Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Naomi Klein, the green gift which keeps on giving, appears to be preparing the ground for a disappointing Paris COP 21 outcome.
According to Klein;
Australia has just announced its emissions reduction target before climate talks in Paris later this year. Do you think it’s sufficient?
This game of countries’ leaders saying about other countries “they are doing it too” is so childish. I’d say it was shocking but then [Tony] Abbott tried to keep climate off the agenda at the G20.
I think we need to be very careful raising expectations over Paris – there won’t be a deal in line with the science.
One part I find particularly shocking is that Australia is very much on the frontline of climate change. In Canada, most people don’t experience the extreme weather, but in Australia it is severe…
It’s not just about things getting hotter, it’s about things getting a lot meaner. You see that in Australia where the treatment of migrants is a profound moral crisis. It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme – climate change is an accelerant to all those other issues.
Its nice to know that Naomi shares our view, that Paris COP21 is unlikely to achieve anything of consequence.
That last paragraph above by Klein, is a gross insult to the Australian people.
That last para is one bizarre statement by Klein, totally disconnected from reality. In Australia no one except some greenies are worried about the rising sea levels, probably because we aren’t experiencing any. And Flannery still has his waterfront property and has not needed to be evacuated.
On the other hand our dams are full, which the warmists claimed would never happen again. Maybe that’s what’s stressing us. Well I understand it is stressing the warmists that reality continues to ignore their religion.
And legal immigrants continue to flow into the country without any hassles. Presumably Klein thinks that stopping the flow of illegal aliens, which was done successfully, while accepting large numbers of legal immigrants including actual refugees is some evidence of “meanness”. Clearly this is a very daft person.
Warragamba dam, the one supplying Sydney NSW, just went over the top.
This is why some here do not share the fears of Prof Flannery.
A rational position one would think.
Hell hath no fury like a leftist whose self-will is being thwarted by people ‘not doing it her way.’ They like to think what they demand is justice, but that’s only a disguise for what they want.
Keith, once Australia achieves the cuts in CO2 emissions similar to the ones Greece has obtained more recently via economic banker driven austerity back door means, then we should be safe from criticism. 🙂
I have to disagree with you. Racism and anti-migrant sentiment is very strong in Australia. I can attest to that as a migrant to Australia myself (UK, New Zealand) as well as having been married to an African woman. My former wife having been verbally insulted right in front of me many times. I am not saying all Australians are like this however, when exposed to it over and over, gets a bit tiring.
Of course, this has nothing to do with sea level rise and climate change.
Grow up Patrick. Once every few months someone makes an unpleasant remark to your wife. That doesn’t stack up against REAL racism. People got shot in a church in the U.S. Yemen had a mosque bombed. Malaysia, South Africa and indeed most EM countries have openly apartheid laws. Australia is the least racist country on the planet.
Many Africans, Indians, Samoans, NZ Maori etc I know who live here have a very different opinion to you. And you have made a rather bold assumption that she received verbal abuse “…once every few months…”, shows total ignorance of the issue.
Try being Jewish. There is a certain segment of the population – well represented at Zero Hedge (no link on purpose) – that has it in for Jews as economic wreckers, thieves, and crooks. Not to mention anti-Christian and of low morals.
The contribution of Jews to our current civilization – Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, etc. is never considered.
[With apologies to M. Simon below]
Try being gay. There is a certain segment of the population – well represented at WUWT – that has it in for gays as marriage wreckers, perverts, and child-snatchers. Not to mention anti-Christian and of low morals.
The contribution of gays to our current civilization – Da Vinci, Turing, Bacon, etc. – is never considered.
Nobody in Australia insults my wife for being English, at least it never happens twice.
when exposed to it over and over, gets a bit tiring.
============
show me a country on earth where the people are not “racist” against strangers that don’t share their appearance or culture moving into their neighborhood. it doesn’t exist.
Each group of migrants brings with them their own set of problems. the local people recognize that these are new problems that the migrants are importing, that the local people will have to deal with. Be it crime, or disease, or competition for jobs, or increased taxes to pay for infrastructure.
So when the local people object, they are called Racist. Yet all over the world, people react exactly the same way, regardless of the color of their skin. So either all people are “Racist”, or the word “racist” is being used politically, to describe the natural objections people have towards strangers moving into their neighborhood.
Yes and where there is actual racism rather than just the desire to be free of problems associated with immigration the appropriate question might be “How racist is Australia/England/Bali compared with India/China/Egypt” for example.
It’s always a comparative since any country will have enough people for there to inevitably racists amongst them. So all countries are racist AND non-racist but the ratios vary from country to country, and race to race.
Jan Smit
Try being gay. There is a certain segment of the population – well represented at WUWT – that has it in for gays.
____________________________________
Try picking on the regions and religions that really have a problem with homosexuality:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2978890/ISIS-barbarians-throw-gay-man-building-bloodthirsty-crowds-Syria.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2937217/Killed-gay-Man-blindfolded-thrown-tower-block-Syria-stoned-death-SURVIVED-fall.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3146225/Thrown-deaths-ISIS-barbarians-gay-Men-pushed-head-fourth-storey-building-Islamists-latest-sickening-executions.html
Instead of picking on easy targets like small cake-shops:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3148472/Anti-gay-bakers-ordered-pay-135k-lesbian-couple-refused-wedding-cake-say-fine-ruin-financially-despite-raising-100-000-GoFundMe.html
And small hoteliers trying to earn a crust of bread:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424983/Christian-B-B-owners-refused-gay-couple-close-business.html
Nobody likes a bully who picks on the weak and vulnerable.
Ralph
OK this is getting WAAAAAY OF TOPIC. This sub thread is terminated with this comment.
Try being a white male in the U.S. – the official position and implemented policy by federal, state and local government as well as all universities and many employers is that you should be discriminated against when considered for contracts, employment, promotion or admission.
Try being Welsh……Now THERE’S a group who know how to be offended.
Look you boyo……
Naomi says: “In Canada, most people don’t experience the extreme weather, but in Australia it is severe…
============
I’ve lived in both Canada and Oz. Naomi hasn’t got a clue about extreme weather.
Australia is a walk in the park as compared to Canada. Lots of places in Canada are just as hot as Australia in summer. There is no place in Australia as cold as Canada in winter.
Go live on the Canadian Parries on winter without fossil fuels. 40 below zero for weeks at a time, with no firewood for hundreds of miles in any direction. The sun low in the skies, rises at 9, sets at 3. Everything frozen solid for months at a time, drifting snow everywhere.
While in Oz people walk around in shorts and t-shirts all year long. And Naomi would have us believe Oz has “extreme weather”. Extremely good weather compared to Canada.
“40 below….rises at 9 sets at 3…frozen solid for months….
The nostalgia is choking me up. I grew up in Winnipeg – no school closures for cold, no school buses, felt boots, breeks (I’m not even sure how it’s spelled), big parkas, home knitted sweaters with deer designs on them long johns, milk delivered daily by horse-drawn van – glass bottles with a cardboard cap that was raised up 2 inches by a column of frozen cream on top, hockey with real horse extruded frozen pucks (not an urban myth), shoveling coal into a tin octopus in the basement. Winnipeg courtesy: Sir, your cheeks are frozen. July – 105F, paperboy lugging bag of heavy news: Uncle Joe has Died (Stalin), George VI dies (man that Winnipeg Tribune paper weighed more than a pound each- couldn’t fold it. Young Queen Elizabeth Coronation. I was born in the dirty 30s but too young to remember any of that hottest decade of my life. Extreme weather was lived by extreme people by today’s standards. The “wind chill factor”, when it was invented for eastern folks was known as the wimp chill factor by prairie folks.
Ah Winterpeg as it’s known. Yes I got a good laugh out of her comments as well. Totally clueless about Canada and the extremes of weather. Try a chinook on the east side of the Rockies sometime. Minus 20 to plus 10 (about -25f to +55F for those of you south of the 49th) in half a day. Then the winds change direction (“as the temple band takes 5” .. sorry I digress) and it goes back to freezing. The only saving grace is that both Alberta & Saskatchewan have lots of coal, oil & gas.
Gary, you are giving me a tour of memory lane! It was -30 C in Waterloo this past winter. That was nothing compared with Winnipeg. The frost went 15 ft deep this year. If it doesn’t melt, the coming winter will turn it into permafrost.
Australian extremes are catching up but have a long, long way to go. Maybe when sea ice starts drifting onto Tasman beaches Naomi will switch tunes.
I live in Winnipeg…we had a humidex of 43C a couple weeks ago (109F), and back in January a wind chill of -46C (-51F). This is “normal” weather year to year.
I’m unaware of Klein’s specific expertise on anything. She doesn’t appear to have graduated college let alone took a technical curriculum.
As far as the immigration is concerned the example of New Hampshire and refugees from Massachusetts is educational.
Migrants from other lands (Mass****s in the local NH parlance) have frequently soiled and ruined their previous habitation with their bad habits and bad ideas. Uncontrolled immigration allows them to carry these bad ideas and behaviors to a new land to continue where they left off degrading their new country like they ruined their old country.
The residents of Massachusetts are very legalistic and rule/regulation oriented because they believe everyone is as rude, obnoxious, and irresponsible as they are. They are ruining New Hampshire for the freedom loving and responsible natives that originally lived there.
The people who support illegal and/or uncontrolled immigration seem to be in the Massachusetts mold.
There is no reason to support illegal and/or uncontrolled immigration. Migrants tend to flee problems of their own making and bring these problems with them.
How well you know the “Granite State”- good post on the issue
I dunno. I’m an inmigrant, and I didn’t bring the problems I faced in Cuba when I arrived in the USA. The main problem I faced in Cuba was government repression, abuses, insults by the commie sympathizers, lack of medicines and food, and a very bleak future. But those stayed behind.
I thought everybody from Australia were hate filled racists…
Just like Americans.
Actually they are criminals. Well they descended from criminals. You aren’t considered upper crust Australian, unless your ancestry includes some scoundrel who stole a loaf of bread or a moldy potato.
My Ozziemate MIL is proud of the family criminal history, and tells of it with gusto.
You have to be slithering on slippery ground, to believe that Australians are racist.
And they give we Kiwi (s) a run for our title as the least racist people on earth.
That’s my opinion of course.
G
This is one issues that really gives me pause.
People who use Alinsky tactics are dishonest, deceitfully, immoral and unethical These Alinsky disciples are the most likely to call people who disagree with them hate filled racists, and usually it is irrelevant to the discussion..
I don’t know what to do with these statements. The first thing you do with an accusation is look at the accuser. This of course generates a “TILT” indication.
I guess just move on to the next issue.
By the way.
I just had the pleasure of watching a now age resisting Venus Williams hold off Caroline Wozzniaki in the final of some Auckland Tennis open tournament.
In her trophy acceptance speech, Venus apologized to the crowd for waiting 33 years to visit New Zealand. She said it was a mistake she won’t repeat, and she promised to return next year to defend her title if invited (she will be).
It was a very gracious speech and Venus showed that she was astonished at the friendly reception she received, and her new honorary title of “Queen Venus.”
We don’t do color. We do personal achievement, whatever the genre, or practitioner may be.
And her little sister Serena, gave an equally gracious speech (in French yet !) to the crowd, when she recently won the French Open Tournament.
Yes, both sisters are sometimes the brunt of racist remarks to their face. That is a defect of the individual involved; not of a whole community.
g
All Blacks!
“””””…..
Lady Gaiagaia
August 27, 2015 at 5:45 pm
All Blacks! …. “””
Evidently you don’t watch much sports.
Since the last ice age, New Zealand athletes have always warn black clothing, with a little silver fern on it. Officially, the “All Blacks” are the New Zealand national Rugby team.
Their basketball team is called the “Tall Blacks” for the same reason.
They used to call the Cricket Team the “All Whites” since they used to wear the traditional white uniforms of cricket, but at the last World cricket Cup, they wore some weird blue uniforms, to get beat by the traditionally yellow clad Aussie team. (It was something awful to watch; Kiwis committed suicide, starting with the skipper in the first over.)
g
Geroge,
I’m perfectly aware that in all sports, to include Gary Player, NZ teams are the All Blacks, which is why I posted to that effect.
Sheesh!
And to Canadians as well, as a matter of fact it is an insult to most if not all rational people!
Her entire line of nonsense is an insult to all intelligent beings. Aussie’s included of course….:-)
Even if the Paris summit ends up in objective failure, as was the case in Copenhagen, the Green Lobby will seize on vague and non-binding commitments (such as each country’s emission reduction target), to prime the pump for another round of yearly pre-summits in expectation of another major deal down the line.
The mainstream media will be along for the ride. No chief of state will dare say that he/she doesn’t believe in the IPCC’s position. The wheel will keep on turning… states and cities are now adopting emission targets. Under public pressure, countries will have to take measure to abide by the non-binding agreements.
Climate skeptics wiil generally continue to be ignored and left to play in their little sandbox. Occasionnally, they will again be condescendingly thrown in with flat-earther and creationists.
In the present context, even a new glaciation would be blamed on climate change and CO2 emissions.
The difference this time for the United States is that Obama’s time in office is winding down. He has only one year left. This is his last chance to commit the United States to some ridiculous carbon reduction target and still have a full year to try to unlawfully implement it through a series of executive regulations.
If we can hold him off for the next year and then elect a Republican in November of next year we can put an end to this nonsense in the United States. By the time the political balance of power shift again and a Democrat wins back the Presidency, this global warming junk science may have run its course and been discredited.
I am staggered by Naomi’s sense of self importance….
Self importance, yes. Sense, no.
Well you have to start with at least one supporter; might as well be yourself. You could even have the distinction of being the only supporter.
g
“there won’t be a deal in line with the science.” Whose “science”? Does Ms Klein sacrifice her health food, her travel, her electric light and other comforts, to lower (in her scientific estimate) the Earth’s temperature by 0.000000001 degrees?
Probably the only truthful thing she has said.
I didn’t realise I’m such a mean prick. ‘Our’ treatment of refugees aka illegal immigrants, are to stop these boneheads from drowning on the high seas. HELLO ITALY! are you taking note yet?
rescue a boatload of people and many more will set sail hoping to be rescued as well.
Reminds me of Arnald from the movie “Surfs Up”; that cute little pengine that kept getting rescued by Lani the surf lifeguard.
It is important to observe that CO2 emission reductions have already been achieved due to austerity, economic collapse, stock market collapse and the like.
For example, oil rig count in the US is down over 50% ,. That massive reduction in oil rigs took place in only one year.
Will those partaking in the Paris COP be applauding the efficiency of austerity as a means of obtaining CO2 emission reductions?
Old inefficient rigs are being retired. The new rigs can go from start of drilling to production in 15 days. Do that for 4 or 6 holes on one pad – 15 days per hole, 19 days for a move to a new pad, do it again.
The decline in rig counts is no longer a good measure of what is really happening in the oil patch. It won’t be a good measure until the vast majority of old rigs are retired.
…This being a forced retirement….
Yeah well last year 24 wells were planned in my area. Two were drilled, one is producing. One company’s shares were worth $40 last year, $5 today. I bought shares in thR company over 15 years ago for About $5. I think the AGWers and the Saudi, Rusian, Iran, Iraq producers are very happy to try to push North Amercan producers out if business. I see 10’s of MODERN rigs parked every day. There are millions of dollars (if not billions) of equipment sitting idle while greenies talk about building bird splitters while they tour the country in their full sized SUV’s wearing their fancy synthetic petrochemical based clothing … Clueless.
“T. Boone Pickens Rages On CNBC: “I Am The Expert, Not You”, Says Oil Down Due To “Weak Demand”.
From: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-09/us-rig-count-crashes-fastest-pace-2009-14-month-lows
M Simon, you are describing a process i quoted below that can sometimes be expressed as ‘getting rid of deadwood’. I agree.
You say “Old inefficient rigs are being retired. The new rigs can go from start of drilling to production in 15 days. Do that for 4 or 6 holes on one pad – 15 days per hole, 19 days for a move to a new pad, do it again.
The decline in rig counts is no longer a good measure of what is really happening in the oil patch. It won’t be a good measure until the vast majority of old rigs are retired.”
The retirement of over 50% of US rigs in just one year is a speedy retirement by any measure. IMO
The article indicates a school of thought that indicates demand for oil is down. This in turn leads to lower oil prices and the process of removing rigs that can no longer produce oil at the new lower oil price which is demand driven. ‘Supply and demand’.
If demand is down due to economic reasons, then it follows CO2 emissions are declining with respect to the oil that produces them.
M Simon, do you think those partaking in the Paris COP will acknowledge *austerity* as a means of obtaining CO2 emission reductions? Or that the recent ongoing economic downturn has already obtained a sizeable reduction in CO2 emissions at this time with further cuts/reductions imminent ?
As I recall (perhaps imperfectly) the oil rout started with Obama asking Saudi to keep supply up in order to lower prices to punish Russia because of Crimea. Well that it did, and still is, to some extent, that is until they, China and others in the area float their own bank and monetary system to mostly take the US and dollar out of the pix (which is not supposed to be pretty for the US). Saudi and OPEC, it appeared, then realized that this was working so well to keep US fracking gas & oil off the market that they actually increased production. I remember seeing a comment by one Saudi oil type that oil might even go as low as $20 a barrel. Now one would expect this to increase usage in Western countries as it has in Asia (total consumption is actually up), but apparently not, and that is somewhat of a mystery to me. Maybe when gas hits a $1 per gal (in the US) as I’ve also heard some say is a real possibility. Now maybe this has turned into a ploy to make the Dem’s look good in the next election, but it is definitely not the direction that one would think Obama or the Green’s would want. Very, very suspicious.
Gonna be hard to hit $1/gal when state and federal taxes in some locales are $0.80 a gal, not counting sales and corporate income taxes.
It will be a Grand, all expenses paid, get to gather for like minded people to hatch more conspiracies of theft of our freedom and wealth. How can that be a failure?..pg
Here in Oz there is a growing interest in online defamation.. Now the whole country is being defamed!!
Naomi says: “In Canada, most people don’t experience the extreme weather, but in Australia it is severe…”
Well, for those who don’t live here, have a read of Dorothy Mackeller’s “My Country”, written long before the rise of the AGW religion/cult! Oz is pretty much as it has been for a long, long time.
Here’s a few relevant lines:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
…Her beauty and her terror –
…Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
…For flood and fire and famine,
…
http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
Let me tell you, if going from +30C to minus -30C in 6 months isn’t extreme, I don’t know what is.
I agree with you Chris. Klein does not know what she is talking about – not a clue. “Australia is very much on the frontline of climate change.” What on earth does that mean? “Severe..”. I have lived here for 61-1/2 years and for the entire time it has been a haphazard mishmash of droughts and floods and heat waves. This year in Adelaide we have had the coldest winter in 20 years. Since every heat wave is now a sign of runaway global warming then this last winter by the same logic is a sign of runaway global cooling. “Perhaps she could provide data on the alarming rise in sea levels that are supposed to have occurred. Klein is talking complete confused rubbish, as expected. She is confusing migrants with refugees. And to say “It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme – climate change is an accelerant to all those other issues”. Yeah, clear as mud. And Oz, on a per capita basis, looks after refugees well.
That’s like saying that any urban population doesn’t experience extreme weather because they can stay sheltered until it passes.
One extreme of weather is cold. A relatively small mistake leads quickly to death at -40 unless there’s someone around to rescue you. Canada has plenty of extreme weather. I expect that the portion of the Canadian population that has to worry about extreme weather is about the same as the similar population in Australia.
And the cold up here will kill you a lot quicker than any heat down there.
nigelf, Don’t I just know it. In the late 1960s I moved from a mining camp in NE QLD (at 40+C) to a mining camp in Northern Manitoba and that winter it got down to -50C (and for 2 months the maximum temperature did not get above -35C). While I am now retired in balmy Brisbane (24C max/13C min on an early spring day) today, I agree with you, from personal experience. I cannot see the Canucks getting to bent out of shape about a couple of degrees. I can just hear (assuming they are still walking around) some of my Canadian colleagues laughing like a drain.
Then again her idea of extreme only applies to heat, not the cold. More heat would be a gooder thing for Canada.
If only hot counts, then Naomi has a lot of explaining to do. Since the 136 degrees F from Libya has been nixed by the powers that be, Death Valley, CA currently enjoys the title of world record holder. On July 10, 1913, a temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded there by a properly situated instrument.
Just more evidence than even heat is less extreme now than 102 years ago.
Despite NOAA’s emplacement of an extra station in Death Valley opposite a south-facing cliff, this record still stands, to the great embarrassment of consensus “climate science”.
It’s worse for Canadians since extreme cold kills 20 times the people that extreme hot does. It’s the middle of winter here in Sydney, is there any way we could get some of that global warming down here or are you Northern Hemispeherans hogging it all?
You’re welcome to some of our rainfall if you like. I’ll try & set up some kind of export/import system from this end! 😉
In Canada it is not unusual for people to freeze to death. A simple breakdown on the highway during a winter storm can be a death sentence.
And before someone talks about Cyclones in OZ, remember that tropical storms are only about 1/10th the energy of extra-tropical storms. A tropical storm is measured in miles. An extra-tropical storm is measured in hundreds of miles.
the difference is that storms are driven by differences in temperature. there is little difference between two hot places, which is why tropical storms are limited in size.
extra-tropical storms however are driven by the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles. they are much larger and contain much more energy as a result.
Jon it is mid-winter here in Yogyakarta and we have been plunged into a deep freeze. Daytime highs are stuck in the mid-20’s; there is just no relief. I am heading back to balmy Waterloo. I have had enough of this equi-polar winter stuff. I am at the airport and even the Aussies are trekking home with their surf boards. How can we surf in 25 degree water?? Brrr…. The winter surfing season is a write-off.
I suppose experiencing 70-80 degrees C differences in temperature extremes from July to January in many places in Canada should not be considered extreme? We do find it quite normal in Canada. Perhaps that is why some of us do not consider a 2 degree C rise global temperature one hundred years from now to be anything to get all neurotic about. In fact, if such a rise does happen, I am sure that my great great grandchildren in Canada will enjoy such a change, but it will still be very cold here in the winter, regardless.
A fine line needs to be walked; that of constant doom pronouncement but not so much that some drastic decision be made (like taking a long hard look at actual facts before spending trillions of dollars). There’s a definite risk that all their taxpayer-funded activities will just go away if people start paying too much careful attention instead of being vaguely concerned and putting up with the nonsense at the current annoyance level.
I wonder if anybody has ever done a study on how much carbon footprint is increased world wide per immigrant, as that is pretty much the reason they migrate in the first place. If only we can convince left wingers that illegal immigrants cause global warming
I like that idea.
Brilliant. They should all stay in their energy-starved homelands.
What a dimwit;”In Canada people do not experience the extreme weather..”
So an annual switch between +35 to -40C is just balmy..
Or try Calgary when the chinook blows in.
This dingbat needs to become an involuntary victim of Dr Giesbrich and his ice experiments.
Perhaps she/he /it should try ice fishing in the Arctic some time.
Then someone would likely kick her in the “icehole”.
Ice fishing in the Arctic is very easy. If you use a net you are very likely to catch some.
It just doesn’t get any nuttier than that statement.
So Klein’s reasoning boils down to: Global warming = Sea Level rise = meanness and racism.
So what happens when sea levels go down (i.e. glaciers growing) if (when) it gets colder and crops fail worldwide from the cold? Is everyone going to gather around the campfire and sing Kumbahyah?
That woman is such a damn moron. Her mental faculties are seriously deficient.
It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme
Yeah. I read it eight times trying to figure out if I was somehow misreading it, because even she could not say something that stupid, could she? But apparently she did. A change in sea level causes racism. Wow. Just…. wow.
It’s OK the sea level hasnt risen so we are not racists (Phew)
And what she does not understand is that it is the hand-wringing do-gooder liberals who are the evil ones here.
Take the boat-people crisis, for instance. If the first ten boats had been towed straight back to North Africa, we would not have this European migrant problem, and nobody would have been trafficked or died. So the hand-wringing do-gooder liberals have effectively murdered thousands of people, all in the name of trying to look ‘nice’.
They live in a Looking Glass world, and cannot see the inevitable result of their absurd policies. All they care about is posturing and preening – trying to look ‘nice’.
Ralph
I have to wonder how ‘mean’ Naomi Klein is. If a ‘climate refugee’ broke into her house to keep warm on an unusually cold night, what would she do? Would she be so mean as to call authorities to have the person deported from her property for trespassing without her permission? Or would she be nice, invite them to stay in her home, and eventually give them a pathway to adoption into her family so they can become heirs to her estate? People like her live behind locked doors in gated communities, but they want others to open their hearts and their communities to illegal immigrants who wander in uninvited. These people always want others to do what they are unwilling to do themselves.
Good plan. That way they can spin it afterwards, trumpeting unexpected “major breakthroughs”, and although “much more work needs to be done, progress has been made”. Hopefully, that way they can also keep the weeping and sobbing to a minimum. Saving the planet is emotional work you know.
The link mentioned in the article for Paris COP 21 says that France has largely decarbonized itself and gained beneficial reductions of air pollution, from heavy usage of nuclear and hydroelectric power – especially nuclear.
“I think we need to be very careful raising expectations over Paris”
It’s too late for that. Obama is expecting a new treaty to sign that replaces the Kyoto Accord, and the Pope is expecting power to be given to a global authority so that matters dealing with the environment, climate, immigration, and the redistribution of wealth can be coerced on a global scale. Boy, are they going to be disappointed if Paris is another failure.
Are they preparing for mass demonstrations and disruptions like they did for the G20 meetings, are they blocking off the centre of Paris and welding shut all the sewer covers? or is the only demonstration going to be one old man with a placard that says “What warming”
Remember, this is just an announcement by the Govn’t. No policy is, or ever will be, in place. This is just to claw back some support from voters in the run-up to the next election. Abbott is hanging on by the skin of his teeth.
Patrick, WHAT are you talking about.
I think that Europe has greater concerns then Naomi Klein. Ah Hungary and real refugees
michael
Naomi is a caring person.
http://blog.heartland.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Naomi-Klein-011.jpg
And when global cooling hits, and 8 Billion people are looking for scarcer food on this planet and the UNFCC has put coal and petroleum off-limits to help stabilize the catastrophe… will she still blame CO2?
Caring or not, she is a moron and has no business passing herself off with anything to do with science. She is a cultist, a stupid, ignorant cultist, like the nutters who ran Jim Jones Jonestown mass suicide. She will help pass around the purple koolaid when the time comes.
Naomi is a caring person with a planned enormous carbon footprint selling her important new book urging ‘carbon’ abstinence.
http://thischangeseverything.org/events/
This is the major problem. The people saying that “we” must do this and “we” must do that do the exact opposite themselves. They would be more believable if they were to lead by example. The day any of these empty vessels have a smaller “carbon footprint” than me I might, just might, take some notice of them.
I bet those highlights in her expensive hair-do cost a fair amount of cash.
When her oft-predicted world ‘revolution’ comes about, she won’t find many hairdressers available to sort out her ‘do.
In fact post-revolution, Naomi will be hard-pressed to find any retail outlets as we’ll all have become hunter-scavengers.
Where will Naomi get her organic humous and balsamic vinegar from if there are no artisan delicatessens?
Head tilting to the left indicates Concern. Her simpering expression indicates Compassion.
Socialists are never caring people. If they really cared they wouldn’t peddle policies that impoverish societies and hurt millions economically. They are like witch doctors, selling ‘cures’ that are toxic and dangerous. So, no, a ‘caring socialist’ is an oxymoron.
Per Naomi Klein:
..This game of countries’ leaders saying about other countries “they are doing it too” is so childish…
========
No questioning the teacher allowed anymore, eh ?
Not gonna fly in the internet age.
Let’s all bear in mind that this woman is now officially advising the Pope on “climate” matters.
Red-Green activist advises hard Left anti-capitalist Pope. Same theme: man the sinner. Repent and live in poverty -except those preaching that message, of course.
As far as the upcoming Paris climate circus is concerned, the cat is already out of the bag. There will be a legally binding agreement that [always read the small print..] allows each signatory country to set whatever reduction targets work for them. To the Red-Green Naomi Kleins of this world that’s the key: there will be a “legally binding agreement” -see, we won.
After which, with crude at $40/barrel or less and more oil and gas than the markets can use, subsidies for renewables will be cut back like in the UK, killing those boondoggles, and the world enjoys decades of cheap hydrocarbon energy. All the while global temperatures refuse to comply with the 170-odd IPCC GCMs and the fellow on the street ever more couldn’t give a flying feather.
But hey, Ms Klein and the Pope got their legally binding agreement and the circus will continue..
Pretty much connects all the dots. And meanwhile Soros Scrapes off another gob of ill-gotten gain as the top crony capitalist.
Red-Green activist advises hard Left anti-capitalist Pope.
==============
the only red-green advice I listen to:
https://youtu.be/i-ppwtwpj-Q
Someone make banners to hang on Paris buildings that ask how many degrees lower this effort will bring about.
Likely it won’t offset the CO2-footprint of their big party.
Paris will be a huge success. Just think of all of the fancy meals the delegates will charge to their expense accounts, all of the Christmas shopping they will be able to do, the City of Light all lit up at Christmas time. It will be wonderful and all of the delegates will have a great time, and will have lots of marvelous pictures to share on their social media. It is exciting to think about.
Don’t be a wet blanket Naomi. Let down your hair and live a little. Here, have some champagne.
Why are these climate shindigs never organised to take place in Watford? Or Luton? Or Croydon? Or any other grey and featureless town in the UK?
Ah, I know, towns such as Croydon don’t have many five-star hotels where the climateers can swill champagne and eat ethically-sourced smoked salmon.
Those are Paradise compared to Flint, Michigan or Camden, New Jersey. But if they really wanted to be someplace where things are going on, How about Damascus or Mosul.
“…ethically-sourced smoked salmon.”
Smoke? SMOKE?!?
UC Bezerkeley says that smoke is the biggest health threat to human kind since the invention of fire!
Wait a minute…
Arghhhh….. I’m Australian 🙁 so Naomi’s comments made me want to smash my monitor after reading them. Then, forcing myself to read all the responses, I felt so much better to see how many like-minded rational people that are still out there.
Just one other comment – the previous socialist goverment introduced a formal “Carbon Tax” of $30/ton under pressure from the Greens on whom they depended for a parliamentary majority. They were acutely aware of the unpopularity of this measure as the then Abbott oposition kept the “power prices will skyrocket” attack pressure which ot some significant traction.
So, as a master stroke ;-), the govt. offered up a twice-annual payment of about $250 per person as a “household supplement” or similar as a sweetener.
Cool – so the extra $600-700 a year hit for energy prices would be more than offset by this payment, right?
Well, I never saw or heard any media or even the opposiiton pollies ask – if this Tax is designed to make people use less energy – but we compensate them immediately for the extra cost – then what’s the incentive to cut your energy consumption? Or am I missing something….
Its like doubling the cost of a pack of cigarettes in the name of benefiting health then providing a “smokers stress level management supplement” of $50 a week to smokers – ie nett result = zip. The Australian Carbon Tax in conjunction with the Household Supplement was always going to be a zero sum all-for-appearances, keep the Greens happy political game.
Who actually believes that it matters that, apparently, Australia has the highest per-capita CO2 emissions? What if Lichtenstien (pop ~37,000) actually was a bit worse? Does Lichenstein even have a RET? We produce less than 2% of total global emissions so we could shut the whole country down & turn out the lights & the effect on global temperature would, again, be zip.
Go Tony Abbott!
The sad thing is even with Tony Abbott at the helm we still have emissions targets. Not a single political Party here in Australia has had the guts to come out of the deniers’ closet and challenge the fraudsters.
Sydney (coastal, not western suburbs) rarely reaches 30C. And almost never reaches 0C. It’s the least extreme climate on earth.
Most Australians live on the seaboard, not in the arid zones.
Those rural dwellers adapt well to the extremes of temperature.
The least extreme climate on earth is in the DRC (Congo) basin. Dry season is when it doesn’t rain continuously. During the wet season those little dry patches cloud over.
For the December meeting; PARIS Ites of the world unite.
The biggest gathering of unelected unaccountable parasites upon the taxpayers of this planet.
Prizes for the most outlandish costumes.
Bonuses for the most egregious scheme to transfer wealth from the struggling poor to their bureaucratic overlords.
As the snow piles up in Paris, the cold sinks in and the transport grind to a halt.. who says ma Nature does not have a sense of humour.
How much will the UN bandits pay Al Gore to stay away?
As popular entertainment sinks to new lows every year, I am almost good with reincarnating the Roman Circus, the population explosion of Polar Bears needs a relief valve, create good paying work for the Inuit and what could be lovelier than letting ecoterrorists and cuddly Polar Bears interact?
Yes I know, in very bad taste especially for the poor bear.
very bad taste especially for the poor bear
====================
braised polar bear will be on the menu in Paris. paired with a Bourdeau, magnifique!
She projects, and enhances her own hatefulness in the desire to find it elsewhere.
==================
I think we need to be very careful raising expectations over Paris – there won’t be a deal in line with the science.
Naomi, that is exactly what we are afraid of. If anything were in line with the science, COP21 would be cancelled.
it is unlikely we’ll be blessed with snow in Paris for the September meeting. Cold and rainy is more likely.
What is far more likely is a world-wide bear market and recession. Perhaps that chill will help reorder priorities towards saner policies than self-denial.
Oops. Paris for the December meeting.
http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en
And what a website it is, very visual, lots of colour and movement. Looks very expensive and evangelistic. Nearly took the quiz but they wanted my email address.
There is stil some ice in Hudson Bay…Aug 25th:
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_usa.gif
Yep, the current ice area is skating along at the edge of 2 standard deviations, quite a bit above 2007 at this point in the year. The air temperature at the pole is well below freezing now. Sun angle now in single digits. Plus, it appears the Polar High has established itself, so it will be tough for any major storms to get going between now and the typical minimum point, now mere days away.
Luckily Naomi Klein has succumbed to the Darwin effect. She and her “man” have had only a single child, and she is far too old to inflict another person carrying her heredity upon humanity.
Hmm, some governments are probably more than happy to have useful idiots like Naomi entertaining nutters on a world tour. Let’s see how many fast-track nuke or brown coal plant replacements quietly get advanced while this circus is on-going. Getting rid of green crap while chillaxing on a Cornish beach is hardly likely to frighten the horses, just let it rot. After all, serving beyond sell by date kippers to a petulant poisoned dwarf worked out pretty well. Nobody noticed gaudy pink paint being permanently removed from stable doors. Graffiti artists are still arguing amongst themselves about while they shouldn’t repaint them bright red!
Prof. Klein is not merely a mercenary cynical propagandist. After reading the except, it is clear she is likely crazy as well. She confuses with weather with climate, confuses her personal politics with science, and seems to believe in magical thinking.
Good grief. Has the world of warmista really stooped this low? Nobody but nobody could take this nutter seriously.
What a hypocrite. She’s flying round the world yet again, to promote her book about how awful climate change and capitalism are!
Shirley, you jest!
I mean, surly you jest.
No way she is selling a hard copy of her book.
It must be an e-book only…it absolutely must be.
I’m sure she would never destroy the planet with a disgusting paper book.
‘It’s not just about things getting hotter, it’s about things getting a lot meaner. ‘
Pure water-mellow at work , unless of course you can explain how ‘social justice ‘ , and term no no real meaning , actual fits into the science.
Although to be fair to Klein she continues to live in, exploit and enjoy the ‘evil capitalists west ‘ rather they experience first hand the joys of ‘socialists paradises’ they endlessly prise . So it must be hard life for her .
It scares me that there may be a Paris Deal. Obama will sign anything.
If it’s a treaty, the Senate will have to approve. Unlike the Iran deal, the vote would be required and binding. That’s why the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, although thanks to natural gas, we are one of the few countries to meet its standards. Maybe the only one.
I fear he will sign an “Agreement” exactly like the Iran “Deal” and the International arms control agreement, legally obligating USA to pay & play.
Don’t worry, Slywolfe. Of all those countries that signed the Kyoto accord, not one has actually done what they promised.
President Obama (nice guy, heart in the right place) is faced with an economy in tatters and capital markets that are little more than a house of cards, both requiring endless supplies of printed money. He has latched on to global warming (sorry, climate change) as what psychiatrists would probably call a displacement activity. Yes, he may well sign something, but he won’t be around to not comply with it.
I hope you are correct about a meaningless commitment by BO, but I am unconvinced.
I totally disagree with your characterization of him.
I wonder why countries signed Kyoto knowing full well they couldn’t comply. Doesn’t that make them all look pretty stupid? Or maybe they figured one stupid move negated another?
I know quite a few commenters have already talked about this, but I have to say:
WTF?
In fact, let’s cut to the chase:
Naomi Klein. WTF?
Re Australia.
I know of NO PERSON who is concerned about sea level change apart from a few academics trying to get more funds for Great Barrier Reef research. For your average Joe, it is a nothing.
Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, has committed to an emissions reduction which he says we will make with ease, but he has chosen to do it without wrecking the country with penalising fuel and electricity increases.
Other countries should consider his reasoning and method before being explicit about their futures.
More Australia.
I have worked with official climate records, in considerable detail, since about year 2007.
When comparing temperatures years 2000-2014 with official printed summaries ending in the 1930s and 50s, we can not see the claimed official warming of 0.9 deg C for the last century. We can see about 0.3 to 0.4 degrees, when we include available pre-1910 official records. Has there been global warming of Australia? We think not.
We do not use the homogenised ACORN-SAT record because we are aware that homogenisation was done by the official publishers (CSIR, later CSIRO, and the Commonwealth Government). We can see no reason to re-homogenise homogenised data. Because methods differed, the recent homogenisation might well be reversing earlier, valid homogenisation in the game of cooling the past.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/03/historic-documents-show-half-of-australias-warming-trend-is-due-to-adjustments/
Noting our caveats, the reason why Australian records appear to agree with other countries and the world. is simply because of choice of stations and data lengths. Records like BEST end up exaggerating because it attempts to further correct records that have already been corrected by experts. There was inadequate research into the past history of station records.
There is NO sign of an increase in the last 7 decades of anything catastrophic. I looked at heat waves in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Perth, for heatwaves of 4,5,6 and 10 days duration and got results that were mixed. There was no solid evidence of an increase of simply-defined heat waves.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/02/heatwaves-in-australia-not-longer-not-more-common-why-wont-bom-and-abc-say-that/
NOBODY has criticised these findings. Why should a foreigner, unfamiliar with the records and science, find a problem? It’s not real.
Ha. Global warming makes Australians meaner! Klein is a stupid Canadian.
It’s not just about things getting hotter, it’s about things getting a lot meaner
Why should we care at all what that woman has to say? She’s not an authority on anything. She’s just a professional activist, without academic background in science. She didn’t even complete her degree in philosophy and literature at the University of Toronto. Let’s be clear about this: she’s a scientific and economic illiterate. She knows nothing of climate science, nothing of economic implications and damage caused by climate science racket. Arrogant, uneducated, vociferous, and parasitic people like her are a bane of our democracy, culture and society. The right way to deal with them is to ignore them wholesale, condemn them to oblivion.
I think you have her credentials correct. Yet she is an advisor to the Pope on climate change. What might we infer from that?
I know the advocacy golden rule is to create step change to their ultimate goals. But could we just fast forward to get an honest look at the ultimate goals for Paris and the next stops on the policy travelogue tour?
Every major political movement has useful idiots, and some of them turn out to be certifiable.
In case you were wondering, I think this was the poll Naomi Klein used to validate her statement in that last paragraph. Shown are the average of the responses of a select group of climate activists and sock puppets.
1. The sea level is rising due to increased levels of CO2. On a scale of 1-10, where would you rate yourself as being
Racist |———————^–|
Conspiracy Theorist |——————–^—-|
Flat-earther |—————^——-|
Mean son-of-a-gun |————————–^|
2. On the same 1-10 scale, where would you rate yourself as being
Useful |–^—————–|
Idiot |——————–^–|
Useful Idiot |———————-|—^
Thank you for participating in our survey. Have a lollipop.
These lavish conferences held by the global elite, provide a perfect venue for them to influence government officials with little public oversight.
So the phrase “global warming” continues it metamorphosis. I’ve lost track, but there was the progression to “climate change” to “global weirding” to some other terms. Now it seems “global meanness” is the phrase of the week.
/snark
Hide the decline? Hide the Naomi Klein!
Canada doesn’t have as many long-lasting droughts and floods as Australia. That’s probably most of what Klein had in mind.
Ain’t that an oxymoron?
What Klein had in mind?
wow
klein is a frothing psycho. it gets hot and the people get mean. it’s just how it works.
what happens when it gets cold? lots of hugging and snugging
sciencyphychobabble
thank you mz klein
I think she meant hot flashes make her mean.
So now we have another cause of climate change. Racism! Who knew climate change created so many probems! Especially among western nations. Of course nothing is happening anywhere else. I’m sure ISIS would welcome here with open arms. She would go for about two sheep and a goat.
Well, if the whole continent of Australia is the frontline of climate change, then climate change is definitely not global.
One can always tell who are true urbanites by their total lack of outdoor reality. When one only shuttles between close doorways and protected transportation there is a tendency to believe everyone experiences the same comforts.
Australia occupies a position ranging from Latitude S11° and S39°.
Other areas of the world occupying similar latitudes include;
Southeast Asia,
India,
Arabia,
North Africa (Sahara),
Central America and
Mexico.
Are all of these countries afflicted with the same climate change problems, as they should be in a global climate?
Naomi Klein = High Priestess of the Climate Change Religion
I have combined two comments above, how about this headline:
COP21, meeting of the Parisites
CO2 makes racism more severe?
Is there nothing this wonder gas CAN’T do?
So some good did come from the Vietnam War. It drove Naomi’s parents out of the USA.
It’s such a cliche that offspring of ideologue activists becomes an ideologue activist. Not much free will, intellectual curiosity or creativity in that. This collectivism by design causes peoples minds to collect to form a consensus mind as we see in the global warming end of the world (eow) industry. This is well known by the Marxbrothers. To differ is harder and requires a different mind – one that questions things and collective mind finds dissent disturbing, although their personal therapy is calling such people anti-science, right wing knuckle draggers. Being a sceptic automatically offers more choice. You can say ‘hold on here’, investigate and, depending on findings agree or disagree.What’s wrong with that? Indeed it is thoroughly logical to boot. It certainly is a far superior reading of “the precautionary principle” than to cook up a crisis with dysfunctional models and then demand we spend trillions because it come true in a hundred years.
Strange, I also note that the eow climate change literature is nearly all written by ideologues without a scientific background (two of them Naomis so I guess the alphabet must be pretty well covered!). There may have been some scientific types doing this more than a decade ago, but outside of M E Mann, there isn’t much popular publishing on the subject by warming scientists. Interesting, they are not prepared to put it out there, are they.
might come true
In her case, it is at least three generations, since her grandparents were Communists.
She appeals to The Guardian readership. Though even there, there’s usually only a few hundred regular commenters om the various and numerous climate change stories.
There are even comments that show up that are counters to the AGW accepted ‘wisdom’. The reactions to those are fascinating.
The hazards of living in an echo chamber are manifest in that paper.
Where does Naomi publish again?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/science/many-social-science-findings-not-as-strong-as-claimed-study-says.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Yep, during the last Ice Age level of open racism was 400 feet lower than it is today.
True. Twenty thousand years ago during the LGM was a world of respect for nature and among men, peace, love and brotherhood. Except for the rampant cannibalism, of course.
Cannibalism? Was it not diligent recycling of human flesh and wise population control?
Yes. The most powerful tribes then were true to their Green faith in a white world. They hated their fellow humans so much that they ate and recycled them.
Of course, they also wiped out the meatier megafauna while they were at it.
Without human technology Gaia is doomed.
If cAGW is correct, a single CO₂ concentration doubling, associated with 3.7 W/m² primary forcing, is catastrophic to climate.
According to the standard solar model solar luminosity is increasing.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Solar_evolution_%28English%29.svg
At this rate in just 170 million years solar forcing will be 3.7 W/m² higher than it is today, a pittance compared to depths of its past history.
Of course, if climate sensitivity is much lower than it is in cAGW nightmares, Gaia may live a bit longer, up to a billion years or so, at which point temperatures go through the roof, no matter how much CO₂ we have. In a billion years solar forcing increases by 22 W/m², equivalent to 6 doubling of atmospheric CO₂ concentration, at which point there would be sixty times more of it, 2.5% (slightly toxic).
However, all this gloom and doom can be averted by clever technology, so Gaia definitely needs a hand 😉
See eg. The search for a strategy for mankind to survive the solar Red Giant catastrophe by M. Taube and W. Seifritz.
IMO if descendants of humans still exist in five billion years, they will have long since abandoned the earth. I suppose they might be able to survive beneath its surface after that becomes uninhabitable, but even subterranean existence won’t be possible if, as seems likely, the red giant phase will engulf our planet, despite then orbiting farther out.
It makes more sense to leave earth where it is than trying to move it. Humans could spread first to the asteroids, then perhaps to moons of the giant planets and eventually to the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.
By five billion years in the future, if we and our descendant species haven’t already gone extinct, then we may have spread throughout much of the galaxy.
UnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnPRECIDENted ….. KILLLLLLLLLLLLLerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …. sea levelllllll RRRRRRRise … it WILLLLLLLLLLL HAPpennnnnnnnnn …. in 2097!!!!!
(Just like “GREENHOUSE! It WILL happen in 1997)
I just made the mistake of reading the Gaurdian article and some comments, my god what are these people on. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, how did these people become so deluded.
It’s completely in line with what Naomi believes–that “climate change” has deleterious impacts EVERYWHERE. Why, it even makes normal people delusional and she’s a prime example.
But she’d never believe it could happen to her; no, the “climate change” meme is only that and she’s fallen for it. The only real impact of the meme is making fools of highly gullible humans and again, she’s a prime example.
It would be entertaining were it not so dangerous.
Klein’s statement is totally way off the mark, and wrong in every aspect. In Australia sea level rise is demonstrably miniscule as shown by tide gauges. Despite Warmist/Alarmist warnings, Warragamba dam in NSW and others in Queensland are overflowing. Tim Flannery still lives in his waterfront property just 5 metres from the Hawkesbury River’s mouth, despite his predictions of flooding seas. Flannery’s dud predictions sparked government installation of now disused desalination plants in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane that now cost over $2,000,000 per day to not run. The plant in Perth runs on minimum output. Green mania sees huge amounts of money wasted on solar and wind electricity production at grossly excessive costs. Climate in Australia is exactly as it was in the Nineteenth Century, or perhaps a little less severe, to judge by the records.
As for migration, Australia is one of the world’s major ‘immigration nations‘, together with New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America (USA). Since 1945, over 7.5 million overseas people have settled in Australia. This year’s immigration is over 200,000 people. Overseas born population is 27.7 per cent of the total population, higher than most OECD countries.
Naomi Klein’s previous book, The Shock Doctrine, was actually quite thoughtful and thought-provoking, even if a touch overstated (as a polemic probably should be). It really is a pity for her that she has latched onto AGW so late in the game. It probably won’t do her reputation much good in the long term.
Waiting for the right-wing contingent to verbally abuse me for this comment………………….
No use for abuse, Smart. You’re probably right; many well-intentioned and intelligent people have been snookered by the “climate change” meme–it’s a political tool and not the results of honest scientific inquiry. And you know how lame so many political tools are–religion for the elites and useless fodder for the masses.
The Australian government surely knows the true story behind the global power grab using CAGW as the motivator. Hardly likely that a political activist from across the world would change any policies. Sovereighty is actually important down under.
We’re hip to the tricks, Naomi.
Naomi Klein is an example of an idealogue who uses science as a means to try and impose her ideology on all and enrich herself in the process.
While the comments here are fascinating, they offer relatively little informed debate about the real prospects for the COP 21 Conference in Paris. Do you not find it sad that the only ones who even pretend to have an insight into what will happen at this enormously important international conference (because of the potential damage it could do) are the members of radical environmental organizations and representatives of the extreme left like Naomi Klein? Why is it that individuals like those who comment on Watts Up With That know so little about the pre-conference work and the politics going on behind the scenes? To understand this, you simply have to look at how western governments have been browbeaten into agreeing to make environmental non-governmental organizations official observers at all the COP-related meetings, during which the government officials are constantly harassed to provide the ENGOs with detailed briefings and the media keeps up a constantly repeating alarmist patter. The reality is that most people who disagree with the the global warming catastrophe thesis have extremely little hard information about the prospects for an agreement nor about what to do to influence the outcome. As someone who used to work in this area, but is now retired, I would only offer the view that the forces in favour of an extremely damaging and legally-binding agreement are working furiously behind the scenes and in the media to influence political leaders and senior officials. Whether there will be an agreement will depend largely on whether there can be a reconciliation of the different positions of the developed and developing countries over such matters as the $100 billion per year Green Climate Fund (e.g. sources of funds, allocation, transparency and accountability, etc.) and how stringent will be the penalties for non-compliance with the emission reduction targets. The targets agreed in principle by the G7 leaders in June (i.e.40 to 70% reduction from 2010 levels by 2050) are so ridiculous that no government not dominated by the Greens would ever contemplate them. However, as we have seen many times in the past, there is no political downside to promising to reduce emissions, only in actually doing so.