Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized 13 Mar 2017

What is the Opportunity Cost of Climate Waste?

via Watts Up With That?http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

What is the Opportunity Cost of Climate Waste? | Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

What do we miss out on because the world wastes so much money and attention on climate? Imagine if some of that squandered money was spent on other fields such as medical research, such as the following accidental discovery, which if developed offers the possibility of longer life and superhuman athletic prowess.

Born to run; the story of the PEPCK-C^mus mouse

Richard W. Hanson and Parvin Hakimi

In order to study the role of the cytosolic form of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (GTP) (EC 4.1.1.32) (PEPCK-C) in skeletal muscle, PEPCK-C^mus mice were created by introducing the cDNA for the enzyme, linked to the human α-skeletal actin gene promoter, into their germ line. Two founder lines generated by this procedure were bred together, creating a line of mice that have 9.0 units/g skeletal muscle, as compared to 0.080 units/g in muscle from control animals. The mice were more active than controls in their cages and could run for up to 5 km, at a speed of 20 m/min without stopping (control mice run for 0.2 km at the same speed). Male PEPCK-C^mus mice are extremely aggressive, as well as hyperactive. During strenuous exercise, they use fatty acids as a fuel more efficiently than do controls and produce far less lactate than do control animals, perhaps due to the greatly increased number of mitochondria in their skeletal muscle. PEPCK-C^mus mice also store up to five-times more triglyceride in their skeletal muscle, but have only marginal amounts of triglyceride in their adipose tissue depots, despite eating 60% more than controls. The concentration of leptin and insulin the blood of 8 to 12 month of PEPCK-C^mus mice is far lower than noted in the blood of control animals of the same age. These mice live longer than controls and the females remain reproductively active for as long as 35 months. The possible reasons for the profound alteration in activity and longevity caused the introduction of a simple metabolic enzyme into the skeletal muscle of the mice will be discussed.

Anti-Fracking Campaign Sends France’s Energy Industry Reeling

via Climate Change Dispatchhttp://climatechangedispatch.com

France has slowly become a net importer of electricity thanks in large part to a harsh winter and a growing opposition to natural gas production. France, usually a net energy exporter, was forced to import a record 950 gigawatt-hours of power in January, the highest level in more than 30 years. The country is scrambling to develop […]

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

March 13, 2017 at 06:46AM

Uncategorized 13 Mar 2017

Brace Yourselves: Snowstorm to Breed Global Warming Hysteria

via Roy Spencer, PhD.http://ift.tt/1o1jAbd

With apologies to Benjamin Franklin, only three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and blaming bad weather on global warming.

By mid-week this week, newspaper and website stories will be reporting that climate experts (e.g. Al Gore, Bill Nye) have now blamed the historic snowstorm and unseasonable cold now descending on New England on climate change.

I suspect a few of these experts already have their tweets composed, just waiting for snow totals to exceed one foot.

Indeed, the latest GFS model forecast shows that by midday Wednesday some rather spectacular snow totals will have probably accumulated, from the DC area through Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston (graphic courtesy of Weatherbell.com):

The Nor’easter and cold temperatures will be blamed on the same climate change that caused the unusual warmth over the eastern U.S. over the past couple months.

Global warming theory is in fact so malleable that it predicts anything. More cold, less cold. More snow, less snow.

What a powerful theory.

And what’s even more amazing is that climate change can be averted by just increasing your taxes.

But what nobody ever reports on — because it would be boring — are the storms and severe weather events that haven’t happened. For example, U.S. tornado counts have been running below average, or even at record lows, in recent years.

Amazingly, the low tornado activity has been blamed on climate change. So, too, have actual tornado occurrences!

What a grand and gloriously useful theory global warming provides us.

Is it any wonder that the public tends to be skeptical of what the experts tell us, when those experts continually change the narrative as their forecasts turn out wrong?

Winters in the U.S. are notoriously variable. Typically, if it’s warm in the East, it’s cold in the West. This is exactly what has happened this winter, except for this brief reversal before winter’s end.

Normal people call it weather. More enlightened people, in contrast, call it climate change. Next winter it could be the opposite. No one knows.

Like death and taxes, though, what is certain is that anything “unusual” that happens will somehow be blamed on your SUV.

via Roy Spencer, PhD. http://ift.tt/1o1jAbd

March 13, 2017 at 06:35AM

Uncategorized 13 Mar 2017

Has China Faked Its Coal Data?

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)http://www.thegwpf.com

China has cut coal production for the third year in a row, according to government figures, despite a host of reasons to doubt that it did.

A truck unloads coal at a coalyard in Huaibei, eastern China’s Anhui province, Nov. 11, 2016.

Based on official data, China’s mines produced 3.36 billion metric tons of coal last year, down sharply by 9.4 percent from 2015. The decrease marked the biggest annual drop so far since production peaked in 2013.

The steep decline reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) would be good news for environmental advocates seeking reductions in smog and greenhouse gas emissions, if it turns out to be true.

China produces and burns about half the world’s coal, accounting for 64 percent of the country’s energy supply last year, based on official data.

Largely coal-fired power, winter heating and the recent resurgence of steel production have been blamed for China’s unrelenting bouts of urban smog.

While the reported drop in coal production suggests that conditions are getting better, China’s frequent smog alerts make the opposite case that coal-caused pollution has been getting worse.

Over 57 percent of China’s 338 cities monitored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) suffered varying degrees of air pollution late last month. Nearly 20 percent reported “serious” or “heavily polluted” air, state media said.

The cumulative 13.2-percent cut in officially-reported coal output since 2014 suggests citizens could see some relief, but doubts about the figures may outweigh NBS claims.

Reason for concern

One reason for concern is a widely reported disruption of the coal market in the second half of 2016, caused by the government’s poorly executed plan to shed surplus production capacity at China’s mines.

Last February, the cabinet-level State Council responded to a three-year slump in coal prices and profits by ordering mines to reduce overcapacity by 500 million tons a year and to consolidate another 500 million tons under more efficient operators by 2020.

After months without progress in meeting targets set for 2016, the government’s top planning agency pressured the mines to make rapid cuts, resulting in sudden shortages at power plants and a price spike of over 50 percent.

At the end of 2016, the price of coal used for power production stood at 639 yuan (U.S. $93) per ton, up 72.7 percent from the start of the year, the official English-language China Daily said.

Production surged in the third and fourth quarters as idled mines reopened to reap the profits and meet the demand.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) authorized an increase in operations and urged 900 mines to boost output by a collective 1 million tons a day.

Coal output rose each month from September through December as the mines responded, although the output never reached year-earlier levels, according to NBS data.

But the NBS calculations are impossible to verify, in part because the agency apparently neglects to update adjustments to its year-earlier figures.