Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Ever wondered why so many climate critiques of US policy emphasise that “the world” is moving to embrace climate measures, and America should keep up? As an Australian, an outsider, I have a theory. I believe the reason is the national desire to be liked and accepted by the global community is America’s greatest weakness – and the rest of the world knows it.
Consider this piece by Rolling Stone;
Why Republicans Still Reject the Science of Global Warming
Only one major political party in the world denies climate change, and it’s in charge of the most important political body in the world
One day in 2009, Henry Waxman, the Democratic congressman representing Santa Monica and Malibu, paid a visit to one of his Republican counterparts, a ruddy-faced Texan named Joe Barton. After Democrats had won back the House of Representatives the previous year, Waxman staged an intraparty coup and seized the chairman’s gavel of the Energy and Commerce committee, which oversees most legislation on the environment. He vowed to address what he saw as the gravest threat facing the planet: climate change. As an opening gesture, Waxman approached Barton, the committee’s top Republican, about finding a way to work together on the new legislation.
With a catastrophic season of wildfires, megafloods and major hurricanes, the climate-change siege is fully upon us Barton, a guy who once called Al Gore “totally wrong” about global warming and advised people to “get shade” to adapt to rising temperatures, was incredulous. Waxman recalls Barton asking why he should work on a solution for a problem he didn’t believe existed. Waxman pressed on, but Barton wouldn’t budge. “It would be like me working with you to try to eliminate U.S. support for Israel,” the Texan finally said.
The comment stopped Waxman cold. Aid to Israel is, of course, an article of faith in both parties. You commit political seppuku to suggest otherwise.
…
The good news is this: Practically every nation on Earth grasps the severity of the problem. In Paris last year, 195 countries, including the biggest emitters on the planet – the United States, China and India – came together and offered real, substantive plans to curb their emissions of greenhouse gases. Long before Paris, the renewable-energy revolution was underway – Germany can now power up to 87 percent of the country using renewable sources, and in some areas of Australia wind power meets 100 percent of demand for electricity. In September, Chinese president Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama announced that their countries would ratify the Paris Agreement. The Chinese leader’s public comments at the event – “Our response to climate change bears on the future of our people and the well-being of mankind” – would’ve been unthinkable a decade ago.
In fact, about the only place left on Earth where lawmakers openly and avidly deny the science of climate change is the U.S. Congress. More to the point, says Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii and a leader on climate policy, “There is only one major political party in the world that denies the existence of climate change. And it happens to be in charge of the most important political body in the world.”
…
Why would even friends and allies of America pick on this weakness? There is no conspiracy. In the bully school yard of global politics, there doesn’t have to be a reason to pick on a weakness. That kid who is a little fat, or wants to be friends with people who reject him or her, or who wears clothes which are a little too nice – they’ll get picked on, just because people can.
Nobody wants to feel second best. Deep in their hearts, everyone in the world knows that America achieved greatness through hard work, commitment to fair laws, and through the wisdom of the constitution written by the founding fathers, which set important limits to government power. But politicians who spend their time resenting those who do better don’t see it that way. To admit that another country might have a better government, a better way of living, is to admit their own gross failings.
Lacking the energy or desire to build themselves up, instead they try to find ways to tear others down, to bring the great down to the level of their own miserable ineptitude.
The green obsession, Washington corruption, desire for international acceptance – all these are simply convenient levers, for extorting a little cash, for smearing America with a little of the mud and filth, which those who wallow in such excrement call home.
It doesn’t even matter that if America fell, most of the world would be worse off. What matters is that if America falls, the spiteful politicians who resent America wouldn’t have to be constantly reminded of America’s greatness. They wouldn’t have to face the unrest of their own people, the constant demands for a better life, because there would be no better life to aspire to. “See, that America you once thought was so great? You are better off accepting what you have. The greatness you thought you saw was just a mirage”.
Quoting lead paragraph in article:
Eric W, are all Australians afflicted with that same “national desire to be liked and accepted by the global community”?
Or is it just the Academic Elites in all countries that are afflicted with that same “national desire ”?
Or is it just the Political Elites in all countries that are afflicted with that same “national desire ”?
Or maybe both the Academic Elites and the Political Elites are a “conjoined force” of that “national desire ” affliction?
Eric W, me thinks you are mistaking the use of “Child Psychology” as being some sort of a grandiose affliction of the world’s populations of people all having “a national desire to be liked n’ loved by all other nations”.
The “funded interest” proponents and the ”lefty liberal wackos” actually believe they are the guardian parents of the masses and thus, to wit:
“ Most parents are familiar with the concept of using reverse [childish] psychology with children. After all, this is a form of discipline that is used very often when other methods of controlling bad or disobedient behavior in children fail. ”
What you Yanks really need is Ozzie vision, entrepreneurship and investment in Green jobs-
http://www.msn.com/en-au/money/company-news/vic-defends-millions-for-hazelwood-workers/ar-AAjRhK4?li=AA54Gb&ocid=spartandhp
Yes some of we South Australians have wry grimaces at the news, given that with all our wind turbines, we have become somewhat reliant on the interconnector to Victoria’s La Trobe Valley brown coal thermal power of late.
Spot the watermelon bullshit going on here? Why the sudden need for Gummint handouts and cash splash when all those lovely Green jobs are being created for these workers to transition to?
Ah well if our ejumacated elites and overlords are bloody hopeless and leading us back into the Dark Ages, at least we can look to America as the light on the hill to lift us all up from the scrapheap of history-
http://newatlas.com/junkyard-battery-scrap-metals/46273/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=5d9c7d6c2a-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-5d9c7d6c2a-92416973
Another way to bring America down: propagandize the kiddos. Here’s a video of children “lecturing” their parents about “climate change”. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad;
I just threw up in my mouth watching this. The propaganda is beyond belief. We are f**ked. We are being over run by the this propaganda machine. I weep.
There is a manufacturer of voodoo dolls that I’m familiar with. How do I know about this voodoo doll manufacturer? Well, from my sister, my older sister. I learned she has a voodoo doll of me that she constantly sticks pins in. It’s the reason I have fallen arches, a trick knee, erectile dysfunction, excessive methane production, a lisp, nervous tick; well, you get the idea. Anyway, my sister, my older sister’s a vampire, but with the unique ability to be out and about in the daylight. So, anytime, anywhere, she could just simply drain all the blood out of me and be done with her poor, innocent, terror wracked, younger brother. But, no, she prefers the voodoo doll torture.
So I followed her and discovered where this voodoo manufacturer was. I think it moved out of ¥/;!’l]>~|€ after NAFTA. Anyway, I had a voodoo doll made with her likeness. Time to get even, I thought. But, the minute I walked out of the plant the voodoo doll instantly lighted up in the sunlight, burning down to ash, and scorching my hand. Fancy that! And, I’m still undergoing skin graphs.
Where am I going with this? Heck if I know. But, it seemed to me that when I was in that off border voodoo plant I saw over voodoo pillows. Never heard of a voodoo pillow? Neither have I. But, there they were. Well over a hundred of them, all ready to ship. And, every single one of those voodoo pillows was made in the shape of? … two guesses … ok, one guess.
The U.S. of A.
Now, there were some gaps in the pillows. Coastal regions of California were missing. And, there seemed to be a hole where Washington D.C. is. And, while a pillow of Alaska was clearly attached, a representation of Hawaii was absent. A pointed these ‘flaws’ out to the plant manager and he said, looking quickly around and in hushed tones, “Those aren’t flaws.”
I then asked the plant manager, who was now perspiring, if the pillows were being shipped to countries outside the U.S. He confirmed they were going to countries outside the U.S. that hated the U.S. and hoped to milk ’em dry. But, he said, almost trembling, some were going to the U.S. as well. “What” I exclaimed! He whispered, “shhhh; just where there’s gaps.”
Then, instantly, he self combusted. Weird, there was no light and he wasn’t even a vampire. Trust me, I know vampires.
Now, maybe the foregoing isn’t relevant to the discussion. But, for some weird reason I think it …
Nice!!!
Oh, I thought it was just the current PR marketing brand of a President.
One thing’s for sure; a Trump presidency would put to the test who our true friends are.
The rest of the world or at least the free world had better pay attention because the de facto nuclear deterrent, global policeman, safe haven, global growth driver, and innovator, cannot keep up under the weight of policy hits. These range from rising and uncompetitive tax burden to rising and undo-able regulatory reach. The basic assumption that U.S. businesses and workers will just keep growing and paying for the political games and assorted existing commitments is false. Some allies like South Korea and Japan will find out sooner than others, but you will all get your turn at waking up.
Trump threatens to reawaken and cultivate the American giant economy, which will shake the world once it gets the cobwebs from its eyes and the chains from its limbs. All the powers that be don’t want this, because it means growth. Growth means change (rearrangement of economic strength). Change means an end to the powers that be (in the sense that they will be displaced).
Sounds like a second grader trying to persuade Mommy to let her stay up late: “But Mommy! All my friends get to stay up until 10 o’clock!”
Griff in full voice again! Thanks, you made my day, and got me sharpening my pencil — and salivating !!
By ‘priority-sourcing’ Renewables over lower-cost alternatives, you drive the per kWh cost of electricity UP.
Many low-income people can’t afford increased `power bills. THEY WILL HAVE TO FREEZE IN THE DARK. Including widowed Grannies. Griff … what say you to Grannies freezing in the dark because of the policies you advocate???? Clearly you’re obviously so wealthy and/or invested in the Renewable Power Industry, that it matters not to you …..
… The primary job of any modern state is to facilitate the lowest-possible cost of ESSENTIALS …. food, water, warmth, shelter, security to its least able citizenry.
Ahhh! you say, “But what about the externalites of low-cost power? I’ve got him!!”
OK, Griff, let’s reason this through (if you’re capable of reason beyond your blind adherence to all things ‘Renewable’ — which I doubt):
1. ‘Renewables’ have their externalities too. And their on-going repair & maintenance costs which you Conveniently Ignore (and if you haven’t, where is yr altruistic acceptance of this Inconvenient Truth?) And the massive bird-kills in Wind-Farms, added to which are externality costs of adversely affected livestock, health of proximate inhabitants, blights on property values? C’mon Griff — let’s hear you on this!!
2. ‘Surrender-by-Treaty’. So western industrial nations (stupidly) sign-on to the Paris Treaty. Developing countries have no obligation to limit their CO2 emissions (or other NOXious substances & heavy-metals). Thus, by artificially exponentiating the costs of power to uncompetitive levels, we cede basic manufacturing to these developing countries, eliminate our indigenous basic manufacturing abilities & skills, along with all the jobs & national economic benefits that are concomitant. Griff — a man of your wealth & status, you will be unconcerned about funding massive Socail Security costs consequent upon massive unemployment, welfare-support, and re-training initiatives (paper-pushing?)
And so, western advanced countries FLIP POSITIONS with the developing countries, busily burning fossil-fuel– without hindrance– spewing toxic particulates and turning themselves into the New World’s Industrial Colossi to whom we’ll all be beholden for manufactured goods … goods that we could compete with if unencumbered with the likes of you, and with a vote.
And — post-Paris — will the World have mitigated the rise of CO2?
3. There is one solution to all these issues … Nuclear Power. (My paper, covering a common-sense way of overcoming the past problems, is before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee.)
Griff — I look fwd with great relish to debating you further on yr obsession with Renewables.
The diminishment of America and her influence is also consistent with Obama’s apology tour, his inability to call a spade a spade, a foreign dialogue that never includes a message of solitary strength and command, or even one of American exceptionalism.
I’ve never understood the need for many individuals to be popular. Always seemed a huge waste of effort to me, but whatever – it’s their life and they are free to do with it what they wish. However, popularity has no place in international politics. Those who wish the US to change just to satisfy other nations are seriously misguided. They should know by now that playing the popularity game is always a losing proposition in the long run.
I detest it when Know-it-alls’ like RS claim Republicans don’t understand or know science or how ever they described them in the above article. Not that I’m a Republican etc….but just the insinuation that they’re a bunch of bucked toothed idiots when I and many of the conservative, libertarian bent know damn well where the science lies and what is known, to what extent and what is not known as opposed to these pseudo intellectuals that have been hoodwinked by activist scientists and cherry picked, out of context observations and data.
Tom: “know damn well where the science lies and what is known”. Really?
During 2013 and 2014, only 4 of 69,406 authors of peer-reviewed articles on global warming, 0.0058% or 1 in 17,352, rejected AGW. Thus, the consensus on AGW among publishing scientists is above 99.99%, verging on unanimity. The U.S. House of Representatives holds 40 times as many global warming rejecters as are found among the authors of scientific articles. The peer-reviewed literature contains no convincing evidence against AGW.”
http://bst.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/25/0270467616634958.abstract
“August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.”
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2490/nasa-analysis-finds-august-2016-another-record-month/
“Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years”:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
And from the World Meteorological Organization:
http://www.wmo.int/media/content/record-global-temperatures-and-high-impact-weather-and-climate-extreme
Plus these U.S. military statements:
http://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/612710
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/documents/CCR.pdf
http://web.ornl.gov/sci/knowledgediscovery/Langley/docs/Langley_Air_Force_Base2.pd
Here’s another 197 legitimate science organizations worldwide who write about it:
http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php
Not enough? How about these:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/donner-the-kiribati-people-battle-sea-level-rise-slide-show/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/27/world/climate-rising-seas.html?_r=0
http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-sea-level-rise/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/infographic-sea-level-rise-global-warming.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/11/sea-level-rise-global-warming-climate-change/27119957/
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/energy/the_challenges/global_climate_change.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7535/full/nature14093.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/scientists-say-global-sea-level-rise-happening-now-is-unavoidable/2934266.html
On Thursday, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced a new report revealing that three-quarters of 276 national parks are experiencing an earlier onset of spring. Half of the parks studied are experiencing “extreme” early springs.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/climate-change-national-parks-early-spring/
Arctic areas are now experiencing dramatic weather change:
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_change.html
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/958/
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/booklets/ArcticMatters.pdf
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/protecting-life-in-the-arctic/life-in-the-arctic/arctic-challenges
http://www.ibtimes.com/exxon-arctic-drilling-benefitting-global-warming-oil-company-denied-climate-change-2136118
http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/global-ice-viewer/#/3
Countries have recently reported record temperatures, such as India’s 124 degrees:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/20/asia/india-record-temperature/
India 2016, 330 million people have extreme water shortage, and it will get far worse:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/27/india-drought-migrants-heagd-to-cities-in-desperate-search-for-water
“Since the mid-1970s, the area covered by glaciers in Peru’s Cordillera de Vilcanota range has nearly halved”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2108455-ancient-andes-glaciers-have-lost-half-their-ice-in-just-40-years/
“In 1850, at the end of the Little Ice Age, there were an estimated 150 glaciers in the area that is now Glacier Park. By 1968, these had been reduced to around 50. Today the number of glaciers in the park is 25, and this is occurring worldwide”:
https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/education/glaciers.htm
To make matters worse, 56 million years ago, a fairly short time ago geologically speaking, AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) approached what we’re currently doing: “During the PETM [time period] temperatures rose by as much as 8 °C (over 14F) and geological evidence suggests that the effect on Earth’s life was tremendous. Massive extinction events ensued both on land and in the seas, accompanied by massive mammal migration to northern, friendlier climates. Polar ice melted completely and sea levels rose dramatically all around the globe, with effects being felt for at least 200,000 years.” “even with these changes, many researchers believe today’s man-made changes surpass anything we’ve seen during PETM. As a result, the consequences will also be more dramatic. Just earlier this year, a study led by Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii found that humans are now pumping carbon into the atmosphere 10 times faster than whatever natural forces drove the PETM.” The key thoughts here are that many researchers believe that our changes from AGW will result in even more severe climate change than occurred then. We’ re apparently going to commit suicide instead of making a serious attempt to change.
http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/collision-petm-climate-change-14102016/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b903ab3882-ZME_Science_Daily3_6_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b5aad2288-b903ab3882-242599825&ct=t(ZME_Science_Daily11_8_2014)
“one-fifth to half of the airborne CO2released by human industry so far and in the next 100 years will still be present in the atmosphere by the year 3000. Combine CO2 persistence with the inertia of seas and it can mean sea level rise might go on at least 10 or more millennia—the unimaginable.” “adding 5 degrees F of warming is very imaginable, given current trends of increasing CO2. So it is reasonable to imagine seas 60 feet higher. That would render all of Florida a memory, almost all of New York City, much of the Eastern seaboard, parts of the Western U.S. and Gulf Coasts”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/exposed-the-climate-fallacy-of-2100/?WT.mc_id=SA_ENGYSUS_20161020
As I’ve just shown you over 200 organizations worldwide who all state the same thing, please show me the research that disagrees. I want to see actual science organizations who disagree with human caused climate change. I do NOT want to see recently formed organizations whose sole purpose is to deny climate change.
Your personal opinion is worthless without any scientific evidence.
What actual science organization agrees with you?
Mark – November 4, 2016 at 9:23 pm
Mark, you really screwed-up your 1st statement above when you intentionally omitted the word “published” from your phrase of ….. “authors of peer-reviewed [published] articles” ….. which proves that you are sorely miseducated in/of the “submission and publication of scientific papers” …… and thus little more than a “mimicking” mouthpiece for the Funded-interest Green Lobbyists and Government Grant Seekers.
And Mark, in reference to you other above noted statement, …….please show me the scientific evidence that supports the CAGW claims because I want to see actual scientific evidence, ….. NOT actual scientific organizations cause they are “a dime a dozen” and dozens of them can be found on most college campuses.
A long, cherry-picked, argument from authority. But not the authority of 69,406 authors you invoke. The authority of a viewpoint you never quite specify. So a kind of argument from non-authority pretending to be its converse. I think Republican representatives probably reject catastrophic global warming. They reject the lies peddled by the press and greens that there are now more extreme weather events, indicating climate catastrophe just around the corner. As likely as not, all 40 of the Republican “deniers” will accept a more reasonable warming figure. Few people are over worried by global warming if CO2 climate sensitivity is about 0.5. I think Republicans also reject failing “so-called solutions” to global warming peddled by the green left such as massively subsidised wind and solar, as well as proposed economic suicide, and ceeding yet more dictatorial powers to unelected officials in agencies such are the EPA who are in bed with the green movement, and too keen to ban everything they can.
How about electing the head of the EPA instead?
I just saw a really funny anti-Hillary commercial. It showed a Hillary look-alike taking various hammers, including a sledgehammer, to a smartphone, a server, and a laptop, while audio/video of Hillary played in which she professed her innocence.
A good one!
That was released by Ted Cruz early on when he was still in the running for the Republican nomination.
The viciousness and thoroughness of the server demolition is spot on
It’s not really America that has put these “choice of the lesser evils” in front of us.
Hillary is a product of her own ambition, used by the super rich to further their globalist agenda for ultimate political and economic control. Very few of her own supporters even like her, much less the secret service, her aides, her campaign manager. But she will do the bidding of the super rich, for now mainly by globalist plan of putting us in debt $17T to “fight carbon” which also gives them direct control and ability to transfer wealth over all energy sources (Paris Climate Agreement), and trade agreements which allow the super rich to sell any of their crap anywhere with no arguments.
This takes away sovereignty of the “subject countries” which they intend to be “all of them”, especially USA, the toughest nut to crack, but well on the way to cracked, many people are already calling it the “silent coup” of America.
A weakening of the overall people via no jobs, big debt, uncertainty, fear in addition to encouraging a slave class that EXPECTS and DEMANDs that free stuff be given to them, and a race war to solidify the dem voting base, has been successfully carried out. They amplified and encouraged the “slave mentality” rather than further freeing the blacks, they have created many upset, sometimes violent, black and minorities that expect and demand something for free. Michelle Obama with the famous “ I wake up in a house built by slaves everyday” and George Soros funding BLM with $100M to create ruckus.
Today Obama told illegals that voting was the same as being a citizen, and that no government agency would be chasing them down because they voted. Indeed part of the plan from the beginning even though they are behind on legitimizing this, it still may play out at the election, especially with this last push. Hillary in place will ensure a large restriction on 2nd amendment (gun rights) to make it easier to force even more Globalist rules on the American people, this is not conjecture, she has stated the desire for more gun control.
The clear cut stealing of the Democratic nomination to Bernie Sanders should make it very plain the level of corruption involved in pushing Clinton to the front.
The clear cut control of almost ALL of the main stream media is even more telling.
They have it all on the line, they either win with Hillary, or they stand a chance of their Global dreams being pushed back for several generations. Soros, Kissinger (both Jews by the way), Rothschilds, David Rockefeller (100 years old, and he has bought 6 human heart transplants to get that far) will all be dead before their dreams can be realized, decades in the making.
The “New World Order” specifically mentioned by Soros and others was rolled out a little too quickly perhaps even a mistake by Soros, he is over 80. And it was scary to a lot of people, so they took a different tact create it de facto via energy and trade agreements and more similar things still too come.
Trump is a product of the disgust that people feel ever since the financial and housing crisis, those who are watching more than the Kardashians, know much of what I write here, and so a bit of truth out of the Donald’s mouth is very refreshing. We need more than a minor tweak here, minor tweak there. Just like JFK, pretty likely the super rich of the world kill Trump too.
Amazing to me that here we are. There is a lot more to support all of the above.