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Robert WalkerRSS Feed of this column.

I'm Robert Walker, inventor & programmer. I have had a long term special interest in astronomy, and space science since the 1970s, and most of these blog posts currently are about Mars and space... Read More »

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First, this is totally harmless. Tiny and far away, shrouded with dust and gas. They can only see it using radio waves that go through the dust. And the photo of course changes nothing, we've know it is there for a long time away. This is a screenshot from the press conference:

And over four separate days:

Short summary here

Am debunking this page because it makes a scary prediction of a 10 °C rise by 2026. It is very very silly. By far the silliest post I’ve seen on climate change, and that’s saying something, I’ve seen some ridiculous posts, but this takes the biscuit. I can’t find out anything about Sam Carana who runs this blog, but he would flunk high school maths and physics if he gave material like this in answer to exam questions.

This is not about the IPCC report which is often misunderstood as saying something similar. For the journalistic misunderstandings of the 2017 IPCC report see my

I was astonished to find out that the BBC linked to this “paper” in a recent article about eco-anxiety without explaining to the reader that it is just “crap”. There I'm quoting the distinguished climate scientist Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. This BBC article is here:

All they say about it is

First this site has never been used for missile launching. It has only been used for satellites as part of North Korea’s ambitious civilian space program. They want to become one of the few countries able to launch satellites to geostationary orbit.

Although it could be used for a missile test, this seems unlikely. One suggestion is that it is to have more things to offer to demolish as part of future negotiations. Other suggestions include signaling impatience with the pace of negotiations, and a chess move to ratchet up pressure on Washington. It is not an attempt to do anything in secret as they know the world watches everything they do here. Whatever their reasons, they are doing it intentionally for show.

Short summary. The journalist stories often don't even mention that studies are not agreed on whether it is carbon positive or even perhaps carbon negative. The amount in the worst case is around an extra quarter of a degree rise by 2100, a slow burner through to the next three or four centuries. That is for “business as usual”.

For 3°C which we are close to already and easily achievable, then it is possible that it remains carbon negative and removes the equivalent of CO2 a fifth of a degree by 2299, and at most it is a fifth of a degree increase by 2299.

It is reasonably good news. Kim wanted the US to drop all sanctions in response for dismantling the publicly disclosed plant to make nuclear weapons materials. They weren't ready to do that. The US were willing to drop all sanctions in response to him completely denuclearizing but he wasn't ready to do that. He has a vision but not the same as the US vision but closer than it was a year ago.

Trump talked about them knowing the country very well (including nuclear facilities that NK has not disclosed). And that he wasn't willing to do enough.

Not a big disagreement. More that they were on the point of a big agreement but it fell through. And as Trump said he is not afraid to walk away from a deal.