Fuel prices going through the roof in some parts of France
Prices are in Euros obviously (although not much different from the £ or $ at the moment). Where I am in south west France I’m still paying about 1.45 for a litre of fuel. Macron said quite recently that energy prices would be frozen until next summer, but not apparently if you drive a vehicle.
We are now in the solar minimum, the lowest point of the 11 year cycle of the sun (which probably means we are in for a very severe winter). Some say we are going into a Maunder Minimum, which will mean a mini ice age for the next 30 years or so. I’m not sure how the manmade climate change fanatics are going to flog this one, since the Earth has been doing this since time immemorial (the last Maunder Minimum was in the 17th and 18th centuries, when they used to have ice fairs on the frozen river Thames).
So, what with food and fuel shortages, worldwide, and all the covid nonsense, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse seem to be riding around: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.
I suppose at this point I should play some heavy metal number.
Nope, instead (this was a massive hit when I was living in San Francisco in 1988)…
To echo Max Igan, you have to face infinity without flinching.
Fascinating. Something new for me to explore - cheers. I’ve not come across the Maunder minimum before, but I do know that predictions about ice ages were all the rage in the '70s. I think most scientists seem to have dropped the notion now.
Does this mean that you don’t subscribe to the man-made climate change idea? I’m interested in what you think on this subject.
This short video by Atmospheric Scientist Katharine Hayhoe gives a good clear explanation as to why the observed warming is not caused by natural cycles. As you say, if we look just at natural cycles such as orbital cycles, the earth should be cooling, but it isn’t. Also weather and climate are not the same thing (but I am sure you know this) so having an especially cold winter in France doesn’t mean that overall global warming has stopped.
You can also see the complexity of how Australian temperatures and rainfall will be affected in the 2021/22 summer due to the possibility of a La Nina event in the Pacific leading to cooler wetter temperatures in the east of the continent but warmer dryer temperatures in the west - but all of this is against a back drop of global warming which is overall increasing temperatures and having consequent effects on cyclones, rainfall patterns, frequency and intensity of heat waves, frequency and severity of droughts etc. So basically you are right - the Earth SHOULD be cooling based on natural solar and orbital cycles. The fact that it isn’t shows that other factors - ie human greenhouse gas emissions - are to blame.
PP, I don’t know now old you are. If you are a certain age you’ll know that they’ve been peddling the ‘climate crisis’ stuff for the last half century. They kept telling us that we’ll all be dead in ten years time because of ‘the hole in the ozone layer’, or due to ‘global warming’ and numerous other BS, none of which has actually happened. In actual fact they’ve now rebranded ‘global warming’ as the ‘climate crisis’, because we are now going into a mini ice age (again, look up ‘Maunder Minimum’).
The greatest damage being done to the planet is by the totally insane capitalist/neo-con system we live under, where huge amounts of crap are needlessly produced, for the profit of a few, and then are dumped in the environment.
The US military are, by far, the biggest polluter on the planet.
JMC, I found that video very interesting. She admits that the Sun controls the Earth’s climate (which any egit knows), but then she says that pollution from human kind is now controlling the climate, leading to ‘global warming’ (when we are heading into a mini ice age, due to a solar minimum). When it comes to pollution, not once does she acknowledge the role of big corporations and the military-industrial complex.
That should tell you everything.
If you’re in the UK, do you remember David Bellamy? Bellamy is a highly qualified scientist who used to be quite prominent in the UK media; that is until he started calling out the climate change stuff as total BS. Now Bellamy is totally banned from the UK mainstream media.
Now we have a chap called David Attenborough, who has no scientific qualifications whatsoever, who reads a script from an autocue. Yet, amazingly, people believe what he says.
I remember David Bellamy fondly, he died about two years ago, to some extent unrehabilitated as far as the Guardians Of Climate Orthodoxy are concerned.
Please update **GOCO** entry in 5F lexicon @RhisiartGwilym 😉
Nasty bastard George Monbiot was part of the cancel mob for Bellamy
Ted Nugent Talks To The Jabbed Sheep In Their Native Language.
(When I saw the words “Jabbed Sheep” I instantly thought of Teddy doing Stranglehold while leaping about on top of the amplifiers at Hammersmith Odeon once. I then realised I still have the double live Gonzo album which I haven’t heard for more than 20 years. Needless to say I dug it out and have had the whole album on continuous repeat for over a week in the car at full blast. It’s so seriously mental on the 8 speaker Bose that I keep finding excuses to drive somewhere).
Emphatically not Rob, Bjork is a force of nature, and I especially like her simpler early music, but she has never released a dud. (The album Biophilia fits this thread well.) David Bellamy was a proper “get your hands dirty” kind of guy, see also the archaeologist Francis Pryor.
