Capt. Humbug is beseiged — even ignoring what really matters

William P. Hall on February 5, 2022

Global warming threatens human survival. Scotty from Marketing does nothing to help mobilize climate action but everything to stop it….

Katharine Murphy’s list of political liabilities Scotty from Marketing is trying make disappear with blather, smoke and mirrors, and endless humbug is already awesome – even without Blarney Bulldust’s apparently heart-felt honesty as expressed to Brittany Higgins last year when on the back-bench.

And, all of this is before considering how Capt. Humbug has so honestly [not] responded to help Australians deal with/mitigate the accelerating growth of the existential global climate emergency driven by global warming. Humbug’s solution is the make the whole problem invisible in a cloud of smoke and fairy dust so that the COALition’s patrons in the fossil fuel and related industries have not been shut down by the time the electorate fully wakes up to oncoming catastrophic collapse of human civilization on the way to extinction.

As Scott Morrison spoke at the National Press Club on Tuesday, sporadic bursts of fury were audible from a convoy of rightwing grievance outside. Photograph: Bianca de March/AAP

Frustrated, frazzled and under siege – Scott Morrison’s faith in himself takes a hit: The prime minister may be bruised and showing hints of self-pity, but his supporters still believe he can win – and so does he

by Katharine Murphy, 05/02/2022
in The Guardian

Scott Morrison doesn’t have to imagine the things that could cost him government in a few months’ time. Chaos and animus closed in this week.

New South Wales – the division supposed to deliver the Coalition its fourth federal term – made a big show of resisting Morrison’s urgent electoral imperatives, and the brinkmanship of his proxies intent on shoring up their own preselections. Morrison needed tranquility, and the state division of the Liberal party obliged him by roiling.

The bushfire in the Coalition’s base also burned through to Canberra. Protesters opposed to vaccine mandates – Australians who feel economically and culturally dispossessed by the creep of government during pandemic – spilled up the forecourt of Parliament House. There were sovereign citizens, anti-vaxxers, doomsday preppers, Trumpers and enraged owner-drivers, yes; but also grey nomads with packed lunches, Thermos flasks and sunsmart hats. …

…

Morrison on Tuesday was sorry, not sorry – sorry enough to soften the edges of prime ministerial arrogance, but not sorry enough to accept any serious liability. He was sorry he was too optimistic before the summer. He had got people’s hopes up, and Omicron had dashed them. He was sorry he hadn’t sent in the army sooner to correct the infamous vaccine “strollout”.

Read the full story….

Following on from Tony Abbott’s almost religious commitment to denying climate science, Scotty’s marketing backed up by his troop of puppets, buffoons, and knaves in Parliament have been for years almost totally successful in blocking any effective action against the climate emergency. This has been achieved through a rich mix of humbug, denial, lying, misrepresentation, blocking, delaying, and distracting smoke and mirrors.

If our children and grandchildren are to have any hope of surviving into the future, we have to remove the humbug troop from Parliament and replace them with sensible people who can be trusted to put action against the climate emergency at the top of their priority lists if elected. Vote Climate One’s, Traffic Light Voting System is designed to help you rank your preferences to do this, without telling you who you should vote for. With a new Parliament focused on what needs to be done to protect our burning house, we might be able to offer our families a viable future in a still functional biosphere.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Lithium batteries considered suitable for long duration (up to 8 hours) storage: makes more sense if they can be effectively recycled.

William P. Hall on February 4, 2022

By Dan Gearino, 03/03/2022 — Inside Clean Energy
In the New World of Long-Duration Battery Storage, an Old Technology Holds Its Own: California power companies choose lithium-ion batteries for an eight-hour storage project, passing on some newer options.

see also: Lithium empowered green energy storage is just getting better, less expensive, and less damaging to the environment

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

New green ‘natural hydrogen’ may soon be coming from the ground in South Australia at low cost

William P. Hall on February 4, 2022

‘Natural hydrogen’ is a term for naturally occurring hydrogen sourced from the ground at low cost with zero (or at least minimal) greenhouse gas emissions

There is a ‘goldrush’ by petrochemical companies currently going on in South Australia where they are looking to stake claims on and prove the existence of underground reserves of nearly pure hydrogen gas. The article touts a “Potential to drastically cut costs” of hydrogen production.

Despite the lack of research, Australians – and indeed a number of companies internationally – remain undeterred, likely because of the potential for natural hydrogen to be three to four times cheaper than that produced via electrolysis or gas reforming with carbon capture. Gold Hydrogen estimates it should be able to produce natural hydrogen for less than $2.30 per kg, compared to manufactured hydrogen projects being produced at greater than $6 per kg.

Queensland company Gold Hydrogen has been granted the right to explore approximately 9,500km2 in the southern part of the Yorke Peninsula through to Kangaroo Island in search of natural hydrogen deposits.Gold Hydrogen

Natural hydrogen exploration ‘boom’ snaps up one third of South Australia

by Bella Peacock, 02/02/2022 – in PV Magazine

South Australia has found itself at the heart of a 21st-century gold rush, though this time for naturally occurring hydrogen. Since February 2021, 18 exploration licenses have been granted or applied for in the state by six different companies searching for natural hydrogen

In a rapid escalation from zero activity in February last year, exploration companies are now scrambling to look for what they believe could be the cheapest, easiest way to get their hands on the much hyped “future fuel”: hydrogen.

In the last 12 months, six different companies have either been granted or applied for 18 Petroleum Exploration Licences across the state of South Australia, according to Australian energy consultancy EnergyQuest. Combined, the area under permit equates to around 570,000 square kilometres (km2) or 32% of the entire state, the consultancy has found, referring to the sudden influx as a “boom”.

Natural hydrogen

Until now, natural or native hydrogen has been largely overlooked – despite it being described as “widespread in nature” by natural hydrogen researcher Viacheslav Zgonnik in a 2020 paper. Natural hydrogen deposits form through chemical reactions underground, with Zgonnik saying the molecule has been detected at high concentrations, often as the major gas, in all types of geologic environments.

Read the complete article….

Caveat emptor. This could be good news in that a potential source of low or zero emissions hydrogen for power generation has been found that could replace natural gas. However, I suspect that most or all of the hydrogen will found to be associated with methane rich natural gas. My guess is that this will be used as an excuse by the fossil fuel industry members funding the exploration to produce and burn more natural gas with consequent greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere.

I would watch this very carefully, and would hope that by the time any concrete decisions need to be made regarding real hydrogen production projects that we will have replaced Capt. Humbug’s LNP Coalition Government with trustworthy people able to make sensible decisions where project approvals and he like are concerned.

Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System is designed to help you use our preferential voting system to elect these trustworthy people.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

What was extreme in the past for the world’s oceans is now the normal

William P. Hall on February 3, 2022

by Carolyn Gramling, 01/02/2022 in Science News
The past’s extreme ocean heat waves are now the new normal: More than half the global ocean experiences high temperatures that were rare a century ago.

See also 2021 might not have been the hottest year on record, but the heating oceans are hotter than ever

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Have we reached the point of no return on the road to runaway warming ending in near-term global mass extinction (including humans)?

William P. Hall on February 3, 2022

Part 7 – concluding David Spratt’s guidebook to events along the road to Hothouse Hell: Have we triggered so many tipping points already that we are already at or past the point of no return?

Clearly, we wont know if we have passed the point of no return until it is too late to do anything about it. Spratt’s concluding comments to his guidebook need no embellishment from me. He lists 7 points. Basically I agree with all of him, except that I would state several of them even more strongly than he does:

A tipping cascade will be hard to stop!

Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? (7) Summing up: Faster than forecast, cascades loom

01 February 2022

by David Spratt in Climate Code Red

Seventh in a series.   
Read 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7

Reflecting on the evidence presented in this tipping point series, a number of conclusions may be drawn:

1. At just 1.2°C of warming, tipping points have been passed for several large Earth systems.  At just 1.2°C of global average warming, tipping points have been passed for several large Earth systems.  These include Arctic sea ice, the Greenland Ice Sheet, The Amundsen Sea glaciers in West Antarctica, the eastern Amazonian rainforest, and the world’s coral systems. The world will warm to 1.5°C by around 2030, with additional warming well beyond 1.5°C in the system after that. Yet even at the current level of warming, these systems will continue to move to qualitatively different states. In most cases, strong positive feedbacks are driving abrupt change. At higher levels of warming, the rate of change will quicken. The meme that “we have eight years to avoid 1.5°C and tipping points” should be deleted from the climate advocacy vocabulary. It is simply wrong.

2. System-level change is happening faster than forecast. In each case surveyed above, abrupt change is happening earlier and/or faster than projected only two decades ago. The 2007 Arctic sea-ice collapse was “100 years ahead of schedule”; in 2014 the tipping point for Amundsen Basin glaciers was one that “none of us thought would pass so quickly”. It was said that the guardrail for coral reefs was warming under 2°C, then 1.5°C; it is now clear that it is under 0.5°C. In 1995, the IPCC projected “little change in the extent of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets… over the next 50-100 years”. The 2001 IPCC report suggested that the Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets would not lose significant mass by 2100. Both have now passed their tipping points. The effect of the permafrost carbon feedback has not been included in the IPCC scenarios, including the 2014 report. And on it goes.

Read the complete article….

Earth on fire
It’s an Emergency!

In this now completed series of posts, Spratt has done an excellent job of summarizing the scientific observations that sound the klaxon fire alarm warning us that our planet is on fire. If we don’t wake up, smell the smoke, and mobilize global action to fight the fire, it will consume us humans along with most other complex life who share the still green(ish) planet with us.

The puppets show and tell
Captain Humbug (a.k.a. Scotty from Marketing) behind his then leader’s back, showing Barney Bulldust and the parliamentary puppet troop what he is promoting. ““Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you. It’s coal.” With these words Australia’s Treasurer Scott Morrison taunted the Opposition, attempting to ridicule its commitment to renewable energy.” – The Conversation (15-02-2017). Note: The fourth man — the holy ghost – later stabbed in the back by Scotty, was also previously a marketeer of the merchant banking type, by and for the special interests.

Following on from Tony Abbott’s almost religious commitment to denying climate science, Scotty’s marketing backed up by his troop of puppets, buffoons, and knaves in Parliament have been for years almost totally successful in blocking any effective action against the climate emergency. This has been achieved through a rich mix of humbug, denial, lying, misrepresentation, blocking, delaying, and distracting smoke and mirrors.

If our children and grandchildren are to have any hope of surviving into the future, we have to remove the humbug troop from Parliament and replace them with sensible people who can be trusted to put action against the climate emergency at the top of their priority lists if elected. Vote Climate Ones, Traffic Light Voting System is designed to help you rank your preferences to do this, without telling you who you should vote for. With a new Parliament focused on what needs to be done to protect our burning house, we might be able to offer our families a viable future in a still functional biosphere.

Will they have a future in the world we leave them? That is up to us. If we get it wrong, it will be too late for them…..
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.