david says:
January 20, 2015 at 1:50 PM

There’s a big difference in what we’re told about climate change versus the effects of radiation.

Decades ago people subjected test animals to “large” amounts of radiation, and extrapolated their results to “small” amounts of radiation. The assumption was that as the amount of radiation decreased, then so did the effects of the radiation linearly. This implies that even at low doses of radiation there would be some damage. (ie. 1/10th the radiation = 1/10th the damage, 1/100th the radiation = 1/100th the damage..)

However, that’s not how science works. They had an hypothesis, but where were the experiments to prove it true?

Eventually it was found that the LNT model didn’t hold to be true. The expected cancers from Chernobyl didn’t match what was expected. Different parts of the world have different background levels of radiation, yet those changes don’t seem to correspond with the LNT hypothesis. There were accident where people were subjected to radiation, yet once again no correlation with cancer rates as suggested by the LNT hypothesis; in fact, in such cases it sometimes appeared that low doses of radiation could decrease cancer rates.

The LNT hypothesis is dead, or at least it should be. But there are people who benefit from keeping it alive, and rather than going back to the labs to try to figure out the proper relationship between radiation at low levels, and genetic damage, they try to muddy the waters.

Climate change might have its fear-mongers, much like the supporters of the LNT hypothesis do, but it has yet to be proven wrong. We know that greenhouse gases do affect the Earth’s climate, though to what degree our meddling will affect it is open to some debate, as is how harshly those changes will affect us humans. But, since the Earth isn’t a frozen wasteland, we “know” that greenhouse gases do affect the climate.

In short:
———-

Low doses of radiation:
-> has fear mongers
-> those fear mongers have been proven wrong.
-> end of story, (or it should be.)

Climate Change:
-> has fear mongers, and also
-> has those who benefit from denying it.
-> greenhouse gases affect climate, else the Earth would be a lot colder.
-> end of story, including how bad it will be, is yet to be written.

Given we don’t know the full story, we should research, and act, because the worse case scenario is disaster for us human. Replacing coal with nuclear is a no brainer. If there is room for some small release of greenhouse gases by us humans, it won’t include the use of coal to generate electricity. That’s one of the lower-hanging branches that we should be eliminating now.

Allan Savory delivered a highly publicized talk at a “Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED)” conference in February of this year (2013) entitled “How to fight desertification and reverse climate change.” Here we address one of the most dramatic claims made – that a specialized grazing method alone can reverse the current trajectory of increasing atmospheric CO2 and climate change. //

Approximately 8 Petagrams (Pg; trillion kilograms) of carbon are added to the atmosphere every year from fossil fuel burning and cement production alone. This will increase in the future at a rate that depends largely on global use of fossil fuels. To put these emissions in perspective, the amount of carbon taken up by vegetation is about 2.6 Pg per year. To a very rough approximation then, the net carbon uptake by all of the planet’s vegetation would need to triple (assuming similar transfers to stable C pools like soil organic matter) just to offset current carbon emissions every year. However, the claim was not that holistic management would maintain current atmospheric CO2 levels, but that it would return the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. Based on IPCC estimates, there are now approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times. To put this value in perspective, the amount of carbon in vegetation is currently estimated at around 450 Pg, most of that in the wood of trees. The amount of carbon that would need to be removed from the atmosphere and stabilized in soils, in addition to the amount required to compensate for ongoing emissions, to attain pre-industrial levels is equivalent to approximately one-half of the total carbon in all of Earth’s vegetation. Recall that annual uptake of carbon is about two orders of magnitude smaller than the total carbon amount stored in vegetation.

Brian Mays says:
January 13, 2015 at 2:40 PM

By the way, I wonder in what world funding for global warming research can be called “enormous”.

Welcome to the world of R&D for advanced reactor concepts! If only a tiny fraction of the money that has been wasted on deeply flawed, ideologically driven “climate studies” (keep in mind that I used to be part of this world when I was in graduate school) had been spent on genuine nuclear R&D … well … I’m sure that the DOE would have wasted most of it … but the remainder that went to those of us who just want to make a product that we can sell would have resulted in some very substantial progress.

But the reality is that I’ve just been tasked with tidying up and documenting the calculations that I performed to better understand severe-accident analysis of advanced gas-cooled reactor designs. This is work that resulted in a couple of published papers, but the budget for this cleanup/documentation work is $0, because there is no budget. There wasn’t even enough budget to get the papers done in the first place. That’s what nights and weekends are for. Fortunately, my day job manages to pay the bills.

Gee … I wished I worked in a field so flush with money that they’d fly me to Bali or Peru to discuss my latest “research” (or the made-up crap that I call “research”). I was fortunate enough to go to the last year’s meeting on new nuclear power plants (ICAPP’14), but that’s only because it was in Charlotte, NC, and I could drive there. I have nothing against Charlotte, but it’s no Bali.

The amount of money that has been, and still is being, wasted on the Climate BS is truly obscene, and those who refuse to see it are the real “deniers.”

Brian Mays says:
January 12, 2015 at 8:05 PM

“The question arises: Were the decisions concerning this enormous funding for global warming research taken out of genuine concern that the climate is allegedly changing as a result of CO2 industrial emissions, or do some other undisclosed ideas stand behind this money, IPCC activity, Kyoto, and all the gruesome catastrophic propaganda the world is now exposed to? If this concern is genuine, then why do we not see a storm of enthusiastic environmentalists and United Nations officials demanding to replace all fossil-fuel plants with nuclear plants, which have zero emission of greenhouse gases, are environmentally friendly, more economical, and much safer for plant workers and much safer for the general population than other sources of energy?”

– Zbigniew Jaworowski

What I don’t believe is that society needs to seek to reduce either “man-made” CO2 or “man-made” radiation doses to near zero. There are reasons to limit both CO2 and radiation doses, but there is no logical or moral reason to impose too tight a limit on either one.

In fact, I’ve often found that people working very hard to impose such limits don’t even like other people and seek to restrict their access to economic prosperity and physical power.

Human Health and Welfare Effects from Increased Greenhouse Gases and Warming
-- John Dunn and David Legates

Claims that global warming will have net negative effects on human health are not supported by scientific evidence. Moderate warming and increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon-dioxide levels could provide net benefits for human welfare, agriculture, and the biosphere by reducing cold-related deaths, increasing the amount of arable land, extending the length of growing seasons, and invigorating plant life. The harmful effects of restricting access to fossil fuel energy and subsequently causing energy costs to increase would likely outweigh any potential benefits from slightly delaying any rise in temperatures. Climate change is likely to have less impact on health and welfare than polices that would deprive the poor living in emerging economies of the benefits of abundant and inexpensive energy. //

As this chart shows, by a wide margin, the Gasparrini et al. study illustrates that cold extremes kill far more people that heatwaves—and by a wide margin. They concluded:

Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths…7.71% of the mortality…. Most of the mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7.29%) compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0.42%). So cold produced 17 times the number of heat deaths.7 //

Underlying the concept of Net Zero is the LNT [Linear No Threshold - nuclear radiation] philosophy laid down more than three decades earlier: no net emissions of greenhouse gases are acceptable. There is no threshold that allows some net production of greenhouse gases such that at any level, the net emission of greenhouse gases at any non-zero level is detrimental to the environment and must, therefore, be stopped. The belief is that since urgent action must be taken to avoid any additional warming of the planet, greenhouse gases must be removed from the atmosphere.71 When “emissions released by human action are taking a catastrophic toll on our planet and propelling us further into an irreversible climate crisis,” no threshold is acceptable.72 //

Linear No-Threshold theory began in 1927 when H. J. Muller examined phenotypical damages in fruit flies resulting from x-ray exposure, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946.78

Ibid.
It was introduced in radiological risk studies in 1959 and subsequently into general cancer risk. Consequently, the U.S. National Academy of Science recommended use of the LNT model to the induction of radiation-related mutations in somatic cells and, subsequently, to the study of cancer initiation.79

Edward J. Calabrese, “Cancer Risk Assessment, Its Wretched History and What It Means for Public Health,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, Vol. 21 (2024). 
In low-energy radiation, The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation based its radiological protection system on the assumption that the radiation-induced risk was directly proportional (i.e., linear) to the dosage, with no dose threshold below which no risk exists.80

Dominique Laurier et al., “The Scientific Basis for the Use of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model at Low Doses and Dose Rates in Radiological Protection,” Journal of Radiological Protection, Vol. 43 (2023), 024003.

About a decade after receiving the Nobel Prize, Muller admitted that he did not discover small mutations in fruit flies with the x-ray exposure for which he was heralded; rather, the high-energy radiation nearly obliterated large portions of their chromosomes. However, his Nobel Lecture argued that no safe radiation dose existed and that the LNT model must replace a threshold-dose-response model.81

Ibid., and Edward J. Calabrese, “Flaws in the LN Single-Hit Model for Cancer Risk: An Historical Assessment,” Environmental Research, Vol. 158 (2017), pp. 773–788; Edward J. Calabrese, “From Muller to Mechanism: How LNT Became the Default Model for Cancer Risk Assessment,” Environmental Pollution, Vol. 241 (2018), pp. 289–302; and Edward J. Calabrese, “Ethical Failures: The Problematic History of Cancer Risk Assessment,” Environmental Research, Vol. 193 (2020), 110582.

A Better Rule. An obviously better rule than LNT (and to net zero and other greenhouse gas–reduction strategies) is that of Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and alchemist of the 16th century: “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison” (Sola dosis facit venenum).82 //

Eighty percent of modern energy is produced by burning petroleum, natural gas, or coal to turn the turbines inside electricity generators. (See Chart 2.) Running 24 hours a day and seven days a week, a traditional coal, natural gas, or nuclear plant requires about 12.5 acres per megawatt of electricity. By contrast, solar (43.5 acres per megawatt) and wind (70.6 acres per megawatt) arrays occupy vastly more land area and have a much larger negative impact on the local habitat and its environment.93

a new study described by The Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor Chris Morrison shows that the sea ice around Antarctica has actually been increasing since satellite monitoring began in 1979. https://dailysceptic.org/2024/11/16/antarctica-sea-ice-has-slowly-increased-since-1979-science-paper-finds/

Sea ice around Antarctica has “slowly increased” since the start of continuous satellite recordings in 1979 with any changes caused by natural climate variation. In a paper published earlier this year, four environmental scientists further state that any sign that humans are responsible for any change is “inconclusive”. Not of course for mainstream media that have been crying wolf about the sea ice in Antarctica for decades to promote the Net Zero fantasy. Last year there was a reduced level of winter sea ice and this caused the Financial Times Science Editor Clive Cookson to exclaim that the entire area “faces a catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events… that will affect climate around the world”. //

Thoughts and prayers are also the order of the day for those who set great store in all the coral disappearing. Three years of record growth on the huge Great Barrier Reef put an end to that headliner. Polar bears are just as bad and keep breeding to top up new Arctic highs. Satellites keep discovering vast colonies of penguins in Antarctica, and mainstream media seem shocked into complete silence to report that the eyes in the sky have detected a vast recent plant greening of the Earth. There is a growing trend to debunk any ‘extreme’ weather claim – the great citizen journalist Paul Homewood even writes a book about the BBC’s more egregious climate howlers, every year no less, such is the volume to process. //

Musicman
5 hours ago
Here is a trick question. When did the last ice age end? Most people guess 10,000 years ago. Correct answer: it hasn't. By definition, an ice age is any time there are glaciers on the poles. 10,000 years ago the current ice peaked. It's now waning but no one knows for how long. And the reason it has a special name--"ice age"--is because it's not the norm. Over the last 541 million years or so, Earth has been in ice ages about a quarter of the time, and hotter the other times.

Would we need to adjust in a major way if the ice age ends? You bet. And will need to adjust if the ice age worsens and the glaciers cover Minnesota again. You bet. That's life on planet earth. Our species can survive because we can adapt. We can't control the temperature of the planet.

At the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Azerbaijan, attendees are full of dire predictions that the world’s climate will worsen under President-elect Trump. But when Trump fulfills his campaign promises to increase U.S. oil and gas production and removes President Biden’s pause on new liquid natural gas exports, global emissions will likely decline rather than rise.

This is because exports of U.S. natural gas generally displace coal, reducing global CO2 emissions. Even Germany, Europe’s largest manufacturer, is using lignite coal (rather than the less-polluting bituminous coal) to deal with shortages of renewables now that it has closed its nuclear power plants and Russian gas is no longer available.

About 3 billion people in emerging economies lack electricity and running water, and cook over wood and dung. Natural gas power plants would reduce particulates from wood and dung and make the air cleaner. Under President Biden, the World Bank does not make loans for fossil fuel power plants. //

a dramatic increase in American oil and gas production will have a significant effect on prices - even gas we don't export, as these are fungible commodities. And that will make the use of gas-fired power plants more practical, which will incentivize gas rather than coal plants, and will reduce emissions. That's what the climate scolds want, right?

But American exports of coal to Europe have been increasing under President Biden.

The report is well done, and each of the six risk areas are worth their own focused post here at THB.3 In the remainder of this post, I highlight what the report says about climate change — which the report does not identify as an existential risk.

The assessment recognizes that changes in climate have many significant consequences for people and ecosystems, but the corresponding risks are local and regional, not global: //

The report acknowledges diplomatically that activists often characterize climate change as an existential risk, which reflects “subjective values and worldviews” rather than scientific judgments of real-world risks: //

However, the assessment largely rejects these outliers and is very clear in its conclusion that climate change does not present a catastrophic health risk — even over the course of a century: //

The report acknowledges some of the extreme claims found in the scientific literature from those in the catastrophist planetary boundaries community as well as some of the outlier work in climate econometrics. However, the assessment largely rejects these outliers and is very clear in its conclusion that climate change does not present a catastrophic health risk — even over the course of a century:

Researchers describe global catastrophic risks from artificial intelligence, asteroid and comet impacts, climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, and supervolcanoes, including causes, likelihood, consequences, uncertainties, and possible changes. //

This report summarizes what is known about the risks associated with six threats and hazards: artificial intelligence; asteroid and comet impacts; sudden and severe changes to Earth's climate; nuclear war; severe pandemics, whether resulting from naturally occurring events or from synthetic biology; and supervolcanoes. //

Global-Health Global-Security Global-Climate-Change Space-Science-and-Technology Emergency-Preparedness Artificial-Intelligence Natural-Hazards Public-Health-Preparedness Nuclear-Weapons-and-Warfare

Now, a report required by the U.S. government per the 2022 Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act has given us an assessment of the various risks humanity faces. Climate change didn't make the cut.

• https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2981-1.html

• https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/global-existential-risks

//

Note the conclusions: There are three categories of risk. Existential risk, global catastrophic risk, and global catastrophic and existential threats - both. Artificial intelligence, asteroid and comet impacts, nuclear war, pandemics, and supervolcanoes rated a "yes" in all three risk categories.

The only one that rated a "no" was climate change.

Rusty
@Rusty_Weiss
·
Follow
LMAO - Climate scolds demanding everybody stop eating meat are lining up for the meat buffet and skipping over the vegan buffet.

Reporting from @ClimateDepot at #COP29Baku

11:02 AM · Nov 14, 2024 //

Morano wonders why they would bother to offer the meat version at all, considering it's so bad for the environment that they have to "restrict (it) for the rest of us."

He then films himself about to enjoy a hot dog with real beef at the summit, a menu item Morano says is "selling like hot cakes."

Morano tells RedState that NetZero climate initiatives are little more than a masquerade for the rich to enjoy life's pleasures while forcing others to pay.

"This is just another example of how NetZero is nothing short of the Sovietization of the once free West," he explained. "Private jets, lavish mansions, and plenty of meat for those who rule over the rest of us."

Introduction

Heat and cold are now established health risk factors, with several studies reporting important mortality effects in populations around the world.1–3 The associated health burden is expected to increase with climate change, especially under the most extreme scenarios of global warming.4,5 ///

Many more cold-related excess deaths than heat-related excess deaths. However, the chart shows a different scale for heat- vs. cold-related deaths...

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are set to fall in 2024 and could be facing structural decline, due to record growth in the installation of new low-carbon energy sources. //

China’s CO2 emissions have seen explosive growth over recent decades, pausing only for brief periods due to cyclical shocks.

Over the past 20 years, its annual emissions from fossil fuels and cement have climbed quickly almost every year – as shown in the figure below – interrupted only by the economic slowdown of 2015-16 and the impact of zero-Covid restrictions in 2022.

While CO2 is rebounding in 2023 from zero-Covid lows (see: Why emissions grew in Q3 of 2023), there have also been record additions of low-carbon capacity, setting up a surge in electricity generation next year. (See: Solar, wind and hydropower set to surge in 2024.)

Combined with a rebound in hydro output following a series of droughts, these record additions are all but guaranteed to push fossil-fuel electricity generation and CO2 emissions into decline in 2024, as shown in the figure below.

Global efforts to tackle climate change are wildly off track, says the UN, as new data shows that warming gases are accumulating faster than at any time in human existence. //

The UN wants to see how much progress is being made in driving down emissions that are threatening to push global temperatures well above 1.5C this century, a level beyond which scientists say extremely damaging impacts will occur. //

The rise last year was higher than the previous 12 months, due to record fires in Canada, and the onset of the El Niño weather event all adding to ongoing emissions from fossil fuels. ///

"Greenhouse gases" == Carbon dioxide, which is food.

There are far more damaging greenhouse gases, but only CO2 affords gov't bureaucrats more power.

Meanwhile, several studies have found that cleaner, clearer air due to falling pollution from China and lower sulfur marine fuels made only a small contribution to last year’s temperatures. One study, submitted to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found that declining pollution could raise global temperatures by 0.03°C over the next 20 years, with the strongest effect not occurring until later this decade. It’s not nothing, says study co-author Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at Scripps, but far too little to explain last year. Taken together, says Mika Rantanen, a climate scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the results are “a good reminder that it was indeed El Niño that was the major player.” //

None of the data justifies making energy more expensive. None of the data justify covering thousands of square miles of open ground, including vital wildlife habitat, with windmills and solar panels.

Forget what Kamala Harris is saying. Look at who she's hiring — in this case, someone who is an unrepentant climate scold, a fanatical anti-child, anti-energy, anti-modern lifestyle (except for herself, we feel sure) lunatic. //

Key campaign workers like this frequently go on to take related positions in the staff of election winners when they assume office. There can be little doubt that a Harris administration would include Camila Thorndike, almost certainly in some position having to do with energy and climate policy. She would be pushing policies that would make energy more expensive, and in so doing make everything more expensive; she would be pushing policies that would damage, if not destroy, our modern technological lifestyle.

Hurricane Oscar developed on Saturday near Turks and Caicos, and to the northeast of Cuba, in the extreme southwestern Atlantic Ocean. As of Saturday evening, hurricane-force winds extended just 5 miles (8 km) from the center of the storm. //

Oscar was so small that its winds could not be detected by Earth-observation satellites that estimate wind speeds in tropical cyclones.

Writing in his summary of Oscar's development on Saturday afternoon, National Hurricane Center forecaster Philippe Papin noted that the hurricane was only discovered due to a last-minute flight by Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft.

"It is fair to say its been an unexpected day with regards to Oscar," he wrote in his 5 pm ET advisory. "After being upgraded to a tropical storm this morning, a resources-permitting Air Force Reconnaissance mission found that Oscar was much stronger than anticipated and in fact was a tiny hurricane. It is worth noting that remote sensing satellite intensity estimates are currently much lower." //

The Air Force aircraft found sustained winds, in a tiny area to be sure, of 85 mph (137 kph). Hence, Hurricane Oscar. //

Weather models struggle with the development of small hurricanes, and this is largely because the micro-physics of the smallest storms occur below the resolution of these models. Additionally, tiny hurricanes organize much more quickly and efficiently.

The questioner's attempted "gotcha" was, "When will the words 'Climate Change' come out of your mouth?"

The chance of me virtue-signalling for people in the media is zero, so do not count on that. I don't subscribe to your religion. And it's just a tired refrain and song and dance. I get you have an agenda, I understand that, I think you should be more honest about what that would mean for people, taxing them to smithereens, stopping oil and gas, making people pay dramatically more for energy, we would collapse as a country. So, this whole idea, of climate ideology driving policy, it just factually can't work. So in Florida, our energy is gonna be affordable and reliable. That's what you're gonna do, that's the only way you can adequately respond to things like we've just seen with the storms to get people hooked back up.

This is the Way.

Facts are stubborn things, and we are forced to live within a framework of facts. But all too often, dogma is pushed to take precedence over facts, and that's a recipe for bad policy.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ongoing climate change discussion. Now, a new study by German engineer and scientist Moritz Büsing has shown some serious flaws in the methods of measuring temperatures, and the release of this work will no doubt draw fire from climate scolds in Germany, the rest of Europe - and the United States.

But facts are stubborn things.

According to a new study, weather station data has been shown to non-climatically and erroneously record warmer-than-actual temperatures due to the steady and perpetual aging process almost universally observed in temperature gauges.

When a weather station temperature gauge’s white paint or white plastic ages and darkens, this allows more solar radiation to be absorbed by the gauge than when the gauge is bright white and new. Within a span of just 2 to 5 years, a gauge has been observed to record maximum temperatures 0.46°C to 0.49°C warmer than in gauges that have not undergone an aging process. This artificial warming is not corrected in modern data sets, and it builds up over time – even when the gauges are cleaned or resurfaced every few years.

If these systematic artificial warming errors were to be corrected rather than ignored, the 140-year (1880-’90 to 2010-’20) GISTEMP global warming trend plummets from the current estimate of +1.43°C down to +0.83°C, a 42% differential. The temperature reduction can be even more pronounced – from +1.43°C down to +0.41°C – if a set of conservative assumptions (described in detail in the paper) are removed.

https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-Buesing-Weather-Station-Ageing-V4.2.pdf