But even more fun, the article in question states:
“On a net basis, Canada exports electricity mainly to New England, New York, and the Midwest states, while the United States exports electricity from the Pacific Northwest states to the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec.”
The Pacific Northwest exporting power to Quebec is a neat trick. Are they using the secret Nikola Tesla atmospheric transmission process? More global warming?
I’ve got a thing for the Guardian. Can’t help myself. Note how their article on brown coal’s revival has the obligatory photo of belching smokestacks. But this time, instead of brown steam-as-smoke against blood-red sky, we get a nice match of gloomy greys with the dreary German skies. I suppose they read their own articles on “messaging”. They certainly don’t miss a trick, those scamps!
But don’t think the Guardian kidz have gone all colourless! A picture of one of the closed down nuke facilities is given as a thermal image, like the whole thing is about to blow! Pity if you just wanted to see a pic of the place in question. What’s next? A policy of showing only thermal images of conservatives?
The poor lambs seem bewildered that alternative poster-child Germany is now on a massive swing back to brown coal post nuke shut-down, despite “inexpensive wind energy”. The Guardian is so bewildered that it continues to report on nebulous German plans to cut, cut, cut that lignite in the middle of its own article about clear German intentions to dig, dig, dig that lignite.
It’s a bit like finding a “recent-studies-show” article on imminent and irreversible warming in the same rag as a “recent-studies-show” article about a looming solar minimum and little ice age in fifteen years. Murdoch runs a freebie leftist site called news.com.au which specialises in alarmist click bait. Its stock catastrophe is, of course, warminess, but it has used the present “Antarctic vortex” (trans: cold weather in Oz) to announce “SNOWMAGEDDON: Earth heading for ‘mini ice age’”.
Damn, we could use some adults. No, really. It’s urgent. We need the kids out of the kitchen now.
Adults, please.
JimD, “captd, the issue here is that the Republicans are not even going to take the paper’s numbers at face value. They want to get all the records and check for themselves as though they think there is some kind of plot behind the numbers.”
I believe the issue is how the EPA interprets the papers and creates their, the EPA’s, numbers. The Six Cities study shows correlations which the EPA used to estimate the health savings their regulations can produce. The Six cities study corrected for smokers and former smokers but didn’t correction for second hand smoke. Why not? Did the EPA include a correction for second hand smoke, asbestos legislation, pesticide regulation, transfat regulation etc. etc. etc. It doesn’t take a scientist to notice such things, politicians are well aware of the regulations and what impact they were supposed to have.
“Engineering science proves CO2 has no significant effect on climate.”
No it does not.
Please do not make engineers seem stupid
Always bearing in mind that as the oceans warm, they will in fact emit dissolved CO2, of course.
The NASA OCO-2 data gives an insight into what parts of the oceans are absorbing CO2 and which are emitting it.
Not remotely what some might expect…
The majority of the last 400,00 years has been colder than the current temperature level, not hotter.
http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers-Anthropology/Download/5982
In fact, it has been as warm or warmer only 10.5% of the time during the last 400,00 years than it is now. The current “heat wave” has already consumed 10.8% of the “warm” period in our planet’s next 100,000 year cycle. If there is “doom-and-gloom” ahead, it is more likely bitter cold than hellish hot.
captd, so if they find they allowed for those factors, do you think the Republicans would say, OK, PM2.5 really has the health effects that all these papers unsurprisingly claim it has and go ahead with the regulations? No, they will look for the next paper to study more closely, and it will be an endless loop.
I only know of one CO2 impact paper published by an engineer and his estimate happens to be pretty close. I think you need to be an a$$trophysicist to really screw thing up.
I appreciate the post, 47 non reproducible papers is very disturbing.
Speaking of dystopic and “where we have gotten to” and published academics; the former Marxist ex Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis I understand is coming back to teach for a couple more years in Texas, presumably at UT, although not positive where yet. The only thing more depressing would be if it were our institutions where he honed his craft.
A brief biographical snippet:
In 2012 Mr Varoufakis left Greece for the United States to teach at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr Varoufakis has said his decision was partly dictated by death threats received for talking about the scandals of Greek banks, and partly by financial concerns, as he was on a modest university salary in Greece.
In Texas, he won the hearts of the faculty and students alike.
“Yanis is where he is now because he got it right from the start,” said close friend and fellow University of Texas professor James Galbraith, who advised Greece in its last-ditch talks with creditors.
Prof Galbraith described him as both a brilliant academic and popular teacher at Austin. “He is an excellent, published academic, with years of research and innovative ideas.”
He added that the last star economist he can remember was his own father, celebrated Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
Just for interest –
“No one knows precisely how many dam failures have occurred in the U.S., but they have been documented in every state. From Jan. 1, 2005 through June 2013, state dam safety programs reported 173 dam failures and 587 “incidents” – episodes that, without intervention, would likely have resulted in dam failure.”
– damsafety.org.
I don’t have it to hand, but something like 20% of dams built around the world since 1974 have failed, as I recollect. Obviously, some were small, but some quite big. It goes to show that in spite of our best endeavours, based on sound research backed by experience and history, things don’t always go the way we want them to.
This is the nature of Nature. Make your assumptions, take appropriate action, and hope for the best.
For me at least, so far so good!
SS did not address the points that I made about Nobel prizes, preferring instead to call me “disrespectful” of science. No engagement, no time for considering my POV or the POV of any other “denier”. I call this type of behaviour as complete and utter disingenuousness, not worth the time of my day.
mwg I understand that the criteria for Nobel selection may not be apparent to the lay observer but I reiterate that some (not all) of the later awards appear to me to be of relatively minor achievements compared to that of previous awards made prior to the year 2000. A point that SS steadfastly refuses to address.
JimD, “captd, so if they find they allowed for those factors, do you think the Republicans would say, OK, PM2.5 really has the health effects that all these papers unsurprisingly claim it has and go ahead with the regulations?”
I am pretty sure most Republicans know that air pollution has adverse health effects. The US has been working to reduce air pollution and improve water quality since the 70s. During that time air and water quality have improved and the adverse health impacts have decreased. I think the biggest problem is that Democrats cannot seem to add.
No, what I look for is any sign natural variability can cool the earth, and there is no sign at all that it can still do that. It was not very long ago that it could.
May I call you Donald now? I have decided to promote you from Don to Donald since there are 14 GOP candidates and 4 major networks that are going to make the name Donald synonymous with idiot in the next few months and it will be so much fun pointing out the similarities.
Best wishes.
Peter Davies,
As I look at physics I strongly feel the same way. I just see opportunity for debate centered around selection criteria. For the record I do not not see your comments as disrespectful.
JimD, Transfats, 4% increased risk of CVD, second hand smoke about 30%, smoking about 70% versus about 1.9% for generic PM2.5.
The numbers just start not adding up if you have a memory and lack an agenda. I believe abuse of linear no threshold modeling is the primary culprit.
“More than 25% of the top 100 papers were published by Nature Climate Change. Nature Climate Change is clearly going for the headlines/altmetrics, with the unfortunate result that a substantial fraction of their highest profile papers don’t even survive their press release.”
I cancelled getting the monthly abstracts sent by Nature Climate Change feeling strongly that the papers are not high quality and are advocacy, failing to ask questions on all sides of the issues.
The peer review process prima facie is the same used for all Nature publications but I wonder whether the peer review is reviewing the science or reviewing suitability for promoting the agenda. The NCC peer review is said to include:
Initial submission
————————-
Papers are submitted online. Each new submission is assigned to a primary editor, who reads the paper, consults with the other editors and decides whether it should be sent for peer review … Like Nature’s other research journals, Nature Climate Change has a team of full-time professional editors, who are PhD-level scientists.
ALL FINAL DECISIONS ARE MADE BY THE JOURNAL’S EDITORS
In addition, Nature Climate Change has an External Advisory Panel in the areas of social sciences, policy and economics to provide advice on submissions in these areas in the initial few months.
Peer review
—————–
The corresponding author is notified by e-mail when the editor decides to send a paper for review. Authors may suggest referees; these suggestions are often helpful, although they are not always followed. By policy, referees are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the referee.
“Conceptually,” similar manuscripts are held to the same editorial standards as far as possible, and
… SO THEY ARE SENT TO THE SAME REFEREES.
Decision after review and revision
————————————————–
When making a decision after review, editors consider not only how good the paper is now, but also how good it might become after revision. In cases where the referees have requested well-defined changes to the manuscript that do not appear to require extensive further experiments, editors may request a revised manuscript that addresses the referees’ concerns. The revised version is normally sent back to some or all of the original referees for re-review. The decision letter will specify a deadline (typically a few weeks), and revisions that are returned within this period will retain their original submission date.
In cases where the referees’ concerns are more wide-ranging, editors will normally reject the manuscript.
IF THE EDITORS FEEL THE WORK IS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO THE JOURNAL … THEY MAY EXPRESS INTEREST IN SEEING A FUTURE RESUBMISSION.
The resubmitted manuscript may be sent back to the original referees or to new referees, at the editors’ discretion. In such cases, revised manuscripts will not retain their earlier submission date. In either case, the revised manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter that includes a point-by-point response to referees’ comments and an explanation of how the manuscript has been changed. An invited revision should be submitted via the revision link to the online submission system provided in the decision letter, not as a new manuscript.
My question is whether “potential interest to the journal” means meeting the journal editors’ personal, political and ideological interests … or whether it means presenting science that is worthy of publication because it will further scientific understanding of the subject.
captd, it turns out cheaper to regulate than to care for the added health impacts, so from a financial point of view it is just a no-brainer. It usually works out that way because public health is valued highly in civilized countries.
Capt’nDallas
I know I should have jumped into this thread a while back, and, after reading the editorial:
http://www.revespcardiol.org/en/las-particulas-ultrafinas-son-un/articulo/90024395/
I realized that, although I could have missed some things, yet, this PM2.5 story is not making much sense to me.
Firstly, the PMs most climate alarmist are speaking about come from the combustion of carbon. When carbon burns and small particles result, these small particles are still make of carbon, and, in a carbon organism like humans, carbon is inert. Carbon in large amounts, say in a coal miner can develop pneumoconiosis; great big balls of carbon in the lungs. Scary as hell on chest x-ray.
The fractionalization of the carbon particulates into smaller and smaller sizes has resulted in the categorization of particles > 10 microns; 2.5 microns; and those 0.1 microns and those <0.1 microns. These rough categories reflect where in the respiratory system, from nose to alveoli these particles can be found after a normal breath. 10 micron impact on the nasal mucosa. Those particles between 10 and 2.5 microns land mostly in the large conducting airways; i.e., the trachea and first several generations of bronchi (kinda like the trunk and large branches of a tree). These 10 to 2.5 micron particles, when heading down this respiratory tree impact on bifurcations and are most cleared by the muco-ciliary escalator. Particles <2.5 microns are the so called "respirable" particles and impact bifurcations all the way down the respiratory tree to the respiratory bronchioles. These respirable particles are also cleared by the mucociliary escalator. The business end of the respiratory system, the leaf in this respiratory tree are the alveoli where gas exchange occurs by diffusion: O2 via a gradient from alveolar surface to endothelial capillary surface and CO2 out. Particles <0,1 microns (the so called ultra fine particles) don't stay in alveoli, nor to they impact the alveolar surfaces (BTW Wiki has it wrong, there are no respiratory cilia in the alveolar space.) Breath in , Breath out. Particles 1.0 micron to 0.1 micron, some stay and most just get breathed out.
All of the above has been known for a very long time; i.e. decades. So the issue with ultra fine particles, if they have a systemic effect; i.e., effecting other organ systems of the body, they must find a pathway into the circulation which is usually via alveolar macrophages which transport particulate materials from inside the alveoli to the blood system. Macrophages also are active at the bifurcation sites of the respiratory tree and can and do engulf particles and transports ingested material to various parts of the lungs and lymph nodes.
However, as I said above, carbon is inert to the human body. It is what is attached to the carbon particle that may impact many areas of the body including the endothelial surfaces of arteries. The macrophages can be overwhelmed and particles be absorbed directly into the respiratory system like coal miner's pneumoconiosis. Lots and lots of coal dust over years and years and years. Not the acute heart attack the editorial is speaking to.
What the above editorial told me, they (cardiologists and editorialists) don't know the why, are speculating and creating scenarios in their minds. Nice work if you can get it.
Not a bad idea, Aneipris. Skeptics tend to be older but we are lately seeing a lot of more senior protests, thanks to Obamacare. Plus I imagine there is a good radical faction of young skeptics.
We need a slogan and I suggest Climate Sanity, but political PR is not my field. I would not start in DC, which is like broadway, but rather in some more remote cities. There are people who know how to do this, so we just need the concept and the money. Thanks for the thought.
Ignore Mosher, as he is just being deliberately stupid. This is a workable proposal, but time is tight.
