Tag Archives: climate

Freeze the North Pole

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…or keep it frozen.  Or add more ice to it.  Or something.

Here’s an idea:

A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change.
The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

And they won a consolation prize for that.  After all, as Kotahatuhaha said,

The main goal of this idea is to restore the polar ecosystem, which has a direct effect on the balance of the global climate[.]

And here’s some of the “engineering” by which the polar ice caps and their ecosystems would be saved [emphasis added]:

The submarine-like vessel would submerge to collect sea water in a central hexagonal tank. Turbines would then be used to blast the tank with cold air and accelerate the freezing process.
… A system of reverse osmosis would be used to filter some of the salt from the water in order to speed up the process.

Eric Warrell, over at Watts Up With That?, had some thoughts on this…scheme.

There is a slight flaw with this idea.
Refrigeration, reverse osmosis, pumping heat, all takes a lot of work. Both the latent heat of fusion extracted from the water to turn it into ice and the waste heat from the freezing process will have to be dumped somewhere.
If they dump the waste heat into the Arctic ocean, or the air, it will probably melt the ice their submarine just finished freezing.

And I have a couple thoughts on Kotahatuhaha’s…scheme.

All that melting fresh-watered-up ice restores the polar salt water ecosystem how, exactly?

All that heat (lots of it from a project of this scale) injected into the ocean, or worse, into the atmosphere, slows the warming of our atmosphere and our climate how, exactly?

Wait—I have an idea.  Recall all those efforts to capture and sequester atmospheric CO2 in holes in the ground, perhaps salt caves (known for their geologic stability) or holes drilled for the purpose: pump all that waste heat into those holes, too.  After all, that’s what heat pumps do—move heat from here to there.

And: think of all the green jobs and all the out-of-work elves who are between seasons.

And: think of all the starving children in Bangladesh and all the food these large-screen refrigerators could preserve and keep safe for them.

Engineers? Got their degrees from the College of Cracker Jack, did they?

Green Cow Gas

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…or something.  The Wall Street Journal opined Monday on the alleged hypocrisy of California’s Progressive-Democrats on the matter of going carbon-neutral in a shade over a decade.

California has plowed billions of dollars into green energy to wean the state off fossil fuels. But now progressives are complaining that biofuel producers are milking government subsidies intended to help dairy farmers cut emissions. Here is another illustration of the left’s anti-carbon contradictions.

The Editors went on in that vein, describing those Progressive-Democrats’ dismay over two companies thoroughly dominating the cow manure and flatulence emissions carbon credits market, even taking advantage of California’s laws governing those emissions.

The Editors closed with this gem regarding those Progressive-Democrat greens:

California dairies have been shrinking due to the high costs of complying with environmental regulation and water restrictions. By subsidizing methane digesters, the state intended to prevent more dairy farmers from leaving the state for less green pastures. But green groups now say the subsidies will encourage farmers to increase their herds, which could cause more water and air pollution from manure….

I have to ask, then: haven’t these editors (and other critics) heard? Sniffing methane develops magical thinking powers.

Much Ado About Another Nothing

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The claim, now, is that atmospheric CO2 has reached 415 parts per million (ppm), according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

That is, as the panicky scream goes, the highest level ever in human history.

And

Earth science analyses show that the atmosphere last contained this much CO2 some three million years ago, when global sea levels were higher and parts of Antarctica were blanketed in forest.

There’s a hint there regarding the lushness of life on Earth.

Sadly, a couple of things are being ignored by the climatistas.  One is that the only outcome of sea levels being higher is that humans living on the coast will be inconvenienced by having to move inland, neverminding that they’ll be able to continue their coastal lives.

The other thing is that in those 3 million years since, we’ve had a very severe ice age and several 40,000-100,000-year cycles of glaciation, the latest one of which ended only about 10,000 years ago—and we’ve not recovered yet: we’re still a few degrees below the geologic global warming trend line.

But there’s money in that manufactured hysteria.

Cowards

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The Senate voted on the Green New Deal, but the proposal, first offered in the House (and yet to be voted on there), failed a cloture vote to let it come to the floor for discussion, debate, and subsequent vote up or down.

The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance the Green New Deal, the ambitious plan to combat climate change proposed by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after what Democrats said was a politically-motivated show vote.
The measure, which needed 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle, failed in a 0-57 vote, with 43 Democrats voting present.

Those 43 Progressive-Democrat Senators without the courage to vote their convictions included Senator Ed Markey (D, MA), the proposal’s Senate cosponsor, along with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) in the House.  Apparently, the Senate cosponsor isn’t serious about his own proposal.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) demonstrated the fundamental failure of the Progressive-Democratic Party with this rationalization:

[W]e are finally talking about the issue, and that is great….

Well, no, the Senate is not finally talking about the issue; 43 Progressive-Democrat Senators hid under their desks during the vote and called “Present,” deliberately blocking the Senate’s opportunity to talk about the issue.

Senators Joe Manchin (D, WV), Doug Jones (D, AL), Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ), and Angus King (I, ME) were the only Progressive-Democrats with the moral courage to vote for cloture, to vote to allow the Green New Deal to be talked about on the floor of the Senate, in full view of Senators’ constituents.

Thoughts on Climate

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George Melloan had some in a recent Wall Street Journal, and so do I.

Melloan pointed out that the hoi polloi around the world aren’t sold on the climate funding industry’s panicky wailing about atmospheric CO2 and how we have to do something—anything—give money—and how we have to do it Right Damn Now.

Never mind that

Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen posited two immense, complex and turbulent fluids—the oceans and the air in the atmosphere—are in constant reaction with each other and the land, causing what we experience as storms and temperature changes. Variations in the sun’s radiation and the rotation of the planet play parts as well. And yet, he said, climate modelers claim that only one tiny component of this enormous churning mass, CO2, controls the planet’s climate.
This borders on “magical thinking,” he said….

And

According to a NASA satellite survey, the Earth has gotten greener, thanks in large part to a rising concentration of that vital plant food CO2. That means we are able not only to feed an expanded population but give the poorest among us a more nutritious diet.

What the climatistas and their climate funding industry also carefully ignore is the so-what of their claims. Say man-caused effects are potentiating the warming of our planet.  Earth has been warming since it coalesced out of the dust cloud—because the sun has been warming since it ignited. We’re currently a few degrees colder than that geologic warming trend line, courtesy of the just concluded Ice Age; warming will only bring us back to “normal.”  When the planet was warmer than that trend line—including no northern ice cap—life was lush.  As Melloan intimated, when the atmosphere contained more CO2—plant food—than today, life was lush.

All that would happen were the climatistas’ worst panic-mongering to come true is that some humans would be inconvenienced and have to move away from the coasts and off some islands.  Nature doesn’t care very much about our convenience.