Even the programme’s title was a lie.

Climate Change: The Facts was a farrago of alarmist cliches, exaggerations, and untruths which have been debunked on numerous occasions.

It lied about the cause of wildfires; it lied about heatwaves; it lied about storms and floods; it lied about polar melting; it lied about sea levels; it lied about coral reefs; it lied about droughts.

Yet many viewers may well have been taken in because the programme was presented with breathy earnestness and apparent authority by the doyen of TV wildlife ‘experts’ Sir David Attenborough. And accompanied by the kind of dramatic footage and stirring music guaranteed to bypass the brain and appeal directly to the emotions — as all the most effective propaganda does.

“If you liked Triumph of the Will then you’re going to love Our Planet,” I wrote recently of Attenborough’s new Netflix series, which uses exactly the same techniques: amazing nature photography; manipulative music; a trembly voiceover making all manner of scientifically dubious assertions in order to scare the viewer into the appropriate state of climate fear.

But Climate Change: the Facts was more unscrupulous and dishonest still.

What I found particularly objectionable was its use of emotive trickery to help deceive the viewer into buying its specious arguments.

For example, on the subject of heatwaves, we were shown heartbreaking footage of thousands of flying foxes (giant fruit bats) in Australia which had dropped dead out of the trees during a particularly hot spell last November in Queensland.

“There was a deafening sound of babies crying,” said the voiceover of a distraught Australian conservationist, over images of piles of dead bats, and an orphaned baby bat being hand fed some milk from a bottle.

“This is climate change in action,” muttered an unnamed Australian.

“We need to wake up!” said another.

The unwary viewer might easily have been gulled into drawing two erroneous conclusions from this.

First, that the bats really had been killed by “climate change”. (Which they hadn’t. This was an extreme weather event of the kind which, no doubt, has killed many thousands of flying foxes on previous occasions in history — only without the presence of camera crews to record the incidents.)

Second, that the world divides into two kinds of people: those who love the planet and cute baby bats and who consequently believe in the urgency of combating climate change; those who don’t give a damn. (Which is another entirely false premise. It is quite possible to care very much about the natural world without buying into the false claims of green-ideology driven, anti-growth, anti-human environmental activists.)

Paul Homewood has been through its various claims with a fine-tooth comb and found many to be misleading and inaccurate.

Among his criticisms:

• Attenborough shows a surface temperature chart of dramatically rising temperatures but a) fails to mention that the more accurate satellite temperature data shows no increase since 1998; b) fails to explain why temperatures rose sharply in the early 20th century, long before CO2 emissions began to rise significantly; c) fails to mention that since the 19th century, Earth has been emerging from the Little Ice Age — probably the coldest period since the end of the Ice Age.
   
  
• The extreme weather bogeyman. Various talking head ‘experts’ assure us that heat waves are getting more intense. But last summer’s heatwave in the UK — cited as evidence of this — was no hotter than the summer of 1976; nor was the recent one in Queensland when temperatures reached 42 degrees C — also cited — anywhere near as bad as the one in 1972 when temperatures reached 49.5 degrees C. In fact, Homewood notes, there is considerable evidence that heatwaves are actually becoming less common.
   
  
• Michael Mann (quoted as an expert witness): “You’re going to get more rainfall, more superstorms, worse flooding. We’re seeing the effects of climate change now play out in real time” Homewood: Maybe one of the most dishonest parts of the programme. Even the IPCC can’t find any long term trends in tropical cyclone activity or flooding. And severe tornadoes are have become much less common in the US.
   
  
• Attenborough: “Rising seas are already displacing hundreds of thousands of people from already vulnerable coastal areas.” Homewood: Pure hyperbole. Where is the evidence to support this claim? Sea levels have been rising steadily since the mid 19th century.
   
  
• On polar ice caps, it is claimed that ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland is “worse than expected”. Homewood: In fact, according to NASA, the Antarctic is actually gaining ice. It is symptomatic of the whole programme, that Attenborough does not mention this inconvenient fact. As for Greenland, I’m not sure what the experts were “expecting”, has any relevance at all. What we do know though, is that temperatures in Greenland are no higher now than they were in the 1930s.
   
  
• Attenborough: “In the last three years, repeated heat stress has caused a third of the world’s corals to first bleach and then die.” Homewood: There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I have not even seen that claimed about the Great Barrier Reef. And as we now know, the death of GBR corals was drastically overstated. Indeed, as scientists like Peter Ridd and local reef experts have long maintained, corals quickly recover from bleaching, which was just as bad in the 18thC.
   
  

In sum, where in reality there is increasing doubt and debate among scientists on the issue of ‘climate change’, this #fakenews documentary pretended the opposite: that the weight of evidence points unquestionably to an imminent climate catastrophe which can only be averted if we take concerted global action now.

“It may sound frightening but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action in the next decade we could face irreversible damage to the natural world — and the collapse of our societies,” said Attenborough. [Fact check: there is not a single piece of scientific evidence which suggests anything of the kind. Perhaps that’s why he covered himself with the word “could.”]

“What is happening now in the next few years will profoundly affect the next thousand years,” he declared elsewhere. [Fact check: no it won’t; barely in the slightest. The planet is 4.5 billion years old. It’s perfectly capable of taking care of itself, regardless of our ludicrous delusions otherwise.]

This isn’t science. This is the purest political activism — and it’s quite extraordinary that the BBC, theoretically committed by its charter obligations to fair and accurate broadcasting, should have allowed itself to be used as a platform for such blatant fearmongering, misinformation, and propagandising.

The BBC supposedly represents the entire viewing population. (Otherwise, why should we all be forced to fund it with our compulsory annual £154.50 per household licence fee?) Yet here it is speaking on behalf of a narrow clique of mostly metropolitan, left-liberal types who pay lip service to the green religion because it’s such an easy way of publicly signalling their virtue. Those many of us — perhaps the majority of the population — who, with good reason, are sceptical about the global warming scare are treated with utter contempt, as if our opinions don’t matter.

Anyone with an even rudimentary grasp of the climate debate knows, for example, that Michael Mann, James Hansen, and Naomi Oreskes are key members of the climate industrial complex with a long track record of aggressive political activism on behalf of the environmental movement. Yet here they were being presented by the BBC — and by Attenborough — as if they were dispassionate, wholly trustworthy climate experts.

Even by the BBC’s abysmal standards, this programme was a disgrace: an insult to the intelligence, a betrayal of the Reithian principles on which the BBC was founded, and a shameless piece of propaganda on behalf of the watermelons who would destroy our civilisation.

As for Sir David Attenborough, it’s time this whispery voiced, gorilla hugging, walrus scaring Malthusian was recognised for what he is: not as a national treasure but as a national embarrassment long, long past his sell-by date.

Eighty towers seems  like a big crowd, but when I was shown to proposed location of each tower, I saw that they were separated from each other by close on a kilometre. My first thought when I heard of the proposal was that teh towers would be visible from the Newell Highway which is located to the east of the proposed area. I learned that the closest tower woulod be about 5 kms from the highway, with a line of low "hills" between them. So that's no longer a concern to me.

I think I've whinged before that around here it can be pretty windy, nd said that it would be ideal for a wind farm. Seems I'm right in some ways and mistaken in others. I experience wind as air movement within about 10 metres of the ground surface. That air movement is very turbulent compared to air movement 100 metres above ground where the turbine blades are. That turbulence, caused by the moving air particles colliding withthe ground and trees and ricocheting into air particles higher up. These collisions rob the air particles of energy due to loss of momentum. If the air movement is free of the turbulence, then there is more energy for the collision between the moving air and the turbine blades. That's why the towers are so high.

I was also told that studies locally have shown that the most consistent air movement begins at these heights after sunset and stay pretty good until just before dawn. That means the turbines are best able to produce electricity at night in complement to solar panels. That sounds good.

What about the effects on farm incomes? The builders don't resume the land they need like the government does when it wants to build roads etc. It seems that the land is rented from the landholders at a rate determined by the generating capacity of the turbine. An example was that of a property with two towers on it. Based on the generating capacity of the intended turbines, renting the land for two towers would return $100,000 p.a. CPI-indexed for a contract period of thirty years. That's got to provide a degree of stabilisation of farm income. I bet any landowner would love to get that sort of money, especially in the present circumstance when it looks like a drought is on the way.

Why does it take so long to get a windfarm up an running. Would you beleive that it is in part due to the very people who pursue a renewable world? One of the environmental reports required deals with the effect of the turbines on bats and birds. Getting the data required a study lasting two years. Then there are the Native Heritage studies and gaining clearances from the local indigenous community. Then there are the geo-technical studies, planning permissions yadda yadda. 

We should consider the economic benefits. It is said that the workforce required to create the windfarm complex is about 500 persons. These people will be newcomers who will have to be fed, housed and entertained for several years. Already the local Council has allocated an area for an accommodation camp. Someone has to build it. An extra 500 people will hopefully boost local trade, although the proximity of the City of Dubbo, about 30 minutes' drive away might not do good for my town. Still, it's money coming into the district.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this project. Really, it is going to be 'out of sight, out of mind' to teh majority of the population. And kn owing what I know about smart crows and blind bats, I don't envisage too many mid-air collsions with revolving turbine blades.

Before we start, let's determine what Artificial Intelligence is. For one thing, it is not "intelligence" as we understand it in fish, birds and mammals. Basically the software that we use is a hunter/gatherer whose hunting ground is all the information present on the Internet. Added to its hunting skills is its ability to process what it has captured and serve it up to us in any number of formats that we desire. While AI can be used to produce intricate plan for tasks ranging from the simple to the complex there is one thing it cannot do. It cannot produce and original idea. It is incapable of abstract thought. 

Within the overall package that we call AI there are four separate AI domains. The term domain can refer to how resources are organized. In general, a domain is an area of control or a sphere of knowledge. Think of an AI domain as a area of activity such as Administration, Finance, Manufacturing or Sales within a business. Each domain has its own goals which may or may not overlap with other domains, but in general is independent of the others.

The domains of Artificial Intelligence are:

1. Generative AI, often referred to as Gen AI, is a domain within AI for the creation of new content, such as text, images, voice, video, and code, by learning from data patterns. Think Chat GPT.
2. Machine learning is a domain of AI in which computers autonomously learn and improve without being explicitly programmed.
3. Natural language processing is a domain of AI that deals with the ability of computer systems to understand and generate human language. 
4. Computer Vision is the domain of AI which allows computers to 'see' and comprehend the visual world.

Of the four domains, 1 and 3 are the ones with which the average person would have the greatest contact, unless operating a driverless vehicle, or conducting surveillance to spot undesirables in a crowd when 4 is the most useful.

So what are the Pros and Cons of domains 1 and 3? Domain 1 is the hunter/gatherer. It is used to trawl the Internet for information that provides an answer to a question posed by a human. The questions could be a simple request for a single piece of information, such as 'who was Peter Lalor?', to complex questions such as "produce a 200 word summary of peer reviewed papers relating to anti-cancer vaccines'. Domain 1 is capable of providing an answer in text which can reflect the style of a celebrity, or to suit the reading age of a target audience. Domain 3 can manipulate the text created by Domain 1 into formal or vernacular styles and/or into other languages.

Apart from the possibility of nefarious use of Domains 1 and 3, I see Domain 1 as a destroyer of originality. If a user becomes reliant on the output of AI then, while the output might be faultless, it is without personality. If you have read this far, and have read other examples of my serious writings, you will know that I have a particular style of constructing what I write. You will know that I often use uncommonly used words where perhaps I should have used more common ones. Domain 1 cannot reproduce my style, mainly because it has not been able to connect material I have posted with me. I'm told that all I have to do is direct the AI program to produce it response in the style of Old Man Emu, but I wonder if it could identify OME and OME's writings.

This photo of the screen was taken with my iPhone because I couldn't save a screen capture from the Snipping Tool.

Just south of the isolated north-west tip (Woolnorth Point) of Tasmania, at a place called Cape Grim, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) fund and operates the Cape Grim atmospheric observational facility. The Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station first began measuring the composition of the atmosphere in April 1976 and has been in continuous operation since that date. The air sampled arrives at Cape Grim after long trajectories over the Southern Ocean, under conditions described as ‘baseline’. This baseline air is representative of a large area of the Southern Hemisphere, unaffected by regional pollution sources. 

Air samples are analysed at the station to determine concentrations of greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases, other air pollutants, including aerosols and reactive gases, and radon. Since sampling began at Cape Grim, more that 3 billion measurements have been taken. Among these are measurements of greenhouse gases (GHGs), including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and synthetic GHGs such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). The number of atmospheric greenhouse gases measured at Cape Grim now exceeds 50, as well as concentrations of natural and anthropogenic aerosols (particles such as sea salt, mineral dust, carbon particles etc). Some of the air samples collected at Cape Grim have been archived for further analyses as required. This picture shows some of the samples stored in "fresh air archives".

Because we have these measurements and samples going back 50 years, we are in the position of being able to say that the atmoshere has changed over that time. Happily, all is not doom and gloom. The growth of some GHGs (for example methane) has slowed recently and some are in decline (CFCs and halons for example).

Read more here: https://capegrim.csiro.au/

When it was detected, thousands of bee hives were destroyed in an attempt to control its spread. That didn't work too well. The upshot is that commercial bee-keepers were not able to place their hives amongst the plants that need bees for pollination. As a result many crops, such as apples, pears and nuts failed to produce. Worse still, while 'domesticated' hives were reduced in numbers, escapee broods headed off into the native forests, taking the mite with them. Control or eradication of the mite in Australia is now impossible using current methods. 

Not to diminish the climate crisis in any way, although the vested interests have been opposing both.

Our national food security relies massively on diesel. Since we have little reserve we are vulnerable to foreign sources for our food.

Our industry and economy relies massively on the cost of energy.

For the first time, thanks to the development of affordable energy alternatives, we are now availing ourselves of energy and transport that is not reliant on international supply. 

All this cannot happen overnight, & is still unfolding, but I reckon our future looks great.

Does this prove that "cheap" electricity from wind and solar is a hoax?  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/816_Nuclear_Military_Plant

Turing proposed a model wherein two homogeneously distributed substances (P and S) interact to produce stable patterns during morphogenesis. These patterns represent regional differences in the concentrations of the two substances. Their interactions would produce an ordered structure out of random chaos. There's an explanation of this process in the attached video. Go to timestamp 3:18

It is interesting that the stripes of an individual zebra are unique to that zebra, in the same way as your fingerprints are unique to you. This individuality is also the basis of eye pattern recognition used in security systems.

But just as I thought I knew a little (embarassingly little) about atoms, electrons, protons, etc , along comes amazing info about amazingly little bits that give everything substancr. My mind is boggled.

https://forums.sailinganarchy.com/data/video/666/666875-6867055726852a65f86cf3e6975e27b7.mp4

He is a robotics/computer development engineer.

He just received with his tech partner a $100k grant from a big Uni innovation fund to develop a new technology. Can't say what it is but will lead to very big things and hopefully a high tech development of world leading stuff. Just the bottom rung of the R &D bucket but a very important start.

Meanwhile he is been head hunted by big venture capital and some dark box government stuff.

I am absolutely stoked, all the hard years and effort, never fitting the mould of society and being outside the box.

All those years of R/c cars and airplanes have paid off. 

I will take some credit in upbringing and 50% credit at least for the DNA.

I can't say a lot about it, but he has many things all leading to a big future. 

My son the inventor, has a very nice sound to it. I am incredibly proud, he has overcome incredible health problems, obstacles and many years interrupted from education in a system that doesn't know what to do with a brainiac on the spectrum.

He is going to change the world. You may never know but I will.

Damn it feels great.

So if the bombs did not penetrate the facility, the shock wave probably didn't destabilise the tunnels and galleries very much. If they had centrifuges or delicate machinery, then it could certainly have been wrecked. My point is that the tunnels and galleries can probably very easily be reinstated and are not actually destroyed.

I am bombarded with competing opinions regarding the switch to Windows 11. One side says that if I don't switch, one day I won't be able to access the Internet. The other side says that for the way I use the Internet and the few programs I use in MS-Office, she'll be right.

So, do I upgrade to Windows 11, or just keep using Windows 10?

In it, he added to Bradfield's idea by pointing out that Nature had already created the drainage system that would carry water from the western side of the Great Dividing Range through to Lake Eyre in South Australia. That this system works is currently being amply displayed as water from recent cyclones has reached Lake Eyre after flooding vast areas of the Channel Country.

Bradfield, Idriess and others of that era were not to know of the coming climate change which, this year (2025) /appears to be responsible for the massive rainfall that is now filling Lake Eyre. Also, they were not to know of the advances in mechanisation that now allow us to carry out massive civil engineering projects. In those years, the idea for Snowy Mountains Scheme was probably not much more than embryonic. 

The reasons for the failure of Bradfield's to get the green light in his time was most likely political, or more correctly the ability of the Queensland Government to allocate the, even then, substantial money needed to complete the engineering works. However over the years, the Bradfield Scheme has been recycled every few years in the form of feasibility schemes, revisions and hybrids, only to be dismissed or rejected once more. Often the rejections have been based on inaccurate or insufficient data.

It appears that while the idea to move water to where it could be useful to agriculture, various industries, population dispersion and maybe even climate improvement is most often stymied by the money needed to carry out the diversions. However, as with most things which call for taxpayer money, costs are considered in the here and now. It is extremely rare that approval is given to spend now for the benefit of future generations. It has been said that an old man will never sit in the shade of the tree he planted in his youth. Perhaps it might be good this time to think of our grandchildren picnicking in the shade of a tree we planted. 

We all know about the leviathan dinosaurs, but surely there must have been heaps more little ones running around under the feet of the big ones. Just think of the plains of Africa and North America in present times. There are hundreds of big animals, but do we ever hear of the little ones? The have to be there. And back in the Age of Dinosaurs, there had to be little ones. I bet that mammals didn't evolve from 50 tonne behemoths. Those big animals were at the end of their evolutionary development.

Let's give our support to Compsognathus, a "chicken-sized" dinosaur. Compsognathus longipes is one of the few dinosaur species whose diet is known with certainty: the remains of small, agile lizards are preserved in the bellies of both specimens so far discovered.

For Australian viewing of the AA, the scale rating for viewing is currently 6, out of 9. There are plenty of FB photos currently being posted of the AA. The best times for viewing are between 10:00PM and 2:00AM.

https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Aurora

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SouthernHemisphereAuroraGroup/

I came across this video recently, and today I applied the information in it to select the correct driver tip to deal with screws in a tool made in England. After watching the video, can you tell me what type of screw I was dealing with?