Storm in America

Yes expertise is vastly over-rated. Far better to approach complex and important things from a standpoint of ignorance and incompetence I always say. It has worked for me all my life, and look where it has got me. Posting on internet forums approaching midnight. Brilliant!

A good point, about ignorance and supposedly "social" media!

Actually climate change, to use the proper term, but including worldwide mean temperature rise, by artificial carbon-dioxide accumulation, was seen 100 years ago as a potential threat. It was based then on studies of coal consumption (the near-universal fuel of its time) but placed the danger point so far ahead it was probably just shrugged off as not our problem, guv.

That was the era of over-confidence in Man's self-assumed ability to "tame" Nature without realising that meant just exploiting it and mucking it up. No-one then realised that Nature is bigger than we are, and can and will bite back!

They need something to be 'concerned' about because their funding depends on it.

Lots of Cornish miners went to Montana to work in the mines around Butte. Hence with typical US modesty they claim to be the home of the Cornish Pasty. Known to youngsters round here as a dynosaur's back

A Stegosaurus pasty, round here.

NO. you are describing a DEVON pasty. The Cornish pasty is the one where the joint is on the side.

<< note the flag

I know what I mean! Joint down the side, never heard of a Devon pasty, you'll be arguing about cream teas next

Jam first, then cream please.

I used to ride my Laverda 100 miles to Butte just to eat a pasty, sometimes two, which were otherwise unobtainable in the US. Never knew Butte had a Cornish connection though. It is known for its Irish ancestry. Mining magnate Arthur Daly of Butte used to hire exclusively fellow Irishmen. So here was me thinking the pasties must have been an Irish thing! And the ones in Butte had the join down the middle, which I have only ever heard referred to as Cornish pasties, but a lot can get lost in translation from one side of the world to the other!

It finally warmed up to above freezing today.

We have had 12 F for several days, which has caused several problems.

Some of the water pipes are not quite far enough down in the earth in this city to prevent them from freezing.

So the pipes begin to break, the water pressure drops off to a very low value, and the water is contaminated, so all water has to be boiled for consumption.

The heavy snow caused some tree limbs to fall, shorting out some of the primary lines in the neighborhood.

Luckily the primary line shorting has been limited. It is the freezing rain that causes lots of tree limbs to fall on the power lines, and luckily we did not get the freezing rain, but just heavy snow.

We have had deaths in the past during ice storms, where entire large trees fall on moving autos, killing the occupants.  We have lovely trees in this city, but they can be deadly.

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) is experiencing their heaviest load ever, and they had a few power plants on the grid go down two days ago, so we went into rolling power blackouts, which last 30 minutes at a time.

The house can get a bit chilly in 30 minutes when it is 12F outside.

All things considered, it has just be very cold.  Most folks in the Mid-South are not set up for extended sub-freezing temperatures. Often pipes in outside walls freeze when it gets this cold.

We have natural gas heat, and so I can power my air handling/heating unit from my gasoline generator if necessary. I have not had to use the generator yet.

I don't think I would make it living up north.

This sort of weather is very common up north, and they get a lot of snow too.

We get a minimal amount of snow luckily.

This is today's US weather update.

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Edit:  In my younger days, I have camped out in 18F, and it can be done, but you need a 0 F sleeping bag, and some very good cold weather gear.  Heavy snow can make hiking very difficult without snowshoes.

I generally stick around the house during cold weather, and do the hiking/camping during warm weather.

Of course we have tornadoes, and so that always makes things interesting during the summer months.

Edited By PatJ on 28/12/2022 09:20:36

Interesting comment, Pat

Thank you … and do keep warm !!

MichaelG.

Due to lack of evidence quite small children reject the idea that Christmas presents are delivered by a jolly bearded man with a reindeer sleigh. However, another popular story is widely believed by otherwise sensible adults. It's that experts know nothing, and that ordinary folk are at least as well qualified as experts to tackle difficult problems.

There's a grain of truth in suspicion of 'experts'. Some are self-appointed, and many of these can be found burbling nonsense on the internet. But deep down, I guess we all know it's unwise for an amateur to mortgage his house so he can win big in a professional high-stakes poker game. The amateur might win but as Michael Caine says in 'Get Carter', "you're a big man but you're in bad shape. I do this for a living, so behave yourself."

Real experts aren't always right, but they do far better than the average Joe. From atomic reactions to zenophobia, common sense is no substitute for deep understanding.

Why are so many people unconvinced by global warming? It's because faced with difficult challenges, humans go through 5 overlapping emotional stages:

1. Denial. It's not happening.
2. Anger. Don't bother me with this nonsense, and, someone else is to blame
3. Bargaining. Got away with it so far, let's carry on and it'll go away. My high mileage gas guzzler is OK because I recycle cardboard.
4. Depression. If the world changes, everything I value will be lost.
5. Acceptance. Difficult job ahead, but it will be OK if we stop deluding ourselves, get off our bottoms, and make the necessary changes.

Notice that only Acceptance has a positive outcome. All the others are time-wasters.

Evidence confirming that global warming is a serious man-made threat has been building for 40 years. In the same period no counter evidence has emerged. Objections to global warming aren't evidential, for example the suggestion that global warming is a con invented by scientists to obtain funding is an unproven conspiracy theory.

The world is gradually coming to accept the reality of global warming, but many are still stuck in stages 1 to 4, As these stages are emotional, no amount of evidence alters opinion, even when those views are obviously wrong. How long it takes to work through the 5 stages varies enormously. Some never make it.

Advising people to jump straight to acceptance by thinking logically rarely succeeds because emotion is so powerful. When emotion rules our brains prefer stories: religion, political dogma, outdated experience, dodging responsibility, keeping ourselves in a good light and unlikely alternatives to unpleasant consequences. But faced with a problekm we should be aware of the possibility that our reaction is emotional and do our best to return to logic. It's helpful to insist on facts supported by evidence rather than opinion and beliefs, especially so if the evidence issues a red-alert!

Recognise that no matter how attractive, unsupported opinion and beliefs are highly likely to be wrong, and holding to them is wide open to abuse. It's easy to scam people into making poor choices when they're in an emotional state; politics is full of examples!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 28/12/2022 10:32:03

Climate change will not necessarily destroy the planet but it will destroy mankind. We are surrounded by dead planets and stars so perhaps this is a natural phenomenon, in fact I don’t think anyone has discovered another planet with anything living on it.

There is an old saying that “Planet earth will breathe a hugh sigh of relief when the last human disappears from it’s surface.

A happy new year to you all.

SOD:

Not sure how significant this is but Carter came to a sticky end despite his expert status!

I assume experts persuaded the government that diesel cars were good. Much financial incentive was offered to buy one, less than 10 years on millions of us have cars that are banned or penalised to drive in towns. Did experts really not know about the undesirable by products of diesel? Experts would do well to wait until they really have all the data and facts before they make recommendations. I doubt I will live long enough to see if they are correct with their climate change predictions but I won’t be surprised if they change their position as time goes on. It is not a bad thing to change as more data and research clarify what is happening but we seem to be racing headlong into taking quite drastic action that is undermining our energy security while much of the world are slow to act or too poor to take the required action. Our politicians also display a staggering lack of wisdom and understanding about just about everything.

Mike

If we get much more "globally warmed" around here, we shall all surely freeze to death, LOL.

An interesting note is that one of the major originators of the global warming hoax was Al Gore, who just happens to have a mansion across the state from me.

Al Gore has a carbon footprint the size of Godzilla.

If global warming does indeed existing, it has been caused by Al Gore single handedly.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/

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Edited By PatJ on 28/12/2022 12:58:40

The diesel fiasco, the result of concentrating upon one aspect of a problem (CO₂ ) and ignoring another element within the wider picture (NO_x ).

What the diesel experts(anyone who has ever seen a diesel working) said: replacing lots of petrol engines with diesels will help to reduce CO2 emissions, but will dramatically increase the particulates so is a very short term, limited solution. Which means we need some proper joined-up thinking that will lead to some hard to swallow conclusions.

What the politicians heard: replacing petrol engines with diesels fixes the current annoying problem. We're doing it NOW!!!! Who the f*&% has time for joined-up thinking when there's an election in 23months?

You can replace politicians with managers, bosses, accountants and the general public.

The particulates and NOx problems with diesel engines have been largely eliminated with modern exhaust systems trapping most of the soot, and by urea solution (the fluid sold as "Ad-Blue" )  cracking the nitrous-oxides to their component gases. These on top of engine design advances generally.

This of course assumes proper maintenance, but you can say that of any vehicle.

I would think that power for power outputs, the modern diesel is less polluting than its petrol counterpart simply by significantly better fuel efficiency; but suffers from a massive, sustained campaign against it, orchestrated by non-engineers.

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 28/12/2022 14:32:58