Guest opinion by Fred F. Mueller
In large-scale wars, there are sometimes prolonged periods of fierce clashes with neither side being able to place the decisive blow that will ultimately tilt the balance in its favor. Then all of a sudden, certain events occur that mark the decisive turning point where one side definitely loses the strength to continue posing a threat to its opponents. From that decisive moment on, it will lose the initiative, being largely confined to defensive actions and hoping to be able to force its opponents to accept a peace agreement instead of having to face the enormous costs of a prolonged war. One of the most famous turning points in World War II was the battle for Stalingrad, where the seemingly unstoppable German onslaught could finally be brought to a standstill. The outcome is well known: Hitlers annihilation a few years later.
Switching to our times, one might well get the impression that in the decades-long war of Greenpeace, WWF and their countless NGO brethren for control of the public opinion about the so-called global warming threat allegedly caused by human CO2 emissions, such a turning point has been reached. The UN meeting in Warsaw (Poland), where further measures to curb these emissions should have been laid on keel, has seen a number of leading countries bluntly refusing to continue supporting the scam while many others stayed on the sidelines, paying lip-service to the noble cause of saving the climate and the planet while abstaining from any sizeable commitments. Maybe historians wanting to highlight the real dimensions of the blow dealt to the CO2 alarmists might coin the word Warsawgrad later on. Having failed to reach any substantial accord on the main question, the focus of the event has instead shifted to financial aspects, with third world countries trying to extort as many billions as possible from developed nations under the pretense that they should be held liable for each and any natural disaster happening on their territory. Upon seeing the related list, one wonders why they haven’t come up with claims to include asteroid impacts, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions as well. But there might still be room for improvement…
The CO2 alarm finally seems to run out of steam
The clear impression one can draw from the course of events and the echo it finds in the media is that the CO2 scam advanced by Greenpeace and their numerous allies in state agencies, scientific institutions and the media is finally losing traction. The greed of too many profiteers has generated costs and technical consequences in key industry sectors to such an extent that the tide in public opinion seems to be finally turning, at least in some more lucid countries such as Autralia. Of course, just as in many other historic examples, the final shot has not yet been fired, but from now on, it seems likely that the faithful of the Anthropogenous Global Warming (AGW) belief will have to fight an uphill battle. While some country leaders such as Germany’s Merkel still seem staunchly committed to continue their course, it is becoming increasingly obvious that a number of decisive nations such as Canada, Australia and Japan are already manning the lifeboats. And as in the case of a dam break, once the first cracks have appeared, the subsequent sequence of events will probably follow the usual scheme. We might eventually see a stampede of highly qualified story-tellers and academic charlatans flooding out of all sorts of state agencies und NGO-related consulting services in a frantic search for new fields of activity.
In quest for new business models
One signal hinting that this threat has already been clearly perceived in the leading ranks of Greenpeace are new or newly revived ideas for alternative business models being floated by prominent members of the organization. If the public gets tired of sinking money into the CO2 black hole, fresh ideas have to be brought forward in order to save the planet from humanity while keeping the flow of donations at current high levels. Among the ideas currently thrown into the discussion are plastic garbage in the oceans, with subtle modifications such as micro-plastic particles coming back into the human food chain or causing fish liver damages. Other topics that might well be rediscovered after having been left dormant for some years are fine dust particles in the air, pharmaceutical active substances in the water or the noise levels inextricably linked to business and traffic activities. The bets are open which ideas will replace the CO2 hypothesis once the wheels are definitely coming off the current model.
Chinese cleverness
Upon reviewing the evolution of the CO2-related blame game that has been going on at such UN events over the past two decades, one cannot but pay respect to the clever strategy of one country that had been put on the pillory for excessive emission of CO2 not too long ago: China. In pace with its remarkable economic rise, the country has in the meantime overtaken all other countries to become the biggest CO2 emitter in the world. Nevertheless, this time it has been successfully avoiding to be blamed, forging an alliance of poor and developing nations instead that is aggressively claiming billions of money in compensation from developed Western nations while shielding the CO2 gorilla in their ranks. According to some reports, even renewed political efforts by the US administration have ultimately failed to drive a wedge into this coalition.
Is the smart money shifting focus?
Another development that can be observed in parallel to the Warsaw events is a shift in financial streams that seems to take place in the wake of the debacle the AGW proponents have suffered in Warsaw. While we might still be years away from a decisive collapse of the “climate-saving” energy policies still upheld by a number of politicians such as EU Commissioner Conny Hedegaard or President Obama, who have gone way too far in their ignorance of the laws of physics, markets and common sense to be able to back down without losing face, the smart money seems to have immediately gotten the message. Uranium shares, which had been on a constant decline since the Fukushima events, are currently experiencing a sudden rise that might well signal the sector has bottomed out. With news from Spain indicating that people operating solar cells for their private consumption while maintaining their connection to the power grid will now become liable to pay a special levy, chances are that more and more banks and trusts will start to rate investments into such projects as “higher risk”. On the other hand, investments in uranium and coal mines as well as in conventional power equipment producers and operators might become attractive again after a prolonged period on the dark and cold side of the markets.
And thusly, a beautiful weekend begins.
I was reading the updates throughout the debacle through various sources and the tone in the media has even taken a marked change to one of almost apathy. Not only that, but it seems from what I can gather, the EU actually did the US a huge favor, refusing the budge on the reparation issue, while our delegation seemed to waffle a bit, no doubt at the discretion of Chairman O.
Please, correct me if I was off in my assessment, but a big thank you to the EU regardless!
I thought this was going to be about the Russians telling the UN to get stuffed when Greenpeace demanded their boat back.
Gentlehommes, there is always Methane.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2013
High Methane Levels all over Arctic Ocean
High levels of methane were recorded all over the Arctic Ocean on November 19, 2013, as illustrated by the image below. The image also shows that most methane was present over the fault line that crosses the Arctic Ocean (as also indicated on the inset).
A recent post described that more methane may actually be present closer to the North Pole than IASA images may indicate. This because measurements can be obscured by clouds. If no data are recorded over a certain area, no methane levels will show up on images for the respective area. This was the case on November 17, 2013, when the Arctic Ocean was quite cloudy, and little or no data were recorded for the center of the Arctic Ocean.
On November 19, 2013, the sky was much clearer, resulting in a lot of data from the center of the Arctic Ocean, as also illustrated by the image below.
In conclusion, high methane levels can actually be present all over the Arctic Ocean, even when images only show high levels in some areas.
An earlier post described how the sea ice can act as a shield, especially when the ice is more than one meter thick.
How does this rhyme with the above image? The November 19, 2013, Naval Research Laboratory image on the right shows that the sea ice was meters thick in some locations where methane shows up on the top image.
So, is methane actually rising from the seafloor of the entire Arctic Ocean, perforating even the thickest ice and entering the atmosphere all across the Arctic Ocean? Or, if thick sea ice does act as a shield, how did methane appear all over the Artic Ocean in such huge quantities?
The images on the right indicate that the methane may actually only rise from the seafloor in a few locations.
As the top image on the right says, the Coriolis Effect can make methane over the Laptev Sea end up over Canada a few days later. So, methane may not be perforating the sea ice in the north of Canada, but may instead originate from elsewhere in the Arctic.
The animation underneath shows methane readings from November 9 to 19, 2013, with each of the 20 frames covering a period of 24 hours and with frames following each other up 12 hours after each other. As the animation shows, it looks like methane is predominantly entering the atmosphere at specific locations, most notably along the fault line that crosses the Arctic Ocean.
It may well be that this methane ends up all the way in Baffin Bay, to the left of Greenland. Since the Greenland ice sheet is 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) thick, this may form a natural barrier that keeps the methane there, also helped by winds rising vertically from Baffin Bay to well above Greenland’s mountains.
On the other hand, it could also be that hydrates in Baffin Bay have become destabilized and that, since the ice over Baffin Bay is rather thin, methane has no problem perforating the ice and is entering the atmosphere there in huge quantities.
Either way, the end-conclusion is that the methane that is now showing up all over the Arctic Ocean, is rising from the seafloor, due to destabilization of sediments that hold huge amounts of methane in the form of free gas and hydrates. As warming in the Arctic continues to accelerate, the danger is that this will cause more methane to rise from the seafloor and that the methane itself will contribute to warming in the Arctic, in a deadly spiral set to cause abrupt climate change at a devastating scale.
With Nigel Farage and UKIP breathing fire down on the UK political parties I suspect there will be a sudden urge to dump the green crap among other common sense policies in Britain. The Brit folks seem to be finally fed up with their legacy political parties. Moreover, with Obamacare being such a mess in the US I cannot imagine Obama’s climate change policies are going anywhere soon. And I think Merkel is playing a great game like China – she is mouthing all the politically correct things while building a whole bunch of coal fired plants. By now Greenpeace has learned a very important lesson – don’t mess with Russia’s Putin. But they’ll be back doing their usual garbage in the west simply because the west lacks the will to deal with those criminals like Russia’s Putin. I see very little change happening in North America while Obama holds power. Only another harsh winter can strike the decisive blow – and we are more than due for a really hash winter.
I don’t think Warsaw is the battleground, perhaps blogspheregrad would be a better name.
Hopefully that warming will restore the balmy highly productive climate of previous years and help prevent us from descending into the otherwise inexorable next glaciation.
How can warming in Arctic, that North of 70 deg North, is about 3 % of Earth “cause abrupt climate change at a devestating scale”?
John West says:
November 23, 2013 at 12:16 pm
“I don’t think Warsaw is the battleground, perhaps blogspheregrad would be a better name.”
You’re talking about Skepticalscience’s attempts at self-immolation?
There ‘s an exceedingly simple reason for the firming up of uranium prices – the world has begun building nucler power plants after a decades’ long hiatus. For the first time since 1985, a nuclear plant is under construction in the U.S. and not just one, ,but 5 of them, with more to follow. Worldwide there are 70 nuclear plants under construction (and 500 more in the pipeline) and the fixed price cost per plant is almost aways the same – $5 billion, which if one does the math, knowing the current price utilities are paying for uranium fuel ( 3/4 of a cent per kilowatthour) , will pay for ultimate storage of wastes (less than 1/10th of a cent per kiowatthour) , have to pay for operations and maintenance ( 1 /1/4th to 1 1/2 cent per kWhr) and finally, for the cost of the guaranteed 60 year plant itself ( 7/10ths to 9/10ths of a cent per kWhr), you’ll find that nuclear power costs less than gas or coal. And Gen 3 designs WILL NOT have core meltdowns, so there is little financial risk from accidents.
HGW xx/7 says:
November 23, 2013 at 12:04 pm
“Please, correct me if I was off in my assessment, but a big thank you to the EU regardless!”
Thank Putin. The EU put up such a weak show because Putin held their Greenpeace commandos hostage. Notice how fast they got out on bail the moment COP19 was over.
David L. Hagen says:
“Hopefully that warming will restore the balmy highly productive climate of previous years and help prevent us from descending into the otherwise inexorable next glaciation.”
CO2 doesn’t cause warming, it causes cooling apparently, and it’s all a hoax anyway, so how exactly will the non existent warming from the CO2 hoax stop the next glaciation from happening?
Green was never about saving the climate, the planet or the environment the purpose and intent of the IPCC was to fuel intense speculation that Co2 was the anti Christ to achieve exactly the situation that revealed the clear intent of the UN in Warsaw. It was to find a way of moving money from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries unfortunately for Maurice Strong and his mates the developed world has no more cash than the poor world just more debt sustained by profitable manufacturing and service sectors and you can only extort so much cash from countries so heavily indebted as is the case with America and the UK $17 trillion and £1.3 trillion respectively. The cash that Strong believed was available is the sum total of the debt sustaining the supposedly rich nations and private cash remains in the stock market on or company balance sheets but Strong wanted to wreck the financial capacity of the developed world to allow assets to be more evenly distributed exact – again – had his demented dream come to fruition he would have immediately realised that once wrecked the cash and assets that he thought could be liberated for global distribution actually in cash terms did not exist and in asset terms would be worthless once the developed nations financial structure had been wrecked and exactly how the raw material wealth of the undeveloped countries could be leveraged without demand from the developed world? Ban ki moon continues to moan and grumble that the developed world are not coming up with the $100 billion he wants the developing countries and his mates to get their greedy mitts on again forgetting that the countries he thinks this money should come from could only give if they either raised taxes or borrowed more either way inflicting more economic damage on the only sector of the planet that can keep the global economy at least surviving. All of these parasitic twits suffer from the same chronic ailment and that is convenient amnesia, they either cannot or do not want to prolong their thought process to the point where they begin to recognise their own damnable stupidity. As one very wise individual said not so many years ago once the available volume of oil reaches that tipping point where lower availability raises prices beyond economies ability to pay you get the twin evil and that is not enough oil to promote or sustain economic growth combined with retail prices too high for individuals to pay, the share markets across the planet begin to recognise their long held beliefs and investors will rush to turn their investments into something more solid like gold but how do you mine gold or any raw material with oil. This will happen our lives are 95% oil, Boeing 787 built substantially from complex composite materials derived from petrochemical products. F1 moving to battery electric hybrid power promoting the notion that this is our future again in the belief that lithium will always be available and there will always be an ability to generate sufficient electricity to charge the battery. Hydrogen cars might be available from 2014 but the only economic method of generating hydrogen is by way of steam reformation of natural gas so whilst hydrogen maybe emission free at the point of use like battery electric cars its only because the nasty stuff is emitted at the point of manufacture not at the point of use. Hydrogen is already used in huge quantities to clean petroleum spirit to the right standard and the manufacturing process necessitates that the Co2 is split off and released to atmosphere as is the case of natural gas being used as feedstock to refine crude oil. Here is another classic example of environmental activists like Connie Hedegaard like Maurice Strong conveniently disregarding the fact that in her want to say petrol has less emissions at the point of use she has ignored the extra volume of Co2 emitted to achieve that end. Give everyone on the planet a moped and the oil disappears over night I am now too old to care overmuch but I don have a Son and they might want children so we just have to hope that at some future point in time we get politicians bright enough to recognise that we do indeed live in a finite world and once we lack the finite resources or the ability to extract and refine those finite resources the game is up you can have growth without a continuing access to resources to believe technology at some time can make something out of nothing is foolhardy and stupid its time to wake up and smell the roses.
Col Mosby says:
November 23, 2013 at 12:22 pm
“Worldwide there are 70 nuclear plants under construction (and 500 more in the pipeline) ”
It would be nice indeed if humanity finally got over itself and accepted this simple form of energy production. As with all technologies, we see irrational fear during its introduction.
I was looking for similar irrational fears during the initial rollout of electricity and found this.
http://www.seacoastnh.com/Places-%26-Events/NH-History/Electricity-Sparks-Fears–in-1900?/
“But to see the future, a local pundit informs me, one need only walk down Water Street at night where the incandescent glow of electrical lights beckon hapless sailors from across the Piscataqua to visit houses of adult entertainment. Vice and corruption, it seems, have deep pockets. Electricity is the new Jezebel, seducing our young men into the arms of immorality.”
Also, during that time, Rudolf Steiner, founder of the antroposophic movement, an esoteric movement, posited that candles harbor good spirits, light bulbs are so-so, and neon lamps harbor evil demons.
The USA gave up its title as the worlds biggest emitter of a harmless plant food and its cost millions of jobs and countless billions of dollars, the politicians still got paid and ordinary people got paid off, the legions of parasites riding on the back of the biggest organised swindle in human history made a great deal of money and the ordinary people paid the price. Its always the average Joe that has to foot the bill isnt it? We pay for a utopianist fantasy made up in the corridors of power without any thought to how ordinary people would be affected and hurt.
Europe has been savagely hurt by a self inflicted economic wound that could well turn out to be a mortal one, it didnt have to be this way at all, if we had practical realists as leaders who looked to their own primary concerns first instead of trying to build some castles in the air new world order we would be a million miles further down the economic development road instead of bogged down mired in debt and in deep trouble. What we need are practical realists in charge, maybe this tragedy will be the catalyst we need to make the move we need.
Fred F. Mueller makes some very good points, but one aspect is omitted from his excellent presentation . During wars, there are decisive leaders on the winning side, who relentlessly pursue the enemy until defeat is accomplished. In this case, the climate skeptics are leaderless. All the learned scientific societies, led by the Royal Society and the American Physical Society are lined up behind the proponents of CAGW. As is just about all of academia.
So I ask the same question I have been asking for weeks. When CAGW is finally in full retreat, who will lead the charge that assures final victory? Which outstanding scientist has the gonads to stand up now, and say, in public, what Fred has said in private, where no-one who matters sees it?
The most sensible comment that I have seen reported from the shindig in Warsaw was that made by the lead Indian negotiator, who said that there is too much emphasis on carbon reduction and not enough on assisting countries adapt to climate change. This could of course be rephrased as ‘send us a blank cheque’, but at least it changes the emphasis until it becomes clear that Armageddon is not just round the corner.
And there always was, and always shall be, methane.
You are offering us nothing new, just reciting one of the Greenpeace mantras. Even people like Gavin Schmidt lay the smack down on people playing up the methane scare.
If the world isn’t warming catastrophically, then CO2 isn’t causing catastrophic warming.
And, by the same simple logic, neither is methane.
It’s always in the future, but allegedly starting now, isn’t it?
Perhaps a better metaphor would been The Battle of Warsaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_%281920%29). That was a decisive battle between the two ideologies: Individualism & independence vs collectivism & domination. Many historians believe that had Pilsudski not stopped the Red Army at the Vistula, there would have been nothing to slow it down before the shoreline at Calais.
DirkH says, “I was looking for similar irrational fears during the initial rollout of electricity and found this.”
Not to mention the war of DC vs AC, in which Thomas Edison held public executions of horses to show people the dangers of AC power, which was being developed by Nikola Tesla. Edison even imported elephants for the purpose of electrocuting them.
“Among the ideas currently thrown into the discussion are plastic garbage in the oceans, with subtle modifications such as micro-plastic particles coming back into the human food chain or causing fish liver damages” You should read more about this … what you will find is very disturbing particularly for seabirds!
inre: Jon at 12:42
See how easy it is to string some sciency words together and “disturb” young people, so that they attack energy, transportation, mass production, and even child bearing, water, cattle, and fire? It is that easy.
I bet someone has been promising free tuition, free healthcare, free contraceptives, and free electricity to him as well.
“Jim Cripwell says:
November 23, 2013 at 12:38 pm
Fred F. Mueller makes some very good points, but one aspect is omitted from his excellent presentation . During wars, there are decisive leaders on the winning side, who relentlessly pursue the enemy until defeat is accomplished. In this case, the climate skeptics are leaderless. All the learned scientific societies, led by the Royal Society and the American Physical Society are lined up behind the proponents of CAGW. As is just about all of academia.”
Do we need a leader, let alone want one? Isn’t our independent, non-talking-point-based, logic-over-dogma method (read: science) of attack our greatest strength? Furthermore, if we suddenly become beholden to following a leader, don’t we leave ourselves open to the same foibles that they do, tripping over the words of Al Goron and Michael Halfmann?
I argue that there are not decisive, game-changing leaders in all great battles. Take the American Revolution. Sure, we had generals and many were amazing, i.e. Washington. However, it was the resourcefulness and ability of everyday colonists to adapt and use the landscape to their advantage that won the war. Many of the greatest names associated with the war didn’t lead, but fought side by side with their betheren, either by sword or by pen.
We are winning because of the fact that we are nimble and easy to underestimate. We can adapt (much like to shifts in the climate…wink wink) and coalesce when needed, but are also a hard target to lock on. The best they can do is refer to us by a collective dereogatory term. Conversely, we know them name for name, falsehood by falsehood.
Plus, I don’t see our goal as to win a ‘final victory’ over them. My desire isn’t to wipe out any ideology. In my eyes, that’s their game and a dangerous line of thinking that has led to so many needless deaths over the years. I wish to educate and compete, not decemate. They have dug themselves into their own hole with their false idols and prophecies; why help by making a martyr out of them?
I think we are playing the game as keenly as possible. As my dad says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
I agree with Albertalad, Putin is showing himself to be a world leader standing up to people and organisations like Greenpeace – as far as I am concerned they should scuttle the boat.
The original post mentions NGOs trying to control public opinion, that too is correct. If a politician were to say that ‘you are not allowed to have that opinion’ or ‘this opinion’, they would not remain a politician for long. So why do we put up with Greenpeace and other NGOs forcing their #### down our throats. There are so many hands in our pockets after the few pence we have left after taxation its time to stand up to them like Putin does.
Man Bearpig says:
November 23, 2013 at 1:11 pm
I agree with Albertalad, Putin is showing himself to be a world leader standing up to people and organisations like Greenpeace – as far as I am concerned they should scuttle the boat.
Absolutely right, I hope the Russians scuttle the Greenpeace ship very publicly in shallow water so it can be used as an artificial reef.
Who said they can’t make a claim on those things too? 🙂
We should all make a claim before it’s too late. We must claim now!!
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