Blog Archives
HOW COULD CLIMATE CHANGE FARM ANIMALS?
Animal Farm is a novel written by George Orwell on the cusp of peace in 1945. It satirises a new world of peace threatened by totalitarianism. He uses farm animals to portray, simply and honestly, the inhumanity and logical deficiencies of the incipient Soviet system.
Martin Knox has written a sequel, Animal Farm 2 (2021). The story is a new episode of the satire, with farm animals struggling under totalitarianism which continues after the end of the Cold War up to modern times. It updates us on a world that is adjusting to central control of responses to climate change and a new world without access to fossil fuels. The animals debate changes imposed on them, revealing science that has been faked. They want to revolt again, but will they be able to escape from rule by pigs this time?
Available on Amazon. For reviews see martinknox.com
RENEWABLE ENERGY RELEASES MORE HEAT 
Wind and solar energy on Earth must be replaced from the Sun when expended, bringing in more heat for release of equivalent electricity into the environment, than by depleting fossil fuels. Wind and solar energy cannot ultimately be renewed from lower temperature heat from the environment, by the First (conservation) and Second (transfer) Laws of Thermodynamics. Heat to produce wind for turbines and for solar absorption is more than fossil fuel heat, because renewable energy resources are replaced, increasing warming.
See my blog martinknox.com
THERMAL POLLUTION CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING
When fossil fuels are combusted, all the heat produced, used and wasted, ends up in the oceans, lakes, atmosphere and space. You may have noticed that weather temperatures near cities are warmer, because cities are ‘heat sinks’ of human activity, where waste heat is disposed of into the atmosphere.
The heat wasted into the air by cities, agriculture, livestock, transport and by evaporation from water storages is large. If you live near a thermal power station, where river, lake or ocean water is used for cooling, you may have noticed the water is warmed up and can even cause fog at night. Alternatively, heat could be wasted from a cooling tower.
You may have been at an airport and felt warm ‘jet wash’, exhaust gases from a plane manoeuvring.
There is evidence that human heat pollution is significant. By comparison with solar radiation received by Earth, the amount of thermal pollution is lower when the Sun is high, but at night thermal pollution contributes significantly to the daily heat balance, enough to cause global warming. I calculate that human-generated heat stays on Earth with an average residence time of 140 years.
Substitution of solar, wind and hydro for fossil fuel combustion would not reduce thermal pollution and could increase it, if electrical output efficiency is lower and more heat is wasted and replaced from the Sun.
The other theory, that global warming could be caused by heat entrapment by a tiny amount of carbon dioxide gas, is disputed in the literature, unnecessarily complex and without evidence. To reduce global warming, energy consumption must be reduced.
More information is in my book Animal Farm 2, on Amazon.
martinknox.com
HEAT EMISSIONS COULD BE NET ZERO
Earth’s heat balance is certainly complex, but higher temperatures could come from retention of increased heat from Earth sources, with solar radiation absorption and emission continuing as in the past. Modelling of changes to the world energy balance can account for global warming and the futility of the net zero concept.
Heat energy to warm Earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere, is emitted by respiration of living things, by combustion of vegetation and fossil fuels, by capture of renewable energy replenished by the Sun and by geothermal processes. Some heat produced is radiated into space, but my calculations indicate the remainder is sufficient to add to normal solar warming and cooling, causing warming noticeable near city heat sources.
Warming would not in the least be reduced by substituting for fossil fuels with solar, wind or hydro energy supplies. Warming in the environment is caused by spent inefficient energy consumed. Reduction to net zero could require cutting energy consumption and waste by human populations to a low level, until entropy increase is balanced if possible by removal in endothermic reactions, such as photosynthesis, which absorbs heat with light. Deindustrialisation may be necessary. The theory of warming by greenhouse gases is considered in my previous post here Greenhouse Gases Not To Blame.
My satirical book Animal Farm 2 explains paradigm-shifted climate science.
martinknox.com
