Written by Thomas Richard, examiner.com

New European Union (EU) law intending to be ‘green’ by limiting electricity power usage in domestic vacuum cleaners turns out to be more wasteful in energy. Scientists and consumers baffled by Brussels lawmakers’ faux pas.

North Americans, don’t be afraid, your old vacuum cleaner is just fine but if you feel like buying a new one anyway, no problem either.

If you live across the pond in the EU, however, you might just want to hang on to your old vac. The good bureaucrats of the EU have prescribed a new ‘greener’ standard: new vacuum cleaners have been limited to a maximum energy use of 1.6 kW (as of September 2014) and 0.9 kW as of September 2017. That’s a major change in energy consumption, mandated by EU law; needless to say, some manufacturers are not happy and the consumers—they’ll have to find out.

What’s the Issue?

Though I barely know such household gadgets, I think most vacs sold on this continent are using motors rated in the 1.5+ kW range, well above the 2017 limit mandated by the EU standard. I hazard the guess that few of the bureaucrats who wrote the new regulations ever use any vacuum themselves. After all, they are there to make regulations, not to live by them.

If they did use a vac, they might just realize that working twice as long with a 0.9 kW “energy-saving” implement compared to a 1.5 kW system for half the time does not save any energy at all. In fact, it consumes more energy (consumed energy = power x time). 

James Delingpole, breitbart.com

The American Meteorological Society has weighed into the debate on the climate fraud allegedly committed by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

It thinks that NOAA’s dodgy, data-fudging, parti-pris scientists should be allowed to go on spending taxpayers’ money on green propaganda unimpeded by the scrutiny of pesky skeptics like Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).

Here’s how the AMS’s executive director, Keith L Seitter, puts it in an open letter to the congressman:

Singling out specific research studies, and implicitly questioning the integrity of the researchers conducting those studies, can be viewed as a form of intimidation that could deter scientists from freely carrying out research on important national challenges.

The reason for this, he goes on to “explain”, is that scientists who work for public institutions such as NOAA are a bit like a cross between Einstein, St Francis of Assisi and Joan of Arc, only, obviously more brilliant, saintly, self-sacrificial and nobly dedicated to the furtherance of human knowledge.

NASA is just days away from a flyby in which its Cassini space probe will fly through liquid plumes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. 

The agency’s scientists said on Wednesday, October 28, its craft would fly down within 30 miles of the surface of the icy moon and attempt to pass through the plumes erupting from its south pole in hopes of determining whether the ocean moon has conditions suitable for life.

The hope, say NASA scientists, is to figure out if Enceladus has geothermic activity similar to that found in Earth’s ocean. The hot-water vents allow simple life forms such as bacteria to thrive in an otherwise inhospitable environment.

In its brief 19,000mph flyby, Cassini will collect little more than a droplet of liquid. While the craft lacks the instruments to detect microscopic life, the team believes Cassini’s hardware will at least be able to determine whether Enceladus has the hydrogen to suggest the conditions that could support life.

“This flyby can’t detect life, but it will provide valuable insights into how habitable the ocean in Enceladus might be,” said Cassini program scientist Curt Niebur.

“This is a very big step in a new era of exploring ocean worlds in our solar system, bodies with great potential to provide life.”

Rosetta has both delighted and upset astronomers after the probe sent back data that indicates the discovery of molecular oxygen on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. 

The scientists are excited because the O2, detected in the thin cloud of stuff surrounding the comet, is going to give them a pile of new science; and upset because it’s not really supposed to be there. After billions of years, most of the molecular oxygen was expected to have reacted with hydrogen to form water.

The fact that the oxygen has survived suggests the comet – and probably other bodies in the solar system – must have formed so gently that it never became hot enough to spark oxygen reactions.

The first detection of the oxygen molecules happened more than a year ago, but was so unexpected that the mission decided to monitor it rather than announcing it immediately.

Oxygen is plentiful – it’s the third most abundant element in the universe – but it’s also highly reactive, and usually turns up bound to other atoms and molecules (or with itself, as O3, ozone).

In data collected between September 2014 and March 2015, the mission found that O2 makes up 3.8 per cent of the cloud surrounding 67P, which is an order of magnitude greater than expected.

Top French mathematicians go public to condemn climate alarmism and join growing worldwide army of sceptical scientists. France’s Societe de Calcul Mathematique declare: “The battle against global warming is an absurd, costly and pointless crusade” in a 195-page PDF.

In a letter published below, Dr.  Bernard Beauzamy of the Societe de Calcul Mathematique, SA (SCM) is warmly praised by prominent American skeptic scientist, Dr Martin Hertzberg for his organization’s damning new White Paper, “The battle against global warming“  in which France’s top mathematicians condemn climate alarmism.

After conducting its own rigorous study SCM declares that the global warming cult has had an “impact on the entire field of scientific research” and “is particularly clear and especially pernicious.”

SCM was established in 1987 by University professor, Dr. Beauzamy. Dr Hertzberg is co-founder and key scientist at Principia Scientific International (PSI). Both bodies separately, studiously and impartially applied their skills to separate fact from fiction in the heated climate debate. Both find carbon dioxide (CO2) to be innocent and nothing more than a benign trace atmospheric gas.

Both SCM and PSI agree bad science and misrepresentation of data has led poorly-trained climate ‘experts’ to wrongly conclude there exists a dangerous human impact on earth’s climate requiring urgent global action.

A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers. 

The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed   to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology. “Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”  Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.”

Scientists calculate how much the ice sheet is growing or shrinking from the changes in surface height that are measured by the satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the ice-sheet mass grows or shrinks. 

Even the “lukewarmer” position on anthropogenic global warming has become untenable on the basis of both observations and theory: 

1. Lindzen (pictured) & Choi papers based on ERBE satellite observations showed sensitivity (to doubled CO2 levels) of only ~0.18C

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-paper-confirms-findings-of-lindzen.html

2. Dr. David Evans has shown, using the same flawed radiative model of the IPCC as the basis, that  “The ECS might be almost zero, is likely less than 0.25 °C”

http://joannenova.com.au/2015/11/new-science-18-finally-climate-sensitivity-calculated-at-just-one-tenth-of-official-estimates/

3. Kimoto has shown climate sensitivity is ~.15-.2C due to the IPCC false assumptions of a fixed lapse rate and a mathematical error in calculating the Planck feedback parameter:

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/search?q=kimoto

4 Volokin et al have shown that planetary surface temperatures are a function of solar insolation and surface pressure only, not greenhouse gas concentrations, on all 8 planets for which we have adequate data, including Earth & Venus.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/search?q=volokin

5. The surface temperature and tropospheric temperature profile can easily be derived from physical first principles including the 1st LoT, Ideal Gas Law, Poisson Equation, Newton’s 2nd Law, and Stefan-Boltzmann Law for solar forcing only, and without greenhouse gas “radiative forcing,” and perfectly replicates the verified 1976 US Standard Atmosphere. Thus, once again, sensitivity to CO2 is mathematically proven to be essentially zero. 

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/search?q=greenhouse+equation

6. Convection dominates radiative-convective equilibrium in the troposphere by a factor of ~8X, and increased greenhouse gases accelerate convection, thereby erasing any alleged cold-heats-hot greenhouse gas radiative effects on the surface. 

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-greenhouse-gases-accelerate.html

7. Many other climate sensitivity estimates have concluded climate sensitivity is effectively zero, or so close to zero as to be unmeasurable and negligible.

A new report released this week by the U.N.-funded WMO said that the levels of the three most potent ‘greenhouse gases’ in our atmosphere reached new levels in 2014. The good news is that CO2 rose less than 2 ppm, with the other two gases barely climbing at all. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said carbon dioxide (CO2) levels increased to only 397.7 parts per million (PPM), up 1.9 PPM from 2013.

They also said methane levels measured 1,833 parts per billion (PPB) in 2014, and were up only 9 PPB from 2013. The globally averaged level of nitrous oxide in 2014 grew to 327.1 PPB, which is 1.1 PPB above the previous year. The largest greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is water vapor, which makes up 95{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of all so-called greenhouse gases. All of which may be bad news if you’ve instituted economy-crippling policies ahead of a UN-sponsored climate treaty.

But if you’ve ever wondered what the greenhouse gas/effect means, this may help: A greenhouse is a glass-covered enclosure that is pumped with higher amounts of CO2 (usually around 1,800 PPM) to promote plant growth. As the sun’s visible and ultraviolet light passes through the glass ceiling and walls, it gets absorbed by the floor, ground, and greenhouse contents. This heat then radiates off the items in the greenhouse and, because it’s in an enclosed structure (the glass), is unable to escape into the cooler air around the structure.

Think of it like your car in the hot sun. It’s not filled with CO2, but the heat has no way to escape because of the glass and steel enclosure. Government climate scientists believe that gases like water vapor and CO2 act like the glass and steel, preventing the heat from escaping into space, giving you an Earth-sized greenhouse. Hence the term “greenhouse effect” and “greenhouse gases.” But they seem to overlook the fact earth’s atmosphere is open to space (i.e. nothing like a closed greenhouse). 

The theory of global warming involves a lot of assumptions. First it states that, with all things being equal, the Earth “maintains a constant average temperature averaged out over the course of a year.” As sunlight comes in, it heats the air and Earth, some gets absorbed, some gets emitted back into outer space, and what’s left maintains a relatively moderate temperature for the planet. Remember, energy can’t be destroyed. So what comes in has to either be converted into something else, absorbed, or reflected back into outer space.

According to the ‘theory’ how fast this energy is radiated back into outer space depends on how much of a particular gas is in the atmosphere, like water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide, and methane. The more of a particular gas we have in the atmosphere, the less energy can get bounced back out into space.

This, say climate scientists, causes the lower atmosphere to stay warmer (near the surface), but also warms the upper atmosphere (remember, energy can’t be destroyed). Water vapor is the most potent shield for keeping this energy from escaping the Earth. For a more in-depth tutorial and examples, go here.

Global warming theory also says that increased levels of carbon dioxide and certain other gases are causing an increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. It predicts that the upper atmosphere will warm from trapped heat, just like in a greenhouse. The surface of the Earth warms later to reach equilibrium. Except since 1979, we’ve had orbiting satellites measuring the atmosphere and it shows the upper atmosphere is warming much less than expected by this theory.

Because nature abhors imbalances, global warming theory also says that the lower atmosphere must then respond to this upper atmospheric heat by increasing in temperature until the energy coming in equals the energy going out. To do this, the Earth’s temperature at the surface goes up to meet the temperature of the upper atmosphere and balance is restored. But as noted above that isn’t happening. That fact alone should put the greenhouse gas theory into the coffin.

But there is far too much money involved in the global-warming cottage industry and, as less hysterical climate scientists keep trying to say, the planet is not as sensitive to imbalances as some people would have you believe. In fact, the Earth is quite adept at keeping up with changes as it has done so for the last 4.5 billion years.

The largest CO2 sponge on the planet are the oceans around us. The largest emitter of CO2 on the planet are microbes that produce CO2 as they consumer decaying organic matter. What man contributes, while significant, barely registers when compared to natural, ongoing processes (including, but not limited to, volcanic activity beneath the oceans).

Regardless of all this, the 2014 CO2 level is actually a 12-month average as CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuates throughout the year, and is lower when the Northern Hemisphere is in full bloom (plants absorb CO2) and higher in the winter (when more ocean is covered in ice and fewer plants are in bloom).

To put this in context, CO2 levels went up on such an infinitesimal scale as to be unquantifiable. Methane, which is considered to have 21-23 times the heat trapping power of CO2, rose to 1,833 PPB in 2014. That’s up 9 parts per billion (with a B). Mix 9 red marbles into a billion white marbles, and you begin to understand the silliness that ensues every time one of these reports come out.

Which always seem to happen right before a UN-sponsored climate conference like the one coming up in December.

Read more by Thomas Richard at www.examiner.com

The following resolution was released yesterday by the Schiller Institute, with the intention of rapidly collecting signatures from qualified professionals, political leaders, and ordinary citizens internationally. The main posting of the resolution can be found here, as well as the downloadable leaflet for signatures.

The conditions of life for billions of people depend upon rejecting the agenda being presented at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris this December. The COP21 Paris initiative to adopt a legally binding agreement to reduce CO2 emissions must be rejected on two grounds: the scientific reality that mankind’s activity is not going to cause catastrophic climate change, and the very real, lethal consequences of the CO2 reduction programs being demanded.

You’ll have heard of it, COP-21, the latest United Nation conference on all things climate, coming to Paris (France) in December. Wouldn’t you know it, just in time for that “cataclysmic” event, nature does not want to play according to the organizers’ script.

Rather than the polar ice caps having shrivelled to mere remnants by now, forecast for many years by all climate modelling enthusiasts, the polar ice shields have been growing by leaps and bounds. For example, according to a recent report by NASA scientists HJ Zwally et al., the Antarctic ice shield has been growing for 15 years already, even at an alarming rate. Then we learn that near the earth’s opposite pole, in Greenland, the rate of ice accumulation is breaking new records too; see the figure below (source: Danish Met. Inst., Nov. 7, 2015) and, last not least, the seasonal growth of the sea ice extent in the Arctic is not far behind.

Consternation

It must come as total consternation to all those people who have claimed for years now that “climate change” or “global warming” as it used to be termed is about ready to “incinerate” all life on earth. For example, “climate modellers” like S. Rahmstorf at Germany’s PIK have claimed for years that the polar regions would be most sensitive to any warming and that the polar ice masses were going to recede in a great hurry and that the ocean levels would rise fast. In reality, none of that is the case.

In fact, the polar ice masses continue to grow, some reaching new all-time records in both ice extent and accumulated mass. Also ocean levels are NOT rising as previously predicted.

If you feel somewhat confused, please don’t shoot the messenger. As the lateAlan Caruba has claimed for years, the climate fear-mongering is nothing but an elaborate hoax. The fact that even Pope Francis subscribes to the climate gospel now does not cause the ice masses to shrink. Perhaps his Holiness’ recent encyclical letter “Laudato Si, on care for our common home”  may sway some folks’ views but even the Pontiff cannot dictate nature’s course. Just as an aside, the Vatican has never signed on to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 that was to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

If the now two-decade long lack of lack of the prophesized warming and actually increasing ice masses at the earth’s poles are not enough to worry about, there are even more dire facts that may jolt you back to reality.

Viruses normally seem like evil little germs; they often invade our bodies’ cells and hijack their inner machinery to mass produce viral invaders, which eventually destroy their host cells as they bust out to besiege more cells. The process repeats ad nauseam. But what if that wicked master plan could be twisted to do our bidding? What if viruses only invaded cells we wanted them to kill—like cancer cells?

Researchers got the initial idea of using viruses decades ago (PDF) and racked up a number of enticing anecdotes that suggested the idea could work. After all, cancer cells, in their altered state that allows them to replicate quickly and uncontrollably, often shut off their anti-viral defenses and are prone to infection. But scientists’ attempts at training viruses to be cancer assassins fell short in bigger trials—until now.

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first viral-based cancer therapy. The virus, called talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC), is a genetically engineered herpes simplex virus that can help treat advanced melanoma. Its genetic tweaks make it incapable of usurping normal, healthy cells. Thus, it doesn’t cause herpes. But when it meets cancer cells, it initiates cellular carnage. The virus is also engineered to carry a gene encoding the GM-CSF protein, which triggers the immune system. As the virus ravages cancer cells, GM-CSF gets released, boosting a patient’s natural defenses.

So far, T-VEC isn’t a wonder drug, but it’s helpful. In a large clinical trial published in May in theJournal of Clinical Oncology, researchers found that the virus shrank tumors and extended patient survival by a median of 4.4 months. The results were just shy of showing a statistically significant benefit to overall health. Still, the researchers are hopeful that when the viral therapy is combined with traditional therapies, it could significantly boost survival rates in patients.

As William Pentland reports at Forbes, there is a new type of battery on the horizon: the lithium-air battery. He refers to a new study published in Science by T. Liu et al. 

Pentland calls it a “breakthrough” and, therefore, thinks that gasoline-powered engines are doomed, though perhaps not now, nor soon—or ever. A similar report at the phys.org website has the title “New design points a path to the ‘ultimate’ battery.”

What’s New?

In his report, Pentland claims that lithium-air batteries have a theoretical energy density limit of roughly 11,000 Wh/kg. As Wikipediaexplains, that high energy density results from not requiring an oxidant within the battery itself, instead it is taking oxygen from the air. However, the graph accompanying Pentland’s glowing report, while certainly interesting, shows only a roughly 10-fold increase (in theoretical) capacity to approximately 3,000 Wh/kg for a secondary (rechargeable) battery. Undoubtedly, achieving that alone would be an enormous advancement.

Independent British climate researcher, Derek Alker herein provides a fresh and readily-understandable re-analysis of the identifiable five-step history of climate modelling with his new paper, The Modelling History of Climatology. 

Alker guides the reader from the slide-rule and pencil era of Vilhelm Bjerknes (1904) to the computer age of Charney (1979) and Hansen (1988) and beyond. This welcome new research discredits the greenhouse gas ‘theory’ – the diseased heart of climate models – and refuted relentlessly by scientists at Principia Scientific International (PSI) since 2009.

But most crucially, Alker provides a most unorthodox conclusion from this study. He finds that:

“To the best of my knowledge I am the first to suggest that the atmosphere is a cold trap for liquid water at earth’s surface and that THAT changes everything (most notably surface heat capacity [the oceans] currently ignored by climatology) for the basis of current, and the future basis of climate science.”

The Modelling History of Climatology shows we have been living in a misguided era of carbon dioxide (CO2) demonization that began in earnest with Charney (1979). For over a generation an over-simplified steady state climate model with constant solar input has dominated academic reasoning. Charney et al’s ‘greenhouse science’ version of planet earth was fixed as a crude two parallel plane barren and inorganic model. Climate modelers chose this flawed mathematical solution absent key thermodynamic elements in denial of the reality of our wet, three-dimensional living and breathing organic planet.