I try not to be too scornful of media hoopla, because sometimes the foolish boy cries wolf and the wolf actually arrives. Not often, it is true, but one doesn’t want to utterly drop one’s guard. For example, when there is hoop-la about temperatures reaching 118 (48 Celsius) in southern Italy and Spain, it could effect world food supplies, so perhaps one should take note. Here is the hoop-la:
“Temperatures are sizzling across Europe this week amid an intense and prolonged period of heat. And it’s only just begun. Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with air temperatures expected to climb to 48°C on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.”
And here is the map:
However, when you look down at the corner of the map you notice it isn’t a measure of air temperatures, but of “land surface temperatures”. IE: not the air at the weather station, six feet off the ground, but the heat of the sidewalk. Sure enough, when the dreaded heat wave actually arrived, I saw that, rather than the 118 the media forecast, temperatures were 90 (32 Celsius.)
Yawn.
The good thing about such hoop-la is that it reminds me of a scientific study I did of “land surface temperatures” back when Eisenhower was president. Rather than a thermometer I used my feet, which were bare. My scientific conclusion was that, when I walked downtown to the candy store, I should stick to the green grass as much as possible, and, when crossing pavement, I should walk very fast.
Science was more pleasant back then, than it has become.
I feel it must be hard for members of the Fake News media these days, for there are too many false narratives going on at once, and it is completely impossible to keep track of them all, let alone figure out how to keep them from contradicting each other. You might be able to shriek about horrible floods happening here and horrible droughts happening there, and you might be able to moan about horrible droughts happening this year and horrible floods happening next year, but when you state they are happening at the same location at the same time, you just look silly. And this is the predicament the media has cornered itself in, paint brush in hand.
I would like to take some credit for doing this to them, but can’t. I have been effectively cancelled and shadow banned. Therefore I feel little guilt for the media’s growing embarrassment. They did this to themselves.
Their foe is Truth, which is starting to appear more and more powerful. It needn’t do anything. It just is Itself.
I like to roam the web seeing what Truth is up to, which is usually something very embarrassing to Alarmists. For example, one thing they were sensationalizing only eleven months ago was the so-called “Mega-drought” which had lowered Lake Mead to “unprecedented” levels. Poppycock. What was unprecedented was the demand for water, used by a population explosion which was using water (in my humble opinion) unwisely. If the media bothered to take the time to behave like honest journalists and report sagely, they would have reported as Anthony Watts reported on his website, (which hasn’t been cancelled) (yet).
I’m glad some bother to do the work the media has abandoned, but know some feel the solution to our problems is to cancel Anthony Watts. This is not a sane response. If you shoot Paul Revere it will not stop the British from coming.
I noticed something interesting in a graph in Anthony’s post:
The main point of the graph is to show the drop in the level of lake Mead is due to more than tripling the consumption of water, rather than a slight decrease in the amount of water flowing into Lake Mead due to recent droughts. But what I noticed was that, starting around 2005, the consumption of water stopped rising and even decreased slightly.
What this demonstrates is that the people of the Southwest are not completely without any semblance of sanity. They do institute water bans, when they must. This does not involve Carbon Taxes, much to the dismay of those who like the gravy of tax-and-spend policies. It involves common sense, which is often free.
During my time in the Southwest I tended to work a lot of “spot labor”, and this included the job of “roofer” in places where shingles literally become too hot to use after around ten o’clock in the morning. The tar becomes so soft the shingles became like wet paper towels and tore at the slightest flex or twist. Also you sweated faster than you could drink, and you could even get first degree burns. Therefore the strategy was to start work after midnight, in the dark using headlamps, and to rush to finish before the heat got too bad after sunrise. However one did experience the legendary heat, as one quit for the day. It was a dry heat, like a sauna. However, should the automatic lawn sprinklers turn on, it was like tossing water onto the stove in a sauna; more like a Turkish bath. The humidity shot up, and you experienced getting hit by an abrupt wall of heat. Which means? Some of Lake Mead’s water evaporated even before it could water the grass.
If you multiply this by many thousands of lawns, a city like Phoenix can actually spoil the environment of dry, desert heat it was known for, and become more like a sweaty jungle. This even can be seen in weather station statistics. Such evaporation also squanders water supplies. Therefore there has been a movement to have fewer lawns, and more cactus gardens.
There is no need to be nasty about this adaptation; it is a matter of common sense. Why have a lawn you never sprawl out upon, in a house you only use as a bedroom (and/or real estate investment)? Lastly, in a place like Phoenix it is cheaper to have a cactus garden than a lawn, (if you are a skinflint like me). In the end, common sense, and not Carbon Taxes, brings about a change which one can see on a graph.
This is not to say one shouldn’t be allowed to garden. Around eight years ago a regular contributor to the comments on this blog described gardening in Phoenix. He was able to grow fine crops even in January, but, just as my garden shuts down when buried by snow, his garden largely shut down once temperatures rose above a hundred. In any case, he was willing to pay the water bill because of the vegetables he could grow.
Common sense is upsetting to those mean-minded souls who desire the power to boss everyone about and rob individuals of liberty. They prefer to believe the public is too stupid to discuss adaptations they should make, and too incapable of comparing needs to wants, and too ignorant to calmly compromise in the way a two-party-system was intended to function. Instead they prefer a one-party-system where they tax and others pay, where others work and they spend, and where they boss and others obey. It hurts their feelings when people solve problems without them, and reduce water usage more with common sense than their “green” initiatives. (For example, both the production of ethanol and computer chips use tremendous amounts of water), (and that is merely scratching the surface.)
Also the above graph fails to show the recent uptick in terms of “available water.” After fueling the “Mega-drought” narrative by hitting an “unprecedented” low last July 27, Lake Mead has risen roughly fifteen feet and Lake Powell has risen roughly fifty. This is liable to continue, as there remains a great deal of snow to melt in the mountains. A continuation of the above graph will likely show a peak in “available water” as large as the one in 1985. This, of course, spoils the “mega-drought” narrative.
What is an Alarmist to do? One thing, apparently, is to quickly change the subject to wildfires in Canada, and hope nobody notices that Truth has shattered their mega-drought forecast. Another approach is to switch the mega-drought forecast to a mega-flood forecast, attempting to splice together a narrative which includes both. However it is at this point the media starts to look silly, and cornered, paintbrush in hand.
What is a Skeptic to do? I suppose one can rebut claims that events are “unprecedented”, using historical examples that show they are not. But I’ve been there and done that, and all I succeeded in doing was getting myself shadow-banned by the mindlessness of cancel-culture. Therefore I now leave the hard work to men like Anthony Watts, or Tony Heller at “Real Climate Science”. They do sterling work, when it comes to bringing up the practical facts, over and over and over again, to people who seem incapable of listening. If you want facts outside of the “narrative”, they make a good starting point. For example, here is a graph showing the equivalent of a two inch rainstorm still lies unmelted in the Upper Colorado River mountains, whereas last year the snows had already melted away by this time. (From a post today at Real Climate Science, refuting a New York Times claim the Colorado River is drying up.) (It may have been last year, but this year even the lower Gila River has been in flood.)
Sometimes I don’t want to even bother with Alarmist claims in newspapers. They have become repetitive, and once you have rebutted the same claim ten times it starts to occur to you that there are better ways to use your time. Rather than spending time talking about what isn’t happening, I become acquainted with what is. Truth is wonderful, and quite beautiful if you don’t mind getting your ego tweaked every now and again.
One thing I like to do is just roam around looking at how the storms are moving through the skies. A couple of Sundays ago (June 4) I noticed it was raining yet again, east of LA, and northeast of LA it was actually snowing.
This small truth was of interest to me, because it spoils the Mega-flood narrative to have snow falling rather than melting, and also because cool temperatures melt the snow gradually. For a mega-flood you want a heatwave. But I was in no mood to argue. It was Sunday, and I was in the mood to go to church and face Truth.
After church I was in the mood for a bit of lightning to lace across our skies, and checked the lightning map to see what the prospects were. They didn’t look good, so I idly scanned across the rest of the country, and, again east of LA, saw a hot little storm peppering the map with dots, so I switched over to radar.
Now, while the green areas indicate lighter rain which may be evaporating before it hits the ground, the yellow and orange is indicative of downpours which, among other things, make a mess of the Mega-drought narrative. It’s hard to hold a mega-drought when thunderstorms stripe the landscape with lush green.
But I was in no mood to argue, preferring to run the radar-animation option, and witness how the rain swirled east as a tiny low. I’d noticed several of these tiny lows east of LA as spring moved towards summer, and made a mental note to ask Anthony Watts about them, if there was ever an appropriate time and place. But as for me, I am not a qualified meteorologist, and just enjoy observing Truth as it happens.
However I did notice these rains were over ground Lake Mead ordinarily would need to irrigate. I wondered if this might explain why Lake Mead has been allowing less water to flow down to Lake Havasu (where the aqueducts west towards LA and east towards Pheonix begin) even as more water than usual flows into Lake Mead.
This in turn makes a mess of further preconceptions. For example, there is usually a rationing of water, with both LA and Phoenix clamoring for more than they are allowed, and negotiations have deemed that Colorado, Utah and Nevada must allow 9,000,000 “acre feet” to be released from Hoover dam every year, to flow down to Lake Havasu, which must be kept at a stable level. But this year the water hasn’t been needed. The rains have been bountiful. And Lake Mead is falling behind in its required “payments.” With more than 71% of the “water year” past, Lake Mead’s outflow has been less than 60% of required “payments”. If this continues, what will they do? Will they just dump the water to meet the requirement? Or will they save the water, perhaps creating some sort of IOU for areas downstream? Some interesting discussions must be occurring.
But this does demonstrate the sort of problems that can arise due to preconceptions. Why? Because preconceptions are not the Truth, which simply is. Preconceptions tend to be more along the lines of worry, things that might be, but also might not be. If one becomes too engrossed in preconceptions one can invent narratives, and the narrative may turn out to not be what Truth brings about. One needs to be careful what cart they hitch their horse to. It might seem like a good idea to build your house in a riverbed if the narrative states the river will remain dry, but what does Truth say?
Those who insist upon censoring all but fake-news miss the Truth, and Truth is Beauty. Therefore that which is beautiful is forced to go underground, where it whispers secrets in young lover’s ears, or from old men’s sonnets. Not that Truth ever ceases to exist. It is Real while fake-news is not, but ignorance is bliss for those pretentious people who prance and prattle in the limelight of a Titanic they deem unsinkable.
I am continuing to write in a sort of self-imposed silence. Not that I can ever stop the noise of my scribbling while I breathe, but I refrain from posting. My writing cannot be silenced when it is kept safely beyond reproach in a diary. However here are a couple sonnets that have escaped those hidden pages, while I was distracted by the drudgery of doing my taxes.
Enough with the taxes. I'm in the mood
To let my mind drift where it will; be led
By whim. Maybe predawn stars think I am rude
To stray from the course, but man is not fed
By being rigidly predictable
Like beautiful angels; they do God's will
Where men can't see It; whereas we are full
Of grand intents to serve sweet tea, but spill
Boiling brews in our customer's shocked laps.
That's just how we're made. And if God made us
That way, I'll be that way. Before dawn wraps
The east in roses, before yellow bus
Yanks tired kids from dreams to sit in rows,
I'll rope a dream and ride where it goes.
A mutter of thunder has meaning to meAs I wake in the misty, moist morning.
From illogical dreaming hearing can see
More that is joyous than warning.
It was only one grumble, and yet it spoke
Like a cleared throat before a pronouncement.
Like an eyebrow gone impish before a good joke
It foretold a happy announcement.
It hinted that warming awaits in the wings;
The cold will back down, and must bow.
Such thunder holds music which surely is Spring's
And a palm touches calm to my brow.
Like a child left too long all on his own
I hear front doors open. I am not alone.
It has seemed fairly obvious that China has seen fit to under-report the actual numbers of people who died in Wuhan province. I fear there are some indications they have not “slightly” under-reported the numbers who have died, but have “grossly” under-reported the failure of their health care system. The actual number of deaths may be in the millions.
I’m not sure why they chose to repress news of the extent of the tragedy, but the American news media chooses to repeat their disinformation, rather than questioning it. I’ve heard various theories as to why this is so. I’ve heard the Chinese don’t want to “lose face”, and that the American media stands to lose financial support if they question China. I have no idea if such speculation is true, and can only share my reasons for skepticism.
First, even when the factories in Wuhan were being closed down there were localized spikes in “carbon emissions”, as seen by satellites. It is suggested this indicates cremations were occurring at full blast. Far more burning was occurring than would occur if only a few thousand died.
Second, people who are dead do not renew their cell phone accounts. The number of people who failed to renew their cell phone accounts in Wuhan did not number a few thousand, but rather numbered up near 20 million.
Third, the initial expectation of what percentage of people who contracted the virus would die was around 3%. Such numbers are not plucked from a hat.
Fourth, the doctors in Wuhan who initially dealt with the virus were extremely alarmed. Their initial comments are preserved, though they were later publicly shamed, jailed, and forced to “confess” that they were “exaggerating” the dangers. Several of these doctors later died of the virus.
Fifth, the responses of President Trump make no sense if you accept the version of what happened in Wuhan now being broadcast by the Chinese media (and parroted by American sycophants). Assuming he gets information from other sources, the death toll being far higher than reported explains why he acted as he acted.
In other words, the news we are getting from Wuhan is “Fake News”. China does not want to admit they badly bungled the initial outbreak of the virus, and that a pandemic was raging before they knew it, and, (like a fire which is far harder to put out if allowed to spread), their healthcare system was unable to handle what it was faced with. Compared to the responses in places like South Korea and Taiwan, they look downright pathetic. I can only suppose their leaders now want to hide their inefficiency, fearing a public outcry, and perhaps even demands they be replaced.
The one good thing about the “Fake News” is that it made people less inclined to panic. Can you imagine how people might have behaved if they knew 20 million died in Wuhan? So many elite would have fled to Nantucket that the island would sink! (As it is, the little airport that flies people out to Nantucket has a parking lot crowded with cars that have New York plates.)
In the end the truth will leak out. China may seek to close the Wuhan internet, or heavily censor all postings, but cell phones will make their way to Hong Kong, and we will see videos from Wuhan, and I fear they will not be pretty.
Sunrise's Swansong 