Global cooling

It's no secret that New Republicans are a skeptical bunch. No less so than when you tell us that you're mad as hell and you're not gonna take anymore. "Anymore 'what?'", we were naive enough to ask. Well, weather changes. "Damn it, enough's enough", you've cried. And the tirade then moved from being an irrational rant about controlling the weather to a non-too-subtle attack on our way of life.



We've all been harangued at least once by a pompous greener-than-thou lefty -- like a devout Christian righty berating you, but with more disdain.



What's interesting though is how many climate scientists don't agree with the hokum that is now being peddled at us from politicians and businesses as well the typical green lobby regarding the efficacy of carbon in relation to weather temperatures.



To wit, this article, in a Candian newspaper written by one R. Timothy Patterson. Highlights of the article are



"Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only
constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times,
quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher
than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as
6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years
ago, while the world was coming out of the thousand-year-long "Younger
Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100
times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset
environmentalists."



"Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the
brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies")
is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings
in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly
the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change."



"In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002,
Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have
collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and
with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic
cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and
penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud
formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the
sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly
due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated
during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from
entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms
still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More
cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds
form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to
direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the
middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar
energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots,
was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These
new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the
most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little
correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short
time scales."

"Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into
its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely
leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for
adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond
one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for
governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major
climate threat to the world."

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Stratfor goodness

For those of you who don't know about Stratfor, I am copying some of their free material below. If one were stranded alone with only a single source of information to while away the time, it would be a tough choice between Stratfor and The Economist.

Enjoy!


On Iran in Iraq...
"Iran is trying to link the nuclear issue to its dealings with the United States on Iraq as a sort of insurance policy. Iran does not want to reach an agreement on Iraq and then leave the nuclear issue to be dealt with down the road, when the United States is in a stronger position to take action against Tehran. "

..."In sum, this Iranian proposal called for a non-rushed withdrawal and relocation of U.S. troops to bases inside Iraq, a rejection of all attempts to partition Iraq, a commitment by the Sunni bloc to root out the jihadists and acknowledgement by Washington that the Iranian nuclear file cannot be uncoupled from the Iraq negotiations. In return, Iran would rein in the armed Shiite militias, revise the de-Baathification law and Iraqi Constitution to double Sunni political representation, create a policy to allow for the fair distribution of oil revenues (particularly to the Sunnis) and use its regional influence to quell crises in areas such as Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

The terms put forth by the Iranians are so close to the U.S. position on Iraq that, with little exception, they could have been printed on State Department stationary and no one would have noticed the difference. If these are the terms Washington and Tehran are in fact discussing, then we are witnessing an extraordinary turn in the Iraq war in which the U.S. and Iranian blueprints for Iraq are finally aligning. It does not surprise us, then, that Crocker said after his meeting in Baghdad that the Iranian position "was very close to our own" at the level of policy and principle. "

..."The prospect of Washington and Tehran warming up to each other, and of the United States potentially regaining its military bandwidth in the not-too-distant future, is enough to put a number of serious actors into a frenzy. With the exception of the jihadists, most of the actors in question see an Iranian-U.S. accommodation over Iraq as inevitable, and have little choice but to strive to shape what would otherwise be an imposed reality in the coming months -- leaving substantial room for error in these negotiations. The Iraqi Sunnis and Arab states, in particular, will not necessarily sabotage the talks, but they will be working to secure Sunni interests and contain the extent to which Iran emerges as the primary beneficiary of any deal it works out with the United States over Iraq. "



On Lone Wolves (i.e psychotic gunmen)...
"Perhaps the most common time that lone wolf assailants self-identify -- and the point at which they are most vulnerable to being identified before an attack -- is when they are conducting pre-operational surveillance of their potential targets; when they are stalking, in other words. Since pre-operational surveillance involves establishing patterns, potential attackers will stalk their targets several times. Thus, each time they improve the chance they will be observed, especially if the target is employing countersurveillance operations in search of such threats.

Countersurveillance -- the process of detecting and mitigating hostile surveillance -- is an important aspect of counterterrorism and security operations. Good countersurveillance is proactive, meaning it provides a means to prevent an attack from happening. This can be a group effort performed by a dedicated countersurveillance team, or it can be done by individuals who simply make the effort to be aware of their surroundings and watch for people or vehicles that seem out of place.

Lone wolves are especially vulnerable to detection during the surveillance phase because they do not have others to assist them. Conducting solo surveillance against a moving target is one of the hardest tasks any professional surveillance operative can be tasked with, and is even more difficult for an amateur. In a solo surveillance, the operative is forced to reveal himself repeatedly over time and distance, and in different environments. Also, a person unskilled in the art of surveillance, especially one who is mentally disturbed, will frequently commit many errors of demeanor. Thus, their odd behavior and crude surveillance technique -- they frequently stalk and lurk -- make them easy to pick out. "

On Environmentalism's next wave...
"With oil consumption and climate change seriously being addressed -- and nuclear power poised to make a major comeback -- the near-term future of energy policy is becoming increasingly clear. In the longer term, the key phrase will be "sustainable consumption."

For most climate change activists, this means their life's work of making the world care about greenhouse gas emissions is giving way to a technical fight over how best to cut those emissions. Meanwhile, the activists who successfully kept nuclear reactor construction at bay will be forced to regroup and look for new strategies to achieve their goals."

..."As the United States, Europe and China come to recognize, to varying degrees, the growing strategic importance of finding new energy systems, the issue has moved from the domain of small fringe groups to the mainstream. The question, then, is: If climate change and oil use really are being addressed by the major energy consumers (including the United States, of all countries), will so many people and organizations remain intently focused on "saving" the climate?

The activists who first brought the current slate of energy issues to the fore are largely responsible for developing the structural remedies that industrialized countries are now turning to in response to strategic economic, national security and environmental concerns. As new players are now discussing these issues, however, the activists see themselves increasingly outside the decision-making process. The most idealistic of the lot, those who see their position eroding and their goals being co-opted, are about to launch the next major public crusade on energy policy -- one that focuses squarely on consumption and pays little attention to issues of power generation. The result will be a global energy conservation movement that could be bigger than the movement behind climate change. It could also offer tremendous financial rewards to innovators."

..."As is almost always the case, things have not worked out perfectly for the idealists (and, as they are idealists, this is to say things have not worked out at all). So where do they go from here? Having led the public to care about climate change only to be co-opted by industry, those dedicated to the attainment of the ideal energy system are regrouping around the issue of "sustainable consumption." The term, grown out of international environmental conferences, is defined by the Sierra Club as "the use of goods and services that satisfy basic needs and improve quality of life while minimizing the use of irreplaceable natural resources and the byproducts of toxic materials, waste and pollution."

The key elements of sustainable consumption are taxing consumption, taking a life-cycle view of a product's costs and increasing individual consumers' attention to these issues. The issue is a natural follow-on to the 10-year focus on energy generation, and can build on many of the same concepts."

..."Outside of automobile fuel-efficiency standards and moves by individual corporations and institutions to save energy, conservation has been looked at as a second-tier issue compared to generation. That is now going to change."


PS -- Stratfor didn't give me a dime for the endorsement. But their analysis is so good that I recommend at least signing up for the free email updates.

More Commie Proof

From the NYT comes more evidence from a NYC exhibition about the Spanish Civil War of the left's attempt to rehabilitate Communism into a respectable ideology.

For their moral vision, the exhibition also suggests, these heroic figures paid yet another price. They were persecuted as loyal members of the Communist Party. One object here is a collection can labeled “Save a Spanish Republic Child” that belonged to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — a piece of evidence introduced against them when they were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. A vague impression is left that both the accusations and the evidence of party involvement were frivolous compared to the couple’s virtuous intentions.

"In this attempt to re-establish the civil war as a morality tale, the show is not alone. In February, for example, in The Guardian of London, the historian Eric Hobsbawm celebrated the ultimate triumph of the war’s losers and suggested that the virtues of their cause transcended Stalin’s machinations. The recent film “Pan’s Labyrinth” portrays populist forest-dwelling partisans confronting a monstrously evil fascist leader. In June, W. W. Norton is going to release the latest edition of Paul Preston’s much-hailed history, “The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge,” which blames “an unholy alliance of anarchists, Trotskyites and cold warriors” for obscuring the nature of the war against Spanish fascism. Mr. Preston goes out of his way to justify and explain the Soviet position, dismissing “revisionists” who “resuscitate the basic theses of Francoist propaganda.”

I should begin to track these pieces of evidence more thoroughly. Right now you'll have to settle for the brief dribs and drabs that I run across.

The New Communism

I'm only half facetious when I say that with extreme environmentalism comes the stifling air of communism.

Consider how closely the modern extremist environmentalists act like communists. And as I write this last sentence I pause over the word extremist, as I'm not sure that the rank and file aren't increasingly acting like the extremists of yesteryear...

Herewith, a semi-random assortment of reasons why the greens and the reds are in bed together.

1) Limits of speech and thought: Extreme environmentalism? Yep: try to deny man-made global warming. Communism: Yep.
2) Passionate belief in a sanctimonious mission: Extreme environmentalism? Yep: Save the Earth or else! Communism: Yessirre.
3) Hatred of capitalism and profits: Extreme environmentalism? Yep: ever met a pro-capitalist environmentalist? Communism: Check.
4) Distrust of individual actions, unless directed by those who know better than you how you should act: Extreme environmentalism? Yep: No more cars for you. You really want to ride the bus, don't you? Don't you? That's right. Yes, you do. You don't want to be responsible for the death of the entire planet, now do you? Communism: Yeah, it's here too.
5) Desire for some mythical world that has never empirically existed, but that is supposedly the natural state of mankind: Extreme environmentalism? Yep: The Earth was just swell 'till the coming of capitalism and its unnatural selfishness. Communism: Indeed. Funny that.
6) Affected as a status symbol by the hipster community who, as is obvious, are clearly among the world's great and good: That's a check each for the greens and the commies.
7) And finally, denial that their ideology is an ideology. Score one for the greens and one for the reds.

So just remember these little nuggets when the next wave of environmental freak-out movies hits the silver screen this year. Check out the NYT report below for details.

Environment - Movies - New York Times

More spy news

Radioactive Poison Killed Ex-Spy - washingtonpost.com

Spy news

In Canada, a Sequel to an Old Cloak-and-Dagger Story - washingtonpost.com

Iranian Media: Israel will be wiped out soon

"It must not be forgotten that the great war is ahead of us, [and it will break out] perhaps tomorrow, or in another few days, or in a few months, or even in a few years. The nation of Muslims must prepare for the great war, so as to completely wipe out the Zionist regime, and remove this cancerous growth. Like the Imam [Ayatollah] Khomeini said: 'Israel must collapse."

Oops did we Iranians just say that outloud? What we meant to say is that we love Israel. We're seeking to enrich uranium for peaceful reasons. We are certainly not trying to build a nuclear weapon. Nor are we testing our intermediate range Shahab 3 missiles as part of a divine plan to wipe out those lousy, scum-sucking... err... we meant wonderful Zionists. Additionally, we have no desire whatsoever to attach a nuclear warhead to one of our missiles and lob it into heart of downtown Tel Aviv filling the hearts of all Israelis with terror... That's just plain silly.

Academically Indoctrinated Liberals

A friend of mine wrote me an email the other day telling me she is frustrated defending America against her anti-American liberal friends (some of whom are in grad school). I haven't posted in a while so here is my response to her:

Dear [friend],

That's exactly how I feel about all the America bashing that has been going on since 9/11. Listen, don't get me wrong, I am often hyper-critical of my government and my country; however, I am not about to throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water.

As you know, American academia is no longer a place where the free exchange of ideas is promoted or even tolerated. Instead, an unwritten code of speech restrictions, group-think, and one-sided "dialogues" permeate our campuses. The danger in this is that anti-Americanism has become so accepted that other views/ideologies are taken immediately at face-value as superior to our own traditions. I saw "liberals" (I use quotations because I do not like to use terms like liberal or progressive to describe these folks--they're opposition to freethinking would make that an oxymoron) having "dialogues" with Islamic "thinkers". The inevitable result of these dialogues would be a blanket condemnation of U.S. foreign or domestic policy and a sympathetic motion of solidarity with their Muslim friends.

The academics were almost always a gathering of neo-feminists, social justice promoters, and anti-racism activists. The funny thing about this, [friend], is that these particular Muslims were Islamo-fascists of the Taliban type who were strict adherents of Wahabbism. Had the academics questioned the beliefs of their guests, they might have reconsidered their position. But, instead, there was instant acceptance of their Islamic "friends" based simply and foolishly on their opposition to U.S. policy.

In essence, the academics were offering their unwavering solidarity to men who, while soft-spoken, bearded, bespectacled, and articulate, believed in the following:

Women must walk at least 10 feet behind a man, women must be completely covered and escorted by a male relative when outside the home, women can never be educated, all Jews must die, religion is not a choice, non-Muslims in any Islamic nation are to be officially subordinate to Muslims, a man is justified for killing any female relative who brings "shame" to his house, and in some cases, the removal of a female child's clitoris at birth to prevent "shame".

Like I said, [friend], I am often critical of the U.S. That is my right and my duty. When debating with thinking people I often will point out our nation's flaws, corrupt politicians, corporate mismanagement, poor environmental stances, etc., ad nauseum. However, when I realize that I am speaking to an academically indoctrinated liberal, I don't even bother arguing anymore . Their close-mindedness and "0-60 in 2.3 seconds" jump to a state of extreme emotionally-charged agitation at any thought that runs counter to what they have been taught (that America is bad) makes it impossible to have an open and honest debate. This, I have found, is in no way different than talking to a right-wing conservative of the Christian Coalition ilk. Their ideologies are different, but at the end of the day, they are both just a bunch of walking "isms".