Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-settings.php on line 520

Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-settings.php on line 18

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Page::start_lvl() should be compatible with Walker::start_lvl(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1199

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Page::end_lvl() should be compatible with Walker::end_lvl(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1199

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Page::start_el() should be compatible with Walker::start_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1199

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Page::end_el() should be compatible with Walker::end_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1199

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_PageDropdown::start_el() should be compatible with Walker::start_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1244

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Category::start_lvl() should be compatible with Walker::start_lvl(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1391

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Category::end_lvl() should be compatible with Walker::end_lvl(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1391

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Category::start_el() should be compatible with Walker::start_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1391

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Category::end_el() should be compatible with Walker::end_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1391

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_CategoryDropdown::start_el() should be compatible with Walker::start_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1442

Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class wpdb in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 306

Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class WP_Object_Cache in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/cache.php on line 431

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Comment::start_lvl() should be compatible with Walker::start_lvl(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 1266

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Comment::end_lvl() should be compatible with Walker::end_lvl(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 1266

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Comment::start_el() should be compatible with Walker::start_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 1266

Strict Standards: Declaration of Walker_Comment::end_el() should be compatible with Walker::end_el(&$output) in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 1266

Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class WP_Dependencies in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/class.wp-dependencies.php on line 31

Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class WP_Http in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 61

Warning: explode() expects parameter 2 to be string, array given in /var/www/monokultur.dk/public_html/wp-content/plugins/bannage.php on line 15
Monokultur » 2013 » March


Cypern tegner fremtidens EU

EU, Historie, Politik, Økonomi og finans — Drokles on March 30, 2013 at 11:25 pm

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

Thomas Sowell

Fra Daily Mail

Two British historians, Christopher Booker and Richard North, identified this system in their history of the EU, The Great Deception: ‘It is central to the nature of the “project” that the parliaments, officials and judiciaries of each of the member states should all be left in place. But behind them [the project] erected a new supranational power structure which worked through these national institutions, controlling them and enlisting their active collaboration in a way that remained largely out of view.’

If you go through the statements of Monnet and other founders of the project as long ago as the 1920s, ‘the one thing above all the “project” could never be, because by definition it had never been intended to be, was in the remotest sense democratic. The whole purpose of a supranational body is to stand above the wishes of individual nations and peoples.’

It would be supranational government by technocrats, ‘unsullied by any need to resort to all the messy, unpredictable business of elections.’

‘The only useful role left to the politicians in this process was to lend it a veneer of democratic legitimacy.’

Defiance

Which is why the nomenklatura were in such a fury when the Cypriot parliament refused to cast a single vote in favour of the deal: the members of parliament were not being ‘European.’ Indeed, in a top level conference call among eurozone officials on Wednesday – notes from which were leaked to Reuters – the Cypriot parliament’s democratic defiance was denigrated as ‘emotional.’

In fact, the parliament’s defiance was magnificent. But I did not cheer. I know that in the EU, a Yes vote is forever, but a No vote is only ever temporary. The Troika apparatchiks immediately delivered the message that the parliament must keep voting until they get the right answer.

This technique is familiar to anyone who remembers the politics of the USSR: vote all you want, but there is just one possible result.

I am not the only one to see that Soviet similarity. I go back to that former senior commission economist I mentioned at the top. He is Bernard Connolly. I have quoted before from the new edition of his book, The Rotten Heart of Europe.

Mr Connolly was infamously forced out of his job in 1995 when he wrote the book questioning the prospects of monetary union. From his vantage point as one of the nomenklatura, Mr Connolly saw the truth of the ambitions of this elite. They wanted ‘to complete the elimination of sovereignty, law and political legitimacy in Europe, freeing elites – a European nomenklatura – from any residual constraints either of democratic control or law.’

To do this, they have persuaded the ‘useful idiots’ across the member states to suppress the results of referenda and to topple democratically-elected governments ‘in manoeuvres reminiscent of Stalin’s tactics in Eastern Europe after the war.’

What Mr Connolly means, first, are the results of referenda not just in Ireland, but in the Netherlands and France. In 2001, the then-president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, and other members of the elite made a decision behind closed doors to draw up an EU constitution. They promised that it would not come into effect unless it had the unanimous consent of all member states.

Fifty ways to win

Within a single week in 2005, both the French and the Dutch voters rejected the constitution. Here is how Nigel Farage, MEP and leader of the UK Independence Party, recalled the moment in a recent interview in the Financial Times: He was drinking champagne in the Brussels press bar to celebrate the Dutch rejecting the EU constitution in a referendum when a German MEP came by and said, ‘You may have your little celebration tonight but we have 50 different ways to win.’

Fra Pajamas Media

Cyprus has agreed to a ten billion euro ($13bn) deal with eurozone and IMF leaders to bail out its banks, and to prevent the Mediterranean island nation from exiting the European single currency. However, Cypriots can be forgiven for not taking to the streets to wave flags and honk their car horns. They’re finding out just what the “protection” afforded by the euro looks like, and it’s more akin to the kind offered by ski mask-wearing heavies in certain parts of New Jersey than the financial security Monsieur Trichet promised.

Under the terms of the deal, the country’s second-largest bank will be shut down, and its largest bank will be restructured. Depositors with more than €100,000 ($130,000) in either bank will face losses in the vicinity of 40 percent. In a bid to prevent a run on the island’s other banks and to stop money from fleeing the country, capital controls have been imposed — guaranteeing that there will still be capital flight once the restrictions are lifted.

The effect on the Cypriot economy will be catastrophic. Businesses serving the banking sector will begin to fail immediately, and others will follow. Property values will plummet and unemployment will soar as the country is plunged into recession.

(…)

In past bailouts, the inevitable “haircut” was imposed mostly on bank bondholders, but because most of the assets of Cypriot banks are in the form of deposits, it was decided that depositors would have to take a substantial hit. An initial bailout proposal caused uproar last week when it emerged that insured depositors would face losses; under EU law, bank deposits up to €100,000 are guaranteed, but because that guarantee only applies in the event of a bank failure and the banks had not at that point failed, the savings were considered fair game.

Professor i økonomi Christopher Pissarides skriver for CNN

Prudent bankers attracted depositors by following low-risk strategies. But now their depositors are asked to pay for the high-risk strategies of other bankers. High-risk bankers risked their depositors’ money. But their depositors will not lose more than the depositors of other banks. This is the logic of the Cyprus “bailout” by the International Monetary Fund, the German-led Euro group and the European Central Bank. Delinquent bankers’ losses are protected by prudent bankers’ gains.

What is the justification? It’s better than letting the two risk takers go bankrupt, the argument goes. That probably is the case. But then Greek banks and those of other nations in trouble were also bankrupt, and yet the same troika lend to them on better terms in order to avoid bankruptcy.

Greece got 140 billion euros; the haircut on Cypriot depositors will yield 5.8 billion. But Cyprus could not have the 5.8 billion out of European funds set up to rescue banks in trouble. Deposits under 100,000 euros are insured in Europe. Yet, the terms of the euro group are so harsh, that the government of Cyprus could not raise the money without some haircut on the insured deposits.

It is important to note that on Tuesday the Cypriot parliament rejected a €10 billion eurozone bailout package due to investor alarm over the proposed tax on existing bank deposits. However we don’t know what will come next. Maybe the tax on the insured deposits will yield 2 billion euros. Agreed said the euro group: we’d prefer not to tax deposits under 100,000 euros but if you cannot afford to raise the 5.8 billion in any other way, then you have no choice but to tax the small depositors.

What does this tell us about the European project though? Is the eurozone a partnership of equals who care about each other’s subjects? Or is it a vehicle for scoring political points by the strong and powerful?

Russia’s involvement with Cyprus as an offshore centre keeps coming up in these discussions. Attracted by a corporate tax rate of 10% — half that of Russia’s — Russians have been investing money into Cyprus from the early 1990s. The money is then repatriated through investments in Russian ventures — a legal way of reducing tax.

Cyprus accepted an order last month by the Eurogroup to allow an investigation into possible breaches of money-laundering rules, which is under way. But the euro group could not wait for the results before imposing the haircut; not a single case of money laundering has been discovered so far.

I have been involved both with central bank policy and with private banking in Cyprus for years (and at different times) and I have never come across anything non-compliant with European rules.

Og det har konsekvenser, som Spiegel, beskriver

The rigid austerity measures brought on by the euro crisis are having catastrophic effects on the health of people in stricken countries, health experts reported on Wednesday.

Not only have the fiscal austerity policies failed to improve the economic situation in these countries, but they have also put a serious strain on their health care systems, according to an analysis of European health by medical journal The Lancet. Major cuts to public spending and health services have brought on drastic deterioration in the overall health of residents, the journal reported, citing the outbreak of epidemics and a spike in suicides.

In addition to crippling public health care budgets, the deep austerity measures implemented since the economic crisis began in 2008 have increased unemployment and lowered incomes, causing depression and prompting sick people to wait longer before seeking help or medication, the study found.

The countries most affected by this have been Portugal, Spain and Greece, the latter of which saw outbreaks of both malaria and HIV after programs for mosquito spraying and needle exchanges for intravenous drug users were axed. There were also outbreaks of West Nile virus and dengue fever.

Og videre

“There is a clear problem of denial of the health effects of the crisis, even though they are very apparent,” lead researcher McKee told Reuters, comparing their response to the “obfuscation” of the tobacco industry. “The European Commission has a treaty obligation to look at the health effect of all of its policies but has not produced any impact assessment on the health effects of the austerity measures imposed by the troika.”

Og det er den slags, der får Nigel Farage til tasterne i Telegraph

The brinkmanship that has been on display over the Cypriot financial crisis makes obvious to all but the wilfully blind the level of political determination in Brussels to save the euro at all costs. No amount of empirical economic evidence – or misery for ordinary people – matters when the dreams of the continent’s elite are threatened.

(…)

How can it be that the German parliament gets to vote on the wholesale theft of money from richer Cypriot depositors, while the Cypriot parliament has no such voice? Instead the theft is labelled “restructuring” – and as such there will be no Cypriot democratic oversight of the economic rape of their country. Be under no illusion: this is being done not to solve the Cypriot economy, but to save the euro. The crashing irony is that, in their February elections, the Cypriots threw out the Communists. One could ask why they bothered.

But at what cost is the euro being saved? What we can see here is an almost deliberate attempt to set the people of Cyprus against each other. By restricting the damage to those who have deposited 100,000 euros in the bank (rather than across the board, as was the previous suggestion) they will be undermining social cohesion, pitting those with against those without. It destroys any pretence that the EU has at its heart a belief in democracy, or in those warm words so often repeated about it being the guardian of essential “European” qualities. In truth it was only a fair-weather friend and its behaviour in this storm, as in others, is to drop these benevolent ideas like hot stones.

Worse still, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who heads the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, has made it clear that this is now the template for all eurozone countries. Think about that for a moment. These politicians really believe that all the money in the eurozone is actually theirs – as if people have it on sufferance, and not by rights. Since Dijsselbloem spoke, bank shares in Spain, France and Italy have collapsed: citizens of these countries not unreasonably fear the worst.

Jeg vil ud af EU!

Lidt påske hykleri fra Politiken

Diverse — Drokles on March 30, 2013 at 6:25 pm

Muhammedtegninger er kontroversielle hos Politiken, men det er Jesus tegninger åbenbart ikke. Således gøres Jesus til nar midt i sin lidelse.

dagenstegning-p_ske_735843z

God Påske

Diverse — Drokles on March 28, 2013 at 3:59 pm

Og hvad er bedre, end det bedste stykke musik nogen sinde skrevet?

Debatten er snart ovre

Diverse — Drokles on March 18, 2013 at 10:46 am

Engelske Daily Mail er et af de få større nyhedsmedier med et kritisk blik på klimaet. De har de seneste par år generet det etablerede billede af klimahysteriet ved at offentliggøre grafer, baseret på det engelske meteorologiske instituts  (MET) tal, der tydeligt viser at der ikke har været nogen global opvarmning siden slut halvfemserne. I weekenden gjorde de så status over de seneste 17 års manglende opvarmning og hæftede sig bl.a. ved den snigende omend modvillige erkendelse blandt ortodokse klimaforskere.

The Mail on Sunday today presents irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed.

The graph on this page blows apart the ‘scientific basis’ for Britain reshaping its entire economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. These moves have already added £100 a year to household energy bills.

article-2294560-18b8846f000005dc-184_634x427

The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions.

The eco-debate was, in effect, hijacked by false data. The forecasts have also forced jobs abroad as manufacturers relocate to places with no emissions targets.

A version of the graph appears in a leaked draft of the IPCC’s landmark Fifth Assessment Report due out later this year. It comes as leading climate scientists begin to admit that their worst fears about global warming will not be realised.

Academics are revising their views after acknowledging the miscalculation. Last night Myles Allen, Oxford University’s Professor of Geosystem Science, said that until recently he believed the world might be on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than five degrees this century.

But he now says: ‘The odds have come down,’ – adding that warming is likely to be significantly lower.
Prof Allen says higher estimates are now ‘looking iffy’.

The graph confirms there has been no statistically significant increase in the world’s average temperature since January 1997 – as this newspaper first disclosed last year.

Enden er nær for klimahysteriet. For at parafrasere Dr David Whitehouse så er der ikke en eneste gymnasie elev, der har oplevet global opvarmning - og alligevel har de ikke hørt andet. For sådan har den kollektive opfattelse været. Vi har alle sammen gennemlevet en - skal vi sige interessant? - sekulær vækkelse, hvor simple vejrfænomener udlægges som tegn, om ikke fra guderne, så på vores selvforskyldte undergang. Paul Driesen uddyber et par af de mere prosaiske aspekter i Master Resource

Over the past three years, the Tides Foundation and Tides Center alone poured $335 million into environmentalist climate campaigns, and $1 billion into green lobbies at large, notes Undue Influence author Ron Arnold.

Major U.S. donors gave $199 million to Canadian environmental groups just for anti-oil sands and Keystone pipeline battles during the last twelve years, analysts Vivian Krause and Brian Seasholes estimate; the Tides Foundation poured $10 million into these battles during 2009-2012.

All told, U.S. foundations alone have “invested” over $797 million in environmentalist climate campaigns since 2000! And over $19.3 billion in “environmental” efforts since 1995, Arnold calculates! Add to that the tens of billions that environmental activist groups, universities and other organizations have received from individual donors, corporations and government agencies to promote “manmade climate disaster” theories – and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Moreover, that’s just U.S. cash. It doesn’t include EU, UN and other climate cataclysm contributions. Nor does it include U.S. or global spending on wind, solar, biofuel and other “renewable” energy schemes. That this money has caused widespread pernicious and corrupting effects should surprise no one.

Politicized science, markets and ethics. The corrupting cash has feathered careers, supported entire departments, companies and industries, and sullied our political, economic and ethical systems. It has taken countless billions out of productive sectors of our economy, and given it to politically connected, politically correct institutions that promote climate alarmism and renewable energy (and which use some of this crony capitalist taxpayer and consumer cash to help reelect their political sponsors).

Toe the line – pocket the cash, bask in the limelight. Question the dogma – get vilified, harassed and even dismissed from university or state climatologist positions for threatening the grants pipeline.

The system has replaced honest, robust, evidence-based, peer-reviewed science with pseudo-science based on activism, computer models, doctored data, “pal reviews,” press releases and other chicanery that resulted in Climategate, IPCC exposés, and growing outrage. Practitioners of these dark sciences almost never debate climate disaster deniers or skeptics; climate millionaire Al Gore won’t even take questions that he has not pre-approved; and colleges have become centers for “socially responsible investing” campaigns based on climate chaos, “sustainable development,” and anti-hydrocarbon ideologies.

Rupert Darwall skriver i Telegraph

Environmentalism has taken the Marxist concept of the alienation of the working class and applied it to the rich man’s alienation from nature. “By losing sight of our relationship with Nature… ,” the Prince of Wales wrote in 2009, “we have engendered a profoundly dangerous alienation.” In one respect, environmentalism is even more radical than Marxism. Whereas Marxism aimed to change the relations of the working class to the means of production, environmentalism is about changing the means of production themselves. Ironically, Marxism was a flop in the West, whereas environmentalism has triumphed.

One reason Britain has gone so far down the green path is that politicians have not been honest about its economic implications. During the passage of the Climate Change Act in 2008, which commits Britain to cutting net carbon emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050, the energy minister Phil Woolas rejected his own department’s estimate that the costs could exceed the benefits by £95?billion. The House of Commons never debated the costs and the Bill was passed, with only five MPs voting against.

An even more egregious example is provided by Ed Miliband, when he was climate change secretary. The Tory MP Peter Lilley had written to Mr Miliband to say that, based on his department’s own impact statement, the Climate Change Act would cost households an average of between £16,000 and £20,000. The future Labour leader replied that the statement showed that the benefits to British society of successful action on climate change would be far higher than the cost. Mr Miliband should have known this was untrue; if he didn’t, he had no business certifying that he’d read the impact statement, which he’d signed just six weeks earlier. The statement only estimated the benefits of slightly cooler temperatures for the world as a whole, not for the UK.

Peter C Glover skriver i Energy Tribune

Take California. Already bankrupt the state’s rush to green energy has prioritized wind and solar projects. But reports now make it clear that green energy’s unreliability is likely to see the lights go out in California by as early as later this year. Worse still new research suggests scientists generally have over-estimated the generation of power by wind farms. And yet another “devastating blow for the wind industry” is presaged in an upcoming report. According to a finding made by Scottish-government-funded researchers – Scotland is another key front-runner in the wind development stakes – thousands of existing UK wind turbines create more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.  Then there’s the increasing unacceptability – to environmentalists! – of the impact of giant wind farm footprints.

And just for good measure Germany, yet another global front-runner in the green energy stakes, has been warned the country’s transition to more wind and solar renewable energy will cost the nation, already reeling from the high cost of green energy subsidies, a cool 1 trillion euros ($1.34 trillion). With a record 600,000 Germans now threatened by fuel poverty it is not surprising that German politicians are taking the political problems created by greater green energy-dependency more seriously.

The green energy agenda is fast rising to the top of the political agenda – but, as we have seen, hardly for the reasons eco-warriors and BBC and NYT editors might like. It can only continue its inexorable rise because of two influential factors. First, facts and real science data are simply swamping the alarmist core messages. Second, as the most comprehensive study conducted recently reveals, futuristic climate issues rank nowhere in the average voters list of concerns.

In February, green policies were singularly responsible for bringing down the Bulgarian Government. It was a watershed political moment.  Even the BBC and the NYT reported it. Not that either managed to identify the link between the government’s green subsidies policy and rocketing electricity prices that brought violent protests to the streets for the first time. Too much like real journalism.

Hver gang Mail skriver om virkeligheden giver det dønninger og udhuler den illusion af enighed og ubetvivlelighed, der så længe har holdt debatten og de kritiske spørgsmål i ave. Der vil komme et tidspunkt, hvor en journalist  i lyset af den manglende opvarmning drister sig til at spørge klimaministeren, hvad han egentlig laver. Det er en gigantisk ‘komisk Ali’, der venter de, der tør at være først.

Der kommer en tid efter denne, en tid, hvor regnskabet skal gøres op og ansvaret placeres. Nej, ingen tale om Nürnberg processer, som venstrefløjen har haft travlt med at true alle de kættere der nu for stadigt flere viser sig at have haft ret hele tiden. Men vi må spørge os selv om, hvorledes vi kunne tage så meget fejl mens fakta skreg os ind hovedet hvorledes vi kunne dyrke en religiøs besættelse efter så skødesløst at have forkastet Gud (ja, jeg er meget glad for det Chesterton citat).

Tiden er ikke til klimaet

Diverse — Drokles on March 15, 2013 at 5:45 pm

Alan Caruba skriver om tegn på at klimainteressen er døende

Fewer and fewer people care about the apocalyptic claims and outright lies of the environmental movement these days. The end of the world is nowhere in sight unless a stray asteroid is headed our way and, after some seventeen years of a natural cooling cycle, it’s hard to convince people that global warming is a problem.

In January The New York Times that has printed every global warming lie it could since the late 1980s shut down its “environmental desk” and reassigned its editors and reporters to other tasks. On March 1 it announced it was discontinuing the “Green Blog”, leaving only Andrew C. Revkin to rave on at “Dot Earth.”

Så hut jeg hvisker havde både Information, Danmarks Radio og Politiken for et par år siden hver deres klimaredaktion. Og de havde hver deres lille klimaredaktør til at passe redaktionen, et arbejde der ikke bestod i andet end at videreformidle klimapanelets advarsler og forskellige rødgrønne pengemaskiners dommedagsprofetier. Men nu ser det tomt ud. Informations nye web layout ser slet ikke ud til at have redaktioner og hos Politiken endte min søgning her

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-15-kl-160054

Intet i sektionerne og de aktuelle emner omfatter OL i London, Roskilde Festival og det amerikanske præsidentvalg. Så aktuelt er klimaet altså ikke. Jeg kunne heller ikke se noget hos Danmarks Radio og så, hvad de havde under bogstavet ‘K’ for ‘k’lima

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-15-kl-160205

Kaj og Andrea, Kender du typen og kriminalitet. Men intet særskilt om klimaet. Konklusionen er at de eneste der har den mindste interesse i klimaet er alle os, der tror det er noget pis.

Vinkeljernet

Diverse — Drokles on March 13, 2013 at 7:46 pm

Der er en ny graf i byen. Det er en graf der skal overbevise befolkningen om det snarlige klimakollaps. Og alle er glade for den

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-13-kl-175053

Fra National Journal

Back in 1999 Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann released the climate change movement’s most potent symbol: The “hockey stick,” a line graph of global temperature over the last 1,500 years that shows an unmistakable, massive uptick in the twentieth century when humans began to dump large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It’s among the most compelling bits of proof out there that human beings are behind global warming, and as such has become a target on Mann’s back for climate denialists looking to draw a bead on scientists.

Now it’s gotten a makeover: A study published in Science reconstructs global temperatures further back than ever before — a full 11,300 years. The new analysis finds that the only problem with Mann’s hockey stick was that its handle was about 9,000 years too short.

To be clear, the study finds that temperatures in about a fifth of this historical period were higher than they are today. But the key, said lead author Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University, is that temperatures are shooting through the roof faster than we’ve ever seen.

Shaun Marcott fra Oregon State University - der betragter skeptikere som en “fully-mobilized troll army” (takker) - blev derefter overhalet indenom af Joe Romm, der var hurtig til at sexe grafen lidt op til, hvad man vel kan kalde vinkeljernsgrafen

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-12-kl-130221

Marcott uddyber

Today’s study should help debunk the common climate change denial argument that recent warming is simply part of a long-term natural trend. Indeed, Marcott says, the earth should be nearing the bottom of a several-thousand year cool-off (the end-point of the rainbow arc in (B) above), if natural factors like solar variability were the sole driving factors. Instead, temperatures are rising rapidly.

At denne graf vækker opsigt er naturligt, men at den tages for gode varer er - eller burde være - mere besynderligt for den strider imod det fineste i denne post videnskabelige tid, nemlig det gængse konsensus. Men fordi den strider imod gængs konsensus ved at overdrive de allerede overdrevne fremtidsscenarier tages den for gode varer.

Professor Phil Jones, der producerer temperaturkurver for FN, fortalte i 2009 i et interview med BBC at der været tre varmeperioder på 20-30 års varighed adskildt af mindre fald i temperaturen på ca. 30 år. Og kun den sidste er skabt af menneskets udledning af CO2 (hvilket man jo aldrig ville have gættet af at se på tallene alene)

A - Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.

Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).

I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.

So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

Here are the trends and significances for each period:

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-12-kl-194526

Jones fortalte også at opvarmningen ‘holdt en pause’

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Intet drama andet end hvad teorien fortæller uanfægtet af virkeligheden. Judith Curry er da heller ikke imponeret og det nye vinkeljern af en graf.

There doesn’t seem to be anything really new here in terms of our understanding of the Holocene.  Mike’s Nature trick seems to be now a standard practice in paleo reconstructions.  I personally don’t see how this analysis says anything convincing about climate variability on the time scale of a century.

Rud Istvan skriver for Judith Curry

While the MWP did not completely disappear in this new paper, it turned into a <0.1°C blip colder than 1961- 1990. This is quite curious. The MWP was not a blip for the entire northern hemisphere, as illustrated by this figure adapted from a 2010 paper by Ljungvist.

Evaluate a 300-year MWP using methods lacking 300 year resolution and voila! The MWP turns into a blip diminished by the colder periods on each side.

Ljungqvist 2010

A reference list compiled by CO2Science shows that there are at least 96 proxy studies of Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Aus/NZ with quantitative estimates of MWP temperatures, plus 109 more with qualitative estimates, and an additional 116 providing evidence that it was a significant, centuries long event that came and went fairly suddenly.

How has the MWP almost disappeared again, just in time to perhaps go missing in IPCC AR5? Science’ supplemental information says the average resolution of the 73 paleoclimate series is 160 years, and the median is 120. The proxy selection was deliberately weighted toward ‘low frequency’ resolution, since the entire Holocene was being assessed. Figure S18c  (below) shows there is no statistically valid resolution to the combined proxy set for anything less than 300-year periods.  [“Gain” was defined as the ratio of output variance to input white noise in simulations ‘stressing’ combined proxy statistical reliability. In other words, for periods less than three hundred years, white noise in is white noise out (no matter whether the Monte Carlo sampling interval is 20 or 120 years) while for periods over 2000 years the output is about 90% ‘valid’ signal.] The paper itself said, “…our temperature stack does not fully resolve variability at periods shorter than 2000 years…”

Marcott resolution S18(c)

Evaluate a 300-year MWP using methods lacking 300 year resolution and voila! The MWP turns into a blip diminished by the colder periods on each side.

Suyts Space’s Hank spørger “why are alarmists so excited?”

Remember “Mike’s Nature Trick?” Marcott has a trick of his own. Take a look at this:

clip_image010

The above was excerpted from Marcott’s study. Note that he’s calling attention to the break in the Y-axis at 25. You can see it as a white vertical line in the lower left legend. Notice also that Marcott is attributing the break to the Mann et al. dataset.

This new 73 proxy study has alarmists convinced that this is an independent verification and vindication of Mann’s hockey stick. It isn’t. The hockey stick blade at the end of the reconstruction is resulting from an adjustment of the proxy data to agree with Mann’s treemometer study. That, or it is an outright splice of Mann’s data directly.

Don Easterbrook aner også uråd.

Eighty percent of the source data sites were marine, so temperatures from 80% of the data set used in this paper record ocean water temperatures, not atmospheric temperatures. Thus, they may reflect temperature changes from ocean upwelling, changes in ocean currents, or any one of a number of ocean variations not related to atmospheric climates. This in itself means that the Marcott et al. temperatures are not a reliable measure of changing atmospheric climate.

The paper consists entirely of complicated computer manipulations of data (definitely not light reading for anyone but computer modelers) and conclusions. As Andy Revkin (Dot Earth) points out, This work is complicated, involving lots of statistical methods in extrapolating from scattered sites to a global picture, which means that there’s abundant uncertainty.”

Without any original data to assess, how can we evaluate the validity of the conclusions? The only way is to check the conclusions against well-established data from other sources. As Richard Feynman eloquently described the scientific method, once hypotheses (conclusions) are set out, their consequences can be checked against experiments or observations. If a hypothesis (conclusion) disagrees with observations or experiments, it is wrong. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful the hypothesis (conclusion) is, how smart the author is, or what the author’s name is, if it disagrees with data, experiments, or observations, it is wrong. Period. So let us apply this method to the conclusions of this paper and test them to see if they are right or wrong.

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-13-kl-165901

Det esoteriske anstrøg ved klimakonsortiet behager heller ikke en anden af videnskabens veteraner, Dr. Fred Singer i American Thinker

The original hockey stick, first published in 1998, explained carefully that the modern instrumental (thermometer) record had been grafted onto a centuries-long proxy (non-thermometer) record; the OSU paper neglects to inform the reader about this important fact.

As a reviewer of IPCC reports, I well remember efforts to hide the mixing of proxy and thermometer data: IPCC’s 3rd Assessment report (2001) showed the proxy temperature record with a black line and the 20th century temperatures with a blue line.  I complained that these were very hard to distinguish — especially in a black-and-white Xerox copy.  Since then, the IPCC and everyone else have used a distinctive red color for the instrumental data.  That kind of distinction, however, is missing in the present OSU-Harvard paper.

To use a current analogy: it’s like putting horsemeat into Swedish meatballs that advertise beef.  In the case of the meatballs, the DNA evidence betrayed the addition of horsemeat.  Here it is the fact that one sees sharp temperature changes at the end of the record — despite the authors’ statement that they have used a 100-year smoothing of the raw data.  With long smoothing times like a century, one cannot expect to see temperature spikes that may only be a decade long.

So what did they really do?  I suspect that the paper is a rehash of Marcott’s doctor’s thesis.  He too is a newly minted PhD (in 2011), lucky enough to get Hockeystick #2 not only published, but internationally promoted — It’s all based on analyses of 73 samples of deep-ocean sediments, corals, shells, etc.  Nothing really new here: In 1996 Lloyd Keigwin (of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) published such an analysis in Science.  He found that it was warmer 1000 years ago (during the Medieval Warm Period) - and much warmer 3000 years ago and earlier.

Christopher Booker morer sig i Telegraph over en anden graf, som gør op med de dramatiske temperaturkurver, som vi ellers bombarderes med.

These have the effect of greatly exaggerating those changes, by narrowly focusing just on what are called temperature “anomalies”, showing how they have risen and fallen round their average level in the past 30-odd years.

What the graphs do not show is the actual level of global temperature, as it is measured above freezing point. In other words, they leave out by far the greater part of the total picture. So the respected Canadian environmental writer, Lawrence Solomon, recently had the bright idea of publishing in his Financial Post newspaper column a graph showing the temperature changes of the past 15 years in proper perspective, using figures from the most prestigious of all official temperature records, compiled by the UK Met Office and its Hadley Centre.

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-13-kl-1158201

Ved at vise de seneste 15 års globale temperaturudvikling i forhold til frysepunktet giver han et billede af, hvorledes vi som mennsker, sammen med dyr og planter oplever den globale opvarmning, nemlig at den oplever vi ikke.

Sådan lever amerikanerne

Diverse — Drokles on March 13, 2013 at 7:25 pm

En ekstrem dokumentar

Diverse — Drokles on March 12, 2013 at 5:17 pm

Danmarks Radios dokumentar Et Ekstremt Netværk

Grådige løgnagtige svin

Diverse — Drokles on March 12, 2013 at 11:04 am

Filmen “Greedy Lying Bastards,” af Craig Scott Rosebraugh handler og de grådige løgnagtige svin “who have fought, stalled and misdirected the international conversation about this dire subject for decades.”. Det alvorlige problem er klimaforandringerne, som Rosebraugh fortæller Zap 2 It

“Climate change is already with us,” Rosebraugh narrates over a montage of very recent natural disasters, from floods to droughts, wildfires to hurricanes. “We knew decades ago” that this was coming, he adds. And to make his point, he shows a very young actor Darren McGavin converse with a scientist in a 1950s educational film, shaken by descriptions of “the drowned towers of Miami.”

Rosebraugh’s film is about why no action has been taken, and it names names — discredited scientists, oil industry shills and out-and-out clowns (e.g. Lord Christopher Monckton), the people the climate change-denying corners of the media trot out to cast doubt and delay action on the warming planet.

We visit Kivalina, Alaska, an island village suing Exxon-Mobil and other big oil companies for the rising sea levels that are washing it away. Tuvalu, the South Pacific’s poster-nation for rising sea levels, has its say. But we’re also treated to wildfire victims who have lost their homes in Colorado.

And then the filmmaker gets after the usual suspects. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, who finance tea party politicians and cloaked “grassroots” lobbying groups like Americans for Prosperity, take their seat next to assorted un-credentialed paid spokespeople such as Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and ex-convict “Dr.” Jay Lehr of The Heartland Institute.

Og det er et budskab, som er populært - hos nogle

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-12-kl-095238

En kvalitet jeg forventer mig af filmen er at jeg ikke belastes med ambivalens

Muslimsk TV debat

Diverse — Drokles on March 12, 2013 at 8:51 am

Til min ven Niels fra Memri

Moderator: “If a woman abides by all the laws of the shari’a, in terms of the dress code, conduct, and everything – would you accept her as president of the country?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “No.”

Moderator: “Why not?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “Because the Prophet said: ‘A nation headed by a woman will never succeed.’ The Prophet Muhammad warned against it. We abide by the texts of the shari’a.

“Nor will I accept a Christian president for Egypt.”

[…]

Moderator: “Do you demand to impose the jizya poll tax on Christian Egyptians?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “I demand the implementation of the shari’a.”

Moderator: “I was asking specifically about the jizya…”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “If Christians knew what the jizya means, they would demand it themselves.”

Moderator: “What is the meaning of the jizya?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “If the shari’a were implemented as a whole, the Christians would be the happiest of all.

[…]

“Brother, you should learn something. Shaving your beard diminishes your masculinity, according to Islam.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Of course, the entire problem boils down to a little bit of hair.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “You’d better fear Allah. All four imams agreed on this.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Are you sure about that?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “You know nothing about the shari’a. You want the Islam of America and Europe.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Yes, Islam exists in America and in Europe.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “You want the Islam that Europe and America want. An Islam with no bite…”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Actually, Islam with no beards…”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “What you want is an Islam that prostrates itself before the Zio-Western, Anglo-Torah ideology, my friend.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “I’m not your friend.”

[…]

Mahmoud Shaaban: “Brother, have some fear of Allah. Stop leading people astray.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Is it me who is leading them astray?! You haven’t said one word of truth so far.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “You don’t know what truth means.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “You said Christians are infidels. Where did you get this from?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “It’s in the Koran.

[…]

“Egypt is a Muslim country and will never be anything else.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “It is Muslim despite you, not because of you. You are scaring Islam away from it.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “You’d better behave yourself, or I will show you the sharpness of my tongue. I’m restraining myself as much as I can.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Do you want to have a duel? You think I don’t have a tongue myself?”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “You deserve it. You don’t stand a chance against me.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “When we’re off the air, I will teach you a lesson.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “By Allah, behave yourself. I will give you a taste of my shoe.”

Shaaban bends to remove his shoe

Islam Al-Buheiri: “Oh yeah? I will wipe the floor with you.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “I will give you a taste of my shoe.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “This is the moral level you stoop to. I’m glad you’re doing this for everyone to see.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “Behave yourself!”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “I will teach you and all you people how to behave! Grabbing your shoe? Well done, I’m very pleased.”

Moderator tries to restrain Mahmoud Shaaban and calm him down

Moderator: “I implore you… Please…”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “Don’t you see what he’s doing? Ask me a question, and I will answer.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “I got from him everything I needed. I am very pleased.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “I’ve said nothing but the truth, and I will not apologize for it.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “You’re done for, Sheik Mahmoud.”

Mahmoud Shaaban: “Behave yourself. I will not keep silent.”

Islam Al-Buheiri: “When we’re off the air, I’ll show you my own shoe. I don’t want people to see this. I promise you that once we’re off the air, I’ll teach you a new kind of defeat.”

[…]

Muslimer, de kommer aldrig op ad hængedyndet. Tankens himmelflugt, det er ikke for dem.

Porno skal forbydes, hvis det står til EU

Diverse — Drokles on March 11, 2013 at 9:08 am

Som ejer af pornowebsitet ‘Backfish.org’ er jeg bestyrtet over EU’s fortsatte indskrænkning af frihedens glæder, som man kan læse det i Politiken. Og hvad vil de egentlig forbyde? At folk ‘oploader’ film på nettet af dem selv, mens de boller?

ADVARSEL! Man løber en risiko for virusangreb ved at sætte filmen herunder igang.

NB: Best research ever!

Skræmmende

Diverse — Drokles on March 10, 2013 at 11:08 am

Mens troen på menneskeskabt global opvarmning falder sammen under vægten af virkeligheden opruster alarmisterne propagandaen. I Jyllands-Posten kunne man på en overskrift læse at at Jorden har “Den højeste temperatur i 11.300 år“, et udsagn der virkelig går imod konsensus. Anledningen er udledningen af CO2, der ”fungere[r] som et termotæppe om jorden“. Ikke bare et almindeligt tæppe, men et termotæppe. Uha

Undersøgelsens klimamodel forudser, at den globale temperatur vil være steget med 1,1 grad til 6,3 grader i slutningen af dette århundrede.

Men, hvis man læser CNNs dækning, er det måske ikke så slemt alligevel

The Earth was very cold at the turn of the 20th century. The decade from 1900 to 1909 was colder than 95% of the last 11,300 years, the study found.

Fast forward to the turn of the 21st century, and the opposite occurs. Between 2000 and 2009, it was hotter than about 75% of the last 11,300 years.

If not for man-made influences, the Earth would be in a very cold phase right now and getting even colder, according the joint study by Oregon State University and Harvard University. Marcott was the lead author of the report on its results.

Vi har faktisk forhindret en ny istid ved almen driftighed og søndagsbilisme. Og hvem vil ikke hellere have palmer i kolonihaven end en gletcher? Den slags ævl er selvfølgelig et forsøg på at rykke målstolperne. CO2 effekten er udeblevet de seneste 17 år og temperaturen opfattes generelt som behagelig, så derfor omskriver man historien og projicerer effekten gennem en computermodel og viola; en ny ishockeystavgraf.

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-03-10-kl-083252

Men det er grelt, for socialdemokraternes vælgerbase er truet fortæller Rockefeller Foundation

The world must transition to a low-carbon growth model to meet the climate challenge. This paradigm shift can only take place if women, half of the world’s population, are fully empowered to contribute to the solution.

The issue of gender in climate change may sound general, but it represents repeated, heartbreaking experiences and observations— from development to disaster management around the globe. Climate change vulnerability has a woman’s face.

Particularly in developing countries, women are disproportionately impacted by climate change, as they stand at the core of the water, food and energy nexus. In addition, due to continuing gender imbalances, women are likely to be worse affected by natural disasters. For instance, a recent report found that women accounted for 80% of fatalities from the Asian tsunami in 2004.

Og Socialistisk Folkeparti’s vælgerbase står overfor masseudryddelse fortæller Science Daily

Globally it has been observed that lizards with viviparous reproduction (retention of embryos within the mother’s body) are being threatened by changing weather patterns. A new study suggests that the evolution of this mode of reproduction, which is thought to be a key successful adaptation, could, in fact, be the species’ downfall under global warming.

Masseskræmning er den mest udbredte taktik, men man kan også præcisionsskræmme, som Inside Climate News rapporterer

Two advocacy groups have come up with a new tactic to show how climate change—and laws to deal with it—could make investments in fossil fuel companies riskier and rock financial markets.

Og løsningen er at skræmme investorerne ved at præsentere dem for økonomiske computermodeller der fortæller hvor meget de kommer til at tabe når fossile brændstoffer enten forbydes eller brandskattes yderligere.

The carbon bubble concept is relatively new, born out of a recent scientific paper that has united climate change activists and some in the financial community in a common pursuit: to rethink the value of investments in coal, oil and gas.

The paper, published in 2009 in Nature, said that at current rates of fossil fuel burning, the world could face catastrophic warming in as soon as a dozen years. The finding triggered international attention, because the values of energy companies—which represent a significant portion of stock traded in financial markets—are pegged to future earnings from selling fuels that may have to stay underground.

According to a recent report by banking giant HSBC, major firms like BP, Shell and Statoil could lose up to 60 percent of their market values if countries get tough on carbon.

Shareholder activists often use shareholder votes to challenge fossil fuel companies on climate change issues, but this is the first time social investment groups filed carbon bubble resolutions.

They represent a “new and powerful way” of pressuring firms to act on global warming, said Dan Bakal, director of electric power programs at Ceres, a coalition of sustainability focused investors with $11 trillion in assets. “I think it’s likely that more investors will get involved in this kind of activity.”

Og endelig kan man jo altid sikre fremtiden og skræmme børnene, som Inside Climate News sorgløst fortæller

New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month, potentially ending an era in which climate skepticism has been allowed to seep into the nation’s classrooms.

The Next Generation Science Standards were developed by the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nonprofit Achieve and more than two dozen states. The latest draft recommends that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that “human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming),” the standards say.

Men vær ikke bange kære læser (ental er tilsigtet): Stigningen i den slags skræmmebilleder vendt mod den befolkningen er naturlige menneskeskabte udsving op til udgivelsen af en af FN’s klimarapporter.

Præst “finder mere fællesgods mellem islam og kristendom end divergenser”

Godheds-industrien, Historie, Multikultur, Politiken, islam — Drokles on March 9, 2013 at 11:46 am

Pastor Emeritus John W. Hørbo, skriver så glimrende om Folkekirkepræstens rolle som forkynder i Jyllands-Posten

Den danske folkekirke er som evangelisk-luthersk kirke forpligtet til at udøve islamkritik. Det står i den augsburgske bekendelse, som enhver præst, der er ansat i folkekirken, har skrevet under på.

(…)

Det står i bekendelsen, at islam skal fordømmes, fordi islam benægter sandheden i den kristne gudsopfattelse, som går ud på, at Gud møder vi som den treenige Gud. Det er det allerførste, der møder læseren af bekendelsesskriftet

Hvorledes skal en sådan fordømmelse af islam foregå? Det kan ske i søndagens prædiken. Det kan ske i foredragsform, det kan ske i det lokale kirkeblad, det kan ske i konfirmandundervisningen, ja, alle de steder, hvor præsten skal udlægge og forklare, hvad der er kristendom.

(…)

Der er tale om en rent kirkelig og teologisk selvbesindelse på, hvori kristendommen adskiller sig fra islam, og i hvilken forstand islam bør fordømmes som usand gudstro. Det er hver enkelt præst samvittighedsmæssigt forpligtet til at skulle formulere.

(…)

Det er en sag inden for kirkens rammer. Her siger vi til hinanden, at det, som islam hævder, er løgn.

Vi besinder os naturligvis altid på den dybe modsætning mellem enhver lovreligion og så det kristne evangelium, som indeholder et radikalt ophør med al lovreligion, som må opfattes som det rene blasfemi.

Folkekirkens islamkritik skal formuleres som en besindelse på den kristne tros særkende.

Det er i den augsburgske bekendelses ånd at forholde sig således.

Det glæder en at blive mindet om at der engang fandtes fornuftige stemmer i Folkekirken. Men minder er det kun for hurtigt bliver man revet tilbage til den rå virkelighed. Præsten Svend Løbner - der er vokset op i Tanzania og typen der bruger  suffixet “verdensreligionen” om islam - er nemlig ked af at ”Søren Espersen kaster alle nuancer over bord” og ”har opgivet at skelne mellem islam som religion og islamisme som politisk system“, og skriver som svar i Politiken fortæller hvorledes hans ”far byggede flere hundrede kirker de næste 12 år“. Men “de egentlige bygmestre? Det var muslimske ’fundier’ (fundi betyder ’dygtig’ på swahili). De havde intet imod at bygge gudshuse for de kristne.“. Djævlen findes jo i detaljen. At han selv finder det bemærkelsesværdigt at en håndværkerstand (det er ikke kun muslimer, der er fundier i Tanzania) ikke modsætter sig en byggekontrakt bekræfter mere Søren Espersens overordnede pointer, frem for at nuancere. Folk, som Løbner, der bruger suffix’et ‘verdensreligion’ om islam, undrer sig aldrig over, hvorfor de altid anser det som et mirakel at kunne pege på muslimer, der falder i et med tapetet.

For nogle år siden havde jeg den glæde at formidle penge fra en fond til min barndoms landsby, der netop da gennemlevede tørke og sult. De lokale missionærer uddelte nødforsyninger til både muslimer, kristne og alle andre.

Hjælpen reddede lokalbefolkningen gennem krisen, og muslimerne inviterede alle kristne til en stor takkefest.

Her rejste imamen sig op og holdt en lang takketale til missionæren, fordi han så rundhåndet havde hjulpet dem, og imamen lovede missionæren 70 skønne jomfruer med øjne som ædelstene i Paradis.

Missionæren var rørt – for han vidste, at det for muslimer er den ypperste belønning fra Gud. Her blev han, en kristen missionær, inkluderet i et univers, som kun er forbeholdt de mest hengivne muslimer.

Med mindre imamen ikke kender sin koran har Løbner sikkert ikke hørt helt efter, hvad imamen sagde. Løftet om jomfruerne i himlem er nemlig ikke et imamen kan udstede efter forgodt befindende på Allahs vegne, blot fordi nogle kristne har betalt Jizya. Den muslimske himmel består nemlig kun af muslimer og det siger derfor sig selv at man ikke blot kan slippe en masse vantro ind ofor at sperme i de renes evigt rene skeder, blot fordi de har runddelt frysetørret gullash og varme tæpper. Forudsætningen er altså at man konverterer til islam.

Løbner har lagt det samme indlæg ud på sin blog, blot med enkelte tilføjelser som denne

Tanzania er et demokratisk land, der på forbilledlig vis har holdt sammen på landets 120 stammer siden selvstændigheden i 1961. Præsidentposten går nu på skift mellem en kristen og en muslim med den eneste regel, at vicepræsidenten skal være af modsat observans.

Uden at kend forholdende i Tanzania nøjere, så er ligner denne ordning en fredsløsning. En af mine gode venner kender derimod til Tanzania så jeg ringede til ham. Over telefonen indvendte min ven at når Løbner videre skriver at muslimerne udgør 45% af befolkningen er det måske en slåfejl, for ifølge Wikipedia udgør de 35%. Alt godt en 1/3 af befolkning, der har forhånd´skrav på halvdelen af magten. Eller det vil sige; de udgjorde 35% af befolkningen i 1967, som er sidste gang man har turdet holde mandtal for at undgå “…rivalries between the various religious groups by not identifying the majority“, som Wikipedia diskret formulerer sig. Før de kristne koloniherrers tid var Tanzania nemlig jagtmark for arabiske slavejægere, som blev solgt fra sultanatet Zanzibar. I 1964 udfoldede et mindre blodbad sig i Zanzibar da negrene rejste sig mod deres arabiske undertrykkere. Freddie Mercury flygtede med sine forældre til England i samme anledning og op gennem 70erne blev omkring 50.000 syd-asiater presset ud af landet. Langt de fleste søgte til England, hvor en stor del af de “asians” der lever der idag kommer fra østafrika.

Alt det vidste jeg ikke, men jeg anede jo nok fra Løbners egne undladelser og skønskrivninger at Løbner dækkede over en mere grusom virkelighed end det paradisiske skønmaleri af multikulti han præsenterer Politikens ukritiske læsere for. Og dog, enkelte læsere er kritiske for en af dem henviste straks til en episode fra sidste år, hvor muslimer ikke var helt tilfredse med det kirkebyggeri Løbners fars fundier havde efterladt. Fra Assist News Service

According to Morning Star News, Islamists burned several church buildings in various parts of Tanzania this week after two children’s argument about the Koran resulted in a Christian boy allegedly defiling Islam’s sacred book.

The attacks took place in the normally peaceful country from its western border to its semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. In Kigoma, on the western border, two church buildings were set ablaze on Sunday (Oct. 14), and the roof of another one was destroyed; on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean some 25 kilometers (16 miles) off the Tanzanian coast, Muslim extremists on Saturday (Oct. 13) demolished a building belonging to the Evangelical Assemblies of God-Tanzania in Fuoni, near Zanzibar City; and in Dar es Salaam on the mainland, where two boys’ argument over the Koran set off the violence, three church buildings were set on fire on Friday (Oct. 12), and another was destroyed yesterday, sources told Morning Star News.

Som kristen præst” vil Løbner “ikke finde [sig] i” at “Espersen stiller kristne op imod muslimer” da det er at slå “religionen islam i hartkorn med islamisternes rigide fortolkning” for Løbner…

…har selv læst Koranen igennem og finder mere fællesgods mellem islam og kristendom end divergenser. For ja, der er ting, der adskiller. Men skellene er ikke uoverstigelige – som min barndom i det multireligiøse Tanzania illustrerer.

Løbner har nok overset, det Pastor Emeritus John W. Hørbo kaldte ”den dybe modsætning mellem enhver lovreligion og så det kristne evangelium, som indeholder et radikalt ophør med al lovreligion, som må opfattes som det rene blasfemi“. Islam og kristendommen er kun enige om at være hinanden udelukkende.

Groovy Hitler

Diverse — Drokles on March 8, 2013 at 11:55 pm

Et konsensus vakler

Diverse — Drokles on March 5, 2013 at 7:40 am

Independent skriver om Globescan’s undersøgelse af at den globale bekymring for klimaforandringer er for stærkt aftagende. Det har medført proportionalt stigende bekymring blandt alarmister, som ser deres levebrød truet. De bebrejder manglende politisk lederskab for den svindende interesse

David Nussbaum, head of WWF UK, said “sustained pressure” was required from political leaders to combat climate change. He said it was only when “real indicators” of climate change came, such as floods and droughts, that public perceptions changed.

He told The Independent: “Of course people’s concerns about climate change changed in 2009 when economic pressures were rising… [But] the problems haven’t gone away… There are longer-term concerns that may not seem imminent that are extremely serious. A skilled political leader has got to grapple with how you act and respond to the immediate pressure people feel while helping [to take] account of the wider concerns and interests.”

Campaigners said the “perceived seriousness” of climate change had also fallen sharply since the unsuccessful UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. The summit ended in what was described as “confusion, disagreement and disarray” as political leaders failed to agree a legally binding deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Graham Thompson, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said: “The public can see that the response of our politicians is completely inadequate to the threat scientists have revealed, and that dissonance is reflected in these polls.”

Doug Miller, chairman of GlobeScan, said: “Evidence of environmental damage is stronger than ever, but our data shows that economic crisis and a lack of political leadership mean that the public are starting to tune out.”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change reiterated the view of Ed Davey, Climate Change Secretary, that “the basic physics of climate change is irrefutable”.

At beviserne for en snarlig klimakatastrofe er “stronger than ever” og at “the basic physics of climate change is irrefutable” er der nu mere end delte meninger om. Siden det blev officielt at atmosfærens temperatur ikke er steget i 17 år er bekymrede alarmistforskere begyndt at indrømme deres manglende fuldkommenhed. E&E Publishing

If you look at the last decade of global temperature, it’s not increasing,” Barnes said. “There’s a lot of scatter to it. But the [climate] models go up. And that has to be explained. Why didn’t we warm up?”

The question itself, while simple sounding, is loaded. By any measure, the decade from 2000 to 2010 was the warmest in modern history. However, 1998 remains the single warmest year on record, though by some accounts last year tied its heat. Temperatures following 1998 stayed relatively flat for 10 years, with the heat in 2008 about equaling temperatures at the decade’s start. The warming, as scientists say, went on “hiatus.”

The hiatus was not unexpected. Variability in the climate can suppress rising temperatures temporarily, though before this decade scientists were uncertain how long such pauses could last. In any case, one decade is not long enough to say anything about human effects on climate; as one forthcoming paper lays out, 17 years is required.

(…)

….for others, this simple answer was a failure. If scientists were going to attribute the stall to natural variability, they faced a burden to explain, in a precise way, how this variation worked. Without evidence, their statements were no better than the unsubstantiated theories circulated by climate skeptics on the Internet.

“It has always bothered me,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Natural variability is not a cause. One has to say what aspect of natural variability.”

(…)

“What’s really been exciting to me about this last 10-year period is that it has made people think about decadal variability much more carefully than they probably have before,” said Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist and former lead author of the United Nations’ climate change report, during a recent visit to MIT. “And that’s all good. There is no silver bullet. In this case, it’s four pieces or five pieces of silver buckshot.” [fortsætter Trenberth]

(…)

Indeed, the most important outcome from the energy hunt may be that researchers are chronically underestimating air pollution’s reflective effect, said NASA’s James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Recent data has forced him to revise his views on how much of the sun’s energy is stored in the oceans, committing the planet to warming. Instead, he says, air pollution from fossil fuel burning, directly and indirectly, has been masking greenhouse warming more than anyone knew.

It is a “Faustian bargain,” he said, and a deal that will come due sooner than assumed.

(…)

Researchers have long argued that using 1998 as a starting point was, then, unfair.

“Climate scientists were right that it was a cherry-picked observation, starting with an El Niño and ending with a La Niña,” said Robert Kaufmann, a geographer at Boston University who recently studied the hiatus period.

The temperature spike of 1998 was not just about El Niño, though; it was also enabled by an absence in the air. From the 1950s to the late 1970s, it is now widely agreed that the smog and particles from fossil fuel burning, by reflecting some of the sun’s light back into space, masked any heating that would be felt from increased greenhouse gases. As clean air laws began to pass in the United States and Europe, this pollution began to disappear in the 1990s, a process known as “global brightening.”

(…)

“We make a mistake, anytime the temperature goes up, you imply this is due to global warming,” he said. “If you make a big deal about every time it goes up, it seems like you should make a big deal about every time it goes down.”

For a decade, that’s exactly what happened. Skeptics made exaggerated claims about “global cooling,” pointing to 1998. (For one representative example, two years ago columnist George Will referred to 1998 as warming’s “apogee.”) Scientists had to play defense, said Ben Santer, a climate modeler at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“This no-warming-since-1998 discussion has prompted people to think about the why and try to understand the why,” Santer said. “But it’s also prompted people to correct these incorrect claims.”

Even without skeptics, though, the work explaining the hiatus, and especially refining the planet’s energy imbalance, would have happened, NASA’s Hansen added.

It was in no “way affected by the nonsensical statements of contrarians,” Hansen said. “These are fundamental matters that the science has always been focused on. The problem has been the absence of [scientific] observations.”

(…)

Indeed, many of the scientists sorting out the warming hiatus disagree with one another — in a chummy, scholarly way. Judith Lean, the solar scientist, finds Kaufmann’s work unpersuasive and unnecessarily critical of China. Kaufmann finds Solomon’s stratosphere studies lacking in evidence. Hansen and Trenberth can’t agree on a budget.

It seems staggering, then, that in a few years’ time a new consensus will form for the next U.N. climate change report. But it will, and lurking beneath it will remain, as always, the churning theories and rivalries, the questions, the grist of scientific life.

So, in the end, can anyone say explicitly what caused the warming hiatus?

Kinesisk kul og oceanerne får skylden for enten at blokere for varmen eller opsuge den og centralt står computermodeller, der skal kompensere for manglende data. Grundlæggende holdes den sikre teori i live af de muligheder der stadig ligger i hvad man endnu ikke ved. Et langt stykke fra den skråsikkerhed der bruger udtryk som “unequivocal” og “irrefutable”. Det er blandt andet det, som får den tyske alarmist Hans von Storch til at beskylde sine allierede klimaforskere for “hype and ‘methodical failure’”. Selv om Storch langer ud efter skeptikerne for at være skyld i alarmisternes udmeldinger falder krabadsken hårdt

As the scientific community, we were just not prepared for the temperature not rising for a decade as CO2 concentrations rose. We had not thought enough about the possibility of falsification. [...] We concentrated too much on looking ahead and said: Great! Everything fits our explanation. For many colleagues asking questions was frowned upon because this ‘could provide the climate skeptics with ammo‘. And that is a methodical failure.”

Og mens der arbejdes på at få konsensus om bortforklaringerne så dannes der et andet videnskabeligt konsensus af tvivl, skriver Forbes

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

Og for de fleste forskere er det ligegyldigt, hvilket konsensus, der hersker, så længe det tjener ens karriere

“Muslimen er ude af stand til at tænke”

Diverse — Drokles on March 1, 2013 at 6:52 pm

Det ser slemt ud for Europa, med de mange muslimer der kommer væltende ind over grænsen og opfører sig muslimsk, uden at antyde hverken evnen eller viljen til at kunne lægge det fra sig. Men vi overser måske, hvor meget værre det ser ud for den islamiske verden. Ikke forstået ironisk, at de er fanget i at være den islamiske verden og leve som muslimer omgivet af andre muslimer. Men at islam er en døende uvane. Noget så sjældent som en begavet muslim analyserer den islamiske verdens idioti og kæder det så rigtigt og logisk sammen med den islamiske verdens problemer

David P Goldman, som også kalder sig Spengler, skrev forrige år bogen How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too) om den islamiske verdens dramatiske demografiske udvikling. Front Page Magazine

FP: Muslim leaders have perpetually boasted that they would defeat the West by numbers, and we are definitely witnessing the alarming growth of Muslim populations in Europe. Many Muslim males come to the West with four wives and have like 30 kids with them. Yet you are writing about a Muslim demographic winter. What are we missing? Has something changed?

Goldman: It’s true that the Muslim birthrate far exceeds the Western birthrate, but large parts of the Islamic world are catching up to the West’s demographic winter at startling speed. The Muslim world is passing from infancy to senility without going through adulthood. Muslim countries with a high literacy rate — Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia — have already fallen below replacement fertility. Islam is a religion of traditional society, where subsistence farmers have always had as many children as they could. The moment Muslims leave the traditional world — especially when girls get a high school education — their behavior changes radically. Most Iranians have six siblings, but will have one or two children.

Never has a national fertility rate dropped from 7 to 1.5 in a single generation.  Turks whose cradle-tongue is Turkish also have a fertility rate of only 1.5 — the same as Europe’s — while Kurds are having four to five children. That means the map of Turkey will be redrawn a generation from now. In Judea and Samaria, Arabs had eight children a generation ago. That’s fallen to three, the same as the Jewish fertility rate in Israel. As the modern world forces its way into traditional Muslim societies elsewhere, fertility continues to plunge. It tells us that Islam, as a religion, crashes and burns when it encounters the modern world. That’s not just a Muslim problem, I hasten to add. The same sudden collapse of fertility afflicted ethnocentric branches of Christianity, for example, Catholicism in Quebec.

Og i et essay i Quadrant Online om Goldman’s How Civilizations Die hedder det

Demographic decline is, of course, a dread future that has confronted the West for some time. As Mark Steyn observes in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006), Europe faces the “Four Horsemen of the Eurocalypse”:

Death—the demise of European races too self-absorbed to breed; Famine—the end of the lavishly-funded statist good times; War—the decline into bloody civil unrest that these economic and demographic factors will bring; and Conquest—the re-colonization of Europe by Islam.

However, the Muslim world faces a similar demographic calamity, as David Goldman explains in How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam is Dying Too) (2011). In his view the approaching disaster will indeed engulf Europe and other developed economies but then, after some decades, it will also devastate the Muslim world. The key difference will be that Europe possesses considerable economic, cultural and institutional resources to draw upon to alleviate the impact; Islam, on the other hand, will not be so fortunate, and when the blow comes, in the latter half of this century, it will devastate what remains of that civilisation.

This calamity, Goldman argues, betrays a terminal malady, a debilitating cultural despair—a nihilism—that is rapidly corroding the finely knit cultural and social fabric that sustains all civilisations—although, as the parenthetical subtitle suggests, he doubts that contemporary Islam actually constitutes a coherent civilisation. (Indeed, the image of a coherent and benign “Islam” that we are presented with in the West is largely a confection of public relations firms, compliant politicians and media, and academics funded by copious amounts of petro-dollars.) Nevertheless, Islam confronts a catastrophe that may easily dwarf that facing Europe and other advanced societies.

(…)

A similar situation confronts most of the Muslim world, which is shadowing the depopulation of the West but with about a half-century time-lag. As Goldman points out:

a good deal of the world seems to have lost the taste for life … The world’s population will fall by as much as a fifth between the middle and the end of the twenty-first century, by far the worst decline in human history.

While there has been recognition in the West that plummeting fertility will create enormous problems, especially in Europe where some countries have already passed the demographic point of no return, the fate facing the Muslim world is even bleaker.

Even though its population profile is presently much younger than the West, the fall in Muslim fertility rates is precipitant—indeed, it is “the fastest demographic decline ever registered in recorded history”, as Goldman notes. “World fertility has fallen by about two children per woman in the past half century [but] fertility in the Muslim world has fallen two or three times faster”, especially amongst Arab, Persian, Turkish, Malay and South Asian Muslims. For example, fertility in Iran has fallen phenomenally, by nearly six children per woman, closely followed by Turkey (by five), Egypt and Indonesia (four), and Pakistan (three).

(…)

The spectre of Eurabia, with the continent dominated by a Muslim majority by century’s end, has long haunted vigilant scholars and commentators, such as Bat Ye’or (Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, 2005); Tony Blankley (The West’s Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, 2005); Walter Laqueur, (The Last Days of Europe, 2007); and Christopher Caldwell (Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, 2009). According to these analyses, we are living through the self-extinction of the European civilisation that shaped the world we live in.

Caldwell points out that nearly 11 per cent of the European population was born overseas, most of whom are Muslims who are successfully resisting integration into their host societies. In Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011), Niall Ferguson observed:

if the Muslim population of the UK were to continue growing at an annual rate of 6.7 per cent (as it did between 2004 and 2008), its share of the total UK population would rise from just under 4 percent in 2008 … to 28 per cent in 2040, finally passing 50 per cent in 2050.

Various other demographic projections indicate that the Muslim communities in Italy and Sweden will more than double over the next twenty years; France will be an Islamic republic by 2048; Muslims will form a majority in Holland by 2030; and Germany will follow suit shortly after that. The late Libyan President Gaddafi boasted in 2006 that “the 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades”.

The threat of Eurabia, it now seems, is much closer than this vision of a stealthy takeover implies, as the Arab countries in North Africa and the Middle East slip further into crisis. In Goldman’s view:

we may not have the opportunity to observe at leisure how demographic trends in the Muslim world play out. The childless twenty-somethings of Islam’s Generation X do not have to wait another forty or fifty years until they face starvation upon retirement. They are hungry now.

Consequently, it is not a protracted process of demographic conquest that faces Europe in the near future but “inundation by Muslim refugees fleeing the chaos” unfolding in their homelands.

The 16 million people of Tunisia and Libya are already one source of increasingly desperate illegal immigrants as their nations disintegrate and fall under the domination of the Muslim Brotherhood or similar Islamist regimes. Egypt, however, has 82 million people and is also on the verge or political and economic collapse as the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist groups tighten their grip. As Goldman points out, this is a land where (according to World Health Organisation estimates) 97 per cent of married women have suffered genital mutilation, 40 per cent are functionally illiterate, and half the population lives on about $2 a day. It also has a dysfunctional political system, a corrupt military, a failing economy, a disappearing tourism industry, fleeing capital and shrinking foreign reserves, and needs to import half its wheat and other foodstuffs in volatile markets if its people are not to starve.

Unsurprisingly, Goldman foresees a catastrophe of “biblical proportions” unfolding in Egypt, sending a massive wave of refugees across the Mediterranean. “The simultaneous demographic decline of Europe and the adjacent Muslim countries may bring about mass starvation, political instability, and an unmanageable refugee crisis—and common ruin—before the end of the present century.”

Med fare for at ende i Danmarks Radios optrevling af farlige netværk og deres inspirationskilder, vil jeg gerne forudse en borgerkrig. Jeg vil faktisk opfordre til at gribe til våben, skulle de islamiske horder komme væltende, som beskrevet ovenfor.

Håbet for en klimakatastrofe svinder

Akademia, FN, Globalisering, Grøn energi, Politik, Pressen, miljø — Drokles on March 1, 2013 at 8:59 am

Den generelle stemning, konsensus kunne man vel kalde det, blandt verdens folkeslag for en snarlig klimakatastrofe ser ud til at være stærkt aftagende. Globescan meddeler at interessen for miljøet generelt tager et dyk i disse år

Environmental concerns among citizens around the world have been falling since 2009 and have now reached twenty-year lows, according to a multi-country GlobeScan poll.

(…)

Climate change is the only exception, where concern was lower from 1998 to 2003 than it is now. Concern about air and water pollution, as well as biodiversity, is significantly below where it was even in the 1990s. Many of the sharpest falls have taken place in the past two years.

The perceived seriousness of climate change has fallen particularly sharply since the unsuccessful UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. Climate concern dropped first in industrialized countries, but this year’s figures show that concern has now fallen in major developing economies such as Brazil and China as well.

skc3a6rmbillede-2013-02-28-kl-183800

Det er nok også krisen der kradser og tvinger folk til at koncentrere sig om virkelighedens prosaiske problemer. Men med til historien hører også det tåbelige budskab om undergang i sig selv. De færreste kan forholde sig til fortællingen om at gennemsnitstemperaturen stiger nogle grader over niveauet fra før industrialiseringen. Her i Danmark svinger temperaturen gerne 55 grader Celcius hvert halve år. Og når så temperaturen ikke steget de seneste 17 år hæmmer følelsen det af en ukontrollabel udvikling. Derfor griber man til en masse små sidefortællinger om de katastrofale konsekvenser for at gøre rædslerne levende for de små mennesker, hvis tillid man desværre stadigt grundet det ulykkelige demokrati er nødt til at vinde.

Men man skal kende træet på dets frugter og de små gyserfortællinger bringer kun en kortlivet forskrækkelse som efterhånden bliver afløst af grin og siden skuldertræk. Som f.eks. historien om hvorledes klimaforandringer truer morgenkaffen, som Watts Up With That ironiserer over MSN News ildevarslende historie

A cup of morning coffee could be much harder to find, and much more expensive, before the century is out thanks to climate change and the possible extinction of wild Arabica beans.

That’s the warning behind a new study by U.K. and Ethiopian researchers who say the beans that go into 70 per cent of the world’s coffee could be wiped out by 2080.

Researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia looked at how climate change might make some land unsuitable for Arabica plants, which are highly vulnerable to temperature change and other dangers including pests and disease.

They came up with a best-case scenario that predicts a 38 per cent reduction in land capable of yielding Arabica by 2080. The worst-case scenario puts the loss at between 90 per cent and 100 per cent.

There is a “high risk of extinction” says the study, which was published this week in the academic journal Plos One.

Hver dag er 1. april når man læser om klimaet, selv om det ikke er sjovt at spøge med folks helbred, som klimatalsmand George Luber for det amerikanske Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gør

Climate change threatens polar bears and is rapidly melting Arctic ice, but the effect it is already having on people’s health is what might cause them to take action, a federal official said Tuesday.

Global warming has caused more severe heat waves, increased pollen counts and lengthened allergy seasons, said George Luber, associate director for climate change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a webinar presented by the The Ohio State University Climate Change Outreach Team on Tuesday.

And the effects will only get worse in the future, as temperatures in the Midwest alone could increase 5.6 to 8.5 degrees by the end of this century, he said.

“We should be promoting climate action for people’s sake,” he said.

Kom ihu den seneste tids historier med overbelægning på danske hospitaler fordi vinteren blot er værre for folks helbred end sommeren. Det har vist noget at gøre med kulden. Og for lige at korrigere for den ofte luftede bekymring for bestanden af isbamser, så giver Polar Bear Science 10 gode grunde til at lade være.

Men tilbage til undergangen. En flok amerikanske generaler, politikere og embedsmænd på tværs af partierne (dem begge to) advarer om at folk vil flygte i millionvis når de løber tør for is - eller noget i den retning. Det skriver Responding to Climate Change

“We, the undersigned Republicans, Democrats and Independents, implore US policymakers to support American security and global stability by addressing the risks of climate change in vulnerable nations. Their plight is our fight; their problems are our problems,” it says.

“Without precautionary measures, climate change impacts abroad could spur mass migrations, influence civil conflict and ultimately lead to a more unpredictable world.

“In fact, we may already be seeing signs of this as vulnerable communities in some of the most fragile and conflict-ridden states are increasingly displaced by floods, droughts and other natural disasters.”

(…)

“If we have difficulty figuring out how to deal with immigration today, look at the prospects for the glacial retreats in the Andes,” said R. James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, at an event to launch the letter.

“The glaciers are not doing well…If that starts to go away, we will have millions upon millions of southern neighbours hungry, thirsty, with crops failing and looking for some place in the world they can go,” he said.

Hvis man læser Guardian kan man måske finde et åndeligt slægtskab mellem ovenstående vrøvl og præ-menneskeretsforkæmpere

In the abolitionists’ fight for what they knew to be true, I saw deep parallels with the work of modern leaders fighting for action on climate change. I’m thinking of brave activists such as Bill McKibben, who gathered 50,000 people last week to march on Washington, scientists such as Jim Hansen and Michael Mann, and many other leaders in politics, business, and civil society. The metaphor of slavery to climate change is not perfect. But there’s a strong sense of déjà vu about the people working for change, their uphill battles, the arguments they face and, unfortunately, how long it takes them to win.

Nej, metaforen er vist ikke helt perfekt. Den hænger dels på at Rom, som så meget andet, ikke blev bygget på en dag

The foundations of climate science go back more than 100 years, and carbon dioxide measurements began at the Mauna Loa Observatory in 1956. But the real climate movement probably started 25 years ago when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change began.

Given the 40-year march to a constitutional amendment on slavery, it’s not surprising that we don’t have a global price on carbon yet. Especially when the forces arrayed against climate action put up significant roadblocks – hurdles that look and sound really familiar.

Og dels på ren idioti

There were many supposed arguments against abolition. The most absurd ideas generally were about not rocking the boat: ideas such as “slavery is natural and has always existed,” or the enervating idea that it’s impractical to change such a big system. On energy and climate, the status quo pitch goes like this: “We’ve relied on these fuels for so long and will for a long time to come.”

Således retfærdigjort er der jo ikke langt til at forlange et diktatur af “the just and wise“, som akademikere jo gerne gør.  The New Nostradamus of the North har læst professor David Shearmans og økofilosoffen Joseph Wayne Smiths bog The Climate Change Challange and the Failure of Democracy

We have known about these impending problems for several decades.  Each year the certainty of the science has increased, yet we have failed to act  appropriately to the threat. We have analyzed the reasons for this indolence.  This understanding will lead you to ask yourself if Western civilization can  survive in its present state of prosperity, health, and well-being, or will it  soon suffer the fate of all previous civilizations—to become a mere page in  history?

We will demand from you the reader, far more than your comprehension  of the consequences of climate change and the workings of democracy. You  will need to examine the limits of your introspection and the motivation  bestowed upon you by biology and culture. The questions to be asked are  dif?cult. You have a commitment to your children, but are you committed  to the well-being of future generations and those you may never see, such as your great-grandchildren? If so are you prepared to change your lifestyle  now? Are you prepared to see society and its governance change if this is a  necessary solution? -

Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate that the inherent failures of  democracy that have lead to the environmental crisis also operate in many  other spheres of society. They are inherent to the operation of democracy.  Furthermore, we come to share Plato’s conclusion that democracy is inherently contradictory and leads naturally to authoritarianism.

In chapters 8 and 9 we argue that authoritarianism is the natural state of  humanity, and it may be better to choose our elites rather than have them  imposed. Indeed Plato, on seeing the sequelae of democracy’s birth, observed that it is better that the just and wise should rule unwillingly, rather  than those who actually want power should have it. We analyze authoritarian structures and their operation ranging from the medical intensive care  unit and the Roman Catholic Church to corporatism with the conclusion  that the crisis is best countered by developing authoritarian government  using some of the fabric of these existing structures. The education and  values of the new “elite warrior leadership” who will battle for the future  of the earth is described.

De burde hellere skrive om The Failure of and Old Idiot Sir Ranulph Fiennes, der ville krydse Antarktis om vinteren for at “draw attention to global warming“. Hans forsøg blev ikke hindret af hedeslag eller pollenallergi, skriver Washington Post

British explorer Ranulph Fiennes on Monday pulled out of an expedition to cross Antarctica during the region’s winter after developing frostbite — a bitter disappointment for an adventurer who had spent years preparing for one of the last great polar challenges.

Hvis han havde krydset Ækvator, kunne han have siddet med åben kaleche i skjorteærmer og drukket champagnecocktails hele vejen. Det er ikke overbevisende at frygte for at Jordens mest livløse sted bliver let tilgængeligt.

Monokultur kører på WordPress