Dull

Your humble host has spent the last hour trawling the web for interesting global warming snippets with which to regale you this morning...with a complete lack of success. Perhaps global warming has been cancelled for today. 

Perhaps it's just me though - it's snowing outside and having not seen green for two months I'm a bit fed up of it.

In the meantime, here's something that pricked my interest on my internet travels - a posting on the Spectator site reporting on a talk given by an economist of the Austrian school. The subject was the reasons for the economic crash. What struck me was not only how odd it is to see an MSM publication addressing heavy topics like Austrian economics, but also how many of the Spectator's readers had responded with comments. There seems to be a real interest, although whether driven by "we aren't taken in by the blame-the-bankers narrative" or just a desire for more demanding material, I can't say.

Comments

[alan neil ditchfield]

NATURE IN THE RAW IS SELDOM MILD.
Caterpillar Tractor Company placed this warning on its advertisements decades ago, when environmental activists began to grab headlines by obstructing construction projects. The warning merits being placed as a caption of every photograph of the Queensland floods of 2011. After the 1974 floods, of equal magnitude, the common sense response was the design of a flood containment system. It was never built because the frivolous objections environmentalists prevailed against it.
It is a shame, and a sign of the times, that this should be happening in Australia, the land of John Monash, the gifted engineer who conceived multiple-use dams, for flood control, power generation, irrigation and waterways. In the 1920s, Monash presided over the Murray-Darling basin project to implement a concept that became the model for the celebrated works of the Tennessee Valley Authority. This was last gift of Monash to mankind. His previous ones were given as builder and as soldier. A century ago, Monash had won renown as a pioneer of the large-scale use of reinforced concrete for buildings, bridges, ports, dams, and irrigation pipe. He then turned his rational mind to warfare, as commander of the Australian forces in World War I, to devise the successful tactics that broke the deadlock of trench warfare. The innovations conceived by Monash put an end to the slaughter in the Hundred Day Campaign that ended on November 11 1918. He did not regard his military exploits as heroic deeds, but as a grim side of his life devoted to destruction instead of the construction he loved so much. His words were:
"From the far off days of 1914, when the first call came, until the last shot was fired, every day was filled with loathing, horror and distress. I deplored all the time the loss of precious life, and the waste of human effort. Nothing could have been more repugnant to me than the realisation of the dreadful inefficiency of, and the misspent energy of, war."
In his regard for human life Monash is the epitome of a practitioner of traditional religion, with its message:
Man is the lord and master of creation and nature was made to serve needs of mankind.
This has been overturned by a creed that worships a goddess Nature and excoriates the works of man and the very existence of man as blasphemy. Blame for losses due to Queensland floods should be placed on the followers of this evil religion that demands human sacrifices.

[steveta_uk]

Jan 12, 2011 at 10:00 AM | Unregistered CommenterPunksta

I wonder what type of engineer would be best suited for this task....

I would suggest that temporal engineers start working on developing an alloy that can be used as a chronon shield.

Then simply line a large box with this a dthin film of this alloy, and anything placed within the box will remain fresh indefinitely.

Simples.

[Kevin]

@ Phil Bratby

Looks like the term enhanced Greenhouse effect came out of the Kyoto protocol:

http://www.science.org.au/nova/016/016key.htm

http://www.science.org.au/nova/016/016glo.htm#enhanced greenhouse

enhanced greenhouse effect. An increase in the natural process of the greenhouse effect, brought about by human activities, whereby greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide are being released into the atmosphere at a far greater rate than would occur through natural processes and thus their concentrations are increasing. Also called anthropogenic greenhouse effect or climate change.

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

Breath of fresh air
Which just confirms the cold weather was despite the Warm Gulff Steam not because it has weakened or gone away.

I would advise those of you in Ireland and UK as well as northern Europe not to put your snow shovels away just yet. Looks like you are going to get another blast of global warming that is currently making Boston into a winter wonderland.

This is a repeat of the winter of 1978, when I had it with Boston and moved to California.

Phillip Bratby
The climate is driven by the oceans, not the atmosphere. When the wind is from the SW and blowing from the Atlantic Ocean, we have mild, wet conditions; when the wind is from the NE and blowing from the Arctic Ocean we have cold conditions. It's nothing to do with CO2 in the air.

Perhaps you should explain that to the Met Office? :)

[Phillip Bratby]

Thanks Kevin. "Enhanced greenhouse effect" is just another meaningless piece of propaganda semantics er BS.

[Phillip Bratby]

I get it now.

Definition of enhance:
1. To make greater, as in value, beauty, or effectiveness; augment.
2. To provide with improved, advanced, or sophisticated features is an improved version

So it is the "enhanced greenhouse effect" because it is an "improved greenhouse effect" which makes things warmer, which is good.

[Martin A]

@justinert: The opening words are just great: "A groundbreaking Population report (Wed 12 January) by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) (...) (currently there is 6.9 billion) (...)"

Reminds me of the old joke:

"Three years ago, I couldn't spell 'engineer'. Now I are one!"

[anonym]

[Snip]

[Earle Williams]

Philip Bratby,

Enhanced Greenhouse Effect: It's how you get from comfy to catastrophe.

[Pharos]

At least 6 years too late, a few lone voices in Westminster are finally asking the sort of penetrating questions on the Energy policy disaster we are now committed to. Just one of several excellent posts currently featured on the GWPF website.

http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/2208-green-energy-policy-critical-voices-in-the-house-of-lords.html

[Atomic Hairdryer]

Some humour to liven up a dull day courtesy of the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12138420

Given that Nottingham has just two charging bays in the whole of its metropolitan area, both forms of charging post anxiety are now in play

.."Welcome to the Victoria Centre," says the customer services co-ordinator, Gary, who is first on the scene.

"You're our first customer in the three years!"