By Kirye (in Tokyo)

Japan’s Honmaddeka TV spoke about THE SANKEI NEWS, which reported there is a possibility that people will become less able to see cherry blossoms in full bloom in the near future — all because of global warming hitting Japan’s winters.

Biologist Dr. Kiyohiko Ikeda tells audience on Honmaddeka TV that warming in Tokyo is due to urban heat island effect, not global warming. (Image: Honmaddeka TV).

Urban heat island effect responsible for Tokyo’s warming

However well-known Japanese biologist Dr. Kiyohiko Ikeda poured some cold water on that claim, commenting on Honmaddeka TV last Wednesday: “They said that it’s global warming’s fault, but actually it is because of heat island effect. Most of the cherry trees are in cities, for example in the neighborhood of Tokyo or surroundings. The urban areas are getting warmer. Tokyo has gotten warmer by 3.2℃ over the last one hundred years and Hukuoka by 3.1℃.”

Rural locations not warming

Dr. Ikeda then noted: “However in Hachijojima and Miyakejima [rural locations near Tokyo], the temperature did not change in the period. So only cities are getting warmer. Urban cherry blossoms are getting worse. Cherry trees have a period of dormancy during summer and fall, then they get a real wake-up after being exposed to cold winter temperatures for a long spell. There are people who worry that the cherry tree period of dormancy won’t work if the weather warms earlier and so they will not blossom in a normal way.”

No warming in 90 years

Unadjusted data from the NASA and theJMA for Hachijojima and Tokyo back up his statement. In fact, Hachijojima has not seen any temperature increase since 1926, i.e. 90 years (NASA data begin in December):

Chart: KiryeNet. Data: NASA.

Comparing the rural (island) Hachijojima’s trend to Tokyo’s since 1980:

Tokyo’s mean annual temperature has been rising, while nearby rural island Hachijojima has not seen any warming this century. Chart: KiryeNet.

Tokyo cherry trees haven’t been blossoming earlier

Though historical observations for cherry blossoms in Tokyo show they have been appearing earlier over the long-term, they have not been occurring earlier since the start of the current century:

Chart by Kirye; data from the Japan Meteorology Agency (JMA). 2019 data will be available soon.

That should not be a surprise because although Tokyo long-term annual temperature has risen, its winters have not warmed up since 1985:

Chart: Kirye; data from JMA.

In summary, mean annual temperatures in Japan’s urban areas are being impacted hugely by urban heat island effect. Yet in the countryside – away from all the asphalt, steel and concrete – this is not quite the case at all. In the media we are seeing more hysteria than fact when it comes to aspects such as cherry blossoms and warming.

P. Gosselin (Germany) contributed to this article.

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March 15, 2019 at 11:39AM

It’s official: California is 100% drought-free.

For the first time since 2011, the
state shows no areas suffering from prolonged drought and illustrates almost
entirely normal conditions, according to a map released Thursday by the U.S.
Drought Monitor.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive
order in 2017 that lifted the drought emergency in most of the state,
leaving some breathing a sigh of relief. But he cautioned Californians to keep
saving water as some parts of the state were still suffering from extreme
drought.

Now, two years later, that deficit
seems to have been erased, thanks to an exceptionally wet winter.

“The reservoirs are full,
lakes are full, the streams are flowing, there’s tons of snow,” said Jessica
Blunden, a climate scientist with the National Climatic Data Center at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the drought is officially
gone.”

The Drought Monitor, which collects
data from scientists from the National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and dozens of weather agencies, last showed a drought map that was
clear in December 2011.

In updating the map, scientists consult with hydrologists, water managers, meteorologists and other experts to determine the amount of water in the state’s reservoirs, the snowpack level and other key measurements. With the wet winter streak going strong, their reports have been good.

Full story

The post Ignore Climate Hysteria: California’s ‘Permanent’ Drought Was Fake News appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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March 15, 2019 at 10:41AM

Major tectonic collisions near the equator have caused three ice ages in the last 540 million years Over the last 540 million years, the Earth has weathered three major ice ages — periods during which global temperatures plummeted, producing extensive ice sheets and glaciers that have stretched beyond the polar caps. Now scientists at MIT,…

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March 15, 2019 at 10:04AM

Matthew Continetti March 15, 2019 writes at Washington Free Beacon on Our Bankrupt Elite: Operation Varsity Blues and the hypocrisy of Hollywood liberals.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Every element of the college admissions scandal, aka “Operation Varsity Blues,” is fascinating.

There are the players: the Yale dad who, implicated in a securities fraud case, tipped the feds off to the caper; a shady high school counselor turned admissions consultant; the 36-year-old Harvard grad who sold his talents for standardized testing to the highest bidder; the comely actresses from Full House and Desperate Housewives; the fashion designer; the casino magnate. Who would have thought that one of the major headlines of 2019 would be “Lori Loughlin released on bond”?

There are the children: the social media influencer (yes this is a thing) who was told of her parents’ arrest while vacationing on the yacht of a USC trustee; the mom who submitted doctored photographs to USC to portray her son as a championship pole-vaulter; the place kicker for a high school with no football team; and the rap artist from the Upper East Side who defended his mom and dad to the press while smoking a blunt.

There are the means: paying tens of thousands of dollars to Rick Singer, Trinity ’86, who bribed athletic directors and coaches, doctored student résumés, and arranged for clients to take college admittance exams alongside a “proctor” who answered the questions for them. The icing on the cake: Some payments were made to a charitable foundation so the parents could get the tax write-off. What a country.

There is the objective: placement at a high-profile school. Why? Social signaling, status games, but also because the wage premium for a college degree has become so large that parents are apparently willing to break federal law to earn it. Not for what the students learn at college—they hardly learn anything. Loughlin’s daughter, the influencer, spoke for most undergraduates when she said, “I do want the experience of game days, partying—I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know.” Oh, we know. Otherwise your mom wouldn’t be looking for a defense attorney.

It’s not what happens in class that matters. The university has long been corrupted by athletics, politicization of the curriculum, identity politics, grade inflation, affirmative action, the death of the humanities, and ideological bias among faculty. What matters is the chit you receive at graduation.

Finally, there are the lessons to be drawn from this story. It’s the media’s vocation, drawing lessons. I’ve heard it said that the parents ought to have been concerned about the lesson they were teaching their children—though right now I’d wager they are more concerned with avoiding jail time. Others say this is the latest example of the falsity of meritocracy. For progressives, the affair reveals the classism and racism of our society, its rampant white privilege.

Which is a funny thing to say about the academic world. Colleges exert tremendous energy to be as diverse and inclusive and woke as possible, to the point where Asian-American students are discriminated against lest they ruin the schemes of college admissions officers. A scandal over which the media seems far less upset.

Lessons? Here are two. First the good news: We are shocked by the actions of these parents precisely because there is so little corruption in America. If the problems were as systemic as some on the Internet believe, they would hardly raise such an outcry. Denizens of countries where bribery is a way of life look at us and say, “Amateurs.”

The second lesson is not as comforting. Operation Varsity Blues is further evidence of the bankruptcy of American elites. For over a decade now, the legitimacy of elites in politics, foreign policy, central banking, journalism, religion, and economics has crumbled as reality failed to match their rhetoric. Education is the latest sphere where elites have betrayed our country’s institutions and our country’s people by using wealth and connections to rig the rules of the game.

The scandal also points to the flagrant hypocrisy of Hollywood liberalism. No class is more moralistic, more hectoring, more obnoxiously activist than the Hollywood left. They barrage Americans with displays of their virtue, their calls to humanitarianism, their paeans to multiculturalism and feminism, their slanders of President Trump, Vice President Pence, Republicans in general, and conservatives in particular. And they have great sway in national politics. A Democrat’s future depends on the beneficence of Hollywood donors—donors who were well represented among the individuals charged in Operation Varsity Blues.

The entertainment industry liberals talk a good game. But look at their actions. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey are synonymous with predation. Jussie Smollett was a B-list celebrity until he faked a hate crime against himself and blamed it on supporters of Trump. Now we have actors breaking the law so their kids can go to USC.

Why on Earth should we take political cues from these people? By what right do they portray themselves as enlightened, as advanced, as more sophisticated than half the country, even while they lie, cheat, steal, and assault? Plenty of baddies doing nasty things understand that donations to the Democratic Party and its interest groups insulate them from scrutiny and criticism—right until the moment they go to jail. These people aren’t interested in the common good. They are interested in themselves.

“Devoid of all collective attachment except membership in its own club,” writes Christophe Guilluy in Twilight of the Elites (2019), “the new bourgeoisie merrily surfs the surging waves of the market, reinforcing its class position, capturing the economic benefits of globalization, and building up a portfolio of real estate holdings that soon will rival that of the old bourgeoisie.” Guilluy is describing contemporary France. He might as well be talking about Aunt Becky.

Conclusion:

Roger L. Simon writes at Real Clear Politics. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

What made these people, among the most privileged in our society, act this way? Did they not think that they were either teaching their children to lie or, almost as bad, plunging them into situations where they were doomed to fail? Or were they relying on the current spate of grade inflation to save the day for their underqualified offspring?

Whatever the case, what accounts for this particularly repellent version of do what I say, not as I do? Is it just an insatiable desire for status by an insecure community, this time on the backs of their children?

Hollywood is rampant with this excessive public moral posturing, which disguises often equally excessive private amorality or even immorality. The biggest liberal or progressive stars are frequently the most avaricious and nasty people in their personal lives. It’s a form of split personality cum self-hypnosis that has been employed successfully by the entertainment industry for some time, but the college admissions scandal is bringing it unpleasantly to the surface, as did the recent #MeToo controversy.

Hollywood, however, is far from alone in deserving blame for the admissions scandal. Although the FBI has not taken legal action against the colleges involved, they should be considered at minimum unindicted co-conspirators. Our universities have come under increasing criticism of late for political bias — in one study, only 39 percent of colleges had even one Republican professor — suppression of freedom of speech, and their own covert form of racial discrimination. Asian-Americans, with justification, are currently suing Harvard for admissions bias against them.

These days our colleges seem as much, if not more, bent on social engineering as they are on education. This encourages many students to compete in what is, in essence, a victimhood derby under the trendy rubric of intersectionality. Besides being a waste of educational time and money, this does not augur well for the future of our country.

What we have in the college admissions scandal is corrupt people applying for an already corrupted system. If the attention that glamorous Hollywood usually attracts brings more attention to this problem, it is all to the good. And if it helps to begin to solve it, better yet.

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March 15, 2019 at 09:55AM