VOLUMES WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN BIOCHAR

KATY LEDERER

Carbonated

William T. Vollmann confronts climate change

William T. Vollmann. No Immediate Danger: Volume 1 of Carbon Ideologies. Viking, 2018.
William T. Vollmann. No Good Alternative: Volume 2 of Carbon Ideologies. Viking, 2018.

IN 2018... It might be fair to ask at this stage of the game if it is rational to speak of “solving” climate change at all.

William T. Vollmann seems to think that it is not. His two-volume Carbon Ideologies, nearly 1,300 pages long with “129,000 words of source notes, citations, and calculations” ...

Carbon Ideologies does not appear to aspire to readability. The primer’s level of technical detail simply doesn’t justify the hemorrhaging of readers it will unquestionably induce... We learn that ... Vollmann loves gadgets and toys. In the first volume, this love expresses itself mainly in the form of an unmistakably phallic pancake frisker he carries around Fukushima... pointing it at a bald statue of a praying man at a temple called Hen Jo...

Above all we understand that after Vollmann’s years of scary research, he feels unbearably guilty for his awe and use of fossil fuels.,, he also excoriates himself for nearly every convenience he might conceivably enjoy. Lighthouses, ice-makers, breakfast, books. Glasses and a nylon bristle brush...

Vollmann predicts that glass, which, like everything else, is surprisingly carbon-intensive to manufacture, will become a dear commodity...  like glass, the production of paper is also carbon-intensive. 

He speculates that in the future, as civilization collapses, the goal of universal literacy will become an artifact of the past. Even if he allows that some future wretches might know how to read, I was surprised that Vollmann, in his characteristically fatalistic style, didn’t simply imagine that they would burn these hefty books for fuel.

.

ON THE 6Th DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME A SWEET AND SOUR VEGAN HAGGIS WITH LISTERINE SAUCE

Scientific American

Turn Xmas Tree Into Food and Medicine

Pine needles can easily be broken down into sugars, as well as the building blocks of paint, adhesives and medicines. 
Christopher Intagliata reports.

"I thought, ok, this could be a good resource." Cynthia Kartey of the University of Sheffield... says the needles are 85 percent lignocellulose—a tough woody material. But using heat and cheap solvents, Kartey says she can transform pine needles into a liquid product called "bio-oil," which contains glucose, acetic acid, and phenols. Useful stuff.

"Glucose is used as sweetener in the food industry. Acetic acid is mainly used for the manufacture of paint and adhesives. It is also used for the manufacture of vinegar. So basically the vinegar you use in your home is diluted acetic acid. And phenol is used in the manufacture of certain medicines."

.... although Christmas trees are only available seasonally, she says the same techniques could be used year-round on other agricultural waste, like corn cobs and sugar cane stalks. The goal, she says, is ultimately zero waste.

"It would be an interesting way to decorate your house for Christmas and also get some paint from acetic acid, you could use again to paint your house. To decorate your house once Christmas is over."    Which could give a whole new meaning to 'deck the halls.'

NO SCIENCE PLEASE, WE'RE FROM CHICAGO

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HEARTLAND INSTITUTE CLIMATE SCIENCE SPECIAL REPORT:

ALL POLITICS, NO SCIENCE 
( GUEST: JAY LEHR )  MARCH 14, 2018
In late 2017, the government released a Climate Science Special Report written by Obama administration holdovers that eschewed science to hype unfounded fears of human caused climate change. 

Heartland Institute science director Jay Lehr Phd led a team of climate scientists & meteorologists to analyze the Climate Science Special Report.

IN THIS PODCAST  The task force found the special reports ignored all uncertainties in climate science, any factor other than human emitted greenhouse gases -- for instance the sun, clouds , large scale oceanic patterns -- that impact climate, the benefits of carbon dioxide, and the fact that over the recent century and a half of warming, weather extremes have declined or stabilized rather than increase...
It is all politics, no science.

THE WINTER'S TALE ROLLS ON

Recently Dropping Global Temperatures Demonstrate IPCC Claims are Impossible

WUWT Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball

[T}he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [is] designed to frighten and bully the world into completely unnecessary and enormously expensive environmental and energy policies ...

It is disingenuous and wrong to separate human systems because we are part of the natural system. This is another example of the false assumption that humans are not natural that I wrote about before. 

The entire comment is an insult to the intelligence. It is a statement of environmental platitudes that says absolutely nothing – in other words, it is purely political. Despite that, production of the IPCC Reports costs millions, and the unnecessary policies, based solely on their falsehoods, cost trillions. The saddest part of all is a horrible irony. All this waste of time and money to create a lie and inflict completely unnecessary policies at great cost, pain, and damage... are the insane actions of politically misguided, ideologues with tunnel vision. It is time to stop the insanity.

SAVE THE OZONE LAYER : CRISPR YOUR BUNNY TODAY

ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY TAKES A HARE RAISING TURN

WHO NEEDS AN AGENCY IF LONG DEFUNCT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS DO AS YOU BID?

WUWT:

Long Defunct US Climate Agency Scientist Bids for a Comeback

Eric Worrall / 9 hours ago 

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Climate scientists are coming out of the woodwork to seize their share of the anticipated Democrat Congress climate funding binge.

In 1993 my agency warned of climate change. In 1995 it was abolished

William Westermeyer
Thu 27 Dec 2018 22.31 AEDT

The US Office of Technology Assessment should be revived – in 2019 the world will need its expertise more than ever

The OTA was a non-partisan agency governed by a technology assessment board which consisted of of equal numbers of senators and representatives and equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Its assessments strove for objectivity and comprehensiveness, and were considered state-of-the-art documents by many. The OTA provided Congress, at its request, with the information and options it needed for the issues with which it was grappling, but it was careful never to tell Congress what it should do. The methodology that OTA used was widely admired and imitated in the parliamentary units that many European countries established following OTA’s lead.

THE ALTERNATIVE METHODOLOGY 

THE CFACT RED  TEAM DOES  WELL ENOUGH FOR THIS ADMINISTRATION WITH
NONAGENARIAN & DEAD CLIMATE SCIENTISTS LED BY OFFSHORE P-R HACKS AND
A BEAR OF LITTLE BRAIN 

MILLIONS FEARED BORED AS RUNAWAY CLICHE' LEVEL RISE SPREADS FROM ATLANTIC TO NATION

Will he bury the survivors in the Beaufort gyre?

BRITAIN MOVES TO LIMIT HUMAN CARBON CAPTURE

• Telegraph
• Science

Britain’s new diet: the 400-600-600 plan to counter obesity

Nearly two thirds of adults are now overweight, and one in five children is obese before primary school

•  Sarah Knapton, science editor

6 MARCH 2018 • 12:01AM

Britain needs to go on a diet, Public Health England has warned, as it set out new calorie guidelines to cut meal sizes, ruling out favourites like Fish and Chips or a Sunday Roast.

Under its new ‘One You’ campaign, launched today, Britons are being encouraged to stick to 400 calories at breakfast, and 600 calories for both lunch and dinner.

Critics branded the daily allowance too low for growing children and close to war rations, but public health experts warned that obesity had now become ‘the norm’ and said most people were eating hundreds of extra calories each day.

The new restrictions would rule out traditional meals such as Fish and Chips and a Sunday Roast which are both around 800 calories, as well as many curry, pizza and pasta dishes.

PHE has also given the food industry six years to cut calories in family foods by 20 per cent and warned that those who failed to comply would be named and shamed and potentially face government sanction.

The calorie reduction programme will include everyday items such as bread, cooking sauces, crisps, processed meat, rice, pasta, ready meals, sandwiches and pizza.

Dr Alison Tedstone said the food groups chosen made up the ‘lion’s share’ of calories eaten by families on a daily basis.

“A few healthy options on the end of a menu won’t help solve the nation’s obesity problem - we need the regular everyday products to change,” she said.

PHE said the remaining calories could be met through snacking but Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said 1600 calories was not enough.

Under the new rules, traditionally unhealthy foods, such as a bacon sandwich for breakfast, or a MacDonald’s Big Mac for lunch, would still be allowed 

A senior Ofsted official also blamed obesity in children on the overly risk averse environment of nurseries and pre-schools which prevented youngsters from ‘running around to the point of exhaustion.’

A CLARIFICATION FOR CANADIAN CLIMATE PROGRESS READERS

THIS IS NOT THE OLD RED GREEN SHOW

 

THIS IS NOT THE NEW RED GREEN DEAL

A CONSPIRACY SO VAST IT'S TOO SMALL FOR AN IPO

Look, up in the sky,

higher than a reindeer sleigh and 

more powerful than a coal-fired locomotive,it's

Humans are the Superior Species with Every Right to Be on Earth. We are Not ‘Unnatural’ as Environmentalists Claim and the IPCC Assumes.

 9 hours ago   Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball

Environmentalists are destroying environmentalism. As a subset of that destruction, creators of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) falsified science to claim that humans are causing global warming (AGW). 

That false science wasted trillions of dollars and disrupted millions of lives. That is enough money to provide clean drinking water and basic sewage for every country in the world.

"Trillons of dollars" ? 

The UN Environmental Program's entire budget is well under a billion a year, and UNEP has no fiscal or budgetary authority

Ball overstates the IPCC's expense by three orders of magnitude;  at last account its per capita cost  was 
7.8 cents a year.

SOURCE: DEPARTMENT OF STATE

LORD A-LEAPING LEADS FOX CHRISTMAS CLIMATE SPECIAL

BESIDES STANDUP COMEDY AND HIS OWN LINE OF DRESS SHIRTS, THE NOBLE LORD OFFERS
CLIMATE CONFERENCE TROLLING, CARROLLING,& BEAR-BAITING SERVICES

CLIMATEBALL WORLD CUP FINAL : BORAT VERSUS TIM BALL

CLUELESS IN CLUJ :

TIRED OF POLISH COAL JOKES ? TAKE A GANDER AT 
THE ROMANIAN TV DEBUT OF LEGENDARY
 CANADIAN GOOSE FLYBY AUTHORITY TIM BALL

SHOCKING PRESIDENTIAL PORTRAIT MARRS OTHERWISE RESPECTABLE PAPER ON MONKEY FECES

Methylation-based enrichment facilitates low-cost, noninvasive genomic scale sequencing of populations from feces

NATURE SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

• Kenneth L. Chiou & 
• Christina M. Bergey 

Scientific Reportsvolume 8, Article number:1975(2018) 

Abstract

Obtaining high-quality samples from wild animals is a major obstacle for genomic studies of many taxa, particularly at the population level, as collection methods for such samples are typically invasive. DNA from feces is easy to obtain noninvasively, but is dominated by bacterial and other non-host DNA. The high proportion of non-host DNA drastically reduces the efficiency of high-throughput sequencing for host animal genomics. To address this issue, we developed an inexpensive capture method for enriching host DNA from noninvasive fecal samples. Our method exploits natural differences in CpG-methylation density between vertebrate and bacterial genomes to preferentially bind and isolate host DNA from majority-bacterial samples. We demonstrate that the enrichment is robust, efficient, and compatible with downstream library preparation methods useful for population studies (e.g., RADseq). Compared to other enrichment strategies, our method is quick and inexpensive, adding only a negligible cost to sample preparation. In combination with downstream methods such as RADseq, our approach allows for cost-effective and customizable genomic-scale genotyping that was previously feasible in practice only with invasive samples. Because feces are widely available and convenient to collect, our method empowers researchers to explore genomic-scale population-level questions in organisms...

The journal's editors were dismayed to find that the turd in Figure 1.  of Methylation-based enrichment facilitates low-cost, noninvasive genomic scale sequencing of populations from feces features a superimposed portrait of President Donald Trump:

 Breitbart notes however that :
" It is possible... that the authors did not realize that the clip art they had selected had been modified in this way. The silhouette of Trump’s face can only be seen if the reader zooms in on the image."

NBC NEWS TAKES A BITE OUT OF CLIME

Doctors cite climate change for rise in animal bites, U.S. health care costs
Stanford researchers warn that the number of animal bites is likely to rise amid climate change and developmental pressures...

Dr. Joseph Forrester, the lead researcher of a study published Tuesday in the online BMJ journal Trauma Surgery and Acute Care Open, added, "We've already seen that with tick populations and mosquito populations. We would anticipate over time more people in traditionally temperate climates will be exposed."

If this prediction holds, it will add to the enormous health care costs that already exist...

The study also found that the patients most likely to be injured by bites from venomous snakes, spiders and insects were in the lowest 25 percent of household income for their ZIP code...

This poses a major public health problem in children and numerous animal species have the potential to bite humans; however, the most important are those arising from snakes, dogs, cats and monkeys.

REMEMBER, ONLY CRITICAL DISCOURSE CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES

Activism and Neoliberalism: Two Sides of

Geoengineering

Discourse

Tina SikkaPublished online: 10 Dec 2018  ABSTRACT

The paper provides a comparative, 
critical discourse-driven analysis of activism for and against climate engineering. 

Arguments in support of this approach to climate remediation are quintessentially neoliberal and can be found in discourses that fetishize entrepreneurialism, support a market driven ideology, and amplify creative destruction.

They stand in contrast with the ways in which geoengineering is framed by activists and their organizations. The overall objective of this piece is to engage in and unpack the discursive frames behind what is a significant site of contestation over how to address climate change and map out the practices and sites of resistance to climate engineering as they come up against well-funded campaigns in support of its use.

WHEN DOES THIS RABBIT HOLE STOP AT THE NEXT TEA PARTY?

NEW CARBON FEE

INITIATIVE DRAFTED

with more color and

less white supremacy

By Sahrah Myre

It is very, very easy to fall down the minutia rabbit hole when it comes to climate policy—specifically because the writing of these policies has been characterized by white male power brokering between strong and potentially problematic personalities...

Because of the moral and economic quandaries that underlie how we address a planetary-scale problem at a regional level. 

Climate change is inseparable from decision making on human rights, because of the basic moral math... I'm going to say it like it is: When climate policy is written by white men in a closed room, that is white supremacy... 

Comrades, climate policy is collective Chippendale desks and the electrification of kites.

Why did I-732 fail? ... I think a clear component of the failure is the way that the initiative spilt the social justice and environmental communities down the center. Social justice and equity organizations called out both the lack of diverse voices in the initiative writing process and the lack of equity in how the generated revenue would be spent...we need to build equity and human rights into climate policy... as we wrestle with fundamentally reseating power away from the colonial system that brought us to this brink of planetary madness.

OLD KING COAL WAS A SOAPY OLD SOUL AND CALLED FOR HIS P-R MEN THREE

BAD CHILDREN IN BRZESZCZE MAY GET TWO BARS IN THEIR STOCKINGS

December 7, 2018

Poland trolls the global environmentalists

 at UN climate meeting

By Peter Skurkiss

Here is a Polish joke our conservative Polish-American friends should love.

A two week gathering of diplomats and climate 'experts' on man-made global warming started in Katowice, Poland this week. The purpose of the meetings is to strengthen the Paris Climate Accord to stem purported climate damage, which the environmentalists claim, is caused by burning fossil fuel.  Note that the greatest bugaboo to the enviros is not oil; it's coal. To them, coal is so evil that President Barack  Hussein  Obama promised to shut down the entire U.S. coal industry through the heavy hand of government regulations. 

So how was the Katowice conference kicked off? 

The Polish Coal Miners band, dressed in smart black uniforms and wearing traditional mines caps, struck up a tune as confused-looking delegates arrived at the convention center in Katowice, a city in the heart of Poland's coal mining country. 

Coal was proudly displayed in cases around the convention pavilion. Coal, fashioned in jewelry, was for sale. A coal-based cosmetic company even touted products that it claimed would treat 'both body and soul.'  

In addressing the delegates in his opening remarks, Polish President Andrzej  Duba said Poland has no plans to give up coal. And why would it? Poland has the highest coal production in Europe and employs about 100,000 people in its mining industry. And coal supplies Poland with approximately 80% of its energy needs. The New York Times further reported that President Duba reinforced his pro-coal message on the second day of the conference by skipping meetings and instead visited a coal mine in Brzeszcze to join in the celebration of 'Barborka,' the feast day of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners.

CRICKET-MAD CLIMATE DENIERS HIT SPECIAL OLYMPICS

YOU LOAD SIXTEEN TONS AND WHAT DO YOU GET ? A REALLY DEPRESSING BILLBOARD

SOME THINGS TO BE SEEN TO BE DISBELIEVED

THREE YEARS AFTER WINNING 
LE PALME DE CHARBON 
AT THE COP 23 FILM FESTIVAL, 
CLIMATE HUSTLE 

HAS AT LAST SURFACED

ON A GERMAN SOFT COAL U-TUBE CHANNEL 

MARK MORANO  SUFFERS A MINOR  GREEN SCREEN  MALFUNCTION:
THE  PRODUCTION VALUES  OF CFACT'S PEABODY COAL BACKED CONTRARIAN EPIC CONTRACTED AS ITS SPONSOR'S BANKRUPTCY  DREW NEAR.