51.43120 -2.11464 Met Office assessed CIMO Class 4 Installed 1/1/1948
The issue of cows and atmospheric methane has recently moved to centre stage in the news with ARLA’s introduction of artificial chemicals into feed to reduce the cow’s allegedly problematical emissions. The BBC has typically gone into overdrive discussing Bovaer. Apparently “social media users” are some specific breed of human being that objects to unnecessary additives in their own consumption. So what does this have to do with a weather station in a sleepy Wiltshire conservation village?
Lacock is a “picture-postcard” tourist attraction village owned and administered by the National Trust. On the village outskirts is a small campus of the Wiltshire College and University which runs the surrounding farmland estate and is home to the weather station. The station is only rated a lowly Class 4 despite being on level ground, not subject to any shading and with (superficially) no extraneous heat sources surrounding. This may seem quite a harsh judgement, why isn’t it at least class 2 or possibly even better? Perhaps a closer look is in order.
Rather than consider methane emissions and their effects (if any) on the overall atmosphere, a potential more relevant aspect to Lacock’s temperature readings is that lactating cows can emit up to 1850 watts of thermal energy – 19 times greater than a fit, healthy human being. As anyone who regularly goes into fields with almost tame cows will know, the cows will regularly crowd around you. Sadly cows are frequently responsible for many more human deaths annually than bulls or other farm animals. So when the observers visit this manual station and open the screen they are likely to have attracted their own very own warming audience. There is, astonishingly, in the region of 50kW of heat crowding around the screen in the image above.
I genuinely doubt the cows will make any significant difference to temperature readings {any meteorologists feel free to offer their views on that}. My somewhat tongue-in-cheek review is to again highlight the preposterous Met Office claim of reading temperatures to the 5th decimal place of a single degree. If they really could manage that, then the PRTs readings would be bouncing up and down like yo-yos every time a 1.8kW(th) cow walked past let alone a whole inquisitive herd.
More to the point, however, is again the recurring problem of manually reporting stations only being intermittently read. Sites such as Mickleham, Hartpury College, Nettlecome and many others have poor observational records. Here from recent Freedom of Information request are the last 3 years for Lacock.
Again it beggars belief that any Government agency can feel it is acceptable (or even rational) to derive a “mean daily average temperature” from as little as 53% of full year readings as in 2023. Of 1,095 daily readings (NUM_OBS) that should have been taken over the three years just 691 were actually achieved. Are the staff and students at an agricultural College/University so unconcerned that such basic functions are not carried out?
That these absurdly distorted annual averages are allowed into the UK historic temperature record is a sad indictment of the Met Office’s unacceptable lack of diligence. And yet extreme measures based on that data ( such as feeding Frankenstein-like products to animals whose product we consume) are being promoted as a new normal. This cannot be right.
Paul Beckwith predicted the Arctic would be ice-free in 2013, and now he is warning of accelerated melting timelines. Why Arctic sea ice will vanish in 2013 | Sierra Club Canada There has been no trend in the Arctic sea … Continue reading →
The State remains ignorant that more than 99 percent of the world’s population lives outside the borders of the State.
Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
Driven by California Governor Gavin Newsom being oblivious to reality that the so-called ENERGY transition is only an ELECTRICITY transition, the State’s 40 million residents continue to bear the expense of his so-called transition from fossil fuels.
Governor Newsom has no comprehension that wind turbines and solar panels can only generate electricity occasionally, as wind turbines and solar panels cannot make any of the more than 6,000 products now made from crude oil, or fuels for all forms of transportation.
Californians continue to pay dearly for the cleanest air in the world, while most of the world gets electricity from 1,000’s of coal power plants.
California’s extensive government regulations are great ammunition for environmental consultants and lawyers to delay indefinitely or stop the progress of any project.
The Governor does not comprehend that wind turbines and solar panels are themselves 100% made from the products from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil ! Further, electricity CANNOT exist without crude oil as all the parts and components of every electricity generation system (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar) are also made from the oil derivatives manufactured from oil.
Special note about a new drama television series, LANDMAN, with Lead Actor Billy Bob Thornton, that supports Energy Literacy:
All the parts and components of California Governor Newsom’s net zero emissions fantasy is 100% dependent on crude oil, the same oil that he wants to rid the world of.
As a Facebook trailer illustrates for the new “Landman” drama television series, created by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace, Newsom is oblivious to the fact that every product in our society, that did not exist 200 years ago, is made from oil.
Thus, before Newsom totally destroys the California economy, Newsom needs to identify the “replacement” to crude oil that will support the materialistic demands of the economy, before he preaches net zero emissions.
Be sure to watch this 90-second commercial for the new LANDMAN drama series:
In addition, everything that needs electricity to function like iPhones, computers, data centers, and X-Ray machines are all made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil. Without fossil fuels, there would be nothing that needs electricity!!
In pursuit of his miss guided transition to electricity, the beginning of “Trump proofing” California began days after the November election, when the California Air Resources Board (CARB) — a regulatory commission almost entirely appointed by the governor Gavin Newsom — passed new updates to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), requiring producers of “dirty” transportation fuel to purchase more credits from producers of “clean” transportation fuel. The new LCFS will provide an estimated $105 billion in EV charging credits and $8 billion of hydrogen credits largely paid for by fees on gasoline and diesel, which the state would pass on to drivers and consumers.
The California population of 40 million represents a miniscule 0.4 percent of the 8 billion on this planet. The other 99.6 percent of the world’s population live outside the borders of the State.
Under Governor Newsom’s so-called “leadership”, California gas prices could rise another $1.15 per gallon next year thanks to the state’s new carbon credit system, taxes, refinery regulations, and the Phillips 66 refinery shutdown in 2025.
The state’s newly passed carbon credit requirement may increase retail prices for regular grade gasoline in 2025 somewhere between 40 and 65 cents per gallon.
The governor’s new refinery regulations he passed during a special legislative session last month would increase prices between 5 and 27 cents per gallon.
The shutdown of the Phillips 66 refinery announced after the new refinery regulations would add another 8 to 14 cents per gallon.
Because California gas taxes rise with the state’s price index, the gas tax will go up between one to two cents per gallon in 2025.
These fuel cost increases contribute to inflation and the high cost of living in California and have a disproportionate and adverse impact on lower income Californians.
Governor Newsom is personally exempt from those fuel cost increases as he is chauffeured to and from his Sacramento office in a State-owned gasoline vehicle.
Most in wealthy California are oblivious that about 80 percent of the world’s 8 billion, many of which are in Africa, Asia and Latin America still live on less than $10 a day – and the billions who still have little to no access to electricity. For others, life is severely complicated and compromised by the hypocritical “green” agendas of wealthy country elites who have benefited so tremendously from fossil fuels since the modern industrial era began in the 1800’s.
In those developing countries, the mining operations disproportionately impact low-income communities and exploit child labor and are responsible for the most egregious human rights’ violations of vulnerable minority populations. These mining operations are also directly destroying the planet through environmental degradation.
John Stossel’s 6-minute video
explains how America’s Green Energy Needs Minerals, Yet America Blocks New Mines on American soil. While the wealthier countries are shelling out billions of dollars for so-called clean ELECTRICITY from wind and solar, those developed nations are financially encouraging China and Africa to continue exploiting “their” poor with yellow, brown, and black skin, and financially supporting environmental degradation to “their” landscapes just to reinforce mandated EV’s, wind turbines, and solar panels in “our backyards”!
It is appalling that wealthy California with its “green mandates” continues to burden its residents with humongous costs to transition to just electricity, and support unethical, immoral, and hypocritical actions to obtain exotic minerals and metals from poorer developing countries to achieve that electricity transition.
The analogy of the miniscule impact from the 40 million Californians on this planet of 8 billion, is that an individual urinating in the ocean will not change the temperature of the ocean waters!
Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.
Both video above are archived at WUWT Climate TV, a collection of over six hundred videos, featuring new interviews and analysis, and covering dozens of media sources discussing, debating and analyzing the latest in climate science, climate politics, and energy policy, including topics concerning temperature, sea level, polar bears, ocean acidification, extreme weather, censorship, wild fires, and more.
Some UK social media users have been pouring milk down their sinks and toilets in protest at the trial of a new feed additive that claims to significantly reduce the emission of methane gas in dairy cows.
Arla Foods, a Danish-Swedish company which owns the UK’s biggest dairy cooperative, announced last week that 30 of its farms across the country would test the additive, named Bovaer.
The company says Bovaer – which is added in small quantities to cow feed – could reduce cow methane emissions by between 30-45%.
It has been approved for use by UK regulators, and several major supermarkets will stock milk produced by cattle eating feed with the additive.
Some online users have raised concerns around the use of Bovaer, citing issues around the safety of certain compounds used in it.
However, experts have told the BBC that the additive “does not pose any food safety issues”.
Other consumers have been threatening to boycott products from leading supermarkets in anger over the trial, while multiple farmers have taken to social media to inform consumers that they don’t use Bovaer.
Meanwhile, baseless claims of it being part of a “depopulation” plot have swirled online alongside misinformation about its links to US-billionaire Bill Gates.
The manufacturer, DSM-Firmenich, says "mistruths and misinformation, external" have been spread about its product. It says it is "totally safe" for use, and has been tested over many years in many countries.
What do we know about Bovaer and the new trial?
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and is helping drive climate change.
Given that methane breaks down in the atmosphere after ten years or so, it is irrelevant as far as climate change is concerned. (This is even before we consider the fact that the wavelengths affected by methane are already nearly fully saturated).
The article goes on to assure us that the additive is perfectly safe. But the real issue is that we simply don’t know. So why even take the risk of using additives which have absolutely no benefit?
