A few days ago in the Southern California high desert, we tied the record low for that day of 13 degrees set in, if I remember correctly, 1978. No precipitation for us (sigh), just cold and some wind. I did learn that my chickens will go into their pen voluntarily at night when it’s cold and the wind is blowing!

A quick and very temporary solution for walking on ice is to spray hair spray on the soles of your shoes. Will work on tires too but will only last seconds which is often enough to get you moving. This is NOT an alternative for chains or good winter tires but will get you off that slippery spot.

Does anyone have any recommendations for an indoor propane heater?

Great show Jack. I too took a little fall yesterday on a parking lot. So, no, we’re not getting old, it’s just getting colder.

I have a greenhouse for the first time this year. It’s a lean-on, 4’ by 8’ on the south side of the house. It is not air tight, but nothing, including two lemon trees, got frost damage during this ice storm. I even had some garden greens and Swiss chard for dinner a couple of nights ago. I also covered the raised beds with old curtains. The ice formed a dome over the covered plants. I think the plants survived, but I won’t know until the cloth cover softens. It’s still frozen stiff 6 days later.

Well Jack,

In this show you were just over the top good on preparedness for unexpected weather, because of your immediate thinking and life experience in different climates. Bravo!

In this show you were just over the top destructive as a climate scientist, which you and I aren’t, and what you or I believe is irrelevant. Yet, you feel it is your privilege to use your influence on your primarily right wing audience to add to the blather of anti-scientific denialist, who’s only interest is maintaining a profitable status quo, however unsustainable that status quo is. Yes, what come out of your tailpipe is insignificant, but what comes out of 2 billion tailpipes into our open sewer atmosphere is not, and it can be measured with great scientific accuracy. The human race has raised the global warming gas CO2 in the atmosphere from 290 parts/billion to over 400 parts/billion, most in the last half century, but we can ignore that even though the Eaarth hasn’t seen that level for nearly 500,000 years. Absolutely no rational argument can be made that this isn’t us. But let’s not listen to expert scientists, let’s listen to what Jack “believes,” because it might be comforting and let us continue on as before when life was better.

Jack, you are very careful with your disclaimers, but you can see the effect of your influence on your audience with one cackle after another about the global cooling scare in the late 50’s and 60’s. It was real and based on the best scientific evidence at the time. People were understandably freaked out because one of the discoveries of early 50’s from geological evidence was that a climate tipping point can happen with unbelievable geological speed. One of the ice ages that have been happening every 100,000 years like a clockwork cycle for nearly a million years went from interstitial (between the ice) to ice age in a human lifetime or less. Many at that time thought that we could be seeing the beginning of that.

If you want an interesting story, look up “John Hammaker” on Wikapedia, maybe even read his book. It would be particularly interesting to you because John was a farmer, inventor, and environmental activist who jousted with Al Gore and the entire congress during the Clinton Presidency. John was a top, perhaps the top activist, for the power of rock dust to remineralize depleted soils. His influence spread world wide into the organic farming movement, and even got rock dust used as a filler in commercial bagged chemical fertilizer. He wanted to use rock dust to stave off the eminent ice age by bombing forests and fields from the air. It’s possible that he was just a few decades or a century early.

Science didn’t stop in the 60’s, and scientific knowledge and data has grown geometrically since then, hence the current climate change warnings, which you dismiss as piddling alarmist. I don’t think that there is any doubt that of the 97 or 98% of world wide climate scientist who agree, and who research and teach current global warming, that well over 90% are following the climate science crowd. That’s common in any profession. But we simply can’t ignore the top researchers’ findings. They are following the data, modeling it in detail taking into account all other possible causes that the deniers trumpet, and finding climate change happening even quicker than they had thought it might a decade or two ago. Yes, they are alarmed for all species and ecologies.

And yes, there is a climate science conspiracy, a conspiracy of omission. We’ve all heard about climate tipping points that could create all sorts of doomer or not so doomer things. The scientist want us to listen to them and we should because if anyone has some handle on climate, it should be them. But the best will admit that they just don’t know just where a significant tipping point might lie and what could happen after the tip. It could be a burn out of Eaarth or the next ice age and something in between. The science just isn’t enough, but we can pretty safely say that we won’t like it. We are now 12,000 years into an interstitial that historically hasn’t been more than about 15,000 years during the 8 ice ages. I’d like to see us enjoy another two or three millennium of a reasonably pleasant Eaarth. We’d better listen to those who might know best to have a shot at that, if it’s not already too late. That’s just prudent!

Hi Jack, excellent show, as usual! What is the best way to heat a rental house with no access to a flue or any other way to vent out the carbon monoxide?

I’ve been using the two terra cotta pot thing you mentioned for about a month now. I had to fiddle with it to get the right two sized pots, but it works! It’s radiant heat. You need to be fairly close to it to benefit.

The pots hold the heat otherwise all of the heat goes directly up to the ceiling and you never feel it. The first pot retains the heat, the air gap heats up and then it’s transferred to the outer pot and it being clay it acts as a thermal mass.

The first few days I kept an infrared thermometer next to me on the sofa and I would measure the heat every few minutes. Mine gets up to around 160 with 3 candles, it takes it about 15 minutes to get up to temp. My floor is tile so I’m not concerned with it, but I doubt I would use it if it were carpeted there. It’s not pretty but it definitely works. When the candles go out you noticed it pretty quickly. The two pots I am using are a 6″ and 8″ roughly. There’s a bolt between the two with a nut to keep them separated/air gap. I put the candles in one of those things you put under flower pots to catch the water. The pots are sitting on two bricks to elevate them enough for the candles to be underneath.

Some great cold weather gear can be had from military surplus stores.

Old Grouch:
http://store.oldgrouch.biz/cowege.html
Keep Shooting:
http://www.keepshooting.com/clothing/cold-weather?p=1

I have found some really great deals at both of those sites. Stay warm.
In the time that I didn’t read Ron Shook’s wall of text, I was able to plant a tree.

I hope Max gets better. Stay warm!

-50 F forecast in Iowa/Missouri the night of December 21st by the GEMS model. Not likely to be that cold but likely to be cold!

https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/410850884419977217/photo/1/large

From a local forecaster, he posted this morning this statement: “One of of the huge weather stories of the winter could be the unbelievable cold that is poised to crash upon the United State during the Christmas week. This degree of cold will shock the senses with temperatures possible being the coldest it’s been in 25 to 30 years over the lower 48. While not likely ?? models have shown that temperatures in the northern plains and Midwest possibly dropping to 40 to 50 degrees below zero !!, again that’s probably over done but anything close will cause a lot of problems.”…….. “

I’ve also tried the clay pot and tea lights. I places the lights in a clear pyrex pan (because candles are pretty) and the two pots over the top. 6″ and 8″ did seem to work the best. I plugged the hole on the inner with tin foil and left the outer one open. The convection? current from the air being drawn in and over the warmer inner pot then pours out of the top hole on the outer pot. I haven’t tried it blocking the whole on the outer pot yet. The radiant heat feels quite nice and 4 tea lights last about 4 hours. This really only works in smaller rooms though and you will need to be next to it, just like with any radiant heat source, to really feel it. It seems to work wonderfully in our 8’x12′ small room with average height ceilings. This would Not replace a wood stove but for taking the chill off the air for pennies (go go Ikea tea lights) it does work.

A number of runners I know use Yaktrax on their shoes in the winter. I haven’t tried them myself, though.

It makes sense, just bad choice of words on my part. I lived in the Killeen/Ft Hood area for about 8 years, again, your breakdown is right on.

We have had record highs this year in central florida so far. We had no freezes last year either.