Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In the aftermath of the horrific events in Paris, you would think some politicians might have been jolted into reconnecting with reality, regarding the relative dangers posed by climate change vs terrorism. But a few politicians seem to be clinging to the ridiculous view, that climate change is somehow more of a threat, than well organised homicidal maniacs.
According to Slate;
At Saturday night’s second Democratic presidential debate, just a day after ISIS launched horrific coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, moderator and Slate political columnist John Dickerson asked Bernie Sanders a straightforward question: “Sen. Sanders, you said you want to rid the planet of ISIS. In the previous debate you said the greatest threat to national security was climate change. Do you still believe that?”
Sanders didn’t hesitate: “Absolutely.”
Guns and bombs are horrible enough, but they might only be a taste of what the near future holds. For example, lets consider the issue of nuclear terrorism.
Iran, an alleged sponsor of state terrorism, is rapidly approaching the point at which they could potentially possess substantial quantities of highly enriched Uranium – though Iran claims they are enriching Uranium for peaceful purposes. Financially bankrupt North Korea has produced enough HEU to make at least one or two bombs, at least one of which they have detonated. Unstable Pakistan, which suffers frequent military coups, possesses an unknown number of nuclear bombs, and bomb making material. Other countries are almost certainly either operating, or considering, their own nuclear programmes – in many cases in response to concerns about what their neighbours are doing.
I’m not suggesting that even Iran, which holds regular public “death to America” rallies, necessarily actually wants to blow up an American city. But as enrichment technology spreads, sooner or later, some of the material currently in the possession of corrupt, unstable regimes, is going to find its way into the hands of someone who wants to kill a lot of people.
Possession of Highly Enriched Uranium is a dream scenario for wannabe nuclear terrorists. HEU is incredibly difficult to produce, but once it has been produced, it is as easy to handle as any other lump of metal – as long as you are careful not to pile too much mass in one place, before you are ready to detonate the bomb.
1. HEU is incredibly stealthy. Highly Enriched Uranium, unlike Plutonium, is not very radioactive, until it reaches critical mass and carves the heart out of a major city. Your only hope of detecting a smuggled HEU component is to make it “fizz” – to target the hidden consignment with a beam of neutrons, in the hope of simulating a small secondary nuclear fission reaction. If you are lucky, the secondary reaction will set off your radiation detector. If the sample of HEU which you are trying to tickle with the neutron beam is small, or has a suboptimal shape (flat and thin, rather than ball shaped), and is well concealed behind plenty of shielding, you are unlikely to get a significant response to your neutron beam. For example, if say a consignment of tractors were imported into a country, and some of the washers in the engines of the tractors were made out of HEU rather than steel, it is unlikely the subterfuge would be detected. HEU is twice as dense as lead, so you wouldn’t need many washer size pieces of HEU, to create the critical mass of material required for a terrorist bomb.
2. HEU has a good shelf life. Unlike Plutonium, whose half-life is 24,000 years, Highly Enriched Uranium has a half-life of 700 million years. Your HEU bomb components could sit on a shelf and remain perfectly viable for centuries, providing they were protected from corrosion. Once HEU is in circulation, the threat it poses will be very hard to contain.
3. HEU is easy to use. Unlike Plutonium, which requires complex implosion triggers, HEU can in principle be detonated by smashing two lumps of material together. The other components required to produce a working nuclear bomb are fairly easy to obtain, with the exception of a Polonium initiator, which may or may not be required for the construction of a viable atomic bomb. However, as the recent assassination of Alexander Litvenenko demonstrated, smuggling Polonium into a Western country is not a significant challenge. Polonium is highly radioactive, but most of its radiation is emitted in the form of Alpha particles, which are very easy to shield from detection – a few sheets of paper would suffice. In the case of the Litvinenko murder, the Polonium was carried undetected in liquid form, in a small glass or plastic bottle.
As for building a HEU bomb, the required construction technique is well within the skill level of a terrorist bomb expert, possibly with the assistance of an expert metal machinist. Probably not much more complex than making a pipe bomb.
Will someone successfully build and use a terrorist nuclear bomb? It is impossible to say. But in any case, the nuclear threat is only the tip of the iceberg – we haven’t covered other routes to atrocity, such as weaponised diseases; Ebola, Anthrax, or maybe a strain of the Plague which has been deliberately bred to be antibiotic resistant.
Plague should especially concern Americans. 10 – 15 people are infected with the plague every year in mainland America, from exposure to animal carriers in the wild. A wannabe biological terrorist wouldn’t have to cross any international borders, to obtain their US plague sample. The only reason the Plague is not a bigger issue in America, is that there are effective treatments. A weaponised version of the plague, which has been deliberately hardened, by repeatedly exposing generations of cultured plague bacteria to slowly increasing doses of antibiotics, selecting for mutants which can resist the antibiotics, might not be so easy to stop. Of course you would have to also regularly try your hardened mutant strain on a few test subjects, to make sure your selective breeding process hadn’t damaged the virulence of your biological weapon – but psychotic terrorists wouldn’t have any qualms about kidnapping a steady supply of victims.
For small payloads, such as biological weapons, you wouldn’t even have to launch the attack from America. Small, fully automated drones are commercially available, which have a maximum range of thousands of miles. It would be entirely possible to launch a stealthy, high precision drone attack against mainland North America, from a base in South America, Africa or Europe, or an attack against Europe, from a launch site in Northern Africa or the Middle East.
Why have I explored these ghastly scenarios, in such nauseating detail? I believe people who claim climate change is more of a threat than terrorism haven’t faced up to the reality of what is possible. Suggesting all of these horrific yet technically viable scenarios are somehow less of a threat, than a mild temperature rise which might or might not manifest over the next few decades, in my opinion is completely nuts.
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George Bush —-> WMD’s in Iraq.
Obama and Bernie – “Climate Change”.
’nuff said.
They found evidence for WMD program on the ground. Nothing for the magical danger of “Climate Change”. You missed the gassed Kurds.
“They found evidence for WMD program on the ground.” Really!
Sure there’s plutonium scattered about, but the WMD that Bush/Blair told us existed was a fantasy.
(Saddam had used gas previously.)
Nerve gas is classified as a WMD. Since Saddam had used it previously, he obviously had WMDs.
Amazing that nerve gas and bacteriological agents are classified as “WMD” when they usually wouldn’t kill any more people than large conventional bombs (re. WW1).
Phaedrus: “but the WMD that Bush/Blair told us existed was a fantasy.”
Detective Phaedrus enters the basement lab. Finds all the precursor chemicals needed to make meth, finds all the equipment needed to make meth, finds recipes for meth, finds logs detailing meth distribution…
But finds no Meth.
“False alarm, no meth lab here, the neighborhood is safe” he declares….
The weapons existed, we know that because Saddam used them against his own people.
The programs also existed and had been mothballed ready to be restarted when the pressure was off.
BTW, the idiots on the left were demanding that the pressure be removed right up to the day the Iraq war resumed.
The WMDs existed, even if you refuse to believe the evidence.
It’s not even arguable if Iraq had WMDs, it’s a fact.
Now whether this justified the 2003 invasion or not, that’s arguable.
So who provided the nerve gas products and intelligence to end the war between Iran and Iraq?
A lot of people claim it was the US. So the US knew there were chemical weapons at one point. However, anyone who watched Collin Powell’s amazingly cartoonist presentation to the UN should have been embarrassed for the poor man who was obviously just following the career destroying orders of his Commander in Chief. (IMHO as a non-American and non-participant in the folly in Iraq. Sad.)
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-988527
http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/08/new-docs-show-us-involvement-saddams-nerve-gas-attacks/68698/
https://www.rt.com/news/chemical-weapons-iran-iraq-980/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/10/iraq-s10.html
Propaganda or a grain of truth? Probably both. Not judging, just saying. The public can never know how many layers there are in the Cake.
Of course Saddam Hussein had gas weapons – it is well documented that they were used extensively in air-dropped bombs and artillery shells. In fact, during the Iraq invasion, hundreds of US M-687 artillery projectiles were found in disposal sites – mostly empty, all over 20 years old and completely unuseable.
Saddam Hussein 1) SAID that he had them and 2) he had previously used them on the Kurds.
Hillary Clinton also claimed they were there as did the NYT and just about everyone. Do I need to link the video of Saddam saying it and the images of the bloated bodies of the Kurds… really… you wanna go there?
Hussein said that he had them no more, but that was not believed.
The UN inspectors had found no evidence of their continued existence, but were not satisfied that they had enough evidence of their destruction. In the event, Bush called time and the UN inspectors were not given further time to carry out ground checks.
The overwhelming evidence is that Hussein did not pose any significant threat to the West, and that the war was all about regime change; Hussein being a thoroughly nasty person (as are all the dictatorships in the area). Unfortunately, the results of that was destabilisation of the Middle East.
Destabilisation of the area was always the foreseeable outcome, after all in the Iran/Iraq war it was deliberately ended leaving both powers intact so as not to destabilise the area. So it was known, back in the 1980s, the problems that would be caused by a castrated Iraq. Unfortunately, we are now just reaping the seeds of all of this added by the later regime change in Libya and western government support of so called ‘moderates’ who now turn out to be largely ISIL, and who Putin was telling us that we were supporting and arming groups more dangerous than Al Qu*ed*.
You would have thought that we might have learnt our lessen, and that we might realise that a moderate is not someone who holds a machine gun, grenades and bazookas, but the motives behind western governments interventions are not easy to understand, as is exemplified by Bernie sanders comments.. .
Of course Saddam said he had them! It was a bluff that back-fired and ultimately started GW2.
A little more patience and we might not have the mess we have today!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Buried tanks of “pesticide” were found. In concentrated form, pesticides are nerve agents.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/30/world/nerve-gases-and-pesticides-links-are-close.html
Of course the gullible media swallowed hook, line, and sinker, the supposed distinction between the two.
“Buried tanks of “pesticide” were found. In concentrated form, pesticides are nerve agents.”
Stink, you mean I have WMD nerve agents in my garage, holy crap.
Wikipedia isn’t a good source for controversial topics. If you click on the “View History” tab, then hit “Oldest” at the bottom of the page, you’ll find the edit wars on WMD started back in 2002, with over 2000 edits and re-edits and reverted vandalism. And the PC view always comes out on top.
The way I see it, Saddam unquestionably had WMD – and a big program for it – and had indeed used WMD – but he feared an invasion and so he had complied and destroyed all, or most, of the finished product. But he also wanted his neighbours to think he still had them (his power always stemmed from the threat of terror), and so tried to play this double game, ultimately unsuccessfully. I’m pretty sure that Bush and Blair did believe genuinely that he had such a capacity largely intact (vide the obstructionist treatment of the UN inspections) but they didn’t KNOW it, as their good intelligence inside Iraq was close to absolute zero. So they had to make a political case, and exaggerated the certainty, as politicians tend to do when it suits them.
The bigger error was the failure to do the job first time round, 1990/1991, when much bigger and well equipped western forces under the gentlemanly Bush Senior, gave way to liberal media opinion and stopped after ejecting Saddam from Kuwait, instead of finishing it there and then with half a million allied troops on hand. As usual, the west only fights half a war, when war is only ever total. So much of the evil which now assails us, and the poor benighted people of the middle east, stems from that lack of resolution.
“One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.”
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.
“Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.”
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.
“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.”
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.
“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.
“Hussein has … chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.”
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.
“There is no doubt that . Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.”
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001.
“We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”
Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.
“We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.”
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
“Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seing and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002.
“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons…”
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002.
“I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002.
“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years . We also should remember we have alway s underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002,
“He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do.”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002.
“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
“We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction. “[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he has continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction … So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real …
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003.
For all you revisionist idiots.
The inspectors had been looking for years. How many hundreds of years did you want to give them?
Saddam said he had destroyed them, but refused to provide the evidence of that destruction and did everything he could to prevent the inspectors from doing their job.
Regardless, the left was demanding that the sanctions be lifted, for the children of course, so there was another clock running.
“The overwhelming evidence is that Hussein did not pose any significant threat to the West”
at the time of GWII or in the future?
Was the perpetual continuation of sanctions the future of Iraq?
Do you believe for one second that Saddam wasn’t going to try to get WMD?
In US law WMD definition is soooo general that the military and commercial enterprises use them everyday. It’s like the DEA definition of pot as a schedule 1 narcotic, right up there with heroin. This WMD definition is so ridiculous that the Boston Marathon bomber was charged with having one. It’s of course made this general for scare so that military/FBI has the authority and public backing to go after anyone they decide to. From the FBI site:
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are defined in US law (18 USC §2332a) as:
“(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title (i.e. explosive device);
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2013/04/29/974/
http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/occasional/cswmd/CSWMD_OccationalPaper-8.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/wmd/wmd_faqs
Kudos Paul on the post “revisionist idiots” Another similar post could be made on the liberal and Jacobin support of the “democratic” Arab Spring led by those champions of democracy: the Muslim Brotherhood!
What would Europe look like today if NATO forces had not occupied Germany for decades after WWII?
Yes, BFL, you almost certainly do have chemical warfare agents in your garage. The difference between many insecticides and the chemicals used by armies is only in dosage (and sometimes surficants). This is especially true of the older broad-spectrum insecticides such as organophosphates that attack biological pathways common to both insects and mammals. The active ingredients are the same. If you didn’t already know that, frankly you shouldn’t be in this conversation.
(Note: It is less true for the newer generation of insecticides which have been engineered to attack pathways more unique to the target insect. Neonicotinoids, for example, are highly toxic to plant-eating insects but comparatively very safe for mammals.)
Political Madness is a disease, present in 99.9% of the political classes,
You just have to look at Europe today, Hundreds of thousands of Muslims coming to Christian Countries, from where ??? Refugee camps, I repeat Refugee Camps in Muslim Countries, ( where they under control and feed by the West ) to be giving the key to the cities in Europe !!! Not to go into Camps where they can be processed, ( Economical, Criminal, Terrorist, Political ) but given money, food , clothes, and homes in the cities that are being bombed by their religious brethren!.
Rant finished
YOU SAY a disease, ? is it not a gene, politicians the world over all lack reality when you are born stupid?
Idiots ? In my country the politicians debated over 18 hours ( 4 days) to, or not to provide needles for injections in Hospitals at a cost to the patent of (approx) $0.05 each. The politicians and their families have a free “special” Hospital
The PP (precautionary principle) implies that you had to eliminate Saddam in case of serious doubt over WMD possession.
No way out!
The same principal used for Climate Change(?)
The PP should apply equally to any potential risk with reasonable plausibility, but significant uncertainty over its range and even its mere existence.
The plausibility of CAGW is minuscule. It was higher when it CO2 increases was believed to occur before warming, and scientists had no data to confirm or refute that. Overwhelming evidence goes against CAGW.
The plausibility of the hypothesis that a dictator who had a WMD program, who previously used gas against its population will restart its WMD program ASAP is high.
The idea behind PP is that we shouldn’t rest until we get absolute, definitive proof of anything. Before we get absolute proof of the risks of something, consequences can be serious, so we should try to take steps to minimize potentially harmful consequences of our activities, at reasonable cost.
Of course people disagree about “reasonable cost”, what constitutes sufficient evidence to take actions, and even constitute absolute proof. Very reasonable can disagree on risk analysis. But some stuff are undisputable.
SH had acquired no less than 550 tons of yellowcake uranium which was shipped to Canada in small shipments.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States secretly shipped out of Iraq more than 500 tons of low-grade uranium dating back to the Saddam Hussein era, the Pentagon said Monday.
The U.S. military spent $70 million ensuring the safe transportation of 550 metric tons of the uranium from Iraq to Canada, said Pentagon spokesman Brian Whitman.
The shipment, which until recently was kept secret, involved a U.S. truck convoy, 37 cargo flights out of Baghdad to a transitional location, and then a transoceanic voyage on board a U.S.-government-owned ship designed to carry troops to a war zone, he said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/iraq.uranium/
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/#.VkpMDa7hAUE
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF_Iraqi_uranium_removed_to_Canada_0807081.html
I doubt he acquired it to make glow-in-the-dark garden gnomes.
Also, a German technician, Karl-Heinz Schaab, was prosecuted for exporting centrifuge components and plans.
All the hardware was shipped to Syria, where it was subsequently rebuilt with help from North Korea, and then destroyed by an Israeli air strike.
The Story of ‘Operation Orchard’: How Israel Destroyed Syria’s Al Kibar Nuclear Reactor
In September 2007, Israeli fighter jets destroyed a mysterious complex in the Syrian desert. The incident could have led to war, but it was hushed up by all sides. Was it a nuclear plant and who gave the orders for the strike?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-story-of-operation-orchard-how-israel-destroyed-syria-s-al-kibar-nuclear-reactor-a-658663.html
Then there was this:
Isis storms Saddam-era chemical weapons complex in Iraq
Facility containing disused stores of sarin and mustard gas overrun by jihadist group
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10913275/Isis-storms-Saddam-era-chemical-weapons-complex-in-Iraq.html
catweazle666
It appears that Iraq had or has a uranium mine.
In the run up to the start of GW2 I came across a reference to it. With the story about the efforts to purchase more “yellow cake” I figured they must be pretty far along-about where Iran is now.
Anyway finding “yellow cake” is not surprising as Iraq at one time exported it.
http://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/akashat.htm
michael
Mike the Morlock: “It appears that Iraq had or has a uranium mine.”
Apparently it came from Nigeria.
That was covered up by the Palme affair in the US.
From one of the articles you reference the second one.
“Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.”
I got fooled once into thinking they (Iraq) were buying it, but it seem to have been their own stuff.
Needless to say given time they could have constructed a uranium bomb
michael
Actually it was Clinton, Clinton, Kerry, Reid, etc that first said there were WMD’s in Iraq and warned us that there must be regime change. Most Democratic Senators voted for the Iraq war.
Get your facts straight:
If you remember that day, it was a day of speeches. And at least out among the Littles, the final count wasn’t known until the roll was called. Here are your brave warrior Dems, those who voted Yes, covered in testosterone (or confusion) and glory. I’ve highlighted a few names to note:
YEAs — 77
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Breaux (D-LA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carnahan (D-MO)
Carper (D-DE)
Cleland (D-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Edwards (D-NC)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA) Hollings (D-SC)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Miller (D-GA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Torricelli (D-NJ)
See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/15/bernie-sanders-climate-change-is-still-the-number-one-security-threat/#comment-2073038
he must say what he needs to say to garner the votes from his well defined constituency that consists of save-the-planet voters who cannot imagine what could possibly be more important than saving the planet.
To save a planet, you must have one in jeopardy.
Ours is not
inMagicn (is that a call sign ? )
And pray tell me which planet are you from?
Beam me up!
Please do beam up. This planet called Earth is not in jeopardy. If life can survive 90%+ species extinction at the end of the Permian, I think it, let alone the entire planet will somehow make it through the trivial increase in CO2, the gas of life, in the atmosphere.
Oh, and it’s inMAGICn. And anyone signing as Ziiex Zeburz has a lot of gall commenting on my handle.
… Ziiex Zeburz has a lot of gall commenting on my handle.
LOL! ZZ is Owned!
Bernie Sanders from Vermont where about 55% of the state’s electric power is being shut down and now Vermont is looking to Quebec/Canada for electric power supplies.
Can be real “green” if someone else is supplying your electric power.
I agree. His followers have turned him into a messiah that they project all their hopes and fantasies on…and then he hands them all over to Hillary at the party covention. Then she will become their new messiah.
http://cbs4indy.com/2015/10/22/cdc-4-deaths-15-cases-of-bubonic-plague-in-u-s-this-year/
Thousands of people have been killed in heat waves that are made worse by GW. Thousands of people are forced to leave farms because of drought that is made worse by GW.
Many more than France 13 Nov.
Many more than Towers 11 Sept
Sanders is correct.
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
I would much rather die from the heat from our sun than from the heat driving me to jump from the Twin Towers.
If you hope to convince anyone here, you are going to have to provide some evidence. Do you know how many people die each year from indoor air pollution (a result from cooking and heating using an open fire because they don’t have access to affordable energy)? According to the International Energy Agency, of the 1.5 billion people without electricity, 4.3 million die each year from household air pollution resulting from the use of traditional biomass fuels for cooking.
Your comment that “Thousands of people have been killed in heat waves that are made worse by GW” seems a paltry in comparison.
Thousands of people have been killed in heat waves that are made worse by GW.
Rubbish.
Stop making stuff up.
Bernie and Obama are ISIS appeasers championing the ISIS war on western civilization and giving aid and abetting to the perpetrators.
Obama will have a long list of war crimes to answer to at The Hague in 2018.
Oh yea. The USA Dept. of Justice does not recognize the authority of The Hague.
No matter, Mr. Obama can be detained and rendered as easily as his political opponents only this time it is HE in the noose of INTERPOL.
Question: Can Mr. Obama “pay off” the INTERPOL guards and Officials? That is a question of “Cash On Hand” in Mr. Obama’s pockets.
Ha ha
Bernie Sanders manages the nearly impossible task of making Hillary Clinton look good.
+1
Bernie is as always willing to say whatever he needs to say. This nozzle took his honeymoon in a place famous for setting a party line. Did anyone on stage disagree with him.
As I’ve said before, liberals and socialists don’t like reality !!!
Or prosperity, or freedom, or national pride, or other people.
Should have concluded:
but love spending other people’s money usually wasting it on hopeless causes.
Speaking as a socialist, some of us understand reality. There’s a few of us that understand capitalism is necessary but requires regulation to provide the best benefit. Capitalism allows creativity to flourish, but there needs to be a socialist oversight to keep the criminals from abusing the system and reducing opportunity for others to enter that system. There’s also always going to be a need for essential goods and services that capitalism cannot adequately or ever supply. It’s what I call “practical socialism” as opposed to neo-Marxist “pie-in-the-sky” socialism.
Those are the ones that scream “No more capitalism!” and have no clue how that would affect their lives negatively. They are pure creatures of reaction and emotion, no logical thought process involved. It’s why they bought into AGW. It was a pre-packaged hate-the-oil-companies religious theology that fit right into their illogical worldview.
The Paris attack will be used by the leading Democrats to gain sympathy and support for the COP21 goals.
How long will it be before they say something like “If we can only reduce climate change (whatever that means) through fossil fuel reductions, we will also reduce a major (sic) cause of terrorism” – and how long will it be before they start to equate climate skepticism with supporting the conditions that supposedly cause terrorism, and then blame us for ‘interfering’ with the united fight against the ‘two biggest threats’ to mankind?
Will free expression of scientific dissent from this ‘unity’ at the COP21 be repressed by security measures?
How long will it be? There’s no reason to wait. Bernie Sanders has already called climate change a “threat multiplier.” He also said, “If we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say,” we will see more of these international conflicts. So climate change is the cause of terrorism. It’s the cause of everything bad. Before the industrial age, nothing bad ever happened because there was no climate change to cause it.
Bernie is a funny guy to watch and listen to – as Bernie talks and waves his arms back and forth, he reminds me of one of those wind-up carnival monkey toys…
Bernie must have some back-channel comm link to ISIS to really know what’s teeing them off. Has anyone ever heard of any terrorist who has said he was on the rampage because the weather and climate were bad? How come they’re demanding everything but relief from the 0.8C temperature increase since 1850?
Bernie supports the very climate and terrorism policies promoted by what he rails against – Wall Street and the Big Banks, while Clinton tries very hard to hide the marionette strings connecting her to them.
Bob– I have a different take.
I think the the Paris Jihadist terrorist attacks will show how irresponsible Leftist European governments have been in allowing so many unscreened Muslims into Europe, 1000’s of whom were Jihadi terrorists.
The more terrorists attacks that occur in Europe and the US in the months and years ahead, the stronger the blowback against Leftist ideology will be.
Also, since NONE of the dire projections of the Leftist’s CAGW cult are coming even close to reflecting reality, the blowback against Leftists will be huge once this hypothesis is officially disconfirmed and people realize $trillions of their hard-earned money was wasted on this silly CAGW cult.
Hopefully by then the Leftists won’t establish an even tighter iron-grip before the public can push back. Ideally Paris would only be about the science, but it won’t be now.
Before this happened COP21 looked like it was headed for failure. Now they’ll have a chance to conjoin the issues and work towards muddling the message despite whatever the BRIC nations do there. They’ll go into it with a different attitude, and they’ll be more determined to come out with a global governance position of some kind. I expect an even more dismissive intolerant attitude towards anyone against them.
They will make every attempt to lock everyone into emission reductions before temps fall post El-Nino & post SC24. If they fail in COP21, they will project onto COP22 the usual “it’s the last chance” BS. I think the top people have heard of the distinct possibility that low solar activity will cool us down over the next decades, and I think they’re scared they won’t get their way before that happens, before the public has a chance to push back upon experiencing plain evidence that all can see without warmist data manipulation.
The problem is knowing just how deluded the Warmists are. Do they really understand how much influence the sun has but ignore it? If they know then Bob’s scenario that they urgently need an agreement before the population really notices that we are cooling not warming is spot on. It is the ‘last chance’ but not to save the planet. And do the pro-CAGW governments really understand what damage a binding agreement will do to their economies? A review was carried out in the UK and then hidden because it didn’t give them what they wanted to hear. I think they will get a fudge agreement where nobody signs up to anything binding but all agree it is a big problem….and who’s up for a gathering in Morocco.
samauri – the general populace does not have any idea how much of their money has been wasted by govt on AGW, or on anything.
Climate change causes terrorism? And hang nails, and hemorrhoids, and bad breath! (snark)
Some have already blamed the Syrian civil war on AGW-caused drought.
Well, I think fighting climate change IS much more profitable than fighting terrorists, ‘course more people will die but “stuff happens”.
As we all know, climate change causes terrorism. You know, just like it did back in 1801 with the Barbary Pirates.
Obama ignored intel that Iraq’s Kaliki was destroying any hopes of unity and a democracy that was inclusive. The factions that united to drive out Sadam and Al Quaeda felt betrayed and ISIS’ power grew. I suspect attempts to blame the Syrian civil war on climate change has been driven by their desire to divert attention from how the Obama administration’s bad foreign policy created greater chaos and emboldened terrorists.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-stuck-with-maliki–and-lost-iraq/2014/07/03/0dd6a8a4-f7ec-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html
Bernie “everything will be free” proposes socialism. In four years we will live in socialism! Says an old geezer, I don’t mind, I have a terminal cancer.
Curious George – I hope your family and health care team are wonderful and deliver what you need in dignity.
You don’t even need something as complicated as drones. Remember the Japanese attacks on USA mainland soil? No? You have forgotten them, or never heard of them? See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon
Terrorist operations are carried out in peace time. Helium is readily available. Smaller balloons with incendiary bombs could easily be launched from yachts off the coast. In summer, when the trees are dry and hot, a few balloons could easily wipe out vast areas of forest. Plausibly when the wind direction is steady, bombs could be radio controlled to be dropped near small towns. Three or four bombs in a wooded area near a town could wipe out the town.
Are the isolated forest fires that are so newsworthy when they wipe out hundreds of thousands of wooded acres really started by @ur momisuglylightning strikes@ur momisugly?
Middle Eastern forest have been wiped out thousands of years ago.
I did not know there were railroads “thousands” of years ago.
Historic significance of the Cedars of Lebanon
“… the Ottoman Turks deforested all of the cedar growing areas within easy transport distance of their Hijaz railway to provide fuel for their wood-burning engines. Only the highest and most remote groves escaped damage.
Ottoman Turks also deforested all of Jordan, with the exception of the odd tree here and there, for the cross ties for their railroad. Jordanians still hate the Turks for atrocities like this. The King of Jordan initiated a program to bring back trees to the barren hills many years ago, but it will be generations before it will produce significant results. Thousands of acres are covered with drip irrigation to help the effort, while in other areas, acacias have been planted dry in hopes of establishing some kind of rudimentary plants in the hills.
pbh
If there’s any truth in the Old Testament’s account of lions and bears, there had to be some plant growth greater than what is currently in the Middle East in order to sustain a food chain ample enough to feed the larger mammals.
“In summer, when the trees are dry and hot, a few balloons could easily wipe out vast areas of forest. Plausibly when the wind direction is steady, bombs could be radio controlled to be dropped near small towns. Three or four bombs in a wooded area near a town could wipe out the town.”
Obviously fire setting balloon bombs should be classified as “WMD”.
I’m pretty sure that the biggest problem that we face isn’t climate change or terrorism.
Surely, it’s the fact that the political class have completely lost touch with reality.
Especially the fact that they have chosen to guide science in the direction of supporting their policies, rather than allowing their policies to be guided by science.
Now they are about to commit a vast proportion of global resources to battling with phantasmogorical creations.
The climate is changing and that change must be stopped in its tracks, before it is too late.
For example, where are the missing Cat 3+ hurricane landfalls in N. America.
Isn’t anybody concerned about this? Hurricane have basically disappeared.
That can’t be natural.
With concerted and committed effort, we could bring catastrophic hurricanes back to US shores.
And is nobody concerned about the recent news that Antarctica may be gaining ice?
By attaching blow-torches to penguins, then we could blow billions in public funds on trying to compensate for dangerous Antarctic ice gain.
And what about islands. The Chinese just built several new ones.
Now we have more islands than shown in a regular school atlas.
We were supposed to be losing islands not gaining new ones.
You, me, Christiana Figueres, and the Prophet Gore.
We can all contribute towards stopping things from changing.
With our new slogan, “Ban technology. Bring back the LIA.”
“I’m pretty sure that the biggest problem that we face isn’t climate change or terrorism.
Surely, it’s the fact that the political class have completely lost touch with reality.”
Let’s add an ignorant public that keeps electing these fools.
I’d add that. It’s a great….oh look, “Dancing With the Stars!”
Bye
And what do you suggest since there are only fools on the ballot? Not once in my lifetime have I seen on the ballot papers anyone remotely capable of running a country.
I don’t vote, and perhaps if turn out was less than 10% some one would take note, and a debate may ensue about legitimacy and how we can get democracy. In this computer/internet age, perhaps the people should vote on nearly all issues, on an issue by issue basis. Only Switzerland has some passing claim to democracy.
Have to point out that politicians are the best actors in the universe as proven by their many reverses once in office. Obviously not even they know which wind blown principles that they actually support until it becomes crony convenient. For example, they can give a speech pro-union then pro-corporate depending on the venue. With the average lying actor politician to vote for I can see why many say “why bother”.
Absolutely.
“I’m pretty sure that the biggest problem that we face isn’t climate change or terrorism.
Surely, it’s the fact that the political class have completely lost touch with reality.”
=====================================================================
Unfortunately the ladder is not orthogonal, as lost touch with reality makes the sane world ever more vulnerable to terrorism and perhaps the most devastating nuclear option, a couple of well placed EMPs. This would set the US back to pre industrial green hell for perhaps decades.
Eric Worrall’s fine article needs the EMP possibility added to the list. Also this comment, “I’m not suggesting that even Iran, which holds regular public “death to America” rallies, necessarily actually wants to blow up an American city” is, I.M.V. either wrong or poorly worded, as I am quite certain they very much would love to blow up a U.S.A. city, they just do not want to get caught!
And what do you suggest since there are only fools on the ballot?
===================
Every ballot should have “None of the Above” as an option at the bottom. If a majority of the voters select “none of the above”, then there must be a new election with new candidates. Those candidates that lost to “None of the Above” are barred from ever running again for this office.
Legally, you could change your name to “None_of_the_Above ZZZZZ”. Then you would appear at the bottom of the ballot as:
ZZZZZ, None_of_the_Above
You would stand a fair chance of winning every election in which you ran. So rather than not voting, change your name and run for office to clean up the mess.
And what do you suggest since there are only fools on the ballot?
==============================
This is actually not correct. Every ballot typically has two choices.
1. The incompetent
2. The crook.
Sanders and Clinton. One truly believes what they say. The other says whatever you want to hear.
“Surely, it’s the fact that the political class have completely lost touch with reality.”
Probably-
http://atimes.com/2015/11/why-france-will-do-nothing-about-the-paris-massacre/
in which case all 40,000 of them will man up for Gaia and trot off to COP21 in Paris won’t they?
Me too. I occasionally wonder what it must have have been like to live during the reign of some of the Roman Emperors who were completely radio-rentals. Caligula and his horse currently come to mind.
Caligula and his horse currently come to mind.
If we had a few more “Noble Incatatus” types in the senate, it might be an improvement.
I sometimes think I should become a survivalist. Thanks to Eric, this is one of those times. Darn.
Climate alarmists already have that covered IMO… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/22/meet-climate-survivalists-new-consumer-demographic/
I sometimes think I should become a survivalist.
Be advised: their survival rate is not particularly encouraging.
The gullibility of some fools is unfathomable. For instance, here is a syndicated columnist of many years’ experience that, having gulped down the Koolaid, has faith in Gaia’s Church of Thermageddon and the Apocalypse, and brushes off terrorism as a nuisance.
http://www.straight.com/news/420321/gwynne-dyer-explains-why-terrorism-overblown-and-why-islamists-want-western-countries
I took a look at your link. Facepalm doesn’t do it justice. Observa’s link from above is an eyeopener.
Why France will do nothing about the Paris Massacre: Spengler
BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN on NOVEMBER 15, 2015 in AT TOP WRITERS, DAVID P. GOLDMAN, MIDDLE EAST, SPENGLER
Ignored in news coverage of the Paris massacre is the single most pertinent piece of background: A 2014 opinion poll found that ISIS had an approval rating in France (at 16%) almost as high as President Francois Holland (at 18%). In the 18-to-24-year-old demographic, ISIS’ support jumped to 27%. Muslims comprise about a tenth of France’s population, so the results imply that ISIS had the support of the overwhelming majority of French Muslims (and especially Muslim youth), as well as the endorsement of a large part of the non-Muslim Left.
http://atimes.com/2015/11/why-france-will-do-nothing-about-the-paris-massacre/
why-terrorism-overblown
The problem being that these overblown things seem to keep blowing up.
Let’s not forget that old Christiana ‘Charlie Chaplin’ Figueres has been threatening to chop the head off anyone who doesn’t toe the line at the 21st Conference Of The Partygoers, so ‘climate change’ is definitely encouraging a few swivel-eyed lunatics.
There is a radical cult in Shite Islam called “Twelvers”, that wishes to bring about Armageddon, thereby bringing about the Second Coming of the 12th Imam, followed by the obliteration of all infidels in the world….
Iran’s previous PM Ahmadinejad is a “Twelver”, which explains why he worked so hard to establish an nuke program, with the eventual goal of creating Armageddon.
Yes, I understand how crazy this may sound, but as a common CIA adage explains, “when dealing with Jihadists, NEVER rule out crazy”…..
Tol just threw you under a bus
I’m pretty sure the greatest threat t our security are Luna Lovegood’s Wrakspurts, or maybe snipes. We definitely need to focus trillions of dollars of spending and regulation on those.
If outlawing guns is supposed to end gun violence, why don’t we just outlaw terrorists?
When your religion says CC is the biggest threat and you’re a faithful believer, no amount of reality will change your mind. The only answer is for rational society to continue to marginalize the socialist-democrats at the ballot box.
A trip over to Slate is enlightening. The left is convinced that Sanders is correct, that climate change in the middle east has led to the poverty that created ISIS, and that if we can reduce CO2, everything will be fine again, or something like that. They also think that climate change has led to the migration of 157.8 million people. Not 158 million mind you. OK, so they think man is causing the climate to change this time, fine, but what they don’t get is that reducing CO2 is impossible without starving half the population. Maybe that doesn’t bother them, or they think we can just conjure up the power out of magical windmills. Anyway, a visit to Slate is a trip to a fantasy world.
So Slate and Sander’s are convinced that globull warming is the cause of the middle east mess, and their corrections are apparently going to take a couple of hundred years to get real results to correct. Seems like a major logic flaw in there somewhere…..
Did you mean Gullible warming?
Apparently the middle east was a paradise prior to 1950.
I see what you did there…
And when gas prices skyrocket in 25 years as the oil wells start running dry, they’ll be the first to whine about the rising costs of fossil fuels and why the government isn’t doing enough to keep the gas in their gas tanks.
In the last couple of decades, I recall TWO episodes, quite separated in time, to regulate the price of a gallon of gas in the U.S., as prices passed the $4/gallon mark.//
“Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders: Climate Change is STILL the Number One Security Threat”
Heh – Hilary is a bigger security threat than Climate Change.
…plus 10 Mark, and certainly not just her email scandal, or Benghazi, which she “accepted full responsibility for” while at the same time spending hours lying and denying any responsibility.
The Hillary and the O appear to have only one affect in the ME, that of strengthening the position of Jihadists terrorists both Shia and Sunni; in Libya, where Gadhafi, a long neutered terrorist threat, was killed by the Hillary, with no foresight or planning on what would take place in the power vacuum that followed! So the Hillary cackled about this killing, “We came, we saw, Gadhafi died” and then in Iran, where we gave the largest state sponsors of terrorism hundreds of billions of dollars to play their nuclear games, and
in Egypt, where thankfully the O’s Muslim Brotherhood push failed, and in Syria where we gave arms to ISIS in a failed attempt of purportedly supporting “moderates” of similar if slightly less overt genocidal disposition. In Syria the O has, like Hillary in Libya, had ZERO follow up plan for who is to replace Assad, who at least protected the few remaining Christians. Apparently the O’s post Assad plan was to simply let the Jihadists have another state while spending hundreds of millions of dollars to train the only five moderates actually found in the M.E.
Now the O wants to import hundreds of thousands of unfiltered “moderates” because it is working so well in the E.U.
So yes Mark, progressive elitist ideology is the biggest security threat we face.
In Democrat circles, accepting full responsibility means you get a raise and a promotion.
Bernie’s defense of ISIS atrocities, climate change made them do it. Go after Exxon and Mobil … nuts