Guest post by Thomas Fuller
(Okay. Based on the assumption that overly cryptic titles of blog posts need to be explained early: Old Testament prophets predicting doom gave rise to the term ‘Jeremiahs’ after one prominent example, and their doom-laden screeds even got the term ‘jeremiads.’ Michael Tobis is lamenting the failure of climate activism of late and predicting horrible things will happen–very much like the Jeremiahs of old.
Tobis is a Research Scientist Associate (in practice, mostly a software engineer) who very rarely writes about climate science, preferring to pronounce on the sins and errors of journalists, bloggers and politicians. Instead of writing about what he knows, he writes about what angers him. He may well be an expert on climate science. He is not at all an expert on media criticism.
However, Tobis mostly sits crouched on the lilypad of his own weblog, and his posts are frequently written as if they were being croaked into the night, waiting vainly for a response.
So Three Dog Night was very wise when they wrote that Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.)
Cap and Trade is dead. So says Joe Romm, so says the NY Times, so says the Atlantic.
Okay, what is next?
The wrong answer is C) Nothing. But thanks for playing our game. What will happen is that we will reframe the problem in a way that may be more acceptable to more people. That’s because restating the problem is much easier than readjusting the solutions so many have been working on. So we will start talking more about adaptation than mitigation, about regional resilience than global mean temperatures, about heat in the oceans rather than CO2 in the atmosphere. (All of which are fine with me.)
The world is not going to walk away from global warming quickly–even if many would like to run.Ā Defeat doesn’t work like that in diplomacy. Cancun will still take place, options will still be floated, proposals bruited, etc.
But the surest sign that the air has gone out of the balloon is the decision to retain Rajendra Pachauri, as some gloomy Banquo’s ghost. If the IPCC had anything that was both new and real to offer, they’d have got a new guy in there.
So the diplomats will not acknowledge the failure of diplomacy. The mainstream media, having spilled more ink than an army of squids promoting the need to change our climate, will have to wait a respectable length of time before dropping the hot potato in favor of Lady Gaga or watching paint dry, whichever is more entertaining.
Domestic politicians won’t let go of their clubs until after the November elections in the USA, although the UK may be moving a bit more quickly. But being on the right side of the climate change issue now means no more than being on the wrong side. Next up–immigration reform?
We diehards on the blogs will still talk about it–we have a lot invested in the subject. I’ve noticed the range of subjects on climate blogs is widening a bit, with Keith Kloor reintroducing anthropology and archaeology, and Michael Tobis getting more local than global.
But despite this all giving discussions the air of a post-game show, it isn’t over. Not the actual changes to the climate, not the politics, not the blame game, and eventually not the policies to deal with it.
We still have climate and it will still change. We may be a bit less arrogant about our ability to predict those changes and assign the causes, but change there still will be.
Those who don’t like the changes will still blame human activities, although if they’re smart they might start reading Roger Pielke Sr. and attributing changes to more than just CO2.
People are still re-fighting the Vietnam War. Heck, there are people still re-fighting the Civil War. We’re not going to let this go any time soon.
Especially because of the twin peaks of Energy As An Issue and The Developing Countries As An Issue. Because we are the way we are, we will think we have to solve both. And because we are the way we are, we will think we have to solve both at the same time with the same tools, even though actions to make progress on one of them will make things more difficult for the other. Conserve energy, make the developing countries suffer. Help the developing countries, make the energy crisis worse.
And when we get frustrated, maybe we’ll pine for the easy days of fighting over climate change.
There are things we can do to protect against further climate change, improve energy security and smooth the path for developing countries. The conservative American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institute have teamed up with the Breakthrough Institute to propose a post-partisan solution (PDF), mostly based on research. It’d probably work, too. But the problem with post-partisan proposals is that they would put partisans out of a job, so of course left and right are ganging up on these people.
Their proposals are important, but it probably looks as though their timing stinks. This would have seemed really useful six months ago. But now it seems like they’re showing up with their party gifts just as everybody’s cleaning up and getting ready to go home.
But that’s an illusion. The climate / energy wars will last another generation. This is just a pause of exhaustion. We will change names, politicians, bloggers and the nuances of our positions and get ready for Round Three. This is, after all, the title fight to end all title fights.
But more on that another time. Meanwhile, Joy to the World!
=========================================
BTW, I’ll bet most readers didn’t know this:
“Joy to the World” is a song written by Hoyt Axton, and made famous by the band Three Dog Night. – Anthony
You believe politicians when they give pronouncements? Boy, that’s rich…talk about bullfrogs on lillypads! LOL
(I see a whole bunch of people that believed Big O before the elections–They’re now accusing him (rightly so) of going the opposite way on just about everything he said.)
“Help the developing countries, make the energy crisis worse.”
What energy crisis? Earnest question.
optimistic much?
I’m 35 yrs old and my generation is chock full of brainwashed liberal puppets. These issues are FAR from over. I expect to be fighting these robots for the rest of my life and so be it.
Interesting article, Tom, and on one level I’m hoping you’re right – but Congress left town without taking a stand on extending the Bush Tax Cuts, primarily to finesse the issue. If the November election is as bad a bloodbath as some are predicting, the lame-duck session will have every incentive to try and cement the progressive agenda into place and hope that the new congress will be unable to over-ride certain Presidential vetoes of bills attempting to roll-back some of the administrations accomplishments or that inertia and the prospect of a vast revenue stream will blunt any attempts at roll-backs. The experience of Connecticut is instructive. Governor Lowell Weicker in 1991 refused to sign any budget that did not include an income tax. The legislature finally caved and passed an income tax and politicians from both parties in subsequent elections vowed to repeal the tax. It’s 20 years later and we still have the tax.
I’m expecting “dead” Cap and Trade legislation to be presented and passed during the lame duck session. Congress will have nothing to lose.
So your message seems to be that because AGW support has declined somewhat and is dissolving at the edges into other more marketable enviro-concerns, we can all relax?
I don’t think so. We cannot let up on the AGW-istas, because of the serious damage that they have done to the credibility of science, not to mention diverting research and funding resources away from real issues. This situation canot be allowed to recur, we have lost twenty years in gaining proper understanding of climate effects, and it will take many years to recover from that position.
Building knowledge in climate science is essential to a multitude of human activities and in preparing ourselves for any eventualities, be they beneficial or adverse. I would not wish to see that permanently lost, nor be regressed back in the future due to lack of vigilance on the part of the climate scientists’ peers and interested observers.
Eco totalitarians at work in the UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-11557909
I’m with DirkH on this one : what energy crisis ? Our current “crisis” appears to me to be a fabrication .
Thanks for mentioning Dr Pielke Sr., who has perhaps the most sensible, even-tempered science blog. Now, if he were in charge of IPCC’s WG1, it would be a fair account. Sadly, and probably deliberately, that’s not likely.
Here’s a fact of life (ALL life ). Find something to eat, pass on your genes, don’t get eaten. I mention this because there is no way in hell anyone is going to solve world hunger – or any other so called global problem.
What was the point of this post ?
Is this MSM ? I thought I was on a blog.
The MSM need to fill up pages with words.
Hoyt was God in Gremlins!!! RIP
Three Dog Night
It refers to being cold. Often when ranchers or cowboys were out on the range they would have to sleep with their dogs to keep warm. A one dog night was a night when he had to share body heat with one dog, two dog night was two dogs and a three dog night was an extremely cold night where he would have to share body heat with three dogs. āhow cold was it on your trip?ā āIt was a three dog nightā.
I found it here:
http://www.idiomsite.com/threedognight.htm
PS to my previous. Do you know why there won’t be any “solutions”? Because progress (evolution) requires conflict and competition. Solutions such as have been proposed for climate, energy, etc. all require cooperation, which leads to evolutionary stagnation. In short terms; Life must fight to live.
An interesting piece on the future direction of the Royal Society:
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2010/10/what-next-for-the-royal-society.html
“There are things we can do to protect against further climate change”
Mr. Fuller, you know only too well the position the vast majority of WUWT readers have on climate change. If you wrote the article for this audience, why do you so nonchalantly use a premise that you know is not accepted and never address the fact that the premise is challenging to us? Your articles always follow the line then suddenly ask us to take the bait, almost as if they are simply a ‘long con’.
Why should we listen to your opinions when you, as a non-scientist, stand on the shoulders of IPCC science but seem oblivious to this site’s continual dismantling of it.
“Domestic politicians wonāt let go of their clubs until after the November elections in the USA, although the UK may be moving a bit more quickly.”
FIFO
In re: BTW, Iāll bet most readers didnāt know …
Hoyt’s mother, Mae Axton , with Tommy Durden, wrote “Heartbreak Hotel”, a mega hit for Elvis.
EPA prepares to veto coal mine permit over CO2. And this makes it sound like it has indeed been killed.
In other words, who needs laws when you control the bureaucracy.
Hey Fuller, “wall of text” look it up.
This is where you lose me, Tom. I don’t see any reason to control co2 at all, yet. What on earth do you mean “protect against further climate change?” I’m opposed to ANY policy or tax dollar designed to somehow influence the climate of this nation. Until further notice this would be an act of insanity. As far as energy security goes, by all means let us exploit all of out fossil fuel options here in North America as well as greatly expanding our nuclear facilities.
If you want to find new ways to possibly convince the public that global warming is indeed still a threat, by all means, go ahead. Just don’t ask for any government dollars to do so. After November 2nd, there will be no more tax dollars left to play with. The answer to what comes next IS nothing.
But thatās an illusion. The climate / energy wars will last another generation.
Why are you conflating climate with energy?
They have as much in common as the average breast size and the price of gold.
This is just a pause of exhaustion. We will change names, politicians, bloggers and the nuances of our positions and get ready for Round Three. This is, after all, the title fight to end all title fights.
No. This “pause” will last about one Grand Cycle. Which is a long time.
There will be a period of coldness to come, but the usual thing of “A new Ice Age is COMING!!!” (like the 70’s) won’t happen because the embarrassment of this current debacle will permeate the various “establishments”. Then it’ll warm again and again the embarrassment of this current debacle will silence the idiocy – despite that it will be well over 60 years in the past by then.
Then it’ll get cold again, and there may be murmorings of idiocy – but that will be about a century into the future. At that point, they will be thinking (like we do) “People of a hundred years ago were as dumb as rocks, had no idea how to do science and used such primitive equipment”
The image of the Bull is just kick ass, it’s like the bull has just landed, one can even see the bubbles around the chest. Usually frog pics are more like frogs in flight or just starting their jump, never just having recently landed. So +1 for the Bull.
What I don’t get though is why it really starts out focusing on someone called Tobis who calls himself a software engineer when he’s no such thing but an 80’s systems engineer, software engineers never did much hardware stuff after all not even back then.
Maybe it’s just my dislike for the pathetic language of python but somehow I figure not but rather the weirdness of someone having freely spent more ‘an 23 years in higher education and apparently have no real world application to show for. I’m stumped. And probably, as I read it, that Bull is too, because it seem to be saying: Get real and move it already!
Does this mean the AGW inflationary bubble has burst?
Clue: Globalism = ++ Inflating bubble
Cue: Freezing in the dark at the start of the Greatest Depression ever?
Cue: WW3?
Cue: ?
Philip Thomas says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:08 pm
āThere are things we can do to protect against further climate changeā
“Mr. Fuller, you know only too well the position the vast majority of WUWT readers have on climate change. If you wrote the article for this audience, why do you so nonchalantly use a premise that you know is not accepted and never address the fact that the premise is challenging to us? Your articles always follow the line then suddenly ask us to take the bait, almost as if they are simply a ālong conā.
Why should we listen to your opinions when you, as a non-scientist, stand on the shoulders of IPCC science but seem oblivious to this siteās continual dismantling of it.”
Thank you Philip Thomas.
You’re hitting the nail on the head.
Websites such as WUWT are really good at science. May they prosper forever, especially WUWT. However, something that is greatly need now is a website that can do for funding mechanisms, laws, the UN, IPCC, environmental lobbies, and similar matters what WUWT has done for science.
Climate change ? Are the glaciers coming back to Yosemite ?
Must agree with Philip Thomas and Mike M.? Why must there be ANY action on climate change? Adaption, mitigation, or otherwise? It’s not like humanity has faced a climate crisis in the past. And, IMO, there is no impending climate crisis on the horizon.
“Global Climate Disruption”, or whatever the name is this week, is a fabricated problem. It doesn’t exist. Recall, global cooling was the boogie-man in the 1970s, which turned into global warming in the 80s, which morphed into the meaningless, catch-all ‘climate change’ in 90s. If there was a true climate crisis, it wouldn’t have to undergo re-branding every decade.
Money, research, and resources should be funneled into real environmental problems, and, dare I say, real cutting edge science, like sending Man back to the moon. The resources p!ssed away on AGW these past 20 years is criminal.
I think Raving is right about the AGW bubble.
The war that will last a generation is the one between the developed world and the developing world, in which developed-world NGO’s are the main antagonists against the world’s poor. Our ‘aid’ agencies’ belief that countries can rise from poverty by becoming dependent on handouts from developed nations has been failing for generations, but nobody seems to have noticed.
Copenhagen exposed the Climate game as just another means to keep the poverty-stricken impoverished and dependent on the developed world. That war will go on until (a) we wake up and do something that would actually be helpful (e.g. pass the stalled-in-congress free trade agreement with Colombia, and encourage -those- kinds of initiatives instead of just offering crumbs off our table) or else (b) the third world wakes up on its own and shakes off its dependency on European and N.American handouts, as many countries are already doing.
Curiousgeorge, at October 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
re conflict, competition, and cooperation.
Cooperation is The defining human characteristic. Intentional Communities foster standards and gather energy: resolving storage needs with a barn-raising; addressing Hussein in Kuwait and Hitler in Europe; setting football rules and establishing teams are several examples. IPCC efforts to claim the heights and to set the agenda from Ā“on highĀ“ have shown us how to neither define nor address any problem.
This conflict between oligarchs and workers was unnecessary and not the last battle. As noted above, by several commenters, the self-anointed will always be with us. The price of liberty is constant vigilance.
I think you do miss the one key point, this entire scare was somewhat successful and despite all the hope you portray, I think this battle will just shift venues somewhat and all the idiot scientists will start studying similar fields such as “sustainable”.
Global warming may be dead, but the underlying theme of “too many stinky people” is still alive and kicking. This was the basic assumption that got us into this mess and until that is thoughly choked to death and science restored from its use of feel-good equations and bad models, we will still be in this mess for a long time.
The gravy train has a long way to go until its wrecked as well. The NSF is giving out record numbers of grants for global warming research (under stimulus dollars) and Obama expanded NASA’s budget…to study climate in more detail. Until those actions are corrected, in the case of NASA I think the correct direction is de-funding climate studies and going for space exploration, but I digress. Until those things are done, we will be arguing about global warming in the states for awhile, and in places where they already established CO2 controls….well that might be a hassle and quite a mess for a very long time.
The fat lady still has not sung yet, as too many believers in climate catastrophe are still kicking it up. Expect at least another 2 years of this nonsense….until the fat lady sings for global warming, and then we can ask ourselves the question that people always come to:
“what now?” We still have a long way to go for that.
An old Italian proverb, “The mothers of idiots are perpetually pregnant”, persuades me to believe that the AGW racket, presently hitting rock bottom, is far from over.
There’s too much easily pocketed taxpayer money involved, too many pseudo-scientific jobs at the stake.
And let’s not forget that an army of MSM hacks play Jeremiah the bullfrog for a living.
This description of the political situation is accurate, as is the broad point of the AGW hysteria fading away. The hysteria peaked somewhere in the middle of last year and for a number of factors, crashed dramatically but this piece ignores what I think will be the coda to the movement – ecoterrorism.
This will not be people buzzing whaling ships or barricading power stations. This will be green zealots killing people. Think about the sort of people who saw nothing wrong with the 10:10 movie and indeed, still don’t. They’ve had nearly a generation of conditioning and when the bubble bursts, you can expect them to move to more extreme ways to save the planet.
Pointman
bait and switch
…….thanks Tom, but not falling for this either
So the diplomats will not acknowledge the failure of diplomacy.
What failure? The diplomats have achieved exactly what the vast bulk of them set out to do. Nothing.
Their success is that they managed to con the green NGOs into believing that they were actively trying to do something. Magnificent really.
No conference as long as Copenhagen or Cancun will ever get agreement on a problem that size. You would need 6 months, minimum. And that’s what the WHO does in its rounds. If the governments (and so the diplomats) were serious about carbon reduction the talks would be on-going. And no body without power would be invited (all those NGOs) because they add nothing – having no power – and only generate emotion rather than solutions. Do the Red Cross get a seat in peace negotiations?
What?! Jeremiah’s predictions did come true.
Between the AGW folks, the goldbugs, the Fed, the banking cartel, the Austerians, and the war lovers the world seems determined to bring on the End. It seems a strange time to mock an authentic Prophet.
Go ahead and strike this comment, moderator, for being religious. I’ll laugh.
BTW, Jeremiah is a good read. š
Hey evanjones. I still remember you and the gang. I had fun with you guys. Congratulations on the success of this site.
The people I really feel sorry for are those guys like Anthony Watts who have worked so hard to dispel the global warming myth and who are destined to be the experts in a subject which most of the public couldn’t care less about.
Forget any idea of being paraded in a victory parade, they’ll be lucky if anyone remembers who they were in a few years time. How ironic! That success comes when Joe public wonders why anyone sceptic and alarmist alike, could ever got so heated about such an unimportant subject.
Yes Minister, La mamma dei cretini e sempre incinta. Truer words were never spoken in any language.
“But thatās an illusion. The climate / energy wars will last another generation. This is just a pause of exhaustion. We will change names, politicians, bloggers and the nuances of our positions and get ready for Round Three. This is, after all, the title fight to end all title fights.”
I doubt this. When a fad is over in the West, it is OVAH! Other things will now absorb our attention, like…jobs and careers!
@ John R T says:
October 16, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Curiousgeorge, at October 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
re conflict, competition, and cooperation.
Cooperation is The defining human characteristic. …………………..
I disagree, but you are entitled to your opinion of course. Cooperation exists only for as long as it furthers the interests of all the parties. And even then there is competition for leadership/supremacy. This is true not only in a biological sense, but also in social/cultural structures. Were it not so, we would still be living in the trees and running from lions. Conflict is what got us to where we are – the top of the food chain. Conflict is what puts one culture/tribe/nation/business, etc. in a superior position to another. Conflict determines who survives and prospers (passes on their “genes”), and who doesn’t.
Alan S. Blue says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:14 pm
No doubt we will have to fend off repeated attacks from hostile beaurocracies, like the EPA, with sticks, pitchforks and torches, if we want an America worth living in.
A fight it will be, for such agencies have a one-size-fits-all solution for problems: Shut everything down.
Mike Haseler says:
October 16, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Look on the bright side: We may get a reprise of Leanord Nimoy’s In Search of the Coming Ice Age.
The public will be automatically skeptical for the next 20 years.
It’s the projected, or “modelled” crisis. i.e. there will be a crisis of some kind at some future date and that is the crisis we can avert now if we do X. In this instance, X involves giving me, personally, Ā£1. Thanks very much!
Mr. Fuller,
I find your comment that the climate / energy wars will last another generation to be overly pessimistic. In part I believe this may be because you are still holding onto the idea that CAGW is a real problem. From the climate realist side things are looking more optimistic.
You have indicated that those involved in the scam will try and slink slowly away from their false claims and I believe this will be so. They will try, but it will not work. We now live in the age of the Internet and the old political techniques will not work. All the past behavior of the politicians, NGO’s, “progressive” journalists and scientists involved is recorded forever. The internet will allow the evidence of their mendacity and malfeasance to be refreshed in the public eye with the click of a mouse.
Those involved in the scam will be smacked down whenever they try to regain influence over our society. Only those who make a clear public admission of error are likely to survive. Those that try the old fashioned slinking away are doomed in the face of the new media. With the collapse of the CAGW scam, a generation of politicians, environmentalists and journalists have written themselves out of the political equation. There will be no foot soldiers to man the trenches on the left of field for the bio-crisis scam or the peak energy scam. The only players on the field will be an army of sceptics talking about abiotic oil and thorium power.
No carbon debt, no bio debt, no energy debt and no framework of socialist global governance to redistribute the ill gotten gains. We can look forward to a few decades of hope and aspiration.
Joy to the World!
More Joy. by Harry Nilsson:
“The other day, I met a girl named Joy
She said, “Come here, I’m going to make you my Joy Boy”
Well, things went good, things went bad
Now every time I think of Joy it makes me sad
It makes me . . . sad
The other day, I met a girl named Joy
She said, “Roy, I’m going to make you my Joy Boy”
Well, she took me for a ride, sort of a joy ride
Now every time I think of Joy, I get all weird inside
Sung:
Joy to the world was a beautiful girl
But to me Joy meant only sorrow”
vasthead.com/Songs/joy_nilsson.html
Wrong, wrong, wrong, Mike Haseler! Anthony Watts is a true hero (not that most people even know what that is these days). Anyone who understands the enormity of the global warming scam and the damage it has done to society, will be forever in Anthony Watts’ debt.
Ralph Phalen:
Iām expecting ādeadā Cap and Trade legislation to be presented and passed during the lame duck session. Congress will have nothing to lose.
I’m hoping the remaining incumbents will not want to commit suicide like their recently ousted associates did.
Ya know – regardless of whether the earth is warming or not, humans will adapt. That’s our forte. We will require more energy as we bring the entire globe to a higher standard of living – there is no doubt about this. As I contend with my warmist friends, efficiency and free markets will drive this adaptation – not scare tactics and not economy throttling government intervention.
Humans adapt, not mitigate
‘mike sphar says:
October 16, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Climate change ? Are the glaciers coming back to Yosemite ?’
They will. It’s matter of time.
Minor typo nitpick –
“There are things we can do to protect against further climate change, improve energy security and smooth the path for developing countries. The conservative American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institute …”
You left out the comma after “energy security,” and the last sentence should be “The conservative American Enterprise Institute and The liberal Brookings Institute …”
It’s easy to miss such things. I notice that it happens all the time.
Gee, I hate it when I mess up the html.
[Reply: I was going to correct it, but then I thought it might have been intentional… ~dbs]
Well, I knew it was made famous by Three Dog Night. I used to sing along and I think I had the albumn. didn’t know about Hoyt Axton.
Question for Thomas:
Let’s imagine CO2 truly is a problem for the climate. Why not look at all products made today, all materials, and determine a transition to Thorium /batteries?
The problem today is finding a solution to quick fillup/recharge, and cost. For home heating, and many other energy uses, what is wrong with carbon capture for the next 50 years (until everyone realizes CO2 has no relevant role in climate) or until transition to Thorium is complete?
Why are environmental groups picketing and litigating every power plant and refinery in America?
If this is TRULY a scientific issue and warming advocates TRULY beieve CO2 causes harm, why do they impede ALL solutions other than reduced consumption?
And you Thomas, despite the numerous benevolent interventions of yours truly, are not going to let go of the culty construct that there is an energy crisis. If we were ever close one, it was definitely a man-made one with the perrennially unhappy misanthropes that never go away, blocking coal, hydro and nuke plant constructions, lying on the rails to block coal trains, and pushing the foresting of the earth with windmills or carpeting the earth with with solar panels that we may as well not stop the kids from throwing rocks at. I hope you live a long time to see that, after all, economics and engineering will continue to save us from this worry which has never arisen and will not arise. Oh we will have to save the poor greenies hides too, just like we endeavour to do for the unappreciative nile crocodile.
Energy crisis??
You mean the MAN MADE energy crisis??
THERE IS NO ENERGY CRISIS!!!
mods: mispelled perennial and left a word or two.
[REPLY – Te absolvo. ~ Evan]
You forgot to mention the EPA. There are big fights coming. Maybe the EPA will have it authority over CO2 removed.
I am very pleased to learn that Hoyt Axton wrote “Joy to the World.” Always loved Hoyt’s performances and his personality.
Tom for some reason you never seem to learn anything about energy or economics no matter how many times we correct the misinformation you state.
Really?Why? Because you have been raised to falsely believe that central planning works? Every single government led energy policy has been an utter failure and always will be. I take it you are refusing to read this book,
Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future
Alternative Energy proponents apparently not only do not understand economics but also physics,
Five myths about green energy (The Washington Post)
The Real Problem With Renewables (Hint: It’s physics) (Forbes)
For their assault on our reason and society I will be playing whack the whacko for years to come. Think about it ” My honourable opponent is so stupid he/she still believes in Anthropogenic Global Warming caused by CO2″. This is our near political future and each new hysteria will be compared to this fraud for goofiness. A whole generation or two of propanda resistant children are growing up now.Al Gore was good for something after all.
I’m one of those who expects the issue to rise, Nosferatu-like, a few times after it’s presumed dead. I don’t think it’s safe to declare it dead, not by a long shot.
I’ll know it’s really dead when I stop hearing my colleagues regurgitating whatever they heard about
global warmingclimate change on last nights evening news show on the telly, or NPR on the way in to work.Iām with you on this one Thomas, but a single generation? I think not. This is just one chapter in the evolution of alarmism that goes back centuries. To prove this, I built a computer model of alarmism. I was able to hindcast alarmism for thousands of years and accurately correlate it with historical records. I then ran the model into the future with some astounding results. Alarmism is subject to both major and minor cycles. The minor cycles repeat in a decreasing time scale until they bring the major cycle to an abrupt end and begin a new major cycle. I provide the output from my most recent trial run to illustrate the effect:
10,000 BC;
āUgh. Earth shake and mountain spew fire. Spirits angry. Bring much food and hides to appease spirits. Store in my tent.
5,000 BC;
āKingās dream is warning from spirits. Bring much food and gold. Store in Kingās warehouse. I will be warehouse manager.ā
1200 AD;
āDo as this book says or your soul will suffer eternal damnation. Since most of you canāt read, youāll have to come to visit your priest ever 7 days and he will charge you a small amount of gold for absolving your sins. From time to time large armies will be raised to kill people who donāt follow the book. This is the only way we will ever have peace, and you will need to bring large quantities of gold when that time comes.ā
1917 AD;
āCentrally planned economies ensure efficiency and fair sharing of resources. All your food, clothing, building materials and weapons will be managed centrally, and you will be informed of how much you can have and when, so that everyone gets the same amount. We, the leaders of the revolution, will be the central planning committee. Capitalism will crumble in the face of our success and will surrender without us firing a shot. Good thing as there are more of these dissident types than we thought, and weāll need the ammunition to deal with them. When thereās that many who claim contrary positions, there just isnāt enough time to argue with each of them. Instead, with the help of the nationās teachers, we can identify these subversives at the youngest possible age and deal with them accordingly. Some day we may be able to just press a button on a little grey box, but until then weāll just have to deal with them the normal way by shooting them.ā
1975 AD;
āThe planet has been cooling for some time and this may indicate the onset of a new ice age. Large segments of the human population will likely be displaced, and many species of plants and animals are likely to become extinct. It is urgent that government fund research to help predict the course of the cooling, and develop mitigation strategies.ā
1980 AD;
āThe world is running out of oil and we will have none left at all as early as 1995. It is vital that government invest heavily in research of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power like these ones we are demonstrating here.ā
1998 AD;
āThe planet has been warming for some time and this may indicate the onset of global warming. Large segments of the human population will likely be displaced, and many species of plants and animals are likely to become extinct. It is urgent that government fund research to help predict the course of the warming, and develop mitigation strategies.ā
2005 AD
āThe world has too much oil and burning it is causing catastrophic global warming. It is vital that government invest heavily in research of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power like these ones we are demonstrating here.ā
2010 AD
āWe donāt need to debate the science, it is settled. Despite quadrupling their population, polar bears are going extinct, proving catastrophic global warming. Melting of the polar ice caps peaked 3 years ago, and their increase since then proves climate change. The drop in ocean heat content and the record snow falls of last winter show conclusively that climate disruption is upon us. Critics of the science have used discredited techniques such as plagiarism to unsettle the science. Send massive amounts of money so that we can do more research to settle the science that is already settled and explain the temporary pause in warming to show that it is consistent with the science.ā
2020 AD
āThe planet has been cooling for some time and this is due to the recently discovered negative feedback associated with CO2 which may trigger an ice age. Large segments of the human population will likely be displaced, and many species of plants and animals are likely to become extinct. It is urgent that government fund research to help predict the course of the cooling, and develop mitigation strategies.ā
2030 AD
āMadame President, weāve defaulted on our loan to China. They want California, Alaska, and Texas to call it even.ā
āWhat did my dad say?
āBill said to go ask your mom.ā
āOK, what did mom sayā?
āHillary says your Dad is a schmuck.ā
āGreat. Do we still have those little alarmist boxes hanging around? The ones with the buttons on them?ā
āThe what? Alarmist boxes? What are you talking about Chelsea?ā
āYou know, the boxes with the buttons and the codes. For making things go boom. I called them alarmist boxes because they look like that one in the environmentalist video that they use for exploding little kids that donāt believe in global cooling causing the next ice age.ā
āOh, you mean Launch Control. Right hand side of your desk, secret drawer, remember?ā
āYes! How awful this dull gray. Meant to have these color coordinated with the drapes butā¦ oh never mind, which one is China?ā
āMadam President, you canāt be serious.ā
āThatās what these are for. You press the button and bad things go away. No more China, no more debt. Which one is China again?ā
āSecond row, third from the end, but you really canāt beā¦ā
KLICK
āNO! OTHER END! That was Russia!ā
KLICK
āNO! NO! NO! That was third row, second from the end. You just nuked Pakistan!ā
āStop yelling, youāre getting me all confused. This one?
KLICK
āAAAAAUGH! What have you done? That was Venezuala!ā
āOh forget it. Iāll just press them all.ā
2075 AD
āUgh. Earth shake and mountain spew fire. Spirits angry. Bring much food and hides to appease spirits. Store in my tent.
The climate / energy wars will last another generation. This is just a pause of exhaustion. We will change names, politicians, bloggers and the nuances of our positions and get ready for Round Three. This is, after all, the title fight to end all title fights.
But more on that another time. Meanwhile, Joy to the World!
========================================================
Indeed, climate/energy wars will last beyond the next generation. Heck, there’s an entire generation that needs deprogrammed! You’re right about re-framing, but I don’t think there’s going to be much of a pause. They’ll try water for the next bugaboo for a bit. Not long, though. It’s a non-starter. But they’ll try anyway. Why? Because it isn’t about climate or energy or drinking water. Its about power to control the behavior of the populace. Its funny, looking back. Remember when we worried about the next ice age? Running slightly behind, but in parallel, were the impending food shortages. Same doom and gloom, same whack job mouth pieces. Now consider the spectrum of issues. Food, water, energy all neatly bundled. These are the barest necessities for any society. None are a problem we can’t resolve. Resolution for all 3 of those issues would be fairly simple and cheap, if we had the will to do so. It’s about power.
Mike Haseler says:
October 16, 2010 at 5:04 pm
The people I really feel sorry for are those guys like Anthony Watts who have worked so hard to dispel the global warming myth and who are destined to be the experts in a subject which most of the public couldnāt care less about.
========================================================
We all will have gained much knowledge about a discipline in science that no one will regard. Don’t worry about Anthony and Steve Mac and the like. This was simply a challenge they rose to. The GW myth didn’t create those guys. They were exceptional before then and will continue to be afterward. Personally, as I stated above, I don’t believe anyone is going quietly into the night. Tom is correct, they will re-frame and restructure the concerns and arguments, but they’re not giving up on societal domination. And we’ll need these very same blogs for the world to hear our voices.
hmmm…Three Dog Night also helped to usher in the environmental movement with their anthem song, “Out In The Country”….
Before the breathin’ air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone and take back somethin’ worth rememberin’
===
I know plenty of old, grey hippies who still think this way, even though the environment has seen massive improvements since the early 1960’s!
Don’t expect too much change, folks…..the science may not be settled, but the US policies are.
From the linked Post-Partisan Power proposal, page 9:
It would be naive to think that the small taxes being proposed above will remain small. It would also be naive to think that these taxes would actually be used for their intended purpose. Are Social Security taxes being used to fund Social Security? Really? Or take California, where I would guess that the legislature may have stolen as much as $15 billion (maybe more) of gas tax money to plug holes in the general fund by “borrowing” monies that are never repaid and will never be repaid. The deteriorating highway infrastructure in California could certainly use this money, if it hadn’t been misappropriated. The federal highway money has turned into a periodic piƱata for lawmakers trying to grab as much as possible for it for their home states. No need to read any further. This is just an attempt to collect taxes to fund whatever disguised as energy reform.
There is one thing that can reduce our energy expenditure dramatically, reduce our dependence on foreign oil AND reduce more CO2 emissions than any other scheme I have heard of to date: conversion of most of our transportation fleet to clean diesel over the next generation or so. It will actually lower costs overall and reduce CO2 emissions. Maybe there is another idea out there that accomplishes both, but I can’t think of it. Also, there is no need to develop the technology or create infrastructure (think recharging EVs and hydrogen), as these already exist. At present our refineries produce an excess of diesel, which is being exported to Europe principally and future investments over the next generation or so will allow refinery output to match the market demand as European refineries are already doing.
Unfortunately, conversion to clean diesel faces a myriad of barriers: some bureaucratic, some political. I do not understand, when there is such a great opportunity to lower energy consumption, lower cost and reduce CO2 emissions, with known cost structures using existing technology, why there is almost no support for it. In fact, the linked Post-Partisan Power proposal returned no hits on searches for both diesel and distillate.
You know I’ve always been a dreamer
(spent my life running ’round)
And it’s so hard to change
(can’t seem to settle down)
But the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep on turning out and burning out
And turning out the same
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign (O’s face is on a lot of Tea Party billboards)
And take it to the limit one more time
You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you’re looking for your freedom
(nobody seems to care)
And you can’t find the door
(can’t find it anywhere)
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back
You’re coming back for more
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign (O’s face is on a lot of billboards in Texas)
And take it to the limit one more time
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit one more time
The coffers for the coming elections were filled. To understand what I’m getting at, you have to research back to the Whig Party to who created the politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats and their too big to fail institutions. Tea Party massively disappointed?
davidmhoffer says:
October 16, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Good one.
I found a video of Hoyt singing his song with Arlo Guthrie’s kid’s band
There are things we can do to protect against further climate change
I would have prefered “adapt” to protect
Energy crisis?
Well, it depends what crisis you are talking about.
If you live in the UK and know that (a) all but one nuclear plant will have to shut down in the next five years and (b) almost all coal fired plant (in any case beyond its design life) will have to shut down (after a brief reprieve permitted by Europe) by 2019 and that our “government” plans to rely primarily on wind turbines with a bit of help from solar, then you certainly have an impending mega energy crisis.
Not because there isn’t plenty of reliable and affordable energy to be had – just because the warmist cretins won’t permit it to be utilised.
Being one of those “not most readers” I did know that Joy to the World was written by Hoyt Axton as well as his mother Mae’s contribution to writing Heartbreak Hotel. But still wanting to get my two bits or two bob in I’ll add that Hoyt wrote a few other songs made famous by others including Never Been to Spain (Three Dog Night), The Pusher (Steppenwolf) and the No No Song (Ringo Starr). It’s really quite amazing all the hit songs he wrote that other’s made famous especially when you consider that towards the end of his career he was best known for doing commercials for FTD Florists.
Fuller, I think it is strange that you have an argumentation that seems quite reasonable, and yet there are statements in between that seems contradictory?
Like…. Energy Crisis? What energy Crisis? It seems you have some opinions deep inside that is so typical “Gullible Liberal”, and yet you are trying to shake it off?
Trying to be objective when looking at the data, and cannot quite cope?
Like there is a liberal hiding deep inside, and an excorsist is trying to get him out, but ….no.
Very interesting post, and I agree with the need for a larger view to get some perspective on where we have been and where we are going. However I feel that before we declare round two over and begin to regroup and speculate about round three, we need to look more carefully into the origins of this debate.
There are those of us who worry about exactly where the meme of global warming came from in the first place. Wasn’t “global cooling” the leading theory not so long ago? I was in the Smithsonian just four years ago, and right in the middle of the natural history museum there was a display saying that the long-term global climate trend was towards cooling–I wouldn’t be surprised if the display is still there as it already looked quite old when I saw it. The first voices pointing to a warming trend must have been few and far between, with no public credibility. And we all recall the media actions by the oil Goliaths to prevent the warming meme from gaining traction.
So how did we ever manage to arrive at Copenhagen? How did those few voices expand to become such a large majority? Unless you really have faith in the “scientific method” independently of faith in the human beings who claim to exercise it–and who does nowadays, besides scientists themselves–then at bottom this is a question about research funding. And there are those of us who wonder if the idea of “AGW” originated with think-tanks funded by private wealth that saw a big opportunity for the expansion of their banking profits (via cap & trade) as well as an increase in their power via expansion of Orwellian global government. Nothing like a global crisis to create a global opportunity–and all proposals are taken seriously in a crisis, whether or not they are real solutions.
This may sound paranoid, and there may not be enough evidence (yet) to justify it. Call it a hypothesis–one which calls for investigation. To say it again: where did the meme of AGW come from and how did it manage to spread so powerfully?
I think a deeper understanding of this question will help us know better if round two is really over and what round three might look like.
u.k.(us) says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Three Dog Night
It refers to being cold. Often when ranchers or cowboys were out on the range they would have to sleep with their dogs to keep warm. A one dog night was a night when he had to share body heat with one dog, two dog night was two dogs and a three dog night was an extremely cold night where he would have to share body heat with three dogs. āhow cold was it on your trip?ā āIt was a three dog nightā.
—————-
I have 4 Large dogs..its so cold in aus right now, I managed to get 4 around me:-) not much room to move, but it sure is safer and more cuddly than an electric blanket.
and to the topic, well what puzzles me , a lot is the Huge kerfuffle in the 70s over pollution in America, the clean air and water laws, the lakes recovered and things got better,
so?
why did it all get so crappy again IF? the EPA etc was doing its job?
your rivers lakes and oceans are almost as bad as before.
they do not need new laws, they need to enforce the Laws they already have!
ditto the gulf oil example. if the regs were followed correctly it wouldnt have been able to happen.
WHY? is that never mentioned nowdays..
is it because faking carbon makes more money for a select cluster of greedy people? I suspect so.
At any moment in the US there are about 15-25% that follow the hard Left/Greenies. Of these there are about 5% that constantly churn out catch phrases to mask the current set of propaganda points used to dupe anywhere from 20 to 30% of the causual left, “moderates” and “independents”. Eventually, what “sticks” lasts only for a few years then it’s off on another propaganda exercise. Thus global warming morphed into climate change that has morphed into CO2 pollution. The search is on for the next long-term deceit starting with the Obama Czar’s “global climate disruption”. Which, obtw, proves the point. They continue even when their morphology sounds ridiculous. 2017 will see the 100th anniversary of this method of political method.
What is truly amazing is how accurate and honest Thomas Fuller is in describing the next morph-to-come as well as the success and longevity of the method used. Abe Lincoln summed it all up with his insight of there being perpetual fools eager to be fooled. (for the history challenged “you can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all the the people…”)
At least we’ve got to the point where only a very, very, very few will actually go buy that bridge or send money to Nigeria.
Phil:
Yeah, if it wouldn’t be such a silly goal you’ve deceitfully been told to accept.
Phil:
Yeah, if it wouldn’t be such a silly goal youv’e deceitful been told to accept.
@fuller
“protect against future climate change”
This presupposes that change is undesirable. As fas as I can determine the climate changes brought about by increased CO2 (if that is the cause, which is questionable) are desirable. The warming is happening predominantly in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere where it opens up more arable land and lengthens growing seasons. Contrary to urban warming legend it appears to be causing no increase in extreme weather events which is exactly what one might expect as the temperature difference between equator and pole decreases. Also contrary to urban warming legend there is no increase in floods or droughts. The only thing predicted by CAGW narrators is rising sea level and that’s certainly far from catastrophic at 1-2 feet per century.
What we need to protect against is foolishly throwing economic prosperity at something that isn’t a problem. Write that down.
Ref – u.k.(us) says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Thanks! Need to remember that. Averaging 14,154 fleas per dog, that’s a lot of body heat.
________________________________
Ref – Philip Thomas says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Ref – R. de Haan says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:54 pm
It pays to listen, it costs nothing, and can be quite profitable on occassion. He is NOT “The Problem”. People who would MAKE you do something that they want you to do are “The Problem”. People who do not care what you think or have to say are also a big part of the problem. He is reasonable. He offers balance. He is not calling you names or demeaning your intelligence. He is not deleating your comments. He only wants the truth and the freedom to make up his own mind and vote the way he sees best. When he says something that he thinks is reasonable, he appreciates honest feedback. Psssssst… he IS one of us. Think about it!
cedarhill says:
October 17, 2010 at 3:35 am
I’ll see your Abe Lincoln quote “fool some of the people some of the time” and raise you a quote from the 16th century father of modern skepticism:
“We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.”
Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne (1533ā1592)
Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples
Regarding the derivation of “Three Dog Night”, Layne Blanchard refers to the US version, but alternative versions suggest indigenous Australians sleeping with dingos (attributed to the girlfriend of a band member reading a magazine article) and Inuit sleeping with Huskies. Given that one of the most common topics on WUWT is the Arctic, I prefer the Inuit version, and in fact when I saw the title of the post I thought it did indeed relate to low temperatures in the Arctic.
kwik says:
October 17, 2010 at 2:01 am
“Likeā¦. Energy Crisis? What energy Crisis?”
A lot of people felt that oil at $150/bbl oil was an energy crisis. That probably had as much or more to do with the recent and prolonged economic downturn as anything else IMO.
I wish to join the ever-growing group of “What energy crisis?” supporters. Fuller, you’ll get the blame for the next scam if you’re not more careful with your words. I’m also starting a group called Stop the Bloody Scaremongering!!! (SBS). can also be read as Stop the BS (the relation of crap).
BTW, mods, if you’re married to a Welsh person, ‘bloody’ doesn’t count.
PS Thanks, CuriousGeorge.
Layne Blanchard says:
October 16, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Well, I knew it was made famous by Three Dog Night. I used to sing along and I think I had the albumn. didnāt know about Hoyt Axton.
Question for Thomas:
Letās imagine CO2 truly is a problem for the climate. Why not look at all products made today, all materials, and determine a transition to Thorium /batteries?
The problem today is finding a solution to quick fillup/recharge, and cost. For home heating, and many other energy uses, what is wrong with carbon capture for the next 50 years (until everyone realizes CO2 has no relevant role in climate) or until transition to Thorium is complete?
Why are environmental groups picketing and litigating every power plant and refinery in America?
If this is TRULY a scientific issue and warming advocates TRULY beieve CO2 causes harm, why do they impede ALL solutions other than reduced consumption?
They impede ALL solutions other than reduced consumption because they do not want to prevent CO2 emissions – they want to reduce consumption and CO2 is a useful reason.
From ‘The Population Bomb’ from Paul Ehrlich to all the other ‘mankind is doomed’ movements there is the same underlying mantra that: it is mankind that is ruining the planet we should return to living a ‘sustainable’ existence in the forests. Together with the plot of attempting to warn a population that is just not listening that is seen in a multiplicity of ‘disaster movies’ such as Jaws and Volcano, Deep Impact etc etc. and in even older stories like Sodom and Gomorrah
This seems to be a psychological need in some people to have a return to Eden and have to fight the ignorant masses to persuade them of the error of their ways.
Tom Fuller,
Thanks for you entertaining Bullfrog theme. I liked it.
I do not have time today to go through all the comments, so my following comment may be redundant & you may have already addressed it.
My comment is on your statement:
Adaptation to what? Nature? To the sharing the planet with other humans?
We know already how to do that.
John
Anton aus Tirol says:
October 17, 2010 at 2:18 am
“This may sound paranoid, and there may not be enough evidence (yet) to justify it. Call it a hypothesisāone which calls for investigation. To say it again: where did the meme of AGW come from and how did it manage to spread so powerfully?”
Goes back to theories by Fourier and Arrhenius, was later picked up by Keeling who observed rising CO2 levels. From there, it turned into the cornerstone of modern anti-industrialism as promoted by Greens, mainly via
Stockholm 1972
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=97
1972:
“37. The concept of “no growth” could not be a viable policy for any society, but it was necessary to rethink the traditional concepts of the basic purposes of growth.
”
from
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=97&ArticleID=1497&l=en
So, you see, the anti-growth movement is at least 38 years old now. The fear of CO2 became their most effective weapon.
Why are they against growth? Technology is power. Take technology away, and people become powerless. Powerless people are easily controlled. Noth Korea, the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia. The ideal society of the Left.
well, I have never been to Spain, I should have listened to my mama, cause she told me not to come…what does it matter?
got me again Anthony, you know I love old school.
oh yeah, when should I start worrying about bringing in my porch plants? Last year I tarried, and they all got burned! Got a ETA on Jack Frost?
“At least weāve got to the point where only a very, very, very few will actually go buy that bridge or send money to Nigeria.”
Yes, largely because of the Internet. And because of the Internet, it’s gonna be double-tough for the enviromental-sham artists in the future, also. Of course, the Left is trying to get control of the Internet….
Anton aus Tirol says:
October 17, 2010 at 2:18 am
Yes, what Anton said. I believe that he statists will morph and present new assaults on freedom. We need blogs investigating issues along the lines described by Anton. The first topic should be government policies about awards of government grants and a history and political analysis of the relevant granting agencies.
On the matter of energy crisis, I have to agree with Mr Fuller. I can understand that those of you who are younger may see it otherwise, but I suggest you listen to the voice of experience on this matter.
I am now 50 years of age, and can attest that I have significantly less energy than I did at age 20. This decline in energy availability correlates well to global warming. Though correlation is not causation, I’m advised by my medical practitioner that I should expect to run out of energy completely in the next few decades.
I’ve also conducted certain energy based experiments using my offspring. 20 years ago I threw a snowball at offspring number 1, then six years of age, and knocked him over. I recently repeated the experiment using the same offspring. The distance was near identical and I took care to ensure that the snowball was of reasonable approximation in terms of size and density. To my utter shock, the snowball had nearly no effect, confirming that my energy level is in dangerous decline.
It was my intent to examine the snowball itself in more detail, the plan being to cut it open and at least count its rings. Alas, the opportunity was lost as offspring number one saw fit to sit on my chest and wash my face with it.
At least my wife didn’t scream STOP THAT and hit me with a broom this time, but that is small recompense for my energy crisis.
To predict what comes next, simply understand this telling point: The “problems” come and go, but the “solutions” are always the same.
For global warming, the fix involves expansion of government, higher taxes, expensive subsidies for things that can’t stand on their own merit, bureaucratic control of energy use, property rights and, ultimately, speech.
For global cooling, the fix involves expansion of government, higher taxes, expensive subsidies for things that can’t stand on their own merit, bureaucratic control of energy use, property rights and, ultimately, speech.
For oil supply disruptions, the fix involves expansion of government, higher taxes, expensive subsidies for things that can’t stand on their own merit, bureaucratic control of energy use, property rights and, ultimately, speech.
You get the idea: aspiring totalitarians will always find an excuse.
Robinson – A pound is a little steep . Maybe a soon – to – be hyperinflated dollar .
OG says:
October 16, 2010 at 4:23 pm
“”The war that will last a generation is the one between the developed world and the developing world, in which developed-world NGOās are the main antagonists against the worldās poor. Our āaidā agenciesā belief that countries can rise from poverty by becoming dependent on handouts from developed nations has been failing for generations, but nobody seems to have noticed.””
__________Reply;
Giving handouts to those who you would trust enough to let into your home or office unsupervised, is what people do for the homeless panhandlers.
They seem to be everywhere but invisible, so no permanent progress is made.
On the international scale undeveloped countries are just that, lacking in the basic infrastructure to generate the commerce needed to become stable enough to be able to attract the capital investment from the international corporations and banking systems, that only want to profit by being able to utilize the cheap labor or other local resources available.
All new international business growth investment is funneled into areas where there is an advantage to be gained from investing. The basic infrastructure of an available set of conditions needs to be in place for that to happen. Transportation, exploitable natural resources, cheap trainable usable labor force, water, agriculture, food production capabilities able to meet more than basic needs.
In the past concentrations of Capitalism took the form of governments with borders, that ran on constructive sets of laws that allowed it to prosper and grow.
In the current global economy the profit motive is interred into international corporations and their associated banking systems, it is only a matter of time before the monopolies that result from normal business practices, form as a result and the “international political, monetary, and trade deficits”=”merger wars” that are currently going on will be over.
What are now felt as the manipulations of the governments found inside borders, by the fragmented global economic competition, that results in the political motivations to con the taxpayers and consumers into supporting the whole scheme, is the underlying game the system and all consumers are scripted into.
Those peoples in undeveloped countries are sidelined because they are not structurally configured to be viable players, due to some lack of critical components in the basic requirements to attract serious investment, and as such are only given handouts to prevent them from further gross deterioration, see above or ie;
(Transportation, exploitable natural resources, cheap trainable usable labor force, water, agriculture, food production capabilities able to meet more than basic needs.)
These are the basic things to work on, starting with a local government structure that puts these goals ahead of, their own search for controlling the governed people through having regulative power. Because the resultant bureaucratic regulation aspect, only slows down growth, depletes the resources, and the drive of the population to be as productive as they can be.
The NGO’s you mention are the base of the problems, funding their efforts is counterproductive. The dependency on the hand outs (welfare system) stops the development process faster than anything.
Nobody pays attention to the non-players in a game, only the most active are focused on as relevant, which begets the politics and rent seeking behavior, that produces the resultant corruption, that just disrupts, diverts, and stagnates the potential productivity
In the long run it matters not the left/right bias of the teams, it is the concerted efforts and effects of the composite number of (the global population) players, toward the goal of increasing the infrastructure and efficiency of the global system that makes progress possible for all.
wealth, economic growth, and plant growth depend on available nutrients and positive growth conditions to thrive, spend your time and resources “building the soil” not cutting weeds.
In some ways Tom is right. Not in his lukewarmist beliefs (at least in my opinion), but in his assessment that this struggle is not over and won’t be for a long time.
For those who have followed the issue for some time, the climategate revelations were not new. Nor were the various exposures of IPCC hype and exaggeration. What has occurred is that these facts were widely disseminated and could not be contained by various elites that were profiting from them.
The elites however are still running the show and they have had thirty years or more to stack the deck in terms of policy and regulations that have increased their power over us.
The defeat of the insane AGW movement and the reds and environmentalists who control it will require much more blood than the paper cuts suffered by Gore, Jones, and Mann. This is why it is imperative that Issa, Barton, and Cuccinelli (and more – many more) proceed in a very big public way to deconstruct and demolish the leaders of the AGW movement.
And this cannot be the end either. The science societies, academia, the EPA and its Euro and UN kin must also be taken to task and purged of all the idiots who, behind the scenes, will continue to pursue the AGW agenda so long as they sit in authority.
This is the task that needs to done. It will take a generation to accomplish – or longer if we try an do it without shedding blood.
in the UK we have a government that is about to emasculate our defence capability but remains committed to spending half the annual defence budget of achieving a low carbon economy. Don’t tell me that climate change is dead.
I recently met a former member of Three Dog Night. He is an active skeptic on climate change. Just so you know the rest of the story.
Tom Fuller,
“Because we are the way we are, we will think we have to solve both. And because we are the way we are, we will think we have to solve both at the same time with the same tools, even though actions to make progress on one of them will make things more difficult for the other. ”
As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger upon learning they were surrounded by hostile Indians… “What do you mean “we” pale face?”
As a self described true believing liberal, I think it is fair to say that you speak for other progressives who “think [you] will have to solve both,” and I am equally sure you all believe that “[you] have to solve both at the same time with the same tools.” And not surprisingly, I suspect that tool will rely on government control and planning of various sorts.
I think it is going to be fascinating, as CAGW alarmism fades into oblivion, what will happen to the truce between liberal and conservative skeptics/lukewarmers. I wonder how many will be able to apply their objections to group think, ad hominems, media bias etc. in the climate context, to the identical issues in the broader political realm.
Is it just me or is there a spooky resemblance between Axton and Tobis?
Ice age a comin’ … four dog night!
He always had some mighty fine whine.
Tom, trying to hide the fact that you’re a closet, liberal idealist is beginning to wear a bit thin. We’re only in the first inning of this slugfest. Nothing short of an iceage will slow the entrenched elitists from force-feeding the ignorant masses taxation in the guise of salvation.