Initial surface temperatures estimates too low. An assumed pause in their rise is debunked.

The following post was prompted by the Forbes article linked below.

A new study by NOAA indicates that official surface temperature numbers were too low. A careful review by the authors of the study of all of the temperature data available indicates that temperature rise continues unabated.

As the article makes clear, temperature data can be the subject to a lot of confusion; especially surface temperatures. Past analysis has suggested that a pause may have been in affect for the last couple of years, but that is now no longer in question.

As I have indicated before this sort of thing gets tricky when all you focus on is how hot things may, may not, be at any given moment. The real issue is total system input, ongoing translations, and net dissipation.

The fact of the matter is that the overall system cannot dissipate radiant energy back into space (as infrared energy) because several types of gas block that transfer, just like the glass in a green house.

The tricky part in this is the fact that, with more energy in the system to work translations with, the more chaotic and severe those translations become. And in this context translations are all of the aspects of heat flow: convection, evaporation, condensation, and changes in pressure.

The bottom line then is vastly more amounts of ocean and lake water being sucked up into the atmosphere. Which then, eventually, allows for more condensation and localized heating of the air somewhere else as rain falls out of the sky. Heated ocean water also means more current flow from the depths to the surface, as well as from higher and lower latitudes to the middle, with water convection doing is own translating. And with the air doing the same thing those flows, and the resulting pressure changes, create even more translation.

What you are left with is more storms, more droughts, and more flooding; in short, more wild extremes all over the map, both in terms of geography, temperature, and a feast or famine in terms of water.

What we are heading for are extremes of such translation that not even Hollywood special effects can adequately portray. A kind of ugly that might temp the wrong people into pushing all of the launch buttons because even a Nuclear Winter would be preferable in their view.

The primary problem here, in my view, is that, when you get right down to it, nothing much is getting done to address the threat because the powers that be see everything in terms of cost as a purely monetary question. Costs in capital they do not want to bear. And since the rest of us are too poor already to pay for much of anything we have gridlock.

If that is indeed the case then the only way out is to change the mindset of cost completely. To move away from cost as an abstract of counters, as well as from whose pile it comes from, and to put it into the more direct terms of actual effort. Effort directed by, and formulated entirely of, a Federated group of like minded citizens. Something that cannot be done within the current economic operating model.

Business as usual is clearly not capable of addressing this problem. Its really that simple. We must find an alternative or die out as a species. Think about it. Find a way to take action.



New Analysis Shows Earth Is Warming Faster Than We Thought

On call, unpaid, and f_ck you finally getting scrutiny

Making Victoria’s Secret Pay For Keeping Staff On Call

Another example of how information is gold, and sustenance.

The following post was prompted by the fusion.net article linked below.

The battle, described in this article, that swirls around the research, and the conclusions to be drawn from it, for what ought to constitute a healthy diet, is quite telling. Especially as how said research is now trying to expand laterally to include the carbon load a given food source inputs into the environment.

Heaven forbid that any thought of the connection between the health of the planet and our health be brought into the mix of food and commerce. And be assured, the "Big Money" in these sectors of the economy are ready to spend serious cash to quash any such predilections.

Your betters don't want any such facts swirling about to confuse you. They know whats best. They have a firmer grip on the "Big Picture" than you will ever have.

It basically boils down to this: You must work to kill yourself so that you will be employed, and thus able to continue purchasing until you die. Dying sooner is good for the economy because it takes pressure off both the market to create more jobs, as well as the give-a-ways most of the rest of us call SSI or pension funds.

See how neatly it all fits together.

The billion dollar battle for your plate

Where should poor people live?

Silly question.

In trailer parks situated around anything toxic, of course. They'll make such an effective buffer that way, absorbing anything lethal before it affects the property values of their betters.

At least, of course, as far as said betters are concerned.

A better question might be why such poverty is so systemic in the first place, but that would upset the poor dears who might have to actually see riffraff walking through their neighborhoods.

Where Should Poor People Live?

The duality of collapse and economic pain

The following post was prompted by the two articles (from fusion.net and citylab.com) linked below.

The fusion.net article provides a stark representation of how the coal industry in this country has taken a nose dive into nearly complete oblivion, and the citylab.com article describes how virtually half of American families are facing financial catastrophe.

I see this kind of thing juxtaposed and it reminds me just how schizophrenic Capitalism has become. Creation is destruction and destruction is creation. Create a healthier environment by taking whatever measures to make poisoning the environment more expensive and you destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands at the very least. Create the gas extracting jobs that fracking has allowed, and to which coal has suffered from, means the destruction of the environment, as well as the health of individuals, by completely new means.

And if that weren't bad enough, bad health, whether it be to the economy, or to individuals, always means new profits for at least a few sectors of the economy. Whether it be from the unbelievable usury of the payday loan companies, or the outrageous profits of significant parts of the healthcare industry hardly matters.

This is madness precisely because the current economic model has production and consumption tied directly to what sustains each individual materially. And yet the individual has only indirect influence on the decisions regarding production.

Worse yet is the fact that, even within that limited ability to affect influence, the individual is further thwarted by the fact that information itself is a commodity; restricted by the very nature of "net gain," and the economics of scarcity that are at the heart of Capitalism.

Everyone ignores, or denies, these facts at their peril. And time will become quite telling of this I guarantee you.

The American coal industry is collapsing

Half of All American Families Are Staring at Financial Catastrophe

The product of political reporting

The following post was prompted by the Backchannel response on medium.com that is linked below.

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, has written a very interesting response to a piece that David Weinberger did for medium.com. Weinberger asked the question: "Who does a better interview--a pro from CNN or the crowd from Reddit?" And of course, in this context, the interviews in contention are those with politicians.

Mr. Rosen's response was to explain that, in his view, political reporting is really more than a little two sided. On the one hand is certainly the nominal intent to inform voters for the ballot choice they must make. The other, however, is what he calls the "vetting process" they've assumed responsibility for. A process that underlies not only a major aspect of why such reporting begins so soon (clearly before any voter would desire it), but also why it really isn't packaged much for voters in the first place.

His claim here is that reporters take on this vetting responsibility quite seriously, and from which one is given the impression that they derive a significant amount of professional pride from. The basis for which, naturally, comes from their not wanting to be merely compliant transceivers for the "daily message" any particular campaign strives to dish out. They strive to "scoop" out anything other than the packaged message.

What is striking here, even beyond the naked display of there being no illusions about the essential "product" nature of all aspects of campaign coverage, is that neither side seems to seriously acknowledge the fundamental, symbiotic nature, of this dance of supposed adversarial confrontation they perform.

The first question you have to ask yourself is: does this adversarial confrontation really ask, let alone answer, penetrating "vetting" questions?

Certainly the candidates stumble with message on a semi regular basis, but when you start out with prepackaged contenders, from a party controlled, list fabrication machine, how much "scooping" within such a controlled environment can we possibly expect there's going to be?

And let's not forget that, to be a player, you simply cannot rock the boat too much. Who would continue to grant you on camera face time otherwise?

This is where "coming from some objective sense of the 'center' " also comes into play. Only in this case the center is simply the arbitrary point between two parties who make great theater of what is different between them; when if fact what they have in common is a great deal more compelling.

I would like to propose that there is indeed a "vetting" process going on, but it is not one geared to any notion of competency as it relates to good governance, and individuals with the intellect, knowledge and real humility to be able to manage complex social organizations, as well as to persuade and guide the many divergent views on what is important, and how that should be addressed.

The "vetting" in this context is more of the nature of who can keep the best front up; seeming to be reasonable as they deffer, deflect, and obfuscate what they will actually do once in office. To see who can be most sincere as they play with the glowing terms, and within the resonant imagery.

What they will actually do, and how they will do it is not something any of them want to discuss openly with the public. The public isn't fit for such discussions. These must necessarily take place behind closed doors where their betters can map out what must be done. Their interests must be secondary to the interests of those who truly understand what is important about "product" and the markets that these trade in.

As you might expect, the actual audience for this vetting isn't the public at all. It is the interested parties behind the political parties. Those who can tolerate, as well as afford, all of the costs of admission that truly having a vested interest requires.



Why Campaign Coverage Makes Just Plain Citizens Unhappy

A glimpse at the practical aspects of why Information is gold

The following post was prompted by the Guardian article linked below.

Not only is this another example of what happens when "Big Money" knows more about you than you know about them, it illustrates the nature of information as power, pure and simple.

This won't be limited to just your purchase history. Every other thing you do with any kind of digital signature at all will get correlated as well. Might you eventually be "encouraged" to purchase simply to keep certain embarrassments from being posted a good deal more publicly? Will others be able to purchase... let's call them leverage data points... eventually? Political parties, certainly, would love to be able to get out the desired vote with a better expectation for success.

So many fun things to look forward to as "Big Data" finds new ways to anticipate a good deal more than what we want.



Big data is coming for your purchase history - to charge you more money