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@ ET
Solar panels have been on houses for a long time, maybe thirty five years?
However, it is the new battery tech, that brings this system to fruition.Michael, I find it sad to see you periodically swayed by political propaganda. “Net Zero by Whenever” is merely political posturing, as are the scare stories opposing it. Deindustrialisation is nothing new, it started forty years ago under Thatcher, and has persisted under governments of all complexions ever since. Study practicalities first (directly from the numbers, and from people and organisations that actually do stuff), and only read political commentary afterwards; that way, you’ll be well placed to spot the politicised distortions, deceptions, distractions and misdirections.
“If voting could change anything it’d be made illegal”. It’s not quite that bad, at least we can kick out one lot and get in another, but they lie more than not, and then we’re stuck with the winning bunch for five years. That’s what’s happened with this lot. The Conservatives did a lot of very unconservative things, like personal profiteering in the pandemic, encouraging drunken fascists to the Cenotaph where they pelted the police with bottles, crashing the economy under Truss, tripling immigration, and letting the water companies fill our rivers with effluent. So people voted for “the other side” and soon discovered they’d been deceived, tricked into genocide and war, hence this government’s massive unpopularity.
Democracy itself needs an overhaul; everything else is just tinkering around the edges. Just for a start, we need a way to kick out a government quickly when it turns out they lied to get elected.
The first houses in the UK to be fitted with solar panels were part of the “Solar Park” project in Woking, Surrey, in 1986. These were social housing units, demonstrating the potential of solar energy for both electricity and hot water.
Clark
Quote “Democracy itself needs an overhaul; everything else is just tinkering around the edges. Just for a start, we need a way to kick out a government quickly when it turns out they lied to get elected.”Clark, one hundred percent agree.
I am not a complete dinosaur, although on Tuesday when I was with my conservation volunteering group, we were making sweet chestnut post and rail fences, one of the volunteers ( I think he has a PhD in botany), had a very colourful hat. I called out is that your gay hat Colin?
He came over and put his hand on my shoulder, saying oh, dear, I don’t think we will ever get you politically correct Michael, at least not until you are dead.
It seems most of our volunteers are incredibly highly educated, I class myself as the least educated, anyway the higher educated ones, mostly voted Labour.
Maybe the political correctness comes from working in large organisations?
I have spent most of my life being self employed.
Most of them are fully signed up to believing hook line and sinker that there is likely to be a climate crisis.
Yet they happily jet off on holiday to the Caribbean.
Many cycle to the volunteering, some even go on cycling holidays.
I think I have just demonstrated that cognitive dissonance is rife.Most people do not want a lower standard of living.
I expect that is true anywhere in the worldHere is a question for Clark and ET.
What percentage of the population of the world do you consider live in fear of Global Warming.
My guess would be something like a lot less than one percent.
Spain
Pedro Sánchez, who promised to clean up Spanish politics, is now caught up in multiple corruption scandals!
A judge has been investigating the prime minister’s wife, Begoña Gómez, for possible business irregularities – and his musician brother, David, is due to go on trial for alleged influence peddling.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3r1px50vvoI doubt the Spanish government are less corrupt of useless than the British government.
Starmer seems to has vanished?Sorry, I really garbled that.
I doubt the Spanish Government are any more corrupt or useless than the Starmer Government.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250617-spain-says-overvoltage-caused-huge-april-blackout
Shaun Quegan
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/mps/people/all-academic-staff/shaun-queganI know we have briefly mentioned this project before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqvsVgtThQVery interesting project.
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This video is about a topic we have touched on before.
700 mm wavelength radar.
British scientist Shaun Quegan, is interested in radar.
Radar was invented in Britain, helping us to shorten the Second World War against Germany.
They explain that NOAA have been using sats for forty years and have determined that the green leaf coverage of the World has greatly expanded, during that time, estimates are that 2/3 of the extra greening come from the extra Carbon dioxide that is now in the atmosphere, mostly released by human activity.
https://www.noaa.gov/NOOA was concerning themselves with green leaf coverage.
Now thought to be extra greening equivalent to
two continental United States of America.
So, a huge amount.
This new sat, is aimed at discerning the mass of Carbon held in the surface woody parts of the forests.
They are interested in the balance of Carbon. So, just because there now is more green leaf, how much extra Carbon is locked up in the woody parts of the forests.
Is more being Carbon being released back into the air by human activity, like clear felling, road building.
This new radar will look through the trees and measure the wood. That is why they have gone for such a long wave length. They needed to wait until the American military gave them the go ahead because this is/was the frequency they use to check on nuclear weapons emplacement.
This new sat must not look at nuclear weapons sites.Now I have explained what the video, nobody needs to watch it.
michaelIn this video, they claimed that probably only 1% of the Carbon held in a tree is in the green parts, most is held in the woody parts.
What they did not say in this video, is that a lot of the Carbon, drawn down by the forests is stored in the top soil.
What the video also claimed, was that the bulk of the tree is the woody parts, only about 50% of that is Carbon.
They did not specify ( perhaps I glossed over that bit) what the other 50% is, mostly water, I guess.
This is initially a five year project.
So, several passes on the same land, maybe twice in the five year period, then they can determine if the forested areas are gaining Carbon or losing Carbon.Michael, whilst such projects are interesting and may give us useful data in time we already know that however the as yet unknown intricacies of these systems behave it’s still not preventing atmospheric CO2 levels from rising. We can easily measure this. Thanks to carbon 13 isotope dating (and other things) we can confidently say the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is from burning fossil fuels. Carbon 14 isotope dating was/is messed up thanks to nuclear bomb testing in the past.
We also know and can easily demonstrate the greenhouse gas effect of CO2.
We can calculate relatively easily how much CO2 is released by burning fossil fuels.I am not living moment by moment in fear of global warming, in that I don’t think about mostly until I come here 😏 but unless we curtail atmospheric CO2 (and other Greenhouse gases) we are going to have a hotter planet.
Thank you ET.
It does seem that even though a lot of the extra Carbon dioxide is drawn down, the percentage of Carbon in the air, still increases.
Quote Wikipedia
Biomass
is an Earth observing satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA). The mission will provide the first comprehensive measurements of global forest biomass and is expected to significantly improve the understanding of carbon storage, forest health, and temporal changes of forest ecosystems. It is meant to last for five years, monitoring at least eight growth cycles in the world’s forests.Its stated objectives are:
Reduce the large uncertainties in the carbon flux due to changes in land use
Provide scientific support for international treaties, agreements and programs such as the UN’s REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) program
Improve understanding and predictions of landscape-scale carbon dynamics
Provide observations to initialize and test the land element of Earth system models
Provide key information for forest resources management and ecosystem services.Quite a large British input into this exciting project.
I’ve been watching domestic heating oil (kerosene 28) soar in price, up by 25% in the eight days from Friday 13 June to Saturday the 21st:
https://www.boilerjuice.com/heating-oil-prices-england/
Now it’s set to soar further along with the price of gas, as the Parliament of Iran has just voted to close the Strait of Hormuz:
– “Third of global gas and quarter of global oil passes through narrow waterway”
…and Yemen’s Ansar Allah (“the Houthis”) orders a resumption of military activity at the southern opening of the Red Sea. Those are two major ocean global trade routes; no way all that traffic could squeeze through the Suez Canal, even if it went to the right place.
We really do need independence from fossil fuels, even if only for economic stability. Sustained fuel shortage would cause global recession, which in turn would cause the price of fuel to crash again. You can’t have fuel prices bouncing up and down like this, all economic planning becomes meaningless.
Trump seems to love economic roller-coasters. Maybe he has friends who are speculators.
Michael, June 21, 09:25 –
– “Starmer seems to has vanished?”
I wish it was permanent. But like a bad smell from a blocked drain, I bet he’ll be back. I doubt he was visiting his property in Israel.
Michael, June 20, 2025 at 06:25 –
– “What percentage of the population of the world do you consider live in fear of Global Warming. My guess would be something like a lot less than one percent.”
I can’t answer for “living in fear”, though I can tell you that some climate scientists are getting arrested doing civil disobedience, Peter Kalmus for instance, and various young scientists I’ve met during activism. I’ve read that various Australian climate scientists have left Australia.
As far as more general public opinion goes, there’s more info than I have time to read through here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_on_climate_change
One snippet caught my eye though:
– “In February 2024, a global survey found that 89% of global population want more climate action, 69% agree to give 1% of their income to climate action. But, when the researchers asked the opinion of the respondents about the share of population which want more climate action, the average answer was much lower than the real numbers.”
I’m pretty worried about it myself, though nuclear war seems the most imminent global threat right now. But that record breaking summer we had recently more than half killed an evergreen tree in my back yard, literally two thirds of its foliage died. I’ve lived here since 1991 and I’ve watched it grow from a sprig out the side of a two inch diameter stump, to a young tree nearly as tall as the 1920s two floor cottage I rent. Nothing ever affected it like that before.
– “But, when the researchers asked the opinion of the respondents about the share of population which want more climate action, the average answer was much lower than the real numbers.”
That’s the effect of propaganda. Propaganda screws up democracy good and proper.
I’m finding the same effect with Palestine. When I’m out leafleting or flying the Palestinian flag, I get ten times as much support as criticism. People thank me just for wearing a Free Palestine badge. But those supporters tell me I’m very brave to do it, because they think their opinions are in a tiny minority. Propaganda is extremely powerful.
China is currently the biggest emitter of human induced Carbon dioxide.
We have been told they had a population of 1.4 billion people, about 1/6 of total world numbers.
But decades ago they introduced the one child policy.
They currently have about 1.0 children per two adults, which is way below replacement.
Although, I believe, the one child policy is old hat, they are still not having many children, they also have an ageing population, their flush has been busted.
As they get older and fewer they will pollute less.
This demographic change is happening in many places, so the increase in human produced Carbon dioxide might be at or near peak.
Maybe we will have two and a half degrees “baked in” maybe less.
As the Arctic warms, dwarf trees will grow, slowly but after a while they will absorb stunning quantities of Carbon. As bits fall off these pioneers, more top soil will form, the biodiversity will take off, in a knock-on way.
No need to fear Global Warming.Maybe worry about what NATO will do next.
NATO meeting in The Netherlands on Tuesday, The Donald is due to turn up.
Iran is bombing Israel. Iran is bombing the Yankee bases.
Did we let the Yankees use Akrotiri?“Iranian spy” arrested over suspected terror plot targeting United Kingdom military base in Cyprus
The suspect is reportedly from Azerbaijan.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/man-arrested-terror-spy-plot-uk-military-base-cyprus-b1234183.htmlAzerbaijan and Iran share a common border. Both have sea frontage on the Caspian.
Both have shit loads of Oil & Natural Gas.Did the U.K. let the Yankees fly from Diego Garcia?
– “Did the U.K. let the Yankees fly from Diego Garcia?”
KC135 tankers flew direct from England, to refuel Trump’s planes that attacked Iran in direct contravention of both international law and the US Constitution. I dunno if the US B2s and B52s flew from Diego Garcia, they may be still there. I’m too weary to check, this is so utterly miserable. But they were there at all with Starmer’s permission, of course. I know that some of the attacking aircraft flew direct from the USA. I just hope Iran’s claim is true and accurate, and all nuclear material had been relocated ahead of the strikes. If not, everyone’s chances of cancer have just gone up.
– – – – – – –
+2.5 degrees is an alien planet.
I know it doesn’t sound like it, but “global average temperature” is really a technical term. Phrased as a quantity of heat, it is unimaginable, comparable with an asteroid impact. The heat of ten Hiroshima bombs per second, continually, for decades, and rising. Probably more now that all this war is boosting emissions.
Probably it won’t stop at +2.5 degrees, because that figure is for the effect of human caused emissions on their own. But the heating will release methane as permafrost melts. Rising ocean temperature will drive more CO2 out of the ocean water, and may release yet more methane from clathrate deposits on the seabed. Much remaining forest and scrubland will burn, unable to adapt so fast, all of which boost the greenhouse heating. Losing the white polar ice reduces reflection of solar heat. These are some of the “tipping point” elements of “runaway global warming”. There are more.
You’re right that life will survive, but planetary heating will add to the already ongoing mass extinction; Earth’s sixth. This extinction event is currently caused primarily by habitat loss, which is killing off species faster than the heating.
But I guess that heating and consequent climate change will take over as the major species killer as human ‘civilisation’ collapses, taking human-driven habitat loss with it. Also the nuclear power stations drowned under the rising oceans, and untended due to societal collapse, will release a lot of radioisotopes that will cause both mass die-off and mutation. Likewise coastal industry, especially chemicals, as happened in the Pacific after the tsunami. There are several metres of sea level rise locked up in the continental polar ice, and Earth’s current 800,000 year ice age is being brought to a very abrupt end. Europe has a localised ice age to go through before we get there, as the AMOC weakens and dies. Eventually, the New Earth will have a lot less land area.
‘Progress’, huh?
All the above is based on peer reviewed Earth science, cross-correlated and corroborated from multiple subfields. It’s not prophecy, it’s a set of educated best estimates; scientists do actually do science during working hours, corruption is applied later, mostly by the media. It’s not a conspiracy by scientists to spite the fossil fuel industry for their generosity, nor a plot by the elite to impose a communist agenda, make us eat bugs and impose Sharia law (what??!). I have summarised a worst-case scenario, but that does seem to be where politics is taking us – and given the other outcomes of politics these days, is that really surprising? Feel free to ask questions.
And if human emissions stopped tomorrow the temperature would continue to rise, and we don’t really know for how long or by how much.
