Here is an example of what I have been waiting 1/2 decade to see.
An article where someone says ~”Hang on a minute. Isn’t it cold and snowy? Just how is that ‘warming’?”
It is a remarkable article, both for what it says, and for how. It is well written. But also for something about the “by whom”.
The author clearly says he’s all for more energy efficiency and cleaner air. He also says he’s not got the background to sort out the “science”. Even given that, he is looking at the “Argument from Authority” and seeing the fallacy. He is looking at the cold and snow and saying ~’that is just not right’. He’s seeing the scam of “cap and tax” and “global warming” for what it is.
In short, we are starting to see folks say “But the King has no clothes”…
As this is the TOP of the present sunspot cycle, we’ve got at least another 1/2 decade of colder and snowier to come. Most likely 30 more years of it as that’s what the orbital patterns suggest. There will be an ever increasing flood of folks willing to stand up and say “Hang on a moment! You said it was going to be warmer!” By my read on the ocean timing delays, the Arctic ought to be well into a re-freeze by 2016 (possibly starting as soon as 2014 for more ‘2nd year ice’) so that lame excuse of ‘more open water makes more snow’ can die a frigid death. It’s the “loopy jet stream” that is sending gigatons of wet from more tropical latitudes further north to have the heat shot out into space nearer the poles. That will continue for quite some time. Even after the Arctic is frozen solid.
At this point, the effort to implement the taxes and restrictive control policies will kick into high gear. It’s a race condition with reality, and they know it. One can only hope that “folks” decide it’s time to explain to politicians that they are not needed for weather control…
With that, the article:
Just a couple of tease quotes. You really need to read it ‘entire’ to get the flavor of it:
Boris Johnson
It’s snowing, and it really feels like the start of a mini ice age
Something is up with our winter weather. Could it be the Sun is having a slow patch?
[…]
As a species, we human beings have become so blind with conceit and self-love that we genuinely believe that the fate of the planet is in our hands — when the reality is that everything, or almost everything, depends on the behaviour and caprice of the gigantic thermonuclear fireball around which we revolve.I say all this because I am sitting here staring through the window at the flowerpot and the bashed-up barbecue, and I am starting to think this series of winters is not a coincidence. The snow on the flowerpot, since I have been staring, has got about an inch thicker. The barbecue is all but invisible. By my calculations, this is now the fifth year in a row that we have had an unusual amount of snow; and by unusual I mean snow of a kind that I don’t remember from my childhood: snow that comes one day, and then sticks around for a couple of days, followed by more.
Several folks in comments speak up about the ’60s and ’70s when they DO remember weather, just like this. It will be very hard for the “Warmers” to make the case that the weather is odd if enough Grannies and Grandads keep speaking up…
But I am also an empiricist; and I observe that something appears to be up with our winter weather, and to call it “warming” is obviously to strain the language. I see from the BBC website that there are scientists who say that “global warming” is indeed the cause of the cold and snowy winters we seem to be having. A team of Americans and Chinese experts have postulated that the melting of the Arctic ice means that the whole North Atlantic is being chilled as the floes start to break off — like a Martini refrigerated by ice cubes.
I do not have the expertise to comment on the Martini theory; I merely observe that there are at least some other reputable scientists who say that it is complete tosh, or at least that there is no evidence to support it.
I like that… “The Martini Theory”… It invokes images of someone who’s had a few too many Martinis too ;-)
I also do have to point out that Southern California is not anywhere near the north pole, and we had freeze warnings there. While I remember them from the ’60s and how they were a threat to California Citrus then, it has been a while. Well, they are back. That’s the same Southern California where many homes don’t have a heater to speak of. Just a little 1 kW or so ‘toaster’ thing built into one wall. ( I looked at renting such a place once, many many years back. A 1 bedroom apartment.)
To try telling those folks that they are cold due to the Martini Theory north of Canada will just not work. Heck, 1/2 of them don’t even know where Canada is… nor do they care. They will just know that it is cold. They were told it would be hot, and now it’s cold. Martinis will be seen as “So last century”…
I am speaking only as a layman who observes that there is plenty of snow in our winters these days, and who wonders whether it might be time for government to start taking seriously the possibility — however remote — that Corbyn is right. If he is, that will have big implications for agriculture, tourism, transport, aviation policy and the economy as a whole. Of course it still seems a bit nuts to talk of the encroachment of a mini ice age.
But it doesn’t seem as nuts as it did five years ago. I look at the snowy waste outside, and I have an open mind.
That is exactly how a properly functioning mind is supposed to work. Even a layman. Look at the facts. Listen to both sides. Notice that one keeps shifting around and making up new stories year to year. Notice that the other has stayed with one explanation “it is natural variation” (though sometimes arguing over which part matters most). Look out the window.
And realizing that “This is not the warm snow we were promised”…
So now Boris is getting assaulted by the Warmers in comments. Some hardy souls stepping in to help fend them off. Over 600 comments.
Boris will now be vilified. Attacked. The classical “shoot the messenger” tactics we’ve all had to deal with. Likely his Editor will be called to task by some Name with Credentials. All I can say is “Stick with it Boris. We are with you. The truth shall set you free.”
As a cold wet snowy frozen winter covers everywhere from Alaska, through Canada, the UK, Germany (EU in general), on down through the Levant where the Holy Land got snow, and on through Russia and even to China where they are having a very hard winter… Finally on to Korea and Japan… All around the globe, the story is the same. It’s the 1950s to 1970s all over again. Yes, there will be some places, and some times, when the Loopy Jet Stream bring excess (Welcome!) warmth. All that cold headed south in some ‘blobs’ has to have counter current warmth headed north to be disposed out the polar IR window. But over time that built up heat will fade, and we will be increasingly left with only the cold.
I hope that the “Warmers” realize quickly that it’s best to get off that Hobby Horse now. If history shows anything, it is that in the cold, a hungry poor mob is not interested in how nice a person you were; only that you were part of the problem. The “Bread Riots” of the French Revolution came out of just such a ‘cold turn’. The time to head for the exits from the “Global Warming” story is now. In a very few years it will be too late, and the doors will be shut while the folks sharpen their pitchforks and start saying “About that ‘cake’ business…”
Musings from the Chiefio 
As usual, I blame the Russians
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NH.htm
What if?
In the UK, where I lived for some decades now, the summers may not get any worse, may even get some sun, cooler ocean, less evaporation, less cloud, but unfortunately less cloud means colder winter days and even more so the winter nights, as the last two graphs in the above link show, in the 350 year long records.
Still got the escape route to Mediterranean Montenegro, but even there last winter was one of the coldest on the record.
Remarkable article from a remarkable person, always in some kind of controversy, but hey he is our Lord Mayor, I voted for him twice. I was fed-up with ‘the far left newt’ Ken Livingston, mate of Presidente Chavez, spent all of our taxpayers money on gays and trips to Cuba and Columbia.
On the other hand Boris’ great grandfather (direct male line) was Turkish politician lynched by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s mob, and via a nutty grandmother he is related to the German Kaisers.
Best you stick to what you’re good at Vuc, graphs and climate data in general. Leave the political history to others.
As is usual the ‘debate’ such as it was in the Telegraph comments is obfuscated by possibly intentional thread-drift. Buried a little lower in the comments though is a more interesting response which I thought I would replicate here with attribution (such as it is):
====SNIP====
anthonythompson
01/20/2013 05:37 PM
It’s not just Piers Corbyn, Boris …
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” – Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly… As a scientist I remain skeptical …The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system.” – Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years”.
“Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.” – Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“So far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming.” – Scientist Dr. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, a chemical engineer at Abo Akademi University in Finland, author of 200 scientific publications and former Greenpeace member.
“Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time.” – Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.
“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” – Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” – U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” –
Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round…A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact,” – Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer
and Antarctic ice core researcher.
“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken … Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science.” – Award Winning Physicist Dr. Will Happer, Professor at the Department of Physics at Princeton University and Former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy, who has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences.
“Nature’s regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon dioxide leads to less moisture in the air, keeping the overall GHG content in accord with the necessary balance conditions.” – Prominent Hungarian Physicist and environmental researcher Dr. Miklós Zágoni reversed his view of man-made warming and is now a skeptic. Zágoni was once Hungary’s most outspoken
supporter of the Kyoto Protocol.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” – Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil… I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science.” – South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” – Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.” – Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, served as staff physicist at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense … The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” – Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another… Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” – Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” – Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.
“Whatever the weather, it’s not being caused by global warming. If anything, the climate may be starting into a cooling period.”
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Art V. Douglas, former Chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the author of numerous papers for peer-reviewed publications.
“But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all.” – Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.
“The ‘global warming scare’ is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. It has no place in the Society’s activities.” – Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt who flew on the Apollo 17 mission and formerly of the Norwegian Geological Survey and for the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC … The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium…which is why ‘global warming’ is now called ‘climate change.’” – Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.
“I have yet to see credible proof of carbon dioxide driving climate change, yet alone man-made CO2 driving it. The atmospheric hot-spot is missing and the ice core data refute this. When will we collectively awake from this deceptive delusion?” – Dr. G LeBlanc Smith, a retired Principal Research Scientist with Australia’s CSIRO
====SNIP====
An interesting set of quotes
Baa Humbug says: 22 January 2013 at 10:23 am
Best you stick to what you’re good at Vuc, graphs and climate data in general. Leave the political history to others.
I like Boris Pfeffel Johnson, after all have I entrusted him with some of my taxes to spend on my behalf. Boris is proud of his ancestry and has publicly spoken about it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
My family tree goes back a few generations too
http://www.vukcevic.com/t0.htm >>> http://www.vukcevic.com/t11.htm
and political history is not a stranger in my family, to the contrary.
I have a lot of time for Boris. He’s a bit of a maverick, unstuffy, and slightly anarchic, yet he gets the important things done well.
Last weekend, there was a poll of the political parties and the conservatives came in third behind UKIP (Lord Monckton’s party) and Labour. UKIP are direct competitors for the conservative vote and are campaigning on three “planks”. Get out of Europe (or at least have a referendum on getting out of Europe, which they’ll win), immigration reform, and downgrading “climate change” as a major concern. A kind of respectable face on Tea Party ideals.
The conservatives are increasingly being seen as old and wanting to maintain the status quo, they even introduced a few carbon taxes, and my guess is that that is what prompted Boris to write that letter, to show that some people in the conservative party are still willing to listen to what people are saying. Part of an overall strategy to get the top job.
vukcevic says:
22 January 2013 at 10:04 am
Remarkable article from a remarkable person, always in some kind of controversy, but hey he is our Lord Mayor, I voted for him twice.
For those not au fait with UK politics, Boris Johnson is the Mayor of London, not to be confused with the Lord Mayor of the City of London. One looks like a clown, and the other wears an ermine trimmed red cloak and a tricorn hat. Boris is actually a decent sort, and the UK would probably be better off with him in charge. It would definitely be more interesting.
“Some atmospheric scientists seek to understand their mechanisms of formation, while others have identified them as potential indicators of atmospheric changes resulting from increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80217&src=fb
Apparently the warming cooling is making clouds again lol
If you read advice on how to spot a conman, climate science as presented in the media looks worryingly familiar. Missed deadlines, changing story, aggression when challenged, hard to contact, evasive, half truths, blaming other people for failure, asking for more and more money for less and less results, scare stories often involving your children, using guilt or fear to persuade you, giving you a sign on the dotted line now or it will be worse later argument, then giving you a new deadline when that one passes without event… In any other field (bar religion) most people would be backing away saying ‘sorry, I’ve just remembered I’ve left the chip pan on. I’ll err, ring you.’ Though to be fair, as most people expect business to do all the work, that’s the equivalent of muttering ‘I gave at the office’ to get rid of a doorstep evangelist. Of course eventually it will dawn on people that if business pays, we pay, so they’re still falling for the con.
Annoyingly there is a core truth to the problem, in the same way that there is a genuine risk from bird flu and other similar hazards. It takes a very wise and widely informed person to try and formulate a response to these sorts of issues. Traits the current crop of world leaders are largely lacking. We need people who can properly assess the risk, based on real and up to date data, not the media hype, and balance that knowledge against other problems and what tools we have to help fix things. To do that they have to really take an interest in it, not just read the Guardian or Mail headlines. That Boris and a few others are beginning to break ranks and think about the climate as it actually happens and not the Hollywood movie version is a welcome sign.
I lived in California in the 60s and 70s. I remember one year when we had snow (in Oceanside – Camp Pendleton), and they were saying that was the first time since some time in the 30s. At least I was smart enough to know that snow in Oceanside was not normal (I learned to surf in January there).
And you are right. This is the second time that my in-laws (in Imperial Valley) have had a hard freeze in the last few years (the first was 3 or 4 years ago). And none of them remember a hard freeze before that.
I suspect we are going to be freezing to death while combating AGW very shortly.
@Vukcevic: Remarkable your article. Geomagnetic field making changes in temperatures and changing itself a lot in these days…..BTW: Let us not forget that magnetism it is always at a 90º angle from electricity (“right hand law”), and Birkeland´s Terrella experiments demonstrated even for the most fool among fools that it was the Sun! (rather surprising, isn´t it?).
Ah, and here I was expecting a comment on the observation that the average U.S. temperature in 2012 beat the old record by a full one degree Fahrenheit. Oh well.
[Reply: Since all the data sets are so horridly warped, distorted, adjusted, jiggered, and abused with the past regularly cooled by degree scales, there can be no valid statement such as ‘warmer by’ any particular amount. “Your side” has, unfortunately, been caught with hand in the cookie jar and buggered any such claims validity. Sorry. You’ll need to take it up with Hansen, Perterson, Jones, etc. In the real world, the reported actual temperature are no higher now than then. Thus the lack of a huge flood of new record highs. Also the lack of a new ‘Dust Bowl’. Also… etc. etc. -E.M.Smith]
A very special type Boris. Always was a no nonsense guy. I really crossed my fingers last election should that weirdo Ken Livingstone be reelected.
@Adolfo:
I think the electrical and the non-electrical come together, reinforcing each other. One added bit, though, is that the electrical has a good chance of steering the flow of water and air. Especially salt water and charged air. I’ve not had the time to look into it, but suspect a map of current flow (charge) and jet stream paths would be interesting. The potential to steer air in mass around ‘landing spots’ of giant Birkeland currents could change weather over whole continents. Rather like the frigid air swooping down over the US Midwest / East Coast right now.
While I think the “polar air blobs” ( “Mobile Polar Highs” IIRC the proper term) form in the cold and generally follow the steering of the mountains, if that were all there was to it, the range would not be so, um, interesting….
@Phil Jordan:
That reminds me of a song I heard back about then.
http://www.songsforteaching.com/folk/ohsusanna.php
Yeah, there will be 10 feet of snow in Georgia and they will still be bleating about the need for more taxes on carbon to fight the “Global Warming”…
@Ian W:
Very interesting set of quotes. Looks like the foundation of a counter movement. Just needs a more formal coordinative wrapper… ( Maybe an NGO w/ Grant Money ;-)
@Paul Hanlon:
Are there still any conservatives in the UK? Golly… And not on display in a glass case somewhere? ;-)
Frankly, I find the whole EU an interesting study in how folks can be highly tilted to a quasi-Socialist very non-conservative bent and somehow think themselves middle of the road…. Guess they have never been to Texas…
@Bloke Down The Pub:
I’d missed that. Noted the “name change” but figured it was something to sort out later…
So why do you have two “Mayors” of different sorts? Seems a bit, er, um, ‘odd’… (BTW, I like odd ;-)
@TinyCO2:
Good point. Might make a decent posting… Hmmmmm….
Nice when a prominent politician says enough already.The dam is breaking.
E.M; That Oh Susanna has been coming to mind for days now, every time I read a WUWT critique of extreme weather hysteria or a hot/cold headline.
Maybe its time for recycling has come, #1 on the hype parade?
@Bloke Down The Pub:
I’d missed that. Noted the “name change” but figured it was something to sort out later…
So why do you have two “Mayors” of different sorts? Seems a bit, er, um, ‘odd’… (BTW, I like odd ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The office of Lord Mayor of London was once a very powerful position, maybe second only to the monarch. Dick Whittington was probably the most famous holder of the post though in more recent times the Lord Mayors main role has been charity fund-raising and travelling the world promoting the City of London. In this context the City refers to the old medieval town of London, sometimes called the square mile. For a long time it was the UK’s financial district, though now much of this has moved to Canary Wharf. Boris Johnson holds the position of London Mayor, a post that was created in 2000 and has responsibility for all of greater London including the old city.
And it appears that nearly ALL the data for stations that have existed since 1920 for the four coldest days of 2012 are missing in the NCDC database.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/maybe-i-didnt-screw-up-after-all/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/noaa-loses-four-critical-days-in-december/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/noaa-loses-the-missing-days/
NCDC has apparently intentionally kept the four coldest days of the month out of the database record.
Wow, got on in the moderation bucket somehow.
From the land of “Patchy Freezing Fog”
Check out this link showing local temps for 3 days. 19 low, 25 high.(F)
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=pdt&sid=KELN&num=72&raw=0
But it might go to 33 on Wednesday, and mostly sunny. We drove higher into the Cascades on Sunday and found a little sun. We just felt the need to confirm it is still there.
@ bloke down the pub, you said, “Boris Johnson holds the position of London Mayor, a post that was created in 2000 and has responsibility for all of greater London including the old city.”
Sorry, incorrect. Boris is Mayor of all of London except The City (the Square Mile). The Lord Mayor of London has responsibility for The City, just like the Metropolitan Police look after all of London except The City, that is the responsibility of the City of London Police. As the City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, it is now only a tiny part of the metropolis, though it remains a notable part of central London. The City holds city status in its own right, and is also a separate ceremonial county.
The local authority for the City, the City of London Corporation, is unique in the United Kingdom, and has some unusual responsibilities for a local authority in Britain, such as being the police authority for the City. It also has responsibilities and ownerships beyond the City’s boundaries. The Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, an office separate from (and much older than) the Mayor of London.
It’s what happens when you are operating at this end of two thousand years of history
This link explains a lot more! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
I’ll correct myself … The correct title is The Lord Mayor of the City of London.
Re: @Ian W:
Very interesting set of quotes. Looks like the foundation of a counter movement. Just needs a more formal coordinative wrapper… ( Maybe an NGO w/ Grant Money ;-)
=========================================
I would like to suggest putting them on one of those one-quote-a-day calendars. Are there 365 of them?
Re: E.M.Smith says:
22 January 2013 at 5:25 pm
@Adolfo:
I think the electrical and the non-electrical come together, reinforcing each other. One added bit, though, is that the electrical has a good chance of steering the flow of water and air. Especially salt water and charged air. I’ve not had the time to look into it, but suspect a map of current flow (charge) and jet stream paths would be interesting. The potential to steer air in mass around ‘landing spots’ of giant Birkeland currents could change weather over whole continents. Rather like the frigid air swooping down over the US Midwest / East Coast right now.
While I think the “polar air blobs” ( “Mobile Polar Highs” IIRC the proper term) form in the cold and generally follow the steering of the mountains, if that were all there was to it, the range would not be so, um, interesting….
=======================================================
I, for one, would like to see maps like you describe.
And would there be an incoming Birkeland current landing-spot where there is a high pressure center, and an outgoing Birkeland current jumping-off-spot where there is a low pressure center? Would they (could they) be connected, one end sprouting out from the planet, and the other end plunging back into the planet?
Peter Offenhartz says:
22 January 2013 at 4:58 pm
“Ah, and here I was expecting a comment on the observation that the average U.S. temperature in 2012 beat the old record by a full one degree Fahrenheit. Oh well.”
Peter, the US is 1.5% of the surface of the planet. It is not relevant.
You knew that, right? The warmists always say that when a skeptic points to record cold say in China.
But there’s an important difference. Record cold proves that the planet has no problem whatsoever cooling radiatively to space. Obviously neither CO2 nor water vapor get in the way.
HOW COME, warmist?
Pingback: Can Green Energy Save The Planet From Climate Change? « orach24463
As a species, we human beings have become so blind with conceit and self-love that we genuinely believe that the fate of the planet is in our hands
That might help explain something, though I’ve long thought the opposite, that AGW had more to do with narcissism–“everything happens because of me.” The reason I say “the opposite” is my understanding of the psychological condition of a narcissistic personality is that it’s not about self-love. It’s self-hatred, but along with it goes the belief that “everything happens because of me.” And somehow the belief that “it’s all bad” goes into the mix, too. My sense of it is there is a deep sense of shame and self-loathing, yet a countervailing sense of grandiosity and entitlement. A very large front gets put up as a surrogate personality, to shield the real personality, which is cowering in self-hatred. Malignant narcissism has an additional component where the sufferer has a compelling need to damage others psychologically, such that they become narcissists as well, and validate their beliefs.
Playing along with Boris Johnson’s idea for a bit, I saw an interview with a local on a local cable channel. I just caught a bit of it. He was talking about how he and his girlfriend were involved in humanitarian work in Asia, trying to fight sex trafficking. One of the places where they worked was in Nepal. He sounded dismayed that they didn’t feel that they accomplished anything doing that work. So he said they came back here, and were working towards, “changing people’s consumption habits.” I switched away from it at that point, because it sounded like nonsense. The two activities had nothing to do with each other, helping to fight sex trafficking vs. promoting different consumerist habits. I felt a bit disgusted with the guy. It was as if he and his girlfriend were searching for validation for their notion that they could make a contribution to the world by successfully modifying human behavior in some way. It didn’t matter what it was, so long as it was successful.
“Let’s see. Stopping women from becoming sex slaves vs. getting people to change their minds about getting that big honking SUV, and instead buy a compact/hybrid, or just ride a bike and take public transportation. Hmmm… I liked the idea of stopping sex trafficking, but I got discouraged, since using non-violent means to try to stop violent thugs from abducting women to sell them into slavery doesn’t seem to work. I’ll go with the latter.”
I guess some moral equivalence came into play as well, that one activity was just as much a contribution to humanity as anything else, so why not do the thing where you at least feel like you’re making some progress? There’s no compulsion to address the greater moral wrong by changing one’s viewpoint towards your work, and trying different methods to address it until some contribution is made. So the really hard problems don’t get solved. Easier, less threatening activities gain momentum, but to what end? Validating one’s “goodness” I guess.
You have to love Boris Johnson, the “Thinking Man’s Idiot”. Who else could be elected to public office after saying this:
“if you vote for the Conservatives, your wife will get bigger breasts, and your chances of driving a BMW M3 will increase”
In 2008 my choice for president was Barack Obama and John McCain; no choice at all. Obama? Obama Lite? In protest I voted for “write In” candidate Boris Johnson who was born in New York.
Most of our politcal elite are lawyers so they can easily be suckered by CAGW pseudo-science. Boris can spot BS a mile away and write about it in an entertaining way.
Mark Miller, 25 January 2013 at 11:16 pm,
You should not be disgusted by Boris. He still has that youthful idealism that most of us lost years ago. He may appear brash and naive but his heart is in the right place. His support of the “Underdog” is a British thing that we all learned in school but most of us forgot years ago. If only there were politicians in the USA with his intellect, passion and love for the “Little People”.
My sister and brother in law lived and worked in Nepal for many years. Like Boris they are frustrated that so little progress was made but they do not feel their efforts were wasted.
While on the subject of Boris, don’t think for a momemt that you can push him around. The Metropolitan police commissioner thought he could:
http://www.securitynewsdesk.com/2012/01/17/london-mayor-boris-johnson-assumes-control-metropolitan-police/
@gallopingcamel:
I am not disgusted by Boris, and my comment was not meant to communicate that, so I’m puzzled what gave you this impression. Boris’s description of society, that “we human beings have become so blind with conceit and self-love that we genuinely believe that the fate of the planet is in our hands,” reminded me of this guy I saw on TV talking about his attempts to make some kind of contribution to the world. The later part of my comment was solely concerned with this man on TV, not Boris.
I was not sure if Boris was making the right diagnosis of the problem, which is the reason I talked about narcissism.
I was just putting some ideas out there, saying Boris could be right, but on the other hand, here’s another way of looking at what he sees.
We ARE the planet. The planet gave birth to us. We are Earth 2.0. We are not separate from nature. We ARE nature. Even the people who disagree with you… are you. Physical objects are so boring anyways…
Mark Miller says:
25 January 2013 at 11:16 pm
“Easier, less threatening activities gain momentum, but to what end? Validating one’s “goodness” I guess.”
Satisfying one’s desire to feel control over other people and manipulate them.