It was wrong to interrupt Rio’s delightful opening ceremonies with deceitful agitprop
Paul Driessen
XXXI Olympiad competitors are joyfully showcasing their skills and sportsmanship, while delighted fans revel in their amazing efforts. But opening ceremonies featuring colorful history, dance, song and athletes were rudely interrupted by an unprecedented propaganda film.
As audiences around the world were getting pumped up in eager anticipation for the upcoming events, a slick but deceitful video soured the mood by inserting partisan climate change politics.
Fossil fuels are warming our planet, and the manmade heat is melting its ice caps, narrators intoned. Animated maps showed Greenland “disappearing very quickly” and Amsterdam, Dubai, Miami, Shanghai, Lagos and Rio being swallowed up by rising seas.
Well, yes, if average global temperatures really did soar 4 degrees Celsius (7.5 Fahrenheit), and if all of Greenland’s ice melts, oceans certainly could rise 20 feet and other terrible things certainly could happen.
But wild assumptions, computer models and animations are not reality. Few of us are really worried about being eaten by raptors and Tyrannosaurs cloned from DNA in fossilized amber, even though Jurassic Park sure made them look real. Ditto for Hollywood sharks, werewolves, cave monsters – and global warming.
In the Real World outside the animators’ windows, average planetary temperatures barely budged for 18 years. After climbing a headline-grabbing 0.55 degrees C (1 deg F) in 2015, a strong El Niño year, they plummeted a media-ignored 0.5 degrees C the first seven months of 2016, as La Niña approached. That’s a far cry from the 4/7.5 temperature spike that animated the animators’ fear-mongering. The sun has entered a low-sun-spot phase, possibly heralding a new colder period for Planet Earth.
As to temperatures increasing “since the industrial era began,” that primarily reflects Earth’s emergence from the 500-year Little Ice Age. Of course, climate alarmists happily claim this natural warming is due to mankind’s growing fossil fuel use during the same period of time, though scientists still cannot distinguish human and natural factors. With temperatures rising 1850-1940, cooling 1940-1975, warming 1975-1998, and mostly flat-lining since then, it’s hard to blame oil, gas and coal for any warming.
So the likelihood of Greenland’s ice all melting is about zero. In fact, its ice mass has been growing since the time period the Olympics propaganda squad selected to show the ice sheets “disappearing.”
News stories about the Rio video also featured claims that climate change has “already had real effects in Brazil,” where 60% of the Amazon rainforest is located. Some 240,000 acres were clear-cut just in June 2016, “as a result of deforestation” – related to global warming, it was slyly suggested.
If they’re talking about replacing rainforests with biofuel plantations, to replace fossil fuels that could be produced from a fraction of that acreage, then yes, there’s a climate (policy) connection. But there would be little need to chop down all those trees if climate chaos campaigners weren’t obsessively opposed to the fossil fuels that power 80% of the world’s economy and provide other vital human needs.
The indispensable benefits of hydrocarbons and petrochemicals for Olympic Games alone are impressive.
They are the raw materials for uniforms of every description; swim suits, goggles and caps; kayaks and kayaker helmets and paddles; bicycle helmets, shoes and carbon-fiber frames; basketballs, vaulting poles, tennis balls and racquets, soccer balls and shin guards; bows and arrows; volleyball and field hockey nets; basketballs; seats and clothing for fans; prosthetics and wheelchairs for Paralympians; and much more.
No one could watch the games without plastics for computers, cameras, monitors, cell phones, dish antennas, banners and other equipment that promote, record and transmit the events. Neither athletes nor fans could get to the games without airlines, vehicles and fossil fuels.
In short, virtually nothing we make, grow, eat, use or do is possible without fuels and materials that come out of holes in the ground somewhere on our planet. But radical greens want it all put off limits. They would rather see billions of acres of croplands, rainforests and wildlife habitats cleared and plowed – and trillions of gallons of water and fertilizer expended – to grow biofuel crops to replace fossil fuels. “Keep it in the ground,” they demand.
African, Asian and European countries cannot afford to stop using oil, natural gas or coal. Nor can the United States or any other modern or developing country.
Naturally, the video and news reports mentioned none of this. So why did the Rio organizers agree to present this manmade climate cataclysm video?
One possible reason is a desire to distract people from its real problems. Mosquitoes are spreading Zika. Shoddy athletic housing has bare wires and sinks falling off walls. The open-water swimming venue is a bacteria-infested open sewer. Swallowing just a few teaspoons of Rio’s tap water will make visiting athletes and fans horribly sick. Eleven construction workers died while preparing Rio for the games.
Brazil’s economy is on the rocks and #174 out of 189 nations for starting a new business. Its current and previous presidents are under investigation for corruption.
But once the games got underway, they were fantastic, fun, exciting and dramatic; their own distraction.
So the video could be simple “greenwashing” – making the 2016 games the “greenest ever.” Or it might be to reinforce Brazil’s claim to billions of dollars that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have promised for mitigation, adaptation and compensation for the climate chaos we supposedly caused.
Just as strange, even ExxonMobil played the politically correct climate game. Its Olympics TV ad says the company is doing all it can to reduce “carbon pollution.” Surely Exxon knows it’s not carbon (soot); it’s carbon dioxide. And it’s not pollution; the plant-fertilizing CO2 is enriching the atmosphere and making forests, grasslands and food crops grow faster and better. So why use Obama/EPA terminology?
Maybe the company just wants to buy some feel-good PR and “peace in our time.” Maybe it and its corporate and political colleagues are forgetting 1960s radical activist Jerry Rubin’s comment: “The more demands you satisfy, the more we’ve got.” And Winston Churchill’s blunt truth: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
All of it reminds me of the way several Egyptian journalists responded to President Obama’s 2015 commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy. “Climate change is a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security,” he asserted. “It will impact how our military defends our country.” Anyone who fails to recognize this is guilty of “dereliction of duty.”
The journalists reacted in disbelief. “Is he insane? Is he on drugs?” asked one. “What did you expect from a president who never served in the military and never worked a day in his life?” said the second. “I’m sure he’s not deliberately trying to destroy his country,” the first suggested. “Of course he is,” the third said.
Now millions of Americans appear perfectly willing to sacrifice their livelihoods, living standards, liberties and country on the altar of manmade climate Armageddon. Are they insane? Are they on drugs?
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
CAGW is apparently the state religion of the UN, the EU, and the Obama administration, so why not suck up to such (wealthy) religious groups?
I really don’t get why US journalists don’t just ask Obama the straight and direct question, “Are you mad? “.
CO2 is only the byproduct of converting anything into heat. Heat for cooking, heat for cold abatement, heat for producing steam to create electricity. It doesn’t matter what you Burn to produce this heat, it ALL produces CO2
ilma630
“I really don’t get why US journalists don’t just ask Obama the straight and direct question, “Are you mad? “.’
Because this would embarrass the Presidency. Only the president is allowed to embarrass the Presidency (and he’s doing a great job).
That video is a fake. Fake translation. It was a parody. Linking to it on this site is just embarrassing.
I’m referring to the video that purports to be the Egytptian journalist’s reaction to the Obama commencement speech. We need to be more careful about things like this.
What, no NHS marching the opening parade this year?
As soon as Americans got wind of the Cap and Trade scheme, it got stopped in its tracks. So long as it doesn’t cost the average Joe or Jane or Joejanet anything besides token actions, they are proud to declare their green cred.
Now, Americans are beginning to catch on that wind and solar are costing them a bunch in higher energy bills and there is no obvious upside to alternative energy. Watch for funding of wind and solar to drop. The Brits seem to be ahead of the U.S. in this realization, according to a couple of recent posts on the topic here at WUWT.
Nevada has stopped subsidizing solar! Other states are on the verge. For all your reasons Trump has got to be elected.
If you think cost will wake them up, Wait until their lights begin to cycle off with regularity. When the power goes out in the middle of a Simone Biles routine or a Michael Phelps swim they will not only abandon the religion of CAGW they will burn the church to the ground using fossil fuel.
Bill Powers
August 15, 2016 at 10:59 am
If you think cost will wake them up, Wait until their lights begin to cycle off with regularity. When the power goes out in the middle of a Simone Biles routine or a Michael Phelps swim they will not only abandon the religion of CAGW they will burn the church to the ground using fossil fuel.
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Hello Bill.
You should try a “brighter” side point of view and be more optimistic about the situation with the wind and solar power. 🙂
When as far as I can tell these renewable energy sources are definitely very very expensive and not efficient at all….you still have to consider that “what does not kill you, makes you stronger” 🙂
Such schemes and applications are affordable and tolerable only by very well developed countries and very powerful economies up to a certain point, after which such renewable .energy sources become destructive to the energy sector and the network..
Such renewable energy can be allowed to play around “safely” up to something like an active capacity equal to 5-6% of all energy demand and supply in the power network at max.
Still very very expensive though and with expensive side effects…….
The money poured at it, is not even an investment, but simply a big huge expenditure with no any actual return, more like an expense in jewelry…….not returnable, not refundable or resalable one….but still up to some point considered as affordable by nations with powerful economies and very well evolved and well managed energy sector and energy networks…..but still even in that case only to a given point of a very very low impact or dependence… to a point that the whole grid is considered still independent of such as……
These renewable(s) are not only unreliable but also are incompatible with the whole energy system and its actual network…..
Considering energy security strategy and policy these renewable(s) simply increase the insecurity factor, through their incompatibility and increase of network loses……
In the evolution of an energy sector and the network the evolution of the management of these requires a better and better standard with an increasing efficiency of such management………
Introduction and appliance of such renewable energy in the actual system and therefor a further introduction of insecurity and loses factor in the system, it demands and requires a compensation and reaction by the management and at some point it forces the management to respond by refining the methods, the strategies the technologies etc. of the sector and the network for better and more efficient performance as a means to balance out the “noise” introduced in the system by these renewable sources.
That is the only one plausible “good” thing about these renewable(s) that could be claimed
At a minimal capacity can be like a push towards a better energy sector management, during the “good” times, and in the “bad” times, just an instant plug off will increase instantly the efficiency of the system and its network.
But only if the capacity does not go beyond the “safe” mark.
Don’t be surprised that many of the developed nations may “will” pull back from further expenditure and expansion of such schemes and renewable.sources of energy……..no matter how high and wide the “greens” will “scream”.
You see from this angle the problem is really huge only for undeveloped countries, nations, and the ones that are “at the ropes” economically.
These kind of nations can not afford at all such expensive jewelry, and their power sector and networks can not withstand such “noise” by any given margin…
To such nations “buying” in such schemes is just self destructive………
That is just a way to have some positive angle in all this affair and somehow having a means to believe that not all is lost.
Accepting this kind of angle as realistic or not, is just another thing which I would not mind, whatever……but that is a point of view I have thus far in the subject….
Sorry for the rather long reply………I tried to keep it as short as I could..:)
cheers
Is that really Whiten?
If so, did you have an epiphany my boy?
I was expecting you to get to the one non-fossil fuel source of reliable power that does not require a lot of water and altitude nearby…nuclear!
Come on…you can do it!
Menicholas
August 15, 2016 at 11:27 pm
I was expecting you to get to the one non-fossil fuel source of reliable power that does not require a lot of water and altitude nearby…nuclear!
Come on…you can do it!
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Hello Meni.
Interesting question from you…very interesting indeed.
Regardless of your sarc, I still think that in a way I already did it.
Read the below, carefully, than think nuclear and think wind and solar power at more than 5-6% active capacity towards the power demand and when at that point think “loudly”…very “loudly” indeed… Germany.
You do this few times and you may just get it..:)
“Introduction and appliance of such renewable energy in the actual system and therefor a further introduction of insecurity and loses factor in the system, it demands and requires a compensation and reaction by the management and at some point it forces the management to respond by refining the methods, the strategies the technologies etc. of the sector and the network for better and more efficient performance as a means to balance out the “noise” introduced in the system by these renewable sources.”
cheers
Why is it taking the American public so long to realise this?
Because NoBama is still in office and the Lunicrats have the power
People have poor educations, short memories and tender souls so they lack a firm grip on reality to understanding what’s happening. They won’t believe the clear lessons of history until the huns cross the beach and start doing what huns naturally do (then they’ll complain everybody in the country didm’t do everything possible to protect them).
It is intensely politically incorrect to even think other groups may be harboring unhappy thoughts.
Shock and awe paid for with your own confiscated resources. That defines power.
That opening ceremony visual propaganda was for the young people who have gone to school where teachers have insisted that media literacy is as important as print literacy. They have also been taught that they have an affirmative duty to reach a consensus with classmates and to accept it as the ‘common understanding.’ Many have grown up with videogames deliberately coded to create false and alarming visions of reality that do not fit with the hard science. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/when-gaming-intends-to-shape-and-distort-our-perceptions-of-everything-around-us-viva-la-revolution/
All just an excuse, like CAGW and the ozone hype, to give political support for regulating human activity systems, including people.
Brazil is also were the concept of Participatory Budgeting was created. It’s called the Porto Allegre model and it is becoming all the rage in many cities now in the US even though it is not publicized to the taxpayers actually footing the bill.
Well no shit Sherlock. They’re games. Sheesh!
It was global warming that caused the Olympic pool to turn green, not shortage of pool chemicals. And it was global warming that wasted the petro dollars and Brazil’s future, not corruption. Welcome to the Olympic new normal.
Ok first of all Hollywood sharks could happen. Please don’t take sharknados away from me. Lol. Come on man! Now who’s souring the mood? Lol.
There are plenty of sharks in Hollywood. Always have been. Most of them walk on two legs though.
Due commentary Paul. I too was dismayed at the ‘detour’, from what was promising to be another semi-healthy celebration of sport. Reminding us of the interdependency of virtually everything modern and fossil fuel, as you’ve done, was spot on and can’t be overstressed. The unkindest cut of all is this blatant reminder of just how far this farce has been allowed to progress. It’s, so far, the triumph of the anti-capitalists over the personal liberty and freedom folks who need to get ‘into the race’ soon. Thanks.
I just changed the channel and hit the fridge for another beer…. came back to the olympics 1/2? hour later…
On can “just say no” in many ways… even by a simple click of the remote… (advertizers, take note…)
Political insertion as in the 1938 Olympics
1936, if you meant Berlin.
I expect the board of directors at Exxon will decide that maybe they weren’t forthright enough about the dangers of global warming 30 years ago and kick the legs out from under all their technical people. They will just milk the subsidy rich cash cows by investing in “sustainable” energy technology at the same time that they increase profit from petrochemicals (not necessarily fuels). Isn’t that what we’ve seen with the Ozone hole? How many of Exxon’s board of directors are also leaders in the World Wildlife Fund? Environmentalism would not be the left mantra that it is without very big backing from the trust funds and continuing corporate support world wide to manage the power of a post industrial society. Corporatism is the economic model for the future all that’s being done is to convince the great unwashed to ask for it, to beg to be allowed to vote which appendage of freedom should be amputated first on the way to a Fabian future of cuddly polar bears and wilderness that human beings are not allowed to despoil.
Exxon has made major investments in natural gas by buying XTO. They then jumped on the climate bandwagon because CCGT produces about 35% the CO2 of coal for equivalent generation, thanks to higher efficiency, higher heat contentbper mole, and two water molecules for every CO2. They would support the CPP because it is a coal death knell, and they will directly benefit financially as coal closures are hastened and replaced by CCGT.
There’s that “follow the money” thing again.
ristvan of course they are ahead of the curve on natural gas because they understand that windmills and solar are a fool’s dream for a centralized industrial power grid. I’m trying to point out that we wouldn’t have an “ecology now” bunch of loonies running around without the trust funds and corporate sponsorship of the financial elite. When I went to college biology, microbiology, zoology where all laboratory supported majors and the “ecologists” were the bunch of hippies attending class in the oldest run down building on campus supported by the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and the Institute for Policy Studies mainly drawing recruits from the sociology department..
Ristvan, during 30 years in a major oil company, many in and around headquarters, I never, ever heard any talk of competing against coal. Lots of petroleum companies own subsidiary coal companies, because in the end these companies are energy companies first, the energy source is less important. So please be careful with statements like above, unless you can prove the reference.
In fact, its ice mass has been growing since the time period the Olympics propaganda squad selected to show the ice sheets “disappearing.”
I don’t think dmi tells the total mass is growing, rather the surface mass balance is positive, which is quite a different measure.
Dmi says ‘The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr.’
At short term, of course, there are fluctuations to both directions. And you may question the accuracy of GIA adjusted satellite balance measurements. However it might be a good starting point to read what DMI says. Then think how much 200 Gt/yr is in terms of SLR. And think about closure.
1st para quote miss.
This throws me –
“After climbing a headline-grabbing 0.55 degrees C (1 deg F) in 2015, a strong El Niño year, they plummeted a media-ignored 0.5 degrees C the first seven months of 2016, as La Niña approached.”
How can this comment be correct if the first 7 months of 2016 have been claimed monthly to be “the hottest(put in month name) ever.”? And what has increased in temperature, by the way, the daily average where you measure the temperature every hour, add them up and divide by 24, or the average day time high? The first number certainly doesn’t guarantee that the temperature is climbing, only that nights are warmer, whereas the second number would say it is getting hotter.
“This throws me –”
That’s because it is meaningless. There is no “the temperature”, so saying it rose 0.55 c is a meaningless phrase, as is the subsequent reduction. Any time you see a single number for a temperature, and it’s not for one spot, you’re being fed a bunch of propaganda.
The IOC is the most corrupt organization on the planet, adding golf and tennis was ridiculous, having a 3rd world polluted, dangerous country host was just the icing on the disgusting cake of what they call the Olympics. Zeus is truly embarrassed.
Actually, I believe the UN holds that title, but the IOC seems to be trying to catch up.
FIFA?
Auto
Actually, in UN-speak, they’ve officially been “partners” for several years now. And part of the deal gives Ki-moon a place of honour in the Olympic grandstand. See: UN/IPCC foundations, legacies and values of Olympian proportions for all the sordid details.
And it became so in the build up to the 1936 Olympics in Germany. The only shining event was Jesse Owens refusing to accept a medal because Nazis believed Africans were inferior to Germans/Aryens.
Did anyone really believe the Russians would be booted from the games?
It’s likely the climate piece was nothing to do with the Brazilian government but was a payback for sponsorship. Bloomberg states:
“The local organizing committee has been on a cost-cutting drive for most of the past year to stick to a 7.4 billion-real ($2.3 billion) budget raised mainly through sponsorship sales and a grant from the International Olympic Committee.”
They would have done anything for funding. Be nice to know who was behind this though. Maybe someone will leak something?
This particular propaganda flick may well be the last lap for those banging the “deadly” CO2 drum. Even the self-declared “gold standard” IPCC seems to be in the process of shifting gears from dreaded, deadly CO2 to … wait for it … “sustainable development” and its concomitant “transformative” imperatives.
As I had noted earlier (and for those who might have missed it!) “tipping points” seem to have fallen out of IPCC favour, while “sustainable” whatevers are definitely on the rise!
Here’s a reprise of my word count from the 15 pages (pdf) of bureaucratic bafflegab that will no doubt be inspiring the deliberations of IPCC honchos during their Aug. 15 – 18 Geneva confab, as the great and good “experts” undertake the task of promoting the new, improved 1.5°C “target”:
tipping points – 0
carbon dioxide – 1
other carbon combinations/variants – 19
transform* (a perennial UN fave) – 21
sustain* – 37
global – 41
1.5°C – 62
Bafflegab!
My new favorite word.
I thank you for it.
From listening to the Brazilian organizers talk on TV they said they knew they could not top the Chinese opening ceremonies technologically, so they wanted to top them in some other manner. Their idea was to make the opening ceremonies about the world, where previously opening ceremonies have been about the local area, their history their culture, etc. Once they said that I had a strong feeling they would do something about global warming, because that is an easy way to sound socially conscious and also sound like you understand science so you sound smart too. Plus the bad guy is the oil companies, so its OK to offend them, nobody cares. All other global issues are too complicated and there is no clear solution, the economy, disease, poverty, famine. What can Brazil say at an opening ceremonies that will be any kind of solution for those problems? I don’t think the Brazilians were puppets for the left, they were just trying to top the Chinese by having a more globally conscious opening ceremonies.
I watched the opening ceremonies, when that global warming stuff started my wife just looked at me and said “We’ll fast forward through this….”. Thank goodness for DVRs.
Quote of the Games:
“Because of warming, sport will never be the same again,” and fewer records than in previous games are likely to fall as a result, the report said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/olympic-records-won-t-come-easy-in-rio-because-of-climate-change
Compare their scaremongering with reality, the list of records broken so far, and the Games haven’t finished yet:
https://www.rio2016.com/en/records
But haven’t you noticed all of the fossil fuel corporation-funded propaganda counter-balancing it?
if somebody really wanted to wreak some havoc with the election he’d promote the notion that
a man’s vote is worth well over $100.oo.
a pizza and a beer and a bus ride to the polling place is hardly respectful or fair.
a prepaid card with 20$ on it is just insulting.
democratic voters should go on strike for higher payments!
Well, perhaps if Brazil had not chopped down half of their Amazonian forest, they would be in a stronger position to moralise. I didn’t cut it down, nor did any European.
So who did? Was it the Brazilian Government? Cowboys paid incentives by the Brazilian Government?
Or was it marauding foreign raiders destroying the planet for Wall Street profits?
I kind of suspect it was cowboys incentivised by the Brazilian government.
Does anyone have any data on that matter?
Insane! Apparently, each Olympic medal won by an Australian “athlete” costs Australian taxpayers AU$11 MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF?