Global Land Sea Temperature

From NOAA :

(h/t 2slugbaits)

I really do not see a “pause” as enunciated by one commentator. (Same guy who contends by linking to FRED, I manipulated BLS data – he’s never apologized for that…)

158 thoughts on “Global Land Sea Temperature

  1. pgl

    Oh gee – CoRev reads something that denies climate change and then basically lies in his rebuttal. Oh gee – CoRev goes off when someone noted Trump did not lead to the great economy ever. Tell us something new.

  2. Econned

    Menzie Chinn,
    Awwww are your feeling hurt that someone didn’t apologize to you? Ego bruised? Poor little thing. Maybe if you apologized for your own manipulations, faults, errors, omissions, blahblahblah others would take such requests from you a tad more seriously. Instead it’s the same ol’ song and dance where the ego trumps all for Prof Chinn. Dry your tears and step up to the plate.

    1. baffling

      more professional jealousy from the failed academic, who trolls this site with multiple monickers. j zanfino.

    2. Macroduck

      So, Menzie works to debunk misinformation, and Econned insults Menzie in response. Laughably, Econned projects his own pettiness onto Menzie in the process.

      So I wonder, is Econned on the side of disinformation, or merely so petty that he’ll endorse misinformation if it gives him an opportunity to be small-minded? Really hard to tell based on what Econned writes – too bizarre for normal minds to figure.

      1. Econned

        Macroduck,
        Keep wondering because I haven’t endorsed any disinformation.
        It’s internet commenters like you, who fail to comprehend that my criticism of Menzie’s *approach* in his criticism of CoRev’s comment is absolutely in no way related to my supporting or opposing CoRev’s comment. Your narrow-mindedness is keeping you from providing any beneficial commentary. Just because such reactionary responses as you’ve provided here are common at Econbrowser doesn’t mean they should be tolerated. You could be ignorant or partisan or simply indifferent. It’s really hard to tell based on what you write – to short-sided for rationally objective minds to figure.

      2. CoRev

        MD, show us the misinformation. I see you can misread and misrepresent data also.

        Where’s that list of scientifically supported tipping points?

        1. Barkley Rosser

          CoRev,

          Misinforma3tion from you? The list is so long I shall not bore people with it.

          Here is the bottom line. Somewhere recently in your massive lists of idiotic questions you wanted everybody here to answer, as if you had even a shred of cred to do that, you declared that it was not established that CO2 and methane “drive” global temperature.

          Sorry, boy, that was your ultimate bs statement here. It is simply a completetly and totally accepted by actual real scientists that indeed CO2 and methane raise average global temperature.

          1. CoRev

            Barkley provides even another example of misinformation and fuzzy thinking: ” that it was not established that CO2 and methane “drive” global temperature.

            Sorry, boy, that was your ultimate bs statement here. It is simply a completetly and totally accepted by actual real scientists that indeed CO2 and methane raise average global temperature.>

            So is it “ CO2 and methane drive” global temperature or CO2 and methane raise average global temperature. You do realize there is a difference? Right?

            If you did so realize then you could EASILY answer question #3 the impact on global average temperature.

            BTW, why not refute my 8 years of pause statement. Menzie nor anyone else has yet. Indeed Menzie’s use of the NOAA graph appears to support the statement.

            Your ideological fanaticism severely clouds your judgement and ability to comprehend simple data.

          2. pgl

            “why not refute my 8 years of pause statement. Menzie nor anyone else has yet.”

            CoRev at his finest. He cannot be bothered to explain WTF he means by this statement but we are supposed to refute total intellectual garbage.

            CoRev – this is meaningless word salad put up by a climate change denier who has been thoroughly discredited. No need to refute something that does not even exist.

          3. Barkley Rosser

            CoRev,

            Your claim that we are in an 8 year pause is also just flagrantly false. What is your evidence for this? Even you had a link to a figure showing a steady increase going on. You yourself provide evidence that your claims are purely crap.

            As for CO2 and methane, it is clear that they (mostly the former) have been the main drivers of the increase in average global temperature that has been going on since the 1970s. Are they the only things that influence global average temperarture? No., but they certainly have been the main drivers of the recent trend.

            You are wrong wrong wrong and just making yourself look more and more idiotic beyond what you already appear to be.

          4. CoRev

            Barkley, sigh. I’ve already provided the link. Ole bark, bark even commented on the link and the author. IIRC I provided the graph. Here’s the graph again: https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/pause.webp?w=601&ssl=1
            From this article: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/05/the-new-pause-lengthens-to-8-years/

            That graph is surrounded by this commentary:
            “The New Pause, having paused a month ago, has now lengthened again: this time to exactly eight years. As always, the Pause is calculated as the longest period for which the least-squares linear-regression trend up to the most recent month for which the UAH global mean surface temperature anomaly is available is zero.” Graph
            “The New Pause has grown to fully eight years in length at a most embarrassing point for true-believers: for the cost to the West of the economically suicidal policies that they have long advocated is now becoming all too painfully apparent, just as it is also ever more evident that the warming since 1990 is well below half the midrange prediction made by IPCC that year.”

            I know it must be hard for someone of advancing years who can not even define Climate Change.

            I patiently await your refutation to Monkton’s ongoing monthly calculation. No one else has tried to date.

          5. Barkley Rosser

            CoRev,

            Once again, you seem to be unable to read or understand your own links. Look at the second figure in Monckton’s paper. It shows an upward trend going through to 2022. His first one shows variations off that upward trend.

            Sorry, you fail. There is no pause, certainly not an 8 year one. If there is a “pause” it is in the rate of the ongoing upward trend, which continues as before.

            Wow, you are just so stupid, it hurts.

    3. Barkley Rosser

      Econned,

      What “manipulations, faults, errors, omissions”? Want to name some? I am not aware of many of those by Menzie, very few indeed. You have gone seriously off the seep end this time with your stupid and incorrect accussations of egomania by Menzie. You really aere a worrhless lying piece of crap

      1. Econned

        “Barkley Rosser”,
        Sure…. I can show a recent instance of Menzie doing each. Menzie recently penned an entire post claiming that I asserted:
        “that Senator Johnson, in stating “It’s not like we don’t have enough jobs here in Wisconsin.” means that I should be reporting number of jobs, not number of people employed.”

        However, my comment included the entire quote from Johnson as follows:
        “It’s not like we don’t have enough jobs here in Wisconsin. The biggest problem we have in Wisconsin right now is employers not being able to find enough workers.”

        The last sentence from Johnson is crucial to anyone who can read the English language.

        Menzie also claimed:
        “ Econned then asserts without any supporting evidence that I can find:
        You are showing jobs that are filled while Johnson is also referencing jobs that are not filled.”

        Again, the last sentence from Johnson is crucial to anyone who can read the English language and is evidence that Johnson is referencing unfilled jobs.

        As such, Menzie manipulated my comment by omitting reference to my precise inclusion of the 2nd sentence. Menzie subsequently made an erroneous assertion that I made a certain claim based on Johnson’s partial sentence. Menzie was later at fault suggesting he couldn’t find reference to my claims. So in a single blog post Menzie was guilty of manipulations, faults, errors, omissions.

        As to you suggesting Menzie doesn’t have an ego problem – please reread the part of this blog where Menzie boohoos about not receiving an apology regarding a completely unrelated topic.

        To end, let us all know when you’re able to have an adult discussion that includes objective and meaningful thought while excluding the childish and unprovoked name calling.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          Econned,

          Obviously others disagree with your analysis of that thread about Ronjon.

          As for name calling, I think I have done much less of it than a lot of others here, and very little recently I decided it is mostly a waste of time. Most recently the most frequent name caller has been the person you are trying to defend here, CoRev. He does a lot of it.

          Now, I do admit to doing a lot of calling people stupid. But they deserve it, and that is not name calling, Econned.

          1. Barkley Rosser

            Econned,

            BTW, I do not see asking for an apology as being an example of egomania. Again, I think you are simply dead wrong on this matter of Menzie and egomania, which is your main schtick here, accusing him of that over and over. Again, I am an egomaniac, openly and without question. So I know one when I see one. He is not one. Period, no matter how often you frankly stupidly make that claim.

          2. Econned

            “Barkley Rosser”,
            There’s really nothing to disagree with. I’ve made no policy stance – only corrected Menzie’s erroneous assertions. I suppose one could make a reach at disagreeing with interpretation but Johnson’s words seem crystal clear to me. You asked and I delivered. a recent and clear example of Menzie’s manipulations, faults, errors, omissions.

            I’m not concerned with what others have done. You started the name calling here towards me. It was unprovoked and uncalled for. Your attempt at obfuscation and logical fallacies are very poor defense. I almost always stick to the subject until others sling mud and it was you who slung first. I called you out and you won’t acknowledge you’re in the wrong. Poor form.

          3. pgl

            Econned
            October 12, 2022 at 2:56 pm
            “Barkley Rosser”,
            There’s really nothing to disagree with. I’ve made no policy stance

            We asked this Know Nothing to take a stance on the economics and of course he was not able to do. But OH – someone called this jerk names. Econned – total whine bag.

        2. pgl

          You are still harping on that one? Do you have a life? A dog? Something in your pathetic little life. Run along worthless one as you have nothing of value to say. Nothing.

        3. Barkley Rosser

          A furthet btw, Econned. If you want to say that my calling people “stupid” is name calling, then your constant effforts to call Menzie and egomaniac is name calling, and it is about the only thing you do here. I have urged you to make substantive comments about issues being discussed, You rarely do. I may call people stupid, but I mostly make comments about the substantive matters of threads under discussion, whether you agree with my remarks or not. You rarely do, taken up almost entirely with personalistically ctitricizing people here, especially the admirable Menzie, which makes you look really, sorry, stupid.

          1. Econned

            “Barkley Rosser”,
            No. You’re obfuscating. Again. You said to me “You really aere [sic] a worrhless [sic] lying piece of crap.” This was unprovoked and uncalled for. Do better.

        4. Barkley Rosser

          Econned,

          I just noticed that you IDed me as “Barkley Rosser,” What on earth led you to do something so utterly stupid? Unlike worthless and immoral you, I am here under my own name., no effing quotation marks. Sorry, boy, you seriously effed up on that one.

          So, just to assert my fullblown egomainia, way beyond either Menzie or Jim, I just finished hosting James A.List at JMU in a seminar.RePec now rates him as the 7th most unfluential economist in the world.

          1. Econned

            “Barkley Rosser”,
            If you just now noticed that I always use quotations around your name, I’m afraid you’re many months behind. Many many months. I’ve stated in the past why I do this, so feel free to go search the archives. And, despite your obviously hurt feelings, I shall continue to do so until morale improves hahahaha. I’m utterly indifferent to you hosting a seminar because that doesn’t change the fact that your online persona is childish with unprovoked and unnecessary name-calling. You regularly resort to such silliness when your back is against the wall. It’s sophomoric and would be below anyone using their “real” name. And that you’re unable to untangle your academic persona from your online persona is mental hurdle for you to figure out – we all see the difference.

          2. Econned

            “Barkley Rosser”,
            Also, I’m curious why you are bragging about hosting an “unfluential economist”? Hahahaha “unfluential”. Tell me, is the “7th most unfluential economist in the world” actually the 7th worst economist in the world? Is it similar to being “super important people” as you and Donald Trump like to say?

            I may add you to my ignore list of Econbrowser commenters. Like others, I doubt it will diminish the strange infatuation that you have with me.

            I will say that “Unfluential” is a phenomenal adjective to describe the Econbrowser musings of the commenter “Barkley Rosser”. I may use that one going forward. “Unfluential” hahahahhahahahahahahahahaha These jokes write themselves. “Unfluential” hahahaha.

          3. Baffling

            So econned has professional jealousy of both prof chinn and prof rosser. A failed academic who gains a sense of self worth by trying to tear down those that have been successful in careers econned failed at. Well done j zanfino. Talk about sophomoric behavior…

          4. Econned

            Baffling,
            Your contributions are underwhelming – the typical internet commenter with zero substance. At least try to have a debate/discussion.

          5. baffling

            econned (ie j zanfino), I am simply pointing out that the anger you project, anonymously, towards two credentialed academics is simply professional jealousy. you were unable to achieve that same career success, and so you lash out in a sophomoric attempt to discredit those that are much more successful than you are. you disparage others from the confines of anonymity. great character traits you possess.

          6. Econned

            Baffling,
            You, just like “Barkley Rosser”, seem to be unable to disentangle one’s professional persona from their online persona. Give it a whirl one day. Menzie is an dishonest ego-maniac on this blog. And “Barkley Rosser” is an irrational and petulant loose-cannon on this blog. I regularly call out Menzie resulting in you and “Barkley Rosser” getting upset. Weird dynamic.

            I spent a short career in a completely unrelated profession from either so there’s really zero jealousy and certainly nothing I failed to achieve. How you contrived such a falsehood is beyond any rational individual’s ability to ascertain. I comment on many economics blogs and don’t call out professors for such behavior… because it doesn’t occur!

            Let’s get back to the real issue… your inability/unwillingness to discuss (or hell, just ignore if it isn’t directed to you *what a wild thought THAT is!!!!*) the actual topics that I bring up show you’re nothing but a lapdog to Menzie and “Barkley Rosser” – you’re providing nothing but an annoying bark for your masters.

          7. Barkley Rosser

            “Econned,”

            You do not know who John List is or how respected he is? That is your problem, not mine.

            As it was, I invited you last spring to participate in the seminar when I had Nobel-Prize winner Vernon Smith in. You did not participate. Do you also consider him to be a very bad economist?

            I note that on another thread you actually for once made an intelligent comment on substantive matters here, and I agreed with you. You should do more of that, where you actually do show yourself to be smarter than CoRev and some others here. You get called a piece of crap because of your sick ongoing campaign to crtiticize Menzie for his alleged egomania, which is a pile of crap.

          8. Econned

            “Barkley Rosser”,
            No. I never said I didn’t know who List is. I said your inviting him to a seminar is absolutely pointless to this discussion. Same with your continual mentioning of Vernon Smith. Another attempt at obfuscation because you bring nothing to the conversation.

            At least you’re now admitting your petulant name calling.

          9. Econned

            “Barkley Rosser”,
            Also, your mentioning List here is clearly confusion on your part. You’re in the wrong thread. (This isn’t an isolated occurrence.)
            It’s honestly sad reading your incoherent babblings but I do hope for the best to you – you certainly come off as being in a difficult situation.

          10. Baffling

            Econned, i simply observe a fool who comes on this blog and trolls. And his comments indicate jealousy, i call it professional but perhaps it is personal. But a successful person would not go out of their way to anonymously denigrate the professionals who post on this site under their real name. Unless they held some type of grudge. You are just like dick striker. To cowardly to post your comments against prof chinn and prof rosser in a manner other than anonymous. Because you know how sophomoric and irresponsible that behavior is. If you truly were successful and happy with your life, you would not behave that way. You are not any different than any other angry failed troll that goes onto internet blogs to bully and try to rationalize a miserable existence. It is a pathetic existence, but one you have chosen econned.

          11. Econned

            Baffling,
            I’m surprised to learn that your social security card lists your name as “Baffling”.

          12. Baffling

            Unless your social security card says “econned”, i will say that was a stooopid response. Just admit you are behaving in a sophomoric way towards prof chinn and prof rosser.

          13. Econned

            Baffling,
            You can’t be that dense – you’re the one who is anonymously complaining about anonymity.

            I am behaving towards Menzie precisely how Menzie behaves toward others.

          14. baffling

            econned, you cannot be that dense. it is sophomoric to denigrate somebody who uses their real name on a blog while using an anonymous account, as you do. in fact, it is quite cowardly. but we have come to expect that from such a person as you, who apparently has uncontrolled professional jealousy. just because you are unhappy with your career choices, doesn’t mean you should take your anger and frustration out on others. you are given the privilege of prof chinn’s blog to voice your opinion, and yet you abuse it daily. because nobody would listen to you complain on your own blog site, econned.

          15. Econned

            Baffling,
            One’s name, real or fake, has zero relevance to the validity of their comments. You are obfuscating with logical fallacies and using sophomoric of unfounded suppositions regarding another’s professional life. You’re abusing rhetoric. Per usual.

          16. baffling

            no econned, you are being intentionally thick. you and I both know there is a reason why you will not use your real name when criticizing prof chinn and prof rosser. they are willing to take on the ramification of their statements. you are not willing to do so. it is cowardly of you to denigrate them when you take on no professional risk in the discussion. my guess is you are simply jealous of their tenured status, and would like to damage it. professional jealousy, because it was a status you were unable to achieve. that is what makes you sad.

          17. Econned

            baffling,
            No. Anonymity, including yours, is not relevant to the substance of one’s comments. I’m not attacking the people (unless provoked) – only their comments. And I’m doing so with support. You’re failing to acknowledge Menzie is an outlier in the econblogosphere with his attacks and open dishonesty. That’s the issue.

          18. baffling

            econned, you are attacking people personally. and you are doing so anonymously. and then trying to claim this is an honorable act. it is simply cowardly. if you stand behind your comments towards prof chinn and prof rosser, you should do so without anonymity. but you CHOOSE not to do so, out of cowardice. it is the act of a sophomoric internet troll.

          19. Econned

            baffling,
            We disagree. Or maybe we don’t. Because you seem to be doing precisely what you’re accusing me of. The difference is I’m pointing out specific issues with Menzie’s actions. Im not just calling names – it’s backed with evidence. As it relates to “Barkley Rosser” – he’s the one who always begins the attacks on me – I’m just a counter-puncher. The thing is, you’re just upset that I’m calling out Menzie because you’re a fan of his.

            Anonymous pot, meet anonymous kettle.

          20. baffling

            econned, as usual you are wrong and trying to rewrite the argument. I am not upset because you are against prof chinn. if prof rosser or prof hamilton were to make remarks against prof chinn, I would have little to say. because they would not be making statements with anonymity. but that is what you do. it is cowardly to denigrate prof chinn, and then hide behind anonymity. I may disagree with you, but would have much less argument with you if you used your real name. for instance, I give Steven a hard time. but I do not consider him cowardly when he criticizes prof chinn. he has to live with the ramifications of his comments. econned, you do not. and you abuse that position. to deny that is simply sophomoric. your professional jealousy is simply unfounded. prof chinn is not the reason you are unsuccessful in certain elements of your life.

        5. pgl

          “why not refute my 8 years of pause statement. Menzie nor anyone else has yet.”

          CoRev at his finest. He cannot be bothered to explain WTF he means by this statement but we are supposed to refute total intellectual garbage.

          CoRev – this is meaningless word salad put up by a climate change denier who has been thoroughly discredited. No need to refute something that does not even exist.

  3. CoRev

    Menzie, has also claimed he doesn’t understand the use of Anomalies in data analysis, but look at the title of the NOAA graph: “Global Land and Ocean January – December Temperature Anomalies” He clearly believes Anomalies when they support his contention.

    Here’s another example of using fuzzy language. “I really do not see a “pause” as enunciated by one commentator.” Versus what was actually enunciated: “Also we are in an 8 year pause today.” Notice the end of the NOAA graph. The PAUSE is evident there.

    Just for clarification, the pause is calculated using the monthly ANOMALY averages while the NOAA graph uses annual ANOMALY averages. Accordingly there may be a length difference. It is the spread of the climate misinformation upon which the $Trillion of climate mitigation policy is based?

    Why do climate change zealots need to misinterpret comments (lie) to make a point. Even then they fail.
    @ Econned your up.

    1. pgl

      Oh my CoRev – you have gone from dumb to dumber. I guess you have to appeal to Econned as he too is a worthless little jerk.

    2. pgl

      “Just for clarification, the pause is calculated using the monthly ANOMALY averages while the NOAA graph uses annual ANOMALY averages.”

      I see – you just make it up as you go. And we thought that kind of intellectual garbage with Princeton Steve’s forte.

    3. baffling

      “Just for clarification, the pause is calculated using the monthly ANOMALY averages while the NOAA graph uses annual ANOMALY averages.”
      so to be clear, covid argues climate changes is measured over years rather than months now embraces an 8 year “pause” that can only be seen when looking at climate data in month long increments. there is no way this idiot has an engineering degree.

      1. pgl

        CoRev is relying on metrics put forth by Christopher Monckton. Check out Christopher Monckton’s credentials for a good belly laugh.’

      2. CoRev

        Baffled again confusedly makes another erroneous claim. “covid argues climate changes is measured over years rather than months now embraces an 8 year “pause” that can only be seen when looking at climate data in month long increments.” NOPE! Never made such an assertion.

        BTW, anyone else note how Baffled also conflated climate changes while the subject was a pause in NOAA’s Global Average Temperature. I guess we should add this as another example to liberal fuzzy thinking/use of fuzzy language. Y’ano like equating Ocean Heat Content to Global Average Surface temperature. Just other examples of subject ignorance.

        1. baffling

          “NOPE! Never made such an assertion.”
          yes. you did. that was baked into your argument. now that you understand your mistake, you are trying to walk it back.

          1. CoRev

            Baffled, in response to a claim about you being confused and in error, how can you assert something I said without a quote while confusing climate changes with temperature?

            It’s much like conflating/confusing OHC with surface temperature or the availability of natural gas reserves in Europe to Germany’s gas reserves.

    4. Macroduck

      Covid, you poor, dim poser. Monthly anomolies are weather. Surely even you know that, even if (though) you know nothing else.

    5. Barkley Rosser

      CoRev,

      So, got a link on this claimed 8 year pause supposedly estimated from monthly anomalies? I do not see any, and there sure as heck does not look like an 8 year pause in what Menzie posted.

      Buj then, I already told you there is no 8 year pause. Heck, you linked to a graph that showed a steady increase in global average temperatuee yourseld, no pause of any sort on that one. How is it you are so stupid?

    6. 2slugbaits

      CoRev I don’t recall Menzie ever saying that he didn’t understand how to interpret anomalies. Any third grader understands the arithmetic behind temperature anomalies. My recollection is that he didn’t understand the idiotic and convoluted way that you were using them. And speaking of arithmetic, why don’t you show us how you managed to calculate a supposed eight year pause. And show your work. In other words, man up. Thanks.

      1. Barkley Rosser

        2slug,

        Maybe not third graders. But it turns out that CoRev has been harping about anomalies off of the ongoing upward trend in global average temperature, somehow claiming that because there is no trend in the anomalies off the trend that this somehow shows a “pause.” It is indeed a mistake that puts him down somewhere in the elementary school level, if not maybe all the way to third grade.

  4. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-12/China-invests-record-115-billion-in-water-conservancy-in-9-months-1e45hSUJXck/index.html

    October 12, 2022

    China invests record $115 billion in water conservancy in 9 months

    China invested a historic 823.6 billion yuan (around $115 billion) in water conservancy projects in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of 64.1 percent year on year, the Ministry of Water Resources told a press conference on Tuesday.

    As many as 42 major water conservancy projects began construction during the first nine months, including 30 water conservancy projects promoted by the country this year, six large-scale irrigation areas and six other projects, according to Vice Minister Liu Weiping.

    These projects focus on flood control, water supply, food production and ecological restoration and management, said Zhang Xiangwei, director of the ministry’s planning department.

    “Construction of these projects generated employment for 2.09 million people, of which 1.7 million are rural laborers,” Liu said.

    According to Liu, China completed the annual target of investing 800 billion yuan (around $111.7 billion) in water conservancy projects three months ahead of schedule.

    Liu also said that China would continue to invest in the construction of water conservancy facilities in the fourth quarter to ensure its annual investment exceeds 1 trillion yuan.

    1. ltr

      https://english.news.cn/20221002/0515c7f55dc74e26a31f03c2a2c8e59b/c.html

      October 2, 2022

      Why is a quarter of world’s new forest area coming from China?

      BEIJING — China ranks first globally in the area of planted forests and forest coverage growth, contributing a quarter of the world’s new forest area in the past decade.

      The secret behind the rapid growth of China’s green landscape lies in its large-scale greening campaign, including conserving existing green ecosystems, adding new forests, grasslands, and wetlands, as well as fighting desertification.

      According to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the accumulative afforestation area reached 960 million mu (64 million hectares) over the past 10 years, while 165 million mu of grassland was improved, and more than 12 million mu of wetlands were added or restored.

      BUILDING “GREEN GREAT WALL”

      From the tree planting programs to the world’s largest artificial plantation Saihanba mechanized forest farm, China has been striving to build a solid “Green Great Wall” to protect the ecological environment.

      China designated March 12 as National Tree Planting Day in 1979, and Chinese citizens voluntarily planted approximately 78.1 billion trees from 1982 to 2021 across the vast country, official data showed.

      The COVID-19 epidemic did not keep municipalities nationwide away from tree planting. Some cities instructed volunteers to keep “a safe distance” when planting trees, while others assembled small groups of volunteers to plant trees on behalf of hundreds of public-spirited residents.

      Besides the offline planting activities, the country’s internet-based greening campaign “Ant Forest” allows residents to adopt trees by paying due contributions online or garner enough credits by performing low-carbon activities like taking public transportation in exchange for a real tree to be nurtured in their names.

      By the end of May, more than 550 million people had participated in the project to plant over 200 million trees, reducing exhaust equivalent to 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

      In recent years, China has built a protected area system with national parks as the mainstay, supported by nature reserves and supplemented by nature parks.

      Saihanba, in north China, was once a royal hunting ground and degraded into an area of barren wilderness. Thanks to consistent efforts by three generations of Saihanba foresters, it has now become a national forest park and nature reserve with a total forest landscape of 1.15 million mu.

      The Saihanba mechanized forest farm was granted the 2021 Land for Life Award of the national category at a ceremony held during the Kubuqi International Desert Forum.

      As a “blue carbon sink,” mangrove is an important part of carbon sequestration by vegetation. The restoration of mangrove wetlands in the coastal area of Shenzhen ensures that the total area of mangroves will gradually expand, reversing the trend of ecological function degradation of the mangrove wetland system.

      Last June, the restoration project was selected as a typical practice case jointly issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the International Union for Conservation of Nature….

    2. ltr

      The point which is critically important and obvious, is that climate change is considered in all aspects of Chinese investment, domestic and foreign. This environmental consideration has already been profoundly effective:

      https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-09/China-built-largest-pumped-storage-power-plant-in-Israel-in-full-swing-1dZ5cnTAATK/index.html

      October 9, 2022

      China-built largest pumped storage power plant in Israel in full swing

      The China-built 344-MW Kokhav Hayarden pumped storage hydropower plant, located near the city of Beit She’an and some 120 kilometers away from Tel Aviv, is expected to be the largest pumped storage power plant in Israel when it becomes operational in early 2023.

      It will also become the lowest power plant of its kind in the world, as the powerhouse lies 275 meters below sea level, according to building contractor Power Construction Corporation of China (PCCC).

      Israel is eager to continue its efforts in diversifying sources of energy and developing renewable energy sources.

      According to data released in 2020, renewable energy accounts for less than 7 percent of the total energy in the country. In 2022, the Israeli Ministry of Environment released a new renewable energy roadmap, targeting 40 percent of renewables in the country’s power mix by 2030.

      “Pumped storage hydropower provides an economical, efficient and stable way of hydroelectric energy storage. Acting similarly to a giant battery, it can store power and then release it when needed,” explained Han Hongwei, general manager of the project….

  5. ltr

    https://english.news.cn/20220422/8d91e268636e453d9446d75311f73861/c.html

    April 22, 2022

    Xinjiang: Dying desert poplar forest brought back to life

    URUMQI — Imagine a stretch of forest by a river, with a dense covering of leaves, the sound of trickling water and wild birds fluttering around — in a desert.

    Such a scene may seem unreal, but it certainly exists. For it describes a flourishing poplar forest along the banks of the Tarim River in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on the northern edge of the Taklimakan Desert.

    These days, it is thriving, a haven for wildlife amidst a rugged desert environment. However, until around 20 years ago, this landscape was more closely associated with death than life.

    FOREST LIFELINES

    Populus euphratica (more commonly known as “desert poplar”) is a rugged species of tree, dubbed “guardian of the desert.” It is resistant to low temperatures, drought and saline-alkali soil, and serves as an ideal windbreak and sand-fixation plant.

    The 17-million-mu (about 1.13 million hectares) populus euphratica forest, the largest natural forest of the species, has been nurtured by the Tarim River, China’s longest inland river, for centuries.

    However, starting in the 1950s, ecological conditions deteriorated due to the overexploitation of water resources along the Tarim River, causing the river to dry up as water levels dropped. Swathes of populus euphratica trees died as a result.

    In the hope of saving the forest, in 2001, Xinjiang started to channel water from upstream sections of the Tarim River to the forest in its lower reaches during the high-water season.

    In 2019, a restoration project was initiated to enhance the forest’s capacity for self-repair through building flood diversion facilities to irrigate the degraded populus euphratica trees. With an investment of 124 million yuan (about 19.3 million U.S. dollars), the project detailed ways to make full use of the channeled water….

    1. ltr

      https://english.news.cn/20220914/7f625e94e5834bed89037c6fde42b9a3/c.html

      September 4, 2022

      Inner Mongolia flourishing amid integrated ecological efforts

      * Over the past decade, Inner Mongolia has planted 122 million mu of trees and 286 million mu of grass, with the area of desertified land continuously reduced, statistics with the regional government show.
      * In 2021, the proportion of days with good air in Inner Mongolia was 3.7 percentage points higher than that in 2015. The proportion of surface water sections with good water quality under national assessment was 22.9 percentage points higher than that in 2016, local official data shows.
      * “Ecological protection is our job now,” said Zhou Yizhe, a worker of the Bei’an forest farm in the Dahinggan Mountains. In 2015, with a ban on commercial logging in natural forests, workers like Zhou have become rangers employed to cultivate trees.

      By Wang Jinye, Yin Yao and Li Laifang

      HOHHOT — As the autumn harvest approaches, villager Zheng Jie toils beneath the scorching sun, irrigating his hillside vineyard with water pumped from a nearby well that runs over 100 meters deep. The area has been hit by a prolonged drought, causing the grapes to wither somewhat.

      Zheng’s amur grapes will soon be harvested and sent to local wine-making factories, providing him with about 6,000 yuan (about 870 U.S. dollars) this year. Aged 59, Zheng is also a forest ranger, responsible for patrolling 500 mu (33.33 hectares) of woodland in Ma’anshan Village in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

      With its forest coverage rate reaching 90 percent, the village provides a fine example of the integrated ecological efforts being made to protect the beautiful scenery of this grassland-rich region in China’s northern border area.

      BETTER GRASSLANDS, BETTER LIFE

      At the hilly Tuhum Township, Horqin Right Wing Front Banner, the grassland is divided into small square grids that form a unique landscape….

      1. pgl

        “Zheng’s amur grapes will soon be harvested and sent to local wine-making factories”

        I hope this wine is better than that awful Chinese rice wine. There is a reason China imports a lot of Australian wine.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          pgl,

          Actually recently the Chinese have begun to produce some pretty good wine, although not most of what is produced there.

        2. Moses Herzog

          @ pgl
          Quit making fun of my favorite rotgut. I’m very sensitive and have feelings yeh know.

        3. Moses Herzog

          I was trying to find the best actual Chinese drink I had in China, I only had it like twice because it was hard to find. I was trying to find the image of the bottle online, which was super colorful and had a gold colored twist off cap, but I cannot find it. It was made from plums and was super super sweet tasting. The color was similar to bourbon, but a drastically different taste of sweetness and you could make out the plums in the flavor. I forgot the proof amount, but it “got to the point” very quick. I wish I could find that bottle image. Good stuff.

        4. Moses Herzog

          This is the closest I can find the the color of the drink and even the bottle,
          https://images.app.goo.gl/kjpx36U3ZEr75V1W6 (the top image of course)
          but it was more convoluted than this with turquoise colors and maybe some Buddhist, Chinese mythology creatures on the outside, and again the gold twist off cap. Damn, wish I could remember the name. I bet I could find an image of that bottle if I could remember the name. It’s one of the few domestically made in China that actually felt good inside your mouth and you didn’t just expedite down your throat.

          1. pgl

            I kind of remember that bottle from a party I threw back in my LA days – a very nice woman from China brought this wine and got very wasted on it. We let her sleep it off in the guest room.

          2. Barkley Rosser

            Moses,

            It is only very recently that the Chinese have begun to produce these actually high quality wines, probably since you were there, which I do not know the exact timing of. I only had some on my last visit there, which is now getting to be close to six years ago.

    2. baffling

      “Dying desert poplar forest brought back to life”
      too bad they are not trying to do the same thing with the dying uighyers in western china. a forest gets more respect than an ethnic population in china.

  6. pgl

    CoRev’s latest attempt to defend his intellectual garbage cites a blog post by Christopher Monckton. Folks – check out who this clown is. I mean one would think one could not find a dumber person on the planet but Christopher Monckton is even more clownish than even CoRev.

    1. CoRev

      Ole Bark, bark, we don’t need to look very far from this blog to find someone even more clownish. Just reading your posts shows you’re the winner by far.

      1. pgl

        This is your defense of using writings from such an utter clown? You so dishonest that it is making all of us laugh (at you).

    1. ltr

      http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00410c.html

      December, 2008

      Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
      By James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Robert Berner, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer and James C. Zachos

      Abstract

      Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~ 3°C for doubled CO2, including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, * is ~ 6°C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, the planet being nearly ice-free until CO2 fell to 450 ± 100 ppm; barring prompt policy changes, that critical level will be passed, in the opposite direction, within decades. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm ** to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. *** An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects. ****

      * Surface reflectivity of sun’s radiation

      ** Currently ~ 416 ppm

      *** Net change in radiant emittance or irradiance

      **** https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_ha00410c.pdf

  7. Bruce Hall

    You do know, of course, that that last half of the 19th century, especially the 1880s which is used as a base point for “global warming”, was an unusually cold period, don’t you? Read about Krakatoa (Krakatau) and its effect. When your base point in a time series is an unusually low value, it is not unusual or unexpected to see values trend upward to a more normal condition.

    One other point: the popular depiction of temperature anomalies uses a vertical scale that exaggerates the change relative to all other temperature reporting. The amount of change over more than a century (from a low point) is less than the variation that can and does occur on an hourly basis every day.

      1. CoRev

        Menzie, if you knew this, then why did you misrepresent what I said by using long term averaged data? Variation in the measured recent, 8 year period, of temperatures was the point. Not averaging the variations out of the data.

        My comment on use of anomalies when measuring temperatures still stands. It appears that you still do not understand its use?

        1. pgl

          What you laid what was gibberish from a proven nitwit. The question is why do you spread misinformation 24/7?

      2. Bruce Hall

        Menzie, I think you are being disingenuous. Yes, averaging takes out variation, but the issue is the trend starting point being artificially low leading to a positive trend. Sort of like picking March 2020 as the starting point for the stock market performance. Or maybe April 2020 for the unemployment rate. If you select an abnormal starting point, you get a spurious result… which, of course, allows one to tell implausible stories.

        As I pointed out to our snide friend, pgl, the volcanic activity in the 1880s abnormally lowered global temperatures while the reduction in global pollution (aerosols) has decrease reflectivity and increase global temperatures. If you don’t account for the obvious, your conclusions are suspect. Averaging decades or some other short timeframe does not correct the abnormality in the starting point or the change in conditions affecting data in the middle.

        1. pgl

          “As I pointed out to our snide friend, pgl, the volcanic activity in the 1880s”

          Boy you are dumb. I provided a link to an interesting paper that captures this and more. And you pointed out what? That you can’t read? Wow!

        2. Barkley Rosser

          Bruce,

          You are wrong. 1880 was not a low point. It was about the same as 1850. In fact global average temperature declined after 1880 to a low around 1910, after which it began to rise.

          Krakatoa was in 1883, not 1880, and affected temperature only for a couple of years.

          Try not to put up blatantly false statements. You may end up getting me to agree with pgl that you might actually be as stupid as CoRev, who puts up false statement after false statement, when he is not just being confused and incoherent and self-contradictory.

          1. pgl

            I provided Brucie with an excellent of this discussion including this Krakatoa. Had this worthless troll bothered to read it – he would not have gotten so much wrong.

          2. CoRev

            Barkley stop lying. For a serial liar you are not very good. Even your paraphrasing is embarrassingly wrong he said “1880s” you wrote “1880”. In this comment you have been confused, incoherent and self-contradictory. Are you still teaching? Have you had a cognitive test lately?

          3. Bruce Hall

            Barkley, re: Krakatoa…

            The official death toll recorded by Dutch authorities was 36,417, though some modern estimates put it at three or four times the total. There was a lasting effect on the world’s climate, too: aerosols emitted into the atmosphere by the blast led global air temperatures to drop by as much as 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius). According to a 2006 article in the journal Nature, the volcano caused oceans to cool for as much as a century, offsetting the effect of human activity on ocean temperatures. If the volcano had not erupted, the authors argue, our sea levels might be much higher than they are today.

            Now “global” temperatures were difficult to measure in the 19th century and it appears that there was a cyclical cooling in the last half. That was followed by a cyclical warming in the first third of the 20th century, cooling then next third, and warming the last third.

            The overall trend, which usually is measured starting in the 1880 period, is upward because the starting point was during a cyclical low point exacerbated by volcanic activity.

            Nothing is ever as simple as it first appears.

          4. pgl

            Bruce Hall
            October 13, 2022 at 6:59 am

            Notice that none of Bruce’s latest babble addresses your points at all. Bruce has no clue what this 1883 event meant but he is very good at copying and pasting the Alternative Facts that Kelly Anne emails to him.

          5. Barkley Rosser

            Bruce,

            Do you even read what you wrote? You noted that there was supposedly “cyclical” cooling in the last half of the 1800s, which means going beyond the 1880s. I noted that. Global average temperature DECLINED from 1880 to about 1910 and then began to rise. But here you are declaring “the 1880s” to be a low point because of Krakatoa, even though temperature declined after the 1880s.

            BTW, that decline in temperature due to Ktakatoa lasted about a year. It did not substantially affect the average temperature for the whole decade. But, heck, then you fall back on how we may not really know what the global temperature was back then. Confusing on top of contradictions. Pathetic and a performance worthy of CoRev who is falsely claiming we are in an invisible 8 year pause in the global avverage temperature trend, not to mention questioning whether CO2 influences global average temperature (oh, excuse me, he may realize it influences it but he wants to deny that it “drives” it, why that is an important distinction being totally unclear).

          6. Barkley Rosser

            Yes, CoRev, he wrote “1880s,” but the chart starts very specifically with the year 1880, not the average of the decade of the 1880s. He is being as stupid as you here with this nonsense.

            And, again, what the chart shows is the global mean temperature declining for a good two decades after the 1880s. Whether one starts with the year 1880 as the chart does or pretends it starts with the decade of the 1880s, he is simply dead wrong. The low point came near 1910, well after all of those years.

            Stupid, stupid, stupid, both of you.

        3. pgl

          CoRev
          October 13, 2022 at 4:35 am
          Menzie, so you can not refute his claims nor support your assertion?

          My Lord – CoRev is really dumb. Bruce Hall’s babbling is not exactly a well articulated assertion. But at least he is not writing total gibberish like you are.

    1. pgl

      Hey Brucie – why don’t you go read CoRev’s favorite blog Watts Up With That. After all – your usual lies have gotten stale and predictable.

      1. Bruce Hall

        You don’t read well, do you? Your research is probably worse, so let me give you some much needed help.

        https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/do-volcanoes-affect-weather
        https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/krakatoa

        Now, then my snide little friend, the aerosol effect from Krakatoa made the starting point of your beloved climate change religion temperature trend artificially low. Then the opposite occurred with nations around the world dramatically reducing air pollution in the last quarter of the 20th century which caused enough reduction in reflectivity to create a gradual warming effect for the past several decades. You do understand about how changing conditions can affect results, don’t you?

        But, hey, if you get cold this winter in cloudy NYC, just wrap yourself in a cozy blanket of CO2 and think warm thoughts about the natural gas that’s being shut off in the Northeast.

        1. pgl

          Do volcanoes affect weather? This is your controversy? Excuse me dope but even your retarded dog knows this. Of course he also knows it falls way short of making whatever dumb “point” you think you have made.

          And yea I knew about Krakatoa. I even provided a much thoughtful discussion of this event and the bigger picture than you could ever imagine. Go READ it moron. Oh wait – you can’t read. Never mind.

    2. pgl

      Brucie! Manfred has a new book for you!

      Steven Koonin’s Unsettled

      All sorts of discredited misinformation you can cite as fact. It is what you do!

      1. Bruce Hall

        Are you still stuck on the end of Mikey Mann’s hockey stick? That could explain your belligerence.

        1. pgl

          I gave you a little reading assignment that talked about Krakatoa and the bigger issues. I guess you got hit in the head with that hockey stick as you still have not read it. GEESH. You are dumb.

  8. Macroduck

    ltr is particularly bust with trivial nonsense right now. Perhaps it’s because China is having a post-Golden-Week rise in Covid infections:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/covid-cases-rise-shanghai-other-chinese-cities-preventive-steps-strengthened-2022-10-11/

    The IMF is gonna need to lower that growth forecast again. And what else is China up to? Oh, yeah:

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/10/china-third-term-xi-threatens-rights

    ltr gets busy trying to distract us whenever news out of China looks bad.

    1. pgl

      Self correction. I relied on FRED and mistook a subset of PPI for PPI. Always go to the original source:

      https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm

      The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.4 percent in September, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices declined 0.2 percent in August and 0.4 percent in July.

      So over the past quarter, PPI fell a bit.

  9. pgl

    How sick is Hershell Walker? Well consider his favorite little joke:

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/herschel-walker-bull-parable_n_6345e468e4b03e8038ce739d

    Herschel Walker apparently has decided the best way to counter the reports that he paid for at least one former partner’s abortion is to tell bizarre anecdotes about bulls who get multiple cows pregnant. During a rally on Tuesday with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) and Florida Senator Rick Scott (R), the Georgia Senate candidate wrapped up his speech with what Mediaite called “a janky parable” about a bull who got three different cows pregnant. Although the story’s point was apparently about how the United States is the best country in the world, audience members are forgiven if they related it to recent reports that he fathered numerous kids out of wedlock while publicly criticizing “absent fathers.”

    Walker thinks this is funny. He has zero respect for woman. Zero respect for the kids he has fathered. Zero respect for the voters in Georgia. I have to wonder if he has any mental capacities left when I hear him make such a disgusting joke.

  10. Manfred

    On the other hand, you have this:

    Steven Koonin wrote on page 15 of his 2021 book, Unsettled?,
    “Imagine instead headlines like “Record high temperatures are becoming rarer,” “Hurricanes show no sign of human influence,” or “Global warming won’t have much impact on the economy.” I think you’re unlikely ever to see those headlines, even though they’re a lot closer to what the science actually says.”

    But whatever.

    1. pgl

      Wow Manfred – your sources are almost as bad as CoRev’s. Two seconds on the Google:

      Reception of 2021 book Unsettled
      Critics of Koonin’s book Unsettled accused him of cherry picking data, muddying the waters surrounding the science of climate change, and having no experience in climate science. In a review in Scientific American, economist Gary Yohe wrote that Koonin “falsely suggest[s] that we don’t understand the risks well enough to take action”:

      The science is stronger than ever around findings that speak to the likelihood and consequences of climate impacts, and has been growing stronger for decades. In the early days of research, the uncertainty was wide; but with each subsequent step that uncertainty has narrowed or become better understood. This is how science works, and in the case of climate, the early indications detected and attributed in the 1980s and 1990s, have come true, over and over again and sooner than anticipated… [Decision makers] are using the best and most honest science to inform prospective investments in abatement (reducing greenhouse gas emissions to diminish the estimated likelihoods of dangerous climate change impacts) and adaptation (reducing vulnerabilities to diminish their current and projected consequences).

      Physicist Mark Boslough, a former student of Koonin, posted a critical review at Yale Climate Connections. He stated that “Koonin makes use of an old strawman concocted by opponents of climate science in the 1990s to create an illusion of arrogant scientists, biased media, and lying politicians – making them easier to attack.” Nonprofit organization Inside Climate News reported that climate scientists call Koonin’s conclusions “fatally out of date … and based on the 2013 physical science report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”[

      Come on dudes – either check your sources as if you don’t, we will.

  11. ltr

    too bad they are not trying to do the same thing with the dying ——- in western —–. a forest gets more respect than an ethnic population in —–.
    too bad they are not trying to do the same thing with the dying ——- in western —–. a forest gets more respect than an ethnic population in —–.
    too bad they are not trying to do the same thing with the dying ——- in western —–. a forest gets more respect than an ethnic population in —–.

    [ This is of course entirely false and malicious; a definitively racist assertion. A false assertion, evidently intended to bring dire harm to more than a billion people with a civilizational history extending 5,000 years. ]

    1. baffling

      so ltr stands behind racists actions intent on ethnic genocide of the uighyers of western china. ltr, why do you support racist actions?

      let’s be clear here. i have no ill will against the chinese people. i think they are lovely and I embrace their culture. what i do have an issue with is the continued support by folks such as ltr of a government that has been involved in ethnic cleansing of western china. and i particularly dislike how ltr casts disparaging racist accusations against anybody who dares question the propaganda presented in these comments. i find ltr to be rude and bullying in an attempt to silence valid criticism.

      ltr you will never silence me in raising awareness of the atrocities you seem so intent on defending.

  12. F

    This is the same logic the deniers all used in 1998. What happened there is that 1998 was an abnormally hot year, far above and beyond the trend, thanks to a strong El Nino. You can see the jump in the graph. Then when you cherry pick the next 15 years, it looks like a flat line, even though the more parsimonious explanation is that there is a monotonic linear trend, and 1998 outran that trend by a lot. Remove 1998 from the graph, and the “pause” disappears.

    Not surprisingly, all the deniers stopped talking about the 1998 pause when the last 5 years made it clear the linear trend was continuing. But in 2015, there was another abnormally hot year (again coinciding with an El Nino). So again, they trot out the “pause” narrative, at least until the linear trend catches up again (which by my eyeballing, will be sometime between 2026 and 2030).

  13. pgl

    I get it – Megyn Kelly is supposed to play a blond bimbo on Faux News. She is supposed to deflect from the fact that Tucker Carlson is both incredibly stupid and very racist. But WTF is this lame attack on Tiffany Cross about? I guess Megyn has to get her pathetic ratings up:

    https://nypost.com/2022/10/12/megyn-kelly-slams-dumb-ass-msnbc-host-tiffany-cross-as-most-racist-person-on-tv/

    Megyn Kelly eviscerated MSNBC host Tiffany Cross as a “moron” and “dumbass,” calling her “the most racist person on television” for suggesting Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is black. The Hawaiian-born NFL star — whose parents are from the South Pacific island of Samoa — was allowed to play in the Sept. 29 game between the Dolphins and Bengals just days after sustaining an apparent concussion. During the Bengals game, Tagovailoa was slammed to the ground and remained down for more than seven minutes before being stretchered off the field. While on the ground, Tagovailoa appeared to display the fencing response, with his splayed fingers frozen in front of his face.

    Cross said during her MSNBC show Saturday that the Tagovailoa incident showed the NFL’s casual attitude toward the health of its players — a majority of whom are black. “To see all these black men crashing into each other with a bunch of white owners, white coaches, and the complete disregard for black bodies and black life,” said Cross, whose comments were cited by Mediaite. “I mean, it just represents a larger issue.” Kelly slammed Cross for her “stunningly racist” comments.

    Cross was certainly not being racist here and many people who cover the NFL have made similar comments. But hey – Faux News needs their blond bimbo spreading this stupid nonsense. MAGA.

  14. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-12/Chinese-mainland-records-417-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1e3Xy1AnZQc/index.html

    October 12, 2022

    Chinese mainland records 417 new confirmed COVID-19 cases

    The Chinese mainland recorded 417 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, with 374 attributed to local transmissions and 43 from overseas, data from the National Health Commission showed on Wednesday.

    A total of 1,473 asymptomatic cases were also recorded on Tuesday, and 13,682 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.

    The cumulative number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland is 254,483, with the death toll from COVID-19 standing at 5,226.

    Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-12/Chinese-mainland-records-417-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1e3Xy1AnZQc/img/9a00816de1004e69b1b8d861a7922ff8/9a00816de1004e69b1b8d861a7922ff8.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new imported cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-12/Chinese-mainland-records-417-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1e3Xy1AnZQc/img/04779cefa43047cd9caf701997a89f70/04779cefa43047cd9caf701997a89f70.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-12/Chinese-mainland-records-417-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1e3Xy1AnZQc/img/d017faf2805d4808bd9e2bec10b290d0/d017faf2805d4808bd9e2bec10b290d0.jpeg

  15. Manfred

    How fitting – in today’s Wall Street Journal is the following letter to the editor:

    I wasn’t surprised by your editorial, “The Climate Censorship Campaign” (Oct. 6). Try finding someone to argue the affirmative on this resolution: “Climate science compels us to make large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” Given all the climate “experts” advocating for net-zero emissions and warning of imminent climate catastrophe, you would expect this to be an easy task. But, in fact, the opposite is true. Steamboat Institute is hosting three debates on college campuses in late October on that resolution. Steven Koonin has agreed to argue the negative in all three debates, but finding opponents willing to argue the positive was massively difficult, but we finally succeeded. Some of the responses we received from well-known climate scientists and academics stated that we are “wildly irresponsible” for giving Mr. Koonin a platform, that there is “no room for debate on these issues,” and my favorite, from a well-known climatologist who is on Reuters’s “Hot List” of the world’s top climate scientists: “I don’t debate climate science. It’s a poor way to get at the truth.”

    We can’t maintain our democratic republic without citizens and leaders capable of civilized debate and critical thinking. We applaud those who are willing to engage in robust civil debate and continue to give both sides a fair and balanced platform to make their case.

    Jennifer Schubert-Akin

    CEO, Steamboat Institute

    But – whatever. I wonder if all those “climate activists” and “climate scientists” that do not want to debate, really went to a “school of public policy”.

    1. Moses Herzog

      How did they do on the invites to debate whether the sky is actually blue or not, and does gravity exist as a real life phenomena?? Are clouds really composed of moisture or are clouds flying cotton with a captain’s deck hidden inside where brainwashing signals are emitted to control America’s liberal sheep?? Perhaps you and Alex Jones can debate this, taking either side of “The Great Cloud Debate” to practice your critical thinking skills, once Alex Jones has paid off his Sandy Hook debts claiming parents of children murdered were just paid actors.

      1. pgl

        Alex Jones is too busy trying to find $965 million to pay off the fine that jury just nailed him with.

    2. Noneconomist

      Manny’s back!
      Somehow, some way, he’s found time to comment. He’s so darn busy being Manny (just ask), his daily activities don’t leave much time for him to comment here.
      Of course, for important points, he will find time to impart wisdom to the masses.
      Feeding the family can take a temporary back seat while Manny joins other great minds in the climate denial debate.
      Hail, Manny!But back to the grind?

  16. pgl

    I’m passing along an email I got from Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect where he criticizes Bernanke’s Nobel Prize. Passing it along without endorsing it as I disagree with major parts of what he wrote. But agree with him or fire away at will:

    OCTOBER 12, 2022
    Kuttner on TAP
    Bernanke’s Odd Nobel Prize
    As a close student of the Great Depression, he knew enough to prevent a repeat of it—but forgot the lessons about the need for tougher regulation of the financial system.
    In awarding the Nobel Prize in economics, the Swedish committee wrote that Ben Bernanke’s 1983 paper, for which he was given the prize, showed that the Great Depression “became so deep and so protracted in large part because bank failures destroyed valuable banking relationships, and the resulting credit supply contraction left significant scars in the real economy. These were new insights …”

    New insights? By 1983, this was standard economic history. So I went back and read the paper, “Non-Monetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression.”

    What is striking about the paper is how conventional it is. Bernanke begins, “We argue that the financial disruptions of 1930-33 reduced the efficiency of the credit allocation process; and that the resulting higher cost and reduced availability of credit acted to depress aggregate demand.”

    The paper then goes on to describe the various channels by which bank failures and credit contraction contributed to the downward spiral of the rest of the economy. The 38-page paper, narrative and almost journalistic, is familiar to anyone who has read economic history.

    In 1983, Bernanke was a 29-year-old junior economist at the Stanford Business School and the conservative Hoover Institution. He did one brave thing in the paper. Sounding almost Keynesian in his discussion of aggregate demand, Bernanke politely demolished what was then the reigning theory in conservative circles, the argument of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz that the Great Depression was mainly the result of a contraction in the money supply.

    Bernanke wrote, “There is much support for the monetary view. However, it is not a complete explanation of the link between the financial sector and aggregate output in the 1930s,” adding disingenuously that his paper “builds on the Friedman-Schwartz work …”

    In a section acknowledging other work on banking and economic collapse, Bernanke wrote, “Minsky (1977) and Kindleberger (1978) have in several places argued for the inherent instability of the financial system, but in doing so have had to depart from the assumption of rational economic behavior” (emphasis added). Damn right they did! Anyone who thinks the system behaves “rationally” in a banking panic is a fool. It was Hyman Minsky who deserved the Nobel.

    Bernanke went on to do more research on the financial system and the Great Depression. By the time he became Fed chair in February 2006, and the extreme deregulation of finance was incubating the 2008 financial collapse, Bernanke was worrying about the potential of a repeat of 1929. In a 2007 speech, he warned of the fragility of the shadow banking system. But he did nothing to restrict the general over-leveraging, though the Fed had plenty of power to crack down on the subprime scam.

    When the crash did come, it was providential that the Fed chair was a close student of the 1930s. He used everything in the Fed’s arsenal, including some new inventions such as massive purchases of valueless securities, to keep bank insolvency from producing general collapse. For this, he does deserve some kind of prize.

    But when it came to breaking up the giant banks, or using strong regulation to prevent further cycles of euphoria and crash, the conservative Bernanke flinched. For that, given all that he knew, Bernanke should be awarded the Ig-Nobel.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Mixed feelings. How’s that for a cowardly statement?? And don’t ask me my favorite Halloween candy or treat either. I’m apt to give some lame answer like cherry pie and coffee. DQ’s pumpkin pie Blizzard is pretty good actually. I advise ordering the small, but it tastes great.

      1. pgl

        Let me take one paragraph:

        Bernanke went on to do more research on the financial system and the Great Depression. By the time he became Fed chair in February 2006, and the extreme deregulation of finance was incubating the 2008 financial collapse, Bernanke was worrying about the potential of a repeat of 1929. In a 2007 speech, he warned of the fragility of the shadow banking system. But he did nothing to restrict the general over-leveraging, though the Fed had plenty of power to crack down on the subprime scam.

        Everything before the last sentence is true. Now the FED would have had the power Kuttner noted in the last sentence, this power was limited by the “reforms” pushed by know nothings like Phillip Graham. Policymakers have a lot to apologize for but it is hard to blame one person – even if he later became the FED chair – for the general failures of Congress and the Bush43 White House.

      2. pgl

        As far as Halloween, I need to seriously stock up on candy as Park Slope probably has more kids per capita than any other place on earth as the trick and treating starts as early as 4PM and basically shuts down the streets. Snickers and Reese’s peanut butter cups are my go to treats.

        1. Moses Herzog

          This is probably a dumb question, since you live in an area I assume to be dominated by high rise buildings. But have you ever thought of living on a cul-de-sac or a U-shaped street?? That’s one way to avert trick or treaters. But I know some people, I am thinking of my mother here, who feel so sad when they get few trick or treaters. My mother’s Halloween day is centered around how many cute children (preferably at least under age 10, and not the scavenging delinquent teenagers) she can get to smile or slightly come out of their shell. My Mom’s face beams for half an hour straight when she can toss in extra candy bars into some shy inhibited 4 year old’s bag. I am the supreme jerk who turns all his lights out and the TV volume down low, etc. It seems I haven’t inherited this specific benevolence of my Mom’s genes.

          I did get an entire bag of Tootsie Roll Pops and 2 bags of Mandarin oranges for my hispanic neighbor who is divorced and has about 5 children, one who seems autistic. This somehow makes me feel better. I don’t know how he does it, I think his sister comes over to help with the kids sometimes.

          1. pgl

            High rises are Manhattan style. Not so much the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. I did notice that if I turn the lights out – the kids do not come to the door. They have so many choices – it boggles the mind.

            What you did was your neighbor. Maybe I’ll do the same for the parents with kids I know.

    2. AndrewG

      Great share, and I believe your skepticism is warranted. Bernanke emphasized the information value of banking relationships. Cut those, and tremendous value is lost. (Similar logic can be used for the job market: matches between employer and employee represent hard-earned information that is lost with mass unemployment.) This highlights the importance of preventing or curtailing bank panics. It’s more than just credit supply, although that’s also important. This is a fundamental insight into the banking system.

      Kuttner is just being dishonest here. Bernanke deserves flak for his handling of the financial crisis (and also some dishonesty about it, as caught by Larry Ball), particularly when it came to Lehman. I get that, and I think I agree.

      But conflating all this with breaking up the banks and supposed “further cycles of euphoria and crash” like we still take Kindleberger at face value and can’t see the historical record since 2008, like Dodd-Frank doesn’t exist, like we don’t know that the Diamond-Dybvig panic and contagion isn’t based on irrationality at all, but on highly rational agents in a game theoretic model … this is all just bullshit. Dated, wrong bullshit. And his cheap dig at Friedman & Schwartz is ironic, since Bernanke’s the one who told them “You were right” about the Great Depression (and also because the hardline monetarism that we associate with Friedman is distinguishable from the mushy version in the book with Schwartz, which is more open to things like the credit channel). His dated use of “Keynesianism” is pretty useless too. I stopped reading Kuttner a long time ago.

      Bernanke deserves his Nobel. Kudos also to Diamond and Dybvig! They’re now a mainstay of graduate macro programs.

    3. Barkley Rosser

      This is an odd piece by Kuttner.

      Why is it that he and Krugman are so keen on claiming that Bernanke somehow disproved Friedman and Schwartz? It is not “disingenuopis” that he added on to them. It should be kept in mind that the main mechanism of that decline in money supply was banks failing, which is what Bernanke looked at more closely.

      I agree Minsky should have gotten a Nobel. But he has been dead for quite some time now. Too late.

      Also, I think one can criticize some of Bernanke’s management of monetary policy, but the prize was not and never has been given for policy management.

  17. ltr

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1276729.shtml

    October 9, 2022

    Global Development Initiative a constructive approach toward building a cooperative system: Jeffrey Sachs

    Jeffrey Sachs (Sachs), director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, told Global Times (GT) reporter Yu Jincui that the Global Development Initiative, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is a powerful call for cooperation and is very helpful for building an open international cooperative system.

    GT: You have visited China many times. How do you comment on China’s development in the past 10 years? What impressed you most and why?

    Sachs: I’ve seen China change since my first visit in 1981. This has been more than 40 years, and China’s continuing progress is absolutely remarkable. China went from a country that was filled with poverty to a remarkably prosperous country. And I always so much have benefited from seeing this remarkable progress and also learning from how China succeeded, because the lessons from China are very relevant for other regions of the world, such as Africa today which is still witnessing great poverty, but also has tremendous potential based on the kinds of strategies that China used.

    Regarding China’s development in the past 10 years, China has moved from being a prosperous manufacturing country a decade ago to becoming a cutting-edge global technology leader. This is of course a major step. China is also becoming a leader in a wide range of environmentally sustainable technologies. The shift to sustainability is crucial for China and for the world.

    GT: China has eliminated absolute poverty. You once said it’s one of the most remarkable economic achievements in human history. Why did you give so much credit to it? What can other countries learn from China in terms of poverty reduction?

    Sachs: China showed that it is possible to go from pervasive absolute poverty to the end of poverty in 40 years, from 1980 to 2020. This is not only a wonderful and remarkable accomplishment, but also a road map for Africa and other places still facing extreme poverty. The key to China’s success was high rates of investment in human capital (health and education), infrastructure (power, transport, digital), and business capital. The combination of long-term planning and market forces was essential, as was China’s opening-up to the world.

    We know that in the 1970s and indeed, at the time of China’s opening-up in the late 1970s, most people in China lived in rural areas in great poverty. The estimates vary, but by some accounts, the rate of extreme poverty was more than 60 percent of the population, even up to 80 percent by some measures. By 2020, this extreme poverty has been eliminated. I saw that with my own eyes, because at various times, government ministries invited me to join groups to visit different parts of China so that I could help make an assessment or give recommendations. And I visited some of the poorest areas of China on several occasions during the past quarter century.

    But even for those who were poor in China, I saw their living standards were rising. This was accomplished by a combination of measures, especially investment in people that is in education, healthcare, improving nutrition, investment, infrastructure, especially in transport, in power, in building new industrial zones, so that production and trade could take place efficiently, of course in a lot of hard work, because Chinese people worked very hard and very long hours for many decades, also in very high saving rates, so the Chinese people saved for the future. This allowed for these big investments to take hold.

    So China demonstrated that a high level of investment in people and infrastructure would also attract a tremendous amount of business investment and entrepreneurship as well. China opened the economy to international trade and became the most important trading country in the world during this period and a great manufacturing economy.

    So this is the kind of road map based on a large-scale forward-looking investment that I think is very relevant for other regions. I tell leaders in Africa to look at China’s experience. It’s possible in the course of two generations to go from a very poor country to a very prosperous country with no poverty….

  18. ltr

    http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-06/14/c_1310006801.htm

    June 14, 2021

    Xinjiang’s population increases 18.5 pct over past decade

    URUMQI — The population of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region increased by 18.52 percent from 2010 to 2020, the country’s seventh population census showed.

    Xinjiang’s permanent population had reached 25.85 million by October 2020, a rise of about 4.04 million from the country’s sixth population census in 2010, the latest census data released Monday by the regional statistic bureau showed.

    The population growth rate in the region over the past decade was 13.14 percentage points higher than the country’s average.

    According to the data, the stable population growth is attributable to the region’s economic and social development. In recent years, Xinjiang has attracted a large number of people to invest and do business in the region, thanks to its stable and harmonious environment.

    Of the total permanent population in Xinjiang, the Han ethnic group accounts for 42.24 percent, while ethnic minorities comprise 57.76 percent. The Uygur ethnic group alone accounts for 44.96 percent.

    Compared with the sixth population census, the population of ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang increased by 14.27 percent, or more than 1.86 million, data showed. The growth rate was 4.01 percentage points higher than that for ethnic minorities across the country.

    The population of the Uygur ethnic group grew by 1.62 million, or up 16.2 percent from a decade ago.

    The region has a rather younger population. The proportion of people aged 60 or above stood at 11.28 percent, compared with 18.7 percent for the whole country.

    The number of people with college education rose to 16,536 per 100,000 from 10,635 per 100,000 people in 2010, the census data showed. This is 1,069 people more than the country’s average.

    The number of people who have received senior high school education rose to 13,208 per 100,000 people from 11,582 per 100,000 in 2010, the census data showed.

    The region’s illiteracy rate was 2.66 percent, 0.01 percentage points lower than the country’s average.

    The census data also showed that the number of people living in cities and towns in Xinjiang accounted for 56.53 percent of the region’s total population, while those living in the countryside accounted for 43.47 percent. Compared with the census in 2010, the proportion of the urban population rose by 13.73 percentage points.

    1. Ivan.

      I know – its disgusting. They are trying to dilute the ethnic Uygur population by importing huge numbers of other ethnic groups. This is like the Russian dictator Stalin who also used that approach to make certain ethnic groups minorities on their own ancestral land.

    1. AndrewG

      Do you (or does anyone) know how this process works once there’s a decision? Clearly Jones doesn’t have a billion dollars. I want to know how his financial ruin (which I wholeheartedly support) might play out. Can he get a discharge for it in bankruptcy court?

      Actually, this also seems relevant to the NY civil suit against the Trumps assuming the decision goes NY’s way.

      I’m starting to wonder if the banning of debtor’s prison in the early 19th century was a mistake … (Which you can read about here: Baker, M. J., Cosgel, M., & Miceli, T. J. (2012). Debtors’ prisons in America: An economic analysis. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 84(1), 216-228. And yes, I am joking.)

      1. pgl

        One can sell the proceeds of a judgment to vulture firms at a discount. You get cash and they have the right to go after Alex Jones. And they know how to do it. Yea putting Jones in debtor prison would be justice!

        1. AndrewG

          I see, that makes sense. My worry is that Jones can declare bankruptcy and get a discharge. Showing my ignorance here — does federal bankruptcy law disallow that? Or is it up to the state to decide whether money owed in a civil decision can be discharged (similar to how state laws partially decide what things and how much can be exempt from collection)? Maybe you can’t do liquidation, only restructuring? I guess the very fact that a market like the one you describe would suggest discharge is not likely or impossible.

          I feel like I’ve asked this before here — pardon me if I’m repeating myself.

      2. pgl

        https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268112001485

        Debtors’ prisons in America: An economic analysis
        Matthew J.BakeraMetinCosgelb1Thomas J.Micelib2
        Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
        Volume 84, Issue 1, September 2012, Pages 216-228

        Abstract
        Debtors’ prisons have been commonplace throughout history, including in the United States. While imprisonment for debt no doubt elicited some repayment by benefactors of the debtor, we argue that its primary function was to deter default in the first place by giving borrowers an incentive to disclose hidden assets. Because of its cost, however, imprisonment was destined to be replaced by more efficient ways of preventing borrowers from sheltering assets. Empirical analysis of state laws banning imprisonment for debt provides some support for this argument. In particular, the results suggest that states in which the publishing industry developed sooner (thus facilitating the flow of information) were more likely to enact early bans on imprisonment for debt.

      1. Ivan

        Would be nice if DeSansissy would man up and just ask Texas to send the migrants directly to Florida for clean-up work first – and then he would fly them to Martha’s Vineyard when done. That way he would be using migrants and government money for his state’s benefit – rather than just for his own political theater.

        1. Moses Herzog

          Yeah, but then the Venezuelan and Mexican immigrants might start assimilating with the Floridian white trash children of methamphetamine freaks, and hard-working immigrants wanting a better stake in life sharing space with illiterate FOX news spoon-fed whites could expose race tropes as contrary to reality, and then where will we find “the great white hope”?? Vitali Klitschko??

  19. AndrewG

    The intellectual bankruptcy displayed here in the pushback against this simple post is truly amazing.

    It all comes down to not knowing how averages work. Nothing more, nothing less.

  20. ltr

    https://english.news.cn/20221012/c4305c8ba4a445e78967250307334190/c.html

    October 12, 2022

    Tibet sees double-digit annual growth of consumption expenditure over past decade

    LHASA — Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region has seen the per capita consumption expenditure of its residents surging over the past 10 years thanks to their rising income, authorities said Tuesday.

    The per capita consumption expenditure of urban residents in the region reached 28,159 yuan (about 3,960 U.S. dollars) in 2021, with an annual growth of 10.8 percent on average over the past decade, while that of rural residents reached 10,577 yuan, with an average annual growth of 15.2 percent over the past decade, Sonam Tashi, head of the regional statistics bureau, told a press conference.

    In 2021, every 100 households in Tibet owned 38.9 private cars, 92 washing machines, and more than 200 mobile phones, according to Sonam Tashi.

    The rising consumption expenditure benefits mainly from the residents’ increasing incomes over the past decade.

  21. ltr

    https://english.news.cn/20221010/917b4479a31f4160b00e9eed3c1e894a/c.html

    October 10, 2022

    Output of Tibet’s culture industry grows fourfold over decade

    LHASA — The total output of the culture industry in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region grew more than fourfold to 6.9 billion yuan (about 971.9 million U.S. dollars) over the past decade, local authorities said.

    The output registered an annual growth rate of over 15 percent on average, Gan Liquan, deputy director of the regional department of culture, told a press conference on Sunday.

    Over the past decade, more than 400 million yuan, earmarked by both the central and regional governments, was spent on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, Gan added.

    Tibet now has three items (Gesar, Tibetan opera, and Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa) included on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. There are 106 items on the national intangible cultural heritage list with 96 state-level representative bearers and 460 items on the regional list with 522 regional-level representative bearers.

    The region has named eight counties, townships, and villages with intangible cultural heritage characteristics, and 19 intangible cultural heritage tourist attractions.

    A total of 121 intangible cultural heritage workshops have been established in the region, creating jobs for 3,053 people from 2,271 households and increasing monthly incomes by more than 3,200 yuan on average, Gan said.

    1. Baffling

      What about protection of tibet’s most prized possession, the dalai lama? Why is he persecuted instead?

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