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.
Zeke says:
November 23, 2013 at 12:41 pm
“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.”
Ah, you’re right. Forgot about that one.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
Australia is now a target for smearing now that we have adopted a pro science attitude to this nonsense. But the only thing the left press could find fault with at Warsaw was our eating habits and our dress sense !
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/t-shirt-delegates-defended/story-e6frg6xf-1226765632550#
But even this pathetic example was a beat up, see the bottom of the article.
Methinks that their protests are now submerging into the background noise.
I think the biggest result of the Warsaw conference was the obvious fighting over money. This demonstrated what the real game plan has always been. As more and more people see this blatant money grubbing, they become suspicious of the motivations … as they should.
Warsaw made it obvious it was all about money. That is what will stick in many folks minds. The best thing skeptics can do now is to reinforce this picture whenever and wherever possible.
With regards to the point in this post “Chinese cleverness”, I was in the room (as an observer) when the contract was signed, when the French (EDF) sold the entire UK power infrastructure to the Chinese (UK Power Networks). Can anybody let me know if any other country has sold its entire power infrastructure to a foreign government?
Jimbo says (November 23, 2013 at 1:25 pm): “Overheating the center of the inner core reactor due to the so-called greenhouse effect on the surface of Earth may cause a meltdown condition, an enrichment of nuclear fuel and a gigantic atomic explosion.”
Aha! So that’s what happened to Krypton! 🙂
In response to CC Squid I also had a meeting with a VERY senior member of DECC, when I asked him what research the UK are doing into thorium, I received the answer, what is thorium? God help us.
“Hitlers annihilation a few years later.” Yes, and then look at what Stalin and his communist cohorts did over the decades (not to mention what the “Bolsheviks” did before the war) to “their own” people. Communists beleive that it is necessary to eliminate even by murder and exile to re-education camps, anybody who shows even a hint of opposition. The Greenies *are* communists. So do the math.
You’re wrong. When the history of today’s anti-CAGW struggle is definitively written, the name “Anthony Watts” will loom large.
” DirkH says: November 23, 2013 at 12:32 pm
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.
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.”
While I love the new designs we have really dragged our butts in rolling over the aging first & second generation plants. They should have been replaced long ago with much safer designs that were available (and still are).
There is nothing irrational about fearing 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima type events. That is completely rational. Time for a tech rollover in the nuke industry!
I love that last bit. I always knew that there was something sinister about neon lights! 🙂
Thanks
@Charles Steigel
“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.”
So with that much methane hanging around, it is a good thing there is no sunlight to illuminate it at this time of year.
David Wells says:
November 23, 2013 at 12:28 pm
“…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…”
A nice little essay but I have one criticism and it is the theme of the quote. The beauty and magic of technology and economics is what has confounded Malthusians for generations. They think linearly and in two dimensional space, the resources and tech are exponential and three dimensional (at least) – not the same resources necessarily that are so important to us today. NGOs, soc_iali_sts, the UN and such think “We have to do something!” We don’t, the market and an infinite imagination makes the moves before we run out of anything. No central authority required. It’s automatic. We do not live in a finite world of resources in any real sense. There is no demand for Zinc, for example, there is a demand for corrosion proofing, alloy metals, non chargeable battery cases (do they still make zinc ones?) …..I was told you could even make a radio out of iron, clay, quartz and carbon and a few other very abundant resources back when the 1950s Club of Rome came to the table with their 25 years left of mineral and fuel resources. Who would of thought you could have a radio, telephone, TV set that fits in your shirt pocket. Fuel, I’ll let you guess. The biggest challenge to humankind is to get people to stop being afraid and making the job tougher. Its the Maurice Strongs and NGOs that don’t want people to not be afraid. I worked in Africa in the 1960s and 1990s and was apalled how little progress people had actually made in the those 30+yrs. I think if we had left them alone simply did trade, business and investment and the like with them, all the poor countries problems would have been solved. They have enormous resources that NGOs and thieving politicians have made inaccessible because no investor would be interested in the framework. Sending bales of money is a sure way to enrich a few and leave the rest to starve. I could go on because I have a strong sense of this stuff but this is enough for the night.
HGW xx/7 asks the right question:
“Do we need a leader, let alone want one?”
Things will go much better having a population-representative elected ‘board’ with a non-executive chairman. Modeling societies on corporations is unwise. Great Leaders, parties and national factions are the stuff of dustbins. No one is smarter than the group, even in hero-worshipping cultures. That is why they consult. The UN representatives should be proportionally elected and put a stop to this silliness. Ban Ki, it is not working!
As it becomes clear that CO2 is not causing catastrophic warming and that a Quiet Sun version 2 (QS2) can cause catastrophic cooling, all talk will go to coping with the drop in temperatures. Surprisingly, the poor countries are mostly safe from this. It is the northern developed regions that will have the most coping to do. Shorter growing seasons, less rain, more intermittence, early frosts – it adds up.
There are plenty of poor people in developed countries who will sink further into energy poverty until we have lots of Little Match Girls freezing on the streets. As a result most coping strategies will be executed within countries.
David Wells;
Paragraphs. Try them, we’ll like them. Abandoned your massive text-block about 1/3 the way thru.
I like this blog and detest Greenpeace, but am annoyed at this writer’s assertion that Stalingrad was the decisive event/battle of WWII. This is Stalinist propaganda, the real turning point was the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941. American supplies (tanks, airplanes, trucks) improved the mobility of the Russian Army while the American invasions of North Africa (1942) and Italy (1943) forced Hitler to divert some of his best Army Divisions from the Eastern Front to the West. Russian losses were ten times those of the Germans on the Eastern Front (24,000,000 versus 2,400,000); without American help, Stalin would have almost certainly lost the war.
@David Wells –
“transferring wealth from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries to the rich in poor countries” is so true! And it could be rephrased for “transferring from the poor to the rich” for us here in the US, under der Fuehrer’s regime – socialist regimes always concentrate wealth in fewer hands than in capitalist countries because there is no middle class, only poor and super-rich.
A minor historical point: the real turning point on the Russian front in WWI was not Stalingrad – it was the battle the following summer, July 1943, at Kursk. At Kursk the Germans threw their central armored reserves at the strongest section of tthe Russian line, where the Russians anticipated the attack and were so well prepared for it that in less than a week the attacking German forces were destroyed, leaving huge sections of the front wide open to immediate Russian counteroffensives. In their offensive at Kursk, the Germans broke rule number one of offensive military strategy, which is you hit ‘;em where they ain’t.
And it would seem that GreenWAR and the other thieves in environmental clothing attacked one of the strongest points on the skeptic front line – Poland, the country perhaps the most resolutely opposed to the AGW and socialist memes of all, to their soon regret. Warsaw was their Kursk, methinks, as well as their Stalingrad. And so now let us in the skeptic community mount our counteroffensive, ultimate target Washington and our own Fuehrer.
Meant tpo say WWII – mea culpa
“Jon says:
November 23, 2013 at 3:03 pm
Jon says:
November 23, 2013 at 2:44 pm
This has been going on for thousands of years. Creating ideas that the public can believe in and that grants the promoters some control over the masses and their resources?
Yes … like DDT, Mercury and PCB :)”
I am thinking more of religion and ideology. And in this case environmentalism.
I remember some years ago reading about radicals getting the idea to turn environmentalism in to a something that would dominate and even replace religion in the whole World.
This endless fight for thousands of years by the few to control and live of the many is what I am thinking of.
The actual turning point in WWII was the minor Battle for Ceylon. It threatened to cut off the trade route from India to England. It was also the first time the Axis forces were defeated anywhere in the world. Lastly it has been said that the loss of aircraft by the Axis forces there contributed to their loss in the Battle of The Coral Sea soon after, when they simply ran out of planes.
http://www.30squadronassociation.com/history/ceylon.html
So I would suggest that Canada’s repeal of carbon taxing and dumping of Kyoto might be the turning point.
However, it is not worth arguing about, it is just a historical note. The thing is that the cuckoos of the CAGW have finally been tipped out of the nest.
My belief is that they will turn to water sustainability as their next target.
“Jon says:
November 23, 2013 at 3:03 pm
“Jon says:
November 23, 2013 at 2:44 pm
Yes like DDT?”
What about DDT?
“They are aiming for a new global deal to be signed in Paris in 2015 to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol … ”
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So the next all-expenses-paid junket is to Paris? Life’s tough when you’re saving the planet.
As for a “new global deal”, good luck with that. The chances are so small that it would take nanotechnology to even identify them. But, the important thing is, we have a trip to Paris lined up, even though everyone knows that the prospect of anything more than weasel words coming out of it is infinitesimal.
As one of the mug taxpayers who fund these wankfests, to say that I am unimpressed is putting it mildly. The gravy train rolls on.
We have a long way to go yet in getting rid of these parasites.
Johanna said
“We have a long way to go yet in getting rid of these parasites.”
Good luck on that one, these few “parasites” that is feeding on the many has been with us for thousands of years as shamans and priests alike, and later since the enlightenment ideology.
I think it would be better to educate the many on the subject and behavior of these few?
Iinteresting to look at Stalingrad. But we could also call it the Warsawloo. 😉
The biggest delusion that needs to be debunked once and for all is that there is a coalition out there operating for higher purposes.
The only purposes any coalition operating is interested in is money and power.
It has always been thus and there is no sign of it changing.
‘Left wing women’ operate for money and power, attacking ‘right wing misogynists’.
‘Right wing capitalists’ operate for money and power, attacking ‘the Unions and socialists’.
‘The Chinese’ operate for money and power, through keeping quiet in the Western media whilst playing hardball in international diplomacy, economics and financial markets.
Et al, et al, et al.
“rtj1211 says:
November 24, 2013 at 12:48 am
The biggest delusion that needs to be debunked once and for all is that there is a coalition out there operating for higher purposes.”
The basis for it all is the UNFCCC and environmental interests behind it, that had this idea that We had Man made catastrophic climate change. The object was political, handicap today’s Western World kapitalistic economy and classic liberal freedom. And that would benefit leftist political interests only both nationally and globally.
Those trying to make money on the UNFCCC scheme would, if UNFCCC was successful, in the end loose it all.