'EcoFascism' and related Acts of Criminality.

[DrEvil]

DrEvil:

please explain why there seems to have been significant sea level rise between the 2016 image and the last and presumably most recent one.

Far as I can see, there's no indications in those photos that there's any "significant" rise. Of course there are a number of photographic aspects that may skew perspective, etc. But these photos on their own are not the sole data points for reference; there are myriad similar examples that can be presented here of locales that have exhibited little/no variation to sea level, certainly not to the degree clamored by the climate ALARMISTS. Many of their predictions Re: sea level rise % turned out to be grossly miscalculated (to put it charitably).

My point was what Joe said: tides. The comparison is useless when you don't know when the pictures are taken. One could be low tide and the other high tide, like it looks like in the two color photos. In that particular area the difference between low and high tide is about one meter / three feet.

Sure, some of the alarmist predictions parroted by the media turned out to be wrong (usually the worst estimate out of several estimates based on different scenarios, because the moderate and low estimates aren't click-worthy), but the actual science underestimated sea level rise.

I've little doubt a comparison of the actual data (if available) will demonstrate a similar result (minimal sea level variation). That aside, any fluctuation and/or variation in sea levels on a given region have many potential explanations apart from C02 levels, at least as primary factor.

Re: the CNN article -- the key take-away is they took down the signs. There is a reason they took down the (scare-mongering) signs. In part because the scare tactics were exposed as inaccurate as time passed. A consistent theme repeated often when it comes to this topic.

Not so much scare tactic as publicity stunt I suspect - come see our glaciers before they disappear! Remember to stop by the gift shop! But so what? They were wrong and, eventually, fixed it. The glaciers are still shrinking at a rapid pace, and it's not just there, it's everywhere, and that should be your main takeaway, not one sign at one location being wrong.

Here's one glacier (Briksdalsbreen) not far from where I live:


It's the same thing happening all over.

DrEvil:

That's not what the paper is about. Researching the natural variations of Greenland doesn't mean there is no global warming.

They say "background warming" or "global warming" when talking about climate change, like this (or the above sentence I left in):

This suggests that in a background warming climate, T2m in Greenland has become more sensitive to variability in circulation, as reported by Hanna et al. (2021)

.

Again: my argument was never that there is no warming. There may very well be warming. My (evolving) argument -- which appears more compelling as time progresses -- is that there is no cause for climate ALARM, and that any warming is NOT due PRIMARILY to C02 levels; as such, any "lockdown"/restrictive measures imposed on citizens are affronts to fundamental rights. And that warming will not be cause for drastic alarm or action.

That aside, I'm all for pollution limitations, focusing firstly on those regions (China, etc) and large corporate entities responsible for much of the world's pollution. Average humans are NOT even close to a threat compared to these other entities.

MODELS, historically, have not been good predictors. This should be clear by now.

[Edit: attempted to soften rhetoric a bit]

At least you put lockdown in quotes, so I guess that's an improvement.

You keep saying it should be clear the models haven't been good predictors, but you haven't supplied anything to back that up. I posted an article several pages back looking at past predictions for various models and comparing the predictions to later observations, and they line up pretty damn well. You've completely ignored that despite my repeated attempts to get you to comment on it.

From your reply to Joe:

There were other nuances -- and many other examples, like the fucking Maldives, already addressed here -- that were raised.

One more thing you completely ignored after I posted a picture of the airport flooding. The one you asked me to get back to you about when it flooded.

[Joe Hillshoist]

.

If you actually read my response you'll see I acknowledged the numerous factors involved in the flaws of photographic evidence alone.

Its completely meaningless to post photos of Pittwater and claim something about global warming or sea rise. Didn't you once stop and think - what is this info, what does it say, what does it mean?

There were other nuances -- and many other examples, like the fucking Maldives, already addressed here -- that were raised.

The Maldives gets increasingly worse flooding every few years in coastal areas.

BS have you ever been outside a man made environment for any extended period of time? Of even out doors for more than a few hours?

That's just a stupid query, for a number of reasons, primarily because you have precisely zero insight or info on where I've lived or where I've been in my life. If this is your approach to 'analysis' -- and at times, it appears it is -- it's no wonder some of your 'conclusions' are what they are.

You work in front of a screen. Have you ever been involved in working outdoors for years, growing crops for example, working in forestry or something else that means you are in the environment and have been for over a decade?

If you had you'd notice spring comes earlier every year, plants flower earlier, seasonal bugs come at different times usually breeding earlier than they did 15 years ago. I'm not the only person saying this, its something people who are well connected to outdoors lifestyles have been saying for decades.

The climate has changed already.

All this stuff has been happening for decades.

There is a difference between an event that happens of its own accord and the elite response to it. It seems you don't understand this and so the events and the elite responses are the same thing in your mind. Instead of the elite reacting to independent events to maintain their power and control and even extend it.

[DrEvil]

The Maldives gets increasingly worse flooding every few years in coastal areas.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence they're building artificial islands and considering floating houses. Nothing to see here!

[Belligerent Savant]

.
Evil and Joe, I skipped right past your last 2 comments -- I'm sure they're very illuminating and thought-provoking.

Bottom line, though, is that -- clear flaws of photographs (due to tide variations, etc.) aside -- there is no real world data demonstrating significant sea level rise that would be cause for "alarm", and/or more importantly, there is no real world data that demonstrates that sea level rises over time are due primarily to C02 as a key factor.

I'd like to move on to what I believe are far more worthwhile contributions to this topic, below.

First, in this video clip (originally shared by Grizzly in another thread), Brand artfully/astutely iterates and expands on many of the points I've been making here in this thread*, but of course with a far wider audience and British accent. This entire video is worth hearing, as it relates specifically to "climate change" and the sheer hypocrisy, and scam, perpetrated by the very few to the detriment of the many:

*this doesn't mean I share the same positions as Brand across the board, but I fully agree with his larger points Re: hypocrisy/greed on the part of large Corps and Billionaire classes.

I largely agree with Harvey's comment on the above clip (in the thread it was posted in), which reads in part:

...back around 2012-ish I would all but snear at Russel Brand. Today I recognise that he's genuinely impressive, possibly the only authentic Left voice with such a massive audience, making arguments of considerable sophistication in a popular form on subjects few others dare touch. Those who hold back and won't hear him from some kind of twisted scruple are missing out on the sort of conversation which used to be possible in media...

A few screenshots from the above Brand video clip:




Moving along:

I shared this piece a couple pages back -- worth re-posting as I notice it was apparently wholly ignored by those that seem to believe there's only 1 lobby -- the oil and gas lobby -- influencing media/politicians Re: climate change:

...
Plenty of hyperlinks at source:
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the- ... medium=web

The Anti-Industry Industry

What the media won’t tell you about the $4.5 billion-per-year NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex.



The overwhelming majority of the money involved in the energy and climate debate in the U.S. today is not on the side of traditional energy producers. Instead, the money, the media, and the momentum are clearly on the side of the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex.

In 2021, the revenue for the top 25 NGOs in the anti-industry industry was more than four times the amount collected by NGOs that support the traditional energy sector. Those 25 anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs had total revenue of about $4.5 billion which they used to fund campaigns on climate change, as well as efforts to promote renewable energy, stop the production of hydrocarbons, halt construction of new hydrocarbon infrastructure, prohibit the use of natural gas, oppose nuclear energy, and electrify everything, a move that would require massive increases in electricity production and the size of the electric grid.



The $4.5 billion sum, which I tallied over the past few weeks by compiling data from Guidestar and ProPublica, is more than four times the amount being raised by the top 25 NGOs that are either pro-hydrocarbon or pro-nuclear. In 2021, the top 25 non-profit associations that represent hydrocarbon producers, the nuclear energy industry—along with their allies in the think tank sector—took in about $990 million, or less than one-fourth of the amount garnered by the top anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs. As can be seen in the graphic above, 14 of the anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs have annual revenues of more than $100 million. By comparison, as can be seen in the graphic below, only three of the NGOs on the other side of the policy divide have revenues of more than $100 million.

Furthermore, the amount of money being collected by the top anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs is soaring. Between 2017 and 2021, the amount of cash being collected by the 25 top NGOs—which includes entities like the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund—has jumped by 155%, going from about $1.8 billion to $4.5 billion.

Don’t expect to read about this vast funding disparity in legacy media outlets. Some of the biggest news organizations in America are peddling a manufactured narrative that the growth of renewable energy is being hindered by “front groups” that are getting money from hydrocarbon producers. In December, in The New Yorker, climate activist Bill McKibben claimed “front groups sponsored by the fossil-fuel industry have begun sponsoring efforts to spread misinformation about wind and solar energy.” But McKibben didn’t bother to name a single such group. Also in December, the New York Times published an article that claimed the opposition to wind projects in Michigan included “anti-wind activists with ties to groups backed by Koch Industries.” But the reporter who wrote the article, David Gelles, didn’t provide any names or any proof of any Koch connections. (Gelles did not reply to two emails asking him for proof of his claim.)



National Public Radio has published several articles claiming that rural opposition to renewables is being fostered by opponents who are using “misinformation.” Last year, a San Francisco-based reporter, Julia Simon, published an article that claimed: “some of the misinformation comes from groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry, like the Texas Public Policy Foundation.” (2021 revenue: $26 million). But Simon didn’t provide an example to back up her claim.

Why won’t McKibben and NPR report honestly about the rural backlash to the landscape-destroying sprawl of renewable energy or the funding that drives the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex? The answer may be about funding. Since 2019, 350.org, the climate-activist group that McKibben co-founded, (and has about 160 staffers) has received more than $400,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

NPR is feeding at the same trough as the other NGOs. NPR is a non-profit. According to Guidestar, its 2021 revenues totaled $456 million. Last September, NPR announced that it was opening a new “climate desk” that was being funded by “the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, whose funding is helping NPR to add a new Climate Solutions reporter, as well as The Rockefeller Foundation.”

My interest in the anti-industry industry is a continuation of the work I did for my January 26 article, “The Billionaires Behind The Gas Bans,” which is the most popular piece I’ve published on Substack. The numbers presented here are my best effort at collecting accurate data.

Before going further, let me be clear: I am not claiming that my lists of the top 25 NGOs on either side of the energy policy divide are the definitive ones. Some of the NGOs that are pro-hydrocarbon are not pro-nuclear. This week, one prominent pro-nuclear activist reminded me that over the past decade, some pro-hydrocarbon NGOs fought policies that would have helped save nuclear plants from premature closure. Selecting the anti-industry NGOs was also complicated. A keyword search for “climate change” turned up more than 7,500 entries in ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer database. For my top 25 lists, I chose the NGOs that I knew about or had the highest profiles.

Let me also be clear about the revenue figures. The numbers are mostly from 2021 and come primarily from Guidestar's free search feature. I also used ProPublica’s free database. (A full subscription to Guidestar costs $2,000.) The numbers are what Guidestar calls “gross receipts.” Those figures may differ from the revenue numbers shown on the Form 990s filed by the NGOs. Thus, the revenue tallies may be somewhat higher, or somewhat lower, than what is shown here.

But even with those caveats, the results are undeniable: the anti-industry industry in America is enormous, its revenues are soaring, and its success in getting local and state governments to adopt anti-hydrocarbon policies is obvious. Indeed, the pro-hydrocarbon and pro-nuclear entities in America are outgunned and outmanned. And when it comes to policymaking, they are getting their collective butts kicked.

Efforts to ban gas stoves are only a small part of a broader agenda that aims to change the fuels we use, where we live, and what we drive. The anti-industry industry has already succeeded in banning the direct use of natural gas in homes and businesses in communities across the country. According to the Sierra Club, 74 communities in California have “adopted gas-free buildings commitments or electrification building codes.” That’s a significant increase over what I reported last month. On January 26, when I published “The Billionaires Behind The Gas Bans,” that number was 69. In September, the California Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of all natural gas-fired space heaters and water-heating appliances in the state by 2030. In addition, New York City and Seattle, have banned the use of gas in new construction. Massachusetts is rolling out a measure that will allow up to 10 communities to ban gas. But these efforts are only part of what can only be called a radical agenda.

What is that agenda? Consider this statement from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which according to Guidestar has annual revenue of about $415 million. In 2020, it said it would use a $100 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund to “advance climate solutions and legislation at the state level, [and] move the needle on policies and programs focused on reducing oil and gas production.” Or consider EarthJustice, (2021 budget: $124 million) which says its goals include “End the extraction and burning of fossil fuels...power everything with 100% clean energy...[and] cultivating a zero carbon emissions pollution-free electricity grid by phasing out fossil fuel power generation, eliminating barriers to renewable energy, and more.”



In short, while their activism is couched in language about climate change and climate justice, the goal of the “climate aristocracy” (a term coined by Decouple podcast host and pro-nuclear activist Chris Keefer) is to shut down the hydrocarbon sector. If the climate aristocracy succeeds in doing so, the results will be staggering increases in energy costs and dangerous decreases in the reliability and resilience of our electric grid.

Indeed, the surge in the size and funding of the anti-industry industry represents a threat to the long-term prosperity of the United States. Its policies are already imposing regressive energy taxes on the poor and the middle class. The anti-industry industry is yet another sign of America’s decadence. It’s an unaccountable parasitic force that employs thousands of lawyers, strategists, pollsters, and fundraisers, many of whom will spend their careers treading the revolving door between academia, media, government, and the NGOs. It relies on technocrats who went to exclusive universities, live in heavily Democratic coastal cities, have never been to Branson, and don’t give a fuck about the people who live in flyover country, wear name tags at work, or turn wrenches for a living.

Demographer and author Joel Kotkin calls these elites the “clerisy.” And they are influencing energy policy at the local, state, and federal levels with budgets that are unprecedented in scope, and in many cases, purposely hidden from public scrutiny.

“This is a class issue on a lot of levels,” Kotkin told me during a recent phone interview. “Climate change is to neo-feudalism what Catholic dogma was in the Middle Ages. It’s a justification for autocracy. The climate agenda plays the same roles today as Catholic dogma did back then. There are things you can’t say because it questions the dogma.”

Kotkin also underscored the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the anti-industry industry is coming from some of the world’s richest people (a point that I made in “The Billionaires Behind The Gas Bans”) and that these billionaires—and the groups they are funding—do not represent the broader society. Kotkin said these outcomes were predicted by Daniel Bell in his landmark 1973 book, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting, which warned that as societies became detached from industrial production, a new group of elites would become detached from the general population. “This is what Bell talked about,” he said. We now have “A class of people with a lot of money who have no connection to the real economy. The price of gasoline and electricity doesn’t matter to them.”

One of the biggest funders of the anti-industry industry is Jeff Bezos. In 2020, the Bezos Earth Fund gave more than $400 million to seven of the groups that are on my list of the top 25 anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs in America.

The NGO with the biggest climate-related budget is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which according to Guidestar had revenue of $823 million in 2021. On its website, the fund states, “In 2023, climate-related grants—including the full Sustainable Development, Democratic Practice–Global Challenges, and China grantmaking programs, as well as portions of our Central America and Western Balkans grantmaking—will constitute just under 50 percent of the Fund’s total grantmaking budget.” It continues, “In November 2022, the RBF board of trustees adopted a plan to spend an additional $100 million to address the climate crisis over the next ten years.”

Also, from the RBF website: “In the 1970s, the Fund began supporting the environmental law movement through grants to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Laurance’s son, attorney Laurance Rockefeller, Jr., worked at NRDC for over 25 years and continues to serve as an NRDC trustee in 2016.”

It’s critical to note that the NRDC has been one of the most vocal anti-nuclear NGOs in America and was a critical player in the premature closure of New York’s Indian Point nuclear plant, a closure that immediately resulted in huge increases in New York consumers’ electric bills and a dramatic increase in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Rockefeller entities have also been key funders of the litigation against the oil industry.




A few more points are relevant here. First, the size of the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex in the United States dwarfs the size of similar entities in Canada, where climate-focused entities are tiny. As can be seen in the chart above, the top five Canadian climate groups have total combined budgets of about C$33 million, which is about $25 million in U.S. currency. Thus, all of those Canadian climate NGOs combined would only amount to a relatively small member of the anti-industry industry in the U.S.

In addition to their advantages in money and media sympathy, the anti-industry industry has other key advantages over the traditional energy sector, and those advantages help explain why it has been so successful in promulgating policies like gas bans. First, the climate clerisy continually sells fear: fear of catastrophic climate change, fear of radiation, and fear of fracking. On that last fear, consider this line from a press release issued by the NRDC in 2020: “We banned fracking in New York and it’s time long past time [sic] to block its waste from poisoning communities.”

The other key advantage held by the anti-industry industry is that it has a far easier chore than what has to be done by traditional energy providers. Electric utilities, cooperatives, drillers, refiners, natural gas producers, gas distributors, and pipeline companies have to deliver molecules and electrons to their customers. And they have to do it every minute of the day, every day of the year, and they have to keep doing it regardless of the policy hurdles that may be put in their way. On the other side, groups like the Sierra Club and Rocky Mountain Institute only have to get their policies adopted by governments.

In short, it’s a lot easier to convince the Berkeley City Council to adopt a ban on natural gas than it is to deliver that fuel and do so reliably and affordably to thousands (or millions) of homes and businesses. Put another way, the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex has launched an asymmetric war against the hydrocarbon and nuclear-energy sectors. And so far it is having undeniable success. The climate aristocracy—from its strongholds in New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Boston—only has to get policies passed. When it does so, it can return to its deep-pocketed funders and ask for yet more money. The climate aristocrats don’t have to deliver anything of tangible value (tankers of diesel fuel, decatherms of gas, or kilowatt-hours) in the physical world. That helps explain why the traditional energy sector is getting its collective butt kicked in the policy arena.

There is far more to be written about the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex and its influence on American energy policy. In a future post, I will focus on the anti-industry industry’s dark money machine.

And this one, too:

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/wh ... undermined

"When scientific integrity is undermined in pursuit of financial and political gain"

Explosive testimony this week argues that climate research has a serious conflict of interest problem

Roger Pielke Jr.
Mar 3



Recently I was surprised to see a Tweet from a climate researcher who I’ve known for a while that looked like an advertisement for a particular renewable energy company. The researcher was promoting the company to his many followers. Reading on, I saw that the researcher disclosed that he was being paid by the company and had an equity interest. So it was an advertisement. Academics can also be investors, right? So no problem?

Well, here is the problem. This researcher was one of the central analysts whose work was used to design and then promote the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The company he is promoting is a direct beneficiary of that legislation. At the same time, the researcher claims that his analyses offer an “independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies.” BS. There’s a sucker born every minute.

I called out the researcher on Twitter for taking money not just from one but from many companies that are direct beneficiaries of the legislation he helped to design and sell to policymakers and the public. He responded to me in a huff — proclaiming his noble intent and track record of advocacy for renewable energy for many years (almost as bad as the climate researcher who told me she could not have a conflict of interest because her husband was a preacher). All that may well be true, but goodness, this absolutely stinks.

I’m not naming the researcher (you can find him easily enough), because his case is far from unique in climate research these days, and this post is about a far bigger more important issue.

There is a gold rush going on in climate research right now, as researchers scramble to cash in on their new-found access to politicians and philanthropists. As Professor Jessica Weinkle of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington stated in her opening remarks in testimony before the U.S. Senate last week, “Today, it is not easy to separate the going-ons in climate change research from the special interests of financial institutions.”

She continues:

The landscape of climate change research is made complicated by an outcropping of non-profit advocacy organizations that double as analytic consultants, hold contracts with private companies and government entities, and engage in official government expert advisory roles- all while publishing in the peer reviewed literature and creating media storms.

This is not really an issue of any one entity. It is pervasive.

Experts monetizing their expertise is one important reason why people become experts, and there is no problem with people seeking to make a buck. But where expertise and financial interests intersect, things can get complicated. That is why there are robust mechanisms in place for the disclosure and mitigation of financial conflicts of interest, a subject I’ve focused on for decades.

All of this is just common sense. Your doctor can’t prescribe you drugs from a company that pays him fees. You wouldn’t think much of a report on smoking and health from a researcher supported by the tobacco industry. Should climate researchers play by a different set of rules, because the cause is so important?

Call me a stickler, but in my view, the more important the cause, the more important it is to enforce standards of research integrity.

Following her testimony, Weinkle addressed a few questions that were raised at the Senate hearing. Here is her response to the first one:

Well… I don’t know if it was really a question. It was a set up to imply that the only conflicts of interest that should matter are those coming from the fossil fuel industry.

I don’t agree. At. All.

Frankly, that’s absurd.

In fact, when people argue that the only conflicts of interest that matter are those held by their opponents they are saying that the rules of the game don’t apply to themselves or those that support them.

Conflicts of interest are a concern for scientific integrity no matter where the money is coming from.

Further, it was implied in the hearing that only the fossil fuel industry hides what they are doing by donating to non profit groups that then do research. No.

I encourage you to read Professor Weinkle’s testimony in full. She cites three examples of many that raise serious questions of financial conflicts of interest in climate research (see the testimony for all the footnotes, which I removed here):

- Central bank stress testing scenarios are developed by researchers who are also lead authors on IPCC reports and have important roles in organizing the international modeling community in the development of IPCC scenarios. Funding for central bank scenario development and the most recent meeting of the scenario modeling community comes from influential organizations including, Bloomberg Philanthropies, ClimateWorks, and the Bezos Earth Fund.

- McKinsey & Company used a climate consultancy to produce a series of widely influential reports on climate change financial risks. In defense of their use of RCP 8.5 the report cited a peer-reviewed publication written by its own consultants. The researchers did not declare their COI as consultants for McKinsey or their association with the asset management firm, Wellington. Shortly after publication of the article one of its authors landed a political position while the authors’ home institution announced coordinated efforts with Wellington to influence SEC regulatory decisions.

- The Risky Business Project, an academic-industry research collaboration was organized by three wealthy politicians with the goal to “mak[e] the climate threat feel real.” Research products are important components to national climate and sea level rise assessments, and a policy advocacy tool used to evaluate real estate flood risk. Core members of the research collaboration move seamlessly between private consulting, policymaker science advisory positions, and academic research.

Again, this stinks.

Nothing could be more delegitimizing to climate science and policy than a toxic combination of unmitigated financial conflicts of interest and claims that climate researchers, by virtue of the noble cause, are exempt from the rules that govern every other setting where expertise and money intersect.

I’ll let Professor Weinkle have the last word today:

Climate change science demonstrates an underappreciated dynamic system of conflicts of interest among climate change researchers, advocacy organizations, and the financial industry.

If you haven’t subscribed to Professor Weinkle’s Substack, called Conflicted — run, don’t walk, and sign up — link below.

https://jessicaweinkle.substack.com/

[DrEvil]

Evil and Joe, I skipped right past your last 2 comments -- I'm sure they're very illuminating and thought-provoking.

Bottom line, though, is that -- clear flaws of photographs (due to tide variations, etc.) aside -- there is no real world data demonstrating significant sea level rise that would be cause for "alarm", and/or more importantly, there is no real world data that demonstrates that sea level rises over time are due primarily to C02 as a key factor.

No wonder arguing with you feels like talking to a wall when you just skip the inconvenient parts. Less Gish gallop please.

There's plenty of real world data demonstrating significant sea level rise that would be cause for alarm. The annual rise is now up to 3.6mm per year (as of 2015), double what it used to be, and there's no reason to believe it will stop increasing. We're up almost four inches since 1993, which may not sound like much if you live away from the coast, but I assure you it's a big deal for low lying coastal areas, and it keeps rising. Florida has one of the highest rates of concern for climate change among Americans for a reason. Florida!

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Please cite the real world data -- no models. Wealthy people (including those that identify as Democrats) continue to buy property along the coast of Florida - they must all be fools or risk-takers; surely you are far savvier and learned.

What about Martha's Vineyard? Is that at risk as well, or no, because it's not part of a "Red" State? Cuz this power couple don't seem concerned:



Also: there remains the bright pink elephant of the capture of "climate change" by monied interests, as exemplified by the substance of my prior posting above. If there is BIG MONEY tied to promoting "climate alarm" it should cause any discerning mind to minimally pause and reflect. No comment on that, eh?

For the dogmatists, it's full steam ahead, regardless. Refusal to reconsider.

[DrEvil]

I did cite the real world data. Those are the actual numbers, not projections.

You seem to think sea levels are going to jump several feet overnight. That's the only reason I can think of for posting that picture. The reality is much more boring: slow and steady, inch by inch, imperceptible to the human eye, but slowly and surely overwhelming anywhere that's not rich enough to build seawalls or otherwise adapt. Obama will be dead by the time his property is threatened, and he's rich enough to move elsewhere if something catastrophic happens, which you already knew. There's hundreds of millions of people without that luxury.

As for money - green energy is still a drop in the ocean compared to the oil industry, which receives subsidies to the tune of $11 million per minute. Oil companies have been some of the absolutely worst companies in modern times, buying politicians, poisoning shit left and right, toppling governments and starting wars (often hand in hand with the military-industrial complex), fucking up urban planning (why do you think you have to drive everywhere?) for generations, bribing, lying and falsifying wherever needed, and probably a million other shitty things, yet you're raging against the people trying to take them down.

So fucking what if there's some rotten eggs in the green basket when the oil basket is an oozing puddle of necrotic plague tissue with slimy tendrils spreading everywhere.

[Belligerent Savant]

.
Your arguments hold no water (pun intended).

When was the last time you visited Florida? Have you ever been there?

In the last year alone, i visited St. Augustine -- considered the oldest city in the U.S. -- and also had to go to Miami/Key West for a work-related event. St. Augustine included tourist attractions with photos of coastal forts from several hundred years ago, side-by-side with current day (i viewed this while standing outside within the grounds of one of the forts, right along the coast).

All the landmarks in the photos from the 1600s were still fully visible today.

Once again, I will repeat: the Objection here is not that there AREN'T variations to sea levels, which may include rises, or (CYCLICAL, compared against long-term historical patterns) weather fluctuations over time -- both may be true in a number of regions.

The Objection here -- once again -- is that there is NO justification for ALARM, and that C02 emissions by everyday humans is NOT the key/primary driver of any fluctuations in temps or sea-level rises.

AND: ESG, Carbon Offsets, Net Zero, 15min cities, etc, are all huge fucking scams and control/money grabs. They are NOT viable or honest 'solutions'.

AND: climate alarmists have been almost comically and egregiously wrong, going back to at least the 1970s, about most if not all of their predictions for cataclysms and harms due to their version of "climate change".

(Listen to the R.Brand video above, if you haven't yet, though that clip is far from the lone source)

This is wholly separate from the pollution issue, which of course we (as a collective) should do all that we can to mitigate. Yet even Re: pollution, most emissions negatively impacting the environnment are caused NOT by everyday humans, but by the BILLIONAIRE Class and about 100 or so Corporations (and let's not forget the MILITARY Complexes of the U.S, Russia, and China. The manufacturing and use of arms/weapons, etc.; the current war in Ukraine is many orders of magnitude more harmful to the environment and humans than any action taken by everyday people. How many are PRO-WAR and yet also shrill Climate Alarmists? And let's not forget to add FUCKING NASA to the list of entities causing significant emissions. The hypocrisies are myriad and ABSURD. We are living in an egregiously DUMB timeline in history. Idiocracy, 2023). All mitigation attempts should be focused on those entities, NOT on limiting human agency and autonomy.

Better balance and mgmt of the various sources of energy: oil & gas (which will still be needed whether you want to believe it or not -- manufacture of wind and solar tech, and mgmt of electricity, relies heavily on oil, gas, and carbon -- this will not change anytime soon), wind & solar, water, and nuclear energy, all working together and sensibly to minimize pollution.

"Climate Alarm" is a big fucking scam (to put it simplistically -- it's actually far more insidious/encompassing than that), and anyone still subscribing to it without scrutiny in 2023 is indeed a rube and a mark.

----

Edit to add: if in 10 yrs the Florida coast is underwater or the world is on the brink of collapse and it's all somehow conclusively proven to be caused by Average Joe's continued usage of gas-guzzling SUVs, plastic straws and/or steak-eating lifestyles, I'll happily own the errors of my (evolving) positions on this topic, gloriously and in neon lights, here in this thread. Unless I'm taken in by a flood beforehand, of course.

I must be so reckless to be such a 'gambler', eh? It's people like me that perpetuate this 'crisis', right?

After all, dominant narratives -- in the world of pharma, health, finance, and election integrity, among numerous other topics -- have been so reliable of late. It has to be that the MSM/politicians/experts may be very wrong about all these topics the last few years, BUT STILL be correct about Climate Alarm, despite mounting evidence and data that raise legit questions to the veracity of ALARM claims.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of Bill Gates on any given topic, it is time to pause and reflect.

[DrEvil]

I have family in Florida and have visited on several occasions, including St. Augustine and Miami, so yes. My cousin always enjoys having his house flooded.

And you're still missing the point (and you still confuse weather with climate - "weather fluctuations over time" isn't weather, it's climate): sea levels aren't going to suddenly jump two feet, they've been steadily rising for over a century, and the annual rise is increasing, so of course the fortifications are still there (plus, they're historical buildings, so extra care is taken to maintain and protect them). Huge chunks of rock aren't just going to suddenly disappear into the ocean.

Also what?! Photos from several hundred years ago?

The problem is when stuff is built to withstand x amount of tidal surge, then ten or twenty years later the tidal surge is x+1. Pair this with more unpredictable weather, like heavier rainfall and more powerful hurricanes or cyclones, and shit that was fine then isn't now. It's gradual. The floods get just a little worse each year, so either you have to constantly keep up or go somewhere else. That works fine if you're American or European and have the resources to cope (or not. Last year three million Americans were displaced by climate disasters), not so much if you're a dirt poor Bangladeshi farmer who just saw his entire crop wash away, or a Pakistani last year when one tenth of the entire country was under water.

[Joe Hillshoist]

BS - that's a complete crock of shit.

For decades climate activists have been targeting the corporations responsible, not individuals driving SUVs.

Altho why you need a gas guzzling SUV to get around town is beyond me. After all you'd be better off with a cheaper lighter car that doesn't cost as much to run.

Despite this there are more SUVs now than ever. So your options to use less energy to get around are going away. Decades ago cheaper lighter fuel driven cars were everywhere. Now they aren't. Same investors own oil companies and car companies.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

My reference points are research papers, raw data sets, and observational analysis (by scientists) over time, not merely photographs. And certainly not models, which are what many climate alarmists reference.

Let's aim to keep this simple, eh?

- There is NO justification for ALARM.
- There is no actual value (other than money/control grabs for the very few) in current solutions such as ESG, 15min cities, carbon offsets, etc. These are SCAMS.
- There is NO JUSTIFICATION for any policies imposing LIMITATIONS TO BODILY AUTONOMY OR AGENCY as a means to combat "climate change". This is clear BULLSHIT, and yet another power/control grab attempt.

Have we now reached a point, at least here in RI, where there is agreement on the above points, at least? (I expect DrEvil, and/or Joe -- along with a couple others here, may still subscribe to the "ALARM" propaganda, but hopefully they are aware enough to see the clear fascist encroachment in the other 2 bullet points).

Also -- the screenshot below is merely an example of how so much of this discourse is absurd, particularly those involving DOOM predictions:


https://twitter.com/Remarks/status/1634 ... 99744?s=20

BS - that's a complete crock of shit.

For decades climate activists have been targeting the corporations responsible, not individuals driving SUVs.

Many climate activists may well have been targeting corporations, but POLICIES being implemented in a number of instances (and those instances are growing) are clearly targeted at everyday people, irrespective of the positions of (truly independent) activists. Corporations -- especially those funded by govts -- have all manner of loopholes and exclusions to evade restrictions/severe penalties. Most humans DO NOT.

My primary focus is NOT on activists, if not already abundantly clear, but on the POLICIES and ACTIONS taken by govts and their representatives (and the subsequent unfortunate support by conditioned/programmed citizens) promoting and enforcing unethical, ineffective and draconian measures under the (false) guise of protection, safety, and benevolent action, to the detriment of the average everyday human citizen.

[Joe Hillshoist]

.

My reference points are research papers, raw data sets, and observational analysis (by scientists) over time, not merely photographs. And certainly not models, which are what many climate alarmists reference.

Let's aim to keep this simple, eh?

- There is NO justification for ALARM.

Where I live we've had decades of climate disasters. Unprecedented floods, droughts and fires.

In the time I've been a fire fighter, since last century, we've had repeated situations of the worst fires ever recorded. I've fought fires in rain forests where soil tests have revealed no fires for thousands of years. In that time tens of thousands of homes have been lost, thousands of people have died, most of them from the heat. We've lost thousands of tonnes of food produce and the national livestock herd was decimated.

This is at the very beginning of the effects of climate change. So naturally these things will get worse. I think people should be alarmed about this.

- There is no actual value (other than money/control grabs for the very few) in current solutions such as ESG, 15min cities, carbon offsets, etc. These are SCAMS.
- There is NO JUSTIFICATION for any policies imposing LIMITATIONS TO BODILY AUTONOMY OR AGENCY as a means to combat "climate change". This is clear BULLSHIT, and yet another power/control grab attempt.

Yep its a crock of shit. Nothing to do with effective action on climate change. But then you're the one who keeps saying we support those things. Not us.

Have we now reached a point, at least here in RI, where there is agreement on the above points, at least? (I expect DrEvil, and/or Joe -- along with a couple others here, may still subscribe to the "ALARM" propaganda, but hopefully they are aware enough to see the clear fascist encroachment in the other 2 bullet points).

Also -- the screenshot below is merely an example of how so much of this discourse is absurd, particularly those involving DOOM predictions:

You're oblivious to stuff that happens to actual people in the real world.

The rest of your argument is a strawman.

Governments and the people you're talking about (ie capitalist scum,) have done fuck all since this issue was brought to their attention.

Here's some song lyrics that are over 30 years old to reinforce my point:

Money property assets before lives
Green gestures of a dying planet
An endless debate only too late
An appetite for gluttony

[Belligerent Savant]

You're oblivious to stuff that happens to actual people in the real world.

The rest of your argument is a strawman.

Governments and the people you're talking about (ie capitalist scum,) have done fuck all since this issue was brought to their attention.

Here's some song lyrics that are over 30 years old to reinforce my point:

Money property assets before lives
Green gestures of a dying planet
An endless debate only too late
An appetite for gluttony

Not sure what the fuck you're talking about, frankly. Are you drunk?

I know very well what happens to people in the "REAL WORLD". I grew up in a middle class family and have been to many 3rd world countries. I know plenty of people here in the U.S. and elsewhere that are struggling working classes.

Policies are being pushed that are detrimental to the average citizen. This has been going on OVERTLY since 2020 (some may argue since 2001, after 9/11) and covertly for years before then. The govts and their henchmen/proxies/bureaucrats have IN FACT inflicted tons of damage to (and ended the lives of) everyday people due to all manner of restrictive policies and mandates, and are aiming to apply the same/similar tactics under the guise of "CLIMATE ALARM".

The reasons for climate fluctuations are not how they've been presented in dominant narratives.

What, exactly, is your point? What is your proposed approach for current circumstances, other than incoherent responses?

[Belligerent Savant]

.
Quoting from a link Nordic shared in the "Market Crash Watch Party" thread:

...
Whereas Covid and its lockdown were meant to be temporary; climate restrictions and lockdown are intended to be permanent. Think about the path. We went from:

- civil liberties are the bedrock of society, to

- give up your liberty temporarily, to

- surrender your liberty permanently to save the Earth.

Climate has additional layers:

- 15 minute city

- personal carbon allowance

- digital ID with a universal basic income

- CBDC

Each sequential step works with the previous one: for example the 15 minute city gets us used to never moving more than 5km from our home. Surprise, surprise it is the same policy as the Covid quarantine.

...

Under the UN programme each person’s yearly carbon allowance will be 2,000 kg. The current estimate for an American is 20,000 kg. A long-distance flight would use 500 kg, or a quarter of your allowance.

Each person will also pay a carbon tax on everything they buy. It will be calculated at $170 per tonne in Canada. Living at today’s lifestyle that would be an extra $3,500 a year for one person. A family of four would pay four times that, says Mr Sky.

Not surprisingly the reader can see that the super rich and their “it girls” will be able to purchase their way around these rules. For the masses a central bank digital currency, tied to one’s identity, will let bankers trace, limit and tax every single transaction.

The exempt

Someone has to implement the climate lockdown however, and the billionaires have purchased the compliance of bureaucrats.

These are the intergovernmental servants of the banking super class who already have widespread immunity from the law, including border controls, and who can travel freely all over the globe. See Corey Lynn (Corey's Diggs) and the abuse of diplomatic immunity by banks, beginning with the BIS. [4]

It is a very important piece of research. It is not wholly new information but she has detailed it down to the sub-organisations and contractors concerned.

Why do bankers (primarily) have immunity which exceeds that of diplomats (the author’s father was a British diplomat so the limits in government service are known)?

This proves, near-as-darn-it, that the Klaus Schwab Great Reset is a cover story… and that what is going on is not a philosophical mulling of quo vadis the Earth but a banal banker heist.

It would explain why governments are printing and spending money as if it is water, with no transparency on where it is going, with the expectation that they will just launch Central Bank Digital Currencies and wipe the slate clean.

https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/cris ... as-pretext

But those with tunnel vision will call the above a "Strawman".

[Belligerent Savant]

.
While I peruse that substack, I must include the following as well:

Memories and minerals

As a child the only organisation I belonged to, apart from the cub scouts, was the World Wildlife Fund. It was just a few short years after the WWF had been launched. We didn’t know its founder was Prince Bernhard of Bilderberg, or that Prince Philip shot tigers, and nor did our parents since the press didn’t report those kinds of things.

My brothers, sister and I sent off our fee and cherished our membership cards with the panda icon. Today two-thirds of funding still comes from individuals, though 17 per cent from bodies like the World Bank and USAID, but only 8 per cent from those oh-so-woke corporations (2020).

Today, thankfully, the media is more vociferous: we are in the middle of an existential crisis, driven by climate change, we are told, as humans spoil the planet, mainly by using oil and gas. The Covid pandemic is the opportunity to set things right.

And we’ve got the Internet. Fifty years after joining the WWF, I checked its site to see what I should do to fight climate change:

- Write a letter

- Reduce my carbon emissions.

- Commute by carpooling or using mass transit.

- Plan and combine trips.

- Contact my electricity provider to find out about the “green power.”

Everything except for writing a letter, I do. Restrictions on travel have been replaced with inconvenience so I simply don’t.

I’m a “moderate believist” on the climate, not given to alarmism. I grew up in nature, am happiest walking in the hills, even more by a stream, carry a big plastic bag to collect litter — yes plastic bags can be a good thing (did the Duke of Edinburgh collect litter?) I rage against all types of pollution which I see as the bigger problem. I support Green energy if it does less harm.

And that is where I thought the argument rested: on the merits of one type of Green energy against another.

Colour me shocked to discover that the “offer” of renewable energy is unviable as proposed by the United Nations. Not difficult to achieve, like sacrificing some comforts for Ukraine while we renounce Russian gas, but nigh impossible.

About the windmills: if we were to replace all our oil and gas energy today, we’d have only 10 per cent of the copper required — not that which is mined, mind, but which is known to exist.

What?

It is a rule that journalists should inform the reader not ask them. But…

Simon Michaux PhD, an Australian geologist, told Channel Nine News that known reserves contain only 5 per cent of the minerals needed to make the first set of batteries, assuming all the world’s vehicles were replaced with electric.

The shortfall for lithium, cobalt, graphite and vanadium is even worse, according to Michaux of Geological Survey Finland, who has done a detailed study of what’s required to phase out hydrocarbons.

He based his calculations on the year 2018 with 84.5 per cent of primary energy still dependent on coal, oil and gas, and less than 1 per cent of the world’s vehicle fleet electric. The life cycle of renewable energy equipment is eight to 25 years. Then it needs to be made again. [1]

Even with abundant oil, polluting but calorific, the last industrial revolution took 100 years, Michaux says. “We now seek to build an even more complex system with very expensive energy, a fragile finance system saturated in debt, not enough minerals, with an unprecedented number of human population, embedded in a deteriorating environment.”

Bloomberg/NEF is more sanguine, suggesting that demand for copper will rise by half by 2040. Yet primary copper production (as opposed to recycling) can only increase 16 per cent in that time.

Where are the minerals to make the cities smart as you depart by electric vehicle?

They exist on a much smaller scale than the Green proponents claim. Either they plan to power the world with the hot air from their own prognostications, or they are misleading us. Michaux presented his findings to European bureaucrats and they pled ignorance.

Perhaps that list from the WWF on how to fight climate change should have included a sixth option: just die already.

Who in authority knows that they are corraling humanity into a dead end? I have written about the Club of Rome and the depopulation plan before. See Moneycircus, Aug 24, 2022: Crisis Update - Hate And Depopulate

Density dependent population growth is represented in formulae by D — the maximum number of people that a habitat can sustain as the carrying capacity.

Make capitalism nice again

We wrote recently about the Council On Inclusive Capitalism. This is a proposal of Pope Francis and Lynn Forester de Rothschild to make capitalism supposedly fairer to all. In practice it is a mechanism to promote environmental, social and governance criteria, ESGs, using a doubtful process of auditing. This raises the question whether ESGs themselves are the objective or the means to another.

CIC is yet another foundation. Quite what’s the use of so many globalist think tanks and NGO is a mystery. Perhaps that’s the purpose. The CIC, WEF, Club of Rome, Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations largely are run by the same groups and, more crucially, pursue the same goals.

There are a lot of foot soldiers and feudal retainers to train: politicians, bureaucrats and corporate administrators. Think tanks serve to disseminate the message. The World Economic Forum, for example, is not a consultative or policy-making body but a top-down, invitation-only network of executives and bureaucrats to transmit and implement an ethos.

One world government is not a body but a network; soldiers not generals; governance not government. Running smoothly it does not need commanders — though some are more equal than others. The owners-investors, or stakeholders, put their holdings in trust. They don’t claim to be owners any more than they pay tax.

They do claim, however, to be experts and presume to rule.

Are the bodies, from the UN to the Vatican, seriously planning Agenda 21 without checking whether the mineral resources exist on planet Earth to meet their sustainable development goals or SDGs?

Why didn’t Lynn de Rothschild call a cousin and ask about mining? If anyone has a handle on the minerals business and can tell you what’s in demand, practically off the top of their head, it would be the ennobled banking family.

From 1830-1940 they largely controlled the world markets in non-ferrous metals — lead, nickel, mercury, copper, sulphur — not to mention their more famous mining activities including diamonds, oil, coal and gold. In the 1950s they were buying up large tracts of Canada for mining. In addition NM Rothschild acts as an adviser and broker specializing in mining deals. [2]

Better still, place a call to family journal, The Economist Intelligence Unit. Lynn Rothschild is part owner!

In this corner of the Great Reset there is lots of experience and there must be an appreciation that the Green energy plans as stated are unworkable — which begs the question: are they joking or is the Green agenda a cover for something else?

Abe’s Japanese perspective

The state funeral of Shinzo Abe cost $10 million, a lavish sum that further distracts analysis of his assassination.

His passing may be symbolic. Abe was a neo-liberal in an age when the powers that be (TPTB) have moved on to state corporativism. He opposed protectionism at a time when TPTB are poised to split the world into mercantilist fiefdoms and trade zones under the “rules-based international order.” [3]

Abe promoted the phrase Indo-Pacific and the self-determination of Japan in spite of its troubled past. He saw that China’s rapid growth would destablise the region, meaning Japan had no choice but to reconsider its pacifist constitution.

By focusing on Indo-Pacific he moved the focus away from Asia-Pacific with China at its hub, and pulled out to southeast Asia where China has economic ambitions.

This conflicts with the world as shaped by BlackRock, the asset manager, led by one of the most powerful financiers, Larry Fink. An open and competitive Indo-Pacific is fraught with risk and the investor-owners don’t like risk. They want the continent and its resources to serve their interests, even if that means promoting China as the supra-national corporate governor of that particular part of the globe.

Fink sees China as the heart of a new world order and is so invested in the country and its leadership that a master manipulator like George Soros took a page in The Wall Street Journal to denounce BlackRock. That is, if the split is real, for Soros, a Rothschild foil, cannot publicly back a totalitarian state when his business model is the color revolutions of the Open Society Foundation.

Soros (Rothschild) is the disruptor, from Britain’s exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 to the downfall of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014 in the tradition of the bankers’ Bolshevik putsch. BlackRock (Rockefeller) is the healer, from the takeover of the American Medical and domination of petro-pharmaceuticals, to social experiments like the Third Reich and communist China.

Think of the two forces as chaos providing the opportunity for a new order, or the Hegelian dialectic.

There is nonetheless a split in the power elite over China. Someone has created a website to “expose” Fink. [4]

Mercantilism to feudalism

In the new order, Germany and Japan can only be conduits for supra-national corporate governance. They are not allowed to be nations, let alone nationalists.

The rhetoric of the multipolar vs unipolar world misses the point that the world is poised to revert from capitalism to mercantilism or even to a neo-feudalism, in which nations will be grouped together as fiefdoms and the currency will not be the coin of war, to which David Graeber ascribed the rise of the monetary system, but physical occupation and the extraction of land resources.

That is why the bankers are content to see their control over specie and credit replaced so long as they, personally, retain their stakes in resources: hence stakeholders. Fairness to the common man, or equity, is not part of the plan and is misdirection except in the sense that you’ll get what you deserve (equity).

Control of mineral resources will be the central objective if the transition from hydrocarbons is to be achieved. There aren't enough and the competition will be brutal.

https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/opin ... -for-green