Global Warming – fraud in search of marks

Found at Anthony Watts' site, Wattsupwiththat on 24 NOV 2011, is an interesting link to an email that is part of the Climategate 2.0 FOIA 2011 releases done by Gail Combs.  The one of interest is #4678 on 30 JAN 2001 which Rob Swarts who is at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands (his latest paper about a third of the page down in the 2009 articles section is here) is an email sent to Robert Watson while he was at the World Bank.  As is pointed out it is a strange thing when a scientist is being told to change the summary of his work at behest of a non-science based institution (and, no, it doesn't matter that it is another scientist telling him to do so, as that isn't kosher, either).  With that said it is even more unusual to agree to it (and throughout I will use downloaded source copies, not those reformatted for easier searching and putting in a bit of anti-spam to stop people from being flooded, but the necessity for the address is the organizations the people work for):

date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:15:15 +0100

from: Rob Swart <Rob.SwartATrivm.nl>

subject: Re: Synthesis Report (SYR): Summary for Policymakers

to: RwatsonATworldbank.org

Dear Bob,

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to react to your thinking. It forces us to think more clearly about the main messages. I must admit that I am somewhat confused about the 26 page summary, since this comes very close to (although it is different from) the full-scale document the various teams are currently writing. My view would be that those teams take their own text as the starting point and try to improve/shorten it on the basis of your text. Here, I only respond to your main messages in italics and mainly focus on WG3 issues.

You know, if this were one of those dreaded oil companies doing this to a researcher, I am sure that some Leftist would be up in arms about it. But since it is someone in the cozy Anthropomorphic Global Warming community, I am sure they can get all warm and fuzzy about scientists cozying up to the World Bank. Right?

So how is this scientist reacting to this stuff, beyond suggesting people on his team 'improve' their work along the lines of the paper sent to them from the World Bank? Probably got all huffy, right? I mean, scientific integrity and all that is at stake.

Right?

I mean if scientists started taking talking points from non-scientific organizations and were re-wording their findings to better fit that of an outside organization, that would be a pretty nasty thing to have happen.

Beyond that comes the more interesting part in which the scientific becomes the political:

Most points made may be introducing the rest of the SYR, but they do not address the question. I think the chapter should do both. In my view, in addition to your 6 paragraphs, one or more paragraphs could be related to five key aspects of Article 2: (a) dangerous interference, (b) stabilization, (c) natural adaptation, (d) food security, and (e) sustainable economic development. Three of these words (b), (c), (d) are not even mentioned. Two of your paragraphs now do hardly relate to the question (the 4th and 6th) but could be linked (see below).

The first italics could be positively relating to the question rather than negatively; e.g. take the 2nd and 3rd sentence as italics: "Scientific, technical and economic knowledge provides indispensable information needed to arrive at an informed judgement as to what level of anthropogenic interference would be dangerous, taking equity and social considerations into account. However, that judgement is a political, not scientific, one." An initial attempt to address my 1st comment, integrating some of Bob's italics but linking them to Artcile 2 issues: "Article 2 relates dangerous anthropogenic interference to the level and the time-frame of stabilization of concentrations of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, which would be required to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner. Although many uncertainties remain, scientific, technical and socio-economic analysis as assessment in IPCC's Third Assessment Report provides information which can be used to arrive at the above mentioned political judgement about what constitutes dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

[..]

Question 2:I would not include a WG3 paragraph, like "The Kyoto Protocol has led to the creation of new market mechanisms"; apart from the question if this statement is very relevant as such, I don't think it is "evidence of the consequence of changes in the Earth's climate since the pre-industrial era."

There is a question that needs to be asked at this point: when was the climate ever stable?

It is a serious question because, geologically speaking, the times when climate regimes are relatively stable coincide with periods of large agglomerations of continental plates into one or two major continents that do not obstruct circumpolar and global oceanic water flow. Those periods of slow plate movement within a large assemblage can give rise to volcanic activity, but the predominant system is stabilized by a single large oceanic expanse that moves without much obstruction around the large continental masses and from pole to pole.

When this does not happen, or when a large continental mass drifts into a polar region, or there are dispersed continents that break up global oceanic flows by creating separated oceans, the planetary climate stability declines (becomes less stable). This latter scenario is the one we currently live in, and through recent history there have been multiple ice age events with large ice sheets covering expanses of the northern hemisphere and, to a lesser extent, the southern hemisphere. Currently we are experiencing warming after a 500 year period known as the Little Ice Age and still shifting through the post-glacial period of the last major Ice Age that ended approximately 10-11,000 years ago. Major post-glacial periods are marked by rapid changes in climate both up and down, trending higher for some thousands of years before hitting an inflection point after which they trend downwards until another Ice Age starts. This current inter-glacial period in no way appears to vary from other, prior, inter-glacial periods in this respect. Rapid climate shifts on the scale of sub-1,000 year periods are the norm for such periods, not the exception.

Thus, the question: what is a 'stable' climate for our current time?

There can be no absolute mile-marker put on that, save for those long periods of slow continental motion after multiple continents assemble into one or two major land masses. These see much warmer temps and climates, as a result, and as the speed of the continents slow they shift downwards on the mantle. As the crust subsides ocean water goes over land and warms in shallow seas, and the ice caps shrink. Then you get a long lasting climate, which continues on often for millions of years.

Now, given that information, and that those periods see at least a 20 degree C higher average global temperature, how can the impact of man be measured on the global climate? Is a percent or two change in carbon dioxide, seen in other inter-glacial periods that experience a major eruption, say, going to change the over-all course of the global climate? Even if it did would the direction of change be towards warming or cooling? Would plant growth increase or decrease? Would there be more cloud formation or less? In fact, a major question of 'what is the overall heat budget of the planet based on what it gains via sunlight, what sunlight is reflected and what is lost via IR and other radiation at night?' actually needs to be answered not in a partial way but in a systematic way examining all aspects of the planet's distance from the sun (which varies over a year and over tens of thousands of years), types of clouds and other aerosols in the atmosphere, heat transfer between air and other surfaces, heat loss from air and other masses, reflected energy that prevents loss... what is the heat budget of planet Earth?

This is a simple question that, as yet, remains unanswered in any meaningful way. Until it can be answered and all the factors that lead to that budget known, there is no way to single out any one factor (beyond sunlight) as a driving force for climate. Yet that is what those pushing AGW wish you to believe, and they push a political agenda for it that is helpfully worded by large scale, unaccountable institutions. You can't get to the political/social questions without first answering the very basic questions that rely not upon just sunlight, wind, and water, but upon a host of factors that have not been completely or even incompletely examined. This is a cart/horse order arrangement problem, because if you don't know what the drivers of the climate actually are in an unstable climactic period, then you can't accurately say which of them is controllable and which of them aren't. Yet such political questions are being pushed without knowing the fundamentals.

In an effort to push such political and economic ends (because there is a profit to be made by changing the investment in energy production sources) one can expect other players to become interested in that effort. Here Anthony Watts takes a look at how to get 'committed environmental activism' as part of the UNFCCC process and I will excerpt a bit from the email 340.txt in question and leave in some of the interesting names and entities this is being sent to:

date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 11:13:20 -0500

from: "Tom Jacob" <Tom.JacobATUSA.dupont.com>

subject: REFLECTIONS ON THE HAGUE...

to: climatepolicyATic.ac.uk. . .hadiATcmu.edu. . .eduschellnhuberATpik-potsdam.de. . .jonathan.pershingATiea.org. . .RKinleyATunfccc.int. . .m.hulmeATuea.ac.uk. . .jaeATpnl.gov. . .kchomitzATworldbank.org. . .dlashofATnrdc.org. . .pachuriATteri.res.in. . .munasingheATworldbank.org. . .

[..]

The two weeks were not without significant developments, though. The Hague was a melange of ceremonial formality, tedious negotiation, high-stakes back-room dealing, protests, and a seemingly endless stream of open side-events and closed outside meetings. On the surface, the affair was distinctly lacking in coherence. Beneath that surface, though, there were threads emerging that, woven together, begin to fashion a most intriguing tapestry. Following are a few of the observations that may have important implications as the process moves tentatively forward from last week's session:· Tightening The Scientific Noose· Beyond Environment· Reactionary Protests· Ever-Widening Embrace Of Mechanisms· The "Sinks" Thing· Markets Finding A Way· Keeping The U.S. Honest Comments and disagreement more than welcome...

TIGHTENING THE SCIENTIFIC NOOSE: Amid the pomp and circumstance of the opening of the negotiation, the voice most keenly attended to was that of one of the least-pretentious people on the planet, Bob Watson, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the global scientific effort supporting the work of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. While the IPCC's Third Assessment Report (TAR) has not yet been completed (scheduled for release next year), Watson previewed some of its likely themes by noting that: "The weight of scientific evidence suggests that the observed changes in the Earth's climate are, at least in part, due to human activity." He also concluded that: "If actions are not taken to reduce the projected increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the Earthe climate is projected to change at a rate unprecedented in the last 10,000 years with adverse consequences for society, undermining the very foundation of sustainable development."

It is significant that, while there is still uncertainty in the science and still sniping from the margins, the voices challenging the fundamental premises of the Framework Convention and its Kyoto Protocol (particularly in the US) have diminished in both their number and their pitch in the past several years. More and more, even those that continue to challenge the Protocol as a strategy, acknowledge concern regarding climate change as warranting attention. Similarly, even the countries that seemed most at odds with the sense of the negotiation on many points (Saudi Arabia and some OPEC allies) have not challenged the fundamental legitimacy of the concerns driving the effort.

Here is the science end of the cooption of science: a global 'panel' put together by the UN of selected scientists deciding what is and is not 'settled' science.  This was way back in 2000 and yet it would be the drumbeat heard thereafter.  The method of coordinating the drumbeat between the selected scientists, the UN, NGOs and industry is a meeting in the Hague.

The next point is, as Mr. Watts points out, a vital one, and I'll take it out in full:

REACTIONARY PROTESTS: It is perhaps not coincidental that as economic concerns have begun to rise, both in the increasingly serious consideration to market mechanisms and the emerging dialogue about economic impacts of climate action, we have begun to see an increase in traditional, confrontational environmental protests. Even in Kyoto, demonstrations were small and relatively non-confrontational reminders of the environmental concerns. In The Hague, we saw for the first time organized disruption of the conduct of negotiation and publicly staged confrontations. While organized and deeply committed environmental activism has long been an important part of the UNFCCC process through major groups such as NRDC, EDF/ED, WWF and Greenpeace, they have operated within the structure as constructive participants in the policy-setting process, along with industry. At The Hague, this "inside" role was supplemented by hundreds of young, relatively naïve demonstrators brought in specifically to energize the environmental presence and confront the process. Even some within the ranks of the more established participants -- while disavowing the takeover of the negotiating room -- saw fit to publicly offer Minister Pronk and the UNFCCC Secretariate a veiled threat of "Seattle" if the process failed to deliver.In the context of this resurgence of "environmental fundamentalism" it is also interesting to contrast the dynamics of the final give-and-take between the US and the EU in The Hague. The US has always approached major treaty negotiations such as this from a policy process that brings each of the potentially involved agencies (ministries) together to jointly frame priorities and strategy, with the process in the field managed by the State Department (foreign service) and the White House -- not, typically, by any particular agency "minister" (Carol Browner, head of US EPA, for example, has not represented the US in these sessions). In contrast, EU policy and representation in "environmental" forums such as The Hague is vested more narrowly in the Council of Environment Ministers -- opting to give priority to providing each country an opportunity to participate through their environment minister, but in the processes constraining the range of perspectives such that all the key players are answerable to the similar constituencies. Obviously, there are limits to the implications one can draw from this, but it may be significant that it was one of those Ministers for whom the portfolio is most broadly drawn (Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott) that was central in shaping the initial deal with the US, while those implicated by public accounts in turning down the deal (Voyner, and Trittin in particular) are among those with closest ties to their more activist constituencies.

Here is DuPont looking with favor upon the role of 'activists' of the 'established' sort playing a game of dealing one game with the policy makers (those negotiating) while putting on another face (that of vocal, naïve activists) outside the meeting so as to pressure those doing negotiations.  That allows them to be 'constructive participants' in the negotiating process.  Isn't that lovely?  Leftist, environmentalist organizations playing with governments and large corporations and using young and naïve 'activists' as useful idiots to protest? Makes you wonder how it feels, as a Leftist, to be co-opted for an agenda that you aren't being told about by organizations you support, doesn't it?  All that blather about how tainted oil based research on climate is gets washed away in the beautiful world of transnational global politics in which you, as a 'protestor', get used not just for environmentalism but for agreements between the organizations you support, large industrial outfits and then pressuring governments to help out BOTH.  I'm sure these protestors are just fine with it, though, as their usefulness to the Greater Cause means that they, too, can participate in the corruption of their very own ethics in agreements with companies they would otherwise despise since they are so handy to both the 'activist' organizations and the corporations, BOTH.  Isn't that swell?  I'm so sure that is what they signed up for as 'activists' and 'protestors'.

Mind you, the science still can't point to what a 'stable' climate looks like or what the actual parts of the heat equation are drivers and which are backseat children that make a loud noise, but don't mean very much in the way of direction.  That was true in 2000 and is still lamentably true in 2011.

So far we have:

1) Large, transnational banking institutions (World Bank, IMF) having input into the output of the verbiage of scientific reports.

2) Large, transnational corporations and NGOs utilizing a two-faced system to 'work' within the system on the inside while providing useful idiot protestors on the outside to pressure negotiators to come to an agreement that might satisfy the corporations and NGOs, but not, necessarily, the Nations involved or the useful idiots.  That is how you keep them 'useful': you never satisfy them.

Now going back to the first post by Gail Combs looking at 5003.txt to examine the other people contacting the World Bank, this via an email sent via an Adjunct Faculty member at the Engineering and Public Policy part of CMU:

date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 13:28:08 -0400

from: Hadi Dowlatabadi <hadiATcmu.edu>

subject: Re: [New] Editorial for Climate Policy, Issue 2.

to: <KchomitzATworldbank.org>, Climate Policy <climatepolicyATic.ac.uk>

Dear Ken,

I agree with your perspective, but why not set a realistic target? The editorial columns at Science, Nature and New Scientist have rarely hidden their subjective perspectives. I think there are shades to this, and Michael can be a shade grayer, but the passion is also important.The dialogue approach allows him to be editor, hold strong opinions, but still be viewed as someone who is willing to listen. This is how Steve Schneider has conducted his reign at Climatic Change and I believe despite his well known personal perspectives he has been able to draw on many in the community to contribute to the dialogue that defines the differences in perspectives permeating this subject.

Hadion

4/20/01 1:15 PM, KchomitzATworldbank.org at KchomitzATworldbank.org wrote:

>> Dear Michael,

> I really like the solution of presenting view and counterview articles. I

> retain some reservations about your proposed editorial. It seems to me that

> you

> have the difficult problem of wearing two hats: one as the advocate of

> particular policies and viewpoints, and the other as an editor of a journal

> which aspires to be a neutral forum for policy discussion. I appreciate and

> sympathize with the depth and grounding of your personal views. However, as

> editor, it seems to me, you have to bend over backwards to be neutral. The

> editorial uses charged words like 'demonize' and could easily spark the war of

> words you wish to avoid. A strongly worded editorial risks associating the

> journal with a particular viewpoint, and hence reducing the journal's value

> and> reputation as a neutral forum.

> > Maybe this just reflects a parochial American viewpoint of what an editor

> does,> or perhaps the hypersensitivities of someone working at an international

> organization. I'd be interested in others' views.

> > > regards

> Ken

> > > > ___________________

> Kenneth M. Chomitz

> Development Research Group

> World Bank

Yes, here you have a member of the World Bank telling an editor of a peer-reviewed scientific journal that he should be toning down his language so he can appear 'neutral' or at least open to discussion, while actually not stating his true perspective on science and scientific affairs.  Indeed the editorial perspective of some publications is well known and that then goes beyond their perspective and into the various articles, themselves, thus those journals slowly lose readers, over time, as the editorial perspective seeps into the decision-making for articles and who reviews them.  Here the advice is to mask the bias on the public side (that is published editorially) but not one word of retaining that beyond that portion of the journal.  If an editor strongly backs an opinion the rest of the journal tends to get associated with it.  With that said if there are multiple editors, this can be diluted by having multiple viewpoints on the editorial staff and to openly present bias on an article (pro/con) via editorials from different staff members.

Bias is something to be open about so that others can judge if you can set your bias aside to actually do and review scientific work or if your bias is persistent to the point where it slants the even-handed assessment of data and derived results.  It also allows for open criticism of editors so that a journal may select other editors or reviewers if there is input that on certain topics an editor is suspect due to the bias being shown and discussed.  Here we see the two-faced approach being taken not by organizations and protestors, but taken to an editor via a member of an organization that seeks to have the rhetoric toned down but the bias remain.  That is deceitful not just towards those submitting articles (on if they can get an even-handed review process) but to the readers who deserve to know of any inherent bias in the publication, itself.

To 1 and 2 above, we can now add:

3) Large, transnational financial institution seeking to change editorial policy of an editor at a scientific journal with regards to how editorials are written.

I'm sure Leftists are all just warm and fuzzy with that thought!

Who else is on the Transnational financial list?  There is always your favorite and that of the Democratic Party's, Goldman-Sachs.  In 4092.txt (h/t Buffy Minton in the thread at WUWT) we can see what sort of cup rattling goes on behind the scenes with the AGW crowd:

date: Mon, 18 May 1998 10:00:38 +0100

from: Trevor Davies <t.d.daviesATuea.ac.uk>

subject: goldman-sachsto: j.palutikofATuea,p.jonesATuea,m.hulmeATuea

Jean,

We (Mike H) have done a modest amount of work on degree-days for G-S. They now want to extend this. They are involved in dealing in the developing energy futures market.G-S is the sort of company that we might be looking for a 'strategic alliance' with. I suggest the four of us meet with ?? (forgotten his name) for an hour on the afternoon of Friday 12 June (best guess for Phil & Jean - he needs a date from us).

Thanks.

Trevor

+++++++++++++

+++++++++++++

Professor Trevor D. Davies

Climatic Research Unit

University of East Anglia

Isn't this so sweet?  Scientists looking to help Goldman-Sachs develop a 'strategic alliance' with them in pushing issues in the 'developing energy futures market' is just so cuddly you can't even begin to use words to express it.  Yes, these climate scientists must be wizards to be able to know about such things as energy production and developing markets... do they ever get any time to do any real science?

Speaking of energy interests, here is Mike Hulme setting up a meeting with BP and Shell in 2000 from 0296.txt (another H/T to the comments section this time to Jimbo):

date: Tue Feb 1 13:34:27 2000

from: Mike Hulme <m.hulmeATuea.ac.uk>

subject: BP

to: shackley

Simon,

Have talked with Tim O about BP and he knows Paul Rutter but reckons he is junior to his two contacts Charlotte grezo (who is on our Panel!) and Simon Worthington.Tim is meeting Charlotte next week and will do some lobbying and we will also make contact with Simon Worthington.So I guess there is no necessity to follow up on Paul right now (I'll wait for Tim's feedback), but if you feel there is a strong enough UMIST angle then by all means do so (but bear in mind that we will be talking to some other parts of BP).We're getting a few letters back from people here too which I will copy onto you - two water companies, Shell and the Foreign Office (the latter is not really business though).

All for now,

Mike

Say, if you criticize the critics for working with the likes of BP and Shell, can you criticize those pushing AGW for doing the same?  And does this make their science suspect, as well?  Because if you think any contact for funding with an oil company is a reason to be shunned, then what will you do when those who have been pushing AGW are found to have been doing the exact, same thing as those doing work with them on other research?

How about a bit later in 2002, in 0736.txt putting a program schedule together for the ECF Autumn Conference:

cc: "Klaus Hasselmann" <klaus.hasselmannATdkrz.de>, "Mike Hulme" <m.hulmeATuea.ac.uk>

date: Thu, 16 May 2002 14:47:51 +0100

from: "Elaine Jones" <E.L.JonesATuea.ac.uk>

subject: ECF Autumn Conference

to: "Martin Welp" <martin.welpATpik-potsdam.de>

Martin, Just to confirm and clarify a few of our views expressed in Monday's telecom (I listened with interest alongside Mike) on the ECF Autumn Conference Preliminary Programme. The programme looks very good so far. We don't think that Tom Delay would be the best dinner speaker, but it would be useful to perhaps invite him to speak in the Technology Transition session on e.g. Key challenges for the UK's Carbon Trust or, (the title of their glossy ) "Making Business Sense of Climate Change" ? . However, he has appeared in the same session as Mark MS on a few occasions already.

In case Mark MS cannot accept an invite (he would also be an excellent dinner speaker) you could consider Phil Watts, who is actually Mark's replacement as Chairman of the CMD of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, (and a Yorkshire Geophysicist) but rather for his other role as chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development ( a coalition of 160 International companies from >30 countries and 20 sectors and a global network of 35 national and regional business councils) , which he took on in November 2001, succeeding Charles Holliday, DUPONT Chair and CEO. Of course, he's incredibly busy but would be an excellent dinner speaker if he couldn't manage day-time - and with an attractive letter invite may be tempted (e.g. building on his "I am honoured to become chairman of the WBCSD, it plays a vital role in helping both to challenge and encourage business, governments and institutions to address the issue of sustainable development"). As an alternative, and not to be to Shell biased, Rodney Chase deputy group chief exec. of BP (former Exploration Head) is also on the WBCSD Exec. Committee. I don't know him - but I'm sure he would be good... he gave a Pew Centre presentation in 2000 - Innovative Policy Solutions to Global Climate Change www.pewclimate.org/media/rchase_speech.pdf - one might consider inviting him to "reflect on the subsequent 2 years track record of innovative solutions" ! he may be most useful for session 4, given the BP-Amoco (Arco) transatlantic make-up ! (and they are also a PEW member). He's also a non-exec. director of DIAGEO plc (Europe's largest Beverages co.).

Isn't this lovely?  Look at the people they would want as a dinner speaker at their event:

I) Tom Delay – This is Tom Delay of the UK Carbon Trust, not the US Tom DeLay.

II) Sir Mark Moody-Stewart – Appointed non-executive chairman of Anglo American PLC, ex-chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, director of HSBC holdings and Accenture.  Chairman of the Foundation for Global Compact, member of the Global Reporting Initiative up to 2007, member of the Board of Directors for Saudi Aramco.

III) Sir Philip Watts – Chairman of Shell 2001-2004 in addition to what is in the text.

IV) Rodney Chase – As stated in the text, a BP man in addition to other hats.

What isn't to like in this group? I mean you have organizations working on the entire carbon problem thingy, huge multinational oil companies, plus a slew of feel good NGOs... just the sort of people you want addressing the European Climate Forum. No, really, it is! I mean if you are going to have AGW/Climate Change/Climate Chaos or whatever the tagline du jour is, then you really, and for true, need the people ready to make a profit off of it as speakers at conferences.

Thus comes the next rule:

4) Always seek to get the heads of large organizations that make a profit off of 'climate change', either on the causing or the carbon trading side, at major conferences as dinner speakers so they can tell you what they see as the future of the direction of the 'movement'.

The idea that affiliation is grounds for denouncement and demonization is a Leftist cant, not one with a basis in reality.  Science, if done properly, is about repeatable results not about who funds you.  It doesn't matter if a government funds you, an oil company, a university, or that rich old coot down the street: if you get repeatable results and accurately describe and characterize them then it is science.  When those doing the funding try to tell you what to say, then it is intellectual, ethical and moral prostitution of oneself to the highest bidder or at least the one willing to help 'the cause'.  If you demonize based on fund source, then you must demonize the AGW crowd just as much as their critics as they are not adverse to chasing, begging, taking and using funds from such organizations.

This should be worrying to the 'street activists', 'protestors' and even those just willing to sing from the same hymnal as 'fellow travelers'.  To date no one has demonstrated that the critics of AGW have had what they write directed by their funders.  So far, to date, we now have evidence that those writing in support of AGW 'science' are not only willing to do so, but are willing to have the heads of such organizations show up at conferences or actually run such conferences as supports the goal of AGW followers.

The problem here isn't in the science of AGW: there isn't any.

Show me the data.

Not the interpretations, not the graphs, not the conclusions, but the raw, unadulterated data and let ME work through it so I can see if I can come up with the same results, plus cross-validate that any conclusions have something to do with OTHER datasets from OTHER sources so that the data can have a cross-check on it.

You can't make me a 'believer' but you can give me the data to see if I can agree with the conclusions drawn from it.  That is science.  No 'belief' needed.

Until the original datasets are made publicly available, and this was publicly funded research at the start of this entire mess, for public scrutiny and open scrutiny by the scientific community as a WHOLE and IN PART, there is no science being done in AGW.

When there is: obfuscation of the data, refusal to release publicly funded data(and thus held for the public by researchers), attempts to hide scientific criticism in secret but never speak of it in public, no safeguarding information exchanges that are the lifeblood of science, attempts no to be honest about the scientific process so as to intimidate editors or reviewers of papers and to not be open about what the people who are seeking to influence you are trying to do, then you do not have the performing of science to the public good but a conspiracy to defraud the public as a whole at a multi-national level.  And not small fraud, either, when you consider the attempts to curb fossil fuel production and use, impoverish millions if not billions via economic stagnation through crony capitalism, and otherwise jack up energy prices with no valid science as a rationale... that may go into the trillions of dollars on a global scale.  That is fraudulent science in search of a Great Cause which is then backed by other institutions that have their own agenda which are not accountable to any public of any Nation, so as to force National governments to create new agendas to support transnational corporations via schemes to divert money from productive energy jobs to ones that show no immediate value.  Because if they were worthwhile to do they would be profitable and sustainable without a single penny from any government other than as a customer for a product.

I have said it before and I will say it again: science is a full body contact sport done without benefit of any padding, no handicaps and having the necessary requirement of being done out in the open to hold yourself accountable to your peers.  Science is one of the nastiest endeavors of all mankind because to do it you must be open to criticism, must accept criticism (as old man Alvarez showed us with a smile and open arms) and then say that ANYONE CAN DUPLICATE YOUR RESULTS.   Those who are perpetrating this fraud are not DOING THAT but are running a rigged con game and in that universe you are either the con man, a plant or a mark, and on something of this scale nearly every single plant will find out that they are the mark.

Student loan bailouts? No, but there is an alternative...

Of the true stupidity of OWS there is the idea of 'bailing out' those with student loans.

This will not actually address the problem of the high cost of education nor will remove the problem from the system, nor does it hold one to their agreement for paying back one's debts.

And, yes, I didn't like the 'bailouts' of the 'too big to fail' organizations, either.

So when this topic was posted at Hot Air, I put out what an actual solution is to stop the high cost of higher education in its tracks.  It would require that the OWS people actually mean what they say about what they see as their loan problems.

Here is the unadorned commentary, such as it is, spelling/syntax/logic errors all included for the amusement of the reader because all of this is written on the fly:

Say, if these people feel that they didn’t get the value promised them by an education they should sue all of those who promised them a high value education.

Really, they should writed down every written promise of having a ‘career path’ via these high priced educational institutions, with the names of who promised it and when. Push that all the way to those leading the tours for the place you went to.

Then work with all the other people who have similar views and start to put a master list together naming all the institutions and all the people who promised the educational value and what they charged for it in the way of tuition, books, dorm fees, etc.

Form a class action lawsuit against the whole kit’n'kaboodle.

Sue their butts off, including the endowment funds.

Get your money back from these places.

Impoverish them.

Put them out of business because they are not selling a product they promised to you.

Occupy a law library and get to work, you may need to get a few part time jobs to support yourselves while you gather the info and put the briefs together, but in 6 months every single high flying university and all of those pushing the high cost/low value education on the docket to figure out just how they will defend themselves from their rapacious cost structure for a bloated bureaucracy.

Question Authority! Get those university personnel on the witness stand!

ajacksonian on November 20, 2011 at 7:42 PM

This is how you hold people to account in America, isn't it?  You sue their butts off.

Yes this means that OWSers must un-occupy parks, work with each other and start to occupy law libraries and look for part-time jobs to sustain themselves... and do something PRODUCTIVE WITH THEIR LIVES instead of bitch/moan/whine/complain and forever feel that they are 'entitled' to something.  Nope, you are 'entitled' to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the latter means 'happenstance' or 'fortune'.  Heaven help you if you actually catch happiness as it will make you miserable the moment you realize it has slipped through your fingers and you are chasing that bugger again.  You had it so good for that microsecond...

Really it is the educational institutions and their Leftist academics that are the cause of this problem.

OWSers should want to hold them both to account for the high cost of unproductive, useless higher education.  Note that actual scientists and engineers are lacking at OWS, along with mathematicians.  Why?  Real jobs with real pay are involved at the end of those educational cycles.

You want an education that leads to a real, paying job?

Go to a trade school.

There are lots of jobs going begging to maintain our infrastructure and you can nearly set your own pay as a welder, electrician, plumber... hell, even pipe-fitters and bricklayers are doing pretty well, if you can stay out of a Union, that is.

But if you feel you got rooked on a product or service you purchased?  Sue them.  Sue them until they are white due to lack of money.  Those selling such products are fiends and no friend of yours.  Prove it in a court of law.  Put up a site to garner funds for your legal team to actually, and for true, address the REAL bad actors who demand such high payments for this shoddy educational product.  Put up a page tracking the funds that will roll in and get to know who your REAL friends are.  Surprisingly you in OWS will find that the $500 K that those inside your movement are seeking to take for their own needs are looking at chicken feed compared to what you will garner for bringing down the corruption inside the educational system.

It will take guts, stamina and courage to confront these institutions and tell them how badly they have under-delivered on their promises to you as an individual and to all of you as a class in a class action lawsuit.  Take all of those promising that college is a path to a sure job and career to court.

ALL OF THEM.

Without exception.

Really, which would have done you better in your life: a poli-sci degree from an Ivy League institution or a two year certificate that certifies that you actually, and for true, can weld?

Heck, I'll toss in $25 to your legal fund!

Practice some accounting on that fund, though.

Keep the grubby, so-called 'authorities' within your own 'movement' away from it.

Get some payback and get paid back, while you're at it.

I'll help with a bit of cash.  Maybe a couple of meals, too, if you are nice about it.

Need some clothes while you are whiling away your hours in a dusty library?  Gots spare work clothes for you.  You don't need a suit and tie to file a petition in a court.  And damned if paper isn't cheap and the ability to get to a word processor to do the typing is close to damned near free... and is pretty much free if you have a word processor already as many court documents have gone electronic.

Get what you paid for!

OR GET YOUR MONEY BACK WITH INTEREST.

Because, you know, revenge is a dish best served cold.

And I can tell you that those educational institutions, their endowment funds, the entrenched bureaucracy and some few of your professors truly are ripe for the picking.  And a few of the really high flying ones should go away permanently on the pay-back side.  Hit them where it hurts.

Wall Street?

Small fry.

Go after the big money people and the ones who have actually hurt you.

Gather the evidence.

Show you are doing so.

Ask for help.

And then sue them until they go broke.

Heck, its good job experience you can put on a resume to help track down the liars, their promises, get them all as evidence and then take them to court.  You can't PAY for such experience.

But you can make the actual miscreants pay.  Yessiree.

If, that is, you stop LISTENING TO THEM and get them on the witness stand and QUESTION AUTHORITY UNDER OATH.

Never so cold as a court of law, hey?

Put up a legal fund, get out of the parks and start getting the evidence together.

I will gladly PAY to help you in that.

It will be money WELL SPENT and your service to your fellow citizens will be beyond any price.  Though there will be a price to be paid by those who lied to your face about the value of the so-called education they sold you.  Plus you should get enough to pay your loans back once you hit those pushing them right in the pocketbook.

Really, the only losers are those pushing the bad service and product.

You become a loser by complaining.

You become a citizen by doing the right thing, staying within the law, and getting your money back.  With interest.

Then you can pay off your loans.

You'll have a worthless degree, yes, but you will have experience and be out of debt.

That is what you want in OWS, right?

Debt-free with experience?

Do it the right way.

Do it yourself.

Our tax code: screwed up by design and intent

The following is self evident

Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.

Benjamin Franklin

In fact these are aspects of the exact same concept.  Taxation if practiced upon one individual upon another would be theft of property earned by hard work.  Death is the theft of life.

Both are theft.

Property is not theft: theft is theft and it matters not if it is used to steal property or life, although in doing the former the latter is put in jeopardy.  These are intertwined concepts that to live one must be able to create for oneself and retain enough to not just survive but to prosper.  When taxation is high, your life is at stake in a very real way.

Now on to the basis for our tax system, as opposed to the instantiation called the tax code which I will get to in a bit.

AMENDMENT XVI

Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.

Note: Article I, section 9, of the Constitution was modified by amendment 16.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Source: US Archives

Which changed this:

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

Source: US Archives

Before Amendment XVI the US government figured out how much it needed to run and could then do one of two things:

1) Levy a direct tax upon every citizen of an equal amount, or,

2) Tell the States how much money was needed to run the federal government and let them collect it.

This is part and parcel of the concept of the checks and balances of sovereign power in a republic which I go over numerous times, but most recently in The Process and Sovereignty fact explained by fiction.  The problem was, such as it was purported to be at the time, that government had to plead with the States to get funded and the States were making it hard to pass bills by not posting Senators in a timely fashion.  The argument was further extended that government had a lot to do and not enough cash to do it.  The only way to go around this was to put together a campaign that made federal government taxation the centerpiece of the republic, not its necessary feed tube but a direct tap into the arteries of commerce that are your wallet.  This was promised to be put in place only on the rich and never go above 7%.  From 7% to 70% took 7 years, and it was not just on the 'rich' any more.

Lovely, no?

Taxation is a necessary evil for government to restrain those that would hurt the public directly, and at the federal level that isn't you, as individuals, but the Nation as a unit.  Direct taxation that is non-apportioned (that is not equally levied) is something that is part of class warfare in that it pits the numerous poor against the few wealthy.  And yet, by creating a system that does so, the wealthy then have a much larger stake in getting outcomes that fit their desires more in return for their much larger amounts paid into the system of government.  The wolf does not come into the dining room by accident, but is joyously greeted as a protector from that monster under the bed... and soon you find yourself without food, bed, and possibly even shelter until you can figure out how to get rid of the wolf.  Now if only the monster under the bed, which is to say class envy, had any real effect beyond making the poor greedy for that wealth that isn't theirs and inviting the wolf inside in the first place.

We bring our own doom upon us via greed and envy that is part of human nature.

Now since taxation is an expression of the negative liberty that creates the necessary evil we call government to restrain it, and the power of theft via taxation to sustain it, what is the positive liberty that is embodied by creation of wealth and giving freely of it?

Ah, yes, that is called 'charity'.

Charity begins at home.

Terence, Andria
Roman comic dramatist (185 BC - 159 BC)

Source: The Quotations Page

Rome was still a republic, back in those days.  Too bad the people wanted more goodies via their Senate and then instituted a means to take money from the rich, which then required an expansive military empire to sustain that growing hunger.  The republican values enshrined charity, and while perhaps not as revered as the tax man, it was the builder of a republican society that cherished the values of divided government.  Debase charity and the republican values fall away, and you soon get greedy people driven by human nature to take more than they make. 

This attitude change destroyed the Roman middle-class by also including slavery into the mix and, before its downfall, there were more slaves in Rome doing work than there were people in the middle class.  Actually there were more slaves (and Romans in slave status) than Free Romans in Rome once it became an empire, come to think of it.  Once in old age Augustus would realize how far he had debased the Roman citizenry with taxation coupled with public expenditures and that the strong republic was now an empire with a void in its center.  All empires have a void of public assent at their center, it doesn't matter which empire it is: those that rule, not govern, no longer listen to the wishes of the citizenry and the empire, for all its military might, is ripe to be destroyed.  An empire can only exist on the backs of slaves or serfs, which is why Karl Marx cheered on the North in the US Civil War: mere wage slavery was a way out to a better life, and was a positive artifact of capitalism and needed to be cheered on so that the foundations of socialism could be built.  Too bad he never read history to show what happens when people realize they can take everything from those that produce... but these nasty things called 'Dark Ages' or 'Iron Times' are really quite harsh.  Only the effete elite ignore them due to the queasy feeling they get when they realize that they are encouraging yet another round of mass theft.

Charity, by this standard, is not theft at all.

It is the willful giving of the fruits of one's labor to those institutions that will tend to the sick and aged, care for the poor and needy, and offer solace to the beleaguered.  Charitable institutions teach republican values by their very existence: that you have a direct say in the welfare of your fellow man outside of government.  It is a value that does, indeed, begin at home as our poor, weak, needy and uneducated come in the form of our children.  They need to see the lesson that being given food, clothing, education and schooling is a burden taken up freely by their parents to create society.  The number one, most important lesson to learn from charity at home is that you are a burden to your parents and your greatest desire in your love for them is to stop being that burden.  To do that requires lessons of self-governance, thrift and the willingness to take up your burden of your life from your parents so that you can be free and that you, in turn, liberate them from that burden they took up gladly.

Do you see the part theft plays in charity?

If you don't is because there isn't any: it is an expression of our positive liberty that comes from our free labor to live a life in freedom.

The tax code that comes from the tax system, seen above, does not enshrine charity as the prime value of the republic and a means to create self-sustaining citizens of a republic.  This can be seen via the simple asking of a question:

Why is charity a tax deduction?

If charity and the institutions of charity are a prime bulwark to helping citizens stand on their own two feet to be productive citizens on their own, then why is government getting the first bite at your income and then allowing you might, just maybe, have a charitable instinct and let you take a bit of that tax bite back?  Government is a necessary evil and not the prime part of building society.  Indeed, by taking productive wealth from citizens, it is a drag on society and eats up wealth while, in its very best instance, providing equal justice via simple laws that are easily understood by all citizens.  A republic that has citizens who cherish republican values would not put the government, any government outside of self-government, as the first to take a bit out of their income, no matter its source.

Our prime duty as citizens is towards our fellow citizens and it starts at birth, when we are cared for through the charity of our parents and we must continually give back in charity to our fellow man so that we have a vibrant society that can actually sustain this drag we call government which is only an organ of society.  And not a very pretty organ, at that.  If charity is the heart of society, then government in all forms come in just before the anus and just after the stomach: it is necessary and yet the products of it are waste.

The grand goal of Progressivism was to put government in your life before charity, which is to say that you only get raised, as a child, after government has taken its bite from your parent's income for its own purposes.  While you suckle at the teat, government was stealing the bread necessary to let your mother make milk for you.  In a very real sense it was suckling before you ever got there and would for the rest of your natural life and you, my fellow citizens, would be the burden of government. 

That is evil because it is unnecessary.

If we truly enshrined charity as a hallmark of good citizenship and a necessary burden to us all before government, then we would have a tax code that puts charity via full deduction from gross pay FIRST and government SECOND.  Our duty to our fellow citizens is direct via the application of our positive liberty expressed by the freedom to work, thus allowing us the marketplace to repay us for our work.  A tax on commerce is one thing, and limited to States and local government, taking the direct food from your mouth via income FIRST before your family and then other charities, is a true evil that knows no bounds.

How can I say that?

What are the limits of the federal government today?  Are there any left?

Government has a proper place and status in society and it isn't a high one.  It is not a charitable organization as it requires theft to operate, and the only acceptable theft is one that is either equal, regardless of income, upon all citizens or mediated by a more local government to figure out how to pay for the larger national government.  That is why it was set up the way it was: to keep government limited.

For all the talk of 'flat taxes' and reducing government should we not, as citizens of a republic, be demanding that our government recognize that its place is AFTER that of the positive liberty to build society as expressed by our charity?  I have heard the moaning and bewailing of this concept in that 'charity would over-run us' and that people 'wouldn't put money where it needs to go'. 

On the former, is there such a thing as a too giving society?  One that enshrines our positive liberty and reinforces it so that all citizens know that their fellow citizens are there for them in times of need is a BAD THING?

On the latter: this is the basis for freedom and liberty, that no man is told what to do with his earnings via charity.  There will still be necessary money left to feed oneself and keep a roof over one's head after raising children and donating to charity is performed.  Government gets to take from that pile, that net amount, after an individual has decided how much they need to reinforce and give back to society FIRST.  The rich will find they can only spend so much on charity before the allure of spending on themselves comes to the forefront and then it is that money that gets taxed: the greedy get taxed more.  Encouraging spending on items that you may not see as necessary, schools, libraries and support of charity hospitals, can be done by rich and poor alike, and who is to say that we need more of any item than any other than the people who earn the money? What you may see as ill spending, may be something another man sees as a vital need to be addressed via charity and there so long as the poor, need, sick, disabled and young are cared for via these means, who is to say that they are wrong?  Are these not the stated goals of Progressives?  Then why are they so costly and run up such high debt so as to put the Nation into insolvency and, in a short time, into bankruptcy?  Putting the intermediary of government in at every level and every choice costs too much and demeans citizens into the status of slaves to support government.  That didn't work too well out for Roman and every other people who enshrined government as their centerpiece have faced a similar fate.  History is our teacher and we ignore it at our peril.

Ask yourself: would you not give more and retain less for yourself if you knew that the money put into building society was beyond the reach of the thief of government?  Bad charities can be taken care of by the scraps left for the legal system, the bad actors weeded out so that the good may thrive and prosper.  That puts government SECOND and charity FIRST, which is the order that sustains society.  When government is put in charge of determining who gets how much and when at the cost of the lifeblood of liberty, you also get the extreme overhead of government and the ill-use of funds that, strangely enough, never, ever gets addressed by removing power from government when it FAILS to do these functions efficiently and effectively.

Yes you did pay into SSA and when you are old you get to pick the kernels out of the droppings of the waste of government.  Aren't you so thankful for that?  That instead of asking your citizens for help or having build solid institutions, you are now living at the whim of far distant and remote government and become a pawn to keep abusers of the system by expanding it in power.  Just make sure you wash up those kernels in the dung before eating them, because that is what you have asked for and you have gotten it and helped to tear down society via government.  This is what you asked for and got.  And it can be changed, altered and amended by realizing that the actual fiend is government and not your fellow man who is only painted as stingy for political purposes and then abused and demeaned once those politicians get in power to wield it over our children, our elderly, our sick and our needy.

Our choice, as citizens, is to put government in its place and really, and for true, recognize that charity begins at home with our children and continues on throughout our lives with the institutions that we build to succor the poor, old, infirm, young, destitute and beleaguered, and that we are made stronger by directly giving and volunteering our time and lives to this work than we ever are through the waste organ of society known as government.  That is perfectly allowable in the course of human events when the necessary evil of government becomes the form of our own abuse and repression not just of the healthy, but of the poor and weak.

That is a pure evil that is self-inflicted.

Brought to you by our tax code.

It doesn't have to be this way.

We can change our priorities for ourselves and then demand that our government follow our lead as citizens and that it is we who form the republic, and our government is just a necessary organ to do so.  Rather that the body run lean and mean through our digestion and leave little for government to subsist on than to be eaten by it as it becomes cancerous by taking directly from our life blood.

The top 5 current threats to the United States

Over my years of blogging... damn, I never thought I would be able to say that as I never intended to blog for years... a few weeks or a month or two, maybe... I have covered a wide array of threat types to the United States.  Be it terrorism, organized crime or geophysics, I've gotten a good look at some of the nastier things that can be unleashed at a moment's notice that will leave you next to no time to prepare.  The fact that my top 5 geophysics disasters that will happen to the North American continent, sooner or later, are not being prepared for tells me much about how we, as a society, prepare to deal with just about anything.  I like geophysics as it is reliable, cyclic and gives warning via the periodicity of events over time.  If you don't heed the warnings then it is you who will pay the price.  The planet will go on its stately way with or without us, which is why I am always advocating that the best place for industry is not in a biosphere but in the clean vacuum of space.  Once we get off this rock and into our solar system with a sustainable population base that doesn't rely on Earth, then we will be very, very hard to extinguish as a species.

We aren't there, yet.

Outside of those 'known unknowns' of geophysics there are the other 'known unknowns' of terrorism, socialism/communism/fascism/anarchism, and pure old asinine political meddling in culture and economics.  These latter are all inter-related, however, as old revolutionaries tend to hide who they are and become sanctified by their cronies and enter the system. When a guy like the terrorist Bill Ayers can be blessed by the MFM without any hint at repentance for his past misdeeds, indeed he said he hadn't done enough as a terrorist, gets into the position of helping to draft the very history books that is used in school districts, and no one raises a fuss, then one can say that the 'elite' structure is in bed with the radicals.  This has a corrosive and corrupting influence on society, as a whole and as individuals, as actual history gets slanted towards viewpoints that remain unexpressed until they fester long enough to pop up like zits in OWS.  These people don't need to breathe together to share the same hookah, and if their ideas have spread globally it is because those who would normally defend the standard culture of various Nations have been complacent or asleep at the wheel.  This is the wet dream of Progressives: to dictate to society what individuals should think, eat, breathe and how they should live and die at the behest of government.

It is the dream of despotism and tyranny.

So for this remix I'm going to shuffle in the other sociological problems that these nefarious actors have put in place while we have all been hitting the snooze button.  A fun treat it isn't because I will also be mixing in military threats of the 'known unknown' variety, which ought to scare the pants off just about anyone.  Some of these I see as near-dead certainties.  You can still search this blog under the DIY category and get some ideas of what it means to prepare, now, before they happen.

So here we go.

#5 - Good-bye to the EU - After WWII the US extended its nuclear umbrella and troops into Western Europe to defend it.  The various leftists and social do-gooders realized that they didn't have to spend more than a paltry 1% or thereabouts on defense and the US expanded its defense budget to 6-8%+ to cover for that.  With all that lovely non-spending doing on did the European Nations of the West: 1) cut back on all other forms of government to get thriving, world beating economies, 2) pay off all government debt to make their currencies sound and stabilize the world, 3) decide that after two world wars that they really, and for true, weren't going to solve their problems either militarily or via diplomacy (causes for both world wars) and settle into a generally neutral stance towards each other and attempt to keep the lid on both military and diplomatic adventurism or, 4) the opposite of all that.

If you chose #4 for the expansive welfare state, increasing regulations, attempts to 'integrate' highly different populations that didn't have a great history with each other, spend like drunken sailors who can't pass out, get perennial unemployment over 8%, go into debt that none of them or all of them could repay, see a declining demography because of the growth of the state into all areas of life, have to invite in foreigners who made it a point not to assimilate, and the only real economy left was then asked to support all the ne'er-do-well spendthrifts, all the while finding out that being weak militarily at home meant no real feeling of patriotism or even a need to continue the culture, then you have a Weiner!  Ah... sorry... Winner!

Given a great protective umbrella the entire continent went towards socialism even before the commies disappeared and started calling themselves socialists, too.  Now Europe is in a permanent demographic slide unlike any other seen since the Roman Empire hit the skids, has a debt problem about to sink all the Nations in Europe separately and collectively, has foreign populations now starting to not see themselves as Europeans and wanting to change the Nations into something different... and an elite class who feels that the general public is too stupid to recognize this as a good thing!  Can Europe pull out of this tailspin?

No.

Parts of it might abandon ship in the next few months and then the jig is up.  All of the 'social safety nets' will fall and all the 'collective' help will go away as it can't be paid for as the increasing debt load year on year should have clued them into.  In giving a large umbrella over Europe the US, apparently, removed the cluebats.  The answer by the Euro-Elites (be they Kings, Emperors, Princes, Dukes, Ministers, Members of Parliament, or the local Mayor and city council) in such circumstances is clear: war.  With unrest in Europe comes war.  The French Revolution was cleared up by a Corporal, a 'whiff of grapeshot' and then the great economy booster of foreign war.  When the anarchists had been shooting down political leaders the world over for a few decades it was to get only one Arch-Duke that would trigger a global conflict.  The rise of communists in Russia and the expansion of the prior socialist parties in Europe to deal with problems, particularly in Italy and Germany, grew out of the unrest of the post-war era and turned it into the inter-war era by yet another great war building spree that led to, yes, war.  The nasty Cold War stalemate was won by the West when everyone who had red stars on in Russia changed their philosophy from communism to socialism.  The red stars were kept around to adorn party functions, however.  Needless to say getting in bed with organized crime is a mixed blessing in Russia.  Western Europe spending itself into oblivion will lead to great numbers of unemployed and the state, having only one major way to help, will authorize military spending to 'boost' the economy.  China, too, is facing this by propping up the price of copper by building vast, uninhabited cities and seeing its industrial cost rise to the point that people are being automated out of jobs or they are going, with delicious irony, to the next low wage destination of Vietnam.  Needless to say the US was wise enough to see this folly and stopped going down that road...

Oh, wait.

We didn't.

The Collapse of the EU is the symbolic collapse of Western Socialism (socialism, communism, leftism, progressivism, and big government anarchists which are a delicious stab in the back to traditional anarchists) and it isn't going to be pretty.

 

#4 - The Next World War- I can now name some major governments undergoing economic decline from which military spending may be the only hope of keeping people employed: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Russia, China, Japan, Mexico (more on that later) and the UK. Even better is that a few of them have historical militarism that their elites can fall back on and resurrect.  Greece has the Spartans, Italy has the Roman Empire, Spain and Portugal were once world colonial powers, France had Napoleon, Russia had Stalin, China had a slew of guys from the Yellow Emperor on to Mao, Japan had the military class and god emperor, the UK has a great history to work with like that Nelson fella, and even Mexico has patriots in their history of various stripes.

Pick three of those and say they take that path, even the worst off and most minor.  Throw in a bit of 'expansionism for resources' to help get economies going again.  Now put a large power into that mix doing that.  Within 5 years that will be about the only option left as it will be the ONLY way to get out of collectivism as NO ELITE will say that it is a FAILURE.  Internationalism just isn't a rallying point, and all the lovely bankers with their manipulation of world currencies will face a hard problem when a few enterprising countries realize that they can go it alone with just a few more resources under their belt.  They will shear off debt, see their currencies disappear, put in a scrip, open military based systems using scrip and have no need for a social safety net.

The first Nation to clear out its 'social safety net' will be the new 'leader'.

And it doesn't matter how small your population is, either, as modern technology will allow the leveraging of some very elite tactical units to perform deeds that entire armies couldn't accomplish just 60 years ago.  Technology is becoming a deadly equalizer between the large and small, and while quantity has a quality all its own, if you are stuck a couple of cycles back on the technology parade, you aren't going to make it.

No matter how chaotic and moribund economies and societies appear now, the simple solution for the worst off of cutting out the old currency, making a new scrip, torching the social safety net, killing off the radicals (always a crowd pleaser, that) and putting a military style order in place is a demonstrable winner throughout history.  And it always, without fail, ends badly.

This is the know nothing Elites we are talking about doing this and their failure to understand history and become entranced with power always allows this to happen.

We gotta get off that merry-go-round.

 

#3 - EMP the Great Equalizer - One EMP burst from a low yield nuclear device over Kansas will destroy the electronics of nearly 80% of the US that aren't hardened or shielded.  No modern commerce, no trucks, no planes, no cars (unless you got a pre-electronic one available... if you got points and plugs you have something that might survive), no industry, no farming,  no hospitals, pharmaceuticals left to what is on hand...

Remember that technology is a great equalizer against even the US.

We haven't hardened our power generation infrastructure nor our consumer commodity infrastructure.

And you may not even need a nuke to do this, but you will need a missile.

Or very high floating balloons.

Who could do this the old fashioned way with a nuke and a primitive missile?  There is a short list of supsects: the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, UK, Israel, North Korea, and Iran.  If you throw in a small technical group working with a different way to generate the pulse and balloons, then you can expand that list down to any Nation with factories producing electronics.  Gotta love that, huh?

Mind you this can also be done to China and Russia (probably requiring two devices each), all of Europe, Africa (about two devices), South America (two devices), all of North America (two devices), India, Australia, Japan if you have to get them separately, and maybe another six devices to cover all of the Pacific and three more for the Atlantic.  And one more to get all of North America.  That is N. Am. - 2, S. Am. - 2, Eurasia - 3,  India - 1, Australia - 1, Africa - 2, Pacific - 6, Atlantic -3.  Call it 25 total devices.  If they are high tech and balloon delivered you can use GPS to make them go off (isn't that sweet?) as they are shielded by not being in the EMP zones.  Missiles with AQ Khan style bombs might be a bit harder to do, but 25 is still a pretty magic number.

Hardened military equipment would survive, yes, but without a production system to produce more you are in a 'come as you are' war.

And if an eco-terrorist group did this with a bit of savvy on their part, or a death cult like the old AUM Shinrikyo?  In one year the global population would be about 1 billion people.

Now replace all the EMP devices with a major solar storm putting out highly energetic particles just in front of the Earth as it passes through it for, say, 3 days.  Same effect.

Bad enough the US and the fact that if we disappeared from the world economy most of the rest of the world would go into chaos once the big food supplier went away.  Those asshats bemoaning hunger in Africa should be wanting a hardened electronics system in the US so that if a major solar storm did hit the planet there would be SOMEONE left to still grow food on a scale large enough to supply 2-3 billion people.  That would require forethought, seeing how nasty a place the Earth and our fellow man can get, and then saying: 'You know it doesn't do us much good to have a social safety net if it all collapses due to one bad act'.

Damn I'm not even to #2 yet!

Wasn't the Cold War so nice?  All you had to deal with was vaporization due to nukes!

Even better: you can prepare for these!  Build some Faraday Cages for equipment (basically wrapping them in conductive mesh or foil that isn't in contact with the electronics, and ground the mesh/foil) and once the EMP is done, you can haul out your generator and equipment and get to the business of rebuilding society.  Everything with a transistor and a lot of stuff with vacuum tubes are toast if they aren't protected.  That laptop you tucked into the microwave will ride it out (it does have a mesh to protect stuff outside form the internal microwave effects) but that lovely desktop system is gone.  Got batteries stored away?  How about an inverter and solar panel array? Means to get clean water?  Sanitary considerations need to be given top priority.  Yup this is full, 'no grid exists' living.  No medical supplies coming around, either, so what you got is what you got.  Ditto groceries.

Global Nuclear War never looked so good!

 

#2 - La Palma landslide and tsunami - I'm not going to reprise my geophysics article, but this one remains at #2.  Why?  Here is the idea: name every city that is within 25 miles of the Atlantic coast or half of that in the Gulf of Mexico, all north of the equator.  And that 25 miles is a pure, wild-ass guess.

Now make them go away with only 6-12 hours of warning time.

Simple, huh?

Entire islands will be washed over.  Florida might not be around as we know it.  London might survive, maybe.  Paris will.  The Netherlands, not so much.  Nice knowing you, Denmark.  Ireland's coast along the south just gone.  Boston, Hartford, NYC, all of Long Island, Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore, DC, Miami...  New Orleans, Galveston... maybe the highlands of Cuba left... I shudder to think about coastal Africa and some of the waves will get to the South Atlantic, too.  Maybe dislodge some polar material north and south, perhaps shift the northern polar ice cap a bit, or just break it up for a year.

Wouldn't that be fun?

There is zip you can do about it.  No diplomacy will stop it.  Nukes might trigger it.  All the concrete on the planet would make it worse, not better.  There is no 'bedrock' to stabilize, just a trillion tons and more of waterlogged dirt and weathered volcanic rock.  It is waiting for one earthquake or volcanic event on an island with an active volcano.  And most likely the other half of the island goes with it, too, due to subsidence, and the inrushing seawater once the mass slides in.

Would the current 'global community' pull together?

Or fall apart?

This will remove some of the largest transport hubs on the planet from the map, as well as killing hundreds of thousands to millions (or more) directly, and then the collapse of systems afterwards will ripple out economically.

And there will be no escaping this tsunami by going up as it will go over the top of the Empire State Building.  Hell it will get channeled all the way up to Albany by the Hudson River at the Palisades. Places that normally couldn't be reached by any tsunami will feel the wrath of this one in the Atlantic.  Gibraltar might go on wave one (the other side of the island going) and then a larger mass move into the Med to give the entire place a nice 20-30' tsunami like in Japan.  Wonder what will happen to the Panama and Suez canals when they are over-topped and washed out?

You can prepare for this one, too.  And while it doesn't, necessarily, take out things in the way a solar flare or committed global EMP attack would, it is more likely to happen.

 

#1 - Yellowstone - Megavolcano.  Overdue.  Last time its cousin went, the human race got put down to a few tens of thousands of individuals from diverse populations in the millions.  Toba is smaller than Yellowstone.  Yellowstone has been rising, steadily, for decades.  It might not erupt for 100,000 years.  Or a something might touch it off so soon that nothing could be done to even analyze it, much less prepare for it.  The dust cloud will encircle the planet and while not every place will be uninhabitable, the growing seasons for the next decade might not be what one would call, uh, there.

Even if you don't get caught in the major dust cloud and have your lungs shredded by fine particulates, you will get a massive global cooling effect due to the reflected sunlight caused by the high floating particulates.  They will come down via Stokes Law, and the finest will be last.  Great for pretty sunrises and sunsets, horrible for storms and growing seasons.

Due to size and severity, and being that we are now in the zone for cyclic repetition, this tops it all as threats to the US.

There are lots of other things that can happen to us, here on Rock 3 from the star Sol, even such things as a gamma ray burst from a star that is likely to have one that is pointed like a search beacon in our direction, soft of like a gun barrel deal.  A major boloid could come sailing in from out of nowhere and make a bad time for life here, too, as the dinosaurs found out.  Really, that would suck worse than Yellowstone.  Ditto the gamma ray burst, although you wind up dead within a few minutes for that, as compared to a few hours for a boloid and up to a couple of years for Yellowstone outside of its blast radius.  These are 'known unknowns' but with a non-cyclic or non-determinative factor to them, which makes them drop far down the list.

Of those things that can be done by man, a few do raise up to the major threat level region, with the collapse of the Western Way of Life coming in at #5, and that only for the socialist, not capitalist variant of it.  Capitalism actually works, it is this 'social control of capital' deal that doesn't no matter which way you cut it.  The folks who are grey are not those pushing forward individual liberty and reward for same, no it is those pushing 'everyone gets a prize' folks.  These are grey as they show no love of human ingenuity, fortitude and the rewards due the blessings of liberty.  They prefer the despotism of reduced choices to impoverish all mankind, rather than achievement to enrich mankind.  Those grey folks in various forms of red, green and black are about to go.

And it won't be pretty.

Lets try to keep things down to #5, and make some preparations for #2-4 and get off this planet so #1 won't get us.

I'm the optimistic guy in the long run.

The short run is always pessimistic, as I can only be pleasantly surprised.