“Half a million deaths by 2050!”
The Lancet study in a nutshell: Take climate models that don’t work, and guesstimate what might happen to agriculture because of the climate we probably won’t get. Then use those guesses of food production in 2050 to fantasize what that means for human mortality. After all, we don’t know how many people are killed today by “4% less fruit and vege and 0.7% less meat”, but we can estimate what that dietary change will do in 2050 after a medical revolution, 35 years of plant breeding and agricultural changes. Not to mention a few more rounds of global food fads and phases of Vegan, Paleo, Atkins, and 5:2 Fasting. (But how did they factor in the mortality effect from another 2,000 episodes of MasterChef?)
Seriously, CO2 has increased crop yields, and will continue to do so until we hit 1000ppm (or maybe 2000). Around the planet, plants grow in warm places, and shrivel up and die in cold ones. So do people. Cold kills 20 times as many people as heat does. It must take a lot of modeling to calculate “more deaths” from two good outcomes.
Look at where fruit grows. In a warmer world, the tropics will stay a similar temperature (thanks to the evaporative air conditioner taking heat off the oceans in the tropics) but I guess the current Arctic fruit industry will be wiped out by nicer weather. Could it be the deathknell for the Siberian Strawberry industry and the Grapes of Greenland?
Global warming will hit productive fruit growing areas like this one particularly hard…
Food scarcity caused by climate change could cause 500,000 deaths by 2050, study suggests
The effects of climate change on food production around the world could lead to more than 500,000 deaths by the year 2050, according to a grim new study. Climate-related impacts on agriculture could lead to an overall global decline in food availability, the research suggests, forcing people to eat fewer fruits and vegetables and less meat. And the public health impacts of these changes could be severe.
Proving you can find any outcome you want if you have the right model:
Importantly, say the authors, cutting emissions could have substantial health benefits, reducing the number of climate-related deaths by 29-71% depending on the strength of the interventions. For example, in a medium emission scenario (increases in global average surface air temp of 1.3-1.4°C in 2046-65 compared to1986-2005), the numbers of diet- and weight-related deaths could be reduced by about a third (30%) compared with the worst-case, high-emission scenario.
Can someone look up this crew?
This study was funded by the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food.
As for nutrition-panic where plants are protein deficient in a high -CO2 world. I showed before that the total losses of protein in 100 grams of rice is compensated for by eating one extra chick pea. People will plant different crops and eat different meals. So?
Burn oil, feed the world, why we urgently need to raise CO2 levels.
REFERENCES
Marco Springmann, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Sherman Robinson, Tara Garnett, H Charles J Godfray, Douglas Gollin, Mike Rayner, Paola Ballon, Peter Scarborough. Global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change: a modelling study.. The Lancet, March 2, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)01156-3
Image Wikimedia David Gubler.
Is this the same Lancet that published the autism / triple antigen vaccination link some years ago?
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You might want to read Dr. Wakefield’s book ‘Callous Disregard’ for the full story regarding that article. There may be a lot you don’t know . . . . . . .
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I have read Dr Wakefields’ original research and also the peer review before it was included in the lancet. The investigative journalist who studied Wakefields’ evidence thoroughly makes more interesting reading.
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Is the same Lancet whose editor famously said only last year, “medical research is unreliable at best if not completely bogus!”
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Jonova
I think it is really wrong of you to make fun of the brain dead.
Eugene WR Gallun
232
No, they deserve to be treated with rich contempt.
250
These hair-on-fire fright-wig whackos are now capable of nothing more coherent than parodying themselves. I reckon that stupidity will “cause” way more deaths than these folks are imagining. If we’re lucky, they will be among the first to go, thereby reducing the empty-calorie noise level. Here is Dmitri Orlov (one of the most astute bloggers around) on these guys:
At http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/03/so-much-for-politics.html
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So intellectuals are people who haven’t been fecked enough?
70
nothing a good feck couldn’t solve.
40
Ignore all three and you have a climate scientist.
20
The psychology of the alarmists is fascinating. They are so preoccupied with disaster; but the real basis of alarmism is they regard themselves as the only ones who can avert the imminent disasters which only they can see. There are 2 dominant psychological motives here: firstly, the alarmists really despise the rest of humanity; in this respect the doom and gloom of AGW is like a collective punishment for the rest of us. Secondly the alarmists are egotists; they want to be seen as superior and they want to be seen as the only ones who can recognise and solve the problem.
They will go to any lengths to preserve their superiority: invent and change data, scorn and persecute sceptics and waste $trillions. All for their egos.
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The phrase for their condition is “infantile narcissism.”
They have persuaded themselves that they are special; wiser and nobler than the rest of us, and that what they feel is right, is therefore right in fact. They then use the intellectual component to try to rationalise and justify their emotional decisions.
Often they end up defending the indefensible, which they do with a volley of tantrum-based abuse at anyone who disagrees with them and threatens their superior worldview.
190
Facebook and twitosphere anyone?
80
One of the tools used in the climate change movement has been the use of community and industry group processes to co-opt individuals and organisations into participation and then to use the group to give authority to alarmist views and actions. Once part of the group, it becomes so much more difficult for an individual or organisation to question the orthodoxy or publicly disagree. In Australia there are hundreds, indeed probably thousands of such groups organised variously through local governments, voluntary agencies, state government authorities and industry sectors. Some were set up specifically to address climate change but many have been turned into partial climate groups. In many cases this process has been co-ordinated by leftists who see this as a way of increasing their power base. The good news is that if I’m right then if you look past the scary climate headlines there are far fewer “genuine” climate activists than we are often led to believe.
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Very interesting quote.
Have recently come across this phenomenon described and it doesn’t make for a better or happier world.
KK
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ref #3
11
All projections aside, what would the loss of 500,000 lives be relative to the explosion in the global population? Best estimates put the global human population at 9.5 BILLION in 2050. If 500,000 die annually because of climate change, that’s a 0.00005% loss – or for every death due to climate change, 19,000 will be alive. And this has nothing to do with advances in medicine, food security due to refrigeration and storage improvements for developing economies, and the like.
But it sure makes a great soundbite to compel the world to give up the very thing that allowed our species and civilization to advance to where it is today, right?
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The website says, The Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food is an interdisciplinary programme of research and policy engagement concerning all aspects of the food system, based at the University of Oxford.
The idea of researching global food production vs potential future problems is a good one, however when the researchers throw basic science under the bus to adhere to the CAGW tenets then the programme is severely compromised regardless of anyone discovering good leads.
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Yes, I was looking through Oxford Martin School carefully. The dank Green finger print of UN globalisation is all over it. In keeping with the UN post-2015 Millennium Goals – the relevant UN goal (28) states:
The Oxford collectiv have a central aim that states:
There it is. In a nut shell. I couldn’t identify any other funding stream except intra-mural.
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This is an earlier report – Peter Scarborough is co-author of this one as well.
http://www.futureoffood.ox.ac.uk/news/combined-carbon-and-sugar-tax-could-have-environmental-and-health-benefits
Let
s make sure we reach the 500,000 dead mark by taxing the foods for carbon (and sugar)
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A good find Manfred.
Very disturbing stuff and it illustrates why humanity has been going up and down on the same spot for the last 40 years.
KK
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It never ceases to amaze me KK how collektivs such as this Oxford crowd have to manufacture (model) a calamity to gain any news traction whatsoever. Clearly reality fails to oblige, much as it has done with the weather and climate that remain within the range of usual variation. We observe the MSM reflexively scurry toward the calamity scenario, much like a earthworm moves away from the light, now a time honored tradition established by the climate ‘scientists’.
It’s high time someone came up with a model that showed that if we were to ‘divest’ away from eco-marxist central kontrol, directing instead trillions away from the UN Green fund, climate ‘science’ research, and other UN societal parasitic institutions, global prosperity would explode and we could all get on with flourishing and developing, free of the scourge and the chains of ‘globalisation’
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But the FAOSTAT shows the number of undernourished is at an all-time low – with warming temps!
http://faostat3.fao.org/home/E
And the hunger seems to be greatest in those areas where there are strife and corrupt governments.
http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/
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It’s been in the low to mid-30s this week and more coming (typical Mar weather), which is about 10C above the long term average, but about 4C lower than highest on record for March (1991). However, everyone seems to be going about their business as usual, no one keeling over, farming as usual, fruit trees swelling with fruit, bird life in abundance, tourists everywhere and festivities galore (5000 at our recent Italian Festa). WTF?
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Maybe there is hope
“Oh The Humanity: Yale Closes Its Climate & Energy Institute”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/03/3210996/
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Take a look at the “Bloomberg carbon clock” and you will find that CO2 level increases at a rate of about 8.03 ppm per year. Assuming this model is correct, and will continue to be correct, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will be around 677 ppm, short of the level predicted in this article by this “Fear Monger”. However, at around 800 ppm the rate of miscarriages by pregnant women is likely to go up. Will that be a factor in controlling population explosion? your guess is as good as mine.
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“However, at around 800 ppm the rate of miscarriages by pregnant women is likely to go up”
RUBBISH !!
The natural level in the human body and lungs is far greater than this. !
You breathe out around 40,000 ppm !!
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We exhale 40,000 ppm OF CO2? WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!
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Poor little zvi is probably sitting in a room with a CO2 level around the 1000+ppm mark.. and doesn’t even realise it 😉
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Submarines routinely run at close to 5000 ppm of CO2 without any effects on the crew’s performance and operational capabilities.
Thats around 12 times the average current atmospheric levels of CO2
And just in case someone believes that atmospheric CO2 levels are a fixed unchanging ever upward trending figure!
Open atmosphere CO2 concentrations;
From; Impact of Land-Sea Breeze and Rainfall on CO2 Variations at a Coastal Station
Diurnal variation of CO2;
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They do that to prevent the crew getting “the bends” – air bubbles that form in blood vessels, as the submarine dives. Not only is it excruciatingly painful, but the bends can also be instantly lethal, should an air bubble form, and reach the heart.
What I don’t know, is the physiology involved.
10
From the String Theory physicist; Lubos Motl’s’ blog; The Reference Frame;
May 2011;
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RW
The corollary, as mentioned by Roy Hogue, is that when flying at altitude you can survive on air that is higher in oxygen than normal when I think that pure O2 at sea level would probably be fatal.
Absence or too low a level of CO2 in the bloodstream will lead to death.
KK
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Sorry Rereke, but that is all wrong.
The air pressure in a submarine at depth is about 1 atmosphere. The crew are in no danger of getting the bends unless they have to escape at depth. CO2 is highly soluble and dose not cause the bends.
The bends are caused by bubbles of Nitrogen, which in turn occur when a diver comes up from depth after breathing air at high pressure. Ascending in an aeroplane can cause the bends, especially if the subject has been diving earlier.
The treatment for the bends is to recompress the bubbles by placing the patient in a pressure chamber. If at sea the patient may be taken back into deeper water then brought to the surface more slowly. There are attendant dangers .
There is a recompression chamber in Broome, WA which was in use by 1915. It used to be on display in a public park but is now housed in the Broome museum
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_chamber#/media/File%3AEarly_diving_recompression_chamber_at_Broome%2C_Western_Australia.jpg
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Hi Peter
RE has previously described the atm comp used in training for sub evacuation and the very high CO2 level s used.
Obviously high CO2 is needed, but as you point out, not for the bends.
20
I stand corrected, on two counts, by somebody who has actually been a submariner.
Firstly, I was incorrect for thinking that the CO2 was used to protect against the bends, it is not, as you point out.
Secondly, I missed the fact that CO2 is used in high concentrations, because it displaces oxygen, and thus acts is a fire retardant; fire being the worst nightmare on board a submarine.
40
I have my own photograph of the Broome recompression chamber in the park (but not with a pretty girl). It is inaccurately described as a decompression chamber. It was used for treating pearl divers, with dramatic results. The results can be seen in the Japanese cemetery at Broome, since most of the pearl divers were Japanese.
What staggers me is how anyone could willing go into that chamber and be bolted in, and left for hours without “going around the bend” psychologically. It is so constricted.
This article and photo shows the chamber as it is now. The end door has been reconstructed. I am a bit uncertain about some of the details given by the ABC reporter. I thought the that annual death rate from the bends improved from about 20/year to 1 or less. Tom Harley mat be able to advise.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-01/pearling-industry-marks-100-years-of-treating-divers-for-bends/6270018
30
Actually I have not been a submariner.
However I did graduate from the Underwater Medicine Course run by the Royal Australian Navy at HMAS Penguin (Sydney) in the mid 1980’s. Currently I am more interested in the exploits of the free breath hold divers. They try to mimic the exploits of the deep diving mammals (Whales and Dolphins) with limited success. It has to be the most dangerous sport of all!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freediving
This is likely a popular pastime in your part of the world, Rereke.
20
It may well be popular in some quarters. It certainly has the consequence of improving the gene pool. It is probably more popular in the Pacific Islands, where the water is warmer. If you are going to die, you might as well be comfortable doing it.
20
Don’t forget, RW, it is cheaper and easier to scrub the CO2 concentration in a submarine down to 5,000 ppm rather than, say, 1,000ppm
10
KK,
Pilots of unpressurized aircraft are always on a mixture of ambient air and added O2. It’s hard to get to a pure O2 environment, even wearing a mask.
The problem with pure O2 is a matter of partial pressure of the O2. Divers tried pure O2 as a means of avoiding the bends and soon discovered that at increased pressure they got in trouble and switched to other gas mixtures, such as helium and oxygen so as to dilute the O2 to avoid the problem. At the other end of the scale the partial pressure problem makes it impossible for unpressurized aircraft to go above a certain altitude because eventually oxygen is so little of each breath you take that you can’t get enough of it and you lose consciousness and soon die. I no longer remember what that altitude is, I should but it won’t come to me.
You can sometimes feel the effects of lower O2 partial pressure as low as 9 or 10 thousand feet. At the top of Pike’s peak (14,440 feet if I remember) lowlanders can have considerable difficulty and they keep emergency oxygen at the top just in case. As soon as I started walking around up there I got a headache that lasted the rest of the day, even after I was back down to 6,000 feet. I could tell that if I had to do any significant exertion I would be huffing and puffing trying to catch my breath. Yet maintenance people can do hard manual labor up there with no problem. It amazes me how adaptable we really are.
I’m not sure that pure O2 at sea level is dangerous except that anything that ignites will burn like a bomb going off, which is what killed three Apollo astronauts in a test run. Something shorted out and before anyone could do anything about it they were burned to death. They were at atmospheric pressure at the time and of pure O2. In space the pressure could be dropped considerably and the terrible fire danger didn’t exist for practical purposes, although a fire in space would be a bad problem because you’ve no where to run to.
Before smoking was forbidden in hospitals you would see no smoking signs posted at the door of any room where O2 was in use because of the inevitable build up of the stuff inside the room. A lit cigarette could literally go off in your face.
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Hi Roy
I think that from what you and RW have been saying puts ground level as half way between you.
Pure O2 for any length of time, especially when inactive and not internally producing extra CO2, would be something I would avoid at ground level.
I appreciate the fire risk of pure O2 but the greater risk of using pure oxygen is to abnormally remove CO2 from the bloodstream and negate the big switch :):
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-out-of-the-air-around-them-before-lunchtime-each-day/#comment-1321691
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-out-of-the-air-around-them-before-lunchtime-each-day/#comment-1323668
KK
00
Andy,
Just get a few family or friends together in your living room on a chilly day when you don’t have windows open and after a few hours, measure the CO2 level. It must get way above what the atmospheric level is and no one will even notice it.
For that matter, if you close your bedroom door at night (advisable if you have children ;-)), measure the CO2 level in the morning. It will also be quite high.
We are regularly exposed to quite high levels and never notice it. Yet we’re supposed to be afraid of the stuff because some computer model says we should. You’ll have no trouble guessing what I think of that idea.
20
“Food scarcity caused by climate change could cause 500,000 deaths by 2050, study suggests”
The IDIOTIC response to the scam that is “climate change™” is what IS causing world wide deaths.
So many lives could be so much better, if good solid coal or other fossil fuel fired electricity were available to the world’s poor countries, replacing their dung fired food, and helping to provide sanitation, and clean water.
This ANTI-CO2 campaign is one of the most scientifically stupid, and morally bankrupt scams that this world has ever seen.
The billions of dollars wasted could have done so much good in so many places.
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It’s risible. There is already a slight falling off because of “wet and cool weather during grain development and ripening” affecting Norway’s wheat crop. It has suffered a 45% drop in production since its peak in 2008 and which has remained steady over the last six years.
Cosmic ray counters are showing a significant rise indicating a corresponding decrease in solar activity. Winters in the northern lands have been significantly colder since 2006, in general.
The “wheat line” crept north in Canada and Scandinavia with the slight warming experienced over the 20th Century. It is an indicator which might be worthy of watching over the next couple of decades as the waning solar activity plays out.
In the event of cooler temperatures, it will be interesting to track crop production. There may be a resurgence in grains such as oats, rye and barley which are more tolerant of lower temperatures. We’ll see.
The atmospheric CO2 levels may drop. Cooler seas will reabsorb what they have emitted. This could have a noticable impact on crops. We’ll see.
May you live in interesting times.
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I haven’t seen much discussion about Svensmark’s cosmic ray/cloud formation theory for a while now, but seems to be a better indicator of global cooling/warming.
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I seem to recall hearing that Svensmark had a heart attack.
Being a climate scientist is bad for ones health, it would appear.
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He did, December 2009. It was live on Copenhagen TV during COP 15. He survived.
He’s probably being a lot more sensible about his workload these days. I don’t know what he’s doing at the moment but the last paper of his (which I’m reading for the third time) was published in 2012. It’s about SuperNova frequency and proximity driving evolution on Earth. That was quite a tour de force. I wonder if he’s refining and/or expanding it.
10
Robert O wrote:
It does seem to have gone quiet, but he’s being busy, I understand. . He ran another series of experiments as SKY2 to see if he could answer some criticisms that claimed the atmospheric collision debris the muons created was much too small to form CCNs (cloud condensation nuclei) which needed to be about 50 nm in size (relatively huge). Last I saw, he could prove that the `specks’ created in high energy collisions in the troposphere grew rapidly and easily reached 50nm. Other than that, I haven’t heard much.
He published a blockbuster paper in 2012 (see 11.1.1.1 above) which is just demanding follow ups. I’m keeping an ear and eye cocked in his direction.
Keep an eye on Jasper Kirkby’s CLOUD research project at CERN. The team has published twice so far, at least as far as I’m aware, and both papers were very interesting. He dropped some hints a couple of years ago that the excitement of discovery was still high so there may be some more interesting stuff about to appear RSN.
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According to that link peak Norwegian wheat production was 450,000 tonnes. A 45% drop from that might be because someone decided to grow radishes in his second-best paddock instead of wheat.
If we depend on Norwegian wheat for survival mankind sure is doomed!
10
Their objective was not to feed the world but to feed Norwegians. It’s my guess it was to establish and maintain some food security. Have a look at a map. Norway is mostly a narrow strip of mountains along the northern edge of Sweden. Mountains don’t usually grow lots of things except mountain goats and rocks.
The `Arab Spring’ of a few years ago shows what happens when the wheat runs out. High prices is an indicator of relative scarcity and low prices is an indicator of relative plenty. I suggested using Norway’s annual wheat production as an indicator of northern agricultural production. Norway is about as far north as they’ve been able to get wheat to grow in profitable quantities. When the cold comes in, it’s one crop which will suffer early.
It’s not warmth which stops crops but lack of it. Cold sets the limits of where things will grow. I can just imagine the Oxford’s researchers reception at a Commercial Greenhouse Operators’ Conference. 🙂
20
I’m sure you’re right about Norway, because I am reasonably certain that the shortage of usable land prompted the Norwegian expeditions of the Middle Ages, to places like Shetland, Orkney, Ireland, Iceland and the Scottish mainland, plus Greenland and “Vinland”. Even today, Norway supports a smaller population than tiny Denmark, which must itself be a lot more productive today, in agricultural terms, than it was in the mediaeval period, despite the Mediaeval Warm Period. At that time, Denmark, too, was exporting colonists all over the place, including to about half of England.
England was coveted as a very fertile place, which was invaded by several neighbours and conquered twice, but even England’s agriculture surely provided very little defence against the absence of Vitamin C in the diet, for the early months of any year. Without knowing anything about the concept of vitamins, North Europeans had to try anything to stave off scurvy.
Modern Norwegians can thankfully defy scurvy without a problem, but their topography will never allow more than a fraction of the land’s surface to be agriculturally viable (well, maybe, in the next interglacial, or the one after that, by which time some of those silly, old mountains and fjords will have disappeared).
00
Norway’s popilation boomed from the start of the Medieval Warming. Norway’s arable land rapidly became intensively farmed. Sons unlikely to inherit went `a-viking.’
Iceland was rapidly settled after it’s discovery. Farming there was always hard. Lief Erickson is alleged, by some, to have behaved `like a modern day Real Estate Agent’ with exaggerated claims about Greenland, but the population pressure back `home’ meant the land was settled. The name can’t be descriptive of its ice cap.
Skralings chased them out of Vinland.
00
Errata: (as in erratic keyboard … 🙂 )
Lief Erickson => Leif Erikson
Popilation. => Population.
(Big fingers, small keyboard, that’s my excuse.)
00
Gonna be more dead due to diabetes if you keep trying to feed the world with grains.
90
Hmmm sounds a bit like you would make a good alarmist climate scientist. Did you forget that the world population is increasing continuously. Over 7 billion now and expected to be about 9.5 billion in a few more decades.
Here’s the non alarmist calculation: Grain consumption per person remains constant but as the population increases more grain will need to be produced to maintain the present consumption rate per person. Now I know that that requires incredible scientific and mathematical skills to understand but that I suggest is the reason those in the alarmist sect of climate science have great difficulty projecting the future where atmospheric CO2 levels are likely to keep increasing by about 2ppm/year for quite some time. (whether that is due to natural warming of the oceans or in part due to human CO2 emissions)
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Maybe they should try growing melons on Mars. Much cooler and much less Co2.
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“The partial pressure of CO2 on Mars is 14X larger than [on] earth…” –Steve Goddard
30
Martian atmosphere is 96% CO2. What made you think there was less CO2 on mars?
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Pure speculation based on the thinness of the atmosphere and not so much measured in % or ppm, just how much might be actually there in a specified volume of space of sfa atmosphere. Happy to be corrected if poorly speculated.
30
Total mass is likely to be very much smaller than Earth, since mars is half the size of Earth and the atmosphere 1/10th. I would think atmosphere % is a more useful metric.
Anyway, we’re all here to learn. /Cheers.
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Either way it’s not a good place to raise your kids, in fact it’s cold as hell 🙂
00
What a load of rubbish. Food production is rising faster and faster and the global number of undernourished people is falling (as Mari C linked upthread) despite the rise in population.
It’s even better when you do things like bring in the beneficial effect that CO2 has on agricultural productivity and the increase in rainfall with temperature rise. Not to mention the slow accptance of GM foods, especially in the Third World.
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So all our gardeners who use greenhouses to grow tomatoes and other vegetables are WRONG ! Somehow they need less CO2 and colder circumstances to have a better growth ???
That is why my apple trees should perform better when the spring and summer is colder ?? and still they all do the exact opposite ! Either these scientist think we are so stupid stupid we can add one plus one. I would say, they truly deserve to be rejected any funding from now on.
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The current crop of Climate Scientists and experts are making a mockery of scientists and experts.
After this fiasco finally settles, the opinion of a scientist or expert will be likened to the opinion of a used car salesman. Already experts are generally mocked (ex-spurt).
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I visited a tri-generation project near Brussels in 2005, where they were using a digester to capture methane from sewage sludge, which was then used to fuel an internal combustion engine (500kWe I think) which produced electricity to power the farm.
the hot water from the engine was piped through the soil under the greenhouse to heat the soil and stimulate plant growth.
the exhaust gases from the engine were piped into the greenhouses where the increased CO2 concentration further stimulated plant growth.
now, where is the problem???
00
Food scarcity is unlikely to be a problem in 2050, although global cooling may see pockets of malnourished people in far flung places.
As the population of the world stabilisers and becomes middle class the greatest loss of life will come from over eating the wrong foods, obesity and nutrient starvation is the great irony of the 21st century.
The only foreseeable danger comes from global cooling in the form of extreme and unusual weather creating agricultural disruption.
——-
You may think nature is indiscriminate, but not according to The Conversation.
‘Extreme weather events kill more women than men globally – the more extreme, the bigger the gender gap. Among the 150,000 people killed by the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone, 90% were women.’
40
The Australian Medical Association supports this stuff.
https://ama.com.au/position-statement/ama-position-statement-climate-change-and-human-health-2004-revised-2015
So There!
The supposed health impacts are mostly projected, as far as I can make out.
Heaven help them! And us.
50
Peter, that AMA article carries so many citations as to indicate that while much research went into it, there was but little thought. It was constructed for the purpose of channelling other peoples’ writing, prosecuting a pre judged determination.
Rather surprising from a supposedly intelligent and learned group of people.
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Written by the ignorant, rabid alarmista activist, Brian Owler !
131
Brian Owler probably had some input. There are quite a few doctors on the executive of the AMA who think like him.
50
Which is how he got into the position.
Another far-left takeover of institutions.
101
All without doctorates.
20
Correct Len,
The term Dr in the case of medical practitioners is simply a respectful convention. Most practitioners have a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) and specialists have a Diploma from their craft College (usually expressed as a Fellowship).
These days doctor can be used to describe a host of paramedical practitioners. I would rather be described as a Medical Practitioner. At least that makes my qualifications clear.
20
I don’t know about you, but my dietary change is mainly due to economical and changes in the food ingredients and size inflation of products. Can’t afford beef except on rare occasions…Mind you that squirrel outside is starting to look pretty tasty…hmmm.
80
Where does anyone find the time to make this stuff up? Why does Lancet publish it or is that a silly question?
500,000 sounds like a lot of people. It isn’t. If world population doubles by 2050, finding food for an additional 7 billion people will be the problem, surely? As for one death in 14,000 per year from Climate Change, tripping over sausage dogs probably ranks a higher risk.
So the only conclusion from this very debatable logic is that Climate Change/Global Warming will not present a significant health threat in the forseeable future. What happened to pandemics like Spanish Flu or Ebola or Bird flu? Surely the medical world has more serious concerns?
120
Food production is limited by sunshine, water, land, CO2, temperature. If we could increase two of these, we should. So this is an argument for more CO2, not less.
90
Food supply is also limited by economic policies. A case could be mounted for blaming most of the deaths by starvation since WWII on economic policies. My tip is that if food scarcity becomes a problem, it will be economic policies, not global warming, that drives it.
100
Because of the money WASTED on the AGW nonsense…
….AGW has had a big hand in CAUSING many of the world’s current economic problems.
122
It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Alarmists claim that AGW will cause disaster; now they’re busy trying to make those words come true with their anti-capitalist and anti-democratic activities.
112
Indeed. It’s not hard to grow food, and if the economics of it is favourable it’ll be done.
The only hurdle is land area, and the government policies about said land and land use.
60
We must immediately set up a UN committee, the IPWD, or International Panel on Wiener Dogs, to address this threat to Gaia.
60
You know this current CO2 governance infrastructure was set up by somebody making a silly remark on a blog, don’t you?
52
Last time i looked at the UN population sites world population will top out at about 10 billion by 2050, with some really dramatic reductions in some countries populations (eastern Europe had some massive drops based on projected birthrates).
20
Death from heart disease kills 100,000s?
And Malaria kills millions, right?
100
If seven billion people live 80 years, nearly a quarter of a million will die every day. How among those will they pick their two day’s worth?
100
Hey Jo,
Pot is almost legal here…
Give you a mellow perspective to all this hype of massive death over a long period of time…
Hey wait a second, isn’t that natural causes too?
70
Over here in the UK this very same story had a more, “local” flavour which makes it even more pathetic.
Daily Telegraph – “Climate change could lead to more than 1200 extra deaths a year in the UK by 2050 as global warming causes fruit and vegetable shortages, research suggests”.
I expect next year the report will have the names of all those poor souls that will suffer fruit and veg starvation by then. Too late for me I’m glad to say.
80
I can’t resist
“The model projects that by 2050, climate change will lead to per-person reductions of 3·2% in global food availability, 4% in fruit and vegetable consumption, and 0·7% in red meat consumption. These changes will be associated with 529 000 climate-related deaths worldwide”
Having been to Tamil Nadu a few months ago where even young men look fat on a largely vegetarian diet, a reduction of 3.2% in food might be a good thing, but this is translated into killing half a million deaths per year. Why? How?
I remember when the world population was 2.5Billion and 2/3 were supposed to be starving. It is now 7 billion? What happened? How does does a reduction of food by 3-4% kill so many people, unless you are talking solely about countries which do not have a fair share of the available food, which would be the real problem not total food or ‘climate change’. Who is to say these people get enough food under any circumstances? Would reducing CO2, lowering the temperature actually feed these people? When did so many PhD’s start making such illogical statements?
82
We are told – we in the developed countries, at least – that we eat too much red meat. So the drop in available red meats should be good. In fact, we could halve the production right now and be fine. If red meat production drops, that much more land can be used for fruit and veg. So the net should be more fruit and veg, less red meat, and, if the medical noises are right, healthier people.
Distribution, now, that’s political. Famine is, in this age, largely a man-made -political- construct. Greed and power are the root cause, not lack of food, high CO2, changing climate, etc. I’d bet that, in the USA alone, the food that gets tossed out on a daily basis could feed Africa well enough to cause upward-spiraling obesity – and allow African families to throw out unwanted (not rotten, tainted, not-quite-fresh, but unwanted) food enough to feed another small nation.
Now, if we all go small-farm, organic, non-gmo, we might starve to death.
00
Is Professor Turney driving that train??
92
Slipped the tracks Bud and slammed into those missing Penguins…lol
50
That train IS the penguins, they heard Professor Turney was looking for them so they uncovered the Steamsleeper No’ One and hightailed it out of there.
52
😉 — — \
00
500,000 by 2050?? Wouldn’t that be less than motor vehicle accidents world wide? What a completely ridiculous “study”.
50
Yes, 1.24 million road deaths in 2010. That assumes countries which have roads and cars.
Besides, how exactly is a predicted 4% reduction in food going to kill anyone?
It’s so silly. If the world’s population doubles by 2050 it requries a doubling of food supplies? This should be the question, not whether we get to only and precisely 96% more because of Climate Warming.
40
There was at least 100 million deaths last century directly from left /socialist politics alone, six months extra of good ol’ progressive thinking should counter balance this.
60
The Lancet study in a nutshell.
“Future Computer Food Production Modelling based on future Computer Climate Modelling”.
A double whammy of GIGO Computer Modelling.
Naturally this double whammy of GIGO Computer Modelling will not factor in the effects of the imminent LIA.
61
The Lancet also suggested 500,000 or more died in Iraq, until they were fact checked.
20
Grapes of Greenland? Not so far fetched, given the evidence that the Vikings were able to grow barley there in the Medieval Warm Period.
30
But Greebo with the LIA due later next decade, and likely to persist through most of the 21st Century, there will be no “Grapes of Greenland” but rather “Grapes of Wrath” – they will be very tough times and all the GIGO modellers will have to explain why there are no “Grapes of Greenland”, no “Grapes of British Columbia”, ………….
30
I could probably write a good sized manuscript outlining the utter ignorance and absolute and complete lack of any background knowledge by the authors of these quite spurious modelled [ again!!! ] “prediction”s and claims on an impending global food shortage catastrophe.
These scientific incompetents don’t seem to have any idea or concept, an increasingly common characteristic of ivory tower cloistered academics who are remote and isolated in their self acclaimed academic superiority from the real world outside, on the trends, plant breeding, genetic technology advances, rapidly advancing farming technology in reducing costs, controlling pests, diseases and fertilization technology together with better storage and faster globally based transport systems and therefore fewer food losses and spoilage, all of which gives a great big fat lie to all the utterly spurious, incoherent, ignorance based claims of an impending global famine due to food shortages other than those localised shortages created by humanity’s incompetence and / or his deliberate inhumanity to his fellow humans.
The mediaeval peasant of some three centuries or more ago ago could expect to harvest around four bushels of grain [ one bushel , a volume measurement = 1.24 cubic feet volume = 35 liters volume ] for every bushel of grain he planted and that was in a good year.
In a bad year he might get little more than his seed back.
However to sustain life and avoid famine it has been shown that it is necessary to have a 3 to 1 ratio of yield to seed sown hence the frequent localised famines of past centuries where there were no transport systems around that could convey large amounts of food from a place of good yielding crops to areas that had poor yields for that year.
In today’s Australian agricultural industry there are very large variations in yields according to the type of grain, the rainfall, soil types, when any rain falls and etc and etc .
But here in western Victoria’s Wimmera grain growing region, we would expect in a reasonable year to harvest around between 50 to 80 and up to or over 100 times the amount of wheat [ as an example ] seed we have sown per hectare as compared to those mediaeval peasants 3 or 4 times the amount of seed sown. .
And the advances in yields continue as genetic advancements mean ever more tolerance to dryness and drought like conditions, disease, frosts, heat, weed suppression and all those other innumerable nature imposed factors that go to growing a crop of grain or oilseeds or pulses and etc.
But there is more;
In the very late 1960’s and early 1970’s there was a then huge surplus of food grains in the world.
A system of grain delivery quotas to the then marketer of Australian wheat, the then highly respected Australian Wheat Board [ AWB ] , was instituted here in Australia in an effort to reduce the amount of wheat being grown and the surplus unsold carryover of grain that had to be stored for long periods at considerable cost .
We were guaranteed a price of $65/ tonne of wheat to be paid over a number of years as the crop was sold.
That 1971, $65 / tonne price, a very low price and a barely sustainable price for grain farming at the time, equates today after inflation to around $680 / tonne.
In 1973/4 as is the usual pattern of large variations in the global agriculture and food production, a world shortage of grain developed.
The 1974 price for Australian wheat reached over $150/ tonne, equivalent today to about $1320 / tonne
.
The current Wimmera 2016 grain prices being asked for high quality wheat in the western Victorian Wimmera is about $270 / tonne
.
A current wheat price per tonne in real actual purchasing terms that is only around 40% of what was regarded some 45 years ago as one of the worst and lowest prices ever seen by grain growers.
And those low prices of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were even worse in comparison to the farmer’s received grain prices of the 1930’s Great Depression era.
Yet Farmers are expected to keep growing this very cheap basic human food whilst receiving ever lower prices whilst innumerable and totally parasitical marketing and financial outfits continue to insert themselves between the farmers and the consumers all the while each taking another big cut of the proceeds without ever providing any community benefit in the way of farmer recompensation or consumer advantages.
Double that price of the current proffered $270 tonne for wheat to the farmers and for all food grains and like the years following the 1974 situation, the farmers will begin to produce huge quantities of food.
Even with the current low prices for food grains there is a large surplus of food grains in the world today hence another reason for the very low food grain prices.
A further factor which if food shortages actually do develop is the ability of increasing food prouction within urban areas.
Lagos, the capital of Nigeria and a mega city of over 10 million currently grows about 10% of it food requirements within the city bounds.
As over one half of the global population now lives in cities of over 100,000 people, the ability to expand food production levels even within a city’s bounds is very considerable indeed as Lagos and other less developed country’s major cities are showing.
In short the authors of this claim of “model predicted” food shortages which are based on failed and unvalidated, unverified, unproven models of the predicted future climate merely show their utter ignorance of the real world outside of the cloistered walls of academia and the whole paper is nothing more than a basketful of quite spurious modelled claims based on further modelled climate trend claims which are quite useless to anybody even as the requisite roll of paper in the smallest room in the house.
111
ROM, the voice of experience
Re doom-speak , say, we’re not good at prediction…
Malthus, Club of Rome, Ehrlich, Hansen…but we are
good at invention, Tull, Arkwright, Watt,Borlaug…
40
Wow.
It Will take a while to digest that.
Interesting
10
IMO the people who performed the “Food Shortages Study” had one and only one objective: Arrive at and publish a set of “conclusions” that will ensure we get another study.
00
Look ever so wistfully at that freight train in the image, and the surroundings.
It’s most probably a Diesel train.
Tut tut tut! We’ll have no more of that thank you very much in a Carbon (Dioxide) free World.
They’ll need to construct all the infrastructure to electrify that line, and look back as far as the eye can see, because it’s obviously not a short line, coming from, or going to, so that’s no easy. or cheap task.
Hang on a minute. The line needs dedicated, regular, reliable, constant power, so that’s out now too, no more of that then.
Look ever so wistfully at that train.
Those days will be gone forever. Hope the people at the far end of that line can be relocated.
Tony.
80
Ridiculous.
Windmills and solar panels mounted on the trains will remove any need for infrastructure to electrify that line.
80
I know that this is a pretty much useless exercise, even if based on fact. (And, beware, this may be construed as somewhat satirical)
The average sized Diesel Electric Locomotive, as might be the equivalent of the one in the image has to provide 2.2MW. Here the diesel engine drives the Generator, and the generator is what provides the motive force to drive the locomotive.
So, take away the diesel engine, and now you need something to drive the generator.
Power in equals power out.
So, now we need 2.2MW of solar panels, capable of a constant 2.2MW.
The average sized panel, a good one, can generate up to 600Watts.
So that means you’ll need 3666 Panels for each locomotive.
See, I told you it was a useless exercise.
Perhaps now you can imagine how much (dedicated constant regular reliable) power an electrified rail network would require.
And forget a maglev ultra fast train.
Tony.
100
You really needed me to “/sarc” tag my comment??
40
Not at all Analitik. I knew exactly that your comment was sarcasm.
That’s the joy of this site of Joanne’s. Whenever I see something like this, it makes me think, and to then show you how ridiculous it is when you work out the maths involved with this green dream of theirs.
The Science is important in all of this (seemingly closed, so they tell us) debate, but distil it down to the Maths, and it’s the only way that ….. I have ….. to ridicule their whole green dream.
Tony.
100
Fair call, Tony.
The main issue I see is that the greens must mandate mathematical illiteracy as a core requirement. How else can any Marc Jacobsen’s “studies” be taken seriously?
You get green renewables advocates who read David MacKay’s brilliant Sustainable Energy – without the hot air eBook and don’t understand that he is being facetious when making statements like
http://www.withouthotair.com/
And they’ll reject Leo Smith’s equally brilliant Limitations of ‘Renewable’ Energy document on trivial arguements like “he doesn’t have a doctorate”
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf
Sadly, work like these (and your own blogposts and commentary) can only persuade those who can be bothered with the math which precludes a vast portion of the population (everywhere).
I stated in an earlier thread that I hoped SA’s grid would fail sooner rather than later to minimize the damage that must eventuate in such an event, although it may well be Germany or the UK (especially with the statement of likely closure of the remaining coal fired Drax generators) where the catastrophe strikes first.
But when any of these grids falls over, the governments behind the others need to take notice and start reversing the damage they have done to their thermal generation capacity through their thoughtless policies that have led to closures and lack of replacements in this sector.
60
Thank you Analytic for that vision of the train covered with solar panels with a windmill above each bogie, crossing that plain in a blizzard.
ROTFLMAO.
If the wind was sufficiently strong, it could lift off and that would be … interesting.
10
Here is a good energy yarn for you, Tony:
Inside the Cunning, Unprecedented Hack of Ukraine’s Power Grid
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunning-unprecedented-hack-ukraines-power-grid/
00
add another million+ deaths if the lights go out in the UK winters due to insane CAGW policies:
behind paywall at The Times:
3 Mar: CarbonBrief: From The Times UK: Ministers ready to pull the plug on National Grid
The energy regulator Ofgem is to be handed sweeping new powers to manage the country’s electricity supplies, switch off factories and request emergency back-up generation, under energy market reforms being considered by Whitehall. Documents seen by The Times show ministers are considering three main options designed to strip National Grid of its role as the UK’s power system operator, a role that grants it huge supervisory influence.
Alarmed by the country’s growing reliance on importing electricity and a lack of new domestic power station developments, ministers are leaning towards a “lead option” which involves the creation of a not-for-profit company modelled loosely on Network Rail. Overseen by Ofgem, it would manage Britain’s electricity system, a role that has traditionally been handled independently by National Grid, one of the nation’s biggest companies…
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/utilities/article4704269.ece?acs_cjd=true&utm_source=Daily+Carbon+Briefing&utm_campaign=245e41da10-cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-245e41da10-303439889
40
Why is it that treason only works upward, never downward …
40
That’s because there’s one rule us and another for them.
20
‘In a warmer world, the tropics will stay a similar temperature…’
That’s true but a slightly cooler trend normally causes chaos, such as monsoon failure. That’s why the Chinese are so into agribusiness in Africa and South America.
During the LIA there were more La Nina which tends to indicate Australia was cooler and wetter, except for the top end which became relatively dry.
The Chinese have already bought into the Ord River in a big way and have a centennial lease on Darwin Harbor, they are determined to cover all bases, adapt and survive.
30
what if there are no buyers?
3 Feb: Guardian: Terry Macalister: Green Investment Bank could be snapped up by foreign buyers
Institution set up to power UK’s green energy revolution could switch to funding more lucrative schemes abroad, say critics
The Green Investment Bank (GIB), hailed as a world first for the UK when it was set up, is expected to bring in more than £4bn for the Treasury when it is privatised, probably by the end of this year. But it may be snapped up by foreign buyers and already has plans to expand significantly overseas.
Announcing the sell-off at the lord mayor’s dinner in Mansion House, London, on Wednesday night, the business secretary (Sajid Javid), said a special share structure would ensure the company’s green mission continued…
“The challenge presented by climate change is clear – it is imperative we mobilise more funding for green energy projects. The special share structure protects the bank’s green mission meaning the Green Investment Bank will continue to do exactly what it says on the tin.”…
Shaun Kingsbury, the GIB’s chief executive, said he had received expressions of interest from private equity investors, sovereign wealth funds and large foreign investment banks.
He added that the bank wanted to borrow money, rather than just use public funds, and to expand overseas and admitted it could in future be funding windfarms in Germany and Holland or even renewable power projects in India…
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/02/green-investment-bank-foreign-buyers-energy
10
GE, Bloomberg, IETA etc…not concerned at all about the science or the predicted CAGW deaths!
3 Mar: Globe & Mail: Provinces oppose Trudeau’s carbon floor-price proposal
by SHAWN McCARTHY and IAN BAILEY
Provincial and territorial premiers met Wednesday ahead of their climate summit with Mr. Trudeau, and found no support for a federally mandated minimum carbon price.
“There’s no consensus on that,” British Columbia Premier Christy Clark said after the meeting…
In a speech earlier Wednesday, the Prime Minister offered a solid defence of Canada’s oil industry. At a conference on sustainability, he delivered a rousing call for society-wide effort to confront climate change and insisted the country could meet its commitments even as it builds pipelines and pursues resource development.
“The choice between pipelines and wind turbines is a false one,” the Prime Minster said at the GLOBE series event that drew more than 2,000 delegates from 50 countries. “We need both to reach our goals.”…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/environment-shouldnt-become-arena-for-political-fights-trudeau/article28996991/
GLOBE 2016: The Leadership Summit for Sustainable Business: Conference Schedule
http://www.globeseries.com/conference/schedule/
About GLOBE SERIES: Taking place every two years in Vancouver, Canada, GLOBE draws the ‘best and brightest’ of the international sustainable business community, making it an unsurpassed forum for learning and networking.
With an exciting vibe and an international flair, GLOBE is not only the undisputed thought leader worldwide, it’s where future markets are shaped, and public policy is fostered…
For 2016, we’ve sharpened our scope, strengthened our leadership team, and doubled down on our commitment to doing more of what GLOBE does best: Catalyzing collaborations between “unusual suspects” both on and off the stage.
Check About Partners/Sponsors…all the “usual suspects”.
10
If the Ebola Virus which currently requires direct contact to be transmitted ever mutates and adapts and becomes transmissible between persons through airborne pathways before a vaccine is developed then that modelled prediction of a half a million deaths from disease and famine from food shortages half a century ahead is going to look like very small beer indeed compared to the potential death toll from a mutated airborne adapted Ebola virus outbreak.
So just completely cut off those purported and deliberately alarmist’s scientist’s funds entirely and shift their funding sources to trying to find the vaccines and means of preventing what are all ready well known probabilities for massive and highly contagious disease outbreaks that will destroy human lives numbering potentially in the tens or hundreds of millions.
Its time for the funding sources to stop funding this utter climate modelled crap that is being produced by so many pseudo and so called “scientists” who are dabbling in inventing what they perceive as the most scary scenarios so as to frighten the public into providing them with further lucrative funding.
All done at the expense of far more deserving and far more likely real time possibilities that have the real and actual potential to take millions of human lives but are not fully researched because of lack of funding
41
Rom, I recently discovered that many of those … umm … computer modellers were also involved in the CFC-Ozone Layer scare two and a half decades ago. Most of the fear mongering was just that. They succeeded then with the Montreal Protocol.
That was as much of a scam as the current AGW on steroids.
10
James Lovelock, scientist, chemist and inventor and the formulator of the GAIA hypothesis where the Earth in its totality is a self regulating entity, a hypothesis that Lovelock has now backed away from, was also the inventor of an atmospheric ozone content measuring system in the 1970’s.
He had this to say about the Ozone Hole affair. and the following global warming scam and its blatant and deliberate corruption of science and long standing scientific principles.
40
yet another meeting:
3 Mar: Scientific American: Bad Policy Could Cripple Energy Innovation
Science and engineering will have little effect if lawmakers don’t craft policies to back energy advances
by Umair Irfan, Climatewire
The best science and engineering are no match for the whims of lawmakers, so policy and innovation need to work hand in hand, Obama administration officials said.
Even the best energy inventions in the world won’t make a difference to the climate unless nations acknowledge the problem and spend the resources to deploy the solutions, whether it’s cleaner energy production or pricing carbon in order to keep global warming below a 2-degree-Celsius threshold.“If you think about that number, we’ve got a relatively short span of time in which we have to find the technologies and bring that price down to minimize those greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jonathan Pershing, a former climate change negotiator now serving as principal deputy director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis.
He spoke yesterday at the tail end of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s annual summit outside Washington, D.C., an event showcasing a buffet of new clean energy projects, ideas and optimism…
Nonetheless, (EPA Administrator Gina) McCarthy struck a defiant tone.
“Yes, I was disappointed in the Supreme Court’s stay decision, and we will respect that, but in no way does that change the direction of energy in this country, and no way does that signal that the Clean Power Plan is not legally defensible and will not in the end win,” she said…READ ON
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-policy-could-cripple-energy-innovation/
30
guaranteed profits is what we demand:
3 Mar: Carbon Brief: Sophie Yeo: Investor confidence in UK energy policy has ‘dipped’, warn MPs
Mixed messages, lack of transparency and a history of sudden announcements by the government has undermined investor confidence in the UK’s energy system, according to a committee of MPs.
This could mean that projects become more expensive to deliver as investors demand a greater return to compensate for the increased risk, or simply do not go ahead at all.
A gap in energy investment could undermine the UK’s ability to meet climate, energy security and affordability objectives, says the new report, which was produced by the House of Commons energy and climate change committee.
The dip in investor confidence is illustrated by the UK’s fall from 8th to 11th place in the EY Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index in just four months, between June and September 2015…
Investors look for a stable and predictable policy environment, and the government has not delivered this, says the report. While they recognise that changes are a feature of democracy, every change in direction comes with a cost, says the report. If changes are made without sufficient prior warning, then investors can (CANNOT?) adapt accordingly…
Siemens described the “apparently contradictory messages” as “unsettling” for investors…
Recommendations…READ ON
http://www.carbonbrief.org/investor_confidence_in_uk_energy_policy_has_dipped_warn_mps?utm_content=bufferb7f3d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
3 Mar: UK Parliament: Government must restore investor confidence in UK energy sector
Investor confidence has been dented by a series of sudden policy changes since the election, which may lead to a hiatus in project developments and threaten the UK’s ability to meet its energy security and climate change objectives.
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT, ETC
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/energy-and-climate-change-committee/news-parliament-2015/investor-confidence-report-published-15-16/
20
“We’ll all be rooned, said Hanrahan”
20
3 Mar: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: Activist ‘Scientist’ Runs From Reporters After Admitting In Court He Has No Proof Fracking Poisons Water
A Cornell University engineering professor often used by activists to attack fracking ran from reporters after he admitted in court there was no proof drilling had contaminated Dimock’s drinking water.
Prof. Tony Ingraffea was forced to admit he was an anti-fossil fuel “advocate” in court Tuesday, and that he had no proof fracking done by Cabot Oil and Gas had contaminated the drinking water of two Dimock families suing the oil company, according to journalist Phelim McAleer…
McAleer, who also created the documentary “Fracknation” to expose anti-fracking myths, has been covering the trial against Cabot. He previously reported the plaintiff’s lawyer admitted they had no proof chemicals from fracking ever ended up in drinking water. McAleer confronted Ingraffea about his activism and lack of proof fracking contaminated Dimock’s water. (LINKS)…
http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/03/activist-scientist-runs-from-reporters-after-admitting-in-court-he-had-no-proof-fracking-poisons-water/
30
I have it on the best 97% scientific authority that this is ridiculous.
Everyone knows we will be dead by 2030, if not before:
Bob Geldof: The world could end by 2030
“We may not get to 2030.
The signs are that it will happen and soon.”
. . .
Some one tell Bob to give ’em a call.
40
Proper science would also have looked at the impact of reducing CO2 would it not? Plants live on CO2, so reducing CO2 is likely to lead to less production and therefore less food for an increasing population and less income for farmers and all those people adding value along the production/marketing chain. If CO2 leads to a warmer world then by implication reduction of CO2 will lead to a cooling world. How many people will die from cold related illness etc. And if we are to cut back use of fossil fuel usage what will the impact be on continuity of supply and prices. Do we actually have alternative fuel sources that can meet demand. There is no impact assessment of CO2 reduction proposals on the environment either yet the proponents of climate change policies purport to be responsive to environmental issues? If CO2 concentration is reduced and temperatures drop surely plant and animal life will be stressed, and perhaps more than if it got warmer?
We see no proper impact assessment of any of the warmist proposals at all. Indeed it is possible that the environmental, health and economic costs of CO2 reduction far outweigh those of any warming. Yet it seems I would be black banned from any university in Australia for even proposing such an exercise. No business(well maybe apart from Slater & Gordon) would ever proceed without doing its due diligence on the costs, benefits and risks of such a mammoth project. My only conclusion is that the IPCC is not really serious about climate and it is a smokescreen for an entirely different agenda.
90
It’s greening folks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
H/T Cee-Oh-too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/high_resolution1.png
10
solutions? appeal the WTO decision and/or reduce/abandon the solar target; don’t ratify the Paris Agreement:
4 Mar: The Hans India: WTO deal: A rude jolt to India
by Tejal Kanitkar (Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai)
In a stunning verdict, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled against India’s solar programme that has a domestic content clause…
While the US had hauled India to the WTO for supporting local content, half the States in the US have similar provisions in their renewable programmes…
It will be forced to use the solar modules dumped on it by the US companies, which in turn have been subsidised by the US. Given that a large number of the States in the US also have subsidy programmes for solar energy with local content guidelines, this case exposes the double standards of both the US and the WTO…
After Paris, the shift in Climate Change mitigation is that while the rich nations may have caused the problem, all the countries have to solve it together…
It is presumably under this pressure that India has announced ambitious renewable energy target of 175 GW by 2022, of which the largest component of 100 GW is to come from solar energy projects. The ambitious plan of installing 100 GW of solar power by 2022, revised upward from an initial target of 20 GW, reflects the growing optimism about solar power in India and its ability to provide energy services at costs that are significantly lower than what was earlier thought possible.
***However, despite the promise of reducing energy costs, there is still a gap between the unit cost of power produced from solar panels and that produced from other sources of energy, as well the cost that Indian consumers can currently afford to pay. The cost of solar powered electricity is still about two to three times higher than fossil fuel-based electricity generation…
So, not only does India reduce emissions through installing 100 GW of solar energy, it also has to pay the developed countries for this “favour.”…
http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Opinion/2016-03-04/WTO-deal-A-rude-jolt-to-India-/211262
13 Dec 2015: The Hindu: Paris Agreement falls short, say TISS researchers
It does not do enough in terms of taking account of science, concretely operationalising equity among countries, and demonstrating global adequacy, said T. Jayaraman and Tejal Kanitkar of the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Following is the text of their statement…ETC
The Paris Agreement and the corresponding decision leave many details to the future. It makes merely general appeals for greater “ambition” in the future in mitigation without specific targets. If they are not met, no consequences will apply. Much of the process of review, as other details of operationalising the agreement, is left unspecified. This is likely to result in many acrimonious and bitterly disputed climate summits. But for the next eight years, until the first stocktake of 2023, little advance of substance in emissions reduction is likely to occur, with the pressure likely to be ratcheted up at that time on countries like India…
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/paris-agreement-falls-short-say-tiss-researchers/article7983311.ece
00
perfect companion piece to the Hans India/WTO/solar story, & so typical of the deceptive NYT:
3 Mar: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: Is Worry Worthwhile in Confronting Climate Change?
I spoke about the story, and the torturous process of writing it, at the Koshland Science Museum of the National Academies on Monday, in an onstage chat with the editors, Lee Gutkind, an evangelist for narrative, and Dan Sarewitz, Professor of Science and Society at Arizona State University.
Then came a valuable question-and-answer period. Peter C. Griffith, a NASA scientist focused on Arctic change, asked the most challenging question of the night — and one I’d asked myself as I began grappling with the essay:
“Tell me why I shouldn’t worry that you’re not worried.”
Here’s a (slightly smoothed) version of my answer:
What would you want me to do differently?
I think I’m telling the story that says this is such a big and profound change in the planetary system that it’s largely beyond our control with what we know about ourselves now… What could help propel more change is to work on the least predictable element in this whole matrix — which is the human element…
I’ve moved away from numbers to looking at what are the capacities in society or individuals where — if I or others work on boosting those capacities or traits — I know we have a better chance of having innovative spirit.
***Not just in laboratories to have some great breakthrough on a fusion reactor, but also, as Harish Hande, this energy entrepreneur in India, has made a breakthrough with a financial model for how to go into a village and bring in enough solar power so they can run their sewing machines (YOUTUBE LINK) and get less poor.
I want to tell that story as much as I want to tell Bill Gates’s story…
Here’s video of my exchange with Griffith (LINK)…READ ON
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/is-worry-worthwhile-in-confronting-climate-change/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Climate
%20Change&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0
Revkin links to a 2-minute youtube from 2010, which was posted online by Yale School of Management, which co-produced the video, about the “human element”, Harish Hande (of SELCO – Solar Electric Light Company).
in 2007, Harish Hande was presented with one of his company’s many awards – a second Ashden (sustainable and renewable energy) Award – by Al Gore. Ashden, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts in Britain, has had Prince Charles, Sir David King, David Attenborough, Lord May of Oxford & even Rajendra Pachauri as guest speakers over the years.
Harish Hande is, in reality, more a face-card. the founder of SELCO is Neville Williams (SELF):
Wikipedia: Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF)
The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit whose mission is to design and implement solar energy solutions to assist those living in energy poverty…
SELF was founded in 1990 by Neville Williams, an award-winning journalist and author (Chasing the Sun: Solar Adventures Around the World), who had experience actively promoting solar power as a staffer with the U.S. Department of Energy during the Carter administration…
Each participating household made a 20 percent down payment on a solar energy system and paid off the balance – usually between $300 and $400 – over several years…
In a joint venture with local partners in India, SELF formed a for-profit subsidiary using India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to tap World Bank funds set aside specifically for photovoltaic installations…
***In 1997, SELF decided to launch a for-profit affiliate, the Solar Electric Light Company, or SELCO, based in Bangalore, India…
In 2003, SELF found the opportunity to implement a “Whole-Village” approach when the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) invited SELF to carry out a solar electrification project in Nigeria. With support from the DOE…
SELF has also installed 100 solar powered streetlights in tent camps to increase safety, and in collaboration with NRG Energy, Inc. and the
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund…
SELF was selected as a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Electric_Light_Fund
don’t worry, Revkin, be happy…still spruiking for the CAGW establishment.
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meant to include this little fact:
Wikipedia: SELCO India
Some of Selco’s customers include poor daily-wage laborers and institutions like schools and seminaries. Everyone is charged the same rate for the solar panel; about $450 for a 40-watt system that can light many 7-watt bulbs for 4 hours between charges…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELCO_India
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Never trust yer guru. Why am I not in the least bit surprised.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/01/former-un-climate-chief-rajendra-k-pachauri-charged-sexual-harassment
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..and it’s the Guardian!!!. Whatever next. He’ll give back his Nobel prize?. ..Nah.
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Off topic a bit but goes to the Lancet ant its integrity deficit syndrome.
They published a study into civilian deaths in Iraq in about 2004, in the lead up to the US elections post the invasion. The authors even admitted it was deliberately timed to reflect badly on Dubya’s administration.
Anyhow they came up with a figure of over 100,000 civilian deaths based on a very coarse sampling model highly vulnerable to localised clusters of reported data from extreme events.
Sure enough they had to discard data pertaining to 50 out of 71 deaths, if I recall correctly, as they all occurred in Falluja, which by that time had endured one and maybe two large battles between insurgents and the US troops. In other words it was a cluster. Cities like Falluja, Baghdad, Tiktrit etc saw huge violence and other cities saw none.
The local authorities and even Iraq Body Count only came up with about a third of that figure so even the ‘adjusted’ result from the data sampling ‘model’ seemed to be grossly distorted. They would have been laughed out of even the Lancet had they tried to claim over 300,000 deaths, i.e. 10 times the alternative estimates.
The point being of course is how dis such utter crap get published? How did such a poorly designed clustered sampling method so obviously unsuited to a known to be clustered phenomenon ever get past peer review? Had it been about sampling a medical phenomenon these clowns would have been pilloried.
Models, adjusted data, poor model design, political agenda, lead up to a political showdown…. sound familiar?
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… the climate change establishments’ very own Bill Cosby. (h/t WOBH).
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***this lengthy piece might have made an interesting read, but look at what WaPo inserted into it:
3 Mar: WaPo: Steve Volk: Was a USDA scientist muzzled because of his bee research?
***This dynamic of government scientists claiming suppression extends across institutions. Just a few months ago, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration alleged that the House Science Committee, led by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), was attempting to intimidate researchers who had produced data indicating that global warming hadn’t slowed.
Such disputes show how complicated the intersection of government, science and industry can become when billions of dollars are at stake…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/was-a-usda-scientist-muzzled-because-of-his-bee-research/2016/03/02/462720b6-c9fb-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html
COMMENT: BY Jim Pappas 4.12am
First of all, this statement early in the article: “Just a few months ago, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration alleged that the House Science Committee, led by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), was attempting to intimidate researchers who had produced data indicating that global warming hadn’t slowed” is a LIE. The committee is being obstructed BY those whose e-mails Smith wanted made public. They’re hiding something, obviously. Also, the mere fact that the government rained on Lundgren’s parade is PROOF that if you don’t go along with the government status quo in science, you’re likely to get into trouble. And WHAT ELSE is our government championing today? That would be global warming. That would be anyone not agreeing with the mantra is likely to be censured, just like Lundgren. As a matter of fact, several scientists who’ve spoken up regarding global warming science being faulty, have faced a whole lot of scrutiny and even threatened under the RICO act. Seriously, our government is made up of power mad individuals who care little about those they are supposed to be serving.
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The effects talked about in this paper are already happening.
As governments tax us further and further and as energy prices continue to rise people simply cannot afford to buy nutritious food. Deaths from energy poverty are rising.
We see the same with the rise in cigarette prices. People do not stop smoking, they just eat poorer and poorer.
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David Archibald’s book, “Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short” is worth a scan. Put simply, energy is life; cheap energy is prosperity.
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Eric is running the story …
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/clip_image00412.jpg
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Remember the Quote:
Lies,damn lies and statistics.
Says it all about this paper and many others!
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[…] Jo Nova describes it all thusly The Lancet study in a nutshell: Take climate models that don’t work, and guesstimate what might happen to agriculture because of the climate we probably won’t get. Then use those guesses of food production in 2050 to fantasize what that means for human mortality. After all, we don’t know how many people are killed today by “4% less fruit and vege and 0.7% less meat”, but we can estimate what that dietary change will do in 2050 after a medical revolution, 35 years of plant breeding and agricultural changes. Not to mention a few more rounds of global food fads and phases of Vegan, Paleo, Atkins, and 5:2 Fasting. (But how did they factor in the mortality effect from another 2,000 episodes of MasterChef?) […]
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Booklet (free download) on the warmism issue :- http://tempsend.com/53F4F9F767/C511/Issues_Concerning_the_Earth_with_Regards_to_Warmism.pdf .
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Didn’t Paul Ehrlich say that we all starved in the 1980’s?
How many centuries has it been since Thomas Malthus said that we would starve because exponential growth in population would far outrun linear increases in food supply?
Don’t these people ever get tired of being wrong?
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The alarm about climate change has reached truly bizarre levels. Nothing is perceived impossible. Technical journals don’t seem to care any more about reasonableness. Peer-review doesn’t pick up on significant problems or there is always some journal needing a controversy to spike buyers.
RSS just put out a “corrected” satellite record. Now the warmists can say that even the satellites agree with the IPCC. But the corrrelation is all in the adjustments to data, not in the data, whether it is in sea temperatures or ice coverage. You can’t compare today to yesterday because they are always saying that yesterday they didn’t have it quite right.
Is this how the Soviets and Chinese turned their countries into jails, one bait-and-switch at a time?
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The more and more ridiculous prognostications of the climate change brigade are wearing thin. They do not listen to sound arguments, science or the lack of real evidence to support them. They are unashamed even in the face of ridicule from those who try to influence them to get a grip on the truth. They only listen to themselves. It’s as incestuous a relationship as I can think of (sorry moderators if that’s not a word you want to see but it is an accurate description).
I know of no other response to it than to flip them a one finger salute.
So you who preach doom and gloom, consider this to be my upraised middle finger.
I hate to be so blunt but what’s left to us but to state our contempt for their so-called theory?
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Well, not caught in moderation. I was a bit worried.
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I think that Anthropogenic climate change will cause even more deaths than prophesied by 2050. Not because of warming, but because of the policies implemented in mitigation of this largely imagined threat will create more problems than warming ever could. It’ll be the biggest own goal in human history.
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If Europe and England stick to their targets of renewable energy, and the forth coming sequel of the LIA materialises sooner rather than later it will be the policies trying to fight a non existent global warming that will damage or kill millions. America as in the last little ice age will be a favourite destination, this time the red indians will not have to help them.
In OZ we may gain about 20 years time some good citizens with a few bob in their pockets from all the BS.
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Geoff Chambers has a good post about this story
http://cliscep.com/2016/03/04/turning-out-nice-in-syria/
He says
“groundless speculation by a bunch of repressed psychotics who like to fantasise about mass deaths… “
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Oxford Martin School is a notorious crowd of political activists and pseudoscientists.
I think Ben Pile @climateresistance has commented on them several times on twitter and at his blog. Similarly at Bishop Hill.
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I followed Jo’s link to http://oxfordmartin.ox.ac.co.uk . I think three things in particular struck me about the dogmatic thinking of the authors, over and above the basic flaws in their understanding of the effects of higher levels of CO2.
1] Ethanol. The way edible wheat crops have been cynically turned over to ethanol production is a major scandal. There is no doubt that, however alarmists cook the books, ethanol in engines is a pollutant, in the way that CO2 is not. More to the point, converting valuable food into a destructive fuel additive has undoubtedly cost many lives. Oxford Martin claims to be concerned about potential loss of human life in decades to come, but ignores this existing one.
2] Population control. This has been central to alarmism from the start. To a greater or lesser extent, every greenoid thinks there are too many humans already (they never seem to assume that they themselves are among the superfluous ones). Oxford Martin pontificates about a possible half million computer-generated deaths extra a year, in several decades’ time, but policies they espouse are killing people right now (see [1]). Do they genuinely accept that a sustained rise in the human population is desirable, or is that merely window-dressing?
3] “Food governance”. A way of saying that some unaccountable body should be empowered to tell us what we may, or may not, eat. Look at that shopping-trolley on the Oxford Martin home-page, laden with fashionably unwrapped radishes and peppers (and no visible meat products), probably concealing a whopping great bottle of neat ethanol, for making LibertyTrade (TM) “Iowa Ethanol Coffee”. I could have sworn, when I first looked at the Oxford Martin site, that I saw the word “must”, applied to “private companies” and to “individuals”. I can’t see that, now. Has anyone a screen-copy, from when Jo published her article?
I can’t really believe I was imagining things, because here is some earlier Oxford Martin claptrap:
Globalisation has created substantial benefits, but global governance must evolve to meet the challenges posed by new systemic risks.
Global governance, with an emphasis on obedience, is clearly a favourite concept, in their elitist little Welt.
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I also note that the new director of Oxford Martin, announced twelve days ago and effective 1st of September, is to be Achim Steiner, former head of the United Nations Environmental Programme and a huge supporter of world government.
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Now lets see January 2nd 2008 SSRC press release SSRC1-2008,SSRC 2-2008 plus the following exactly where have these clowns been since the beeginning of 2008.
Space and Science Research Center
P.O. Box 607841 Orlando, FL 32860
http://www.spaceandscience.net
407-394-9089
Mr. Tom Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20250
May 10, 2010
SUBJECT: Preparation for New Cold Climate Era.
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
I hope all is well with you.
This letter is written with the request that you take immediate actions to prepare our country and its agricultural industry for the new cold climate era which has now began.
This is made on my behalf as a former White House and NASA space policy and space science consultant, along with the many prominent scientists around the world who have like me, accurately predicted in advance the onset of this new climate era. It is vital you become aware of this new climate period and begin the necessary preparations for the protection of our citizens from this rapidly advancing crop-destroying cold climate.
The cause of this potentially devastating cold weather lasting for 20-30 years is a substantial reduction in the Sun’s energy output. It has been caused by a “solar hibernation,” a phenomena that occurs like clockwork every 206 years. These events always bring dangerous cold weather to the planet. The last time this occurred (1793-1830), it caused global agricultural destruction and the planet’s “…last great subsistence crisis,” according to one historian’s account. Now that the hibernation has returned and with billions more mouths to feed, it is likely to create the world’s worst ever food crisis.
Upon discovery of this coming solar hibernation in April 2007, I announced such to the White House (both Bush and Obama administrations) and the main stream media. I further predicted the end of global warming and a long term drop in the Earth’s temperatures. As expected, this message was ignored by all. It is understandable given the nearly twenty years of man made global warming propaganda we have all endured. Despite this however, my predictions have now come to pass. It is now indisputable that a solar hibernation has begun and can have only one outcome – a dramatically colder climate for the Earth. These facts can be easily verified.
Importantly, this new climate will bring disastrous cold weather with catastrophic impacts for our country’s crop growing regions, especially among the northern states. I have tried to keep our leadership in Washington and the media updated over the past three years through my Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), the US leader on this subject. Regrettably, there has been no action taken by any government office to address the ill-effects of this next climate change. As a result, we have lost three precious years needed to prepare for this new climate period. The record setting cold and snow that struck our nation this past winter including the snow that shut down our capitol is but a small sample of what we will have to deal with in the immediate years ahead.
As you can see from the attached press release, the likelihood of the first major crop damage is now imminent and could happen as early as this year. Though there is less time to prepare, I continue to believe there are reasonable people in our government like you who will want to protect our agricultural base and our people from the threat this cold climate represents.
Given the food shortages here and globally that are in front of us and the concurrent social upheaval that may result from this new climate era, I am forwarding a copy of this letter to Director Mueller at the FBI. Almost all other government agencies are well aware of what is coming via the many letters, phone calls, emails and press releases from the SSRC and widespread coverage this subject is now receiving on the internet. You should know the President’s climate science advisers have been routinely informed of this new climate but have decided to push a climate agenda based upon the now discredited man made greenhouse gas theory and efforts to control global warming, a climate era that no longer exists. So that there is no misunderstanding of my position on the subject of climate change, you should also be aware that I have called for the firing of the White House Science Advisor, Dr. Holdren, and NOAA Administrator Dr. Lubchenko for knowingly issuing a false and misleading US ‘climate impacts’ report to Congress, ostensibly in support of the flawed energy and climate bill now under consideration. Many scientists in other countries along with me who have been trying to alert our respective governments to the coming dilemma have been the targets of much criticism and ad hominem attacks. Given the present politics of climate change, should you do the right thing and begin preparations for this new climate threat, you will likely be publicly castigated for your actions and may even be fired just as our previous NASA administrator was for telling the truth about global warming. The benefits to our country and our people however, will be historic. I strongly urge you to not be swayed by conventional thinking or political correctness or by those who wish make money or gain power by hiding the truth about Earth’s next climate. Instead, I ask that you look at the facts and then quickly move to prepare our country for what is coming.
Best Regards,
John L. Casey
Director
cf: FBI Director, Robert S. Mueller, III
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