environment – Page 61 – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Eleven signs we are entering a new little ice age.

Eleven signs we are entering a new little ice age. (Updated Jun 25 2014)

Sometimes regional newspapers in faraway countries can produce articles that are newsworthy all over the world. Such is the case with the major Danish newspaper “Jyllandsposten” which acquired worldwide fame for publishing the “Muhammad Cartoons.” There had been a Muslim honor killing, and the case was publicized incessantly by the paper. The public was outraged, and when the case went to court the Danish court, known for Scandinavian leniency broke with tradition and gave all six defendants hard sentences, including the taxi driver, who just drove the getaway car. This outraged the Muslim community, so they threatened the reporters with reprisals. The editorial board decided they would not be intimidated, so they decided to run a competition “Who could make the best Muhammad cartoon”. So far more than 200 people has been killed because of the cartoons from adherents to “the religion of peace”

Aug 8 2013 Jyllandsposten posted a two page article “The behavior of the sun can trigger a new “Little Ice age”.

They should know. During the last little ice age the Swedes, with their whole army went over of the Great Belt on ice and sacked Copenhagen. The year was 1648.

Nowadays the Great Belt is rarely even frozen over.

Their argument is that we are headed for a new solar minimum of either the Daulton or the Marauder minimum, both leading to significantly colder winters, more storms, and diminished harvests. Here is their front page:

The Paper Warns: “Globe May Be On Path To Little Ice Age…Much Colder Winters…Dramatic Consequences”!

Could they possibly be right? Some say that global warming “deniers” are the scum of the earth worthy of extinction. Obama suggests we belong to the “flat earth society.” In Jyllandspostens view that is beside the point. They were not cowed by the Muhammad cartoons, neither will they be silenced on exposing the fallacies of the religion of global warming.

Since the main street media never report on these facts I have put together 11 reasons why I believe we are entering a new ice age.

#1. It all depends on the sun. The sunspots and its accompanied solar activity goes in cycles. When there are lots of sunspots the sun is more active than when there are few. We are now at a solar maximum and this is the lowest maximum in over a hundred years and less than half of the most recent solar cycles. The next solar cycle is projected to be almost nonexistent. The last time this happened was during the little ice age.

It is to be noted that the actual behavior of the sun is even quieter than predicted. This means colder winters for the next 33+ years.

#2. A new record time for no major hurricanes hitting the U.S. mainland is set every day.

#3. The number of tornadoes is at a historic low.

#4. The arctic temperature over 80 degree latitude has been below average every day since May 6. This is unprecedented since measurements started.

{Source Danish Meteorological Institute)

This year the pattern continues with warmer winter temperatures due to more snowfall than normal and colder summer temperatures due to the extra melting of last years snow.

#5 Arctic ice content for end of July is at a 6 year high. Ice is a lagging indicator. If the ice is increasing, temperature has been decreasing for some time.

#6. Arctic melt is larger than the 30 year average, but that is due to soot from China, not higher temperatures.

China consumes about 45% of all the coal burned in the world every year. It is mostly low grade lignite. Even with scrubbers, which are often down for “service” (it costs money to operate scrubbers) there is substantial soot pollution. This soot cloud hangs in the air, and some of it makes its way up to the arctic, carried on by the prevailing westerly winds.

#7. Last year Antarctic ice cover hit a new record high since measurements started, Sep 25 to Sep 29.

Updated Jun 25 2014

#8. Antarctic ice is running well above average, maybe setting another record this year.

#9. The continental U.S. temperature records are misleading. Many weather stations are located near airport runways. This is a proper location to give runway information to the pilots but is not well suited for climatological reporting since they report the airport runway microclimate, not true overall conditions. This tends to skew temperature data. If airport data is taken out of the reporting, temperatures now are well below the records set mostly in the early 1900’s. A snapshot from the last week of July:

Even with the suspect temperature measurements there has been no significant global temperature increase the last 16 years:

#10. Northern Hemisphere snow cover is increasing.

#11. Sandy. Contrary to popular reporting of the unprecedented storm surge during hurricane Sandy there has been two hurricanes with higher storm surges. They both occurred in the 1600’s, during the little ice age and can be explained by a late hurricane coming up the East coast being drawn inland by an early outbreak of cold arctic air.

The jury is out. Who are the scum of the earth, members of the “flat earth society?” Who looks at the facts and who is ideologically motivated.

On a brighter note, it may be time to return to good, old-fashioned romance

And one thing more. Increasing CO2 levels will delay the onset of the next ice age. In the meantime we can enjoy the fruits of increased CO2 levels: Greater harvests, a greener earth, less temperature differences between the equator and the poles, less hurricanes, fewer tornadoes, less large storms, and a more resilient nature feeding more animals and enabling more biodiversity. The colder weather will finally catch up with us, and that will mean widespread famine unless CO2 is increased substantially.

Why am I not worried about the greenhouse effect from CO2?

If CO2 is doubled, global temperatures will increase less than 2 degree F if no gain is in the system. Water vapor increases with about 4% per degree F temperature rise, and so a gain is assumed. The models predict a hotspot in the troposphere over the tropics because of CO2 coupled with water vapor. No hotspot has been found. In fact there is a barely perceptible coldspot where the hotspot was expected. This is because of the great thermostat of the earth called thunderstorms. When the air is hot and humid enough thunderstorms form and this mechanism controls tropical temperatures to be rarely above 95 degrees F. In desert regions it can be substantially hotter, like in northern India, where it is routinely 115 degree F until the monsoons start, when the thunderstorms keep temperatures below 100.

No such control mechanism exists on the cool side. It will get as cold as the solar output dictates, and the coming cooling is inevitable. It will delay the onset of the new little ice age by maybe a few years.

I am an engineer and look at the earth as an organism that responds to impulses. The Sun gives two types of impulses: day and night, and summer and winter. We can take a look at the seasonal response in temperatures and notice the difference between now and when we had 14% less CO2 in the atmosphere. Fairly simple calculations will yield a 0.4 degree F rise for doubling CO2 levels over water, and about 1.2 degree F rise over land. The land increase has much higher variability between coastal and inland climate, but that is a ballpark number. This is not enough to offset the influence from a less active sun. The imbalances manifests itself in shrinking and growing ice and snowcaps. The trend is increasing ice and increasing snow, which means we are already well into the cooling phase.

Obama, the real Flat Earth Society spokesman.

The Flat Earth Society: Still going strong.
Obama the spokesman, so what can go wrong?
All his “Carbon pollution”
is a Marxist collusion.
It’s food for the hungry, so let’s get along.

President Obama angrily blasted climate change skeptics during his energy policy speech Tuesday Jun 25 at Georgetown University, saying he lacked “patience for anyone who denies that this problem is real.”
“We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society,” Obama said. “Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.”
O.K. I’ll bite. Who belongs to the true flat earth society?
Obama mentioned more than 20 times “Carbon pollution”. In his weekly radio address the following Saturday he mentioned it again, without specifying what he means by “carbon pollution”. He also likened it to Mercury and Arsenic pollution, so it must be very serious and dangerous in his mind. He did not specify if he meant carbon as in “soot” or carbon as in carbon dioxide, but he is not alone in not understanding the basics of Physics and Chemistry.
Earlier in his remarks, Obama said the “overwhelming judgment of science, of chemistry, of physics, and millions of measurements” put “to rest” questions about pollution affecting the environment.
I agree totally. Mercury and Arsenic are poisons pollutants. What about Carbon?
Mercury is bad, unless of course it is used in energy efficient light bulbs that can break and splat Mercury all over the nursery.
Arsenic is bad in large doses. The jury is still out if there is a safe minimum dose. There was a suggestion at one time by the EPA to go to 5ppb as a safe drinking level. That would have put much of Maryland drinking water in the forbidden zone. So they settled for 10 ppb.

“The planet is warming. Human activity is contributing to it,” Obama said.
Well is it?
It is a fact that thunderstorms are a stabilizer of temperature. Thermal thunderstorms can start when the temperature exceeds 76 degrees Fahrenheit. In areas with daily thunderstorms, like in the tropical doldrums temperatures rarely reach 90 degrees and average out around 88 degrees. In the desert where there are no thunderstorms it can get substantially hotter.

My daughter lives with her family in the Delhi area of India. My grandchildren go to a school without air conditioning. They stop school for seven weeks during May-June when the temperature frequently tops 115 degrees. Around Jul 1 the monsoon starts, and the temperature goes down to around 88 degrees and humid, but they can go back to school. This is the great thunderstorm temperature regulator. During the ice age the tropics were still tropical, so that temperature is fixed regardless of what happens elsewhere.
Not so around the poles. If rising CO2 should have a great effect on temperature we should notice it there first.
The best indicator we have is the ice that covers the poles. We have all seen stories like: “the Arctic ice will have melted away in just 5 years.” That was in 2007 when there was an unusually large summer melt. Since then the icepack has recovered somewhat, but in 2012 it did it again and melted even more than in 2007. Why is that? Is it “carbon pollution” like Obama claims?

(Note the maximum snow/ice cove over the North Pole is much larger than the Antarctic ice cover)

The level of CO2 has increased about 14% in the last 30 years and is roughly the same all around the globe. Since that is true, if CO2 causes large temperature increases around the poles the Antarctic ice shield should be shrinking. Is that so?
The Antarctic ice shield hit an all time record since measurements begun more than 30 years ago last year between Sep25 and Sep29. This year it is on pace to equal or exceed that record with about 500,000 square miles more ice than the 30 year average.

Why then is the Antarctic icecap growing and the Arctic ice cap shrinking? It is the same CO2 concentration in both places.

Something else must be the cause.
May I suggest carbon pollution and volcanic activity as two possible hypotheses.
This time carbon pollution is not CO2 as Obama defines it, but good, old fashioned soot.

While Obama is fighting a war on coal China is building one coal fired plant a week, burning mostly low grade lignite coal. China now burns 45% of all coal burned in the world. They are said to use scrubbers, but since scrubbing costs money they are often down for “service” The soot that is choking the people of Northern China (Remember the Olympics when they shut down most production for the duration of the events to reduce air pollution?) is going out as a brown cloud, following the Siberian coastline. Some of ir reaches the Arctic and deposits itself on the white new fallen snow. When the snow melts the following summer the soot comes back to the surface and causes a more rapid snow and ice melt. The speedup of the ice melt occurs at the time of the changing albedo, so that must be a large contributing factor.

Last year when the freeze cycle started again new ice accumulated at a record pace, so the ice pack may be largely gone in early September, but at that time the albedo change is of little consequence since the Sun is almost gone anyway. In the Arctic the winter Albedo comes mostly from snow over land, so that would be highly sensitive to soot. This pollution is partly manmade from unclean burning.

The other hypothesis is volcanic activity. The island of Svalbard lies near the 80th latitude and the Western part is mostly ice free all year. We learned in school it was due to the Gulf Stream transporting warm water from the Mexican Gulf all the way to the Barents Sea, which is the reason towns like Hammerfest in Norway are ice free all year. The northern part of the Gulf Stream is now called the North Atlantic Current, and it has been strong for a long time.

Most of the ice melt is due to melting from warm water underneath. But there is another reason it is so warm between Iceland and Svalbard. The North Atlantic Ridge between the Norwegian islands Jan Mayen and Svalbard is rising out of the Atlantic at a rate of 0.4 inches a year.

Some peaks are so high the depth is only 60 feet, and the next volcanic eruption can form a brand new volcanic island much like the island of Surtsey, south of Iceland was created some 40 years ago. This volcanic activity may account for about 30% of all volcanic activity in the world, but it occurs with very small earth quakes and is under water, so it has not attracted much attention. The heat up of the ocean is, however substantial and goes a long way to explain why Western Svalbard is Ice free, and why the whole ice cap is melting.
Of course since this ridge is rising out of the ocean, the water must be rising somewhere else, so it is not surprising the whole Eastern seaboard is slowly sinking into the Atlantic,
What is the conclusion? The Antarctic Ice cap is the best indicator we are in a cooling trend, and the increasing CO2 levels will help delay the start of the coming ice age.

(Not one day has the temperature been above average in the Arctic above 80 lat. since May 5 this year)
The rising CO2 levels has already made it possible to feed another billion people on earth, because increasing CO2 levels improves the photosynthesis in plants, increasing plant growth, so it is good for both flora and fauna.

In addition, an increased CO2 level makes photosynthesis more efficient over a larger temperature range, using less water in the process.
The earth is getting greener. A greener earth makes it more resilient to climate change, whether manmade or natural.
This cooling of the world is of course anathema to true flat earth believers like Obama.He is desperate too control CO2 emissions under the guidance of U.N. regardless of what goes on in nature. This is not to deny we have problems by manmade climate change. For example, cutting down the rain forests of Borneo to make biofuel is a really bad idea, but it is going on. To use corn to make alcohol may be even worse, nearly half of the weight of sugar is converted to CO2 during the fermentation process. To transport crude oil through a pipeline is far more efficient than transporting it via railroad, even if Warren Buffet owns the railroad. The energy used in mining the material used in batteries and motors exceeds the potential energy savings in Hybrid cars. Making electric cars charged from household electricity makes no sense as long as we generate electricity from coal. Wind power kills birds and bats, and when the wind does not blow you still need all the generation capacity. Solar energy is most efficient where it is not needed. The electric grid is overloaded and vulnerable to attack. Uranium based nuclear power generates waste products lasting for millennia
What to do?

Solar, wind and biofuel are but hairs on the energy chart.
One solution is converting electric power production from coal fired plants to thorium based nuclear power generators. There is an 800,000 years supply of thorium ready to be mined. Thorium based generators produce 0,01% as many waste products as uranium generators after 300 years. Thorium generators are scalable, cheaper to make and operate than all alternatives except coal and natural gas generators. They can be made inherently earthquake safe and in case of terrorism really easy to poison and be made unusable.
This is lacking in our energy debate.
Mr. President, we need an energy policy, not a war on coal and CO2 generation without a clue on how to solve our energy needs for the future. As Sarah Palin so succinctly put it: “We must be good stewards of all our God-given resources, for when they’re gone, they’re gone”

Sarah Palin in Field day in Baltic S.D. Jul 25. A Limerick.

.
Sarah Palin in Field day in Baltic.
When she speaks, it is making us all tick
It’s not “Carbon pollution,”
It is plant growth infusion,
She is my presidential pick.
Sarah Palin shared via Facebook: I’m so looking forward to joining hard working farmers in America’s heartland this week at the Ag PhD Field Day in South Dakota. It’s an honor to get to travel with my entourage (er, that would be Piper) to be with those who are feeding the nation.

MSNBC reeks a new low. Tampons for earrings! A Limerick.

Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC is showing the latest weapon against the Republicans “war on women.”
Wear tampon earrings!!
Kind of reminds me of what Napoleon Bonaparte wrote Josephine from a campaign, “I will return to Paris tomorrow evening. Don’t wash.”

melissa
Melissa is showing her taste
Let nothing that reeks go to waste.
It is a sight to behold,
but it still leaves me cold,
when private parts waste is showcased.

Go green like Spain? Obama’s dream. A Limerick.

Obama said: “Let’s follow Spain:
Go green, increase debt, show disdain.”
Flat Earhters are clueless,
as people go jobless.
Blame “carbon pollution” again.
Obama is bent on duplicating the success of Spain that went from 9% unemployment to 22% unemployment in one year when they went all out green. (It is now at 26%)
In testimony to the U.S. Congress, before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Prof. Calzada presented highlights from a major study on the Spanish experience with “green jobs,”
including these sobering facts:
• For every 1 green job financed by Spanish taxpayers, 2.2 jobs were lost as an opportunity cost.
• Only 1 out of 10 green job contracts were in maintenance and operation of already installed plants, and most of the rest of the working positions are only sustainable in an expansive environment related to high subsidies.
• Since 2000, Spain has committed €571,138 ($753,778) per each “green job,”
• Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs.
• Each “green” megawatt installed on average destroyed 5.39 jobs elsewhere in the economy, and in the case of solar photovoltaics, the number reaches 8.99 jobs per megawatt hour installed.
“Spain has already attempted to lead the world in a clean energy transformation,” Dr. Calzada told the congressmen. “But our research shows that Spain’s policies were economically destructive. When the president of a country with a relatively low unemployment rate like the US decides to learn how to create jobs from a country like Spain with the highest unemployment rate among developed countries, it should be in a field where that country has a demonstrable
Sarah Palin understands energy. She wants us to no longer be dependent on the powder keg of the middle east and their oil “let Allah sort it out”
We have the resources.
CO2 is what makes life possible and is NOT a pollutant.
Thanks to the 14% increase in CO2 since 1970 we can now feed another billion people on earth. The planet is getting greener. (Click on the picture ) 20% are getting greener, only 3% drier.

This is especially true in areas where water is scarce. Photosynthesis works more efficiently with higher concentration of CO2 and uses less water to complete the chemical action.
Thunderstorms are regulating temperature in the tropics so it always has nearly the same average temperature, be it ice age or Roman warming period. The bulk of climate change is located around the poles and in areas of land use change.
Warmer temperatures are good “Minnesotans for global warming”. The polar bears love it. They are now five times as many polar bears as 70 years ago. The exception is in the dry belts around the 15 to 30 degree latitude, but this is also the area where the greening is the most pronounced.

James Lovelock, considered by many to be one of the “founding father” scientists of the environmentalist movement in the U.K. with his GAIA theory, has been unsparing in his criticism of wind power and his former global-warming alarmism, which he now says grossly exaggerated the non-crisis of climate change. Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, one of Germany’s most famous “greens” and a longtime AGW alarmist and champion of renewable energies, has likewise admitted to having been very, very wrong on these matters. Like Lovelock and many other leading scientists, Vahrenholt is calling for an end to the climate change hysteria and an end to the “green” lobby attacks on conventional fossil fuels.

The conclusion? Obama is living in the wrong universe. His policies will make things worse, not better. Now, if he means soot with his “Carbon pollution “, like they are spewing out of China.That is a matter for another discussion.
China is now burning 45% of all the coal burned in the world, most of it low grade coal, forming a soot cloud stretching far out in the Pacific, even reaching the arctic region, causing rapid ice melt during the summer, which non- scientists like Obama attribute to global warming.
More on this subject in the next BlogSpot.

Train derailment in Quebec and Keystone XL pipeline. A Limerick.

A train ran away in Quebec,
its crude-oil exploded the wreck.
To ship oil from the source;
Use a pipe-line of course.
The Keystone will thwart the OPEC.
President Obama angrily blasted climate change skeptics during his energy policy speech Tuesday Jun 25 at Georgetown University, saying he lacked “patience for anyone who denies that this problem is real.”
“We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society,” Obama said. “Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.”
Obama mentioned more than 20 times “Carbon pollution”. In his weekly radio address the following Saturday he mentioned it again, without specifying what he means by “carbon pollution”.
Obama also said the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline should only be approved if the project would not “significantly exacerbate” greenhouse gas pollution.
Right now the crude oil is transported from the Athabasca tar sands to Houston by Warren Buffet’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC railroad. It is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.
With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

Warren Buffett profiting from working on the railroad.

The cost of transporting the oil is about #14 dollars per barrel, much of it the cost of energy (CO2). The pipe-line can do the job for about seven dollars per barrel, much of it capital costs.
We can see what happens when transporting crude oil:

Comparing to this, pipe-lines ate much more environmentally safe, and does the job for less than half the cost of railroad ttansportation.
If you were Obama, what would you do? Would you do the economic and environmentally friendly thing, or would you continue to favor your crony capitalist friends and the powerful OPEC?
Decisions, decisions.

CO2 the solution to Climate change.

Some time ago I came across this video that puts everything we have heard so gar about CO2 and its influence on the climate on its head.

We have been told about the dangers of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, how it is going to raise the temperature by 3 to 6 degree Celsius in the next century. If there is no gain in the system temperatures will rise only 0.9 degree Celsius if CO2 doubles. The truth is there is a dampening of the system instead. When there is more CO2 in the air, plants grow better. This changes the albedo and this helps to stabilize the temperature.
Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist and other books, dropped by Reason’s studio in Los Angeles to talk about a curious global trend that is just starting to receive attention. Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener!

After seeing the video I have the following recommendations to make to the administration:
Stop Biofuel subsidies!
Stop subsidizing electric cars! The energy equivalent of producing an electric car is equivalent to driving 80000 miles; the equivalent for a conventional car is about 30000 miles.
Continue battery research, but please do not subsidize battery manufacturing.
Stop subsidizing wind power, the generators are mostly made in China anyway.
Stop subsidizing solar power – the panels are made in China anyway, and China controls 97% of the rare earth metals needed to produce the solar cells.
Stop punishing coal plants!
Approve the Keystone pipeline!
Don’t even think of Cap and Trade!
Start a major push to Thorium based nuclear power. It produces 0.01% of the long term radioactive waste compared to a conventional Uranium based power plant. India and China are making major investments in Tritium technology. Done right, this will greatly lessen the burden on our electric grid.
The list could go on and on, but this will suffice for now.

Beef, what’s for climate; Is cattle herding the missing link in restoring the balance of nature?

Beef, what’s for climate; Is cattle herding the missing link in restoring the balance of nature?
We live in an increasingly complex world where it seems everything is going in the wrong direction leading to an inevitable cataclysmic catastrophe. Unless of course we give all power over to the politicians who will through regulation and targeted taxation lead us right. Carbon Dioxide levels are rising, and everybody knows by now that it is the second most important green-house gas, next only to water vapor. Theory has it, as CO2 increases, so will temperatures, and since air can hold 7% more water vapor for every 1 degree increase Celsius, there is a gain in the system of a factor of 3 or more according to IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). So if we double the amount of CO2 we could expect a warming of the earth of between 3 and 6 degrees, warm enough to make large parts of the earth uninhabitable.

This theory seemed to hold true between the years 1970 and 1997. Since then there has been no increase in global temperatures, but CO2 levels have increased a further 8% making the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature more and more implausible.
This does not mean we have no reason for worry. Large land areas are turning into unproductive wilderness, mostly in the 10-40 Corridor which is where the bulk of the world’s population lives. There simply is not enough water to make these areas productive again. When an area is opened up for agriculture from forestation, average temperature rises up to one degree Celsius. When an area is turned from grassland to wasteland, temperatures rise. These are the areas where all recent temperature increases have occurred. The ice is growing in the Antarctica; the snowpack is growing in the Northern hemisphere. The summer ice in the Arctic is diminishing, but that is due to air pollution, nearly all coming from China, which alone uses 45% of all coal mined in the world, most of it low grade Lignite. They do put scrubbers on the power plants, but they cost money to operate, so they are often down for “service” and it is cheaper to pay off the inspectors than to scrub.
We learn from the ice core data of Greenland that we are at the last leg before a new glaciation. Enter CO2. Thanks to increased levels of CO2 we have now postponed the new ice age.
Some days ago I was alerted to a video from a TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory in Los Angeles.Please watch it in its entirety.

He draws some interesting conclusions, and claims the only chance we have to restore nature’s balance is to reintroduce the large herds of beasts that once roamed the savannas and steppes. But you cannot just have a bunch of cattle roam free, they have to be herded in an intelligent way to restore the productivity of the land. Let us again open up the Federal lands for cattle and sheep herding in a way that will restore their potential to host more animals, wild and tame and restore the balance of nature.

A response to the energy portion of the State of the Union Message.

The Energy State of the Union message.

This is a short interpretation of the President’s State of the Union message as it pertains to energy.

First the speech:

After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years. We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas, and the amount of renewable energy we generate from sources like wind and solar – with tens of thousands of good, American jobs to show for it. We produce more natural gas than ever before – and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it. And over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen.

But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Yes, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late.

The good news is, we can make meaningful progress on this issue while driving strong economic growth. I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.

Four years ago, other countries dominated the clean energy market and the jobs that came with it. We’ve begun to change that. Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America. So let’s generate even more. Solar energy gets cheaper by the year – so let’s drive costs down even further. As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we.

In the meantime, the natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence. That’s why my Administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits. But I also want to work with this Congress to encourage the research and technology that helps natural gas burn even cleaner and protects our air and water.

Indeed, much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together. So tonight, I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good. If a non-partisan coalition of CEOs and retired generals and admirals can get behind this idea, then so can we. Let’s take their advice and free our families and businesses from the painful spikes in gas prices we’ve put up with for far too long. I’m also issuing a new goal for America: let’s cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next twenty years. The states with the best ideas to create jobs and lower energy bills by constructing more efficient buildings will receive federal support to help make it happen.

And now for the interpretation:

“After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years.”

Thanks to drilling leases approved under the Bush administration we produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years.

“ We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas, and the amount of renewable energy we generate from sources like wind and solar – with tens of thousands of good, American jobs to show for it. “

We are requiring future cars to double the driving distance on a gallon of gas by making them smaller and lighter. We have also doubled the amount of renewable energy from sources like solar and wind – from half a percent to a full percent of our energy need at a cost of over half a million dollar per job created.

“We produce more natural gas than ever before – and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it.”

Thanks to fracking, done nearly exclusively on private land in spite of the efforts of the EPA we produce more natural gas than ever before driving down the cost of natural gas.

“And over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen.”

Over the last four years our emissions of the dangerous carbon dioxide have actually fallen, but because of the increase in carbon dioxide the world can now feed two billion people more. Without this increase there would be mass starvation and death in the developing countries. The goal is population control according to Agenda 21, and increased levels of CO2 interferes with outr plans.

“But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.”

Our children are now facing a national debt of more than sixteen trillion dollars, in no small part by tilting at windmills.

“Yes, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15.”

Thanks to the fact that we have put weather stations on airports, on paved surfaces and in places of rapid land use changes, the measured temperatures have shown 12 of the last 15 years have been the hottest on record. It is true that urban heat islands show an increase, but temperature records for weather stations in undisturbed areas show a slight decrease.

Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense.

The raging wildfires of 2012 were less than average.

The crippling drought of 2012 was less severe than the 30’s dust bowl. Remember “The Grapes of Wrath”.

Tornadoes numbered about 30% less than normal and we broke a record for consecutive days without a death from a tornado.

The number of hurricanes and their severity is down.

“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late.”

Contrary to popular opinion Superstorm Sandy was an early warning of a new little ice age.

Storms are formed and driven mostly from temperature differences. The worst storm recorded on the Eastern seaboard was not Sandy. The headlines claimed the storm surge that hit the U.S. east coast during Sandy was unprecedented, and was caused by global warming. It is my contention that a more likely scenario is that it is an early warning of global cooling.

There have been two storm surges on the east coast larger than hurricane Sandy’s. They occurred in the years 1635 and 1638. Ship logs from the 1600’s also show storms were more violent during the little Ice Age. It got so cold that in 1658 the Swedish Army crossed the Great Belt in Denmark and sacked Copenhagen. The Great Belt is now nearly always ice-free.

“The good news is, we can make meaningful progress on this issue while driving strong economic growth. I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago.”

A few years ago John McCain and Joe Lieberman were hoodwinked into believing the IPCC panel political summaries of impending gloom. They keep scaling back their predictions since we have not have any significant increase in temperature the last 16 years while CO2 concentrations continue to increase.

“But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”

I will bypass congress and use the EPA to issue crippling regulations.

“ I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution,”

I will direct my Cabinet to make new coal-fired power plant unprofitable

“prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change,”

Our communities will be beaten into submission

“and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

We will continue to tilt at windmills and solar panels controlled by China, but not Nuclear Energy.

“Four years ago, other countries dominated the clean energy market and the jobs that came with it.”

Four years ago Spain went green and the unemployment rate went from 9% to 21% in just a year. It is now 26%

“We’ve begun to change that. Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America.”

Thanks to making new coal-fired plants almost impossible wind energy contributed nearly half to all increase in capacity last year – almost enough to allow the economy to grow by half a percent.

“So let’s generate even more. Solar energy gets cheaper by the year – so let’s drive costs down even further.”

Solar energy has long been the most expensive way to produce energy. Without subsidies the cost used to be more than 30 c/kWh. With subsidies we can drive the cost down all the way to 17 c/kWh.

“ As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we.”

“In the meantime, the natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence. That’s why my Administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits.”

My Administration will cut red tape and begin by opening up the Arctic Wildlife Preserve to exploration.

“But I also want to work with this Congress to encourage the research and technology that helps natural gas burn even cleaner and protects our air and water.”

Next to Hydrogen, natural gas is the cleanest burning fuel available

“Indeed, much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together.”

A true energy hero, Governor Sarah Palin stood up to the Big Oil companies and instituted an oil depletion tax that was progressive, up to 70%, which she distributed to the people of Alaska rather than increasing the size of Government. Her approval rating peaked at 93%. I would like to duplicate that.

“So tonight, I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.”

Nah, instead of that I propose tonight we institute a crippling tax on trucks and cars to finally force them off using gas and diesel fuel.

“If a non-partisan coalition of CEOs and retired generals and admirals can get behind this idea, then so can we.”

We cannot let a non-partisan coalition of CEOs and retired generals and admirals do this. This is a job for Big Government.

“Let’s take their advice and free our families and businesses from the painful spikes in gas prices we’ve put up with for far too long.”

Let us follow the example of Europe. Their gas prices are about eight dollars a gallon. A spike of another dollar or two would no longer matter,

“I’m also issuing a new goal for America: let’s cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next twenty years.”

I propose we install smart energy meters and relays that lets us decide if you deserve air conditioning or not, or if you can run the clothes dryer in the afternoon before you go out at night.

“The states with the best ideas to create jobs and lower energy bills by constructing more efficient buildings will receive federal support to help make it happen.”

Everybody knows that union states have the best ideas to preserve jobs, so let us promote that.

There were other gems in his speech, but this will suffice for now.

Groundhog day, Climate change and Obama’s Inauguration and State of the Union message.

Groundhog Day is over. Next step in prognostications of questionable value is the President’s State of the Union message. Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this Feb 2. Through the ages he has seen his shadow 87% of the time and prognosticated six more weeks of winter. This year he forecast an early spring. His record is pretty good, he has been right 37% of the time.

As for the President, there has been a lot of ballyhoo about Global Warming/Climate Change/Global Climate Disruption/Climate Challenges – pick your term. Besides Al Gore who recently sold his Current TV channel to Al-Jazeera, a known champion for Mideast oil, few has been more vocal about Carbon Dioxide “pollution” than President Obama.

In his second inaugural speech there was scant mention of the economy, jobs, the impending debt crisis, overbearing regulations and loss of personal freedom. None of these things concern him. He was, however very concerned of climate change and promised a real effort to move towards sustainable energy. This is what he said:

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. ”The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries we must claim its promise. ”That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks.”

Let us take the statements one by one and see how well we are doing so far. He has had one full term, so the verdict is in.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change

The most drastic step we have done so far is to outsource manufacturing, mostly to China. In so doing we have actually decreased our energy use while China’s is doubled, and China is now using 50% more energy than the U.S. In addition, nearly half of all coal used in the world is burned in China. Not only that, China’s coal is of the soft, brown, dirty coal variety. It is so bad that Beijing now has the highest air pollution in the world. The soot clouds are carried by the prevailing westerly winds up into the Arctic.(More on that later) Another example of less than stellar action was the “cash for clunkers” program, where “nearly new” cars were destroyed to make room for new, more fuel efficient cars. This was a subsidy for the upper and upper middle class, since they were the only ones that could afford to upgrade. The real clunkers are still left on the road, driven by the less fortunate since the cars they had hoped to upgrade to were taken out of circulation, leading to higher prices for used cars. A true lose-lose proposition. And don’t get me started on Karma and Tesla, highly subsidized electrical play-toys for playboys.

“knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”

What we have done so far to betray our children and future generations is putting us in an unsustainable debt and deficit situation. Obama seems determined to follow the example of Spain. They went green, and in one year’s time their unemployment rate went from 9% to over 21%. It is now 26%. Their debt is as bad as that of Greece and we are headed that way. Our debt per person is over 52000 dollars, Greece’ is more like 47000 dollars.

“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”

The real threat of climate change is not so much global warming but a possible onset of a new Ice Age. Before you dismiss me as a real whacko, let me assure you that I know CO2 to be a powerful greenhouse gas, second in importance only to water vapor, and without gain or attenuation in the response of the Earth, a doubling of the CO2 levels in the atmosphere would cause a 0.9 degree C warming. As an engineer I look at the impulse response of the earth to a variation in the Sun’s effect on temperatures. There are two overwhelming impulses from the sun. They are called day and night, summer and winter.

Let us first take the tropics, since it doesn’t really have summer and winter, only day and night. In an ideal situation, where the sun bakes down on the surface with no clouds and the earth radiates back into space, the equilibrium temperature in the tropics would be about 140 degrees F (60C). But it isn’t, since thunderstorms and winds carry away the excessive heat from the equator towards the poles. One could say the tropical thunderstorms are the thermostat of the earth. The tropics have found its temperature. It was about the same as it is now even during the last ice-age. The absorbance spectrum of saturated water vapor covers the whole IR spectrum, so any amount of CO2 makes no difference.

But, you say, what happens at the poles? Glad you asked. The heat is carried towards the poles and comes down as rain or snow or not quite as cold air. Since many temperature stations are located on heat islands such as air ports and urban areas that have suffered significant land use change the most unchanging temperature observable is the melting point of ice.

So let us take a look at ice around the poles. The ice cap over the Antarctic is growing. Between Sep 25 and Sep 29 of last year it hit a new all-time record since measurements begun. Notice the maximum occurred more than 3 months after maximum solar influx – a 96 day delay. The southern icecap is about 700000 km2 larger than the 30 year average nowadays.

Not so the Northern icecap. For a fleeting period around Mar 25 last year it was back to the 30 year average, after that came the most rapid snow melt on record, followed by the most rapid refreezing on record. At the minimum it was about 2.8 million km2 less ice than normal, leading to a flurry of press releases of our imminent demise, and of the polar bears. By the way, the number of polar bears has doubled since its minimum. They do not mind a slightly milder climate. There is now slightly more ice in the Arctic than last year – about 700000 km2 less than the 30 year average.

So, the Arctic ice cap is shrinking, but the Antarctic ice cap is growing. Why is that? The CO2 level is the same in both places. Something else must be the cause.

Let me suggest: Air pollution. We have outsourced our manufacturing of steel, gypsum boards and other high energy uses to countries like China and the third world. China is by far the world’s leading polluter and the soot cloud runs all the way into the Arctic. The tell-tale sign of soot pollution is the soot in the bottom of the ice-ponds that form in the summer icecap, leading to a much more rapid ice-melt. This masks an inconvenient fact. It is getting colder.

In addition, because of more open water in the fall, evaporation increases and this leads to increased snowfall. Moscow has now the snowiest winter in over 100 years. Alaska broke records last year. The snow cap stretches over much of the northern hemisphere, increasing the reflection of the incoming sunlight, and that means a delayed spring.

What does this mean for us? The summers may or may not get warmer, but the winters will get colder in the temperate zone.

The raging fires of 2012 was less than average.

The crippling drought of 2012 was less severe than the 30’s dust bowl. Remember “The Grapes of Wrath”.

Tornadoes numbered about 30% less than normal and we broke a new record for consecutive days without a death from a tornado.

The number of hurricanes and their severity is down.

The solution: Increase the amount of CO2 in the air, but reduce the worldwide soot emissions.

”The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. “

I totally agree. The regulatory environment makes it nearly impossible to go forward with such worthwhile projects as geo-thermal, thorium-based nuclear power and the like.

“But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries we must claim its promise. “

We have already ceded the initiative in Thorium based nuclear energy to the Chinese, the Russians and the Indians. All three have active developments going including patents. Until recently China controlled 97% of the rare earth metals mining, – a national security threat. See my thorium blog posts: https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-and-earthquakes-how-to-make-it-safer-and-better/

https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-based-nuclear-power-generation/

https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-more-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel/

Nuclear Power. Why we chose Uranium over Thorium and ended up in this mess. Time to clean up.

”That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks.”

CO2 is a non-participant in global warming. The earth, mostly through clouds and thunderstorms has wonderful feedback mechanisms, which keep temperatures stable on the warm side. The stabilizing mechanisms grow weaker on the cold side, and normal steady state for the earth is ice age. Increasing amounts of CO2 will delay the onset of the next ice age, and in a small way reduce the severity of storms.

We have not had any statistically significant increase in global temperatures for the last 16 years but the amount of CO2 has increased by more than 10%.

Are there benefits with an increased amount of CO2?

You bet. Thanks to increased CO2 the earth can now feed an additional 2 billion people, people that had otherwise starved to death. For a doubling of CO2, plant yields increase between 40 and 70%. In addition plants use less water to do the CO2 breathing when CO2 increases. This can be seen in the vegetation line growing northward south of Sahara.

It is still not a good idea to use ethanol from corn for fuel. Cutting down the rain forests of Borneo to produce biofuel is even worse. Irrigation is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Irrigating from the rivers feeding to Lake Aral was supremely unwise. That displaced about a million and a half people.

My suggestion is to attack environmental problems regionally, especially when it comes to land use. Central planning, especially about water use and water pollution is sometimes disastrous. The worst we could do is to entrust this to UN. They apply political considerations rather than scientific and rational every time.

To protect ourselves we must take back the energy initiative from China, India and Russia. Let us use scientific facts this time and not again succumb to political rhetoric.