Friday, March 08, 2024

POP cp When I Was Born

Just calculated that, when I was born, US population was only 54% of what it is today. 

World population was 38% of today's.

Not really sure why, but these numbers make me kind of nostalgic and kind of sad.

Thursday, March 07, 2024

The Greenhouse Effect Strikes Again

From an article about ice fishers in New England having to pull their bobhouses off the ice earlier than in the past:

“I had to help pull out a bob-house out that fell in three years ago,” said Cutter, adding that a friend had built that house with a glass roof, which ended up turning it into a heating greenhouse that melted a hole in the ice beneath it.

Thursday, February 08, 2024

BREAKING: Michael Mann Wins Defamation Suit, Awarded Over $1 million

$1 in compensatory damages from Steyn, $1 M in punitive damages.

$1 in compensatory damages from Simberg, $1 K in punitive damages.

NY Times

Michael Mann, a Leading Climate Scientist, Wins His Defamation Suit: The researcher had sued two writers and their publishers for libel and slander over comments about his work. The jury found “spite” and “deliberate intent to harm.”

“The six-person jury announced its unanimous verdict after a four-week trial in District of Columbia Superior Court and one full day of deliberation. They found both Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn guilty of defaming Dr. Mann with multiple false statements and awarded the scientist $1 in compensatory damages from each writer.


“The jury also found the writers had made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm,” and levied punitive damages of $1,000 against Mr. Simberg and $1 million against Mr. Steyn in order to deter others from doing the same….


“In 2021, Judge Irving, along with another D.C. Superior Court judge, decided that the Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Review could not be held liable. The publishers did not meet the bar of “actual malice” imposed on public figures suing for defamation, the judges ruled, meaning employees of the two organizations did not publish Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn’s posts knowing them to be false, nor did they have “reckless disregard” for whether the posts were false.


“Dr. Mann’s attorneys have indicated that they will appeal this previous decision.”

Monday, September 04, 2023

UAH: Second-warmest Month in Their Records

UAH/Roy Spencer just published their temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere.


It's the warmest August since their records start in 1979 (by 0.30°C!) and the 2nd-hottest month since 1979 (just 0.01°C below the record of February 2016). 

This decade-to-date, 34 months into the new decade, is 0.27°C warmer than the last decade-to-date. (It's a short time interval, though, so not very meaningful.)

Every new decade UAH adjusts their anomalies to the latest 30 years (perhaps to keep the numbers smaller?). August's anomaly, with respect to 1980-2009, is 0.83°C, larger than I would have guessed. 

When is 1.00°C going to appear?

Very likely even higher anomalies to come in the next few months as the El Nino gets rolling....

Sunday, September 03, 2023

China's WAP Decline

China's working-age population has peaked. Not good news if you want continued national economic growth.

   

Via The World Bank, via Paul Krugman in the NY Times. He writes:
"At a fundamental level, China is suffering from the paradox of thrift, which says that an economy can suffer if consumers try to save too much. If businesses aren’t willing to borrow and then invest all the money consumers are trying to save, the result is an economic downturn. Such a downturn may well reduce the amount businesses are willing to invest, so an attempt to save more can actually reduce investment.

"And China has an incredibly high national savings rate. Why? I’m not sure there’s a consensus about the causes, but an I.M.F. study argued that the biggest drivers are a low birthrate — so people don’t feel they can rely on their children to support them in retirement — and an inadequate social safety net, so they don’t feel that they can rely on public support either."
This kind of thing is why macroeconomics is so interesting. And why you can't run government as a business, something some people don't seem able to understand.

Friday, September 01, 2023

Roy Spencer's Temperature

Roy Spencer usually publishes their temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere for the month just ended on the first of the month.

But it's not published today. (As of Sept 1, 4:54 pm Central Time.)

I've noticed from the past that he often doesn't publish it on the first of the month when the anomaly is high. 

But never when the anomaly is low.

Of course, maybe he's on vacation. It is Labor Day here on Monday, and maybe he's getting in a four-day leave. I hope that's the reason. Wouldn't want to think there's a bias going on. Wouldn't want to think there's a bit of a file drawer problem.

(Seriously though, there is a real issue, in me and everyone else, to stop analysis when we get the result we think we want, and to keep looking for problems when we don't. I guess the only solution to that is for others to look at the science too and see what they get. Science does that and usually gets it right, but usually it takes some time. The RSS group hasn't published their August LT anomaly yet, but then they usually don't on the first of the month, but usually a few days later, sometimes several days later. Seems like a better delivery system.)

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Oldie But Goodie

By Joel Pett, 2009:

From Wikipedia:

The cartoon, which first appeared in USA Today in December 2009,[3] around the time of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference,[4] depicts a conference presenter listing the many advantages of curbing climate change including "energy independence, preserving rainforests, sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, renewables, clean water/air, healthy children, etc., etc.," only to have a climate change denier interject that if it were all a hoax, we'd create a "better world for nothing".[5] Shortly after the conference was over, Pett got a request for a signed copy from then-EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson, who framed the comic and put it on her wall. Pett has repeatedly gotten requests from over 40 environmental groups, in the United States, Canada and Europe to use the cartoon in campaigns. The Australian Greens used it in a campaign which some have claimed was influential in the Australian parliament adopting a carbon pricing scheme under the Clean Energy Act 2011, said to be the most rigorous scheme in the world for the time it was active.[6]

"I've drawn 7,000 cartoons in my life, but really only one," Pett said. "It's an example of one of these ideas I had in my head for 10 years before I realized I hadn't cartooned it...I was thinking, you know, 'It doesn't matter if global warming were a hoax, if the scientists made it up, we still have to do all that shit.'"[7] Pett said in a 2012 editorial that in the 27 months since its first publication, not a week had gone by where he didn't have a request to use the image.[5]