limerick – Page 24 – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Earth Day 2017. Real Climate Change.

It’s time for the annual Earth Day

to celebrate Lenin’s old birthday.

Less “carbon pollution”

is not the solution.

Eat less! Let it be a “Less Girth Day!

We are called to take care of ourselves, be good stewards of the Earth, and strive to leave it a better place than we entered it.

To do a good clean-up job takes a lot of energy. That is true for the whole Eco-system as well as the toilet bowl.

All our energy comes from the Sun in one way or another, except for nuclear energy. If the cosmic radiation changes, or the total energy output from the sun changes, or our polar orbit and attitude changes, all of these factors will lead to climate change. The normal state for the earth is an ice-age, interrupted by shorter warm periods. We are now at the bog-building phase of an interglacial period, which means, the next phase is another ice-age. This warm period is unique since we are experiencing rapidly increasing levels of CO2. Will that cause a rise in temperatures rendering the earth uninhabitable, or will it prolong the warm period, or – will it hasten the arrival of the next ice-age?

According to 75 out of 77 ( the origin of the “97% of all”…. )Climate Scientists that in the previous 5 years had published multiple, peer reviewed papers, paid for by their respective academic institutions, claim “The science is settled”, and we will experience a rapid climate change, rendering parts of the world uninhabitable, and a series of other calamities will befall us unless we take strong, immediate action to reduce the output of CO2 from burning fossil fuels.

But there are in excess of 30,000 other scientists that have signed up “Science is by no means settled” and CO2 is not a pollutant, but a life giving gas that is only a minor contributor to the temperature rise. Other factors are at least as important and we should concentrate on real pollution, clean air and clean water.

So, who is right?

The last ice age had lasted for over 50,000 years. The ice stretched over most of North America down to the Finger Lakes. Western Europe down to Mid Germany and extending into Western Siberia were also under heavy ice. For some reason Eastern Siberia and Western Alaska was not under heavy ice. The sea level was about 400 feet lower than today and then suddenly temperatures rose, and after a 300 to 500 years delay C02 levels rose from about 185 ppm, barely sustaining life up to about 280 ppm, after which CO2 levels stabilized and remained in a slight decline until recently.

I grew and went to school in Sweden. At that time the way Sweden exited the Ice age was taught in all schools, the signs from the ice age were everywhere. We learned the exit from the exit could be expressed with the acrostic BYAL, signifying four phases in the deglaciation. Here is the timeline (after the pictures of the Baltic)

10,000 years ago: The Baltic ice lake. Outflow through Oresund, Rapid ice melt, temperature about the same as today, CO2 280 ppm.

9000 years ago: The Yoldia Sea. As ice recedes, salt water enter for a short while until land rises to again form a lake. CO2 280 ppm. Temperatures slightly higher than today.

8000 years ago: The Ancylus lake. The outflow is first through Svea Alv, then as land rose the outflow switched to Oresund. Temperatures were higher than today. CO2 level 280 ppm. River flows at the emptying of the Ice lakes causes formation of “giant kettles”, an example of which is shown in the figure below:

The largest of Brobacka’s “jättegrytor”, with a diameter of 58 feet. This particular giant kettle might have been mostly formed by a stream under the ice cap while the ice was melting.

6000 years ago: Most of the inland ice has now melted, and the Oceans have risen to today’s level, so the Belts and Oresund open up and the Litorina Sea is formed. temperatures are higher than today, CO2 level 280 ppm.

3500 years ago: The Minoan warming period. Temperatures much warmer than today. Elm, Hazel, Oak and Linden grew way up in the Bothnian bay, today the northern limit is about 250 miles further South. The CO2 level 280 ppm.

2000 years ago: The Roman warming period. Great times up North. Wine grapes grew in the British Midlands, the Scandinavian population grew rapidly. CO2 level 280 ppm.

1500 years ago: Climate is turning colder, migrations out of the Nordic and Germanic countries. Harvest failures. CO2 level 280 ppm.

1200 years ago: Rapid depopulation, Bubonic Plague, failed harvests, mass starvation, climate turning much colder. CO2 level 280 ppm.

1000 years ago: Medieval warming period. Climate about one degree warmer than today. Leif Ericson sails to America. Cheese farms established on Greenland. CO2 level 280 ppm.

500 years ago: Little Ice age. Climate much colder than today. The Swedish army, including artillery crosses the Belts on ice in 1658. CO2 level 280 ppm.

Why am I going through all this? All these climate changes occurred with the CO2 level being constant at 280 ppm. The land in Northern Sweden is still recovering from the Ice age, and land is still rising out of the ocean at the rate of up to three feet per century. The temperature is still recovering from the little ice age, but is not yet back to the Medieval Warming period, much less the Roman warming period, not to mention the Minoan temperature optimum. The CO2 level has risen to 405 ppm, but CO2 is only a minor player in affecting Climate change.

As I have mentioned in a previous blog: https://lenbilen.com/2017/04/10/thanks-to-clouds-the-temperature-governor-is-alive-and-well-on-planet-earth/ clouds are the temperature regulators, and it will do us well to concentrate on the real threats to our earth on Earth Day, such as clean air (CO2 is clean air) and clean water.

I understand there is going to be a March for Science this Earth Day.

An advice to the marchers: Look up to the sky. If there are any clouds, especially cumulus clouds, look how they form, change and dissipate, and marvel that they are the regulators of the climate so we never have to worry about a thermal runaway, no matter what level of CO2. We will have another ice age though, but more CO2 will delay its onset.

Russian embassy trolls, a Limerick, April 1.

A message from embassy trolls.

From Russia with love, as it rolls.

AP checked: Is it true?

April fool! We fooled you!

They fooled AP’s “fake news” controls!

The automated switchboard at the Russian embassy had yesterday this recorded message:

“You have reached the Russian Embassy. Your call is very important to us.”
“To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1.”
” To use the services of Russian hackers, press 2.”
” To request election interference, press 3, and wait until the next election campaign”

The Associated Press reports—because, apparently, AP felt the need to check—it was able to confirm the recording was meant as a “joke.”

Yes, AP has fact checkers. They used at least nine to fact check Sarah Palin’s book, “Going rouge”, but no one was the slightest interested in fact checking first candidate, then president Obama, his words were not to be fact checked, at least not by AP.

And they do not understand what is a joke.

An updated version of the parable of the good Samaritan.

“After having lost his job when the company he worked for closed down the factory and moved its production to China, an American worker was going down I95 from New York State to North Carolina, but in Baltimore he was attacked by illegal aliens. They took his car, stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A Democrat happened to be driving down the same road, and when he saw the man, he speeded up for he was on the way to the airport to jet away to an exotic island to attend yet another Climate Conference. So too, a Republican, when he came to the place and saw him, drove by, realizing he was already late for his tee-off time. But an Alaskan, Sarah Palin, as she traveled, came where the man was; and when she saw him, she took pity on him. She went to him and bandaged his wounds, using what she had in the first aid kit in the glove compartment. Then she put the man in her pick-up truck, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day she took out her check-book and gave an endorsed check to the innkeeper, Donald Trump. ‘Look after the American worker,’ she said, ‘and when I return, after my Alaskan moose hunt, I will give you some of the moose-meat.’ Looking at the check, Donald Trump said: “Thank you, you have alerted me to the plight of the American worker. I will take it from here and Make America Great Again. No need to reimburse me, but keep me informed of other Americans in need”.

“Which of these four do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

To be fair, I got the idea from the website sarahpalin.com, which quoted the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Via The Daily Mail:

The former Archbishop of Canterbury has described Donald Trump as a ‘Good Samaritan’ for the American people.

Lord Carey said the US President had offered the country ‘a voice’ and said he had ‘deep sympathies’ with the forces that propelled him to victory last year.

The Good Samaritan is a Parable in which a man is beaten by robbers and then ignored by a priest and a Levite until being helped by a Samaritan.

Lord Carey said Mr Trump, just like the Samaritan, was offering Americans more than just words.

He said: ‘Help is not merely kind words. It is the promise of ongoing support.’

Chelsea Clinton on photoshopped fakes, a Limerick.

What Chelsea the Clinton did twit

just proves that she is a nitwit.

It’s a photoshop make

like the famed Long Form fake.

It’s time for the Clintons to quit.

This is what Chelsea Clinton twitted: (Yes, I know it’s spelled tweet, but for Chelsea Clinton it’s a twit)

Yes Chelsea, it is photoshopped. A Lighthearted, humorous picture montage. It is surprisingly easy to do.

To help to educate you, here is another photoshopped image:

amaIt was photoshopped using at least 11 layers of information.

The difference between this and the previous picture is nobody except maybe Chelsea Clinton is fooled by a picture of Abraham Lincoln with a “Make America Great Again” cap. Nearly every Democrat got fooled by Barack Obama’s ” Long Form Birth Certificate. Yet both are obvious fakes.

A Climate Realist’s (not so) short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change. Question 14 (of 16) How does agriculture affect climate change?

JUSTIN GILLIS NOV. 28, 2015 gave his answers to 16 questions in the N.Y. Times regarding Climate Change. This Climate realist added his answer.

Answers to Question 1: How much is the planet heating up?

Answers to Question 2. How much trouble are we in?

Answers to Question 3. Is there anything I can do?

Answers to Question 4. What’s the optimistic scenario?

Answers to Question 5. Will reducing meat in my diet help the climate?

Answers to Question 6. What’s the worst-case scenario?

Answers to Question 7. Will a tech breakthrough help us?

Answers to Question 8. How much will the seas rise?

Answers to Question 9. Are the predictions reliable?

Answers to Question 10. Why do people question climate change?

Answers to Question 11. Is crazy weather tied to climate change?

Answers to Question 12. Will anyone benefit from global warming?

Answers to Question 13. Is there any reason for hope?

Justin Gillis answer to Question 14. How does agriculture affect climate change?

It’s a big contributor, but there are signs of progress.

The environmental pressures from global agriculture are indeed enormous.

The demand for food is rising, in large part because of population growth and rising incomes that give millions of once-low income people the means to eat richer diets. Global demand for beef and for animal feed, for instance, has led farmers to cut down huge chunks of the Amazon rain forest.

Efforts are being made to tackle the problems. The biggest success has arguably been in Brazil, which adopted tough oversight and managed to cut deforestation in the Amazon by 80 percent in a decade. But the gains there are fragile, and severe problems continue in other parts of the world, such as aggressive forest clearing in Indonesia.

Scores of companies and organizations, including major manufacturers of consumer products, signed a declaration in New York in 2014 pledging to cut deforestation in half by 2020, and to cut it out completely by 2030. The companies that signed the pact are now struggling to figure out how to deliver on that promise.

Many forest experts at the Paris climate talks in late 2015 considered the pledge as ambitious, but possible. And they said it was crucial that consumers keep up the pressure on companies from whom they buy products, from soap to ice cream.

My answer to Question 14. How does agriculture affect climate change?

Whenever a forest is cut down and the earth gets tilled the local microclimate changes, and not for the better. The earth warms about 0.8 degrees C, the evapotranspiration is drastically reduced, the ground dries up having lost its protective shade. That is why it is an insane idea to cut down the rainforests of Borneo to produce biofuel.

Thanks to increasing CO2 levels agriculture is in much better shape than before.

CO2, the life-giving gas, not “Carbon Pollution”. A Limerick – and explanation.

What then is this “Carbon Pollution”?

A sinister, evil collusion?

CO2, it is clean,

Makes for growth, makes it green,

A transfer of wealth, a solution.

CO2 concentration has increased from about 280 ppm in pre-industrial times to 405 ppm today, and is increasing at a rate of 2 ppm per year. We are way past the point of no return, 350 ppm which would lead to a temperature catastrophe. (1) But instead, something rather interesting is occurring. The earth is getting greener! (2) This 40 % increase in CO2 the last 250 years has led to a more than 30 % increase in agricultural production all by itself without adding fertilizer or using higher yielding seeds. (3) Thanks to this we can now feed an additional two billion people on earth without starvation. The news are so good, that the per capita food production is increasing, even as the population is increasing. (4)

Look at it this way. The value of basic agricultural products is more than 1.5 trillion dollars worldwide. 30% of that is due to increased CO2. That means that the CO2 emitted is worth 450 billion dollars, spread out over all farmers and ranchers worldwide. This wealth transfer is occurring right now, and knows no national boundary. It is a gift from the developed countries to the rest of the world. Who could be against that?

It turns out that this wealth transfer occurs without global governance. The leaders of the world will not have their say in who gets the wealth transfer, the U.N. bureaucrats will not get their cut, and politicians cannot get a campaign issue since it occurs without their involvement.

So to recapture the initiative they renamed this life-giving gas “Carbon pollution” and managed somehow to get the Supreme Court to agree with the notion that CO2 is a pollutant.

How can that be? They argued that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which is true. It is second only to water vapor. It is responsible for about 9 degree Celsius rise in global temperature, and if CO2 increases, so does the greenhouse effect and the temperature increases. This in turn leads to more water vapor in the air, and water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas, so there is a risk of reaching a “tipping point” when we could experience a thermal runaway of the planet. All of this is true, so U.N. and many governments around the world have sponsored studies to model climate change, over a hundred models have been constructed, and they all come up with rather gloomy forecasts. The research is so intense that over 3 billion dollars of government monies are spent yearly on climate change research.

All models show a similar pattern, a fairly steep and more or less linear rise in temperature as CO2 increases. There is only one major thing wrong with them. They do not agree with what is happening to the global temperature. We have now had 224 months (Sep 2015) without any global warming, in fact, the trend is down. (5)

What is wrong with the models? They all assume a passive earth, where there is no negative feedback to the changing environment. It turns out, the earth has a “governor”, and it can be expressed in one word, albedo, which means “whiteness” or how much of the incoming sunlight that gets reflected back into space.

The major albedo changers are the amount of ice around the poles and clouds, but even land use changes such as forests cut down and replaced by agriculture and urbanization.

When there is snow or ice on the ground, more sunlight gets reflected and it gets colder still. Urban heat islands are warmer than the surroundings, airports are warmer than its surroundings. Interestingly, that is where we are placing our new weather stations. (This is great for pilots that have to evaluate take-off and landing conditions, but is less than ideal for climate research. But then again, climate research has moved from the realm of physical science to political science, where different rules do apply.)

The most important albedo changers of the earth are clouds. Without them no land based life would be possible since clouds serve both as rainmakers and temperature stabilizers. If there were no clouds the equilibrium temperature at the equator would be around 140 degrees F.

Over the oceans, in the so called “doldrums” where there are no trade winds, the mornings start with a warm-up, and when the conditions are right a shower or thunderstorm occurs. The ambient temperature is usually between 84 and 88 degrees when this happens. As CO2 concentrations increase thunderstorms occur a few minutes earlier and last a little bit longer, but they are no more severe and as a result the average temperature stays the same. (5)

In desert areas of the world this temperature regulator doesn’t work well, so deserts will receive the full force of temperature increase which is 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit per doubling of CO2 levels.

In the temperate region the temperature increase will be somewhere in between. Dry days will be warmer, cloudy and rainy days will have the same temperature as before, since the regulator starts to function.

The polar region is a special case. None of the models have done a good job at modeling the clouds at the poles, especially the South Pole. (6) They will warm up more than 2 degrees F, how much is a question. In the South average temperatures will rise from – 70 degrees F in the interior all the way to maybe – 63 degrees F, and come closer to freezing in the summer at the northern edges. There may be added snowfall that will expand the ice sheet. The Antarctic ice sheet has set new records since record keeping began, and is at the moment bottoming out at 30% more ice than the 30 year average. (7)

The North Pole region is even more complicated since it is partially land, partially ocean. The oceanic ice cap has been shrinking at a fairly constant rate the last 30 years, but last year it broke the trend and grew back to break the trend line. The winter snow cap has remained at about the same level year to year with a slightly positive trend line, this year being no exception. So, why is the snow cover growing slightly, but ice cover shrinking? The common explanation has been global warming, but the ice cover kept shrinking even as the temperature increase leveled off. There are two possible explanations: Warming oceans and changes in pollution. The North Atlantic Oscillation has been mostly positive (warmer) since 1970 and has only recently turned negative, so that is certainly part of the cause of the shrinking of the icecap, but another candidate is even more likely: Carbon Pollution. With that I do not mean CO2, but good old soot, spewing out from the smokestacks of power plants in China. 45% of all coal burned is burned in China, often low grade lignite with no scrubbers. The air in Beijing is toxic to humans more days than not. Some of that soot finds its way to the arctic and settles on the ice, changing its albedo, and the sun has a chance to melt the ice more efficiently. This occurs mostly in the months of August and September when the Sun is at a low angle anyway, so the changing of the albedo has very little effect on temperature. The net result of all this is that the temperature in the North Pole region will rise about 3 degrees Fahrenheit for a doubling of the CO2. This will have a very minor effect on the Greenland ice cap since they are nearly always way below freezing anyway (-28 degree C average). The largest effect will happen in August and September in the years when all new snow has melted and the soot from years past is exposed. This happened two years ago with a sudden drop in albedo for the Greenland ice. It will also lead to an increase in the precipitation in the form of snow, so the net result is the glaciers may start growing again if the amount of soot can be reduced.

The conclusion is: The temperature regulator of the earth is working quite well, and the increase in temperature at the poles is welcome as it lessens the temperature gradient between the tropics and the polar regions, which in turn reduces the severity of storms, since they are mostly generated by temperature differences and the different density of warm, humid and dry, cold air. (8) The Polar Bears will do quite well, their numbers have more than doubled in the last 50 years.

(1). This is a message from 1010global.org. Their aim was to reduce carbon emissions by 10% in 2010.

https://lenbilen.com/2014/02/22/a-religious-message-from-1010global-org-and-a-limerick/

(2). The earth is getting greener! https://lenbilen.com/2013/03/19/co2-the-solution-to-climate-change/

(3).

(4).

(5). Reality versus climate models.(6) Projected cloud cover for various climate models versus reality.

(7)

(8).

There is a new book out:

About Face! Why the World Needs More Carbon Dioxide is easy reading from two scientists and an economist. About Face! is the product of two scientists and an economist. The scientists are Madhav Khandekar in Canada and Cliff Ollier in Australia, plus economist Arthur Middleton Hughes in the USA.

It will change your understanding of climate science and explain how we can save millions of lives and billions of dollars per year.

Available on Amazon here

A Climate Realist’s not so short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change. Question 1 (of 16) How much is the planet heating up?

JUSTIN GILLIS NOV. 28, 2015 gave his answers to 16 questions in the N.Y. Times regarding Climate Change.

The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks.

We get it.

So we’ve put together a list of quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change. This should give you a running start on understanding the problem.

1. How much is the planet heating up?

“1.7 degrees is actually a significant amount.

As of October 2015, the Earth had warmed by about 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, when records begin at a global scale. That figure includes the surface of the ocean. The warming is greater over land, and greater still in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica.

The number may sound low, but as an average over the surface of an entire planet, it is actually high, which explains why much of the world’s land ice is starting to melt and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace. The heat accumulating in the Earth because of human emissions is roughly equal to the heat that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding across the planet every day.

Scientists believe most and probably all of the warming since 1950 was caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. If emissions continue unchecked, they say the global warming could ultimately exceed 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which would transform the planet and undermine its capacity to support a large human population.”

Here is my answer to the first question:

1. How much is the planet heating up?

As of February 2016, the Earth has warmed about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, when records began at a global scale. That figure includes the surface of the ocean. The warming is greater over land, and greater still in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica, but there is very little warming in the tropics.

Since pre-industrial times the CO2 level has increased from 280 ppm to 405 ppm, an increase of about 45%, and we know that for every doubling of CO2 temperatures will rise about 1.6 degrees F unless other factors dominate, such as positive or negative temperature feedbacks.

During ice-ages global temperatures hover around 10 degrees F colder with CO2 levels around 185 ppm. Global temperature was about 6 degree F colder than today and in about 4000 year time temperature rose rapidly and we came out of the ice age. During that time, and with a 300 to 800 year delay CO2 rose from 185 ppm to 265 ppm, a 43% rise. Coming out of the ice age, if CO2 was the only factor, the effect of doubling CO2 would increase global temperatures by 11.5 degrees F.

Al Gore saw the charts, and got so alarmed that he wrote “Earth in the balance.” What he didn’t take into account was that the major rise in temperature was not due to the increasing CO2, but the loss of albedo when the ice melted. CO2 played a supporting role, a lagging one. Then, around 9000 years ago temperatures stopped rising, CO2 levels stabilized and we entered a period of relative stability. What happened?

The albedo came back, this time in the form of increasing clouds. Once the oceans got warmer and stabilized, there was enough water vapor in the air to make more clouds, and so stabilize temperature. Since then temperatures have been on a slow decline, and the trend was accelerating until the ” little ice age”. There were 3 notable warming periods, the Minoan, the Roman, and the Medieval warming period.

During the Roman warm period wine grapes were grown almost up to the Hadrian Wall. It is well documented, and in Northhamptonshire, England there were at least 9 flourishing wineries..

The Roman Northamptonshire wine
was good, not excessively fine.
So it just goes to show
that Al Gore does not know
of Climate Change past, that’s my line.

The the dark ages came and grapes no longer ripened in England. During the Medieval Warm Period there was at least one cheese farm on Greenland “Gården under sanden”, abandoned as the glaciers regrew, starting the “Little Ice Age”. During the little ice age it got so cold, that in Jan 1658 the Swedish army crossed the Great Belt of Denmark over ice, canons and all, and sacked Copenhagen. We are still recovering from the “little ice age.” 2016 may have been a warm year, but most years since the ice age were warmer. See Chart.We are still in the sweet spot of a remarkable stable Climate, only more CO2 will save us from a new Ice Age. We are not yet back to the Medieval warming period, much less the Roman and even less the Minoan. A doubling of CO2 will not get us back to the Roman warming period since the negative feedback from clouds will dominate and limit the temperature rise.

As to the fear mongering claim that “The heat accumulating in the Earth because of human emissions is roughly equal to the heat that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding across the planet every day,” I can only say that the energy from the sun is equivalent to over 25oo Hiroshima bombs per second, or about 540 times as much as comes from human energy production, about 0.2%, hardly anything to worry about.

Answers to Question 2. How much trouble are we in?

Answers to Question 3. Is there anything I can do?

Answers to Question 4. What’s the optimistic scenario?

Answers to Question 5. Will reducing meat in my diet help the climate?

Answers to Question 6. What’s the worst-case scenario?

Answers to Question 7. Will a tech breakthrough help us?

Answers to Question 8. How much will the seas rise?

Answers to Question 9. Are the predictions reliable?

Answers to Question 10. Why do people question climate change?

Answers to Question 11. Is crazy weather tied to climate change?

Answers to Question 12. Will anyone benefit from global warming?

Answers to Question 13. Is there any reason for hope?

Answers to Question 14. How does agriculture affect climate change?

Answers to Question 15. Will the seas rise evenly across the planet?

Answers to Question 16. Is it really all about carbon?

Change of tune in next week’s G20 meeting on Climate Change, a Limerick.

G20 to meet in Black Forest

Sweet unity no longer chorused

The encouraging word

in the Paris accord

Mnuchin to farce metamorphosed.

(Bloomberg) — Finance ministers for the U.S., China, Germany and other members of the Group of 20 economies may scale back a robust pledge for their governments to combat climate change, ceding efforts to the private sector.

Citing “scarce public resources,” the ministers said they would encourage multilateral development banks to raise private funds to accomplish goals set under the 2015 Paris climate accord, according to a preliminary statement drafted for a meeting that will be held in Germany next week.

The statement, obtained by Bloomberg News, is a significant departure from a communique issued in July, when finance ministers urged governments to quickly implement the Paris Agreement, including a call for wealthy nations to make good on commitments to mobilize $100 billion annually to cut greenhouse gases around the globe.

“It basically says governments are irrelevant. It’s complete faith in the magic of the marketplace,” John Kirton, director of the University of Toronto’s G-20 Research Group, said in an interview. “That is very different from the existing commitments they have repeatedly made.”

The shift in tone comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, prepares for his first G-20 meeting, scheduled for March 17 to 18 in the spa town of Baden-Baden. While European nations including Germany have been at the forefront of combating global warming, Trump has called climate change a hoax.

The Republican president vowed during his campaign to “cancel” the Paris agreement but has said little about the deal since taking office. His cabinet members, meanwhile, have sent mixed signals. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. should keep a seat at the table for international climate talks. Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, on Thursday expressed doubt that humans were to blame for global warming and called the Paris agreement a “bad deal” for the U.S.

The most notable element of the draft is what’s missing. The statement issued after the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in July dedicated 163 words to the Paris Agreement, pushing nations to bring the deal into force, meet emissions targets and fulfill financial pledges. This current draft dedicates just 47 words to the agreement, focusing exclusively on development banks raising private funds, without mentioning government financial support.

Germany, as the meeting’s host, leads the process of writing the statement, which will eventually be adopted via consensus by all 19 nations plus the European Union. The German finance ministry declined to comment on the draft.

“The most charitable thing to say is they’re waiting to see where Donald Trump actually lands by the time they get in Hamburg and thus, doing nothing to annoy the incoming American Treasury Secretary,” Kirton said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who holds the rotating presidency of the G-20, has signaled that she would use the forum to push Trump on climate issues. The two leaders are scheduled to meet in Washington March 14.

“The takeaway is it clearly puts less emphasis on climate finance as a priority than last year’s did,” Alden Meyer, director of policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an interview. “It doesn’t talk about government action. That is a significant step back from what countries agreed to in Paris.”

Full statement: https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/2017/03/09/g-20-document-shows-governments-retreating-from-climate-funding

On Data gathering, life. hacking by CIA and Wikileaks.

A tweet can contain up to 140 characters, a limit that is now relaxed, but if each character takes up 8 bits of information (one byte), the it can be said, a tweet is 140 bytes.

The Authorized version of the King James Bible contains 3,116,480 characters, or about 22,260 tweets. Some people have tweeted that much!

But all the information in the KJV pales compared to the information in every cell of the human body. The numbers will get large, so let us learn about large numbers

One kilobyte is 1000 bytes, Megabyte is 1000 Kb or 1000,000 bytes, Gigabyte is 1000 Mb or 1,000,000,000 bytes, Terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, Petabyte is 1000 Terabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, Exabyte is 1000 Terabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, Zettabyte is 1000 Exabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, Yottabyte is 1000 Zettabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Back to how much data is in our body. We have about 3,2 billion DNA genome pairs in every cell in our body. there are 4 types, so each pair can be packed into 2 bits, which means every cell in our body contains 800 Megabytes of data, the information equivalent of 250 King James Bibles. Giving there are about 37 trillion cells in our body plus about one quadrillion bacteria in our gut the total amount of information in our body is about 30 Exabytes, most of it duplicated, but yet. In addition, all plants and animals contain DNA, so the total information in the world is staggering, far exceeding the term Yottabyte.

If you are an atheist or true believer in evolution that all this came about by chance plus time plus nothing, especially no sign of intelligent design, the math doesn’t add up.

In 2001 the New York City twin towers were destroyed through a terror attack, and the U.S. response was to collect data to capture terrorists before they could attack. The NSA started to monitor all electronic communication through a program called Prism, starting in earnest in 2007, see fig:

This is in part taking place in a large data center in Utah, housing, it is rumored up to one Yottabyte of collected data. What type of data do they collect? Check this figure:

The question is this: How much of this is linked to terror?

Then, today I found out via Wikileaks that NSA is not alone is spying on us.

CIA malware targets iPhone, Android, smart TVs

CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA’s DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details).

The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and operational support of all backdoors, exploits, malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations world-wide.

The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell’s 1984, but “Weeping Angel”, developed by the CIA’s Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realization.

The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom’s MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a ‘Fake-Off’ mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.

As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks. The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.

The CIA’s Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones. Infected phones can be instructed to send the CIA the user’s geolocation, audio and text communications as well as covertly activate the phone’s camera and microphone.

Despite iPhone’s minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA’s Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA’s arsenal includes numerous local and remote “zero days” developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.

A similar unit targets Google’s Android which is used to run the majority of the world’s smart phones (~85%) including Samsung, HTC and Sony. 1.15 billion Android powered phones were sold last year. “Year Zero” shows that as of 2016 the CIA had 24 “weaponized” Android “zero days” which it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA and cyber arms contractors.

These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the “smart” phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.

CIA malware targets Windows, OSx, Linux, routers

The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware. This includes multiple local and remote weaponized “zero days”, air gap jumping viruses such as “Hammer Drill” which infects software distributed on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems to hide data in images or in covert disk areas ( “Brutal Kangaroo”) and to keep its malware infestations going.

Many of these infection efforts are pulled together by the CIA’s Automated Implant Branch (AIB), which has developed several attack systems for automated infestation and control of CIA malware, such as “Assassin” and “Medusa”.

Attacks against Internet infrastructure and webservers are developed by the CIA’s Network Devices Branch (NDB).

The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB’s “HIVE” and the related “Cutthroat” and “Swindle” tools, which are described in the examples section below.

CIA ‘hoarded’ vulnerabilities (“zero days”)

In the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA, the U.S. technology industry secured a commitment from the Obama administration that the executive would disclose on an ongoing basis — rather than hoard — serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or “zero days” to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based manufacturers.

Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the manufacturers places huge swathes of the population and critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear rumors of the vulnerability. If the CIA can discover such vulnerabilities so can others.

The U.S. government’s commitment to the Vulnerabilities Equities Process came after significant lobbying by US technology companies, who risk losing their share of the global market over real and perceived hidden vulnerabilities. The government stated that it would disclose all pervasive vulnerabilities discovered after 2010 on an ongoing basis.

“Year Zero” documents show that the CIA breached the Obama administration’s commitments. Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA’s cyber arsenal are pervasive and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals.

As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in “Year Zero” is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts. The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities (“zero days”) possessed by the CIA but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable.

The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at large, including the U.S. Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs, system administrators, security officers and engineers. By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack everyone at the expense of leaving everyone hackable.

‘Cyberwar’ programs are a serious proliferation risk

Cyber ‘weapons’ are not possible to keep under effective control.

While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical nuclear mass, cyber ‘weapons’, once developed, are very hard to retain.

Cyber ‘weapons’ are in fact just computer programs which can be pirated like any other. Since they are entirely comprised of information they can be copied quickly with no marginal cost.

Securing such ‘weapons’ is particularly difficult since the same people who develop and use them have the skills to exfiltrate copies without leaving traces — sometimes by using the very same ‘weapons’ against the organizations that contain them. There are substantial price incentives for government hackers and consultants to obtain copies since there is a global “vulnerability market” that will pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for copies of such ‘weapons’. Similarly, contractors and companies who obtain such ‘weapons’ sometimes use them for their own purposes, obtaining advantage over their competitors in selling ‘hacking’ services.

Over the last three years the United States intelligence sector, which consists of government agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors, such as Booz Allan Hamilton, has been subject to unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own workers.

A number of intelligence community members not yet publicly named have been arrested or subject to federal criminal investigations in separate incidents.

Most visibly, on February 8, 2017 a U.S. federal grand jury indicted Harold T. Martin III with 20 counts of mishandling classified information. The Department of Justice alleged that it seized some 50,000 gigabytes of information from Harold T. Martin III that he had obtained from classified programs at NSA and CIA, including the source code for numerous hacking tools.

Once a single cyber ‘weapon’ is ‘loose’ it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

This is where we are today. On Saturday, President Trump found out that he had been spied upon in Trump Tower during the election. The Wikileaks revelation lends credibility to this accusation. And of course, CIA can make it appear that the hacking came from, say Russia and then put in some false software, framing the victim.

Yet, all this spyware, hacking and data gathering is simple compared to the wonder of life.

Greenpeace protest got fertilized. A Limerick.

Aroma from countryside Lancashire;

the farmer gave Greenpeace its hire.

Emma Thompson got sprayed

she got frackin’ afraid.

Her bake-off, frack free, reeked of mire.

Source, The Telegraph: An angry farmer attempted to spray Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson with manure on Wednesday after she broke a court injunction to stage a protest against fracking on his land. Ms Thompson and her sister Sophie entered a field on the Lancashire farm, where energy company Cuadrilla is planning to frack for shale gas, and baked renewable energy-themed cakes in a Greenpeace-backed protest stunt. An injunction has been in place banning protesters from the land near Preston since 2014 .The farmer, who was said to be “very upset” about being prevented from getting on with work in the field, proceeded to drive a muck-spreader around the protesters, narrowly missing the Thompson sisters and their cakes. Emma Thompson said she was staging the so-called “Frack Free Bake Off” in order to “show the government that we will not allow fracking to scar our countryside and fuel yet more climate change”. “What better way to do that, here in Britain, than hold a Bake Off?,” she asked.

Bill Nye knows nothing of Climate Change Science. A Limerick.

The Roman Northamptonshire wine

was good, not excessively fine.

So it just goes to show

that Bill Nye does not know

of Climate Change past, that’s my line.

During the Roman warm period wine grapes were grown almost up to the Hadrian Wall, The the dark ages came and grapes no longer ripened in England. During the Medieval Warm Period there was at least one cheese farm on Greenland “Gården under sanden”, abandoned as the glaciers regrew, starting the “Little Ice Age”. We are still recovering from the little ice age. 2016 may have been a warm year, but most years since the ice age were warmer. See Chart.We are still in the sweet spot of a remarkable stable Climate, only more CO2 will save us from a new Ice Age.

Check this video:

It is true that human activity causes climate change, and as for CO2, it is all to the good. Cutting down rain forests in Borneo to produce bio-fuel is not.

Does this make me a denier?