The BBC is still at it. High up on the front page of its news website this morning:

Climate change: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46046067

"The world has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years, researchers say.

Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought.

They say it means the Earth is more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than estimated.

This could make it much more difficult to to keep global warming within safe levels this century."

This is so important, it even appears higher up the pecking order than:

"Trump: Third of Americans see media as 'enemy of the people'"

or "Ryanair passengers brace for new bag rules"

or even "Hopes rise of UK-EU financial service deal"

This is how the BBC sees it:

"The UK has struck a deal with the EU on post-Brexit financial services, according to unconfirmed reports.

The Times newspaper said London had agreed in negotiations with Brussels to give UK financial services firms continued access to the bloc. The pound has risen nearly 1% against the dollar.

Government sources said a tentative deal had been reached on all aspects of a future partnership on services.

An initial deal on exchange of data had also been agreed, the paper said.

It added the deal was expected to be completed within three weeks."

Good news indeed. This is how others see it:

"But here’s what they [the EU] do care about. Their ability to finance their deficits.

The Financial Times reports the “EU pledges access to UK clearing houses in no-deal Brexit”. And in a different article, it explained what this means:
Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commissioner responsible for financial regulation, told the Financial Times that EU banks and companies could continue using UK-based clearing houses to process derivatives trades even if Brexit negotiations fail — but on a strictly short-term and conditional basis.
In other words, the Europeans realised that, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, their insurance contracts on an Italian government default would not be enforceable. And so they panicked and reversed their hard-line stance.

But the change is wacky in so many ways.

First of all, why is the EU deciding who can access UK clearing houses!? Surely it’s a UK decision if EU businesses want to use London’s financial markets. The strangling nature of the EU’s rulers is laid bare by the decision. You can’t do anything without their express permission.

But more importantly, why doesn’t the same solution apply to the Irish border, the expat pensioners, the flights, the trade, the expats and every other fake problem Brexit creates?

Why can’t a Brexit deal be done on all other matters with exactly the same reasoning: for the sake of stability and cooperation, on the day of Brexit, businesses and people working, trading and travelling between Britain and the EU can continue to go about their day as before. After all, there will be no difference between Britain and the EU on day one of Brexit. Divergence will take time.

This solution doesn’t even require a deal. It just requires both sides to declare they won’t do anything that is blatantly and obviously stupid, such as restricting trade, financial flows, flights, and so on. It is an immediate solution too."

I for one am puzzled why being vegetarian / vegan is saving the planet from deadly GHG production in farming. Assuming that we don't want a mass cull of human life. Much of the production of meat is carried out on land unsuitable for crops due to poor soil fertility so no gain in switching. The growing of crops involves ploughing of soil annually, we rarely eat all of a plant leaving the rest to be dealt with. Many crops are grown in glass kouses/polyrunnels many of which are heated. All food requires some level of processing a d transportation. All farming involves modifying the land and what was originally there. So both livestock and arable farming have environmental impacts, it's not clear to me which is least detrimental.

Earing nuts and fruit from trees and not much else might be the only solution as trees deal with CO2 to some degree.

IDAU. "So why doesn't it report them?"
I suspect the reason is that seismicity caused by quarry blasts are known shallow events, where the causative energy is the explosives and the kinetic energy of the falling rock and, if followed by aftershocks, these will be of lower magnitude. In contrast, seismicity caused by fracking are deep (more than a kilometre) releases of natural rock stress, which could be the forerunner of larger stress releases (and therefore of more intense earth shocks). Potentially these could become damaging. Damage from quarry blasting will happen at the time of blasting, fracking has the potential to cause later damaging events.
I do not know this is the reporting rationale, but it's how I would justify the BGS action.

@BTW: Anyone remember RGBatDuke (Robert Brown)?
Could be this person

From the BGS:

The' magnitude 0.8 ML event at 11:36 UTC on 26 October was around 200 times smaller than the magnitude 2.3 ML event that stopped hydraulic fracturing operations at Preese Hall in 2011. The maximum recorded ground motion was around 0.1 mm/s. This is well below the limits set for quarry operations (6 mm/s). The BGS network of sensors across the UK routinely detects many blasts from quarry operations around the UK with magnitudes of up to around 2 ML every day.

So why doesn't it report them?

@Oct 31, 2018 at 11:30 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie
You ask BTW: Anyone remember RGBatDuke (Robert Brown)?
Yes - he was a frequent, erudite and informative contributor over many years.

BTW: Anyone remember RGBatDuke (Robert Brown)?
Oct 31, 2018 at 7:06 PM | Harry Passfield

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/6/14/on-the-meaning-of-ensemble-means.html