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AG, thanks for that link. Bloomberg has been very good at covering energy issues.
From your link I found more, on related but different topics:
Hurricanes Debby and Beryl Show How Hot Oceans Fuel a Deadly Storm Season
https://archive.is/V8EURGiant Hail Is the Weather Threat Keeping Insurers Up at Night
https://archive.is/GbmxAI’m very worried about solar and wind power installations, because they are vulnerable to hail and high wind speeds, respectively, both of which are becoming more frequent and more severe with climate change. Then there are ageing hydroelectric dams, vulnerable to extreme rainfall. This is all going to hell much quicker than generally realised. Each aspect of humanity’s predicament has been examined in isolation, but they are interlinked; I call this the deadly legacy of reductionism. More and more potential failure cascades are being set up.
Neoliberalism is the damn-all worst ideology that the world could have had at this time because it shaves all safety margins as thin as can be insured. Just a few days ago I read that some of the biggest wind turbines have only 5 mile per hour wind speed margin over the highest recorded winds in their region of installation.
3 related JACOBIN pieces on “Climate Disinformation” as a threat:
1)
08.24.2024
Obsessing Over Climate Disinformation Is a Wrong Turn
By Holly Buck
“Much of the climate movement is now pouring its energies into combating disinformation. But this focus fails to address real concerns about a green transition and obscures what is needed to win the public over to effective climate action.”
https://jacobin.com/2024/08/climate-disinformation-green-transition-workers
https://archive.is/VB7M5critical response:
2)
08.29.2024
Fighting Climate Disinformation Is an Urgent Priority
By Aaron Regunberg
“The fossil fuel industry runs a sprawling, lavishly funded operation spreading lies about the climate crisis. Pushing back against that disinformation needs to be a priority for the climate movement.”
https://jacobin.com/2024/08/climate-crisis-disinformation-fossil-fuels
https://archive.is/JmdFtresponse:
3)
08.31.2024
A Climate Disinformation Focus Takes Us the Wrong Way
By Holly Buck
“The concept of “climate disinformation” does not lead us to genuine solutions for the problem of climate change — it leads us toward new risks.”
https://jacobin.com/2024/08/climate-disinformation-fossil-fuels-ngos
https://archive.is/J9Gx0AG, thanks for your post of August 28 at 02:50, #100229. What struck me about it was the absurd financial gymnastics governments are performing to try to encourage the private sector to take necessary action. All such moves will be expertly exploited; they always have been.
This is an emergency. In a state of emergency, governments typically act directly, mandating actions the private sector and citizens must take.
As we move more quickly into an uncertain world, there is the reveal of what connectivity has to offer.
Other than corruption, Ukraine could have had an enviable economic future.
Relatively low population with a large fertile land mass, sea ports, with the option of mass exportation of cheaply produced goods, such as coal, oil, methane, fertilisers, iron, steel, nickel and shipbuilding.
However, they were lulled into converting their railways from steam trains and diesel oil trains into an electric system, about 95%. As the war unfolded, the Russians targeted the substations. Two main ways to move goods about in Ukraine, rivers and electrified railways.
This is a warning to all of us in Europe not to put all our eggs into electricity and computers.
We should not imagine we are so modern than horrible disasters will not befall our lands.
This is a very serious situation that we are falling into, apparently because we are so frightened of global warming, we can not see any other dangers.
https://www.google.com/search?q=storegga+slide&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBGB790GB790&oq=Storeg&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j35i39i512i650j46i199i465i512j0i20i263i512l2j46i175i199i512i654j0i512l4.6537j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e4bb3b47,vid:zTcRKpwEsXg,st:0
The Stroregga Slide helped to wipe away the Mesolithic of the North Sea, this about seven thousand years ago, imagine tidal waves engulfing Nuclear Power stations. 1607 Bristol Channel Tsunami, imagine that happening again and engulfing Nuclear Power stations.The Great Storm of 1987
Quote “Forests, parks, roads, and railways were strewn with fallen trees and schools were closed. The British National Grid suffered heavy damage, leaving thousands without power.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1987
But in those days we did not get one third of our electrical power from wind and solar.
In Ed Milliband’s mind we will very soon only get our electricity via Nuclear and renewables.
Imagine if twenty percent of your electricity came from solar and one half of that was devastated by a super strong storm?
Imagine if sixty percent of your electricity was produced by wind farms and half of that was collapsed?
We would then be in a right pickle of our own making.
Beware for what you wish, it might actually happen.
Never put all your eggs in one basket.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1607_Bristol_Channel_floods
1607 Bristol Channel Floods
How would the solar farms fare after having been flooded for a week or having been ripped out by the next Tsunami, these events are not just in the past, they are also in the present and in the future.Michael, I remember the storm of 1987. Where I live now, the (fossil fuel generated) electricity was down for around two weeks. I wasn’t living here then but my parents were. On the hill out the back of my place the oaks are still growing though most were blown to the ground. The nearly horizontal trunks with their vertical limbs that have grown since give the place a unique atmosphere.
Are you advocating to continue burning fossil fuels? To continue increasing emissions? It certainly seems so from your posts, but you don’t directly say so. And you have again assigned our predicament to Ed Milliband. He was nineteen when global warming was proven.
Clark, yes I believe there is a place for Coal and Gas fired power stations, they are the most reliable, just ask Russia and China and India. Although it seems we have increased Carbon dioxide by quite a lot, the increase in heat is almost not noticeable. I think we have allowed ourselves to be unduly alarmed. There are huge benefits to having more Carbon in motion. The seas may have risen by eight inches, barely noticeable.
Coal Reefs are building, so if the seas continue to rise, the coral will out grow that rise.
Far less to worry about than governments would have you believe.
The real concern should be too much reliance on central electricity and government absolute control of the people.
Beware Sir Starmer and Ed. Milliband, they want to rob you of your independant thought, as well as your money.Sahara now eight percent smaller.
The Sahara is getting more rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTGlN6yq3UMMichael, you’re really boggling my mind here. You’ve linked to a France 24 news report about a disaster – 30 to 50 times the normal rainfall, flash floods, several villages swept away, 31 people dead – and you’re proposing not that this is merely a good thing, but that you want to see it become more extreme.
On the other hand, you wrote “Although it seems we have increased Carbon dioxide by quite a lot, the increase in heat is almost not noticeable”. Tell that to all the people suffering from wildfires, droughts and killer heatwaves. This is getting worse, rapidly.
I think part of the problem is all the talk of 1.4, 2, 2.5 degrees centigrade etc. It really doesn’t sound like much. The “global average temperature” is really a technical term for climate scientists. In terms of added heat, it’s equivalent to ten Hiroshima bombs every second. Continuously, over 86,000 Hiroshima bombs per day, day after day after day, and rising as more greenhouse gases accumulate.
Finally, I’m insulted. You wrote “Beware Sir Starmer and Ed. Milliband, they want to rob you of your independant thought, as well as your money”. I take almost no notice of politicians, because they are propagandists. It is time you took notice of science. Here’s a climate scientist: Simon Clark on YouTube via Invidious at yewtu.be –
Michael, how come you’re not noticing all the climate disasters that keep happening?
Clark,
I have lived in Southern England all my life, I can only recall, two weather events of note.
One) The winter of 1962–1963, known as the Big Freeze of 1963, was one of the coldest winters (defined as the months of December, January and February) on record in the United Kingdom. Temperatures plummeted and lakes and rivers began to freeze over.
Two) The Great Storm of 1987 was a violent extratropical cyclone that occurred on the night of 15–16 October, with hurricane-force winds causing casualties in the United Kingdom, France, and the Channel Islands as a severe depression in the Bay of Biscay moved northeast. Among the most damaged areas were Greater London, Kent, the East Anglian coast, the Home Counties, the west of Brittany, and the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, all of which weathered gusts typically with a return period of 1 in 200 years.I would guess that most people who die violently/horribly, other than from wars, die from famine and disease, like
The Black Death, where it has been suggested perhaps one third or more of people in North Africa, Europe and Asia, may have died over a few years. It might have take two hundred years for the population to bounce back to pre-pandemic numbers.
Putting wars/famine/pestilence to one side, the other major disruptions have been caused by Earth Movements, tsunamis, Volcanoes, none of these horrors are to do with Global Warming.The Boxing Day Tsunami
“The undersea megathrust earthquake, known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, was caused by a rupture along the fault between the Burma Plate and the Indian Plate, and reached a Mercalli intensity up to IX in some areas.
A massive tsunami with waves up to 30 m (100 ft) high, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunamikilling an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries in one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
Not caused by Global Warming.
The peoples of Sumatra could have covered their island with wind turbine and with solar farms, it would not have helped them, one jot.
– “I have lived in Southern England all my life, I can only recall, two weather events of note…”
Do you not remember the summer of 2022?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2022_United_Kingdom_heatwaves&oldid=1235746666#Wildfires
– On 19 July, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) declared a major incident due to the number of fires across London, being one of 15 areas around the country to do so. The LFB had its busiest day since World War Two, receiving 2,670 calls compared to its normal 350 calls a day. 16 firefighters suffered heat-related injuries, two of which were hospitalised. A total of 41 properties were destroyed by fires, as well as many cars.
Did you listen to Simon Clark on the link I posted?
Clark
These conversations are becoming mainstream. Quite a vigorous conversation in my local cafe this morning with a group of retired professionals, which was quite encouraging as they discussed the unsustainable green new deal – wind/solar/heat pumps/biomass and a dismissal of EVs. But when it came to the ‘What Now?’ It was left as ‘something will turn up to replace oil and gas’. The ingenuity of mankind.
There was a time when I might have been inclined to develop the conversation further, but there is no point. Much the same as 9/11 – there is a point where rejection becomes the only defence – cognitive dissonance – even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I don’t think it makes any difference and it just made me frustrated and disillusioned. But it was always reassuring to know I wasn’t alone.
Take care and all the best.
Shibboleth, thanks.
Cognitive dissonance can’t hold forever. It builds and builds, but eventually something has to give. So it’s good news that it’s becoming mainstream; all the protesting and civil disobedience is having an effect. I wish people would put two and two together regarding Gaza; ‘our’ governments aren’t ours at all; they’ll press on regardless of the damage and death toll.
Shibboleth
“cognitive dissonance – even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary”
Think like the Borg. Not all of us imagine the world is about to end in a fireball.
I expect most people on Earth would not believe in the coming end of life vision.
As I have quite often said, I am happy to understand the world has increased in temperature by, perhaps one point four degrees Celsius, since the start of the Industrial Revolution or since coal burning really took off, at the time of WW1 there were millions of men involved in the coal industry in the U.k. It was used as our main fuel.
I am happy to understand that global sea levels have gone up by eight inches. I am happy to understand that what people have been doing to the Earth, including burning coal, methane and oil has substantially increased how much Carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. I have several times pointed out that Carbon dioxide is allowing plants to grow better, this has many upsides but the governments who have bought in the catastrophe view, don’t want you to think there are any upsides or you might question the orthodoxy they profess to believe. Most are either simpletons or out and out liars.
They know their world of total control is falling apart and they are very scared.
They are scared of the public, refusing to take their bait, of refusing to be scared by Global Warming.
Yes there is some Global Warming but we are not about to all die in a fire pit.
If we were about to all die in a fire pit, the governments of the world would ban flying, especially as aviation fuel has no tax. They would ban people having dogs, dogs eat meat, tropical rainforests are cut down to “grow” beef.
They would stop people smoking, a pointless pursuit that uses valuable food growing lands. But they make money from taxing the filth people smoke.
They would ban advertising, as this encourages punters to buy stuff they do not need.They do none of these things. Therfore I conclude they are liars, they are pulling the wool over the eyes of their people, who they merely treat as cash cows. Most of these scares as with covid are actions of the Elite against the people.
They do not care what you think, they want you to think what they tell you.
There are many examples of politicians, all over the world telling porkies to their peoples.
If we in the U.K. do as mad Ed. Milliband wants, no steel, no coal, no methane, no oil, our economy would whistle down the wind into oblivion. If you want an example look no further than Germany. Germany has been taken over by mindlessness. Their economy ins collapsing, because they refuse to take cheap Russian Methane.
Their Industries are going out of business, rapidly. If we buy half our food from abroad, what will we exchange with these food growing countries?
Carbon Credits?
You also might have noticed that The Sahara is slightly shrinking, it is getting wetter and greener, as it has been in the past, at the same time the Atlantic storms that came from the boundary of the Southern Sahara are getting fewer.
Partially this is better land management, partially it is because of extra Carbon in the atmosphere, a benefit for the people of North Africa.
India is getting greener, Africa is getting greener, China is getting greener.
Small shrubs are also growing nearer to the North Pole. Yes Global Warming is happening but it is mostly positive.So Michael, are you saying that scientists merely produce whatever politicians tell them to?
You bang on about politics and money; do you actually know the first thing about any of that? Because I can refer you to some sources. My guess is, unless you shut your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears, you’ll be surprised.
Thanks for your world view, Michael. The very best of luck to you.
Shibboleth, thank you.
I am not trying to be difficult. I cannot see that Global Warming is all negative. Some think that the increases in Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will settle down, as the increase in green leaf cover keeps expanding, taking in more Carbon.
Yes, I know more Carbon is taken in by plant life in the Oceans, which are then consumed by animals.
I am assuming that plants in the sea will also grow a bit faster with more CO2.
Methane is intensely interesting, is it mostly abiotic or mostly biotic, I don’t think we know yet.
It is now thought that there is a greater weight of Archaea in and beneath the oceans, than all other life together.
Perhaps that might also be true for the soils? There is a huge amount of Carbon stored/residing in the soils.
Changes in land/soil management may be able to “store2 much more Carbon.
Probably modern farming, whereby almost all life, other than the desired crops, are mostly absent, has greatly reduced the abilities of our soils to “store” Carbon?Tunguska event – 1908 – Siberia
“The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest, and eyewitness accounts suggest up to three people may have died. The explosion is generally attributed to a meteor air burst, the atmospheric explosion of a stony asteroid about 50–60 metres (160–200 feet) wide”Almost nobody lived there but imagine if that burst had hit a city, it would have wiped out everybody.
But if it had burst over a Nuclear Power station, the damage would have been massive.
Most Nuclear Power Stations store the spent nuclear waste on site.
We can’t stop these events. if they happen, they happen but remember they are not caused by Global Warming.2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest evaporated, will mean a lot of Carbon being returned to the atmosphere.
While the tree cover is gone, very little Carbon will be taken in and “stored”.
When a volcano kicks off huge amounts of Carbon are returned to the atmosphere.if we really wanted to do something that would “store” Carbon, maybe we could change agricultural methods, so that the soil was not “dead”.
Living healthy soil, that for part of the year is grazed, can “store” very large amounts of Carbon.Michael,
I do enjoy reading your posts – but for entertainment, not enlightenment. Not being facetious – just honest – but I have a curious sense of humour at times. I recall a man in his 40s who had a family history of vascular disease, but still chain smoked and had done since he was 12. He had a claudication distance of 100 yards on his first consult. But he was a very funny and endearing character – even when illuminated with the potential and probable prognosis.
Over six years we has several follow ups that were characterised by a number of clinical incidents – ulcers, necrosis and amputations – but he had a strong belief that he would prevail even when everything was stacked against him. Both legs ABK amputations; 2 MIs, 1 CVA. It was Ca Lung with metastatic lesion in his liver, kidneys and brain that finally brought the curtain down. I shared a couple of ciggies with him the day before he died.
From the very first consultation, he told me his theory about smoking – and I explained to him that he was talking shite. Not the approach i had with everyone, but it fitted his character and gave me the best leverage and chance of success. It didn’t work unfortunately, but on the last day he confessed he was wrong and should have listened. When I asked him if it would have made any difference, he just laughed and said probably not.
Sorry to bore you with an inconsequential story, but I’m reminded of him every time you and I have any interaction. The one thing I have learned in the last six and a bit decades is that none of us have any real knowledge about very much of anything important. We’re just apes with different brains. Be kind, be compassionate and understanding. Be funny too – but try and be open minded and receptive to other points of view. For your own benefit.
All the best.
Quote BBC
“Summer 2024 was the Earth’s warmest on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.It was also the warmest across Europe at 1.54C above the 1991-2020 long term average, exceeding the previous record from 2022.
August was also the 13th month in a 14-month period where the global average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Despite the UK having its coolest summer since 2015, much of Europe experienced a hotter than average summer.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/c93p5kz9elroI was going to say, that this Summer, did not seem very hot to me, but I only live in the South of England, I have lived in the same place almost all my life, the only thing I would say, is on average I do not think the Winters are as cold as they used to be as when I was a child. Mind you, in those days our school rooms were Second World War huts with a central Coal stove, I was a Coal monitor, meaning two of us would go out in the snow with the coal scuttle to shovel up and carry the very heavy load back to the hut. Not much warmer at home as we only had one fireplace, it was only lit, at night. Gas was for cooking, not heating. Yes, we did moan about being cold.
Living, healthy soil, needs large animals on it, at least for part of the time.
Look what happened to the Mid-West of America, when the white people, virtually slaughtered all the bison, which was mostly done as aiding the destruction of the natives. The soil almost died, later, when settlers took over that land you soon had the economics of Dust-Bowl.
In Europe, we used to have mixed farms, that model has mostly gone.
You are now, just dairy or just beef or just sheep or just pigs or mostly single species crop.
Our soils are giving up the ghost.
They are almost without life, this means they are emitting Carbon, not taking vast amounts of Carbon in.Michael, when you look globally it becomes very clear that global warming is now a climate crisis. At one point, Canadian forest the size of Portugal was on fire. Mexico, India, China, Japan, Bangladesh… country after country has recorded their hottest and/or longest heatwave and/or flooding on record. Marine heatwaves are off the chart. Spain saw a record breaking drought; I forget if that was last summer or the one before. It was terminated by destructive flooding; Spanish farmers had to apply to the EU government for relief, to keep them from going broke.
The points you make about past climate variations are all true, but there’s a reason you have heard of them; PR companies paid “dark money” from fossil fuel companies through organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and various concerns at 55 Tufton St London, have used their money and influence to promote them.
You may be interested to know that these PR companies are the very same ones using the very same techniques previously used to obscure the dangers of tobacco smoking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_doubt
And now, they’re even using fake charities for children to raise more money:
https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/09/06/tufton-street-good-law-project/
When you see what has been done, and is still being done, I think you will be very, very angry. I am.
Michael:
– “…in those days our school rooms were Second World War huts with a central Coal stove”
Me too! My form room for my first year of secondary school was among the WWII Nissen huts on the edge of the school grounds; they’d been used for prisoners of war. The huts still had the old coal stoves but they were no longer used; overhead gas burners supplied the meagre heating. Each hut had a long wooden pole with a hook at one end to operate the valves. The four burners were open at the top so some lads would throw pencil rubbers up there where they’d lodge and make a stench.
And yes, I remember winters being colder back then; I often had to be careful not to come off my bike due to frost and ice. But summers are getting hotter too. We all used Fahrenheit back then, and 80 was unusually hot; that’s only about 27 centigrade, but it’s not unusual to go over 30C these days.
