October 31, 2013
Of course, carbon dioxide is proving to be of much less importance to global warming than the alarmists would have us believe. Sharply increasing carbon dioxide concentrations have had no impact on global temperatures for the last 17 – 18 years and the supposed link between man-made carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures is looking very shaky.
It has been another “feel-good” assumption that burning wood, peat, bioethanol and biofuels in general are “carbon neutral”. But that is just wishful thinking. “… only about half as much CO2 per kWh is released when using natural gas rather than wood”.
“Both this and the original method used models of the forest. Models are by definition simplifications. The simplifications a researcher makes will vary according to the issues at hand, the questions being asked. You realise how much earlier analyses have oversimplified things when more refined models yield completely different answers.”
ScienceNordic reports that scientists from the Cicero Centre for Climate Research and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used a new method for quantifying the contributions of bioenergy to global warming as compared to fossil energy such as oil and gas.
But further research now indicates that the real climate effect of wood burning is less advantageous.
“By refining their method I determined that the emission of one kg of CO2 from biomass is the equivalent of about 1.25 to 1.5 kg fossil CO2. So it’s much higher and less climate friendly,” says Bjart Holtsmark, a researcher at Statistics Norway.
In other words, if Holtsmark’s calculations are correct, the climate impact of using slow-growing forest wood for fuel is greater than the burning of fossil fuel, given a 100-year time frame.
Holtsmark says that the original method failed to account for how logging leaves behind dead tree parts. When trees are cut, a considerable amount of tree “waste” remains in the forest to rot and oxidise – and emit CO2.
“This aspect of the carbon balance sheet for bioenergy needs to be included,” he says. “The usual practice in forestry is to take out the trunks, while leaving the branches, treetops, stumps and roots. But the trunk only comprises half the tree’s living biomass.”
He explains that even if the branches and tops are taken out with the trunks, the stumps and roots will be left behind to oxidise into CO2. ……
…. Holtsmark also asserts that the combustion of timber releases more carbon dioxide per kWh of heat energy than oil and gas.
“For example, only about half as much CO2 per kWh is released when using natural gas rather than wood. When this is taken into account, the picture for bioenergy from slow growing forests becomes even less advantageous.”
Tags: Biomass, Bjart J. Holtsmark, Carbon, carbon dioxide, climate change, global warming, Natural gas
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Energy | Comments Off on Biofuels produce twice as much carbon dioxide per kWh as natural gas
October 31, 2013
The Mandelbulb is a three-dimensional analogue of the Mandelbrot set, constructed by Daniel White and Paul Nylander using spherical coordinates. A canonical 3-dimensional Mandelbrot set does not exist, since there is no 3-dimensional analogue of the 2-dimensional space of complex numbers. It is possible to construct Mandelbrot sets in 4 dimensions using quaternions. However, this set does not exhibit detail at all scales like the 2D Mandelbrot set does.
From bugman123
an 8th order Mandelbulb set by bugman123
Paul Nylander, bugman123.com
A classic Mandelbrot set
Mandelbrot set – Wikipedia
Tags: Benoît Mandelbrot, Chaos and Fractals, Daniel White, Mandelbrot set, Mandelbulb, Paul Nylander
Posted in Art, Mathematics | Comments Off on From Mandelbrot to Mandelbulbs with Chaos in between
October 30, 2013
The report is that the NSA eavesdropped on the papal election. That they may have done so does not surprise. But if they did they must have had some purpose – one presumes. And what other purpose could there be except to either influence the election itself, or to gain influence over whoever was elected pope?
Were the US cardinals privy to the bugging by the NSA? Were they perhaps getting secret text messages from the NSA as to how the election was progressing? Perhaps they were even getting instructions. How heavy was the betting on the outcome of the election? Any possibilities of spot-fixing? The Sistine Chapel is supposed to have the means to scramble all mobile signals but getting past these ought to be child’s play for the NSA.
The possibilities are endless. It has all the makings of a wonderful conspiracy theory. Maybe even another book by Dan Brown? Perhaps the NSA can even listen in on Pope Francis using his hotline to his Superior.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were true?
I shall be following Papal pronouncements with great interest to see how closely Pope Francis follows a pro-US line!!!!!!!!!
RawStory:
US secret services allegedly eavesdropped on cardinals before the conclave in March to elect a new pope, Italian weekly magazine Panorama claimed Wednesday.
“The National Security Agency wiretapped the pope,” the magazine said, accusing the United States of listening in to telephone calls to and from the Vatican, including the accommodation housing cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio before he was elected Pope Francis.
The allegations follow a report on surveillance website Cryptome which said the United States intercepted 46 million telephone calls in Italy in December 2012 and early January 2013.
Among those, “there are apparently also calls from and to the Vatican,” Panorama said.
“It is feared that the great American ear continued to tap prelates’ conversations up to the eve of the conclave,” it said, adding that there were “suspicions that the conversations of the future pope may have been monitored”.
Bergoglio “had been a person of interest to the American secret services since 2005, according to Wikileaks,” it said.
The bugged conversations were divided into four categories: “leadership intentions”, “threats to financial systems”, “foreign policy objectives” and “human rights,” it claimed.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said “we have heard nothing of this and are not worried about it.”
Tags: Bugging, conspiracy theory, Holy See, National Security Agency, Papal Election, Pope Francis, United States, Vatican
Posted in Behaviour, Election fraud, Religion, US | Comments Off on Why bug the papal election if not to influence the election – or the next Pope?
October 30, 2013
Of course it is another paper demonstrating great insight into human behaviour with far reaching conclusions. Needless to say it is a hypothesis dreamed up by social psychologists.
Is it good science? Unlikely. Is it trivial? Undoubtedly. Does it provide real empirical data? Yes. Is it relevant? Hardly.
Is it even science?
Maryam Kouchaki and Isaac H. Smith, The Morning Morality Effect: The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior, Psychological Science, October 28, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0956797613498099
Kouchacki is a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University and completed her doctoral studies at the University of Utah, where Smith is a current doctoral student. Kouchaki has been involved with a previous “priming” study about the effect of thinking about money on morality. And as is now well known, most “priming” studies are highly suspect.
It is not for nothing that the the APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology.
The authors conducted experiments on college-age participants and on a sample of on-line participants:
- … college-age participants were shown various patterns of dots on a computer. For each pattern, they were asked to identify whether more dots were displayed on the left or right side of the screen. Importantly, participants were not given money for getting correct answers, but were instead given money based on which side of the screen they determined had more dots; they were paid 10 times the amount for selecting the right over the left. Participants therefore had a financial incentive to select the right, even if there were unmistakably more dots on the left, which would be a case of clear cheating.
- … also tested participants’ moral awareness in both the morning and afternoon by presenting them with word fragments such as “_ _RAL” and “E_ _ _ C_ _”
Their results showed that in line with their hypothesis, participants tested between 8:00 am and 12:00 pm were less likely to cheat than those tested between 12:00 pm and 6:00pm — a phenomenon the researchers call the “morning morality effect.” In the second experiment morning participants were more likely to form the words “moral” and “ethical,” whereas the afternoon participants tended to form the words “coral” and “effects,” lending further support to the morning morality effect.
Clearly the arduous field-work consisted of wandering around their dangerous college campus(es) soliciting subjects and then spending many long-nights on-line to get their “on-line” sample.
…. both undergraduate students and a sample of U.S. adults engaged in less unethical behavior (e.g., less lying and cheating) on tasks performed in the morning than on the same tasks performed in the afternoon. This morning morality effect was mediated by decreases in moral awareness and self-control in the afternoon. Furthermore, the effect of time of day on unethical behavior was found to be stronger for people with a lower propensity to morally disengage. These findings highlight a simple yet pervasive factor (i.e., the time of day) that has important implications for moral behavior.
Presumably a good afternoon nap could restore our moral behaviour in the evenings?
It seems to me that the hypothesis has been designed/invented primarily to grab headlines and to ensure publication.
Tags: Behavior, ethics, Isaac H. Smith, Maryam Kouchaki, Morality, Psychological Science
Posted in Behaviour, psychology, Social Science | Comments Off on Moral in the morning, lying in the evening, cheating by suppertime…
October 29, 2013
It may be the 21st century but what passes for civilised behaviour is still in the mind.
And this – in my mind – does not pass the test.
Barbarism is alive and well.
Of course, just banning such events is not a sustainable answer. That will only come when the behaviour of humans becomes civilised – and then any ban will no longer be necessary.
People watch horses fight during a traditional local event held by the Miao ethnic minority in Rongshui county, Liuzhou, Guangxi ethnic Zhuang autonomous region, China October 26, 2013. Horse fighting is a 500-year-old custom for the Miao people.
REUTERS/Stringer
Horse fighting has now been outlawed almost worldwide. It still thrives, however, in countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, China and South Korea.
To start the competition, two stallions are brought in. A mare in heat is then presented to them and removed. The horses who do not immediately go into battle for the mare are whipped into a fury or gunshots are fired to incite them through fear.
Countries staging horse fights defend it as a cultural tradition that has gone on for hundreds of years, and resist any attempts to ban it. Gambling appears to be the real and primary reason for its continued existence.
Tags: barbarism, betting, China, Horse fighting
Posted in Animals, Behaviour, Ethics, Humans | 1 Comment »
October 29, 2013
The bushfires in New South Wales seem – after great efforts by the fire services – to be under control. No doubt some rain has helped.
Of course some of the great unwashed immediately blamed “global warming”. The self proclaimed – and now self-employed – “Climate Council” was of course leading the charge. Tony Abbott called their claims “hogwash” but he was being rather polite. The bushfires are an annual event every spring and have occurred every year for at least the last 200 years. It may well be something that has ocurred annually for over 10,000 years.
It now transpires that in addition to natural causes, many of the fires were caused by accidents (the army’s exercises and power lines) and some were caused by juvenile delinquents – some as young as 8 years old! It could be that the power lines initiated this latest outbreak.
The Climate Council is drowning in its own self-importance and is indeed replete with hogwash – and much of that is intentional.
-
The Rural Fire Service said an investigation had found a Department of Defence training exercise last week was responsible for the fire, west of the Blue Mountains, but the department said last night that there was still no definitive evidence that defence personnel had inadvertently started the blaze.
“The investigation has concluded the fire started as a result of exploding ordnances on the range on (last) Wednesday,” a RFS spokesman said.
- POLICE detained two eight-year-old boys near East Maitland on the NSW North Coast last night after they were found trying to start a fire.Officers found the boys trying to use a lighter to set fire to dried leaves and grass on vacant land near Quarry St around 6:30pm AEST. A concerned resident called police to the scene and the lighter was later found to be “inoperable”, the law enforcement agency said in a statement.
No charges were laid because of their age.
- AFTER one night in custody, the 11-year-old boy accused of lighting a 5000ha Hunter Valley bushfire walked free from court yesterday, flipping the bird to media waiting outside. …. The boy pleaded not guilty in Newcastle Children’s Court to two counts of starting a bushfire and recklessly causing its spread – a charge that carries a maximum sentence of two years’ detention for minors. But conviction records from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Records show just one offender aged under 18 has ended up in detention for the offence in the past three years. The 11-year-old accused of lighting the October 13 Heatherbrae fire allegedly started another blaze earlier that day in the nearby suburb of Raymond Terrace.
- Bushfire risks posed by powerline failures are in the spotlight following last week’s crisis in New South Wales, …… In the wake of the NSW bushfire crisis, Four Corners has examined almost four decades worth of evidence into the cause and impact of major bushfires. Some of the most catastrophic bushfires in Australia’s history have been started by powerline failure. It is believed the most devastating fires in NSW last week began as a result of damaged powerlines. In Victoria’s Murrindindi fire in 2009, which led to 40 deaths on Black Saturday, police initially focused their investigation on an alleged arsonist. However, after abandoning that line of inquiry, a case is now being made that a fallen powerline ignited the blaze. Law firm Maurice Blackburn is representing victims of the Murrindindi fire in a class action against power company SP Ausnet. The company rejects accusations its wire caused the fire. If proven, it means 93 per cent of the deaths on Black Saturday – Australia’s worst bushfire disaster – were caused by fires started by powerlines. ….. The issue of powerlines has not been at the centre of public debate. The program also found power companies have known since 1974 that their lines can cause fires. …… The Rural Fire Service, however, has said it believes fires in Salt Ash, Mount Victoria and Springwood were started by powerlines. Together, these fires destroyed 204 homes and damaged 110.
Tags: arson, Bushfires in Australia, Department of Defence, global warming, New South Wales, NSW, power lines, Tony Abbott
Posted in Alarmism, Australia, Climate, Natural Phenomena, Weather | 1 Comment »
October 29, 2013
When one is President (or a CEO or a General), there are some “unacceptable” activities and behaviours that your organisation indulges in that it is better not to know. This is a delicate skill that is not easily learned. To know, but not to be seen to know. To be informed but to avoid being told what you don’t wish to know. So that ignorance always remains as a defence if the “unacceptable” action or behaviour is ever revealed.
“Don’t ask, don’t be told”.
I don’t usually expect the Washington Post to be overly critical of a sitting Democratic President. But Obama’s apparent ignorance of what is done by his administration is getting embarrassing. A couple of articles in the Washington Post by Dana Millbank and Jennifer Rubin take Obama to task.
Jennifer Rubin: The list is growing every week: The IRS scandal, the deteriorating security situation in Libya, spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, spying on journalists and the Obamacare mess. Those are just a few of the things we have been told at one time or another that President Obama he didn’t know about before learning about them in the media. Note to media: You have a critical job in briefing the president, so err on side of over-inclusion.
Then there are the things he had wrong or knew better but said anyway: There is a fatwa in Iran against nuclear weapons, “You will get to keep your health-care plan,” the Benghazi attack was related to an anti- Muslim video, and no predecessor had been compelled to negotiate a budget deal in the context of a potential government shutdown.
This prompts several questions: Who is running the government? Why is the president content not to know so many things? At this point one has to conclude he is intentionally ignorant. …….
….. The list goes on. You would think the president at some point would be embarrassed to be the least-informed man in Washington, D.C.
Dana Millbank: For a smart man, President Obama professes to know very little about a great number of things going on in his administration.
On Sunday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that he didn’t learn until this summer that the National Security Agency had been bugging the phones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders for nearly five years.
That followed by a few days a claim by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that Obama didn’t know about problems with the HealthCare.gov Web site before the rest of the world learned of them after the Oct. 1 launch.
It stretches credulity to think that the United States was spying on world leaders without the president’s knowledge, or that he was blissfully unaware of huge technical problems that threatened to undermine his main legislative achievement. But on issues including the IRS targeting flap and the Justice Department’s use of subpoenas against reporters, White House officials have frequently given a variation on this theme.
Question: What did Obama know and when did he know it?
Answer: Not much, and about a minute ago…….
Some might argue that this is not a “leadership” style but an abdication of leadership.
Tags: Barack Obama, Don't ask don't be told, leadership style, National Security Agency, United States
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, US | Comments Off on Obama’s leadership style is one of “Don’t ask, don’t be told”!
October 28, 2013
Tags: No Drive, No woman, Saudi Arabia
Posted in Saudi Arabia | Comments Off on No Woman, No Drive
October 28, 2013
I have been of the opinion for some time now that the current Landscheidt Minimum that we are in has a reasonable probability of reaching Dalton Minimum conditions and even developing into a Maunder-like minimum. The Landscheidt Minimum has yet to be officially named. It seems increasingly probable that we are in for some 20 – 30 years of global cooling. This has not been the view of the global warming enthusiasts who don’t much believe in the Sun. But now some heavy-weight opinions are also giving more credence to the possibility of a Maunder-like Minimum. We have currently reached solar maximum in Solar Cycle 24 and SC24 and the coming SC25 are comparable to SC’s 4,5 and 6 which corresponded with the Dalton Minimum. Note that the numbering system for Solar Cycles only starts after the Maunder Minimum.
Paul Hudson has been talking to Professor Mike Lockwood:
It’s known by climatologists as the ‘Little Ice Age’, a period in the 1600s when harsh winters across the UK and Europe were often severe. The severe cold went hand in hand with an exceptionally inactive sun, and was called the Maunder solar minimum.
Now a leading scientist from Reading University has told me that the current rate of decline in solar activity is such that there’s a real risk of seeing a return of such conditions. I’ve been to see Professor Mike Lockwood to take a look at the work he has been conducting into the possible link between solar activity and climate patterns.
According to Professor Lockwood the late 20th century was a period when the sun was unusually active and a so called ‘grand maximum’ occurred around 1985. Since then the sun has been getting quieter. By looking back at certain isotopes in ice cores, he has been able to determine how active the sun has been over thousands of years.
Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years. He found 24 different occasions in the last 10,000 years when the sun was in exactly the same state as it is now – and the present decline is faster than any of those 24. Based on his findings he’s raised the risk of a new Maunder minimum from less than 10% just a few years ago to 25-30%. And a repeat of the Dalton solar minimum which occurred in the early 1800s, which also had its fair share of cold winters and poor summers, is, according to him, ‘more likely than not’ to happen. He believes that we are already beginning to see a change in our climate – witness the colder winters and poor summers of recent years – and that over the next few decades there could be a slide to a new Maunder minimum.
It’s worth stressing that not every winter would be severe; nor would every summer be poor. But harsh winters and unsettled summers would become more frequent.
Professor Lockwood doesn’t hold back in his description of the potential impacts such a scenario would have in the UK. He says such a change to our climate could have profound implications for energy policy and our transport infrastructure. Although the biggest impact of such solar driven change would be regional, like here in the UK and across Europe, there would be global implications too. ………
Recent solar activity (Wikipedia) showing the Maunder and Dalton minima
Tags: Dalton minimum, global cooling, Landscheidt Minimum, Little Ice Age, Maunder Minimum, Mike Lockwood, SC24, solar cycle, solar effects
Posted in Climate, Solar science | 1 Comment »
October 28, 2013
Well the St. Jude’s storm came and it is going. It will be gone in about 3 hours.
Some people apparently noticed it.
There has been more disruption by precautionary measures than by the storm itself. “Precautionary” measures have included cancellation of trains and planes and buses. Some consumers had their electricity turned off in areas where damage was possible. It was going to be the greatest storm since 1987!
The reality is just sinking in. Leaves have been blown down. They have been blowing about chaotically. Waves have crashed on to land in several coastal areas. They could be seen reaching the shore in Brighton. In the worst hit areas some twigs were violently torn of the trees and blown several feet away. Flags flapped ominously outside Broadcasting House where the intrepid BBC Radio reporter braved the storm of the century. The wind was clearly audible. It may not have been raining but our reporter could only see a very few patches of blue sky.
The Met Office spokesman is on air just now explaining – defending – the alarmism. He admitted that this was not a hurricane but they never said it was going to be one. And in any event, even if the storm would pass the UK within about 3 hours it could cause great damage in Denmark and the Netherlands and northern Germany!
Ripples in a tea-cup. A listener has just complained that he does not really need the mighty BBC news machine to inform him that flags can flap in the wind.
This comment from a Guardian reader just about sums it up:
flaviaforbes
Looking outside my bedroom window here in Birmingham I can hardly believe the scale of the destruction. At least 5 wet, shattered, leaves, are lying haphazardly across my back garden, creating a biblical scene of leaf-chaos. At the front of the house, last nights gale has wrenched a Lidl plastic bag and a Twix wrapper from their usual resting places in the gutter, and they now lie, a full four feet away, against my door step. And dont get me started on the rain! There’s enough water on the windscreen of my car to necessitate me using the wipers at least once to clear it.
Its a sobering reminder what nature is capable of. Thank God we were warned.
Tags: Alarmism, Flavia Forbes, Great Storm of 1987, Met Office, St. Jude's storm, stormy weather
Posted in Alarmism, UK, Weather | Comments Off on UK maintains a stiff upper lip as the great St. Jude’s storm drizzles past
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