407

Connecting the Dots

John Steppling

“Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps.”
Lenin – Letters from Afar

Many on the left seem to have forgotten that capitalism is actually bad. That the reason the planet sinks under the weight of pollution and militarism is because of capitalism.

Nothing that works within the capitalist system is going to save anyone and will only reinforce the existing problems and further the suffering of the poor and disenfranchised.

Now allow me to first start with a few observations on writers published by leftist sites…in this case Counterpunch actually. Louis Proyect titles his piece as a question, If Time Magazine Celebrates Greta Thunberg, Why Should We?

The answer is, if TIME celebrates something, if corporate media celebrate someone or thing, the response should logically be INVESTIGATE and be suspicious. Which is what Cory Morningstar has done.

But Proyect spends his the entirety of his pointless article attacking Morningstar….go figure. He also lies. Morningstar does not attack Greta, she investigates the forces behind Greta. For a guy who wears his marxism like placard around his neck, you would think Proyect might grasp the distinction. Cory Morningstar is almost certainly the most important living journalist in the world (next to Assange perhaps).

And just by way of cursory correction…when Proyect writes:

Just two months ago, (Jamie) Margolin joined other young people in suing Democratic Governor Jay Inslee and the State of Washington over greenhouse-gas emissions. Inslee depicts himself as a liberal, environmentalist governor. If Margolin is a Trojan Horse like Thunberg, her choice of a target hardly sounds like she is trying to make it in corporate, Democratic Party, environmentalist circles.”

…what he fails to recognize is that Margolin is already in the Democratic Party inner circles and served as an intern for Hillary Clinton.

But the bigger problem is that Proyect seems on board with all the activities of Thunberg, and her cohorts. Proyect quotes Morningstar…

Today’s climate emergency mobilization must be recognized for what it is: a strategically orchestrated campaign financed and managed by the world’s most powerful institutions – for the preservation of capitalism and global economic growth. This is the launch of a new growth industry in the Global South coupled with the creation of new and untapped markets.”

And then writes…

Yeah, who cares about icebergs melting and the Great Coral Reef disappearing? The real problem is capitalism—as if the two phenomena were not related.”

The entire point of Morningstar’s work is to bring attention to the fact that Capitalism IS related, not just related but the primary cause of planetary destruction. How does massive PR and billions of marketing stop the death of coral reefs?

But again, class analysis is the issue (and perhaps an inability to read carefully). Thunberg has enlisted corporate billionaire backers (well, they enlisted her). That was the goal.

If Proyect thinks the capitalists behind Thunberg are about to bring radical change and challenge the status quo, he is for a rude awakening. But then Proyect calls Off Guardian a conspiracy-minded site. Such provincial disdain is all too representative. But more on conspiracy theory below.

Allow me to link to Morningstar’s investigation of We Mean Business, a project that gets the Proyect stamp of approval (We Mean Business, not Morningstar)…

I ask the reader to consider the facts. (hint: class analysis, the rich are not there to help anyone but themselves).

Then we have Kirkpatrick Sale and an article (Political Collapse: The Center Cannot Hold) that might well have been written by the state department.In this hideously distorted piece Mr Sale also lies. The biggest of his falsehoods is that Venezuela is a failed state. Uh….maybe he has a different definition. But what Sale is really doing is excusing and providing cover for the Imperialist west.

Yemen is listed as failed but the reasons for its failures are not really made clear. Global Warming? The correct answer is a vicious several year-long attack by the Saudi monarchy and the US and UK military. A genocidal assault that has resulted in mass death and pestilence (180,000 NEW cases of cholera were just reported by WHO). But Mr Sale never mentions that.

Not a peep about western militarism. Not a single word. Nor about the orchestrated illegal covert CIA assault against Venezuela, and more recently and successfully, Bolivia. Imperialism is not touched upon, even once.

Mr Sale writes:

At the moment, there are no less than 65 countries are now fighting wars—there are only 193 countries recognized by the United Nations, so that’s a third of the world. These are wars with modern weapons, organized troops, and serious casualties—five of them, like Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, with 10,000 or more deaths a year, another 15 with more than 1,000 a year—all of them causing disruptions and disintegrations of all normal political and economic systems, leaving no attacked nation in a condition to protect and provide for its citizens.”

But he never explains the role of the US in any of this.

Who made the weapons used in these wars? Well, the answer is largely the US, but also Russia, China, Israel and Brazil. But the vast majority are from the US. Also Syria was targeted by the US for a coup (referred to in polite company as regime change..a term created by the marketing arm of the Pentagon).

Assad has openly been a target of the U.S. Who created and funded ISIS in fact? Answer is the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Not a word about that fact either.

Here is another quote from Sale…

“These include seven completely failed states—Congo-Brazzaville, Central African Republic, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Venezuela—and another seven that are on the edge—Guinea, Haiti, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Chad, and the Sudan—plus 19 that are in an “alert” category, meaning that some but not all government functions have failed, 15 in Africa and 4 in Asia.”

What do these nations have in common?

They were targets of the Imperialist West (directly in the cases of Syria, Yemen, Somalia and South Sudan, and Iraq…not to mention the non-failed Venezuela, or indirectly in the neo-colonial plunder of Congo, AFR, Guinea, and Haiti). And, as I pointed out, Venezuela is not failed, nor even close to failed. Its a perfectly functioning country under sanctions by the US. Another fact Sale omits.

Why is Libya not on that list? You know, Libya, where the U.S. destroyed the African nation with the highest standard of living on the continent and reduced it to a slave market run by traffickers.

All in all, Sale is either about room temperature IQ or just a liar or politically aligned with the State Department and Pentagon.

I have no idea which but I do wonder why his tripe is appearing in a leftist site like Counterpunch.

Proyect I understand, because he wears that placard announcing he is a leftist, and because he sort of is an editor at CP. Sale doesn’t and isn’t, so I really do wonder at why this reactionary non-article is published by anyone this side of the CATO Institute?

But that brings me to the next point, which is the narcotic-like effect that the entire Greta story has had on, mostly middle-aged white men. If you cannot but see the obvious stage-managed aspect of the Greta story, the marketing and image control involved, then you are blind or possibly caught up in the cult-like thinking of much new green activism yourself.

For one example, just look at the photo TIME used for its cover.

Greta in an oversized sweater, sans make-up —how old does she look? 13, or 14 I’d say. Well, she is in fact 16. Her sister is 15 and looks much older and certainly clearly into puberty or even past it. Greta is being presented as the virgin symbol of purity.

Now this will be called an attack on Greta…by Proyect anyway. But I am sure many others. It’s not. She is simply the actor in all this (though actors are responsible for their choices, too). For her troubles she gets yacht rides and great dining with world leaders. Why wouldn’t she sign on.

But the rest of the phenomenon is in fact global capital usurping the green movements and activists globally. And the coup in Bolivia is against the indigenous of that nation, many of whom are environmental activists as was President Morales. Which is why the smear campaign (by the same people who help manage Greta) was designed to undermine his environmental work. The biggest thing environmentally that Morales did was to throw out the U.S. military.

But the white men of the West are channelling their disappointments (because capitalism disappoints, at the very least, nearly everyone but the top 3%) into something that resembles a fairy tale narrative of a guardian flock protector (the white guy narrator) defending the honour of blond pre pubescent teenager (in volkisch pigtails and large sweater). Greta is the virgin queen of the environment.

What happens when she gets a boyfriend? I’ll be curious to see. Will the white middle-aged flock protectors feel betrayed? Seems possible. As my friend Hiroyuki Hamada noted, the white male defense of Greta is a reflection of patriarchy and that disappointments today are felt more acutely because they are more flagrant and there are fewer mitigating salves than in the past.

The point here is that why would any socialist or communist sign on to anything supported by the Royal Families of Europe, by global billionaires, and why cant they see that photo ops with Obama and the Pope are not just accidental.

Nobody ever granted Berta Cacerces a photo shoot in Vogue. A genuine activist today is at risk of death by the rising tide (rising fast) of fascism. Look at the heroic defense of Bolivia by the indigenous people of that nation. So many of whom have fought off western mining interests. And the same in Brazil where today there is a wholesale war on the indigenous. Or the vast western mining interests in Africa, and the forced displacement of entire villages to accommodate those interests. Enforced by western security forces.

Much of the climate consensus seems aligned with the ruling class in a fear of a black and Asian planet, and one that is fuelled by the spectre of eugenics (making the world safe for white people). And lest you think that at all hyperbole, just spend some time investigating the activities of the Gates Foundation. Its curious to me why so many liberals froth in admiration of Gates.

Jimmy Wu writes (Capitalism is Dangerous for Your Mental Health, Medium 2019):

Yet capitalism’s reach extends much further than its economic effects; it also shapes our ideology and how we perceive our place in the world. Modern-day capitalism, with its unshakable faith in deregulated markets, privatization of the public sphere, and austerity budgets, has of course contributed to our financial misery, leading to mass hopelessness and anxiety.

But far from being confined to economic policy, contemporary capitalism (often called “neoliberalism”) also embodies a philosophical belief that self-interest and competition, not cooperation, should pervade every aspect of our lives.

In short, our world is shaped in the image of the market. For those in distress, Margaret Thatcher’s oft-cited mantra, “There is no such thing as society,” sends the most disturbing possible message: “You’re on your own.”

This is the psychology of advanced capitalism. And Hollywood and mass media drive home in obsessively repetitious fashion that message of individualism. Of a ruthless individualism. In the recent V Wars (vampire wars) on Netflix, a doctor struggles valiantly throughout the first season looking for a cure. He fails. His only son abducted.

In the last scene we see him, presumably months later, doing chin ups…his rock hard abs and bulging biceps glistening with sweat. He turns to face the came and slings an AK 47 over his shoulder. He stares at camera…he is ready for season two. And the message is, don’t be a pantywaist doctor, they get nothing done. Be a violent sociopathic vigilante.

That’s the message of America in a nutshell.

Richard Slotkin in Gunfighter Nation wrote…

1890, the moment when the landed frontier of the United States was officially declared ‘closed’, the moment when ‘frontier’ became primarily a term of ideological rather than geographical location.”

That remains the principle shaper of consciousness in the U.S. today.

Now one might ask why so many on the left view the Climate discourse without any class analysis. Do you not think that if Prince Charles is supporting a cause that one might be suspicious? I mean would he betray HIS class? Not fucking likely. Would Pierre Omidyar? Would Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, or Bill Gates??

The answer is no, of course, and yet I see people lining up to sign onboard projects that are endorsed by millionaires and royals. Why? Well, because, partly, of what Jimmy Wu wrote. And I will add another quote from Wu’s piece…

The psychological toll of this market-extremist thinking is ubiquitous and measurable. A long line of social science research has shown that unemployed people are much more likely to become depressed; after all, under the reigning ideology, our self-worth is measured by our economic output. Moreover, since the market is (we are told) a level playing field, with no single actor appearing as the obvious coordinator, those who happen to be losers in this global scramble ostensibly have no one to blame but themselves.”
Jimmy Wu (Capitalism is Dangerous for Your Mental Health)

The same logic applies to those throwing Maduro or Morales under the bus. Or for that matter Assad. Look, if you are a leader targeted by the U.S. there must be a reason. And that reason is independence from the global neoliberal system — and independence is not allowed. Ask the people of Iran or the DPRK or Cuba. Ask Qadaffi. The U.S. does not do things for moral reasons. They are not motivated by ethics or morality.

The rise of fascism is also a reflection of the same conditions that spawned the ‘Greta Defender’ symptomatology.

Fascism is attractive to those who fear being identified as *losers*. Fascism provides a sense of belonging, of unity and purpose. American democracy does not. The ideological frontier that Slotkin noted is what defines the consciousness of most Americans, certainly white americans.

That rugged individualism that Hollywood continues to spew forth in cop shows and spy shows and lawyer shows and even doctor shows is one that is not real. There is no space, materially or psychologically, for Daniel Boone today.

Most of the empty spaces of western America are owned by the federal government.

Most land overall is owned by billionaires. Sixty-one percent of the surface land of America is privately owned. And most of that is empty. The government owns around thirty percent. The working class owns nothing, essentially. Blacks (13% of the population) own under 1%, as of 2016.

But over the past decade, the nation’s wealthiest private landowners have been laying claim to ever-larger tracts of the countryside, according to data compiled by the Land Report, a magazine about land ownership in America.

In 2007, according to the Land Report, the nation’s 100 largest private landowners owned a combined 27 million acres of land — equivalent to the area of Maine and New Hampshire combined.

A decade later, the 100 largest landowners have holdings of 40.2 million acres, an increase of nearly 50 percent. Their holdings are equivalent in area to the entirety of New England, minus Vermont.”
Christopher Ingraham – Washington Post, 2017

80% of the people live on 3% of the land.

Ted Turner owns over 2 million acres. John Malone over 2 million. Stan Kroenke owns over a million and a half acres. The Hadley family, the Galt family, the Lee family…these are the owners of America’s land. Or Anne Marion who owns the 260,000 acre Four Sixes ranch in Texas. Or the Collier family, or the Barta family in Nebraska.

All own close to a million acres of land. There are essentially 75 families, maybe a few more, that own the vast majority of land in the U.S. Jeff Bezos owns half a million acres in Texas. The Irving family owns a huge percentage of Maine, or the Reeds, who own vast swaths of northern California and Oregon.

You and I own shit. We are the new serfs in the feudalism of advanced capital. So, why defend those who represent the ruling class?

The racial disparity in rural land ownership has deep historical roots based not just in chattel slavery, but in the post-slavery period as well. After emancipation, black farmers tended to be tenants of wealthy white landowners working for sub-poverty wages and doing mostly subsistence farming.

Average land ownership for black farmers peaked in 1910, according to the Agriculture Census, with about 16 to 19 acres. In contrast, black farmers owned just 1.5 million acres of arable land in 1997.

In many cases, the land African Americans lost over the 20th century was expropriated in one form or another and not sold freely. In the 2007 documentary, Banished, filmmaker Marco Williams describes numerous examples of white mobs forcing out African-American farmers and taking their land.

This outright stealing, intimidation, and violence had a devastating impact on black wealth ownership.
Antonio Moore (Inequality.org)

Just as white America feared black ownership of, well, anything, the white ruling class capitalists today fear the potential for a black planet. America has military bases in all the countries of Africa save one. France and Germany and the U.S. continue to recolonize Africa. And now, the U.S. is directing renewed attention to Latin America where they fear indigenous power and socialist movements.

The international financial institutions, all of them situated in Europe or the U.S., are the contemporary expression of colonialism, essentially. They discipline and punish the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, South and Central America, and many Pacific Islands. And in many cases, too, those countries formally part of the Soviet Union.

If you want to grasp the work of Cory Morningstar, this is not a bad place to start for now.

One cannot separate climate change from Imperialism. You cannot separate climate change from militarism. If change is going to try to correct global warming, or limit its impact (which honestly nobody knows) then one must learn to read how marketing works.

One must question anything applauded by the Royal families of Europe, of by billionaires in general. Those billionaires will not betray their class, rest assured. The billionaires and corporate interests behind Greta Thunberg are not looking to help the poor and working class, they are looking for massive land grabs and further raids on pensions, social security, and whats left of working class and socialist movements.

Maybe Proyect can connect the dots between the coup in Boliva, the opposition in Venezuela (that failed state per Sale) and the big money orchestrating the Thunberg phenomenon. The ruling class stick together.

*Conspiracy theory* used to be reserved for invisible helicopters and such, now its simply any class analysis. Anytime someone points out who is funding a project there are cries of *conspiracy theory*.

Why would any rational person look at the Greta phenomenon and not grasp that it is manufactured? There is a LOT of money behind this girl. But the non-profit industrial complex, the UN, the World Bank and IMF — they don’t do things altruistically. Capitalism is investment, not virtue. Capitalism created the crisis, it won’t solve it. Greta also retweeted the now sort of infamous Minh Ngo tweet that was part of the smear campaign against Morales. She is linked and backed, additionally, by Purpose and Avaaz — both of whom are connected to U.S. foreign policy in South America.

But Morningstar has the details here:

She also endorses and tweets support for Hong Kong colour revolution leader Joshua Wong (yet another U.S. asset). She is, as Club de Cordeliers put it (on twitter), ‘the ruling class poster girl’. And this is not even to get into her comments about holding disobedient leaders up against the wall. The infantilism of the western public is well prepared for child leaders. This is a canny gambit by the marketing apparatus and by all indications (and articles like Proyect’s) it is working to perfection.

Greta is not anti-capitalist. She may say a few things that suggest, vaguely, an anti-capitalist sensibility, but the reality (which is what Morningstar provides) is that she works for big money, corporations and FOR capitalism.

You know when Greta gave her last speech in the U.S. … at the UN in fact…(where she flubbed her lines, saying creative PR and clever accounting. It was meant to be creative accounting and clever PR…but learning lines is tough) she sailed back to Europe. The captain had been flown in to sail the yacht on its return voyage.

The whole thing is so ludicrous and idiotic that one really does wonder if the West is not in some trance state. The inability to read marketing as marketing is at this point inexcusable in someone self-identifying as a leftist.

The system sails along, like a billionaire’s yacht, increasing profit at the expense of the everyone not of the top 2 or 3%. Greta is a manufactured distraction, and all those protests that her campaign managed to generate are not to help stop war and exploitation. They are pretty much as meaningless as choosing to drive a Prius.

I will end with a quote from Cory Morningstar (from social media)….

You are about to get slammed by 2 globally orchestrated campaigns

1. #GlobalGreenNewDeal
2. #NewDealForNature & People

And when I say slammed – I mean slammed. Like a hammer over your head. Another campaign to assist both is #SuperYear2020.

Goal: obtaining the social license required to re-boot / save the failing global capitalist economy. To usher in an new unprecedented era of growth. The monetization of nature, global in scale (new/ emerging markets)(see past posts). That is, the corporate capture of nature. Those with money – will literally buy nature.

The pitch: The ruling class, corporations, capital finance – all those that have happily destroyed the planet in pursuit of relentless profit have learned their lesson.They have magically changed. Those that destroyed the biosphere will now save it. And save you. All they need is your consent. Forget that capitalism devours everything in it’s path. They can work around this inconvenient truth. But it’s going to take everyone. There are no class divisions, we are all in this “together”. Yesterday’s capitalists are today’s activists. Accept. Join hands.”

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Laurence Howell
Laurence Howell
Mar 5, 2020 11:56 AM

Previously, I was of course referring to the Oregon Petition.

Debunking the corporate shills and trolls that infest all truthful attempts to bring a balanced view to Geo-Politics is not what I do. I do not need to, they debunk themselves with arguments that expose where their loyalties lie.

Having taken the time to read the comments in this article from people who, in the main, are searching for answers to the so called “global climate emergency”, many comments prove that the truth is alive and well and seeded throughout the Off Guardian readership.

I challenge anyone to engage me with any arguments, scientific or otherwise, that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that man made global warming, if it exists at all, is having a catastrophic effect on Earths Climate.

The peoples “right” to freedom of speech is under attack from all sides and specious arguments which rely on banning debate on a worldwide carbon tax because “the science is settled” is doomed to failure.
Saint Greta, the UN’s poster child, has galvanised a flagging scientific fraud by recruiting schoolchildren to play upon the uneducated minds of adults who should know better.

But most adults are not equipped to fight against hidden frauds, especially scientific frauds because we are all brought up to believe that scientists would never stoop so low as to commit a scientific fraud in the first place. How wrong we all were.

The two articles in the Off Guardian, “A look at 97.4 % of climate scientists” and the “Climate-gate emails” readily establish that scientists commit fraud and manipulate already selective data. We must be vigilant and challenge the curtailment of the peoples right “to freedom of speech” in all its guises. This is a battle that must be won or 1984 becomes the birthright of newborns today.

Laurence Howell
Laurence Howell
Mar 4, 2020 11:47 PM

Perhaps ORAGE could try and understand the Milankovitch Cycles and the corrupted science revealed in the East Anglia University, Climate Units emails so generously hacked and posted on the net.

Please engage me with your science ORAGE, I have pointed you in the right direction with some of mine.

Laurence Howell
Laurence Howell
Mar 4, 2020 11:38 PM

When constructing the unworkable and false mathematical models, the criteria used, disregarded the actions of the Sun and Water Vapour in the atmosphere. Are there any Guardian journalists that carry out their own research into the Climate Emergency Scam?

If so they will discover that over 30,000 scientists of which 8000 are PHDs have signed the Oregon letter decrying the debasement of science. This has seen schoolchildren being abused and becoming anxious at the hands of the paid for lackeys of Al Gore and George Soros and their Illuminati bosses. This Guardian newspaper is as corrupt and rotten to the core as the BBC and Monbiot a disgrace to the Journalistic profession

TFS
TFS
Jan 9, 2020 10:36 AM

Surely, the Climate Change, Global Warming THINGY is the biggest challenge facing man, so why not choose something easier to tackle first?

I suggest making the UN, ICC and the like do their jobs and tackle the war machine, a far simpler task.

Or Greta, here’s a far simpler task. Get the EU to stop moving buildings every month, or move the UN into one of them, away from the cancer that is SpartUSA.

Carola Polakov
Carola Polakov
Dec 28, 2019 6:17 PM

FACTS: As the planet warms and forests and jungles worldwide are being cut and burned, there is increasingly less CO2 consumed thus less oxygen released. The warming of the oceans is a verifiable reality and extreme weather the consequence.
Environmental movements are not excluding the poisoning of the planet. Indigenous people all over the world who are at the forefront of the battle to protect their lands against corporations deforestation, mining, spilling and dumping wastes, are allied with Greta.
The largest corporations in the world are the fossil fuel industries and they are at the forefront of the campaign to kill the messenger as a distraction from the message, as does this article which does not even mention the realities of what is happening to the planet.
That there may be other corporations that will capitalise on the worldwide alarm regarding the obvious results of the Climate Emergency, rising seas, droughts, floods, famine, wars, diseases, plagues and climate refugees may not be a bad thing. The demands of a more aware public may inspire them to participate in a more sustainable or at the very least, a less damaging economy utilising the many technical advances in sustainable agriculture, construction, industry etc.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Dec 28, 2019 7:15 PM
Reply to  Carola Polakov

Could you link to a source for the currently warming oceans?

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 29, 2019 9:15 AM

You could consult the science and observations, now couldn’t you. Googling one immediately gets Scientific American quoting ‘numerous studies’ from the Argo program that since 2000 has measured oceanic salinity and temperatures down to 2000 metres. Try starting there.

Orage
Orage
Dec 27, 2019 11:43 PM

Hang on a minute. Is the author denying that there is a man made climate crisis or is he merely stating that it is real but that the capitalists have highjacked this to produce an agenda to beat us with?
These are important differences. When I first read the article I thought it was the later but reading the comments which are mainly denialism, and their upvotes, I wonder.
Nobody denies that in 2007 the world economy tanked but mostly we thought they way it was handled stank and the perpetrators of the fraud where bailed out at our expense. This is how I know see man-made climate change, not to deny it’s existence, but to find an answer that does not reward its perpetrators. Denying the science behind the climate change will only help marginalising the ostriches with their head in the sand.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 29, 2019 9:26 AM
Reply to  Orage

You’re new around here, aren’t you.

Orage
Orage
Dec 29, 2019 12:05 PM

I have frequented the site before but only started to comment recently. It is a shame that there are many here who don’t seem to understand what science is.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 29, 2019 8:36 PM
Reply to  Orage

‘Science’ is what I say it is-the Dunning-Kruger credo.

Orage
Orage
Dec 30, 2019 3:05 AM

Richard
I blame it all on Google. People now think they become instant experts by googling something. Google can’t teach interpretation, lateral thinking or substitute for experience.

TFS
TFS
Jan 9, 2020 10:43 AM
Reply to  Orage

Science behind Climate change?

Now I’m a bit fuzzy on this, but about 10yrs ago the UN used a piece of science to support man-made climate change. The data supporting the UN assertion was not provided so another scientist challenged the scientist making the claim, for access to this data.

The case, I believe has been rolling on for 10yrs in the Canadian courts, which I believe found that the data should be released.

You have to ask why the UN has suppressed the data up until this point. It off itself does not mean there isn’t a link, just that this particular bit of science is junk. I only say it’s junk, because I see no other possible reason/justification for it being withheld.

Orage
Orage
Jan 9, 2020 1:54 PM
Reply to  TFS

Indeed you are fuzzy and you do not provide a link or actual reference. Things have moved on in the last ten years. Apart from the clear evidence of climate change (whether cyclical or man made) that abounds, which I hope you do not contest, but do tell me if you do.
The scientific publications show overwhelmingly that the cause of the climate change is human activity related to burning fossil fuels, very few publications show the opposite or conclude that there is no evidence for this. Most governments in the world believe in this and have taken measures, except for the unscientific Trump and a few others.

TFS
TFS
Jan 9, 2020 2:09 PM
Reply to  Orage

Here you go:

https://www.wnd.com/2019/08/court-rules-against-hockey-stick-climate-change-graf-creator/

I notice you similarly fail to list the scientific publications supporting the link. I would have suspected by now, people making this claim, showing link, would have to hand the sum total of supporting evidence, maybe a page on the UN website?

I do not contest the fact that their is a link, because I have not availed myself of the literature, so will not take it as fact by someone else stating it. As for scientific publications, they have a long history of truth, haven’t they?

My take, so far. Mans doing a fine and dandy job of making in unhabitable for ourselves. I can see that with my own eyes. I see it every day I find myself in a Supermarket.

Orage
Orage
Jan 9, 2020 7:32 PM
Reply to  TFS

I shall give you the benefit of the doubt and try to answer your claims. My first comment is this: you quote as your source the WorldNetDaily. This is a right wing publications and here is what Wikipedia says about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldNetDaily
I do accept that Wikipedia can be susceptible to bias but we are also here not starting with a scientific publication, but a report of a court case that was dismissed because of delay. Here is what Michael E Mann, the scientist whose case was dismissed has to say
https://community.oilprice.com/topic/7448-supreme-court-of-bc-dismisses-dr-michael-mann’s-defamation-lawsuit-vs-canadian-climate-skeptic-dr-tim-ball/
So this was a court case in the District of Columbia, not by any means a major scientific institution that was producing a legal verdict, not a scientific one and therefore is of no relevance here.
Now as to evidence, apparently 97% of all climate change papers claim that the current global warming is related to human activity and only 3% say the opposite. These three percent, analysed by a panel of experts, showed that these three percent quite often have methodological errors and are flawed:
https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-of-scientific-papers-that-deny-climate-change-are-all-flawed/
There is a consensus built around what is called the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change IPCC and here is their report of 2014
if you have a few minutes to spare then please read this summary:
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf
Thank you.

Orage
Orage
Jan 10, 2020 6:20 PM
Reply to  Orage

I wonder why this comment was premoderated or is it me who is premoderated?

Orage
Orage
Dec 27, 2019 11:25 PM

Yes we know what the problem is but what exactly is the solution? Any suggestions? Global revolution? Is that going to happen anytime soon, like before the icecaps melt?

paul
paul
Dec 27, 2019 12:55 PM

You can find all these millennial apocalyptic death cults throughout the ages.
They were previously of a religious character, with emphasis on dates like 1000 or 1500.
In 2000 we had an updated example in Y2K, and there is a long list of similar fantasies and delusions.
They seem to be common to all cultures. The Aztecs professed similar end times delusions.
The Vikings had their Ragnarok when the gods would go down fighting against the forces of evil.
The current Global Warming version is a hangover from mainstream religions, which all talk of a deity violently bringing an end to this system of things to usher in a new golden era.
You used to see men with sandwich boards at football grounds proclaiming that the end was nigh.
People seem to be predisposed or pre programmed to swallow this garbage, like the Reverend Jim Jones or the Waco Death Cult.
But they no longer believe in hell fire, so the fire and brimstone have been replaced by CO2.
Though in some cases UFOs and extra terrestrials have filled the same function.
As endorsed by “all the scientists.”
“All the scientists” previously confidently announced that we were on the verge of a new Ice Age.
You would have to fight off marauding polar bears and packs of wolves whenever you went out to post a letter. We might just be able to stave off disaster for a few years longer by dumping millions of tons of black soot on the polar ice caps to warm them up a bit.
But everything now is down to Global Warming, whether it’s drought or floods or heatwaves or blizzards.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 27, 2019 10:06 PM
Reply to  paul

Well, if you perturb the global climate by causing energy to accumulate in the Earth system by pumping heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, then you are going to cause climate and weather anomalies. It is pretty well inescapable. And they are accumulating after all. And there never was a time when ‘all the scientists’ predicted a looming Ice Age. That is simply not true.

breweriana
breweriana
Jan 18, 2020 2:50 PM
Reply to  paul

Even Exxon concluded in the 1950’s that the burning of fossil fuels would cause the Earth to heat up.
Your mistake is that you do not seem to understand that it is not the current CO2 from plants, humans, animals etc. causing the problem, because it is simply recycled back into the Earth’s system, as it always has been. The Earths system was in perfect balance.
The problem is the millions of tons of pre-historic CO2 being released from burning fossil fuels by man – CO2 captured from sunlight that last hit planet Earth millions of years ago – and nature cannot keep up with the new rate of re-cycling needed to trap this rush, hence the increase in CO2 levels.
Should be common-sense, really.

Mucho
Mucho
Dec 24, 2019 1:23 PM

CO2 is plant food, a fudamental aspect of the process of photosynthesis, whereby plants consume CO2, water and sunlight in order to release oxygen, which we inhale and which is essential for our existence. This is a God created, synergistic, pefect relationship. All mammals exhale CO2 when they breathe, and the plants eat it. Beautiful.

The global warming/climate change hoax is yet another chapter in a long line of Satanic Inversions of reality, where those who control our world, who are verifiably evil, are completely and utterly fucking with our heads, in part, for their own amusement. They are laughing at us, rolling on the floor, pissing themselves while millions and billions of people run around in a state of hysteria over a carefully manufactured lie.

Planet poisoning, caused entirely by the big corporations and the military, is the real issue. The amount of carnage these entitites have inflicted upon the world is nothing shy of breathtaking. Greta’s job, who obviously means well, in her innocence, is to divert attention away from the real problem of planet poisoning, by propogating the Satanic inverted reality hoax for her backers by claiming that CO2, which is in fact essential for all existence, is killing the world. It isn’t. They are lying. Again. Wake up!

Mucho
Mucho
Dec 24, 2019 1:58 PM
Reply to  Mucho

Hard evidence for the ongoing programme of miltary/corporate weather manipulation. This is a must watch, easily a best in field documentary.

FRANKENSKIES

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 10:33 PM
Reply to  Mucho

The point is that you can have too much CO2 as it will cause a planetary energy imbalance by trapping re-radiated heat that would otherwise escape into space. And the rate at which CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, along with the other greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide etc, is crucial. The current forcing of greenhouse gases from c. 280 ppm to 415ppm and 490 ppm CO2 equivalent, is the most marked and most rapid (c.200 years) for hundreds of millions of years, and, just as science predicted, it has fatally destabilised the planetary climate. It’s just basic science, reinforced by evidence from reality.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 25, 2019 12:52 AM

You’re misusing terminologies in an attempt to sound as if you understand the science when all you really understand is the media scare articles you have consumed and believe.

“The current forcing of greenhouse gases” is science gobbldygook. ‘Forcing’ in climate science means ‘influencing the climate’s behaviour.’ Greenhouse gases are theorised to be one set of forcers. They may ‘force’ the climate. But they themselves are not ‘forced.’ You are totally misusing the word because you don’t understand the science and are trying to affect an understanding you don’t have. You are being dishonest. Please stop pretending you are su fair with the science when you are not.

FYI – current CO2 levels are totally unremarkable and much lower than in many times in the geological past. Neither can the speed of increase be compared with any other period of increase since the ice cores and other proxies simply can’t provide that kind of detail. It’s just guesswork and inference.

‘Science’ as a monolith doesn’t predict anything about CO2 and the climate. Some Scientists believe the hypothesis that CO2 causes global warming. They currently get all the funding and media attention. Other scientists are less convinced or even completely sceptical. Since you get your information from mainstream media you will not hear about these other than as ‘deniers’ whose opinions and data are auto-deplatformed.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:22 AM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

The forcing is of the climate system, through increased CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, which disturb the heat balance of the Earth system by trapping re-radiated heat that would otherwise escape into space. My usage is fine. The scientists who affirm the current validity of the anthropogenic climate destabilisation theory are the majority of scientists, generally, and nearly all ie c.99% of actively publishing climate scientists. The moneys they receive are called salaries and research grants, and no-one gets rich on those, unlike the tiny coterie of denialists, gifted hundreds of thousands by the climate change denial industry.

Berlin beerman
Berlin beerman
Dec 24, 2019 1:44 AM

When Miss. Thunberg mentions and perhaps discusses the counter effects of global dimming on global warming and the ice formations in the antarctic and how these effects factor into the global climate discussion,

it may rouse my attention.

In the meantime …..

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 10:34 PM
Reply to  Berlin beerman

Global dimming is a vital component of the problem. When and if global particulate smogs are reduced, we will see that another degree or two Celsius is baked into the system.

Berlin beerman
Berlin beerman
Dec 24, 2019 11:28 PM

Your correct.

Is CO2 the only issue? No, there are a few others that are equally if not more important but I guess they are more complicated to be explained (and taxed) to the mass populace by a sweet young person (girl).

So Greta gets involved to break the news ….. governments are listening now Greta.

The solution – Governments will impose a carbon tax as a solution to a small part of the problem – if one actually exists.

How this solves the issue of corporate environmental rape ? Ask Greta to explain it. Unfortunately she knows little if nothing. But the world is listening, Greta.

The key problem here is when corporations thorough governmental occupation latch onto a young persons desire to make a difference and twist it into farcical theatre. The outcomes are predictable. Idiots begin to call Greta a tool – and perhaps she is – while others ( the same ones that drive their kids to school in SUV’s) suddenly awake to the notion of accepting more taxes to save their little darlings from extinction. The winner is the corporation, not the environment.

To date we have been given a few models that appear to be flawed if compared to actual conditions. How these models fare with the effects of global dimming ? Worthy of serious discussions I think.

Lets ask Greta.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:26 AM
Reply to  Berlin beerman

Fixing the anthropogenic climate destabilisation cataclysm before it renders the Earth uninhabitable for our species is a vital first step to ecological repair and sustainability. That there are many other ecological crises caused by elite greed is no reason to ignore the worst. I rather hope Thunberg will say something about the others. If she does not, the suspicion that she is ‘controlled opposition’ and a ‘limited hangout’ will surely grow.

Berlin beerman
Berlin beerman
Dec 25, 2019 3:38 PM

So give me your thoughts on the fix.

Carbon tax on those who drive their kids to school in SUV’s will be used for what exactly?

Those who walk or cycle to work and own no cars will be rebated I suppose if the theory holds.

Then Governments will use the carbon tax to do what exactly ?

Offset variable mathematics to make corporations look better…. no this is no fix its another waste of time.

Useless models forced to make a point. No I am still not interested.

Electric cars, ugly wind turbines, outdated solar tech – still not interested.

Start discussing Hydrogen fuel and H extractors for use in individual dwellings and offsetting reliance on taxed based electrification energy that is needed to prop up failing government spending – dictated by corporate agendas – then perhaps I will start to listen.

Perhaps Greta is trying to say this but I fear not as I think your anthropogenic climate cataclysm has more to do with idiots living on our planet than anything else.

Merry Christmas all the same – talk soon.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 10:36 PM
Reply to  Berlin beerman

If I ruled the world every day would be the first day of spring, and I’d totally decarbonise as fast as possible. Carbon pricing is a ‘Market’ solution, so is just another scam to be exploited and rorted by the parasites. I would do taxes, but all the money would be hypothecated to decarbonisation, ecological repair and reimbursements to much of the population, the ‘tax and dividend’ idea.
I would electrify everything, have efficiency greatly improve, do something about the albedo flip in the Arctic (what I have to idea), institute a fully circular economy that recycles everything possible, reforest, with forests not plantations, every possible part of the planet, find some means to draw CO2 down from the atmosphere and sequester it for the long-term combined with rocks or in the deep seas, have roofs, roads etc, made more reflective to increase planetary albedo, hopefully safely, and destroy Market Fundamentalist capitalism, seize the ill-gotten fortunes of the billionaires, close all tax havens, and redistribute wealth to the real ‘wealth producers’ the working people of the world. I would also encourage veganism and vegetarianism, outlaw feedlots and other barbarous animal raising practises, encourage organic agriculture and regenerative grazing for intractable carnivores, and end the agri-chemical Holocaust. Then, after lunch….

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 26, 2019 12:55 AM

Confucius was asked what he would do if in the reigns of power – real power – not the wishful fantasy.
“I would redeem the dictionary” he said (in his own tongue).
I wonder how many here would appreciate why he gave the power of the word the foundation from which all else follows?

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 26, 2019 9:41 AM
Reply to  Brian Steere

As the sage observed, ‘A wassail bowl is not a wassail bowl’.

Orage
Orage
Dec 27, 2019 11:50 PM

I would vote for you. But look what happened to Corbyn with a much less ambitious agenda.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 30, 2019 5:17 AM
Reply to  Orage

Well, I’d fight the ‘antisemite’ smearing for a start, and not stab comrades like Williamson and Livingstone in the back, for starters.

starac
starac
Dec 26, 2019 8:30 PM
Reply to  Berlin beerman

Reasonable discussion.
However, still not the solution, still wiggle in the mud.
Stop the money being the reason for living.
Stop growth.
Stop breeding.
Stop interfering in other tribes territories.

Doctortrinate
Doctortrinate
Dec 24, 2019 12:24 AM

There aren’t many days that pass where I fail to experience the narcissistic thirst of some vampirish ego or other, one who’s opinions are founded on nothing more than a sick self bent image of reality, it’s the land of trumpet heads, where partiality is hallowed ground, why so ?…because its a snug and comfortable fit for their mental mirror box of inflated tricks, so try all you like to exchange views, crack the cloudy seeing glass – and gain some visibility – but unless your as equally disposed, it’s pointless, – as they’ll only deflect you into their own deformed reflection, then return it to you in some jibbering disarrangement, far far away from the one you conveyd….whats worse is, I find that that these irritating fantisizers, have more often than not, qualified into positions of power , and actually hold sway over others !….Now that, never ceases to amaze. So what have we become, how did we develop into such downtrodden apple-polishers, who so readily accept contamination from these ignorant, self-serving, duplicitous scum.

to whoever runs this place, those that take time to write (and respond)…Thanks. Enjoy the season, it’s Sun rise, Son rise or whatever rise yours.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 23, 2019 10:47 PM

Greta Thunberg. The kid that rocketed to stardom in less than a year, yeah – seems legit to me..

She’s a media creation, PR. Somebody is bankrolling her. I really had to laugh when she told the UN they were a bunch of do nothing hypocrites in here little speech and then watch them applaud “yeah, she’s right! We are a bunch of hypocritical scumbags that express values we don’t actually hold!” (applause).

If I was in front of the UN and called them a bunch of corrupt warmongers on the take, and they are, I wouldn’t get out without being tasered at the minimum.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Dec 27, 2019 9:25 PM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

Richard – as their surveillance technology advances their hope is that one day they’ll be able to taser you for justing – “thinking about” – calling them corrupt warmongers.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 28, 2019 2:47 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

The point I was just making is that the idiots that UN demonstrated that Thunberg is a PR plant by applauding her for stating they haven’t done anything in the decades that they’ve warning catastrophe is imminent.

They are jokes. You can lie for a decade, maybe 2, maybe 3, but 4 – that’s getting long in the tooth of keeping the lie going.

The real threat is peak oil/fossil fuels – that

    WILL

happen. Not certain when, but it may already have. Fossil fuels aren’t a threat to our environment, but imagine all petrochemicals being in scarcity, and being 5 times more expensive tomorrow. That’s a threat to our society, and it’s inevitable.

I don’t think the buffoons that are supposedly our “representatives” even know the “global warming” is a lie – I think it’s a cover for the end of extractable oil resources – because eventually, that’s going to happen and they’re just told to talk about “global warming” because the end of the planet is something scarier than the end of modernity.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Dec 28, 2019 5:42 AM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

Richard – I’ll have to respectfully disagree regarding your position on climate change Richard. Having lived in the arctic and now in southern California, as well as having read widely the emerging science over many years, in the end I’ll trust my own eyes over anything else. The underground ice houses that kept whale and seal meat intact for as far back as we can trace Inupiat tribal culture in Alaska are melting, filling with water and ceasing to preserve meat, and this is occurring in “real-time,” not geologic time over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

Only ten short years ago I lived with Inupiat people in Barrow, Alaska who at that time could still store their food in these underground ice cellars dug into the permafrost. These same ice cellars are now failing rapidly, the meat spoiling and an entire way of life is in danger because you don’t just put the literally tons whale meat that was to feed an entire village into the modern chest freezer on the porch.

Should, as seems inevitable, the methane in the arctic become released due to the rapid melting of the permafrost it will no longer matter what either you or I “think” about any of this Richard.

I certainly don’t trust the mega-capitalist forces behind the promotion of young Greta. I don’t trust their motive, intentions or planned “solutions.” Nor do I expect them to do anything meaningful to stop decimating our planet with poisons quite separate from the fossil fuel issue. However, that doesn’t mean I doubt we are in the midst of a human caused planetary catastrophe that is unfolding in real time.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 28, 2019 8:16 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

Well where I grew up there was plenty of snow in winter so we went skiing every weekend up until the early 1980’s and then it disappeared mostly and was sporadic until 2000. Plenty of it now.

You talk about permafrost, do they not know how to dig deeper?

The short of this is, that even if global warming is a problem, a life threatening problem to Earth, NOTHING WILL BE DONE. The government proposes a carbon tax – how does that fix anything? How is that supposed to address it, at all?

What’s the heat retention of CO2 versus nitrogen? How much better of an insulator is CO2 over Nitrogen, Oxygen, Water Vapor – etc? Why isn’t that known? Easy enough to measure. Seems like this would be a basic thing to measure.

For me, it’s that I’ve caught climate change “scientists” LYING a lot. Lying and lying and lying – for decades. They’ve cried wolf too many times. The government offers no actual solution but it’s another opportunity for a tax to go to god knows what, certainly not the repair of lead pipes in Flint Michigan..

We may be facing a real serious problem, and in fact, we certainly are. Fossil fuels are a non renewable resource. They will be depleted. There’s your actual emergency. At some point, it will take more energy to extract fossil fuels than you get by burning it. When we hit this point, our modern society ends.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 30, 2019 5:21 AM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

It is known. You list a series of plain wrong assertions of scientific ignorance, but every one is long established science. And what LYING are you slanderously asserting? Give us just ONE concrete example, please. And your demand that the Inupiat just dig deeper into the permafrost is typical of the denialists lack of human compassion, but it is a nearly entirely Rightist phenomenon, so that comes as no surprise.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Dec 30, 2019 8:36 AM

FYI we try to discourage the use of propaganda terms such as ‘denialist’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’, because they have been deliberately inserted into the popular mind to close down debate & use programming to render certain POVs unacceptable without analysis.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Jan 8, 2020 7:49 AM

What do you call someone who denies settled science and the reality of climate and weather destabilisation, for no other reason than ignorance, paranoia and ideological fanaticism, then? Why is a supposedly ‘Leftist’ site such a refuge for fanatic devotees of an irrational Rightwing cult?

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 30, 2019 6:25 PM

It is known. You list a series of plain wrong assertions of scientific ignorance, but every one is long established science.

List each assertion I’ve made, and demonstrate that each on is long established science.

And what LYING are you slanderously asserting? Give us just ONE concrete example, please.

That CO2 has a longer heat retention than nitrogen which makes up 75% of the air. In other words, that it’s a superior insulator to NO2.

There, you have a concrete example, it’s testable in a laboratory, it’s simple to invalidate or to validate.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 31, 2019 9:17 AM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

Oops, I mean N2. Not NO2 – that belongs almost exclusively in beer. We can measure insulation properties, and we already know that CO2 has less heat retention than N2 and I’ve never heard an explanation of what carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas”, when nitrogen is demonstrable worse.

Our media and governments lie to us all the time and sometimes, it is professionally dangerous to explain to the commoner how they do. I know we don’t have freedom of speech, and when you dare to express it our “news” certainly won’t repeat it.

Again, I’m absolutely no scientist, but I know how to test the proposed phenomenon.

I’ll be blunt – fuck the liars that pervert reality. You can’t test everything for certain but if a politician is making the claim, assume they are lying.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Jan 8, 2020 7:52 AM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

‘I’m absolutely no scientist..’. The beginning of wisdom. If N was a greater greenhouse gas than CO2, a proposition so fantastical that I sense we are approaching Peak Denialist Lunacy, the Earth would be like Venus.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Jan 8, 2020 4:32 PM

Here’s something really simple.

Find out what the heat retention of Co2 and N2 is. Go ahead, should be easy to find that, it’s just measuring their insulating properties.

Notice nobody has actually published this anywhere.

It’s a very simple measurement to make. The reason there’s such a lack of information on this subject, and it’s so vague, is because it’s BULLSHIT. They are lying. When you try to nail them down to something that actually is testable and is verifiable, they squirm away from it.

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 23, 2019 9:28 PM

gretna greena

fashion and religious ikon indeed indeed

hair by harmony hair spray ozone depleter xtra hold
boy blood and urea make up by maria abrahamovich @ house of epstein inc.
xxx tra small Schutzstaffel ss shirt buy hugo boss
virgin kinder chabad jacket by branson by branson island corpse inc
gender fluid trans medication by bill and melinda gate keeper eugenicks foundation

soul sole property of satan ltd all rights reversed

nottheonly1
nottheonly1
Dec 25, 2019 1:42 AM
Reply to  norman wisdom

…gender fluid trans medication…

Why ruin a good comment by laying blame on those who are abused in their condition and because of their condition. Why is that an issue? 800 billion for war is not reallt that important. But people with differing gender experiences are connected to these pathetic psychopaths that use a community of human beings that are ready to be gassed in the ovens. Not the rich asswipes.

You may consider the intend by the owners to rile up the masses against anybody that is ‘Transgender’. While there is no problem with ‘Transparent’, the childless gender adjuster/ess does not receive that nod.

Gender and anything that has to do with it need to be retired. It is time to move on and first get all the other costly shit in order before inciting hate against Trans/Gender/People. As it looks, the Trans- haters have their priorities ludicrously backwards.

We (human kine) need to focus on military spending and wasting before anything else. Wasting precious resources for the benefit of a few.

Transgender People deserve the same respect than anybody else. At least.

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 28, 2019 11:19 PM
Reply to  nottheonly1

because greta greena is a boy
dear boy
a very naughty one
the worst possible
a male actor from a sick satanick acting dynasty

as for gender fluidity just another zio communist project

John Manning
John Manning
Dec 23, 2019 9:27 PM

There is another dot to connect in Greta’s story. When considering why the world of billionaires has taken an interest in climate change consider the two areas of the world that are still commons. That is not property which can be owned. They are international waters and the atmosphere.

There are already people arguing that the only way to protect the atmosphere is to remove it from the commons and make it a property. This argument uses the libertarian capitalist principle that people will only care for what is theirs. Those promoting this idea say it does not matter who owns the atmosphere just as long as it is private property. That is as good as saying they intend it to be owned by the few which will not include you or I.

At first you may think the proposal is ludicrous. However we have already moved in that direction. The Kyoto climate agreement made atmospheric carbon a property which could be bought and sold. With the principle in place it only needs extending.

So imagine your future when it requires a payment to enjoy the opportunity to breath.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 10:36 PM
Reply to  John Manning

That the ruling global parasites are seeking to profit from the climate destabilisation disaster does not change the science.

iskratov
iskratov
Dec 23, 2019 9:15 PM

How did capital come about historically? From work, the bourgeois respond ideologically. Marx unmasks the “bourgeois tale” and highlights the true origin of capital, which “comes to the world dripping blood and dirt from head to toe, from every pore”. In fact, far from being born from work, capital is the result of bloody expropriations.

Richard Ong
Richard Ong
Dec 27, 2019 12:06 AM
Reply to  iskratov

Hyperbole alert! Defcon III.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 27, 2019 10:10 PM
Reply to  Richard Ong

Iskratov is correct. The six million slaves murdered by the Spanish in mining the silver of Potosi, which provided a great deal of the capital that launched capitalism in Europe, is a pretty bloody Holocaust if you ask me. One of very many.

John Doran
John Doran
Dec 23, 2019 12:16 PM
John Doran
John Doran
Dec 23, 2019 12:19 PM
Reply to  John Doran

that’s desire-to-rule

JD.

John Doran
John Doran
Dec 23, 2019 12:09 PM

From my viewpoint we no longer live under a capitalist society: it’s morphed into an insidious form of Fascism. When our spineless politicians declared the banks “too big to fail” that threw capitalism out the window.
The Fascism becomes more obvious each day.
We have a gigantic liar, war criminal & mass murderer, the Stony Bliar, walking free & advising on govt & elections. We have a man who helped reveal war crimes, Julian Assange, banged up in Belmarsh high security, being tortured to death.

Looking back in history, reading Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist, for example, it is great to see the progress Mankind has made in metrics such as longevity & prosperity since coal power & the steam engine unlocked the Industrial Revolution. Life expectancy has doubled since 1900, for example.
It is difficult to see industry & fossil fuels as anything but great boons for mankind. Points that are very ably, calmly & logically made by Alex Epstein in his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
These points of view are, of course, demonised by the 1%s owned, fake news MSM.

Also demonised is safe & clean nuclear power, another path of progress for Mankind.
Our fake news MSM scream NUCLEAR DISASTER at us every chance they get.
The facts are that there were zero radiation fatalities at Three Mile Island, one radiation fatality at Fukushima & we would need a Chernobyl each & every day to equal the fatalities & health costs imposed by coal power. There are costs to progress, but we are steered away from progress by the 1%s & their MSM, in pursuit of their 3 agendas: Depopulation, De-industrialisation & a World Totalitarian Govt.

Nuclear PhD engineer Robert Zubrin, lays this out clearly in his 2013 book: Merchants of Despair.
Written for the layman, it’s a real eye-opener.

JD.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:09 PM
Reply to  John Doran

Is your description of nuclear power as ‘clean and safe’ meant to be a parody of the Panglossian optimism of the ‘The Market is God’ crowd? Fossil fuels proved useful, but the deadly legacy of their polluting side-effects, primarily greenhouse gases, has been well-known for decades, and will now undo all the benefits bestowed, and much more besides and no quantity of denialism will stop that process.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 23, 2019 10:56 PM

Greenhouse gasses, like CO2? The entire climate change nonsense is just that, and I was a big believer in it starting when I was 15 years old, 30 years ago.

I’m an electrical engineer now, I have a computer that is fully capable of simulating a Cray supercomputer from 1993, but you know what I don’t have? A climate change model. I also have never seen any prediction made by this model turn out to be correct, despite alarmist cries (which I truly believed in) for 30 years. The arctic was supposed to be ice free, the end of snow predicted in the UK, LA and NYC under water by 2000. The polar bears are dying off.

I’m not scientist, but I understand the scientific method. A scientific theory takes into account all hypothesis both correct and incorrect, and explains them all. If a theory can’t make any useful predictions, you either have a very flawed theory that needs a lot of work to fix it, our your model is entirely wrong.

CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas. This is easy to verify – if it was, it should have longer heat retention than the other gasses in the atmosphere. How does it compare against nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor? That’s the vast majority of our atmosphere. Guess which one of those gasses does have long heat retention? Water vapor by FAR.

It really has become a religion, a religion I believed in for 30 years. 10 years ago, if I was reading what I’m writing now, I would think I was reading the rantings of a crazy person. I still have some level of gullibility and belief in argument by authority back them. It seems totally nuts you can get so many scientists to stay mum on the subject, but it’s been done.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 10:40 PM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

Extraordinary. So ALL the Academies of Science and scientific societies on Earth, 99% of actively researching climate scientists, the IPCC, WMO, NASA etc are all either fools, complete idiots, or engaged in a gigantic conspiracy to some strange end, that nobody has revealed, save in paranoid declarations, sans facts, sans evidence sans a single scintilla of proof.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 25, 2019 12:20 AM

99% is a myth. I have actually looked up the names of “scientists” listed, and they aren’t scientists at least half the time or they are in the soft sciences the other 1/2 of the time.

They aren’t fools. They are liars. They are propagandists.

You don’t believe a gigantic conspiracy could possibly exist. Find that weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq yet? The OPCW just had to admit that they have no evidence that Assad gassed his own people. Find that Russian Collusion yet? They happen all the time. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, right?

Governments, and their toadies, lie all the time. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin that never happened?

I am an engineer, certainly not a scientist, but I have more than enough education to understand what a scientific theory is. Where’s the model I can test, and I can duplicate? To my right, I literally (and I mean literally as in literally) have a machine that can simulate a Cray supercomputer from 1993 and run faster than the original machine did. It’s 30 cm away. Where’s the model? Why isn’t the model available?

This is junk science and in 15, 20, 30 years, whatever, you’ll realize it was too because there will be NOTHING DONE to stop “climate change”. The most you will see, is a tax. I’ve had this threat hanging over my head for 1/2 my life, only to realize it’s a bold faced lie.

It’s nothing more than an excuse to tax people for simply being alive.

CO2 has less energy retention than water vapor does. Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas today. Sulfur dioxide is worse, but that is a poison.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:30 AM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

The three examples of conspiracies you list are all cases where the evidence that the ‘official version’ is garbage is and was copious. It was just that the MSM hid it all from the plebs. With climate science there is no evidence of the massive conspiracy, surely the greatest ever in scope, save laughable inventions by the denialist industry, like ‘Climategate’. Red meat only for the true disbelievers.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 25, 2019 7:02 PM

It was just that the MSM hid it all from the plebs.

With all due respect, it’s the MSM that has convinced you that global warming is going to kill us all in 12 years.

With climate science there is no evidence of the massive conspiracy,

In 12 years, marvel that you are alive when nothing has been done to curb CO2 emissions. Again. I’ve gone through it 3 times.

You believe “99% of scientists” – that is your dishonest “news” media.

Now: don’t get me wrong, I was tricked too. No shame in being wrong, and you are wrong, just as I was 20 years ago. I’d be on your side of this argument back in 2005.

The reason none of the predictions are correct, is that it’s simply a lie. I know it’s hard to imagine your news media would lie to you this blatantly, because you know it’s science and therefore it will ultimately be proven or dis-proven and it will destroy the credibility of our “news” if it turns out they are lying.

Well, they are lying, and they have no credibility. This was a kamikaze mission for them.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:08 PM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

The MSM is not monolithic. Here in Australia the Murdoch cancer and ‘business’ rags like the Fin Review remain denialist, pro-fossil fuels, viciously anti-Greenies etc, and in places dementedly so. The rest of the MSM remains ‘even-handed’ giving air time to denialist loons, although less so than before. The public is far ahead in recognising the undeniable. However all still downplay the gravity of the situation.
The ‘We’ll all be dead in twelve years’ scam was part idiocy, part misrepresentation by the denial industry. It was, if I recall correctly, a prediction that our fate would be sealed in twelve years, because the process of climate destabilisation would be irreversible, even if we totally decarbonised overnight. That’s wrong, but only because we have already reached that situation and there’s no need to wait for 2030.
As for water vapour, it is far more prevalent in the atmosphere, but its residence time before precipitating out is very short compared to CO2. And increasing global average temperatures lead to increased atmospheric water vapour levels at about 7-8% for one degree Celsius increase, a positive feedback seen in the increasing derangement of the hydrological cycle. as seen in increasing floods, deluges and droughts etc.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 26, 2019 1:03 AM

Haha, believe what you like, It’s not my lifelong work to deprogram you. You’ll see for yourself in time.

Your government and your “news” media lies to you constantly. It will just take time for you to realize that, and again, there is no shame in being fooled. I said previously I was. I wasn’t fooled because I was stupid, I was fooled because I didn’t recognize our “news” media as what it actually is – propaganda.

We are all victims of disinformation. I just have the ability in this area to recognize these lies. You do as well but it may take longer for you. I cannot get a model for climate change although I’ve really worked to get it, this is because there is no actual model. It’s really a bold faced lie, and you will know this in another decade or so.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 26, 2019 9:44 AM
Reply to  Richard Wicks

Richard, if I may be so bold-your reply seems not connected to my observations at all.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 30, 2019 10:03 PM

I don’t care about your observations. They are anecdotal.

With all due respect, every scientific theory MUST have a model to accompany it. There are models for evolution (and we use them all the time to make everything from self driving vehicles to optical character recognition systems, to chip routing algorithms), there’s a model for gravity, there’s a model for magnetism, there’s a model for electricity, transistors, for fluids, everything.

The purpose of a model is so you can make accurate predictions. With a good model, we can design using the model to come pretty close to an expected result. Everything that an engineer uses is bases on models to make everything and look at what we have today – you can talk to me clear on the other side of the planet and at practically no cost because of models of light through single model fiber optic cables.

There is no model that comes CLOSE to making accurate predictions in Global Climate Change, the model cannot be reviewed – the NOAA has had to be sued to get original data before, and they’ve been caught falsifying past data.

We do face a very serious problem of resource depletion. If you know anybody that works in the oil business surveying land to find deposits, you know this is a real problem. Should we run out of classical petroleum energy, our society is doomed without an energy replacement.

And it indeed looks like we’re facing that. Solar might be a viable alternative, even with it’s energy inefficiency – because a solar cell will (over its lifetime) produce more energy than it takes to make the cell. Wind turbines are about break even, ethanol requires more energy than it ultimately produces, shale is in the same category. Nuclear is certainly viable HOWEVER, just like solar, it requires storage because you can’t just turn on a nuclear power plant or turn it off on a time.

It seems to me that some idiots decided it was easier to lie about global climate change to get people to reduce energy consumption, than it was to explain the planet is going to eventually run out of non renewable resources. I have no idea why they believe it’s easier to tell a lie, than to tell the truth. This is the crisis our civilization will eventually face.

Compounded upon that is that we have really stupid governments and corrupt officials that will take advantage of the crisis, and turn it into an opportunity – for them. Take Solyndra for example – ever see their solar cell idea? That was a complete scam. Meanwhile, the likes of Stirling Energy Systems was left to die and that produced energy that was cheaper than natural gas.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 25, 2019 1:00 AM

None of those authorities you cite have claimed the apocalyptic version of catastrophic climate change you read in the popular media.

The strongest statement yet made by the IPCC et al is that human activity is ‘likely’ to be responsible for ‘some’ recent warming. And even this is a fudge.

But don’t take my word for it, go and read the actual reports issued by these people.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:34 AM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

Of course the IPCC and its ‘Reports’ are rubbish. It has been plain that they have seriously understated the extent and rapidity of climate destabilisation for at least twenty years. Apparently the Reports require ‘consensus’, as do the COP conventions, so must be dumbed-down and minimalised to meet with approval from hard Right, fascistic and religious fanatic rogue regimes like the USA, Saudi Arabia and Australia.

kevin morris
kevin morris
Jan 10, 2020 11:18 PM

Yes . Well done. You’ve finally got it!

John Doran
John Doran
Dec 23, 2019 11:15 AM

Three cheers for John Steppling: an article with real breadth & depth.

He has seen through the man-made climate fraud & rightly called out Saint Greta for the billionaire manufactured creature she is. I have an autistic grandson & feel sorry for poor Greta: she has surely been brainwashed by her odious family et al into the climate cult.

The cult is totally anti-science: it violates the second law of thermodynamics.
A cooler body cannot warm a warmer body. It’s a fraud.
A great little book for the layman, by climatologist Dr. Tim Ball:
Human Caused Global Warming The Biggest Deception In History
Only 121 pages reveals all: the science & scandals, the politics & profiteers.
Dr. Tim names the Bankster Rockefellers & multi-billionaire cronies George Soros, Ted Turner, Maurice Strong & others as the chief pushers of this fraud.
He identifies their 3 main motives: Depopulation, De-industrialisation & a Totalitarian World Govt.
The depopulation will be as much as 95% if freakos like Ted Turner prevail.
For plotters & motives click on Quotes:
http://www.c3headlines.com

Dr. Tim has won 2 important court cases against these frauds, one vs Andrew Weaver, & one vs Mikey “Hockey Stick” Mann.

John Doran.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Dec 23, 2019 3:41 PM
Reply to  John Doran

Excellent posts and links, John. Thank you! And have a Merry Christmas.

John Doran
John Doran
Dec 25, 2019 3:22 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

@Seamus Padraig,
thank you & have a mighty fine Christmas yourself.
JD.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:11 PM
Reply to  John Doran

How can ALL the Academies of Science and scientific societies and 99% of actively researching climate scientists not understand thermodynamics, but you do?

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 23, 2019 10:51 PM

You’re simply reciting a popular lie. The ‘consensus’ story is media propaganda.

There is a rough ‘consensus’ among climate scientists on the very very broad concept that manmade CO2 may be a factor in recent warming in the northern hemisphere.

There is no consensus about the extent of this potential forcing, whether it’s minor or major, no consensus about the likely extent of future warming it may produce (if any), and very little agreement on the matter of climate catastrophe.

This is the reality behind the scare headlines and bogus ‘97%’ figure. So strange that sites such as this and journalists such as Cory Morningstar, that question every other aspect of the media narrative still completely accept the media narrative of AGW.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 10:43 PM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

No-there is very broad and deep consensus among climate scientists. The very few deniers among them are mostly on the denial industry payroll, directly or indirectly, some alumni of the tobacco harm denial industry, and the remainder are mostly Rightwing zealots. Denialism is the quintessential Rightwing project.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 25, 2019 1:02 AM

That is just not true. Read the literature rather than the lying corporate media version.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:37 AM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

I don’t read the corporate media for facts, and, in any case, the corporate media, particularly the Murdoch cancer but others as well, not just here in Australia, are the leading lights of denialism.

chris
chris
Dec 23, 2019 8:57 AM

Methane in the Arctic and Positive feedback loops not mentioned.
Your Remarks about big money is behind Greta is wrong.
I expected more from off guardian.
We are not impressed.
have a nice day yourself.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 23, 2019 9:44 AM
Reply to  chris

If you can provide ONE solid scientific source for ONE piece of solid real world evidence that positive feedback loops have EVER existed in real world climate cycles I for one will be happy to debate that data with you.

Big Money isn’t behind Greta? So Amazon, Google, Facebook and BMW didn’t fund and promote Climate Strike then? Funny I thought they did.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:17 PM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

The science regarding ‘hot-house Earth’ mass extinctions like the End Permian ‘Great Dying’, where an initial greenhouse gas forcing eg the eruption of the Siberian Traps igniting great beds of coal, then causes an initial warming, which causes the release of methane from frozen clathrates, and we’re off to the races, is pretty well established. Try reading the literature explaining that process.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 23, 2019 11:12 PM

None of that is ‘pretty well established’. It’s a hypothesis based on computer models built by people assuming the hypothesis is correct. If a positive feedback loop had occurred in the past the Earth would have continued to warm and warm and warm. It didn’t. In fact it cooled again and warmed again and cooled again in cycles we can clearly observe if not explain. The entirety of physical evidence shows the Earth maintains checks and balances and nothing indicates the probability or even possibility of positive feedback loops.

If you claim the contrary please indicate the physical evidence for such a loop in the geological record. You won’t, of course, because there is none.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 10:57 PM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

There is very much more than computer modelling involved in the hot-house Earth hypothesis. Most of the evidence is geological, and paleontological from the signs of great basaltic eruptions, study of isotopes in rocks from the time, and the fossil, evidence of the extinction, during the End Permian, of 95% of aquatic and 90% of terrestrial genera.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 25, 2019 1:04 AM

If you understood the science you’d know none of those things you cite are in any way evidence of positive feedback loops and have never been claimed to be.

John Doran
John Doran
Dec 25, 2019 4:22 PM

@ mr sarc,

utter tosh, as is all you write.
The geological evidence proves that CO2 has NEVER EVER been a main climate driver.
A great book by geology Prof Ian Plimer:
HEAVEN AND EARTH Global Warming: The Missing Science
500+ pages, 2,000+ ref’s to peer-reviewed papers etc & well indexed.

While you seem incapable of producing a single reference to back your waffle.

You do, however, seem to manage to stretch the 97% consensus lies to 99%.
Where does the extra 2% come from? Your delusions?
Dr. Tim Ball, as I ref’d above, in his book calls out 2 of the main frauds guilty of the 97% consensus lies: Naomi Oreskes & John Cook, the crook who runs skepticalscience.
If Dr. Tim were wrong these clowns would sue him in an instant.

A graph showing, over geological timescales of 600 million years, CO2, Carbon Dioxide, plant food, has had zero correlation with global average temperatures, which have NEVER shown a runaway warming.
In global tropical periods temps have not gone above 22DegC, while ice ages have not gone below minus 12 DegC. NO MATTER THE LEVEL OF CO2.
http://www.edberry.com/SiteDocs/2010/10/EarthHistory1.jpg

I am delighted to see you being decisively downvoted here: people are waking up to the warming/climate fraud.

JD.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:21 PM
Reply to  John Doran

Ian Plimer!! The rogue geologist with extensive interests in fossil fuel businesses? The embarrassment of all who have crossed his path. The fellow is a standing joke. I recommend the Skeptical Science review of Plimer’s most recent tome, if you have a few hours to peruse Plimer’s scores of misrepresentations, distortions and outright idiocies. The man is a renegade even among geologists, the last scientific specialisation to come on board (no doubt due to financial conflicts of interest)with the theory.

nottheonly1
nottheonly1
Dec 23, 2019 10:05 AM
Reply to  chris

We are not impressed.

Who is “We”, if I may ask?

Gwyn
Gwyn
Dec 23, 2019 11:04 AM
Reply to  nottheonly1

It might be the royal ”we.” If so, we are honoured!

If anyone needs me, I’ll be tugging my forelock as hard as I possibly can…

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 23, 2019 6:35 PM
Reply to  chris

hey chris close the door on the way out
it is bloody cold in hear with all that global warmings
un alls

who owns the carbon fiber graphene ship that greta sails ?
maybe the same family that own the economist perhaps
my life already

Bootlyboob
Bootlyboob
Dec 23, 2019 8:09 AM

For what’s its worth, I’ve started buying solar panel cells via a company called The Sun Exchange, who then install them for South African communities. I use bitcoin to pay for them and they pay me back in bitcoin. It’s not a huge return or anything but I hope this sort of direct action is a way we can start investing in actual, tangible things and services for people rather than paying straight to the fucks at the top.

Antonym
Antonym
Dec 23, 2019 2:46 AM

Scaremongering was the weapon of choice for the US military-industrial complex to increase their sales and reach. USSR, Cuba, Irak WMD, terrorism, Iran.
Now they specifically branched out to Western teenagers and women – emotional civilians to increase profits from Green products, laws and restrictions. The phenomenal fast expansion of XR and “Greta” is a proof of this.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:19 PM
Reply to  Antonym

To be not scared by the rapid progress of anthropogenic climate destabilisation indicates some pathopsychological and spiritual malaise, in my opinion.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 23, 2019 11:25 PM

Please note the decreasing quantity of science and increasing quantity of spin involved in changing the name from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ (adopted when the warming stopped circa 2000) to ‘climate destabilisation’ (adopted when the climate refused to ‘change’.

‘Climate destabilisation’ is such an unscientific and blatantly dishonest term it is refused by most honest scientists. It implies that climate is naturally ‘stable’, when all evidence, observational, historical and prehistoric, clearly shows it is anything but.

Climate is always unstable, shifting, changing, moving through short, medium and long term cycles we only partly grasp.

No one can currently say if human activity is playing any part in influencing any if those cycles.

All we have are competing theories. And a massive multi-billion dollar psychological operation that has succeeded in turning one of those theories into an apocalyptic religious cult.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:01 PM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

To argue that all the science and evidence from reality is rendered null and void by some people changing their preferred nomenclature is profoundly bizarre. I prefer ‘anthropogenic climate destabilisation’ myself. And to assert that warming ceased in 2000 is so erroneous that it is beyond ‘wrong’.

Chris Hastings
Chris Hastings
Dec 23, 2019 1:52 AM

So I entered “Capitalism is bad for your mental health” into Amazon, and instead received the first result as being “Saving Capitalism; for the many not the few”. Or “in your face” might be a better title, authored by Jeff Bezos.
The above is an excellent article. It resonated mostly with the sense that ‘we own shit’. We cannot change anything, unless the means of production are brought into workers control. It strikes me that there is farmland aplenty in the UK, for example, yet no-one in my village works it, a friend who is a farmer cannot afford staff, yet the middlemen/producers and no less the supermarkets still make a profit, only to throw away vast quantities of food. It is overproduced yet unaffordable, intensively farmed (more often abroad?) by people earning zilch. If it were produced by local people working those fields, and stayed local, I’m quite confident that Britain could be near self-sustainable. As it is, it seems to get shipped around, and thrown in the bin. There seem to me to be acres of unused land; kept for horses and goodness knows what. Capitalism is happy for us to sit on our hands, and rot. There seems to me plenty of things people could be doing. But the land is not ours to do anything with. My point in the past, has been that; we have millions of unemployed, and a very likely environmental catastrophe. We have enough ‘Human Resources’, to cultivate an utterly different environment. But THERE IS NO MONEY IN THAT FOR THE LANDOWNERS. So I sit in a village that was once fertile fields, and watch every year as a tributary at the bottom of said village, becomes a ditch to wash away what is left of the top soil, initially carried away in huge trucks by the property developers, and listen to the sound of our gas boiler roaring away through winter, hammering rains I remember little of in my youth – perhaps due the innocence of youth, but hammering nonetheless – on a low wage, feeling powerless to do anything to reverse it. A friend and his wife cultivates his small garden in an environmentally conscious manner. They will leave their rented property for Hamburg in the new year. My mother tends her garden, having knowledge of plants that benefit the area. A generation who had some time to educate themselves about such matters. She will pass away or become too frail to cultivate the garden. I look around and see few like her in the heaving morass of concrete buildings that clad the valleys in decay or imported plastic based furnitures and paint. Dead valleys. Stripped and polluted. I’m no scientist. I remember little of what I read. But what I feel, is a kind of torture, and a trauma. Spurned upon workers, by the need to make money – as opposed to a greed to make money, by the psychopaths whom many citizens feel compelled to obey – and thus quite different. I sense a complete dereliction of duty in our culture, towards consumerism, and away from collective environmentalism; though our environment is all that we have. Bold political words, maybe; but no change in the day to day grinds of traffic congestion, every morning and evening, en route to schools, offices, hospitals, wherever people can find the money to conform. Passing by hills and trees, that stand perhaps, as a mere coincidence to the drivers, their heritage of millennia, pertaining the very seeds and roots of life on this planet. Our houses are welded to their surface, yet people seem to remain alien to them, save for a few ramblers who traverse some relatively new path through them at weekends, further kicking up precious soils to be washed away. A kind of tokenist salute, and reminder to them of where they came, to quench their soul; but not entirely repatriate it. The rains return, and erode further the foundations of our homes. Some sit in idle silence, whilst others close their blinds and revel in ‘what little time they have’; with their family, as ‘time is short’, and ‘people turn on the telly to forget about all the horrible things in the world’. And like ‘all the horrible things in the world’, and all the decreasing good things in the world, they too shall be washed away, along with their visual narcotics and disposable ready meals. The trauma does not heal via self-medication, in the form of alcohol, live music, telly visual, audible, or printed fiction. It doesn’t heal by way of ‘good company’, therapy, emotional support groups, or even by way of ‘sustainably farmed’ diets. It heals, by way of labour. And a system that gives a damn enough, to liberate and incentivise the cultivation required to reverse man’s suffering; by way of cultivating the (metaphorically, if not literally) dead earth that surrounds us, for miles and squares miles all around. With native plants, and maybe arduous – but not intense – methods of farming. That is where ‘the goodness’ of life exists. As unappealing as it may be portrayed, by the squeaky clean Disneyland curators, who seemingly wish to clad our hilltops in plastic californicated golf resorts, our flood planes with cheap houses and artificial shopping streets, whilst our towns can rot in damp concrete dwellings for single parent families, mould, and the bilge of homeless peasants. Mortuaries of the jumped up soulless nobodies every Friday and Saturday night. We are afforded little choice, within a system that professes almost overwhelming material choice, for those who can (still) afford to buy it, but few scruples – or opportunity – of how to spend it. Our lives are reduced to a basic instinctive quest to survive, whereby the only qualities or satisfaction to be found are within the delusions we are prepared to accept, from the ruling class, in the establishments or vending houses through which labourers mercilessly waste everyone’s time. Time that we do not have. Time that they want us to squander. Time enough for us to lose.

Willem
Willem
Dec 23, 2019 9:16 AM
Reply to  Chris Hastings

Good comment, thank you for sharing. But also very pessimistic. Which reminds me of Gramsci’s quote: ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’

There are plenty of chances to change things for the better, it’s just not the chances we are been giving from those who want to control the world as they have controlled it for hundreds of years: more for themselves at the cost of everyone and everything else. I also disagree with the idea of urgency. That we live in apocalyptic times is a mindset that is as old as the Bible. I think we have plenty of time, if not now, then in other times to come.

The comment on self-medication is a good one. I tried that myself in my, what Byron called, ‘middle ages’ like many others did an do too, but was fortunate enough to try to find healing in books, art, philisophy and nature instead of drugs, careers, and risky relationships. It did not change anything to the world I lived in, but it certainly did not hurt my world-view. But the biggest luck there was that I was born and raised in a surrounding where people cared for another, so I had a safety net. It gave me the (much needed) time to think things through for myself.

And since I know where I came from, I just try to give other people the same safety-net that I had. Many people do that, it is the natural way. But of course that type of living is not promoted by the people who want more for themselves at the cost of everyone else. And therefore promote the sex and the city, bright lights big city, American Psycho kind of living, and similar drugs that just don’t work.

I know the frustration of seeing people deluding themselves through all the stuff they get pumped into their head since kindergarden. And that it seems hopeless to change their world-view. But I find comfort that many people before me struggled with the same problem. To paraphrase Max Planck, he said: ‘A new truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it’.

I do believe that a new generation grows up with seeing things that are familiar with the importance of empathy towards nature, animals, ourselves, and that gullibility is the only thing a human should root out for himself for the simple reason that gullibility kills and destroys.

But don’t expect to find any of those thoughts and feelings in your local journal, tv or by those who get paid to sell the message that the greatest thing one can achieve is by making oneself into a product that makes fortune and fame and nothing else.

nottheonly1
nottheonly1
Dec 23, 2019 10:22 AM
Reply to  Chris Hastings

You see, at this time, it becomes more and more clear what is actually going on. Ever more viewpoints arise, or appear, that make the source of humanity’s real problems more obvious than a pink painted Elephant in an Ansel Adams picture.

There should be a continuous thread somewhere secure and open, where people can discuss in real time the issues that plague them already. And their conclusions. Their observations. Their rising Awareness.

This is not about saving the Earth. This is about saving the Earth for humans and their spiel.

However, it is absolutely clear beyond the shred of a doubt, that Cockroaches will be the next dominant species on Earth. Will they teach their children about a huge species that blew up the whole planet 420 million years ago?

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Dec 23, 2019 7:34 PM
Reply to  Chris Hastings

Chris Hastings,

Great essay, Thank you for writing it. I feel the same. I know you felt very intense when writing it, and so far as I am aware, you neither made any spelling mistakes, nor grammatical or logicial errors.

Please write more here. You write brilliantly, and please occasionally stop writing for a moment, and press enter. It makes paragraphs, which from my perspective makes your work, much more readable.

I bet you can play guitar, as well as you write. I know people like you. I wish I could play, got loads of guitars, but I haven’t got the talent. I think some people, are born with it. They pick up a musical instrument, for the first time in their lives, and they can play it…

My wife and I have just got our Christmas Tree up. I said there is no way, that will fit in my car. She negotiated with the 80 year old bloke selling it. I think we woke him up, having an afternoon nap. He opened his bedroom window, and she shouted up to him…How much for a Christmas Tree? He said how much do you want to pay? She said £25. He said O.K., came down 5 minutes later, and said he would also deliver it for free. He said, I normally get £60 for that size, but you asked me nicely.

Have a nice Christmas,

Tony

Doctortrinate
Doctortrinate
Dec 23, 2019 12:22 AM

stages are reached….where it is “decided” that changes must be made in order to activate transformation toward an imagined goal – movements (not of our design) built though those we Elect to rule over us – being the genuine reason they need us to acquiesce to them, for they must complicate our time with manufactured events and regulated movement, with needless desire and indebted routine that connects the masses to a prosaic existence where supplied fabrication becomes the original standard, and therefore, the more fooled we are by the fakery – the more we disown out true selves, imperceptibly…..and easier the alignement, virtually programmed.

Tallis Marsh
Tallis Marsh
Dec 22, 2019 11:53 PM

I find it interesting how XR including Thunberg do not point out the devastation caused to the planet and humans by the following (and if you try to discuss these subjects in their own orgs, meetings & foums you get ignored, ridiculed, censored and even gaslighted and banned:

– the current and past decades & decades of geoengineering/chemtrails
– damaging frequencies: EMF, RF (incl.wireless and dirty electricity) e.g. 5G
– GMOs
– fracking
– Smart Grid/Internet of Things/Smart Cities (incl. Mega cities with their human densification e.g. micro-flats/pods and co-living stack ‘n’ packs)
– why the UN’s goals put their environment supreme over humans (rather than helping the environment hand-in-hand with helping humans)
– why the general public get no say (power and decision-making) about the UN agendas like their SDGs, Agenda 21/2030/2050 etc

Willem
Willem
Dec 23, 2019 8:29 AM
Reply to  Tallis Marsh

Or the pollution caused by army drills and war.

Tallis Marsh
Tallis Marsh
Dec 23, 2019 9:56 AM
Reply to  Willem

Yes! Exactly. E.G. Depleted Uranium among other things (purposely used), and its despicable consequences (see Iraq and other places). XR don’t place much (if any ) emphasis on the Military-Industrial-Complex, do they.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Dec 23, 2019 3:44 PM
Reply to  Willem

They say the Pentagon is the world’s #1 polluter.

mikael
mikael
Dec 22, 2019 11:46 PM

Yeah, we live in intresting times, indeed, and by now even you should understand why the Chines sees this as an curse while arrmagedon was an hickup because of bad trasnlation and the word means trasition, an road crossing to be more precise.

Yeah, CO2, huh, from the infamous Hockeystick to our very own Missias, Saint Greta the nincompute.
I could link to scientists whom indeed works with atmospheric conditions, to solar radiation, and chemists whom can tell you the truth about CO2, witch never have and never can do anything with weather, and sea levels, from milleniums to the present, talk about what some idiots drool about biodiversity, when Polar bears have endured thru times when there was NO icecap at all to the present in our Mother Earths history, and what on earth can an rise if any have or cause of negative impackt when ME have been almost wiping out humans and most of the other things walking and crawiling on our heep of rock floating in an universe we know little or more or less nothing about apart from what we see.
The corruption of science, huh, virtual particles, I agree with an coment whom said why not call em Unicorn particles, at least they are claiming the same and that name is atleast humoristic.
The scams runs deep, but is keept alive in an people dumber than briks, and echoes issues they have read on our “eminet” MSM, and watches TV, where other so called experts and “scientists” drools about AGW, and slams us for been Deniers, yeah, along with Flatearthers, Anti-vaxxers, and Russian trolls, yup, and while the same people claims with dead seriousness that Something can indeed come out from Nothing.
Shake this box of Nothing for some billion years and presto, we have something, and shake this something for some more billions years and Lo and behold, we have something more.
Huh.
My shit list could be widen to other issue/s as well but leaves it there when I agrees with the basics of this article, hehe, we are f…. hard, realy hard, and bitchslapped around to where we are just dizzy, and cant focus, because the manure is flowing from everywhere, all the time, and they lie about everything, and when I say everything, I mean it, every f…. thing.

Since I am an old grump f…. I have an christmass gift to the morons, aka Americans, if there stil are some left in that asylum we know as the Imperial banana republic, UssA ( the Union of Sociopaths, scumbags and A..holes), lead by an knuckledragging vilage idiot from NY the oragne Chimp, and I am certain of something, and this was written in an article I read over att Whatreallyhappened, where the truth was lightened, about the Impissment saga, the Punch and Judy show in and on the TV/MSM, where the real deal, isnt the Impissment saga, but hidden with in this is what I find far more damaging in this Coup atempt/s time, the fake witchunt on Trump, is that the DNCs, incl the MSMs, the Oligarcs, is hell bent on and thats NOT impeasment, but to take and make the goverments branshes hollowed out like an swiss chees, the present impeacement is dead, but they are attacking the Excecutive branch, and thats what I warn you about, the moment they have managed to do that, is when your nation seeces to be an republic, and the constitution is dead, deprived of meaning since its been neutralizes thru the manuvering of this scums to take out and make an new constitution and that one, is all theirs to do, you have lost your nation to traitores within.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS.
I knew this impeacement was an freak show, and so far they have, despite the so called division as they pretent it is in the Senate etc, was to cover over something far more sinister, and even thoe the Trump is an conman, I know it now, have been a part of it all the way, just look at whom is behind him, and what have been agreed upon, unilateraly, sides dont matter, patriot act to the various new laws and the attack on Europa.
Tump have lost the ONLY thing He needed, the only thing that made the difference, the sole reason for been in the WH, trust.
He have nothing left, and I see the next year as crusial, what comes, I dont know, but if nothing changes, I am afraid we are heading into something nobody wants, an resesion of biblical scales, instigated and run thru by the Bankers and the imperial banana republics MIC.

So, with this, I hope you have an nice christmass, be nice, do good things, because we may not have the same cicumstances next time.
I am not by nature pessimistic, or dooms day sayer, I hate them, like the screaming about our world worlld burn next week, but the coming months, if the traitores gets their way, I am afraid everything will change, and never forget this Americans, empires always ends, and the Only thing that can take you down, is the enemy within.
That is whats happening as we speak.
Hang em all, and if not, they will hang is separatly, one by one to there is no resitance left, but even then I also know one thing, certain, like death, is empires always ends, it may take milleniums, but eventually they end.
You have been warned, and I am dead serious.
Wake up or die asleep.

peace

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:23 PM
Reply to  mikael

The more dire our predicament, the more fanatic the denialist zealots become.

Joerg
Joerg
Dec 22, 2019 10:06 PM

No one explains better who this false CO2 propagandists are than the great James Corbett.
The follow up of his video “How Big Oil conquered the world” is his video “WHY BIG OIL CONQUERED THE WORLD”. There we get informed why BIG Oil or “The “Oilygarchs” created and press forward this CO2-myth.
A must see!
You find this Video (“WHY BIG OIL CONQUERED THE WORLD”) on Youtube – https://youtu.be/0wlNey9t7hQ – or on Corbett’s site https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=Big+Oil (look there for “WHY BIG OIL CONQUERED THE WORLD”).

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:25 PM
Reply to  Joerg

How does a ‘fake’ story that threatens fossil fuel assets come to be ‘invented’ by Big Oil? It is so ludicrous that it exceeds the laughable.

Corbett Fan
Corbett Fan
Dec 24, 2019 3:33 PM

Because the real world is complicated & non-binary. Only propaganda memes for idiots provide the simple constructs you appear to find necessary for your psychological wellbeing.

I would suggest you watch the excellent videos in the link above, butcher both know you’re not going to do that. You have too much proselytising to do for the Church of Climate Catastrophe to be bothered with all that evidence malarkey

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:16 PM
Reply to  Corbett Fan

You didn’t answer the question. Why would the fossil fuel behemoths control a movement that intends rendering the tens of trillions in fossil fuel assets worthless? It does not compute.

Skeptic
Skeptic
Dec 25, 2019 9:46 PM

I would encourage you to watch those excellent videos, but since you seem to want fast and easy answers:

1) Their assets will not be worthless. Only in the mind of the most naive oil, gas and carbon will stop burning anytime soon. Civilisation would be inviable. Not even Greta is willing to perish of cold (fair enough, burning all of Sweden´s forest might keep Stockholm warm for a few winters) or to starve to death while her veggies travel from Spain to Sweden on the back of a horse.

2)In fact, many oil companies are increasingly relying on their gas sales to make profits. That´s why many requested Trump to back the Paris agreement:

https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/29/investing/exxon-trump-paris-climate-change/index.html

Gas, as a ‘greener’ energy source, will be subsidised.

3) “Carbon will be the world’s biggest commodity market, and it could become the world’s biggest market over all,” according to Mr. Redshaw, the head of environmental markets at Barclays”. .

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/business/worldbusiness/06carbon.html

One should think it would be odd if some of the biggest capitals, directly involved carbon trade, would not enter that market. You can read oil companies´ heartfelt pledges to offset carbon on their own websites:

https://blogs.shell.com/2018/09/05/the-future-is-carbon-trading/

And please don´t forget to use their handy emission calculators, subscribe to their rewards scheme and/or use their network of electric vehicle charging points:

https://www.goplus.shell.com/en-gb/promotion/1801

There are literally hundred other reasons which are explained to the last detail in those documentaries. Most of them are disturbing enough to keep you awake for a month wishing the climate hoax was real.

I believe those videos are some of the most important works on the topic of ´climate change´ and should be watched by anyone wanting to discuss its fundamental implications.

Cheers,

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:29 PM
Reply to  Skeptic

I agree that fossil fuels will not be dropped as required, and therefore we will proceed rapidly to the climate destabilisation Holocaust. The financial interests are too gargantuan, controlled by life-hating psychopaths, and the denialist industry that these psychopaths have created too powerful to overcome. In any case, given global dimming hiding a degree Celsius or so of warming, the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, the 150 zettajoules (10 to the 21st power)of heat sequestered in the oceans over the last 200 years, and the positive feedbacks like megafires, warming soils emitting carbon, warming oceans giving up CO2, melting permafrost causing CO2 and methane production and frozen clathrates emitting methane, we are well and truly rooted already. The denialists won, and they are thoroughly enjoying their Pyrrhic victory.

Skeptic
Skeptic
Dec 26, 2019 7:56 AM

There is no “denialist” industry. The “gargantuan” economic interests of the big oil companies and those of the apocalyptic cult of climate change are one and the same.

You are basically arguing that the story you have been told by those “life hating psychopaths” is true and you don´t seem to even consider questioning it.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 26, 2019 9:51 AM
Reply to  Skeptic

The inversion of reality is perfect and priceless. The PR firm that thought up this line of denialist rhetoric must be very proud of itself. There was no tobacco harm denial industry either, was there. No denial of anything-the powers that be just ‘fess up and take their medicine.

Skeptic
Skeptic
Dec 26, 2019 10:59 AM

Richard, of course there was a “no tobacco harm denial” PR campaign. There were scientists giving testimony of the proven benefits of tobacco, just as much as there are scientists making apocalyptic (and failed) predictions about climate.

https://extinctionclock.org

You are not making your argument any stronger.

Let me remind you:

-The climate change agenda was driven by no other than Maurice Strong, a Rockefeller (Standard Oil) protege who was director of, among others, Petro Canada. The UN has kept since then a close relationship with oil companies: Pachauri, former IPCC chair and Nobel Prize winner, was in the board of India´s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The current chair of the IPCC started his career, according to wiki “as an economist working for Exxon-mobile”. It is the same club.

-Carbon will be the biggest commodity and Carbon trade is expected to become the biggest market altogether. Oil companies have precisely the kind of businesses, capitals and infrastructures to make profits out of these schemes.

-In fact, oil companies are already benefiting from them. And from building networks of electric charging points, increasing gas sales, and investments and subsidies in “green energies”. From the climate change scare they will be getting public funds in order to divest and develop these.

-Most importantly, as you have been told by Corbett Fan, oil is only one part of the business. The oiligarchs profit from the pharmaceutical industry, the armament industry, big tech, finance, etc. Even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, they would easily (as they are doing) use their capital in other ventures in which they would reign. The powers they would acquire if the “save the world” policies are enacted, would give them control of every single aspect of human lives, they would make them unchallengeable.

The idea that big oil would resist the climate policies which they themselves created and which are promoted in Davos, the UN, with the backing of the World Economic Forum etc. is, with all due respect, very naive.

I urge you to watch the documentaries, if only to prove me wrong.

Cheers.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 26, 2019 8:11 PM
Reply to  Skeptic

I love the ‘skeptic’ monniker, and am most impressed by your assertion that there was no tobacco harm denial industry, just ‘scientists giving testimony of the proven benefits of tobacco..’, like cancer, heart disease and emphysaema. Not doing your case much good, are you?

Skeptic
Skeptic
Dec 26, 2019 10:47 PM

Read again, Richard, I wrote exactly the opposite. I will make it even clearer:

The tobacco industry recruited scientists and PR people to assert that tobacco was innocuous, some even spoke about smoking having health benefits. This provides us with an example of how scientists are susceptible to corruption and influence from economic interests (re climate change).

I wonder how could you get the opposite sense of what I wrote?

It is important to pay attention and make at least the tiniest effort to understand what is argued if one wants to get anywhere in a discussion.

Cheers

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 27, 2019 10:22 PM
Reply to  Skeptic

You typed ‘ There were scientists giving testimony of the proven benefits of tobacco…’ The error in your assertion is, in my opinion, the use of ‘proven’ where surely ‘alleged’ or ‘supposed’ would be better. I see your point now, but the comparison to climate scientists, who are NOT paid to invent anything, but purely for their disinterested scientific investigation, is a classic inversion of reality. The true fabricators of climate science are the tiny cabal of denialist climate scientists, nearly all with well-known and lucrative links to the denialist industry.

Skeptic
Skeptic
Dec 28, 2019 8:56 AM

Perhaps they are not paid to invent anything, it is obviously hard to know, but certainly they are paid to produce specific results.

Funding is crucial for research. When you have most governments and private funding bodies being so biased towards the man made climate change theory, it will necessarily give the impression that this is is the only theory, or that it is at least the dominant one.

Dr Curry, one of the top climate scientists of the US (and a “denier”), explains how this bias works much better than myself:

-An agency receives biased funding for research from Congress [or whatever other funding body].
-They issue multiple biased Requests for Proposals (RFPs), and
-Multiple biased projects are selected for each RFP.
-Many projects produce multiple biased articles, press releases, etc,
-Many of these articles and releases generate multiple biased news stories, and
-The resulting amplified bias is communicated to the public on a large scale.

And that´s why you believe so strongly in the scientific consensus; and that “deniers” are a minority paid by oil companies.

The chances of getting funding or even to be accepted as a post-grad student if your project doesn´t advance the man made climate change theory are close to 0. Please read the whole article.

https://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/is-federal-funding-biasing-climate-research/

As for your claim of scientists doing merely “disinterested scientific investigation”. May I ask you if you are aware of the “climategate” e-mails?

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-men-bahaving-badly-a-short-summary-for-laymen/

Bullying colleagues, hiding data, not sharing information, adjusting data to fit the theory, and using power to silence criticism doesn´t fit my definition of disinterested scientific investigation. Mind you, these were the top climate scientists at the time. They are still working and being celebrated.

What do you think about all of this? Is your scepticism growing at least a little bit?

Joerg
Joerg
Dec 24, 2019 7:03 PM

@richard le sarc
“Big Oil” doesn’t mean the physical substance of oil – It means the “Oilygarchs”. And these Oligarchs are also in the pharmaceutical branch and the arms industry and so on and on. It’s about “rruliing se worrld” (as Germans would call it).
“Corbett Fan” hits the spot!
Merry Christmas – or “Guten Appetit”!

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:19 PM
Reply to  Joerg

True, which is why the Big Parasites are seeking to profit from climate destabilisation, from vain attempts to avert it, and from everything else in existence. That does not render their central repository of loot and power, the fossil fuel assets and the petro-dollar, irrelevant, nor does it make the science incorrect or even, Heavens above, invented.

Richard Wicks
Richard Wicks
Dec 28, 2019 2:57 AM

M. Le Sarc, Corbett you might actually find interesting. Even when he’s wrong he’s worth considering. Here’s his take on 9/11, short and sweet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3xgjxJwedA&list=PLSkpoEnom-3saHaneQq1Q0EEdYzAKYBnE

There’s a good example of him making a very tight explanation and calling BS on the establishment.

And Corbett Fan – don’t be rude if you want to change minds. Le Sarc isn’t stupid, he’s not simple, he just disagrees with you. If you want an honest conversation, you need to be ready to provide an honest response when somebody asks you something.

Le Sarc, Big Oil isn’t threatened by these other technologies and nobody is going to buy less oil even if climate change is a real threat, that will kill us all – and it’s not.

RobG
RobG
Dec 22, 2019 9:42 PM

I think that most can see where this is going…

Harry Dunn’s family ‘reassured’ after meeting with Priti Patel

These vermin are trying to soft-soap the extradition of Assange.

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 22, 2019 8:49 PM

It’s the label, “capitalism” which confuses the issue here for many on the “left” (another confusing label), I’ve sometimes heard it said that the problem is Bad Capitalism, and that capitalism itself is a good thing. There is probably useful food for thought in that idea – but I feel the need for more precise definition, and my hunch is that the problem is simply Unsupervised Capitalism.
As we currently know it, capitalism has got away with being staggeringly unaccountable, but this never needed to be the case, nor is it now necessary for it to be the case. It has profited, deliberately, from the unwillingness of intelligent, educated people to stand up and protest in large numbers; to insist that adequate accountability be forcefully enshrined in laws, constitutions and tenets, valid everywhere under the demands of mere common decency.
We don’t even need labels like “left” to betoken common decency, because that sets up an unrealistic opposing “right”, which, if you ask anyone within its ranks what they think of common decency, would be heartily approved by them too.
I’m in favour of spelling out things without labels, so that when I speak of common decency, I am implying that its opposite is indecent, or even obscene, which is why I would prefer not to label my philosophical opponents “the right” at all. That’s much too polite a term.
One of the lowest tricks which the indecent, obscene elements in our modern politics use regularly is to rig the game so that they somehow end up judging themselves in crucial matters. So of course they always find themselves to be innocent of all wrongdoing.
Let’s sharpen our ability to notice when they stoop to that level, and call them out on it; and let’s stop using “left” and “right” as if those words signified two equally valid viewpoints.
In truth, “left” would never exist at all if it didn’t represent decent human behaviour, and “right” is a comfortable-sounding word which conceals the indecent and the obscene.
At this stage of human evolution, we shouldn’t even be debating that. Our future won’t just come by itself; it now requires our active participation, or it won’t exist.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 22, 2019 9:30 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Capitalism destroyed human evolution because it had nothing better to do.

Man should be credited for being as dumb as a bag of rocks just like modern advertisers portray him.

MOU

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 22, 2019 10:03 PM

I’d agree with you, except that capitalism also consists of those dumb men.
We can surely do better than that.

RobG
RobG
Dec 22, 2019 10:32 PM
Reply to  wardropper

wardropper, the general election was totally rigged, which kind of negates your arguement.

I just about agree with everything you say in your post.

What you don’t seem to see is just how totally corrupt the world you live in is.

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 23, 2019 3:28 AM
Reply to  RobG

I think you misunderstand my argument, Rob.
It’s not that we should trust capitalism, but, on the contrary, we should mistrust unsupervised capitalism and its inherent temptations for the greedy by enforcing strict controls on what it is allowed to get away with.
We’re talking about how to deal with fundamentally dishonest people, so that they can’t harm normal society with impunity. That requires setting, and enforcing, rational, and detailed standards of honesty, which have recently become an optional frill in all our politics. An unnecessary inconvenience to the corrupt, in fact.
Like you, I am totally convinced that the GE was rigged, and I believe I see the world’s sickening corruption as clearly as you do.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:26 PM
Reply to  wardropper

That is precisely akin to arguing for the ‘regulation’ of cancer.

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 23, 2019 11:58 PM

It is precisely NOT akin to that.
Cancer is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, whereas unregulated capitalism is a man-made abomination.

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 24, 2019 12:04 AM
Reply to  wardropper

I am, however not against labelling such capitalism as a cancer, although it is of course only a figurative analogy.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:21 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Whether man-made or ‘natural’ (many cancers are caused by man-made pollutants)the process is the same.

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 25, 2019 2:45 PM

Capitalism is not an organic process.
It is a robotic, anti-human mentality, and, even if there are parallels, my argument targets not capitalism itself (which is, really just another word for “business”, “commerce”, or “trade”), but unregulated, unaccountable capitalism, which is another way of describing gross theft.
For clarity’s sake, I personally insist (for myself) on distinguishing between the two.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 22, 2019 8:07 PM

Can you imagine Tiny Tim as figurehead for the Climate Change Movement singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips as opposed to Greta & the D-Funkadelics doing climate rap?

I long for the good old days of Big Band music & smoke filled bars.

MOU

Geoffrey Skoll
Geoffrey Skoll
Dec 22, 2019 7:58 PM

Proyect is not with the effort to criticize. Afterall he writes for, inter alia, Counterpunch. Another source not worth criticizing since its founder died.

John Steppling
John Steppling
Dec 22, 2019 9:13 PM
Reply to  Geoffrey Skoll

just to add that I really admired your book…globalization of american fear culture. Ive quoted it, im pretty sure, a couple times on my blog.

Geoffrey Skoll
Geoffrey Skoll
Dec 23, 2019 1:39 PM
Reply to  John Steppling

Thank you!

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 22, 2019 6:52 PM

i would have preferred an id magazine fashon cover with a queen victoria winking greta.
this is a great boy who will soon be a new old man.
i have looked at all the data and it is true the world had only 33 years left but that was then this is now.
some are saying we only have 13 years left eye say in cern time we may only have 13 months maybe even
66 days because the climate crisis is crashing time as we speaketh we need emergency earth repair taxes all over now.

we in the west must year zero so india and china can grows
make bike your friend eat insects pay your pollution dirt tax
help richard branson and sting build greta a virgin balloon so she can look down and spit on is and inform us via loud hailer that we must work harder and pollute less.
let greta be your obrien

boots the chemist have a free triple vaccine shot for all members who believe in the extinction rebellions all overs
take the shot and shots
pause and refresh

and why not already

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 22, 2019 4:37 PM

Banking Nature – a documentary on youtube offers a glimpse into the way ‘carbon’ guilt offsetting operates.

Alan Tench
Alan Tench
Dec 22, 2019 4:08 PM

“Cory Morningstar is almost certainly the most important living journalist in the world (next to Assange perhaps)”. Assange is the most important. As for Cory Morningstar, I’ve never heard of her, and she doesn’t have a Wikipedia article. Who is she? Also; “…capitalism is actually bad”. No. Some aspects of capitalism are bad, some are good. And their are more acceptable flavours of capitalism that undoubtedly work to the benefit of mankind, and the planet.

Alan Tench
Alan Tench
Dec 22, 2019 4:20 PM
Reply to  Alan Tench

Sorry – ‘there’.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:29 PM
Reply to  Alan Tench

Please, Alan-what are those supposedly ‘beneficial’ aspects of capitalism?

lundiel
lundiel
Dec 22, 2019 6:10 PM
Reply to  Alan Tench

How can the concept of eternal growth benefit the planet?

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 22, 2019 7:32 PM
Reply to  lundiel

Lookit, planet Earth was doing nothing anyways and an eternal growth conundrum was just what the good doctor ordered so that planet Earth had something to do in its infinite bordom.

Opposing planet Earth via atmosphere & stellar activity was not enough interaction for planet Earth to be meaningfully engaged existentially, of course. Man had to find a reason for planet Earth to exist because man does not know why it exists.

MOU

Alan Tench
Alan Tench
Dec 22, 2019 10:18 PM
Reply to  lundiel

What type of growth? The world needs to move from extensive growth to intensive growth, but the latter is still growth, and is good for the environment and mankind generally.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:23 PM
Reply to  Alan Tench

Do you envisage any, dare I say it, limits to growth on this planet?

Gordon
Gordon
Dec 23, 2019 4:42 AM
Reply to  Alan Tench

Not having a Wikipedia page is a plus since it indicates lack of corporate approval.

Alan Tench
Alan Tench
Dec 23, 2019 9:03 AM
Reply to  Gordon

It means they are not notable.

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 23, 2019 2:37 PM
Reply to  Alan Tench

It means Wikipedia supports the Establishment.
It won’t stick its neck out and recognize any new genius or stunning contribution to society which is not already well-enough advertised.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Dec 23, 2019 3:49 PM
Reply to  Alan Tench
norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 22, 2019 3:25 PM

shirley
we should all listen and mark the words of greta
already

for like damian omen and the baby from rosemary polanski the babies are important are they not.
we need to listen to the kinder surprise
the kinder know knowledge do they not.
let us not look at the greta family of actor going back hundreds of years kingsmen and queensman.

greta gets the man of the year awards all media overs
for is she not that already
is 16 not man for the army

we are dirty goy we must pay the taxes making the planet clean again like it was in caanan and babylon
not forgeting khazaria.
we must pay we must regress eat bugs and except are barbera lerner spector futures
mongrels all

the owls have it we must become husk picked bare
is it not

the city of london needs the monies for oded yinon when israel is mighty

the sucking hollowing out by vampyre must go on
and why not

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 4:48 PM
Reply to  norman wisdom

we are dirty goy we must pay the taxes making the planet clean again like it was in caanan and babylon
not forgeting khazaria.

How does this kind of anti-Semitic tripe remain here?

George Mc
George Mc
Dec 22, 2019 5:30 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Freedom of speech Louis. And Mr Wisdom does have a point considering the genocidal content of much of the Old Testament – as with Canaan. From Wiki:

“In the Book of Joshua, Canaanites are included in a list of nations to exterminate, and later described as a group which the Israelites had annihilated.”

We are then reassured that “genetic and archeological evidence prove that the Canaanites were never exterminated “. Of course all this means is that the Canaanites were never *completely* exterminated. But the thought was obviously there.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 5:33 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Freedom of speech Louis.

I guess I have different standards. I would not allow anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic or sexist comments on my blog. But if that passes muster here, so be it.

George Mc
George Mc
Dec 22, 2019 8:19 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Well this is the whole problem. We know the labels of outrage: “anti-Semitic”, “racist”, “homophobic”, “sexist” etc. – and I daresay there will be another couple of dozen of them by the time we get to next Christmas. But who is the judge here? And it’s oh so easy to play the morally offended card and just make everything go away. But what is it that’s being banished?

One of the reasons that Off-G existed in the first place was the seemingly compulsive banishing of comment after comment on the Guardian. Whole swathes of communication “disappeared”. And we’ll never know why. We are supposed to trust those who set themselves up as moral guardians.

In any case Off-G do have a limit but they converse with those who they deem offensive first. And they explain WHAT the offense is. It’s nice to be treated as adults in this way.

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 22, 2019 9:31 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

marxism burst forth from the loins of the zionist
as a marxist louis project
tell us about the family the history of karl?
who or what where his family connections
zionist rabbi class perhaps?
what exactly is your project louis?

i think the world is tired of your internationalist
projects
my boy
already

Max Parry
Max Parry
Dec 23, 2019 12:56 AM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

You who said Vanessa Beeley was “too ugly to fuck” are saying you “wouldn’t allow sexist comments”?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 23, 2019 5:38 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

I’ve seen $3 bills with more sincerity than you, my friend. It’s people like you who stoke anti-semitism.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:38 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

Judeophobia (‘antisemitism’ is a complete propaganda invention)is welcomed by all true Talmudists, religious and secular. This is because Judaism was invented in and to perpetuate hatred of the other, of the non-Jew, and the apostate Jew, and has always welcomed Judeophobia as a means to perpetuate the cult, and the power of the Rabbis and the other elites, and keep the tribal rabble in line. Zionism is the perfect expression of that milieu of hatred, which has almost always been the root cause of Judeophobic atrocities. The ‘Oldest Hatred’ is not Judeophobia, let alone ‘antisemitism’, but Judaism itself. The Oldest Extant Hatred, to be precise, because the basic xenophobic and exclusivist paradigm no doubt pre-dates Judaism.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 27, 2019 10:37 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Genocide was central to their tribal cult, which proved tragically ironic on more than one occasion thereafter.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Dec 22, 2019 5:44 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Because we have an open comment policy , which means a very tiny minority of our thousands of visitors sometimes post racist stuff. We will generally remove the worst examples, but since we get hundreds of comments a day some will occasionally slip by. And we have to moderate sensitively since free speech includes the right to be offensive and ridiculous – up to a point. As witness the fact you are free to roll up here and be abusive to the site, its authors and readership – a luxury not available to visitors at the outlet you work for, we understand.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 7:21 PM

As witness the fact you are free to roll up here and be abusive to the site, its authors and readership – a luxury not available to visitors at the outlet you work for, we understand.

—-

Actually, CounterPunch has a FB group that has many comments far more hostile to CounterPunch proportionately than anything seen here. Furthermore, my own blog has far more critics proportionately than this website. And I get a laugh out of them. Too bad you are so thin-skinned about my appearances here. I generally have little interest in intervening here unless it has something to do with Syria or in this instance is commentary on something I have written.

George Mc
George Mc
Dec 22, 2019 8:30 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Off-G are far more thick skinned about your appearances here than you have been to criticism on your own blog. I have frequently read some – to say the least – intemperate responses from yourself. How about here:

https://louisproyect.org/2015/10/04/a-masterclass-in-sophistry-patrick-cockburn-on-the-russian-intervention-in-syria/

Comment 6 which ends with the delightfully civilised “Now kiss my ass and fuck off.”

Or how about this?:

https://louisproyect.org/2015/06/08/a-reply-to-cult-leader-david-north-on-an-american-first-strike-on-russia/

Note the grotesque picture of “David North”. Classy.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Dec 22, 2019 8:41 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Not sure you’re wise to be ‘getting a laugh’ out of receiving majority negative responses from your readers everywhere you post. Maybe try to be a little less arrogant and consider it an indication to rethink your position on some things that so many find insupportable.

What you call ‘thin-skinned’ others might call being accountable to our readers. We certainly try to take on board other POVs – even when as aggressively expressed as yours tend to be.

You’re more than welcome to continue posting here as much as you like – it may help to widen your audience a little in these trying times.

lundiel
lundiel
Dec 22, 2019 9:34 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Why Syria Louis? You only repost pro establishment narratives so what’s the point?

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 22, 2019 7:11 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

i am in all actuality a semite can eye bee anti myself
i am
you are not
for it is written that your tribe are histories
cookoo and red beard pirate
all actor
performing twisted and sick role

be proud of your russio turkick non semite roots
mr donmeh mr jacob frank

for your tribe kill the children of gaza every day
and they are semites all.

your gang had a transfer agreement with adolf
you fund nazi rape squads in ukraine
you sterilize oriental jews
give them jobs as cleaners
poor sephardim

ashkanazi i ask you who is the anti semite
yahoo
here hare here
but you

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 3:13 PM

Proyect I understand, because he wears that placard announcing he is a leftist, and because he sort of is an editor at CP. Sale doesn’t and isn’t, so I really do wonder at why this reactionary non-article is published by anyone this side of the CATO Institute?

Because Counterpunch is not a line publication, obviously. People like Diana Johnstone went berserk after it began to publish articles more in line with my POV. She migrated to Consortium News, which does have a line just like Off-Guardian. In fact, it is healthy to have ideological diversity otherwise you end up with websites that essentially involve preaching to the choir. I will not name names but you know who I am talking about.

lundiel
lundiel
Dec 22, 2019 4:08 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Pretend leftism is not healthy, it’s propaganda.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Dec 22, 2019 5:00 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Regarding the CounterPuff site, Louie Proyect’s observation that – ” it is healthy to have ideological diversity ” – translates quite clearly and simply to = endless support for endless imperial regime-change wars, but all in the name of “progressive values” and only the very “best of intentions” of course. I mean, what could possibly be more “progressive” and “ideologically diverse” than support for yet another U.S. sponsored color revolution or jihadist proxy conducted – “civil war?”

Sadly the concept of “ideological diversity” at CounterPuff no longer includes many of my favorite anti-imperialist writers, such as Diana Johnstone, Andre Vltchek, Edward Curtain and C.J. Hopkins. One would imagine it is only a matter of time before we have to add John Steppling’s name to that list.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 5:13 PM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

I always get a chuckle out of the idea that CounterPunch is no longer “anti-imperialist”. If you keep a running tally of pro-Assad articles there, I am outnumbered by at least 10 to 1. You can see frequent items from Jonathan Cook, Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, et al. What galls people is that my single article against all theirs is a bridge too far. As for Diana Johnstone, Andre Vltchek, Edward Curtain and C.J. Hopkins, they got booted because they attacked Counterpunch on other venues. Hopkins was the worst of the lot. He assumed that I was responsible for him being dropped when I never objected to a single word he wrote there, as hackneyed as they were. I only objected to him crossposting to UNZ.com, a white supremacist website. And even then, it was an objection made on my blog, not on Counterpunch.

CJ Hopkins
CJ Hopkins
Dec 22, 2019 5:26 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

What would the holidays be without a heaping serving of hypocrisy and few more lies from Louis Proyect? Here’s a bit of background, for anyone unfamiliar with the events Louis is lying about …

https://consentfactory.org/2018/09/29/how-to-maliciously-smear-your-critics-and-not-get-away-with-it/

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 5:36 PM
Reply to  CJ Hopkins

What I said is the absolute truth, CJ. In any case, you are welcome to have your stuff published on a website which is almost entirely devoted to articles arguing that Blacks are genetically inferior and that Hitler’s evil reputation was based on lies.

CJ Hopkins
CJ Hopkins
Dec 22, 2019 6:47 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Of course what you claimed is not the truth, Louis, as anyone who reads the above-referenced essay (and checks the links) will quickly discover. But I do applaud you CounterPunch guys for your audacity. It takes balls to blatantly lie and smear a person, knowing in advance that he’s going to post evidence of your mendacity and hypocrisy. For example, the fact that CounterPunch has taken approximately §100K from Ron Unz, the guy that runs the “white supremacist” outlet that you are, once again, trying to smear me with, as I documented in an addendum to my above-referenced essay …

Addendum, January 2019:
In an amusing twist to the events recounted above, it turns out the CounterPunch Red-Brown hunters who are so fond of smearing writers like myself as “far-right shills” and “anti-Semites” based on the fact that we allow our essays to be posted in The Unz Review have themselves been lavishly funded by Ron Unz. Here are several public foundation records documenting Ron Unz’s contributions to CounterPunch in 2009, 2013, and 2015, totaling $75,000. And these are just the records I was able to easily find online in five minutes of googling. Not that I care who CounterPunch takes money from. (Accepting contributions from someone does not imply that you share all their views any more than being published by them does.) I just happen to find it particularly hilarious that these sanctimonious, smear-happy bullies are attempting to play the guilt-by-association game by associating the targets of their smears with a person they are associated with themselves, and have taken large amounts of money from. It’s not every day you come across that kind of utterly shameless hypocrisy.

990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/207/207181582/207181582_200912_990PF.pdf990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/207/207181582/207181582_201312_990PF.pdf
990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/207/207181582/207181582_201512_990PF.pdf

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 7:26 PM
Reply to  CJ Hopkins

For example, the fact that CounterPunch has taken approximately §100K from Ron Unz, the guy that runs the “white supremacist” outlet that you are, once again, trying to smear me with, as I documented in an addendum to my above-referenced essay

You clearly expect people to believe that when Ron Unz was donating to CounterPunch, he was also hosting a website that Black people were genetically inferior and that Hitler was slandered by the Jews. You know and I know that Cockburn broke with Unz as soon as he became a white supremacist. I guess that is par for the course with you.

edited by Admin to improve legibility

CJ Hopkins
CJ Hopkins
Dec 22, 2019 8:21 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Alexander Cockburn died in 2012.
Ron Unz launched The Unz Review in 2013.
CounterPunch accepted $15K from Unz in 2013 and $20K in 2015.

Did you have any more lies you want to try out, or was that it?

https://www.adl.org/news/article/ron-unz-controversial-writer-and-funder-of-anti-israel-activists

https://www.algemeiner.com/2013/12/12/new-york-times-others-praised-anti-semitic-and-slanderous-article/

paul
paul
Dec 27, 2019 12:04 PM
Reply to  CJ Hopkins

You are being too hard on Counterpuff, C.J.
They have to keep those Soros shekels rolling in, like old Amy Goodman at Democracy Now.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Dec 22, 2019 6:24 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Louie, Louie, Louie! I never said that you regime-change “progressives” at CounterPuff “never” publish “anything” that might be anti-imperialist, I just said you got rid of those writers that I considered the very most clear and well informed anti-imperialist voices that were once present at CounterPuff, while of course continuing to publish your own endless imperialist pro-regime change nonsense.

It is of course just like you to twist the truth into a pretzel to fit your purposes – eh? Sort of like your endless “moderate rebels” shtick and your credulous acceptance of the OPCW management’s manipulated report, while ignoring the now many internal whistleblowers who have literally destroyed that report.

Of course the most telling phrase in your response Louie is stating that CounterPuff publishes “pro-Assad articles.” LOL! “Pro-Assad” of course translates from “Newspeak” into the actual real world as meaning – ANY article that might so much as questions the CIA sponsored MSM narratives you and others there constantly trot out in favor of more war and more regime-change equates simply into = a “pro-Assad” article. Amazing!

You’re a hoot Louie! Endlessly entertaining in a sort of dark apocalyptic post-reality sort of way. But I’d expect nothing less from “the moderator of the Marxism mailing list” at CounterPuff.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
Dec 22, 2019 7:29 PM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

I just said you got rid of those writers that I considered the very most clear and well informed anti-imperialist voices that were once present at CounterPuff, while of course continuing to publish your own endless imperialist pro-regime change nonsense.

And I repeat that they were dropped after attacking Counterpunch on other venues. That’s Jeff St. Clair’s policy and clearly understandable.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Dec 22, 2019 8:24 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

May I request (once more) mr Proyect that you FORMAT YOUR POSTS. I can’t imagine you, as an editor at CP, have NO understanding of basic HTML, but since you seem unable to grasp our simple formatting, I will take you through this as if you are completely clueless.

If you look carefully at the comment form you will see a number of formatting tabs.

When you want to cite another comment or other content click the one marked “b-quote” , paste in your copied text, then click “b-quote” again. This will wrap the quoted text in a blockquote that makes it obvious to your readers you are quoting.

At the moment your quoted material is indistinguishable from your own words and highly confusing for readers.

Please do your best to grasp this very basic requirement.

paul
paul
Dec 27, 2019 11:45 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

Ah, but all these regime change wars are all done for the best of motives, Wimmin’s rights and gay rights and freedom and democracy and liberating the oilfields.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Dec 22, 2019 2:55 PM

The anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is so obviously flawed it is difficult to see how any scientifically literate person cannot see it is wrong.

norman wisdom
norman wisdom
Dec 22, 2019 3:30 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

you are dirty
you pollute
you must pay your united nations allocated pollution taxes
do not think
pay goy pay

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:45 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

Yes, all those scientific illiterates at all the Academies of Science and scientific societies on Earth, and all those fools who are actually doing climate science research. If the fate of humanity was not at stake, Dunning-Krugerism would be exquisitely entertaining, like synchronised aquatic karaoke down the shallow end of the gene pool.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Dec 24, 2019 2:01 PM

richard le sarc Sarcasm is hardly an argument. However, to the point. The hypothesis holds that increased carbon dioxide emissions cause increased average global temperature. Since the beginning of the twentieth century CO2 emissions have constantly increased. However, the temperature has not. From 1910 to 1940 there was a warming trend. From then until 1975 there was a cooling trend. From then until 1998 there was a warming trend. Since when there has been no statistically significant warming. This is not even a positive correlation, let alone a cause and effect relationship. Indeed, you could find a better correlation between ice cream sales and deaths by drowning.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:34 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

Everything you say is, unsurprisingly, erroneous. There is no way that climate will change in a straight relationship to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It is, I’m sad to tell you, more complex than that. You have fluctuations in the radiance of the Sun, you have albedo changes on Earth, most particularly after volcanic eruptions and from particulate smogs resulting from industrialisation, wars, megafires etc. When you assert that there has been no statistically significant warming since 2000, well you are just asserting the opposite of the facts. The last five years have been the five warmest globally ever recorded.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Dec 25, 2019 1:06 PM

richard le sarc You are correct in noting that there are many factors influencing the climate. Indeed, until the beginning of the century the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change asserted on its website that the climate is a non-linear, complex, chaotic system that is unpredictable. They deleted this assertion, not because the science had improved so as to make the climate predictable, but because it is an inconvenient fact.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 25, 2019 11:37 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

That the planetary climate is a chaotic, non-linear, system is precisely why we are in such deep excrement. If you remember your ornithology, the ‘Butterfly Effect’ shows that even a small change in a chaotic system can lead to great chaos and wild fluctuations for extended periods, before a new stability is reached. When the ‘butterfly’ is many gigatons of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere every year, the chaos ensuing, which is already evident and will grow much, much, worse for millennia, will destroy any civilization, starting with agriculture, I would guess.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Dec 26, 2019 10:32 AM

richard le sarc You completely (wilfully?) missed the point: the climate is unpredictable.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 26, 2019 8:16 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

Steven, the climate is predictable in the macrocosm, if not the microcosm. You cannot say what the temperature, humidity, precipitation will be at any particular time, but you can make ever more accurate probabilistic estimates of climate trends over decades and centuries. You cannot say if and when lying down on a railway will prove detrimental to your health, but you can list the probability of it proving harmful.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Dec 27, 2019 11:31 AM

richard le sarc You are just wrong. The climate is unpredictable. This assertion is uncontroversial. Here’s a quote from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change:

“The climate system is particularly challenging since it is known that components in the system are inherently chaotic; there are feedbacks that could potentially switch sign, and there are central processes that affect the system in a complicated, non-linear manner. These complex, chaotic, non-linear dynamics are an inherent aspect of the climate system.”

In plain English, it acknowledges that we cannot predict the climate. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/TAR-14.pdf

edited by admin for clarity

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 27, 2019 10:47 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

Please peruse my contribution, again. I was talking of probabilities. The probability that pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, thereby trapping re-radiated heat in the earth system, and consequently perturbing the planet’s heat balance, will lead to climate instability is high. You will not be able to predict what the weather will be like at 13 oclock on the 32nd of Juneuary, 3456, but you will have a good and getting better idea of climate trends over decades and centuries, ie hotter average, maximum and minimum temperatures, greater deluges, more massive floods and deeper and longer droughts, as we are already seeing.

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Dec 22, 2019 2:42 PM

Brilliant article by John Steppling.

He cuts through all the shite, like a hot razor knife on butter.

Thank You,

Tony

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 22, 2019 2:04 PM

The overall piece is correct in that every kind of deceit is employed to protect the sustainability of a sense of possession and control – identified as ‘survival’ or persisting in ‘prevailing over’.

The very nature of possession and control operates at all levels as the idea of separation given power of allegiance and support.
It operates in reaction to, and attempt to override, or escape, a sense of lack and chaos associated with fear of pain of loss.

It overrides relational communication as the imposition of structures of systemic rules.

No one gives up their self (investment) unless from a recognition from which the investment is realised to be false – and negative.

The nature of any false self investment is to defend itself against exposure to threat – and where self-honesty is threat to self-experience – the experience is given priority over relational honesty.

Relational honesty is both within and without at once.

Frank Speaker
Frank Speaker
Dec 22, 2019 1:40 PM

I’m very much pro-environment, building a sustainable economy and future for people and all other species that we share this planet with. I think any right-minded person wold probably agree.
However, I find Thunberg and the whole political movement building around her, and Extinction Rebellion, extremely disturbing and anti-democratic.
For what it’s worth (two pence) I’ll try and write a piece over the Christmas holidays to rationalise my concerns as someone who is a green “industry insider” yet fundamentally disagrees with the approaches now evolving.

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Dec 22, 2019 1:12 PM

Greta is in showbiz, where the media make you, and then they break you, if and when they choose.

A few years down the line, when there is no longer anything particularly special about her age, and New York isn’t under water, and the Arctic and Greenland Ice is still there, she will be forgotten. Hopefully she won’t get the ill-treatment that some former celebrities get. It’s not her fault, but those around her.

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 22, 2019 4:39 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

The media don’t choose – in such matters they are instructed.
It doesn’t have to be overt, so much as trained to be seen as obedient.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 23, 2019 10:47 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

The Arctic summer sea ice is already not there. What year do you think it is-1972?

Berlin beerman
Berlin beerman
Dec 24, 2019 11:48 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

don’t worry Mike – you probably won’t be able to see her in the dark.

Yarkob
Yarkob
Dec 22, 2019 11:42 AM

“The whole thing is so ludicrous and idiotic that one really does wonder if the West is not in some trance state. ”

There is no need to wonder about this patently obvious fact. Stop watching TV for a while. It does wonders. Really.

People are in denial about how powerful this medium that beams “information” with light, directly into our brains via our visual cortex. It is way, way more powerful than anyone really give s it credit for.

It’s called Programming for a reason

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 22, 2019 4:45 PM
Reply to  Yarkob

It is a form of mind-capture and identity manipulation.
But it doesn’t matter if its demonstrably absurd or deceitful to those who control the narrative – as no one can hear the critical warning as anything but ‘denialism’.

However, you are right. We do not have to get our ‘world’, or news or our identity of emotional investment in the framework of another’s programming.
But this means accepting social exclusion for the sake of aligning in that which identifies us truly.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Dec 22, 2019 11:15 AM

Could it be that Cory and the ‘serious Greens’ are pissed off/envious of Greta’s celebrity status?
Plots within plots make me very suspicious.
If Greta makes any of the Sheeple stop and think, that can’t be a bad thing.

milosevic
milosevic
Dec 22, 2019 11:38 AM
Reply to  Fair dinkum

What if they think that the same capitalist system that has been destroying the planet for 200 years, has seen the error of its ways and is now going to save it?

Would that be a bad thing?

Is it possible that somebody has constructed a slick corporate marketing campaign to produce exactly that result, and avoid the alternative conclusion that capitalism is unreformable, and must be abolished to prevent environmental and social collapse?

Would a cute and cuddly teenage figurehead be an obvious choice, for the sort of people who would be asked to design such an advertising campaign?

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 22, 2019 2:16 PM
Reply to  milosevic

Of course the deceit appeals to anti-capitalism and anti corporatism – and in some ways will achieve that – because a contraction to a global state control would also hold energy/guilt control over corporate compliance – not just nations and populations.
But possession and control consolidate to the very very few – while the many are reduced – not least by their own programming – to smart city concentrations.

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 22, 2019 4:52 PM
Reply to  milosevic

How would you abolish possession or combination of capital – as the money and resources by which to undertake an endeavour?
The carbon guilt system has echoes of original sin – fused with the idea of social credits – but you still have to pay for or make exchange for energy and services.
State control can replace corporates as a global state can – such that nothing will be able to move or have influence that can in any way threaten ‘stability’ of the system.

richard le sarc
richard le sarc
Dec 24, 2019 11:38 PM
Reply to  Brian Steere

Only certain pathological types would not feel guilt, or remorse or deep sadness at the prospect of our greed leading to an ecological Holocaust that will render our children’s lives bitter and brief.

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 25, 2019 11:50 AM

I said nothing about feeling – I was talking of the weaponisation and marketisation of guilt.
What you feel is your OWN consciousness. What you choose to use it for will determine the meanings you give it. And vice versa. The meanings YOU give your experience determine your responses and that generates your identification or ‘programming’.
Your narrative is YOUR gift to yourself and your world and your freedom to use as a lens through which to explore what you are giving priority of meaning to.

‘Greed’ is used as a moral pejorative – and thus as a guilting or shaming leverage that does not address its roots.
The roots of greed are in the substitution for love and life with a mentalised emotionalised narrative that can never rest in or share in its being – because it is without love – in the seeking of an external replacement – and that applies no less to power, peace or joy. Seeking externally covers a hatred within.

There is nothing new in the recognition that we inherit the unresolved conflicts of our parents and or the generations that were before us – and that we also leave a legacy. Nor is is unrecognised that most of our attempts to solve such problems ‘externally’ become the very MEANS of their propagation in shifting forms.

The development of forms of manipulative self-evasion operate the social masking of the ‘toxic debts’ that are not allowed into awareness – and so we have a world that generates diversionary narratives by which to manipulate the psychic-emotional energies of blocked, denied and negatively expressing identification into ever denser forms of dissociated self-evasion