NC Media Watch

First they went after your car, now your lunch and dinner are on the menu

Russ Steele

Consider this from the UK Guardian:

Meat must be rationed to four portions a week, says report on climate change

• Study looks at food impact on greenhouse gases

• Return to old-fashioned cooking habits urged

People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns.

The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially "low nutritional value" treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.

It urges people to return to habits their mothers or grandmothers would have been familiar with: buying locally in-season products, cooking in bulk and in pots with lids or pressure cookers, avoiding waste and walking to the shops - alongside more modern tips such as using the microwave and internet shopping.

A Black Swan in the financial market disaster

Russ Steele

I am re-reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former market trader. Taleb's distain for unusual statistical methods, like those being used to justify hockey sticks, the icons for global warming, generated interest in Taleb's work at Climate Audit. As one might expect,the current banking also crisis crept into the discussion, as it was caused by another misuse of statistics.

Last night while reading the Black Swan and listening to the TV news about our current economic crisis, I came across this at the bottom of page 226, which was published in 2007, written well before the current crisis.

As if we did not have enough problems banks are now more vulnerable to the Black Swan and ludic fallacy than ever before with "scientists" among their staff taking care off exposures. The giant firm J.P. Morgan put the entire world at risk by introducing in the nineties RiskMetrics, a phony method aimed at managing people's risk . . . and related methods called "Value-at-risk" . . .  The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely."

Well that highly unlikely event happened. All the risk management in the world did not prevent a Black Swan event from bring our financial markets to the brink of disaster.

Seven day weather forecast: Rain

Russ Steele

I like to do some of my own weather analysis, and tonight I checked the Unisys models and it shows some rain in the seven day forecast. As you can see from the scale at the bottom of the graphic not much, but the first rain of the season is always a big deal. I will update as the week progresses.

Ah those Alaskan trouble makers

Russ Steele

First it was Sarah Palin saying the she thought that human caused global warming is still an open issue and more study was needed for proof. Now it is Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former director of the Geophysical Institute and the International Arctic Research Center, who is reporting that global warming has paused and the pause started about 2000.  So those who live in Alaska, including Sarah Palin, know more about the climate than McCain, Biden and Obama. These three clueless politician all claiming they are going to fix global warming. Well they better hurry up as Mother Nature is taking care of the problem. It will be all over by the end to the next Presidential term, and in 2012  President Palin can declare that the global warming hoax is over. In the Fairbanks News-Miner, 27 September, 2008, Akasofu writes:

Recent studies by the Hadley Climate Research Center (UK), the Japan Meteorological Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Alabama Huntsville show clearly that the rising trend of global average temperature stopped in 2000-2001. Further, NASA data shows that warming in the southern hemisphere has stopped, and that ocean temperatures also have stopped rising.

Getting a handle on the sub-prime bailout issues

Russ Steele

I have been struggling to understand the need for a bailout and what caused the problem in the first place. This video from the PoliPindit gets to the root of the sub-prime loan problem, bad government regulations and self serving politicians. See for your self:

Our State Senator is a top gas guzzler

Russ Steele

This from the Bee Capital Alert:

Here are the top five gas guzzlers in 2008, through July, according to the AP:
- Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-Pleasanton, $5,139.84
- Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, $5,135.37
- Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, $4,612.95
- Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Tracy, $4551.89
- Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, $4,336.99

Let's see seven months, that would be about $620 per month. At average of $4.00 gallon, that is 155 gallons. Lets assume that he gets 19 miles per gallon in his SUV, that is 2,950 miles per month. At an average speed of 60 miles of hour, he spends 49 hours a month in his SUV. If he works 60 hours a week (10 hours a day/six days a week) he works 240 hours a month. Senator Sam spends 20 percent of his working hours in his SUV. Sam serves a 12-county district, that is about 246 miles per county/per month, or about 10 miles a day per county if he works six days a week. Thought you would like to know.   

The quiet Sun

Russ Steele

Insight worth sharing, pay attention please and ask yourself how does this information applies to our situation in California, especially the part about the Green hypocrisy. 

The debate continues over what the effect of known changes in the Sun's activity have on the Earth. As the primary source of heat and light and energy, it sustains life on the planet, and variations in its output can be expected to influence climate in significant ways. A common example of this is the 11- and 22-year cycles of sunspot activity, during which the number of dark visible spots on the Sun's surface varies between maximum and minimum values (which are different for each cycle). Higher numbers of sunspots are evidence of a more active Sun.

Economists have recognised for many years (from at least Adam Smith's time) that there is a link between sunspot activity and crop yields, having seen that wheat prices rose at times of low activity (the quiet Sun). And when there are a number of years of low activity, the effect on weather patterns can be very significant significant. The best known example of this is the so-called Maunder minimum. From 1645 to about 1715, very few sunspots appeared (only about 0.1% of the normally expected number). This lack of solar activity coincided with the Little Ice Age, when there are well-documented accounts of cool summers and bitterly cold winters afflicting the northern hemisphere.

Gore hot air and a cooling earth

Russ Steele

Watts Up With That has an Investors Business Daily Editorial on Al Gore hot air, quiet sun and a cooling earth. We have divergence, Al Gore thinks the earth is warming and the temperature record says it is not. Who are we to believe, the facts or the hot air.

Will the Gov talk about his lack of global warming clothes?(Updated)

Russ Steele

This from the Sac Bee Capitol Alert this morning.

Schwarzenegger will be in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club to talk about climate change during the day.

If he does not talk about how global warming temperatures are NOT following the computer models he uses to justify greenhouse gas regulation the Gov is truly naked.

Thanks to Warren Meyer, the Climate Skeptic for this graphic taken from his RCRC presentation.

Update #1: From the Gov's speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco today. "We've reached a tipping point on the environment, and two years after I signed our ambitious global warming law, California is now at the forefront of the fight against climate change," Governor Schwarzenegger said. "We are not waiting for the federal government to get going but are working to lay the groundwork for an eventual national climate change program. The truth is there is far more economic opportunity in fighting global warming than there is economic risk."

I hope the Governor is not using the same risk managers that Wall Street, Fanny May and Freddy Mac were using.  Climate Audit has some thought on risk management by Nassim Taleb, who wrote the Black Swan, and examination of risk analysis. The Governor night want to consider where the Black Swan is hiding in his risk management assessment of the global warming economy.

Link to  Press Release on this remarks at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco today.

RCRC Climate Change presentation recap: "What do we do now?"(Updated)

Russ Steele

I was looking forward to the RCRC discussion on Climate Change Facts and Questions: Perspectives on the Policy and Science of Global Warming by Joe Nation and Warren Meyer. It was long day with a two hour drive from my house to South Lake Tahoe and another two hours home. One side benefit was an opportunity take a picture of the surface station at the Glenbrook Fire Station. This station did not see the same temperature rise as the Tahoe City station, yet they are just across the lake from each other. More the station in future post. Now on to analysis of the presentation.