80% of households gets back more in the rebate than they paid in the tax, and it benefits most the poorer household that need this net benefit the most”.
Try to put THAT on a hat, or a tea-shirt, or chant it at the rally.
And Conservatives know it – so they run on a series of three-word, preferably rhyming chants (if it rhymes then there must be an element of truth in it , right?), in what critics called a “Verb the Noun” campaign: “Axe the Tax”, “Stop the Crime”, Fix the “Budget”, “Build the homes”. etc.
Next perhaps: “Two Legs Bad, Four Legs Good !” ?
And to my disappointment – nobody from the Liberal party, which fate is linked to the carbon tax, are asking the Conservative leader direct question:
“If you are elected, and if after you “axed the tax”, the prices do NOT go back to their pre-COVID levels – would you admit that you got to power on what you knew was a lie, and resign? Yes or no? “
alansays
Thanks, Dharma, for your excellent short essay, containing much important truth.
I would only suggest that you are being unduly optimistic when you speak of building a “mass-based movement that can reclaim the working class” etc. The time for that has probably come and gone, and the “gone” part was just given a big exclamation point on Nov 5. We’re going fascist, now seemingly unavoidably. Climate chaos will play into this in a big way.
Dharmasays
alan says
8 Nov 2024 at 9:17 AM
Thank you alan. You’re too kind.
Let me point out though that I was not being “optimistic” in any way. As my concluding remarks show: “This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now. But it won’t begin. Because this is America. We don’t do that here. We lie to ourselves instead.”
Such is life when living inside a Bubble of make believe. The specific beliefs may vary from one person to the next but they are all delusional beliefs not grounded in reality. Similar to gravity they can only head in one direction.
Note the term ‘liberal’ has some different meanings, which can go against each other.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/liberal-meaning-origin-history :… “Liberal is commonly used as a label for political parties in a number of other countries, although the positions these parties take do not always correspond to the sense of liberal that people in the United States commonly give it.” …
A large majority of liberals favor moving toward universal health care, with many supporting an eventual gradual transition to a single-payer system in particular. A majority also favor diplomacy over military action; stem cell research, same-sex marriage, stricter gun control, environmental protection laws, as well as the preservation of abortion rights. Immigration and cultural diversity are deemed positive as liberals favor cultural pluralism, a system in which immigrants retain their native culture in addition to adopting their new culture. Most liberals oppose increased military spending and the mixing of church and state.[338] They tend to be divided on free trade agreements such as the USMCA and PNTR with China, with some seeing them as more favorable to corporations than workers.[339] …
<Progressives are the most left-leaning faction in the party and support strong business regulations, social programs, and workers' rights.[353][354]
…
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a caucus of progressive Democrats chaired by Pramila Jayapal of Washington.[358][31]
…
As of March 2023, no Democratic senators belonged to the CPC, but independent Senator Bernie Sanders was a member.[359] As of 2024, the CPC is the second-largest ideological caucus in the House Democratic Caucus by voting members, behind the New Democrat Coalition.[360][361]
…“However, parts of the Democratic base also became more skeptical of the Israel government.[282] The number of Democrats (and Americans in general) who oppose sending arms to Israel has grown month by month as Israel’s war on Gaza continues.[283]”…
… A January 19 letter from 60 Democratic Congressmembers urged U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken to firmly condemn the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.[203] A group of a dozen Jewish Congressmembers issued a statement on January 19 condemning Netanyahu’s opposition to a Palestinian state, which read, “We strongly disagree with the Prime Minister. A two-state solution is the path forward.”[204]
Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett [*D] wrote on January 24: “After all America has done for him, if Netanyahu ‘needs to be able to say no’ to us, we need to say no to him and do so now!”[205] On January 24, a group of five Congressmembers requested the Government Accountability Office to review whether arms transferred to Israel were being used to violate international law.[206] Mark Pocan (D-WI) criticized Biden’s decision to suspend funding to UNRWA, stating on January 29: “UNRWA feeds 1.2 million people a day, as well as helps distribute aid now to all Palestinians in need. Aid needs to be restored now to help the displaced millions in Gaza.”[207] Chuy Garcia (D-IL) stated that the “decision to freeze UNRWA funding” should be reversed.[208] On February 11, 2024, Congresswoman Cori Bush criticized Israel’s impending invasion of Rafah, stating, “Almost half of Gaza’s population has taken refuge in Rafah. There’s nowhere else to go.”[209] Congressman Ro Khanna also criticized Biden’s response to Israel’s planned attack on Rafah, stating, “This is not the time for vague generalities about doing more to protect civilian life.”[210]
(PS freedom to migrate is in principle part of a free market and restrictions on immigration (aside from security/etc.) go against the lazy fairy’s whims IMO.)
I am vaguely aware that the U.S. is not always ‘nice’ to other countries in ways that often fly under the radar (Henry Kissinger post Nixon…/IMF/ stuff) – and I mean even recently. I’d expect Democrats, or at least progressive Democrats, to be, like Greens and some others, more critical of this sort of thing, wanting justice (and peace) on a global level. In contrast, Trump tells his supporters (who AFAIK/IMO are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories ; https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827019 ) that ‘we’re’ being taken advantage of by other countries. Well maybe sometimes(?)****, but sometimes(??), it may be the other way around(???), or rather, as with some free trade agreements, the businesses are taking advantage (Some Mexican workers also lost jobs because of NAFTA).- Note I am not against free trade per se, but perhaps it should have 1. Been phased in so that the labor force could adapt 2. Government should have aided that adaptation (would Democrats or Republican be more willing to do that?) 3. Trade should be fair – corrections for differences in environmental, consumer, and labor protections. AIUI some free trade agreements hamstring governments’ abilities to do the sorts of things that US progressive Democrats (or some others) would do for the welfare of people and protection of the environment.
Some of the criticisms of how the campaigned and difficulty offering solutions to the working class and rural communities may be true(??), but I don’t believe it’s because the Democratic Party doesn’t want to do good by them. Also we could consider what Democrats have accomplished for those portions of US society via the IRA…
Dharmasays
patrick o twentyseven’s comment above.
Well OK, I see that not all “political related-non climate” comments are banned only some of them. Good to know.
Nonetheless, there may be hope. I said earlier that voters knew exactly what they were voting for. They certainly could have known if they had made a little effort to find out. But maybe they didn’t.
In a recent survey, despite two years of often-spectacular growth, 56 percent of voters believed we were in a recession. Half of voters thought the unemployment rate was at a 50-year high when, in fact, it is at a 50-year low. Half of voters thought the stock market was down for the year even though at the time of the survey it was up over 25 percent.
So, as incredible as it may seem, it may be that many voters, especially in rural areas that have fewer news outlets to choose from, may not fully understand what Trump has said and done. The data bear that out. Just one in five voters, for example, knew that Donald Trump had said his claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were grounds for him to terminate the Constitution.
Dharmasays
to patrick o twentyseven
[..] “Just one in five voters, for example, knew that Donald Trump had said …………. ”
You see, he’s not completely mad. People need to be much more discerning.
Secular Animistsays
Any possibility that the world might do what is needed to rapidly phase out greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels has completely disappeared with Trump’s return to power.
Time to abandon the “thought experiments” regarding what might happen if we stabilized CO2 at current levels in the near future, and start looking more closely at the worst-case emissions scenarios.
Scott Nuddssays
By By NOAA.
Expect a dramatic cancellation in all climate change funding.
As you were warned about a few years ago.
Dharmasays
Here’s a few more of the core reasons why America will never be a leader in action to fight climate change, adaption or avoid impacts or action to genuine global emissions reductions and alternative energy strategies and universal economic reforms to the benefit of the people ecology or the biosphere.
Former “Liberal” now “Global Truth Teller” a truly sincere and a brilliant man Prof Jeffrey Sachs a week before the U.S. Election gives a short speech about “whether there can ever truly be a liberal international order?” followed by a few questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bl6_MAhg_4
He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican, and Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor at Sunway University.
He has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an (Sustainable Development Goals) SDG Advocate under Secretary General António Guterres.
He spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, where he received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. Sachs has received 42 honorary doctorates, and his recent awards include the 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France, and the Order of the Cross from the President of Estonia.
His most recent books are The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020) and Ethics in Action for Sustainable Development (2022).
Dr. Sachs could be described as a major expert on Climate / Sustainable Economics Finance Government and Politics, International Ethics, Geopolitics and even Russia in the 1990s and ever since.
@40 mins for example:
I’d love for the United States to be a functioning democracy uh and to be a good example for other countries uh I don’t believe the US has any right or any ability to uh put in place a democracy in any other country nor do I believe by the way that American democracy functions as a real democracy
anymore on on the life and death issues.
Nobody has asked the American people anything about all these wars for decades and by the way I can tell you and I’m telling you authoritatively and truly they lie about every goddamn thing about these wars and so that’s not democracy either everything is phony everything is narrative and so on the war and peace issues the public has no say at all if you were to ask the American people now and in fact Gallup does uh do you support Biden’s foreign policy I think the support is you can look it up 25 to 35% perhaps I don’t even think it reaches 35% where’s the Democracy in this? It’s a game – this is the Deep State and they have their Wars and every war has been phony.
Some Wars the American people are basically never told about for example the war in Syria and you may actually hear from grownup reporters who are lying through their teeth or ignorant beyond imagining that oh-“the war in Syria yes Russia intervened in Syria”- well do you know that Obama tasked the CIA to overthrow the Syrian government starting four years before Russia intervened? What kind of nonsense is that and how many times did the New York Times report on operation Timber Sycamore which was the presidential order to the CIA to overthrow Bashar al-Assad? 3 times in 10 years this is not Democracy — this is a game and it’s a game of narrative.
Why did the US invade Iraq in 2003 well first of all it was completely phony pretences it wasn’t-“oh we were so
wrong they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction”- they actually did focus groups in the fall of 2002 to find out what would sell that war to the American people– Abe Shulsky if you want to know the name of the PR genius – they did focus groups on the war. They wanted the war all the time. They had to figure out how to sell the war to the American people how to scare the hell out of the American people first.
It was a phony War where did that war come from you know what it’s quite surprising that Iraq War came from Netanyahu actually you know that it’s weird and the way it is is that Netanyahu had from 1995 onward the theory that the only way we’re going to get rid of Hamas and Hezbollah is by toppling the governments that support them that’s Iraq Syria and Iran and the guy’s nothing if not obsessive and where he’s still trying to get us to fight Iran this day this week he’s a deep dark son of a ******** sorry to tell you because he’s gotten us into endless Wars and because of the power of all of this in the US politics he’s gotten his way but that Iraq war was totally phony — so what is this democracy versus dictatorship *********?
Come on! (aka Wake up!)
Dharmasays
fyi a letter from Bernie
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.
This goes with my prior comment not yet posted. Quite apt and on the money. Bernie is not alone, far from it. Now is a good time to remember what happened in 2016? And yesterday.
zebrasays
I was so shocked at seeing a non-TLDR comment from this author that I had to reply:
What happened in 2016 and 2024 was that a woman, and then a Black woman, did not get elected President. Huh!
But Biden won in 2020. Hmmmm.
And now we have endless “analysis” from everyone about irrelevant policy issues.
Had he opted out after one term, and there was a primary which resulted in a younger White male Dem candidate, who might even have kept Harris on as VP, the result would have been very different.
Sadly, change takes time, and some things are very difficult. We got civil rights, and women’s rights, and guess what… all those fine White male working class, union workers voted for union-busting Reagan. Hmmmm.
Then after time passed, we got Obama, who did a decent job, ACA, and showed off a classy Black First Family. More for White men and women to resent.
Then Hillary, a bridge too far. And so it goes.
This history has happened for a long time, and not just here. Human chimp-nature is always there, and it is well-established science on how it can be manipulated. The South will always rise again; the question is for how long. Sorry, young folks.
Dharmasays
zebra says
8 Nov 2024 at 5:46 AM “What happened in 2016 and 2024 was that a woman, and then a Black woman, did not get elected President. Huh!”
A predictable and yet narrow minded and biased point of view at the same time.
Author Lionel Shriver on the election that smashed identity politics Interviewer: A lot of people are very quickly jumping on that identity politics train despite
the data that’s come out. they’re saying that the election went wrong for Harris
because America could not vote for a black woman. That seems to be the
narrative so, have we really overcome the identity politics narrative? It strikes me
that it could be a while that the Democratic Party (+supporters) doubles down on
that narrative especially if they’re feeling lost!
Shriver: Of course the Democrats want to paint it that way uh that is you know I don’t find
that persuasive at all uh it’s predictable because they see everything through
their lens of race and sex — that’s the only way they know how to look at this result
They’re missing a trick I would like to see the Democrats do a little more soul
searching so far they’re not soul searching they’re just a you know name calling
So if you looked at the Times this morning of the election result it’s they haven’t
learned anything it’s it’s more just it’s more fascism it’s more authoritarianism it’s
you know it’s the start of very dark days and in the United States and it’s very
gloomy and threatening and there’s no sense that they are taking responsibility
at all right for having offered something that the country does not want.
Interviewer: You make an important point here about broadening out the definition
of Identity Politics as well because it certainly strikes me that one of the many
reasons that Donald Trump will have won this election is that many working
class people across America felt like their own identity was under threat; the
way that they choose to live their lives; the work they do; what they prioritize;
was being described as Neo-Nazi being described as fascist sympathizing;
it was being described as garbage towards the end of the election, and that
did not resonate with them at all.
Shriver: Well they never learned that you know contempt is bad politics
you know and also that you can’t lecture people into being on your side it’s off
putting and you know the Obamas did that, made the same mistake going
out and finger pointing and accusing black men of being sexist and you
know that this hectoring thing it doesn’t work and it’s you know you
need to bring people on side and that’s generous that’s, to use one of their
favorite words, that’s inclusive!
D quoting LS: A lot of people are very quickly jumping on that identity politics train despite
the data that’s come out. they’re saying that the election went wrong for Harris
because America could not vote for a black woman. That seems to be the
narrative so, have we really overcome the identity politics narrative? It strikes me
that it could be a while that the Democratic Party (+supporters) doubles down on
that narrative especially if they’re feeling lost!
Shriver: Of course the Democrats want to paint it that way uh that is you know I don’t find
that persuasive at all uh it’s predictable because they see everything through
their lens of race and sex — that’s the only way they know how to look at this result
BPL: In 2020, 81 million Democrats voted for Biden. In 2024, 69 million voted for Harris. Trump actually lost ground, with 73 million votes instead of the previous 74.
Harris lost because some segments of American Democrats would not vote for a woman, especially a black woman. To say this isn’t a valid conclusion because it’s only “identity politics” means assuming that sex and race never enter into peoples’ decision making.
Dharmasays
Reply to Barton Paul Levenson
Lionel Shriver is entitled to her opinion. She is not alone. As are you even though you have data evidence to support your case that “American Democrats would not vote for a woman, especially a black woman”
iirc you cannot assume the 81 million recorded Votes for Biden in 2020 were by people who were registered Democrats. I mention this elsewhere but that comment has not appeared yet. It might never appear
As for the false voting results you keep posting here please stop spreading lies. Your data are wrong. Trump increased his vote. Votes for Harris are almost 72 million now, the counting continues.
Chuck Hughessays
You’re posting a lot of right-wing nonsense. I haven’t seen you on here before, but what kind of work do you do in the field of Science?
Dharmasays
Chuck Hughes says
10 Nov 2024 at 3:08 AM
—but what kind of work do you do in the field of Science?
Oh please. You go first. What kind of work do you do in the field of Science Chuck? Then please explain why that question even matters in the first place on a public climate forum like this or anywhere?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
CH : what kind of work do you do in the field of Science?
D: Oh please. You go first. What kind of work do you do in the field of Science Chuck? Then please explain why that question even matters in the first place on a public climate forum like this or anywhere?
BPL: If I’m not mistaken, Chuck is a member of the Tripoli Rocket Association, and therefore has some acquaintance with atmosphere physics. And why does it matter? It matters because if you’re incompetent in climate science, your opinion on climate science matters carries less weight. Duh.
Dharmasays
Barton Paul Levenson says
11 Nov 2024 at 8:50 AM
I have some aquaintance with with atmosphere physics too. Thanks for playing.
Unfortunately, for Chuck and yourself, the post he was replying to was about Bernie Sanders comments on the election and the working class. Feel free to explain in another “one liner” logical fallacy what questioning anyone’s background in climate science has to do with that?
Alternatively please try to pay better attention to what is being said. That was the point also put to Chuck.
1) Because of the US election just past, there will be no progress within the USA to reduce CO2 emissions for the next 5 YEARS. Given the rising competition among nations, that means there will be little to no progress in the rest of the world as well.
2) Yet discussion of this disaster and why it occurred can only be done by climate scientists? Why? Is this the scientific objectivity and peer review our tax dollars are buying?
Davidsays
In the “well that didn’t take long, who could have foreseen this (sarcasm)?” & the “good bye NOAA” categories:
. https://www.axios.com/2024/11/07/trump-project-2025-second-term-agenda
.
.
Yesterday, I was given the first tastes, I fear, of the future. Associates whom I have debated with since 2015 about MAGA and Trump, almost to a person, voiced a very different tune yesterday than either in previous victory (2016) or defeat (2020). I tremble at the thought of what is coming…
Material usage for silicon cells has been reduced significantly during the last 18 years from around 16 g/Wp (in 2004) to about 2.2 g/Wp in 2023 due to increased efficiencies, thinner wafers (150µm) using diamond wire saws, and larger ingots.
See also p. 36
“PV Market: Focus Germany”:
PV system performance has strongly improved. Before year 2000 the typical Performance Ratio was about 70%, while today it is in the range of 80% to 90%
In the last 10 years, the efficiency of commercial mono-crystalline wafer-based silicon modules increased from about 16% to 22% and more. At the same time, the efficiency of CdTe module increased from 9% to nearly 20%.
See also p.25, and for EPBT and EROEI, p.36-41; p.40 shows contributions by component (rooftop) – note the smallness of “transportation” (just finished products or raw materials+labor*, etc. too?)
What I’d really like to see is a breakdown by electricity, and direct fuel input – for transportation, high T heating, direct chemical usage of energy, and chemical feedstock. The kWh(e)/kWh(PE) ratio will vary.
*it makes sense, to me, to include ‘EI’ for labor that is additional to what is needed for other jobs; otherwise labor is important as another dimension (we don’t want to create too many jobs!), like water withdrawals, mineral scarcity, etc.
“What I’d really like to see is a breakdown by electricity, and direct fuel input – for transportation, high T heating, direct chemical usage of energy, and chemical feedstock. The kWh(e)/kWh(PE) ratio will vary.” –
Also, the CO2 emitted due to non-energy feedstock eg. glass and cement (carbonate decomposition) – although I’ve read this can be reduced/eliminated/CCS?? for cement…
Early in the paper, CED (ie BTW, the ‘EI’ of EROEI … ??AIUI/AFAIK**) seems to be defined to include the solar resource which is harnessed by the PV technology itself, which is an interesting measure but not really what I think is usually meant by ‘EI’; however, later on they seem to revert to the expected ‘EI’.
**…QBO LTE AMA ENSO LED CSP CPU PBS L3 QAPF IUGS :) …
(161-375) kWh(e) / kg wafer * 1.64 kg wafer / kWp(e) = 264 – 615 kWh(e)/ kWp(e) = (@* [GTI,/b>] 1700 kWh (sun)/ (m² yr) * [performance ratio**/b>] 0.8 or 0.7 )
≈ 0.194 or 0.222 – 0.452 or 0.517 years EPBT* (*for this part of it)
(for 2.884 kg SoG Si / kWp(e), (100 – 233) kWh(e) / kg SoG Si,
EPBT* ≈ 0.212 or 0.242 – 0.494 or 0.565 years)
I forgot to take into account the panel efficiency being a bit less than cell efficiency. Some of that could be due to cells not fully filling the panel area, though from some pictures I’ve seen, I think that may be a small effect (mono-Si wafer missing corners maybe ~(1/10+/-?)² area fraction?). Some could be imperfect transmission through and additional(?) reflection from glass (unless contact of cell sfc with glass reduces reflection); some would be resistance in the electrical connections among cells, and …
**performance ratio (PR) 0.8 or 0.7 – low(er) value could account for T&D losses, etc…(Eg. PR on site 80% and T&D loss 6%: 0.94*0.8 = 0.75 )
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3 “The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that annual electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses averaged about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed in the United States in 2018 through 2022.”
Note that the five BPS scenarios created with a slightly higher demand projection that reaches 48.38 PWh in 2050 as compared to the IEA and Teske/DLR scenarios, which remain in the range of 45-46.5 PWh. However, no clear evidence was found that demand influenced the EROI trends such as BPS-WF scenarios show a slower decline compared to Teske/DLR scenarios. Further in-depth examination of the data also reveals that the system composition and the technology choice have more impact on the trend.
( 1 PWh = 1000 TWh ; https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-825957 : 48.38 PWh(e) is a 64.1% increase from 2023 electricity production. But with EROEIs remaining greater than 16, generally 18+, in these scenarios, conceivably, (although requires labor training, minerals etc.), a more rapid expansion of electricity supply to replace fuels in transportation, building heating (also passive solar design, skylights, hybrid PV with H2O/etc. (pre)heating, etc.), and industry, and expand access to more energy to more people might be doable.(?)
… High-performance cells of various thicknesses (55–130 μm) are fabricated, with certified efficiencies of 26.06% (57 μm), 26.19% (74 μm), 26.50% (84 μm), 26.56% (106 μm) and 26.81% (125 μm). The wafer thinning not only lowers the weight and cost, but also facilitates the charge migration and separation. It is found that the 57-μm flexible and thin solar cell shows the highest power-to-weight ratio (1.9 W g−1) and open-circuit voltage (761 mV) compared to the thick ones. All of the solar cells characterized have an area of 274.4 cm2, and the cell components ensure reliability in potential-induced degradation and light-induced degradation ageing tests. This technological progress provides a practical basis for the commercialization of flexible, lightweight, low-cost and highly efficient solar cells, and the ability to bend or roll up crystalline silicon solar cells for travel is anticipated.
We demonstrate through precise numerical simulations the possibility of flexible, thin-film solar cells, consisting of crystalline silicon, to achieve power conversion efficiency of 31%. Our optimized photonic crystal architecture consists of a 15 μm thick cell patterned with inverted micro-pyramids with lattice spacing comparable to the wavelength of near-infrared light, enabling strong wave-interference based light trapping and absorption. Unlike previous photonic crystal designs, photogenerated charge carrier flow is guided to a grid of interdigitated back contacts with optimized geometry to minimize Auger recombination losses due to lateral current flow. Front and back surface fields provided by optimized Gaussian doping profiles are shown to play a vital role in enhancing surface passivation. We carefully delineate the drop in power conversion efficiency when surface recombination velocities exceed 100 cm/s and the doping profiles deviate from prescribed values. These results are obtained by exact numerical simulation of Maxwell’s wave equations for light propagation throughout the cell architecture and a state-of-the-art model for charge carrier transport and Auger recombination.
(2020) “Experimental demonstration of broadband solar absorption beyond the lambertian limit in certain thin silicon photonic crystals”
Mei-Li Hsieh, Alex Kaiser, Sayak Bhattacharya, Sajeev John, Shawn-Yu Lin https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68704-w
The tantalizing possibility of 31% solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency in thin film crystalline silicon solar cell architectures relies essentially on solar absorption well beyond the Lambertian light trapping limit (Bhattacharya and John in Nat Sci Rep 9:12482, 2019). Up to now, no solar cell architecture has exhibited above-Lambertian solar absorption, integrated over the broad solar spectrum. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate two types of photonic crystal (PhC) solar cells architectures that exceed Lambertian light absorption, integrated over the entire 300–1,200 nm wavelength band. These measurements confirm theoretically predicted wave-interference-based optical resonances associated with long lifetime, slow-light modes and parallel-to-interface refraction. These phenomena are beyond the realm of ray optics. Using two types of 10-μm thick PhC’s, first an Inverted Pyramid PhC with lattice constant a = 2,500 nm and second a Teepee PhC with a = 1,200 nm, we observe solar absorption well beyond the Lambertian limit over λ = 950–1,200 nm. Our absorption measurements correspond to the maximum-achievable-photocurrent-density (MAPD), under AM1.5G illumination at 4-degree incident angle, 41.29 and 41.52 mA/cm2 for the Inverted Pyramid and Teepee PhC, respectively, in agreement with wave-optics, numerical simulations. Both of these values exceed the MAPD (= 39.63 mA/cm2) corresponding to the Lambertian limit for a 10-μm thick silicon for solar absorption over the 300–1,200 nm band.
Ultrathin, solution-processed emerging solar cells with high power-per-weight (PPW) outputs demonstrate unique potential for applications where low weight, high power output, and flexibility are indispensable. The following perspective explores the literature of emerging PVs and highlights the maximum reported PPW values of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) 29.4 W/g, organic solar cells (OSCs) 32.07 W/g, and quantum dot solar cells 15.02 W/g, respectively. The record PPW values of OSCs and PSCs are approximately one order of magnitude higher compared to their inorganic ultrathin solar cells counterparts (approximately 3.2 W/g for CIGS and a-Si). This consists emerging PVs, very attractive for a variety of applications where the PPW is the key parameter. In particular, both OSCs and PSCs can be implemented in different scenarios of applications (indoor and biocompatible applications for OSCs and outdoor and high-energy radiation conversion conditions for the PSCs) due to their unique optoelectronic and physiochemical properties. Finally, our theoretical optical and electrical simulation and optimization study for the most promising and well-suited PV technologies showed an impressive maximum realistic theoretical PPW limit of 74.3 and 93.7 W/g for PSCs and OSCs, respectively. Our finding in the theoretical section shows that the experimental results achieved in the literature of PSCs and OSCs toward high PPW outputs is not quite close to the theoretical maximum (35% and 40% of the theoretical maximum for OSCs and PSCs, respectively), and thus, more work needs to be done to further increase the experimental PPW output of these promising PV technologies.
(2024) “Semiconductor thermoradiative power conversion” – Michael P. Nielsen, et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-024-01537-5?fromPaywallRec=false
… “We discuss some present limitations and opportunities for improved performance together with potential applications such as night-sky power generation and waste-heat recovery.”
Thermophotovoltaics (TPVs) convert predominantly infrared wavelength light to electricity via the photovoltaic effect, and can enable approaches to energy storage1,2 and conversion3,4,5,6,7,8,9 that use higher temperature heat sources than the turbines that are ubiquitous in electricity production today. Since the first demonstration of 29% efficient TPVs (Fig. 1a) using an integrated back surface reflector and a tungsten emitter at 2,000 °C (ref. 10), TPV fabrication and performance have improved11,12. However, despite predictions that TPV efficiencies can exceed 50% (refs. 11,13,14), the demonstrated efficiencies are still only as high as 32%, albeit at much lower temperatures below 1,300 °C (refs. 13,14,15). Here we report the fabrication and measurement of TPV cells with efficiencies of more than 40% and experimentally demonstrate the efficiency of high-bandgap tandem TPV cells. The TPV cells are two-junction devices comprising III–V materials with bandgaps between 1.0 and 1.4 eV that are optimized for emitter temperatures of 1,900–2,400 °C. The cells exploit the concept of band-edge spectral filtering to obtain high efficiency, using highly reflective back surface reflectors to reject unusable sub-bandgap radiation back to the emitter. A 1.4/1.2 eV device reached a maximum efficiency of (41.1 ± 1)% operating at a power density of 2.39 W cm–2 and an emitter temperature of 2,400 °C. A 1.2/1.0 eV device reached a maximum efficiency of (39.3 ± 1)% operating at a power density of 1.8 W cm–2 and an emitter temperature of 2,127 °C. These cells can be integrated into a TPV system for thermal energy grid storage to enable dispatchable renewable energy. This creates a pathway for thermal energy grid storage to reach sufficiently high efficiency and sufficiently low cost to enable decarbonization of the electricity grid.
2) That is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers. For some reason the News Media ignored the Sept report on US median income:
3) Some points from Highlights:
a) Real median household income increased in 2023 for first time since 2019 but mostly in white households – none in Black or Hispanic households.
b) While number of total workers increased by 2 million in 2023, number of full time workers did not.
c) Gini Index of income inequality unchanged
d) “For full-time, year-round workers, the female-to-male earnings ratio in 2023 fell to 82.7 percent from 84.0 percent in 2022 (Figure 6 and Table A-6). This is the first statistically significant annual DECREASE in the female-to-male earnings ratio since 2003.”
Piotrsays
Re Don Williams: “That is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers.”
Hmm, I didn’t know the US economy has been run by … academia. Plato’s dream of philosopher kings – finally realized ???
As for the stats intended to prove “ignoring the misery of US workers. ” – median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality – what CONTROL did you use for them?
Say, are the US stats worse than those in other countries over the same period?
Don Williamssays
1) What do you call it when academia and their boy Biden says the taxes of blue collar workers — people who work hard every day to actually produce useful products and services — should be used to pay off $1.5 Trillion in education loans? What’s next — are Americans supposed to pay the professors’ bar bills as well?
2) Who elected the mandarins that can destroy a conservative’s white collar career if she speaks her mind openly on campus? Who decided only one ideology is permissible in our universities?
3) Scroll down and you can see my post in which I gave the report by Associated Press on what the voters say was most important to them. Or do you think the voters are fools who don’t know where their interests lie, what they are experiencing and who is harming them?
Nigeljsays
Don Williams, you said: “that is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers.” You now justify this by saying: “Biden says the taxes of blue collar workers — people who work hard every day to actually produce useful products and services — should be used to pay off $1.5 Trillion in education loans?”This is only ignoring the misery of workers if the Democrats did nothing to provide substantial additional help to workers. Biden did plenty as follows:
“Biden can make a strong case that he has delivered to blue-collar America; he can point to not just the job growth and low unemployment rate (3.6 percent), but also the American Rescue Plan Act, which kept millions of families afloat during the pandemic, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that is expected to create hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs. He also likes to point out that the nation has added 600,000 manufacturing jobs since he took office. (“And they said manufacturing is dead in America,” he quipped recently.)”
Of course Biden wasnt perfect and could have done more. but I dont think its accurate to say he ignored the misery of American workers.
Piotrsays
Re: Don Williams:
_That’s_ your best and most coherent proof that the US economy is run by the academia? ;-)
With that established, what about my actual question? You know:
Piotr: “As for the stats intended to prove “ignoring the misery of US workers. ” – median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality – what CONTROL did you use for them?
Say, are the US stats worse than those in other countries over the same period?”
Anything?
Don Williamssays
1) What I have said is that the USA is run by the billionaires — the majority of which supported Kamala Harris for some reason. Academia , like politicians, is just one of their tools.
2) The CONTROL I used was the relative prosperity of Democrat billionaires vs the lower 90% in income part of the population over the past 40 years. The 40 years during which Biden and Pelosi claimed to be working for the lower 90%.
3) The USA has no monopoly on political corruption — I did not use the EU because it would be like comparing the loot collected by two robber bands while ignoring their victims. Witness financier Macron raising French retirement age by several years.
4) The war between us and Putin may render the energy transition infeasible. IMO it was Harvard Dean Larry Summers who put Putin in power. See
5) Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz explained how Fat Larry’s “shock therapy” (i.e, letting a few oligarchs steal everything not nailed down) enraged the Russian people and made them long for the good old days of corrupt Soviet Tyranny:
“Stiglitz: In the early 1990s, there was a debate among economists over shock therapy versus a gradualist strategy for Russia. But Larry Summers [Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, then Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, now Secretary] took control of the economic policy, and there was a lot of discontent with the way he was driving the policy.
The people in Russia who believed in shock therapy were Bolsheviks–a few people at the top that rammed it down everybody’s throat. They viewed the democratic process as a real impediment to reform.
The grand larceny that occurred in Russia, the corruption that resulted in nine or ten people getting enormous wealth through loans-for-shares, was condoned because it allowed the reelection of Yeltsin.
Q: What effect did the policies pushed by the United States and the IMF have on the Russian people?
Stiglitz: Both GDP and consumption declined. Living standards collapsed, life spans became shorter, and health worsened. Russia achieved a huge increase in inequality at the same time that it managed to shrink the economy by up to a third. Poverty soared to close to 50 percent from 2 percent in 1989, comparable to that of Latin America–a remarkable achievement in eight years.”
PS Re “billionaires” recall that Harvard’s endowment is around $50 billion. Trump is in power because Fat Larry applied the same “shock therapy” to the American People while advising Obama and Biden during the Subprime and Covid crisises.
Piotrsays
Don Williams “ What I have said is that the USA is run by the billionaires”
So … if it is “the billionaires” who create “the misery of US workers.” why did you go after … “academia”?
And why to my P: “Hmm, I didn’t know the US economy has been run by … academia. ”
you DIDN’T say that you misspoke – because for the misery of US workers you blame “billionaires”, but INSTEAD you put out 3 points blaming …academia
1. you linked the misery of the working class – to …. “academia and their boy Biden”, Saying that an 80-year old man is somebody’s “boy” implies unquestionable subserviency – Biden did what “academia” ordered him to do.
2 in your next proof, you talked for some reason about some …individual risking her “ conservative’s white collar career if she speaks her mind openly on campus”?) How exactly this proves that academia is responsible for the “misery” of the US working class?
3. in your last proof you refer to the selected socio-economic indicators (“median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality”). How are they a fault of the “academia”, if NOW you
assure us that the US economy is run NOT by academia, but by “billionaires”.
Therefore, Don Williams from 11 Nov. contradicts Don Williams from 10 Nov and Don Williams from 8 Nov.
And hey – ain’t Trump, Koch brothers, or Musk – billionaires too?
Or are they good billionaires – who feel the misery of the US workers (Koch family net worth $127 billion; Musk – $304 billion), or who, like the US blue collar workers, also started life with practically nothing (Trump’s ONLY with $0.5 billion of his daddy’s money (2024 value)) ?
And you STILL haven’t answer my question to your FIRST (Nov. 8) post on the subject:, I quote:
P: “ As for the stats intended to prove “ignoring the misery of US workers. ” – median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality – what CONTROL did you use for them?
Say, are the US stats worse than those in other countries over the same period? ”
So?
Dharmasays
Dear Don Williams says
11 Nov 2024 at 2:15 PM
You could do a lot better with historical accuracy than those Stiglitz Larry Summers refs. May I suggest Jeffery Sachs as far superior source?
Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and advisor on economic reforms in the post-Soviet era, has discussed the contrasting approaches to economic transformation in Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1990s. Sachs argued that, while he and his team were able to implement structured economic reforms in Eastern European countries like Poland and the Baltic states, they were hindered from doing the same in Russia, largely due to decisions made by U.S. leaders and international financial institutions. This ultimately led to a more chaotic, destructive economic path in Russia, when compared to the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries of Europe, marked by the rapid privatization of state assets and a sharp decline in social welfare.
Economic Transition in Eastern Europe vs. Russia
In Eastern Europe, Sachs supported “shock therapy” economic reforms, which included rapid market liberalization, price reforms, and austerity measures. In places like Poland, these reforms, although difficult, were managed more gradually and included support for social safety nets and strong institutional frameworks. This led to relatively successful transitions, with Eastern European countries integrating more smoothly into Western markets and experiencing economic recovery over time.
In Russia, however, the economic reforms were not as carefully managed or supported. U.S. policymakers and international financial bodies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) insisted on rapid privatization and deregulation without the institutional safeguards Sachs recommended, and they blocked proposals to establish social support systems.
This approach led to:
A rapid collapse of state-owned industries, as many were sold off for a fraction of their value to a few well-connected individuals who became oligarchs.
Hyperinflation, wiping out the savings of millions of Russians.
A severe drop in social welfare and public health, which, combined with a weak healthcare system, contributed to a decline in life expectancy.
Widespread poverty and unemployment, with millions of people losing their jobs and livelihoods.
Putin’s Response and Economic Reforms
When Vladimir Putin became President of Russia in 2000, he took measures to stabilize and rebuild the country after the economic devastation of the 1990s. Key actions included:
Reining in the Oligarchs: Putin took steps to reduce the power of the oligarchs who had amassed vast wealth and influence during the 1990s. Some oligarchs were imprisoned or forced into exile, while others were pressured to keep their businesses aligned with the government’s goals. This allowed the state to regain some control over key industries.
Economic Stabilization: Putin’s administration introduced reforms that brought economic stability, reduced hyperinflation, and improved state revenues, partially thanks to rising oil prices. This enabled Russia to pay down its foreign debts, which gave the country more economic independence.
Strengthening State Control Over Strategic Sectors: Putin reasserted state control over vital sectors, particularly energy, by consolidating companies like Gazprom and Rosneft under state ownership or influence. This brought significant revenue directly to the state and helped fund social programs.
Social Programs and Improved Welfare: With the budget more stable, tax revenues increasing the Russian government was able to invest in uplifting social programs, increasing pensions, salaries for public sector workers, and improved funding for healthcare and education. This improved living standards, although not without criticism regarding its reach and efficiency.
Centralization of Power: Putin re-centralized political power in national institutions, which helped him implement positive reforms more effectively nationwide. By controlling the regions more tightly and limiting the influence of local political and criminal elites, he aimed to ensure that economic gains benefited the state as the legitimate government for the benefit of the Russian people as a whole rather than a select few oligarchs and self-serving political activists.
Under Putin, Russia’s economy grew significantly, and life expectancy and social stability improved compared to the 1990s. While some of his methods have been criticized as authoritarian by western commentators, his policies in fact helped Russia recover from the severe economic and social decline that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
By 2018 it was clear to all and celebrated across Russia the significant economic and social welfare turnaround that had been achieved since Putin was first elected to the Presidency. This has been reflected in the very high +80% favourability polling for Putin and the overwhelming electoral success of the United Russia political party in multiple democratic elections in Russia.
It is absolutely clear the broad majority of the Russian people value appreciate vote for and support Putin across the board because of what he and his governments have been able to do for the Russian people and the nation since 2000. No one else has the right to decide under their Constitution who the President of Russia will be.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
DW: 1) What do you call it when academia and their boy Biden says the taxes of blue collar workers — people who work hard every day to actually produce useful products and services — should be used to pay off $1.5 Trillion in education loans?
BPL: The loans in question are paid off, and people are trapped endlessly paying interest.
DW: Who elected the mandarins that can destroy a conservative’s white collar career if she speaks her mind openly on campus?
BPL: When does this occur in real life? I’m not aware of any such cases.
DW: Who decided only one ideology is permissible in our universities?
BPL: Ron DeSantis?
Don Williamssays
@Piotr Check the dictionary for definition “Tool of” Also, “hierarchy” Maybe “gatekeeper” , “mechanisms of oppression”, “glass ceiling” and “ostracism”. Maybe check out Wikipedia’s article on Larry Summers and look at the section on how he treated Christina Romer. in 2009.
@BPL “When does this occur in real life? I’m not aware of any such cases”
From: Report of Harvard University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group (Executive Summary)
“… However, other students, including 45 percent of survey respondents, reported that they are reluctant to share their views about charged topics in class. Thirty-eight percent of survey respondents reported that they are uncomfortable discussing such issues outside of the classroom. Several factors drive students’ reluctance to talk about controversial issues, including concerns about peers’ judgment, worries about criticism on social media, unease about reputational damage, and fear about potential bullying and harassment complaints.
Many Harvard faculty members and instructors, particularly untenured and non-ladder instructors, also reported reluctance to discuss controversial subjects inside and outside the classroom. While 59 percent of survey respondents reported that they are comfortable pursuing research on a controversial topic, only 49 percent reported that they are comfortable leading a classroom discussion about controversial issues; 32 percent reported that they are comfortable discussing such issues outside of the classroom. They cited potential damage to their professional standing as the reason for their reluctance, in particular, the prospect of negative teaching evaluations, the possibility of contract nonrenewal or tenure denial, the potential for criticism on social media, and the possibility that difficult conversations might trigger complaints about bullying and harassment.”
“@Piotr Check the dictionary for definition “Tool of” Also, “hierarchy” Maybe “gatekeeper” , “mechanisms of oppression”, “glass ceiling” and “ostracism”. Maybe check out Wikipedia’s article on Larry Summers and look at the section on how he treated Christina Romer. in 2009.”
Its difficult to know what you are referring to or really mean. Is it examples of your “that is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers” ? But Academics dont run society or oppress people as a whole or set glass ceilings. At most academics might do this in their own acadmic teaching institutions. Academia are teachers and researchers. The people who opress others, and set glass ceilings and determine hierachical structures are organisations across the whole of society. Singling out academics is a form of scapegoating.
Larry summers is not an academic. He was Obamas economic advisor. I dont have time to plough through his history, but I’m guessing that you think his stimulus package was not large enough to truly help workers? Well possibly, but its a tricky thing to decide how much money governmnets should borrow and spend.
Im a strong supporter of governments stimulating to help reduce the effects of an economic crisis, especially on workers who as a group tend to get hurt the most, but I can see there are limits on how far they can go doing this. It also appears that The Democarts are prepared to stimulate more than The Republicans so your constant negativity about The Democrats is a bit biased.
If you are referring to something else Larry Summerrs did that was allegedly wrong, you simply cannot take the actions of one man and assume they represent all economists, academics or whatever other category.
Or is your sarcastic opening paragraph (check the dictionary definition…..) referring to billionaries? If so Larry Summers does not appear to be a billionaire and billionaires are probably no more or less guilty of setting glass ceilings or oppressing people than anyone else. You get good and bad billionaires.
I detect that you believe billionaires are a huge problem causing opression and financial inequality etcetera (?). Well, some are a problem like the Koch Brothers with their climate denial machine and their extreme libertarian views and frankly their greed. But capitalist systems inherently generate billionaires. So you have two options 1) get rid of capitalism and find a better option, and that doesnt appear to be easy 2) tax billionaires more and use the proceeds to help the workers. Which Party is most likely to do that? Its clearly not the Republicans who have CUT the taxes of rich people when Trump was last president. And didnt the Democrats under Biden raise the tax levels on rich people?
Perhaps you could clarify what you really mean about all this in plain terms. I think I might half agree with you, but right now its a bit hard deciphering what you mean.
Piotrsays
Don Williams “Check the dictionary for definition “Tool of””
So if somebody murders a family with an axe – our Don Williams will blame… the axe?
And still no answer to my earlier questions. If the first question what have you used for CONTROL in your statistics-based claims was incomprehensible to you, then perhaps you try with a simple one:
DW: “I have said is that the USA is run by the billionaires”
me: Hey – ain’t Trump, Koch brothers, or Musk – billionaires too?
Or are they… good billionaires – billionaires who feel “the misery of the US workers” (Koch family – net worth $127 billion; Elon Musk – $304 billion), or who, like the US blue collar workers, also started life with practically nothing (Trump with ONLY $0.5 billion of his daddy’s money (2024 value)) ?
So don’t waste our time “answering” questions nobody asked you, and start answering the questions people did ask you.
Dharmasays
Reply to Barton Paul Levenson
BPL: When does this occur in real life? I’m not aware of any such cases.
DW: Who decided only one ideology is permissible in our universities?
There have been several well known cases where academics faced repercussions, including job loss or institutional censure, for expressing political views that sparked controversy. Here are a couple of notable examples:
James Damore (Google): Although not a traditional academic, James Damore, an engineer with a strong technical background, was dismissed from Google in 2017 after he circulated a memo questioning the company’s diversity initiatives and discussing gender differences in tech.
Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto): While Peterson was not sacked, he faced intense backlash, institutional pressure, and professional consequences after publicly opposing a Canadian bill mandating the use of gender-neutral pronouns.
Noah Carl (University of Cambridge): Noah Carl, a researcher at Cambridge, lost his fellowship in 2019 following allegations that his research and public statements on intelligence and immigration had connections to far-right ideologies.
J.K. Rowling has faced significant backlash, including public criticism and social media controversy, for her views on transgender issues.
and
Carole Hooven: Why I Left Harvard
After I stated banal facts about human biology, I found myself caught in a DEI web, without the support to do the job I loved. The only way out was to leave…
By Carole Hooven
January 17, 2024 https://www.thefp.com/p/carole-hooven-why-i-left-harvard
and
Archives of Sexual Behavior
Academic Freedom Is Social Justice: Sex, Gender, and Cancel Culture on Campus
2022 Carole K. Hooven https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-022-02467-5
Abstract
I teach in and co-direct the undergraduate program in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. During the promotion of my recent book on testosterone and sex differences, I appeared on “Fox and Friends,” a Fox News program, and explained that sex is binary and biological. In response, the director of my department’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging task force (a graduate student) accused me on Twitter of transphobia and harming undergraduates, and I responded. The tweets went viral, receiving international news coverage. The public attack by the task force director runs contrary to Harvard’s stated academic freedom principles, yet no disciplinary action was taken, nor did any university administrators publicly support my right to express my views in an environment free of harassment. Unfortunately, what happened to me is not unusual, and an increasing number of scholars face restrictions imposed by formal sanctions or the creation of hostile work environments. In this article, I describe what happened to me, discuss why clear talk about the science of sex and gender is increasingly met with hostility on college campuses, why administrators are largely failing in their responsibilities to protect scholars and their rights to express their views, and what we can do to remedy the situation.
Don Williamssays
@Nigelj
I gave you a reference to the Wikipedia article on Larry Summers which lists –with citations –his many malign actions and how they contributed both to Russia’s economic collapse and to the 2008 Subprime Crisis. He was also opposed to USA becoming involved in reducing CO2 emissions and the Kyoto Protocol
You evidently failed to note that Larry has been a professor at Harvard since 1983, with breaks for various periods of government service He was President of Harvard from 2001 to 2006 before resigning after a vote of no-confidence by the faculty.
To use a metaphor, A rabid dog is a rabid dog — who owns it is a detail.
Nigeljsays
Don Williams
Thanks for the information on Larry Summers. I didnt see your earlier comments on his wikipedia entry.
I dont think its fair to blame Summers, or his neoliberal economic ideology, or academia for Russias collapse. The change from communism to capitalism was never going to be a smooth ride. The Russian Oligarchs gained excessive ownership of companies but I cant see a connection to Americas economic advice to Russia. Im not aware of any evidence Americas economists promoted that ownerhsip all go to a few Oligrarchs. It looks like an internal issue with how Russia did things.
According to wikipedia, Summers shielded a friend, and had already advised his friend that he had a bad conflcit of interest.. This is cleraly not Summers promting some form of economics. Its a personal weakness and failing on Summers part.
I think you are completely right that Summers took deregulation and self regulation of financial institutions too far and this contributed to the subprime crisis and hurt workers. His opposition to the Kyoto protocol was most unfortunate and is clearly driven by small governmnet deregulation ideology..
Summers comes across as pushing the neoliberal economic orthodoxy generally embraced by the majority of economists and presumably economics teachers: Small government, privatisation, low taxes, deregulation, free trade. I think this ideology has its good and bad elements. I think it pushes deregulation too far and promotes excessively low taxation levels.
However I agree with neoliberals promotion of free trade. This has bought huge benefits to America. and has lifted workers in developing countries out of poverty. However its hurt Americas workers as some high paid manufacturing jobs have migrated to China..In New Zealand we deal with this by giving familes of workers good levels of financial assistance. In America this appears to be regarded as socialism and is not preferred. As a result both Democrats and Republicans are trying to protect workers by bringling back high tariffs. I dont think that will end well. High tariffs in the 1970s caused inflation and other problems. Just my two cents worth.
Don Williamssays
Nigelj
1) The point of the above is that climate scientists sit in their Ivory Tower and curse the stupid citizens who put Putin and Trump into power but the scientists are deeply ignorant of the opposition’s corruption ,actions and events that put those men in power. If climate scientists want to play politics they need to be very careful who they ally with lest the rabble decide they no longer wish to fund climate scientists’ pursuit of their hobby –the value of which is not obvious to the average citizen. If one is not piloting an airplane or boat, even weather forecasts are not all that needed
2) You overlooked the scathing judgment of Larry Summers actions during the Yeltsin period made by NOBEL economist Joseph Stiglitz, posted above by me on 11 Nov at 2:15 pm A similar judgment by economist Jeffrey Sachs posted by Dharma later at 10:53 pm.
4) More details is in the US CONGRESS report “Russia’s Road to Corruption” at https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2000/russia/index.html
especially Chapter 8 The money quote:
“Many Russians, not surprisingly, blamed the West, the IMF, and the United States for intentionally leading Russia down the path of ruin.84 The heavy-handed involvement of Clinton administration officials in Russian economic policy had made America an easy scapegoat for millions of disgruntled Russians”
5) The Russian crooks supported by Washington were in power because a) Russia was dependent upon $50billion in loans coming from the IMF etc arranged by Washington b) Russia knew little about economics or the magical capitalism c) Russia feared the USA taking military advantage of her weakness d) US puppet Yeltsin had showed how “Democracy” works by shelling the Russian Parliament with tanks and arresting the Russian leaders
Nigeljsays
Don Williams, I’m a fan of Joseph Stiglitzs views. I have one of Jospeh Stiglitz’s books, The Great Divide on inequality. Im not disputing his account of Russia or SE Asia and his preferred solutions. However Russia was a very tricky situation because without some form of shock therapy and side stepping the full democratic process Russia may have backslided back into communism.
Just FYI New Zealand went through a remarkably similar privatisation and deregulation shock therapy in the early 1980s under the Lange Labour Government and orchestrated by their finance minister Roger Douglas. It was called “Rogernomics”. Please refer:
A small number of companies benefited handsomely and unfarly. It lead to 10 years of near zero economic growth and was hard on workers. It did undermine public trust in so called economic experts. I hated it because elements of the deregulation were just wrong, and it hurt workers. But the previous economic system was not working and the state owned some quite bizarre assets like a chain of hotels.
Something had to change and is its not done quickly there is a very real chance nothing would have changed, because there are many forces trying to maintain things the way they are. If you phase things in slowly they ar easier to get cancelled. However obviously that wasnt a great period in history, and some things could have been done better, and we should always strive to impliment change in the fairest and best way possible.
Don Williamssays
I see no need for Clinton/Summers to let a few oligarchs loot a country.
However, thank you for the Mark Jacobson citation. I got his engineering textbook –it covers the same detailed subjects as the book you recommended (Table of Contents) but has more pages for test questions, problems, etc.
Dharmasays
Several media pundits are working out the drivers coming from the working class common sense influence in the election results. The exit polling says a lot. A pity as much will be lost in the noise and disinformation that follows. But that’s “US democracy” for you. Some speech is allowed and other speech isn’t. Now is the time to catch the message of the moment that’s being shared under the radar and the endless noise and shouting.
What’s this got to do with climate science?
Well if the working class swing voters (who sometimes end up in focus groups run by political parties determining govt policy) hasn’t been properly educated about the pros and cons of climate change drivers and the economy and their families near future, then places like NOAA and NASA might lose all their funding for climate science research. How’s that for one reason?
Glen Greenwald gives a quite good summary based on nuanced details fyi these two examples:
Elite liberals have no self-reflection no introspection no self-criticism no understanding of normal working class values, because they “know for sure already” this election loss has nothing at all to do with anything they’ve done wrong …. extract — “so there’s just no introspection; and then it’s true more broadly
of the reasons why people hold Elite Institutions in general in such
contempt there’s no self-reflection.
Why is it that people perceive that these political financial and media
institutions care about everything other than the vast majority of
Americans do? Why is it that they perceive that there must be some
reason – but interrogating that reason would require them to engage in some
kind of critique self-criticism and that more than anything is what they cannot do
and that’s why you’ve seen so much today of these people who pretend they
love America and love Americans so much and just want to unite their fellow
Americans spewing utter contempt and insult and degradation
and not just at the specific voters who voted for Trump but at the
entire groups of people who as a whole moved more toward Trump and
more away from the Democratic party — as always with elite liberals you just
need to scratch a tiny little bit and you find under that surface just raging
hatred and contempt for the so-called marginalized groups the minute
that they don’t do what they’re told.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efblZYxlBX8
and
Trump’s Landslide Win EXPLAINED a realignment by Class not faux ‘woke’ DEI race gender division
it’s a new dynamic multi-racial working class coalition of common sense instead.
but really an alignment based on class more than anything else and this
is what the smarter Republicans like JD Vance and Josh Holly have been
predicting for a long time that the future of the Republican party is a
multi-racial working class coalition and you’re starting to see that come into
effect and again since Elite media discourse divides people up never by
class only by every other demographic identity race and gender and sexual
orientation when media talk about diversifying The Newsroom as they always
do they talk about diversifying The Newsroom in every way except
class and that’s why they cannot comprehend this class realignment based
on the perception the accurate perception that Democrats have become
the party of affluent Elites and don’t care about the working class at all and
white working class voters originally migrated to Trump but increasingly Latino
and black (the youth and women) voters are as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8ac6xzDfs
The Grayzone and Jimmy Dore on Trump’s landslide victory – it is all about what “Democracy” means today alright. Democracy dies in darkness, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNk2UpyR6Q
Have the Democrats given up on the working classes? The Democrats do have some worker friendly policies, because they recognise its sensible to do this, but many of these policies are government financial help, that feels a bit like charity to some people. And I suspect the Democrats have lost the ability to CONNECT with the working classes. And maybe explain the climate messzage well enough. And so yes its not surprising that workers have gone over to the Republican Party especially as they have protectionist economic policies and claim they are worker friendly.
However I suspect the workers will be disappointed with the Republicans. Prices have become higher than in 2019 and its just not realistically possible to get prices back to 2019 levels. And protectionsim ultimately causes inflation. So workers are in for a rude awakening. The Republicans have not really become a left leaning or worker friendly party, its all a con job.
The Democrats and The Republicans both lean right economically maybe the Democarts a bit less so. The big difference between The Democarts and Republicans has been social values. I would still definitely vote for the Democrats myself.
Jonathan Davidsays
Nigelj, due to the multi-billion cost of national elections, both of the major parties are forced to place the interests of their major donors before that of the working classes. Labor unions, which have been the primary source of prosperity among the working class, were a traditional base of support for the Democratic Party. However, most labor unions were heavily decimated by globalization and capital flight; which was supported by both parties as it has been highly profitable. Each party has adjusted to the results of globalization in different ways. The traditional base of the Republican Party was and is the business classes. Unfortunately, the economic policies of the Republican Party have been called by George Will a “hard sell” (Google Supply-side economics). For the masses, the Republicans have based their appeal on nationalism and the “culture wars” as well as simply acknowledging them (“I will fight for you”). Note that these are not “money” issues. This has allowed the Republicans to leverage the innate unease and fear among workers that has resulted from the destruction of the industrial sector. It’s a particularly convenient for such tactics as scapegoating and fear mongering. Other issues important to the working class such as the minimum wage, worker safety and health, affordable child care, formation of unions, progressive taxation etc. (google right-to-work laws) have been traditionally opposed by Republicans and promoted by Democrats. It will be interesting to see if the working class coalition envisioned by the Republicans remains content with seeing an ever larger share of national wealth being allocated to the monied classes. But you are right, the appeal to workers from Trump et.al. is a con job.
Ray Ladburysays
OK, so let me get this straight: your contention is that the wealthy have been screwing over the working man (which, BTW, is nothing new), and so the working man allied himself with all the billionaires against the “elite” who have been actually trying to work within the limits of what the current system allows to address their very real grievances.. Yup, that’s about the level of analysis I’d expect from tankies like you and Greenwald.
The causes here are complex, but ultimately they break down to this: the average voter is stupid and uninformed and a substantial proportion are sexist and racist. Americans had a chance to vote for the survival of the human species. They chose the column marked “mass extinction”. Enjoy the show.
83 billionaires supporting Kamala Harris vs 52 backing Trump
2) Democratic leaders have had power at least 50% of the time in the last 40 years. Last time I checked Bernie Sanders wasn’t a Republican. How did he put it?
“Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.” https://vermontbiz.com/news/2024/november/11/bernie-sanders-statement-results-2024-presidential-election
3) Democrat leaders claim to defend the 98 percent lower income portion of the population Why then do 40 percent think it’s not worth voting and another 30 percent hate Democrat leaders with a passion?
Dharmasays
The average elite voter who supports the establishment are typically grossly misinformed and disconnected from broader realities and believe wholeheartedly in ‘deep state’ constructed conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, some also display extreme biases such as sexism or racism. The alignment of the Democratic Party, RINOs, and many above-average-income graduates and academics resemble a collective mindset based on falsehoods that dismisses dissenting views.
Instead of prioritizing facts, data, or mutual respect, the focus tends to shift toward fear-mongering and narratives shaped by intelligence agencies, corrupt MSM outlets, and elitist disinformation campaigns. This dynamic undermines meaningful discourse and erodes public trust in critical institutions.
Trying to get through to people who under the speel of all this manipulation is unlikely to succeed. Like most people caught in a cult they are just too far gone. The clearly 90% of posters here believe in and support this elitist establishment now. And most are also Americans or believe in these American myths.
Nigeljsays
Dharma, what do you mean by elite voters? Do you mean high income earners? It’s just that low income earners and anti establishment people are also sometimes racist or believe in deep state conspiracies or spread missinformation probably to at least the same extent.
Mainstream media is sometimes slanted or gets the facts wrong. The alternative media is no different. I try to read a bit of both and draw my own conclusions.
Nigeljsays
Don Williams. The Democrats do have policies supporting workers but they are complicated nuanced sorts of things that the average voter struggles to figure them out and understand why they are preferable to Trumps simplistic and stupid policies.
That doesnt mean the Democrats have done nothing wrong. Simply throwing mud at Trump calling him a fascist obviously wasnt working but they kept doing it. I cant stand Trump but it would have been better to focus on policies. Democrats had ideas like defunding the police and making illegal immigration legal. a big turn off for working class people. ..
Barton Paul Levensonsays
DW: Why then do 40 percent think it’s not worth voting and another 30 percent hate Democrat leaders with a passion?
BPL: Because there is an immensely successful right-wing propaganda machine whose central, eternally repeated instruction is “Trust only us. Everyone else is lying to you.” It has been in business since the 1980s and has half of America firmly under its spell. At this point they could tell their viewers that the Earth is flat and they would believe it. Not to believe it would be to place themselves outside the tribe.
Ray Ladburysays
Don Williams,
I think you have to look at outcomes:
When democrats are in control, the economy grows faster and income inequality goes down. When Republicans are in control the opposite happens. If people are too stupid to understand what is in their best interests, then they’re too stupid to live in a free society. Hell, they’re too stupid to survive.
Don Williamssays
@Barton Levenson
1) For some reason I had not realized that major news corporations ABC, NBC, MSNBC, Washington Post, NY Times, CNN etc were Republican mouthpieces.
@Ray Ladbury
When the “economy” (as a measure of consumption and extraction and waste) grows faster what happens destroys humanity’s life support system faster. But if people, in this case Americans, are too stupid to understand what is in their best interests, then they’re too stupid to live in a free society. Hell, they’re too stupid to survive.
This crisis is of our making. And the crisis we talk about isn’t the planet’s—it’s a crisis for human survival. Ironically, if humans disappeared, the planet would thrive. This is the perspective we need: climate change threatens our existence, not the Earth’s.
Dharmasays
100% Tankie and proud of it. The rest of the world already know how dumb and ignorantly misinformed Americans are. No need to double down.
1 for tracking arrays, as the Sun’s elevation decreases, try tilting every other panel/row 90° from the Sun (or from the orientation of the other panels, which would tilt to just avoid casting shadows on each other (non-concentrating (and luminescent concentrating) panels don’t lose much output from being a few ° off)) to minimize shading on the other panels, then 3 out of 4 tilted as such, etc., to catch most of the Sunlight on a subset of panels with minimal shadows.
“, try tilting every other panel/row 90°” … would work (a pic I saw left me thinking it may be done), but “3 out of 4” would require module thickness ~0 or height adjustments…
… For certain module types where such a shadow is distributed across all cells equally (for
instance, thin film modules), this is an acceptable loss linearly proportional to fraction of shade.
However, conventional modules with crystalline silicon cells are usually arranged in such a way
that the shadow falls entirely on a few cells, creating significant production loss due to electrical
mismatch. In that case, the array should operate at increased angle of incidence when the sun is
low in the sky to prevent row-to-row shading. This behavior is called “backtracking” because it
is accomplished by the tracker rotating backwards from the “ideal” rotation so that the row’s
shadow is shortened and misses the row behind it. The optimal backtracking rotation sacrifices
as little beam irradiance as possible and is calculated using the spacing geometry between rows
and the instantaneous solar position so that each row’s shadow extends to, but not onto, the row
behind. However, the backtracking geometry used in many commercial single-axis tracker
systems is equivalent to the one described by Lorenzo, Narvarte, and Muñoz (2011), which
assumes tracker axes are contained within a horizontal plane, i.e.: there is no vertical offset
between rows. This is often a valid assumption for real-world PV systems, but for systems
installed on even mild cross-slopes, the harsh nonlinearity between shading and power loss
motivates a more general backtracking method that considers both horizontal and vertical row
offsets. Slope-aware backtracking has been explored briefly by Nascimento et al. (2015) and
Schneider (2012), but here we present a more comprehensive mathematical treatment.
Don Williamssays
For anyone whose judgment is based on ..you know .. actual DATA:
AP News interviewed 120,000 voters across the USA to determine what was the MOST important issue to the voters. The results:
a) Economy: 39%
b) Immigration: 20%
c) Abortion: 11%
d) Healthcare: 8%
e) Climate: Only 7%
Above suggests any moves Trump makes against the Biden Green Deal may not stir up much political opposition. Especially if his moves are depicted as moves to grow the economy/increase common prosperity., Or as moves to deny money flowing to a China cast as enemy.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Would it make any difference if Trump tossed the entire Green Deal in the trash? What good has it done? Last I heard, they had built about 8 charging stations for around $8 billion. Big deal.
We all know how accurate polls are. The mainstream media said Harris was ahead. How’d that turn out?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: Would it make any difference if Trump tossed the entire Green Deal in the trash? What good has it done? Last I heard, they had built about 8 charging stations for around $8 billion. Big deal.
BPL: The “Green New Deal” was a policy proposal that never passed as a bill. Straw man argument. And Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act did more than build charging stations; it paid for a number of manufacturing plants, power projects, etc.
KIA: The mainstream media said Harris was ahead.
BPL: No it didn’t. It said they were tied. Will you kindly stop making stuff up?
MA Rodgersays
The point that 7% of US citizens think “climate” is ” the most important facing the country in 2024″ is not some (normal) person running for office would ignore because it was only 5th in the list. There was no need for the Orange man to make known his climate change denial. But he did and I’d assume that if he could have been persuaded otherwise (although that is unlikely for the blabbermouth orange man), you wouldn’t need to bother because that 7% wouldn’t have voted for him even with impeccable eco-green credentials.
Over on this side of the pond, in July’s UK General Election, 7% voted for the Green Party, this mainly younger voters with 23% of 18-24 women voters voting Green. The winning Labour Party did massively downgrade green finance plans by 85% during the months before the election, convenient for the finances but perhaps mindful that with weaker green policies the more-numerous denialist older voters gained would cancel out the younger ones lost.
Adam Leasays
I would like to try and find a paper I once saw that detailed how to transition competely to renewable energy given the weather situation here over the last fortnight.
The UK is currently undergoing a prolonged period of anticyclonic gloom. So far this month I don’t think I have seen more than an hour of sunshine and one town in a nearby county has recorded zero sun so far this month. The only good thing is it has been very dry which we really need after recently experiencing one of the wettest 18 month periods on record. In addition to this the air has been largely dead calm, hardly a breath of wind so far this month. With virtually no wind and virtually no sun for nearly two weeks and counting, I would question what the solution is to supplement wind and solar during rare but not unprecedented periods of weather like this when both those forms of energy supply are well below normal but energy demand isn’t?
zebrasays
1. Reduce energy demand.
2. Establish a very smart grid system, so that demand can be further limited to essential functions if conditions warrant.
3. Establish localized backup fuel-based generators. This could be pure backup or dedicated for industrial-level demand. The easiest example would be to have Crypto installations or AI research run on NG units to cover the cost and then switch the output to the grid when needed. A couple of weeks is no great loss for those activities. There may well be other similar applications.
The more things are distributed, the better they can match the local needs.
Piotrsays
Re: zebra to Adam Lea
adding to zebra’s list:
4. have interconnected systems – if the wind doesn’t blow in England, it might be blowing hard in Scotland or France, or Spain may have more solar than it needs
5. overbuild, if you double installed power, then running it at 50% is equivalent of running non-doubled system at 1oo%. When the supply exceeds demand – use it for time-nonsensitive application – like making ammonia, preferably to displace electricity needed to make it during higher demand/lower supply periods, or less energy effective – as a transportable form of green hydrogen.
6. energy storage – centralized and dispersed – electric F-150 pickup truck is advertised as able, in emergency, to run the electricity for your house for 3 days, also old EV batteries can be used for energy storage after they no longer keep high enough % charge to keep them on the road
7. “virtual storage” – running hydro when high demand, letting the water behind the dam rise when demand drops. = the same effect as pumped storage, without the cost of pumping
8, use a combination of the above (and other not listed here) solutions – since they are likely to have different temporal characteristics (if the sun does not shine, the wind may be blowing, if it does not blow in UK it may be blowing in France) and as such complement each other (“You complete me!”) so the mix of solutions would more resilient than their sum, or in a military parlance – using “force multiplier”.
Adam Leasays
The issue of lack of sun and rain for renewable energy has now started to appear in the media (I know it’s the Telegraph, ugh, but the general message is not unreasonable):
I am thinking of getting a battery backup to supplement my solar panels.
zebrasays
Adam, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, which was a point I was trying to make in my previous reply, but I will share my approach as an example.
I don’t have solar for various practical reasons, and my municipal electricity provider is pretty reliable, but I am a bit paranoid. So I bought a high quality portable battery unit and a high-quality gasoline portable generator. I also did some unconventional wiring to make it all work together.
For winter, neither battery nor generator can power my heat pump, but they can operate my old oil burner that is there as a backup.
For summer, they can run the refrigerator and a small freezer, and with good timing, a conventional AC unit that cools a pretty large space.
Of course, the battery alone can keep the computers and internet and lights and food storage running for conventional short outages of several hours.
This obviously only works for typical detached housing, but if enough people invest in similar setups, that is a significant reduction in “emergency” capacity demand, freeing it up for other applications.
Again, there are many variations on this idea, and it can work at different scales, if the incentive is there.
This is a crucial question, I think. Such weather periods, called „Dunkelflaute“ in Germany, compromise profitability of economy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, because preventing blackouts during thereof requires either
(i) bulding and keeping „reserve“ classical (fossil fuel drive nor nuclear) energy sources that remain most of the year unused, or
(ii) building and keeping network of „electricity highways“ having a sufficient transport capacity and reaching to sufficient distance to ensure that renewable sources from geographically distant locations will be any time able to supply the regions wherein the anticyclonic gloom occurs, or
(iii) build and operate a sufficient electricity storage capacity, so that excess electricity produced and stored when the sunshine and/or wind are abundant can any time cover the periods of insufficient production from the renewable sources.
I have not a capacity to analyse the options (i) and (ii) in detail, however, I think that ongoing political discussions about subsidies necessary for economy transition to renewable energy sources strongly suggest that learning curves of electricity prices from renewable sources do not give a realistic expectation that the desired transition could be profitable and thus economically feasible (without huge expenses from public budgets) during the next two or three decades. The same seems to apply for (iii), if we take into account presently available electricity storage technologies only, such as pumped hydropower, batteries of any kind, hydrogen and/or various „carbon neutral“ synthetic fuels.
Whereas for the options (i) and (ii), I personally do not see yet unexplored technically feasible ways which could substantially change the situation in a near future, there do exist such yet unexplored and technically promising ways that might enable an economically feasible economy transition to renewable energy sources through cheap large-scale seasonal electricity storage.
I think that particularly interesting in this respect might be the idea of a „sodium economy“ described in several patents granted more than 40 years ago to an American visionary inventor Stephen Skala (see e.g. US3911288, US3911284, US3911288, US4276145 , US4367698, US4389287) because
a) sodium metal enables volumetric energy storage density about 3 kWh/L that is, on one hand, still lower in comparison with coal or liquid hydrocarbons (in a range about 8-12 kWh/L), on the other hand it is order of magnitude higher than in best available lithium batteries and at least two orders of magnitude better than in electricity storage based on various physical principles, like pumped hydropower, and substantially better than in liquid hydrogen (2 kWh/L) which requires very sophisticated thermal insulation enabling to keep it at its boiling point temperature about 20 K,
b) differently from the theoretically possible electricity storage in carbon and/or synthetic hydrocarbons, electricity storage in sodium is an already known industrial process,
c) differently from solid carbon or liquid hydrocarbons, there is also a known process for converting sodium directly (and thus with a reasonable efficiency) into electricity in a fuel cell comprising a consumable sodium anode (US 3 730 776),
d) differently from hydrogen fuel cells, the sodium fuel cell does not require catalysts that make hydrogen fuel cells expensive and hamper their scale-up towards industrially applicable power generators.
I therefore strive to explore the sodium economy potential in more detail, first of all in a project focused on development of the sodium fuel cell towards an industrially applicable prototype.
Improvements on the side of electricity storage by sodium production by electrolysis which enables the required circular process will be, however, also necessary, as the old Castner process certainly does not fulfil today standards:
Adam Lea, during anticyclones, New Zealand sometimes gets about a week of very low wind speeds at roughly 5 – 10 kms / hr, or very cloudy weather, or both . It can cover a large part of the country. These are very uncommon but they do happen.
Overbuilding wind turbines wont fix the problem because wind turbines stop rotating at around 10 kms. You are going to need perhaps a weeks electricity storage sufficient for a large region. Its obviously technically feasible in theory, and it comes down to costs of storage. A weeks storage for an entire country sounds intuitively like it would be expensive to me, based on available storage technologies.
Another alternative is to import electricity from a windy neighbouring region or country but again that could have substantial costs and geopolitical issues.
Various experts like Marc Jacobson claim that the problem can be solved and it can be affordable and they have published studies on it. They claim it will actually be cheaper than fossil fuels in the longer term especially when you factor in health benefits. I havent read all that stuff in detail its thousands of pages. I tend to trust the experts proclamations things can be done, where I think its an issue they should be able to calculate with some certainty. I just do hope they are right on this one.
Another last resort alternative is a system that is mainly renewables, but still has a fair bit of fossil fuels, for exmaple if storage costs proved to be too high. This would still make a very significant difference to the climate problem. So for me that is enough reason to still build renewables and deal with storage issue as it evolves. So although the longer periods of low wind are concerning, as Corporal Jones used to say In Dads Army “dont panic”..
Dharmasays
It was possibly Mark Jacobson. 100% WWS – And yes intermittent supply without ‘backup’ is a problem. One that can collapse the whole grid of a region. It’s already happened without 100% from WWS.
Jacobsons work is 100% theoretical based on dubious unrealistic assumptions and selectivity.
Dharmasays
Conservative NYT journalist David Brooks on PBS Newshour-
David Brooks: Yes.
I think since 2016, we have entered a new political era. And the period between 1980 and 2016 was the information age. And we decided that America was moving to a postindustrial economy led by college grads. So, so many of our policies were oriented to favor college grads. Education policy, let’s get everybody near four-year colleges.
Immigration policy, let’s provide college grads with cheap labor, even though less skilled people are going to face some labor competition. Trade policy, we allowed manufacturing jobs to go overseas while service jobs were not threatened in that way.
Geographic policy, we had a laissez-faire attitude where talent congregated in Austin and Dallas and Washington and Boston. And we didn’t really worry about all those places left behind. And so, to me, we had a policy that favored college grads and disfavored everybody else. And basically in 2016 and emphatically last Tuesday, a lot of people said, I have had enough, we need to change.
Then
David Brooks:
Yes, a million things have shocked me that have not been disqualifying about Donald Trump.
I personally think Donald Trump is clearly a misogynist. I think he’s clearly a racist. I think that’s been in his family for generations, frankly. But to make that argument, somehow, you also have to explain why the gender gap went down, why Kamala Harris did worse among women than Joe Biden did.
Somehow, you have to explain why Trump got more Black voters than any Republicans since Richard Nixon. Somehow, you have to explain how he massively improved Republicans standing among Hispanic voters. And so he created this broad network.
And the way I would explain those phenomenon is race and sexism were clearly major facts in American life. But I think in our politics, class is rising in salience and race and gender are falling in salience. And when you say people had to choose between their race or their gender for — about white women, you’re ignoring that they have brains and that they have economic views, they have social views, they have a million other views. And so those views are part of how people make their decisions, not just an ethnic identity.
end quotes
What has shocked me the most and many others I have heard from too, is how people are so shocked that Donald Trump won! That Kamala Harris lost so badly in all the key Democrat “identity politics” groups and lost every single one of the Swing States. Even Trumps women vote increased. The facts defy the gender racism rhetoric.
Jonathan Capehart: says “but we cannot ignore [..] The role of racism and sexism, misogyny, grievance, white nationalism, that was very much a part of Donald Trump’s campaign.”
He like almost everyone else here gets this so very wrong. These things were not part of Trumps’ campaign – they were the bedrock of the Democrat (fake identity politics woke) campaign against Trump and the actual Policies he campaigned on.
That and Climate science and Climate policy as articulated and implemented by Biden/Harris and the Democrats was not a part of the campaign from either side. It was a non-issue because all the other issues superseded climate in importance to the Voters.
And they did not care about January 6th, his convictions, or the Russiagate lies, or the political lawfare witch-hunt against Trump either. They have voted accordingly using their uncommon “common sense.” The swing voters no longer bought into the Democrat DEI lies and racism and extreme hand waving rhetoric Even the abortion issue couldn’t swing them behind Harris. Because it was not important enough. Same as Climate Change issue was not important enough to them (swing voters) either.
Some one, one day, might come up with an argument and facts good enough to convince them otherwise. I seriously doubt it will ever be the Democrats or todays’ Climate scientists to achieve that feat.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
JC: “but we cannot ignore [..] The role of racism and sexism, misogyny, grievance, white nationalism, that was very much a part of Donald Trump’s campaign.”
D: He like almost everyone else here gets this so very wrong. These things were not part of Trumps’ campaign – they were the bedrock of the Democrat (fake identity politics woke) campaign against Trump and the actual Policies he campaigned on.
BPL: What absolute nonsense. Trump’s anti-immigration stand is pure racism and is fine with the KKK and Nazis, both of whom endorsed him. Haitian immigrants are not stealing dogs and cats to eat them. Immigrants over the southern border are not disgustingly diseased, and they do not have a higher crime rate than citizens. Trump is the racist. Stop spreading lies.
zebrasays
BP, you know I like to look at fundamentals, as simple as possible. I find all the breathless analysis that people are doing incredibly silly. You are correct that racism is fundamental to most of the R voters, of course. But here’s my data:
2016: Trump beats a woman for USA President.
2020: Trump loses to a White male for USA President.
2024: Trump beats a Black woman for USA President.
Somehow, this is supposed to have great meaning about economics and other policies. But elections are about “tipping the balance”; getting enough people over to your side to win.
Maybe, for enough people, a woman President, especially a Black one, is a bridge too far. My bet would be that if Biden had done the one-term thing, and a competent, younger White male was chosen in the primary, the result would have been quite different. He could even have kept Harris on as VP, because that would fit the traditional hierarchical paradigm for many.
Just sayin’.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: Maybe, for enough people, a woman President, especially a Black one, is a bridge too far.
BPL: That’s EXACTLY why Harris lost. Trump actually got FEWER votes this year than in 2020. But Harris got even fewer; Democratic votes dropped from 81 million for Biden to 69 million for Harris. 12 million people couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman president, especially a black one.
I’m ashamed to be an American.
Dharmasays
Barton Paul Levenson says, “Trump actually got FEWER votes this year than in 2020.”
You also claim, “12 million people couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman president, especially a black one.”
This seems like an assumption that isn’t backed by data. While academics and scientists are often recognized for their commitment to objectivity logic and data, statements like this seem inconsistent with that standard. If we’re to engage in productive discussions, objective evidence should guide these kinds of claims.
For some context on why certain narratives may alienate audiences, here’s a relevant discussion: “CNN Virtue Signaling Alienates People.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYVr4jIukU8
Lastly, you say, “I’m ashamed to be an American.” While it’s fair to critique the country, I encourage you to consider a range of perspectives before framing it in such absolute terms. There are valid reasons to feel both proud and critical of aspects of American society, but let’s ground those critiques in factual reasoning.
and another timed link to Glen Greenwald about the youth vote men and women switching to Trump, and the importance of the political-economic issue of immigration from 2016 thru 2024
from @ 17 minutes and the swings across counties first https://youtu.be/5x8ac6xzDfs?si=9VrOqxD4qT6APnnG&t=1042
Quoting – from The Washington Post how counties are shifting in the 2024 presidential
election quote former president Donald Trump won the presidency after
widespread gains across the country delivered him victory over vice
president Kamala Harris most of the nation’s 3,000 plus County swung
rightward compared with 2020
think about how extraordinary that is most of the nation’s 3,000 plus counties swung
rightward compared to 2020 the Republican shift appeared across rural
border count communities in Texas the wealthy sub suburbs of Washington DC and
even reliably Democratic counties in New York City Trump widened his margin in
rural areas while Harris Under reform compared with Biden in safely blue
States blue cities this combination and a rightward Lurch in major suburbs and
midsize Metro amount amounted to a Trump victory in every Battleground state
end quote
Glen then details other things like from the WSJ a 15% shift of young women from the democrats to the republican party since 2018. Trump wins young men by 14% in 2024, a shift of 33% since 2018
Nowhere was Climate Change or Climate science or Climate politics an important issue. But immigration was for over 20% of Voters their most important issue!
The most important issue overall was “democracy” ~35% but they do not say if that is the Democrats-Harris woke version of Democracy or the common people’s version. The polarization of thought is extreme.
Dharmasays
Most stats data analysts would describe the 2020 election as an extreme Anomaly.
The media and Democrats (same thing) told us for over a year that Trump was a fascist dictator and literally Hitler. We are expected to believe that 15,000,000 FEWER voters voted against literal Hitler in 2024 than in 2020? That right there is funny.
In 2020, there was chaos in election offices nationwide due to COVID, the riots, etc. Election officials made all manner of changes to voting procedures against the prescribed methods voted on by the state legislatures. Only the state legislatures get to change the rules according to the US Constitution. So, mass chaos in 2020 and SOMEHOW we end up with 15 MILLION more votes for president than in elections immediately before or since.
What was different in 2024? There wasn’t a lot of chaos. We were watching the elections like hawks so there was little room for shenanigans. The 2024 results are what the legitimate vote was in 2020. Now you know the rest of the story. Good day!
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: The 2024 results are what the legitimate vote was in 2020.
BPL: Bullshit. No elaboration needed.
MA Rodgersays
Dharma,
The thing I notice is you cutting-&-pasting from a webpage dated 7/11/24 at which time the vote counting was not complete. Today, it is yet to finish with the latest showing 2024 Harris – 72.3M
Dharmasays
MA Rodger says
12 Nov 2024 at 9:55 PM The thing I notice is you cutting-&-pasting from a webpage dated 7/11/24 at which time the vote counting was not complete.
Correct. Score one brownie point. I noticed it too. And yes the counts keep rising. Yes. I know that already. I never needed you to tell me so.
Now if you wish, do tell what numbers I should have used on 7/11/24 comment I made other than the numbers I used? Please, I’m really curious.
MA Rodgersays
Dharma,
If you “noticed it too” and “never needed [me] to tell [you],” perhaps you also would have noticed that it was particularly silly using the numbers you cut-&-pasted from SIMPLICIUS (who was using the number to tell the world that “exposed by this election is the now undeniable, irrevocable fact that 2020 was infact stolen {His bold}) to ask us here at RealClimate SIMPLICIUS’s question “Notice anything?”
As for why you would want to bring such nonsense to a thread with is meant to be discussion climatology, even for “FYI” reasons, that would also take you to explain.
But in such circumstances, you plead with me to tell you what numbers you should have used in your off-topic comment of 7/11/24, I presume more a schoolyard riposte than a genuine appeal.
Your comment is actually dated 9/11/24, this cutting-&-pasting the numbers of SIMPLICIUS which were dated 7/11/24. So, assuming you are not SIMPLICIUS, the numbers you should have used could well have been buried over the two elapsed days and are certainly well-buried today. As I tap this out, the vote counts are now showing at Wikithing:-
2024 Harris – 73.8M
and the information also provided but missing from this number shows that there are some 152.8M votes counted and some 2.6M votes still to count. With most of those uncounted votes from Harris-voting states, this would suggest a final figure based on a pro-rata so-far figure could be a lower limit, that being:-
2024 Harris – 75.1M
Dharmasays
Reply to MA Rodger
I do not feel sorry for you.
I referenced an article and quoted directly from it, and noted that accurately.
Had I not done so, you would have nothing to say about any of it.
Make of that what you will.
It reminds of one of Elenore Roosevelt’s most famous quotes about discussing ideas.
MA Rodgersays
Dharma,
Resorting to that quote suggests to me someone who is well experienced at being called out as an utter fool. But then, expecting the words of someone from the past to reliably provide good advice is a sign of desperation. As Laurence Johnston Peter said “If you can tell the difference between good and bad advice, you don’t need advice!”
My own advice to those who cannot resist resorting to using pithy quotations of dubious relevance is that it helps if you can attribute the quote correctly and spell the name right or your ignorance will be made the more obvious.
(And this reply does allow me a second try at providing that US Election WikiThing link properly.)
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: It reminds of one of Elenore Roosevelt’s most famous quotes about discussing ideas.
BPL: Eleanor
Dharmasays
Pithy
Piotrsays
D: It reminds of one of Elenore Roosevelt’s most famous quotes about discussing ideas.
BPL: Eleanor
D: Pithy
Since you tried to shine by association with Eleanor Roosevelt – then your mangling her name (two errors in a … 7 letter name) – suggests that your familiarity with her writings and ideas, is rather superficial. Hence the effect achieved is opposite to the intended.
And true to the form – you used her like a drunkard uses a lamppost – not for illumination, but for support.
Dharmasays
Reminds me of Disney’s Fantasyland.
Dharmasays
Probably my last comment about the election showing refs from sources who the majority here are unlikely to have seen or heard about. It’s a FYI, a public service, iow
Republican conservative Scott Jennings (former Assistant to Pres. GW Bush) on CNN encapsulated it best in a sombre moment of mirror-reflection, highly uncharacteristic for the biased virulent network: The Revenge of the Working class – This is a Mandate – Scott Jennings comments CNN Election Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMfLIAEttrM
And the Data reveals how working class switched from Democrats to Trump
2020 Biden wins Voters under $55k/yr by 55% to Trumps 44%
2024 Trump wins under $55k 49% to 48%
2020 Biden wins $55k-$100k 57% to 42%
2024 Trump wins that bracket 49% to 47%
2020 Trump wins Voters over $100K by 54% to 42% over Biden
2024 Harris wins Voters over $100k by 53% over 45% over Trump
from the Young Turks pro-Liberal Pro-Democratic Party (in general, not specifically)
CNN Contributor Tells THE TRUTH About Kamala’s Loss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96byJvA_KM0
Shocked? Or was it voter fraud?
I first saw these guys, the CartierFamily now with 1.34M subscribers, when they began in 2020, when they were fairly uninformed young black men. 4 years later they know what’s been going on for a long time, including about the overseas “wars” and control over other nations by the US. Here they present another appearance by Scott Jennings on CNN … watch their reactions to what is being said. Only 10 minutes.
Again no one anywhere mentions Climate issues let alone climate being the most import ant issue of all. .
Mr. Know It Allsays
Often, each voter has a few issues that are more important to them than the others. I think many people are concerned about climate change, but realize that it is not an immediate emergency, so it is not at the top of their list, but for a few it would be at the top.
Right now, in the US and in Europe, the most pressing issue for many people is unchecked immigration that is erasing the culture of their homelands. It is causing other problems as well. Some nations in Europe are discussing deportations due to high crime and other problems. Harris was put in charge of the border so she has to take considerable responsibility for that failure, and she made the error of saying she would not change anything she and Biden did during their term. OOPS! Not what voters wanted to hear!
I’d say unchecked immigration, 2 new wars, and high costs for food, gas, new homes, and other necessities were high on most voters radar in 2024.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: I think many people are concerned about climate change, but realize that it is not an immediate emergency,
BPL: Right. Double giant hurricanes are just nature as usual.
Adam Leasays
You can’t really say much if anything about attribution of climate change to enhancing the 2024 hurricane season at the moment, and if you try you will have to be able to answer the question of why the peak season period was so quiet.
I think there is a signal when looking at recent hurricane seasons, not necessarily just in the Atlantic. This year and last year there is likely to have been some enhancement due to the very warm Atlantic SSTs which last year dominated over the moderate, normally suppressing, El Nino. There have also been a number of storms that have undergone rapid intensification in recent years, and I believe warming SSTs make these events more likely. That is potentially serious because rapid intensification is very difficult to predict, and as we saw with hurricane Otis, it can happen at a time which leaves very little time for preparation. The difficulty with trying to tease out a long term signal from the noise is the high intra-seasonal variability which has been particularly notable this year with its bi-modal activity. Warmer SSTs do nothing if the tropical Atlantic is choked with dry Saharan air, or easterly waves are exiting Africa too far north and immediately running into atmospheric conditions hostile for cyclogenesis.
Dharmasays
One more, some icing on the cake.
NY Times Admits BERNIE WAS RIGHT…10 Years Too Late
Jordan Chariton breaks down a New York Times article written by David Brooks that admits that the Democratic Party needs someone like Bernie Sanders in order to move forward. Only this article came out in 2024, 10 years after Bernie Sanders stared his campaign and movement
discussion about it — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuOPpWTxBp8
David Brooks Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?
Nov. 6, 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-elites-working-class.html
extracts
The Democratic Party has one job: to combat inequality. Here was a great chasm of inequality right before their noses and somehow many Democrats didn’t see it. Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality. I guess it’s hard to focus on class inequality when you went to a college with a multibillion-dollar endowment and do environmental greenwashing and diversity seminars for a major corporation.
Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there’s something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself.
As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot.
In 2024, he built the very thing the Democratic Party once tried to build — a multiracial, working-class majority. His support surged among Black and Hispanic workers. He recorded astonishing gains in places like New Jersey, the Bronx, Chicago, Dallas and Houston. According to the NBC exit polls, he won a third of voters of color. He’s the first Republican to win a majority of the votes in 20 years.
The Biden administration tried to woo the working class with subsidies and stimulus, but there is no economic solution to what is primarily a crisis of respect.
There will be some on the left who will say Trump won because of the inherent racism, sexism and authoritarianism of the American people. Apparently, those people love losing and want to do it again and again and again.
The rest of us need to look at this result with humility. American voters are not always wise, but they are generally sensible, and they have something to teach us. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption — something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.
Well, Donald Trump hijacked a corporate party, which hardly seemed like a vehicle for proletarian revolt, and did exactly that. Those of us who condescend to Trump should feel humbled — he did something none of us could do.
If you hate polarization, just wait until we experience global disorder.
These are the times that try people’s souls, and we’ll see what we are made of.
One of 2225 comments on the NYTs article Before we patted ourselves on the back for the progressive nomination of Eric Holder as America’s first Black Attorney General, he spent three years as lead counsel for Purdue Pharmaceuticals, vigorously defending them in Federal Court against the lawsuit filed by the People of the State of West Virginia, for the absolute devastation that their criminal pushing of Oxycontin wrought there. It was the first lawsuit that the people of a state had ever filed against a corporation for damages caused by fraudulent and predatory marketing and falsification of data– a momentous and promising day for the working class– the little guy, if you will. Literally, “The People”. Our progressive Democratic president’s progressive Democratic Attorney General was on the corporation’s side. Purdue. He was their leader. Let that sink in.
Do you think any of the families of the out of work miners who died from overdose cared what color he was? I bet they remember his name. Any more questions about why the working class is abandoning Democrats?
Dharmasays
Reply to Dharma
You know what? Sometimes it is the non-response to comments that say so much more than the responses do.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: You know what? Sometimes it is the non-response to comments that say so much more than the responses do.
BPL: In this case, silence does not mean consent. It means we’re tired of wading through your endless posts.
Dharmasays
BPL: In this case, silence does not mean consent.
I never imagined it did. Just goes to show again you keep trying to say you know what I think or believe yet constantly get that wrong. A+ for consistency.
Mr. Know It Allsays
To all those whining over the fact that Trump won the election, claiming it’s a disaster for the climate, here is some friendly advice. Fact is that every nation on earth can do whatever they want to power their economies. Trump has no bearing on it whatsoever – they are ALL free to go green. Fact is that every state in the USA can do the same. Most of them are already using a lot of wind and solar. Fact is that all of you folks whining about Trump can get off your butts and ride your bikes to work, take public transportation, etc. You scientists can attend climate meetings via computer. BUT YOU WON’T, because you are hypocrites who whine and bitch and moan about Trump but are not willing to lift a finger to stop global warming. The truth is that you LOVE riding to work in your FF powered vehicles. You want THE GOVERNMENT to do it for you. Guess what? The government isn’t going to do shit, EVER. Stop whining and get busy finding solutions, preferably ones the people are willing to pay for voluntarily. Elon did that. Some of you have brains and can do the same thing.
If everyone in the world who claims to give a shit about AGW will stop their OWN emissions, that would cut the world emissions by quite a bit. Get busy creating solutions and stop whining like a bunch of spoiled children.
[Response: “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”. – gavin]
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: If everyone in the world who claims to give a shit about AGW will stop their OWN emissions, that would cut the world emissions by quite a bit.
BPL: Yeah, all those scientists tooling around in their SUVs should just stop building all those fossil fuel generating plants.
Radge Haverssays
BPL,
Love the one liners! Henny Youngman eat your heart out! :-D
Fact is that all of you folks whining about Trump can get off your butts and ride your bikes to work, take public transportation, etc. You scientists can attend climate meetings via computer. BUT YOU WON’T, because you are hypocrites who whine and bitch and moan about Trump but are not willing to lift a finger to stop global warming.
From
I gave up my car starting last year. I have a 15yo carbon fiber road bike, and an MTC GoTo transit card. I attend all geophysics conferences by computer, and do all my climate change simulations on a desktop PC..
KIA, I hope that you find satisfaction with everything that Trump has promised you.
Mr. Know It Allsays
If you stop buying their power, THEY WILL stop building FF generating plants.
Nigeljsays
KIA. So you expect people to walk to work, freeze to death, go without a fridge, etcetera. Honestly you post some hopeless comments. Number one priority is government schemes to push generation towards renewables. Individuals can be expected to use initiative and do some other stuff like low meat diets.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Today, solar and/or wind is cheap enough that if you conserve power usage and use efficient appliances, an off-grid solar system will power your home at a relatively affordable price. Depending on where you live you may need a backup FF heating system. Many middle class folks can do that and all who believe AGW is a serious threat should do it. Utilities may require that they tie into the grid, and that can be done.
Many folks can also ride a bike and/or take public transportation to work. Those solutions have been available for decades.
Don’t wait for government. AGW is an immediate and existential threat to the survival of the planet the believers tell us. All believers need to get to work immediately doing what they can NOW, not later.
Go ahead and argue against any of the above.
Nigeljsays
KIA, huge numbers of people CANT afford solar power on their roofs, and huge numbers of people can’t practically cycle to work so there is no escaping the need for centralised generation and some way of governments incentivising that. This is basic. Your ideology doesn’t work.
Mr. Know It Allsays
NIgel said: “……huge numbers of people CANT afford solar power on their roofs, and huge numbers of people can’t practically cycle to work so there is no escaping the need for centralised generation and some way of governments incentivising that. This is basic. Your ideology doesn’t work.”
Huge numbers of middle class believers can afford to go solar. Millions have already done it. You can see their panels on their roof. Millions more who can afford to do it and who believe in AGW have not done it. Tens of millions of workers can commute via bicycle or public transportation and they advocate that the government FORCE the rest of us to do exactly that, yet they drive a car to work. The goobermint is not going to help solve this problem for at least the next 4 years.
Do the believers want to solve the AGW problem, or do they just want to whine about it? Their actions, not their words, will show us the answer.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: Tens of millions of workers can commute via bicycle or public transportation and they advocate that the government FORCE the rest of us to do exactly that,
BPL: Who, precisely, advocates the government FORCING them to do any such thing? [CITATION NEEDED]
Piotrsays
KiA: “ Tens of millions of workers can commute via bicycle or public transportation and they advocate that the government FORCE the rest of us to do exactly that”
Fought many monsters, masquerading as windmills, lately?
Intermittent renewables like Solar PV (or CSP with limited storage) and wind work best with a large-area grid (to smooth out variations in weather (and time of day (solar…) – and climate: – some locations are just sunnier or windier)); this reduces the need for storage/backup.
Utility scale solar is significantly more affordable than residential at the moment – perhaps some policies for including rooftop installations in new buildings would help with that (soft costs are a big part AIUI).
Intermittent renewables like Solar PV (or CSP with limited storage) and wind work best with a large-area grid (to smooth out variations in weather (and time of day (solar…)
and work best when different renewables are combined (working together they are more efficient than working on their own) – when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind may blow, and vice versa, if neither of them do – then you let the water over turbines – water that accumulated when there was enough of solar and/or wind (thus a form of “virtual” , passive, i.e. costing nothing – version of actively pumped hydro-storage).
And then you encourage flexibility on the demand side – for those who can choose when they use their electricity – you charge them less per kWh when the supply exceeds demand, a situation not limited to renewables – since the fossil fuel and nuclear (except perhaps for a quick-ramp up, but more expensive and less efficient gas turbines) can’t respond quickly enough to changes in the demand/supply – and burn the surplus electricity on wires.
Then you have the already existing potential storage that does not require any new money – EVs and their batteries, charging them when supply > demand, and withdrawing when the opposite. If to believe commercials – the battery in an electric F150 can power a house for 3 days. The batteries can be used even after they have been “retired” from vehicles – if they charge to say 70% of the max – may be not good enough to keep them in cars, but may be good enough for electricity storage – 70% is better than the alternative – 0%.
And if EVs make major inroads into the vehicle fleet – there will be a LOT of the batteries available.
Also, I’ve read that (electric) water heaters could be used for demand management (storing heat for later use, obviously). I know in some buildings they would make ice at night (lower electricity demand) to use for cooling (summer; tends to peak afternoon-evening, depending on climate) – with increasing solar power, that could switch to making ice late morning/etc depending on load profiles/etc.
On partly cloudy days, Satellite images combined with PV installation maps could be used to shift timing of some loads by a few minutes back and forth.
Dharmasays
Anecdote – “I am an American citizen. I am not a group or a demographic. I am a single person with a single vote with my own history, ethnicity, hopes, dreams, concerns, values, faith and beliefs. I am not garbage, misinformed, uneducated, racist, fascist or a Nazi. Advertising did not take over my ‘monkey brain’ and force me to vote one way or another. As an adult I decided who I would vote for all by myself. I ask the media and social media trolls to think more carefully about the individuals who voted. Please have a modicum of respect for me and democratic elections when you speak about me and my vote.” Anonymous
American author Lionel Shriver on the election that smashed identity politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhZK1lM0pyk
extract: “I think this is the most cheerful gloss to put on this result which is
that it is a summary rejection of progressive identity politics and I am
really hoping that this decisive result puts an end to the the momentum
behind Progressive politics and that DEI racially obsessed ideology.
And I’m also hopeful that because this political campaign has been followed
so avidly internationally that it also sends a signal to the anglophone
countries especially that this whole identity politics thing is yesterday’s
news. It is over. It is not popular.
It has been led by a very narrow band of people who have got control of
a lot of big institutions not just in the United States but also in the likes
of Britain. It has been rejected and that includes racial preferences in
hiring and admission to educational institutions.
I would love to see the whole ball of wax thrown out and that to me is
the most cheerful aspect of this election result.
And the other thing is that it is also a rejection of the fake empty insulting
politics represented by Kamala Harris, not just her campaign but for her
candidacy. You know I just found that her being run as a credible
President of the United States insulted the electorate.
Now I completely accept that there are lots and lots of people who
also look at Donald Trump that way too. Okay I understand that and
I kind of do too. But Trump he is more credible than she is. Kamala is
a nothing.
I mean she did not represent anything, the only issue she spoke with
persuasive passion about was abortion. I truly believe that she does
want abortion to be legal up until Foetal viability and this is a real thing
that she believes. I’m not persuaded that she believes anything else
other than it would be fun to be President. ”
– Shriver described herself as a “lifelong Democrat” in 2022 but holds some views that could be considered conservative. For example, Shriver has argued against migration into the UK; in 2021 she wrote an article which stated “For westerners to passively accept and even abet incursions by foreigners so massive that the native-born are effectively surrendering their territory without a shot fired is biologically perverse.”
– She voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
– In September 2022, Shriver released an open letter in which she endorsed Republican Ron DeSantis for the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. In the letter, she criticized both Biden and Donald Trump as poor leaders, and praised DeSantis for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, banning critical race theory in schools, opposing transgender women from competing in women’s sports, and passing the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act; while noting that she disagrees with him on abortion.
– In May 2010, Shriver criticized the American health system in an interview in which she said she was “exasperated with the way that medical matters were run in my country”
A side comparison of Policies vs Platitudes [+counting your chickens] the day before Nov 5 election.
Megyn Kelly spontaneous speech at Pittsburgh Trump rally vs Kamala Harris short 10 minute speech in Pittsburgh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SGg5D3DbH4
patrick o twentysevensays
Re Dharma: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826688
47 %, 48%, 42% etc. ≠ 0. Yes, groups may have been won or lost on majorities or pluralities, but many low-income and I’d expect blue-collar workers AFAIK*** still supported Democrats (just as a large fraction of Americans in general – I hope our future Chinese overlords remember that)
Mr. Know It All https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826700 – “Right now, in the US and in Europe, the most pressing issue for many people is unchecked immigration that is erasing the culture of their homelands. ” – exaggeration/extrapolation to distant future based on trends that may change (PS will red hair really go extinct?***) PS great example of identity politics.
“ It is causing other problems as well. Some nations in Europe are discussing deportations due to high crime and other problems. ” Shall we deport the citizens who commit crimes? Shall we deport the citizens when they take jobs that other citizens wanted?
“ Harris was put in charge of the border so she has to take considerable responsibility for that failure, and she made the error of saying she would not change anything she and Biden did during their term. OOPS! Not what voters wanted to hear!”
What some voters seem not to account for is that the party whose goals’ they support are often stymied by the opposing party. The solution is to get supermajorites (supermajorites? Is that some new mineral?).
*** racism/xenophobia aside, I get the whole ‘wanting to preserve everything as it is’ thing. It gets into the fundamental pain of time passing. It’s a paradox of existence in a spacetime. We want to be able to relive our favorite moments, yet eternal repetition is pointless. Preservation is one way to transcend our individual deaths (a hoarcrux) – so the experiences I have may be experienced again by others after I die. But even when they enjoy my favorite songs, will they do so in the same way (eg. choreographing “Uninvited” to the development and approach of a severe thunderstorm…). Cultures evolve (even without migration). And then the Sun will expand, etc. (OTOH evolving into mer-people or cyber-centaurs would be cool.) And isn’t the pain of death and change in part the pain of loneliness – wanting to share our likes with each other… https://www.bing.com/search?q=kansas+dust+in+the+wind+lyrics&filters=dtbk:%22MCFvdmVydmlldyFseXJpY3MhYmFkZDI0MTYtZWY1Yi1kYzdlLTRlMjgtYzM4YzhkZDBkOTc2%22+sid:%22badd2416-ef5b-dc7e-4e28-c38c8dd0d976%22&FORM=DEPNAV
“I close my eyes
Only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
…
Now, don’t hang on
Nothin’ last forever, but the earth and sky [and not even those]
It slips away And all your money won’t another minute buy”
PS environmentalism-preservation – would that mean trying to keep the Anthropocene as similar to the Holocene as we can indefinitely, or would that mean ultimately allowing the Earth to respond to the Orbital cycles, and stellar evolution, etc.?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826689 –
Perhaps some of the left wingers/progressives/liberals that David Brooks knows show a lack of respect. I remember from the ‘08 race, he recalled some people saying that Sarah Palin sounded like “trailer trash”. Well, I would not say such a thing; that was not my reaction, and I don’t use terms like that. Even within political factions, there are variations. I don’t think Harris, Biden, or Walz showed disrespect to blue-collar workers/etc.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826785 – Anonymous’ quote is a noble sentiment. While there are demographic tendencies that may be analyzed (and exploited), it must be kept in mind that the statistics of the group can’t reliably describe individuals – assuming otherwise is a recipe for bigotry. But of course, that demographic tendencies do exist mean at least some people are being influenced by their identity, or what that entails (statistics of different life experiences, etc.).
Shorter Lionel Shriver: Other people should stop practicing identity politics and let ‘my people’ have a turn!
Three views on identity politics: AIUI/AFAIK (??)
When people vote for people who are like themselves (***in some shallow way) (eg. Obama is black; ‘Trump talks like us’(?); vs. Obama thinks like me (based on something he said during his primary regarding putting a price on CO2eq.)
Arises as a solution to the problem of people being treated unfairly/differently (in a way that doesn’t make sense – obviously a doctor will treat patients differently according to their different conditions/needs/wants) based on their identity. Could we end identity politics by ending all bigotry (sexism,racism,…lookism,ageism…) and having sufficient reparations…etc.?
Pitting groups against each other – we’ll give A more stuff – no, we’ll give B more stuff.
PS [AIUI/AFAIK (??)] DEI/affirmative action/etc. – a way to try to correct for bias and legacies of past bias, but also, a way to achieve better results – ie. people learning from people with different experiences – catching holes in each other’s ideas (eg did you train your AI on enough Black people’s faces? Did you take into account different hair textures in your conditioners?), enhancing creativity… etc. (Of course a cis-gendered heterosexual able-bodied neurotypical middle-aged white male of average height and weight is not incabable of figuring this stuff out but… everyone is finite.)
Dharmasays
Reply to patrick o twentyseven
said (on Brooks article) “I don’t think Harris, Biden, or Walz showed disrespect to blue-collar workers/etc.”
You are missing the pint and conflating “abusive language” with their policies and direction and ignoring their living conditions. Illegal immigrants, climate policy tax breaks to corps EV subsidies, wars genocide and DEI trans issues were far more important than working class people’s lives – is the point Brooks and thousands of others are making.
AOC asked her constituents on social media to tell her why they both voted for trump as president and her as well. Basically they said both she and trump (and Bernie) spoke to their needs, offered ideas and showed they cared about them (working class people) and were sincerely progressive calling for major change in govt approaches and were not traditional establishment political operatives from either party who are only in it for themselves and the corp elites.
All this info feedback is out there. I have given a few examples of a flood of information saying the same things from multiple sources and voting sectors. The loud chorus of “what and why” keeps on being told. Its not me saying it.
but thanks for acknowledging the info that had been shared and looking at some of it.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: Illegal immigrants
BPL: So it would have been okay if they were all legal immigrants?
Seriously, if the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country had come in legally, do you think everything would have been peaceful and quiet on this issue?
Google “Know Nothings.”
Dharmasays
From Ronald Reagan to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama,, winning presidential candidates have run on optimistic messages. Trump, however, used a more negative rallying cry saying the U.S. is a “nation in decline.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, the historian and presidential biographer, joined Boston Public Radio to discuss why this messaging won Trump the popular and electoral votes.
Why and How Democrats Lost the Culture Wars on CNN
‘They didn’t communicate it’: Democrat Election Campaign Strategist on Democratic Party’s messaging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYVr4jIukU8
WP reporters have been told by two insiders close to the Trump transition team that President-Elect Donald Trump is such an extreme narcissist and woman hating misogynist that the real reason he chose Susie Wiles was so that he could be the first President in history to ever fire a female Chief of Staff from the White House.
Mr. Know It Allsays
BPL: “…….I, too, am sick at the thought of what’s going to happen to Ukraine now that Putin’s Puppet is president of the United States.”
What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine? Is Putin so bad? He AND Iran did endorse Harris in the election. Let’s hear some predictions on Ukraine.
Nigeljsays
KIA. Yes Putin is bad. But using your own logic you would presumably be OK with China invading the USA because is Xi Jin Ping really so bad?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine? Is Putin so bad?
BPL: Is Putin so bad? Are you on crack?
Mr. Know It Allsays
Answer the question. What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine?
Jonathan Davidsays
This depends on the actions of the EU. The Russian Federation under President Putin will in any case pursue their policy of restoring control of the near-abroad regions formerly part of the Russian Empire. Ukraine is an obvious key step. The writings of President Putin (who has publicly compared himself to Peter the Great) as well as the presentation of the demand for “security guarantees” make clear that the initial goal is the defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces, the overrunning of Ukraine territory and the installation of a puppet government possibly headed by Yanukovych. This would be followed by a sham referendum in which Ukraine would become part of the Russian Federation as was done in the Oblasts already occupied by Russia. The real question is exactly what further military actions the Putin government will pursue following the annexation of Ukraine. The danger is that some targeted states, such as the Baltics, are members of NATO. Whether Putin would risk attack on a NATO member is unclear. However, by effectively submitting to the conquest of Ukraine, he may be sufficiently emboldened to pursue this. This would be analogous to the initial seizing of Crimea.
Piotrsays
Jonathan David – “ by effectively submitting to the conquest of Ukraine, he may be sufficiently emboldened to pursue [further invasions]. This would be analogous to the initial seizing of Crimea.
Exactly – seizing Crimea and facing no serious consequences for it – has proven to Russia that there is no international order that prevents you from annexing the territory of your neighbours. And that you don’t have to abide by the official treaties and your own guarantees:
Russia gave Ukraine its guarantees of territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine giving to them its (third in world at the time) nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet times.
And that the security guarantees given to Ukraine by the US, UK, and France at the same time, to convince Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal, are ALSO not worth the paper they were written on.
And the half-hearted military support in the latest invasion of Ukraine – too late, a fraction of what has been promised, and with restrictions on the use – has proven to Putin that the West is weak and too cowardly to act, and therefore this is the time to change the world order to the one dominated by Russia and China.
In summer of 1939 some French were marching in Paris chanting that they don’t want to die for Poland. Less than a year later they were either dying in vain for France, or skipped the dying part altogether by collaborating with the Nazis in the marshal Petain puppet state. Similarly, the isolationism in the US didn’t protect it from being attacked by Japan in 1941.
And here we are not even talking about actually dying for Ukraine – but merely providing them with enough weapons to defend both themselves and us from the imperial ambitions of Russia.
Trump waving his “peace in one day” promises may be in history textbooks next to Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper he called “Peace for our Time”, after his triumphant return from Munich where he sold out Czechoslovakia for the promise by “Mr. Hitler” that this would conclude his territorial ambitions.
BTW – Hitler claimed that he must invade Czechoslovakia to protect the German-speaking minority from the oppression by the Czechoslovaks – mirroring Putin’s justification of the invasion of the Ukraine to protect the Russian-speaking Ukrainians from the oppression by the other Ukrainians. Then he invaded, together with Stalin, Poland, justified again by the propaganda machines of both countries with claims of protection of the German and Ukrainian/Belorussian minorities, respectively.
For the tyrants – the appeasement is the sign of weakness, and thus an invitation to further aggression.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine?
BPL: I think the Trump administration and Putin between then will force Ukraine into a peace treaty that leaves Russia in charge of large portions of Ukraine. Putin will then wait a couple of years, build up his armed forces, and attack Ukraine again.
Ukraine could have been a good ally of the United States. But Trump hates them because Zelensky refused to make up charges against Biden.
Ray Ladburysays
I’m not so sure about this. First, Putin made the choices for Ukraine very clear during the first couple of months of the war: Accept genocide or resist. Ukraine also made its choice clear. Ukraine may lose arms from the US, but I don’t think you’ll ever see them accept Russian sovereignty over any of their territory. Russia will face guerilla resistance and will respond with brutality.
There is also the fact that Russia’s economy is now entirely on a war footing. If they were to accept a treaty, their economy would crash. So, I think Russia won’t even digest Ukraine before it starts looking at Poland. Kleptocracies cannot exist in condition of stability lest the thievery be discovered.
Mr. Know It Allsays
BPL: “That’s EXACTLY why Harris lost. Trump actually got FEWER votes this year than in 2020. But Harris got even fewer; Democratic votes dropped from 81 million for Biden to 69 million for Harris. 12 million people couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman president, especially a black one.
I’m ashamed to be an American.”
Trump currently has 75.5 million votes. 1.3 million more than they claim he got in 2020. Nobody cares what color she was or that she was a woman. She was a bad candidate. She cackles and laughs, calls Trump fascist dictator Hitler, and wants abortion. THAT was her entire campaign. That’s all she had. She said she would not change anything she and Biden did during their term.
Bill Maher gives good advice to Democrats: “Look in the mirror.”:
Dharma: “Why and How Democrats Lost the Culture Wars on CNN
‘They didn’t communicate it’: Democrat Election Campaign Strategist on Democratic Party’s messaging”
The strategist is wrong. Democrat’s problem is that they DID communicate the culture wars to us very effectively 24/7/365 for the past 4+ years. They tried to ram it down our throats. That, along with the border, high prices, and 2 new wars are exactly why they lost. HOWEVER, I say: KEEP DOING IT.
:)
:)
Barton Paul Levensonsays
KIA: She was a bad candidate. She cackles and laughs
BPL: Seriously? That was a serious objection? She cackles and laughs? Are you kidding me?
KIA: calls Trump fascist dictator Hitler
BPL: He was the one who complemented Hitler, not her.
KIA: and wants abortion.
BPL: Wants it to be legal. Was trying to fight a rear-guard action against the GOP who are trying to make it illegal, period.
KIA: THAT was her entire campaign.
BPL: THAT is a lie. She submitted a broad spectrum of programs and reforms to help peoples’ economic situation. Subsidies for first-time home buyers. Extended children’s tax credit. And so on.
Your whole post is seen through the eyes of a MAGA person–which means through Trump-colored glasses. Stop watching Fox and OAN and try the mainstream media for once.
Dharmasays
Here we go again. Another COP mythmaking conference backed by disinformation and false mitigation claims. COP29: Because Nothing Says “Green Transition” Like Wine, Networking, and a Good Story
Ah, the magic of COP29! As delegates sip their wine, swap business cards, and nod along to another round of “We’re saving the planet!” speeches, it’s only fitting that a story emerges to help them feel just a little less like self-congratulatory frauds. And lo and behold, right on cue, we’re presented with the energy price shock to European heavy industry as a fairytale transformation into the “Green Transition” myth. War-induced sky-high energy prices hurting German heavy industry? Not a crisis—just a charming opportunity for environmental progress!
Of course, they downplay the fact that heavy industry output in Germany dropped around 18% in 2023 due to the energy price spike and a crisis in Gas supplies. Sure, there were political backlash and emergency moves to lower industry energy costs, but who’s keeping track? Meanwhile, AGEB estimates that Germany’s energy use in 2023 will plummet to a record low of 10,784 petajoules—a solid 8% drop from the previous year and nearly 28% below its peak in 1990. But don’t worry, this is all good news if you squint hard enough.
Some ecomodernist enthusiasts might even try to spin this story with their favorite “alternative facts”:
“This decline is proof of an intentional energy transition.” (Yes, energy shortages count as strategy now!)
“We can sustain this rate of reduction every year without any economic or social consequences.” (Why worry about facts when we have faith?)
“This shows GDP and resource consumption can be uncoupled—despite, you know, hundreds of studies saying otherwise and CO2 emissions still rising.”
“Criticism of the ecomodern transition story is just negativity.” (Pragmatism? Realism? Never heard of her.)
So, let’s raise a glass to COP29’s brave attendees as they pretend they’re the planet’s ethical saviors. After all, what could be more ethical than living it up on the company dime while everyone else faces the real impacts of energy shortages and economic strain?
Meanwhile, could the climatologists in attendance possibly step away from the “green fairytale” and admit the uncomfortable truth? Like maybe, just maybe, wealth redistribution within and between countries is essential? Or that a technocentric, ecomodern fantasy is only leading us toward more trashed environments and widespread voter backlash?
Here’s to celebrating alternatives that reject the myth of a quick-fix green transition—because nothing says “empowerment” like embracing an honest, radical, and just approach to environmentalism.
Dharmasays
A safe haven for critical thought in these difficult times–Brave New Europe News https://braveneweurope.com/
In our lifetime in the West we have never been confronted with such a massive onslaught on truth by corporate and state media as the authoritarian liberal political class enters its current crisis. At the same time, we have never had such a robust alternative media that is becoming the primary source of information for millions of people, especially the young. Thus it is of no surprise that Western governments, as they lose control of the political narrative and discourse, are moving to forbid and hinder these voices of truth.
In this context, it is becoming ever-more important to maintain forms of media which are neither in the control of billionaires nor tamed by the state. We believe Brave New Europe, an aggregator of critical voices and informed analysis, has proven itself to be a tried and tested alternative, one that is unflinching in speaking truth to power and unapologetic in supporting movements for peace and justice wherever they arise.
Why do some of the world’s top climate scientists provide a platform for BLOVIATING BOORS like “Dharma” and “Mr. Know It All” to post interminable, self-indulgent, often belligerent and insulting, frequently incoherent and usually off-topic rambling? It’s a mystery.
Don Williamssays
1) It has just been announced that Trump and the Republicans have gained control of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, This on top of the Supreme Court dominated by his appointees. I
This means little to no progress will be made by the world in reducing CO2 emissions in the next 5 years –and the resulting increase in CO2 will last for 100+ years.
2) You understandably think a PhD in climate science is relevant– yet the indepth study by Associated Press found only 7 percent of US voters rated climate change as the most important issue, I.e the voters think that the views of Trump and his supporters are a lot more important than the views of climate scientists.
Susan Andersonsays
SA: indeed, my scroll button and scrolling finger are getting overused. This comment section is pretty much, sadly, useless.
Why do people think their endless multiple and repetitive comments do anything but waste their own and others’ time here? It’s hard to tell who said what any more.
Whoever they’re attacking, regardless of the rights and wrongs of it, it’s a terrible waste.
Strongly recommend simply reading the main articles and leaving the rest. This is too bad, because there is an occasional gleam of light, and even the bloviators are not always wrong, just boring and indigestible. They undermine their own material.
How about an open climate science forum for discussing and keeping track of all this. We had one for the 2016 Trump term called the Azimuth Project discussion forum, where all the data was described and links to backups listed. Nothing exists now since the owner deleted the Azimuth site.
Dharmasays
Measuring climate change: It’s not just heat, it’s humidity – How hot is hot?
Researchers say temperature by itself isn’t the best way to measure climate change’s weird weather and downplays impacts in the tropics. But factoring in air moisture along with heat shows that climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated, according to their study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The energy generated in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and rainfall is related to the amount of water in the air. So a team of scientists in the U.S. and China decided to use an obscure weather measurement called equivalent potential temperature — or theta-e — that reflects “the moisture energy of the atmosphere,” said study co-author V. “Ram” Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Cornell University. It’s expressed in degrees, like temperature.
“There are two drivers of climate change: temperature and humidity,” Ramanathan said. “And so far we measured global warming just in terms of temperature.”
In addition, water vapor is a potent heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere that increases climate change, he said.
From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 1.42 degrees (0.79 degrees Celsius). But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 2.66 degrees (1.48 degrees Celsius), the study said. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 7.2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius).
When judging by temperature alone, it looks like warming is most pronounced in North America, mid-latitudes and especially the poles — and less so in the tropics, Ramanathan said.
But that’s not the case, he said, because the high humidity in the tropics juices up storm activity, from regular storms to tropical cyclones and monsoons.
another point of view by Wolfgang Knorr – Three Degrees
November 12, 2024
Is striving for net zero in itself a waste of money?
The answer is very likely no, because there are clearly other ways to reach net zero. One way not to do it, however, is to take the CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it securely underground in geological formations. While technically possible, this is a perfect example for a waste of money. Not creating the emissions in the first place is always hugely more economical than removing them after the fact.
What does make economic sense, however, is an international agreement to phase out and ultimately ban the use of fossil fuels due to their unacceptable environmental costs. This will lead to higher prices, which, given enough lead time, will send efficient market signals to ensure a transition towards zero emissions. It will also compensate fossil-fuel producers through higher prices, cushioning the blow of their demise. Efforts towards such an agreement have been shaping up for a few years, but what is needed is a high-level endorsement by key geopolitical players. Unfortunately, the current trend towards further confrontation and militarization makes this look increasingly unlikely.
“One way not to do it, however, is to take the CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it securely underground in geological formations.”
LOL
Do you also believe in magic beans?
Dharmasays
>>>>> “not to do it”
LOL
Richard Creagersays
Dharma- “Is striving for net zero in itself a waste of money?
The answer is very likely no, because there are clearly other ways to reach net zero.” Ya think? Other ways than what? You write a ridiculous number of words on these threads, most vaguely pointless.. Are you a text-generator? Maybe you could do us a favor and limit your comments to a dozen or so words, more than enough to convey your main thoughts. Then we can get to your next comment that much more quickly. Thanks.
Dharmasays
Richard Creager says
21 Nov 2024 at 10:58 PM
– “Ya think? Other ways than what? ”
Take it up with climate scientist academic Wolfgang Knorr – They were his words, I provided the ref/quote. Looks to me like your entire contribution this month on UV is a ridiculous pointless waste of space. But thanks for sharing your deep inner thoughts
Richard Creagersays
Dharma-
You name yourself for the eternally true nature of reality, accuse me of “a ridiculous pointless waste of space” while suffocating every thread, mock the depth of my thoughts, none of which I have shared with you…… gotta say tho, I appreciate the brevity of your reply.
Dharmasays
re Richard Creager says
24 Nov 2024 at 5:30 PM
OK, so what I said went over your head Richard Creager . Let me clarify – when i said ” your entire contribution this month on UV “ it was referring to your one comment. Do you understand it now?
You brought me into your comment by quoting me, speaking about me and making judgements. Contrary to what you wrote in your response, I did not mock or say anything about the “depth of your thoughts, none of which I have shared with you……”
My response was much more specific—it addressed your one comment and its focus on my character. There’s no need to exaggerate beyond what was actually said. For the record, I have absolutely zero interest in the “depth of your thoughts,” especially when it comes to me. Please, keep those to yourself.
Piotrsays
Richard Creager – Dharma, You write a ridiculous number of words on these threads, most vaguely pointless.. Are you a text-generator?
“- Hey ChatGPT, write me 77 posts for the first 3 weeks of the November Unforced Variations, in a vaguely pointless style of a climate change doomer. Dont’ worry about logic – it’s all about quantity, not quality. In the first encounters, have kind words for the opponents, to blunt their skepticism, and for you – to appear civil, sincere, and open-minded. Once they catch up, no need to maintain the pretense. When possible, address your posts to individuals so they feel more obligated to respond. This is how we are going to “own them”. Bait them with the doomer cliches, if you run out of them may switch to the denier ones, many of those are interchangeable. And please employ the all-or-nothing fallacies as often as you can.” ?
Dharmasays
Thanks for the imaginative recommendation, I will give it a try next month.
A pair of U.S. power stories; first on how Chinese solar manufacturing companies are not wasting time utilizing the IRA and the second on extensive grid expansion plan progress for the central U.S.:
.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/chinese-companies-use-bidens-climate-law-to-expand-their-solar-dominance/
.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/historic-grid-expansion-plans-advance-in-the-central-us/
Richard & RePete in Oct UV thread.
You state “This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that.” Okay. So you are saying global average temperature is not relevant but that “feedback, acceleration and everything” is relevant. Taking the first two of those relevant measures (the third being a bit silly), what quantity is it that is undergoing “acceleration”? And what is that this “feedback” is acting on?
MA, I don’t know what point R&R is actually making, but I responded to someone last month along these lines. Two statements.
A. The increase in GMST is accelerating.
B. The increase in Climate Change is accelerating.
There’s no reason that A could be false but B could be true, if we understand that GMST is a proxy for increasing energy in the climate system. And that’s why we should be thinking in terms of a more detailed presentation of what is happening. That’s why “the need for pluralism” should not be ignored, and we should incorporate EEI and OHC and whatever other metrics are available.
No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.
There’s nothing wrong with refining modeling based on GMST, as an academic endeavor, but it isn’t particularly helpful in terms of communicating with the public, or planning for adaptations.
Zebra, yeah, last month, that was me, mr. ice floe guy ;-)
In your comments last month you offered: “The point is that there is no way to define “the change rate of the climate itself”, if you think about it. That’s why I thought the “need for pluralism” post made sense, and why I’ve been suggesting change… It may be pointless to try to communicate with “the public”, but from my experience it is possible if you do it right.”
As one of “the public” I wish to say that efforts like this certainly are not pointless. I’m grateful for both what I’ve gained reading RC’s many posts through the years, but additionally by perspectives of so many fine commenters (like yourself) here on various topics that come up in RC “comment land.”
Thanks David.
I like to think that there are members of “the public” who can understand and internalize clearly (and concisely) presented concepts, but are not interested in statistical vagaries and +/- .05C differences in a couple of academic papers.
One can express my statement
“No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.”
in language and with references that many individuals without formal physics backgrounds would relate to.
z: “No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.”
BPL: It doesn’t have to be linear for GMST to be a valuable index.
On short enough scales, even non-linear systems are linear.
Vendicar,
I said:
“No individual phenomenon in this complex non-linear system is necessarily a linear function of GMST.”
So let’s hear your example of an individual phenomenon that is a linear function of GMST in the short term. And why it is necessarily so.
BPL,
I didn’t say it wasn’t a “valuable” index… for a long time, it was the best validation of the physics predicting energy increase.
But we have other, more convincing metrics now, and it would be useful to see more discussion of the smaller scale dynamics of the climate system. Rather than playing along with the denialists pretending their is still a question about the global effect and its causes to be “debated”.
Zebra: “ But we have other, more convincing metrics now,”
Which are those “the smaller scale dynamics ” metrics, and how more understandable and therefore “more convincing” to the public and politicians they are ?
Zebra: “ Rather than playing along with the denialists pretending their is still a question about the global effect and its causes to be “debated”. ”
So you are saying that your “smaller scale dynamics” metrics have been …. much better studied, are much better known, AND have much less uncertainties than GMST trend (a.k.a. Global Warming) ??? Because ONLY THEN they would be less vulnerable to the deniers “Science is not settled” line of attack.
On short enough scales, even non-linear systems are linear.
Vendicar, it is not true in principle that on short enough time scales, non-linear systems can be linearized.
The divergence from a linear trend can be reduced (in most cases), but that does not make it linear. For example, if you are at a bifurcation point, you will not come up with a linear relationship by sampling on either side of the point, no mater how close you get. Lorenz showed this many decades ago with a highly simplified nonlinear model of convection. It was known to mathematicians well before that.
B could not be true even if A is false.
Richard and RePete says: “This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. “
– zebra “I don’t know what point R&R is actually making”
Really? I’d thought for you it should be more obvious than to anybody else:
The point RR he is making is GMST is just an vacuous number signifying nothing , hence “Nobody cares about that.” and therefore we can safely ignore its rapid rise (a.k.a. Global Warming”).
And he wants to REDIRECT the public discourse AWAY from something tangible, well defined, well measured, scientifically significant (measure of the energy in the system), and understandable to the public, “Global Warming” – to something that is its opposite – poorly defined, poorly (if at all) quantifiable, and incomprehensible to the majority of the public. i.e. to “ feedbacks, [their] acceleration, and everything“.
And by redirecting discussion from the observed and projected AGW – to “ feedbacks and everything” the fossil fuel lobby hopes to STOP any action on GHGs based on AGW and WAIT until science is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN on the rates of increase in ALL possible aspects of “feedbacks and everything”.
Until then – ” the science is not settled, and because uncertainty surely will be our friend – let’s do nothing about GHGs reductions, and instead keep buying as much fossil fuels as the oil multinationals, Russia and Saudi Arabia want us to buy.
And when the effects of unmitigated GHGs emission become too strong to ignore, the deniers will pick up the doomers mantra “it is too late anyway”, so we may just as well enjoy our fossil fuels while we can, and “ After us, Deluge!”
So that’s the “point R&R is actually making”.
Nigelj,
Yes, I think so. And humans can be very flexible.
More grist for the mill;
And something curious in recent times is Kurdish democratic-confederalism in Rojava, Syria. Nobody seems to have come up with a proper way to characterize it, but looks like a definite flattening of hierarchy.
Radge Havers, thanks for the article on bonobos. They appear to use very liberal sexual relations even with adversaries as a way of diffusing conflicts and tensions, and their societies are gentle and more egalitarian than Chimps. Im sure we would like to be like bonobos ha, ha.
Its not clear why they are so different from other chimps but the study noted that “The subsequent divergence of the chimpanzee and the bonobo lines came much later, perhaps prompted by the chimpanzees need to adapt to relatively open, dry habitats.” so the physical separation lead to evolution of different behaviours.
Humans can more consciously and deliberatively choose how to organise our societies, but we have created a system that works best with quite a lot of hierarchies, and basic system change is difficult. So we are unlikely to solve the the climate problem with basic system change, although we could make small changes to the system to make it more environmentally friendly and just, and maybe with a moderately flatter hierarchy. Rome wasnt built in a day.
Harvard is wrong. Link or it didn’t happen.
Killian, I can’t find the Harvard study that said humans are innately hierarchical but learn to be egalitarian in some circumstances. its quite an old study now. I did find thiis which may be of interest:
“Are humans by nature hierarchical or egalitarian? Hierarchy in the Forest addresses this question by examining the evolutionary origins of social and political behavior. Christopher Boehm, an anthropologist whose fieldwork has focused on the political arrangements of human and nonhuman primate groups, postulates that egalitarianism is in effect a hierarchy in which the weak combine forces to dominate the strong.”
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674006911
I just think that humans are innately hierarchical based on all I’ve read. The book I just quoted is further support for this. I also look at “patterns”. Hierarchies are very obvious across the animal kingdom and many human societies especially modern societies. There are exceptions like the relatively egalitarian hunter gatherer society and bonobos, but the pattern for animal life forms as a whole on planet earth, seems to be hierarchies. This just suggests to me that animals and humans are innately hierarchical, but humans and bonobos being clever characters and capable of learning use egalitarianism when it suits them. Hunter gatherers had simple societies and technologies that didnt require complex hierarchies to orgainse things, and perhaps they were egalitarian because it helped reduce conflicts.
Its fairly self evident surely that a society producing complex goods and services uses hierarchies because they are efficient forms of decision making. We could of course run organisations in an egalitarian way if we wanted, and there might be less personal conflcits and greed as a result, but the price would probably be much reduced efficiency and very cumbersome decision making. That is a tradeoff that seems both obvious and unavoidable. Maybe its a trade off people would be prepared to make, I dont know.
Personally I dont like rigidly and excessively hierarchical / authoritarian structures but some people apparently crave this sort of thing like Trumps supporters. Theres a ton of research on this. But this does not mean we should necessarily go to the other extreme with no hierarchy at all. I think that would be very impractical especially with a large population and at least some modern technology because it would slow decision making down to a crawl. But I do think we could move a bit more towards egalitarianism in some specific ways depending on the situation and its better to lean towards egalitarianism than towards rigid and dictatorial hierarchies. In fact many organisations use hierarchical decision making for some things and group / egalitarian decision making for other things. Which seems good to me. Its sort of a hybrid system.
One-time AGW denier Curry now claims that global heating is inexorable, and that she has been stating this for 10 years, fooling her followers and numerous congressional testimonies where she claimed that climate change was no big deal.
https://x.com/curryja/status/1852391605048905960
archived tweet: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/4286/P7IEE2.jpg
Her response was to this paper https://theconversation.com/earths-climate-will-keep-changing-long-after-humanity-hits-net-zero-emissions-our-research-shows-why-241692
Paul Pukite: One-time AGW denier Curry now claims that global heating is inexorable, and that she has been stating this for 10 years, fooling her followers and numerous congressional testimonies where she claimed that climate change was no big deal.
;-) . Another denier turning into it’s-too-late-to-do-anything doomer?
Les extrêmes se touchent so the jump from the one extreme to the other – is not difficult and, in fact, expected – as the traditional denial is getting harder and harder to sustain in the face of the mounting evidence of the climate change.
Piotr: “-) . Another denier turning into it’s-too-late-to-do-anything doomer?”
Could be right about that. The timing is a few days before the USA presidential election. She may want a position in the admin? Hope not.
I have heard an argument along those lines in that even if anthropogenic emissions stopped right now, warming would continue because the global heat balance will still be out of equilibrium and it takes time for that equilibrium to be reached, which to me is analogous to flooding where the flood doesn’t imediately recede when the rain stops falling, and might continue to get worse before it gets better due to the peak river levels making their way downstream. It sounds logical to me although is not an excuse for giving up, because lowering emissions will ultimately make the peak less bad than doing nothing.
if anthropogenic emissions stopped right now so do anthropogenic cooling aerosols. There’s plus 1C globally right there.
It is an interesting thought experiment but has little to do with the real world in which fossil fuel use is still increasing, with no reduction in total fossil fuel use at all likely within the next decade.
The oceans will remain in thermal disequilibrium for a few hundred years.
As they warm so too with the average surface temperature – obviously.
I assume your sentence was intended to be “as they warm so too [will] the average surface temperature”
I am not sure this is correct. Thermal energy goes down as well as up, and I believe from a previous RC post that surface temp will stabilize.
But what matters here is that we actually measure these things now… you know, as if we are doing physics, not handwavy speculation. We have instrumentation to measure OHC at various depths and locations with the ARGO system, and we can also measure the net energy gain of the climate system with satellites for EEI.
But people remain obsessed with GMST, perhaps because it offers the opportunity for that handwavy stuff.
z: But people remain obsessed with GMST, perhaps because it offers the opportunity for that handwavy stuff.
BPL: Attribute motive when you can’t argue on the basis of facts.
BP, not sure what facts I’m supposed to prove. I’m pretty sure there was a post here that said GMST would stabilize if we stopped increasing CO2, while OHC would increase.
And ARGO and the satellites are facts as well.
My speculation about people’s motivation has nothing to do with those facts.
zebra,
You say “I’m pretty sure there was a post here that said GMST would stabilize if we stopped increasing CO2, while OHC would increase.” Perhaps you could just read the paper that lies behind all this blather (King et al (2024) ‘Exploring climate stabilisation at different global warming levels in ACCESS-ESM-1.5’. The message it presents is that net zero will give a tiny increase in global SAT over the next millennium but, as climate is not in equilibrium, there will be a pile of other stuff that could/would come and bite us. Global land SAT will fall but Global SST will rise, global precipitation will rise, and Antarctic SIE will fall. The guts of their Abstract runs:-
I would also highlight a caviat set out in the paper, (this additional to the importance of reaching net-zero quickly).
MA Rodger,
I guess my ageing memory is still working at least a little, since what I said, and what I’ve said multiple times by now in other comments, is exactly what the paper says.
Not sure at all how you think you are contradicting me… GMST stabilizes, and OHC continues to increase, and EEI continues. That’s why I keep saying we should be talking more about EEI and OHC, and how local and regional effects might play out. GMST is an effect, not a cause.
I don’t want to channel Killian and start quoting myself, but I apparently did read that paper and have been providing my shorter and simpler versions of the fundamentals, as I like to do.
If you think my conclusions on that are wrong, please elaborate.
The article in “the conversation” says:
“…..For example, Australia is close to the Southern Ocean, which is projected to continue warming for many centuries even under net-zero emissions. This warming to Australia’s south means even under a net-zero emissions pathway, we expect the continent to continue to warm more than almost all other land areas on Earth.
For example, the models predict Melbourne would experience 1°C of warming over centuries if net-zero was reached in 2060……”
So one of the worst places for warming will warm only 1 C after net zero is achieved. I’m not gonna get hysterical about 1 C warming. That isn’t much. We are told that we’ve already experienced more than that already. I’d call 1 C a big old Nothing-Burger.
To Mr. Know-It-All,
The “devil is in the details” when it comes to this paper, thanks to the effects of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) and the intent or design behind this so-called “experiment.” Red flags are present throughout, and in my opinion, it’s not worth the time it takes to read. The takeaway on Melbourne’s warming is unfounded, unscientific, and illogical—simply “garbage” that’s best ignored, though unfortunately, it won’t be.
Curry’s comment is shockingly misguided given her previous positions; I suspect she hasn’t thoroughly read or thought through the paper’s actual content – only looking at the headline falsely assuming it’s supported by the work – which, frankly, adds nothing of substance climate science knowledge and has no relevance to her prior comments. This work is certainly incapable of predicting Melbourne’s warming centuries into the future.
This isn’t “real climate science”; it’s “fake news.” The so-called “models” in this “science paper” are a classic example of Upton Sinclair’s words: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” A complete waste of time, money, limited resources, and effort. But at least the authors can tick a box on their career metrics. Hooray!
KIA: I’m not gonna get hysterical about 1 C warming.
BPL: 1) We’re on course for 3 C warming. 2) 1 C warming is enough to move agricultural growing belts by hundreds of miles. We’re talking about the global mean annual surface temperature, not the weather. 3) Your individual reaction is not the phenomenon itself.
1’C of warming on top of 1.5’C of warming is………………
.2.5’C of warming, which is pretty close to 3’C of warming. and since 2’c of warming is now the least amount of warming now considered possible, a further 1’C of warming will bring the total to… Ummmmmmmmmmm
3’C.
It’s astonishing what you can come up with when you know how to add.
Yup, 3 C. So, the South Pole will be about -114 F in the winter instead of -120 F. Not a big deal.
Instead of the average temperature being 85 F on a summer day somewhere in the USA, it will be 91. Not the end of the world.
But for those who think it is, solar PV panels are cheap, cheap now days. Get ’em installed. Don’t wait for the goobermint.
Mr. KIA, keep in mind that the average temperature difference between the coolest and wettest years of the 1920s and the hottest years of the 1930s Dust Bowl was around 3C. If you don’t like grocery prices now, imagine what they will be like if the average rises 3C – and that’s not counting the temperature amplification you get over mid-latitude continents.
KiA: So, the South Pole will be about -114 F in the winter instead of -120 F. Not a big deal.
and how many millions of people live there? Unlike the extra 3 degree in Delhi, Singapore, Lagos, Beijing, Riyadh, Phoenix, Miami. Particularly that it is the extremes that kill not the averages, so the importance of +3C is not when id adds to the average day&night average over summer – but when these +3C add NOT to the early afternoon temps during a heat wave – since all the future heatwaves will ride ON TOP of much higher average summer temperatures.
To use the archaic units of temperature your brain could understand:
61 consecutive days with temps of 110 F or more (Phoenix, 2024) becomes ” 61 consecutive days with temps 116 F or more (Phoenix, 2024), And that’s the temperature in the shadow – when you step out of it you add on top of it the direct heating by the sun.
A.k.a. “Not a big deal” (c) KiA.
KIA: Yup, 3 C. So, the South Pole will be about -114 F in the winter instead of -120 F. Not a big deal. . . . Instead of the average temperature being 85 F on a summer day somewhere in the USA, it will be 91. Not the end of the world.
BPL: You still haven’t grasped the difference between mean and variation. If the temperature in a given location changes permanently from 85 to 91, the effects on the local climate can be drastic, especially if the heat waves are more frequent.
And a failure to “get hysterical” (in the dismissive and inappropriate KIA phraseology) is as good a way as any of failing ever to achieve net zero, and therefore of keeping the harm to a KIA-assessed “nothing burger.”
Paul Pukite (@whut),
(It’s interesting to see Judy Curry happily agreeing with a tweet from David Wallace-Wells.)
It seems to me that Judy Curry has gone entirely vegetarian in that she now serves up word salads rather than meaty argument. So it’s difficult to nail-down what she has been saying “for over a decade now.”
I would suggest she is here agreeing that post-net-zero “Earth’s climate will change for many centuries to come” because she is a biggist-wobblologist. That is, pre-vegetarian she argued that the size of the twentieth-century warming results from a big natural wobble amplifying the AGW. So here she is simply saying that such big natural wobbles will, of course, continue post-net-zero.
I note she was rubbing shoulders with the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy speaking at their AGM back in May. The GWPF dodged another investigation into its charitable status and its lie-spreading, Charitable status meaning it is part-financed at the public expense (ie given tax breaks).
Just yesterday GWPF will have been again pleased to see Kemi Badenoch** being elected as the new leader of the UK Conservative Party. She is someone with close ties to the richman who runs NZW, the campaigning arm of GWPF.
(**Apparently Badenoch is sensitive about how her name is pronounced, insisting it is BayDenoch and not BadEnoch, the latter being how the area of Scotland of that name is pronounced.)
The actual paper behind this David Wallace-Wells tweet is King et al (2024) ‘Exploring climate stabilisation at different global warming levels in ACCESS-ESM-1.5 (I’m not sure why this paper would reference “studies (which) suggest that an emission level very near zero is required to halt global warming in line with the Paris Agreement.” The studies I recall showed that post-net-zero there should be a century-or-more of net-negative if the goal was an AGW of +1.5ºC max.)
MAR, The wobbleology of Judith Curry relates to the actual mystery of the multidecadal variations in indices such as AMO. The working assumption is that natural variations always show a reversion to a mean of zero, while AGW will reveal a long-term trend. It’s a trick box unless you make that assumption because otherwise someone will assert that there’s a natural variation that will extend for centuries. If Curry believes now that the warming is a result of that and not the fat-tails of CO2, it needs a proper analysis to put it to rest.
In that regard, it’s becoming obvious that the mystery in these indices can be unlocked by considering tidal forcing. Tidal forcing is actually multi-scale, so that it will map the multidecadal variations as well as the more rapid interannual fluctuations observed in the AMO index — all of them, not just that 60-year modulation. Like conventional tidal analysis, there’s a unique fingerprint that can be identified by adjusting the tidal factors to match the data, and then cross-validated to unfitted regions.
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/09/23/amo-and-the-mt-tide/
Importantly, tidal forcing has a mean of zero so that a tidal forcing model is really the best way to discriminate the secular AGW trend from natural variability.
Curry has become a non-player in all this. She has no idea as to what causes the “stadium wave” and is struggling to remain relevant with that tweet.
Well, Curry is 71 and her mind doesn’t work as well as it once did.
In Re to Paul Pukite, 31 Oct 2024 at 7:25 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-826398 ,
and Piotr, 31 Oct 2024 at 2:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-826423
Dear Paul,
Do I understand correctly that your predecessors escaped either from the territory or former Soviet Union, or from a territory violently attached thereto during its expansion? I assume that your family name is not of Russian origin. May I ask where your parents came from?
Dear Piotr,
I respectfully disagree with your view. I trust Paul that he has not intended to compare you with Soviet secret police. I do not think that anyone can and must be any time perfectly accurate in his/her posts on Real Climate. We are humans and have our faults. Do you wonder what a horrible material we are if you consider dire circumstances under that life originated on Earth, as surprisingly revealed during Ijon Tichy’s visit to the Organization of United Planets?
See
https://www.shakuhachi.cz/108Hz/my_opera/Opera_8_str_016.htm
Greetings
Tomáš
All from Latvia. Within the last year I found various records of each of my relatives displacement history on the https://arolsen-archives.org document archive. Recommend it to anyone that may have a connection to Europe during WWII.
Tomas Kalisz: “ Dear Piotr, I respectfully disagree with your view. I trust Paul
Your feelings about science and people are irrelevant on a scientific blog. Here counts what you can argue – in this case:
====
– Tomas Kalisz: Oct. 30 “ Hallo Piotr, I do not think that Dr. Pukite intended to portray you as an agent of totalitarianism
– me Oct. 31: ” Let’s see. Your “Dr. Pukite”
– in the discussion about TOTALITARIANISM
– replies to your criticism of TOTALITARISM
– by warning you that I am enforcing TOTALITARIAN repression,
– accusing me of the persecuting opponents for “the thought crimes“, a phrase made known by the novel “1984”, written by a classic antagonist of TOTALITARIANISM, George Orwell
So WHAT ELSE can your “Dr Pukite” be accusing me of ?
=====
You have offered no MORE LOGICAL, nor MORE PROBABLE explanation for the accusations by Paul Pukite. But since you can’t bring yourself to admitting it, you try to save your face by implying that P. Pukite is a … simpleton who does not know what he says: that by accusing me of totalitarian persecution of opponents for “the thought crime” he didn’t mean to accuse me of that. And who has NO idea that the phrase he used: “the thought crime” comes from the seminal work about the totalitarianism – Orwell’s “1984”.
We defenders like you, who needs enemies?
in Re to Piotr, 3 Nov 2024 at 9:49 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826544 ,
and Paul Pukite, 3 Nov 2024 at 4:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826534 .
Dear Sirs,
Thank you very much for your replies. I am not that long on Real Climate to know the entire story of your dispute in very detail, however, I think that I know enough to be able to add some personal remarks.
1) From my perspective, it is not important if a better prediction of climate oscillations like ENSO, AMOC, PDO etc. saves human lives or not. I will be happy even if it merely makes human lives easier. And I think that at least for climate scientists, it could indeed bring some relief, if they were able to say with more certainty if an observed development is a “natural fluctuation” or part of a longer-term trend.
2) I am aware of the climate definition as a (local) weather average through a long (at least 30 years long) time span. Nevertheless, it appears that from another perspective, averaging local weathers over a large region or entire globe is practically used as an alternative climate definition. For example, it appears that global mean surface temperature (GMST) does not necessarily need to be averaged over 30 years. Oppositely, it appears that studying much shorter-term changes in such “global” or “globalized” climate parameters makes also sense, because there are even “monthly climate predictions” released by quite respectful institutions like NOAA and/or WMO:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/us-climate-outlook-november-2024
https://wmo.int/media/update/global-seasonal-climate-update-october-november-december-2024
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
3) For the reasons I tried to explain above, I would be very happy if we could desist from further analysing and discussing the wording used in older posts. It is, in my opinion, time and energy wasting. Instead, I would like to repeat a few questions which I already asked months ago and have not obtained an answer yet:
Paul, could you clarify how mature is your theory? Does it already enable better ENSO predictions, or is it clear enough that it could be possible to implement it into computational climate models and check if better ENSO / PDO / AMOC etc predictions can be achieved this way?
If so, have you already approached some climate modellers to discuss how to proceed?
If not, how much work still remains to be done? Do you have any followers or collaborators who support your efforts and further develop or modify your approach by bringing further ideas?
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz: 1) From my perspective, it is not important if a better prediction of climate oscillations like ENSO, AMOC, PDO etc. saves human lives or not.
Your “perspective” is irrelevant here – you are not deciding on moving the finite amount of money from studying the consequences of AGW trend to studying … an oscillation around the mean (ENSO). For the society, and funding agencies – the answer to which direction of studies has a better potential to save MORE lives IS important.
And the author itself – obviously thought it WAS important since he made “saving COUNTLESS lives” the centerpiece of his argument in favour of the said switch of the research priorities and funding from AGW to ElNino.
TK:” it appears that global mean surface temperature (GMST) does not necessarily need to be averaged over 30 years ”
If you want to talk about AGW or global climate change – it has to be. This is the scale dominated by the CLIMATIC forcing – mainly an increase in GHGs. In contrast to that – shorter time scales are either weather or short-term oscillations around the mean, like ENSO – are dominated by DIFFERENT factors – weather by the non-linear chaotic, interactions (e.g. position of Jet Stream, interactions between high and low pressure weather systems), while ENSO by the oscillations in the heat fluxes between ocean and atmosphere)
In another words – anything shorter than several decades is driven by different factors than increase in GHGs, and therefore constitute NOISE around the AGW (climate) trend. Fortunately
we can remove most of this noise from CLIMATOLOGICAL trend in GMST by averaging out the short-term noise over long enough time scale.
I realize that this may be too difficult for you to follow so I have found a scientific resource commensurate with your level of knowledge, and written in the language you just might be able to comprehend, fingers crossed:
https://climatekids.nasa.gov/weather-climate/
When you look out the window, you’re seeing what the weather is like today.
Weather is only temporary. For example, a blizzard can turn into a flood after just a few warm spring days.
Climate, on the other hand, is more than just a few warm or cool days.
Climate describes the typical weather conditions in an entire region for a very long time—30 years or more.
======
I grieve for the people of Ukraine, and now starkly the Baltics for what may come next. Countless, indeed. I can only imagine what’s in store.
Paul Pukite: I grieve for the people of Ukraine, and now starkly the Baltics for what may come next”.
Sure, the same way you grieved for the victims of Stalinism by implying that the oppression they faced was comparable with, i.e. NOT WORSE THAN, that of Paul Pukite, being asked to defend his claims, and who a=unable to do that – portrayed himself as …. a victim of the persecution for the thought crimes“.
And who brought up … the suffering of his parents and grandparents at the hands of the Stalinists. AS IF this were relevant to him being asked to defend his own claims on a discussion group.
And you couldn’t resist using your “grieving” as a … pretext to a backdoor reference to your original claim of “saving countless lives by a better prediction of the timing of the next EL Nino“), as if your grieving for the people of Ukraine and the Baltics … vindicated that earlier claim about El Nino:
PP: “I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”
“ Countless ” as in “a very large number of people” or as in “an unknowable number of people – maybe many, maybe few, maybe none at all”?
PP: I grieve for the people of Ukraine, and now starkly the Baltics for what may come next”.
P: Sure, the same way you grieved for the victims of Stalinism by implying that the oppression they faced was comparable with, i.e. NOT WORSE THAN, that of Paul Pukite, being asked to defend his claims, and who a=unable to do that – portrayed himself as …. a victim of the persecution for the thought crimes“.
BPL: Piotr, I wish you would let him have this just this one time. I, too, am sick at the thought of what’s going to happen to Ukraine now that Putin’s Puppet is president of the United States.
Piotr said:
Piotr has learned well from the current Trumpian landscape where Trump-like bullying has been normalized by the media. But why he thinks I would ever appease to a bully is a mystery.
Cripes, I’m listening to MSNBC this morning and they claim that if only Harris had catered to a few more Midwest swing-state voters by softening on some issues, ignoring that the bullies in charge gerrymandered the districts, guaranteeing a Republican outcome independent of any issue. This is automatic gatekeeping, something that Piotr can only aspire to.
Paul Pukite: “ Piotr has learned well from the current Trumpian landscape where Trump-like bullying has been normalized by the media.
So after trivializing the suffering of victims of Stalinism to protect his ego – Paul Pukite implying that being persecuted for “ the thought crime” by the Soviet system Is … comparable, i.e. NOT WORSE, than asking Paul Pukite … to prove his claims made on RC,
now the same P. Pukite trivializes what Trump is doing to the fabric of the US society by implying that it is NO WORSE than me …. asking Paul Pukite to own up to his own claims on RC..
PP: “ But why he thinks I would ever appease to a bully is a mystery.”
said a brave Pukite, who won’t yield to any bully, and to prove it retreated into silence, by not answering the direct question to his Nov. 6 statement:
====
– PP NOv. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”
my “bullying” question:, Nov. 6: “ Countless ” as in “a very large number of people” or as in “an unknowable number of people – maybe many, maybe few, maybe none at all”?
And the reason for Pukite’s non-answer is rather obvious:
– if he answered the first – his entire line of defense that by “countless” he DOES NOT mean “very large number of people” would have collapsed.
– if he answered the second – why would he GRIEVE for the … impossibility to count the victims of the war INSTEAD of grieving for the scale of the pain inflicted (“very large number” of victims”?
No wonder that having painted himself into the corner – he didn’t want to chose either and INSTEAD decided to pose as … a victim of bullying, Paul Pukite – everyone! ;-)
BPL: Piotr, I wish you would let him have this just this one time. I, too, am sick at the thought of what’s going to happen to Ukraine now that Putin’s Puppet is president of the United States.
Barton, I would have let him – if his concern for people was genuine, and he wasn’t USING them as merely a tool to protect his fragile ego – trying to win a 3-yr old discussion that he COULD HAVE ENDED with a simple admission “I failed to provide a plausible mechanism in which a better prediction of timing of a next El Nino could “save COUNTLESS lives”””.
But he can’t admit it -so instead he tries to snatch victory from the jaws of 3-year-old defeat:
PP Nov. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”
which is all about him, not about Ukraine – the suffering of the people of Ukraine is only a PRETEXT to relitigate the definition of the word “countless”, on which he based his original defense. Ukraine has had enough of false “friends” using its plight for their own ends.
And yes I share YOUR concern for the people of Ukraine, betrayed by the West (the US, Britain and France – GUARANTEED the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its post-Soviet nuclear weapons that had made it the third nuclear power in the world at the time), prevented them from winning the war (delivery of 10%? of the promised military support, allowing Russia to bypass the economic sanctions), and now facing the US ruled by an isolationist and a fan-boy of despots, who described the Russian tanks entering Ukraine – a “genius”, and “very savvy” move.
Piotr: Please get a sense of proportion. That was a disgusting and untrue remark.
You appear to like to frame your comments in the most hostile way. It does make me (and perhaps others) wish to pass by your otherwise interesting point.
[mods?]
Susan Anderson: “ Piotr: Please get a sense of proportion. That was a disgusting and untrue remark.. You appear to like to frame your comments in the most hostile way.
[…] [mods?] ”
That’s: calling spade a spade. And my “remarks” are a conclusion of a falsifiable argument which invite the opponents, or a reader, to falsify, if they can.
Contrast this with your post which is a 100% OPINION – NOT a single fact, single quote, or single falsifiable argument. Heck, I don’t even know to which of my words your are referring to, thus preventing me, and the reader, from testing whether your accusations toward me are, unlike mine, ethically-pleasing (?) and true.
And seeing Paul Pukite in the discussion about the victims of totalitarian systems warned others: Be careful, Piotr is on the look-out for the thought crime,
– uses the victims of the war in Ukraine as a chance to score points … in 3yr-old discussion about his claims on ENSO
– and portrays me holding him to account for those claims as:
PP “ Piotr has learned well from the current Trumpian landscape where Trump-like bullying has been normalized by the media” … and accuses my of “aspiring to automatic gatekeeping of the information.
seeing all that, you accuse …me. on “disgusting and untrue remarks” and call the “mods” not on him, but on me. But please, do continue lecturing me on my lack of “a sense of proportion”.
It’s not just ENSO. A unified model of forcing mechanisms will help explain many different geophysical behaviors, see https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
A few intrepid NASA JPL alumni have ventured down this path, but none with the kind of results I am seeing, Eventually this analysis will be applied in climate models and will save countless lives, and save countless $$$ in computer simulation cycles.
This is the stuff that makes research fun and challenging
Tomas, Look up rhetorical questions.
In Re to Paul Pukite, 5 Nov 2024 at 9:24 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826574
Hallo Paul,
I do not understand your answer.
Rhetorical questions are questions to that the asking person in fact wants to answer himself/herself, am I right?
If so, it was not my case. If I knew answers, I would not have asked.
Greetings
Tomáš
Classic sealioning behavior. From how you have commented in the past here on RC, you have zero actual interest in any response I would make. I will answer one of your questions
Yes.
In Re to Paul Pukite, 6 NOV 2024 AT 11:55 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826603
Dear Paul,
Thank you very much for showing your respect to all creatures of Nature, by your willingness to answer a question asked by a sea lion :-)
Fingers crossed for your efforts.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz 7 Nov. “ Dear Paul,Thank you very much for showing your respect to all creatures of Nature, by your willingness to answer a question asked by a sea lion :-)”
I wouldn’t read too much into it, Mr. Kalisz – your “Dear Paul” is happy with answering questions from sealioning trolls, IF they suit his narrative:
Hence his “Yes” to your question whether he has “ any followers or collaborators who support his effort ” – thus proving that he is not some strange fellow obsessed with an issue on the sidelines of the climate change science, but has followers who value the importance of his work for humanity – “could save countless lives” ! [Paul Pukite, modestly, in 2021]
And hence his two posts answering your questions about …. his family – since the questions gave him a chance to portray my asking him to prove claim of “saving countless lives” as if
it was … comparable to the totalitarian persecution experienced by his grandparents at the hands of Stalin.
Tomas Kalisz
“Rhetorical questions are questions to that the asking person in fact wants to answer himself/herself, am I right?”
No you are not right. Definition of a rhetorical question from Oxford Dictionary: “a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer….the presentation was characterized by impossibly long sentences and a succession of rhetorical questions.”
Describes TK quite well.
TK: 2) I am aware of the climate definition as a (local) weather average through a long (at least 30 years long) time span.
BPL: You got the time period right, but strictly speaking climate is not local (although there is such a thing as “microclimate”). It’s average weather over a whole region or the entire globe. Weather is local and short-term, climate is regional or global weather averaged over 30 years or more.
BPL, Are we still expecting societal collapse within 10 years?
CH: Are we still expecting societal collapse within 10 years?
BPL: 2040 according to the British Foreign Office, 2050 or so according to my article. But the article contained a flaw: I failed to account for the difference in area of a grid square as one moves toward the poles. Corrected, the collapse occurs about 2060.
Barton Paul Levenson says
5 Nov 2024 at 10:48 AM
BPL: 2040 according to the British Foreign Office, 2050 or so according to my article. But the article contained a flaw: I failed to account for the difference in area of a grid square as one moves toward the poles. Corrected, the collapse occurs about 2060.
Ms Dharma says:
I was not aware that Barton was a verified self-identifying ‘Doomer’ and possibly a Casandra Malthusian and Catastrophist as well. Please do not tell Michael E. Mann. But I would love to see that ‘article’.
“Are we still expecting societal collapse within 10 years?” – chuck hughes
In the U.S. for sure.
Piotr: “P.Pukite uses the victims of the war in Ukraine as a chance to score points … in 3yr-old discussion about his claims on ENSO”
Paul Pukite: “ It’s not just ENSO. A unified model of forcing mechanisms will help explain many different geophysical behaviors,”
Too bad that your ORIGINAL claim from 14 Oct 2021 promised “saving countless lives” SOLELY thanks to the “ long range predictions of the next El Nino or La Nina“, So your CURRENT ADDITION of a a unified model of forcing mechanisms [to] explain many different geophysical behaviors,” is a rather extreme^* case of l’esprit de l’escalier
===
^* three years after the fact …
Trolling and harassment on social media forums involve deliberately provoking, insulting, or intimidating other users to disrupt conversations or cause distress. Trolling typically includes making inflammatory or off-topic comments to trigger emotional responses or derail discussions for amusement. Harassment is more targeted, involving persistent or aggressive behavior—such as personal attacks, threats, or repetitive unwanted messages—intended to intimidate, demean, or silence the targeted individual. Both actions undermine constructive dialogue and can create hostile online environments.
Darma: “ Trolling and harassment on social media forums involve deliberately provoking, insulting, or intimidating other users to disrupt conversations or cause distress.
Seeing a straw in the eye of the other and not a beam in his own, AGAIN?
in Re to Piotr, 11 Nov 2024 at 5:40 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826771
and Paul Pukite, 7 Nov 2024 at 9:03 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826631
Sirs,
Irrespective whether or not the research carried out by Paul finally brings the immense breakthrough in which some of us in secret hope, or perhaps fails: I think that in your absurd dispute about the word “countless”, you are wasting your time and energy, valuable resources that you could certainly exploit much better.
What about burying the war tomahawk now?
Please.
Greetings
T
Tomas Kalisz: “ I think that in your absurd dispute about the word “countless”, you are wasting your time and energy,:
Tell this to your Dr,. Pukite – it was him who 3 years ago advocated shifting research priorities and resources away from modelling AGW and to the research of EL Nino, claiming that it could save “ countless lives. I
t was him who then failed to provide a plausible mechanism for saving countless lives. And having failed 3 years ago, reopens this discussion again and again – here on 3 separate occasions in the last several weeks. And each time digging himself into even a deeper hole.
But I don’t think it was a complete waste of time – if we can see a World in a Grain of Sand – surely we can see a Man in a Single Thread. A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it, A man uncapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – he doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.
And if does it even in such a simple, open and shut case, as this – what are the chances that he will behave differently in less obvious cases, and/or when much more is on the line for him?
Quoting Piotr:
Almost Shakespearean.
—
There’s no statute of limitations on post-peer-review. You’re free to criticize here : https://pubpeer.com/publications/C92D18F43710BFCF3C0316E61AB10B
No takers after 5 years
in Re to Piotr, 14 Nov 2024 at 12:20 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826863 ,
and Paul Pukite, 14 Nov 2024 at 11:08 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826860
Dear Piotr, dear Paul,
I am not going to search the history of your dispute. I have not noticed that Paul proposes that climate science should redirect available resources to studying solely oscillations like ENSO. If he has in fact never done so, I propose that he simply confirms it. In return, Piotr can accept it as a truth. This way, the 3 years long dispute could be concluded.
Hopefully it will not take many years until Paul’s theory will be tested by modelling experiments and their accordance or discordance with observations. Let us wait and see.
Greetings
Tomáš
Paul Pukite Nov 14: “ Quoting Piotr: “A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it,”, “A man uncapable of introspection.”, “A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions”
Almost Shakespearean.
And this is supposed to falsify my diagnosis of you which I based on your posts – how?
PP: There’s no statute of limitations on post-peer-review. You’re free to criticize here : https://pubpeer.com/publications/C92D18F43710BFCF3C0316E61AB10B
No takers after 5 years
I criticize the claims you have made on RC. I am not interested in your posts elsewhere. I am not that into you. And apparently, neither are others (“ No takers after 5 years “).
It doth seem that the more that Piotr tries to make some sort of point, the more a claim that a valid predictive model ENSO could save countless lives makes sense. Certainly, improved models of AGW have certainly had diminishing relevance in the life-saving department, as they have changed little since circa 1980. In fact, AGW models have remained relatively consistent, with a climate sensitivity estimate of approximately 3°C per CO₂ doubling, reflecting their focus on long-term climate trends rather than immediate, actionable outcomes. Improving the precision of climate sensitivity is kind of a moot point at this time wrt next year’s forecast
So, perhaps a model of reversal of AGW could save countless lives at some point through feats of geoengineering, such as showing that injecting aerosols into the stratosphere could have a beneficial outcome… But that could just as well backfire via Murphy’s Law and lead to massive unintended consequences.
And certainly AGW models that claim to create greater extremes in variability may save lives, but they are generally worthless without the benefit of a foundational understanding, as with a fundamental ENSO model of why extremes of natural variability can occur.
In summary, the distinction between models of ENSO and AGW lies in their immediate applicability and impact. ENSO models, with their potential for real-time predictions, can directly save countless lives by informing disaster preparedness and mitigating the effects of extreme weather events like floods and droughts. That’s one of the reasons that scientists continue to work on models of natural variability such as ENSO. Of course, it’s not the only rationale, as scientific curiosity and (as I said) establishing a solid foundation for geophysical fluid dynamics understanding is vitally important as well.
Onward with climate science research!
Tomas Kalisz: 15 Nov: “ Dear Piotr, dear Paul, I am not going to search the history of your dispute. I have not noticed that Paul proposes that climate science should redirect available resources to studying solely oscillations like ENSO.
If you bothered to inform yourself, before offering your opinions on a given subject,
you would have known that it is precisely what he did.
So spare us your baseless opinions on things you know nothing about, and can’t be bothered to learn about them. Garbage in, garbage out.
Now go away or I will taunt you a second time!
in Re to Piotr, 16 Nov 2024 at 7:33 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826954
Hallo Piotr,
I tried to interfere with your dispute with Paul Pukite, because it reminded me of one old song you might have known and loved:
https://supermusic.cz/skupina.php?idpiesne=43294&sid=
Greetings
Tomáš
PP: models of AGW have certainly had diminishing relevance in the life-saving department, as they have changed little since circa 1980.
BPL: The models have changed immensely since 1980. Did you mean the results haven’t changed?
Tomas Kalisz 16 Nov: “ Hallo Piotr, I tried to interfere with your dispute with Paul Pukite, because it reminded me of one old song you might have known and loved ”
And what this song says about an arrogant ignoramus, who can’t be bothered to learn the facts, and yet he interjects himself into the discussion and tells everybody his opinion about the content of the posts he didn’t bother to read? As in:
“ Dear Piotr, dear Paul, I am not going to search the history of your dispute. I have not noticed that Paul proposes that climate science should redirect available resources to studying solely oscillations like ENSO. Tomas Kalisz
in Re to Piotr, 17 Nov 2024 at 10:11 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826974
Dear Piotr,
The song is about two men, both honorable academics, fighting with each other on a parking lot for a laughable reason.
Greetings
Tomáš
Barton said:
Yes, I think the climate sensitivity of 3°C per doubling of CO2 has remained consistent since the NRC’s Charney report in 1979. Of course the details of the model have changed quite a bit.
In that article, Ken Caldeira was paraphrased
Yet, there can still be breakthroughs in the Earth sciences. This blog post presents several candidates. One a breakthrough that has been a mystery since 1891. Another a mystery since the pattern was revealed in the 1950’s. And then there’s the mystery of ocean cycles, which ENSO is the hallmark
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
Alas, they don’t have anything to do with models of GHG, hence the endless back-and-forth as to what is deemed “important” in climate science research.
Piotr: “So spare us your baseless opinions on things you know nothing about, and can’t be bothered to learn about them. Garbage in, garbage out.”
Tomas Kalisz: “[that reminded me a] song is about two academics, fighting with each other on a parking lot for a laughable reason.”
A superficial analogy from a superficial mind. Which part of my earlier answer, why it is NOT trivial, “laughable” matter – you didn’t understand?
Piotr Nov. 13: “if we can see a World in a Grain of Sand – surely we can see a Man in a Single Thread. A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it, A man incapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – who doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.”
You still need to prove that these are “laughable” conclusions. Mr. Kalisz.
Paul Pukite: It doth seem that the more that Piotr tries to make some sort of point
Specifically, which point? Do tell, Paul. Is it the point:
a) that you failed in Oct 2021 to prove your claim that better prediction of ENSO “could save countless lives”?
b) that unable to show the plausible mechanism for a) – you then escaped into semantics, claiming that by “countless” you DIDN’T mean “saving very many lives”, but that the selling point of your research was the … impossibility to evaluate its impact (“uncountable lives”)?
c) that unable to admit of being wrong even in such a trivial case 3 years ago, you tried recently to revive the discussion on 3 separate occasions in several weeks?
d) that in each of these occasions – you shot yourself in the foot – because the presumed importance of El Nino was in the LARGE numbers of potential victims, NOT in their uncountability ?
e) that even if the PT extinction was caused by “Mega-ElNino lasting decades” resulting in …. very many deaths (“90% of life”) – it won’t happen today (different position of continents) and even if it happened – we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it regardless whether we would know better when it would start or not
f) or what all the above tells about you as a man (“A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it, A man uncapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – he doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.”)
So which of these points I only TRY to make, Paul? And if I only “try” to make them, how hard would be to refute them? So why haven’t you?
” that you failed in Oct 2021 to prove your claim that …”
I don’t have to go any further than this because in the physical sciences, nothing can be proven. Certainly, one can prove a theorem in math. But in physics, all one can do is offer up a model and see if it works better than the others.
Towards that end, I review all ENSO El Nino models that I come across. For example “”Explaining the high skill of Reservoir Computing methods in El Niño prediction””, my review:
https://npg.copernicus.org/preprints/npg-2024-24/#discussion
Paul Pukite: It doth seem that the more that Piotr tries to make some sort of point
Specifically, which point? Do tell, Paul. Is it the point [7 falsifiable points here]
Paul Pukite: “ I don’t have to go any further than this because in the physical sciences, nothing can be proven
Says Paul Pukite. PROVING again that he has not balls to own up to his claims, and instead hides again behind semantics – by applying the extremely narrowing definition of an absolute proof OUTSIDE the area of its applicability – formal mathematics.
Yours are NOT articles in the mathematics journal, Paul, they are your posts in Internet discussion, hence the standard of “proof” is that of any discussion forum – making a more convincing, more logically consistent, and a better supported with facts and/or quotes, argument than your opponent. And you MUST know the intellectual dishonesty of your trying get away on a semantics technicality – were we to accept your narrowing absolute definition from the formal mathematics onto Internet discussions – it would make ANY discussion IMPOSSIBLE – instead we would have a …. loose collection of MONOLOGUES with subjective opinions, with NO way to determine which of them is defendable, and which of them is garbage.
So not only you failed to REFUTE any of my 7 points, if anything – your strengthen them – adding additional example do my p. b), and reinforcing my concluding p. f):
============= Piotr, Nov. 24 ===================
a) you failed in Oct 2021 to prove your claim that better prediction of ENSO “could save countless lives”
b) unable to show the plausible mechanism for a) – you then escaped into semantics, claiming that by “countless” you DIDN’T mean “saving very many lives”, but that the selling point of your research was the … impossibility to evaluate its impact (“uncountable lives”)
c) unable to admit of being wrong even in such a trivial case 3 years ago, you tried recently to revive the discussion on 3 separate occasions in several weeks?
d) in each of these occasions – you shot yourself in the foot – because the presumed importance of El Nino was in the LARGE numbers of potential victims, NOT in their “uncountability :
e) even if the PT extinction were caused by “Mega-ElNino lasting decades” resulting in …. very many deaths (“90% of life”) – it won’t happen today (different position of continents) and even if it happened – we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it regardless whether we would know better when it would start or not
f) all the above tells all we need to know about you as a man: “A man who cannot accept ANY criticisms, and doesn’t have the guts to admit it (hiding instead behind semantics). A man uncapable of introspection. A man whose judgement/logic are clouded by emotions – he doesn’t see the gaping holes in his logic, and either can’t understand even a plain English, or pretends to not understand it.”
So which of these points I only “try” to make, Paul? And if I only “try” to make them, how hard would be to refute them? So why haven’t you?
=========================
Is the USA a Democracy or a Republic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVqjH6MaqRY
Sabine Hossenfelder shows how only science can fix Americas political delinquency
Dharrma: “Is the USA a Democracy or a Republic?”
Is an apple round or red?
She gives an admirable attempt at answering the question, but like most who do not live in the USA, really does not understand how it works here, but neither do most of our citizens. This is probably a better explanation of whether we are a Democracy or a Republic:
(no need to watch the video – just read the article)
https://act.represent.us/sign/democracy-republic
To suggest that apps will fix our democracy is ludicrous. That will instantly become a propaganda war much like the false warnings we saw on COVID videos, Climate Change videos, etc.
In the USA our biggest problem is that the public schools are now turning out the dumbest group of humans to ever populate any nation. How dumb? They BELIEVE that men can get pregnant, that boys can become girls, and now kids actually go to school acting like dogs and cats AND THE TEACHERS GO ALONG WITH IT! No nation can be successful with this level of idiocy.
Our system sucks, but is better than all of the others tried to date. Our system has produced the greatest good for the most people around the world BY FAR, up to this point at least. That may change as the dumbed down ones start to run the country – may become another 3rd world failed state – we are on that path right now, but have the opportunity to START to change course on Tuesday by electing TRUMP.
KIA: They BELIEVE that men can get pregnant, that boys can become girls
BPL: I’ve never met a kid who thought men could get pregnant. As for boys becoming girls (or vice versa), trans folk don’t bother me. One of my friends is trans (M->F), and you couldn’t meet a nicer, more intelligent person.
It’s best to think about individuals and not groups.
Re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825473 … https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825627
Some of what I was thinking/getting at:
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/-trump-is-even-worse-bernie-urges-pro-palestinian-voters-to-back-harris-223238725504 ,
““I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?” Here is my answer:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf5MThSniiY
Re David https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825699 – sorry I didn’t get back to you; I guess I didn’t have much more to contribute
(A transgender man could get pregnant prior to/without the medical treatment etc.…; idk about intersex people in this matter.)
Sci Show “Science Proves There are More than Two Human Sexes” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT0HJkr1jj4
Sara Forsberg “I’m genetically male” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9um3rLIFYE&t=8s
Vi Hart “On Gender” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg
eigenchris “Why Sabine Hossenfelder’s video on transgender teens is misleading” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URpE-xZnQnk
The Octopus Lady “Are Clownfish Part of the Trans Agenda?!?! | Alien Ocean” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9vQcWE7zRs ; (followup) “EVERY SINGLE MISTAKE The Octopus Lady Ever Made” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M03_mvOo79g
SkepChick: https://skepchick.org/2024/08/the-transphobes-are-coming-for-all-of-us/
Interesting. I watched a couple of the videos. I liked the Sci Show one and learned some things. Thanks!
Moderators would not allow discussing the details of how it fits in with politics, public schools, etc. My position would be that discussions in public schools on the topic should be limited to a video such as the Sci Show video in a biology class no earlier than say 7th grade, and that should be the end of it just to let the kids know it exists. Other than that, it’s a topic for the student, their family, and if they choose, their doctor. School personnel should not recommend a student do anything other than talk to their parents about it.
I saw another YouTube video on the topic that was good. She recommended not having surgery. That is good advice for any elective surgery since it can cause problems. Here’s the video:
What I’ve learned from having balls. | Emily Quinn | TEDxProvidence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Ip-STEPKU
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826664 “That is good advice for any elective surgery since it can cause problems.”
Yes, good point to bring up. So you may want to check:
The Octopus Lady “Are Clownfish Part of the Trans Agenda?!?! | Alien Ocean” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9vQcWE7zRs @~ 8:30
[(followup) “EVERY SINGLE MISTAKE The Octopus Lady Ever Made” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M03_mvOo79g relevant part here @~ 10:14 ]
“ Yes, good point”… but of course it varies with the person, the condition, and the surgery/treatment/meds/etc. Even without side effects (link to 20+ year old abcnews special pending…), I imagine the surgery/etc. might be unwanted(?) (eg. conformity is not everyone’s most important desire). Others may benefit from it (depending on what “it” is) greatly.
Hossenfelder once again shows she can get an audience to listen to her opinions which leave out a lot of stuff.
Kevin Anderson is great. Dharma is so convinced that only he knows the truth and we are almost all to blame that he undermines material with which most of us are familiar and which most of us admire.
It’s intriguing how some people feel entitled to presume they know my thoughts or motivations. To suggest that I believe “only I know the truth” or that I am blaming everyone is completely misguided and a delusional sick caricature of my perspective.
I engage critically with ideas and analyses, especially on complex subjects like climate science, because thoughtful critique drives understanding. I don’t presume to hold the “ultimate truth” on these matters. I do, however, place a high value on factual accuracy and evidence-based discourse, and I’m willing to call out flawed assumptions when I see them.
To be clear: Kevin Anderson (is brilliant) and others in the field offer valuable insights, and I don’t undermine that. What I do question is the uncritical acceptance of some research that relies on hypothetical or improbable scenarios, as it often misleads the public and policymakers. There’s a significant difference between debating methodology and challenging someone’s work versus making sweeping accusations about their beliefs or integrity.
A little less mind-reading and a bit more intellectual rigor would go a long way. (will not hold my breath) Let’s stick to discussing the evidence and ideas, not inventing unfounded motives? I foolishly asked, in my dreams.
Sick and tired of reams of insults and self-righteousness. Clutter accompanied by blame does not contribute to our understanding, it makes us scroll past. It’s not the material, with which most of us are familiar, it’s the nasty tone and personal attacks.
Some rigorous editing and tolerance of your fellow sufferers might help.
Thank you for proving my point. Again.
In Re Susan Anderson, 7 Nov 2024 at 12:27 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826634
Dear Susan,
Referring to your words “fellow sufferers”, I would wish you that Dharma, Complicius, Sabine, Escobar, cj, Ned Kelly etc indeed belong to such kind of people.
I am afraid, however, that we rather face a genuine troll, who in fact enjoys suffering inflicted to others and does not have any empathy, nor positive feelings to anyone.
Best wishes
Tom
Best answer to the US form of government: Since the media determines who does and does not come in through Overton’s bathrooom window (apologies to the Beatles), the proper term for our form of government is “mediocracy”.
And with the collapse of mainstream media, perhaps that should be modified to “anarchy”.
… a quick note just to thank MA Rodger for the highly illuminating response to my question on October’s Unforced Variations, not just clearing up for me that climate models don’t account for carbon cycle changes due to warming (eg reduced sink capacity), and went on to put excellent context around the paper that was picked up and reported by the Grauniad as “carbon sinks have stopped working!!”
Well then, carbon sinks stopped working or they didn’t in 2023, or now in 2024, or potentially next year or soon.
What does the climate science actually say on the matter?
What about the increased plant growth around the world as CO2 increases. Is that in the models?
Rising atmospheric CO₂ (and other GHG) concentrations are driving rising surface air temperatures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KrgPPO1h0A
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbfU8uVbQAAuko_.png
Rising air surface temperatures will exterminate plants and animals long before rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations become toxic. See the graph titled A phase diagram of habitability for residents of the Earth in the YouTube video titled Mirrors for Earth’s Energy Rebalancing (MEER:refEction) | Dr. Ye Tao | 2019NSSUS at:
https://youtu.be/fwvPJnPP9KI?t=925
Until the late 20th century, the Holocene period global mean surface temperature (GMST) was 14 ± 0.5 °C.
The Earth System has left the climate of the Holocene (last 11,700 years of the Earth’s history), transiting towards a warming climate similar to the Mid-Pliocene (circa 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago) by mid-century, on the way towards the Mid-Miocene (15.97 ± 0.05 million years ago to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma, with GMST of 17 °C to 19 °C) by perhaps the end of this century.
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
Prof. Andy Pitman notes that global mean warming is badly understood: as a general rule of thumb, a GMST warming of +4 °C (covering land and ocean) is consistent with +6 °C over land, and +8 °C in the average warming over mid-latitude land. That risks +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves. Western Sydney has already reached 48 °C. If you add 12 °C to the 48 °C peak temperatures that have already happened, then you likely get summer heatwaves of perhaps 60 °C in a +4 °C warming world (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline).
https://www.climatecodered.org/2023/02/faster-higher-hotter-what-we-learned_24.html
The ideal temperature for cooking red meat using the sous vide method for Medium doneness is 135–144 °F (57–62 °C).
See? It’ll all work out. Democrats will take away our gas stoves, and AGW will mean we can cook without them. Win-win for everybody!
:)
The risks of extreme high temperatures supposedly justified by Prof. Pitman’s “rule of thumb” stick out like a sore thumb to me. It is certainly true that the mean temperature over land will warm faster than over the oceans, essentially due to higher thermal capacity of water. Also true that the mid latitudes will warm faster than the mean, and higher latitudes even faster, with arctic amplification.
However, much of that amplification takes place in the winter. Summer temperatures are rising more slowly than the annual mean. Extreme mid latitude high temperatures are rising even more slowly,overall. One general reason is that extreme high temperatures occur when the ground is dry, and evapotranspiration is reduced – allowing solar energy to be converted more efficiently to sensible heating. If you make a mid latitude summer climate drier, you will raise the average temperature faster than the extremely hot days, which occur when it is already dry. Another is that extreme maximum temperatures occur under “heat domes.” These are characterized by high pressure and warm air aloft. However, the upper troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface. The hottest temperatures that can be sustained at the ground are limited by the propensity of hot air to rise and cool until it hits a “lid” of warm air aloft. If that lid isn’t warming very fast, the rise in extreme high temperatures will be similarly limited.
So, if there is a +8C warming in average mid latitude warming, the risk for the summer average is closer to +6C, and perhaps 4C in heat waves.
The warming problems are bad enough. I see no need for this type of exaggeration to dramatize them further.
John Pollack: – So, if there is a +8C warming in average mid latitude warming, the risk for the summer average is closer to +6C, and perhaps 4C in heat waves.”
So you wish to refute Professor Andy Pitman’s “rule of thumb”?
https://www.science.org.au/profile/andy-pitman
Chatham House published on 14 Sep 2021 their report titled Climate change risk assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating. Page 14 included:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021-09-14-climate-change-risk-assessment-quiggin-et-al.pdf
I note in the Chatham House report, per Figure 2, in 2050, the expected change in global surface temperature is +2.5 °C (relative to pre-industrial temperatures).
In the Summary (on page 2):
John Pollack: – “The warming problems are bad enough. I see no need for this type of exaggeration to dramatize them further.”
The “warming problems” as you put it are only going to get worse as the Earth System inevitably exceeds the +1.5 °C GMST anomaly threshold and continues on towards +2.0 °C. That’s the undeniable reality. I’d suggest being aware of the possible worst case situations should be sufficient motivation to attempt to avoid them. I think being ignorant of or denying them is not a helpful strategy.
Geoff Miell – So you wish to refute Professor Andy Pitman’s “rule of thumb”? (Followed by profile of Andy Pitman)
JP – Maybe. First off, this is an ad hominem argument, to the effect that Prof. Pitman must be right because he has better academic qualifications than I do. I’d rather have references to his scientific writings that address my objection, not simply his profile. I do have a couple of meteorology degrees, and 30+ years of experience as a forecaster, so I have some idea of what I’m talking about. I am well aware that there are researchers who know a lot more than I do, but they show it by knowing what they are writing about, not by waving their degree.
Second, it is not clear to me what the actual “rule of thumb” is. If it’s the idea that 4C GMST warming is consistent with 6C of continental warming, and 8C over mid-latitude land areas, then I am okay with it as a rough estimate. The way the article is written, it leaves me uncertain whether the risk of ” +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves” is Prof. Pitman’s idea, or the idea of David Spratt, the author of the piece you linked. Can you reference any publications or writings that make it Prof. Pittman’s idea?
I do wish to refute the +10C/+12C assertion as a consequence of +4C GMST. It appears to be a wild exaggeration, for the basic reasons I outlined before. If you can refer me to anything peer-reviewed that says otherwise, I’d be glad to see it.
I did not intend to state or imply that the warming problems aren’t going to get worse. They clearly are going to be a lot worse on our current trajectory. Examining just how much worse things could get, and how fast, is a very important issue for both science and society.
Geoff Miell – ” I’d suggest being aware of the possible worst case situations should be sufficient motivation to attempt to avoid them. I think being ignorant of or denying them is not a helpful strategy.”
John Pollack – I agree. But I don’t see that being ignorant of the meteorology involved in producing heat waves, to the extent of making serious exaggerations, will be helpful.
John Pollack: – “The way the article is written, it leaves me uncertain whether the risk of ” +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves” is Prof. Pitman’s idea, or the idea of David Spratt, the author of the piece you linked. Can you reference any publications or writings that make it Prof. Pittman’s idea?”
See the Breakthrough Discussion Paper titled Faster, Higher, Hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022, published Mar 2023, on page 9, and footnote #58.
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/papers
See also the Breakthrough Report titled DEGREES OF RISK: Can the banking system survive climate warming of 3˚C?, published Aug 2021, on page 10, and footnote #23.
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/dor
It seems you would need to ask Andy Pitman about his apparently personal communication with David Spratt on 6 Jun 2021. Presumably, Andy Pitman has allowed that information to be included in those two referred publications.
John Pollack: – “I am well aware that there are researchers who know a lot more than I do, but they show it by knowing what they are writing about, not by waving their degree.”
Per the transcript of the public hearing on 27 Oct 2024, conducted by the NSW Parliament Portfolio Committee No. 7 – Planning and Environment, for the Inquiry into the Climate Change (Net Zero) Bill 2023, on page 6:
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/transcripts/3184/Transcript%20-%20Net%20Zero%20Future%20-%2027%20October%202023%20-%20CORRECTED.pdf
It seems to me Andy Pitman’s emerging specialty is on extreme compounding weather and climate hazards.
https://climateextremes.org.au/why-research-on-compounding-weather-and-climate-hazards-is-important/
https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=xZROC_oAAAAJ&hl=en
Whether the extreme heatwave temperatures reach as high as 60 °C, or in the low- to mid-50s °C range, in a +4 °C GMST anomaly world, they are still extremely dangerous for humans. A +4 °C GMST anomaly world is likely incompatible for human civilisation.
https://www.climatecodered.org/2019/08/at-4c-of-warming-would-billion-people.html
John Pollack: – “The warming problems are bad enough. I see no need for this type of exaggeration to dramatize them further.”
Exaggeration? Climate change is happening faster than expected.
Leon Simons tweeted on Nov 7:
https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1854503703656407142
Geoff Miell says in a Reply to John Pollack listing multiple references about / from Prof. Pitman’s climate science work, experience, qualifications, and expertise levels.
8 Nov 2024 at 12:33 AM
Well done Geoff.
John Pollack may like to educate himself about the difference between the fallacies of an ad hominem and an (faux) appeal to authority. Especially realising when someone is an authority and their work is being referenced in an article or science paper it is not ‘an appeal to authority’ logical fallacy . Being ignorant of a person actual credentials and level of expertise is easily solved before criticising their “authority” by looking up google scholar, using google search etc or asking your nearest AI LLM offering. Or even “phoning a friend”.
Thank you for your references, Geoff. Unfortunately, they don’t shed any light on the physical mechanism(s) that would be required to generate a +12C mid latitude increment in extreme summer temperatures from a +4C change in GMST. This is the exaggeration I am referring to. These would have to include a large preferential warming in the upper troposphere over continental landmasses, in order to accommodate diabatic warming near the ground without simply dissipating most of it through enhanced convection. I am not aware of any modeling that suggests enhanced upper tropospheric heating relative to the surface – which is where greenhouse heating is the most intense..
John Pollack,
John, you are one of very few here who is willing/able to do what I keep asking for… deal with the physics, explain how the elements of the climate system actually work, and what we might expect at the local levels that actually affect humanity.
I expect most people with the background to do so, who look in here, simply roll their eyes at the level of spam that is allowed, and move on.
It would be really great to have an actual meteorologist show up who disagreed with you, so people could see what an actual scientific debate is like. Instead you just get endless words that mean less and less as their quantity increases.
John Pollack: – “Unfortunately, they don’t shed any light on the physical mechanism(s) that would be required to generate a +12C mid latitude increment in extreme summer temperatures from a +4C change in GMST. This is the exaggeration I am referring to.”
Perhaps you may wish to explore the circumstances/processes leading to the lethal heatwave conditions experienced by Lytton BC, Canada, on 29 Jun 2021, where the temperature reached 49.6 °C? During this time, western Canada experienced temperatures up to 20 °C above normal (my emphasis), with provinces recording more than 103 all-time heat records. The BC Coroners Service confirmed that there were 619 heat-related deaths during the heat dome, which took place from June 25 to July 1.
https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/blogs/science-health/surviving-heat-impacts-2021-western-heat-dome-canada
If you are genuinely keen to understand the processes for the possibility of extreme summer heatwaves in Western Sydney of perhaps 60 °C in a +4 °C warming world (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline), I’d suggest you may wish to email Prof Andy Pitman? His email address is easy enough to find. Perhaps Prof Pitman may be gracious enough to respond to your query?
Geoff Miell.: “So you wish to refute Professor Andy Pitman’s “rule of thumb”?”
John Pollack: “I do wish to refute the +10C/+12C assertion as a consequence of +4C GMST. It appears to be a wild exaggeration, for the basic reasons I outlined before. If you can refer me to anything peer-reviewed that says otherwise, I’d be glad to see it ”
Geoff Miell … failing to provide “anything peer-reviewed that [proves] the “+10C/+12C assertion as a consequence of +4C GMST”
John Pollack: “Thank you for your references, Geoff. Unfortunately, they don’t shed any light on the physical mechanism(s) that would be required to generate a +12C mid latitude increment in extreme summer temperatures from a +4C change in GMST. This is the exaggeration I am referring to. These would have to include a large preferential warming in the upper troposphere over continental landmasses, in order to accommodate diabatic warming near the ground without simply dissipating most of it through enhanced convection. I am not aware of any modeling that suggests enhanced upper tropospheric heating relative to the surface – which is where greenhouse heating is the most intense.. ”
Darma, to the same no-answer from Geoff:
:” Well done Geoff.
John Pollack may like to educate himself about the difference between the fallacies of an ad hominem and an (faux) appeal to authority. Being ignorant of a person actual credentials and level of expertise is easily solved before criticising their “authority” by looking up google scholar, using google search etc or asking your nearest AI LLM offering. Or even “phoning a friend”.
“‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”, eh?
Geoff Miell – Perhaps you may wish to explore the circumstances/processes leading to the lethal heatwave conditions experienced by Lytton BC, Canada, on 29 Jun 2021, where the temperature reached 49.6 °C?
JP Yes. I followed this event intently as it was unfolding. So, let’s have a look at it.
By June, 2021 conditions across the western U.S. extending into southwest Canada were quite dry. Mountain snow pack was far below normal, and spring precipitation was also quite deficient.
A mid tropospheric anticyclone (sometimes called a “heat dome”) began to form over the interior western U.S. in late May 2021. These anticyclones can be viewed as extensions of the prevailing subtropical anticyclones, extending the Hadley circulation into mid latitudes. As a serious manifestation of climate change, these extensions have become stronger and more persistent, also reaching higher latitudes and occurring in off seasons. (e.g. The current 500 hPa heights exceeding 5840m to the west of Ireland are normally found south of 30N this time of year, and are about a 3 sigma anomaly.) Anomalous anticyclones are associated with mid and higher latitude droughts, unusual heat, and fires, especially in the warm season. (Cool season anticyclones in mid latitudes often produce persistent inversions with light winds, such as that currently affecting the U.K.)
The heat dome grew stronger and hotter in June 2021. This process was enhanced by the dry antecedent conditions, which allowed anomalous diabatic heating from the higher terrain in and around the Rocky Mountains to be convected into the mid troposphere. There were three episodes of intensification. The first was in early June. On June 3, daily heat records were set from Michigan to Idaho, with scattered early season heat records. The second intensification was around mid-June. Heat records were set in the interior West of the U.S. Significantly, all-time heat records were tied in Salt Lake City UT and Sheridan, WY. This is several weeks earlier than such extremes are usually reached in this region, attesting to the unusual intensity of the heat dome.
The final, and most intense stage, affected in Pacific Northwest U.S. and adjacent southwest Canada. All-time heat records in were shattered in numerous locations, including major urban areas, in addition to the above-referenced record in Lytton BC. Despite preparations several days in advance, there were numerous fatalities – also referred to by GM. (I talked to a meteorologist friend also part of a first-responders group in Portland, OR, four days before the worst heat. He told me that cooling centers were already set up, and transport being arranged.) Some of the fatalities were probably due to a common lack of air conditioning in the region, and the early and intense nature of the heat wave. Probably most people had never experienced that intensity of heat, and didn’t realize how lethal it could be.
An important additional factor in producing the extreme heat records was a small low pressure system to the west of the heat dome area. The resulting pressure gradient from inland regions to the coast helped weaken or entirely eliminate a maritime inversion almost always present over the region. Temperatures in low elevations reached similar levels to areas well inland east of the Cascade Mountains, or even warmer with adiabatic heating. Lytton BC was the most extreme example. Another was Quillayute, on the western Washington state coast. Previous to this event, their all-time high temperature had been 99F (37C) set on August 9, 1981. Their new record was 110F (43C)!
What are the implications for temperature records around Sydney, Australia? Drought conditions would certainly enhance high temperatures. Sydney often receives adequate summer rainfall, but droughts are not unknown, and records are already preferentially set during droughts. Erasing the marine layer with strong winds from the continental interior would have the greatest potential to raise temperature records, since summer temperatures in the Outback can exceed 50C. But, they don’t exceed 55C, let alone 60C. This leaves the intensification of the subtropical anticyclone under global warming as a way of producing new records. However, this is not a rapid process overall. The largest changes are happening in the higher mid latitudes, where the poleward extensions of these anticyclones are growing stronger and more common. Nearer to the source area, such as Sydney at 34S latitude, the further heating of anticyclones is limited by negative feedbacks. These are already among the warmest mid-tropospheric temperatures for the entire planet, and thus more efficient in shedding heat via longwave radiation to space. Australia also lacks large highland regions where diabatic heating can directly warm the mid troposphere.
I still see no way to produce 60C temperatures from 4C of GMST.
John Pollack says
11 Nov 2024 at 10:10 PM
No where does JP address the relevance of any changes in GMST (year or seasonal) in the examples he discusses or for any future scenarios in different regional areas on Earth.
He merely posits without evidence or argument “I still see no way to produce 60C temperatures from 4C of GMST” without providing any data or any logical analysis of why he thinks that is the case. JP has an unfounded opinion of X, and that is all. OK, it’s fine to have an opinion.
So let’s discuss some data instead. In 2021, Australia’s average mean temperature anomaly was approximately 1.47°C above the pre-industrial average (which is typically defined as the average temperature between 1850 and 1900). This figure is based on data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and international climate monitoring organizations like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
This anomaly reflects the broader trend of warming experienced by Australia and the world due to human-induced climate change. Australia has been warming at a rate roughly 1.5 times the global average, with 2021 continuing this trend. The warming has contributed to more extreme weather events, including longer and more intense heatwaves, droughts, and bushfires.
The following Data is based on this +1.5C MST warming trend for Australia. The hypothetical discussions above were questioning what might happen when this warming increases to +4C MST in the future? How hot could summer peak heatwaves become then? This is very hard to answer, but let us look at the recent history with only a +1.5C MST increase in Australia.
Western Sydney’s average mean high temperature during summer typically ranges from 28°C to 32°C (82°F to 90°F), though it can often be hotter than coastal areas due to its inland location. Let us call it 30C for the regional mean average.
Cities like Penrith and Parramatta can experience average highs around 30°C (86°F) in the summer months (December to February), and it’s not uncommon for temperatures to spike above 40°C (104°F) during heatwaves, which have become more frequent in recent years.
Yes, Western Sydney’s record high temperature is 49.0°C (120.2°F), which was recorded at Penrith on January 7, 2018. This temperature was part of a heatwave that affected much of the region, and it stands as one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Sydney and its surrounding areas.
This temperature is 19C above Western Sydney’s average summer temperature high. And it was also 9C above the average for prior summer Heatwaves in the region. Such extreme temperatures are rare but have occurred more frequently in recent years due to the broader trend of rising temperatures associated with climate change.
Remember, this is based on an existing Australia wide warming anomaly of only +1.5C at present. How high might these future heatwaves in Western Sydney increase – with more than 2 million people in an urban environment only 35 klms from the coastline – when the warming anomaly increases to 4C on the year average temperature for Australia as a whole?
Remember that – Australia has been warming at a rate roughly 1.5 times the global average, with 2021 continuing this trend.
So when the GMST anomaly has risen to +4C for the planet it may be possible that the temperature anomaly for Australia as a whole increases to +6C.
What could a +6C Australian Climate do to Western Sydney’s extreme summer heatwave temperatures by then I wonder?
John Pollack: – “What are the implications for temperature records around Sydney, Australia?”
Per SBS News:
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/sydneys-penrith-the-hottest-place-on-earth-amid-devastating-bushfires/zrxrj54sw
The ABC article published on 6 Oct 2017 by Liz Hanna headlined Dehydration, death and power cuts: What 50C days would look like in Australia, began with:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-06/50-degree-days-what-would-sydney-and-melbourne-look-like/9024914
Western Sydney, specifically Penrith, has already experienced record extreme temperatures up to 48.9 °C, on 4 Jan 2020, in a +1.2 °C GMST anomaly warming world.
Research suggests Sydney and Melbourne are on course for 50 °C summer days by the 2040s if high greenhouse emissions continue. I interpret that to mean the possibility of multiple summer days peaking at around 50 °C. I’d suggest that’s likely in a +2 °C GMST anomaly warming world.
So why is it too difficult to imagine the possibility of extreme peak temperatures of up to 60 °C in Western Sydney in a +4 °C GMST anomaly warming world?
After giving a fairly lengthy review of conditions leading to the record-smashing heat wave in the U.S Pacific Northwest and B.C. Canada (culminating June 29, 2021) it seems that at least one person missed the connections I made between this specific heat wave and rising GMST – as well as how it applies to other heat waves. So, I’ll give a more broad survey of the main contributors to exceptional mid latitude heat waves and extreme temperatures, as I understand them.
The aggressive effects of greenhouse warming as it applies to heat waves are being manifest in the development of strong mid and higher latitude anticyclones. These contain unusually warm air in the mid troposphere, and are frequently accompanied by droughts and fires.
In continental areas with large expanses of elevated surfaces, drought conditions result in positive feedback, in which more warm air is generated and injected by (dry) convection into the mid troposphere. (As warming intensifies the hydrologic cycle, many mid latitude areas are also becoming more drought-prone.)
At the periphery of a heat dome, deep mixing and higher temperatures are often enhanced by the proximity of an upper trough supporting a surface cyclone. This enhancement is frequently strong at higher latitudes, but less intense in the subtropics.
The most extreme increments of high temperature compared to normal or previous records can be found in locations which are near the edge of a continent in a prevailing marine inversion regime. On the rare occasions where the marine inversion is weakened or dissipated, high temperatures will resemble the hot continental interior. This situation applied to the heat records set in the northwest U.S. and southwest Canada in 2021. It also applied to records set in the western suburbs on Sydney, Australia.
Heat records in coastal regions are relatively easy to raise as the result of general warming – to the extent that they resemble the continental interior. Heating the already hot and dry continental interiors is not so easy. It requires warming the core temperatures of subtropical anticyclones. These are already the among the warmest air masses on the planet, and subject to negative feedbacks. I can see no reason for these temperatures to rise much faster than MST in the subtropics, probably a bit slower than GMST.
If I were planning climate resiliency measures for extreme heat in the Sydney Australia region in the face of rising GMST, I would have little concern that temperatures in the western suburbs would reach 60C in the next several decades. I would have great concern that the temperatures already seen to approach 50C in the western suburbs could spread all the way to the coast. This would be in a situation of strong winds from the interior, extreme fire danger, and an overloaded power grid that could be sparking more fires.
Dharma said “No where does JP address the relevance of any changes in GMST (year or seasonal) in the examples he discusses or for any future scenarios in different regional areas on Earth. He merely posits without evidence or argument “I still see no way to produce 60C temperatures from 4C of GMST” without providing any data or any logical analysis of why he thinks that is the case. JP has an unfounded opinion of X, and that is all. OK, it’s fine to have an opinion.”
JP does seem to implicitly accept a gmst increase of 4 degrees where he questions how you would get from somewhere between 50 – 55 degrees c up to 60 degrees c. JP does provide a logical analysis of why it is unlikely you would see 60 degrees, specifically in his last paragraphs. He discusses the implications of ” erasing the marine layer with strong winds from the continental interior ” and “the intensification of the subtropical anticyclone”. He might be wrong but he has explained a mechanism.
However if Australia already gets somewhere between 50 – 55 degrees c peaks and you add gmst 4 degrees c, but with 6 degrees over land, you are starting to get ominously close to 60 degrees. Apparently 60 degrees is possible by 2050 in some places as below, although they dont mention Australia and it appears to be countries on the equator:
https://geographical.co.uk/climate-change/will-the-earth-reach-60oc-due-to-global-warming#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20World%20Economic,than%20a%20month%20each%20year.
Pitmans rule of thumb:
“Prof. Andy Pitman notes that global mean warming is badly understood: as a general rule of thumb, a GMST warming of +4 °C (covering land and ocean) is consistent with +6 °C over land, and +8 °C in the average warming over mid-latitude land. That risks +10 °C in the summer average, or perhaps +12 °C in heatwaves. Western Sydney has already reached 48 °C. If you add 12 °C to the 48 °C peak temperatures that have already happened, then you likely get summer heatwaves of perhaps 60 °C in a +4 °C warming world (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline).”
Rules of thumb are a crude tool and fall short of a “logical analysis”. Why does it “risk 10 degrees in the summer ” and “12 degrees in heatwaves”. Is Pitman right? Can an expert please explain. .
That said its clear Australia faces severe climate change problems regardless of whether temperatures surpass 6o degrees or not.
Geoff Miell – Research suggests Sydney and Melbourne are on course for 50 °C summer days by the 2040s if high greenhouse emissions continue. I interpret that to mean the possibility of multiple summer days peaking at around 50 °C. I’d suggest that’s likely in a +2 °C GMST anomaly warming world.
So why is it too difficult to imagine the possibility of extreme peak temperatures of up to 60 °C in Western Sydney in a +4 °C GMST anomaly warming world?
JP- To get to 50C, Sydney and Melbourne would have to do all the easy stuff, the hard stuff, and the difficult stuff to raise the temperature within a meteorological setup optimized to produce their maximum temperature. Then, you have to throw in a couple of decades worth of additional strong greenhouse warming to allow it to get to 50C in the 2040s..
To get to 60C, you have to do what is even harder – raise the prevailing temperature of the mid tropospheric anticyclones by another 10C or more from what is currently observed. Anything less will not support a maximum temperature of 60C at these locations. The peak temperatures in those anticyclones are quite stable, with negative feedbacks acting to suppress higher temperatures. We would need something like 10C of general GMST warming, at a minimum, to achieve this. Considering that the mid troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface, it would probably take even more than 10C of surface warming. I find it difficult to imagine how you would do it with 4C GMST warming, because I don’t see a physical mechanism that would allow those anticyclones to warm another 10C with a mere 2.5C increment to the existing GMST warming. Nobody has provided me with one, either.
in Re to John Pollack, 5 Nov 2024 at 11:08 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826579
Dear John,
Many thanks for your explanation of the “heat domes” mechanism.
Have I understood correctly that the atmospheric circulation that establish in such situation resembles that of atmospheric circulation above hot deserts like Sahara or Arabian Peninsula?
If so, I would like to ask a few questions regarding our options for mitigating it:
1) There are modelling experiments suggesting that massive solar power exploitation in such hot deserts should, paradoxically, bring more precipitation thereto:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/23/1/JHM-D-20-0266.1.xml
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL090789
Is it possible to infer therefrom that massive installation of dark solar panels (that could power air condition during heat dome situations without further contribution to greenhouse gas emissions) would even itself bring some relief, perhaps by helping sea breeze to come and cool the hot coastal cities?
2) Let us, for a comparison, imagine another mode of solar energy exploitation in the same situation, the mode characterized by conversion of the unexploited (“waste”) absorbed solar energy into latent heat instead of the sensible heat. Is it possible that even though there would have been no surface cooling by the “oasis effect” because the latent heat would have absorbed merely the excessive heat released by solar panels, the rising water vapour could still somehow break the “heat dome” situation – perhaps, at least in coastal regions, by interacting with the sea breeze to form clouds and, maybe, to bring some precipitation that might cool the hot region a little bit?
3) Is it possible to compare these two options simply by using your meteorological expertise and weather forecaster experience?
4) Should a such assessment be difficult, might these theoretical scenarios deserve a comparison by a modelling study?
Best regards
Tomáš
you are posting here @ realclimate for how long now? a decade? stop f****g around, KIA, you f****g know the answers, no matter how often you repeat your “questions” about AGW over and over only to deny them answers afterwards anyway..
KIA: What about the increased plant growth around the world as CO2 increases. Is that in the models?
BPL: Look again.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/
Not all plant growth increases. Weeds and Poison Ivy do especially well. Don’t confuse fetid with fertile.
Mr. Know It All says
4 Nov 2024 at 3:31 AM
What about the increased plant growth around the world as CO2 increases. Is that in the models?
……………….
answer:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/
August 15, 2019
Earth Stopped Getting Greener 20 Years Ago
Declining plant growth is linked to decreasing air moisture tied to global warming
Warmer air holds more moisture, not less. Absolute humidity of the air is going up I believe due to warming, but perhaps relative humidity is going down.
Aren’t some of the big floods supposed to be because of more moisture in the air?
Mr. KiA: “ Aren’t some of the big floods supposed to be because of more moisture in the air?
Massive downpours at some times/locations do not compensate for the droughts at other times/locations. See Valencia that in some places got a year-worth of rain in 8 hours and most of this water is back in the Mediterranean, thus no longer available to plants,
Or in Poland, the state of “agricultural drought” was declared for the entire area of the country between 11 July and 10 September (defined as periods that lead to the loss of more than 20% of the usual agricultural yields). The subsequent massive rains between 12 and 16 September – caused the worst flooding in Central Europe in at least two decades, but didn’t restore the crops lost to the drought in summer.
It’s the extremes that kill. not averages. at least directly. Indirectly, the warmer average temp,, reflects higher energy in the system, which in turn is more likely to spawn more extremes, plus increases the intensity of the heat waves.
And the extremes in low rain are often amplified by concurrent extremes in heat (and its not a coincident – the higher temps reduce relative humidity from the same amount of evaporation). Hotter temps mean higher plant demand for water while at the same time limiting its supply – some of the rain evaporates in the hot air before even hitting the ground, or the part that hits the hot ground evaporates before making it into the soil, and only there it could be picked by plant roots.
So you may have higher average ANNUAL precipitation and still have lower soil moisture in spring and summer when plants because of the growth and warm temps – need it the most.
So no, all is NOT for the best in this best of the all possible worlds.
Have we answered the question of climate change acceleration as yet ? November now and is La Niña here or not yet. Have we got to the bottom of the 24/24 warning anomaly?
Stefan Rahmstorf one of the real climate hosts (still?) is a member staff at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). He was one of the reviewers of this report below
Earth exceeds safe limits: First Planetary Health Check issues red alert
09/24/2024 – The Planetary Boundaries Science (PBScience), a new initiative led by PIK director Johan Rockström and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), supported by the Planetary Guardians and other partners, has launched the Planetary Health Check (PHC), a first-of-its-kind scientific report and tool for the health of the Earth’s vital organs that serve as humanity’s life support system.
The PHC combines pioneering Earth science, Earth observation data and multi-disciplinary thinking to quantify the planet’s health and inform solutions to reverse the impact of human activity on the planet.
Typically, environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution have been addressed separately but these issues are interconnected and collectively impact our planet’s health, as well as human health. The Planetary Health Check report documents the latest scientific information on the diverse Planetary Boundary processes, identifies the underlying causes and the interconnectedness of various processes and connects Planetary Boundary processes to different tipping points, emphasizing the need for a whole Earth approach to ensure humanity’s future.
Planetary Boundaries such as climate change, change in biosphere integrity and ocean acidification are defined for the nine critical Earth system processes that regulate life support systems on Earth. They outline a safe operating space within which humanity can thrive while keeping the planet stable and resilient. Once a boundary is breached, the risk of permanently damaging Earth’s life support functions increases as does the probability of crossing tipping points that cause irreversible changes. If multiple boundaries are breached, risks sharply increase. The Planetary Health Check shows, that these critical Earth’s systems functions are at risk, with six of nine Planetary Boundaries breached and the imminent breach of a seventh, and a clear trend towards further transgression. While a boundary transgression is not equivalent to drastic changes happening overnight, they mark entering territory of rising risk.
“The overall diagnostic is that the patient, Planet Earth, is in critical condition. Six of nine Planetary Boundaries are transgressed. Seven PB processes show a trend of increasing pressure so that we will soon see the majority of the Planetary Health Check parameters in the high-risk zone,” .Johan Rockström adds
above extracted from https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/earth-exceed-safe-limits-first-planetary-health-check-issues-red-alert
Links to the report and executive summary are located at the bottom of this page
Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf
Latest NASA global temperature data.
Earth has never been hotter since Homo sapiens discovered agriculture in the early Holocene. Likely even since 120,000 years ago.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1853185867885486151.html?utm_campaign=topunroll
and note this part – Here is the last 2023 years of data for CO2 (from Antarctic ice core data) and global temperature (from numerous sources of proxy data from around the world, such as sediment and ice cores). Check it out: https://pastglobalchanges.org/science/wg/2k-network/intro
plus – global temperature for the past 24,000 years – since the last Ice Age!
And compare that with another 12,000 year exponential growth Hockey Stick Graph showing population growth at the same time
https://substack.com/home/post/p-150553681
SR – “Earth is now warming 20 times faster than at the end of the last Ice Age. “
Paul Pukite “ If both of my parents and all 4 of my grandparents hadn’t escaped from Stalin’s clutches and being sent to Siberia, I wouldn’t be here today,
the greater your disservice to their memory – when to save your face you TRIVIALIZE the totalitarian oppression – by implying that its victims …. couldn’t have that bad – since their suffering CAN BE COMPARED to Paul Pukite having …. his claims challenged with falsifiable arguments – which P. Pukite likened to him being persecuted for “the thought crime“.
PPukite: “ Piotr, grow a pair”
I see my earlier “Three years later and you still haven’t grown a pair… ” must have landed … ;-)
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, eh?
PPukite: if you think my physics models are wrong, then go to PubPeer.com and make your case.
Nobody is discussing your physics models, I challenged your claim, made not on PubPeer.com, but on RC – that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could save countless lives”. After failing to prove so, and not having the balls to admit it – your tried to get out on semantics: claiming that by “countless” you didn’t mean saving a “very large number” of lives, but an … “unknowable number”, i.e. maybe many, maybe few.
And it is not me but YOU who tried to relitigate this discussion – by bringing up 3 years later a new paper
speculating about a decades-long mega ElNino at the K-T boundary. And not realizing that you are shooting yourself in the foot with it – the KT mass extinction attracts attention because of the extinction of “nearly 90% of life”, i.e. of a “very large number of species”, not because of the extinction of an “unknowable number, maybe many, may be few” species.
Piotr said:
“Nobody is discussing your physics models, “
Top to bottom, every dynamical geophysical process on the Earth responds to the gravitational torque of the moon and the gravitational torque and unequal heating provided by the sun. It starts with the domination of the gravitational forces on surface ocean tides and continues through to the domination on the differential changes in the Earth’s rotation rate due these same tidal forces. It continues on to every known cyclic geophysical behavior and across varying time scales. Starting with the observable effects of surface ocean tides, the forces penetrate into deeper layers of the ocean, influencing subsurface waves at a longer time scale. These forces also induce thermal gradients that drive atmospheric circulation and seasonal variability, ultimately affecting the entire climate system. Combining the Moon’s 27.212-day Draconic cycle non-linearly with the Earth’s annual cycle, it can cause atmospheric phenomena such as the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation or solid body dynamics such as the Chandler Wobble, and contribute to long-term variations in the Earth’s rotation rate.
Mathematically, these interactions can be described through tidal equations coupled with periodic forcings that account for solar and lunar gravitational torques. This is an obvious research direction to pursue, so perhaps you can tell me why no one else is doing it?
“Combining the Moon’s 27.212-day Draconic cycle non-linearly with the Earth’s annual cycle, it can cause atmospheric phenomena such as the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation or solid body dynamics such as the Chandler Wobble, and contribute to long-term variations in the Earth’s rotation rate.”
Oh, God, not this again…
QBO/SAO:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-818389 ;
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821366
~2nd half of https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821505
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821018 , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821249 , (& Tides:) https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821281 …
& Coriolis parameter f : (& Tides:) https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821677 ** “AFAIK, any situation in which relative (linear?) motion changes the observed/experienced frequency of an oscillation/wave (sound, light, Kelvin, Rossby, Alfven – whatever that is, etc.), that’s Doppler.”- well, ?
Orbital Geometry:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820653 , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820688 , (& Chandler Wobble:) https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820782 …,
( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-820883
(replace “tropical month” w/ “Moon’s declination cycle” in at least some places (end of: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817384 (∆LOD @ beginning, cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816942 )
– beginning of: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817438 , & https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816943 ) );
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817719 – (& Tides:) https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817865 ( “Technically, what I should perhaps refer to is the declination cycle (of the Moon), whose amplitude and frequency vary over an 18.6 year cycle, but on average has a period = tropical month. If the definition of the tropical month is defined by a revolution in a frame that rotates as Earth’s axis precesses (around an axis perpendicular to the plane of the orbit around the Sun), then if the inclination of the Moon’s orbit were greater than Earth’s obliquity (tilt), the declination cycle would switch to having an average period = average period the draconic month, but the tropical month would remain as is. ”) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon#Lunar_periods
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821014
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821505
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821569
Tides: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-818394 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821281 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821362 ,
beginning of: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821505
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-821571
Waves (& ∆LOD) : https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820528 … , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820610 , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820691 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820801 ,
beginning of: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/#comment-820883
Patrick O 27,
Your brain appears to be going through erratic synaptic firings. I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by overloading a comment with all these links to other context-free comments. I’d strongly recommend that you get yourself a blog or a github page where you can create a well-reasoned critique that features decent equation markup and image posting for graphs and diagrams. What you’re trying to do is not scientific criticism, it’s more stenography using your own encoded shorthand within a jigsaw puzzle of logic.
Typical gatekeeping via the “exasperation” dog-whistle.
You are going to have to deal with the fact that what I recently wrote in https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/ is a review of what I already published in Mathematical Geoenergy, and it’s not going to make a whit of difference in what you are trying to cryptically imply in dashed-off comments. If you want to make any kind of impact, try writing a critique on PubPeer.com linking it to that specific title and perhaps you can convincingly debunk the entire approach. That’s the way post-peer review is done these days. See the work of Elizabeth Bik
https://x.com/Einstein_Berlin/status/1858482097448468706
She is able to debunk at will, with a kill count of 7600 so far.
Here’s an example of me taking on a recent paper by Tim Dunkerton on his QBO analysis
https://pubpeer.com/publications/E27F0929E64D90C32E9358889CC80F
He knows what I wrote but is apparently afraid to defend his ideas on PubPeer.
Like it or not, but the way it’s set up, research advances only by peer review, and it’s best to follow a process. If you want to discuss why PubPeer is not the way to go, that’s fine, but I’m not going to try to dissemble what amounts to fragmented commentary by yourself.
To be fair, I can counter Patrick O 27’s Gish gallop with a solid elevator pitch that’s difficult to refute. Consider the QBO and the Chandler wobble, a pair of mysterious geophysical behaviors that — contrary to anything you may have read — are not yet resolved as to their origin. In terms of group symmetry, these two share the geometrical property of longitudinal independence, i.e. they appear the same no matter the observer’s location in longitude. This is referred to as SO(2) group symmetry, with wavenumber=0 spatial frequency. ONLY ONE declination-related lunar cycle shares this same property — the Draconic/nodal period whereby the moon crosses the ecliptic plane, maximizing the lunar+solar torque at an arbitrary longitude. As I have published, the sub-band periods calculated for the Draconic cycle match EXACTLY that for the observed mean QBO cycle and also independently for the observed mean Chandler wobble cycle. End of elevator pitch.
OTOH, the tropical/synodic lunar cycle is longitude-specific, which means it will apply for oceanic behaviors as these occur at different locations , thus breaking SO(2) symmetry. Th e sub-band period calculated for the tropical period matches that of the mean ENSO period. End of elevator pitch, part 2.
Patrick will first need to refute this argument, which is based on fundamental geometry. All the Gish galloping in the world won’t change that.
Reply to Paul Pukite (@whut) et al
I think the greater question here could be: Are the IPCC’s public communication language skills, and patrick o twentyseven comments, Piotr the incendiary haranger, and Paul Pukite(@whut) as bad as each other?
OR another enigma of a mystery entwined in a riddle wrapped in a paradox?
______________________________________________________________________
In good faith, Paul Pukite’s observations draw upon intriguing connections between geophysical cycles and lunar influences, using group symmetry as a framework to propose relationships between seemingly unrelated phenomena. Here’s a breakdown of the key ideas and the background of the terms:
1. What are the QBO and Chandler Wobble?
-QBO (Quasi-Biennial Oscillation):
A periodic oscillation of stratospheric winds over the equator.
Alternates between easterly and westerly directions approximately every 28-29 months.
Its drivers aren’t fully resolved, though it’s influenced by atmospheric waves and possibly external forcing like lunar cycles.
-Chandler Wobble:
A small, irregular deviation in Earth’s rotation axis relative to its surface.
Cycles with a period of about 433 days (around 14 months).
It’s caused by Earth’s imperfectly spherical shape and variable mass distribution (e.g., changes in oceans and atmosphere).
Why its period stabilizes and what sustains it remain partially unexplained.
2. Paul’s Argument:
– SO(2) Group Symmetry: Both the QBO and Chandler Wobble share a symmetry independent of longitudinal positioning. This means their dynamics don’t favor one specific longitude; they are global phenomena.
– Lunar Declination Cycles: He ties these phenomena to the Draconic/nodal lunar cycle (about 27.2 days), where the moon crosses the ecliptic plane. The lunar torque, he argues, applies globally and matches sub-band periods within both QBO and Chandler Wobble observations.
– ENSO and Symmetry Breaking: On the other hand, oceanic behaviors like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) depend on longitudinal variations (e.g., Pacific dynamics), tied instead to the tropical/synodic lunar cycle.
3. What’s New or Interesting Here?
Paul claims to have shown a mathematical match between lunar cycles and these geophysical behaviors, particularly:
Draconic Cycle ↔ QBO and Chandler Wobble (both SO(2)-symmetric).
Tropical Cycle ↔ ENSO (longitude-dependent, symmetry-breaking).
This idea challenges traditional geophysical thinking by suggesting lunar influences — previously deemed secondary — may play a more fundamental role.
4. How to Respond:
If you’re impressed and intrigued:
“Golly, Paul, this is fascinating! Thanks for explaining this so succinctly. The connections you’re drawing between symmetry and lunar cycles are compelling. I’ll have to dive deeper into your work on these matches. The idea of the Draconic cycle driving global phenomena like QBO and the Chandler Wobble is eye-opening.”
If you’re confused or skeptical:
“Paul, thanks for the pitch! It’s a lot to process, but I appreciate the symmetry argument you’re making. The links between the Draconic cycle and geophysical phenomena are intriguing, though I’ll admit I need to read more on how these sub-band periods align mathematically. Would love to see more about how your symmetry-based perspective compares to more traditional explanations.”
5. Why This Matters:
Understanding such connections could deepen our grasp of Earth’s complex systems, potentially influencing climate models and our comprehension of Earth-Moon dynamics. Paul’s work seems to suggest an overlooked yet fundamental relationship between lunar cycles and terrestrial geophysics.
And, you’re welcome.
Paul feel free to make corrections to any errors or misunderstandings above
That’s a decent explanation and essentially what something like ChatGPT would respond with, as it tries to ever-so politely reconcile the conventional wisdom with new insight.
The additional issue with gaining any headway is that the original model for QBO is over 50 years old, so am dealing with the legacy of scientists such as Richard Lindzen and his acolytes, such as Tim Dunkerton. Consider that Lindzen (the father of QBO) has said this about CO2:
Why would anyone believe in anything Lindzen says, given that assertion — man-made climate change as the greatest mass delusion in human history — is so over-the-top? I have to wonder, was Lindzen always this over-confident in his assertions? As so much of his kind of science is observational narrative, it certainly doesn’t carry the weight of detailed quantitative agreement. So why buy any of the stuff that Lindzen’s been selling over the years, including his half-baked QBO model? He’s no longer going to respond to anything on the topic, so it’s probably as good a time as any to get some fresh blood looking at it.
Reply to Paul Pukite (@whut) and his pushback about Lindzen’s QBO work and “Why would anyone believe in anything Lindzen says?”
Thanks for the comment Paul. What I have heard is that the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) is widely regarded as one of the most robust patterns in atmospheric science, characterized by its alternating easterly and westerly winds in the equatorial stratosphere. The foundational work by Richard Lindzen and Tim Dunkerton in the late 20th century proposed that the QBO results from vertically propagating atmospheric waves that interact and deposit momentum at different altitudes. This hypothesis, known as the wave-driven mechanism, has been influential in explaining the phenomenon.
Evaluating the Reliability of Lindzen’s QBO Hypothesis
Legacy of the Model:
The wave-driven mechanism remains a cornerstone of QBO research. Despite the controversies surrounding Lindzen’s views on climate change, his contributions to the QBO hypothesis are largely separate from his climate denialism. The QBO model has been supported and refined by subsequent research and observations.
Tim Dunkerton, a co-author and collaborator, and many others have worked to test and expand this hypothesis, which suggests the theory has undergone significant scrutiny independent of Lindzen’s broader scientific reputation.
Criticisms of Lindzen’s Approach:
Paul Pukite’s criticism highlights a lack of “quantitative agreement” in some of Lindzen’s models. This may reflect broader debates about the mechanistic details of the QBO rather than wholesale rejection of the foundational theory.
Pukite’s own argument suggests lunar forcing (e.g., the Draconic cycle) as a potential driver of the QBO, challenging the wave-driven mechanism. This is a minority position compared to the consensus view that internal atmospheric dynamics dominate.
Separating the Science from the Scientist:
While Lindzen’s skepticism / denialism about anthropogenic climate change has undermined his credibility in some circles, his earlier work on atmospheric dynamics is not inherently invalidated. Much of the QBO research community acknowledges the wave-driven hypothesis as a baseline, even as alternative theories, like those involving lunar cycles, are explored.
The Importance of Fresh Perspectives: Noting
Pukite’s call for “fresh blood” is a healthy scientific sentiment. The QBO’s complexity — and instances where it has deviated from its regular cycle, such as in 2016 — indicate that there is room for additional mechanisms or nuances beyond Lindzen’s original model.
Recent studies have examined potential connections between the QBO and factors like global warming, stratospheric volcanic eruptions, and even solar or lunar cycles.
Why Buy Lindzen’s QBO Theory Despite His Climate Denialism?
The QBO hypothesis has stood up to decades of observational data and theoretical refinement by the broader scientific community. The merits of Lindzen’s contributions in this area rest on empirical validation, not his personal beliefs about climate change.
However, skepticism towards Lindzen’s broader scientific claims, especially those unrelated to atmospheric dynamics, is warranted, given his tendency toward contrarian positions without strong empirical support.
Indeed. So now my response to Paul Pukite is: “Thanks for raising this perspective, Paul. It’s true that Lindzen’s controversial climate stance raises questions about his reliability on other topics. That said, the wave-driven QBO hypothesis has been extensively tested and remains central to understanding the phenomenon, even as alternative explanations like lunar forcing gain attention. Fresh insights like yours could help resolve the gaps in understanding, particularly the deviations observed in recent years. I’d love to see how your quantitative matches hold up under further scrutiny.”
Dharma, Why are you replying with obvious ChatGPT responses? Statistically, any LLM responses will support the consensus and so will not produce an emergent finding outside of that realm.
At best, one can use ChatGPT as an an inductive or deductive tool, applying to pure logic or validated knowledge such as working software or algorithms.
Here is an example. How would you respond to the following two geophysics puzzles:
The SAO is to the solar nodal cycle, as
the QBO is to the ____ nodal cycle.
The annual wobble is to the solar nodal cycle, as
the Chandler wobble is to the ____ nodal cycle.
Fill in the blanks, really not that hard. ChatGPT will give an answer, because logically the possibilities are limited.
“ Gish gallop”
Links to what I’ve stated before, and quotes from various scientific articles, some math, etc.
“Patrick will first need to refute this argument, which is based on fundamental geometry.”
Well, I would, woundn’t I. (And I did.)
The Earth rotates once per just under 24 h, and nearly/roughly as fast relative to the direction to the Sun, the direction of Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity), the direction to the Moon, to the nodes and Moon’s orbit, and to the periapses of both orbits involved; this is many times faster than any of the months or years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon#Lunar_periods . And Earth’s axial tilt is several times that of the inclination of the Moon’s orbit (both measured relative to the ecliptic/ Earth’s orbital plane or its normal (axial tilt relative to ‘axis of orbit’). Therefore:
Aside from the effects of longitudinal dependence of features on Earth, even the semidiurnal and diurnal tides (the forcing of them – ie the perturbations of the gravitational field, not counting feedback from the tides) could be considered zonal-wavenumber 0 (taken over the course of ~ a day),
and certainly the amplitude modulation of them,
as well as the zonally-symmetric tides: the cycles over the anomalistic month and year (cycles of distance), and over the cycle in solar declination (tropical year) and variations lunar declination –
which is dominated by the tropical monthly cycle,
with a contribution from the draconic monthly cycle, are all longitudinally invariant in principle. You may be confusing longitude of the rotating Earth with a celestial coordinate. If the tropical monthly cycle is not longitudinally invariant, neither is the draconic monthly cycle. Or please explain how it could be otherwise (a near rational ratio (to Earth’s rotation period WRT the Moon) for one and not the other?).
And there are a spectrum of waves that drive the QBO. (Offhand, I’m not sure any are zonal-wavenumber 0).
I actually would expect tidal torques to add something to the Chandler wobble, but I would think one could try modelling this with the physics and some parameterizations of the visco-elastic and fluid effects.
Thank you to Dharma https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827595 (I didn’t expect I’d be saying that) for addressing the ad hom/argument from lack of authority regarding Lindzen/Dunkerton – there have certainly been other scientists involved as well as science itself.
Dharma: Pushing Lindzen on the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ seriously undermines your support of a number of credible scientists like Kevin Anderson (no relation).
https://www.desmog.com/2015/04/28/time-when-nasa-climate-scientist-was-against-climate-denier-richard-lindzen/
https://www.desmog.com/richard-lindzen/
You might also look up the Cato Institute. It is my understanding that Lindzen did some decent science for which he was hired by MIT. He then proceeded to join with other fake skeptics to discredit real science.
Being sour about not getting enough attention is no excuse for pushing fake skepticism, nor for attacking the vast reams of real science and scientists.
Now I think it’s likely you will attack me and because I said this in advance you might try to avoid using insult as argument and might even avoid the more nasty descriptors that are your habit in attack. There is nothing in the above that is abusive or incorrect, so don’t bother.
Patrick O 27,
Wow. You certainly have been brainwashed well. The problem with geophysics is that no controlled experiments are possible. One can’t create a lab experiment with a mini-moon gravitationally attracted to a mini-earth and the mini-earth orbiting a mini-sun and control the parameters.
Yet, one can do that with equivalent electromagnetic forces with spinning orbs and controlled EM forcing. In that case, you will find that an oblate magnetized spheroid will wobble related to the draconic (nodal) period, and not the tropical period when configured similarly to the Earth-Moon-Sun orbital system. This can be confirmed by experiment and is the same group symmetry argument I use above https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827479. However in geophysics, lacking a controlled experiment and given the agreement to what is predicted and what is observed in the Chandler wobble period, this is the best that we can do — observe what is happening and cross-validate to predictions.
The same can be done with toroidal magnetic fluxes encircling an orb, which is the E-M equivalent to the QBO . The fluxes will only uniformly (longitudinally wavenumber=0) modulate or reverse with forces of a specific group symmetry. It will not respond to tropical cycle (which would break SO(2) longitudinal symmetry), but only to an equivalent draconic (nodal) cycle. Same result as with the Chandler wobble. Again, lacking a controlled experiment and given the agreement to what is predicted and what is observed in the QBO period, this is the best that we can do — observe what is happening and cross-validate to predictions.
So if you want to debunk this, and once again you are free to try via PubPeer.com, you will need to falsify the EXACT quantitative agreements with predictions along with negating the group symmetry arguments, and invalidate the emulated experiments with analogous electro-magnetic configurations of your own. I wonder if you Patrick are up to the task, or should it be some budding graduate student that’s curious?
And the argument that “If this is such a good idea, why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?” won’t cut it either. It never has. I gave you my interpretation of why those circumstances never occurred and gave you the questionable thought process of Richard Lindzen. Fortunately, that’s not my problem.
Piotr: “Nobody is discussing your physics models, I challenged your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could save countless lives”. After failing to prove so, and not having the balls to admit it – your tried to get out on semantics: claiming that by “countless” you didn’t mean saving a “very large number” of lives, but an … “unknowable number”, i.e. maybe many, maybe few.” ”
Paul Pukite sees the above, quotes the beginning and then proceeds to … explain his physical model:
“ Top to bottom, every dynamical geophysical process on the Earth responds to the gravitational torque of the moon and the gravitational torque and unequal heating provided by the sun. etc. etc. etc. ‘
Can you read, Mr. Pukite?
How much do you think a funding agency would be willing to pay for research leading to a unified model of natural climate change, given that a proposal claims to explain El Nino, AMO, QBO, MJO. and other climate indices?
This includes a guarantee that the research would pan out. Would the US gov’t offer up $1M, $100M ?
What’s the worth of such a model? It’s kind of an inane thing to do, but ask the question to ChatGPT. The upper end may not be far off. It’s actual worth is probably unlimited, if it was as predictive as promised.
– Piotr: “Nobody is discussing your physics models, I challenged your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could save countless lives”.
– Paul Pukite sees quotes the beginning and then proceeds to … explain his physical model:
“ Top to bottom, every dynamical geophysical process on the Earth responds to the gravitational torque of the moon and the gravitational torque and unequal heating provided by the sun. etc. etc. etc. ‘
-Piotr: “Can you read, Mr. Pukite?” (“Nobody is discussing your physics models”)
– Paul Pukite: “ How much do you think a funding agency would be willing to pay for research leading to a unified model of natural climate change?”
Still haven’t learn to read? Nobody is discussing how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for your physical model. The discussion is about your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “ could SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES”
And to that subject you referred to when you included the “countless, indeed” in a an unrelated discussion: PP Nov. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”:
And true to the form – your NEED to be right at any cost (even though nobody would have thought less of you, if in the original discussion 3 yrs ago you just admitted that you overstated your case) – made you blind to the fact that you in reviving the old discussion you have shot yourself in the foot: your _original_ defense was based on saying that you use word COUNTLESS as NOT meaning “very many”, a claim that your Nov.6 2024 line directly disproves.
Unless you wanted to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to establish (your _alternative_ meaning of “countless”) whether “very many” of Ukrainians indeed have suffered as a result of this war.
A unified model of natural climate variability that successfully explains phenomena like El Niño, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) would indeed be groundbreaking. Such a model could improve climate predictions, help manage the impacts of extreme weather, and support long-term climate resilience strategies.
Estimated Funding Scope
$1-10 Million: Small to medium funding for exploratory or proof-of-concept stages, often seen in government research grants. Agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) might invest this amount for preliminary research that shows strong potential.
$10-50 Million: For research with well-defined objectives and evidence of feasibility, larger grants could come from agencies such as the Department of Energy (DOE), NOAA, or international bodies like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This level of funding supports collaborative efforts across multiple institutions and extensive data collection, modeling, and analysis.
$50-100 Million: If the model has passed early validation stages and can be scaled, this level of funding would be plausible for a highly impactful, collaborative project. Such an investment could support a major national research center or even a joint effort across global agencies, with the involvement of climate scientists, data scientists, and computational resources.
$100 Million+: A project with a “guarantee” of success (assuming this is feasible and demonstrable) and the potential to transform global climate science might attract upwards of $100 million, especially if it also enables significant economic benefits. Given the critical impact of climate-related events on agriculture, infrastructure, and public health, an investment of this magnitude might be within reach if the proposal could also support actionable policies.
Determining the Worth of Such a Model
The value of a unified climate variability model is substantial. Enhanced prediction accuracy for natural climate patterns could provide benefits such as:
Economic Savings: Improved forecasts for agriculture, energy, and water management could save billions annually.
Disaster Preparedness: Better understanding of phenomena like El Niño would enable more accurate early warnings for extreme weather, reducing disaster response costs and saving lives.
Scientific Advancement: A unified model would be a major milestone, potentially accelerating other research fields (e.g., oceanography, meteorology) and fostering innovations in data analytics and computational methods.
While exact valuation is complex, considering the scale of benefits in climate prediction, economic stability, and disaster management, a successful model could indeed justify funding of $100 million or more over a multi-year period.
regarding: and saving lives.
I did not give a number of how many lives could be saved because it is uncountable!
That lives would be saved by such a new and successful Climate Science Model as described is logically indisputable at face value.
Piotr:
Well, apparently you are ;) It’s a moot question anyways, since the model is in the can. Be foolish to pay for something already completed.
The rule for funding agencies, is that its easier for them to spend millions of $$$ on a crap-shoot proposal, than to look at something laid at their feet. I’ve had direct experience with RFP bids marked high simply because a lower bid would not be considered “serious:”.
Alas, the next 4 years will be tough times for USA science agencies.
Darma: A unified model of natural climate variability would indeed be groundbreaking.
and still irrelevant to the subject of the discussion you are joining in – the original claim by Paul Pukite that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “could SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES”. The claim he couldn’t defend 3 years ago, and unhappy with that, tried to relitigate it now, using as jump off point – his …. grieving for the people of Ukraine and Baltics.
Piotr is complaining about something I wrote on this blog’s commenting section 3 years ago, yet this is what I wrote in the book Mathematical Geoenergy published by Wiley/AGU in late 2018
The book contains a geophysical fluid dynamics (GFD) model that has been applied to mapping the detailed characteristics of the ENSO time-series. What I did a few days was reinforce the idea that there are unifying elements to the model that extend to several other geophysical and GFD behaviors : https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
I’m always happy to discuss the ideas here, and welcome any criticisms via http://PubPeer.com which exists for just that reason. And if anyone wants to add to the countless criticisms to my use of the modifier “countless” in a blog comment, sure, you can do that here too. Bullying doesn’t work though.
Paul Pukite: “ Piotr: “Nobody is discussing how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for your physical model. “ “Well, apparently you are ;) ”
Read the next sentence:
P: “[model. ] The discussion is about your claim that a better prediction of the timing of the next El Nino “ could SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES”
See? And if you didn’t get it, how about the next sentences that followed that one:
P: “And to that subject you referred to when you included the “countless, indeed” in a an unrelated discussion: PP Nov. 6: “ I grieve for the people of Ukraine, [and] the Baltics. Countless, indeed.”:
And true to the form – your NEED to be right at any cost (even though nobody would have thought less of you, if in the original discussion 3 yrs ago you just admitted that you overstated your case) – made you blind to the fact that you in reviving the old discussion you have shot yourself in the foot: your _original_ defense was based on saying that you use word COUNTLESS as NOT meaning “very many”, a claim that your Nov.6 2024 line directly disproves.====
So you …. read the above – and, what, think to yourself:
“A ha! He is writing about how much a funding agency would be willing to pay for my physical model! Oh golly, I got him! Now, all I need is to cleverly point it out, Hmm, how about:: Well, apparently you are ;) ” See my smile – I wouldn’t be smiling, if I weren’t 100% right, now would I?” ?
Paul Pukite “Piotr is complaining about something I wrote on this [blog]
complaining? Nah, holding you to account.
PP: 3 years ago, yet this is what I wrote in the book Mathematical Geoenergy published by Wiley/ AGU in late 2018.
Which does not prove your claim about “saving countless lives” either. And the best proof that it doesn’t – it is in what YOU did in 2021 – you DIDN’T call onto your 2018 paper, but INSTEAD you tried to lower the bar of the proof – by lecturing the readers of RC than when one promotes the importance of one’s research area by saying it could “save countless lives“- then it should be obvious to the reader that this research is important NOT because it could save a HUGE number of lives, but it it is important because its effects …. can not be quantified. ;-)
And you thought people here are so dense that they would swallow such an absurd claim ?
Darma: 11 Nov a successful model could indeed justify funding of $100 million or more over a multi-year period. regarding: and saving lives. I did not give a number of how many lives could be saved because it is uncountable!
Let’s see – we have two identical proposals, proposing shifting the research funding from the AGW to ENSO, and to justify this massive switch – both of them promise that a better prediction of the time of the next El Nino “could COUNTLESS LIVES”.
Now which of the two has a better chance to get the funding –
a) that one that sells saving “too numerous lives to be counted : myriad, many”
b) or the one that sells the … “unknowability of the life-saving effect – maybe many, maybe few, maybe none at all”.
Paul Pukite started with a), but after failing in his initial attempt to offer a plausible pathway toward a), retreated to b),
And now Darma, pretending to be on Paul’s side, reminds everybody the absurdity of Paul’s claim, implying that if it were for Darma – he would have given Paul $100 mln or more for the study which main selling point was the … inability to quantify the number of lives it promised it could save:
Darma: “ a successful model could indeed justify funding of $100 million or more […] I did not give a number of how many lives could be saved because it is uncountable!
To borrow from an oceanographic classic: “ With fronds like these who needs anemones!“
Piotr
It’s important for you and others to appreciate that a predictive model of ENSO (if it exists) could aid in saving countless lives world-wide.
Consider another hypothetical case — that if Hillary Clinton had been president instead of Trump at the start of the pandemic, her actions (had they existed) could have aided in saving countless lives.
You’re never going to win this argument Piotr, and I suggest you stop digging that hole.
Here are some other Earth science models that I’ve developed that may or may not save lives
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
Yay and hurrah to research advancements! No matter how much you try, you can’t impede the scientific train from moving forward.
A thorough informative article comparing the current positions and anticipated/announced future policies on climate change of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump:
.
https://www.factcheck.org/2024/11/harris-vs-trump-on-climate-change/
.
.
The choice could hardly be more stark!
My wife and I voted early (took in our ballots to the County Office building in Pittsburgh), and we voted the straight Democratic ticket. I urge everyone voting today to vote Democratic. If Trump and the “drill, baby, drill” crowd get in the future is even bleaker than it is already.
As things stand now, a little past midnight (EST), it appears likely that the veil of anti-science thought will fall upon the federal government of the country I love.
This will not be a simple rerun of his first term. It will be so much worse this time. There will be little to no adults as before to help curb his inclinations. The damage that will now happen will last longer than the next four years.
The Senate is gone (which everyone expected), leaving only the House as a potential firewall if the D’s can somehow pickup six or more seats to regain control (currently D’s are +2). Maybe in the long run it is best if R’s maintain House control. With control of both Executive and Legislative branches, there will be no escaping accountability for all the pain that is going to be felt by so many Americans in so many ways by the time 2026 & 2028 come.
But tonight, just on the climate front, I want to express my thanks and warmest wishes to the men and women at NOAA, NASA, and other parts of the government who work so hard to research climate change and try to educate the public on what mankind is doing to our planet.
You don’t deserve what is coming.
Indeed.
But
“…there will be no escaping accountability for all the pain that is going to be felt by so many Americans in so many ways by the time 2026 & 2028 come…”
Escaping accountability is how the system was gamed in the first place. That’s not likely to change. What the system will even look like in a couple of years?
Hopefully NOAA, NASA and the rest have been preparing for this event, the likes of Buzz Aldrin aside.
“Hopefully NOAA, NASA and the rest have been preparing for this event, the likes of Buzz Aldrin aside.” – Radge Havers
Project 2025 defunds the NOAA.
It is bleak.
Fact-checking what Project 2025 says about the National Weather Service and NOAA
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-project-2025-says-about-the-national-weather-service-and-noaa
While PBS ‘fact check” rates the claims about Project 2025 as- “We rate this statement Half True.”
I wonder which half? (smile)
And despite the article also verifying “Trump has disavowed (Project 2025)”
But of course Trump always lies, right? So nothing he says should be believed. Right? Unless you choose to or want to believe it. Meanwhile ‘the people’ have voted for their ‘representatives’ in Government. Kamala Harris and the Democrats have lost.
So if you believe Project 2025 “does” represent Trump’s promised policy’s he took to the election then clearly he has an overwhelming huge mandate from the people to do what Project 2025 presented in 900+ pages of text. Right?
Which way do you want this to be? (smile)
Project 2025 is not Trump’s agenda. Here is his agenda:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform
Our nation will have a greater chance at success if voters are informed.
Darma: “ So if you believe Project 2025 “does” represent Trump’s promised policy’s he took to the election then clearly he has an overwhelming huge mandate from the people to do what Project 2025 presented in 900+ pages of text. Right? (smile)
Because all those who voted for Trump have done so after reading that 900+ pages of text. Right? (smile)
Darma: “ despite the article also verifying “Trump has disavowed (Project 2025)” But of course Trump always lies, right? So nothing he says should be believed. Right?”
See also:
“Mr. Know It All: “ Project 2025 is not Trump’s agenda. Here is his agenda: https://www.donaldjtrump.com Our nation will have a greater chance at success if voters are informed.”
So again – not far from a doomer to a denier, not far at all. Les extremes se touchent.
A major thank you to the good folks at Skeptical Science (SkS) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School for the creation of a large resource tackling “solution denial.” Consisting of 33 individual intermediate level rebuttals, it is quite informative and, I think, very useful.
With the ongoing extensive discussions here involving a number of commentators on various aspects of renewables, maybe this can add something. The link to the SkS article is:
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https://skepticalscience.com/rebutting-33-false-claims-about-solar-wind-ev.html
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I forgot to add a link to The Sabine Center in my comment directly above:
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https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/sabin_climate_change/
Comments?
Rapid shift in methane carbon isotopes suggests microbial emissions drove record high atmospheric methane growth in 2020–2022
Abstract:
“The growth rate of the atmospheric abundance of methane (CH4) reached a record high of 15.4 ppb yr−1 between 2020 and 2022, but the mechanisms driving the accelerated CH4 growth have so far been unclear. In this work, we use measurements of the 13C:12C ratio of CH4 (expressed as δ13CCH4) from NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network and a box model to investigate potential drivers for the rapid CH4 growth. These measurements show that the record-high CH4 growth in 2020–2022 was accompanied by a sharp decline in δ13CCH4, indicating that the increase in CH4 abundance was mainly driven by increased emissions from microbial sources such as wetlands, waste, and agriculture. We use our box model to reject increasing fossil fuel emissions or decreasing hydroxyl radical sink as the dominant driver for increasing global methane abundance.”
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411212121
What drove the very high microbial emissions of methane between 2020 and 2022?
An excellent question. The unusually high levels of methane emissions from microbial sources between 2020 and 2022 were likely influenced by a combination of natural and climate-driven factors. Here are some key contributors identified by scientists:
Rising Global Temperatures: As global temperatures increase, wetlands—major sources of microbial methane—become warmer and often wetter. Higher temperatures accelerate the metabolism of methanogenic microbes, which produce methane in anaerobic (low-oxygen) conditions typical of these environments. This climate feedback loop makes wetlands more productive in methane release.
Enhanced Wetland Extent and Activity: Many regions experienced unusual weather patterns during this period, such as heavy rainfall and flooding in areas that contribute to large wetland expansions. For example, parts of the tropics, including South America, saw conditions that temporarily expanded wetland areas, providing more habitat for methane-emitting microbes.
Decreased Methane Destruction: Methane removal from the atmosphere depends heavily on the hydroxyl radical (OH), which is responsible for breaking down methane. There are indications that OH levels might have decreased slightly during these years, leading to longer methane lifetimes in the atmosphere and contributing to an accumulation effect.
Changes in Tropical and Arctic Wetlands: The tropics and the Arctic have both shown notable increases in methane emissions due to microbial activity. In the Arctic, thawing permafrost has led to more wetland formation, increasing methane production as microbial communities respond to warmer and wetter soils.
Fewer Anthropogenic Reductions Due to the Pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced industrial activity and emissions of certain pollutants, but the impact on methane emissions was complex. In some cases, reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which influence OH levels, might have indirectly affected methane concentrations by altering the atmospheric processes that remove methane.
The combined impact of these factors has likely contributed to the recent observed spike in atmospheric methane from natural, microbial sources. This period of high emissions underlines the importance of wetland dynamics in climate feedback processes, as methane is a potent greenhouse gas with significant warming potential.
I wonder what JCM knows or thinks about this given his expertise in the field of wetlands and so on?
Secular Animist,
The 2020-22 annual CH4 growth rates were high, in excess of the rates back in the 1980s when the good old FF industry was happily spewing CH4 into the atmosphere with gay abandon. But this rate is also greatly affected by ENSO. Thus the NOAA numbers show the annual increases in global CH4 levels running (June-to-previous-June ppb/y):-
2013 … … +8
2014 … … +10
2015 … … +9
2016 … … +11
2017 … … +5
2018 … … +9
2019 … … +7
2020 … … +13
2021 … … +17
2022 … … +17
2023 … … +11
2024 … … +6
The ENSO wobbles make calculating a ratio ΔCH4-to-ΔSAT a bit rough but it looks something like 250ppb/ºC. That would imply, with ΔSAT running at, say +0.025ºC/y, the underling ΔCH4 = +6.8/y. This data could easily be hiding an acceleration in natural CH4 emissions/ΔSAT, hidden by both to the wobbles and the potential for wobbles in other sources and the sink.
The paper you reference, Michel et al (2024)might shed some light on that.
This paper is smoothing out the CH4 wobbles but also giving the wobbly annual growth rates. They are more interested in the mechanism driving of these changing growth rates. They are not able to point a finger at geographical location or type of material, just that the increase is microbial and not FF emissions or a bunged up CH4 sink mechanism.
This study annoys me far more than others that are so flawed in their design and intent and their promotional public pronouncements. So I decided to add a further comment.
https://theconversation.com/earths-climate-will-keep-changing-long-after-humanity-hits-net-zero-emissions-our-research-shows-why-241692
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1353/2024/
The study operates on an unrealistic assumption where CO₂ emissions are cut to net-zero instantly, and the climate then continues to evolve as if other greenhouse gases (such as methane) and cooling aerosols were frozen at 1850 levels for the next 1,000 years. This isn’t just highly speculative; it’s practically impossible. The authors themselves admit that this scenario is “not plausible,” yet they proceed with predictions based on this hypothetical setup.
Moreover, there’s currently no evidence that achieving a true net-zero emissions scenario on this scale is even feasible, let alone instantly. Yet the study’s simulations project this assumption across several target years—2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, 2050, 2055, and 2060—referring to each as an “NZ” (Net Zero) scenario, with each year representing an imagined point of complete emission cessation.
Because these models are based on scenarios that cannot occur in reality, the outputs don’t reflect actual possibilities. For instance, projecting that Melbourne might warm by 1°C post-net-zero by these simulated dates offers a misleading sense of predictability and feasibility. Instead of grounded scientific forecasting, this study becomes more of a “thought experiment” with limited relevance to real-world climate policymaking.
In short, these scenarios are built on hypothetical models without real-world constraints, leading to results that fall into the category of “garbage in, garbage out.” While such hypothetical modeling can sometimes help in academic exercises or speculative “thought experiments,” presenting these results as actual potential futures risks misleading the public and policymakers alike.
In fact they already do mislead readers via their Conversation article. The people of the world deserve better than this.
Sabine’s at it again, bad girl, bad! Science is failing – call the fire brigade! And you will
have no idea what they’re talking, you’ll think it’s just over your head, so better not ask.
I want to strongly encourage you: please do ask. As them what it’s good for. Ask
them what we’ve learn from it. Ask them what we can do with it. Ask them why
your taxes should pay for them producing papers. I think they owe you an answer.
I get hate mail every time I talk about this. Some scientists don’t want me to mention this because,
they say, it fuels the fires of science deniers. It does. But that’s because science deniers are
right when they say that academia has a big problem. Ignoring this problem won’t make
it go away. We need to talk about it. And we need to do something about it.
And it should give you a pause that scientists and certain YouTubers don’t want me to talk
about this. Because they’re causing a lot of pressure on other scientists to toe the party
line. I don’t give a shit what others want me to say, or not say as it were, but then
again I also eat instant coffee powder with a spoon, so maybe I’m not a good sample group.
To come back to the issue of my videos sometimes lacking nuance, which is true. I’ve talked about
these problems with academia literally hundreds of times in seminars, and public lectures,
and podcasts. I’ve done interviews, I’ve written about it, and of course
I have done videos myself. And sometimes, you know. I just get tired of repeating myself.
This channel is basically my living room, and you are all my family. Indeed, if I record videos,
I like to imagine I’m talking to my brother. My brother’s an engineer and a big nerd,
and he’s usually interested in what I say, or at least he’s good at pretending
he is. So basically I think of all of you as my brothers and sisters.
Of course I rationally know that you aren’t actually all my siblings. Unless
there’s something my parents didn’t tell me. But this is why, in videos on my own
channel, I often don’t repeat what I’ve already said a dozen times before. I find it boring and
I’m afraid you will find it boring too. It doesn’t help that I try to ignore how
much this channel has grown because I find it psychologically difficult to sit
in front of a camera knowing that some nine hundred thousand people might watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQVF0Yu7X24
I’m not sure about the physics but I give an A+ for her self-deprecating humour.
Dharma,
And the relevance of that Sabine Hossenfelder YouTube to climate science is?
If you are going to spew stuff in here at RC from your nerdy trawling of the inerweb, at least make sue it has some relevance to climatology. (Sabine Hossenfelder’s YouTubing has made a couple of forays into criticism of climatology although more in the vein of “Look! Weird numbers!!” than serious comment.)
Reply to MA Rodger
I cannot explain everything. Nor answer every question posed, so I ignore almost all of them. Maybe you will have to put it down to one of life’s mysteries.
Or lean on Sabine who had a good response that more or less fits: (from above text) “I don’t give a shit what others want me to say, or not say as it were, but then again I also eat instant coffee powder with a spoon, so maybe I’m not a good sample group.”
MA Rodger: She’s not altogether terrible, but she makes her living there and being critical in a sciencey way while ignoring large amounts of material gets a lot of approval from people who wish to claim scientists aren’t honest. It encourages far too many gullible people to believe they don’t need to accept vast reams of science (largely pursued with rigor) because she claims it’s biased. She doesn’t take into account the quantity of material which often has long since covered her material for complaint.
Please also note she includes sales talk for her book and her platform. I’m sympathetic with her struggles with male-based academia, which are real, but I wish she wouldn’t be so ready to condemn science.
—
Will Happer, by the way (not related to Sabine H), is a guy who is driven by resentment. He’s right to be annoyed with prejudice, but wrong to try to use science to discredit the pursuit of science.
Akshully, it is related. Because having a legitimate axe to grind is no reason to try to uproot dedicated scientific endeavor. In the age of Trump, replacing expertise will be a problem, and we will all suffer. We need to acknowledge the genuine pursuit of knowledge rather than joining people who wish to throw it out root and branch.
Sabine is a very good communicator and is using her poorer experiences of academia, which include only a tiny subset of science as a whole, to discredit all of science and scientists. This provides ammunition for denialists and the anti-intellectual subset of society to challenge and/or ignore anything scientists say that they don’t like, and therefore puts a ball and chain around the ankles of progress. This includes climate change but extends to things like COVID and vaccines, where ignoring the scientific evidence can be deadly. The relevance is that Sabine and people like her are very effective at fueling climate change denial, and climate scientists need to acknowledge this and think of ways to counter it, ignoring/dismissing it won’t make it go away.
The whole thing is concerning for me as it seems there is a substantial subset of current human civilisation that wants to drag us back hundreds of years when religion, not logic, was used to explain the world around us.
Religion is not the only source of distorted thinking. And religion and logic are not opposites.
You were doing well until you brought your religious prejudices into it.
BPL, replace “religion” with “science” in Adam’s last paragraph and it should make more sense.
Yes, it is not religion per se but ‘vaporized religion’ that is the problem (as Darth Nedious alerted us); indeed, even atheism has a nonzero vapor pressure.
‘vaporized’ religion: John Hagee, Jerry Falwell
‘condensed’ religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barber_II
‘vaporized’ atheism: Richard Dawkins
‘condensed’ atheism: Rebecca Watson
https://skepchick.org/2024/04/richard-dawkins-cultural-christian-or-supremacist-bigot/
(done)
1) I wonder if the brilliant Greens will tell us we need to buy milllions more Teslas to transition away from the ICE. Thereby giving Elon Musk $billions more to spend on electing Trump. Although millions of blue collar workers enraged at $60,000 Ford pickups might not need much urging from Elon.
2) I keep telling you people — there is a lot more to the energy transition than just climate science. A person may be brilliant in his chosen field -=- yet be ignorant of many inportant factors that affect political feasibility and popular support. A political faction which ignores the misery of the workers gets what coming to it in a democratic election.
3) If the Greens really think that climate change is a lethal threat then why are they indifferent to the rising conflict among the major powers? A conflict that may well make the energy transition infeasible?
The left loved Elon for building Tesla, Starlink, Space-X, etc UNTIL he bought Twitter and made it a fairly free speech platform. Ever since then, they’ve hated him. It’s hilarious to watch. They loved it when THEY controlled the opinions that were allowed to be heard on Twitter. They are all about control of other people’s lives.
If leftists put their energy into producing solutions to AGW that people wanted, they might be able to make a dent in the problem. They don’t. Instead they propose taking away our gas stoves, gas vehicles, etc and basically mandating how we live. People get tired of that. They need to do like Elon and Trump – create a product people are willing to pay for voluntarily.
KIA: Instead they propose taking away our gas stoves, gas vehicles, etc and basically mandating how we live.
BPL: Well, they tried to provide market-based solutions such as cap and trade, or a CO2 emissions tax, but your beloved right voted all that down. Regulation was all that was left.
Nope, the only thing that will fix AGW is free market innovation that creates solutions to it that people are willing to pay good money for. Tesla, for example. Maybe that paint that reflects heat so that sunlit surfaces are cooler than ambient temperature.
In some countries, people may be willing to have government mandate solutions, but in the USA we are not ready for that yet.
The good news is that if a smart person creates a good solution, it will also be a big hit around the world. That person will become a trillionaire, and get a Nobel Prize – unless Trump does it – then, he will not get one.
KiA. What a laugh. Tesla is the result not of free markets but of huge government subsidies. Not that subsidies are a bad thing if you want to encourage new tech.
KIA: the only thing that will fix AGW is free market innovation that creates solutions to it that people are willing to pay good money for.
BPL: The market cannot handle externalities. Econ 101.
And counting on a technological breakthrough that hasn’t happened yet is just plain stupid.
And as if that weren’t enough, note all the fossil fuel-backed antagonism toward solutions that we already know will work–wind and solar. Every time a wind farm is proposed, people show up to testify against it–usually the same people, rather than locals.
Kevin Anderson was recently recorded answering three questions:
1) Why are we facing a climate emergency?
2) Are scientists transparent when reporting results on climate change?
3) Will the commitments about carbon emissions be enough?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpHVNOes5_Q
(<10 mins)
A new contribution by Jason Hickel
@jasonhickel Nov 4 NEW PAPER:
Climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate large inequalities between global North and South. But theories used to "justify" inequalities do not hold when scaled internationally. In fact, scaling up makes arguments for egalitarianism stronger!
Large inequalities in climate mitigation scenarios are not supported by theories of distributive justice
Abstract
Existing global climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate large inequalities in energy and income between countries and regions for the rest of the century, and modellers have recently begun to assess these dynamics in light of distributive justice theories. However, these theories are intended to describe inequalities within nations and cannot straightforwardly be applied to inequalities between nations or world regions. Indeed, an analysis of key distributive justice theories suggests that, in contexts of international or interregional inequalities, moral justifications for inequality cannot be sustained, while arguments in favour of egalitarianism become stronger.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629624004043
OpenAccess
https://youtu.be/6ipKY5xqiec?si=Sn6ZyG8orpCo0I1w
not all bad especially within the EU countries. However as emissions are falling in the Europe it makes you wonder how emissions for the moment are still rising globally ?
Plenty of technology to come though and what is available can be accelerated: EV, Semi trucks, HVDC wind and connectivity across Europe, Smart Gridsm using your car bidirectionally, heat pumps and more.
Reply to Pete Best
“However as emissions are falling in the Europe it makes you wonder how emissions for the moment are still rising globally ?”
It doesn’t make me wonder. The reasons (and data) are obvious and clear.
Yup, probably China, India, etc.
Well well well, now what? All the takes about the result are correct and yet they also miss the larger point.
Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this. But we’re used to it because they have been like these for decades since the Clintons gutted the party of all progressive elements.
But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that American liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.
Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even *basic* steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee – things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance banking strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.
Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation of wealth, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.
The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of “mistake” but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.
And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time – this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Bernie Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class elites here) don’t really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter also ensure the conditions for more capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative that helps everyday people across the nation or the world.
So, pseudo-progressives have to face reality. The dream of “converting” the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force that truly represents working class people and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
But it won’t begin. Because this is America. We don’t do that here. We lie to ourselves instead.
And when you thought they can’t be any MORE deluded, comes that:
Ubiquitous D. Nov. 6 Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest
As opposed to a … soulful Trump, who would never “ belittle and crush those who have enough morality to protest ” ?
I can already see Trump, who attacked Harris for not supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza enough, who : declared himself “ The ‘most pro-Israel’ US president ever” – will stop the genocide carried out by his good friend Netanyahu. And I can see how he stops his idol in Moscow, whose starting the war on Ukraine, that already did cost 100,000s of lives, Trump described as a “genius” and “savvy” move, and tried to shine by association with that genius, adding that he “knows him very well”.
And this is the guy, who vowed that America will never forget the sacrifice of “tens of thousands” of Kurds lost in the fight with common enemy – the genocidal Islamic State, only a year later to turn
around and leave the same Kurds at the mercy of their mortal enemy, and justified this betrayal by saying that the Kurds …didn’t help America in Normandy.
Thus making it clear to the entire world how much the friendship and gratitude of the US are worth.
compared to, say, a friendship of Russia and Iran – who went to bat for their ally Assad and won for him the war on his own people. And encouraging war-mongers everywhere with the promise of impunity.
Piotr: Given my other complaint (perhaps too severe), thought I should say I agree with you here. And the idea that Harris was soulless and offered no vision is just blind. Given the constraints under which she operated (including doubling down on lies, extreme threats and wild promises by T, and being VP to Biden) she did well. The biggest problem was how many won’t listen to a woman.
Reply to Dharma
U.S. Election Commentary (revised)
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151262470
If you want to know why Democrats lost, that ain’t the place to go. He claims that Harris wasn’t progressive enough. So they voted for Trump instead? Nope. They didn’t vote for Jill Stein in great numbers either. Trump’s policies are what more people wanted, not more progressive policies. Duh!
I’ve lurked here since this site came on line. I have no science expertise so I don’t post. But I just couldn’t resist.
MKA, Can you believe that the majority of voters believed that tariffs are paid by China and other nations that export? Doesn’t it seem likely that Trump somehow got through the Wharton School of Economics by shady means? Anyone who took high school economics learned how tariffs worked. He sold them on the idea that they believe Haitians in Springfield< Ohio are eating people's pets?
The Friday before the election the Monthly jobs report showed that 12K jobs were created in October. Later in the day Trump said, "Kamala Harris just had the worst jobs report in history." In fact the worst jobs report was April 2020 when the economy lost 3.5 million jobs.
Donald Trump was masterful and getting low information voters who never voted to turn out because the biggest issue was owning the libs. They forgot or didn't care what a catastrophe his first administration was.
When Obama came to office he faced economic hurricane force winds. The auto industry was comatose nearly dead on the floor. The banks weren't lending and the consumers weren't spending. The Republican prescription was for government of quit spending as well. In addition Bush (The second worst president in history) handed the new president a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit as he went out the door. The administration got a floor under our sinking economy which produced 127 consecutive months of economic expansion. When he left office Obama gave Trump a whittled down 538 billion dollar deficit.
So Trump comes to office with the economic winds at his back. He ran on ending deficits and upgrading our infrastructure. He did neither! He also said he would cut taxes. He maintained that the cuts would benefit middle-class families and that the rich would actually end up paying more in taxes, because he would eliminate unspecified deductions and loopholes. By Trump's third year he had the deficit back to a trillion, before COVID. When he fumbled the COVID response our economy took a deep dive. In the third quarter of 2020 we lost 30% of our gdp. China with a complete lockdown grew 3%.
So when Trump left office the administration had run up 7.8 trillion in 4 years. We didn't get much for all that spending. Trump was the first president since Hoover to leave with fewer jobs than when he came to office. Were we better off then we had been 4 years earlier?
When Biden came to office he made important investments in America's future. The world inflationary situation saw America doing just about the best. Trump plays up Viktor Orban who's administration had the highest inflation in Europe. Nearly 50% in the same time period as our 20%. But his citizens don't have the ability to express their outrange so much because the government controls the media to such an extent that they've closed down many broadcasters who criticize Orban.
It wasn't the Democrats agenda. It was low information and misinformation. The right wing media protects it's viewers by lying to them. But they want to be lied to. That way they get to own the libs. The fact that our government is going to be run by armatures and grifters. We will squander our greatness.
Good analysis Stranger. Trump lies his way into government. Hard to counter that especially when half the country don’t seem to care.
Biden did well with the economy and kept unemployment low. Recognised by independent experts like The Economist Journal. Not anything he could have done to stop inflation occurring it was a delayed reaction to covid in 2020 but some people can’t understand that.
But the democrats hurt their vote with bad policy ideas like defunding the police and they let in too many immigrants legal and illegal. Puts pressure on infrastructure. Immigration is good but numbers need care. And Harris kept on demonising Trump when it obviously wasn’t winning her votes. Took focus off her policies which were good.
Stranger, your input would be appreciated on the science as well; it sounds like you would ask good actual questions. To me, that’s something missing here.
I’ll just point out re your comment that you are 100% correct about everything; you only missed the fact that for MKA as well, owning the libs is what provides meaning to life. Probably the only thing.
As I keep reminding people, a very large proportion of the population is characterized by Authoritarian psychology. They do not care about anything but having someone “below” them, having more power than someone.
And even lots of folks with science backgrounds can’t accept that, for these individuals, winning by lying and cheating and thuggery is a feature-not-bug. It’s chimps v bonobos, all the way down.
Stranger says: “produced 127 consecutive months of economic expansion.”
Economic expansion of a very high per capita GHG emitter is what is driving global warming faster, higher and cumulatively polluting and destroying the environment, ecosystems and life on the planet.
— “We will squander our greatness.” Seriously?
The correct way to frame this is that Trump is not the cause and Biden was not the solution to America’s deep dysfunctional problems. Whatever “greatness” the American people may have had was squandered long ago. Now you’re collectively rushing head long over the cliff like lemmings and into oblivion. As is the rest of the world as well including China, Europe and everyone else. but not as fast as America is.
Meanwhile it is not only the “right wing media” that is corrupted — the establishment pro-Democrat Corporatist MSM and oligarch-celebrity mega donors “protects” it’s viewers / voters by lying to them 24/7 about everything. The entire edifice is a fraud. Willingly accepted by almost the entire population.
comeuppance
noun
1. a punishment or fate that someone deserves
“A man reaps what he sows.” — So does a nation.
That’s what we need to understand and not continue to be so utterly ignorant and foolish about.
Another very serious intelligent perspective worth considering objectively–that and whether it is Trump, Biden, the US or China, all are driving the world over the cliff with their economic growth madness and political ideologies and irrational myths. Everything connects back to climate change, global warming, energy and elite economics via international geopolitics today (including Ukraine v Russia and nuclear missile deployment and defunct treaties)
by Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand 23h on X
This video is a must-watch. I rarely agree with @brhodes but he’s 100% correct here.
He says he’ll “always be haunted” by a comment that Xi Jinping made to Obama in 2016 when referring to Trump: “If an immature leader throws the world into chaos, the world will know who to blame”.
Why does it haunt him? Because in his words “we’ve kind of been dealing with that ever since”.
He mocks Biden’s foreign policy of trying to restore a “Liberal rules-based order with the U.S. at the center of it” (i.e. U.S. primacy) as “designed for the world that doesn’t exist anymore”. Remember Rhodes was Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, so it’s quite something to hear him say that…
He illustrates this with the contrasting performances of China and the U.S. at APEC in Peru: on one side you had China’s multibillion-dollar port and on the other Blinken’s “few million in diesel engines”. It really illustrates two different worldviews: one stuck in a patronizing past of small-scale ‘aid’, the other focused on serious development partnerships.
In fact when you think about it, Biden and Trump are really two sides of the same coin on foreign policy: their platforms – “Make America Great Again” and “America is Back” – both represent different flavors of nostalgia for a world that structurally cannot exist anymore; we’re in a multipolar world now. As Rhodes says, this leaves the U.S. swinging erratically between two obsolete visions while the rest of the world moves on. The Global South isn’t ‘aligning with China against the West’ as much as it’s choosing predictability and development over chaos and condescension.
He’s right that “there’s opportunity in a rebuild” of America’s foreign policy. In fact there’s no other option, you need to deal with the world as it is: as such the “opportunity” is in adapting, and in not persisting in wishing reality away and fighting windmills
see the rest of this comment and Ben Rhodes video extract here:
https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1859947890371878916#m
He could not be more “liberal democrat / media / think tank / elite establishment”
Benjamin J. Rhodes (born November 14, 1977) is an American writer, a political commentator, and a former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama. With Jake Sullivan, he is the co-chair of National Security Action, a political NGO.[1] He contributes to NBC News and MSNBC regularly as a political commentator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rhodes_(White_House_staffer)
N: they let in too many immigrants legal and illegal.
BPL: I don’t agree. Our social security system depends on there being more workers paying into the system than there are retirees, and at present our worker/retiree ratio is decreasing every year. More immigrants would help. The stuff about them being diseased and criminal is just racist slander (I know you didn’t say any of that, just commenting on the Republican take).
Barton Paul Levenson –
Your American pro-growth social security system and massive immigration levels are increasing the destruction of humanity’s life support system.
Being the world’s largest Oil producer doesn’t help. Nor does all the LNG exports, the tar sands oil pipelines and refining or the Coal mining.
D: Your American pro-growth social security system and massive immigration levels are increasing the destruction of humanity’s life support system.
BPL: No, they aren’t. Stop lying.
Re Dharma: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827231 …
Yes, economic growth without a change in technology or lifestyle or how the economy is defined is a problem. I suppose both major US parties may tend to fall into the trap of believing in growth for the foreseeable future; I’d be curious to see who the exceptions are, if any.
Most people here, I believe, understand that the economy must ultimately have some upper sustainable limit, at least on Earth (and we don’t yet have space elevators or warp drives so…) (and that may shrink with longer time frames (mineral scarcity)) – though there is disagreement on where the limits are. Up to a point, reduced growth or degrowth (as conventionally defined**) could speed the energy transition as we could reduce fossil fuel consumption faster.
(**a wholistic measure of the economy may be held back by pollution and other things and perhaps could conceivably grow with changes in lifestyle even if GDP shrinks in affluent countries.)
Note, though, that simply maintaining wealth or GDP per capita would require growth with immigration a nation (unless balanced by sufficiently low fertility rate + etc.); this would only directly add to global growth via the wealth or GDP per capita of the immigrants. (re https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827324 ) Demographic change (aging) will eventually require some shift in how Social Security is funded; Social Security itself is not necessarily ‘pro-growth’ and in some cases could mitigate incentives for population growth.
I agree many people are holding onto the past (economic growth: an opiate for the masses) ( … https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826828 ). I’ve learned (“Adam Ruins Everything”: “Adam Ruins the Economy”) that historical factors gave U.S. manufacturing an edge over other nations in post-WWII period, but now China has some natural advantages, and a global free market system, in the process of optimization, would favor manufacturing in China to some extent. That being said, 1. don’t put all your eggs in one basket – ie. we should have backup options for when ‘stuff happens’ (Covid, Volcanos, droughts/floods/etc.) and 2. China’s labor policies are not the same as the US; some regulation of trade is for moral/ethical, safety and environmental and social justice/fairness purposes. Also there’s national security. (Of course, the U.S. must import cacao, unfortunately (I’ve had a pipe dream of growing my own in a greenhouse. PS I read that someone discovered a blue-pod variety in the Amazon, but when they went back, that part of the forest had been destroyed. I would have liked to know how it tastes.))
China(‘s government) is also holding onto the past (Taiwan), as is, very much, Emperor Palpatine – I mean Putin (Ukraine – or is it ‘cause the population in the Eastern half is entirely Larry Summers?; …), and also AIUI, India(‘s government) and some variants of some religions… on that last point, the GOP is holding onto the past much more (gender; also race, fossil fuels); Democrats tend to be forward looking in those aspects of life, at least. I’m not so sure Biden’s “America is Back” was intended as an announcement of a return to the 1950s/60s/80s etc. global order. (PS when Obama became POTUS, conservative commentators criticized his ‘apology tour’, as they called it. I don’t remember/know everything but … I tend to think of GOP politicians as being less interested in being fair on an international level eg. Mitch McConnell complaining about Chinese CO2 emissions as if they didn’t have a much larger population, … etc. ( cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827234 )
The U.S. could still be, if not the leader, a leader, in the energy transition, and other good causes and necessary changes, if only enough of my fellow Americans could be so generous and enlightened. Individual states and companies and people/NGOs/etc. in the U.S. might still play an important role.
PS Thank you, Stranger ( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827191 )
patrick o twentyseven says
24 Nov 2024 at 6:33 PM
@ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827388
Hi, and thanks for your comment in response to mine. You said some interesting things, but I’m not quite seeing how they relate to me or my earlier comment. That’s okay, though—maybe you just wanted to share your thoughts, which is totally fine.
But if there was some point you particularly wanted me to get, feel free to restate it. Cheers!
Bernie Sanders Statement on the 2024 Election:
https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1854271157135941698/photo/1 (two pages)
We are not Demigods — who get to decide what is best for the people. simply because we have a PhD, etc. We must convince the people that a program is good for them. And have some humility when doing so.
Otherwise we can lose 4 years. Maybe 8.
“Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it.”
Very few sentences here have ever contained more disgusting lies than that one. Seriously.
D: Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.
BPL: Yes, blame the victim. For you, that’s pretty typical.
Naturally, none of what you say about the Democrats is valid. We’d expect that from you. Doesn’t stop you, though. You’ll always be here to pour salt in the wounds.
BPL to Ubiquitous D: ” Naturally, none of what you say about the Democrats is valid. We’d expect that from you. Doesn’t stop you, though.”
The lower the others, the higher the D(h)arma(h) in comparison.
Dharma, you are so superior I wonder you can bear to live on a planet with us ordinary mortals. Your insults can do harm and are not helping, aside from the simple fact that many of your ;claims are just plain wrong.
I wish you would take people like Kevin Anderson as your model rather than spraying insults in all directions.
We’re all upset, but blaming all Democrats for what Republicans do only helps deniers.
I like the Scandinavian economic model used in countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland. It is based on capitalism but they combine it with several socialist ideas and some government ownership of key services. Its a practical compromise model more than a purist doctrinaire model. Their societies have very good social, economic and environmental data on the whole. Americans seem very suspicious of socialism, and I dont think it works at huge scale, but when applied in a partial form it works well..
Kamala Harris would have easily got my vote if I lived in America. I feel a key reason she lost is she made it about personalities rather than policies. This was a bad move especially given the Democrats are supposed to be “inclusive” and a Party about ideas. We all know Trump is dreadful and anti democratic. Just repeating that wont achieve anything. Trumps policies are mostly really bad This got lost in the discussion about his personality and values.
Nigelj,
If you actually mean “personalities”, you’ve got that backwards.
There’s a lot of punditry going on about why she lost with some good points here and there, but mostly it’s just hot air.
I could go on at great length about how I think we got here and why she lost. I’ll just point out one thing, though, from my personal perspective here in a swing state. She somehow squandered a large chunk of her campaign war chest. I don’t know where it went, but it didn’t go far enough,
Basically her tone was moderate and relatively quiet when compared to Team Trump’s belligerent, loud, relentless hyperbolic character assassination, gaslighting, and lies– all delivered in blunt, simple language. It was demoralizing to potential opponents, and energizing to anyone who finds that sort of thing a sign of strength. I admit that I certainly felt the pressure myself.
That’s the crux, Harris aimed at the adult brain, Trump was yelling at the inner monkey brain. It’s a quirk of evolution that dictators love to exploit.
And speaking of quirks, here’s a snippet of our marketing, infotainment, “reality” sphere to ponder:
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-16/we-created-a-tv-illusion-for-the-apprentice-but-the-real-trump-threatens-america
Smoke and mirrors.
Radge Havers, yes Trump insulted Harris and was far more impolite than Harris. However thats not the point. Harris’s strategy was to PRIORITISE attacks on Trumps personality, such as his danger to democracy and human rights, rather than talk about her policy proposals and Bidens achievements and Trumps dreadful policies.
Many people said that while they didnt like Trump the person and his anti democratic values, their main concern was the economy and policy. So it looks like Harris campaign strategy was wrong, and the election results are on my side.
Thanks for the comments about how Trump appeals to the monkey brain. So true. We call it the back part of the brain or the lizard part of the brain.
Nigel Harris’s strategy was to PRIORITISE attacks on Trumps personality, such as his danger to democracy and human rights, rather than talk about her policy proposals and Bidens achievements and Trumps dreadful policies.
If running against Mussolini – would you prioritize your campaign on criticism of … his economic program?
That said, the may have tried to use facts to question the narrative appealing to perception = like comparing whether other countries facing with the same challenges (COVID, rising global oil prices and war in Ukraine) – have done economically better than US or not.
But whether this would have been effective in the post-truth landscape brought to us by social media – where there are no objective truths, but only opinions weaponizing emotions against facts it’s an open question, In the opinion market – to borrow from Copernicus treatise on the monetary policies – the bad money drives out the good money.
Nigelj,
The reason Harris lost is definitely not monocausal; it’s way more complicated than you may imagine, and it will take a long time to properly dissect and analyze.
That said, the main criticism of Harris’s priorities was the emphasis on abortion (not that other issues weren’t brought up). I’m not seeing how pointing out Trump’s very real threat to Democracy, even if you believe it took up more space than necessary, was about personalities. It’s very much about policies, whatever else gets layered in with that.
A couple of things about the economy. For instance, the NBC exit poll shows that concern over the state of democracy edged out the economy as the top issue.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nbc-news-exit-poll-voters-express-concern-democracy-economy-rcna178602
If I’m not mistaken this represents a shift from what polls were saying prior to the election, which might suggest what you may already suspect, that most people don’t really have a clue about the economy, and that “The Economy” is also a proxy for other things that people are feeling– with the emphasis on “feeling.” I’m not sure you get just how crazy things are on this side of the pond.
Personally I’d like to have seen more about climate change, though I may have to accept that that’s just not a flier with the electorate as a talking point.
Piotr
“If running against Mussolini – would you prioritize your campaign on criticism of … his economic program?”
This is probably an apples and oranges comparison or at least red apples and green apples, because Mussolini was very fascist and locked up his opponents. Trump is fascist leaning, and has threatened to lock up his opponents but is all hot air at this stage. And Americas constitution does limit Trumps powers something that Italy didnt have to the same extent.
I think this is why a lot of people said they dont like Trumps fascist tendencies (or words to that effect) but dont think its an overwhelming concern. Many also said they dont like his fascist tendencies but voted for him anyway because they believed he was better for the economy. (from various media interviews and analyses). They are of course deluded but thats not the point. Of course many LIKE his fascist tendencies but thats his hard core base and perhaps not the swing voters.
Even if I was in Italy opposing Mussolini, I would have focused primarily on policies, because simply pointing out the obvious about his fascism, probably wouldnt be enough to convince people, and its hard to outdo Mussolini in terms of being a fascist monster of a person, so you need other weapons such as better policies and attacks on his policies. Of course you would still also criticise his personal political ideology, but as a seconday thing..
And remember I didnt say Harris should IGNORE Trumps personal tendencies. I just think it should have been a secondary thing and I definitely agree with your previous comments she is better to do that in a polite and rational way than get down in the gutter. I did also point out that Democrats claim to be ‘inclusive’. So openly insulting Trump in rude ways would be hypocritical and very obviously so to the public.
I hate Trumps fascist tendencies, and his bigotry and missinformation etc,etc.. He stands for everything I oppose. However I dont need to consider his personal tendencies too much in my decision making. One look at his policies and thats enough reason not to vote for him. And also the fact he failed last time to fullfill most of his promises. This is another card Harris could have played more strongly, although of course she might get similar criticisms in return, but I still think it was a card worth playing.and she had the better hand.
“That said, the may have tried to use facts to question the narrative appealing to perception = like comparing whether other countries facing with the same challenges (COVID, rising global oil prices and war in Ukraine) – have done economically better than US or not.”
Yes agreed. I suspect her strategists and PR people told her to avoid doing that because its too wordy and complicated for the public to grasp, and not a punchy one line argument like “Trumps anti democratic” and starts to shift focus onto Bidens less than perfect record. Again I think they made a mistake. The argument could have been made quite simply and boldly and Bidens record had some big positives.
Our own Labour Party had a similar election startegy to Harris in that they avoided their record in government because there were some problems and they were criticised and they didnt want to leave themselves open to attack. But there were a lot of positives they could have campaigned on, and they were attacked anyway on their record. They lost the election quite badly. So it looks like their strategy may have been a mistake. Of course I realse there were several reasons they lost,, but I have reasons to believe that particular strategy didnt help.
“But whether this would have been effective in the post-truth landscape brought to us by social media – where there are no objective truths, but only opinions weaponizing emotions against facts it’s an open question, In the opinion market – to borrow from Copernicus treatise on the monetary policies – the bad money drives out the good money.”
Yes thats a real problem. I read your other comments on it.I think we just have to hope its effective and also fight against post truth, lies, missinformation and of course climate denial and hope sanity wins in the end.
Radge Havers
“The reason Harris lost is definitely not monocausal; it’s way more complicated than you may imagine, and it will take a long time to properly dissect and analyze.”
Agreed its not monocausal. I did say that her focus on personal issues was “ONE key factor” in why she lost. . But I think Im right in questioning her strategy of focusing on personality rather than policy. Have now heard a expert say the same.
” I’m not seeing how pointing out Trump’s very real threat to Democracy, even if you believe it took up more space than necessary, was about personalities. It’s very much about policies, whatever else gets layered in with that.”
Maybe personality was a bad choice of words. Its about his personal approach to politics. His ideology if you like. Polices would be a manifestation.
“A couple of things about the economy. For instance, the NBC exit poll shows that concern over the state of democracy edged out the economy as the top issue.”
Thats what people said. But it appears they didnt vote that way. Remember a lot of polls showed Clinton would have easily won.. People said they preferred Clinton but voted Trump. Sadly to say.
“If I’m not mistaken this represents a shift from what polls were saying prior to the election, which might suggest what you may already suspect, that most people don’t really have a clue about the economy, and that “The Economy” is also a proxy for other things that people are feeling>”
Agreed. Politics in America seems to have got so strongly tribal and so focused on leadership qualities and culture wars issues and social issues that people have forgotten what the economy even is, let alone how it really works, thus they cant see the dangers in excessively high tariffs and unfunded tax cuts and silly ideas of deporting millions of people. (Not that I approve of illegal immigration because I dont, and this was the one thing I feel the Democrats were weak on and didnt get right, at least until this year)
“Personally I’d like to have seen more about climate change, though I may have to accept that that’s just not a flier with the electorate as a talking point.”
I would have liked to see Harris talk more about climate change. Its such an important issue and it creates a point of difference with the Republicans and its been a major policy of Biden, and not mentioning it made her look weak or like that they never believed in their own policy.
I can understand why she wouldnt prioritise it in her campaign policies because the main thing on peoples minds right now is cost of living, but she hardly even mentioned climate change at all!. That was unfortunate and may have actually hurt her election chances.
Piotr: “If running against Mussolini – would you prioritize your campaign on criticism of … his economic program?”
Nigel: “This is probably an apples and oranges comparison or at least red apples and green apples, because Mussolini was very fascist and locked up his opponents.”
No analogy is perfect – Mussolini never subjected himself to the election, hence my question was purely hypothetical: “_IF_ running against Mussolini” – would you point to his fascist rhetoric and attacks on democracy – or ask the voters to reject him on his economic program?
If you prefer a better analogy for an narcissistic autocrat, who despite having contempt for democracy got to power as a result of the very democracy he disparaged (election), one who got to power on stoking the resentment against other races, and on promising restoring the nation to its past glory (Make country “X” Great Again!), and who made strict anti-abortion legislations possible – then we could go with JD Vance who wrote that he goes: “ back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon, or that he’s America’s Hitler. ”
In the latter case – if we asked Germans in 1933 why they voted for the Nazi Party, many would blame the previous government for the poor state of the economy (which deteriorated not because of the actions of that previous government but due to international economic crisis started abroad). And they would shrug off Hitler’s anti-Jewish rhetoric as a mere political posturing, something Hitler says, but doesn’t mean, that he just exaggerates as a negotiating tactics, that all the democratic checks and balances won’t let him do what he wants to do, and he would have to settle on something much less extreme.
Furthermore, as some hypothetical author, let’s call him: “Herr Weiß Alles” , could have pointed out:
“ The genocide of the Jews is not Hitler’s agenda. Here is his agenda:
https://www.adolf_hitler.com/platform
Our nation will have a greater chance at success if voters are informed. ”
Indeed, in his 1933 platform, Hitler didn’t call for the Holocaust – at most he mused about … deportation from Germany of the members of the race that didn’t rightfully belong there: those who didn’t share the German values, who took away jobs from the German working class, and who were bringing to Germany nothing but diseases -moral and the real ones (like typhus) ^*.
====
^* compare with : “They’re coming in as terrorists. Many, many terrorists are coming in, and people are coming in with very contagious disease” DJ Trump in an interview with New York radio station WABC.
=====
But all this not to imply that JD Vance was right thinking that Trump is “American Hitler”. You can’t step into the same river twice, and given his advanced age – even IF he wanted – he may not have enough time to so. But there may be the ambitious younger ones, the “mini-me Trumps, for whom power is more important than democracy, and who may use Trump presidency as a jump-off to move the US toward the Russia model – a democracy in the name only, where elections still happen, but nobody has any doubts who will win.
For these reasons, rather than JD Vance’s “American Hitler”, I’d go with Trump being a cross of Idi Amin and Charles Lindbergh (minus the achievements of the latter, of course).
Piotr
“No analogy is perfect – Mussolini never subjected himself to the election, hence my question was purely hypothetical: “_IF_ running against Mussolini” – would you point to his fascist rhetoric and attacks on democracy – or ask the voters to reject him on his economic program?”
Ok I accept all that about analogies, but to answer your question and clarify my view, I would certainly criticise Mussolinis / Trumps fascist rhetoric, but I would ALSO critiicise his economic programme and trumpet my own economic programme. However I would prioritise or lead with the economic policy issues, – and make that the main issue, and strongly criticise his fascism as a secondary thing.
For most people economics and mere survival is more important than syle of leadership or government.
Harris tried the opposite: she attacked Trump primarility on his personal tendencies and policy took second place and it certainly didnt win her the election now did it? It looks like a bad strategy and interviews with Americans tend to support my contention where they essentially said they dont like Trump the person but preferred his policies. Suggesting that if Harris had focused more policy she might have been more persuasive.
Of course Harris lost for several reasons. IMO these include at least the following:
1) Bad campaign strategy as I stated. Too much primary focus on demonising Trump the person and too little on policy.
2) The economy was at least perceived to be in bad condition. And when economies are in bad condition the governments or presidents tend to often loose the election.. But the economy was in very good condition relative to other countries (The Economist Journal did an analysis). If only Harris had explained that rather than focusing mainly on demonising Trump the person. I notice that you seemed to allude to the same thing.
3) Some racism and mysogeny. But I doubt that was too significant. Obama won an election and Hilary Clinton came close and was beaten mainly because the email issue exploded like a grenade in the last week of the election, and lost her about 5% in the polls.
4) While the Democrats have done some things helpful to ordinary workers they are perceived to be out of touch with workers.
5) The Democrats immigration policy was bad. They let in too many immigrants and without enough checks. They tightened up this year but the damage was done in terms of perceptions. Now I fully support robust immigration and multiculturalism, but anyone with more than half a brain should be able to see you can have too many immigrants per year, such that it overwhelms the infrastructure and just makes (some) people afraid and feeling alientated. Its happened in New Zealand and quite dramatically with near the highest immigration rates per capita in the world.
Of course Trump is at the other extreme and seems to loathe immigrants unless its a small number of white people . Immigrants tend to have LOWER crime rates but he is incapable of seeing that.
However if the the Democrats focus on blaming leaders fascist tendencies, and blaming peoples inherent racism mysogeny, and idiocy, and if the democrats ignore their self inflcited wounds like bad election strategy and bad immigration policy, they will loose AGAIN. I promise you.
Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton focused on policy and postivity. And they won. This does not mean you ignore the personal failings of your opponents, but they did not make that a primary focus.
I agree about Vance and the rest of what you said. In many ways hes like Trump, but more intelligent. He could actually be even worse for America than Trump because he might get more stuff actually done.
Radge: “ Nigelj, If you actually mean “personalities”, you’ve got that backwards. Harris aimed at the adult brain, Trump was yelling at the inner monkey brain.“.
Couldn’t agree more. Radge. I would add that Trump appealed to what’s worse in the people – resentment, racism, misogynism, division and egoism. Has Harris tried to meet him in the race to the bottom, she would have been morally no better than him, and probably wouldn’t beat him in his own game anyway.
And I am not sure whether Dems could have won at all – this in post-truth era ushered by the social media, in which shameless lies no longer disqualify a candidate, And without the test of being true – one opinion as as good as any other, and then you choose one more convenient to you (e.g. blaming your problems on the immigrants, minorities, wokeizm, environmentalism etc.).
And post-truth, the attention span limited to a chantable slogan – you can be convinced to blame the affordability crisis on Biden and NOT on the global factors – massive disruption of the global economy by pandemics, rising prices of oil and war in Ukraine. So blaming Biden, even though the other countries have had the same or higher inflation than the US. Plus forgetting the pandemic – also helps to forget the terrible performance of Trump in the main test of his leadership – dealing with the emerging COVID threat..
This willful ignoring the global drivers of the affordability crisis to blame the government in power for it is not limited to the US – in Canada Conservatives are on a way to power by blaming prices on Liberals, and specifically – on the carbon tax they introduced. This is of course a bold-faced lie as:
– the carbon tax is revenue-neutral, meaning that all the money collected is paid back to the households
– countries without carbon tax have had since pandemics often similar or higher inflation than Canada.
But the Conservatives “Axe the tax” slogan is much more catchy than the REAL message “Axe the tax rebate thanks to which 80% of households gets back more in the rebate than they paid in the tax, and it benefits most the poorer household that need this net benefit the most”.
Try to put THAT on a hat, or a tea-shirt, or chant it at the rally.
And Conservatives know it – so they run on a series of three-word, preferably rhyming chants (if it rhymes then there must be an element of truth in it , right?), in what critics called a “Verb the Noun” campaign: “Axe the Tax”, “Stop the Crime”, Fix the “Budget”, “Build the homes”. etc.
Next perhaps: “Two Legs Bad, Four Legs Good !” ?
And to my disappointment – nobody from the Liberal party, which fate is linked to the carbon tax, are asking the Conservative leader direct question:
“If you are elected, and if after you “axed the tax”, the prices do NOT go back to their pre-COVID levels – would you admit that you got to power on what you knew was a lie, and resign? Yes or no? “
Thanks, Dharma, for your excellent short essay, containing much important truth.
I would only suggest that you are being unduly optimistic when you speak of building a “mass-based movement that can reclaim the working class” etc. The time for that has probably come and gone, and the “gone” part was just given a big exclamation point on Nov 5. We’re going fascist, now seemingly unavoidably. Climate chaos will play into this in a big way.
alan says
8 Nov 2024 at 9:17 AM
Thank you alan. You’re too kind.
Let me point out though that I was not being “optimistic” in any way. As my concluding remarks show: “This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now. But it won’t begin. Because this is America. We don’t do that here. We lie to ourselves instead.”
Such is life when living inside a Bubble of make believe. The specific beliefs may vary from one person to the next but they are all delusional beliefs not grounded in reality. Similar to gravity they can only head in one direction.
Note the term ‘liberal’ has some different meanings, which can go against each other.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/liberal-meaning-origin-history :… “Liberal is commonly used as a label for political parties in a number of other countries, although the positions these parties take do not always correspond to the sense of liberal that people in the United States commonly give it.” …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
AIUI, liberal can refer to an openness to change, between ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’, with ‘conservative’ and ‘reactionary’ completing the spectrum.
More about that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Political_positions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Economic_issues
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Factions :
“Moderates” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Moderates
“Liberals”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Liberals
“Progressives”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Progressives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus#Policy_positions
— —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Israel :
(Hard to tell from this if the conservative opposition to Israel ~70ish years ago was in support of Palestinian rights or sympathy/alignment with Nazis/etc.; anyway, things change (Jim Crow, Japanese Internment, Christian Zionism))
…“However, parts of the Democratic base also became more skeptical of the Israel government.[282] The number of Democrats (and Americans in general) who oppose sending arms to Israel has grown month by month as Israel’s war on Gaza continues.[283]”…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Israel_in_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war#Within_Congress :
emph. and [*D] mine:
Clarification1: I don’t know the stats, but some portion of Jewish people support Palestinians’ Human Rights and are against the right-wing Israeli government’s war – including some portion of Israelis. But AFIAC… (re Nigelj https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-826963
Clarification2: Also – (re Nigelj https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-827004 “ There have also been some silly ideas and vote losers like suggesting defunding the police and letting in far too many immigrants per year.”) It’s been awhile but – was the ‘defunding’ thing was ever supported by the bulk of the party (?) – noting that this may refer to spending more on mitigating the conditions that can lead people to commit crimes in place of some police spending(?). I don’t think anyone was letting too many immigrants in; actually the problem may be we’re not letting enough in legally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_and_removal_from_the_United_States#21st_century
(PS freedom to migrate is in principle part of a free market and restrictions on immigration (aside from security/etc.) go against the lazy fairy’s whims IMO.)
I am vaguely aware that the U.S. is not always ‘nice’ to other countries in ways that often fly under the radar (Henry Kissinger post Nixon…/IMF/ stuff) – and I mean even recently. I’d expect Democrats, or at least progressive Democrats, to be, like Greens and some others, more critical of this sort of thing, wanting justice (and peace) on a global level. In contrast, Trump tells his supporters (who AFAIK/IMO are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories ; https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827019 ) that ‘we’re’ being taken advantage of by other countries. Well maybe sometimes(?)****, but sometimes(??), it may be the other way around(???), or rather, as with some free trade agreements, the businesses are taking advantage (Some Mexican workers also lost jobs because of NAFTA).- Note I am not against free trade per se, but perhaps it should have 1. Been phased in so that the labor force could adapt 2. Government should have aided that adaptation (would Democrats or Republican be more willing to do that?) 3. Trade should be fair – corrections for differences in environmental, consumer, and labor protections. AIUI some free trade agreements hamstring governments’ abilities to do the sorts of things that US progressive Democrats (or some others) would do for the welfare of people and protection of the environment.
Some of the criticisms of how the campaigned and difficulty offering solutions to the working class and rural communities may be true(??), but I don’t believe it’s because the Democratic Party doesn’t want to do good by them. Also we could consider what Democrats have accomplished for those portions of US society via the IRA…
patrick o twentyseven’s comment above.
Well OK, I see that not all “political related-non climate” comments are banned only some of them. Good to know.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-donald-trump-and-the-tyranny-of-the-uninformed/ar-AA1uzpVo?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=491464ebcde341aa857fc3f2b0f6696d&ei=14
to patrick o twentyseven
[..] “Just one in five voters, for example, knew that Donald Trump had said …………. ”
Donald Trump has said a lot of things. Most don’t know what that is. Here is something he said just recently (18 Nov) that I bet maybe 1 in a million Americans do not know about.
https://karlof1.substack.com/p/trumps-18-november-speech-stunner
You see, he’s not completely mad. People need to be much more discerning.
Any possibility that the world might do what is needed to rapidly phase out greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels has completely disappeared with Trump’s return to power.
Time to abandon the “thought experiments” regarding what might happen if we stabilized CO2 at current levels in the near future, and start looking more closely at the worst-case emissions scenarios.
By By NOAA.
Expect a dramatic cancellation in all climate change funding.
As you were warned about a few years ago.
Here’s a few more of the core reasons why America will never be a leader in action to fight climate change, adaption or avoid impacts or action to genuine global emissions reductions and alternative energy strategies and universal economic reforms to the benefit of the people ecology or the biosphere.
Former “Liberal” now “Global Truth Teller” a truly sincere and a brilliant man Prof Jeffrey Sachs a week before the U.S. Election gives a short speech about “whether there can ever truly be a liberal international order?” followed by a few questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bl6_MAhg_4
He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican, and Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor at Sunway University.
He has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an (Sustainable Development Goals) SDG Advocate under Secretary General António Guterres.
He spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, where he received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. Sachs has received 42 honorary doctorates, and his recent awards include the 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France, and the Order of the Cross from the President of Estonia.
His most recent books are The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020) and Ethics in Action for Sustainable Development (2022).
Dr. Sachs could be described as a major expert on Climate / Sustainable Economics Finance Government and Politics, International Ethics, Geopolitics and even Russia in the 1990s and ever since.
@40 mins for example:
fyi a letter from Bernie
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.
https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1854271157135941698
This goes with my prior comment not yet posted. Quite apt and on the money. Bernie is not alone, far from it. Now is a good time to remember what happened in 2016? And yesterday.
I was so shocked at seeing a non-TLDR comment from this author that I had to reply:
What happened in 2016 and 2024 was that a woman, and then a Black woman, did not get elected President. Huh!
But Biden won in 2020. Hmmmm.
And now we have endless “analysis” from everyone about irrelevant policy issues.
Had he opted out after one term, and there was a primary which resulted in a younger White male Dem candidate, who might even have kept Harris on as VP, the result would have been very different.
Sadly, change takes time, and some things are very difficult. We got civil rights, and women’s rights, and guess what… all those fine White male working class, union workers voted for union-busting Reagan. Hmmmm.
Then after time passed, we got Obama, who did a decent job, ACA, and showed off a classy Black First Family. More for White men and women to resent.
Then Hillary, a bridge too far. And so it goes.
This history has happened for a long time, and not just here. Human chimp-nature is always there, and it is well-established science on how it can be manipulated. The South will always rise again; the question is for how long. Sorry, young folks.
zebra says
8 Nov 2024 at 5:46 AM
“What happened in 2016 and 2024 was that a woman, and then a Black woman, did not get elected President. Huh!”
A predictable and yet narrow minded and biased point of view at the same time.
Author Lionel Shriver on the election that smashed identity politics
Interviewer:
A lot of people are very quickly jumping on that identity politics train despite
the data that’s come out. they’re saying that the election went wrong for Harris
because America could not vote for a black woman. That seems to be the
narrative so, have we really overcome the identity politics narrative? It strikes me
that it could be a while that the Democratic Party (+supporters) doubles down on
that narrative especially if they’re feeling lost!
Shriver: Of course the Democrats want to paint it that way uh that is you know I don’t find
that persuasive at all uh it’s predictable because they see everything through
their lens of race and sex — that’s the only way they know how to look at this result
They’re missing a trick I would like to see the Democrats do a little more soul
searching so far they’re not soul searching they’re just a you know name calling
So if you looked at the Times this morning of the election result it’s they haven’t
learned anything it’s it’s more just it’s more fascism it’s more authoritarianism it’s
you know it’s the start of very dark days and in the United States and it’s very
gloomy and threatening and there’s no sense that they are taking responsibility
at all right for having offered something that the country does not want.
Interviewer: You make an important point here about broadening out the definition
of Identity Politics as well because it certainly strikes me that one of the many
reasons that Donald Trump will have won this election is that many working
class people across America felt like their own identity was under threat; the
way that they choose to live their lives; the work they do; what they prioritize;
was being described as Neo-Nazi being described as fascist sympathizing;
it was being described as garbage towards the end of the election, and that
did not resonate with them at all.
Shriver: Well they never learned that you know contempt is bad politics
you know and also that you can’t lecture people into being on your side it’s off
putting and you know the Obamas did that, made the same mistake going
out and finger pointing and accusing black men of being sexist and you
know that this hectoring thing it doesn’t work and it’s you know you
need to bring people on side and that’s generous that’s, to use one of their
favorite words, that’s inclusive!
More here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhZK1lM0pyk
D quoting LS: A lot of people are very quickly jumping on that identity politics train despite
the data that’s come out. they’re saying that the election went wrong for Harris
because America could not vote for a black woman. That seems to be the
narrative so, have we really overcome the identity politics narrative? It strikes me
that it could be a while that the Democratic Party (+supporters) doubles down on
that narrative especially if they’re feeling lost!
Shriver: Of course the Democrats want to paint it that way uh that is you know I don’t find
that persuasive at all uh it’s predictable because they see everything through
their lens of race and sex — that’s the only way they know how to look at this result
BPL: In 2020, 81 million Democrats voted for Biden. In 2024, 69 million voted for Harris. Trump actually lost ground, with 73 million votes instead of the previous 74.
Harris lost because some segments of American Democrats would not vote for a woman, especially a black woman. To say this isn’t a valid conclusion because it’s only “identity politics” means assuming that sex and race never enter into peoples’ decision making.
Reply to Barton Paul Levenson
Lionel Shriver is entitled to her opinion. She is not alone. As are you even though you have data evidence to support your case that “American Democrats would not vote for a woman, especially a black woman”
iirc you cannot assume the 81 million recorded Votes for Biden in 2020 were by people who were registered Democrats. I mention this elsewhere but that comment has not appeared yet. It might never appear
As for the false voting results you keep posting here please stop spreading lies. Your data are wrong. Trump increased his vote. Votes for Harris are almost 72 million now, the counting continues.
You’re posting a lot of right-wing nonsense. I haven’t seen you on here before, but what kind of work do you do in the field of Science?
Chuck Hughes says
10 Nov 2024 at 3:08 AM
—but what kind of work do you do in the field of Science?
Oh please. You go first. What kind of work do you do in the field of Science Chuck? Then please explain why that question even matters in the first place on a public climate forum like this or anywhere?
CH : what kind of work do you do in the field of Science?
D: Oh please. You go first. What kind of work do you do in the field of Science Chuck? Then please explain why that question even matters in the first place on a public climate forum like this or anywhere?
BPL: If I’m not mistaken, Chuck is a member of the Tripoli Rocket Association, and therefore has some acquaintance with atmosphere physics. And why does it matter? It matters because if you’re incompetent in climate science, your opinion on climate science matters carries less weight. Duh.
Barton Paul Levenson says
11 Nov 2024 at 8:50 AM
I have some aquaintance with with atmosphere physics too. Thanks for playing.
Unfortunately, for Chuck and yourself, the post he was replying to was about Bernie Sanders comments on the election and the working class. Feel free to explain in another “one liner” logical fallacy what questioning anyone’s background in climate science has to do with that?
Alternatively please try to pay better attention to what is being said. That was the point also put to Chuck.
During these highly emotional post-election times, please let me share some good Medical advice based on Science.
What Happens When Your Stress Exceeds Your Window of Tolerance
14 Jan 2024 … This is because the prefrontal cortex area of the brain—where rational, higher-order cognitive functioning occurs—effectively shuts down.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/soul-console/202401/unraveling-your-stress-may-exceed-your-window-of-tolerance
Have a great day.
1) Because of the US election just past, there will be no progress within the USA to reduce CO2 emissions for the next 5 YEARS. Given the rising competition among nations, that means there will be little to no progress in the rest of the world as well.
2) Yet discussion of this disaster and why it occurred can only be done by climate scientists? Why? Is this the scientific objectivity and peer review our tax dollars are buying?
In the “well that didn’t take long, who could have foreseen this (sarcasm)?” & the “good bye NOAA” categories:
.
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/07/trump-project-2025-second-term-agenda
.
.
Yesterday, I was given the first tastes, I fear, of the future. Associates whom I have debated with since 2015 about MAGA and Trump, almost to a person, voiced a very different tune yesterday than either in previous victory (2016) or defeat (2020). I tremble at the thought of what is coming…
“Just Have a Think”:
“If BIG OIL fails, do we all go down with it??” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg_nr0IYirU
“How can we stop burning fossil fuels if we still need everything else they make?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYWLpdGgJe4
cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-826257 (& https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/09/unforced-variations-sep-2024/#comment-824873 , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/09/unforced-variations-sep-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-824958 , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825119 – https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825628 ; https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-826257 )
(2022) “A Polysilicon Learning Curve and the Material Requirements for Broad Electrification with Photovoltaics by 2050”
Brett Hallam, et al. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/solr.202200458?_gl=1*62zpkb*_gcl_au*MTkzMzE5ODU0MS4xNzI3MjMwNTIyLjgwMTcyNDg1My4xNzI3Mjg1MzYzLjE3MjcyODUzNjM.
See also: “Supplementary Material”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1002%2Fsolr.202200458&file=solr202200458-sup-0001-SuppData-S1.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#cite_note-11
(“Fraunhofer Institut (2022), Photovoltaics Report, page 37, https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Photovoltaics-Report.pdf ”):
“Energy Payback Time”:
emph. mine:
See also p. 36
“PV Market: Focus Germany”:
(so the performance ratio may still be smaller in warmer locations, I’d expect – see p.34, and https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825471 – I’m inferring performance ratio = actual CF ÷ [GTI/(1000 W/m²)]
“Solar Cell / Module Efficiencies”:
See also p.25, and for EPBT and EROEI, p.36-41; p.40 shows contributions by component (rooftop) – note the smallness of “transportation” (just finished products or raw materials+labor*, etc. too?)
What I’d really like to see is a breakdown by electricity, and direct fuel input – for transportation, high T heating, direct chemical usage of energy, and chemical feedstock. The kWh(e)/kWh(PE) ratio will vary.
*it makes sense, to me, to include ‘EI’ for labor that is additional to what is needed for other jobs; otherwise labor is important as another dimension (we don’t want to create too many jobs!), like water withdrawals, mineral scarcity, etc.
See also tables in https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IEA-PVPS-LCI-report-2020.pdf
…
(Jump to https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826640 for “c-Si @ 170 μm? 160 μm? 150 μm? We can get thinner:”)
“What I’d really like to see is a breakdown by electricity, and direct fuel input – for transportation, high T heating, direct chemical usage of energy, and chemical feedstock. The kWh(e)/kWh(PE) ratio will vary.” –
Also, the CO2 emitted due to non-energy feedstock eg. glass and cement (carbonate decomposition) – although I’ve read this can be reduced/eliminated/CCS?? for cement…
cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825502
(2016) “The Energy and Environmental Performance of Ground-Mounted Photovoltaic Systems—A Timely Update”
Enrica Leccisi, Marco Raugei, Vasilis Fthenakis
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/8/622#:~:text=Energy%20pay-back%20time%20%28EPBT%29%20results%20for%20fixed-tilt%20ground,%28EROIPE-eq%29%20values%20ranging%20from%20over%2060%20to%20~10.
Early in the paper, CED (ie BTW, the ‘EI’ of EROEI … ??AIUI/AFAIK**) seems to be defined to include the solar resource which is harnessed by the PV technology itself, which is an interesting measure but not really what I think is usually meant by ‘EI’; however, later on they seem to revert to the expected ‘EI’.
**…QBO LTE AMA ENSO LED CSP CPU PBS L3 QAPF IUGS :) …
————
cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-826257
(2022) “A Polysilicon Learning Curve and the Material Requirements for Broad Electrification with Photovoltaics by 2050”
Brett Hallam, et al.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/solr.202200458?_gl=1*62zpkb*_gcl_au*MTkzMzE5ODU0MS4xNzI3MjMwNTIyLjgwMTcyNDg1My4xNzI3Mjg1MzYzLjE3MjcyODUzNjM.
(also https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1002%2Fsolr.202200458&file=solr202200458-sup-0001-SuppData-S1.pdf )
EPBT* (*for SoG Si wafer electrical ‘EI’):
I forgot to take into account the panel efficiency being a bit less than cell efficiency. Some of that could be due to cells not fully filling the panel area, though from some pictures I’ve seen, I think that may be a small effect (mono-Si wafer missing corners maybe ~(1/10+/-?)² area fraction?). Some could be imperfect transmission through and additional(?) reflection from glass (unless contact of cell sfc with glass reduces reflection); some would be resistance in the electrical connections among cells, and …
**performance ratio (PR) 0.8 or 0.7 – low(er) value could account for T&D losses, etc…(Eg. PR on site 80% and T&D loss 6%: 0.94*0.8 = 0.75 )
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3 “The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that annual electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses averaged about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed in the United States in 2018 through 2022.”
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/flow-graphs/electricity.php
I(‘m) suspect/guessing that industries tend to have lower T&D losses than residences/etc. – yes? No?
— — —
cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825119
(2024) “Systemwide energy return on investment in a sustainable transition towards net zero power systems”
Hasret Sahin, A. A. Solomon, Arman Aghahosseini, Christian Breyer
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44232-9
(just skimmed through, found…)
3rd paragraph below fig 3
( 1 PWh = 1000 TWh ; https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-825957 : 48.38 PWh(e) is a 64.1% increase from 2023 electricity production. But with EROEIs remaining greater than 16, generally 18+, in these scenarios, conceivably, (although requires labor training, minerals etc.), a more rapid expansion of electricity supply to replace fuels in transportation, building heating (also passive solar design, skylights, hybrid PV with H2O/etc. (pre)heating, etc.), and industry, and expand access to more energy to more people might be doable.(?)
“Supplementary information”: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-023-44232-9/MediaObjects/41467_2023_44232_MOESM1_ESM.pdf :
( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825119 “how much do the results depend on EROI learning curves for PV systems going into the future?” )
p.19: “Construction & Decommissioning” CED:
values given, converted to EPBT (yr) @ GTI 1700 kWh (sun)/ (m² yr) * performance ratio (PR) 0.8 or 0.7
2015: 2.66, 3.04
2020: 2.10, 2.40
2025: 1.74, 1.99
…
2050: 1.28, 1.46
Seems reasonable.
A lot of helpful stats here (eg., CF, ILR, use of tracking)
https://emp.lbl.gov/tracking-the-sun
https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-scale-solar/
https://live-lbl-eta-publications.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/2024-10/utility-scale_solar_2024_executive_summary.pdf
https://live-lbl-eta-publications.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/2024-10/utility_scale_solar_2024_edition_slides.pdf
https://live-lbl-eta-publications.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/2024-10/user_guide_for_utility-scale_solar_generation_and_market_value_data_file_2024.pdf
…
c-Si @ 170 μm? 160 μm? 150 μm? We can get thinner:
Light Trapping ((see also https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/unforced-variations-aug-2024/#comment-823801 TIR) + photonic stuff )
(2021) “Light trapping in thin silicon solar cells: A review on fundamentals and technologies”
Rebecca Saive
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.3440?af=R#:~:text=4.2%20Lambertian%20limit.%20The%20Lambertian%20limit%20is%20also%20referred%20to&msockid=264bde94f43f6cc51a04cde0f5976dc6
Also: (2024) “Light management for ever-thinner photovoltaics: A tutorial review”
Eduardo Camarillo Abad, Hannah J. Joyce, Louise C. Hirst
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/app/article/9/1/011101/2933148/Light-management-for-ever-thinner-photovoltaics-A
(2024) “Flexible silicon solar cells with high power-to-weight ratios”
Yang Li, et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06948-y?fromPaywallRec=false
(2019) “Beyond 30% Conversion Efficiency in Silicon Solar Cells: A Numerical Demonstration”
Sayak Bhattacharya & Sajeev John
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-48981-w#:~:text=We%20demonstrate%20through%20precise%20numerical%20simulations%20the%20possibility%20of%20flexible
(I posted this one once before)
(2020) “Experimental demonstration of broadband solar absorption beyond the lambertian limit in certain thin silicon photonic crystals”
Mei-Li Hsieh, Alex Kaiser, Sayak Bhattacharya, Sajeev John, Shawn-Yu Lin
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68704-w
(2022) “Beyond Lambertian light trapping for large-area silicon solar cells: fabrication methods”
Jovan Maksimovic, et al.
https://www.researching.cn/ArticlePdf/m00091/2022/5/9/210086.pdf
“Light momentum turns pure silicon from an indirect to a direct bandgap semiconductor”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/light-momentum-turns-pure-silicon-from-an-indirect-to-a-direct-bandgap-semiconductor/ar-AA1qV6It?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=bd915f4a93554b69ac4d86b18509bb2c&ei=62
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/light-trick-helps-super-thin-solar-panels-absorb-energy-10-000-times-better/ar-AA1tkBIu?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=f555cda3883743b292910c705dd86fbc&ei=10
— — —
Also:
(2023) “A critical perspective for emerging ultra-thin solar cells with ultra-high power-per-weight outputs featured”
Apostolos Panagiotopoulos, et al.
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/apr/article-abstract/10/4/041303/2918169/A-critical-perspective-for-emerging-ultra-thin?redirectedFrom=fulltext
(2019) “A 19.9%-efficient ultrathin solar cell based on a 205-nm-thick GaAs absorber and a silver nanostructured back mirror”
Hung-Ling Chen, et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0434-y#:~:text=Nature%20Energy%20-%20Ultrathin%20solar%20cells%20having%20thicknesses%20below%201
https://opg.optica.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-19-104-A865 “Approaching the Lambertian limit in randomly textured thin-film solar cells”
“Progress and prospects for ultrathin solar cells” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00714-4?fromPaywallRec=false
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826639 cont.
(2021) “Very Thin (56 μm) Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells with an Efficiency of 23.3% and an Open-Circuit Voltage of 754 mV” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/solr.202100634
cont. from:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-825931
“Improving the efficiency by making better use of solar energy’s spectrum
5 ways (that I can think of):”: “ 4. Producing multiple electron-hole pairs from higher-energy photons”:
((indirect?) version of 4, … could use in luminescent concentrator?) (2019) “Sensitization of silicon by singlet exciton fission in tetracene”
Markus Einzinger, et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1339-4
“Kesterite solar cells’ efficiency boosted with silver doping, defects reduced” – Bojan Stojkovski
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/kesterite-solar-cells-efficiency-boosted-with-silver-doping-defects-reduced/ar-AA1t12Dw?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=e12cb510eb2343ee8708efa13a9fcad9&ei=20
“Mesoporous MoS₂ strategy boosts efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells” – Ingrid Fadelli
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/mesoporous-mos-strategy-boosts-efficiency-and-stability-of-perovskite-solar-cells/ar-AA1th5dG?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=fb99760f00554934b46f737288991c5f&ei=8
“Microscopic analysis clarifies performance limitations in cost-effective materials for perovskite solar cells”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/microscopic-analysis-clarifies-performance-limitations-in-cost-effective-materials-for-perovskite-solar-cells/ar-AA1txOOa?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=8bed4c03083e4fd8a5d97cf4d96a4872&ei=13
(2024) “Semiconductor thermoradiative power conversion” – Michael P. Nielsen, et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-024-01537-5?fromPaywallRec=false
… “We discuss some present limitations and opportunities for improved performance together with potential applications such as night-sky power generation and waste-heat recovery.”
“Numerical assessment of optoelectrical properties of ZnSe–CdSe solar cell-based with ZnO antireflection coating layer” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38906-z?fromPaywallRec=false
“Dielectric light-trapping nanostructure for enhanced light absorption in organic solar cells” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47898-9?fromPaywallRec=false
“A low cost and large-scale synthesis of 3D photonic crystal with SP2 lattice symmetry” https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/9/8/085206/127819
“Toward TCO-Free Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells: Effect of TCO Layers in Electrical Transport and Stability” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/solr.202300290
“Amorphous SnO2 as Earth-Abundant Stable Transparent Conductive Oxide and Its Application to Si Heterojunction Solar Cells” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/solr.202300381
“Tunable and angle-insensitive structural coloring of solar cell modules for high performance building-integrated photovoltaic application” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927024822003701
“Enhancement of color and photovoltaic performance of semi-transparent organic solar cell via fine-tuned 1D photonic crystal” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24113-9?fromPaywallRec=false
emph. mine:
“Ultrathin-metal-film-based transparent electrodes with relative transmittance surpassing 100%” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17107-6?fromPaywallRec=false
“Infrared-reflective ultrathin-metal-film-based transparent electrode with ultralow optical loss for high efficiency in solar cells” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-50988-3?fromPaywallRec=false
— — —
“Using solar energy to generate heat at high temperatures” https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2024/05/using-solar-energy-to-generate-heat-at-high-temperatures.html#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20ETH%20Zurich%20have%20developed%20a%20thermal,thermal%20trap%20is%20a%20cylinder%20made%20of%20quartz.
+
Ziroth “Why Solid Carbon is the Future of Energy Storage” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwDly9pjSJg ( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819623 )
(… And other high-T heat storage)
+
(2022) “Thermophotovoltaic efficiency of 40%”
Alina LaPotin, et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04473-y
(2022) “Thermophotovoltaic cells top 40 per cent efficiency” Isabelle Dumé https://physicsworld.com/a/thermophotovoltaic-cells-top-40-percent-efficiency/ ,
“Capturing Light From Heat at 40% Efficiency, NREL Makes Big Strides in Thermophotovoltaics” (2022) Harrison Dreves
https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/capturing-light-from-heat-at-40-percent-efficiency-nrel-makes-big-strides-in-thermophotovoltaics.html ,
https://spectrum.ieee.org/thermophotovoltaic
= : )
1) Carbon Brief estimates Trump’s election will result in 4 Gigatons additional CO2 emissions by the USA by 2030.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-trump-election-win-could-add-4bn-tonnes-to-us-emissions-by-2030/
2) That is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers. For some reason the News Media ignored the Sept report on US median income:
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-282.html
3) Some points from Highlights:
a) Real median household income increased in 2023 for first time since 2019 but mostly in white households – none in Black or Hispanic households.
b) While number of total workers increased by 2 million in 2023, number of full time workers did not.
c) Gini Index of income inequality unchanged
d) “For full-time, year-round workers, the female-to-male earnings ratio in 2023 fell to 82.7 percent from 84.0 percent in 2022 (Figure 6 and Table A-6). This is the first statistically significant annual DECREASE in the female-to-male earnings ratio since 2003.”
Re Don Williams: “That is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers.”
Hmm, I didn’t know the US economy has been run by … academia. Plato’s dream of philosopher kings – finally realized ???
As for the stats intended to prove “ignoring the misery of US workers. ” – median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality – what CONTROL did you use for them?
Say, are the US stats worse than those in other countries over the same period?
1) What do you call it when academia and their boy Biden says the taxes of blue collar workers — people who work hard every day to actually produce useful products and services — should be used to pay off $1.5 Trillion in education loans? What’s next — are Americans supposed to pay the professors’ bar bills as well?
2) Who elected the mandarins that can destroy a conservative’s white collar career if she speaks her mind openly on campus? Who decided only one ideology is permissible in our universities?
3) Scroll down and you can see my post in which I gave the report by Associated Press on what the voters say was most important to them. Or do you think the voters are fools who don’t know where their interests lie, what they are experiencing and who is harming them?
Don Williams, you said: “that is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers.” You now justify this by saying: “Biden says the taxes of blue collar workers — people who work hard every day to actually produce useful products and services — should be used to pay off $1.5 Trillion in education loans?”This is only ignoring the misery of workers if the Democrats did nothing to provide substantial additional help to workers. Biden did plenty as follows:
“Biden can make a strong case that he has delivered to blue-collar America; he can point to not just the job growth and low unemployment rate (3.6 percent), but also the American Rescue Plan Act, which kept millions of families afloat during the pandemic, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that is expected to create hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs. He also likes to point out that the nation has added 600,000 manufacturing jobs since he took office. (“And they said manufacturing is dead in America,” he quipped recently.)”
https://tcf.org/content/report/what-biden-has-done-and-still-can-do-for-workers/
Of course Biden wasnt perfect and could have done more. but I dont think its accurate to say he ignored the misery of American workers.
Re: Don Williams:
_That’s_ your best and most coherent proof that the US economy is run by the academia? ;-)
With that established, what about my actual question? You know:
Piotr: “As for the stats intended to prove “ignoring the misery of US workers. ” – median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality – what CONTROL did you use for them?
Say, are the US stats worse than those in other countries over the same period?”
Anything?
1) What I have said is that the USA is run by the billionaires — the majority of which supported Kamala Harris for some reason. Academia , like politicians, is just one of their tools.
2) The CONTROL I used was the relative prosperity of Democrat billionaires vs the lower 90% in income part of the population over the past 40 years. The 40 years during which Biden and Pelosi claimed to be working for the lower 90%.
3) The USA has no monopoly on political corruption — I did not use the EU because it would be like comparing the loot collected by two robber bands while ignoring their victims. Witness financier Macron raising French retirement age by several years.
4) The war between us and Putin may render the energy transition infeasible. IMO it was Harvard Dean Larry Summers who put Putin in power. See
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/business/media/did-an-expose-help-sink-harvards-president.html
5) Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz explained how Fat Larry’s “shock therapy” (i.e, letting a few oligarchs steal everything not nailed down) enraged the Russian people and made them long for the good old days of corrupt Soviet Tyranny:
https://progressive.org/magazine/joseph-stiglitz/
“Stiglitz: In the early 1990s, there was a debate among economists over shock therapy versus a gradualist strategy for Russia. But Larry Summers [Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, then Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, now Secretary] took control of the economic policy, and there was a lot of discontent with the way he was driving the policy.
The people in Russia who believed in shock therapy were Bolsheviks–a few people at the top that rammed it down everybody’s throat. They viewed the democratic process as a real impediment to reform.
The grand larceny that occurred in Russia, the corruption that resulted in nine or ten people getting enormous wealth through loans-for-shares, was condoned because it allowed the reelection of Yeltsin.
Q: What effect did the policies pushed by the United States and the IMF have on the Russian people?
Stiglitz: Both GDP and consumption declined. Living standards collapsed, life spans became shorter, and health worsened. Russia achieved a huge increase in inequality at the same time that it managed to shrink the economy by up to a third. Poverty soared to close to 50 percent from 2 percent in 1989, comparable to that of Latin America–a remarkable achievement in eight years.”
PS Re “billionaires” recall that Harvard’s endowment is around $50 billion. Trump is in power because Fat Larry applied the same “shock therapy” to the American People while advising Obama and Biden during the Subprime and Covid crisises.
Don Williams “ What I have said is that the USA is run by the billionaires”
So … if it is “the billionaires” who create “the misery of US workers.” why did you go after … “academia”?
And why to my P: “Hmm, I didn’t know the US economy has been run by … academia. ”
you DIDN’T say that you misspoke – because for the misery of US workers you blame “billionaires”, but INSTEAD you put out 3 points blaming …academia
1. you linked the misery of the working class – to …. “academia and their boy Biden”, Saying that an 80-year old man is somebody’s “boy” implies unquestionable subserviency – Biden did what “academia” ordered him to do.
2 in your next proof, you talked for some reason about some …individual risking her “ conservative’s white collar career if she speaks her mind openly on campus”?) How exactly this proves that academia is responsible for the “misery” of the US working class?
3. in your last proof you refer to the selected socio-economic indicators (“median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality”). How are they a fault of the “academia”, if NOW you
assure us that the US economy is run NOT by academia, but by “billionaires”.
Therefore, Don Williams from 11 Nov. contradicts Don Williams from 10 Nov and Don Williams from 8 Nov.
And hey – ain’t Trump, Koch brothers, or Musk – billionaires too?
Or are they good billionaires – who feel the misery of the US workers (Koch family net worth $127 billion; Musk – $304 billion), or who, like the US blue collar workers, also started life with practically nothing (Trump’s ONLY with $0.5 billion of his daddy’s money (2024 value)) ?
And you STILL haven’t answer my question to your FIRST (Nov. 8) post on the subject:, I quote:
P: “ As for the stats intended to prove “ignoring the misery of US workers. ” – median income, increase in jobs, Gini income inequality – what CONTROL did you use for them?
Say, are the US stats worse than those in other countries over the same period? ”
So?
Dear Don Williams says
11 Nov 2024 at 2:15 PM
You could do a lot better with historical accuracy than those Stiglitz Larry Summers refs. May I suggest Jeffery Sachs as far superior source?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/int_jeffreysachs.html
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/2tfga7mnpkw2t8dg5f6wjncfg2g6bj
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1097135961
https://scheerpost.com/2024/09/17/jeffrey-sachs-how-the-neocons-subverted-russias-financial-stabilization-in-the-early-1990s/
as a small sample.
Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and advisor on economic reforms in the post-Soviet era, has discussed the contrasting approaches to economic transformation in Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1990s. Sachs argued that, while he and his team were able to implement structured economic reforms in Eastern European countries like Poland and the Baltic states, they were hindered from doing the same in Russia, largely due to decisions made by U.S. leaders and international financial institutions. This ultimately led to a more chaotic, destructive economic path in Russia, when compared to the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries of Europe, marked by the rapid privatization of state assets and a sharp decline in social welfare.
Economic Transition in Eastern Europe vs. Russia
In Eastern Europe, Sachs supported “shock therapy” economic reforms, which included rapid market liberalization, price reforms, and austerity measures. In places like Poland, these reforms, although difficult, were managed more gradually and included support for social safety nets and strong institutional frameworks. This led to relatively successful transitions, with Eastern European countries integrating more smoothly into Western markets and experiencing economic recovery over time.
In Russia, however, the economic reforms were not as carefully managed or supported. U.S. policymakers and international financial bodies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) insisted on rapid privatization and deregulation without the institutional safeguards Sachs recommended, and they blocked proposals to establish social support systems.
This approach led to:
A rapid collapse of state-owned industries, as many were sold off for a fraction of their value to a few well-connected individuals who became oligarchs.
Hyperinflation, wiping out the savings of millions of Russians.
A severe drop in social welfare and public health, which, combined with a weak healthcare system, contributed to a decline in life expectancy.
Widespread poverty and unemployment, with millions of people losing their jobs and livelihoods.
Putin’s Response and Economic Reforms
When Vladimir Putin became President of Russia in 2000, he took measures to stabilize and rebuild the country after the economic devastation of the 1990s. Key actions included:
Reining in the Oligarchs: Putin took steps to reduce the power of the oligarchs who had amassed vast wealth and influence during the 1990s. Some oligarchs were imprisoned or forced into exile, while others were pressured to keep their businesses aligned with the government’s goals. This allowed the state to regain some control over key industries.
Economic Stabilization: Putin’s administration introduced reforms that brought economic stability, reduced hyperinflation, and improved state revenues, partially thanks to rising oil prices. This enabled Russia to pay down its foreign debts, which gave the country more economic independence.
Strengthening State Control Over Strategic Sectors: Putin reasserted state control over vital sectors, particularly energy, by consolidating companies like Gazprom and Rosneft under state ownership or influence. This brought significant revenue directly to the state and helped fund social programs.
Social Programs and Improved Welfare: With the budget more stable, tax revenues increasing the Russian government was able to invest in uplifting social programs, increasing pensions, salaries for public sector workers, and improved funding for healthcare and education. This improved living standards, although not without criticism regarding its reach and efficiency.
Centralization of Power: Putin re-centralized political power in national institutions, which helped him implement positive reforms more effectively nationwide. By controlling the regions more tightly and limiting the influence of local political and criminal elites, he aimed to ensure that economic gains benefited the state as the legitimate government for the benefit of the Russian people as a whole rather than a select few oligarchs and self-serving political activists.
Under Putin, Russia’s economy grew significantly, and life expectancy and social stability improved compared to the 1990s. While some of his methods have been criticized as authoritarian by western commentators, his policies in fact helped Russia recover from the severe economic and social decline that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
By 2018 it was clear to all and celebrated across Russia the significant economic and social welfare turnaround that had been achieved since Putin was first elected to the Presidency. This has been reflected in the very high +80% favourability polling for Putin and the overwhelming electoral success of the United Russia political party in multiple democratic elections in Russia.
Please see: 2018 Vladimir Putin delivers annual address to Federal Assembly – includes data on life expectancy, salaries, pensions, health care, education and economic milestones. and the new hypersonic missile defence capability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sND0rqVd3EM
Transcript – http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/56957
Today in 2024? Putin delivers keynote speech at the Valdai forum as UK announces 56 new Russian sanctions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AXFZUEhfs
It is absolutely clear the broad majority of the Russian people value appreciate vote for and support Putin across the board because of what he and his governments have been able to do for the Russian people and the nation since 2000. No one else has the right to decide under their Constitution who the President of Russia will be.
DW: 1) What do you call it when academia and their boy Biden says the taxes of blue collar workers — people who work hard every day to actually produce useful products and services — should be used to pay off $1.5 Trillion in education loans?
BPL: The loans in question are paid off, and people are trapped endlessly paying interest.
DW: Who elected the mandarins that can destroy a conservative’s white collar career if she speaks her mind openly on campus?
BPL: When does this occur in real life? I’m not aware of any such cases.
DW: Who decided only one ideology is permissible in our universities?
BPL: Ron DeSantis?
@Piotr Check the dictionary for definition “Tool of” Also, “hierarchy” Maybe “gatekeeper” , “mechanisms of oppression”, “glass ceiling” and “ostracism”. Maybe check out Wikipedia’s article on Larry Summers and look at the section on how he treated Christina Romer. in 2009.
@BPL “When does this occur in real life? I’m not aware of any such cases”
From: Report of Harvard University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group (Executive Summary)
“… However, other students, including 45 percent of survey respondents, reported that they are reluctant to share their views about charged topics in class. Thirty-eight percent of survey respondents reported that they are uncomfortable discussing such issues outside of the classroom. Several factors drive students’ reluctance to talk about controversial issues, including concerns about peers’ judgment, worries about criticism on social media, unease about reputational damage, and fear about potential bullying and harassment complaints.
Many Harvard faculty members and instructors, particularly untenured and non-ladder instructors, also reported reluctance to discuss controversial subjects inside and outside the classroom. While 59 percent of survey respondents reported that they are comfortable pursuing research on a controversial topic, only 49 percent reported that they are comfortable leading a classroom discussion about controversial issues; 32 percent reported that they are comfortable discussing such issues outside of the classroom. They cited potential damage to their professional standing as the reason for their reluctance, in particular, the prospect of negative teaching evaluations, the possibility of contract nonrenewal or tenure denial, the potential for criticism on social media, and the possibility that difficult conversations might trigger complaints about bullying and harassment.”
Cite: https://provost.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/provost/files/open_inquiry_constructive_dialogue_report_october_2024.pdf
Don Williams
“@Piotr Check the dictionary for definition “Tool of” Also, “hierarchy” Maybe “gatekeeper” , “mechanisms of oppression”, “glass ceiling” and “ostracism”. Maybe check out Wikipedia’s article on Larry Summers and look at the section on how he treated Christina Romer. in 2009.”
Its difficult to know what you are referring to or really mean. Is it examples of your “that is the cost of academia –funded by government and billionaires –ignoring the misery of US workers” ? But Academics dont run society or oppress people as a whole or set glass ceilings. At most academics might do this in their own acadmic teaching institutions. Academia are teachers and researchers. The people who opress others, and set glass ceilings and determine hierachical structures are organisations across the whole of society. Singling out academics is a form of scapegoating.
Larry summers is not an academic. He was Obamas economic advisor. I dont have time to plough through his history, but I’m guessing that you think his stimulus package was not large enough to truly help workers? Well possibly, but its a tricky thing to decide how much money governmnets should borrow and spend.
Im a strong supporter of governments stimulating to help reduce the effects of an economic crisis, especially on workers who as a group tend to get hurt the most, but I can see there are limits on how far they can go doing this. It also appears that The Democarts are prepared to stimulate more than The Republicans so your constant negativity about The Democrats is a bit biased.
If you are referring to something else Larry Summerrs did that was allegedly wrong, you simply cannot take the actions of one man and assume they represent all economists, academics or whatever other category.
Or is your sarcastic opening paragraph (check the dictionary definition…..) referring to billionaries? If so Larry Summers does not appear to be a billionaire and billionaires are probably no more or less guilty of setting glass ceilings or oppressing people than anyone else. You get good and bad billionaires.
I detect that you believe billionaires are a huge problem causing opression and financial inequality etcetera (?). Well, some are a problem like the Koch Brothers with their climate denial machine and their extreme libertarian views and frankly their greed. But capitalist systems inherently generate billionaires. So you have two options 1) get rid of capitalism and find a better option, and that doesnt appear to be easy 2) tax billionaires more and use the proceeds to help the workers. Which Party is most likely to do that? Its clearly not the Republicans who have CUT the taxes of rich people when Trump was last president. And didnt the Democrats under Biden raise the tax levels on rich people?
Perhaps you could clarify what you really mean about all this in plain terms. I think I might half agree with you, but right now its a bit hard deciphering what you mean.
Don Williams “Check the dictionary for definition “Tool of””
So if somebody murders a family with an axe – our Don Williams will blame… the axe?
And still no answer to my earlier questions. If the first question what have you used for CONTROL in your statistics-based claims was incomprehensible to you, then perhaps you try with a simple one:
DW: “I have said is that the USA is run by the billionaires”
me: Hey – ain’t Trump, Koch brothers, or Musk – billionaires too?
Or are they… good billionaires – billionaires who feel “the misery of the US workers” (Koch family – net worth $127 billion; Elon Musk – $304 billion), or who, like the US blue collar workers, also started life with practically nothing (Trump with ONLY $0.5 billion of his daddy’s money (2024 value)) ?
So don’t waste our time “answering” questions nobody asked you, and start answering the questions people did ask you.
Reply to Barton Paul Levenson
BPL: When does this occur in real life? I’m not aware of any such cases.
DW: Who decided only one ideology is permissible in our universities?
There have been several well known cases where academics faced repercussions, including job loss or institutional censure, for expressing political views that sparked controversy. Here are a couple of notable examples:
James Damore (Google): Although not a traditional academic, James Damore, an engineer with a strong technical background, was dismissed from Google in 2017 after he circulated a memo questioning the company’s diversity initiatives and discussing gender differences in tech.
Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto): While Peterson was not sacked, he faced intense backlash, institutional pressure, and professional consequences after publicly opposing a Canadian bill mandating the use of gender-neutral pronouns.
Noah Carl (University of Cambridge): Noah Carl, a researcher at Cambridge, lost his fellowship in 2019 following allegations that his research and public statements on intelligence and immigration had connections to far-right ideologies.
J.K. Rowling has faced significant backlash, including public criticism and social media controversy, for her views on transgender issues.
and
Carole Hooven: Why I Left Harvard
After I stated banal facts about human biology, I found myself caught in a DEI web, without the support to do the job I loved. The only way out was to leave…
By Carole Hooven
January 17, 2024
https://www.thefp.com/p/carole-hooven-why-i-left-harvard
and
Archives of Sexual Behavior
Academic Freedom Is Social Justice: Sex, Gender, and Cancel Culture on Campus
2022 Carole K. Hooven
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-022-02467-5
Abstract
I teach in and co-direct the undergraduate program in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. During the promotion of my recent book on testosterone and sex differences, I appeared on “Fox and Friends,” a Fox News program, and explained that sex is binary and biological. In response, the director of my department’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging task force (a graduate student) accused me on Twitter of transphobia and harming undergraduates, and I responded. The tweets went viral, receiving international news coverage. The public attack by the task force director runs contrary to Harvard’s stated academic freedom principles, yet no disciplinary action was taken, nor did any university administrators publicly support my right to express my views in an environment free of harassment. Unfortunately, what happened to me is not unusual, and an increasing number of scholars face restrictions imposed by formal sanctions or the creation of hostile work environments. In this article, I describe what happened to me, discuss why clear talk about the science of sex and gender is increasingly met with hostility on college campuses, why administrators are largely failing in their responsibilities to protect scholars and their rights to express their views, and what we can do to remedy the situation.
@Nigelj
I gave you a reference to the Wikipedia article on Larry Summers which lists –with citations –his many malign actions and how they contributed both to Russia’s economic collapse and to the 2008 Subprime Crisis. He was also opposed to USA becoming involved in reducing CO2 emissions and the Kyoto Protocol
You evidently failed to note that Larry has been a professor at Harvard since 1983, with breaks for various periods of government service He was President of Harvard from 2001 to 2006 before resigning after a vote of no-confidence by the faculty.
@Priotr
See “How The Ivy League Broke America”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/
To use a metaphor, A rabid dog is a rabid dog — who owns it is a detail.
Don Williams
Thanks for the information on Larry Summers. I didnt see your earlier comments on his wikipedia entry.
I dont think its fair to blame Summers, or his neoliberal economic ideology, or academia for Russias collapse. The change from communism to capitalism was never going to be a smooth ride. The Russian Oligarchs gained excessive ownership of companies but I cant see a connection to Americas economic advice to Russia. Im not aware of any evidence Americas economists promoted that ownerhsip all go to a few Oligrarchs. It looks like an internal issue with how Russia did things.
According to wikipedia, Summers shielded a friend, and had already advised his friend that he had a bad conflcit of interest.. This is cleraly not Summers promting some form of economics. Its a personal weakness and failing on Summers part.
I think you are completely right that Summers took deregulation and self regulation of financial institutions too far and this contributed to the subprime crisis and hurt workers. His opposition to the Kyoto protocol was most unfortunate and is clearly driven by small governmnet deregulation ideology..
Summers comes across as pushing the neoliberal economic orthodoxy generally embraced by the majority of economists and presumably economics teachers: Small government, privatisation, low taxes, deregulation, free trade. I think this ideology has its good and bad elements. I think it pushes deregulation too far and promotes excessively low taxation levels.
However I agree with neoliberals promotion of free trade. This has bought huge benefits to America. and has lifted workers in developing countries out of poverty. However its hurt Americas workers as some high paid manufacturing jobs have migrated to China..In New Zealand we deal with this by giving familes of workers good levels of financial assistance. In America this appears to be regarded as socialism and is not preferred. As a result both Democrats and Republicans are trying to protect workers by bringling back high tariffs. I dont think that will end well. High tariffs in the 1970s caused inflation and other problems. Just my two cents worth.
Nigelj
1) The point of the above is that climate scientists sit in their Ivory Tower and curse the stupid citizens who put Putin and Trump into power but the scientists are deeply ignorant of the opposition’s corruption ,actions and events that put those men in power. If climate scientists want to play politics they need to be very careful who they ally with lest the rabble decide they no longer wish to fund climate scientists’ pursuit of their hobby –the value of which is not obvious to the average citizen. If one is not piloting an airplane or boat, even weather forecasts are not all that needed
2) You overlooked the scathing judgment of Larry Summers actions during the Yeltsin period made by NOBEL economist Joseph Stiglitz, posted above by me on 11 Nov at 2:15 pm A similar judgment by economist Jeffrey Sachs posted by Dharma later at 10:53 pm.
3) If you are thirsting for more, see “How Harvard Lost Russia” at https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2btfpiwkwid6fq6qrokcg/home/how-harvard-lost-russia . Why do you think Harvard et al paid a reported $31 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the US Government?
4) More details is in the US CONGRESS report “Russia’s Road to Corruption” at
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2000/russia/index.html
especially Chapter 8 The money quote:
“Many Russians, not surprisingly, blamed the West, the IMF, and the United States for intentionally leading Russia down the path of ruin.84 The heavy-handed involvement of Clinton administration officials in Russian economic policy had made America an easy scapegoat for millions of disgruntled Russians”
5) The Russian crooks supported by Washington were in power because a) Russia was dependent upon $50billion in loans coming from the IMF etc arranged by Washington b) Russia knew little about economics or the magical capitalism c) Russia feared the USA taking military advantage of her weakness d) US puppet Yeltsin had showed how “Democracy” works by shelling the Russian Parliament with tanks and arresting the Russian leaders
Don Williams, I’m a fan of Joseph Stiglitzs views. I have one of Jospeh Stiglitz’s books, The Great Divide on inequality. Im not disputing his account of Russia or SE Asia and his preferred solutions. However Russia was a very tricky situation because without some form of shock therapy and side stepping the full democratic process Russia may have backslided back into communism.
Just FYI New Zealand went through a remarkably similar privatisation and deregulation shock therapy in the early 1980s under the Lange Labour Government and orchestrated by their finance minister Roger Douglas. It was called “Rogernomics”. Please refer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#:~:text=Rogernomics%20(a%20portmanteau%20of%20Roger,Labour%20Government%20of%20New%20Zealand.
A small number of companies benefited handsomely and unfarly. It lead to 10 years of near zero economic growth and was hard on workers. It did undermine public trust in so called economic experts. I hated it because elements of the deregulation were just wrong, and it hurt workers. But the previous economic system was not working and the state owned some quite bizarre assets like a chain of hotels.
Something had to change and is its not done quickly there is a very real chance nothing would have changed, because there are many forces trying to maintain things the way they are. If you phase things in slowly they ar easier to get cancelled. However obviously that wasnt a great period in history, and some things could have been done better, and we should always strive to impliment change in the fairest and best way possible.
I see no need for Clinton/Summers to let a few oligarchs loot a country.
However, thank you for the Mark Jacobson citation. I got his engineering textbook –it covers the same detailed subjects as the book you recommended (Table of Contents) but has more pages for test questions, problems, etc.
Several media pundits are working out the drivers coming from the working class common sense influence in the election results. The exit polling says a lot. A pity as much will be lost in the noise and disinformation that follows. But that’s “US democracy” for you. Some speech is allowed and other speech isn’t. Now is the time to catch the message of the moment that’s being shared under the radar and the endless noise and shouting.
What’s this got to do with climate science?
Well if the working class swing voters (who sometimes end up in focus groups run by political parties determining govt policy) hasn’t been properly educated about the pros and cons of climate change drivers and the economy and their families near future, then places like NOAA and NASA might lose all their funding for climate science research. How’s that for one reason?
Glen Greenwald gives a quite good summary based on nuanced details fyi these two examples:
Elite liberals have no self-reflection no introspection no self-criticism no understanding of normal working class values, because they “know for sure already” this election loss has nothing at all to do with anything they’ve done wrong …. extract —
“so there’s just no introspection; and then it’s true more broadly
of the reasons why people hold Elite Institutions in general in such
contempt there’s no self-reflection.
Why is it that people perceive that these political financial and media
institutions care about everything other than the vast majority of
Americans do? Why is it that they perceive that there must be some
reason – but interrogating that reason would require them to engage in some
kind of critique self-criticism and that more than anything is what they cannot do
and that’s why you’ve seen so much today of these people who pretend they
love America and love Americans so much and just want to unite their fellow
Americans spewing utter contempt and insult and degradation
and not just at the specific voters who voted for Trump but at the
entire groups of people who as a whole moved more toward Trump and
more away from the Democratic party — as always with elite liberals you just
need to scratch a tiny little bit and you find under that surface just raging
hatred and contempt for the so-called marginalized groups the minute
that they don’t do what they’re told.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efblZYxlBX8
and
Trump’s Landslide Win EXPLAINED a realignment by Class not faux ‘woke’ DEI race gender division
it’s a new dynamic multi-racial working class coalition of common sense instead.
but really an alignment based on class more than anything else and this
is what the smarter Republicans like JD Vance and Josh Holly have been
predicting for a long time that the future of the Republican party is a
multi-racial working class coalition and you’re starting to see that come into
effect and again since Elite media discourse divides people up never by
class only by every other demographic identity race and gender and sexual
orientation when media talk about diversifying The Newsroom as they always
do they talk about diversifying The Newsroom in every way except
class and that’s why they cannot comprehend this class realignment based
on the perception the accurate perception that Democrats have become
the party of affluent Elites and don’t care about the working class at all and
white working class voters originally migrated to Trump but increasingly Latino
and black (the youth and women) voters are as well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8ac6xzDfs
The Grayzone and Jimmy Dore on Trump’s landslide victory – it is all about what “Democracy” means today alright. Democracy dies in darkness, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNk2UpyR6Q
Here’s a funny short – Watching my neighbor tear down their Harris Walz sign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzxS4WNJ7kY
Have the Democrats given up on the working classes? The Democrats do have some worker friendly policies, because they recognise its sensible to do this, but many of these policies are government financial help, that feels a bit like charity to some people. And I suspect the Democrats have lost the ability to CONNECT with the working classes. And maybe explain the climate messzage well enough. And so yes its not surprising that workers have gone over to the Republican Party especially as they have protectionist economic policies and claim they are worker friendly.
However I suspect the workers will be disappointed with the Republicans. Prices have become higher than in 2019 and its just not realistically possible to get prices back to 2019 levels. And protectionsim ultimately causes inflation. So workers are in for a rude awakening. The Republicans have not really become a left leaning or worker friendly party, its all a con job.
The Democrats and The Republicans both lean right economically maybe the Democarts a bit less so. The big difference between The Democarts and Republicans has been social values. I would still definitely vote for the Democrats myself.
Nigelj, due to the multi-billion cost of national elections, both of the major parties are forced to place the interests of their major donors before that of the working classes. Labor unions, which have been the primary source of prosperity among the working class, were a traditional base of support for the Democratic Party. However, most labor unions were heavily decimated by globalization and capital flight; which was supported by both parties as it has been highly profitable. Each party has adjusted to the results of globalization in different ways. The traditional base of the Republican Party was and is the business classes. Unfortunately, the economic policies of the Republican Party have been called by George Will a “hard sell” (Google Supply-side economics). For the masses, the Republicans have based their appeal on nationalism and the “culture wars” as well as simply acknowledging them (“I will fight for you”). Note that these are not “money” issues. This has allowed the Republicans to leverage the innate unease and fear among workers that has resulted from the destruction of the industrial sector. It’s a particularly convenient for such tactics as scapegoating and fear mongering. Other issues important to the working class such as the minimum wage, worker safety and health, affordable child care, formation of unions, progressive taxation etc. (google right-to-work laws) have been traditionally opposed by Republicans and promoted by Democrats. It will be interesting to see if the working class coalition envisioned by the Republicans remains content with seeing an ever larger share of national wealth being allocated to the monied classes. But you are right, the appeal to workers from Trump et.al. is a con job.
OK, so let me get this straight: your contention is that the wealthy have been screwing over the working man (which, BTW, is nothing new), and so the working man allied himself with all the billionaires against the “elite” who have been actually trying to work within the limits of what the current system allows to address their very real grievances.. Yup, that’s about the level of analysis I’d expect from tankies like you and Greenwald.
The causes here are complex, but ultimately they break down to this: the average voter is stupid and uninformed and a substantial proportion are sexist and racist. Americans had a chance to vote for the survival of the human species. They chose the column marked “mass extinction”. Enjoy the show.
@Ray Ladbury
1) I thought scientists liked Empirical Data:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/10/30/kamala-harris-has-more-billionaires-prominently-backing-her-than-trump-bezos-and-griffin-weigh-in-updated/
83 billionaires supporting Kamala Harris vs 52 backing Trump
2) Democratic leaders have had power at least 50% of the time in the last 40 years. Last time I checked Bernie Sanders wasn’t a Republican. How did he put it?
“Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.”
https://vermontbiz.com/news/2024/november/11/bernie-sanders-statement-results-2024-presidential-election
3) Democrat leaders claim to defend the 98 percent lower income portion of the population Why then do 40 percent think it’s not worth voting and another 30 percent hate Democrat leaders with a passion?
The average elite voter who supports the establishment are typically grossly misinformed and disconnected from broader realities and believe wholeheartedly in ‘deep state’ constructed conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, some also display extreme biases such as sexism or racism. The alignment of the Democratic Party, RINOs, and many above-average-income graduates and academics resemble a collective mindset based on falsehoods that dismisses dissenting views.
Instead of prioritizing facts, data, or mutual respect, the focus tends to shift toward fear-mongering and narratives shaped by intelligence agencies, corrupt MSM outlets, and elitist disinformation campaigns. This dynamic undermines meaningful discourse and erodes public trust in critical institutions.
Trying to get through to people who under the speel of all this manipulation is unlikely to succeed. Like most people caught in a cult they are just too far gone. The clearly 90% of posters here believe in and support this elitist establishment now. And most are also Americans or believe in these American myths.
Dharma, what do you mean by elite voters? Do you mean high income earners? It’s just that low income earners and anti establishment people are also sometimes racist or believe in deep state conspiracies or spread missinformation probably to at least the same extent.
Mainstream media is sometimes slanted or gets the facts wrong. The alternative media is no different. I try to read a bit of both and draw my own conclusions.
Don Williams. The Democrats do have policies supporting workers but they are complicated nuanced sorts of things that the average voter struggles to figure them out and understand why they are preferable to Trumps simplistic and stupid policies.
That doesnt mean the Democrats have done nothing wrong. Simply throwing mud at Trump calling him a fascist obviously wasnt working but they kept doing it. I cant stand Trump but it would have been better to focus on policies. Democrats had ideas like defunding the police and making illegal immigration legal. a big turn off for working class people. ..
DW: Why then do 40 percent think it’s not worth voting and another 30 percent hate Democrat leaders with a passion?
BPL: Because there is an immensely successful right-wing propaganda machine whose central, eternally repeated instruction is “Trust only us. Everyone else is lying to you.” It has been in business since the 1980s and has half of America firmly under its spell. At this point they could tell their viewers that the Earth is flat and they would believe it. Not to believe it would be to place themselves outside the tribe.
Don Williams,
I think you have to look at outcomes:
When democrats are in control, the economy grows faster and income inequality goes down. When Republicans are in control the opposite happens. If people are too stupid to understand what is in their best interests, then they’re too stupid to live in a free society. Hell, they’re too stupid to survive.
@Barton Levenson
1) For some reason I had not realized that major news corporations ABC, NBC, MSNBC, Washington Post, NY Times, CNN etc were Republican mouthpieces.
2) @ Ray Ladbury
Some more data –as opposed to mere narrative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States#/media/File:1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg
Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have been in Congress for how long? 40 years?
3) Re income vs inflation:
https://www.factcheck.org/2024/06/competing-narratives-on-real-wages-incomes-under-biden/
@Ray Ladbury
When the “economy” (as a measure of consumption and extraction and waste) grows faster what happens destroys humanity’s life support system faster. But if people, in this case Americans, are too stupid to understand what is in their best interests, then they’re too stupid to live in a free society. Hell, they’re too stupid to survive.
This crisis is of our making. And the crisis we talk about isn’t the planet’s—it’s a crisis for human survival. Ironically, if humans disappeared, the planet would thrive. This is the perspective we need: climate change threatens our existence, not the Earth’s.
100% Tankie and proud of it. The rest of the world already know how dumb and ignorantly misinformed Americans are. No need to double down.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826639 cont.
(2021) “Very Thin (56 μm) Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells with an Efficiency of 23.3% and an Open-Circuit Voltage of 754 mV” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/solr.202100634
Re me @ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825471
“, try tilting every other panel/row 90°” … would work (a pic I saw left me thinking it may be done), but “3 out of 4” would require module thickness ~0 or height adjustments…
“backtracking” https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/76626.pdf :
For anyone whose judgment is based on ..you know .. actual DATA:
AP News interviewed 120,000 voters across the USA to determine what was the MOST important issue to the voters. The results:
a) Economy: 39%
b) Immigration: 20%
c) Abortion: 11%
d) Healthcare: 8%
e) Climate: Only 7%
https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/votecast/
Above suggests any moves Trump makes against the Biden Green Deal may not stir up much political opposition. Especially if his moves are depicted as moves to grow the economy/increase common prosperity., Or as moves to deny money flowing to a China cast as enemy.
Would it make any difference if Trump tossed the entire Green Deal in the trash? What good has it done? Last I heard, they had built about 8 charging stations for around $8 billion. Big deal.
We all know how accurate polls are. The mainstream media said Harris was ahead. How’d that turn out?
KIA: Would it make any difference if Trump tossed the entire Green Deal in the trash? What good has it done? Last I heard, they had built about 8 charging stations for around $8 billion. Big deal.
BPL: The “Green New Deal” was a policy proposal that never passed as a bill. Straw man argument. And Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act did more than build charging stations; it paid for a number of manufacturing plants, power projects, etc.
KIA: The mainstream media said Harris was ahead.
BPL: No it didn’t. It said they were tied. Will you kindly stop making stuff up?
The point that 7% of US citizens think “climate” is ” the most important facing the country in 2024″ is not some (normal) person running for office would ignore because it was only 5th in the list. There was no need for the Orange man to make known his climate change denial. But he did and I’d assume that if he could have been persuaded otherwise (although that is unlikely for the blabbermouth orange man), you wouldn’t need to bother because that 7% wouldn’t have voted for him even with impeccable eco-green credentials.
Over on this side of the pond, in July’s UK General Election, 7% voted for the Green Party, this mainly younger voters with 23% of 18-24 women voters voting Green. The winning Labour Party did massively downgrade green finance plans by 85% during the months before the election, convenient for the finances but perhaps mindful that with weaker green policies the more-numerous denialist older voters gained would cancel out the younger ones lost.
I would like to try and find a paper I once saw that detailed how to transition competely to renewable energy given the weather situation here over the last fortnight.
The UK is currently undergoing a prolonged period of anticyclonic gloom. So far this month I don’t think I have seen more than an hour of sunshine and one town in a nearby county has recorded zero sun so far this month. The only good thing is it has been very dry which we really need after recently experiencing one of the wettest 18 month periods on record. In addition to this the air has been largely dead calm, hardly a breath of wind so far this month. With virtually no wind and virtually no sun for nearly two weeks and counting, I would question what the solution is to supplement wind and solar during rare but not unprecedented periods of weather like this when both those forms of energy supply are well below normal but energy demand isn’t?
1. Reduce energy demand.
2. Establish a very smart grid system, so that demand can be further limited to essential functions if conditions warrant.
3. Establish localized backup fuel-based generators. This could be pure backup or dedicated for industrial-level demand. The easiest example would be to have Crypto installations or AI research run on NG units to cover the cost and then switch the output to the grid when needed. A couple of weeks is no great loss for those activities. There may well be other similar applications.
The more things are distributed, the better they can match the local needs.
Re: zebra to Adam Lea
adding to zebra’s list:
4. have interconnected systems – if the wind doesn’t blow in England, it might be blowing hard in Scotland or France, or Spain may have more solar than it needs
5. overbuild, if you double installed power, then running it at 50% is equivalent of running non-doubled system at 1oo%. When the supply exceeds demand – use it for time-nonsensitive application – like making ammonia, preferably to displace electricity needed to make it during higher demand/lower supply periods, or less energy effective – as a transportable form of green hydrogen.
6. energy storage – centralized and dispersed – electric F-150 pickup truck is advertised as able, in emergency, to run the electricity for your house for 3 days, also old EV batteries can be used for energy storage after they no longer keep high enough % charge to keep them on the road
7. “virtual storage” – running hydro when high demand, letting the water behind the dam rise when demand drops. = the same effect as pumped storage, without the cost of pumping
8, use a combination of the above (and other not listed here) solutions – since they are likely to have different temporal characteristics (if the sun does not shine, the wind may be blowing, if it does not blow in UK it may be blowing in France) and as such complement each other (“You complete me!”) so the mix of solutions would more resilient than their sum, or in a military parlance – using “force multiplier”.
The issue of lack of sun and rain for renewable energy has now started to appear in the media (I know it’s the Telegraph, ugh, but the general message is not unreasonable):
https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/britain-wind-power-falls-virtually-170358503.html
I am thinking of getting a battery backup to supplement my solar panels.
Adam, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, which was a point I was trying to make in my previous reply, but I will share my approach as an example.
I don’t have solar for various practical reasons, and my municipal electricity provider is pretty reliable, but I am a bit paranoid. So I bought a high quality portable battery unit and a high-quality gasoline portable generator. I also did some unconventional wiring to make it all work together.
For winter, neither battery nor generator can power my heat pump, but they can operate my old oil burner that is there as a backup.
For summer, they can run the refrigerator and a small freezer, and with good timing, a conventional AC unit that cools a pretty large space.
Of course, the battery alone can keep the computers and internet and lights and food storage running for conventional short outages of several hours.
This obviously only works for typical detached housing, but if enough people invest in similar setups, that is a significant reduction in “emergency” capacity demand, freeing it up for other applications.
Again, there are many variations on this idea, and it can work at different scales, if the incentive is there.
In re to Adam Lea, 9 Nov 2024 at 6:12 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826676
Hallo Adam,
This is a crucial question, I think. Such weather periods, called „Dunkelflaute“ in Germany, compromise profitability of economy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, because preventing blackouts during thereof requires either
(i) bulding and keeping „reserve“ classical (fossil fuel drive nor nuclear) energy sources that remain most of the year unused, or
(ii) building and keeping network of „electricity highways“ having a sufficient transport capacity and reaching to sufficient distance to ensure that renewable sources from geographically distant locations will be any time able to supply the regions wherein the anticyclonic gloom occurs, or
(iii) build and operate a sufficient electricity storage capacity, so that excess electricity produced and stored when the sunshine and/or wind are abundant can any time cover the periods of insufficient production from the renewable sources.
I have not a capacity to analyse the options (i) and (ii) in detail, however, I think that ongoing political discussions about subsidies necessary for economy transition to renewable energy sources strongly suggest that learning curves of electricity prices from renewable sources do not give a realistic expectation that the desired transition could be profitable and thus economically feasible (without huge expenses from public budgets) during the next two or three decades. The same seems to apply for (iii), if we take into account presently available electricity storage technologies only, such as pumped hydropower, batteries of any kind, hydrogen and/or various „carbon neutral“ synthetic fuels.
Whereas for the options (i) and (ii), I personally do not see yet unexplored technically feasible ways which could substantially change the situation in a near future, there do exist such yet unexplored and technically promising ways that might enable an economically feasible economy transition to renewable energy sources through cheap large-scale seasonal electricity storage.
I think that particularly interesting in this respect might be the idea of a „sodium economy“ described in several patents granted more than 40 years ago to an American visionary inventor Stephen Skala (see e.g. US3911288, US3911284, US3911288, US4276145 , US4367698, US4389287) because
a) sodium metal enables volumetric energy storage density about 3 kWh/L that is, on one hand, still lower in comparison with coal or liquid hydrocarbons (in a range about 8-12 kWh/L), on the other hand it is order of magnitude higher than in best available lithium batteries and at least two orders of magnitude better than in electricity storage based on various physical principles, like pumped hydropower, and substantially better than in liquid hydrogen (2 kWh/L) which requires very sophisticated thermal insulation enabling to keep it at its boiling point temperature about 20 K,
b) differently from the theoretically possible electricity storage in carbon and/or synthetic hydrocarbons, electricity storage in sodium is an already known industrial process,
c) differently from solid carbon or liquid hydrocarbons, there is also a known process for converting sodium directly (and thus with a reasonable efficiency) into electricity in a fuel cell comprising a consumable sodium anode (US 3 730 776),
d) differently from hydrogen fuel cells, the sodium fuel cell does not require catalysts that make hydrogen fuel cells expensive and hamper their scale-up towards industrially applicable power generators.
I therefore strive to explore the sodium economy potential in more detail, first of all in a project focused on development of the sodium fuel cell towards an industrially applicable prototype.
Improvements on the side of electricity storage by sodium production by electrolysis which enables the required circular process will be, however, also necessary, as the old Castner process certainly does not fulfil today standards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwdkDkYjefw
Greetings
Tomáš
Adam Lea, during anticyclones, New Zealand sometimes gets about a week of very low wind speeds at roughly 5 – 10 kms / hr, or very cloudy weather, or both . It can cover a large part of the country. These are very uncommon but they do happen.
Overbuilding wind turbines wont fix the problem because wind turbines stop rotating at around 10 kms. You are going to need perhaps a weeks electricity storage sufficient for a large region. Its obviously technically feasible in theory, and it comes down to costs of storage. A weeks storage for an entire country sounds intuitively like it would be expensive to me, based on available storage technologies.
Another alternative is to import electricity from a windy neighbouring region or country but again that could have substantial costs and geopolitical issues.
Various experts like Marc Jacobson claim that the problem can be solved and it can be affordable and they have published studies on it. They claim it will actually be cheaper than fossil fuels in the longer term especially when you factor in health benefits. I havent read all that stuff in detail its thousands of pages. I tend to trust the experts proclamations things can be done, where I think its an issue they should be able to calculate with some certainty. I just do hope they are right on this one.
Another last resort alternative is a system that is mainly renewables, but still has a fair bit of fossil fuels, for exmaple if storage costs proved to be too high. This would still make a very significant difference to the climate problem. So for me that is enough reason to still build renewables and deal with storage issue as it evolves. So although the longer periods of low wind are concerning, as Corporal Jones used to say In Dads Army “dont panic”..
It was possibly Mark Jacobson. 100% WWS – And yes intermittent supply without ‘backup’ is a problem. One that can collapse the whole grid of a region. It’s already happened without 100% from WWS.
some refs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2KNqluP8M0
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1610381114
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NewYorkWWSEnPolicy.pdf
https://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeeenergy/v_3a73_3ay_3a2014_3ai_3ac_3ap_3a875-889.htm
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/USStatesWWS.pdf
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountriesWWS.pdf
Jacobsons work is 100% theoretical based on dubious unrealistic assumptions and selectivity.
Conservative NYT journalist David Brooks on PBS Newshour-
David Brooks: Yes.
I think since 2016, we have entered a new political era. And the period between 1980 and 2016 was the information age. And we decided that America was moving to a postindustrial economy led by college grads. So, so many of our policies were oriented to favor college grads. Education policy, let’s get everybody near four-year colleges.
Immigration policy, let’s provide college grads with cheap labor, even though less skilled people are going to face some labor competition. Trade policy, we allowed manufacturing jobs to go overseas while service jobs were not threatened in that way.
Geographic policy, we had a laissez-faire attitude where talent congregated in Austin and Dallas and Washington and Boston. And we didn’t really worry about all those places left behind. And so, to me, we had a policy that favored college grads and disfavored everybody else. And basically in 2016 and emphatically last Tuesday, a lot of people said, I have had enough, we need to change.
Then
David Brooks:
Yes, a million things have shocked me that have not been disqualifying about Donald Trump.
I personally think Donald Trump is clearly a misogynist. I think he’s clearly a racist. I think that’s been in his family for generations, frankly. But to make that argument, somehow, you also have to explain why the gender gap went down, why Kamala Harris did worse among women than Joe Biden did.
Somehow, you have to explain why Trump got more Black voters than any Republicans since Richard Nixon. Somehow, you have to explain how he massively improved Republicans standing among Hispanic voters. And so he created this broad network.
And the way I would explain those phenomenon is race and sexism were clearly major facts in American life. But I think in our politics, class is rising in salience and race and gender are falling in salience. And when you say people had to choose between their race or their gender for — about white women, you’re ignoring that they have brains and that they have economic views, they have social views, they have a million other views. And so those views are part of how people make their decisions, not just an ethnic identity.
end quotes
What has shocked me the most and many others I have heard from too, is how people are so shocked that Donald Trump won! That Kamala Harris lost so badly in all the key Democrat “identity politics” groups and lost every single one of the Swing States. Even Trumps women vote increased. The facts defy the gender racism rhetoric.
Jonathan Capehart: says “but we cannot ignore [..] The role of racism and sexism, misogyny, grievance, white nationalism, that was very much a part of Donald Trump’s campaign.”
He like almost everyone else here gets this so very wrong. These things were not part of Trumps’ campaign – they were the bedrock of the Democrat (fake identity politics woke) campaign against Trump and the actual Policies he campaigned on.
That and Climate science and Climate policy as articulated and implemented by Biden/Harris and the Democrats was not a part of the campaign from either side. It was a non-issue because all the other issues superseded climate in importance to the Voters.
And they did not care about January 6th, his convictions, or the Russiagate lies, or the political lawfare witch-hunt against Trump either. They have voted accordingly using their uncommon “common sense.” The swing voters no longer bought into the Democrat DEI lies and racism and extreme hand waving rhetoric Even the abortion issue couldn’t swing them behind Harris. Because it was not important enough. Same as Climate Change issue was not important enough to them (swing voters) either.
Some one, one day, might come up with an argument and facts good enough to convince them otherwise. I seriously doubt it will ever be the Democrats or todays’ Climate scientists to achieve that feat.
JC: “but we cannot ignore [..] The role of racism and sexism, misogyny, grievance, white nationalism, that was very much a part of Donald Trump’s campaign.”
D: He like almost everyone else here gets this so very wrong. These things were not part of Trumps’ campaign – they were the bedrock of the Democrat (fake identity politics woke) campaign against Trump and the actual Policies he campaigned on.
BPL: What absolute nonsense. Trump’s anti-immigration stand is pure racism and is fine with the KKK and Nazis, both of whom endorsed him. Haitian immigrants are not stealing dogs and cats to eat them. Immigrants over the southern border are not disgustingly diseased, and they do not have a higher crime rate than citizens. Trump is the racist. Stop spreading lies.
BP, you know I like to look at fundamentals, as simple as possible. I find all the breathless analysis that people are doing incredibly silly. You are correct that racism is fundamental to most of the R voters, of course. But here’s my data:
2016: Trump beats a woman for USA President.
2020: Trump loses to a White male for USA President.
2024: Trump beats a Black woman for USA President.
Somehow, this is supposed to have great meaning about economics and other policies. But elections are about “tipping the balance”; getting enough people over to your side to win.
Maybe, for enough people, a woman President, especially a Black one, is a bridge too far. My bet would be that if Biden had done the one-term thing, and a competent, younger White male was chosen in the primary, the result would have been quite different. He could even have kept Harris on as VP, because that would fit the traditional hierarchical paradigm for many.
Just sayin’.
z: Maybe, for enough people, a woman President, especially a Black one, is a bridge too far.
BPL: That’s EXACTLY why Harris lost. Trump actually got FEWER votes this year than in 2020. But Harris got even fewer; Democratic votes dropped from 81 million for Biden to 69 million for Harris. 12 million people couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman president, especially a black one.
I’m ashamed to be an American.
Barton Paul Levenson says, “Trump actually got FEWER votes this year than in 2020.”
This is incorrect. The 2024 election results show Trump currently has 74,876,712 votes, surpassing his 2020 total, and counting isn’t even complete yet.
Source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election
You also claim, “12 million people couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman president, especially a black one.”
This seems like an assumption that isn’t backed by data. While academics and scientists are often recognized for their commitment to objectivity logic and data, statements like this seem inconsistent with that standard. If we’re to engage in productive discussions, objective evidence should guide these kinds of claims.
For some context on why certain narratives may alienate audiences, here’s a relevant discussion: “CNN Virtue Signaling Alienates People.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYVr4jIukU8
Lastly, you say, “I’m ashamed to be an American.” While it’s fair to critique the country, I encourage you to consider a range of perspectives before framing it in such absolute terms. There are valid reasons to feel both proud and critical of aspects of American society, but let’s ground those critiques in factual reasoning.
Sorry link to PBS news hour video and transcript
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brooks-and-capehart-on-whats-ahead-for-the-country-after-trumps-win
and another timed link to Glen Greenwald about the youth vote men and women switching to Trump, and the importance of the political-economic issue of immigration from 2016 thru 2024
from @ 17 minutes and the swings across counties first
https://youtu.be/5x8ac6xzDfs?si=9VrOqxD4qT6APnnG&t=1042
Quoting –
from The Washington Post how counties are shifting in the 2024 presidential
election quote former president Donald Trump won the presidency after
widespread gains across the country delivered him victory over vice
president Kamala Harris most of the nation’s 3,000 plus County swung
rightward compared with 2020
think about how extraordinary that is most of the nation’s 3,000 plus counties swung
rightward compared to 2020 the Republican shift appeared across rural
border count communities in Texas the wealthy sub suburbs of Washington DC and
even reliably Democratic counties in New York City Trump widened his margin in
rural areas while Harris Under reform compared with Biden in safely blue
States blue cities this combination and a rightward Lurch in major suburbs and
midsize Metro amount amounted to a Trump victory in every Battleground state
end quote
Glen then details other things like from the WSJ a 15% shift of young women from the democrats to the republican party since 2018. Trump wins young men by 14% in 2024, a shift of 33% since 2018
Nowhere was Climate Change or Climate science or Climate politics an important issue. But immigration was for over 20% of Voters their most important issue!
The most important issue overall was “democracy” ~35% but they do not say if that is the Democrats-Harris woke version of Democracy or the common people’s version. The polarization of thought is extreme.
Most stats data analysts would describe the 2020 election as an extreme Anomaly.
See the graph which shows it clearly:
US Presidential Election Popular Vote: Democrat vs Republican 2012-2024
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29d9277a-04eb-45fd-998e-a4386c3beada_1106x711.png
That’s right, here are the Democrat total vote count figures for the last six elections:
2004 Kerry – 59M
2008 Obama – 69.5M
2012 Obama – 65.9M
2016 Clinton – 65.9M
2020 Biden – 81.3M
2024 Harris – 66.4M
Notice anything?
From election summary https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/election-aftermath-notes-on-the-grand
The media and Democrats (same thing) told us for over a year that Trump was a fascist dictator and literally Hitler. We are expected to believe that 15,000,000 FEWER voters voted against literal Hitler in 2024 than in 2020? That right there is funny.
In 2020, there was chaos in election offices nationwide due to COVID, the riots, etc. Election officials made all manner of changes to voting procedures against the prescribed methods voted on by the state legislatures. Only the state legislatures get to change the rules according to the US Constitution. So, mass chaos in 2020 and SOMEHOW we end up with 15 MILLION more votes for president than in elections immediately before or since.
What was different in 2024? There wasn’t a lot of chaos. We were watching the elections like hawks so there was little room for shenanigans. The 2024 results are what the legitimate vote was in 2020. Now you know the rest of the story. Good day!
KIA: The 2024 results are what the legitimate vote was in 2020.
BPL: Bullshit. No elaboration needed.
Dharma,
The thing I notice is you cutting-&-pasting from a webpage dated 7/11/24 at which time the vote counting was not complete. Today, it is yet to finish with the latest showing 2024 Harris – 72.3M
MA Rodger says
12 Nov 2024 at 9:55 PM
The thing I notice is you cutting-&-pasting from a webpage dated 7/11/24 at which time the vote counting was not complete.
Correct. Score one brownie point. I noticed it too. And yes the counts keep rising. Yes. I know that already. I never needed you to tell me so.
Now if you wish, do tell what numbers I should have used on 7/11/24 comment I made other than the numbers I used? Please, I’m really curious.
Dharma,
If you “noticed it too” and “never needed [me] to tell [you],” perhaps you also would have noticed that it was particularly silly using the numbers you cut-&-pasted from SIMPLICIUS (who was using the number to tell the world that “exposed by this election is the now undeniable, irrevocable fact that 2020 was infact stolen {His bold}) to ask us here at RealClimate SIMPLICIUS’s question “Notice anything?”
As for why you would want to bring such nonsense to a thread with is meant to be discussion climatology, even for “FYI” reasons, that would also take you to explain.
But in such circumstances, you plead with me to tell you what numbers you should have used in your off-topic comment of 7/11/24, I presume more a schoolyard riposte than a genuine appeal.
Your comment is actually dated 9/11/24, this cutting-&-pasting the numbers of SIMPLICIUS which were dated 7/11/24. So, assuming you are not SIMPLICIUS, the numbers you should have used could well have been buried over the two elapsed days and are certainly well-buried today. As I tap this out, the vote counts are now showing at Wikithing:-
2024 Harris – 73.8M
and the information also provided but missing from this number shows that there are some 152.8M votes counted and some 2.6M votes still to count. With most of those uncounted votes from Harris-voting states, this would suggest a final figure based on a pro-rata so-far figure could be a lower limit, that being:-
2024 Harris – 75.1M
Reply to MA Rodger
I do not feel sorry for you.
I referenced an article and quoted directly from it, and noted that accurately.
Had I not done so, you would have nothing to say about any of it.
Make of that what you will.
It reminds of one of Elenore Roosevelt’s most famous quotes about discussing ideas.
Dharma,
Resorting to that quote suggests to me someone who is well experienced at being called out as an utter fool. But then, expecting the words of someone from the past to reliably provide good advice is a sign of desperation. As Laurence Johnston Peter said “If you can tell the difference between good and bad advice, you don’t need advice!”
My own advice to those who cannot resist resorting to using pithy quotations of dubious relevance is that it helps if you can attribute the quote correctly and spell the name right or your ignorance will be made the more obvious.
(And this reply does allow me a second try at providing that US Election WikiThing link properly.)
D: It reminds of one of Elenore Roosevelt’s most famous quotes about discussing ideas.
BPL: Eleanor
Pithy
D: It reminds of one of Elenore Roosevelt’s most famous quotes about discussing ideas.
BPL: Eleanor
D: Pithy
Since you tried to shine by association with Eleanor Roosevelt – then your mangling her name (two errors in a … 7 letter name) – suggests that your familiarity with her writings and ideas, is rather superficial. Hence the effect achieved is opposite to the intended.
And true to the form – you used her like a drunkard uses a lamppost – not for illumination, but for support.
Reminds me of Disney’s Fantasyland.
Probably my last comment about the election showing refs from sources who the majority here are unlikely to have seen or heard about. It’s a FYI, a public service, iow
Republican conservative Scott Jennings (former Assistant to Pres. GW Bush) on CNN encapsulated it best in a sombre moment of mirror-reflection, highly uncharacteristic for the biased virulent network: The Revenge of the Working class – This is a Mandate – Scott Jennings comments CNN Election Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMfLIAEttrM
And the Data reveals how working class switched from Democrats to Trump
2020 Biden wins Voters under $55k/yr by 55% to Trumps 44%
2024 Trump wins under $55k 49% to 48%
2020 Biden wins $55k-$100k 57% to 42%
2024 Trump wins that bracket 49% to 47%
2020 Trump wins Voters over $100K by 54% to 42% over Biden
2024 Harris wins Voters over $100k by 53% over 45% over Trump
from the Young Turks pro-Liberal Pro-Democratic Party (in general, not specifically)
CNN Contributor Tells THE TRUTH About Kamala’s Loss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96byJvA_KM0
Shocked? Or was it voter fraud?
I first saw these guys, the CartierFamily now with 1.34M subscribers, when they began in 2020, when they were fairly uninformed young black men. 4 years later they know what’s been going on for a long time, including about the overseas “wars” and control over other nations by the US. Here they present another appearance by Scott Jennings on CNN … watch their reactions to what is being said. Only 10 minutes.
Liberals ERUPT as Scott Jennings DROPS a Reality Check on CNN’s Downfall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5IZQ4YVb-M
Again no one anywhere mentions Climate issues let alone climate being the most import ant issue of all. .
Often, each voter has a few issues that are more important to them than the others. I think many people are concerned about climate change, but realize that it is not an immediate emergency, so it is not at the top of their list, but for a few it would be at the top.
Right now, in the US and in Europe, the most pressing issue for many people is unchecked immigration that is erasing the culture of their homelands. It is causing other problems as well. Some nations in Europe are discussing deportations due to high crime and other problems. Harris was put in charge of the border so she has to take considerable responsibility for that failure, and she made the error of saying she would not change anything she and Biden did during their term. OOPS! Not what voters wanted to hear!
I’d say unchecked immigration, 2 new wars, and high costs for food, gas, new homes, and other necessities were high on most voters radar in 2024.
KIA: I think many people are concerned about climate change, but realize that it is not an immediate emergency,
BPL: Right. Double giant hurricanes are just nature as usual.
You can’t really say much if anything about attribution of climate change to enhancing the 2024 hurricane season at the moment, and if you try you will have to be able to answer the question of why the peak season period was so quiet.
I think there is a signal when looking at recent hurricane seasons, not necessarily just in the Atlantic. This year and last year there is likely to have been some enhancement due to the very warm Atlantic SSTs which last year dominated over the moderate, normally suppressing, El Nino. There have also been a number of storms that have undergone rapid intensification in recent years, and I believe warming SSTs make these events more likely. That is potentially serious because rapid intensification is very difficult to predict, and as we saw with hurricane Otis, it can happen at a time which leaves very little time for preparation. The difficulty with trying to tease out a long term signal from the noise is the high intra-seasonal variability which has been particularly notable this year with its bi-modal activity. Warmer SSTs do nothing if the tropical Atlantic is choked with dry Saharan air, or easterly waves are exiting Africa too far north and immediately running into atmospheric conditions hostile for cyclogenesis.
One more, some icing on the cake.
NY Times Admits BERNIE WAS RIGHT…10 Years Too Late
Jordan Chariton breaks down a New York Times article written by David Brooks that admits that the Democratic Party needs someone like Bernie Sanders in order to move forward. Only this article came out in 2024, 10 years after Bernie Sanders stared his campaign and movement
discussion about it — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuOPpWTxBp8
David Brooks
Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?
Nov. 6, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-elites-working-class.html
extracts
The Democratic Party has one job: to combat inequality. Here was a great chasm of inequality right before their noses and somehow many Democrats didn’t see it. Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality. I guess it’s hard to focus on class inequality when you went to a college with a multibillion-dollar endowment and do environmental greenwashing and diversity seminars for a major corporation.
Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there’s something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself.
As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot.
In 2024, he built the very thing the Democratic Party once tried to build — a multiracial, working-class majority. His support surged among Black and Hispanic workers. He recorded astonishing gains in places like New Jersey, the Bronx, Chicago, Dallas and Houston. According to the NBC exit polls, he won a third of voters of color. He’s the first Republican to win a majority of the votes in 20 years.
The Biden administration tried to woo the working class with subsidies and stimulus, but there is no economic solution to what is primarily a crisis of respect.
There will be some on the left who will say Trump won because of the inherent racism, sexism and authoritarianism of the American people. Apparently, those people love losing and want to do it again and again and again.
The rest of us need to look at this result with humility. American voters are not always wise, but they are generally sensible, and they have something to teach us.
Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption — something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.
Well, Donald Trump hijacked a corporate party, which hardly seemed like a vehicle for proletarian revolt, and did exactly that. Those of us who condescend to Trump should feel humbled — he did something none of us could do.
If you hate polarization, just wait until we experience global disorder.
These are the times that try people’s souls, and we’ll see what we are made of.
One of 2225 comments on the NYTs article
Before we patted ourselves on the back for the progressive nomination of Eric Holder as America’s first Black Attorney General, he spent three years as lead counsel for Purdue Pharmaceuticals, vigorously defending them in Federal Court against the lawsuit filed by the People of the State of West Virginia, for the absolute devastation that their criminal pushing of Oxycontin wrought there. It was the first lawsuit that the people of a state had ever filed against a corporation for damages caused by fraudulent and predatory marketing and falsification of data– a momentous and promising day for the working class– the little guy, if you will. Literally, “The People”.
Our progressive Democratic president’s progressive Democratic Attorney General was on the corporation’s side. Purdue. He was their leader. Let that sink in.
Do you think any of the families of the out of work miners who died from overdose cared what color he was? I bet they remember his name. Any more questions about why the working class is abandoning Democrats?
Reply to Dharma
You know what? Sometimes it is the non-response to comments that say so much more than the responses do.
D: You know what? Sometimes it is the non-response to comments that say so much more than the responses do.
BPL: In this case, silence does not mean consent. It means we’re tired of wading through your endless posts.
BPL: In this case, silence does not mean consent.
I never imagined it did. Just goes to show again you keep trying to say you know what I think or believe yet constantly get that wrong. A+ for consistency.
To all those whining over the fact that Trump won the election, claiming it’s a disaster for the climate, here is some friendly advice. Fact is that every nation on earth can do whatever they want to power their economies. Trump has no bearing on it whatsoever – they are ALL free to go green. Fact is that every state in the USA can do the same. Most of them are already using a lot of wind and solar. Fact is that all of you folks whining about Trump can get off your butts and ride your bikes to work, take public transportation, etc. You scientists can attend climate meetings via computer. BUT YOU WON’T, because you are hypocrites who whine and bitch and moan about Trump but are not willing to lift a finger to stop global warming. The truth is that you LOVE riding to work in your FF powered vehicles. You want THE GOVERNMENT to do it for you. Guess what? The government isn’t going to do shit, EVER. Stop whining and get busy finding solutions, preferably ones the people are willing to pay for voluntarily. Elon did that. Some of you have brains and can do the same thing.
If everyone in the world who claims to give a shit about AGW will stop their OWN emissions, that would cut the world emissions by quite a bit. Get busy creating solutions and stop whining like a bunch of spoiled children.
[Response: “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”. – gavin]
KIA: If everyone in the world who claims to give a shit about AGW will stop their OWN emissions, that would cut the world emissions by quite a bit.
BPL: Yeah, all those scientists tooling around in their SUVs should just stop building all those fossil fuel generating plants.
BPL,
Love the one liners! Henny Youngman eat your heart out! :-D
KIA
I gave up my car starting last year. I have a 15yo carbon fiber road bike, and an MTC GoTo transit card. I attend all geophysics conferences by computer, and do all my climate change simulations on a desktop PC..
KIA, I hope that you find satisfaction with everything that Trump has promised you.
If you stop buying their power, THEY WILL stop building FF generating plants.
KIA. So you expect people to walk to work, freeze to death, go without a fridge, etcetera. Honestly you post some hopeless comments. Number one priority is government schemes to push generation towards renewables. Individuals can be expected to use initiative and do some other stuff like low meat diets.
Today, solar and/or wind is cheap enough that if you conserve power usage and use efficient appliances, an off-grid solar system will power your home at a relatively affordable price. Depending on where you live you may need a backup FF heating system. Many middle class folks can do that and all who believe AGW is a serious threat should do it. Utilities may require that they tie into the grid, and that can be done.
Many folks can also ride a bike and/or take public transportation to work. Those solutions have been available for decades.
Don’t wait for government. AGW is an immediate and existential threat to the survival of the planet the believers tell us. All believers need to get to work immediately doing what they can NOW, not later.
Go ahead and argue against any of the above.
KIA, huge numbers of people CANT afford solar power on their roofs, and huge numbers of people can’t practically cycle to work so there is no escaping the need for centralised generation and some way of governments incentivising that. This is basic. Your ideology doesn’t work.
NIgel said: “……huge numbers of people CANT afford solar power on their roofs, and huge numbers of people can’t practically cycle to work so there is no escaping the need for centralised generation and some way of governments incentivising that. This is basic. Your ideology doesn’t work.”
Huge numbers of middle class believers can afford to go solar. Millions have already done it. You can see their panels on their roof. Millions more who can afford to do it and who believe in AGW have not done it. Tens of millions of workers can commute via bicycle or public transportation and they advocate that the government FORCE the rest of us to do exactly that, yet they drive a car to work. The goobermint is not going to help solve this problem for at least the next 4 years.
Do the believers want to solve the AGW problem, or do they just want to whine about it? Their actions, not their words, will show us the answer.
KIA: Tens of millions of workers can commute via bicycle or public transportation and they advocate that the government FORCE the rest of us to do exactly that,
BPL: Who, precisely, advocates the government FORCING them to do any such thing? [CITATION NEEDED]
KiA: “ Tens of millions of workers can commute via bicycle or public transportation and they advocate that the government FORCE the rest of us to do exactly that”
Fought many monsters, masquerading as windmills, lately?
Re guy who thinks Biff Tannen was the hero of Back To The Future I,II,III
(CC Adam Lea @ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826676 )
Intermittent renewables like Solar PV (or CSP with limited storage) and wind work best with a large-area grid (to smooth out variations in weather (and time of day (solar…) – and climate: – some locations are just sunnier or windier)); this reduces the need for storage/backup.
Utility scale solar is significantly more affordable than residential at the moment – perhaps some policies for including rooftop installations in new buildings would help with that (soft costs are a big part AIUI).
And see BPL @ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826823 – IMO an appropriate price on CO2eq would be very helpful ; I believe a societal shift will/has tend(ed) to improve available options. (BTW Dharma and Don Williams – guess which of the two main US political parties is more likely to support that (you both seem to be confused about the identities/natures of our political factions))
Intermittent renewables like Solar PV (or CSP with limited storage) and wind work best with a large-area grid (to smooth out variations in weather (and time of day (solar…)
and work best when different renewables are combined (working together they are more efficient than working on their own) – when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind may blow, and vice versa, if neither of them do – then you let the water over turbines – water that accumulated when there was enough of solar and/or wind (thus a form of “virtual” , passive, i.e. costing nothing – version of actively pumped hydro-storage).
And then you encourage flexibility on the demand side – for those who can choose when they use their electricity – you charge them less per kWh when the supply exceeds demand, a situation not limited to renewables – since the fossil fuel and nuclear (except perhaps for a quick-ramp up, but more expensive and less efficient gas turbines) can’t respond quickly enough to changes in the demand/supply – and burn the surplus electricity on wires.
Then you have the already existing potential storage that does not require any new money – EVs and their batteries, charging them when supply > demand, and withdrawing when the opposite. If to believe commercials – the battery in an electric F150 can power a house for 3 days. The batteries can be used even after they have been “retired” from vehicles – if they charge to say 70% of the max – may be not good enough to keep them in cars, but may be good enough for electricity storage – 70% is better than the alternative – 0%.
And if EVs make major inroads into the vehicle fleet – there will be a LOT of the batteries available.
↑ Great Addendum, Piotr.
Also, I’ve read that (electric) water heaters could be used for demand management (storing heat for later use, obviously). I know in some buildings they would make ice at night (lower electricity demand) to use for cooling (summer; tends to peak afternoon-evening, depending on climate) – with increasing solar power, that could switch to making ice late morning/etc depending on load profiles/etc.
On partly cloudy days, Satellite images combined with PV installation maps could be used to shift timing of some loads by a few minutes back and forth.
Anecdote – “I am an American citizen. I am not a group or a demographic. I am a single person with a single vote with my own history, ethnicity, hopes, dreams, concerns, values, faith and beliefs. I am not garbage, misinformed, uneducated, racist, fascist or a Nazi. Advertising did not take over my ‘monkey brain’ and force me to vote one way or another. As an adult I decided who I would vote for all by myself. I ask the media and social media trolls to think more carefully about the individuals who voted. Please have a modicum of respect for me and democratic elections when you speak about me and my vote.” Anonymous
American author Lionel Shriver on the election that smashed identity politics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhZK1lM0pyk
extract: “I think this is the most cheerful gloss to put on this result which is
that it is a summary rejection of progressive identity politics and I am
really hoping that this decisive result puts an end to the the momentum
behind Progressive politics and that DEI racially obsessed ideology.
And I’m also hopeful that because this political campaign has been followed
so avidly internationally that it also sends a signal to the anglophone
countries especially that this whole identity politics thing is yesterday’s
news. It is over. It is not popular.
It has been led by a very narrow band of people who have got control of
a lot of big institutions not just in the United States but also in the likes
of Britain. It has been rejected and that includes racial preferences in
hiring and admission to educational institutions.
I would love to see the whole ball of wax thrown out and that to me is
the most cheerful aspect of this election result.
And the other thing is that it is also a rejection of the fake empty insulting
politics represented by Kamala Harris, not just her campaign but for her
candidacy. You know I just found that her being run as a credible
President of the United States insulted the electorate.
Now I completely accept that there are lots and lots of people who
also look at Donald Trump that way too. Okay I understand that and
I kind of do too. But Trump he is more credible than she is. Kamala is
a nothing.
I mean she did not represent anything, the only issue she spoke with
persuasive passion about was abortion. I truly believe that she does
want abortion to be legal up until Foetal viability and this is a real thing
that she believes. I’m not persuaded that she believes anything else
other than it would be fun to be President. ”
Who is Lionel Shriver?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Shriver#Political_views_and_activism
– Shriver described herself as a “lifelong Democrat” in 2022 but holds some views that could be considered conservative. For example, Shriver has argued against migration into the UK; in 2021 she wrote an article which stated “For westerners to passively accept and even abet incursions by foreigners so massive that the native-born are effectively surrendering their territory without a shot fired is biologically perverse.”
– She voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
– In September 2022, Shriver released an open letter in which she endorsed Republican Ron DeSantis for the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. In the letter, she criticized both Biden and Donald Trump as poor leaders, and praised DeSantis for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, banning critical race theory in schools, opposing transgender women from competing in women’s sports, and passing the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act; while noting that she disagrees with him on abortion.
– In May 2010, Shriver criticized the American health system in an interview in which she said she was “exasperated with the way that medical matters were run in my country”
A side comparison of Policies vs Platitudes [+counting your chickens] the day before Nov 5 election.
Megyn Kelly spontaneous speech at Pittsburgh Trump rally vs Kamala Harris short 10 minute speech in Pittsburgh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SGg5D3DbH4
Re Dharma:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826688
47 %, 48%, 42% etc. ≠ 0. Yes, groups may have been won or lost on majorities or pluralities, but many low-income and I’d expect blue-collar workers AFAIK*** still supported Democrats (just as a large fraction of Americans in general – I hope our future Chinese overlords remember that)
Mr. Know It All https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826700 – “Right now, in the US and in Europe, the most pressing issue for many people is unchecked immigration that is erasing the culture of their homelands. ” – exaggeration/extrapolation to distant future based on trends that may change (PS will red hair really go extinct?***) PS great example of identity politics.
“ It is causing other problems as well. Some nations in Europe are discussing deportations due to high crime and other problems. ” Shall we deport the citizens who commit crimes? Shall we deport the citizens when they take jobs that other citizens wanted?
“ Harris was put in charge of the border so she has to take considerable responsibility for that failure, and she made the error of saying she would not change anything she and Biden did during their term. OOPS! Not what voters wanted to hear!”
What some voters seem not to account for is that the party whose goals’ they support are often stymied by the opposing party. The solution is to get supermajorites (supermajorites? Is that some new mineral?).
*** racism/xenophobia aside, I get the whole ‘wanting to preserve everything as it is’ thing. It gets into the fundamental pain of time passing. It’s a paradox of existence in a spacetime. We want to be able to relive our favorite moments, yet eternal repetition is pointless. Preservation is one way to transcend our individual deaths (a hoarcrux) – so the experiences I have may be experienced again by others after I die. But even when they enjoy my favorite songs, will they do so in the same way (eg. choreographing “Uninvited” to the development and approach of a severe thunderstorm…). Cultures evolve (even without migration). And then the Sun will expand, etc. (OTOH evolving into mer-people or cyber-centaurs would be cool.) And isn’t the pain of death and change in part the pain of loneliness – wanting to share our likes with each other…
https://www.bing.com/search?q=kansas+dust+in+the+wind+lyrics&filters=dtbk:%22MCFvdmVydmlldyFseXJpY3MhYmFkZDI0MTYtZWY1Yi1kYzdlLTRlMjgtYzM4YzhkZDBkOTc2%22+sid:%22badd2416-ef5b-dc7e-4e28-c38c8dd0d976%22&FORM=DEPNAV
“I close my eyes
Only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
…
Now, don’t hang on
Nothin’ last forever, but the earth and sky [and not even those]
It slips away
And all your money won’t another minute buy”
PS environmentalism-preservation – would that mean trying to keep the Anthropocene as similar to the Holocene as we can indefinitely, or would that mean ultimately allowing the Earth to respond to the Orbital cycles, and stellar evolution, etc.?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826689 –
Perhaps some of the left wingers/progressives/liberals that David Brooks knows show a lack of respect. I remember from the ‘08 race, he recalled some people saying that Sarah Palin sounded like “trailer trash”. Well, I would not say such a thing; that was not my reaction, and I don’t use terms like that. Even within political factions, there are variations. I don’t think Harris, Biden, or Walz showed disrespect to blue-collar workers/etc.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826785 – Anonymous’ quote is a noble sentiment. While there are demographic tendencies that may be analyzed (and exploited), it must be kept in mind that the statistics of the group can’t reliably describe individuals – assuming otherwise is a recipe for bigotry. But of course, that demographic tendencies do exist mean at least some people are being influenced by their identity, or what that entails (statistics of different life experiences, etc.).
Shorter Lionel Shriver: Other people should stop practicing identity politics and let ‘my people’ have a turn!
Three views on identity politics: AIUI/AFAIK (??)
When people vote for people who are like themselves (***in some shallow way) (eg. Obama is black; ‘Trump talks like us’(?); vs. Obama thinks like me (based on something he said during his primary regarding putting a price on CO2eq.)
Arises as a solution to the problem of people being treated unfairly/differently (in a way that doesn’t make sense – obviously a doctor will treat patients differently according to their different conditions/needs/wants) based on their identity. Could we end identity politics by ending all bigotry (sexism,racism,…lookism,ageism…) and having sufficient reparations…etc.?
Pitting groups against each other – we’ll give A more stuff – no, we’ll give B more stuff.
PS [AIUI/AFAIK (??)] DEI/affirmative action/etc. – a way to try to correct for bias and legacies of past bias, but also, a way to achieve better results – ie. people learning from people with different experiences – catching holes in each other’s ideas (eg did you train your AI on enough Black people’s faces? Did you take into account different hair textures in your conditioners?), enhancing creativity… etc. (Of course a cis-gendered heterosexual able-bodied neurotypical middle-aged white male of average height and weight is not incabable of figuring this stuff out but… everyone is finite.)
Reply to patrick o twentyseven
said (on Brooks article) “I don’t think Harris, Biden, or Walz showed disrespect to blue-collar workers/etc.”
You are missing the pint and conflating “abusive language” with their policies and direction and ignoring their living conditions. Illegal immigrants, climate policy tax breaks to corps EV subsidies, wars genocide and DEI trans issues were far more important than working class people’s lives – is the point Brooks and thousands of others are making.
AOC asked her constituents on social media to tell her why they both voted for trump as president and her as well. Basically they said both she and trump (and Bernie) spoke to their needs, offered ideas and showed they cared about them (working class people) and were sincerely progressive calling for major change in govt approaches and were not traditional establishment political operatives from either party who are only in it for themselves and the corp elites.
All this info feedback is out there. I have given a few examples of a flood of information saying the same things from multiple sources and voting sectors. The loud chorus of “what and why” keeps on being told. Its not me saying it.
but thanks for acknowledging the info that had been shared and looking at some of it.
D: Illegal immigrants
BPL: So it would have been okay if they were all legal immigrants?
Seriously, if the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country had come in legally, do you think everything would have been peaceful and quiet on this issue?
Google “Know Nothings.”
From Ronald Reagan to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama,, winning presidential candidates have run on optimistic messages. Trump, however, used a more negative rallying cry saying the U.S. is a “nation in decline.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, the historian and presidential biographer, joined Boston Public Radio to discuss why this messaging won Trump the popular and electoral votes.
“The Democrats lost the working class people.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0F1PY_kVM
Why and How Democrats Lost the Culture Wars on CNN
‘They didn’t communicate it’: Democrat Election Campaign Strategist on Democratic Party’s messaging
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYVr4jIukU8
America can be unburdened by what has been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovi_raayD44
WP reporters have been told by two insiders close to the Trump transition team that President-Elect Donald Trump is such an extreme narcissist and woman hating misogynist that the real reason he chose Susie Wiles was so that he could be the first President in history to ever fire a female Chief of Staff from the White House.
BPL: “…….I, too, am sick at the thought of what’s going to happen to Ukraine now that Putin’s Puppet is president of the United States.”
What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine? Is Putin so bad? He AND Iran did endorse Harris in the election. Let’s hear some predictions on Ukraine.
KIA. Yes Putin is bad. But using your own logic you would presumably be OK with China invading the USA because is Xi Jin Ping really so bad?
KIA: What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine? Is Putin so bad?
BPL: Is Putin so bad? Are you on crack?
Answer the question. What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine?
This depends on the actions of the EU. The Russian Federation under President Putin will in any case pursue their policy of restoring control of the near-abroad regions formerly part of the Russian Empire. Ukraine is an obvious key step. The writings of President Putin (who has publicly compared himself to Peter the Great) as well as the presentation of the demand for “security guarantees” make clear that the initial goal is the defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces, the overrunning of Ukraine territory and the installation of a puppet government possibly headed by Yanukovych. This would be followed by a sham referendum in which Ukraine would become part of the Russian Federation as was done in the Oblasts already occupied by Russia. The real question is exactly what further military actions the Putin government will pursue following the annexation of Ukraine. The danger is that some targeted states, such as the Baltics, are members of NATO. Whether Putin would risk attack on a NATO member is unclear. However, by effectively submitting to the conquest of Ukraine, he may be sufficiently emboldened to pursue this. This would be analogous to the initial seizing of Crimea.
Jonathan David – “ by effectively submitting to the conquest of Ukraine, he may be sufficiently emboldened to pursue [further invasions]. This would be analogous to the initial seizing of Crimea.
Exactly – seizing Crimea and facing no serious consequences for it – has proven to Russia that there is no international order that prevents you from annexing the territory of your neighbours. And that you don’t have to abide by the official treaties and your own guarantees:
Russia gave Ukraine its guarantees of territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine giving to them its (third in world at the time) nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet times.
And that the security guarantees given to Ukraine by the US, UK, and France at the same time, to convince Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal, are ALSO not worth the paper they were written on.
And the half-hearted military support in the latest invasion of Ukraine – too late, a fraction of what has been promised, and with restrictions on the use – has proven to Putin that the West is weak and too cowardly to act, and therefore this is the time to change the world order to the one dominated by Russia and China.
In summer of 1939 some French were marching in Paris chanting that they don’t want to die for Poland. Less than a year later they were either dying in vain for France, or skipped the dying part altogether by collaborating with the Nazis in the marshal Petain puppet state. Similarly, the isolationism in the US didn’t protect it from being attacked by Japan in 1941.
And here we are not even talking about actually dying for Ukraine – but merely providing them with enough weapons to defend both themselves and us from the imperial ambitions of Russia.
Trump waving his “peace in one day” promises may be in history textbooks next to Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper he called “Peace for our Time”, after his triumphant return from Munich where he sold out Czechoslovakia for the promise by “Mr. Hitler” that this would conclude his territorial ambitions.
BTW – Hitler claimed that he must invade Czechoslovakia to protect the German-speaking minority from the oppression by the Czechoslovaks – mirroring Putin’s justification of the invasion of the Ukraine to protect the Russian-speaking Ukrainians from the oppression by the other Ukrainians. Then he invaded, together with Stalin, Poland, justified again by the propaganda machines of both countries with claims of protection of the German and Ukrainian/Belorussian minorities, respectively.
For the tyrants – the appeasement is the sign of weakness, and thus an invitation to further aggression.
KIA: What do you think is going to happen to Ukraine?
BPL: I think the Trump administration and Putin between then will force Ukraine into a peace treaty that leaves Russia in charge of large portions of Ukraine. Putin will then wait a couple of years, build up his armed forces, and attack Ukraine again.
Ukraine could have been a good ally of the United States. But Trump hates them because Zelensky refused to make up charges against Biden.
I’m not so sure about this. First, Putin made the choices for Ukraine very clear during the first couple of months of the war: Accept genocide or resist. Ukraine also made its choice clear. Ukraine may lose arms from the US, but I don’t think you’ll ever see them accept Russian sovereignty over any of their territory. Russia will face guerilla resistance and will respond with brutality.
There is also the fact that Russia’s economy is now entirely on a war footing. If they were to accept a treaty, their economy would crash. So, I think Russia won’t even digest Ukraine before it starts looking at Poland. Kleptocracies cannot exist in condition of stability lest the thievery be discovered.
BPL: “That’s EXACTLY why Harris lost. Trump actually got FEWER votes this year than in 2020. But Harris got even fewer; Democratic votes dropped from 81 million for Biden to 69 million for Harris. 12 million people couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman president, especially a black one.
I’m ashamed to be an American.”
Trump currently has 75.5 million votes. 1.3 million more than they claim he got in 2020. Nobody cares what color she was or that she was a woman. She was a bad candidate. She cackles and laughs, calls Trump fascist dictator Hitler, and wants abortion. THAT was her entire campaign. That’s all she had. She said she would not change anything she and Biden did during their term.
Bill Maher gives good advice to Democrats: “Look in the mirror.”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM0sIdoDeNU
Dharma: “Why and How Democrats Lost the Culture Wars on CNN
‘They didn’t communicate it’: Democrat Election Campaign Strategist on Democratic Party’s messaging”
The strategist is wrong. Democrat’s problem is that they DID communicate the culture wars to us very effectively 24/7/365 for the past 4+ years. They tried to ram it down our throats. That, along with the border, high prices, and 2 new wars are exactly why they lost. HOWEVER, I say: KEEP DOING IT.
:)
:)
KIA: She was a bad candidate. She cackles and laughs
BPL: Seriously? That was a serious objection? She cackles and laughs? Are you kidding me?
KIA: calls Trump fascist dictator Hitler
BPL: He was the one who complemented Hitler, not her.
KIA: and wants abortion.
BPL: Wants it to be legal. Was trying to fight a rear-guard action against the GOP who are trying to make it illegal, period.
KIA: THAT was her entire campaign.
BPL: THAT is a lie. She submitted a broad spectrum of programs and reforms to help peoples’ economic situation. Subsidies for first-time home buyers. Extended children’s tax credit. And so on.
Your whole post is seen through the eyes of a MAGA person–which means through Trump-colored glasses. Stop watching Fox and OAN and try the mainstream media for once.
Here we go again. Another COP mythmaking conference backed by disinformation and false mitigation claims. COP29: Because Nothing Says “Green Transition” Like Wine, Networking, and a Good Story
Nov 6
EU greenhouse gas emissions fell by 8.3% in 2023, compared to 2022, reveals the latest climate action progress report by the European Commission.
https://eutoday.net/climate-action-progress-report-eu-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
Ah, the magic of COP29! As delegates sip their wine, swap business cards, and nod along to another round of “We’re saving the planet!” speeches, it’s only fitting that a story emerges to help them feel just a little less like self-congratulatory frauds. And lo and behold, right on cue, we’re presented with the energy price shock to European heavy industry as a fairytale transformation into the “Green Transition” myth. War-induced sky-high energy prices hurting German heavy industry? Not a crisis—just a charming opportunity for environmental progress!
Of course, they downplay the fact that heavy industry output in Germany dropped around 18% in 2023 due to the energy price spike and a crisis in Gas supplies. Sure, there were political backlash and emergency moves to lower industry energy costs, but who’s keeping track? Meanwhile, AGEB estimates that Germany’s energy use in 2023 will plummet to a record low of 10,784 petajoules—a solid 8% drop from the previous year and nearly 28% below its peak in 1990. But don’t worry, this is all good news if you squint hard enough.
Some ecomodernist enthusiasts might even try to spin this story with their favorite “alternative facts”:
“This decline is proof of an intentional energy transition.” (Yes, energy shortages count as strategy now!)
“We can sustain this rate of reduction every year without any economic or social consequences.” (Why worry about facts when we have faith?)
“This shows GDP and resource consumption can be uncoupled—despite, you know, hundreds of studies saying otherwise and CO2 emissions still rising.”
“Criticism of the ecomodern transition story is just negativity.” (Pragmatism? Realism? Never heard of her.)
So, let’s raise a glass to COP29’s brave attendees as they pretend they’re the planet’s ethical saviors. After all, what could be more ethical than living it up on the company dime while everyone else faces the real impacts of energy shortages and economic strain?
Meanwhile, could the climatologists in attendance possibly step away from the “green fairytale” and admit the uncomfortable truth? Like maybe, just maybe, wealth redistribution within and between countries is essential? Or that a technocentric, ecomodern fantasy is only leading us toward more trashed environments and widespread voter backlash?
Here’s to celebrating alternatives that reject the myth of a quick-fix green transition—because nothing says “empowerment” like embracing an honest, radical, and just approach to environmentalism.
A safe haven for critical thought in these difficult times–Brave New Europe News
https://braveneweurope.com/
In our lifetime in the West we have never been confronted with such a massive onslaught on truth by corporate and state media as the authoritarian liberal political class enters its current crisis. At the same time, we have never had such a robust alternative media that is becoming the primary source of information for millions of people, especially the young. Thus it is of no surprise that Western governments, as they lose control of the political narrative and discourse, are moving to forbid and hinder these voices of truth.
In this context, it is becoming ever-more important to maintain forms of media which are neither in the control of billionaires nor tamed by the state. We believe Brave New Europe, an aggregator of critical voices and informed analysis, has proven itself to be a tried and tested alternative, one that is unflinching in speaking truth to power and unapologetic in supporting movements for peace and justice wherever they arise.
World on track for hottest year ever as carbon pollution hits record levels: Extraordinarily warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic are helping to fuel an unusually active hurricane season.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/11/world-on-track-for-hottest-year-ever-as-carbon-pollution-hits-record-levels/
Why do some of the world’s top climate scientists provide a platform for BLOVIATING BOORS like “Dharma” and “Mr. Know It All” to post interminable, self-indulgent, often belligerent and insulting, frequently incoherent and usually off-topic rambling? It’s a mystery.
1) It has just been announced that Trump and the Republicans have gained control of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, This on top of the Supreme Court dominated by his appointees. I
This means little to no progress will be made by the world in reducing CO2 emissions in the next 5 years –and the resulting increase in CO2 will last for 100+ years.
2) You understandably think a PhD in climate science is relevant– yet the indepth study by Associated Press found only 7 percent of US voters rated climate change as the most important issue, I.e the voters think that the views of Trump and his supporters are a lot more important than the views of climate scientists.
SA: indeed, my scroll button and scrolling finger are getting overused. This comment section is pretty much, sadly, useless.
Why do people think their endless multiple and repetitive comments do anything but waste their own and others’ time here? It’s hard to tell who said what any more.
Whoever they’re attacking, regardless of the rights and wrongs of it, it’s a terrible waste.
Strongly recommend simply reading the main articles and leaving the rest. This is too bad, because there is an occasional gleam of light, and even the bloviators are not always wrong, just boring and indigestible. They undermine their own material.
regarding USA gov’t sponsored climate data
https://x.com/solarphreak/status/1856794628365938802:
“Let’s make sure these data remain available as a public resource”
How about an open climate science forum for discussing and keeping track of all this. We had one for the 2016 Trump term called the Azimuth Project discussion forum, where all the data was described and links to backups listed. Nothing exists now since the owner deleted the Azimuth site.
Measuring climate change: It’s not just heat, it’s humidity – How hot is hot?
Researchers say temperature by itself isn’t the best way to measure climate change’s weird weather and downplays impacts in the tropics. But factoring in air moisture along with heat shows that climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated, according to their study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The energy generated in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and rainfall is related to the amount of water in the air. So a team of scientists in the U.S. and China decided to use an obscure weather measurement called equivalent potential temperature — or theta-e — that reflects “the moisture energy of the atmosphere,” said study co-author V. “Ram” Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Cornell University. It’s expressed in degrees, like temperature.
“There are two drivers of climate change: temperature and humidity,” Ramanathan said. “And so far we measured global warming just in terms of temperature.”
In addition, water vapor is a potent heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere that increases climate change, he said.
From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 1.42 degrees (0.79 degrees Celsius). But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 2.66 degrees (1.48 degrees Celsius), the study said. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 7.2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius).
When judging by temperature alone, it looks like warming is most pronounced in North America, mid-latitudes and especially the poles — and less so in the tropics, Ramanathan said.
But that’s not the case, he said, because the high humidity in the tropics juices up storm activity, from regular storms to tropical cyclones and monsoons.
“This increase in latent energy is released in the air which leads to weather extremes: floods, storms and droughts,” Ramanathan said.
from https://apnews.com/article/climate-floods-science-environment-and-nature-42655c2d26ebef9f76383a59bd1e6df0
and then there is also OHC and EEI (Aerosol and Albedo changes) to consider in the mix alongside GMST readings. How hot is hot?
PS a disturbing new article by Zeke H.
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/durability-of-carbon-dioxide-removal
re new article by Zeke H.
another point of view by Wolfgang Knorr – Three Degrees
November 12, 2024
Is striving for net zero in itself a waste of money?
The answer is very likely no, because there are clearly other ways to reach net zero. One way not to do it, however, is to take the CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it securely underground in geological formations. While technically possible, this is a perfect example for a waste of money. Not creating the emissions in the first place is always hugely more economical than removing them after the fact.
What does make economic sense, however, is an international agreement to phase out and ultimately ban the use of fossil fuels due to their unacceptable environmental costs. This will lead to higher prices, which, given enough lead time, will send efficient market signals to ensure a transition towards zero emissions. It will also compensate fossil-fuel producers through higher prices, cushioning the blow of their demise. Efforts towards such an agreement have been shaping up for a few years, but what is needed is a high-level endorsement by key geopolitical players. Unfortunately, the current trend towards further confrontation and militarization makes this look increasingly unlikely.
see the rest here https://braveneweurope.com/wolfgang-knorr-three-degrees
a thoughtful article.
“One way not to do it, however, is to take the CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it securely underground in geological formations.”
LOL
Do you also believe in magic beans?
>>>>> “not to do it”
LOL
Dharma- “Is striving for net zero in itself a waste of money?
The answer is very likely no, because there are clearly other ways to reach net zero.” Ya think? Other ways than what? You write a ridiculous number of words on these threads, most vaguely pointless.. Are you a text-generator? Maybe you could do us a favor and limit your comments to a dozen or so words, more than enough to convey your main thoughts. Then we can get to your next comment that much more quickly. Thanks.
Richard Creager says
21 Nov 2024 at 10:58 PM
– “Ya think? Other ways than what? ”
Take it up with climate scientist academic Wolfgang Knorr – They were his words, I provided the ref/quote. Looks to me like your entire contribution this month on UV is a ridiculous pointless waste of space. But thanks for sharing your deep inner thoughts
Dharma-
You name yourself for the eternally true nature of reality, accuse me of “a ridiculous pointless waste of space” while suffocating every thread, mock the depth of my thoughts, none of which I have shared with you…… gotta say tho, I appreciate the brevity of your reply.
re Richard Creager says
24 Nov 2024 at 5:30 PM
OK, so what I said went over your head Richard Creager . Let me clarify – when i said ” your entire contribution this month on UV “ it was referring to your one comment. Do you understand it now?
You brought me into your comment by quoting me, speaking about me and making judgements. Contrary to what you wrote in your response, I did not mock or say anything about the “depth of your thoughts, none of which I have shared with you……”
My response was much more specific—it addressed your one comment and its focus on my character. There’s no need to exaggerate beyond what was actually said. For the record, I have absolutely zero interest in the “depth of your thoughts,” especially when it comes to me. Please, keep those to yourself.
Richard Creager – Dharma, You write a ridiculous number of words on these threads, most vaguely pointless.. Are you a text-generator?
“- Hey ChatGPT, write me 77 posts for the first 3 weeks of the November Unforced Variations, in a vaguely pointless style of a climate change doomer. Dont’ worry about logic – it’s all about quantity, not quality. In the first encounters, have kind words for the opponents, to blunt their skepticism, and for you – to appear civil, sincere, and open-minded. Once they catch up, no need to maintain the pretense. When possible, address your posts to individuals so they feel more obligated to respond. This is how we are going to “own them”. Bait them with the doomer cliches, if you run out of them may switch to the denier ones, many of those are interchangeable. And please employ the all-or-nothing fallacies as often as you can.” ?
Thanks for the imaginative recommendation, I will give it a try next month.