Unbelievable

Try to hold down your breakfast.

Kyle Rittenhouse in Florida hangin’ with former @BachelorABC contestant and his new publicist. Next stop stay at Florida Governor’s Mansion? pic.twitter.com/ybfJUzBuya

— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) November 22, 2021

About Gas Prices

Paul Krugman posted a graph that I wish I had thought of:

One issue that seems to have influenced voters Tuesday was the price of gasoline — over which Biden has no control. Here's US gas prices and the world price of oil (divided by 42 to make it a price per gallon) pic.twitter.com/rSwv1q8DzN

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 4, 2021

Everyone is complaining that gas prices are high, and they are for the last few years, but they really aren't for the last 10 years or so, when adjusted for inflation:

This is weekly data on gas prices from EIA's This Week in Petroleum, adjusted for inflation via the Consumer Price Index. Gas prices were high during the Bush Jr administration -- probably a feature, not a bug -- and then after the financial crisis. 

But it appears, from Krugman's graph, that presidents don't have much, if any, influence on gas prices -- they're set quite deterministically from the price of oil. 

NASA GISS: 4th Warmest October; Warmest on Land

#NASA #GISS land-only surface temperature anomaly for October 2021 = 1.58°C = 2.84°F relative to 1880-1909, a record high for the month. Global surface anomaly is 4th highest for Octobers at 1.21°C (same baseline).https://t.co/s2iWlyZ1a7#GlobalWarming #climatechange

— David Appell (@davidappell) November 18, 2021

Frustrations and Highlights

Superstar Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is having a rough start to the NHL season. He needed wrist surgery right before the preseason started, missing several of the first regular season games, then after one game back got COVID and missed several more games. In his first game back, down 5-1 to the Washington Capitals on Sunday night, he took out his frustration on Capitals defenseman Martin Fehervary:

Crosby taking out some frustration in his return to the lineup. Pens down 5-1 to Caps pic.twitter.com/zHD40mg7OW

— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) November 15, 2021

No penalty called on Crosby, nor did the NHL Department of Player Safety fine or suspend him. In fairness, Crosby gets pummeled on plenty and it only gets noticed when he fights back. The days of goons and enforcers who once protected the likes of Wayne Gretzky are long gone.

I wish my job had some similar outlet for my frustrations.

A couple other highlights from Sunday.

Connor McDavid doing the kind of thing Sidney Crosby used to do:

Connor McDavid good lord pic.twitter.com/U4h9k4hM9i

— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) November 6, 2021

and an amazing save from Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy:

Oh my VASY 😳🚫 pic.twitter.com/YsdiJqpXbk

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 14, 2021

Divergence of Lower Troposphere Warming Measurements

This is a graph of the difference in warming of the lower troposphere as measured by the RSS research group compared to UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville). The divergence continues to widen. 

The quality/resolution of the graph is terrible, unless you click on it. I'm posting this also so I can complain about it on the Blogger Forum. Not that I expect them to change. Why show a low resolution figure when clearly they store the full resolution image? I don't get it. Wish I could easily transition my blog to another platform -- Wordpress I guess -- but by now I have over 15 years of posts.

Sorry for whining. This is dispiriting.

The Business of America

 Calvin Coolidge said  “The business of America is business!” He didn't say its business is people. 

Greta Didn't Invent "Blah Blah Blah"

Greta Thunberg has received a lot of attention for her "blah blah blah" admonition towards those negotiating climate agreements -- not without cause -- and, my favorite, some activists have taken to calling the diplomats "bleaders." Sounds sheep-like, too. Nice.

But it turns out "blah blah blah" isn't original with Thunberg -- it goes all the way back to COP1, the first Conference of the Parties in Berlin in 1995. This is from How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm:

Tuvalu Addresses COP26

Of course, we're all supposed to accept this a necessary for our lifestyle:

This photo of Tuvalu’s virtual address to the Climate Conference says everything that should need to be said. #COP26 pic.twitter.com/SOstgl6wKr

— Ben Phillips (@benphillips76) November 5, 2021

Some Basic Evidence for Manmade Climate Change

I think it's often worth pointing out evidence of basic predictions and expectations for anthropogenic climate change, and here are a couple, both from "Vapor Storms" by Jennifer Francis in the November 2021 issue of Scientific American:

The increase in water vapor, as a result of a warmer atmosphere:

By the way, there's 1.27e16 kg of water vapor in the atmosphere, on average, or an average of 24.9 kg/m². (That's 0.25% of the atmosphere's mass, or 3,970 ppm by mole. Interestingly, that's only equivalent to 2.5 cm (1 inch) of equivalent sea level rise.) So an increase of about 0.9 kg/m² (as it looks from the graph, weighting between land an ocean) is 3.6%. Half the predicted 7% per °C of warming predicted by the Clausius-Claperyon equation. Not sure why. 

Increase in extreme rainfall in the US:

Source for both: Jennifer Francis, "Vapor Storms," Scientific American 325, 5, 26-33 (November 2021). http://doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1121-26.

Insult from World Leaders at Trevi Fountain

I'm sorry, but this little gesture is pretty damn stupid and insulting. These leaders of the free world have more power than anyone, at least nominally. Why do they need "luck" to address climate change? They need to use their power to bring forth initiatives, policies, regulations and laws!

Also, whatever media handlers allowed this episode and photograph should be fired. What a dumb message it sends.

World leaders toss a coin at Trevi for good luck fighting the climate emergency pic.twitter.com/zFIDPJnVf7

— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) October 31, 2021

Yes I know about the Trevi Foundation tradition (though it's not for luck).