I may just divert to Toronto from Chicago and pay this writer a visit so I can tell him to his face what an idiot he is, or have my two new Canadian friends, Guy and Stuart, do it for me. He deserves it. How do the publishers of this newspaper reconcile printing such blatant idiocy based on what the writer calls “weeks old” science? How does such a headline get published? At first I thought maybe it was just the copy editor at fault, making a dumb headline, but then I read this in the body of the story:
Over 4.5 billion people could die from Global Warming related causes by 2012, as planet Earth accelarates [sic] into a greed-driven horrific catastrophe.
6.7 billion people in the world today, and 4.5 billion will die in less than two years due to a temperature rise that will be less in magnitude than our regularly experienced variance? There’s a link at the end, feel free to sound off. We need to remind this newspaper of this in 2012 – Anthony
Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012
Hydrate hypothesis illuminates growing climate change alarm
Compiled by John Stokes
A recent scientific theory called the “hydrate hypothesis” says that historical global warming cycles have been caused by a feedback loop, where melting permafrost methane clathrates (also known as “hydrates”) spur local global warming, leading to further melting of clathrates and bacterial growth.
In other words, like western Siberia, the 400 billion tons of methane in permafrost hydrate will gradually melt, and the released methane will speed the melting. The effect of even a couple of billion tons of methane being emitted into the atmosphere each year would be catastrophic.
The “hydrate hypothesis” (if validated) spells the rapid onset of runaway catastrophic global warming. In fact, you should remember this moment when you learned about this feedback loop-it is an existencial turning point in your life.
By the way, the “hydrate hypothesis” is a weeks old scientific theory, and is only now being discussed by global warming scientists. I suggest you Google the term.
Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing the Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to when we will pass the tipping point and be helpless to stop the runaway Global Warming.
There are enormous quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and under the oceans in ice-like structures called clathrates. The methane in Arctic permafrost clathrates is estimated at 400 billion tons.
Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, and the atmosphere currently contains about 3.5 billion tons of the gas.
The highest temperature increase from global warming is occurring in the arctic regions-an area rich in these unstable clathrates. Simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half the permafrost will thaw by 2050, and as much as 90 percent by 2100.
…
Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. The west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tonnes of methane. Local atmospheric levels of methane on the Siberian shelf are now 25 times higher than global concentrations.
…
Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth’s remaining resources.
Over 4.5 billion people could die from Global Warming related causes by 2012, as planet Earth accelarates into a greed-driven horrific catastrophe.
…
Make comments about this article in The Canadian Blog.
[DON’T VISIT – AV PROGRAMS REPORT AS “ATTACK PAGE”]
Full story here
Contact page for The Canadian here
==========================================
UPDATE: To further illustrate just how bad this newspaper is, they have what appears to be a current date for the story right above the headline:
Yet when you look at the footer:
The automatic current date inserter gives the false impression of fresh news. It certainly fooled me and other readers. It appears this is an old article from 2007, still no less stupid, and to be proven false within 18 months. Readers that are visiting the blog page link provided by The Canadian are reporting AV software saying it to be an “attack site”. I’ve verified this, Visiting not recommended. Just make a date in your appointment calendar to drop a line to the editors (assuming this paper is still in existence in 2012) to remind them you and 4.5 billion other people aren’t dead. – A
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This is a good example of why models are problematic, and fear-mongering is stupid.
The rest of that alarmist claims from 2007 are showing to be just as idiotic as this one… just on a more numerical and esoteric level.
It’s also the year that Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, after all.
Can not contact the paper. Says off line. I guess they can’t take all of WUWT hits.
Western Siberia, 60-90E, 60-70N:
CRUTEM: http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_60-90E_60-70N_na.png
MSU: http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/itlt_60-90E_60-70N_na.png
Where exactly is the 3C warming, Stokes?
Truly an idiotic piece. But don’t confuse this with what climate scientists are saying.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/arctic-methane-on-the-move/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/methane-hydrates-and-global-warming/
Thanks for the link Neil Craig,
The Observer in 2004, unquestioningly quoting the Pentagon, also has other gems:
“· By 2007 violent storms smash coastal barriers rendering large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable. Cities like The Hague are abandoned. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento river area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.
(…)
· By 2010 the US and Europe will experience a third more days with peak temperatures above 90F. Climate becomes an ‘economic nuisance’ as storms, droughts and hot spells create havoc for farmers.
(…)
Immigrants from Scandinavia seek warmer climes to the south.
(..)
· Mega-droughts affect the world’s major breadbaskets, including America’s Midwest, where strong winds bring soil loss.
(…)
Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates the inland water supplies.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver1
Is the only antidote to these extreme predictions, extreme but opposite predictions? I haven’t read the details but a Russian scientist is predicting a mini ice age beginning in 2014.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=155225
I suppose if the headline were true, the good news would be a great many would be the enviro wackos.
On the other hand, why not go a little further with
“Nearly 6.7 billion to die from Climate Change over the next 100 years!!”?
At least there would be some partial truth to it.
Medieval Warm Period. We are still here.
The Canadian National Newspaper is an obscure far left publication. But, they are on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19440235777
They have 66 friends. The editor, John Stokes, who “complied” the article has 47 fiends and he is a “truther.”
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=701257922
I have a linux system so I did a bit of poking around.
e-mail is: editor-in-chief@agoracosmopolitan.com
Toronto office: 416-996-3403
John Stokes who wrote this piece is “co-managing editor” with Peggy Chang. “The Canadian” seems to be part of “Agora Cosmopolitan” based in Ottawa. Raymond Samuels of the “Cosmopolitan Party” has published all of his book through “Agora Cosmopolitan” The Cosmopolitan party claimed 600 members in 2004. This is interesting since “Agora Cosmopolitan” has international offices.
“The Cosmopolitan Party under Samuels’ leadership describes itself as progressive and centrist. The party’s platform (which is written in quasi-religious language) blames the open market economy and the rule of mammon for social inequality in Canada, and calls for government intervention to promote the quality of life. The party also advocates social justice and environmental concerns, and argues that Canadians have a basic right to food, shelter, and other necessities.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Samuels
The worst of this as a Canadian is that they named their drivel page the Canadian. I should be able to sue for this. Anyway the “regressives” must feel the need to come to the aid of the nonsensus as its scientists scramble to move away from the foundering AGW cruise ship. It will only get crazier as the residual nuts left behind become a relict sqeek. It would be interesting to monitor what is being published these days by the former golden boys and girls of the end-of-the-world AGW synod. Anyone know what the latest offerings from the planet doctors are? I would guess that their output has dropped significantly and that the tone has also shifted. No more protesting the death trains? No more big conferences in Bali or Bora Bora?
4.5 billion? Maybe the writer is a Christian dispensationalist? That’s approximately 2/3 of the world population.
‘the “hydrate hypothesis” is a weeks old scientific theory”
“Theory” indeed . . . NOT in the least. Speculation at best, and far more in the genre of fantasy than science fiction.
There’s nothing posted in over a year. Just another dead loony-left blog.
I like their second last post:
Manipulative Extraterrestrials and the undermining of Human free will
In a Collector’s Edition entitled “Secrets of the Da Vinci Code,” published by US News and World Report, there is a brief interview with James Robinson, general editor of the Nag Hammadi Library.
Fitzy says:
May 18, 2010 at 4:18 am
Muh Ha-ha.
Slightly OT, I recall the playbook for socialist revolutions actually hinge on tier one radicals(True believers) doing most of the knife work. Once the screaming stops, and the gutters overflow with red stuff, those who pulled the shivs on the public get one in the back from their tier two comrades (Middle management). Never leave the true radicals alive and heaving post revolution, they’re far too dangerous, ….so it gets me-a-wondering….
________________________________________________________________________
Yes that is why Lenin had Innocents’ Clubs and Stalin was said to have “useful idiots”. Unfortunately the wide-eyed youthful zealots are too busy rebelling against the “establishment” to pay attention to the wisdom in history. Of course once they wake-up they become dangerous to the “cause” and have to be done away with. The should take note of what happened to Malcolm X
To those reading only the newest comments, I have an earlier post (recently rescued from the filters) about the new web address of The Canadian. Yup, the creature is still alive, the brain was moved to a different body. Still works as well. 😉
As a Canadian I’ve never heard of this rag and it has no relevance. It’s just an outlet for wackos on the fringe of society. As an earlier poster stated, it’s a shame that because of their moniker, Canadians as a whole get disparaged!
Hi. I’m John Stokes, the climate scientist. Would you like fries with that?
Clearly the lesson here is that if you are going to hypothesize the deaths of 4.5B people, you need to do it with at least a 5 year horizon and not a 2 year horizon. Because apparently if you do it with a 5 year horizon then people will just roll their eyes at you a little bit, whereas if you do it with a 2 year horizon everybody gets all excited and stuff.
But if you are trying to raise long-term funding for your university, you need to do it in 30 yr or more horizons, both to ensure a long-term funding stream but also to avoid any unhappy falisifiability issues that could also jeopardize your funding before you’ve milked ole Bessy dry.
Funny. I was in Holland last year and it was just fine. They must have got over the worst.
Incidentally, does anyone know of an estimate of casualties if we go back to our (default) state of Ice Age?
2012?
2012!!!
Nah, it’s ok….. I watched 2012… We lived happily ever after at the end… We had those big floaty ark thingies parked in th’ Himalayas…. You know, where th’ glaciers usta be;-)
Fortunately Toronto is home to Stephen McIntyre too.
A repeat for most WUWT readers but here’s a little medicine for the ills created by “The Canadian” idiocy piece.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/13/centre-of-the-storm/
companies who buy add space in this rag should be contacted and made aware of this propaganda!!
Red Admiral says:
May 18, 2010 at 8:49 am
“Funny. I was in Holland last year and it was just fine. They must have got over the worst.
Incidentally, does anyone know of an estimate of casualties if we go back to our (default) state of Ice Age?”
__________________________________________________________________________
It comes down to food. That is why there is a scramble by corporations to oust private farmers from the market worldwide.
I find the grab for control of energy and control of the food supply at this time highly suspicious given the 1974 CIA report and the global Warming Con started within 2 years of each other. In 1973, Nicholas (Nick) Shackleton nailed it [Milankovitch cycles ] all down for certain. It is instructive to read Strong’s 1972 Stockholm speech…. Strong warned urgently about global warming… despite the fact the US was barely starting to warm.
The only one I know of who has tried to look at this question is David Archibald. see this paper: Quantifying the US Agricultural Productivity Response to Solar Cycle 24
The corporate take over of farming
US farming History: History, HACCP and the Food Safety Con Job
World Bank/IMF Structural Adjustment Programs
Agriculture and Monopoly capital
Manufacturing Food Crisis:
The Battle to Save Polish Farms:
This last is interesting because it is an eye witness report of a EU meeting:
“..After clearing her throat and leaning slowly forward, the chair-lady said: “I don’t think you understand what EU policy is. Our objective is to ensure that farmers receive the same salary parity as white collar workers in the cities. The only way to achieve this is by restructuring and modernising old fashioned Polish farms to enable them to compete with other countries agricultural economies and the global market. To do this it will be necessary to shift around one million farmers off the land and encourage them to take city and service industry jobs to improve their economic position. The remaining farms will be made competitive with their counterparts in western Europe.”
There in a nutshell you have the whole tragic story of the clinically instigated demise of European farming over the past three decades. We protested that with unemployment running at 20 percent how would one provide jobs for another million farmers dumped on the streets of Warsaw? This was greeted with a stony silence, eventually broken by a lady from Portugal, who rather quietly remarked that since Portugal joined the European Union, 60 percent of small farmers had already left the land. “The European Union is simply not interested in small farms,” she said.”
The Festering Fraud Behind Food Safety Reform
For some definitions of “could”….
Methane-driven oceanic eruptions and mass extinctions (pdf)
The paper hypothesizes a massive conflagration causing an abrupt, catastrophic die-off of terrestrial species. The clathrate instability is released by an earthquake or undersea volcanic event – rather like a lake turning over. This was a 2003 article in the journal “Geology”.
Also, check Wikipedia for clathrate gun.