Ruminations - 21aug12

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. - John Adams

George Rebane

So where’s all the wildlife? asks a visitor to a local pond and hiking trail here in Nevada County.  Our cartoonist RL ‘Bob’ Crabb drew this little funny filched from the 18aug12 issue of The Union.  And true to Bob’s perspective on the human comedy, the cartoon’s message can be twofold.  First, the guy is a (probably conservative) doofus who expects the place to be still dripping with critters after everyone has started using it as a recreation area – what would you expect?  And then he could be an ecologically sensitive individual expressing his disappointment on the transformation of the formerly uninhabited and wild area before all the humans showed up.

We expect the latter constituency to start demonstrating any day now for the restoration of Hirschman’s Pond to its pre-peopled pristine position as a natural habitat in perfect balance.  No doubt this could be accomplished by a federal grant or two in addition to some more rangers or sheriffs deputies to enforce the ‘Nature Preserve, Entry Forbidden’.  Actually this little nascent swamp was of little use to anyone but mosquitoes before the county (with aid from Ohio) made it accessible to local residents.  And what someone should teach the ecologically sensitive is that nature has many points of balance, none of them lasting too long before the critters pick a new point to balance on.  So suffer the suffering critters to leave the Pond, and enjoy those that remain in the new balance of nature that now includes you.

Obama’s hopeful message on the economy continues to depend on the national horde of the ignorant.  The employment rate includes in the denominator the number of people who still have a hope of finding a job.  As those give up, employment rate goes up, and unemployment rate goes down.  Here is some more data on that.

Actually Obama is a Zero.  So argues Jack Wheeler (here), President Reagan’s cold war strategist.  Wheeler succinctly summarizes –

The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit.  No résumé, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.

He has no real identity.  He is half-white, which he rejects.  The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya.  Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.

What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is "African-American," the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships.  He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave.  Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners.  Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.

Municipal debt defaults have been covered up by no less than our vaunted Fed.  RR readers have known for some years now that these jurisdictions were rushing headlong into a fiscal brick wall.  Remember those intrepid rating agencies – Moody’s and S&P - that didn’t see the subprime mess coming?  Well it turns out that they have also been underreporting municipal bond defaults before finally downrating them.  The New York Fed is blowing the whistle (here), and people are starting to get very concerned, led by no less than Warren Buffett who bailed out billions that Berkshire Hathaway had invested in credit default swaps that insured munis.  The problem of bankrupting cities and towns is a big one as the nearby graphic shows – many private investors have always looked to munis as a secure well paying investment for their retirement portfolios.  The race to the bottom will now accelerate as borrowing costs go sky high for jurisdictions already strapped by public employee pension driven unfunded liabilities.

We’ll end on a higher note and report on the advent of the MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) which are the new format for all kinds of remote and online learning.  My longtime friend Larry Press  has a report on these which are causing a stir among the academics in higher education.  Dr Press, CalState professor of information systems, is an internationally recognized expert on the internet and education technologies.

We all use internet search engines.  Here is a useful MOOC that Google developed to teach people to become ‘power searchers’ on their search engine.  Enjoy.

Comments

[Ryan Mount]

I have activist friends and family in Hawaii who are fighting nativists (not sure what to call them) to restore the Islands back to some frankly arbitrary point in time. Actually there are two groups that are trying to do this in my estimation:

1) Late-arriving "environmentalists" (mostly white people from what I can tell, but that maybe a generalization error) who are fighting an invasive species battle against any number of what they deem as non-native plants and animals.

2) "Locals" (native Hawaiians, who incidentally are not native) who want real estate development scaled back and native hunting rights back.

With regards to #1, said environmental groups, armed with the full-force of the State and Federal Government, have instituted eradication programs with the help of, wait for it, large multinational agri-chemical businesses like Monsanto. Very odd bed fellows.

With regards to group #2, they seem at odds with number one because #1 wants to get rid of "imported" wild life such as feral pigs, and important plant food products. The Government, with the aid of adjunct environmental groups, seem to arbitrarily pick and choose which plants and animals to destroy.

So my above friends and family, who I think most would regard as radical leftists, suddenly find themselves in cahoots with the conservative Hawaiian locals in dubious battle with "Leftish" environmental groups, the government and large corporate chemical manufacturers. You can imagine how tough a battle like that might be.

Related to your other thread George, these new Leftish organization seem to operate on a set of whimsical assumptions about what is good for the Islands. Again, the ends justify the means for these folks. And when put to the test, in front of a judge during a lawsuit, the their assumptions play out more like a political agenda, than say, science and study.

[TomKenworth]

How about the wildlife in Spain?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/us-spain-protests-idUSBRE87E08S20120815

"here it comes"

~Mick Jagger~

[Earl Crabb]

When I saw the neighbors' outrage at the desecration of Hirshman's, it made me remember an incident a few years ago in my "backyard", and thus inspired my cartoon...
You may recall there was a plan to blaze the Wolf Creek Parkway in Grass Valley back when money flowed like the waters of our babbling brook. A meeting was called at Condon Park's Love Center to see what residents wanted to do with that narrow piece of land between the freeway and the creek. A handful of women showed up, along with me and the wife. We were split into work groups to plot our fantasy trail. I mentioned to the hippie girl in our group that I wasn't thrilled about the idea. One small corner of our land facing the creek was the only spot left where we had any privacy without some geek a'gawkin' at us.
"So what?" she hissed. "It's not like you're going to run around naked out there!"
Well, maybe I do. It is, after all, my property. I cordoned it off with lattice and vines just so I wouldn't have to look at someone looking back at me every time I went outside. I also enjoyed seeing the blue herons every year, and sometimes the occasional deer in the wooded area. I knew once the dogs arrived I'd never see them again.
At the conclusion of the work group part of the meeting everyone submitted their ideas. There were plans for a suspension bridge over the creek, cantalevered trails where there were narrow areas, lights for nighttime safety. It was amazing how the imagination runs wild when money is no object.
I asked the facilitator if there was any money in the pot for this fiasco. No, he said. At this point it was all a pipe dream.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but planted a row of English laurels facing the creek, just in case some philantropist or state agency coughed up the cash. Then the Great Recession came along and settled the matter, at least for a few years. By that time, my laurels should be twenty feet tall.
In the meantime, the herons and I are thankful, and naked if we want to be.

[Ryan Mount]

"He[Mayor Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo] plans to tell mayors to skip debt payments, stop layoffs, cease home evictions and ignore central government demands for budget cuts, a message that infuriates Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government as it tries to convince investors in Spanish bonds that he can fix the battered economy."

Good luck with that. That oughta help with the bond returns as Spain slides into a Iberian Weimar Republic. It's almost like we've been here before...Popular Front vs. Franco. Franco 1, Popular Front shot dead.

How would this neo-Popular Front strategy help Hirschman’s Pond? I guess activists could storm SPD or B&C for landscaping supplies and then march up 49.

My question is who gets to play Mayor Gordillo and stand out side while his minions ran-sack our local retail outlets? Who gets to play the role of Franco?

[George Rebane]

RyanM 135pm - Franco the neo-fascist gave Spain some years of stability at the cost of individual liberties, and saved Spain from becoming an extremely critically placed USSR client. The latter would have put post-WW2 free Europe into a totalitarian vise, and given Stalin warm water ports galore to control the Mediterranean and challenge our dominance in the Atlantic. Soviet missile subs would have been very hard to stop, since they would not have had to transit the well defended GIUK gap. The next dominoes to fall would have been Italy and France.

In the broader sense, Franco was one of the contributors to world peace and Spain's soft landing after he died. But then the socialists took over and the country went down the tubes anyway.

[Ryan Mount]

> extremely critically placed USSR client.

That's correct. The USSR sponsored the Popular Front. The Anarchists didn't want anyone's help, but Franco shot them anyway as they were busy voting on their every next move. (It's almost like Monty Python's Holy Grail)

Not sure Franco's peace was worth the cost. But that's history now and he's dead. Will it repeat? My snarky comments were directed at Doug's celebration of modern Spanish Anarchists/Communists and how that might apply to our Nevada County problems. Just trying to tie the threads together. That'll teach me.

Anyhow, certainly my Spanish friends (actually their parents who were political targets of Franco and exiles) have a different interpretation of Franco's rule.

[George Rebane]

re TomK 1250pm - This is a typical short-sighted response with which the left panders any disaffected constituency when there is a problem - especially one of the distribution of food, medicine, fuel, ... . You initiate a vigilante response and grab it by force from the nearest outlets. This makes you an instant hero to the doofus parade, who are then surprised why on the next day there is no more of the stolen stuff available.

The government can do the same thing by price controls which is another form of robbing private property. The price controlled stuff becomes unavailable in normal channels, and you have to pay more for it in black markets than you did when they were normally available.

In the USSR, these shortages in stores generated very long lines of frustrated consumers who wasted untold millions upon millions of man-hours queing up for shoddy products in short supply. All due to central planning that our liberal friends and neighbors right here in River City are trying to get going for us.

[TomKenworth]

Twasn't celebrating, merely observing and calling it to your attentions.

As for me, I can't afford the plane fare, so my plunges will be into the Middle Yuba, rather than Galilee.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/keachie/7757125942/in/photostream/lightbox/

Never let a day go by without at least one non sequitur.

[Ryan Mount]

Doug, my bad for assuming you were celebrating. Please accept my apologies there.

But I think you've tapped into George's great divide with a very specific example. Reminds me of Steinbeck (man we could use another tough American like him again):

[paraphrasing] When the people don't get what they need, they take what they want.

[billy T]

I was going to comment on the potential affect of Moody's possibly lumping of all California cities and school districts together and rate them collectively as financial crisis status. Ah, forget that noise. I wonder when they will restore salmon to Hirschman's pond. Maybe they can find some Maidu and herd them over there. Personally, I stay away from the Pond. Last time I was there I found an illegal grow behind some brush complete with some old tortilla wrappers and even spotted a couple of old hippy nature lovers naked as a a jaybird sunning themselves. Well, at least the racoons enjoyed the view, but they have small craniums.

[Account Deleted]

"When the people don't get what they need, they take what they want." This applies to the wealthy as well.
Witness the growing interest in local govts using eminent domain to seize mortgages and paying below value to enrich Willie Brown and other wealthy swells. Poor Willie and his Demo pals can't get a decent return on their money, so they turn (where else) to the govt to do their dirty work and the local left are all in for this newest govt swindle of private money. They'll get much more (reports are close to 20% returns) than any stupid left-wing robin hood.

[TomKenworth]

Didn't realize Brown was still around, he's 78. In 2009, Brown is defending general construction contractor Monica Ung, 49 of Alamo, California. Accused of flouting labor laws and defrauding immigrant construction workers of their wages from laboring on Oakland municipal construction projects, Ung was arraigned for dozens of felony fraud charges on 24 August 2009 in Alameda County Superior Court. Brown's decision to defend Ung angered many in the East Bay's labor community.[65]

[Account Deleted]

TommyKenWorthwess - could you possibly comment on why the wealthy left use the govt to steal from the middle class?

[Ian Random]

That cartoon reminds me of some OPB Plus shows. A bunch of people are naively working with environmentalists to make sure everyone's interests are represented in bringing forest service interest to some wildlife areas. All I'm thinking, let's see how many years before motorized, then horses and lastly people are banned from the area. Lars often jokes that someday we will only be allowed in the forest while wearing clean suits and I can't find any examples that disagree with him. The restrictions always ratchet up, never down.

[Ryan Mount]

"Where man is not, nature is barren." ~ William Blake

Ian-

This seems to dovetail with my Hawaii comments above. The government hates people. There are 4 specific invasive species + lawsuits I had a chance to review during a trip this past summer. Generally speaking, my activist family and friends see the Government and its NGO agencies as misanthropic, sorta. So you get attempts to eliminate feral pigs, goats and deer, protein food sources for the Hawaiians, so you can presumably force them into the grocery store with food stamps. Why, because they get labeled as invasive. Again, we categorize to our peril.

It is also clear that there are other specious (there's a pun in there somewhere) justifications for exterminating certain plants. I most recent controversy erupted on the Big Island over Indonesian Mangroves.

The government, with the help of a ton of graduate students, poisoned acres and acres of Mangroves. Why? Because they were non-native. No, they used the scare tactic: invasive species. Yikes! run to the hills! Send in the government and their lackies. Also note, there is heavy influence by large corporate agri and chemical businesses (Dole, Monsanto, etc).

Where they hurting anything? No, other than the ocean view some (I said some) property owners. They had thrived because they were filtering egress water systems that were polluted by the same home developments (they use cesspools in Hawaii for sewage, and simply flush their toilets down into the lava rock, which drains out into the ocean.) The mangroves had also provided a thriving ecosystem for other plant and animal life as well as an effective filtering system for sewage.

There are other examples like the Strawberry Guava plant and the loud, but harmless Coquí frog.

[TomKenworth]

I addressed something to the "higher muledeer," and it got censored, yet he can go worthless with no problems? Or was this just a glitch?

Of interest: http://www.examiner.com/article/secretive-group-expands-role-cybermonitoring

[Earl Crabb]

Long ago some enterprising fellows introduced the mongoose to the islands, thinking they would take care of the growing rat infestation, another invasive species. Unfortunately, the mongoose is a day person and the rats like the nightlife. So the mongeese (?) end up eating bird eggs, wiping out some unique native species. I also saw a Nova program that showed enviros chasing yellowjackets on the Big Island. Don't know what the wasps do to the environment, other than to ruin a good picnic. I've been fighting them for decades without much luck.

[George Rebane]

TomK 849am - No "higher muledeer" comment received nor censored.

[Ryan Mount]

Hopefully I'm not hijacking this thread. My apologies, however I see it as relevant.

Mr. Crabb-

In the case of the Coquí frog on the Big Island, it posed no threat other than being loud. In fact, it turns out that the Coquí loves to eat Mosquitos.

The government tried to exterminate them using a variety shotgun-killing-fly methods like spraying acres via helicopter with Citric acid. They tried burning. They even employed people to hand-pick the frogs off the trees. Each time the frog came back with a proverbial middle finger pointed at our efforts.

And then talk about property rights. How would any of us feel if a hoard of government workers showed up on our properties in Hazmat suits in search of a harmless frog? It would be funny if it weren't so scary.

In the end it's about management of these introduced species, not extermination. They're thriving for a reason: nature wants them to. So rather, as I've pointed out to the anti-invasive species crowd, than burning acres of prime Hawaiian forest or spraying them with Roundup to eradicate the nutritious and frankly delicious Strawberry Guava plant/shrub, how about cutting them back occasionally?

[George Rebane]

RyanM 927am - Hijacking the thread, au contraire Ryan. You are providing cogent and relevant examples of new balance points nature adopts as pointed out in my piece. Nature has no problems with these; it is hubristic Man that seeks to impose on Nature a template that he considers correct.

[Paul Emery]

Of course earth abides. As earthlings living within the umbrella of nature we will indeed make that adjustment to the manifestations of global warming and it may not be pretty.

[Russ Steele]

Paul @ 12:50PM

Paul please explain the global warming shown in this graphic: http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Fig2.2-summer-fixed.gif

Can you please explain why the satellite temperature measurements have not followed the NASA/IPCC climate change models?

Could it be they are measuring the whole globe, land and ocean, not just the Urban Heat Island contaminated NASA/GISS scary high temperature plots.

[Paul Emery]

Russ

You are an articulate messenger opposing the existence of global warming. You do, however represent a small minority of opinion on the matter and it will be a waste of time to confront you on why I feel your opinion is wrong.

However here's a start

http://timeforchange.org/cause-and-effect-for-global-warming

[Russ Steele]

Paul@02:58PM

Paul here this video may help you understand the science, and the reason that the scary CO2 warming does not exist:
http://youtu.be/TjHLWwbN0SM

[Russ Steele]

Paul@02:58PM

You wrote I only represent a small majority opinion. This link will take you to a list of 600 plus scientists who no long support anthropogenic global warming, or never did in the first place. Now let's see your majority list.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport

[billy T]

Concerning the Pond, where are all the white women?

[Russ Steele]

Remembering Hirschman’s Pond.

When I was about 4 soon to be 5 my grandfather Thomas took my brother Bob 3 going on 4 on a fishing trip to Hirschman’s Pond. Grandpa worked as County Road Maintainer in the 1940s and he drove an old Ford Model A Pickup to work. One Saturday he took us in the pickup and we drove as close to the pond as possible and then we got out and walked aways, coming to clearing in the willows growing on the shore of the pond.

Grandpa took our his bone handled pocket knife with a long sharp folding blade. He cut two long willow poles and then reached into his pocket and took out some twine, cut two pieces a little longer than the willow poles, and tied one end to each fishing pole.

Fishing in the breast pocket of his overhauls, be came up with two small safety pins, which he tied to the other end of the twine. From his back pocket of his overhauls he took out a Prince Albert tobacco can. Inside were some worms we had dug up earlier, near the dripping faucet in Grandma's garden. Grandpa dug up clods of grass with a shovel and we beat them on the ground and picked the worms our of the moist dirt under the clods of grass and dropped them in the tobacco tin, which was filled with coffee grounds.

With worms on our safety pin hooks, we dipped them in the warm water of Hirschman’s Pond. I soon got my line tangled in the willows that surround the small opening. While Grandpa was helping me untangle the line my brother Bob caught his first fish. I do not remember what kind of fish it was, other that it was very flat, and about 4 inches long. Sun fish?

I did not catch any fish that day, I was too impatient, pulling my hook out to see if the worm was still there. Bob caught two fish that morning and they were put on a willow stick with a Y at one end to take home to show our mother. Shortly after catching the second fish the meat bees showed up and started buzzing around the dead fish. Bob got scared of the bees, he had recently stepped on one and mom had to pull out the stinger, so we left the pond and the bees behind. From that day forward, my brother Bob was an avid fisherman. Me, I am still to impatient to be a good fisherman.

Someday real soon now I am going take a walk up to Hirschman's Pond. I wonder if there are any fish in the pond?

[Bonnie McGuire]

Bob's cartoon is wonderful! Having lived in Nevada County for 80 years the cartoon also symbolizes what's happened to the entire county when the city folks began swarming here to stake their claim...Just like the song, "One Tin Soldier."

[Gregory]

Paul, there aren't any scientists at http://timeforchange.org, and the numbers they are claiming for temperature and sea level rise are up there with the numbers Gore used that not even NASA GISS or the IPCC are claiming. In short, pure scare tactics.

You've ignored the graphic showing global temps lower than Hansen forecast if his '80's warnings were followed by drastic reductions in CO2 in the '90's ... nice find, Russ :). It was appropriate to ignore him then and it remains appropriate now.

Another interesting graphic is the satellite radiosonde measurements, nicely visible here:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/2012rel4-global-mean-sea-level-time-series-seasonal-signals-removed

If the current rate continues, by the end of the century the seas will have risen about a foot, which is somewhat shy of apocalyptic, but based on the recent and unforecast dips in the rate, I wouldn't bet on sea level rise even being that high.

[George Rebane]

re PaulE's 258pm - A necessary requirement for True Believers that goes beyond the worship of consensus science is that those scientists are not affected by the funding of their commissioned work. They are affected only by the source of that funding - bending data and results for corporate clients, but abiding only in truth and light for government sponsors.

[Gregory]

George, I think the core delusion is that everyone who does not believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is embracing politics or willful ignorance over science, but the ones sounding the alarm are not.

The fact is that most people are ignorant of many of the most basic scientific principles, not to mention probability and formal logic, and choose the authorities their tribe recommends who then tell them what they want to hear. In short, Religion.

[George Rebane]

Gregory 1019am - Agreed - a page out of the RR hymnal.

[TomKenworth]

"The fact is that most people are ignorant of many of the most basic scientific principles, not to mention probability and formal logic, and choose the authorities their tribe recommends who then tell them what they want to hear. In short, Religion."

Certainly true enough of the evangelical right religions that believe prayer moves hurricanes about, and that an evil nation at heart causes soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan. And everything started 6,000 years ago, and God put unlimted hydrocarbons in the ground and gave humans unfettered dominion over them.

BTW, want to feel old? Just saw an exchange between two parties, one obviously young, twenties, and one older, over whether or not Japs was a slur. The Younger one took the term to be "just a simple abbreviation for Japanese."

And older yet, I pointed out to my daughter the new sensor strips in our driveway, similar to the black hoses of older gas stations, and she had no clue of what I was talking. So much for deterring anyone under 40. Must connect up bell and light at strip locations, so that possible unwanteds get the point. Probably have to put in bilingual sign explaining that another bell rings at house, and video rolls.

[George Rebane]

TomK 1049am - It takes less faith to believe that "prayer moves hurricanes about" than to believe that US reduction of carbon emissions will accomplish that. And since many scientists see evidence that the universe may be a running program, how do we know that the whole thing didn't start five minutes ago? Don't know who believes in the "unlimited hydrocarbons" in a finite sized sphere, but I do question what kind fettered "dominion" over such resources you or your government in the sky had in mind, and who (or should I say 'Who') does such fettering of mankind?

[TomKenworth]

George, sometimes you just take me too seriously...

[Gregory]

"evangelical right religion" is yet another BS redirection from TK/Doug Keachie. That old tyme Global Warming religion was the topic, and I think most of the Evangelical Right have a decent enough understanding that their religion is a Religion.

There's a fresh paper linking cold winters with solar cycle minima, one topic Keachie has been doing his best to ridicule for a good five years. From the American Geophysical Union:
"Link found between cold European winters and solar activity"
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2012/2012-39.shtml

[billy T]

Well, if we really want to restore the habitat to the way things were, perhaps someone should crack open the old jug of whale oil and light the streets or at least carry torches for a midnight dip in the pond. Glad California and Obama has put all their eggs in the green jobs arena. Here is what a nasty flat earther has to say about that: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/22/had-green-job/

[TomKenworth]

"one topic Keachie has been doing his best to ridicule for a good five years."

~ Gregory | 23 August 2012 at 04:07 PM~

incorrect, totally incorrect, what I pointed out,over and over again, is that you seem comfortable proclaiming a new Maunder Minimum event starting to take place, and yet you can't tell any better than a preacher what sunspots will appear when. You can track what is happening, but you have no way of knowing whether or not sunspots will appear the next day, or over the next 600 days, other than the repeating 11 year cycle which every Sierra Club member learns as a child when staying at Claire Tappaan Lodge ( just up the road from the Sierra Snow Lab) during the winter.

[Gregory]

"seem comfortable proclaiming a new Maunder Minimum event starting to take place"

You have me confused with Russ S, and no, you have been denigrating the solar connection for years.

By Solanki (no, I won't dig up a link for you *again*) we know the 20th century warming was coincident with a nearly 8000 year solar magnetic maximum, and it doesn't take a grand minimum to take us back to 19th century levels.

The evidence was clear five years ago that the solar magnetic connection was both real and excluded from the computer models annointed by the IPCC, and the evidence has been piling up since. And there now is some good evidence we're on a path past that and down to a Dalton or Maunderish minimums. I don't know of any calculations of the following, but I think it's likely even modern agricultural techniques driven by every bit of carbon fuel we can extract can't support the number of human mouths that need feeding if a grand minimum, with its drastic reduction in the length of growing seasons, is in the foreseeable future.

[TomKenworth]

Without modern fertilizers, I think the maximum carry for the planet is around 1.5 billion. I suspect fishing the equator would increase a thousand fold, leading to the collapse of various species. It would not be pretty. Been a member of ZPG since 1964.

The Central Sierra Snow Lab's chart is now available in glorious technicolor, used to be B&W.

http://www.thestormking.com/Weather/Sierra_Snowfall/sierra_snowfall.html

The solar magnetic connection is not the problem. The probably is that you insist that you are able to predict the path that solar magnetism will follow over the next twenty years, or ten, or even one. Once again, let's have your predictions for sunspots forming from zip for next week, and what are you basing it on, other than last week and and a hunch from your haunches? Are you claiming we understand the workings of the sun's magnetic fields, such that we can predict what's coming next? If so, how far out are these predictions to be, and how accurate?

In addition, perhaps anthropogenic warming is correct at the same time, and thus currently mitigating the cooling effects?

[Gregory]

Keach, you continue to miss the point. The issue is not predicting the future, the problem is in understanding the past: ALL of the general circulation models used by the likes of James Hansen and the IPCC ignore the now demonstrated links of solar magnetic effects to cloud nucleation and temperatures. CERN's Jasper Kirkby had his CLOUD experiment funding yanked in the '90's when he had the temerity to suggest the modulation of ionizing high energy cosmic rays could account for from one half to all of the warming attributed to CO2 and climate feedbacks. He got it reinstated in 2006 and the results, now beginning to see the light of real peer reviewed journals, have been as expected and more.

Without that little bit of theorized warming attributed to positive feedbacks (involving the water vapor cycle) in the past, there cannot and will not be catastrophic warming from an imagined positive feedback in the future.

This isn't anything new to your eyeballs. Information misunderstood is easily forgotten.

[TomKenworth]

~ Gregory | 24 August 2012 at 12:45 PM~

You are just plain myopic. To continue the game of making the teacher wrong, no matter what the cost, you pollute the blogosphere with more of rehash of IPCC ignoring the sun affecting clouds and therefore effecting a cooling of the earth, when the cosmic rays get through. We both agree that is possible.

Our point of disagreement comes when I ask you, plainly and clearly, HOW DO YOU "KNOW" WHAT THE SUN IS GOING TO DO TOMORROW? And you have no answer, and go back into smokescreen mode. This isn't the Battle of Midway, it's a matter of you clearing up just what science you are using to make any predictions about the occurrence of sunspots in the near or middle or far future. For those not following this closely, sunspots gone:temperatures cooler on Earth.

[Gregory]

"In addition, perhaps anthropogenic warming is correct at the same time, and thus currently mitigating the cooling effects?"

In short, no, which is why IPCC senior scientists (the "hide the decline" crowd) were so intent on not allowing inconvenient evidence into the AR4 process.

[TomKenworth]

Leyte Gulf, not Midway, in : TomKenworth | 24 August 2012 at 01:02 PM

[Gregory]

Keach, nothing I believe in requires my knowing what the sun will be doing tomorrow or next year, nor have I made a claim to know, and it was made clear a long time ago you had little knowledge worth teaching. An individual sunspot means next to nothing, it's how many and when is but one indication of the overall electromagnetic energy is being generated by the sun.

The solar magnetic link to clouds and temperatures has gone beyond "possible". It has been demonstrated, and the larger the effect, the more that catastrophic AGW has been falsified. Can't happen. Game, set, match.

[TomKenworth]

Who the heck was talking about single individual sunspots?

If an encroaching Maunder Minimum like event is postulated by you, inquiring minds want to know why. You still haven't answered the question. Homework Quiz Test Final Exam, follow the bouncing ball, you failed. Faith based physics.

"And there now is some good evidence we're on a path past that and down to a Dalton or Maunderish minimums."
~ Gregory | 24 August 2012 at 10:54 AM~

[George Rebane]

TomK 327pm - I too am most puzzled by your question about 'what the sun is going to do tomorrow?'. There is no need to know precisely what the sun's magnetic output will be tomorrow. As in other fields, we know enough from basic sun science and the past record to predict the types of magnetic storms of which the sun is capable, and the probabilistic distribution of their future arrivals.

Gregory's 1245pm well reviewed the interaction of the sun's magnetic vagaries with the earth's magnetopause and its relationship to cloud formation. That should answer the concerns of anyone even modestly read in science.

[Gregory]

Keach, you've been fed links to the research before. If you truly are in a teachable moment, I suggest you go to Steele's Next Grand Minimum blog and pose the question.

[TomKenworth]

Can't answer it, can you?

Neither Greg nor George can illuminate with good science, and insist on blather smoke screens. How do those "probablistic distributions of their future arrivals," support Greg's Faith Based Physics statement?:

"And there now is some good evidence we're on a path past that and down to a Dalton or Maunderish minimums."
~ Gregory | 24 August 2012 at 10:54 AM~

[George Rebane]

TomK 609pm - I suggest that you have asked a question the answer to which you don't understand, even after it has been given to you. And that notion itself may be new to you.

[TomKenworth]

Calling me ignorant of my supposed ignorance when Greg has taken a stand he cannot or will not back up is arrogance unbecoming of you, George.

[George Rebane]

TomK 655pm - So that notion really is new to you.

We are all ignorant in various areas. More than once I have been guilty of it myself, and remember the first time a high school teacher explained the matter to me.

In this comment thread, you demonstrated your ignorance of the science(s) involved, the causal chain, and the analytics brought to bear on the issue of solar magnetics affecting earth's temperatures. Those comments stand, as anyone familiar with the area can confirm. No "unbecoming arrogance" was necessary.

[TomKenworth]

And you still cannot claim any further credence to Greg's notion that:

"And there now is some good evidence we're on a path past that and down to a Dalton or Maunderish minimums."
~ Gregory | 24 August 2012 at 10:54 AM~

A year or so ago he was ominously noting the zero sunspot record, and crowing like a cock on a dunghill. Now that they are back, all he, and apparently George, has left is to falsely proclaim that I do not and have not believed in the notion that more cosmic rays inbound to earth via shifts in the sun's magnetic activity affects the Earth's cloud cover. I challenge either of you to find a statement on my part to that effect. Greg forgets that I did by "The Chilling Stars" and read it and decided it was plausible, but that, in and of itself, it did not knock out the possibility of anthropogenic warming occurring at the same time. I think this rankles him, not to mention my calling him out for faith based physics.

[Russ Steele]

Tom,

I suggested that Paul Emory view a shorter version of the video linked below and tell me where it is flawed and all I heard was was crickets chirping. Below is a link to a longer version that explains the relationship of CO2 to temperature in more detail. If you can find some flaws in this analysis please let me know, and I will send Warren Meyer your analysis. http://youtu.be/ctRvtxnNqU8

Once you have grasp the limited impact that CO2 has, we can then discuss how little CO2 humans contribute to the total CO2 emissions on the planet. Once we understand the very small impact that human have, then we can start to understand how a 10% increase in cloud cover can have a much larger impact, bringing on significant cooling. Cosmic rays, reaching the earth due to a quiet sun maybe one of the mechanisms that create this cooling. One thing we know from recorded history, from the ice cores, and sediment cores a quiet sun produces a cooler earth. That is an undisputed fact. That cooling always followed a warm period and occurs on a cycle lasting about 200 to 210 years, with a 60 year PDO/AO cycle and volcano eruptions introducing some climate change noise. Greg is right, we are due for the next grand minimum. Are CO2 emissions delaying that minimum, not likely given the above video analysis.

[Gregory]

"Greg is right, we are due for the next grand minimum."

That isn't quite my understanding of the science, Russ. Being "due" isn't the issue until we have verifiable models for the cycle timings, that there are indicators of a winding down to near zero for some solar magnetic processes by the middle of cycle 25, is.

George, trying to teach Keach is always a waste of time, and I try to avoid it unless there are others reading that I think are worth talking past Doug to reach. Like I said, he's been exposed to the information in the past and if he want's to explore the issue I think Russ' "Next" blog is more appropriate.

Even now he's doing his best to hold two mutually exclusive outcomes as true. Either the *small* unexplained (by the 'great climate centres') heat of the 20th century is due to positive feedbacks and we're reaching a 'tipping point' XOR the heat was due to fewer clouds because of fewer ionizing galactic cosmic rays reaching the earth. The catastrophic results go away with the decrease of the feedback terms.

[TomKenworth]

One place predicting a very cold winter for us: http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/index.php?option=com_community&view=groups&task=viewdiscussion&groupid=33&topicid=1708&Itemid=179

Still researching, what is the 200 - 210 year cycle called? If it is that distinctive, surely it has a name?

"Being "due" isn't the issue until we have verifiable models for the cycle timings, that there are indicators of a winding down to near zero for some solar magnetic processes by the middle of cycle 25, is."
~ Gregory | 24 August 2012 at 10:30 PM~

And we are just getting towards the middle of cycle 24. Again, which indicators are you referring to?

[Gregory]

Ruminators may be interested to know I provided sockpuppet TomKenworth's fister, Doug Keachie, with just the link he's demanding (again) on Nov 4, 2011, on this blog. Rereading the thread, there's no indication I could see that he bothered reading the linked article, or understanding it, even though it was a treatment of serious astrophysical research from NASA intended for a general audience.

Of course, there are a number of lines of evidence for it, but why feed him more when the evidence is that he'll ignore it?

[TomKenworth]

Ruminators may be interested to know that HUW Gregory Goodknight's, nugget (unlinked) is over one year old, and Mr. Penn doesn't update his pages to reflect the increased sunspot activity occurring since he was quoted. Counting sun nuggets, er, spots, is an interesting pastime. Maybe I'll get the filters for the old Meade and give it a whirl.

www.spaceweather.com

[TomKenworth]

Some other means of predicting sunspots are reviewed here:

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

[Gregory]

Perhaps in Doug Keachie's universe, over one year means almost 10 months, but in mine, 4 Nov 2011 is not over one year from now.

Keach, you didn't read it when posted last November, and you were in the same infantile loop demanding to be fed information to stop the tantrum. I'm sure you can find it if you want it; here's a hint: search for "cycle 25".

[Gregory]

Why didn't Keach read and comment on the National Geographic news link last November, which detailed three different papers showing the sun appeared to be heading into a "Hibernation"?

"I do like pretty pictures, Greg, but a lot has happened since the article went to bed, so let's both keep watching the skies."

Nothing had happened to falsify the research being reported, and the article was but five months old at the time. It's still valid. Keachie was focused on the bright shiny object whose cycle 24 peak was barely starting. Perhaps he was rooting for the sun to all of a sudden become as energetic as the peak cycles that came just before it.

From a purely political side, it's fortunate the Sun is on a downward slope now as another cycle or two of record solar magnetic activity and warming could have given cover to those wishing to restructure the world's economy around carbon trading.

[TomKenworth]

LW Gregory GoodNugget changed his "less than one year" tune in a bloody hurry when he realized that he post the June 2011 article in November. All I ask for was the data and logic that led Greg to believe that we were headed for a Maunder Minimum. And coincidently, I noticed he glossed over the fact that the same article even mentioned the possibility that CO2 disturbances could be going on at the same time. More nuggets from Greg, and his favored source for them, which someday a good therapist might fix. He is rather obsessed with them, and I guess the farther up the wazul, the better.

[Gregory]

?? I changed nothing, Keach.

By the way, the above is Keachie's way of admitting that, yes, I had provided him what he was asking for nine months ago and he ignored it.

You ignored the astrophysical research last November because it was a few months old and you were excited about cycle 24 showing life, and your claim the thread where I'd provided the information you wanted was over a year old was patently false.

Cycle 24 is less energetic than even the Hathaway projections of last year, would need about another 1/3 of the smoothed average to meet it:
http://www.solarham.net/averages.htm

Keach, you are just throwing factoids, found by aimless googling, into the fan. As usual.

[TomKenworth]

"Perhaps in Doug Keachie's universe, over one year means almost 10 months, but in mine, 4 Nov 2011 is not over one year from now."

Greg posted the reference to the article, then already 6 months old. I assumed Greg was referencing the science, not his time of posting about the science. But I could be wrong, in Greg's Funnyverse.

"?? I changed nothing, Keach."

1950's duck and cover lessons learned well...

[THEMIKEYMCD]

Jurassic Park ... “Nature will find a way – Nature always finds a way.”

[Gregory]

"Greg posted the reference to the article, then already 6 months old"

June 14 to Nov 4 is less than 5 months, Keach (try counting it on your fingers), and the scientific papers it had reported (yes, I'd read those, too) don't have a shelf life.

You're batting .000, especially since you've not actually quoted anything of value, just flinging mud. As usual.

[Gregory]

"Calling me ignorant of my supposed ignorance when Greg has taken a stand he cannot or will not back up is arrogance unbecoming of you, George." 24 August 2012 at 06:55 PM

Correction, Keach. That should read "when Greg has taken a stand that he had already backed up."

And you've since found it.

Keach, face it. You've never taken a science class meant for a science major and you just don't have the intellectual capital to make sense of a complicated subject like the climate. I think it was Heinlein who wrote "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic". Without any real background in science, it doesn't have to be very advanced at all to be a jumble in the mind of the average joe, let alone a Doug Keachie.