Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

La France dans le noir. Les méfaits de l’idéologie en politique énergétique

by Johann Rivalland, 24 août 2018 in Contrepoints


Les nouvelles politiques énergétiques et le choix des énergies renouvelables sont-ils en train de nous mener droit dans le mur ?

Hervé Machenaud a mené toute sa carrière professionnelle dans le secteur de l’énergie, où il a notamment contribué à la création de centrales nucléaires en France et à l’étranger et à la conception de l’EPR, le réacteur franco-allemand.

C’est en spécialiste des questions industrielles liées à l’énergie qu’il tire la sonnette d’alarme, mettant en cause des orientations politiques périlleuses, susceptibles selon lui de causer des dommages colossaux à nos sociétés dans leur ensemble.

UN CONSTAT IMPLACABLE

Au cours de la dernière décennie, ce sont des montants gigantesques de dépréciations qui ont été essuyés par les grands électriciens européens. Plus de 100 milliards d’euros rien qu’en quatre ans depuis 2014. Constat qui se paye par un désengagement préoccupant des grandes compagnies dans la production d’électricité. Au total, ce sont en effet 60 GW de moyens conventionnels d’électricité qui auront été arrêtés en Europe à la fin de la décennie, précise-t-il, soit l’équivalent du parc nucléaire français.

Napoleon at Waterloo versus the volcano – Napoleon lost

by Anthony Watts, August 23, 2018 in WUWT


Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo caused in part by Indonesian volcanic eruption

Electrically charged volcanic ash short-circuited Earth’s atmosphere in 1815, causing global poor weather and Napoleon’s defeat, says new research.

Historians know that rainy and muddy conditions helped the Allied army defeat the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. The June 1815 event changed the course of European history.

Two months prior, a volcano named Mount Tambora erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, killing 100,000 people and plunging the Earth into a ‘year without a summer’ in 1816.

Now, Dr Matthew Genge from Imperial College London has discovered that electrified volcanic ash from eruptions can ‘short-circuit’ the electrical current of the ionosphere – the upper level of the atmosphere that is responsible for cloud formation.

The findings, published today in Geology, could confirm the suggested link between the eruption and Napoleon’s defeat.

Scientists discover that the world contains dramatically more trees than previously thought

by Chris Money, September 2, 2015 in TheWashingtonPost


In a blockbuster study released Wednesday in Nature, a team of 38 scientists finds that the planet is home to 3.04 trillion trees, blowing away the previously estimate of 400 billion. That means, the researchers say, that there are 422 trees for every person on Earth.

However, in no way do the researchers consider this good news. The study also finds that there are 46 percent fewer trees on Earth than there were before humans started the lengthy, but recently accelerating, process of deforestation.

“We can now say that there’s less trees than at any point in human civilization,” says Thomas Crowther, a postdoctoral researcher at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies who is the lead author on the research. “Since the spread of human influence, we’ve reduced the number almost by half, which is an astronomical thing.”

Remember when they told us coral bleaching was a sure result of recent man-made global warming? Never mind.

by Anthony Watts, August 17, 2018 in WUWT


From the “science eventually self-corrects” department, new science showing coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef is a centuries-old problem, well before “climate change” became a buzzword and rising CO2 levels were blamed.

Marc Hendrickx writes:

New paper shows coral bleaching in GBR extending back 400+ years.

Japan’s JMA Claim Of “Relatively Small” Urbanization Effect Likely An Understatement Of Multiple Degrees

by Kirye and P. Gosselin, August 17, 2018 in NoTricksZone/JapanMeteorologicalAgency


Aerial photos show that the 15 temperature observation stations the JMA is using to determine mean temperature anomalies are likely impacted far more by urbanization than the agency claims.

 

Abashiri is in the middle of buildings and streets.

Evidence for the impact of the 8.2-kyBP climate event on Near Eastern early farmers

by M. Roffet-Salque et al., August 13, 2018


This study reveals that animal fats preserved in pottery vessels from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site of Çatalhöyük recorded the abrupt 8.2-thousand years B.P. climatic event in their hydrogen isotopic compositions. In addition, significant changes are observed in the archaeology and faunal assemblage of the site, showing how the early farming community at Çatalhöyük had to adapt to climate change. Significantly, this contribution shows that individual biomolecules preserved in ancient animal fats can be used to reconstruct paleoclimate records and thus, provides a powerful tool for the detection of climatic events at well-dated onsite terrestrial locations (i.e., at the very settlements where human populations lived).

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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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.

 

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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: (…)

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.