[Scottish Scientist]

Now you wouldn't be a disingenuous right wing troll, would you? Bait and switch is their preferred tactic. Which looks suspiciously like what you are doing. Accept my sincerest apologies if I have this wrong.

Well why don't you read my 100% renewable energy blog, where I have most recently criticised right-wing Thatcherite free-market misgovernment and get back to me with your apology after you have read and understood.

My 100% Renewable Energy Blog
* Wind, solar, storage and back-up system designer
* Industrial Vandalism: how market forces delay the transition to 100% Renewable Energy
* Double Tidal Lagoon Baseload Scheme
* Off-Shore Electricity from Wind, Solar and Hydrogen Power
* World’s biggest-ever pumped-storage hydro-scheme, for Scotland?
* Search for sites to build new pumped-storage hydroelectricity schemes
* Glasa Morie Glass Pumped-Storage Hydro Scheme
* Let’s supersize × 1000 the tiny Glasa hydro scheme!
* Modelling of wind and pumped-storage power
* Scotland Electricity Generation – my plan for 2020
* South America – GREAT for Renewable Energy

[Bored chemist]

Ah, you must mean the $1.3 billion in tree-hugger bribes donated by the UK and a dozen+ other donor countries etc.

Obviously not, because that's spread out across the whole world, not just Brazil.

I'm talking about the "take" from a 22 Billion dollar industry in Brazil alone.

typically tree-huggers will insist on a "safe-space" where scientists cannot be heard.

Like where?

[Scottish Scientist]

Ah, you must mean the $1.3 billion in tree-hugger bribes donated by the UK and a dozen+ other donor countries etc.

Obviously not, because that's spread out across the whole world, not just Brazil.

As is the UN-REDD tree-hugger bribes of a paltry $280 million.

That's a total of $1.5 billion in tree-hugger bribes I've uncovered already. I wonder what Brazil's share of that is? Enough, seemingly, to persuade Brazil's politicians to parrot the hypocrisy and lies that world's tree-huggers want to hear.

I'm talking about the "take" from a 22 Billion dollar industry in Brazil alone.

That "$22+ bn" is the turnover of the legal part of the logging sector, I assume, where taxes are paid, but bribes are not paid.

So you refer to the bribes from illegal logging to officialdom to turn a blind eye and not enforce the hypocritical laws that the Brazilian government was bribed by world tree-huggers to enact?

You do not know how much those bribes are worth because the accounts of illegal logging are not published. Enough to allow the illegal logging to continue clearly.

However much the illegal logging is worth, it is better brought in from the cold, legalised, managed and taxed. For that to happen, first world tree-huggers must be stopped from bribing Brazil, DRC etc. with the West's tax-payer funds.

typically tree-huggers will insist on a "safe-space" where scientists cannot be heard.

Like where?

Like below-the-line Guardian comments, where my "Scottish Scientist" username was put on pre-post moderation. The Guardian comments is an internet rabbit-hole where Guardianista prejudices are shared but from where science is routinely excluded.

[Bored chemist]

That "$22+ bn" is the turnover of the legal part of logging sector, I assume, where taxes are paid, but bribes are not paid.

And the estimate is that the illegal version adds another $100Bn or so.
So this

That's a total of $1.5 billion in tree-hugger bribes I've uncovered already. I wonder what Brazil's share of that is? Enough, seemingly, to persuade Brazil's politicians to parrot the hypocrisy and lies that world's tree-huggers want to hear.

Makes no sense.
They get enough cash from illegal logging to not care very much about the tree huggers.

Like below-the-line Guardian comments, where my "Scottish Scientist" username was put on pre-post moderation. The Guardian comments is an internet rabbit-hole where Guardianista prejudices are shared but from where science is routinely excluded.

And what did you do to upset them?
What "science" were you excluded for posting?

[jeffreyH]

So, basically, you want to save the coal fired power stations but burn trees in them instead of coal. Well Brazil have just been forced into putting out all the fires encouraged by their right wing, nutcase, authoritarian leader.

Donald Trump loves Bolsonaro. Maybe Bolsonaro didn't rake the forests enough to prevent the fires. Or maybe he is as right wing and out of touch as you seem to be.

You simply shouldn't be taken seriously. I don't know exactly what your hidden agenda is but it can't be anything sensible.

[jeffreyH]

P.S. I especially liked the ad "How to get paid without a job".
 

[Scottish Scientist]

That "$22+ bn" is the turnover of the legal part of logging sector, I assume, where taxes are paid, but bribes are not paid.

And the estimate is that the illegal version adds another $100Bn or so.

Estimated by whom? Do you have a link for the source of that estimate?

That's a total of $1.5 billion in tree-hugger bribes I've uncovered already. I wonder what Brazil's share of that is? Enough, seemingly, to persuade Brazil's politicians to parrot the hypocrisy and lies that world's tree-huggers want to hear.

Makes no sense.
They get enough cash from illegal logging to not care very much about the tree huggers.

They cared enough to enact the laws which made some logging "illegal" so that they could pocket the bribes from world tree-huggers.

It "makes no sense" for a corrupt politician to refuse to take bribes, from the world tree-huggers, from illegal loggers or from anyone else.

Oh no doubt there are honest politicians but they typically don't have enough money to fund a successful election campaign and sometimes meet with a nasty "accident" at the hands of the hit-men hired by the vested interests they dared to whistle-blow about.

Like below-the-line Guardian comments, where my "Scottish Scientist" username was put on pre-post moderation. The Guardian comments is an internet rabbit-hole where Guardianista prejudices are shared but from where science is routinely excluded.

And what did you do to upset them?

Specifically, I don't know. I can't ask them in Guardian comments because they censor everything I comment from my "Scottish Scientist" username.

So I am prevented from openly challenging the Guardian's moderator team's censorship of my comments, prevented from exposing their newspaper as utter hypocrites for masquerading as a "liberal newspaper" but actually being illiberal bigots when it suits them.

They have a standard list of moderator policies but that doesn't really explain why they decided after all that time to "Your comments are currently being pre-moderated" me.

What "science" were you excluded for posting?

Pretty much exclusively renewable energy comments as far as I can remember but read for yourself. My last Guardian comment was in September 2018 and there are 100 pages of my comments back to October 2015.

So I wasn't censored for 3 years but now I am. 

[jeffreyH]

Oh no doubt there are honest politicians but they typically don't have enough money to fund a successful election campaign and sometimes meet with a nasty "accident" at the hands of the hit-men hired by the vested interests they dared to whistle-blow about.

You are so out of touch. Bernie Sanders in the US is running for president and continually fights big corporations. The justice democrats have elected several uncorrupted Congress members who take no corporate money and fight for the ordinary working people. Go get an education before spouting your nonsense.

So I am prevented from openly challenging the Guardian's moderator team's censorship of my comments, prevented from exposing their newspaper as utter hypocrites for masquerading as a "liberal newspaper" but actually being illiberal bigots when it suits them.

Well stop trolling the guardian website and your problem will disappear. You don't have a plan to save the world you have a plan to get recognised. This likely involves relieving people of their money, but I might be wrong.

[alancalverd]

If I was world leader that is what mankind would do - make productive land where before there was none.

You lost all of my considerable sympathy with your implicit "tree hugger" insult, so I won't waste much time here.

Just to remind everyone that Easter Island once had trees and people, until the people cut down the trees, and Oklahoma was "productive" for nearly 30 years before the wind blew all the ancient prairie soil away. There's even a suggestion that the Sahara is man-made.

[Scottish Scientist]

So, basically, you want to save the coal fired power stations but burn trees in them instead of coal.

Somewhat like Drax biomass power station in England does, but not 24/7/52 as "baseload" generation but on stand-by to provide back-up power at times of low wind and solar power, yes.

Well Brazil have just been forced into putting out all the fires encouraged by their right wing, nutcase, authoritarian leader.

Not "forced" - bribed - not "put out" - going through the motions of trying but failing to put wild-fires out.

The wild-fires are not out, are not going to be put out until the rainy season returns and the rain puts them out all by itself.

The facts of wild-fires don't really matter because the tree-hugger bribes are so that the likes of Macron and other tree-hugger world leaders can grab headlines and virtue signal to their tree-hugger base.

I've already explained in my previous comments why tree-hugger bribes don't and never will actually stop wild-fires and how it is only legalising all of the logging sector and proper management of the forests will work to reduce wild-fires.

Science is knowing and that's more than a feeling.

I know that fossil-fuel burning tree-hugging hypocrites aren't lifting a finger to reduce the scale of devastating wild-fires, in Brazil, in the American West, in Australia, or indeed anywhere in this world. Indeed, tree-hugging is making wild-fires worse.

It is the sustainable harvesting of trees that will give forests their best economic value.

A metaphorically "hugged tree", in Brazil, say, hugged by touchy-feely President Macron at a G7 meeting, is totally worthless to a Brazilian farmer who will ignore the tree-huggers and set fires so that the hugged tree and its neighbours are burnt to a crisp so that the farmer can plant crops and graze cattle, feed his family.

Meanwhile, the hugged and wild-fire burnt trees of the world are of no use whatsoever for back-up power generation at times of low wind and solar power, but the tree-huggers will look the other way as fossil-fuels are burned for back-up power, stoking up the problem of global warming and natural wild fires.

The tree-huggers are the fellow travellers and bed fellows of climate deniers - all hand-wringing, no solutions and no appetite for an open debate. Tree-huggers need their "safe zones" to get away with being dead wrong.

Whereas a "harvested tree" that is turned into wood pellets and sold to biomass power stations that keep the lights on without burning fossil fuel is a source of income for the forester who replants more trees to sustain his source of income and feed his family, creating fire-breaks to contain wild-fires and now the forest thrives. Then we can stop burning fossil fuels and halt global warming in its tracks. Win, win.

as right wing and out of touch as you seem to be.

You simply shouldn't be taken seriously. I don't know exactly what your hidden agenda is but it can't be anything sensible.

I'm not "right wing". Right-wingers would allow the market to demolish valuable solid-fuel burning power stations, like the right-wing Tory government is doing.

On that issue, I've already demonstrated that I am not "right wing"  - which is more that you can boast.

You don't know because you haven't read my 100% renewable energy blog because you are happy with your prejudice about me.

[Scottish Scientist]

Oh no doubt there are honest politicians but they typically don't have enough money to fund a successful election campaign and sometimes meet with a nasty "accident" at the hands of the hit-men hired by the vested interests they dared to whistle-blow about.

You are so out of touch. Bernie Sanders in the US is running for president and continually fights big corporations. The justice democrats have elected several uncorrupted Congress members who take no corporate money and fight for the ordinary working people. Go get an education before spouting your nonsense.

10 days ago or so, Bernie recently published his Green New Deal policies and I commented on them then.
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/greentechmedia/bernie_sanders_proposes_massive_renewables_buildout_and_publicly_owned_electricity/#comment-4588911718

It's good. I love Bernie's vision. He reminds me of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

One omission is bio-fuels. It makes a lot of sense to harvest wood from the American West - so prone to wild-fires - and use that wood to make biomass fuel for back-up generation.

Better that the wood burns in a power station furnace where it does some good than to leave it to burn in a wild-fire.

If you've got a dispatchable renewable energy power source like bio-fuels it makes for a cheaper and quicker 100% renewable energy solution

Otherwise you need to overbuild your renewable generators and build a lot more storage and that may take you 30 years instead of 10.

So I am prevented from openly challenging the Guardian's moderator team's censorship of my comments, prevented from exposing their newspaper as utter hypocrites for masquerading as a "liberal newspaper" but actually being illiberal bigots when it suits them.

Well stop trolling the guardian website and your problem will disappear. You don't have a plan to save the world you have a plan to get recognised. This likely involves relieving people of their money, but I might be wrong.

I wasn't "trolling" as my 3 year record of high quality posts on Guardian comments proves.

It is not only "my" problem but the problem of UK society that the Guardian isn't as liberal as they claim to be.

I do have a plan for Scotland that I could scale up for the UK in a heartbeat but you don't want to read it. You'd rather troll the author of a plan you've never read as you are doing now.

[jeffreyH]

The problem here is that you cherry pick. Yes, you could make all logging legal. Then what would happen? Would the corporate logging companies say yes we will take care of the forest. More likely they would plunder as much as they could for short term gain. It reduces profits to fix what you damage.

A fracker doesn't care about the landscape so why should a logger. It's all about the money and your little scheme doesn't figure AT ALL.

[Scottish Scientist]

You lost all of my considerable sympathy with your implicit "tree hugger" insult, so I won't waste much time here.

I am sorry Alan because my intention wasn't to insult you.

Just to remind everyone that Easter Island once had trees and people, until the people cut down the trees

They are not "cutting" down all the rainforest trees Alan but they are setting fires to burn down more trees than they should for farming, remember?

If instead they were cutting more trees down to use as biomass fuels then there would be an incentive to plant new trees to sustain their business model and the forest would have a guaranteed future.

and Oklahoma was "productive" for nearly 30 years before the wind blew all the ancient prairie soil away.

In forestry, it is good practice to cut trees down with a chain saw, not pull them out by the roots which help to anchor the soil in place.

In farming, wind breaks, tree-lines, hedges etc. can help to stop the wind whipping up the soil.

There's even a suggestion that the Sahara is man-made.

A suggestion I heard on TV is that it used to be hotter in the Sahara, hot enough to have monsoon-style rains.

Man could make the desert bloom again and there have been plans published for Africa to do just that for Lake Chad, though the Sahara is a desert too far at the moment I think.

[jeffreyH]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.carbonbrief.org/is-burning-wood-for-energy-worse-for-the-climate-than-coal/amp

"Several other DECC scenarios also show that burning wood in UK power plants can be worse than coal."

"The UK is burning nearly four million tonnes of wood a year to generate power, and Drax is the single largest user. Most of its supplies come from north America."

So we don't want to burn our own wood so we plunder the forests of North America. We must thank them for their generosity.

Here come the tree huggers.

'Drax says it uses wood from thinnings and off-cuts, and that this reduces emissions by 80 per cent compared to burning coal. The saving is calculated with a less complete method than that used by DECC’s calculator, however. According to Greenpeace, who can usually be relied on for a well-turned quote, this leaves a hole in the methodology “big enough to drive a logging truck through”.'

The emissions saving from burning wood at Drax might still be as high as 80 per cent using the more complete DECC biomass calculator method. Or it might not. A Drax spokesperson tells Carbon Brief there’s no way to directly compare the two methodologies because the calculator is theoretical and “does not model real situations”.'

Let's not let facts get in the way of saving the world. Do you get paid by the energy industry by any chance?

[Scottish Scientist]

The problem here is that you cherry pick. Yes, you could make all logging legal. Then what would happen? Would the corporate logging companies say yes we will take care of the forest. More likely they would plunder as much as they could for short term gain. It reduces profits to fix what you damage.

The government would award the logging concessions only to the responsible companies, who promised to take care of the forest and if they didn't they lose their tax-breaks, be fined and lose their logging concessions to their competitors who were as good as their word.

A fracker doesn't care about the landscape so why should a logger. It's all about the money and your little scheme doesn't figure AT ALL.

I don't support "fracking" caring or otherwise. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, remember?

If logging is legal, it is all about the taxes. If it is illegal, it is all about the bribes.

Taxes pay for forestry law enforcement. Bribes pay for looking the other way as forestry law is broken.

[Scottish Scientist]

Do you get paid by the energy industry by any chance?

No I don't. I'm independent.

[Scottish Scientist]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.carbonbrief.org/is-burning-wood-for-energy-worse-for-the-climate-than-coal/amp

In practice there will be some emissions related to the energy needed to drive the truck hauling the log, the power needed to turn that into wood pellets and the heat required to dry it.

Every stage of the biomass industry can, should and in due course will, be converted to renewable energy.

[jeffreyH]

Is it the completely uncorrupted government that would be overseeing the logging industry? In America the Trump administration is actively tearing up regulations. So who will be regulating the loggers again? Speak up, I can't hear.

[jeffreyH]

And BTW Boris appears to be our own personal version of Trump.

[Scottish Scientist]

Is it the completely uncorrupted government that would be overseeing the logging industry? In America the Trump administration is actively tearing up regulations. So who will be regulating the loggers again? Speak up, I can't hear.

It is $1.5+ billion of world tree-hugger bribes which have corrupted the Brazilian law-makers to enact fake laws that the government has no intention of enforcing, to pretend to limit the scale of the logging sector.

Don't bribe people and you won't corrupt them.
Stop bribing people if you want to stop corrupting them.

Clinton could have increased her chances of defeating Trump in rust-belt states if she explained to the coal-fired power station workers that their jobs were secure with the transition to 100% renewable energy because they will be on stand-by to generate back-up power from biomass fuels at times of low wind and solar power.

I hope the Democrats beat Trump in 2020. I really do.