The Green New Deal – hot air or genuine sustainability?
It’s World Environment Day. A YouGov poll puts concern for the environment at a record high
Today is #WorldEnvironmentDay and concern about the environment has reached record levels. 27% of Brits list it as one of the top 3 issues facing the nation, with a big boost since April after the Extinction Rebellion protests / Greta Thunberg's activismhttps://t.co/AJBZ8xi7Km pic.twitter.com/W7IuDfjEGl
— YouGov (@YouGov) June 5, 2019
YouGov credits Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion with boosting these numbers, and indeed, given the amount of exposure both have received in the “Left” media (BBC, NYT, Indy, Guardian and more) it would be surprising if they had not raised the profile of climate change for the average person.
We’re going to be taking a closer look at both Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion in the near future, but for now we’ll share Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s much-vaunted Green New Deal for discussion (see embedded below or click here).
Is this a real attempt to create a more sustainable world? Or just a cynical attempt by the neoliberal pseudo-left to grab credibility and maybe make some bucks?
Some of its proposals – like sustainable “family” farming seem commendable and pretty solid. Others – such as its vague requirements to reduce greenhouse emisions – “as much as technologically feasible” – seem hopelessly ambiguous, and indeed contradicted by other aspirations including “assuring affordable access to electricity.”
Is making the US 100% dependent on renewables with zero emissions compatible with the other stated intention of rebuilding American industry and creating employment?
Is this document a practical step forward or a Green word salad to entice the well-meaning and concerned?
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One of the most difficult rhings about discussing climate science, politics etc is that no-one can discuss with real exactitude because our understanding of climate science is still relatively rudimentary. As a result, a lot of inaccuracies are expressed and that leads to sneering self righteous bullies making people feel that a discussion cannot include learning through making mistakes, being a big ignorant etc.
In my view, there are quite a few things in the GND which make sense, but also a lot of aspirational nirvana which makes more rigorous mindsets roll their eyes in despair. The key to any progress coming from the document involves not making it all or nothing. Because if that were to be the case, it is nothing for sure.
In the hard world of reality, three key questions concern most human beings:
1. Are healthy homes affordable in construction terms?
2. Where are we going to source affordable energy?
3. Can healthy food remain affirdable?
Of course, transportation has made worldwide travel possible to many people and working out how to transition slowly but steadily toward a post-oil world (and when that might actually occur is perhaps the least understood question in all of climate discussions).
But warm healthy homes and healthy diets are the key requirements for a stable set of communities.
That is where I would start the discussion.
A rather poor article,and depressingly ignorant responses below the line.Sigh”
It is a sham proposal. War saves the day. Nuclear winter and 7 billion less souls is the name of the game. In 50 years the UK will be over most of the radioactive fallout and the parasite monarchy will ooze out of their burrow and reign in the open again.
Re: stupid. That stuff, up there, in the sky, it’s not condensation: check. Carbon isn’t poison: check. It’s been much warmer in the past when there much less of it about: check. Colder, too: check. The climate is enormously complicated: check. There has been no warming, to speak of, in twenty years: check. The seas are not rising quickly: check. There is no evidence to link ‘climate change’ to extreme weather events: check. Every prediction made by the alarmists has turned out to be just that, alarmism: check. They’ve been caught out lying, and messing with the data: check. Thirty years ago, it was global cooling: check. Human beings have actually been going on about this, and making alarmist predictions, for centuries: check. The greenhouse gases are a trace element in the atmosphere: check. Carbon accounts for about 3% of these greenhouse gases: check. The human portion of this 3% is about 3% (in other words, what we contribute to the ‘problem’ is 3% of 3% of a trace element, in an enormously complex system): check. Shame on anyone who’s still throwing around the absurd putdown ‘conspiracy theorist’. It’s a post-intelligence world. Everything is hidden in plain sight. Get a grip. (Oh, I forgot to add: Antarctic ice is expanding; and the other pole is doing just fine).”Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” – Einstein
Coming from a science background, I did a little experiment: i began recording what happens after I saw white lines( chemtrails) over my head. Sure enough, after a week I could predict the weather accurately!
Also noticed that the spraying has increased in frequency since Trump got into office. Now it’s everyday, all day.
Every time the spraying begins, the allergies are at an all time high.
There is however no point in telling fellow citizens this because most believe I belong in the looney bin and most are too busy looking at their phones than looking up at reality.
I get a feeling that whoever is doing the spraying is probably trying to run a 2020 presidential race against Trump on climate change. For this they are poisoning their own and others in a desperate attempt to rejoin the “slush fund” Paris climate treaty.
What “science background” was that,did you use chemicals to clean your toilet!
It seems like ‘settled science’ to me, and if you don’t agree, you are a denier. In Canada, a few years ago, one of our prominent pop ‘scientists’ suggested that prison may be the place for deniers.
I have noticed more of these chemtrails, especially because I’m looking up more than I used to whenever I hear the sound of an airplane.
In fact I don’t use chemicals to clean my toilet but you should use some toilet cleaner to unclog your brain!
http://www.unz.com/article/fifty-years-of-apocalyptic-global-warming-predictions-and-why-people-believe-them/
Illogicalities and falsities in your argument:
1. Iron isn’t poison at the right level in your blood and is utterly essential, however, it’s toxic when the level is too high
2. It’s been warmer with less CO2 and cooler with more CO2 but other factors are involved – https://skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm
3. It has warmed in the last 20 years – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg
4. The seas are rising: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
5. There is evidence that links climate change to extreme weather events – https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-change-weather-attribution
6. Thirty years ago it was global cooling (by a few). So?
7. Carbon accounts for about 3% of these greenhouse gases. And? How much iron do we have in the blood. Happy with quadrupling it even though it’s a tiny amount? The fact that greenhouse gases are such a small percentage but HAVE AN EFFECT at that tiny percentage is what makes it so dangerous to increase them.
8. Carbon accounts for 9-26% of greenhouse gases while water vapour accounts for 36-72%, however, water vapour does not build up in the atmosphere as CO2 does. It’s like water and fat in the body. No matter how much water you drink you will simply excrete it, whereas fat builds up. Similarly, water vapour comes and goes, while CO2 builds up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
9. Antarctic ice is not expanding – https://skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm. Skeptic arguments that Antarctica is gaining ice frequently hinge on an error of omission, namely ignoring the difference between land ice and sea ice.
I believe in conspiracies galore, many, many more than most people – from Pearl Harbour to Chelsea Manning – I see evidence in loads and loads of fakery. But I accept the science on climate change and I also think the evidence shows we went to the moon.
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/
Error: “Carbon accounts for about 3% of these greenhouse gases” applies to Point 8, not Point 7.
Okay,
1. Anything completely out of whack – even cannabis – is poison. So what?
2. Of course ‘other factors’ are involved; that’s my whole point.
3. I think this warming we’re talking about is a bit like the Scarlet Pimpernel: you know, they seek him here, they seek him there (under the sea, under this rock!).
4. The seas are rising? I could post the links, but I’m not going to do that here. We could go on all night with that – just think: The science is not settled.
5. Ditto, my friend.
6. The point here is that, one way or another, we’re always anticipating the end of the world. I would add, here, that for me, the main issue is one of psychology, i.e why do people subscribe to these ‘Millennial death cults’?
7. The point here is that our TINY AMOUNT of that 3% is part of a fluctuating system. Termites produce FAR MORE CARBON THAN THE ENTIRETY OF INDUSTRIAL HUMAN CIVILISATION. You know, sorry for the caps . . . but really! What if we wipe out human industrial civilisation – you know, condemn developing nations to eternal penury . . . and then, the following year, there are a lot of termites around? To say nothing of the Sun. And we could go on . . . and on . . .
8. CO2 builds up, but it doesn’t decrease, eh? Well, then, why does it go up and down in the records? Have I woken up in a lunatic asylum here?
9. Bullshit. Sorry for the profanity, but that’s nonsense . . . I would say, shameful. We’re just going to have to leave it there!
‘The science is settled’, as a proposition, is absolutely inimical to THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE. I shouldn’t have to point this out . . . in this case, it is beyond absurd. And therein lies the key to this whole thing.
This shit isn’t taking place in a vacuum. It is going to have real world consequences.
Climate Science, a new religion?
I would say so….Amazingly, no-one seems to recognise that is an almost complete facsimile, of one we have almost completely cast off, namely, christianity, itself, derived from sun worship..
1)Greed and licentiousness leading to man’s downfall? Check
2)A day of reckoning, some indeterminate day in the future? Check
3)A fiery burning hell? Check
4)An absolute denial that reduced population might alleviate the notional problems? Check
(the meek will inherit the earth here, as well)
5)An insistence that the belief be taught as fact to schoolchildren? Check
(not at all sinister, and redolent of Jesuit teaching)
6)The idea that the rich can indulge their affluent and polluting lifestyle, and yet offset their hypocrisy? Check
(medieval indulgencies)
7)A blamelessly austere, youthful figure, curiously free of teenage acne, seemingly emerging from nowhere, to educate us on our evil ways, and the fate that awaits us, should we not seek the path of virtue….
8) The mistaken belief that the sun can provide anything an expanding world population might desire, but we shouldn’t try and emulate it on earth…
(why the f*** not?)
Number 5 seems the most dangerous to me. The whole point of teaching science to schoolchildren is that it is a way of thinking…An education in science frees us from the need to take anyone’s word for anything, and if one can only recall the scientific method, and nothing else, then you are a scientist, free to question, free to experiment…Everything taught in school science lessons is reproduceable in the laboratory, or at least has an element of empiricism one can point to, that prevents it from being mere dogma. Thus, while one might find it inconvenient to recreate the Michelson Morley experiment to demonstrate the invariance of light speed, and hence Special and General relativity, the fact that someone in a science class is bound to have a gps equipped device, is de facto empirical proof.
Climate science has nothing like that, it is propagated as an unchallengeable fact, that mere mortals are not qualified to question, but eminently qualified to accept as gospel.
Post anything like this in the environmental pages of the Guardian, and thinly disguised Guardian moderators (like Rockyrex, loco-p-man etc) will swarm around your comment, linking to ‘scientific’ papers they can have no empirical view on, and it is doubtful they even understand, in the mistaken belief that the cure for atheism is more bible study…
A green new deal? No thanks, I won’t vote for that.
“Everything taught in school science lessons is reproduceable in the laboratory”
Not true. Gravity is not proven, it is just a theory
Gravity exists, it’s just not well understood.
The current level of understanding is taught.
Here’s an experiment for you: run off a cliff and see what happens.
Probably another confirmation of the theory but, if not, we need to have a damned good look at why not and, if we find a reason for it that’s not within the parameters of theory, either modify or ditch (and replace) it. The theory of gravity is not a theorem.
Umm density and buoyancy explain perfectly why we observe what we do. Objects lighter than air float (a helium balloon, for example), objects heavier than air hit the ground and stay there. Simple, logical, provable, quantifiable, observable, repeatable, measurable……real science.
“Simple, logical, provable, quantifiable, observable, repeatable, measurable”. Gravity does not tick even one of these boxes
Ok I’ll bite – if gravity doesn’t exist what stops the gases that cover our planet from simply floating away?
Oh wait – I guess the perspex dome that covers the flat earth also keeps the air in place?
:LOL:
“Thus, while one might find it inconvenient to recreate the Michelson Morley experiment to demonstrate the invariance of light speed, and hence Special and General relativity, the fact that someone in a science class is bound to have a gps equipped device, is de facto empirical proof.”
No. If anyone relied on Relativity alone to design a GPS system the kiddie in the classroom would more often than not be tens of kilometers away from where his device said he was–far more than the 5-15m or so GPS actually attains. So which do you think might be at fault: Relativity or your dressing up in a stage lab coat from a theatrical supply company? (And no, don’t babble on off-script about WAAS or other correction systems: their corrections are generally less than the raw GPS error.)
The numbers >
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/05/our-globally-warming-civilization/
“The numbers >”
No, some numbers.
1. Have you worked through them just as maths (error check)?
2. Have you considered their derivations (sanity check, gigo)?
3. Have you checked the citations equally carefully?
All “yes”s? Then they are a provisional candidate for the numbers. Otherwise they are some (probably reliable) numbers.
I’m not being smart here. I saw the Counterpunch article you’ve linked to a few hours before your post and bookmarked it until I had some time to consider whether it was worth taking on board. Maybe a day, maybe two. Because it’s not presented as opinion but as science. Even if it seems AOK its numbers could be later proven wrong, but if it’s not scrutinized carefully by those who want to believe or disbelieve it, preferably many of both, and especially by those who want to use it in pursuit of a cause then, whichever way, its numbers are just some numbers.
Absent Armageddon: this is the biggest issue of our times: the new Zeitgeist …the outcome of which will challenge our viability as a species. So I’m glad everyone is taking it so seriously.
It has only just started: expect this to be front, right, and centre for the rest of your life. The ruling kleptocrats are selling this agenda and manufacturing consent. Greta Thunberg has taken a year off school to sail round the globe (using many times more emissions than flying) to forefront the neoliberal corporate brand campaign. She was recently on the cover of ‘Time’. Let me be clear though: Greta is an innocent victim. That some of the darkest forces in world capitalism are cynically pushing their behaviour change agenda through a 16 year girl with Aspergers – to demonise anyone who dares to be critical (as Monbiot has already done) – is some small indication of the nephariousness of the Green New Deal (GND) or ‘New Deal for Nature’ agenda.
Cory Morningstar has already exposed the cabal pushing Greta. Chief among them is Christina Figueres – the next UN world president (after Gutteres); Avaaz; and a ‘carbon credit’ start-up called ‘We Don’t Have Time’. Then there is XR.
http://www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
The basic agenda is to release $100tn of capital locked up in our pensions and welfare schemes: use it to privatise nature; financialise it and rent it back to us as ‘environmental services’ …for profit. Under the pretense of welfare for the children and their future: they want to capture the future and rent it out to us. Using the children to manufacture consent. Sociopathogenic.
Looking at the comments below: it looks like the corporatocracy has almost everyone where they want them. This is much more than the climate or branding the green agenda as a millenarian death cult, though. Neoliberalism is the death cult that is a clear and present danger to all life on earth. That the question even has to be posed, or opened up for ‘discussion’ is disheartening. It exposes that no one even knows what the ecological alternative is: so they cannot readily discern the false hopium constructed GND. Saddest of all is that the threat is real: not from climate change – but from everything else we are doing. Climate change is only 7th on the IUCN RedList – after overexploitation and agriculture.
https://www.nature.com/news/biodiversity-the-ravages-of-guns-nets-and-bulldozers-1.20381#killers
I’m not au fait with the GND – it seems to be light on detail – but I have studied the Committee for Climate Change (CCC) report issued by UKGov the week after we declared a ‘Climate Emergency’ – which has been heralded as a world prototype proposal. For the record: on the offchance of reasoned discussion – I will list some of the issues.
First, and most importantly: it is not ‘zero’ but ‘net zero’ …which can mean almost any form of creative carbon accounting – cap’n’trade; carbon credits or offsets. It’s a scam.
The transition will be uneventful: neither industry or our driving, flying, conspicuous carbon consumption will be disrupted. We just carry on consuming: switch to electric vehicles – whilst we build the carbon capture infratsucture …don’t worry about the extra initial carbon emissions (to 2030-35 in the CCC) – it’ll all be hoovered up by 2050 when we reach ‘net zero’. It’s a scam.
The three main technological approaches – Carbon Capture and Storage or Sequestration (CCS); Bio-energy with CCS (BECCS); and the hydrogen (H2) economy – all may fail at scale. All are untried. All have yet to be fully developed (because they have proved prohibitively expensive). All require hidden subsidy (Drax – the precursor of BECCS – already costs £2mn a day in hidden subsidy. Drax now has 3 plants = £6mn). All require massive conflict mineral inputs. Renewables are already cheaper. It’s a scam.
All are net energy sinks: more energy is invested and embedded than produced. Thus; they will be a massive economic drag. Miraculously, energy will be cheaper per Mwh in 2050 than it is now. It’s a scam.
Green imperialism and force labour child mining, exported pollution and waste – so we can have ‘clean’ energy bourgeois lives. It’s a scam.
The UK (and presumably the US) have massively underestimated the scale of our ecological footprint – because we have exported our industry and agriculture to the Global South. We have relinquished responsibility for our historic contribution: and expect the poorer nations to foot the bill. It’s a scam.
But – the issues are REAL. We do need to transition to a truly ZERO carbon lifestyle. Which would require degrowth, decarbonisation, de-industrialisation, probable de-urbanisation …and a much, much, simpler way of life. An industrialised CCC or GND – the #4IR or ‘New New Deal’ – sounds appealing …but the increased expansionism, conflict extractionism, resource depletion, hidden pollution (from mining for instance); will engender an increased potential of collapse. If the industrialised countries manage a version of this: it can only be by green imperialism and exporting as much of the extractivst pollution and environmental degradation to the poorer countries – in return for the debt imposed resource curse as we steal their minerals and wealth.
All the corporatocracy have to do is preserve the science fiction desire-dream imaginary that this modernity is sustainable – which it is not. It is not even a desirable lifestyle imperialism. We have one shot at mitigation of the damage we have already caused. If we invest in the wrong kind of green – the CCC or GND – we do not get to change course. Civilisation is under threat from this biocidal agenda. Not that I expect to convince anyone.
There is no ZERO carbon lifestyle. There was none before and will not happen in the future. We are built that way. And for a long time we were part of a fairly balanced the nature. Not anymore. We are seriously tipping the scales.
One solution is not to ever grow too big, to change natural balance of earth. She can take us only so much. Which would translate to physically stop breeding or, economically, stop the growth.Perhaps curtailing the latter is that crucial move.
Not at scale, no. But that is also my entire point: living at an exponentially increasing industrialised scale is the problem. At a deglobalised, relocalised, human scale living – as if people mattered – circular permaculture and carbon drawdown economies make sense. There are a whole raft of appropriate technologies that could be deployed at human scale to develop neo-negentropic economies where every waste output becomes an input. Biochar,waste pyrolisis – even plastic pyrolysis – make sense at human scale development.
There are caveats: all need resource inputs and hydrocarbons: an energy transition or post-industrial lifestyle transition will take around 70 years. We can’t just stop: we have to wind down and transition. Catch one: none of this can be capitalised and for private profit. This entails some sort of sovereign money creation – with or without debt matters little if we owe the money to ourselves – an eco-MMT …debts can be canceled. Growth vectors are annulled: usufruct replaces usury.
Catch two: we can’t design post-capitalism until we know what is left. Here is the main paradox: the future is inversely proportional to present consumption rates. Relative abundance matter little. Key primary resources control technology. Lithium becomes limited to less than a years supply if we stuff it all into giant Tesla batteries, for instance. If one key rare earth (which aren’t that rare) – but only one has to run out and we can’t make computer chips – even if all the other metals are still abundant. Recycling is entropic: it only extends the cycle a few times. This is the Law of the Minimum.
The GND is a hoax: another issue is that America’s fleets and imperial armies are not going to stand down – or run on biofuel …as Obama wanted. And they are the most resource hungry polluters on the planet. If Russia, China, the EU and NATO all militarise – as they are – you can kiss goodbye to any habitable future.
This is another unspoken issue: access to tech becomes even more of a class issue – not just green imperialism across borders …but within. We will be looking at tech metropolisation for the haves: and uninhabitable sacrifice zones for the have-nots. This is not a fantasy – like the Hunger Games – this is happening. Watch Chris Hedges talk about Camden: I don’t think they will be getting much of a tech GND. Current gross inequalities will be magnified, not ironed out.
The point is that all our choices are now sub-optimal. The GND and CCC are science fiction imaginaries. What a real GND would look like is not palatable: but it is survivable. All the while we are in denial: scapegoating the elites for deceiving us into deceiving ourselves – a survivable future of minimalised human scale development becomes less and less actualisable. If we make the wrong choices now by being misinformed: we risk collapse. If we carry on as though notning is happening: and it is all a (self-)deceit …we make collapse a near certainty. It’s socialisation and minimalisation – equitably distributed – or the Hunager Games or Mad Max – inequitably distributed. Do we really want the corporations making the choice? Gettin informed as to what ecological civilisation really entails – rather than branding as a millenarian cult – is the one survivable option we have. I hope we will take it ..but my confidence levels are low that we actually will.
”If we owe money to ourselves” This is the type of verbiage that comes out of Krugman and co, and rather begs the question as to who are the ‘we’ and who are ‘ourselves’ The people which owe the money are those indebted billions caught in the debt trap peonage are the ‘we’ and the ‘ourselves’ are the small minority to whom the money is owed.
Unpayable debt is usually dealt with by straight default or default by the back door (inflation) and this is precisely what is on the cards in the not-to-distant future. But of the ‘ourselves’ (i.e., the rich) won’t suffer this their assets are diversified and will rise in price in the event of any inflationary surge. As usual it will be the ordinary people who will bear the brunt of such a reset.
As for Modern Monetary Theory, or more correctly neo-Chartalism, I think this needs a serious analysis at a later date. Suffice it to say I am rather sceptical of its claims.
MMT breaks down in the area of trade: particularly if you consider the euro$ markets. If your currency leaks offshore, to become the monetary base of a shadow currency, nothing adds up – assets do not equal liabilities.
Talking hypothetically – because, let’s face it …it’s not going to happen – I was referring to a modified version of “Reclaiming the State” by Mitchell and Fazi. A fully sovereign CB is a state asset – not a private asset. As is a fully sovereign currency, monetary and fiscal policy. But it was a throwaway comment – I said “some sort of” – to compare sovereign debt with privatised usury.
The thing with the whole decarbonisation with renewables scam – as proposed in the GND and CCC – is the idea of “sustainable growth”. It ain’t happenin’. Even if we could replace the carbon economy with ‘clean energy’ renewables – which a short look at the ‘Cubic Mile of Oil’ page on Wikipedia will disabuse anyone of – …it ain’t doubling, or doubling of the doubling. Which means capitalised funding – via some sort of ‘Green Bond’ plus derivatives – is completely incompatible with a putative post-carbon economy. Particularly as we need to substantially degrow.
Can you imagine AOC cancelling Jeff Bezos or Mark Zukerberg’s retirement funds? Neither can I: which is why it is a scam.
Can any of this carbon capture technology capture carbon faster than a growing tree does?
No, because if you take all the carbon out of coal or gas – there is nothing left to burn!
BECCS accounts for the false carbon cycle it creates: i.e. offsetting the amount of carbon sequestered by the regenerating trees against what is burnt. Which is fine, if you burn waste wood. But if you clearfell primary forest in the Southern USA; pelletise it; ship it across the Atlantic; before you burn it – you create more net emissions than you save. It’s a scam.
Plus, replacing clearfelled primary woodland with all its embedded biodiversity associations with monocrop pine reforestation is criminal. If you have ever been in a planted pine forest: it is silent …nothing growing but pine. If that is on a 70 year crop rotation: you have to keep clearfelling as demand outstrips supply …ruining your false carbon accounting. No amount of ‘biodiversity offsets’ will recreate the beauty of a biodiverse woodland habitat. It’s a scam.
The hidden cost of subsidy was mentioned. The hidden cost of the CCS element was not. They closed down the trial plant because of technological and financial problems – the grants ran out. CCS is geo-engineering: not tried at such a large scale. Not mentioned: but plausible – is the use of captured CO2 for something called ‘Ehanced Oil Recovery’ (EOR) – which is forcing the last drop of oil out of the shale bed. It’s a scam.
One of the contributor’s to the CCC report was Rebbeca Heaton: UK Climate Change Commissioner and Group Head of Sustainability and Policy at Drax Group. It’s a scam.
All in all: rewilding with real trees – such as the regeneration of the Caledonian pine forests …with martens, otters, goshawks – perhaps the odd wolf! – is the clearcut winner.
Well put.
This is the argument: the one that is ignored and crucial.
I had dinner again last night with the ecoliberals.
Bless them, but they are lost in their career ambitions and unread in the realities of what is now and what is to come.
The dinner table had a ‘bullshit detector’ (https://www.findmeagift.co.uk/gifts/bullshit-button.html?of_tid=MFRWG5B5GE2DCJTGMVSWISLEHUZCM4DSN5SESZB5GE2TANA&adGroupId=43873951844&device=c&gclid=CjwKCAjw8-LnBRAyEiwA6eUMGkOHLAUhi4y0BUiwbqwE5__i72i6j9bch9djT9n_RVgAJUuVmx-4gRoCGFQQAvD_BwE)
-which, in the conversation about GND would’ve broken under my hand’s relentless beatings were I not outnumbered three to one.
Hey BigB – I’m glad to see you have moved to a position of recognising that AGWis indeed being promoted by some huge neoliberal hitters. It’s been an uphill struggle getting anyone on the left to accept this.
Next question is – how does this obvious agenda push impact on the reliability of the scientific case as presented by those agenda-pushers.
Does this change how we view the huge media push to silence all qualified scientific opinion that demurs from the CAGW line?
I’m in agreement with BigB’s analysis. Would add the following:
And this: https://slate.com/business/2019/02/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-flaw-land-use.html
I meant to include this link in my comment above:
https://sandiegofreepress.org/2014/11/the-us-military-is-a-major-contributor-to-global-warming/
Billions of cars and trucks, millions of factories, millions of acres of forest fires, tens of billions of belching, farting farm animals.
Nah.
That couldn’t do any harm.
You think there’s more methane being discharged by cattle today than during periods when massive herds of 20-ft herbivorous dinosaurs roamed the earth?
How have you been persuaded a natural aspect of life on earth is a danger?
Who persuaded you?
What facts did they source?
What was their motivation?
Meteor extinction?
No. They methaned their way to extinction.
Just as we are doing now.
I think it’s a genuine attempt to deal with the issues by AOC, albeit rather naively, and also working within the political constraints of what the broken US political system will allow.
She’s far from a perfect candidate for the unDemocrats, but she’s their only real hope that can connect with the people.
If she’s their only hope, get ready for 4 more years of the Orange Baboon.
give me Tulsi any day over AOC.
I’ve posted this doc before but as far as odd weather and supposed changes in the climate are concerned, the elephant in the room which people are afraid to discuss because it very wrongly gets filed under conspiracy theories, is the effect of geo-engineering and the weaponizing of our weather. The MIC have been manipulating the weather for more than half a century. If you can alter a nation’s weather (bring about a drought , for example), you can cause enormous damage. The MIC spends trillions and trillions of dollars researching how to slaughter people and ruin countries’ prosperity, and this weaponization of the weather forms part of this disgusting approach to “managing” paradise, our God created world.
Choosing to ignore this whopping great reality is plain stupid, but as I said before, this is the Age of the Stupid, where stupid comes as standard.
CHEMTRAILS / GEOENGINEERING DOCUMENTARY FRANKENSKIES
Indeed this is the Age of the Stupid, with conspiracy theories such as these floating around.
The climate is changing because:
– humans are pouring out way too many GGG: scientifically proven.
– humans are destroying vast tracts of rainforests. This prevents carbon sequestration. Additionally and perhaps even more significantly, the new dry zones screw up weather patterns globally and impact climate. This is scientifically proven.
– solar output cycles that we only partly understand have a huge impact upon our climate. Scientifically proven.
No need for stupid conspiracy theories, the facts are clear that humans are a huge factor in screwing up the climate.
Sorry Frank, you are ever so muddled up. With the best will in the world, humans have no impact on solar cycles.
What you need to worry and do something about right now is the following, as I got banned from CIF on various occasions for saying: 1. Steep declines in numbers of bees, other pollinators and insects of all types; 2. plastic waste of all kinds.
I totally agree that chopping down the rainforests is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and we are indeed engaging in numerous activites which are having adverse effects on the health of our planet….FUkushima for example. Add to this mix the effects of nigh on 20 years of relentless bombings in the Middle East, and all the waste of resources and destruction and poisoning this causes, including DU and who knows what other covert crimes they have committed, something like 2000 plus nuclear weapons tests, all the evil shit our Satanic overlords indulge in to prove what big men they are.
I think of it as Planet Poisoning; that is more accurate. But admitting to Planet Poisoning opens up a Pandora’s Box which would unveil all the negative effects the military and corporations are causing, and they don’t want that, so we have climate change instead, so they can push their seedy little agenda to up the levels of control they have over us without addressing the problems they are directly causing.
It’s interesting how I posted a documentary which provides conclusive evidence that they are manipulating the weather, which clocks in at 1 hour and 21 minutes, and your comment appeared about 20 minutes later.
Watch the documentary, then comment and ridcule it. What was that I was saying about stupidity?
And it’s humans that are doing the geo-engineering and weaponizing the weather. They just don’t admit it, however we know they are doing it. It is indisputable. My point is that this is a huge elephant in the room were this subject is concerned, which people like you who are obviously concerned, should take seriously instead of parroting the conspiracy theory line, like all good Guardian readers do
Radar, Sonar, Laser beams!
Jets, Tanks, Submarines!
Megathons, H-Bombs, Napalm, Gas!
All this shit will kill you fast
All products of the Mean Machine
The Devil disguised as a human being
Pure wisdom and prophecy from 1971
The Last Poets – Mean Machine
In human history, the one thing that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other, by some distance, is to provide reliable access to electricity. It is electricity that enables you to read and study in the evenings and stops you poisoning yourselves by burning some crap in your home to cook for your family.
Little Greta and the rest of them would turn the clock back to the dark ages by removing access to electricity (“Our emissions have to stop if we are to stay below 1,5/2°C warming”).
Just as, by the way, demand for electricity is set to at least quadruple worldwide to enable everyone to run their (no-longer-petrol-we’ve-banned-it) cars.
There is no limit to the madness.
A local in Spain told me that one of their many police divisions is responsible for managing the roads, busting people for drugs……and busting people for having unauthorised solar panels. Sad times we live in.
Busting people for having solar panels? I’d really like to see a source on that!
I explained, it was a local who told me. Could be BS, but he seemed a genuine, decent guy and there is no reason that I can think of to lie about this.
…..so I do not have a credible source to link to, no
No, Greta and others would have us progress by using solar power and renewable energy. No technical barriers to doing so, just neoliberal vested interests.
What is well known among those responsible for delivering electricity is that if your objective is to provide power to all users all of the time, you cannot do without the big hitters, namely nuclear, coal, oil and gas, in some combination, not necessarily all of them, but in some combination. It is a dangerous and ridiculous fantasy to suggest that renewables can be anything more than a supplement. Those that claim that renewables can do it all or will be able to within the next 30 years are mad.
And they are the very same self-righteous prosperous middle class elitists that would drive those already marginalised in all societies further backward into poverty, and that is pure evil.
Daft windmills don’t generate enough volts to knock the skin off a rice pudding. They are a scam which benefit nobody but landowners like Cameron’s dad. Domestic bills have gone through the roof to subsidise this totally unreliable and expensive garbage. It is a stupid boondoggle, and the people who lose out are ordinary people, OAPs, single mothers, and families scraping by living in fuel poverty so that brainless shitlibs can go around virtue signalling at their expense about how green they are as they board their private jets to pick up another global warming award.
Like Putin said to Merkel, you don’t like coal, you don’t like nuclear, what are you going to heat your houses with? Firewood? We can sell you some firewood if you want. We’ve got a lot of firewood in Siberia.
British industry is now hopelessly uncompetitive because of all the taxes and subsidies for this green crap. We can kiss our steel industry good bye as a result, though all the green idiots will blame it on Brexit, which will be an all purpose scapegoat for everything that goes wrong for the next 20 years. You can say the same thing about German industry until Nordstream 2 comes on line with cheap Russian gas.
“Little Greta” won’t have done anything even if her nonbinding resolution passes the House. US need a coherent energy policy was recognized 45 years ago for many good reasons, of which climate change becomes just one. Fossil fuels are a finite resource. Our quest for them has led to entanglements in unstable regions of the globe we’d stand better off without. Like the energy crisis of Nixon’s day in its predictions of supply exhaustion to come within 50 years, climate-related impacts may well bite less rapidly than the environmental justice activists think.
Yet bite they must, sooner or later. We’ll either suffocate in our own emissions while the sea reclaims Miami, or reserves will run low while prices soar, or both. Prudence suggests we start transitioning our economy away from carbon now—especially given the lead time such a project requires. Hardly a left-right political issue, this is a matter of national security.
We really do not need any power source other than the sun as a species.
One problem with solar is anyone can access it so no profit in it for the man.
The US made investments in solar. In some states, California, funding went towards installing solar panels on homes. All new homes built in CA must have solar panels installed. In Florida, FPL created huge solar fields with the government funds so they could continue to control to power supply.
Just think if all the technological development and resources spent on fossil fuels and nuclear power had went instead into solar. Would be absolutely no problems today with our power source.
Fossil fuels and nuclear power can be controlled and sold at a profit that is why there is investment in those technologies. Greed and selfishness is a key contributor to the human condition.
Yeah but think of those poor folk in the nuclear weapons industry, what are THEY gonna do if we go all in on renewables? Heartless comment 😉
The last time a country tried to optimise a civil reactor to make plutonium as a bi product, it didn’t go well…. The five part miniseries has just finished.
Civil reactors in Western countries have nothing to do with weapons, it is intrinsic in their economic operation.
If it was nothing to do with weapons, they’d be burning thorium instead of uranium.
Another problem with solar is that it really only works where there’s sunshine. It turns out that ‘bottling’ it and sending to another part of the world that’s not so sunny is very complicated and expensive–in other words, not so fuel efficient.
Don’t get me wrong: I support more research into solar and wind. But at the moment, they’re in no position to completely replace fossil fuel–not by a long shot.
Hi Seamus,
Actually that isn’t true anymore. The latest research is coming up with solar cells that actually also produce energy during cloudy days and even during the night, if I am not mistaken. Something about UV wavelengths during the cloudy days, not sure how they do it a night, obviously much less than a sunny day, but not bad all the same.
I would like to commend OffG on their admirably balanced stance on this contentious issue. I’ve read an appreciated articles from both sides of the divide.
Thank you for being a place where people can get free access to information.
This is one of the few things I’d give the Orange Baboon any credit for, dissing the Great Global Warming Hoax.
I can remember when “all the scientists” said a New Ice Age was imminent. We’d all have to fight off marauding polar bears whenever we went out to post a letter or get a pint of milk. We’d have to cover the polar ice caps with millions of tons of black soot to warm them up a bit to stop this. Or else move to the middle of Africa for a bit of warmth.
Now “all the scientists” predict Global Warming and we’ll soon be growing bananas and coconuts in Scotland. Unless we put giant mirrors in space to reflect the sun’s rays to cool the ice caps down a bit. And it doesn’t matter that there’s no increase in temperatures or sea levels. Those splendid chaps at the University of East Anglia can always fabricate a bit of “evidence” as and when needed. And it’s all Global Warming, whether it’s hot, cold, or somewhere in between, whether there are droughts, floods, blizzards or heatwaves. I wish I could get Ladbroke’s to take a bet on that basis.
This is pure astro turfing. Little Greta is being pushed by the same slick PR machine we saw with Bana and Dusty Boy, with generous funding from Soros and the big corporate globalists. And the Deep State is fully behind this agenda. Goldman Sachs is quite happy to peddle trillions in Global Warming Certificates and Green Certificates with the same facility that they shunt around trillions in worthless derivatives. Roll up! Roll up! Get your Global Warming Certificates here! You’ll soon be able to get one (for an appropriate fee) like a medieval Papal Indulgence. It will dwarf that shyster Gore’s Chicago Climate Exchange and the cool $500 million he trousered before it collapsed. It won’t make any difference to a single polar bear, but that doesn’t matter. You will be able to virtue signal to your heart’s content. And there will be a Green Taliban to terrorise anyone who doesn’t.
So we are now supposed to dismantle our industry, change every aspect of our way of life, and pay trillions in Macron style “Green” Taxes, on the say so of Little Greta (and her activist parents) and intellectual colossus and ex barmaid AOC.
And this garbage seems to be gaining traction. The idiots in XR are given free hand to shut down our cities, with the police joining in and dancing with them. Or close down major airports with drone attacks. I thought that was something called terrorism. But apparently not. The Green Idiots and the Loathsome Liberals are polling more than the Tories and Labour combined. These idiots will soon be putting windmills on every street corner. No old age pensioner or single mother will be able to afford electricity for all the green taxes and green subsidies. But don’t worry. All the Emma Thompsons, Leonardo De Caprios, Gretas and Al Gores will carry on jet setting around the world to collect their Global Warming Awards.
You are probably old enough to remember that business and the Tories were massively against any pro environment policies.
It was a small number of “left wing nutters” and hippies warning us about environmental armageddon. They were the conspiracy nuts of their day.
Now they’ve been proven to be correct by cast numbers of scientists. Governments have mobilised the financial system that makes this world go round to try and fix these environmental issues.
Now the hard left (and right) have forgotten from whence all this started and instead castigate real efforts to try and find solutions to address climate change.
It’s true that the political spectrum is like a circle, there’s beggar all difference between the hard left and hard right, they’re both as dangerous to the rest of us.
“They’ve been proven to be correct” by “all the scientists” who know which side their bread is buttered. No academic or researcher now will get funding, tenure or advancement unless he first bends the knee and worships at the altar of the Great Global Warming Hoax. Politicians like Margaret Beckett wanted to make it a criminal offence to question Global Warming. Despite this, there are tens of thousands of scientists and engineers of integrity who still call out this scam for what it is. There is no penalty for being caught lying and fabricating “evidence.” You just double down and carry on business as usual, like the scammers in East Anglia. The world is going to end and we’ve only got 12 years/ 11 years/ 4 years/ 27 minutes/ delete as appropriate, because some kid playing wag from school or ex barmaid says so.
You know, everything is much more complex than most of the journalists or the scientists (vested interests in getting grant money, you know) like to present as a sure thing.
I am one of the geologists that doesn’t believe in the “big picture” global warming scenario that we are being threatened with daily. If you simply look at interglacial and glacial cycles, we are pretty much due for a swing, human input or not.
That doesn’t mean that human interference doesn’t have an effect of some sort, it is just much more difficult to quantify than most will admit. I suppose with our pollution we can tip the balance a bit, but in the end nature and her cycles are going to do what they are going to do. In fact, global warming, whatever the cause, is very likely to set of a new period of glaciation. If enough fresh water from the Arctic starts getting mixed up with the oceanic salt water and current systems, at some point it will essentially turn the Gulf Stream off. With the result that the UK and a lot of western Europe can start checking out the latest fashions from Siberia.
But who knows. My own experience with trying to model complex systems indicates that these models typically end up with not being valid in the real world. We just don’t have control of all the variables. I was involved with some work trying to model the resulting change in the transport patterns of oxygen-rich seawater and oxygen poor seawater due to the installation of the foundations for a large bridge over a sound. Lots of money spent, the best scientists coming up with model after complex model, resulting in changes in the number and design of the bridge supports, and at the end of it all… the hydrodynamic models didn’t do what the real seawater did after the bridge was built. Go figure what the odds are with a much larger system of the entire planet.
On the other hand, if one can get the pig sty (apologies to the poor pigs) of humanity to clean up their nest, for whatever reason, it can only be a good thing for the planet.
I think Cortez is making an honest attempt to make a difference. It’s a complicated subject an God know there are numerous pressures being brought to bear, both from Big Oil and from ordinary people’s need to find work and affordable energy.
Climate Change is one big hoax – Watch it exposed by genuine tope experts not some exploited kid.
Fox News?
Baldy: that’s what I thought but this guy is definitely speaking the truth. What is he hoping to gain?
I would rather believe the Russia evidence than the sum of all the capitalists/ imperialists who have their eyes on the profit that can be made on charging people to breath.
They already conned us into buying water????
Listen to the guy’s qualifications & hear what he has to say & forget Fox !
Climate change is a tax scam………….that’s my opinion based on facts that I can verify.
OffG Admin: WHY, when I voted this video UOP did it also vote one down?
It was probably another reader who just happened to be voting at the same time – but if you see it keeps happening let us know
I’ts FOX, almost automatic down vote.
A lot of the GW Hoax is based on “monitoring stations”, basically simple little white painted slatted wooden boxes containing a couple of thermometers. A lot of these are positioned in totally inappropriate places and artificial sources of heat like passing aircraft jet engines, machinery and concrete buildings which absorb heat during the day.
Whatever policy based on the climate change hoax and relying on fear, to make people beg for more government power is, I am afraid, much more than hot air. This two part documentary by James Corbett is a must watch for everyone.
Admin: AGAIN I marked up this video and TWO down votes also appeared???
Prior to me voting there were NO votes cast?
I think you need to get this sorted out – it is extremely off putting.
Also – why do I constantly have to type my details, even though I asked Off G to remember them??
When you vote your browser refreshes and will register any new votes made since the previous refresh. This is the most likely explanation.
I don’t know why your details aren’t being saved, but that’s most likely an issue with your browser.
Down voted it.
Why are concerned about others voting up or down? Just vote the way you want to. Vote totals are only updated once you submit yours and the browser is refreshed, other people voted in the meantime, that’s what you are seeing.
Frank Speaker – Thanks for that, I hadn’t realised you were the administrator?
AOC is a fraud! Want proof? https://youtu.be/SDBCpFJk5GQ
https://youtu.be/MzqvUR5_5Bs
https://youtu.be/0Wr3QszPtq0
Seven thumbs down no attempt at debate (nowt new their) or showing how I’m wrong. But hen again this site is mainly for liberals with a rebellious streak to hide their middle class lives
8 now! Surely one of the eight can point to where the independent are wrong! Surely you watched her scrambling around to define capitalism or saw her southern drawl accent that you played vilified shillary for!? Funny how when the shoes on the other foot you all claim to don’t fit you
Fucking autocorrect I never typed the word independent but then again i type day never before and came out as nevertheless. And to changed came to call. Piece of shite these phones. Huawei here’s i come
WTF man Jesus