Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Latest dispatch from the Ministry of Truth

You can't make this up:

The Guardian reported:

"The kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian school girls, and the massacre of as many as 300 civilians in the town of Gamboru Ngala, by the militant al-Qaeda affiliated group, Boko Haram, has shocked the world.
But while condemnations have rightly been forthcoming from a whole range of senior figures from celebrities to government officials, less attention has been paid to the roots of the crisis.
Instability in Nigeria, however, has been growing steadily over the last decade – and one reason is climate change. In 2009, a UK Department for International Development (Dfid) study warned that climate change could contribute to increasing resource shortages in the country due to land scarcity from desertification, water shortages, and mounting crop failures.
A more recent study by the Congressionally-funded US Institute for Peace confirmeda “basic causal mechanism” that “links climate change with violence in Nigeria.” The report concludes:
“…poor responses to climatic shifts create shortages of resources such as land and water. Shortages are followed by negative secondary impacts, such as more sickness, hunger, and joblessness. Poor responses to these, in turn, open the door to conflict.”
Unfortunately, a business-as-usual scenario sees Nigeria’s climate undergoing “growing shifts in temperature, rainfall, storms, and sea levels throughout the twenty-first century. Poor adaptive responses to these shifts could help fuel violent conflict in some areas of the country.”

Not one mention of "Islam" or "Muslims". The root cause of Boko Haram is... global warming.

My usual inexhaustible capacity for commentary fails me.

84 comments:

  1. When things went awry in medieval times people blamed witches. As answers go, it was simple and neat. The crops were bad this year because witches. A plague killed one third of the population because witches. A kid was born with birth defects because witches.

    Global warming really is the modern incarnation of witch hysteria. It identifies a malicious perpetrator for every conceivable problem. Unfortunately, it's lazy thinking and just plain bunk.

    BTW, Former White House science adviser John Holdren was once a scare-monger about global cooling. I wonder how he got a job. I think it might have to do with his adoration for forced sterilization.

    Little John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "When things went awry in medieval times people blamed witches. As answers go, it was simple and neat."

      Except, of course, that this common accusation about "medieval people" isn't actually true, doesn't even approach truth. One might even go so far as to say that, "As answers go, [the accusation] was simple and neat."

      It was those "rational" pagans of the pre-Christian ancient world who were always on the lookout for witches on whom to place the blame both for personal and social misfortunes.

      Delete
    2. Ilion,

      Golly - I hadn't realised that Pope Innocent VIII was a pre-Christian pagan, when he authorised the Inquisition to persecute witches for causing crop failures in Germany resulting from the Little Ice Age.

      Delete
    3. And I didn't know that you would acknowledge the existence of the Little Ice Age, which is a rather inconvenient truth for paranoid warmists.

      Joey

      Delete
    4. by-golly-I’ll-say-just-anything: "Golly - I hadn't realised that Pope Innocent VIII was a pre-Christian pagan, when he authorised the Inquisition to persecute witches for causing crop failures in Germany resulting from the Little Ice Age."

      Yes, we know: you're allergic both to reason and to facts.

      Innocent VIII was not a person from "medieval times", but rather from the period amusingly called The Renaissance (*) - you know, that period during which all the ancient pagan superstitions, which Christianity had suppressed without violence simply by exposing them as ignorance, became respectable again in polite/elite society.

      As even the wickedpedia, no friend of Christianity, acknowledges -- “The bull was written in response to the request of Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer for explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany, after he was refused assistance by the local ecclesiastical authorities.

      Which is to say, the German ecclesiastical authorities were still working from the "outdated" mindset of "medieval times", rather than of the more modern -- and thus "correct" -- Renaissance mindset.

      Also, as I see Joey has already pointed out, what’s this with admitting that “climate change” happens whether or not modern industrial energy-dependent society exists?



      (*) which, while off-topic, has bearing on a calumny that some (by which I mean almost all of them) Catholics like to level against Protestantism, namely that all the ills of the modern world are rooted in the Protestant Reformation, when, in fact, they are rooted in the so-called Renaissance.

      Delete
    5. Ilion,

      So you concede that concern with witchcraft wasn't just pre-Christian pagans? Yes, I know Pope Innocent VII wasn't medieval. He was from a later age.

      Little Joey,

      The Little Ice Age existed. Climatologists know that it did. It's a matter of discussion about whether it was global or regional, and what caused it. Volcanic eruptions? Solar minima as in the Maunder Minimum? Climate isn't just driven by greenhouse gases.

      Bill Ruddiman has a theory discussed in 'Plows, Plagues and Petroleum' in which the Black Death in the 14th century caused so much European and Asian depopulation that farmland went back to forest causing a drop in CO2 levels and a further cooling in addition.

      Delete
    6. By-golly! I'll-say-just-anything: "So you concede that concern with witchcraft wasn't just pre-Christian pagans? ..."

      Translation: "I've intentionally misrepresented what you said, and the context in which it was said, and I demand that you pretend I did not."

      Delete
  2. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:27 AM

    You know, after watching the performance of the UN in Haiti (among other places), and observing the impressive performance of the 5 Billion dollar expenditure on the Health Care Exchanges to Nowhere (some of which have already been torn down and the criminal investigations are underway), you know what I think we should do......?

    LET THE UN AND THE GOVERNMENT FIX THE CLIMATE!!!

    They can do it. Put Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder in charge! Let Kathleen Sibelius manage the development of better computer models! And it won't be long until the entire planet looks like Frank Herbert's Arrakis.

    On a slightly lighter note, I read this headline the other day:

    Melt of Key Antarctic Glaciers "Unstoppable"
    --- Scientifical American

    The Mother of All Melts is going to add 10-13 feet to the goebbel sea level!!!!

    Aaaaghhhhh!!! Get out your galoshes! We're all going to DIE!!!!

    But for the next hundred years, it's going to be 1 millimeter per year. That's 4 inches. If, unlike the GCMs, the predictions are not ridiculously in error.

    So I think we'll probably have time to fill the bathtubs and buy candles.

    Thank you, President Jeebus McLightworker, for all your work on lowering the sea levels and healing the planet! Please make another speech!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:37 AM

      I know, this is desperate. But desperate times call for desperate measures. In the best spirit of the current Administration's international diplomatic efforts, I stand up and say

      #SaveGaiaFromCheapTransportationLaborSavingDevicesAndCentralHeating

      Delete
    2. Senile old fart,

      The 1 mm per year sea level rise due to the melting Antarctic glaciers is in addition to the present sea level rise - which is 3 mm per year.

      If you live south of New York, you also need to add a further 1 mm per year to account for the changing 'tilt' of the North American plate (the melting of the ice sheets at the end of the last glaciation is causing the northern half to be rising, and therefore the southern half has to sink to compensate).

      That makes 5 mm per year. Or around 50 cm in a century. After which, it's expected to accelerate.

      Anyway. Transportation, labour saving devices and central heating aren't going to stay cheap (unless you call $100+ a barrel of oil 'cheap') because the easy reserves of oil and gas are already gone, fracking isn't cheap and the price of coal will increase, just to match oil and gas.

      Delete
    3. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:58 AM

      baitfish, I've heard your lament before. I have it down chapter and verse.

      But this time, I'm really, really skeered. I'm gonna light my patio heaters just for you.

      Delete
    4. Senile old fart,

      Good - why don't you? Put on your most flammable pyjamas and stand really close to get the warmth. Please.

      Delete
    5. Senile old fart,

      Anyone stupid enough to use a patio heater is doing the world a favour by removing himself from the human pool, thus increasing the average human intelligence.

      Delete
    6. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 10:28 AM

      Burn the heretics. Seems like I've heard that argument before.

      "Atheist ethics". :-D

      Delete
    7. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:12 PM

      You get off on the smell of burning human flesh, bonfire? Like to look at the pictures? Do the public authorities know about these little fantasies you post?

      Glad I "smoked you out", you psychotic loon.

      Delete
    8. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:52 PM

      Immolation porn. I gotta say, bonfire, that's a new one on me. You ever think about maybe talking to someone in a more professional capacity?

      Delete
    9. Senile old fart,

      Burning people at the stake is more a fetish of the religious, both Catholics and Protestants.

      If you think it's reasonable to put on a patio heater instead of putting on some warm clothing, then you have to accept the results of your actions. Such as catching fire from an unnecessary heat source.

      'Schadenfreude' doesn't quite describe my reaction if it ever happened, Senile old fart.

      Delete
    10. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 9:18 PM

      bonfire: "Burning people at the stake is more a fetish of the religious..."

      I don't disagree, bonfire. Burn the heretics is typical of a psychotic fanaticism. You are to global warming what terrorists are to Islam. But I promise to light my patio heaters as often as possible this summer. And it wont be for the heat. It will be in your honor.

      But as I said, you are my first contact with an immolation porn freak. Whats your favorite part? The visuals or the soundtrack? Are burning Buddhists better than burning American soldiers for you?

      I now better understand your attraction to pathology as a specialty. It was your attraction to the patients, and your little sadist streak. You must have a fadcinatingly disgusting fantasy life, bonfire.

      Delete
    11. Senile old fart,

      Good. Waste your money running unnecessary patio heaters. You're stupid enough to do so.

      Anyway, I went into pathology to avoid hurting people. I disliked surgery because of surgeons' liking of diathermy. I found the smell of burning flesh to be distasteful (unlike God, who found the smell of burning sacrifices to be pleasing).

      You certainly have a vivid fantasy, ascribing motives to me that I don't have. Idiotic senile old fart.

      Delete
    12. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 9:45 PM

      BTW, bonfire, do you prefer jellied gas (napalm) or plain gasoline as an accelerant?

      Or is the piquant aroma of burning synthetic fabric even more interesting to you because of its global warming religious connotations?

      Does your [ahem] interest also extend to poking around bad automobile crashes and watching snuff films?

      Delete
    13. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 9:49 PM

      I suspect part of the reason you chose pathology was you got kicked out of the Bedside Manor. The other half was, of course, your attraction to the patient population.

      Delete
    14. Senile old fart (perhaps I should call you fuckwit instead?),

      Your fantasies are getting more vivid. You don't have temporal lobe epilepsy to go along with your dementia, do you.

      I went into pathology to get away from bad odours. Tissue in formolin is actually aesthetically better than burning flesh from diathermy. I enjoyed examining aborted babies...

      Delete
    15. Religious motivations for burning people to death? Humph. Our native tribes here, like the Commanche, enjoying doing it 'just for grins'. They enjoyed the screams. I don't believe any religion was involved.

      Delete
  3. The last paragraph in the article states:

    “..the hundreds of innocent girls kidnapped in Nigeria are not just victims of Islamist fanaticism; they are also victims of failed foreign, economic and security policies tied to our infernal addiction to black gold.”

    So much for the assertion that there’s not one mention of “Islam” or “Muslim”.

    The article simply points that hundreds of thousands of farmers and herdsmen have lost their livelihood due to severe drought, giving Boko Haram a large pool of desperate and starving potential recruits.

    Guess what, climate change causes droughts. The suffering from climate change isn’t something that will happen in the future, it’s happening now, and will only get worse. The potential for human suffering over the next couple of hundred years due to climate change dwarfs the disasters of the 20th century, and if it they come to pass people like Egnor will be the ones responsible.

    -KW

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yea, there weren't droughts and hurricaines and tornadoes and floods before global warming started. This is all new.

      Oh, and since there hasn't been any warming for 17 years, these African droughts are the result of global-not-warming, the new danger!

      Run! Run! Run!

      Delete
    2. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:52 AM

      Popeye: "The potential for human suffering over the next couple of hundred years due to climate change dwarfs the disasters of the 20th century"

      The potential for human suffering tomorrow dwarfs the disasters of the 20th Century, moron. We are one virus away from near-extinction, if not extinction.

      According to the climate loons, that's a good thing and should be celebrated. It's the mussels and lemurs they're looking to save. The suffering and poverty in the Central Valley of California is extreme, Pops. It's the f***ing baitfish delta smelt we're trying to save, not the people. Frankly, I'd throw those little buggers in a wood chipper and make cat food.

      Delete
    3. Egnor,

      The global warming 'pause' of the past 17 years is due to cherry picking the data set, starting with a warm El Niño year and finishing with a cool La Niña year.

      And it only applies to the lower atmosphere - which isn't the 'globe' as in 'global', which also includes the cryosphere and the oceans. The Arctic icecap continues to melt. The oceans continue to warm.

      And despite the cherry picking, global lower atmosphere temperatures still increased by 0.01 degrees Celsius.

      Delete
    4. “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” –Joseph Goebbels

      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years
      there hasn't been any warming for 17 years

      -KW

      Delete
    5. "which also includes the cryosphere and the oceans."

      There are droughts in the oceans!

      "Cherry picking" is a hilarious accusation, from a guy who blames routine droughts and hurricanes and tornadoes on global warming (that isn't even happening).

      The scientific hypothesis "global warming is a cause of Boko Haram" requires several things to be true:

      The atmosphere is warming

      Droughts are more frequent

      Droughts are caused by warming

      Droughts are a cause of Boko Haram.

      Not a single one of those hypotheses is backed by data.

      Delete
    6. KW:

      There hasn't been any warming for 17 years.

      Therefore all "consequences" of AGW in the world today have occurred without any warming at all, which leaves the AGW theory in the dustbin.

      It's hilarious that you loons don't even realize that everytime you attribute a catastrophe to AGW, you are disproving AGW, because the catastrophes are happening in the absence of warming.

      Delete
    7. Egnor,

      I don't ascribe any particular hurricane to global warming. I do ascribe innate and increasing stupidity to you though.

      Stop claiming that I believe things I've never expressed an opinion on.

      Anyway. The oceans are warming - not undergoing a drought. You'd have to be an absolute idiot to think that's what I wrote.

      Warming oceans could result in more frequent and stronger hurricanes, because hurricanes need a lot of energy to form. And warming oceans contain a lot of energy, 400 times as much as the atmosphere.

      Delete
    8. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 8:25 AM

      baitfish" "Warming oceans could result in more frequent and stronger hurricanes"

      They could, maybe on some other planet. But, apparently, on Earth, they don't.

      Delete
    9. Senile old fart,

      How do you know they won't?

      Delete
    10. And "the biggest storm ever recorded on Earth" occurred after 17 years of no change in global temperature.

      Are you so stupid that you don't see that that is evidence against your theory?

      Delete
    11. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 10:31 AM

      Popeye: "the strongest storm ever recorded on Earth was last year"

      And how long have storms been recorded with precise measurements, Popeye?

      Delete
    12. KW:

      But there hasn't been any global warming for 17 years, so "the strongest storm ever recorded on Earth" wasn't caused by global warming.

      In fact, the storm is evidence that extreme weather events happen without warming.

      Are you really so stupid as to not understand that?

      Delete
    13. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 10:58 AM

      Egnor: "'the strongest storm ever recorded on Earth' wasn't caused by global warming"

      It was caused by global warming denial.

      "Those malcontents must be punished and stopped."
      --- Adam Weinstein in "Arrest Climate-Change Deniers" (gawker.com)

      Of course, our little bolshevik trustfunder, bonfire (a guy Lenin would consider a social parasite), has a more final solution.

      Delete
    14. The only reason you can even say the earth hasn’t warmed for 17 years is because there was a spike in the temp of the lower atmosphere 17 years ago. The earth has only continued to warm since then, especially the oceans.

      Haiyan traveled over sub-surface waters that have warmed dramatically over the past 20 years, increasing the depth of water over 79deg F by 17%, thus providing far larger energy reserve for monster storms. When Haiyan hit the Philippines the water at a depth of 100m was 3-5deg C above normal. If that energy was instead in the lower atmosphere the temp would have been way more that 3deg C above normal.

      Bottom line, the earth continues to warm, and the only piece of evidence you have to refute that is an anomalous spike in lower atmospheric temp from 17 years ago.

      For you kids out there, watch Egnor ignore this and continue lying, and let it serve as an example of what it means to be a Christians today.

      -KW

      Delete
    15. KW:

      Funny how you invoke an "anomalous spike" to explain away temperature stasis, but ignore the anomalous dip of the Little Ice Age to explain the warming over the past century.

      You warmist loons are such frauds.

      Delete
    16. "You warmist loons are such frauds."

      I like Mark Steyn's term for them: "warm-mongers"

      Delete
    17. I'm not explaining away anything, 1997-98 was the strongest el nino ever recorded. If we get another el nino year like that the single year temp record will be shattered.

      -KW

      Delete
    18. '...ever recorded...' That is such a short period of time, KW. There have been stronger el nino years in the past, only no one was around to 'record' them. This one, for instance: http://www.lucernevalley.net/history/blackhawk.htm

      Delete
    19. KW:

      El Nino's are natural oscillations, and have been happening for eons.

      Why would you posit a natural oscillation as evidence for AGW?

      Natural variations such as El Nino are the alternative explanations for warming, and, as you've ironically pointed out, are much better explanations than AGW.

      Delete
    20. David,

      What does the Blackhawk landslide have to do with El Niño?

      Delete
    21. Fiend, the great landslides in Southern California happen when we have very wet winters. The unstable soils get saturated, and if perched high up on a slope often suddenly slide down. This was the Grand Daddy of all Slides, so must have been a VERY wet winter. Nobody around to record it though. Like the plague of F5 tornados that went through Oklahoma in the year 961 A.D. Nobody around to record them.

      Delete
    22. David,

      It's just your conjecture that the landslide MUST have been caused by a very wet Winter, which MUST have been caused by a very strong El Niño year.

      Not long on logic.

      How about another scenario. The landslide was preceded by a prolonged period of drought, which caused loss of vegetation on the slope, destabilising the ground. Which was then followed by a Winter of average rainfall, and the landslide occurred?

      Or perhaps the landslide was caused by an earthquake?

      You've got no data to be able to insist that it was caused by a very strong El Niño event.

      Delete
    23. Fiend. My data comes from my empirical observation of the mudslides that periodically occur in the area. I grew up there and spent most of my life just over the mountains from that slide.

      A prolonged period of drought? Did you know that the north side of the San Bernardino Mountains, which is where this slide is located, are the south side of the Mojave Desert? 'Drought' there is weather as usual. There is little to no vegetation there to begin with, and what is there insufficient to prevent mudslides and flash floods. So your scenario is unlikely, to put it charitably. Mine is better. When things get REALLY wet, then the mud slides. And an earthquake wouldn't precipitate that kind of slide unless it was a trigger event setting off a mass of soil made unstable by water. Without the water, you can get things to fall over, but they don't slide very far.

      So, it was caused by a VERY wet winter.

      Delete
    24. David,

      You still don't have any evidence that it was due to a very strong El Niño event. It's just an assumption on your part. Do you have any references to anyone, perhaps a geologist or a paleoclimatologist (and climate science does deal with past climates and why they were) who thinks that your assertion is even plausible?

      And the Blackhawk landslide happened 17,000 years ago, at the peak of the last glaciation, so assuming that present climate in the area was the same back then is doubtful.

      Delete
    25. David,

      Actually, the thinking about the Blackhawk landslide reminded me of a recent book 'the Dynamics of Disaster' by Susan Kiefer which deals with it - it wasn't mud, it was rock, perhaps initiated by an earthquake (a similar one happened in Alaska in 1964 due to an earthquake). Not due to a wet Winter let alone an El Niño event.

      Generalising recent experiences of mudslides to the exceptional catastrophes of the Blackhawk slide isn't valid. They're completely different orders of magnitude.

      Delete
    26. Our earthquakes are certainly strong enough to break large pieces of rock. Yep. But they usually go nowhere fast, like the Blackhawk slide, because they aren't perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. Nowhere to go. So how was this shelf of rock undermined? Superactive gophers? Had to have been a lot of water running to leave such a structure just ready to go. The article I cited references this: "In the source area, the Furnace Limestone has been thrust northward over uncemented sandstone and weathered gneiss that subsequently were eroded away, leaving a precipitous slope. Once the softer rocks were undermined, presumably during a wet period about 17,000 years ago,"

      Delete
    27. David,

      I've just noticed your latest comment. The similar landslide in Alaska in 1964 was associated with a horizontal displacement of rock of around 3 miles across undisturbed snow (it's thought that it was 'supported' by an underlying cushion of compressed air!).

      The 6 miles of the Blackhawk slide isn't of a significantly different magnitude. The rocks were falling from 1500 metres, which would impart a lot of momentum.

      It's a bit much getting from 'presumably during a wet period' (during a glaciation too, which I'd expect to be associated with a drier climate - owing to reduced evaporation from the colder oceans) to a strong El Niño event, let alone the strongest one.

      Delete
  4. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 8:08 AM

    baitfish: "the melting Antarctic glaciers is in addition to the present sea level rise - which is 3 mm per year."

    I invite anyone interested in baitfish's comment to investigate the concept of Adjusted Sea Level.

    It's similar to Adjusted GPA in academic affirmative admissions policies.

    As it happens, it's about 3mm/yr...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Senile old fart,

      That's right - 3 mm per year.

      What do you think it is? Why?

      Delete
    2. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 8:23 AM

      baitfieh, the Adjusted Sea Level is rising at 3mm/yr.

      Adjusted.

      Subtract the adjustment, baitfish. Then what do you get?

      Delete
    3. Senile old fart,

      3 mm per year. What do you think it is?

      Delete
    4. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 10:48 AM

      bonfire, you're claiming the adjustment is zero?.

      What about this?

      here

      Maybe if you burn a cat, you'll feel better. Catharsis, you know.

      Delete
    5. Senile old fart,

      Jo Nova? What do you think? I know you have problems with thinking. I accept its 3 mm per year.

      Delete
    6. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:03 PM

      You can't read graphs, can you bonfire?

      Delete
    7. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 9:26 PM

      Pity about the graph reading skills, bonfire. It must suck to be stuck in an ad hominem debate mode.

      Whoever Jo Nova is, she or he is just hosting that image, bonfire. That's whar urls tell you. Youre just confused again. Go burn a cat. Get some catharsis.

      Delete
    8. Senile old fart,

      So dishonest people can't manipulate graphs? I know Jo Nova - she lives just a few suburbs away from me. She's as dishonest as you, Egnor and Ian Plimer (who wrote the denialist bible 'Heaven and Earth' - which included some of the most manipulated graphs on record).

      Delete
    9. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 9:52 PM

      You think the graph was manipulated? Show me your evidence. It looks authentic to me. Would you even know the difference?

      Delete
    10. Senile old fart,

      You've just provided a link to a graph with no caption, no attribution. You've got no evidence that it's legitimate. If you think that makes it legitimate, you're more stupid than I'd thought.

      Delete
  5. Mregnor, this is what happens when corrupt morons are given power. They'll say anything to keep propagating global warming/climate change lies because they stand to benefit financially from it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael,

      Yes you're right. Fossil fuel global warming denialists will continue to tell lies about global warming stopping because they stand to benefit financially from their lies.

      Delete
    2. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 10:49 AM

      Burn the heretics!!! Right, bonfire?

      Delete
    3. Fiend, I, retired railroad worker that I am, stand to benefit financially from not destroying our economy because of the hysteria that we are actually causing catastrophic change to the earth's climate. I'd like to go on eating, if you don't mind very much. So mute those cries of WOLF! WOLF!! WOLF!!! We have seen the evidence of what torture Mann, et. al., have inflicted on the evidence. And guess what? We don't believe you. And we aren't making Flounder's mistake: We are not trusting you.

      Delete
    4. David,

      You mightn't continue eating. Our modern agriculture is dependent on having cheap abundant fossil fuels to manufacture fertilisers and pesticides - and we are running out of oil and gas, because we are just burning them just for energy.

      Fracking for oil and gas is expensive, will probably not result in enough to make up for shortfalls in conventional reserves and also requires a large amount of water. Which is then not available for agriculture.

      Delete
    5. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthMay 14, 2014 at 7:04 PM

      bonfire: "You mightn't continue eating"

      But then again.... you might.

      Delete
    6. Senile old fart,

      Idiotic as usual. You haven't provided any evidence why it mightn't be so... As usual. Evidence isn't one of your strong points.

      The spike in oil prices in 2007 was one of the reasons for the GFC of 2008. Which caused many people not to be able to afford to feed themselves.

      Do you really think energy will continue to be as cheap as it is today (which is more expensive than it was in the past too)?

      Delete
    7. I have yet to see any evidence of man-made climate change, let alone anyone capable of changing the weather. All I see is manipulated data and the redistribution of wealth, property and resources into the hands of elitists. The AGW pseudo-scientific researchers* will keep perpetrating the fraud so that the government funding doesn't dry up.

      *They don't actually research anything; they begin with a conclusion and then fit the data to it. That's not science, that's ideology.

      Delete
    8. Fiend, I've been an advocate of alternative energy since the days of Nixon, so many years ago. Solar cells, parabolic concentrating heat collectors, dispersed small windmills, orbiting power stations (L-5 Society and Dr. G.K. O'Neil). At the moment it isn't enough. Working our way toward a future of renewable sources isn't helped by the campaign of lies indulged in by the AGW crowd. You have identified the real danger in our overuse of fossils, which is depletion. Let's concentrate on telling the truth, and then we can agree on the proper policies.

      Delete
    9. Michael,

      You haven't seen any evidence of AGW because you haven't looked. You reject it because of ideology. You need to look at the science. We do understand what drives climate. Greenhouse gases are just one of the factors.

      The climate has changed in the past. It will change in the future. Sometimes climate change was due to changes in the level of greenhouse gases. What is happening now is nothing special - except humans are causing it by the burning of large amounts of fossil fuels.

      David,

      I think AGW is happening. But anyway - a business as usual policy is just going to see us run out of fossil fuels sooner rather that later.

      Delete
    10. Fiend. Since we can seldom get humanity off the couch UNTIL there is a dire emergency, then running out sooner will get alternate technology up and running sooner. I don't think that is the wisest course, but then almost no one listens to me.

      Delete
    11. David,

      I think the better analogy is with Henry Ford. No one complained that the Model-T was a pile of junk, and that we should wait until we develop a Rolls-Royce (just picking a random prestige car). That there are still plenty of horses, and that we aren't going to run out of them soon. That the car manufacturers should build their own roads for the automobiles to run on instead of using ones already built at great expense.

      I think we are just going to concede that fossil fuels are going to become expensive and in short supply within decades, just because of the increasing global population and industrialisation of the developing world.

      So we are going to have to develop alternate energy sources, preferably renewables, by providing incentives to industry and entrepreneurs. The present ones mightn't be particularly good perhaps, but whoever develops a breakthrough will win big.

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    12. bachfiend, there's NO EVIDENCE of man-made climate change. All of their alarmist AGW models were proven wrong. CO2 only affects 0.1% or less of the earth's atmosphere. Water vapor captures about 1,200 times as much heat. So-called "fossil fuel" abiotic -- it is a natural substance found within the earth. Fossils do not become fuel over time; that is a lie.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu_R3gp84TY

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    13. Michael,

      I don't take any notice of your opinion, and an opinion it is. You're very much 'fact free'

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    14. Michael,

      And your link is nonsense. Methane could be abundant in the Earth's crust due to abiogenic mechanisms (it's more likely to be biogenic from deep microbes), but that won't prevent peak oil, if it's equally distributed. Obtaining it from fracking is difficult, expensive, requires a lot of water and energy and won't be capable of being ramped up sufficiently to reach needs.

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  6. Yeah, right. As if there was a massive pile of fossils, which conveniently just happened to be lying around within close proximity, and then gradually began changing in compound into fuel. More artificial scarcity alarmist nonsense for the sake of price speculation and tax increases. And now the government is floating around the idea of toll booths on interstate highways and tracking devices to tax drivers on a per-mile basis. Freaking insane.

    Oh, I'm sorry, did I confuse you with facts?

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    1. Michael,

      You're an idiot. The oil and gas in the reserves we tap are fluids which have migrated from where they were formed, in shales, to sites where they can be recovered. The 'fossils' need not migrate with them - and the fossils will be those of algae or plankton - unicellular organisms. Were you expecting oil to be forming next to a fossilised T. rex?

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  7. You can either prove that fossils change into fuel over time or you can't.

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    1. Science Daily: "Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals."

      You were saying something?

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    2. Michael,

      'Remains' aren't 'fossils', which are dead biological organisms replaced by and converted into stone.

      If you die today, your next of kin will have the problem of disposing of your remains, not your fossil.

      You were saying something?

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    3. I'm not the one who called it "fossil fuel." Besides, would you care to prove that dead organisms create fuel?

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    4. Michael,

      What proof would you accept that dead organisms can convert to fossil fuel?

      There's two stable isotopes of carbon, C12 and C13. Plants preferentially use the lighter isotope C12 in photosynthesis, enriching plants with C12 compared to the atmosphere, which consequently is enriched with C13. And animals eating plants are therefore also enriched with C12 and depleted in C13.

      And oil and natural gas are similarly enriched in C12 and depleted in C13. If oil and natural gas were inorganic, then they'd have the same C12/C13 ratio as the atmosphere.

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