Alice in Wonderland Science
Our energy and environment deserve better – in South Africa and Qatar

Kelvin Kemm

A few weeks ago, perhaps as a prologue to the “global warming disaster” convention in Doha, Qatar, South Africa’s Department of Environment Affairs took out a full-page advertisement in our country’s newspapers, promoting National Marine Week.

The ad showed a map of the Antarctic continent, from above the pole, surrounded by the vast blue Southern Ocean. It also promoted South Africa’s new Antarctic research vessel, SA Agulhas II.

The advertisement’s text mentioned the massive Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which is responsible for distributing vital nutrients to the world’s oceans. It noted that the truly massive quantities of phytoplankton found in the ocean are vital marine building blocks in ocean processes. All that is true, and I certainly applaud efforts to protect the environment and promote National Marine Week and our country’s research efforts.

But then, sadly, the ad’s discussion of physics content went off the rails. Referring to phytoplankton, it said “these microscopic creatures also use carbon to create energy.” Wrong!
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Well, the verdict is in on Global Warming, and guess what? There isn’t any!!! So says the British Met Office in a new report, issued quietly and without any publicity last month.

In fact, they sheepishly admitted that there has been “no measurable increase in Global Temperature during the last 16 years”. If you missed this story when it broke, you can read the full article at the following link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html

By Mike Williamson
12 January 2013

There has been much comment on our summer heatwave. This prompted a search for the history of temperatures in S.E. Queensland.

The longest continuous record of local temperatures was from Amberley: the data set was begun in late 1941 and is still active.

See: http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=040004

The record shows that the highest monthly mean maximum temperature for the month of January in each year was way back in 1942 and has not been surpassed since. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1 (click to enlarge)

The linear trend for the years 1942 to 2012, shows is a slight rise in the temperature trend. This is not surprising as the Earth’s temperatures have had several rising phases ever since the last Ice Age ended over 10,000 years ago.

The Amberley data shows that the highest mean maximum January temperatures appear to be fairly similar when they periodically occur. However the lower mean maximums appear to be creating the very slight upward trend.

This does not then appear to support the man-made global warming hypothesis since if carbon dioxide is retaining heat in the atmosphere it should do so at all temperature levels, whether high or low. If carbon dioxide is causing the heating, why is carbon dioxide rising steadily whereas temperatures are not?

A Short Observation on Bushfires

Grass, peat, leaves and timber all ignite at temperatures well above 40^oC. Even highly inflammable, easily ignitable, kerosene needs a spark exceeding 200^oC for combustion to be initiated. Therefore heat wave temperatures cannot cause fires. Something else ignited them. Once ignited, hot temperatures and high winds make the fires more severe, but something else ignited them.

[Mike Williamson is a Graduate Fuel Technologist/Chemical Engineer, with experience in minerals processing and applications of coal technology. He is now retired and has no connection with industry of any kind. As a self-funded retiree he relies upon lifetime savings for his quality of life in retirement. No one paid him or asked him to produce this.]

Does an increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere increase global temperature or not?

Most climate commentators immediately parrot the conventional wisdom of the climate alarmists – “The atmosphere is a blanket retaining the heat from the sun. Increased carbon dioxide thickens the blanket and will cause dangerous warming, leading to a tipping point where runaway heating becomes irreversible.”

However an experiment conducted in 1909 shows this conclusion to be wrong – the atmosphere acts more like a radiator, quickly removing heat from land and water surfaces, transporting it aloft and radiating much of it back to space. The atmosphere is a great temperature moderator – it stops daytime temperatures from rising too high, and keeps night-time temperatures from falling as low as they would otherwise. The net result, averaged over the whole world, is not known, but the daytime shading probably has a greater effect on surface temperatures than the night-time insulation.

For much more real science from one of the few authors who writes clearly, see this paper:

Klause Ermecke, 2010 – “Rescue from the Climate Saviours – Is there any Danger from “World Climate?” KE Research.

Read the full paper:
http://www.ke-research.de/downloads/ClimateSaviors.pdf [PDF, 1MB]

Energy Roulette Week
(The antithesis of Earth Hour)

A Reality Game for those Concerned about the Future for their Families

Acknowledgement: Josh at www.cartoonsbyjosh.com

Media Statement by Viv Forbes
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

Any quotes taken directly from this statement may be attributed to Mr Forbes.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on electricity consumers to boycott Earth Hour grandstanding by pampered people too silly to recognise the realities and benefits of reliable electricity.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, is supporting an alternative proposal that “Earth Hour” be replaced by “Energy Roulette Week”.

Quote:

The Earth Hour people turn off a few lights on a balmy night for a romantic hour in candle-light (incidentally generating twice as much CO2 as light bulbs for the same amount of light.) This is unrealistic green tokenism.
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“Germany and the European Union have taken a pioneering role on climate protection, under the mistaken assumption that other countries would follow our example. That’s the wrong strategy. Making this kind of advanced effort weakens our bargaining position. Instead of building wind turbines, we should build higher dikes.”

– German government advisor Kai Konrad

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-kai-konrad-on-the-mistakes-of-european-climate-policy-a-870693.html

James Hansen, an outspoken world climate alarmist says: “Coal-fired power plants are factories of death”. The Australian Greens want a fast end to coal mining in Australia, and support a swift expansion of wind and solar power. As the Greens are part of the coalition which governs Australia, the electricity industry is now being coerced by carbon taxes and green subsidies and mandates to replace efficient and reliable coal-powered electricity with costly and unreliable wind and solar plants. All of this paranoia is driven by climatist claims that carbon dioxide causes environmental harm by triggering dangerous global warming. Let’s look at whether coal energy or green energy does more harm to the environment.

There is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide causes any measurable changes to climate. In fact, the evidence indicates that changes in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are a result, not a cause, of variations in global temperatures.

Moreover, burning coal in clean modern power stations has definite benefits for the biosphere – it puts food and drink for all life back into the atmosphere. The major coal combustion products are – nitrogen plant food from the air (69%), carbon dioxide plant food from the coal (21%) and water vapour, the liquid for life, from the coal (7%). The other 3% comprises mainly inert atmospheric gases from the air and an ash residue of trace minerals from the coal. The green bogey-man, carbon dioxide, is the gas of life and a free gift from coal combustion to the biosphere. More carbon dioxide has proven benefits in making plants grow faster in good weather and helping them survive better in droughts or frosts. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is insurance for the biosphere no matter what climate change is in store for us.

Green energy, however, can affect local climate and does cause environmental damage…

More, as well as:

• The UN, Agenda 21 and the erosion of land ownership rights
• Killing the Earth to Save it
• The Last Word

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wind-solar-coal.pdf [PDF, 221 KB]

Cartoon Credit: Steve Hunter http://www.stevehunterillustrations.com.au/political-cartoons/

Keywords: Coal, wind, solar, gas, gases of life, wind farms affect the climate, turbine fires, bird kills, UN, Agenda 21.

By Viv Forbes September 2012

“To be truly ‘sustainable’, a farm must recycle everything – otherwise it is depleting its soil minerals. Therefore it cannot sell any of its produce. This means it cannot buy items from the outside world, such as machinery, to make labour less arduous, and to produce more food. It is thus an impossible dream.” – Bob Long

The man-made global warming crisis has gone cold, the “man-made extreme weather” scares are wearing thin, and people are waking up to the “tax war on carbon”, so a new theme is needed for handing control of our lives, businesses and property to the world bureaucracy. The theme for the next green alarm is “sustainability” and a favourite target is “sustainable farming”.

We need to recognise some realities. Modern cities are not sustainable without farms, and modern farms are not sustainable without modern machinery, mineral fertilisers and affordable energy. City people should thank the lord for the machinery and cheap energy that produce the surplus food and all the trucks, road trains, refrigerated vans and milk tankers that bring it to their supermarkets every day. The last thing they should advocate is “sustainable farming”.

Unlike most armchair experts on sustainable farming, my early life was spent on an almost-sustainable farm. The memorable lessons we learned are described below.

Cows were milked by hand, ploughing and planting was done with a team of draft horses. Here is how green power works:

Ploughing using Hay-burners
Photo Credit: (c) Kapai / http://www.fotosearch.com

Lucerne was cut using a horse-drawn mower and rake. Haymaking on our “almost sustainable” farm was when everyone got a job with a pitchfork – mine had a special short handle. I still have it. Here is how it was done:

Making Bio-fuel for Hay Burners
Photo credit: http://thekinnickproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/75-years-ago-eileens-diary-july-9-1937.html

For more descriptions on how a sustainable farm really works you can quickly download the full article in print-ready PDF at:

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sustainable-farming.pdf [PDF, 132KB]

In June this year the UNEP report announced that Global Renewable Energy investment reached $257 Billion in 2011. It’s so large it rivals the $302 billion invested in fossil fuel power. But how much electricity do we get for all that money? When the details are pulled from the fog, a quarter of a trillion dollars appears to produce only about 3% of all our global electricity, and even less of our global energy. All that money, so few gigawatts.

Source: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/renewable-energy-is-a-257-billion-dollar-industry-that-makes-only-3-of-our-electricity/

Cartoon Credit: Steve Hunter http://www.stevehunterillustrations.com.au/political-cartoons/

Cartoon Credit: Steve Hunter http://www.stevehunterillustrations.com.au/political-cartoons/