BEYOND BLUE SKY

 Today marks 100 Days of Trump's Presidency.  To mark the occasion, he held a cabinet meeting at The White House to discuss successes in that time.  He has definitely been working at a pace which bodes well for the rest of his presidency. During this term in office, we will witness the Return of Jesus Christ!  May America and the wider world be prepared!

We are, truly, in a Climate Emergency. As outlined throughout this book, unless bold action is taken to change the economic system, we may face a long-drawn-out equivalent of the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago - and certainly the worst set of circumstances since The Flood in Noah's Time.  There are real problems ahead: fire, flooding, and loss of entire cities; drought; hundreds of millions of migrants; ocean acidification; increased disease; significant food shortages; and, probably, WW3. However, one thing that Christians can be certain of is the imminent Return of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to sort all these problems out.  We need to be ready at all times for His Return, but I can confidently predict that He will Return no later than the Feast of Trumpets in 2028.  That gives us 3 1/2 years from now to get our environmental house in order and at least a blueprint for a better world. But the IPCC 2018 Report makes it clear that the world ...

 A Happy Belated 7th Birthday to Prince Louis (23 April)!

 It is inherently difficult to predict what the future will hold, but sociologists such as Urry (Climate Change & Society, 2011, Polity Books, Cambridge) attempted to define different scenarios: - Utopia of the sustainable society - he called this unrealistic - Extrapolating from existing societies, he believed these lacked vision - Scenario building - accepting that there is no single best future Scenario-building examples that Urry advanced in his book include: - Perpetual consumerism (problem with exponential growth) - Local sustainability (requires population reduction and a global economic crisis) - Regional warlordism (a retreat from globalisation).  The Global South would suffer. - Low-carbon, digital networks (techno-future).  Urry preferred this scenario. In concluding, Urry noted that, without planning, none of the above scenarios were certain since each entailed vulnerabilities and risks to human life.. Each scenario must be treated with a healthy degree of...

Low-Carbon Economy The term low-carbon (and net-zero) economy is used often by politicians and has gained common parlance, but what do we mean by it?  In its simplest form, it is an economy less reliant on fossil fuels for energy.  A low-carbon economy will not simply be an economy powered by wind turbines, nuclear power stations, and solar panels, with electric cars and high-speed trains. Still, it will be vastly different from the one of today with new social norms (such as in our attitude towards travel) and technologies deployed (whether traditional or futuristic) to reduce our carbon-based energy use.  A net-zero economy is one with some carbon sequestration (such as by trees). Circular Economy Much has also been made of a future 'circular' economy where everything is recycled and reused in closed loops rather than thrown away, as is often the practice today.  Goods and services will have to be redesigned accordingly.  This is the basis of the so-called cir...

Although the Drawdown list might seem grand to the individual, the Union of Concerned Scientists has compiled a list of what individuals can do to contribute to stopping/reducing global warming: 1.     Cars - select one with the best fuel economy 2.     Houses - make your house air-tight 3.     Heating - buy and use a programmable thermostat 4.     Diet - eat less meat, especially beef 5.     Energy - use power strips since these curb 'phantom loads' 6.    Refrigerators  and AC units - upgrade if over 5 years old, since new appliances will typically pay back                within 3 years 7.      Electricity monitors - these will help you identify where most domestic energy is used. 8.     Light bulbs - switch to new LED lighting  9.     Washing - wash in cold water to save emissions 10.     Buy less and re-use and recycle.  ...

 Technology and Innovation Technology, as we have seen, has played a critical role in shaping the modern world, particularly in the last 250 years.  It has been central to our enjoying continued economic growth over that period; raising enormously our standards of living.  We do, however, require continued innovation to help solve the climate crisis.  Not only do we need to deploy existing technologies but also we need to invent new ones. It is important, therefore, to ensure that technology advancement continues.  We cannot allow the economy to stagnate.  We need continued incentives for entrepreneurs to innovate and bring products to market. The view now is that technology and innovation are realised within systems where there is also an active government intervention. They cannot be left to markets alone although markets remain a powerful force. Since we need to accelerate the process of innovation, we should focus our resources to create such an environ...

Pope Francis passed away yesterday (Easter Monday), and his funeral will be held this Saturday. Known as The People's Pope, He Loved The World. 

Tomorrow, 21 April 2025, would have been the late Queen's 99th birthday.  May God Rest Her Soul. I hope the Nation takes time to reflect on the passing of such a remarkable and admirable Monarch. 

 The Matter of The Messiah's Return Falls Over to The Levitical Priesthood Now.

 The Need for Technology to Fill the Gap Examining the population reduction issue is contentious and probably unrealistic.  It is not even entirely clear whether or not it would be successful, since selecting the 'victims' would be a very difficult choice to make.  As history has shown, wars, pandemics, and other social ills would not kill in sufficient numbers to 'solve' the climate crisis.  A global war followed by a worldwide pandemic on a scale of the Black Death might approximate, but the randomness of those affected could severely disrupt the functioning of civilisation and might even propel us into a new Dark Age where technologies are abandoned.  We cannot afford for this to happen. A more humane approach to population numbers is to assume that the central UN projections of 0% p.a. for the West and 0.8% p.a. for the ROW remain unassailable, although by 2050 the total population figure could be 1bn less as a result of education and proper family planning ...

You shouldn't really go shopping on the Sabbath - whether in-store or online.  Whilst it is not working as such, it does, however, mean that others would need to be working on your behalf. 

Today is Good Friday. The only thing is, though, that C hrist was NOT crucified on a Friday !

The Sixth Commandment It is hard to imagine what events would kill off large segments of the population (P in the Kaya Identity). Many people think that war would be one solution, but in fact, this has killed relatively few in the past (bad though war is).  World War I, for example, accounted for over 17 million deaths (10 million military and 7 million civilians) while World War II resulted in 70-85 million casualties (about 3% of the 1940 world population of 2.3bn). Leading Causes of Death New diseases, surprisingly, also kill relatively few.  HIV has so far accounted for 88.4 million infections (mostly in sub-Saharan Africa) with 42.3 million deaths. In 2023, this equated to 630,000 deaths. Tuberculosis killed 1.25 million.  Influenza 700,000. Malaria kills 597,000 people each year, with a predominance of children, which has motivated the Bill Gates Foundation to focus on this disease.  Poliomyelitis killed 350,000 in 1988, but today it accounts for very few morta...

Today is Nana Tones' 20th Memorial Anniversary.  God Rest Her Soul. How time has flown! 

 The Next 25 Years Are Critical As the IPCC keeps pointing out, the world as a whole needs to meet targets for carbon emissions reduction by 2050, which is 25 years hence.  Here, we see that with a 2% growth rate in the economy, which we can say is required to fund new inventions/innovations and the roll-out of clean technology, population control remains the variable to meet the CO2 commitments. To balance the equation in the industrialized West, we would require a staggering annual decrease in population of 3.4% each and every year!  And that is for a world 2C warmer.  It is difficult to imagine this being politically acceptable, let alone feasible, so, likely, carbon targets will not be met and we will enter a world of temperature increases of perhaps 3C or 4C (... or even higher! ) Table 5.2 Targets for 2C, over the period 2020-2050, to achieve CO2 emission reductions of 60-80% in Western countries and 50% in ROW countries. Variable     CO2   ...

 Today is 6 years to the day of the Notre Dame fire, which almost threatened to annihilate the cathedral. Today also marks my ex, ROC's 7th anniversary as a Church of England Warden.  He is a good man.

I've quit The Church .  It's not for me at the moment, although, fundamentally, I still believe in everything it teaches. Today, at 2.30pm GMT, 6 female space tourists made it into space aboard the Blue Origins rocket .   They were fearless!

 The Relationship Between Economic Growth and Climate Change To examine the relationship between economic growth and climate change, we need to return to the Kaya Identity introduced in Chapter 1.  The two are related insofar as, unless low or zero carbon technologies are promoted, carbon emission reduction means economic growth constraints. Global CO2 emissions disaggregated Victor (2008), a Canadian environmental economist, divided the world into high income countries (HIC) and medium/low income countries (MIC/LIC) (roughly equivalent to the Annex A and non-Annex A countries of the Kyoto Protocol (1997)) or, for simplicity, the West and the Rest of the World (ROW) and used World Bank data to populate the following tables for historical average changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and related variables for the period 1972-2002.  He considered the key variables of CO2, Population, GDP/Capita, Energy/GDP, and CO2/Energy.  In Table 5.1, the percentages refer to th...

Requires POW ER Too L's  Today, The King & Queen of England met Pope Francis at the Vatican, Rome, on the 20th Anniversary of their marriage.

Certain industries should be nationalised, such as: - British Steel - Water - The Railways The UK should look to Singapore as a role model.  From Google's Gemini:- Singapore boasts a  highly developed, open, and pro-business mixed market economy , known for its strong infrastructure, investments in education, and a business-friendly regulatory environment, consistently ranking among the world's most competitive economies.   Key characteristics of Singapore's economy: High-income economy:   Singapore is a high-income economy with a high GDP per capita.   Open and pro-business:   The economy is consistently ranked as one of the most open and pro-business in the world.   Strong infrastructure and investments:   Singapore has made significant investments in infrastructure, education, healthcare, and public services.   Competitive economy:   It is among the world's most competitive economies.   AAA sovereign credit rating:   Singapo...

Definition Economic growth is driven primarily by improvements in productivity, essentially the ability to produce more goods and services with the same inputs of labour, capital, energy, and materials aided by technology advancements. Short-run vs. Long-run Economists distinguish between short-term economic stabilization (the business cycle) and long-term economic growth.  The long-run path of economic growth is one of the central questions in economics since increases in GDP are generally equated to increases in standards of living.  Small differences in growth rates can result in big differences when compounded over years.  For example, an 8% growth rate leads to a doubling of GDP within just 10 years.   Differences in growth rates between countries can similarly lead to wide gaps developing in relative standards of living.  As such, the pursuit of economic growth has become a major focus of governments globally, particularly since World War II. Drivers But w...

For a Flight to The Holy Land on Sunday 20 April, 2025? Has the Gospel been preached to ALL the world ?  What about SGP?

... has failed.  Finally! 

I won't be PC about this.  I have a significant pain in the butt ! 

There has been much hot-headed reaction to Trump's trade tariffs these past two days, as £2.2trn has been wiped from global stocks.  Personally, I have lost 15% in value on my investments. Should countries retaliate or not?  I argue against entering into an escalating trade war, which would only lead to recession, and instead to engage with the US administration to lower free trade restrictions.  For example, the UK could broker a better free trade deal with the US.  The EU is unlikely to - such is the nature of The Beast. It is only right, however, that something be done against the Chinese manufacturing powerhouse if the US (and EU and UK) want to safeguard their industrial base, not least for strategic reasons.  For too long, trade with China has been skewed in China's favour over the West.   China will no doubt react by seeking out new markets for its goods.  However, time will prove that China is not the enemy, and here, too, a more equitable trad...

I have just figured out a way to keep my subscription to The New York Times when it comes up for renewal on 15 May.  I will have to make some sacrifices to do so, namely keeping out of the local pub, The Welly, for a while.  In the Last Days, we are encouraged to be sober in any case. In the meantime, support Students NOT NASA! 

 2 April was dubbed Liberation Day in the US (or Recession Day by opponents) by President Trump and his allies, as sweeping tariffs were introduced against every country in the world (a baseline of 10% was introduced, which applies, for example, to the UK). This will help bring manufacturing back to the US, although that may take time.  The fear is that, in the meantime, costs will rise, especially if other countries retaliate by increasing tariffs themselves.  This happened in 1930 and led to The Great Depression hot on the heels of the Stock Market Crash of 1929.  Let's see how markets respond tomorrow and how others react. Having said all that, I can understand Trump's position well.  For too long, the US's manufacturing base has been eroded due to unfair trading practices.   With US debt now at an all-time high, it is time for bold action to stem the decline.  Why should the US sit idly by and watch while the rest of the world takes advantage?

I won't be going to Scarborough for The Feast this autumn. For the third year in a row, I'll be spending it at home.