CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[Stanley]

If bullets had been bitten in the past we would have had enough tidal power to carry us over the occasional drops in solar or wind power with some natural gas generating capacity on rapid response duty. The gas for this coming from our own resources, possibly fracking.
As it is management of our energy policy has been dire because no government wanted to take control and responsibility and make things happen. The hope was that 'The Market' would step in and pay for it. They will, in their own good time, but then add a minimum of 25% on top for dividends and Joe Public pays in the end. We will not see any meaningful improvement until the government takes back control of the commanding heights of the economy. The Market had it's chance and blew it, that's why we are where we are today. We need to change our approach and broadly I agree with Ken.

[Tizer]

Wave and tide energy are obvious technologies for smoothing out energy generation but all the money seems to be going into wind and solar. A wave energy hub was set up off Hayle in Cornwall but it was instead sold to a foreign company to be made into a wind farm. LINK The Inst. Mech. Eng. web site hasn't been updated and still says
Future wave power generators
In 2007, the UK government gave planning approval for the world’s first large scale wave farm off the coast of Cornwall in South West England. The project, dubbed Wave Hub, is a world first and will include an onshore substation connected to electrical equipment on the seabed about 16 kilometres (10 miles) offshore via a sub-sea cable. Wave Hub could generate enough electricity for 7,500 homes, directly saving 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 25 years.

We haven't put enough effort and money into developing wave and tide energy. See this analysis in 2019 in the Institute of Physics journal: Physics World

[Stanley]

That's the problem isn't it. No agreed overall strategy and the will to drive progress through. To do that you need government backing not the vague hope that the commercial sector will pay.... The only time that happens is if there is a guaranteed profit and then the customer has to pay the base charge plus profits and dividends. The Tory way..... and no control.

[plaques]

Wind energy has a pay back time of 10 to 15 Years. Wave energy around 30 years but running day and night as long as we keep orbiting the sun and spinning on our axis. Guess which we have gone for?

[PanBiker]

Aye, it's not as if we are land locked, as an island nation it would seem that wave power should be a bit of a no brainer! We can't guarantee that the sun will shine, it's probably marginally better for the wind but the waves and tides are a constant. Led by successive donkeys.

[Tizer]

At least the Irish are working on the technology...

`Irish-led tidal energy project awarded €3m from European Commission' Link 1

`Strangford Lough Tidal Turbine, Northern Ireland' LINK 2

[Stanley]

" Guess which we have gone for?"
Exactly right Ken and a perfect example of a decision left to the Markets instead of being a responsibility accepted by government and the best long term solution forced through even if it meant central funding. What Bevan described perfectly as 'keeping control of the commanding heights of the economy'. The Tories say that this is nationalisation. They are wrong, it is central control of a vital sector of the economy and this is going to become more and more necessary very soon.

[Stanley]

Not sure if this comes under climate change but see THIS for a Guardian report of severe flooding in Queensland and New South Wales.

[Stanley]

See THIS Guardian report of what is described as a 'once in 500 years' flood. Residents in the north coast town of Ballina are evacuating as the deadly flood emergency in New South Wales moves south.

[Big Kev]

FB_IMG_1647507102321.jpg

[Stanley]

Indeed! And there were associated firms who collected 'foreign' bottles from dairies, sorted them and returned them to the dairies that owned them. Galvanised milk kits were also picked up when they needed repair, taken to a facility in East Yorkshire and refurbished before being re-galvanised and returned to us,

[Tizer]

`Climate change: Wildfire smoke linked to Arctic melting' LINK
`The dense plumes of wildfire smoke seen in recent years are contributing to the warming of the Arctic, say scientists. Their study says that particles of "brown carbon" in the smoke are drifting north and attracting heat to the polar region. The authors believe the growing number of wildfires helps explain why the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. They're concerned that this effect will likely increase....'

[Stanley]

"They're concerned that this effect will likely increase"
And what do we do? Start WW3 and make everything worse. We aren't fit to have a planet......
Later.... See THIS report of record high temperatures in Antarctica. "Eastern Antarctica has recorded exceptionally high temperatures this week, more than 30 degrees Celsius above normal, say experts"

[Tizer]

That news is odd. The numbers look unbelievable. I've googled and find only press web sites and similar all stating the same data. I can't find anything about it on the British Antarctic Survey web site or any other scientific web site so far. I'll look again later to see if there is anything more about it. I do wonder if one news source started with data wrongly expressed and every other has copied it!

[Big Kev]

I do wonder if one news source started with data wrongly expressed and every other has copied it!

Surely not?

[Tizer]

I still can't find anything on science web sites. The article credits the US National Snow and Ice Data Center but there's nothing about it in their web newsroom.

[Tripps]

If it sounds too bad to be true -it probably is.

TRT World is on Freesat and comes from Turkey. I channel hop it from time to time, and it would not be my first choice for dependable news. However what would be? Greatly increased scepticism is my order of the day.

[Stanley]

I can only say.... Oh Dear!

[Tizer]

But the story was on lots of US newspaper web sites and also on the Daily Telegraph site and now I see it has appeared on the Guardian site too....
`Heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles alarm climate scientists' Guardian

However, I still can't find a proper source for the claims of 30C and 40C above normal!

[Tripps]

I came across this today.

The climate action is predicated on two unproven hypotheses. One is that recent atmospheric temperature changes are primarily due to humanity’s addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and the second is that the change to net zero CO2 emissions in the UK will make a material difference to the temperature.

Powerful elites turn these hypotheses into facts and therefore claim action is required. But because scientific evidence can’t back up the hypotheses, a consensus needs to be created of willingly corrupted scientists, activists, and journalists to force the issue on the politicians responsible for policy implementation. The politicians feel unable to argue against the consensus and no counter-arguments are allowed or discussed, leading to the policies being introduced.

[Stanley]

Sun-burned seals would be proof.......

[Tizer]

`How high-profile scientists felt tricked by group denying climate change' LINK

[Stanley]

I heard that report Peter and the first thing it reminded me of was the scams we see every day on social media. The scientists who fell for the bait were exactly like innocent people scammed into parting with money but in their case it is reputation that was stolen.
This plays into the debate on Musk and Twitter and his naive posturing on 'free speech'. Enabling misleading and corrupt nonsense like this to be promulgated is not 'free speech' it is dangerous propaganda and climate change denial should be ranked with Holocaust denial. If we have cancer in a human body we cut it out, we don't start debating whether it has a right to be there. Let's apply the same reasoning to these fools and others like them who start new religions and are just as pernicious! (Yes, I noted the cross set up in Town Square last week!)
Later.... see THIS UN report on drought in the Horn of Africa. Reports like this make the actions of climate change deniers even more grotesque.

[Tizer]

`Drought-stricken US warned of looming 'dead pool'' LINK
`A once-in-a-lifetime drought in the western part of the US is turning up dead bodies - but that's the least of people's worries. Sitting on the Arizona-Nevada border near Las Vegas, Lake Mead - formed by the creation of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River - is the largest reservoir in the United States and provides water to 25 million people across three states and Mexico. Here, the stunning scale of a drought in the American west has been laid plain for all to see. The water level is now so low that bodies of murder victims from decades back, once hidden by its depths, have surfaced. One was stuffed in a barrel with a gun shot wound - presumably because someone thought it would stay unnoticed at the bottom of the vast reservoir forever. While the dead bodies are fuelling talk about Las Vegas' mob past, water experts warn of even more worrisome consequences. If the lake keeps receding, it would reach what's known as "dead pool" - a level so low the Hoover Dam would no longer be able to produce hydropower or deliver water downstream.'...

[Stanley]

When you think about it, any prediction that that could happen voiced in the 1930s would have been greeted with howls of derision. Just goes to show how bad things are getting.... Think of the Colorado River system providing LA and Southern California with so much water daily.....