Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

better to know...?, energy and fields

Evaluation du coût de blackout dans l’Union Européenne

by Ernest Mund, 13 aoüt 2018, in ScienceClimatEnergie

La fourniture d’électricité est essentielle au développement économique d’une nation et à son harmonie politique et sociale. Les profondes mutations subies actuellement par le système électrique dans lequel la part des énergies renouvelables intermittentes ne cesse d’augmenter, présentent des risques pour cette fourniture. Il importe d’en assurer la sécurité. Evaluer le coût d’un blackout est donc un élément d’information essentiel, qui devrait être pris en compte dans toute décision future d’investissement en matière de génération de puissance.

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better to know...?

Climat : quand Nicolas Hulot joue à vous faire peur

by Samuele Furfari, 7 août 2018 in Contrepoints

Quelle aubaine pour les doctrinaires du développement durable ! Au moment de leur jour du dépassement il fait chaud, très chaud. Évidement ni l’écologisteHulot, ni France 2, ni France 24, ni la RTBF ni la ribambelle de médias impréparés ne pouvaient rater pareille occasion pour lier les deux évènements et nous culpabiliser pour introduire le contrôle de tous les détails de nos vies.

Ce premier août était donc le jour où, d’après Global Footprint Network (GFN), qui possède l’argent pour employer des dizaines de chercheurs souvent financés par les deniers publics, nous vivons désormais à crédit. À sa suite, toutes les ONG environnementales (ONGE) et nombre de politiciens se font les mégaphones de cette supercherie qui ne repose sur aucune base scientifique. Le jour du dépassement global (earth overshooting day) prétend être un indicateur dont l’objectif est de conscientiser et responsabiliser les pays développés à la notion d’empreinte écologique. Bien entendu, à part les Européens endoctrinés par les ONGE, cette théorie n’a guère d’écho dans le reste du monde.

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better to know...?

Ours mourant de faim : l’aveu (tardif) d’une journaliste

by Tribune de Genève, 5 août 2018 in LesBlogs

Also FoxNews:  Photographer behind viral image of starving polar bear raises questions about climate change narrative

 

Il y a juste un an, l’image d’un ours décharné et titubant avait fait le tour du monde. Elle était supposée représenter la réalité du réchauffement de l’atmosphère. Pourtant cette hypothèse n’était pas plus probable qu’une autre, par exemple: ours vieux, malade, mourant de mort naturelle.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Polar Bear Dies, National Geographic Lies

by Donna Laframboise, August 3,  2018 in BigPictureNews

SPOTLIGHT: The iconic magazine is now a purveyor of propaganda.

BIG PICTURE: On her PolarBearScience.com blog last week, zoologist Susan Crockford called our attention to a startling admission over at National Geographic. It acknowledges publishing fake news. Or, as it more delicately puts it, we “went too far in drawing a definitive connection between climate change and a particular starving polar bear.”

An “Editor’s Note” explains the magazine added a wholly misleading caption to a video of an emaciated polar bear filmed last August. When it published this video on its website in December, National Geographic declared: “This is what climate change looks like.”

Actually, this is what dishonesty looks like. Neither the magazine nor the person who did the filming knew anything about that bear. It might have been stricken with disease. It might have sustained an injury that impeded its ability to hunt. As the Editor’s Note now admits: “there is no way to know for certain why this bear was on the verge of death.”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

A Geological Perspective of Wildfires

by David Middleton, July 31, 1018 in WUWT

This post was inspired by Anthony Watts’ recent post about wildfires and their unwillingness to cooperate with the Gorebal Warming narrative.

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A Geological Perspective of Wildfires

The Fire Window

Geological evidence for ancient wildfires generally consists of sedimentary charcoal deposits (inertinite).  Fossil charcoal is also a key factor in understanding the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere, particularly oxygen content.  The first clear evidence of fire is in the Late Silurian.

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better to know...?

Meat, Dairy Industry Surpass Big Oil As World’s Biggest Polluters

by P. Homewood, July 31, 2018 in NotaLotofPeoppleKnowThat

Within the next few decades, Big Meat and Big Dairy could surpass Big Oil as the world’s biggest climate polluters, a new study by non-profit GRAIN and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) showed on Wednesday.

The world’s biggest animal protein producers could soon surpass ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP as the largest contributors to climate pollution, according to the study.

IATP and GRAIN jointly published the study that quantifies emissions from 35 of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies and reviews their plans to fight climate change.

The report found out that the five largest meat and dairy corporations combined – JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America, and Fonterra – are already responsible for more annual greenhouse gas emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell, or BP. According to one figure in the report, the combined emissions of the top five companies are on par with those of Exxon and significantly higher than those of Shell or BP.

better to know...?

The truth behind the Baffin Bay starving polar bear video is worse than we thought

by P. Homewood, July 263, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

Remember that video of an emaciated Baffin Island polar bear that went viral last December? In an unexpected follow-up (“Starving-Polar-Bear Photographer Recalls What Went Wrong“; National Geographic, August 2018 issue), photographer Cristina Mittermeier makes some astonishing admissions that might just make you sick.

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Susan Crockford uncovers the truth behind that “starving polar bear video”

better to know...?, climate-debate

La terrible canicule de l’été 1911 qui provoqua 40 000 morts

by Pierre Bienvault, 22 juin 2017 in LaCroix

Encore dans toutes les mémoires, la canicule de 2003 et ses 15 000 morts n’a pas été la plus meurtrière de la France du XXe siècle.

 Il faudra marquer cette année 1911 d’une croix noire. » Voilà ce qu’écrivait, à la fin de l’été, un médecin du département de la Seine inférieure. À l’évidence traumatisé par les conséquences de la terrible vague de chaleur qui frappa alors, de juillet à septembre, toute l’Europe mais surtout la France et la Belgique. « Pendant la longue période de chaleur, la mort n’a cessé de faucher les tout-petits élevés au biberon », ajoutera ce médecin.

Une canicule de juillet à septembre

Encore dans toutes les mémoires, la canicule de 2003 et ses 15 000 morts n’a pas été la plus meurtrière en France. C’est ce que rappelait Catherine Rollet dans un article (1) paru en 2010. Cette historienne et démographe, décédée en décembre 2016, y racontait la dramatique canicule de l’été 1911.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

How the Little Ice Age affected South American climate

by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, July 24, 2018 in ScienceDaily

A new study published in Geophysical Research Journal shows that the so-called Little Ice Age — a period stretching from 1500 to 1850 in which mean temperatures in the northern hemisphere were considerably lower than at present — exerted effects on the climate of South America.

Based on an analysis of speleothems (cave formations) in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás, the study revealed that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the climate of southwestern Brazil was wetter than it is now, for example, while that of the country’s Northeast region was drier.

The same Brazilian cave records showed that the climate was drier in Brazil between 900 and 1100, during a period known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), when the northern hemisphere’s climate was warmer than it is now.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Why we’re winning: WUWT gets more page views than the last two remaining government websites on climate

by Anthony Watts, July 17, 2018 in WUWT

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While NBC News might think that 68,000 page views per month is impressive, in comparison to our regular daily traffic on WUWT, it pales in comparison. For example, here is a screencap from my WordPress dashboard from yesterday, July 16th, which was a fairly typical summer day for WUWT. Note that it shows 92,467 page views in one day.

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What’s most interesting is that while there’s been a slow, almost imperceptible increase in the phrase “climate change”, the search phrase “global warming” is getting far less use than it did when data was first collected, back in 2004. Right now, both “climate change”, and “global warming” have low interests.

better to know...?

Chart of the week: The US is the leader in CO2 emissions reduction

by Anthony Watts, July 16, 2018 in WUWT

From the American Enterprise Institute via Twitter. h/t to WUWT reader “Latitude”

Last year the United States had the largest decline in CO2 emissions *in the entire world* for the 9th time this century.

From the June 2018 BP Statistical Review of Global Energy (67th edition) here are some details on C02 emissions in 2017: (…)

better to know...?, only geology

Sound waves reveal diamond cache deep in Earth’s interior

by Jennifer Chu, July 16 in MITNews

There may be more than a quadrillion tons of diamond hidden in the Earth’s interior, according to a new study from MIT and other universities. But the new results are unlikely to set off a diamond rush. The scientists estimate the precious minerals are buried more than 100 miles below the surface, far deeper than any drilling expedition has ever reached.

The ultradeep cache may be scattered within cratonic roots — the oldest and most immovable sections of rock that lie beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates. Shaped like inverted mountains, cratons can stretch as deep as 200 miles through the Earth’s crust and into its mantle; geologists refer to their deepest sections as “roots.”

In the new study, scientists estimate that cratonic roots may contain 1 to 2 percent diamond. Considering the total volume of cratonic roots in the Earth, the team figures that about a quadrillion (1016) tons of diamond are scattered within these ancient rocks, 90 to 150 miles below the surface.

better to know...?, energy and fields

L’hydrogène géologique ou hydrogène naturel : Etat de la question

by A. Préat, 16 juillet 2018 in ScienceClimatEnergie

L ’hydrogène, un gaz peu abondant…
L’ hydrogène n’est présent qu’à concurrence de 1 ppm ( = une ‘partie par million’, soit 0,0001%) dans l’atmosphère : autant dire que c’est presque rien. D’où vient-il ? Peut-on en produire de grandes quantités à partir de ressources naturelles (géologie) ou artificielles (chimie) ? Autant de questions que de plus en plus d’industriels, de scientifiques, de politiques et de citoyens (?) se posent pour faire face à ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler la transition énergétique tant à l’ordre du jour, à raison ou à tort, là n’est pas l’objet de cet article. Comme nous le verrons par la suite, l’exploitation directe de l’hydrogène naturel n’est pas encore rentable et il faudra sans doute le produire à partir d’une autre source d’énergie, car il n’est pas lui-même une source d’énergie, mais au contraire un simple vecteur d’énergie.A l’heure actuelle il n’est donc pas exploité à une échelle suffisante en raison des contraintes géologiques et économiques, et il faut le synthétiser [1]. C’est ce que réalise aujourd’hui l’industrie principalement en vue de la fabrication de l’ammoniac pour les engrais ou des plastiques.

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better to know...?, press and newspapers

Diesel cars are still the most sensible option for long journeys despite pledge to wipe vehicles from roads by 2040, says transport secretary

by James Salmon, July 9, 2018 in DailyMail

Diesel cars may still be the most sensible option for many families who drive long distances, the transport secretary Chris Grayling said yesterday.

Despite a pledge to see the end of petrol and diesel vehicles on UK roads by 2040, Mr Grayling said new diesels were not destined for the scrapheap just yet.

He said: ‘If you are doing long distances on the motorway, maybe the new generation of diesel engines are the right option for now.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

‘The Earth has a fever’ – the only solution is 14 billion air conditioners

by University of Birmingham, July 10, 2018 in WUWT

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According to the report, if we are to take cooling demand seriously, the key stages to move towards a solution for cooling demand are:

  • Reducing the energy required for cooling: getting industry to adopt high efficiency cooling technologies and using maintenance to deliver optimum performance.

  • Reducing the need for cooling through better building design

  • Systems level thinking across built environment and transport

  • Harnessing waste resources: ‘wrong time’ renewables; waste cold; and waste heat.

  • Considering the strategies and skills required for installing appliances and maintaining them in order to maximise efficiency and reduce energy demand

  • Creating a model for delivery of affordable cooling to those in rural and urban communities based on the energy needs of local requirements, rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’ approach

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Ocean Temperature – Part 1

by Irek Zawadzki, July 10, 2018 in SkepticalScience

How have we measured the temperature of the ocean’s upper layer in the last 150 years? How does understanding physical processes and observational errors help to standardise climate data and understand climate change?

Sea surface temperature (SST) is also one of the climate indices with the longest histories of direct measurements. Because ocean makes up about 70% of the total Earth’s surface, changes in the temperature of its surface are a key factor for determining the global temperature of the planet’s surface.

better to know...?, renewable energy

Why Are We Doing This? A Trove Of New Research Documents The Folly Of Renewable Energy Promotion

by K. Richard, July 9, 2018 in NoTricksZone

The advocacy for widespread growth in renewable energy (especially wind, solar, and biomass) usage has increasingly become the clarion call of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) movement.  And yet more and more published research documents the adverse effects of relying on renewables.

Over the course of the last year, at least 30 papers have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature detailing the fatuity of promoting renewable energy as a long-term “fix” for climate change mitigation.  A categorized list of these papers is provided below.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Quiet Sun: More than 3 months without a sunspot

by Dr Carlo Tesla, July 2, 2018 in A. Watts, WUWT

What if the worst is to come?” – Dr Carlo Testa.

2 July 2018 – “The Belgian department of solar physics research (SIDC) says we are about to touch 100; that is, a hundred days in which we do not see spots on our sun,” says Italian meteorologist Dr Carlo Testa.

During a time of  few or no sunspots (a solar minimum) the Sun emits less energy than usual, says Dr Testa. “According to some scholars this situation could lead to climatic upheavals.”

Suffice it to recall, says Testa, that between 1645 and 1715 the most significant solar minimum of history, the Little Ice Age, occurred, bringing years and years marked by very strict winters that lasted until June. (…)