This is a long video, but it is very well worth watching because it exposes the way academia works and the nonsense that fills academia. It isn’t on climate, but nether-the-less it exposes very much the same group think, silencing of critics and “unevidenced” rhetoric as we see in the climate. As such it shows the non-sense in climate is part of a much wider problem.
But perhaps most importantly, and optimistically, it finishes by talking about a recent change in academia. This fits in well with the idea I had of “witch trials” during the most rapid phase in the information revolution (link). Perhaps the “witch trial” period of attacks on sceptics is coming to an end and common sense is returning?

A decade ago in 2009 we got a wealth of substantial proof about how dishonest climate academics were when it came to “hiding the decline” in their “science”. But unfortunately, far from turning around the subject as it ought, 10 years later the subject is far more dishonest than I could have believed even in 2009.  For back in 2009, we genuinely thought that if we highlighted the dishonesty of academics when compiling global temperature, that that would force them to mend their ways and the global temperature graph would be more believable. Today, I can honestly say that I see absolutely no point in even attempting to “correct” the current rubbish of most groups which has no credibility at all as it is just figments of their vivid imaginations. They have shown they can and do make the global temperature say whatever they want it to say.
If there is so much MORE to be done than at the time of Climategate, why then, have I largely stopped working on climate? The reason is simple: we are past the “what if” stage of the climate warming scam where it was a question of the scientific predictions. We are past the stage where a bunch of biased academics could scare the world by fraudulent predictions. We are past the stage of only having their  predictions of the future, but instead it’s increasingly about tangible things that academics can’t distort: “what has it done” and “what is the cost”.
In terms of the “what has it done” … the answer is nothing and “what is the cost”, the answer is mega huge. Better still, public interest has steadily declined, leaving the politicians with an unwanted hugely costly commitment to something that has proven not to be a problem.
We are now 20% of the way from the 2001 IPPC prediction of 1.4 to 5.8C warming by 2100 and we continue to see no discernable problems of any kind. Indeed the only effects of rising CO2 have been the beneficial increase in crop yields. Something that any numpty can see was entirely predictable … but something the academics omitted to mention to the public or politicians. But worse! We are less than 20% of the way to the the massive costs – and governments are already falling as a result.
This is why the global temperature no longer matters. This is why winning the argument on the “science” doesn’t matter.
Yes they still fraudulently change the global temperature. But they have done themselves no favour by it. Because by falsely exaggerating the recent temperature to get rid of the pause, all the climate scamsters have done is to block the excuse that “the reason we aren’t see any effects is because of the pause”.

Balance

The reason I first got involved campaigning to get the science heard on climate, is because I had been in the wind business and saw the “pounds in their eyes” profiteers there, who would stop at no dirty trick to undermine wind groups (including paid saboteurs signing up to undermine them from within). Likewise I had been in the Green party – and seen them for the bunch of science and engineering numpties they are. And I had been in the British Wind Energy Association and seen how it was run by the big oil corps. And I had been in the Scottish Parliamentary Renewable Energy Group, seen the dishonesty of civil servants and the gormless politicians jumping on the bandwagon. And I had tried to get the truth about wind (jobs) heard and had seen the bias of the press.
Back around 2007, there was not a single substantial group even willing to put up a counter arguments to what is undoubtedly the world’s biggest scam. There was absolutely no balance. It was like Hitler’s Germany – you had to accept the official line or you became a non-person. And like Hitler’s Germany, there was a real risk of substantial social, political and economic harm as a result.
Today, even the president of the US is (supposedly) a sceptic and many politicians and even whole governments are increasingly and OPENLY sceptical.
In terms of stopping the rot in climate – Climategate was an appalling failure. Because far from stopping the rot, the establishment coverup in the UK merely emboldened the alarmists to take their dishonesty to the next level. However, in terms of making the public and politicians aware of this dishonesty, it was a huge success. Thus I think those of us who worked to expose climategate are largely responsible for the current change in attitudes which is rapidly moving us toward the balance – with increasingly large and politically powerful groups in opposition – that is halting this scam.

The analogy has repeatedly been made between the way the “establishment” press, academics, politicians have treated sceptics and the the 15th and 16th century witch trials.
However, I think it is less an analogy, than two versions of the same phenomenon: the dramatic shift in culture (aka revolution) that occurs after a significant change in communication technology which empowers a new group of people, who were formally denied the ability to communicate to “the public”.
The graph below illustrates my thinking:
The red line is a metric for printing efficiency with the 1470 representing a value of 1 and other years scales accordingly, This shows that printing started having an effect from about 1470 and that most of the changes in “cost of information” had had their effect by the time of the English civil war in 1650.
Note how the peak in witch trials (grey line) occurred during the middle of the first information revolution!
This period of the witch trials was when when both the former power of the Catholic church was destroyed because of one simple change. In this period, the bible and commentary on it, which had formally only been available to very rich people who could afford scribes (i.e. the church and those like Kings), began to be published in a much cheaper form that was available to middle class people. The crux was the printing of bibles like the Kings James V Bible in 1611. The result was that whereas formally study of the bible, and commentary on it, was limited to the hugely wealthy Catholic church, after printing any Tom Dick or Elizabeth with a middle class income and without so much as a Latin education could afford to buy and study the bible AND COMMENT ON IT.
However equally pertinent to those suffering the “witch trials” of Climate sceptics  is that King James I of Scotland also wrote and published a book about witchcraft titled Daemonologie in 1597. And it was such books and the ease of commenting on social issues that undoubtedly turned what had been in the 15th century a minor curiosity into a social bandwagon attacking  – primarily those who could not afford to get their views into print to answer back.
In terms of the “wars of medicine”: printing empowered the newly educated “doctor” classes, disempowered the “wise woman” classes. Printing thus allowed the “doctor” classes to attack the old medical practitioners in such a vicious way that many who resisted the rise of the “doctor” classes lost their lives. Printing heralded a new type of social order in which the middle classes held far more power than they had before.
Printing was the means by which those who controlled printing came to power and the means by which control over countries changed from being one where countries were controlled by a view individuals (popes/kings) to one where the middle class (not poor) had control.

Later revolutions

Printing may be the first revolution (if we don’t count writing itself), but it is not the only one the following are all information revolutions of various types (dates when first commercially available):

• Telegraph 1837
• Camera 1830s
• Cheap postal service 1840 (GB Penny Black)
• Telephone ~1880
• Television 1920s (Logie Baird)

It took 125 years between the inventing of printing and the English Civil war. I would argue that the speed at which information changes have an effect is accelerating. The 1830s to 1920s saw a series of major changes in information.  What was the result?
In the UK the Representation of the People Act 1832  broadened the franchise’s property qualification in the counties, to include small landowners, tenant farmers, and shopkeepers. This effectively destroyed the UK Whig party bringing in the liberals.
The franchise was broadened further by the 1867 reform act. In 1911 parliament act effectively abolished the power of the House of Lords to veto legislation. And in 1918 the UK parliament enfranchised all men and women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications and in 1928 the vote was given to all women. The effect of these changes was to take power from that of the 1830s where it was controlled by a few Lords and very upper class MPs toward one where the working class labour party won a majority of all MP seats 1945. It was no longer taking a century or more for technology changes to have an impact.
How did people without any formal power through the UK constitution come to power? The answer, is that as communicating views to other people and the public in general, became less and less expensive, that it became impossible to stop those who did not have power from demanding and finally getting it. There was no literal revolution in the sense of guillotines chopping off kings heads as happened at the end of the first information revolution, but the changes in who had power were nether-the-less as dramatic as the first revolution.

It was the Sun Wot Won it – the rise of the press and media control

However, whilst the 1830-1920 revolutions were dramatic, there was a problem for ordinary people with the technologies. By and large the most effective communications were 1-to-many forms: printing, publishing, broadcasting. These were all very expensive technologies that only a few big organisations could afford. As a result, those who could afford such technologies like the press barons and media moguls, became incredibly powerful. Indeed, they would sometimes literally boast about their power to decide who got into power such and the notorious Sun headline after the 1992 UK election declaring that it had lied about and manipulated the news in order to ensure a victory for its own preferred party (who had no doubt bought that support by policy changes demanding by the Sun’s owners). This zenith in power of the UK press was linked to another information revolution of the 1980s when outdated “hot-metal” Linotype printing was replaced by computers which allowed journalists to input copy directly. The result had been to bring down the cost of printing newspapers and make them hugely profitable and hugely powerful.

The Internet

But even if IBM never believed in mass computing, the computers that brought down the cost of publishing, didn’t remain the sole property of the big corporations for long. Soon, printing – by use of a personal computer and printer – started to come within the reach of most households. And from 2000 onwards mobile devices started to become readily available such that a majority of people now have access to the internet: both as readers and publishers through social media.
It is not possible to have an information revolution without affecting political power. And the result of the internet has been amongst many:

1. To empower those in Britain who are against being in the EU
2. To empower those in the “Arab spring” revolutions
3. To enable Trump to come to power despite the most viciously hostile press campaign.
4. etc.

And we have undoubtedly not seen the end.

The Climate wars

How does this explain the climate wars? Below is a graph showing the interest in “Global warming” and the rise of internet usage.
Do you notice something familiar? If not, go back to look at the graph of witch trials and the efficiency of printing. I don’t think anyone that has been involved in trying to get the real climate science heard has any doubt that the last decade has been one of the nastiest campaigns by the “powers that be” in academia (“Science”) who have tried every trick in the book to force the public to accept their viewpoint that “the end is nigh”.
And what was their primary means of distributing their politicised “science”? The press and the Internet. And what was the sceptics primary means: the internet. It was undoubtedly a war created and fought on the internet. One between the old “establishment” of science in academia and those scientists who had formally been denied a voice who largely came from jobs in the private sector.

Information wars – they don’t say who is right – but they do tell us who will win.

The 16th century witch trials may have been triggered in the same way as the “climate wars” of the 21st century by a change of technology for communicating ideas, but I have no doubt that I could have as easily shown a graph of many other facets of religion, commerce or ideas, showing how the printing revolution triggered various “wars” between social groups. Likewise, the internet revolution has empowered new groups who were formally denied power. Their views and ideas now have far more clout leading to many social changes from leaving the EU to Trump. But that doesn’t mean those ideas are right. It is just possible that the old “Washington swamp” is a far better form of government than what Trump says he will deliver. Those in the establishment “swamp” will lose – but that doesn’t mean those outside the swamp are better at government. Likewise, it is possible that a society run by “our betters” in the EU would be a better one than one where ordinary people get to say who governs us. But the EU will lose and the ordinary people will win, because it is the ordinary people that have gained a voice and hence power through the technology of the internet.
But the best views don’t always come to power – witch finders can win (albeit temporarily), greens who want to end the western world gained control for a while, technology doesn’t chose “good” ideas, it just changes who gains a voice and through it gains political power.
Thus, being “right” is no indicator of success, but knowing who is winning and just as equally, who is losing power through the change in communication technology does allow a few good predictions:

1. The UK is going to leave the EU. No matter what the “establishment” MPs might want, the simple fact is that the old establishment from which the MPs came is no longer in control of UK politics.
2. Trump will not be the last “popular president” in the US. That does not mean all future “popular presidents” will share his “conservative” views, but I can predict with confidence that many more presidents which the press loath as much, or even more than Trump, will come to power.
3. The climate “elite” will lose. They might think that having every single scientific body back their political outcomes …. but history shows that having power is not enough to stop those who gain a voice through new technology.

The example of Tommy Robinson

Tommy Robinson, according to all the laws of political power that used to govern who controlled our country, should be a non-entity. He is loathed by the press who constantly lie about him. He is loathed by most politicians – who happily spread the lies of the press. He had no political party to support him and the press and judges were constantly harassing him – and even the money-grabbing lawyers didn’t want to take his money.
But his latest video exposing the racism and homophobia of the BBC has, despite being banned by facebook and ruthlessly attacked, now been seen by over 700,000 people (It currently shows 679,000 – but it said almost the same number a few hours ago so it seems to me YouTube have stopped the counter!)

I find his rise to power fascinating for I am neither member of his social group nor that of the journalistic-swamp attacking him. So I am to some extent impartial.
Undoubtedly Tommy is very clever, he’s also getting a lot of support as shown by the increasing professionalism of his videos. But what this video above and the ~700,000 views in a few days highlights is that a person who comes from a social group that journalists like the BBC despise and call “Cannibals”** is now gaining massive support. The loathsome BBC have tried every trick in the book and a few more (Goebbels book of propaganda) and they have failed and they will continue to fail. The establishment have already got to facebook to ban the video (for what – exposing racist homophobic views of a BBC journalist – attempting to attack Tommy as racist and homophobic!)
Indeed, it seems to me, that the more those in the establishment like the BBC and parliament attack Tommy – the more he is becoming a symbol to those in the “Cannibal classes” of resistance against the establishment. Thus far from weakening him, each attack makes him stronger.
Only fate & hindsight that will tell us whether the change in society that is seeing those like Tommy rise to power was for good or bad, but it is inevitable. He or someone or some people like him, who represent those the BBC think of as “Cannibals” were going to gain power. And of course that will be against the howls of protest and vicious attacks by the present inhabitants of the establishment swamp … as their tentacles are cut loose from the levers of power.
We live in interesting times! As the huge political and social changes in recent years show, a major revolution is occurring before our very eyes. Given the increasing rate at which such revolutions have an impact, we should see a dramatic change within a few decades. What we don’t know, is the exact changes that will occur, nor whether the present incumbents of power will give it up peacefully or not. All we can really know for certain is that:

The revolution Cometh

 
** The above program shows a BBC Panorama “journalist” likening the Tommy Robinson class to Amazonian Cannibals.

In recent weeks remainer MPs have been strenuously trying to persuade the populace that it was impossible for the UK to leave the EU without a deal. As a strategy that was not bad (even if I say it myself), because it’s blatantly obvious given the EU took 7 years to reach a deal with Canada that they would never manage to come up with an acceptable deal with the UK in the mere 2 year timetable the EU forced on us (despite requests to lengthen it).
So, the treacherous anti-democratic self-serving MPs were heading toward a nice position: they could pretend that the EU negotiated in good faith, and then reject the deal saying “a no deal is impossible” – so we can’t leave.
That was what they had planned … until today. Because today they came out in public and admitted that a no deal was not only perfectly possible … it was quite likely. And they did this by finally admitting that it was very likely we will be leaving without the stitched up deal on offer from the EU.
First rule of politics: if you don’t want something to happen, don’t give it credence. The treacherous politicians today have not only shown that it is perfectly possible for us to leave without a deal …. they have also said that they will throw the PM a lifeline with these MPs taking all the blame for anything that goes wrong. Because that is what they are doing if they enact this pathetic clause: ANY PROBLEMS and they get the blame.
And now there is no hiding that their intention all along was only to deny the public our democratic decision to leave.
May must be laughing – I was expecting her to go very shortly after Brexit to “take the blame”. But not now.
May is now free to leave with no deal. The idiot MPs intention to stop brexit has been shown for what it is. And if they trigger the clause – they not only feel the wrath of the electorate for intentionally making brexit worse – they get all the blame for any brexit problems.

Game set and match.

The last obstacle to leaving on the 29th March with no deal has gone thanks to these pathetic “MPS”

Adendum

It is slowly dawning on me what a monumental disaster this is for remain. The tactic should have been to take it through to the vote and then pretend to consider all the options and then pretend that it was not decided long before the debate and vote “no option is good enough … we can’t leave”. To pretend they occupied the democratic high ground … strenuously going along with the rules, but on a technicality – not blatant unlistening arrogance – “having” to vote against leaving.
For that they needed:

1. To prevent the public believing that leaving with no deal was a viable option. But they’ve blown that by showing they think that is a very realistic possibility (why else are they so desperately trying to stop a no deal).
2. They needed to pretend that they were going along with the will of the people – but the only reason they couldn’t go along with it …. just now … was because after due consideration none of the current options were good enough. But they’ve just blown that argument, because without any consideration they’ve tried (and failed) to block the very viable option of leaving without a deal.
3. The other prerequisite, was that they had to pretend that there was some deal that they could agree to. That the issue was not about stopping brexit – but about choosing between different deals. And for that they had to avoid at all costs showing themselves to be a group of traitors who will stop at nothing to try to halt brexit. And again, they have clearly failed because by today’s extremely unusual and highly dubious vote that had nothing to do with Brexit, they have shown they were was clearly just trying desperately to stop brexit.

And the reason I’m writing this, is because it’s becoming clear that even Remainers on twitter think that this move by MPs is anti-democratic. It shows them to be a group who are just trying to force through their own point of view with no intention whatsoever of listening to their constituents. Remainers don’t like this tactic! Remain MPs have lost credibility with their own supporters. It’s a monumental PR disaster. It smacks of the worst kind of politicking, and there is not a chance in hell they can claim the democratic high ground now. It just underlines the sense that remain, like the EU are undemocratic in the way they work.

As Brexit draws nearer, we are getting to the stage where brexit is within the shelf life of many products making it attractive to retailers of products to create fake scares to boost their sales. Given that much of the press is also viciously hostile to brexit, there will be a ready market for any retailer thinking of pushing a fake scare stories.
So, I thought I’d start collecting them.
Easter Chocolate

Easter could be cancelled thanks to Brexit as experts warn chocolate could be in short supplyhttps://t.co/kDBUdzV40t

— Sun Politics (@SunPolitics) January 4, 2019

Carrots and Tea

Say goodbye to tea and carrots: 80% of British food is imported so there will be food shortages in no-deal #Brexit https://t.co/Bw1Qlm7Eam — Matty (@Doozy_45) January 5, 2019

Drugs (but not illegal ones for some reason)

Why #Brexit gagging orders for pharmaceutical firms then??https://t.co/LDLBtewrk3

— NHASolent (@NHASolent) January 5, 2019

2019 is going to be a momentous year for the UK as we finally leave the EU empire and start life anew as an independent nation outside the direct control of EU bureaucrats.
But, in the old Roman empire, the empire not only controlled people within its border, but using a mixture of bribes to the elites and threats of invasion, it also controlled many “client kingdoms” on its borders. So, to say we will be free entirely from control of the EU empire is going too far, at least until the EU empire itself falls apart.
Likewise, the power of the eco-fascists is waning as the imminent threat of climate catastrophe so obviously fails to materialise despite decades of telling us there was an imminent threat. But although we are still wasting money on the scammers, when we leave the EU, we not only rid ourselves of their self-destructive eco-fascist influence, but having got rid of the EU, which drives the scam and itself is a massive cost, I think it is only a matter of time till the cross-hairs of public scorn fall on the climate scam as well.
On a similarly happy note, the BBC are daily losing public support as I see more and more people ready to speak out against the Biased Broadcasting Company. Their own eco-fascism is now in a vicious spiral: they are gradually having their budgets squeezed … causing viewers to switch off and go elsewhere … which in turn means that public support diminishes … which in turn means it becomes ever easier to squeeze their budgets. The  question is not whether the BBC will be dismantled, but when.

Academia

There is one thing that ties all these social ills together. That is the role of academia and the way its political and social bias underlies them. This bias was patently obvious during the Brexit referendum when time after time the press came out with yet another fake news story from some academics desperately trying to stop brexit by publishing their own political views dressed up as “research”. We all know the role of academia in creating and pushing the climate scam, particularly the way they have similarly pushed their own political views as “research” which the eager press just gullibly publish. And which part of the press is the most eager to publish the political views of academia dressed up as “research” … the BBC.
So, behind all these social ills, and others such as the constant destructive attacks on British industry (another beloved target of academia) … is the political activism of academia. Indeed, it really is a partnership. Academia is extremely biased in its views, and then they use the press, who do not bother to fact check academic material (because who can fact check it except academia) and the result is that the political views of academia (used to) have free access to the press.
The only place where academia’s own political views lately started getting rebuked, is on the internet, where experts like me and many many others with the experience of a lifetime working outside academia, have the opportunity to express our views in an arena where academics have not yet worked out how to force their views onto us (although they are trying to do it with the complicity of people like google).

A reason for optimism – a cost theory of fake news

You might have thought, that because the political bias of academia is such an intractable problem with no obvious solution – because politician rely on academics to guide them and these guides will never ever guide them away from funding and using those guides.
However, again the internet is coming to our rescue.
In the past, when it cost huge amounts to set up a publisher or newspaper, this cost meant it was practically impossible for anyone – except those journalists and publishers – who wasn’t incredibly rich, to force their views on the rest of us. But with the internet, the cost of publishing dropped to such an extent that any idiot with a physics degree can now write a blog.
Thus whilst it is often said that if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door, the reality was that if you have the low down on a story that interests someone in another continent, in the past, not only wouldn’t they know that you had the story, but it was almost always prohibitively expensive for an individual in one country, let alone a continent to “beat a path to your door”.
However, that is no longer true. The cost of finding out information … even from very obscure sources, is now relatively cheap. Most people, even with google intentionally hiding some material, can now find information they want on the internet within seconds, minutes, or in the case of the dark net, just hours.
Thus, in the past, when a newspaper printed their fakes stories, it was practically impossible, due to the cost, for any normal person to independent verify the credibility of those stories. However, today the cost of someone independently investigating a story is DRAMATICALLY lower. And that goes as much for fake google search results that push up paid advertisers and push down climate sceptics as it does for fake academic “research”. When we don’t trust search engines, we can and do find ways around it. When we don’t trust fake news in the media, we can and do find ways around it. When we don’t trust fake research from academia, we can and usually do find other sources of information.
You no longer have to be a professional employed to investigate “fake stories” in order to find what is fake and what is not.
The result, is that the endless torrent of fake news from academia – whilst it seems to have no end – it also is now relatively easy in many cases to work out it is fake research. And this is largely what has angered academics. In the past, before the internet, they could and did print their own views – the views of the rest of academia – as research, to nothing but acclaim from academics and their stooges like the BBC in the press. Today, however, there is an army of people on the internet, willing  able using the internet to fight back against their fake research. It may not yet have stemmed the tide, but publishing fake research is no longer cost free for academia.
If, or more likely in my case, when, we suspect academic research is a load of politically biased bullshit, unlike the past where we could do very little, today we can quickly uncover the truth and almost as quickly get our own views on the fake research online. And I can assure you the result has been the immense frustration of academics in all subjects who now fear their fake research being revealed.
This new freedom, I think is a very good reason to see that the future will be much better than the present. We cannot stop people trying to push their views on us. But today, the cost of producing fake information is relatively high because it is so relatively inexpensive to uncover fake news, fake research through the internet. Yes, we are increasingly coming across fake material, but the reason we know it is fake, is because the internet now allows us to verify that “information” in a way that was hitherto impossible unless you were an academic with a tenured employment, a lot of time available, and free access to a library of information.

Predictions for the future

We are new entering into a new age of honesty – not because people have suddenly changed their fundamental nature and become honest – but because the cost of dishonesty has risen. And that I think is a good thing and worth celebrating.
However, I can also predict that we now have three months of fake news as manufacturers try to hype up the possibility that there will be a shortage of their product to cause panic buying before Brexit. So, even if these scams are revealed almost as quickly as they are created, human nature being what it is …
It’s going to rain – there will be snow, droughts …. weather will still happen
The climate scam will continue to fade. However, based on a realistic appraisal, I can’t see the academics involved changing their views quickly. They are now proven to change the temperature to match their group-think, and so that group-think is now so deeply engrained that rather than face the truth they will change the evidence to match their views.
As a result I think we will need at least 3 decades of contrary temperature. Given that climate is just as likely to see warming as cooling, this suggests around 60years before the scam completely dies. So, given the odd period when the inevitable severe weather will cause a temporary reprieve, the scam will more or less fade at a snail’s pace until long after I’m dead.
Academics in a host of subjects are going to become increasingly frustrated as they see their control of subjects they formerly considered to be their exclusive domain, becoming a free for all on the internet. Well tough!
Google and others who have tried to take control over what we think through their dominance of the internet, will find TO THEIR COST, that that just is not possible. The more they try to do it, the quicker alternatives will grow.
And the BBC – who really cares about the BBC any longer? Yes they had a good run – yes at a much more gullible time, they were widely acclaimed as an essential part of British life – a Britain they tried to destroy, but it’s time that this dinosaur from the past made way for the future. And as the non-BBC watching generations come to power, I suspect that will be sooner rather than later.
So, all in all, I think I’ve had a very good year and the prospect really is of a merry Xmas and happy newyear.

Happy Brexmas!

I frequently see references to so called “urban heating” which try to explain the phenomenon by handwaving references to anecodatal causes such as direct heating from houses or changes in solar absorption of concrete. Most of these are so obviously wrong that I felt like giving a quick debunk of some of them.

Direct heating

London was the first place where urban heating was recognised and it is usually quoted as being raised by a degree centigrade or more:

The Mean Temperature of the Climate … is strictly about 48.50° Fahr.: but in the denser parts of the metropolis, the heat is raised, by the effect of the population and fires, to 50.50°; and it must be proportionately affected in the suburban parts.

Based on the size of London (609square miles) and population (1.3 million households), thus the average area per household is about 1000m². When I last looked average electricity consumption is 400w and something like half of all energy usage, so let’s say 1000w over 1000m2 = 1w/m². The change in global temperature is usually quoted at about 4w/m² per degree C suggesting around 0.25C warming. But the figure will be smaller for a small region as there are more ways for heat energy to escape,  thus this direct heat accounts for only a small fraction of the warming.

Albedo

I searched for papers giving the relative change in albedo between urban and rural environments. And it quickly became apparent that they are difficult to find (This is often an indication that the subject doesn’t fit in with the global warming alarm). However, despite the lack of research, this subject is relatively easy to check, because most energy from the sun arrives in the visible region, a change in albedo will be shown as a difference in lightness/darkness of the ground. To check this I had a look at aerial photos. I chose relatively small areas where i could be certain the images were from the same run of aerial photos.First an area close to where I live in Scotland where there is a distinct change from urban to rural:

A village in Scotland where an area of urban and rural image have been rendered black and white and then blurred.

The original aim of blurring the square was to produce a uniform shade. I think the difference at the centre was 33 & 38 percent?) but perhaps the fact that the square are not uniform shade, but still retains some of the change within the area, also shows that the variation between urban and rural is far less than the variation within urban and rural.

However, this is Scotland where it is damp and moss grows on roofs. So I wanted to check this in a the drier parts of the UK and chose London.

South London showing areas of greenery amongst the housing in colour (left) black and white (right). When shown as B&W, the green largely disappears except for areas of woodland. Likewise, the urban area is relatively uniform except for modern warehouse style buildings which show white.
I was going to repeat the exercise, but as soon as I removed the colour, I was unable to spot the areas of green as they were virtually the same colour as the areas of housing. The easiest way to show this was to reproduce the image with and without colour. Again, the variation within areas of urban and rural is more significant than the variation of the average between them. Importantly, the really dark areas are woodland and the very light areas are warehouses. And of the two, in all but a very few places, the area of woodland is much greater and therefore more important in terms of temperature than the area of warehouse, which although they stick out like a soar thumb, their size is small.
Thus contrary to many assertions that albedo dramatically changes, there is in fact very little difference in albedo between (UK) housing and open fields. Indeed, as the following shows even in Central London the difference is small
.
Image of central London shown in colour & B&W showing that even in central London, there is little difference in shade between built up areas and parkland.
In contrast there is very considerable differences between types of farm land. As such it is difficult to explain “urban heating” by a change in albedo.

The real causes of urban heating

This leave two other related effects:
1. A reduction in average wind speed over urban environments
2. A reduction in evaporation
The reason they are related is because around 50% of all heat lost via air movement from the surface is through evaporation, and this is in turn affected by wind speed.
The reason the wind speed is reduced is because the presence of housing roughens the surface and increases drag on wind. This also happens in woodland, where the wind speed is dramatically reduced near the ground. But unlike woodland, houses do not evaporate from their roofs. So the key here is that air speed is dramatically reduced at the level at which evaporation from plants is important.
Anyone who has ever gone into a wood on a hot day in a dry summer, knows that a wood is much cooler than the dry open fields whereas the wind speed reduces and the humidity increases. Thus, if it weren’t for the active cooling by the trees (with deep roots which still tap into water), then it would feel much warmer in the woodland.

The flip side: urban runoff

Urban areas are characterised by 75-100 percent impermeable material which is much higher than rural areas, which may have only 10% impermeable material. As water that runs off is therefore unavailable for evaporative cooling, this difference contributes to higher surface area temperatures. It is complicated because water also penetrates into the ground, so not all the precipitation contributes to cooling but with about 50% of the heat leaving the ground leaving through convection, and with evaporation being one of the key factors driving convection, even a small change in evaporative cooling in the urban environment will have a significant effect on temperature.

The flip flip side: urban cooling

The bizarre thing is that in some areas such as Australia, urbanisation has led to cooling not warming. The likely explanation is simple: in dry regions, people bring in water to grow plants. The result is that the evaporation from the plants cools the environment.

Conclusion

Whilst direct heating is the most often cause cited for urban heating, the actual scale of direct heating is relatively small. Likewise whilst changes in albedo can be significant particularly between woodland and farmland or between housing and warehouses, the average difference in albedo between urban and rural (farmland/parkland) environments is relatively small. Therefore the main reasons for urban warming are the effect buildings have in reducing average wind speeds at the “growing level” (i.e. where most plant leaves occur), and the reduction in evaporative cooling due to a reduction in plants and an increase in hard surfaces with runoff (which is then not available for cooling).

The latest ploy of the anti-democracy politicians & EU is simple: to insist we must have a deal and then reject any deal. Thus claiming that leaving is impossible.
They are scum.
Please sign the petition:

Leave the EU without a deal in March 2019.

UPDATE! Please sign this petition:

The UK should not agree the UN’s Global Compact for Migration

This news is so profound and such a massive attack on western democracy, that it shows that the mass immigration of recent years was no mistake. It was an intentional policy by these people and that having been exposed they are now acting to make it ILLEGAL to criticise what is ironically their ILLEGAL policy. This shows, we are already living in a new fascist age where anti-democratic forces have ALREADY gained control and are about to turn our world into a nightmare where free speech does not exist.
If the video here is correct – and unfortunately it seems genuine, Governments are literally committing to make it illegal to criticise immigration policy IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER. In other words, it will be a criminal offence to say that ILLEGAL immigration must be shopped. It’s not barmy – it’s intensely concerning.

EUROPE HAS FALLEN!

“Criticism of migration will become a criminal offense, & media outlets who give room to criticism of migration can be shut down.”
Soon in Europe it will now be ILLEGAL for Europeans to criticize the Corrupt Elites destroying their countries.#FridayFeeling pic.twitter.com/vBFGZhCUfY
— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) November 30, 2018

Direct link to see video: https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1068557881438552064

With the fire being taken out of the alarmists, Climate has become pretty dull recently, so much so that watching paint drying (or more literally concrete setting) has become a far more interesting subject for me. The fact that I have multiple surface all subject to wind and rain has made a combination of weather forecasts and the setting time of concrete a bit of an obsession recently as we head into winter … but I digress.

Following the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president, Brazil withdrew its offer to preside over Cop25, citing budgetary constraints and the political transition (link)

For anyone who has observed these COPs (at a far … as few sceptics can afford to attend), they are without doubt the biggest waste of money imaginable amounting to a huge taxpayer’s funded green-fest of crocodile tears with mostly government paid for green nutters flying from all over the globe in order to gather and moan about things like … the way so many people fly to so many unnecessary places.
Of course they live it up in style, whilst bemoaning the way money isn’t going to the poor. But they can’t stop going as it’s become the way these green nutters keep in touch and a “safe space” from the reality of real world of ever drooping public support and failed climate predictions.
So, the effect Brazil cancelling their contribution to this waste of money, isn’t that important (except to green nutters) … as it’s just another indicator that the global warming scam is dying. But when the history of the scam is written up … when our generation is being laughed at for being so stupid … future generations need a point in time in order to say “that generation was stupid but we (the later generation) aren’t … and this may well be the event they choose to demark the “stupid” time from the “sane sensible” period that (supposedly) followed.