Archive for the ‘climate’ Category

Behind the bank failures

Thursday, March 16th, 2023

I want to recommend a good piece at Conservative Tree House, which I read every day.

It is this post which connects a few dots.

This is where we need to keep the BRICS -vs- WEF dynamic in mind and consider that ideologically there is a conflict between the current agenda of the ‘western financial system’ (climate change) and the traditional energy developers. This conflict has been playing out not only in the energy sector, but also the dynamic of support for Russia (an OPEC+ member) against the western sanction regime. Ultimately supporting Russia’s battle against NATO encroachments.

The war in Ukraine, which probably would not have begun if Trump was president, led to a war of economic interests. The western democracies have invested their future in “climate change,” which used to be “global warming” before the failure to warm made that slogan obsolete. Climate change has evolved into a war on energy production. The Biden regime now has even gone after gas stoves. Since I just bought one, I have an interest. Now, they seem to be going after washing machines. Ours has failed recently so I had better be quick to replace it.

The recent Credit Suisse bank crisis is complicated by the refusal of its largest shareholder, the Saudis, to help with a bail out. Why would this be ? This brings up the topic of BRICS. This is a new financial combination made up of Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

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It’s official. A recession. How about a Depression?

Saturday, July 16th, 2022

The Fed has confirmed that we are officially in a recession. The actual decline in GDP is higher, though. It is at least -1.6%

What caused the Great Depression? Amity Schlaes’ book “The Forgotten Man” suggests that Roosevelt’s “Regulatory Uncertainty” was a big part of the cause. How were businessmen supposed to plan when policies changed from month to month ? The Roosevelt “Brain Trust” could not decide what might work. Some were good ideas, like the CCC which took young men off the street, helped them get into condition and did many worthwhile projects. Some, like the National Recovery Association, were Fascism which was popular in the 1930s.

Now, we face a disastrous shift in the national focus to imaginary threats like Global Warming. This has become all powerful among politicians because none of them know any science and the science people have become dependent on government funding. Fear is a great driver of government money. Climate science has become a rich field through flogging the unskeptics with fear of global warming. It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence of global warming or any of the other alleged threats. The super rich, like Barak Obama, are still buying waterfront estates no matter what they tell their followers.

Here is a proposal that might help.

Central planning always fails, but the utopian visionaries implementing the plans cannot admit that they are at fault. A scapegoat must be found. As a leading example, when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture led to mass starvation, the official blame was placed on “saboteurs” and “wreckers.”

Our current-day analog is the centrally-planned replacement of our very large, inexpensive and highly functional energy system, mostly based on fossil fuels, with the alternatives of intermittent wind and sun-based generation, as favored by incompetent government regulators who don’t understand how these things work or how much they will cost. Prices of energy to the consumer — from electricity to gasoline — are soaring; and reliability of supply is widely threatened.

All of which brings our President forth to blame the current price and supply issues in the energy markets on anything but his own administration’s intentional efforts to suppress the functional fossil fuel energy. One day the scapegoat is Vladimir Putin; another it is “companies running gas stations,” who stand accused of price gouging.

One possible solution is to use the states as experimental laboratories.

With federalism in energy policy, we can have New York forging ahead with its “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” and California doing the same with its SB 100 — both of them seeking to eliminate fossil fuels from the generation of electricity, and then to force all energy consumers to use only electricity for their supply. Will that work? If New York and California are successful, they will be a model for the rest of the country to follow. Congratulations will be in order. If they fail relative to other states — that is, if they see energy prices soar, or frequent blackouts or shortages of needed energy — then it will be obvious to all that it was the green energy that failed, and not that there were “saboteurs” or “wreckers” or “price gougers,” who after all could have attacked the other states as well.

Well the Feds allow this? Probably not with the current regime in power.

Fortunately, the red states are not just going along with this kind of thing any more. This will be a critical battleground over the next five to ten years.

We will see after the election. Many Republicans are in thrall to the climate hoax.

Will Woke Democrats and Environmentalists scare off our allies ?

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has set off radical changes in international relationships. The US and other (not all) European nations have imposed severe sanctions on Russia designed to destroy its economy. The precedents set are not all positive. First Ukraine has defined corruption for years. The Biden family and even Mitt Romney’s family got positions on a Ukrainian gas company’s Board for lots of money and no work except influence. The “Maiden Revolution” in 2014 was engineered by the Obama CIA. It expelled a pro-Russian president duly elected in an election probably more honest than the US 2020 election. Not all agree that it was an honest process.

As Ukraine’s political crisis deepened, [Victoria] Nuland and her subordinates became more brazen in favoring the anti-Yanukovych demonstrators. Nuland noted in a speech to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation on December 13, 2013, that she had traveled to Ukraine three times in the weeks following the start of the demonstrations. Visiting the Maidan on December 5, she handed out cookies to demonstrators and expressed support for their cause.

The extent of the Obama administration’s meddling in Ukraine’s politics was breathtaking. Russian intelligence intercepted and leaked to the international media a Nuland telephone call in which she and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffey Pyatt discussed in detail their preferences for specific personnel in a post-Yanukovych government.

Ukraine has remained an economic basket case in spite of the change to a pro-western government.

The furious reaction to the invasion by US officials has alarmed some nations that have remained neutral. Some of them have been our allies, or at least friendly.

In a development that suggests trouble ahead, China’s basic approach—not endorsing Moscow’s aggression but resisting Western efforts to punish Russia—has garnered global support. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the war on NATO. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, refused to condemn Russia. India and Vietnam, essential partners for any American strategy in the Indo-Pacific, are closer to China than the U.S. in their approach to the war.

Western arm-twisting and the powerful effect of bank sanctions ensure a certain degree of sanctions compliance and support for symbolic U.N. resolutions condemning Russian aggression. But the lack of non-Western enthusiasm for America’s approach to Mr. Putin’s war is a phenomenon that U.S. policy makers ignore at their peril.

The dominant role played by the “Woke” left and the Green New Deal enthusiasts in the Democrat Party has concerned many of them. Right now, Democrats hold all three branches of government, although narrowly.

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Global Cooling

Sunday, October 6th, 2019

I am not sure this is happening but it’s worth considering given the current state of sun spots.

Theodore White

Global Cooling: 2020s, 2030s & 2040s
The Sun’s Grand Minimum: October 2019
‘Prepare For Early Winter in the Northern Hemisphere’

sunspots

by Theodore White, astromet.sci
By the time those who claim that ‘man-made global warming’ causes climate change, the weather of global cooling under the Sun’s Grand Minimum will have made a mockery out of that total fiction of anthropogenic global warming.

For years, the proponents of man-made climate change have failed to notice the altered jet streams; the increasing cloudiness worldwide; the heavy torrential rains and floods; snowfall in the Sahara Desert and the magnified strength of monsoons, cyclones and hurricanes.

They deny that the Earth has been cooling while they continue to believe in the multiple failed predictions of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which uses computer climate models that have not predicted one single climate or weather event accurately in over 30+ years.

These same climate models are unable to predict seasonal weather and climate.

They cannot forecast if a coming season will be early, on time, or late, but somehow are able to project years and decades into the future by claiming rising sea-levels and an ever-hotter Earth that is caused by ‘man-made climate change?’

How is that possible?

Those who believe in ‘man-made global warming’ will be among the first victims of the Sun’s Grand Minimum and climate of global cooling.

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Sunspots and the Ice Age.

Monday, March 11th, 2019

We have been hearing about global warming, allegedly due to CO2 acting as a “greenhouse gas” since the 1980s. There is argument about this as water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas.

“Water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas. This is part of the difficulty with the public and the media in understanding that 95% of greenhouse gases are water vapour. The public understand it, in that if you get a fall evening or spring evening and the sky is clear the heat will escape and the temperature will drop and you get frost. If there is a cloud cover, the heat is trapped by water vapour as a greenhouse gas and the temperature stays quite warm.

Does this mean the “97% of scientists are correct ? Nope.

My concern is that we are at the end of a Sunspot Cycle which is an 11 year cycle.

cyclew24

The solar cycle was discovered in 1843 by Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, who after 17 years of observations noticed a periodic variation in the average number of sunspots.[2] Rudolf Wolf compiled and studied these and other observations, reconstructing the cycle back to 1745, eventually pushing these reconstructions to the earliest observations of sunspots by Galileo and contemporaries in the early seventeenth century.

Following Wolf’s numbering scheme, the 1755–1766 cycle is traditionally numbered “1”. Wolf created a standard sunspot number index, the Wolf index, which continues to be used today.

The period between 1645 and 1715, a time of few sunspots,[3] is known as the Maunder minimum, after Edward Walter Maunder, who extensively researched this peculiar event, first noted by Gustav Spörer.

What happened with the “Maunder Minimum?” Maybe an Ice Age.

Valentina Zharkova, a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, used a new model of the sun’s solar cycle, which is the periodic change in solar radiation, sunspots and other solar activity over a span of 11 years, to predict that “solar activity will fall by 60 percent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645,” according to a statement.

Look at the chart of the solar cycles above. Doesn’t the one beginning 11 years ago look smaller at its peak ?

More evidence something is going on.

Aurora borealis or northern lights are among the most spectacular atmospheric displays. Called Aurora australis in the southern hemisphere they are visible evidence of the relationship between the sun and climate. In early days they called them Petty Dancers from the French petite danseurs. In England, they were also called Lord Derwentwater’s lights because they were unusually bright on February 24th, 1716, the day he was beheaded. A bad omen for him, but they were also an indicator of the bad weather and harvest failures of the period.

The Aurora is getting lower in latitude.

Northern-Lights-in-the-UK-Can-you-watch-Aurora-Borealis-from-the-UK-Where-can-you-see-it-1095446

People have been known to catch a glimpse in Kent and Cornwall, but this is very rare.

Northern areas of England and Scotland are more likely to see the Aurora Borealis.

This is because these areas have a view of the northern horizon, the perfect place to spot the stunning lights.

They are getting more common in UK.

The current debate attracting more and more people is that we are cooling with the only question left as to the extent and intensity. Will it be weather similar to the cooler period coincident with the Dalton Minimum from 1790 – 1830? Alternatively, will it be colder with similar conditions to those by the early fur traders in Hudson Bay or those that spanned the life of Sir Edmund Halley? The appearance of Aurora in northern England suggests the latter, although I can predict who will protest this suggestion.

Next year will be the end of the current Solar Cycle. Then we will find out if the next will be a minimum.

“Flying Rambo” joins the yellow vests in France. All over France !

Monday, January 7th, 2019

Although the US media are not talking about the French protests anymore, they are getting worse and more violent.

paris-riots-3

The Champs Elysees is not the only location these days. They are all over France.

PARIS (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron intended to start the new year on the offensive against the ‘yellow vest’ protesters. Instead, the French president is reeling from more violent street demonstrations.

What began as a grassroots rebellion against diesel taxes and the high cost of living has morphed into something more perilous for Macron – an assault on his presidency and French institutions.

The anti-government protesters on Saturday used a forklift truck to force their way into a government ministry compound, torched cars near the Champs Elysees and in one violent skirmish on a bridge over the Seine punched and kicked riot police officers to the ground.

And

Generally the protests seem loosely organized, but nationwide around 50,000 to 80,000 people today according to Reuters. The protests are generally peaceful; then, later in the day, the police arrive to remove them and things turn confrontational and violent.

By the time dusk arrives most of the ordinary Yellow Vest protesters have returned home; and that’s when it seems like smaller agitating groups start burning things.

Macron may not survive this. There seem to be few of any Muslims involved. This is global warming policy at the street level

Is France Burning?

Tuesday, December 4th, 2018

An interesting Spectator article on France suggests this will not be over anytime soon.

macron

The boy president of France is under siege and seems not to realize it. He has had an impressive background.

Macron was born in Amiens and studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University, completed a Master’s of Public Affairs at Sciences Po and graduated from the École nationale d’administration (ENA) in 2004. He worked as a senior civil servant at the Inspectorate General of Finances and later became an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque.

He seems not to have any experience as a politician. We elected Donald Trump, who was not a politician, but Macron seems to have been a bureaucrat all his career. His positions seem moderate but he is devoted to the myth of “Climate Change.”

Ahead of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Macron called for acceleration of the ecological transition and advocated a “balance between ecological imperatives and economic requirements”, an objective that the French government seeks to achieve by fighting on “five fronts”: “innovation”, “simplification”, “strengthening of our energy efficiency and […] reduction of fossil fuel usage”, “energy competitiveness” and “action in Europe and worldwide”.

He does seem to support nuclear power, which is fine with me. France, unlike Germany, seems to be realistic about nuclear power.

Nevertheless, in the multi-year energy program (programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie, PPE) Macron committed to reduce the use of nuclear energy in France by 2035. That is not reassuring, however.

From the Spectator: I am not sure this movement is over yet but whether it is durable is another question. The object itself, the gilet jaune – the yellow tabard that is required to be carried in all cars and that became a symbol of la France actif, the France that needs their cars to get to work – has been hijacked, devalued, even random. Antifa, who in France call themselves Black Block, were all immaculately turned out in gilets jaunes in Paris on Saturday, over their black designer combat uniforms.

The demonstrations are being taken over by anarchists.

Macron seems unable to understand the people, like so many US elites as well.

There are elements to this affair that remain unclear if not murky. Who are the gilets? What do they want? Can this really be a spontaneous revolt, triggered by a posting on Facebook, provoked by increased taxes on fuel? Christophe Castaner, who has been minister of the interior for only a few weeks, and is already one of the most hated men in France, has rushed to blame the violence on the extreme right. There is not the slightest evidence of this. As far as I can tell, the rightists spent the weekend watching the news channels and posting acerbic comments on social media. ‘I’m running out of popcorn,’ one delighted Marine Le Pen supporter told me from the safety of his armchair, as he reveled in the humiliation of Macron.

And:

Macron’s behavior meanwhile grows increasingly bizarre. He managed to be out of France again this weekend, at the G20, where he was lecturing Donald Trump on the environment and Mohammed bin Salman on the Khashoggi affair. At his closing press conference, he spoke, without pause, for almost an hour, mentioning the events in Paris only in the last 30 seconds, dismissing them as unacceptable but saying nothing to inspire, comfort or show empathy with the bewildered nation. He then refused to answer questions on the riots.

Macron seems out of his league.

Macron may have won the presidency, albeit in curious circumstances, but he is politically tone deaf. His obsession with the environment and keeping his green allies on board has led him to ignite a wildfire in France that threatens to consume his entire ambitious reform program while diminishing him on the world stage. A comparison with Nero is not inapt. He is fiddling with carbon reduction targets while Paris burns.

It’s too bad as his original ideas seemed an improvement.

More Monsoon Season

Saturday, July 29th, 2017

Monsoon season began July 11 with the first thunderstorm. We missed the worst of the flooding which has been significant in the lower part of Tucson. We are in the foothills and while there is considerable runoff in local streets, we have seen no flooding.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Back Yard

While we have had enough hard rain to hide the mountains behind us,the city has had flooding.

Flooding

The flooding has been worst in the southeast part of the city and we are northwest.

gutters

I had installed new larger gutters in anticipation of monsoon season but the rain that day exceeded their capacity and they were overflowing.

Rainbow

We did have a rainbow the other day.

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End of the Rainbow

It’s not often the you live at the end of the rainbow but we did that day.

Monsoon season, in other years I have been here, lasts until late August so we have a month more.

Monsoon Season

Thursday, July 20th, 2017

We moved to Tucson in January. The weather was cold at the time and I have seen it snow in downtown Tucson in January. I used to come over here to play golf in past years, one reason I eventually decided to move here permanently. The weather 9 months of the year is delightful. Even January warms up in the day to around 70 and I have been here to play golf when we had to wait for early tee times for the frost to melt on the greens.

Summer is hot but I told Jill it never got over 105 in my experience with Tucson. This year made me look bad as we had a couple of weeks of 115 in mid day. Finally, Monsoon Season got here and the heat is well down. Humidity is up to 65% but it is not oppressive like it used to be in Chicago, where I grew up. July 15 is the beginning although the local papers said it was expected earlier. My theory is that it is related to Mexican hurricane season which begins about now. The first Mexican hurricane of the season was “Dora”
and stayed in the Pacific.

Dora’s center will remain well off the Mexican coast, and will begin weakening soon. That was June 26.

About two weeks ago, we began to see afternoon thunderstorms arising to the northwest and sweeping to the south of us. The first real rain came a day or so after July 10 when I took this photo on our walk.

July 10

It did not rain that day but it was close.

The next day, July 11, early in the morning, we had a big thunderstorm with lots of lightning and thunder nearby. I had to leave for work at 4 AM and stopped at a gas station to get gas but the power pole across the street had been hit by lightning and the pumps were out. I finally got gas at another station but the low pressure warning light came on my dashboard and the last time that happened, I had a nail in a tire.

Not wanting to try to change a tire in the rain half-way to Phoenix, I called and cancelled out of work and went home. I went to the tire store about 9 and they found the valve stem in that tire was leaking so it was just as well I quit.

The next few days followed the same pattern and we have had a thunderstorm every afternoon for a week.

Thunderstorm1

Last weekend, a group of people from south of Phoenix went swimming in a “swimming hole” in the national forest east of Phoenix and north of Tucson. We had had flash flood warnings all week. Streets in Tucson often dip into dry “washes” and each has a sign, “Do not enter if flooded.”

Anyway, 9 people are dead and one is not yet found. In Monsoon Season stay out of canyons and stream beds.

Rainbow

We even had a rainbow last week.

Sunset

The storms are over by sunset and Juliet and I can usually take a walk just before dark.

Sunseteast716

This is what the sky about 2 PM looks like every day. I expect this will go on into August, when in my previous experience here, the real heavy rain comes. I have seen the river over its banks and the swimming pool overflowing.

Judith Curry resigns from Georgia Tech

Thursday, January 5th, 2017

The world of Climate research lost a great academic figure as Judith Curry resigns her tenured faculty position at Georgia Tech.

She has figured largely in the climate debate as a skeptic in global warming.

I have retired from Georgia Tech, and I have no intention of seeking another academic or administrative position in a university or government agency. However, I most certainly am not retiring from professional life.

Why did I resign my tenured faculty position?

I’m ‘cashing out’ with 186 published journal articles and two books. The superficial reason is that I want to do other things, and no longer need my university salary. This opens up an opportunity for Georgia Tech to make a new hire (see advert).

The deeper reasons have to do with my growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field of climate science and scientists.

She has endured considerable abuse from the alarmist side. She is called a “heretic” in the alarmist circles.

over the past year or so she has become better known for something that annoys, even infuriates, many of her scientific colleagues. Curry has been engaging actively with the climate change skeptic community, largely by participating on outsider blogs such as Climate Audit, the Air Vent and the Black¬board. Along the way, she has come to question how climatologists react to those who question the science, no matter how well established it is. Although many of the skeptics recycle critiques that have long since been disproved, others, she believes, bring up valid points

So, she might have a point. However:

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