Ah yes, the better way that only the Bjorn-again one fully understands or comprehends, with his totally unique* (*ABC licensed) ability to fix the planet's woes ...
Um, but couldn't climate change be exacerbating cold deaths? Might climate change have a hand in the extraordinary flooding going down?
Some of that footage from China, Germany and Belgium was extraordinary, especially the footage of those hapless people trapped underground in rail carriages. (Oh YouTube, how you and your logarithms can ruin a night).
But how silly of the pond, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and Bjorn has everything in hand, including his usual assortment of clichés ...
Oh indeed, indeed, and if we fry the planet, how splendid everything is going to be. Why the number of lives saved will be positively stupendous ... and did anyone else notice that splendid "thar Bjorn blows again" moment?
Yes, there was a slight variation in the usual wording, but only slight, as we came to that mantra "we need to tackle it effectively through innovation", though the pond understands that the concept of innovation must certainly exclude talk of green energy and wind and solar and such like, and must instead involve arcane ways of shoving CO2 in to the ground ...
Sorry, the Crikey paywall is back, which means some might miss out on the beefy boofhead Angus and clap happy SloMo punchline to that yarn...
...Chevron and its partners just have to inject the CO2 they would normally collect anyway, and that in itself has proven near impossible despite their using existing, widely used technology developed to extract and inject liquids underground.
The Morrison government announced in the budget it was wasting another $263 million on CCS as part of its fossil-fuel industry donor-drafted “gas-led recovery” plan.
But far more than hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money is at stake. The main point of CCS is that it allows further delay in the necessary transition to net zero economies and the prohibition of all fossil fuels. The plan for net zero by 2050 put forward by the International Energy Agency presumes that 11% of total energy supply in 2050 would be from gas with CCS (8%) or coal with CCS (3%). As Gorgon demonstrates, CCS with gas is exorbitantly expensive and, at best, a massive underperformer at reducing emissions, while coal with CCS is a complete fantasy.
That leaves about 10% of total energy supply that has to be sourced from non-fossil-fuel sources — not from coal and gas. And that’s for the unambitious net zero by 2050 target that will see the planet heat up well beyond Paris agreement targets. Net zero by 2040-45 is needed to mitigate the worst effects of global warming under way.
Every dollar wasted on CCS is also a delay to the urgent task of decarbonisation.
A policy bought by political donations and well-placed mates in positions of power will have dire ramifications — and sooner than people think.
... but if the Crikey paywall defeats you, you can at least follow that link to Milne's work here ...
And so to some more good denialist news ...
Ah, the Riddster, bringing the good news, or indeed, keeping SloMo in mind, the godspell ...
Oh the reef is fine, the planet is super fine, everything is fine and dandy ...
The pond is totally on board, and can be found at fop's corner, though it suspects that a few stray pond readers might have different views, and air them in their usual pedantic way.
Forgive them Riddster, they don't understand, they can't see the light the way you do, they're negative doomsayers, unlike you and the pond.
The reef is in tiptop shape, and so is the planet, and things are only going to get better, unless perhaps the rapture arrives, and then things will be really super dooper good ...
Who knows, if the pond can persuade enough people to piss in bottles, it might be able to flee to Mars with the billionaires ...
Ah the Ancient Greek legend. The pond isn't sure why the Ancients need a capital, but the pond understands it's time to stop all this talk of doom stories about the reef, and the planet, and ... is there another dose of that reptile soma to hand, the pond is feeling ever so thirsty?
However that mention of Prometheus probably set a few stray readers wondering.
What happened to our hole in the bucket man this Friday, and his pompous, portentous musings, littered with pretentious references, so he could preen and parade his book larnin'... humble, mind, in a Uriah Heep way, but still impressive ...
Did climate science denialist day get in the way of a right and proper celebration of our Henry and his references?
Relax, 'umble concerned reader, our Henry made it to the top of the digital page ma, among all the stories the reptiles deemed fit to print ... you know, like SloMo offering his own medical advice ...
Before tackling our hole in the bucket man, could the pond just slip in an infallible Pope on the matter of that man dishing out coateshangers?
Splendid stuff, and so on to our Henry as the real treat of the day ...
That snap? Apparently the reptiles dragged it out from the leftovers used to illustrate an ancient AdelaideNow story from 2019.
That's how desperate and busy the reptile recycling department has become.
The pond hardly knows what's the best reference for that reptile activity, shorn of a graphics department, as is the routine fate of fleeced sheep.
The ouroboros, perhaps? Perhaps the lamia? Perhaps this tale relevant to Chairman Rupert?
Erisychton (Er-is-ya-thon), according to Ovid’s tales from Greek mythology was a wealthy timber merchant and Thessalian King. He was a greedy man who thought only about profit. To him, nothing was sacred. The goddess Demeter had a sacred grove with a special tree beloved by the gods. Prayers of the faithful were tied to the tree branches and holy spirits would dance round its magnificent trunk. This meant nothing to Erisychton, all he cared about when he saw a tree was the volume of timber it would produce. Against all protests, he takes an ax to the sacred grove and he chops until the trees fell and the divine life that inhabited the grove had fled. So Demeter put a curse on Erisychton for his greed, from that day forward he would be consumed by an insatiable hunger. He began to eat all his stores; when that was finished he turned his wealth into food and consumed that as well. Driven by his insatiable hunger he ends up consuming his wife and children, and in the end, with nothing else left he consumes his own flesh.
Sorry, sorry, the reef is superfine, the planet is extra superfine, please enough of that Tokienish tree hugging, the pond was only warming up the crowd for our hole in the bucket man, and a gibbering opening reference to the Gibbon ...
There's nothing like a ponderous pedantic bigot attempting humour ... and what a fine display of ponderous lumbering our Henry produced, with Hegelian chortling everywhere ... but don't think the references will stop there, because our Henry is just warming up ...
Indeed, indeed, the pond would have limited the coercive powers of the state to determining who might keep our pompous, portentous, totally up himself prick company ... so pardon the pond, it sent a wire to the reptiles stating, please accept my resignation, I don't want to belong to any club that would accept our Henry as a member or even as a reference-laden humbug scribbler ...
Yes, it's a very long in the tooth Groucho joke, but when you get a loon mocking the state for getting into allegedly minor matters, while deploying the likes of Hannah Arendt, Hegel and the Platonic ideal, the state of cognitive dissonance and massively pompous clubs is too much for the pond to bear ...
Sorry, ever so sorry, it's the pond's duty to take a look at our Henry, but fucketty fuck, the pond is glad that's over.
There's only so much time you can waste on a self-righteous pompous bigot, before yearning for an immortal Rowe, and perhaps, if the one below is not enough to completely wash the memory of the pompous one away, scurrying here for more ...
Sorry, ever so sorry, it's the best the pond can suggest ...
"the pond is able to declare at long last that it is sorry for all the many and varied SloMo stuff ups"
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the pond is, because SloMo surely isn't. To call that wretched little "I'm sorry that things didn't work out better [for me]" spiel from him an apology is truly pitiful. There wasn't one single milligram of apology in SloMo's words or manner, or in his head or heart. But then, there never has been any with ScottyfromMarketing, has there.
OK - I did not predict the Henry's topic for this day (but still suspect it will pop up later). However, reading what he has put up for this day, surely, the essence of this dissertation is in favour of identity politics? What else might one conclude from people congregating on the basis of personal affinities?
ReplyDeleteSurely what Henry has put up for the day is just a filler - no substance, no rhyme nor reason, but just allowing him a little boast about how he's read Edward Gibbon and how he also completely fails to grasp simple history: that it really wasn't the Ottomans who destroyed Byzantium - by the time they came along Byzantium was barely even a shadow of its former existence; by then it was basically just a fading small city-state and had long ceased to be any sort of major entity.
DeleteA series of pandemics - yes, why doesn't Henry mention the history of them - starting with the plague of Justinian (541 - 549) and ending with the Black Death plague (1347 - 1453) together with sundry battles and wars over a millennium - many won, some lost (including to the European 'Christians') and the lack of any support from allies left Byzantium as a mere ghost of its former great self when it was able to produce Hagia Sophia in the 6th C under the rulership of Justinian I.
But then I've said before that the more Henry reads, the less time he has for developing any understanding. And his pissant little effort today simply illustrates that.
Henry seems concerned that the Tasmanian anti-discrimination commission is neglecting it's essential role in the fight against Covid.
DeleteSo he starts off suggesting it's the sort of trivial issue that distracts from the real problems then goes on at great length introducing sundry other trivialities. I think it's called irony.
Don't forget the Fourth Crusade, blundering around the Mediterranean spreading death and chaos before finally sacking Constantinople. Go Christian values!
Yes, it was the 4th Crusade that destroyed Byzantium, far more than the Ottomans. But I guess Gibbon would have had a real problem blaming the Venetians et al for destroying a Christian 'empire' though Byzantium was well on the way out before the 4th Crusade sacked Constantinople.
DeletePestilence doesn't get fair credit in history, particularly Yersinia pestis which turned the feudal order on it's head in Western Europe.
DeleteHistory even gets it wrong when it does mention it
https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bugbitten/2015/03/16/rats-exonerated-reservoir-hosts-black-death/
One of the things that allowed the Homo Saps Saps species to survive way back then and for quite some long time after, was that relatively small bands of wandering hunter-gatherers were largely isolated and didn't do much passing on of infections. It was when we settled into basically static larger groups - ie when we went for larger scale agriculture and localised herd-keeping that it all started. Then we went for larger towns and cities (eg Rome) and it all took off.
DeleteA prime example is the American civil war: far more deaths occurred from various infections than from actual combat - all because people who were relatively isolated farmers got crowded into military camps and barracks and such.
"Altogether, two-thirds of the approximately 660,000 deaths of soldiers were caused by uncontrolled infectious diseases, and epidemics played a major role in halting several major campaigns. These delays, coming at a crucial point early in the war, prolonged the fighting by as much as 2 years."
Infectious diseases during the Civil War: the triumph of the "Third Army"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8513069/
And they did already have some medical progress by that time compared with Roman-Byzantine days.
Oddly, the Henry has not put reference to his contribution of this day up on 'Catallaxy'. Perhaps even he has some standards still - that site is delving deep into a very authoritative US site to educate us all on how vaccination for Covid is more dangerous than Covid. The site - well, it has a very authoritative title, is for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. With a name like that, you would be inclined to think it was on an intellectual par with, oh - the Royal Society, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThe Wiki has a direct, and succinct, assessment of this particular nest of white-coated vipers.
It's just a joy to notice how closely related antipathy and stupidity are. What's worse is to notice how these egregious groups grow and prosper.
DeleteBut then, have I ever mentioned how long the Catholic Church has been around ?
Indeed, DP, Bjorn-again just can't leave his litany about "we need to tackle it effectively through innovation" out of anything, can he. Perhaps one day even one as blindly nonsensical as Lomborg will notice that we already have made very significant innovatory progress; especially in the fields of solar and wind generation, battery storage and grid management and ammonia-hydrogen fuels. Enough progress that his "If climate policy is to work, it has to drive up the prices of energy to reduce consumption" is clearly shown as the idiocy that it is.
ReplyDeleteBut don't expect Bjorn to ever notice that. He, like so many of his ilk, won't ever admit that CCS - their great "innovative" hope - is just not a goer.
The Lancet study he quotes about hot and cold death, for anybody interested, is, I think, this one:
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0.pdf
Thank you GB - reference filed away, with its 'take home message'
DeletePanel: Research in context
Despite the attention given to extreme weather events, most of
the effect happened on moderately hot and moderately cold days,
especially moderately cold days.
Yeah, that's the thing, ennit: in extreme conditions, people tend to take defensive measures. Esquimaux wear fur coats and Zulus wear melanin protected bare skin. So it goes.
DeleteBut if conditions are just a little bit below, or above, "extreme" then things can kinda sneak up and accumulate.
However, I am amused by the idea that we need global warming to reduce deaths from cold, when all we really need is warm clothes and bedrooms. And I think they are "innovations" that we already made a long time ago.