Category: climate change

The Great Climate Global Coup d’état

March 22, 2023 · 1 Comment ·

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is flat-earth.png

I would like to get one thing straight from the outset. Until the emergence of the Covid event I, like millions of other people, was convinced of the veracity of man-made climate change. But around three years ago, I began to re-evaluate my position. After having researched the subject in great detail, I am now convinced that the purpose of the climate change narrative is to fulfill a political agenda.

As is the case with the Covid event, this agenda is about divesting more and more power away from nation states and their citizens to the bloated and corrupt United Nations bureaucracy, which is essentially controlled by the rich and powerful.

The global warming/climate change idea is a project of the (very) elitist Club of Rome, whose members have included Al Gore, Ted Warner, George Soros, Bill Gates and members of the Rockefeller and Rothschild families.

The Club of Rome is the active division of a group of entities serving a globalist agenda, which have played the major part in the establishment of the United Nations, the European Union and NATO. They include the World Economic Forum, the Committee on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission.

The global warming project enables further enrichment of the already very wealthy, through the carbon trading scheme (Al Gore was projected to become the first carbon millionaire). However, United Nations publications such as Agenda 21 make it very clear that climate alarmism has another purpose: to enable and justify expansion of UN bureaucracy, the empowerment of NGOs, inevitably controlled by the globalists, and to control and contain the populace, all in the name of the Earth and the ill-defined ‘sustainability’.

Far from being a conspiracy theory, man-made climate change is actually a proveable conspiracy enacted by a criminal cabal. In the Club of Rome’s own words:

‘‘The Global Warming debate… is a concept by the New World Order to justify the dismantling the industrial society and returning the mass of humanity to obedient serfdom.”

Descent into farce

The climate change descent into farce began around four years ago when the Guardian published a letter entitled, ‘Climate change is real. We must not offer credibility to those who deny it‘, whereby a motley crew of journalists, politicians, activists and academics announced their refusal to debate anthropogenic global warming sceptics:

”If ‘balance’ means giving voice to those who deny the reality of human-triggered climate change, we will not take part in the debate”, they said.

The reason for this step, we are told, is that on the one hand there is an overwhelming scientific consensus and on the other, that there is a lobby, heavily funded by vested interests, that exists simply to sow doubt to serve those interests.

Apparently, scepticism represents ‘fringe views’ which should be ignored. Giving AGW sceptics a platform is said to be akin to showcasing flatearthers. This is despite the fact that the official position of the Flat Earth Society is that it supports the climate alarmist narrative. (Of course it was sceptics who first argued that the world wasn’t flat).

The purpose of the Guardian letter was to justify the already well-established practice of refusing to engage in debate on man-made climate change, by marginalising and belittling opponents, and to deplatform them.

Because of the shortage of real scientists prepared to put their names to the letter, we had the unedifying spectacle of the likes of Clive Lewis and Peter Tatchell declaring that they are above debating atmospheric physics with scientists of the calibre of Eric Karlstrom or Nobel Laureate, Ivar Giaever.

This exercise in dishonest narcissism demeans all who have signed or lent their support to it. Academics who speak out against the globalist narrative on climate change do so at the expense of their careers.

As I will show below, counter-arguments from AGW sceptics such as Tim Ball and Mark Steyn, have never been discredited. Of the 15 or so professors who signed the Guardian letter, the majority work in unrelated fields such as economics, law or psychotherapy.

The same applies to others with impressive sounding qualifications – Dr Teresa Belton, for example, wrote her thesis on the effects of television and video on children. In the case of 90% of the signees – academics, journalist, politicians, activists – the very idea that they could sensibly debate with serious climate scientists is ludicrous.

The letter in question comes out of the University of East Anglia and was drafted by Dr Rupert Read, Green Party politician and Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. A large number of signees have connections to the University.

The UEA is notorious as the centre of the Climategate scandal, whereby emails between scientists at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) and their colleagues around the world revealed a consistent, deliberate effort to skew, hide or destroy data.

James Taylor wrote:

”Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: Prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions. These scientists view global warming as a political ’cause’ rather than a balanced scientific inquiry; and many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.”

Dr Eric T. Karlstrom was far less circumspect, describing AGW as a scam:

”Man-made climate change (Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW) is a scam and a hoax and until the average joe and jane wakes up to the truth this nonsense will continue to corrupt the scientific community, which depends on grants from those same economic and political powers, and more importantly will corrupt politicians worldwide who too are dependent upon them for campaign contributions.”

The climate change project was officially launched in the US on June 23, 1988 when NASA’s James Hansen told a Congressional committee that global warming had begun: that the then-current heat wave in Washington was caused by the relationship between ‘the greenhouse effect and observed warming.

To get the point across, Hansen and sponsor 98ii+68/Senator Tim Wirth chose what promised to be an exceptionally hot day and then sabotaged the air conditioning in the meeting room the night before.

Man-made climate change is one of those plain sight conspiracies like the Covid ‘pandemic’, where the primary movers hardly bother to conceal the contrived nature of the project, or the vast sums of money they make from it.

The Club of Rome in 1990 put out a report called The First Global Revolution saying:

”In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…”(p. 75).

The motivation, then, was not to solve an urgent problem, but to find a threat, real or not, that would ‘unite’ people. And divert them from real issues.

The Club of Rome, founded in 1967, has been described as being at the apex of the New World Order pyramid. It drives the global climate change project as well being concerned with population control and vaccinations. Members are world leaders and captains of industry, and have included Al Gore, Tony Blair, George Soros and other people you’d buy a used car from.

Anthropogenic Climate Change: the Official Position

The International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) was founded with the task of providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change. Major points of its 2007 report are as follows:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20^th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming.

Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change.

Notable achievements of the UN and its Kyoto Protocol include the creation of an international carbon market.

Scientific rejection of the IPCC’s position

The IPCC’s findings were opposed by scientists worldwide. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, for example, slammed the IPCC report as ‘dangerous nonsense’ and produced a list of pillars of wisdom to counter the UN IPCC climate report.

Over the past few thousand years, the climate in many parts of the world has been warmer and cooler than it is now. Civilizations and cultures flourished in the warmer periods. A major driver of climate change is variability in solar effects, such as sunspot cycles, the sun’s magnetic field and solar particles. Evidence suggests warming involving increased carbon dioxide exerts only a minor influence.

Since 1998, global temperature has not increased. Projection of solar cycles suggests that cooling could set in and continue to about 2030. Most recent climate and weather events are not unusual; they occur regularly. For example, in the 1930s the Arctic experienced higher temperatures and had less ice than now. Stories of impending climate disaster are based almost entirely on global climate models. Not one of these models has shown that it can reliably predict future climate.

The Kyoto Protocol, if fully implemented, would make no measurable difference to
world temperatures. The trillions of dollars that it will cost would be far better spent on solving known problems such as the provision of clean water, reducing air pollution, and fighting malaria.

Climate is constantly changing and the future will include coolings, warmings, floods, droughts, and storms. The best policy is to make sure we have in place disaster response plans that can deal with weather extremes.

In essence, proponents of the theory of significant anthropogenic climate change need to show two things: There is significant and dangerous global warming and that said global warming is caused by human activity, ie greenhouse gas emissions, primarily co2 emissions. Whereas sceptics need only show one thing: global climate is not significantly or dangerously affected by human activity.

Like all narratives pushed by the powerful onto the masses, the global warming hoax is supported by relentless fallacious argument, so that the public are battered with endless ad hominem, cherry-picking and appeals to authority.

Much of the data is suspect, to put it mildly, and a very large part of the ‘debate’ consists of apocalyptic scenarios, with threats of doom unless the public pours more money into the coffers of those profiting from the carbon hoax.

The Data

[Source of image]

The IPCC’s position is still that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years, increasing at an exponential rate as we pump more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. Many scientists disagree, pointing to higher temperatures in the 30s, and a cooling since 1998. 150 graphs from 122 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals indicate modern temperatures are not unprecedented, unusual, or hockey-stick-shaped — nor do they fall outside the range of natural variability.

Data to promote the idea of runaway global warming has been questioned, for example the graphs used by NOAA ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NASA have been shown to have been ‘updated’, as it were.

In 2015, German professor Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert accused NASA of ‘Massive’ Temperature Alterations’, i.e. of intentionally and systematically rigging the official government record of global temperatures: ”A comparison of the data from 2010 with the data of 2012 shows that NASA-GISS had altered its own data sets so that especially after WWII a clear warming appears – although it never existed.”

In 2008, the Telegraph reported NASA as claiming October as the hottest on record, by using September figures. The name ‘hockey stick graph’ was coined for figures showing a long-term decline followed by an abrupt rise in temperature, specifically applied to the findings of ‘a little known climate scientist named Michael Mann and two colleagues’ as described here by the Atlantic Council.

Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick obtained part of the programme that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the programme not do conventional principal component analysis but it handles data in such a way that whatever data was fed in, it produced a hockey stick.

Mann has queried their findings, but refused to provide necessary additional data (McIntyre and McKitrick’s adventures with Mann are described here). Michael Mann has been suing various critics for libel, including Mark Steyn, whose A Disgrace to the Profession is a compilation of scientific commentary on Michael Mann and his work.

Steyn has also termed Mann a Big Climate huckster), and also emeritus Professor Dr. Tim Ball, who likewise suggested Mann was guilty of data fraud. Mann has been reported as being in contempt of court in the Ball case for failing to provide essential data.

When the promised global warming failed to eventuate, the phrase ‘global warming’ gave way to ‘climate change’. So when cherry-picked claims of extreme heat are met with examples of low temperatures, they are countered with, ‘there you go, extreme climate change!’.Carbon Dioxide.

The cause of ‘runaway global warming’ is, according to alarmists, the production of CO2. Not carbon monoxide, note, the one that is poisonous (we’re not worried about that), but carbon dioxide, which is necessary for plant life, and which greenhouse owners often add to improve the growth of their vegetables.

Scientists have pointed out in vain that the level of carbon dioxide has been far higher in the past, during the Cambrian period about 18 times higher. Moreover, during the glaciation of the late Ordocivian period, CO2 concentrations were nearly 12 times higher than today, according to one report. This study has similar results.

Winter is Coming

From the early 14th to the mid nineteenth century, Europe and other parts of the world experienced what is called the Little IceAge. It led to much misery, with cold and hunger from the failure of crops, political upheaval, and the decolonisation of Greenland.

In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII recognized the existence of witches and echoed popular sentiment by blaming them for the cold temperatures and resulting misfortunes plaguing Europe. (N.b. Greenland still has not recovered from the Little Iceage). For some years, scientists have been predicting the coming of a new mini-iceage.

In 2009 Professor Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Technical University of Denmark, advised that ‘global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning – enjoy global warming while it lasts‘.

The response of British institutions like the Met Office and University of East Anglia has been interesting. In 2012 they released data that showed that the warming trend ended in 1948, but insisted that cooling from natural sources will be offset by carbon emissions.

Climate Alarmism

Evidence of the Earth cooling has not given any pause to alarmist claims of dramatic warming, which have been present from the outset. In 1989 Nasa’s James Hansen was predicting that global temperatures would rise up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050.

In his film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore warned that increasing carbon dioxide emissions would spur catastrophic global warming that would cause more extreme weather, wipe out cities and cause ecological collapse. (The claims and predictions of An Inconvenient Truth were scrutinised 10 years on by Michael Bastasch in An Inconvenient Review).

In his review of the book that accompanied Gore’s film, Hansen claimed:

”As explained above, we have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions”.

To give a sense of urgency, the global warming threat has been described in the most extravagant terms. Hansen warned of a ‘global warming time bomb’ when he spoke to the Club of Rome in 2009. The concept of a ‘tipping point’ came into vogue, the peak of climate alarmism.

Marc Morano prepared a full list of apocalyptic declarations, exclaiming ‘Hours, days, months, years, millennium – the Earth is serially doomed’. Here are some examples:

‘HOURS: Flashback March 2009: ‘We have hours’ to prevent climate disaster — Declares Elizabeth May of Canadian Green Party
‘Days: Flashback Oct. 2009: UK’s Gordon Brown warns of global warming ‘catastrophe’; Only ’50 days to save world’
‘Months: Prince Charles claimed a 96-month tipping point in July 2009
‘Years: 2009: NASA’s James Hansen Declared Obama Only First Term to Save The Planet! — ‘On Jan. 17, 2009 Hansen declared Obama only ‘has four years to save Earth’ or Flashback Oct .2009: WWF: ‘Five years to save world’
‘Decades: 1982: UN official Mostafa Tolba, executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), warned on May 11, 1982, the ‘world faces an ecological disaster as final as nuclear war within a couple of decades unless governments act now.’
‘Millennium: Flashback June 2010: 1000 years delay: Green Guru James Lovelock: Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out’

It is suggested that the only authentic climate ‘tipping point’ is the one proposed by New Zealand’s Augie Auer, who predicted in 2007 that it was all going to be a joke in five years time. (Auer reckoned without the powerful forces behind the climate hoax.)

The Melting of the Polar Icecaps

[Source of image: Climate Science In A Death Spiral For At Least 10 Years]

Melting of the icecaps would be a truly dramatic event, a serious indication of warming. Accordingly, climate alarmists have seized on this ‘danger’, in defiance of all the evidence. In 2007 — during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech — Al Gore mooted that the northern icecap could be gone by 2014.

One study estimated that [the North polar ice cap] could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. In 2015 NASA data indicated that the polar icecaps were not receding, but in fact growing.

This did not deter Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University from predicting in 2016 that the icecap at the North Pole would be completely melted in the next year or two, ie by the end of summer 2018 at the latest. Nearly five years on, the Polar caps are still here.

Others are sure that the icecaps will be gone by at least 2050. This view is expounded in an article by Gilbert Mercier, who is sure that by 2100, the countryside will be parched earth and major cities like London and New York will be under water.

Another catastrophist who has repeatedly been proven wrong is Dr. Guy McPherson, Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. McPherson is described in his biography as an ”award-winning scientist and the world’s leading authority on abrupt climate change.”

Recently, McPherson claimed in a podcast that ‘abrupt climate change’ will result in the extinction of humans by 2026. Six years ago, McPherson wrote an article where he made a similar dramatic catastrophic prediction. The article included a timeline for virtual human extinction within 9-33 months from the date the article in question was published.

Conveniently, McPherson deleted the article. However, in a 2018 [Video] McPherson predicted that humans would be extinct by 2028 and that the arctic would be ice-free by 2019.

Disappearing snowfalls

On March 20, 2000, the Independent reported that snowfalls were a thing of the past. ‘Global warming is simply making the UK too warm for heavy snowfalls. ”Children just aren’t going to know what snow is”, they claimed.

The source of these claims was Dr. David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, of Climategate fame. The Independent article appears to be gone from the Web, melted away as it were, but was well reported, and certainly criticised.

Similar false claims were made by arguably the world’s leading climate doomsayer, Al Gore who has reportedly made $330m as a result of advocating on behalf of the alarmist cause. Gore made his fortune when he set up a green investment firm that’s now said to be worth $36bn, paying him $2m a month.

In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore claimed that Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak, would be snow free within a decade. In a recent speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Gore’s hyperbole was off the scale. In the speech, he warned about ”rain bombs” and ”boiling oceans.”

Gore’s psuedo-scientific hyperbole and the appeals to moral authority championed by his acolytes, have rarely been critiqued by journalists. Meanwhile, catastrophic warnings about the alleged impacts of ‘runaway climate change’ and the moral imperative to act against it, have become normalized across much of the panoply of social media.

Cherry-picking

Apocalyptic predictions are supported by a relentless reporting of supposedly extraordinary events proving a trend towards global warming. The cherry-picking in many cases is both obvious and ludicrous, and often the actual facts open to question.

A few years ago, for example, it was proclaimed that Nawabshah, Pakistan, had provided the hottest shaded temperature ever recorded for a reliable weather station in April, anywhere on Earth. ”It’s only May, and this year is setting new standards in terrifying extreme temperatures”. Coincidentally, it was also recorded that 2018 had the coldest April in the US for 30 years.

At the same time New Zealand and Australia (the Daily Mail always nice pictures, if nothing else) were predicting the coldest winter on record.

Needless to say, these predictions failed to come to pass. It is probable that one could find (or contrive) an extreme temperature somewhere on the globe at any time in history.

The 97% Consensus

The claim of ‘overwhelming scientific consensus’ is long debunked. The much vaunted 97% of the world’s scientists support the AGW thesis seems to be based on a figure of 76 people. In any case, given the huge numbers of scientists who have declared climate alarmism to be a hoax (see, for example, the American petition signed by 31,000 scientists, or this list of 1000 scientists), it is hard to see where this 97% could come from.

Nonetheless, the consensus claim is a mantra repeated over and over again in the face of unwelcome factual evidence.

One might well ask, who cares?

The argument is an appeal to authority, a red herring fallacy, and the beliefs of a claimed 97% of ‘scientists’ don’t actually change the scientific facts. As often happens with the use of fallacious argument, the premise is completely false as well. It is clear that there has been concerted and substantial opposition from scientists to the AGW narrative and the carbon fraud. Essentially the 97% claim is a bare-faced lie, designed to make sceptics look like loonies.

Over 31,000 American scientists signed a petition in response to the 1997 Kyoto Accord: There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Attached to the petition is a summary of peer-reviewed research with 132 references. Marc Morano has given a breakdown of more than 1000 international scientists who dissented over man-made global warming claims from 2008 to 2010. Morano refers to, for example:

U. S. Senate Minority Report:More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims: Scientists Continue to Debunk ‘Consensus’ in 2008 & 2009.
712 Prominent scientists from 40 countries signed the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, sponsored by the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). The 2008 declaration states in part, ‘Global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life’.
In 2009, more than 100 international scientists rebuked President Obama’s view of man-made global warming. The scientists wrote: ‘Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.’
December 8 2009, an Open Letter to the UN Secretary-General from 166+ scientists declared ‘the science is NOT settled’.
2010, 130 German Scientists called climate fears ‘pseudo religion’ and urged the Chancellor to ‘reconsider’ her views.
In 2010, more than 260 scientists who are members of the American Physical
Society (APS) endorsed the efforts of skeptical Princeton University Physicist Dr.
Will Happer to substantially amend the APS alarmist statement on man-made
global warming.
A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 showed 90 per cent of
the participants do not believe the IPCC report.

The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008. It prominently featured the voices of scientists sceptical of man-made global warming fears.

This report from the conference, by someone, who does not himself appear to question the AGW narrative declares that ‘skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ (full reports here & here ].

Professor Larry Bell of Houston University has also debunked the 97% claim, reporting.

A 2010 survey of media broadcast meteorologists conducted by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 63% of 571 who responded believe global warming is mostly caused by natural, not human, causes. Those polled included members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association.
A more recent 2012 survey published by the AMS found that only one in four respondents agreed with UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent warming. And while 89% believe that global warming is occurring, only 30% said they were very worried.
A March 2008 canvas of 51,000 Canadian scientists with the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysics of Alberta (APEGGA) found that although 99% of 1,077 replies believe climate is changing, 68% disagreed with the statement that ‘…the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled.’ Only 26% of them attributed global warming to ‘human activity like burning fossil fuels.’ Regarding these results, APEGGA’s executive director, Neil Windsor, commented, ‘We’re not surprised at all. There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of.’

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, and supervisor to James Hansen, Dr. John S. Theon has called Hansen an embarrassment, and added himself to the list of NASA scientists who dissent from man-made climate fears. Others include:

Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA,
Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA,
Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut,
Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt,
Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7,
Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor,
Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center,
Climatologist Dr. John Christy,
Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer,
Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility].

Rather than there being a consensus of 97% of scientists who believe in climate alarmism, the opposite is more likely to be true: that 97% of scientists of integrity and without a financial interest believe that AGW alarmism is fraudulent.

The World Climate Declaration

The alarmist narrative took a huge hit in August last year when over 1,100 scientists and professionals put their names to the ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD). The authors, drawn from across the world, led by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever, reject the claim that there is a ‘climate emergency’.

The WCD posit that the ‘scientific consensus’ on man-made climate change is part of a politically-driven media agenda and that grant-dependent academics have degenerated the discipline into a discussion based on beliefs, rather than sound self-critical science.

In particular, the WCD are critical of climate models, noting that they ”are not remotely plausible as global policy tools.” The WCD contend that these models exaggerate the negative effects of carbon dioxide. They instead emphasize that the gas is beneficial for nature and agriculture; that it increases global crop yields, promotes growth in plant biomass and is essential to all life on Earth.

It is also the contention of the WCD that historic climate models have overstated the projected negative impacts of climate change compared to real world events and note that insufficient emphasis is placed on the empirical scientific method. In addition, the WCD declare that there is no statistical evidence that climate change is intensifying hurricanes, floods and droughts, or making them more frequent.

Intimate ties

Investigative journalist and researcher, Whitney Webb, argues that the prevailing AGW consensus is intimately tied to corporate interests embodied in the UN’s annual ‘COP’ gatherings.

Commenting on the recent COP26 event in Glasgow, Webb said:

”COP is about setting up the financial infrastructure for a completely new economic system based on CBDCs and the financialization of ‘natural capital’ and ‘human capital’ into new asset classes. It’s about complete economic domination of the planet, not about ‘saving’ it.”

What Webb evokes is the endless corporate drive to privatise the planet , the tendency for capitalists to seek control of ecosystems as ‘financial assets’, and deny the rights of people around the world to benefit from nature.

Webb highlights how legitimate ecological and environmental concerns are being usurped by a nefarious decades-long Malthusian climate change agenda in the pursuit of profits and population control.

This agenda, identified in the Club of Rome’s The First Global Revolution report, draws parallels with the way in which the Covid event, as Dr Mike Yeadon recently pointed out, has been politically weaponized to engineer societal instability and economic crisis.

Dr Yeadon’s credentials are impeccable. He has a degree in biochemistry and toxicology and a research-based PhD in respiratory pharmacology. He has spent over 30 years leading new medicines research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, leaving Pfizer in 2011 as Vice President & Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory, the most senior research position in this field in Pfizer.

Dr Yeadon argues the main reason for the lies about the novel virus is a desire for total predictability and control, with the clearly articulated intention of transforming society.

Yeadon says the intention is to:

”dismantle the financial system through lockdowns and furlough, while the immediate practical goal of lockdown was to provide the causus belli for injecting as many people as possible with materials designed not to induce immunity, but to demand repeat inoculation, to cause injury and death, and to control freedom of movement.”

Yeadon added:

”It’s a huge crime, extensively planned…. I believe that the perpetrators (who could be all or any of Gates, Fauci, Farrar, Vallance, CEPI, EcoHealth Alliance, DARPA and numerous others) planted the controversy about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 .”

Both the climate change and Covid hoaxes are best understood as joint coordinated criminal conspiracies enacted by governments’ who have imposed the policy agenda’s of their private-public policy-making partners. Their purpose is to engender a global coup d’état.

Thanks to Dr Barbara McKenzie at https://barbaramckenzie.wordpress.com/ for her wisdom and courage.

Is Something Fishy Going On With Greta?

March 17, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

For a very long time, I have strongIy suspected that something wasn’t quite right with the media’s Greta Thunberg narrative. Then on March, 16 I was very much taken by the recent comment on twitter by Dr Simon Goddek – @goddeketal.

Dr Goddek wrote the following:

The more I dug into @GretaThunberg's story, the more I realized that something stinks here. It's no COINCIDENCE that her first appearance was on August 20, 2018, with a sit-in protest in front of the Swedish Parliament, followed COINCIDENTALLY four days later by the release of a… https://t.co/z26lkdFi80 pic.twitter.com/va0V1PdP0n
— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) March 16, 2023

Could the narrative constructed around Greta finally be crumbling?

Here’s the full text:

”The more I dug into @GretaThunberg‘s story, the more I realized that something stinks here. It’s no COINCIDENCE that her first appearance was on August 20, 2018, with a sit-in protest in front of the Swedish Parliament, followed COINCIDENTALLY four days later by the release of a book she co-authored with her mother.

But that’s not all – the PR machine for her was already in full swing on August 20, thanks to a man named Ingmar Rentzhog, who financed and drove the campaign through his company, @WeDontHaveTime.

And guess what? Rentzhog is also COINCIDENTALLY the chairman of the think tank “Global Challenge” (@ChallengesFnd), which is now COINCIDENTALLY fully financed by a billionaire named Kristine Person, a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers’ Party and former minister in the government under Stefan Löfven.

And if that’s not enough, Rentzhog purely COINCIDENTALLY happened to walk by the Swedish Parliament on August 20 and encounter Greta during her sit-in protest, taking a photograph of her.

But wait, there’s more – Rentzhog and Greta’s mother had already met before at a climate conference on May 4, 2018, which is COINCIDENTALLY the exact date when Rentzhog became CEO of the aforementioned think tank.

And here’s something interesting – both Kristine Person and Stefan Löfven happen to be members of Klaus Schwab’s @WEF.

It’s amazing how all these connections seem to come full circle, isn’t it?

It’s clear to me that something fishy is going on behind the scenes here. These people are manipulating the public and abusing their power for their own political gain. We need to be aware of their tactics and warn everybody we know about the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Very well said, Dr Goddek.

Talking of coincidences:

Greta’s function is to warn of impending doom for the planet if we do not do something about CO2, is COINCIDENTALLY the same message pumped out by the WEF that’s intended to further empower the United Nations and helps pave the way for global government.

Greta’s social media accounts are completely focused on the task in hand – creating ‘climate panic’ in defiance of the facts. Her Facebook account is series of self-promotional posts with no interraction with comments. The list of people that Greta follows on twitter are world leaders and major political figures, climate and environment accounts like Soros-funded Greenpeace, the WEF and celebrities.

Over the past five years, the political and media establishment have helped galvanise the world’s youth in her support. ‘Independent analysts’, Media Lens, who falsely portray themselves an an alternative to the corporate media, heavily promote Greta’s climate catastrophism, as does the Guardian’s, George Monbiot.

Greta works in tandem with Extinction Rebellion (XR), which appears to be the climate cult’s Antifa, promoting civil disobedience in order to force action on the ‘climate emergency’.

Within a few short months Greta’s stature was such that she was invited to address the UN’s Climate Change Conference at Katowice, making her plea for ‘climate justice’.

Greta was motivated, it seems, by a heatwave in Sweden, due of course to “climate change” -never mind the fact that Swedish high temperature records go back many decades::

Sweden June July August high temperature records

Greta’s very first tweet back in June 2018 – which has since been deleted – was to post an article (in English of course) which warned that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.

This is what Greta said in her tweet, dated June 21, 2018:

“A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.”https://t.co/AOr2DDZORc— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg).

For the first time in 33 million years, it seems, we are almost at a point where there is no ice at either pole:

”The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero,[…] with 75 to 80 percent of permanent ice having melted already in the last 35 years’‘.

How did that turn out, Greta?

Greta’s obvious claptrap underscores the fact that the Arctic was never anywhere melting away. The earth has not returned to the temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period when Greenland was colonised – how can we be approaching temperatures not seen in 33 million years?

The spectacle of the legacy media using a young girl in order to panic the world into giving more power to the WEF is, to say the least, bizarre. Thousands of the world’s scientists (see here and here) have called climate alarmism a hoax.

However ludicrous as it may seem, we are expected to ignore the facts about geological history, Co2 and global climate, and to follow the lead of a young woman who, since the age of 15, has parroted arrant nonsense embedded in unending cliché, on the say-so of the likes of George Monbiot and Media Lens.

This same media not only continue to parrot Thunberg’s nonsense, but seemingly have absolutely no qualms about having callously exploitated and manipulated a child in order to further the goal of world government.

Investigative journalist and researcher, Whitney Webb summed-up what is behind the prevailing climate change orthodoxy and the media’s fetishization of Greta.

Webb highlighted the fact that the twin phenomena are intimately tied to corporate interests embodied in the UN’s climate change agenda:

“COP26 is about setting up the financial infrastructure for a completely new economic system based on CBDCs and the financialization of ‘natural capital’ and ‘human capital’ into new asset classes. It’s about complete economic domination of the planet, not about ‘saving’ it.”

Webb revealed the nefarious Malthusian underpinnings that drive the UNs climate change agenda and that legitimate environmental concerns have been usurped in pursuit of this agenda.

That the UNs position on climate change is motivated by political and ideological factors is outlined in The Club of Rome’s 1992 book, The First Global Revolution which says:

”In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”

The Great Climate Global Coup d’état.

February 25, 2023March 22, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

I want to get one thing straight from the outset. Until the emergence of the Covid event I, like millions of other people, was convinced of the veracity of man-made climate change. But around three years ago, I began to re-evaluate my position. After having researched the subject in great detail, I am now convinced that the purpose of the climate change narrative is to fulfill a political agenda.

Far from being a conspiracy theory, man-made climate change is actually a proveable conspiracy enacted by a criminal cabal. In the Club of Rome’s own words:

‘‘The Global Warming debate… is a concept by the New World Order to justify the dismantling the industrial society and returning the mass of humanity to obedient serfdom.”

Descent into farce

”If ‘balance’ means giving voice to those who deny the reality of human-triggered climate change, we will not take part in the debate”, they said.

James Taylor wrote:

Dr Eric T. Karlstrom was far less circumspect, describing AGW as a scam:

To get the point across, Hansen and sponsor 98ii+68/Senator Tim Wirth chose what promised to be an exceptionally hot day and then sabotaged the air conditioning in the meeting room the night before.

The Club of Rome in 1990 put out a report called The First Global Revolution saying:

The motivation, then, was not to solve an urgent problem, but to find a threat, real or not, that would ‘unite’ people. And divert them from real issues.

Anthropogenic Climate Change: the Official Position

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20^th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming.

Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change.

Notable achievements of the UN and its Kyoto Protocol include the creation of an international carbon market.

Scientific rejection of the IPCC’s position

The Data

[Source of image]

Winter is Coming

Climate Alarmism

In his review of the book that accompanied Gore’s film, Hansen claimed:

”As explained above, we have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions”.

Marc Morano prepared a full list of apocalyptic declarations, exclaiming ‘Hours, days, months, years, millennium – the Earth is serially doomed’. Here are some examples:

‘HOURS: Flashback March 2009: ‘We have hours’ to prevent climate disaster — Declares Elizabeth May of Canadian Green Party
‘Days: Flashback Oct. 2009: UK’s Gordon Brown warns of global warming ‘catastrophe’; Only ’50 days to save world’
‘Months: Prince Charles claimed a 96-month tipping point in July 2009
‘Years: 2009: NASA’s James Hansen Declared Obama Only First Term to Save The Planet! — ‘On Jan. 17, 2009 Hansen declared Obama only ‘has four years to save Earth’ or Flashback Oct .2009: WWF: ‘Five years to save world’
‘Decades: 1982: UN official Mostafa Tolba, executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), warned on May 11, 1982, the ‘world faces an ecological disaster as final as nuclear war within a couple of decades unless governments act now.’
‘Millennium: Flashback June 2010: 1000 years delay: Green Guru James Lovelock: Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out’

The Melting of the Polar Icecaps

[Source of image: Climate Science In A Death Spiral For At Least 10 Years]

Conveniently, McPherson deleted the article. However, in a 2018 [Video] McPherson predicted that humans would be extinct by 2028 and that the arctic would be ice-free by 2019.

Disappearing snowfalls

Cherry-picking

At the same time New Zealand and Australia (the Daily Mail always nice pictures, if nothing else) were predicting the coldest winter on record.

Needless to say, these predictions failed to come to pass. It is probable that one could find (or contrive) an extreme temperature somewhere on the globe at any time in history.

The 97% Consensus

Nonetheless, the consensus claim is a mantra repeated over and over again in the face of unwelcome factual evidence.

One might well ask, who cares?

U. S. Senate Minority Report:More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims: Scientists Continue to Debunk ‘Consensus’ in 2008 & 2009.
712 Prominent scientists from 40 countries signed the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, sponsored by the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). The 2008 declaration states in part, ‘Global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life’.
In 2009, more than 100 international scientists rebuked President Obama’s view of man-made global warming. The scientists wrote: ‘Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.’
December 8 2009, an Open Letter to the UN Secretary-General from 166+ scientists declared ‘the science is NOT settled’.
2010, 130 German Scientists called climate fears ‘pseudo religion’ and urged the Chancellor to ‘reconsider’ her views.
In 2010, more than 260 scientists who are members of the American Physical
Society (APS) endorsed the efforts of skeptical Princeton University Physicist Dr.
Will Happer to substantially amend the APS alarmist statement on man-made
global warming.
A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 showed 90 per cent of
the participants do not believe the IPCC report.

Professor Larry Bell of Houston University has also debunked the 97% claim, reporting.

A 2010 survey of media broadcast meteorologists conducted by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 63% of 571 who responded believe global warming is mostly caused by natural, not human, causes. Those polled included members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association.
A more recent 2012 survey published by the AMS found that only one in four respondents agreed with UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent warming. And while 89% believe that global warming is occurring, only 30% said they were very worried.
A March 2008 canvas of 51,000 Canadian scientists with the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysics of Alberta (APEGGA) found that although 99% of 1,077 replies believe climate is changing, 68% disagreed with the statement that ‘…the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled.’ Only 26% of them attributed global warming to ‘human activity like burning fossil fuels.’ Regarding these results, APEGGA’s executive director, Neil Windsor, commented, ‘We’re not surprised at all. There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of.’

Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA,
Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA,
Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut,
Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt,
Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7,
Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor,
Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center,
Climatologist Dr. John Christy,
Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer,
Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility].

The World Climate Declaration

Intimate ties

Investigative journalist and researcher, Whitney Webb, argues that the prevailing AGW consensus is intimately tied to corporate interests embodied in the UN’s annual ‘COP’ gatherings.

Commenting on the recent COP26 event in Glasgow, Webb said:

Webb highlights how legitimate ecological and environmental concerns are being usurped by a nefarious decades-long Malthusian climate change agenda in the pursuit of profits and population control.

Dr Yeadon argues the main reason for the lies about the novel virus is a desire for total predictability and control, with the clearly articulated intention of transforming society.

Yeadon says the intention is to:

Yeadon added:

Thanks to Dr Barbara McKenzie at https://barbaramckenzie.wordpress.com/ for her wisdom and courage.

Green washing & the psychology of denial

July 30, 2017August 4, 2017 · 5 Comments ·

By Daniel Margrain

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In 1978, the Australian social scientist, Alex Carey, pointed out that the twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: “the growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”

In order to defend their interests against the forces of democracy, the giant polluting corporations that dominate much of the domestic and global economies recognize the need to manipulate the public through media propaganda by manufacturing their consent. This is largely achieved through coordinated mass campaigns that combine sophisticated public relations techniques which ensure business interests take precedence over environmental and social justice issues.

Following on from my previous article, in which I alluded that to deny the science linking carbon emissions to global warming is akin to denying the links between smoking and lung cancer and HIV and Aids, I want in this piece to focus on some of the techniques multinational corporations use that manage to convince some of us that these kinds of links are bogus.

The 97 per cent consensus among climate scientists that warming is real and man-made, is one of the most effective tools for persuading the public about the need to take action to prevent it. This is why, from the denier industry perspective, the corresponding need to counter it with false propaganda is imperative. As I explained, one of the denier strategies is to cynically exploit the space that exists between public perception and scientific fact, sometimes referred to as the “consensus gap.”

Fomenting uncertainty & cherry-picking

One of the ways in which corporate deniers set out to achieve this, is to deceive the public through media campaigns and lobbying strategies. The standard line organisations take is to foment uncertainty in relation to the science. This involves the claim that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics and that if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason.

The website Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company’s official documents, lists 124 organisations who have taken this approach. They have either taken money from Exxon or have worked closely with those that have.

Some of the other tactics deniers adopt is the cherry-picking of evidence, their citing of fake experts, the misrepresentation of the findings of others and the deflection of arguments away from the relevant topic. The mass media also play a part in the deception by constantly amplifying the views of the tiny minority of climate scientists who argue that man-made global warming is not happening, whilst ignoring and marginalizing the vast majority of experts who say it is.

As one writer put it:

“[They] proffer what they demurely call ‘disturbing questions’, though they disdain all answers but their own. They seize on coincidences and force them into sequences they deem to be logical and significant. Like mad Inquisitors, they pounce on imagined clues in documents and photos, torturing the data - as the old joke goes about economists — till the data confess. Their treatment of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence is whimsical. Apparent anomalies that seem to nourish their theories are brandished excitedly; testimony that undermines their theories…is contemptuously brushed aside.”

Green washing

One of the more systematic approaches is the adoption by the corporations of an indoctrination technique known as green washing. The green washing of products and lifestyles is a public relations strategy used to divert public attention away from unethical environmental practices, thus seeking to legitimize decisions that would otherwise expose corporations to intense public scrutiny. Almost two decades ago, the Transnational Resource and Action Centre, for instance, highlighted how carbon polluting corporations pay lip service to eliminating fossil fuels by using renewable energy investments to give themselves a “clean and green” image.

The following insightful commentary involving an exchange between an elderly customer and a young cashier at a shop in the UK posted to the Neil Young Times by an anonymous writer, highlights with clarity the extent to which the green washing phenomena has been successful in deceiving a young generation of environmental activists and “socially and environmentally aware” individuals:

“Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own shopping bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”

The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

The old woman replied: “You’re right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.”

“We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every shop and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.”

“Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.”

“Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the county of Yorkshire . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the post, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.”

“Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.”

“We drank water from a fountain or a tap when we were thirsty instead of demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn’t expect that to be bucked by flying it thousands of air miles around the world. We actually cooked food that didn’t come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash our own vegetables and chop our own salad. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.”

“Back then, people took the tram or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.”

“But isn’t it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?”

The fact that human actions have resulted in a planet that is warmer than it has ever been in the last 100 years and that the public appear to be indifferent to the likely catastrophic consequences, would seem to suggest, that the displacement strategies of the corporations described above are succeeding.

David Bellamy

They have been ably assisted in this endeavor over the last decade not least as a result of the publicity to the denialist cause that was generated by the world renowned ecologist, David Bellamy. In April, 2005, Bellamy claimed in a letter to New Scientist that “555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation have been growing since 1980.”

Environmentalist, George Monbiot checked Bellamy’s claim with the World Glacier Monitoring Service who responded with four words: “This is complete bullshit.” A few hours later, they sent Monbiot an email:

“Despite his scientific reputation, he [Bellamy] makes all the mistakes that are possible. He had cited data that was simply false, he had failed to provide references, he had completely misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature. The latest studies show unequivocally that most of the world’s glaciers are retreating.”

Monbiot then challenged Bellamy in a TV studio debate. During the extraordinary exchange, Monbiot revealed that Bellamy had reproduced falsified and fabricated data and accused the Botanist of committing scientific fraud.

Cognitive psychology

The kinds of corporate denialism, deception and green washing outlined raise some interesting related psychological issues. It seems highly probable that most people, if asked, would admit to being concerned about global warming and would accept that increasing the rate at which carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere changes the climate.

When, however, people are asked at elections what issues they are most concerned about, climate change barely features. So there appears to be a disconnect, on the one hand, between how people feel about climate change, and on the other, the extent to which it is at the forefront of their minds.

Environmentalist George Marshall attempts to make sense of this apparent dichotomy:

“It’s clear that we form our opinions on the basis of the science, but also that the process is more complex than that. In order to understand people’s needs in terms of the science of climate change, we also need to draw on the science of cognitive psychology, the science of sociology or social anthropology. We have to recognize that in terms of the former, there are different processes of the brain for processing information and that there are parallel processes. One deals with information and data – the rational side – and the other is what psychologists refer to as ‘affective reasoning’ which dominates our decision-making driven by cues, signals and above all, bias.”

Marshall continues:

“The process of attention and dis-attention is extremely important to how we operate. Increasingly, the research is suggesting that the process of dis-attention is more important to our functioning than attention. So it’s our ability to not pay attention to things that’s fundamental to the way we operate.”

It’s this latter process that’s particularly important in terms of how climate change is often perceived in terms of social signals. People have a tendency to conform to the views of their peer groups and it’s this kind of social pressure that can lead to confirmation bias. Also, it’s these kinds of false perceptions that lead people to accept that whilst climate change is acknowledged as a problem, it’s nevertheless perceived as a future problem rather than a problem in the present.

Thinking Fast and Slow

This is what psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, as “a perfect combination of biases.” Not only are we biased against the future because we are short-sighted but, according to Kahneman, we are also cost-averse against a backdrop in which solutions to climate change involve huge financial costs. He also says that climate change invokes uncertainty.

However, as Marshall infers, as real as the perfect combination of biases outlined by Kahneman are to people, they only reflect a perception. They are not an illustration of reality. The truth is climate change is happening in the present and was happening in the past. Moreover, as Marshall argues, the cost issue is debatable, and with every scientific institution agreeing about man-made climate change, it’s certainties are unquestionable.

What appears to emerge from Kahneman’s analysis is that attempts to tackle climate change have been deliberately set up to fail. We make excuses not to confront it because it’s perceived to be a problem that exists somewhere in the future, is open to interpretations of biases and is regarded as having a multitude of potential interpretive causes.

Ultimately, climate change won’t be tackled because we have never recognized in any serious way, the need for it to be tackled. We live in a bubble of self-delusion in which the perceived short-term imperatives of the market have been prioritized above the need for the existence of a sustainable planet to ensure our long-term future.

The penetration of the market into all our lives and forms of thinking, is indicative of a self-obsessed culture guided by narrow short-term economic interests which will almost certainly lead to catastrophic social and environmental costs.

I rely on the generosity of my readers. I don’t make any money from my work and I’m not funded. If you’ve enjoyed reading this or another posting, please consider making a donation, no matter how small. You can help continue my research and write independently..… Thanks!

Climate Change: Truth, Deception & Denial

July 24, 2017July 27, 2017 · 11 Comments ·

By Daniel Margrain

The 2015 National Security Strategy sets out the tier-one threats faced by the UK. These are international terrorism, cyber-crime and climate change. The characteristics of the latter are extreme weather patterns and rising temperatures. These are becoming more frequent and unpredictable.

Nine days before the world’s largest populated city, Shanghai, experienced its hottest day in its recorded history, the planets biggest ice berg, Larsen C, broke away from the Antarctic ice shelf. This followed the collapse of the more northerly Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002.

Climate change is likely to be contributing to the altering of wind patterns and weather throughout the world. With temperatures in the Arctic rising at twice the rate of the planet as a whole, the sea ice area is already below what would have been a yearly low in the 1980s with nearly two months still left in the melt season remaining.

The comparison highlighted in the graphic below shows the clear long-term decline of Arctic sea ice fueled by the global rise in heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The dramatic shrinkage of sea ice over the past few decades is driving major changes, from the loss of crucial Arctic habitat, to the potential influence of weather patterns around the world.

Current Arctic sea ice area compared to the averages from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Sea ice level in mid-July is already below the annual low of the 1980s.
Source: Zack Labe/JAXA

Arctic sea ice reflects incoming solar rays back to space, helping to regulate the planet’s temperature. But as human activities have released more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the ensuing warming has caused ice to melt. That melt means more of the ocean is open and absorbs solar energy, raising temperatures more and driving more melt in a vicious cycle.

The potential consequences are that at some point (possibly rapidly, on a timescale of years and decades), raised sea levels could submerge areas that are now land, wiping out whole states from Bangladesh to the Netherlands, and destroying major world cities, including New York and London.

The poor nations of the developing world are particularly vulnerable, These are places where millions live on the edge, directly impacted by climate change, dealing with the effects, from cyclones and droughts to erosion and floods. Tuvalu, near Fiji, and other island nations, for example, are concerned that rising sea levels will wipe their countries off the map.

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the most important of which is carbon dioxide, is the cause of global warming which leads to the kind of destruction outlined. The gasses act as a blanket trapping the suns heat. The main source of the extra carbon dioxide is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas in power stations and in internal combustion engines.

Deforestation, which accounts for more than 10 per cent of the global carbon dioxide emissions, also plays a role in driving climate change. Dense tropical forests are critical to keeping the climate stable because they suck up large amounts of human carbon pollution from the atmosphere, storing it in tree trunks, leaves, roots and soil.

But according to a new study, a chunk of the world’s forests the size of Mississippi was decimated in 2015 because of wildfire, logging and expanding palm oil plantations. About 49 million acres of forest disappeared worldwide in 2015, mainly in North America and the tropics, putting the year’s global deforestation level at its second-highest point since data gathering began in 2001. In all, the globe lost 47 percent more forested land in 2015 than it did 16 years ago.

Greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, have increased at an unprecedented rate as measured by air samples taken year-on-year in Hawaii over recent decades, and further back from ice core samples taken in polar regions. This growing concentration of carbon dioxide is directly correlated to the rise in global mean surface temperatures over the last century, and especially over the last few decades.

Beyond question, the general effect of heating up a system like the earth’s climate will be an increase in extreme weather events of the kind witnessed in recent months in countries like Spain, Iran and Pakistan. The consequences of global warming are already evident. The science informs us that even if all greenhouse gas emissions were halted tomorrow, global temperatures are likely to rise by another half a degree Celcius and sea levels could be two or three times as great as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has predicted by 2100. This equates to between approximately 20-30 centimetres.

As far back as 2005, leading climate scientist, Gerald Meeh, argued:

“Many people don’t realise that we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea level rise because of the greenhouse gases we have already put into the atmosphere.”

A paper from 2008 showed that “climate change is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop.”

Floods and water quality problems are likely to be amplified by climate change in most regions of the US, for example., while major incidences involving storms, heatwaves, droughts, floods and hurricanes across the planet, with all the human and social consequences that brings, will be among the major challenges facing humanity.

But far from halting all carbon dioxide emissions, the world’s major states and corporations are pumping out ever-increasing amounts with little meaningful sign that global warming will not exceed 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels — the primary goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, There is a direct correlation between industrialization (what the Western world calls development) and carbon emissions.

Seventy-five per cent of the historical carbon emissions have been produced by only 20 per cent of the world’s population. The geographical irony to this, is that the effects of climate change are felt overwhelmingly in the developing world and the parts of the world that are least responsible for creating the crisis. According to the World Bank, 75-80 per cent of the effects of climate change are being felt in the developing world. So, there is an inverse relationship between cause and effect.

Continued global warming will at some point have large-scale, relatively sudden and unpredictable impacts on global rainfall, wind and temperature and on the related ocean water and heat circulation patterns. The details of these shifts are inherently unpredictable, but that they will occur with dramatic impact on global and local climate, agriculture and much else.

Changing climate will also see shifts in the global distribution of disease-carrying insects, with potentially huge impacts on human health. The consequences of all of these effects could be catastrophic causing untold misery and immense social upheaval with the threat to the future viability of human civilization on the planet a real possibility.

The realities and potential consequences posed by runaway climate change and the science underpinning it is clear, and yet the translation of the science into affirmative action – the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 – required to combat it, is not happening.

The international framework by which countries are legally bound to cut C02 emissions is the Kyoto protocol which came into effect in February, 2005. By November 2009, 187 states had signed and ratified the protocol. Its centrepiece was the general commitment by signatories to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2 percent from their 1990 levels by 2012.

A major problem is that the state responsible for more carbon dioxide emissions than any other, the US, with a quarter of all global emissions, refused to sign the Kyoto agreement or any other international agreement on climate change.

But that is not the only thing wrong with Kyoto. All the fanfare around the deal is reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. It is utterly worthless. The cuts in carbon dioxide emissions envisaged under Kyoto have done nothing significant to halt climate change.

The European Union claims to be leading the rest of the world on the issue, yet when its governments met during the time of Kyoto’s implementation in 2005, they too refused to set any post-2012 targets for emissions cuts at all.

The catalyst for even greater failure was probably the Copenhagen conference in December, 2009. What emerged from the debacle was the realization that the global warming the rich world is largely responsible for, will continue to be disproportionately paid for by the poor nations in the global south.

The politicians failed to deliver on activists demands, which included large emissions cuts, the payment of ecological debt to climate victims, and the decommissioning of carbon markets. No binding agreement was forthcoming. In this sense, it was “business as usual”.

The fault for this can be laid fairly and squarely with the rich world who sidelined the developing world from the discussions from the beginning. Thus, the limitations of a non-transparent decision-making process which granted a disproportionate amount of leverage to the former – principally the US – was brought to bear on the conference from the outset.

As the Indian environmentalist and activist Sunita Narain put it:

“The breakdown” [in the negotiations] happened because “the United States…wants to dismantle the Kyoto Protocol. They want to dismantle the Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is based on the notion of equity…and replace it with a completely different multilateral system [designed to suit their interests].”

This much was apparent to the discerning observer. In this regard, it was clear the rich world were motivated by a very different set of negotiating conditions than the poor world – the template for the former being the implementation of a non-binding arrangement that the poor were urged to sign up to. This explains why, for example, the US was able to put on the table a very small number, three percent cut in emissions below 1990 levels, when it needed to cut 40 per cent.

The next major conference that promised much but delivered nothing, was the Paris conference 2015 (COP 21). Former Nasa scientist, James Hansen remarked that the discussions were “a…fraud… a fake,”. He added: “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises….”.

Meanwhile, the United States used the fact that it hadn’t ratified any human rights statute internationally as a poison “divide and rule” pill against the developing countries. The aim was to pick off the most vulnerable as their justification for shifting blame for the crisis on to the smaller nations.

Kenyan political ecologist, Ruth Nyambura summed up the impasse well when she said:

“We want to get out of this sinking ship, but countries like U.S. are holding the lifeboats.”

The settlement that emerged in Paris was extremely weak due largely to the negotiated consensual interplay between the most powerful players. This meant they were able to use each other to take things off the table they didn’t want. This interplay, to a great extent, was determined by the influence the oil, coal and gas companies had on proceedings as well as the banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions who fund them.

The giant corporations garner an enormous amount of power in terms of their ability to be able to influence the decision making processes of the most powerful governments’. This often takes the form of the lobbying of leading politician’s of these governments by the giant corporations. Conflict of interest issues remained a feature of Paris.

Thus, the potential for corruption was as strong as ever, aided ostensibly by credible figures who misrepresented consensus research. Those involved in the scandal included climate change professors who Greenpeace exposed as individuals who were willing to produce pro-fossil fuel industry research by concealing the source of their funding.

The rejection of legitimate climate science research also extends to corporate mainstream journalists like Christopher Booker and James Delingpole whose roles are little more than conduits for the kinds of power they are supposed to hold to account.

The leverage that climate change denying journalists, powerful corporate lobbyists, former politicians and others within the denial industry are able to exert in order to deceive and mislead the public regarding the science, can not be underestimated.

One such figure is journalist, Peter Hitchens, who ought to know better. The writer, who has many credible and sensible things to say about the conflict in Syria, apparently bases his authority to deny the reality of climate change on misleading glacier figures published online by the ‘Science and Environmental Policy Project’ (SEPP) run by a discredited environmental scientist called Dr S. Fred Singer.

The data has been reproduced by several other groups and had also found its way into The Washington Post. According to George Monbiot, the figures which were published by these groups, were subsequently used not only by Hitchens but other notable denialists like Melanie Phillips and David Bellamy to support their respective positions.

However, the groups have one thing in common: they have all been funded by Exxon. The intention is to create confusion and the impression of uncertainty within the scientific community, when in reality none exists. The science is settled. Even Exxon’s own research conducted decades ago, that was until recently covered up, confirmed the role of fossil fuel in global warming.

But this fact hasn’t initiated any retractions. On the contrary, it has resulted in the “digging in of heels” and the questioning of the consensus that underlies the science of man-made climate change. The strategy of those who deny the reality, is to cynically exploit the space that exists between public perception and scientific fact (ie the “consensus gap”).

In response to the misinformation campaign to deny the existence of the expert consensus, the authors of seven climate consensus studies — including Naomi Oreskes, Peter Doran, William Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, and John Cook — co-authored a 2016 paper that nails the attempt to disseminate fake news on the issue once and for all.

Lead author, John Cook, explains:

Despite this, the damage has arguably already been done. Governments’ can only ameliorate the worst affects of runaway climate change. It’s too late to stop it in it’s tracks. As the consequences of climate change feedback begin to take their toll, we will soon be reaching the tipping point. This will almost certainly be hastened by US president Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris accord.

If by 2030, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere remain as high as they are today, then ecosystems will begin to release carbon dioxide as opposed to absorbing it. At this point climate change will not only be out of our hands, but it will accelerate without our help. With our dependency on fossil fuels continuing to increase year-on-year, it appears that this scenario will indeed come to pass. The complicit role denialists like Hitchens and Bellamy played in it must never be forgotten.

What Kind of A Society Are We Prepared to Fight For?

March 24, 2017March 30, 2017 · 3 Comments ·

By Daniel Margrain

In my February 21, 2017 article for Scisco Media I focused on the “conscious cruelty” inflicted by recent Labour and Tory governments’ on some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society. The piece proved to have been quite popular, reflecting a widespread hatred of a largely out-of-touch political class whose underlying set of principles are not much different to those that typified the rise of Nazism during the 1930s.

I pointed out that New Labour “feminist” ideologues like Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper were complicit in ensuring that Tory attacks against the sick and disabled would be implemented. The notion that both the Tories and Right factions within the Labour party consider Britain’s “low-lying fruit” as a drain on society to be eliminated, is not as far-fetched as some might believe.

This was certainly the view of Pat Hibernian McQueenie who commented:

“Good piece, it is time for JC and JMCD to remove the linen glove and put on the Iron Fist. If these two Politicians are removed from their posts the British Working Class will cease to exist. A new Class will be born or I should say reborn The British Slave Class will be implemented by the Right Wing.

Queuing at Work Premises I would use gates but there are not that many Left anyway all you who voted for the Tory be afraid be very very afraid. Death Camps will spring up in isolated places and I think you know the rest. All of You Should Have Watched “THE NAZIS A WARNING FROM HISTORY”

I hope whatever God if any You Worship Forgives You because I a disabled Human Being who worked all his Life from 9 until being struck down at the age of 59 WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU SELFISH SCUM SOCIETY You are the Worst Stupidest EVER.”

My piece also appeared to have struck a chord with Elizabeth Newport who wrote:

“Labour’s apathy since 2010 over the appalling benefit reforms upsets me more than the fact the tories have done it. I expect the tories to scapegoat and demean the vulnerable, that’s what they do, but I expected Labour to make their lives very difficult and for charities to be extremely vocal.

The truth is no one cares about the vulnerable, the electorate voted the tories in knowing what their plans were. Labour rolled over on the welfare reform bill. When we have all died from stress and poverty or killed ourselves they will find a new group to scapegoat. I can honestly say that as a mentally disabled person I have never felt so hopeless with regards to any political changes. I was a single parent in the early 1990’s when single parents were blamed and targeted. This is even worse.”

Elizabeth is partly right. The Tories did not mention who their intended target was for the cuts. Not one mainstream journalist leading up to the election pressed then DWP minister, Iain Duncan Smith, for clarification, and therefore, the Tories had no mandate with which to implement their stated programme of cuts.

Pathological

Although it could be reasonably argued that people rarely base their decision to vote for a party on a single issue, the notion that poor people vote in large numbers for the Tories who clearly have them in their sights, is only incomprehensible if one is of the opinion that such people are immune from directing similar forms of pathological hatred against those who are even poorer and weaker than they are.

Of course, the far-right tabloid media play a major part in fanning the flames of hate. But it’s insufficient to put the blame solely on them. Despite falling sales, Murdoch continues to shift millions of copies of the Sun on a daily basis and nobody is physically forcing working class people into the shops to buy it. It’s not just the Tories who pander to the whims of Murdoch either. New Labour under Blair and Brown, were only too eager to appease the racist demographic in the country.

Charity-industrial complex

A corrupt corporate media-political system dominated by power and money means that, literally, the government is getting away with murder. This injustice was articulated by Iam Klaatu in the comments section:

“I do not understand why this is allowed to continue? There are so many breaches of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially Articles 23 and 24, and even United Nations condemnation! And under Articles 2 & 4 of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, we have EVERY RIGHT, to see not just politicians and Lords, but EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE, from politicians, civil servants, job centre staff and managers, they can and WILL be made accountable for this crime against humanity!

The passive approach among what I refer to as the “charity-industrial complex” also play a complicit role. Klaatu continues:

“So why doesn’t Scope, MENCAP, MS, Cancer Research, etc etc etc , get off their backsides and unite, and stop this genocidal policy??? Or are they afraid of seeing their funding cut??? Their apathy is sickening!!! David Cameron, has even made patron of a charity, whose people are just one group of people that HIS government has hounded and starved to death!…It is an outrage!!!”

Eugenics

It’s my view that what we are witnessing in Britain today, is an early manifestation of a policy of eugenics which will become increasingly more obvious in the years ahead, particularly as robots begin to create a growing pool of idle ‘useless eaters’ among the existing white collar and blue collar workforce. Eventually, a critical-mass point will be reached in which the government of the day will be forced into making binary political choices.

Future governments will be faced with either funding a Universal Basic Income system or resist the necessity for change and, therefore, be prepared for mass civil disobedience on the streets of our towns and cities. As successive governments over the last 40 years have preferred the punitive ‘stick’ rather than the incentivising ‘carrot’ approach, the introduction of a UBI system is far from being a formality.

Of course, none of these potential policy proposals can be announced publicly by the government of the day, or by their media mouthpieces. Rather, the aim is to introduce them incrementally. It’s clear that the eugenics policy is one that is already well under way in Britain in 2017.

The latest in a series of appalling stories to have emerged, concerns Nicola Jeffery, a single parent from south east London. Nicola has fibromyalgia which causes chronic pain across the body. She is one of thousands of people with “invisible disabilities” whose benefits have been axed by the Tories as a result of new “reforms” to the personal independence payment (Pip) benefits system.

The “reforms” are part of a wider long-term strategy of welfare retrenchment, austerity and cuts to those most in need. The aim is the destruction of civilized society. All associated notions of civilization that people have come to take for granted – NHS, social care, fire service, education, public child care provision etc – are being whittled away and sold off for the benefit of private capital and shareholder’s, many of whom are working class people.

So we have to ask the question, what kind of a society do we want?

It’s no longer acceptable to solely blame the Tories for the problems we face. Many ordinary people who vote for right wing parties, including a corporate-corrupted Labour party dominated by a neoliberal core of war-monger’s, Friends of Israeli ethnic cleansing and austerity apologists, have to start looking in the mirror and begin educating themselves about what’s going on in their own communities; their own country; their own world.

Taking responsibility

Many of the problems stem from the fact that for far too long, too many people have not been prepared to take responsibility for their own actions, nor to evaluate how the individual decisions they make on a daily basis impact on society in general. The easy option in which people are prepared to look the other way for perceived short-term gain, can no longer be tolerated.

People who litter and fly-tip on our streets and fields, drive aggressively and at speed in built-up areas, in addition to engaging in other forms of anti-social behaviour, need to be politely confronted. We also need to minimize our individual carbon footprints the best we can, buy locally sourced and organic produce and reduce our consumption of meat.

The attitude for many seems to be that as long as they, as individuals, are not directly being affected by the travails going on around them, then they would sooner prefer to be oblivious to them, irrespective of their adverse impacts.

This lack of awareness and compassion for others, rooted in selfishness and crass individualism, is the bane of society and civilization. Although it might not be the case that the individual or close family member is seemingly unaffected, the nature of the direction of travel in society is such that in the absence of viable alternatives, it will nevertheless become the case further down the line.

Finite planet

Although it might not be the situation today, tomorrow or the day after that, the fragile nature of the planet humanity inhabits, means that the infinite grabbing of finite resources will eventually result in insurmountable negative repercussions in which even the super-rich will not be immune. After all, environmental degradation affects everybody and air pollution is democratic.

Never has Pastor Niemoller’s famous aphorism been more relevant. Climate change is altering the very fabric upon which the functioning of civilized society rests. What use can a depleted planet wrought by a system that prioritizes the accumulation of wealth for wealth’s sake, serve for an elite that continuously craves it? The answer, of course, is that such a planet is of no use to any living thing.

The time to save humanity from itself is fast running out which is why we need to act. However, political shifts at the ballot box alone won’t be enough. We need collectively to go beyond naval-gazing towards positive action. We need to start getting informed about the real issues that humanity faces going forward and start to begin to look for radical solutions.

But we can only do this if an informed public is in a position to be able to correctly identify the cause of our collective malaise. Instead of devoting our energies on attacking the Other for the problems we face, we need to identify and target the source of our oppression. This means we have to think Big.

The local-global nexus, has arguably never been as relevant as it is now. This is because unlike previous epochs, we are the potential authors of our own destruction. In the past, as we moved from one socioeconomic and political form of organisation to another, we confronted, head on, the challenges we faced.

From hunter-gatherer societies through to feudalism, humans were master’s of their own destiny and they survived and prospered along the way. But during the latest capitalist phase, we have seemingly failed to acknowledge our limits as a species.

We cannot reason that lack of knowledge is the cause for our downfall. At the crossroad point along the metaphorical super highway, we made the informed choice to turn rapidly right in the certain knowledge that at the end of the road was a cliff whose precipice we were fast approaching but decided to continue along it’s fatal path regardless. For a species that claims to be at the top of the intellectual food chain, we sure are dumb.

Falling off a cliff

The truth is, we’ve not only sped to the cliff’s edge akin to being passengers of an out-of-control juggernaut, but we are plunging, free fall, towards a giant burning cauldron. We possess parachutes that are, in theory, capable of saving us from the affects of free-fall, but are fast reaching the point where the only eventuality will be hitting the ground with a thud.

Currently, we are at a critical stage between an insurmountable fate and a precarious survival. One of the things that can save us from our mass hypnosis and passivity in the face of a self-inflicted untimely death, is mass collective action. But collective activity in the strict political sense of the term is not enough either.

We also have to start radically changing our behaviour as consumers. This means a dramatic shift in expectations. It’s no longer reasonable for people to expect to spend £2 on a tee-shirt that has been produced by sweated labour in Pakistan, or to feign ignorance in order to justify other forms of immoral decision-making. Crucially, we need to stop buying ‘things’ we don’t need with money we haven’t got.

Because consumption is effectively the oil that lubricates the capitalist system, alternative forms of collective action on a massive scale will naturally correspondingly alter the way the current set of consumption-production relations function. This can only be beneficial for humanity and the planet.

Like the impact of a stone that lands in a pond whose ripples gradually spread further afield, the individual choices we as consumers make, in conjunction with our political choices, can eventually begin to set us free. But we need to hurry up because time is fast running out.

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Cameron fiddles while England drowns

January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 · 5 Comments ·

By Daniel Margrain

James Bevan, the chief executive of the environment agency who said it was the job of the government to hold him to account, spoke out in support of its chairman, Philip Dilley. Bevan rebuffed criticism that the environment agency avoided telling journalists that Dilley was in Barbados at Christmas at the time of some of the worst flooding the UK has ever seen, while at the same time claiming he had been honest, transparent and straightforward. The paradox was not lost on this writer.

Meanwhile, according to analysis by the Committee on Climate Change, homes continue to be built in England’s highest flood risk areas at almost twice the rate of housing being built outside of flood plains. Housing stock in regions where flooding is likely at least once every thirty years has grown at a rate of 1.2 per cent every year since 2011. By contrast, housing outside of flood plains in areas with less than one in a thousand years’ chance of flooding, increased by an average of just 0.7 per cent over the same period.

So we are building houses on flood plains at twice the rate we are building houses in places where its far less likely to flood. Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t it illogical to build twice as many houses on flood plains given that flooding devastates lives and communities and, according to analysis by accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, flood damages could run as high as £1.3bn?

It would appear that the government is not taking climate change seriously enough and therefore are not preparing adequately for it. Perhaps Prime Minister David Cameron is taking his cue from the BBC’s Weather’s Sarah Keith-Lucas who appeared to be unaware that the mild and wet conditions throughout December in the UK are related to climate change.

Whatever the case, Cameron cannot use the excuse that he wasn’t warned about the impact cuts to defences would cause in terms of flood damage. In 2011, for example, the National Audit Office (NAO) estimated the annual cost of flood damage in England to be £1.1bn. So one might reasonably ask why the Conservative government then proceeded to cut flood defences by 8 per cent resulting in the loss of 1,500 jobs?

All this comes on the back of government promises to build a million new homes in climate change ravaged Britain by 2020. Yesterday (January 4) the Tories pledged the commissioning of the construction of 13,000 homes on public land owned by the tax payer, describing it as a huge shift in policy, the first of its kind since the Thatcher government. But how many of the 13,000 will be affordable and will the million target be met?

The situation at present is that the combined efforts of the government, councils and the private sector are in no way sufficient enough to meet Britain’s housing needs. The other day, I had a walk along the Thames and the visible presence of cranes and other signs of construction activity on the nearby brownfield sites looked, on the surface, impressive. However, when one looks behind the facade an altogether different, less optimistic, story begins to emerge.

Home ownership in Britain is at its lowest for a generation and the actual supply of homes for sale is not meeting the demand for them. In part, this is explained by the fact that there are an insufficient amount of new homes on the one hand, and that there is a scarcity of second-hand housing on the other. The solution to solving the lack of available housing requires more than the vague and repeatedly unfulfilled promises of this current Tory administration.

What is needed is the kind of boldness and vision that was adopted after WW2 in which the term “homes fit for heroes” was first coined. At that time, a coordinated house building programme of some 300,000 council homes were built for the masses over many years. This figure is similar to the amount that Jeremy Blackburn from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is calling for today. “We…. need 240,000 units a year....”, Blackburn said. “We are not building enough….There are a number of other things the government can do including enabling local councils and housing associations to build more.”

Despite this, house builders such as Berkeley, Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey are sitting on huge plots of land enough to create more than 600,000 new homes. RICS predicts that the current supply shortfall will push up house prices by 6 per cent across the UK this year with the highest rises likely to be seen in East Anglia which is forecast to rise by 8 per cent.

Paradoxically, East Anglia is one of the areas in Britain that is at the greatest risk of flooding as a result of climate change but is among the areas where the greatest amount of new homes will be built. I can only assume that the higher predicted percentage increase in property values in East Anglia will be as an indirect consequence of any expected rise in ecotourism in the region.

For those who already cannot afford to buy, there is a rent increase of 3 per cent on the horizon for 2016 too. With the options for renting and buying increasingly becoming out of the reach for many, particularly the young, the battle lines are being drawn between those who are effectively being denied the right to a home on the one hand, and the government who are not living up to their promises to meet demand on the other.

In London and other major cities, access to what little remains of council housing is almost non-existent. This is being exacerbated as a result of the decision of numerous local councils throughout the country to ‘gentrify’ former council estates (of which the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle in London is emblematic) through a process of social cleansing that increasingly involves the relocation of entire communities from the localities that normally have long established roots.

The social cleansing of communities has negative knock-on affects in terms of the undermining of long held social networks and local economies upon which local businesses depend for their livelihoods. Increasingly major cities, particularly London, are becoming hubs for the property investment portfolios of the super rich who, in many instances, buy up entire reconstituted apartment blocks only for them to subsequently be left empty or rented out at exorbitant rates.

The hollowing out of inner city communities in this way is the product of specific social policies adopted by governments’ predicated on an ideological template intended to bolster the interests of a small minority, many of whom have little or no connection to the communities they invest in. These investors are given priority over and above those who are anchored in the said communities, who do have links.

Given the political will, the housing crisis, could and indeed should, of been solved many years ago. But the point is, there is no political will on the part of the government to solve the crisis because the interests associated with international capital run counter to such an eventuality. We are currently in the frankly absurd situation whereby apartments’ – in many cases entire blocks – lie empty or are occupied for part of the year by transient populations’, while simultaneously growing numbers of British people are unable to afford, or otherwise are being denied access to a necessity of life which is what a home of ones own is.

This madness is indicative of the irrational and contradictory nature of capitalism in arguably its most debased form. It’s the fact that capitalism is first and foremost premised on greed rather than satisfying human need means it is one of the most wasteful and inefficient economic systems for allocating resources known to man. The current housing and flood crisis are both symptomatic of this.

In terms of the latter, we only have to see how flood policy is determined by perverse incentives, often as the result of public money (via farm subsidies) that not only make flood disasters inevitable but are specifically intended to:

“prioritize the protection of farmland above the safety of towns and cities downstream. By straightening, embanking and dredging rivers where they cut through fields, drainage boards accelerate the flow of water, making flooding downstream more likely. protect the rich landowners and their country estates rather than the towns and villages.”

For Tories like Cameron, the moral concept of community and the satisfying of fundamental human needs, of which the former is dependent, implies the rejigging of ‘market forces’ away from the priorities associated with capital towards human beings. But such a ‘bucking of the market’ requires government intervention and the Tories only intervene when the need for the redistribution of wealth presents itself in an upwards direction.

Yesterday on twitter, I was reminded of the consequence that decades of neoliberalism has had in this regard. According to the latest figures on inequality, the share of wealth of the richest 1 per cent now exceeds that of remaining 99 per cent.

Cameron’s announcement yesterday offers no new extra investment in affordable homes, just as there was no new extra investment for flood defences. People on modest incomes will have little hope of being able to afford to buy or rent in the future.

The proposed construction of one million homes by 2020 is a pledge that Cameron’s government which predicates its policies on short term goals for short term electoral gain, has no intention of ever meeting. Perhaps the best, and perhaps only solution, will be to utilize the impacts of climate change by living on a barge in the swamp flood plains of the new British terrain.

COP21 resolves nothing

December 12, 2015December 15, 2015 · Leave a comment ·

By Daniel Margrain

Academic research supports the hypothesis that environmental degradation is linked to economic growth. As economies grow the countries’ in which the growth rates occur pump out correspondingly higher rates of the gas responsible for the greatest single cause of human induced climate change into the earth’s atmosphere. The tendency among humans to consume more and more of the finite resources of our planet, is predicated on capitalism’s inherent drive for growth upon which the maximization of profits is dependent. This is what Naomi Klein talks about when she refers to the capitalist system as one in which the ruthless drive for expansion is kept going by “consumption for consumption’s sake”.

If one accepts this line of reasoning then it follows that in order to ameliorate the affects of climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it’s necessary to challenge the growth based profit seeking logic of capitalism that gives rise to it.

Here we are faced with a major contradiction. The economic growth that is generated by capitalism creates employment opportunities. But in so doing, it also creates an insurmountable environmental and ecological crisis which, taken to its logical conclusion, negates the need for economy and hence employment. It’s this fundamental contradiction that undermines the COP21 in Paris and all of the other UN Climate Summit’s that preceded it.

This rather depressing reality, is underscored by the fact that these summits are primarily concerned with satisfying the demands set by capitalist growth, as opposed to creating the necessary conditions for environmentally sustainable societies’. Although this truism is rarely openly and unambiguously stated, any cursory analysis of the situation reveals that job creation and the “need” to maximize economic growth, overrides environmental sustainability considerations.

The insatiable demands of investors on the one hand, and the urgent need to cut down on global carbon emissions, on the other, are necessarily incongruous concepts. The failure of successive summits, most notably, in Copenhagen, in addressing the incompatibility between economic growth – a factor intrinsic to capitalism – and environmental sustainability that limits it, is a recipe for disaster because it perpetuates the conditions in which further environmental degradation of the planet will occur.

It’s precisely this logic that explains why it is that one of the key players at the COP21 discussions in Paris, Saudi Arabia, attempted to undermine them, even though climate change forecasts suggest that the Gulf region will become uninhabitable as a consequence of the failure of the Arab state agreeing to a radical shift in its negotiating position at the summit.

The rationale for the world’s largest producer of oil in its derailing of negotiations, is based on narrow short-term economic self interest. Saudi Arabia are among the most powerful of the 195 nations who attended the conference in Paris who, alongside their powerful allies, are empowered to block any meaningful negotiations in terms of emissions through a process of informal consensus.

Conversely, the poorer nations, were effectively not in a position to wield sufficient enough power to be able to offset the decision-making processes of the most powerful – the negative impacts of which, as Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, noted – they will disproportionately be on the end of.

For example, the numerous islands that comprise the small Pacific states’ who are among most likely to be adversely impacted by the worst consequences of climate change, had emphasized the need to act on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, while their powerful counterparts adamantly arrived at a higher “consensual” non-binding figure reviewed once every five years.

All this, and the fact that Saudi Arabia introduced a set of unreasonable negotiating pre-conditions against the emerging economies, are the main factors that arguably, in part, prompted the former Nasa scientist, James Hansen, to comment that the discussions in Paris were “a…fraud… a fake,”. He added: “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises….”.

Meanwhile, the United States used the fact that it has not ratified any human rights statute internationally as a poison ‘divide and rule’ pill against the developing countries with the aim of picking off the most vulnerable as their justification for shifting blame for the crisis on to the smaller nations.

This underhand tactic serves a dual purpose in as much as the source of the problem – the rich elites’ pattern of consumption and their lifestyle – is conveniently admonished. That the ‘1 percent versus the 99 percent’ narrative remained a feature of Paris, is to my mind, the most depressing aspect of the summit. Kenyan political ecologist, Ruth Nyambura summed up the impasse well when she said: “We want to get out of this sinking ship, but countries like U.S. are holding the lifeboats.”

The reality is the settlement that emerged in Paris is an extremely weak one due largely to the negotiated consensual interplay between the most powerful players. This meant they were able to use each other to take things off the table they didn’t want. This interplay, to a great extent, is determined by the influence the oil, coal and gas companies had on proceedings as well as the banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions who fund them.

The giant corporations garner an enormous amount of power in terms of their ability to be able to influence the decision making processes of the most powerful governments’. This often takes the form of the lobbying of leading politician’s of these governments by the giant corporations. Paris was no exception. The issues to do with conflicts of interest remain.

Thus, the potential for corruption is as strong as ever, aided ostensibly by credible figures who misrepresent consensus research. The misrepresentations in Paris included climate change professors who Greenpeace exposed as figures who were willing to produce pro-fossil fuel industry research by concealing the source of their funding.

The denialism also invariably extends to apparently skeptical mainstream journalists like Christopher Booker and James Delingpole whose roles are little more than conduits for the kinds of power they are supposed to hold to account. The reality is that the relationship between fossil fuel emissions and climate change is scientifically indisputable. To quote George Monbiot in his book ‘Heat’: “To doubt today, that manmade climate change is happening, you must abandon science and revert to some other means of understanding the world: alchemy perhaps, or magic.”

Nevertheless, the influence that journalists, powerful corporate lobbyists, former politicians and others within the denial industry are able to exert in order to deceive and mislead the public regarding the science can not be underestimated. One such figure is journalist, Peter Hitchens, who ought to know better.

The writer, who has many credible and sensible things to say about the decision of the UK government to go to war in Syria, apparently bases his authority to deny the reality of climate change on misleading glacier figures published online by the ‘Science and Environmental Policy Project’ (SEPP) run by a discredited environmental scientist called Dr S. Fred Singer.

The data has been reproduced by several other groups and had also found its way into The Washington Post. According to George Monbiot, the figures which were published by these groups, were subsequently used by Hitchens as well as other notable denialists like Melanie Phillips and David Bellamy to support their respective positions. However, the groups have one thing in common: they have all been funded by Exxon.

But this fact hasn’t initiated any retractions. On the contrary, it has resulted in the ‘digging in of heels’. The intention is to create confusion and the impression of uncertainty within the scientific community, when in reality none exists. The science is settled. Even Exxon’s own research conducted decades ago, that was until recently covered up, confirmed the role of fossil fuel in global warming.

If in the year 2030, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere remain as high as they are today then ecosystems will begin to release carbon dioxide as opposed to absorbing it. At this point climate change will not only be out of our hands, but it will accelerate without our help. If this does indeed come to pass, then the world will be taking to task the complicit role the denialism industry played in it.

Manufacturing Consent, Propaganda And The Climate Denial Beast

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015 · 1 Comment ·

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kusAX4Th4N8

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays, Propaganda

A seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (1891–1995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.”

His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.

Road To Somewhere Else

the view from the dark side: politics, media, cities & culture

Category: climate change

The Great Climate Global Coup d’état

The Data

The Melting of the Polar Icecaps

Is Something Fishy Going On With Greta?

The Great Climate Global Coup d’état.

The Data

The Melting of the Polar Icecaps

Climate Change: Truth, Deception & Denial

What Kind of A Society Are We Prepared to Fight For?

Cameron fiddles while England drowns

COP21 resolves nothing

The Data

The Melting of the Polar Icecaps

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The Data

The Melting of the Polar Icecaps

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