Hummings of a Happy Hurkle

Allow me to make some mildly provocative statements — all of which I can justify.

1. All climate models are wrong, and not one has yet made a correct prediction of substance (other than by pure chance).
2. Peak oil and energy shortages will be a threat to our survival long before climate change.
3. Shortages of food, water and arable land will be a threat to our survival long before climate change.
4. Worldwide, the only things that can reduce CO2 are coal (don’t use it) and deforestation (don’t do it).
5. For Australia, the only thing that can reduce CO2 is to close all the coal mines.
6. The main purpose of a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme is to double/treble the price of electricity and petrol.
7. The other purpose is give governments more power and/or make rich people/criminals/bankers richer.

I am not particularly sceptical about climate change itself, so much as the excessive claims made especially by non-scientists. Rising CO2 levels and associated climate change are certainly major problems, but that does not mean any of the specific predictions are correct. We need to buy insurance, not guard against a specific outcome. Mainly, we have to treat energy, forests, water and other resources as finite and aim for reduced consumption and genuine sustainability. That is simply not happening.

By the way, these are not the messages that the militant eco-freaks want you to hear.

Just thinking out loud…

Consider a 2 litre petrol engine, idling at 720 rpm or 12 revs/sec. It takes two revolutions for each cylinder to complete its cycle (4 stroke assumed), so 6 cycles/sec. The amount of air/fuel mixture drawn into the cylinder(s) is 2 litre per cycle, or 12 litre/sec. At 7200 rpm it would be 120 litre/sec. In general, the figure is (RPM * engine capacity) / 120.

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I am continually annoyed by the language used in weather forecasts. Why can’t they speak English?

Example: “A trough and low over the east are generating widespread heavy rain and damaging winds over northeast NSW, leading to flooding and dangerous surf. A vigorous front is crossing the WA west coast, causing destructive winds, squally showers and thunderstorms. “

• The words trough, low, front are weather-speak: meaningless until you’ve done the training course.
• The word widespread describes an area, but why should I care? I just want to know if it affects me.
• The words heavy rain, damaging winds, flooding, dangerous surf, thunderstorms are good. Anyone should understand those.
• The word squally is well known to sailors, but meaningless in any other context.

ME: “Heavy rain and damaging winds over large parts of north-eastern NSW with flooding and dangerous surf. Heavy showers or thunderstorms with high winds along the WA west coast.”

Another: “A fine, mild to warm and sunny day. Moderate northeasterly winds, freshening during the evening.”

Again, lots of special words: fine, mild, moderate, freshening mean? Much clearer would be:

ME: “Nice sunny day, warm for the time of year. Good breeze, could get a bit windy later.”

Why do they keep doing that?

It is sometimes said that the most of the people who have ever lived are alive today. This is obviously not true (see below), but leads to the more interesting question: what fraction of all the people who have ever lived are alive today, and when will this figure reach its maximum?

This is not easy to calculate with any certainty. The raw data looks like this (best guesses, see http://www.prb.org/):

• Number of humans who have ever lived: 106.5 billion
• Number alive today (2008): 6.7 billion
• Births per year: 139 million
• Deaths per year: 57 million

Current percentage=6.7/106.5=6.29%

This percentage is currently rising, and will do so for the foreseeable future. It should reach 7% in 2019. It will not begin to drop until the net birth rate is far lower than it is now. It never has been and never will be anywhere near 50%.

I’ve been thinking about Combined Heat and Power (CHP) as a solution to the energy crisis.

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A friend bought some blood pressure monitors for a kidney association, and
they came with ‘free’ bottles of Blackmores CoQ10.

According to the label CoQ10 is ‘Coenzyme Q10 . . . a nutrient that occurs naturally in every cell in the body, where it is involved with the production of cellular energy. High concentrations are found in the heart. Levels of CoQ10 are depleted with exercise and decline with age.’ The active ingredient is ubidecarenone.

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Those interested in solar thermal clean power might be interested in this article.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/14/solar_electric_thermal/

The raw numbers suggest it might have significant advantages over wind power in many parts of Australia, but it’s not cheap.

Based on the Cloncurry model:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloncurry_solar_power_station

To supply 10% of Australia’s power would take something like 150 sq km of
desert and cost around $25 billion. The running costs are very low — break
even in 10 years or so.

Have you ever seen an Iridium flare? It’s amazing how many people have never even heard of them, but they are amongst the easiest and most impressive man-made celestial phenomena. And anyone can see them with the information on this site.

http://www.heavens-above.com/

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Have we been conned about cholesterol?
by MALCOLM KENDRICK

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_articl
e_id=430682&in_page_id=1774&in_page_id=1774&expand=true

A leading researcher at Harvard Medical School has found that women don’t benefit from taking statins at all, nor do men over 69 who haven’t already had a heart attack.

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No, it’s not Coriolis forces or gyroscopic stability. It’s all down to the front wheel geometry. A ridable bicycle will have the front wheel contact point a short distance behind the point where the straight-line projection of the steering pivot meets the ground.

Such a bike can be pushed by hand, held only by the saddle. As the bike leans, the front wheel steers into the lean providing a stabilising torque.

Here are two good articles. The first is a classic, widely quoted.

http://www.phys.lsu.edu/faculty/gonzalez/Teaching/Phys7221/vol59no9p51_56.pdf

http://www.dclxvi.org/chunk/tech/trail/