by Mike Bailey

I am a retired Surveyor who spent his whole career (1965 to 2010) measuring and recording:

• Water depths, to enable safe navigation of ships and boats into harbours.
• Coastal features, such as shorelines and beaches, to monitor changes in depth that occur over time.
• Near shore constructions, such as sea walls, groynes wharves, piers and jetties and boat ramps to monitor their effect on the surrounding areas.

In order for these depth measurements to have any coherence they have to be related to a common reference level. In Australia this common reference level or Datum is the Australian Height Datum (AHD).

AHD is a mean sea level datum and was established by analysis of data from recording tide gauges which operate in ports around Australia and which in some cases have been operating for around a century. (see below) I have not found any proposal that this datum be changed due to the rising sea level.

AHD was adopted by the National Mapping Council in May 1971 as the datum to which all vertical control for mapping was to be referred.

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Most of the last 500,000 years have seen Earth gripped by snow and ice, with short warm periods of about 10,000 years long every 100,000 years. We live in this continuing glacial era but are lucky to exist in one of the regular short warm periods.

There is nothing at all unusual about the current warm period, except maybe that it is the period during which modern human civilisation developed.

Within our warm era, we live in a time that is not unusual either – there have been periods warmer and cooler than today, with no real evidence that mankind has caused global warming (apart from minor urban heat bubbles around mega cities).

There is evidence of a correlation between sunspots and Earth temperature, as well as suggested mechanisms to explain this link. The sun clearly has an effect on Earth temperature, and the evidence tends to suggest we could expect global cooling in the near future.

Even within historical times, the Central England Temperature Record, which goes back to 1659, shows a general rising trend since the depths of the Little Ice age, rising to a peak with the solar cycles, and now signalling a falling trend.

Statistics on human usage of carbon fuels show that it is the undeveloped world not the developed world where usage is rising most sharply. Even in emissions per head of population, it is countries like China where the significant growth is occurring. Carbon taxes and targets are costly and futile.

However when we look at how carbon dioxide affects global temperature, the effect is so small as to be insignificant. It is the behaviour of the sun we should be watching.

Ed Hoskins has looked at all of the above factors in a short but revealing essay.

To read more see:http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/hoskins-global-warming-climate-change.pdf [PDF, 1.8MB]

Alley, R.B 2000 The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 19: pp 213-226.

The Carbon Sense Coalition has awarded its Inaugural Golden Fleece Award to Kevin Rudd and coal industry leaders for “flagrant fleecing of community savings in futile ‘research’ on Carbon Capture & Sequestration – a costly and complex process designed to capture and bury carbon dioxide gas produced by burning carbon fuels such as coal, oil and gas”.

It is obviously possible, in an engineering sense, to collect, separate, compress, pump and pipe gases, so new “research” is largely a waste of money. Engineers know how to do these things, and their likely costs. But only foolish green zealots would think of spending billions to bury a harmless, invisible, life-supporting gas in hopes of cooling the climate some time in the century ahead.

About 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced for every tonne of coal burnt in a power station. To capture, compress and bury it could take at least 30% of the electricity produced, greatly increasing the cost of the limited amount of electricity left for sale – more coal used, increased electricity costs, for ZERO measurable benefits.

We have come to expect stupidity from politicians, but coal industry leaders who agreed to waste money on this should be sued by shareholders for negligence. Maybe they were just drooling at all the extra coal they would sell in order to produce the same electricity?

Kevin Rudd wins this award for “a Flagrant Fleece of $400 million taken from tax payers to fund the fatuous Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.” There is little to show for the millions already spent except a lot of receipts for high class salaries, consultants, travel, entertainment and “operational expenses”.

Pumping gases underground is sensible if it brings real benefits such as using waste gases to drive oil recovery from declining oil fields.

Normally, however, CCS will just produce more expensive electricity.

This result is not needed as politicians have already invented dozens of ways of doing just that.

More, as well as:

• The Warming of the last Century is too Small to Notice
• Clean Coal by Wire
• The New Cold War
• The Great Barrier Reef
• A revival of the Medieval Practice of Book Burning
• The Beginning of the End

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/golden-fleece-award.pdf [PDF, 133 KB]

Keywords: Golden Fleece Award, carbon capture and sequestration, London, Los Angeles and Asian smogs, dust, save the Great Barrier
Reef, book-burning academics, climatism waning.

The Case for Repeal

We support the immediate repeal of the carbon tax. This tax was introduced by stealth, and the justification for its introduction is spurious. It should be repealed or made ineffective immediately.

We are told its purpose is to “reduce carbon pollution” – just three words, each of which is based on a lie.

• “Reduce”: The effect of Australia’s carbon tax on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so tiny as to be undetectable and any miniscule reduction would be totally swamped in the far bigger natural seasonal variations of carbon dioxide levels. The effect on global climate, if any, would also be too small to be measured and of no benefit to the climate or life on Earth.
• “Carbon”: It is NOT a tax on carbon. Carbon is a solid – either soft and black like graphite and soot, or crystalline, hard and beautiful like diamond. It is definitely not the colourless gas created when carbon is burned. The “carbon” tax falls mainly on carbon dioxide, a colourless, harmless natural gas which has always been present in Earth’s atmosphere, usually in far greater amounts than at present. The use of “carbon” when referring to “carbon dioxide” is a deliberate deception. It would be like calling liquid water by the name “hydrogen”, a major element in the water molecule which is a dangerous explosive flammable gas. Based on the carbon example, a tax on water vapour (another “greenhouse gas) would probably be called “The Hydrogen Tax” by government propagandists.
• “Pollution”: Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and should never have been called one. It is the essential gas-of-life for all plants and they support all animals on Earth. It is no more a pollutant than oxygen, which is the gas-of-life for animals, or water vapour which is essential for all life. All three gases have effects on earth’s surface temperature, and on surface life, and such effects are usually highly beneficial. Additional carbon dioxide has been improving and will continue to improve the growth rate and drought tolerance of all plants on earth. Far from polluting the Earth, extra carbon dioxide has been greening the globe for decades.

There has been no attempt at an independent cost benefit analysis to justify the tax.

More, as well as:

• Petition
• John Howard Joins the Deniers (well almost)
• The Many Benefits of CO2
• Keeping a Sense of Perspective on Global Warming
• Funds Flow in, in Enormous Dollops

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/cold-turkey2.pdf [PDF, 140KB]

Keywords: Carbon Tax, deceptive advertising, cost-benefits, enquiry into the science, pollution, National Pollution Inventory Scheme, Kyoto Agreement, price surveillance, IPCC, Climate Change Authority, Direct Action, renewable energy targets.

The Environmental Insane Asylum
By Alan Caruba

Earth Day was declared in 1970 and for the past 45 years we have all been living in the Environmental Insane Asylum, being told over and over again to believe things that are the equivalent of Green hallucinations. Now the entire month of April has been declared Earth Month, but in truth not a day goes by when we are not assailed with the bold-faced lies that comprise environmentalism.

Around the globe, the worst part of this is that we are being victimized by people we are told to respect from the President of the United States to the Pope of the Catholic Church. Their environmentalism is pure socialism.

Organizations whom we expect to tell the truth keep telling us that “climate change is one of the biggest global security threats of the 21st century.” This was a recent statement by “world leaders” like the G7, a group of finance ministers and central bank governors of seven advanced economies, the International Monetary Fund, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States. On April 17 they adopted a report about the “threat” put together by think tanks that included the European Union Institute for Security Studies and the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
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From: Sir Donald Miller. F Eng. FRSE.
Chairman, Scottish Power 1982-92.

Letter to Alec Salmond
09 March 2011

The Right Hon Alec Salmond
First Minister
Scottish Government

Dear Sir

It is I believe becoming clear to a rapidly increasing number of voters in Scotland that the Scottish Government’s concentration on so called renewable energy sources to the exclusion of more reliable and economic sources , such as nuclear , is little short of disastrous. Let us look at the facts:-

1. No wind or marine energy sources can be relied on to provide power when it is needed- the only time when electricity is of any value.

2. Wind and marine need nearly 100% back up from conventional generators. Therefore any expenditure on these is additional to ‘normal’ capital required to secure our electricity supplies.

3. Output from wind turbines varies rapidly, not just locally but nationally, so that conventional back up generation is required to run inefficiently at part load, incurring further costs for the consumer.

4. Wind and wave are such extremely low density sources of energy that costs will always be high and no amount of development will alter this significantly.

5. The cost of onshore wind to the consumer is some £200/MWhr taking into account the ROC subsidy, back up generation and additional transmission costs. This is over four times the cost of energy from conventional or nuclear sources. The cost of off-shore wind is even higher at over £250/MWhr.

6. The claim that Scotland has vast resources of marine energy is based on a failure to appreciate the physics. The actual potential is readily assessed by normal engineering criteria (as in studies by Consulting Engineers Black and Veatch for The Carbon Trust and Robert Gordons University). These show that the total tidal current resource of UK waters from the Pentland Firth to the Channel Isles, neglecting costs and practical limitations such as interference with shipping and fishing and impossibility of servicing such a plethora of installations, would amount to no more than 2.5% to 5% of UK electricity requirements.

7. The costs of tidal energy to the consumer will be significantly higher than offshore wind, even after taking credit for possible developments. Wave energy will be even more costly.

8. Other low carbon technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage are unproven on the scale envisaged, requiring long term sequestration of some 200millions tons of CO2 per year from the UK alone. Taken together with the 25% loss in efficiency of generation, energy costs would more than double.

9. Ofgem has estimated that the UK Government’s energy policy will result in a doubling of electricity prices to consumers within 15 years. The much higher renewable targets of the Scottish Government would, on a stand alone basis, result in even higher prices.

10. The CEO of National Grid in a lecture to the Royal Academy of Engineering in March 2011 stated that the effect of present energy policies would be that the era of having electricity on demand in the UK was coming to an end. The UK Government estimates there is a high risk of power cuts within five years.

11. High energy prices based on subsidies are certain to have an extremely damaging effect on the Scottish Economy as recently quantified in the Verso Economics Report using the Scottish Governments’ own economic model for the Scottish economy. The loss of jobs will far outweigh the few gains, most of which will be of low to medium quality, from renewable installations.

12. Already there has been very significant damage to Scotland’s environment- the massive installation at Doune dominating the route North from Glasgow is a case in point- with consequent loss to one of its greatest assets, the tourist industry. The value of tourism to the Scottish economy is put at £4.2bn a year, far in excess of the value of all the energy produced from wind farms even with the Scottish 80% target for renewables.

13. Prior to privatisation Scotland, with six commercial reactors, produced over 60% of its electricity from nuclear and had a thriving and profitable export trade to England. As a result Scotland benefited from having one of the lowest electricity prices in Europe and this after proper allowances for all the costs involved including waste disposal and decommissioning. Unlike the present energy regime there was no element of subsidy. As distinct from other low carbon generation, nuclear is a tried and tested technology of which we have had excellent experience now for over 50 years. Supplies of nuclear fuel are secure and the cost of energy to consumers from a new generation of reactors would be less than a quarter of that from wind and marine sources.

14. The well being of a modern economy is based on a reliable and economic supply of electricity and will be even more so in future as transport becomes increasingly electrified. If one wanted to go down in history as the politician who did most to damage Scotland’s economy it would be difficult to think of a more effective route than the present energy policy.

15. It is not too late to have a rational and balanced energy policy- but it soon will be. We have only a small window of opportunity- let us grasp it before it is too late.

Sir Donald Miller. F Eng. FRSE.
Chairman, Scottish Power 1982-92.

Dear Carbon Sense,

I had a spare moment, and for some reason it was spent pondering Climate Change.

Suddenly, like a bolt of lightening… bells and whistles went off… I’m onto something.

I need support, and confidently believe you will jump on board to back me with the following research into Climate Change.

I am preparing my own submission to examine a subject that has not been appraised: “The Damage Climate Change will make to Fashion (including associated industries)”. I will not be investigating the inconsequential slaughter of innocent wildlife within fashion, as this may well prejudice the findings. In fact, the fashion industry is saving these poor creatures from the scientifically proven Climatical catastrophe we mere humans are facing.

There appears to be a vital call for extensive funding before it is too late, as the Paris, Rome, New York and London Fashion industries will disintegrate due to predicted continuing seasonal uncertainties brought about by Climate Change. The complete loss of winter, spring, autumn and summer fashion releases together with the gala events accompanying these seasonal releases will bring about a Global Economic Collapse, causing millions to become unemployed. This widespread calamity will bring to an end the Asian, Mexican and African sweat-shops, forcing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of starving, emaciated, suffering humans to become Global Refugees, as they can not ALL survive by manufacturing only shorts, T-shirts and thongs (flip-flops) as the unprecedented rising temperature continues upwards.

We MUST act immediately to prevent the future misery that will be enforced on our daughters and their daughters… and their daughters… and in some cases our sons; sons who will never experience the understanding and self gratification of this season’s ‘new dress’, or the ‘new shoes, or the new Armani Jeans, watch or cologne.

We can NOT stand by and turn our backs on this forthcoming, predestined, inevitable tragedy. WE MUST ACT NOW!!

I wish to embark on this research with a round-the-globe trip to establish how Climate Change is having an effect on the natural physical and biological form of bikini-clad, young ladies’ nipples, and what affect, if any, the proliferation of Global Warming, due to anthropogenic CO2 escalation, will have on their natural rise and fall.

I am presently working on a couple of models… however due to privacy laws and the small matter of a restraining order, I can not advise you of their names at this time.

Are you interested in assisting in this research and how much funding do you think we will require?

All donations will be accepted and not accounted for.

Your future children saving friend,

Rick Gore-Flannery (changed name by dead pole so people would believe me)

There is now a special magazine called “Carbon Capture Journal” devoted to carbon capture pipe dreams.

But despite all the hype, there still isn’t any commercial scale power plant (1000 MW) operating anywhere in the world that captures and stores CO2.

There are gas and oil rigs that pump it back down into reservoirs, there one small 200 MW pilot/demonstration generator in Germany that captures the CO2 and then trucks the CO2 halfway across Germany to an injection point (but is it a real commercially viable plant anyway – or just a heavily subsidized exercise in PR?).

All a big fronted farce designed to gather lots of Government funding (our tax money!!)

JB, NSW, Australia

It was the year 1799, during the “Dalton Minimum” when the sun was quiet that George Frederick Bollinger led a group of early pioneers from North Carolina to establish early settlements in Missouri. They hoped to cross their largest obstacle, the Mississippi River, on the ice, frozen solid in mid-winter.

The pioneers and their wagon train moved westward a few miles each day, making and breaking camp each night, fording the small streams and floating across the larger ones on rafts which they made from the nearby trees, following roads that were barely trails through forests and valleys.

They arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi River opposite St. Genevieve in late December, pitched camp and explored potential river crossings. St. Genevieve is located about a 100 miles downstream from St. Louis. Winter had come early and the Mississippi river was already covered with ice. It was bitterly cold. They determined the ice was not yet thick enough to support a crossing of ox-carts and covered wagons. Daily the thickness of the ice was measured and then on Dec. 31, a chopped hole in the ice indicated thickness well over two feet. They tested the ice by making a few trips across on foot and horseback. The believed the ice was thick enough to support a loaded wagon.

As a test, a wagon was selected to be driven across with no one riding and the driver would walk ahead watching the ice and leading his team. The trip across and back to camp was made without the ice cracking and preparations were made for an early crossing New Year’s Day.

The next morning final preparations were made to break camp and all supplies were loaded. The weather remained bitter cold with dark skies overhead and light snow falling, but the decision had been made to cross and there was no turning back. The group was devout German Reformed Protestants and they gathered together in the early cold gray dawn to seek guidance from their God for a safe crossing.

The cracking of whips like pistol shots rang out over the heads of the oxen to coax them out onto the ice; the crossing had began. All that were able, walked to lighten the loaded wagons, keeping a safe distance from the wagons, which were also spaced far apart to lessen the danger of breaking the ice. The crossing was made successfully with no mishaps, except extremely cold hands and feet.

The townsfolk of St. Genevieve had built a large fire to welcome and warm these new settlers. Safely across the Mississippi, they were relieved of their crossing fears and enjoyed the local hospitality. They exchanged news from the East for information of what they might expect ahead. Needed supplies were purchased and even the weather abated a little as the sun broke through the clouds. They settled along the Whitewater River where the soil was rich.

We are transitioning into Solar Cycle (SC) 24 and the sun has become fairly quiet. During most of the last century (SC 16-23) the sun has been in a Grand Maxima. As a result the Earth has experienced warming. But with SC 24 the sun is again changing states. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have already fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius. This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. Several solar scientist are predicting the sun will slide into a “Dalton Minimum” event in SC 25, about a decade from now. If that happens, the Earth will experience some bitterly cold winters for several decades.

The winters may once again resemble the winters 200 years ago during the time of the early pioneers. Imagine for a minute the west fork of the White River near Bloomfield freezing into a block of ice two feet thick.

James A. Marusek
Bloomfield USA

First published Greene County Daily Word, 19 Mar 2009.

http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1510388.html

There is a colossal scandal erupting in the blogosphere, and in the better media. Someone, probably an insider offended by what he saw was going on, leaked a large volume of emails from within the global warming priesthood centred within the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK.

These show a pattern of manipulation, suppression and selection of data and evidence all designed to create and maintain the global warming myth. So now we know – Global Warming is man-made after all – it is created by men using manufactured data, dodgy computer models and “mates reviewed” papers by a small group of dedicated believers posing as scientists.

No one has fully assessed what it all means yet, but for a flavour of what will be revealed see:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

And also:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17102

Read the complete newsletter: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/man-made.pdf [PDF, 95 KB]