Proof that a new ice age has already started

Lawrence Solomon: Proof that a new ice age has already started is stronger than ever, and we couldn’t be less prepared

“The New Little Ice Age Has Started.” This is the unambiguous title of a new study from one of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions, the Russian Academy of Science’s Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg. “The average temperature around the globe will fall by about 1.5 C when we enter the deep cooling phase of the Little Ice Age, expected in the year 2060,” the study states. “The cooling phase will last for about 45-65 years, for four to six 11-year cycles of the Sun, after which on the Earth, at the beginning of the 22nd century, will begin the new, next quasi-bicentennial cycle of warming.” 

... An overheated planet has never been a threat, say climate skeptics, not today, not ever in human history. An underheated planet, in contrast, is a threat humans have repeatedly faced over the last millennium, and now we’re due again.

Fighting Harper hatred

Two outstanding columns in today's FP:

Peter Foster:  Vote against hate:

If a man is defined by his enemies, Stephen Harper still has a lot going for him in the dying days of this election campaign. On balance, he has been a good Prime Minister in trying times, and yet he drives people to frenzies of hatred, which says far more about them than him. ...

Lawrence Solomon: Judging Harper:

Stephen Harper may be the worst prime minister in memory, as many claim. Or the best. You be the judge. ...

... On energy and the environment, Harper has been a tightwad. His predecessors in both Liberal and Conservative parties subsidized the development of the tar sands. Harper phased out these subsidies.  

...money in people’s hands isn’t the only measure of well being. Canada ranks among the top 10 nations of the world in having the World’s Most Open Governments, in the Social Progress Index, in the Soft Power 30 Index, and in the World Happiness ranking, and we are the absolute top in Best Country for Business in the G20, and Best GDP growth among the G7 nations. Not surprisingly, when you put all this together, Canada landed in the #1 spot as the most respected nation in the world, based on a survey of 48,000 people around the world conducted by the Reputation Institute, which ranked 55 nations for perceived trust, admiration and respect.

These columns deserve front page exposure.

Of migrants, climate and HDS

Lawrence Solomon: Obama's migrants

Soon after being sworn in as President of the United States in 2009, Barack Obama made the historic speech in Cairo that would launch the Arab Spring the following year. Within weeks of the start of the protests, Egyptian President Mubarak was overthrown with Obama’s encouragement, leading to the takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood ...

Obama's foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster on many fronts, the M.E. refugee situation being the biggest example of the consequences so far.  He has telegraphed nothing but weakness to the world and the world's worst actors have taken note:  Russia (the Ukraine), Iran (the Godawful nuke deal, for one), China (wait for it!), ...  Too bad (for the world) that he still has over a year left as POTUS.  But when he's gone, any of the 17 Republican candidates will be a vast improvement.

Peter Foster: Climate policy refugees

 The rocky road to the federal election is running parallel to the even rockier road to the (latest) “last chance to save the world” UN climate conference in Paris. In fact, their paths are not so much running parallel as frequently colliding. Both are littered with refugees, in one case real, in the other phantasmagorical.

Profound Climate Concern – which tends to overlap with Harper Derangement Syndrome — has become a key factor in Canadian politics. It lies at the bottom of rabid opposition to further development of the oil sands and pipelines, the proliferation of subsidies for unreliable wind and solar energy, and a hotchpotch of plans to curb emissions via regulation, taxes or trading systems. All mean lost jobs and reduced GDP. Only Stephen Harper has dared to point this out, and has been roundly abused for doing so. ...

What should Greece do?

Lawrence Solomon's advice (or is it just a prediction?):

... Let’s first stipulate that Greek governments are 100 per cent responsible for borrowing money they knew they had no hope of repaying, and that they should be deemed fully culpable for their actions. Let’s also stipulate that the foreign banks and their EU enablers are 100 per cent responsible for making irresponsible loans that they knew couldn’t be repaid, and that they too should be deemed fully culpable for their misconduct.

... It has only one sensible choice — to tear up most or all of its debts and start fresh. This course, if navigated by even a half-competent government, could quickly pull Greece out of its seven-year-long depression and lead the country into prosperity....

 Let's see what they do.

Why the left hates Bibi Netanyahu

Lawrence Solomon tells us why:

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s triumph in Israel’s election this week, so shocking and appalling to the Western press, is many other things, too. ...

... recognition by Israelis of Netanyahu as the Churchill of our times
... stands apart from virtually all other Western leaders
... a repudiation by Israelis of those same Western leaders
... Netanyahu’s march to freer markets.
... Under Netanyahu’s influence ... Israel systematically began dismantling the welfare state
... sold off Israel’s interests in state enterprises, 
... abolished foreign exchange controls and otherwise liberalized the economy,
... turning Israel into an entrepreneurial marvel 
... The Western press, operating as it does from its echo chamber, likes to describe Israel as increasingly isolated in the world due to its supposed failure to make peace 
... Israel, once the darling of the Socialist Internationale, is fast becoming the darling of all but Socialist-leaning Europe, Iran and the ISIS wannabe set. 
... Two years from now, Obama will be gone, to be remembered as the worst American president in memory. Prime Minister Netanyahu will remain in power and on the world stage

That's why.

How Canada gains from Obama's loss

Lawrence Solomon counts the ways:

Number One on the Obama Can’t-Do list involves carbon taxes or other global warming measures that could set back Canada’s economy ... a prescient Prime Minister Harper tied Canada’s global warming policies to those of the United States. ... Harper — thought to be a closet climate skeptic — took a calculated risk that paid off in spades. ...

Number Two on the Obama Can’t-Do List is trade protectionism, a favourite among many Democrats including Obama ...

Number Three: Canada can also breathe a big sigh of relief that free spending Democrats are now reined in. ...Obama’s exploding of the national debt — by the time he’s done, it may have doubled to $20-trillion

Pundits are betting that Obama will finally approve Keystone ... But the pundits could be wrong. Obama has betrayed most of his constituents through broken promises ... But even chucking Keystone could now be too late for Obama. He has become such a liability to his party that few Democratic politicians have a strong allegiance to him ...

See also Peter Foster: Mr. Obama, pull down that anti-Keystone XL wall
 

Some people shouldn't vote

Lawrence Solomon:

“You owe your fellow citizens your counsel,” Andrew Coyne wrote last month, in arguing that voting should be mandatory, like jury duty or paying taxes.

On the other hand:

David Moscrop, another PhD candidate in political science in another rebuttal oped. “While you may lead a voter to the booth, you can’t make him think.”  ... “any increase in turnout that fails to generate better votes — votes that more accurately represent a good choice for the voter — is probably counter-productive.” 

... I prefer a corollary to his view, i.e., any decrease in votes that generates better votes is probably productive. Some people shouldn’t be able to cast their vote, even if they do bother to show up after being shamed or coerced.

... Let’s not continue to cheapen the vote by giving it away wholesale under the conceit that the judgment of the thoughtless is as valuable in selecting those who will guide our country as is that of the thoughtful.

Income splitting helps the poor, too

Lawrence Solomon:

Many left-leaning advocacy groups and some on the right criticize the federal government’s income-splitting proposal as sops for the rich that offer nothing to 85% of Canadian households.  To the contrary, the middle class and especially the poor would be profound beneficiaries of income splitting, along with society as a whole. ...

The family should be recognized for its fundamental role in wealth creation ...

The unsustainability of renewable energy

Lawrence Solomon:

Non-renewable energy is sustainable; renewable energy is not, not even close, not by any meaningful yardstick, not in our lifetime or in that of our children.

... Fossil fuels, in contrast, have gone from success to success for several centuries now, with no end in sight.

When governments try to impose large-scale renewable technologies, they lay waste to nature

FP's Annual Rubber Duck Awards for Junk Science

Dishonoured for contributions to Junk Science:

Rick Smith for Lifetime Achievement
... the inspiration for the Rubber Duckies, which are named in his honour. Mr. Smith, as president of Environmental Defence Canada, co-authored of a remarkable piece of junk science literature, the 2009 Slow Death by Rubber Duck.

New York Times
... the NYT has aimed much of its junk at Canada...oil sands and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline ... similar canards were regurgitated in a paranoid piece by Canadian academic and zero-growth fan Thomas Homer-Dixon ... On the double-standard beat, the paper nobly refused to reproduce the “private” Climategate emails ... but couldn’t wait to publish Wikileaks

The Ontario Medical Association
... Since 2003, the union managed to boost average doctor salaries by 75% to $385,000
... hectoring the public and policy makers on issues to which the OMA brings no particular expertise ... Bill to ban indoor tanning ... restaurant menu labeling for calories and salt ... Doctors are prescribing too many antibiotics to too many people ...

Bill Gates
... his father headed Planned Parenthood ... Gates plans to reduce the global population by 10% to 15%, or about one billion people through reforms including reproductive health (abortion) ... Gates says we need to get down to zero-carbon to spare us from global warming. ... he’s working to correct “the failure of capitalism,”

For Happiness economics
Rubber duckies to the government of France, Joseph Stiglitz, the United Nations Human Development Report and anti-growth activists everywhere ...

Well deserved awards, congratulations.

Global warming "consensus" is only in the media

Lawrence Solomon:

The overwhelming consensus on global warming among journalists may be cracking. Last week, the world’s most prestigious newsmagazine – The Economist – backed away from its past alarmist position ...

... And now the London Telegraph’s venerable Geoffrey Lean concurs, in an article entitled “Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?”

... For the journalists who are now reading this ... here is what needs to be known to cut through the scientific bafflegab and be confident as skeptics:

1. All of the scary global warming scenarios are based on computer models.

2. None of the models work.

3. There is and has been no scientific consensus.

To keep track of, and follow, the journalists who are becoming more skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, I have created a Twitter list, entitled Newly Skeptical AGW Media.

Israel - the posterchild for nixing proportional representation

Lawrence Solomon:

... Israel, which has the world’s purest system of PR — winning just 2% of the vote entitles any party to sit in parliament. ...

... coalition governments are formed through back-scratching agreements with smaller parties who join the coalition in exchange for getting their way on issues they care most about. Under PR, not only does the tail wag the dog, this dog has many tails — at least one for each coalition member....

... our PR system would be Made-in-Canada, based on Canadian values. We could then protect any Canadian minority view able to muster 2% of the vote, and then with luck leverage that 2% into a conscription of 100% of the population. ...

....The deadly dull unfactionalized politics of Canada could be transformed, with Canadians never knowing quite what would come of their votes, even after they had voted ...

 Less government with "deadly dull unfactionalized politics" is what we should be aiming for.  But academics, media pundits, the flaky fringe and other assorted political junkies keep pressing for PR.  And they'll keep pressing no matter how many times the wise voting public says "NO!".

Mr. Solomon wrote about PR a few years back.

Why does the Jewish-owned media hate Israel?

Lawrence Solomon in his NatPo piece, The Jewish press and Israel, refers to a tweet from Rupert Murdoch which asks: Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?

Naturally Murdoch got leftist blow-back:

Many in the left-wing press immediately pounced on Murdoch’s comment, claiming, as a Guardian writer did, that Murdoch had “slipped into an anti-Semitic usage.”

A CNN commentator called Murdoch’s tweet “beyond outrageous to offensive, truly offensive … reviving the old canard about Jews controlling the media.”

Solomon defends Murdoch: noting that many of the largest, most influential media outlets (including NYT, LATimes, Chicago Trib, NBC, CBS, Viacom, MTV and ABC) are a) Jewish-owned and b) anti-Israel.

Anti-Semites who believe Jewish ownership leads the press to show favouritism toward Jews haven’t been paying attention. The New York Times during the 1930s and 1940s played down the Nazi atrocities, burying stories of concentration camps and Jewish mass murders in small stories in the paper’s interior. In recent decades, the Times has been consistently anti-Israel.

... Anti-Semites looking for media coverage sympathetic to Israel would be hard-pressed to find it in the Jewish-led press (Mort Zuckerman’s New York Daily News and U.S. News and World Report being notable exceptions). The narrative the anti-Semites are most comfortable with, ironically, comes from Jews.

Climate change: "The lost debate"

Lawrence Solomon:

"... I concluded that Al Gore et al. had decisively lost the global-warming debate.

"Global temperatures had stopped climbing, hurricanes hadn’t materialized in abnormal numbers, the Arctic ice had largely recovered while the Antarctic ice had steadily grown, polar bear populations were on the increase, and on and on — in effect, every major global-warming scare had been debunked.

"... While most members of the general public by now realize that global-warming was overhyped, two groups lag behind: the large number who don’t follow the issue closely and the small number of true believers who do, but selectively and with outrage.

"... There is not a scrap of compelling evidence that points to man-made global warming representing a danger for society. The only scary “evidence” that exists, in fact, is based on computer models, none of which have been proven to work and all of which reflect the biases of the people loading in the data."

Maybe, but climate alarmism still has huge momentum in the Consensus Media and at every level of government.  The BC government web-pages are saturated with policy and regulatory references to the need for action on climate change.  Our carbon taxes have been incrementally doubled since 2009.     There may be dwindling numbers of noisy, deluded protestors but they are still plentiful and until politicians and government bureaucracies come to their senses huge amounts of money will be wasted on "climate action"  (or "LiveSmart BC", as our government likes to label it.)

James Lovelock's climate climbdown

Four years ago:



With 'Strombo' three years ago:




This week: "I was 'alarmist' about climate change" [via]

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

Lawrence Solomon: "Censored science":

"... why, when Lovelock this week recanted his past views on global warming as being “alarmist,” did virtually every major news outlet on the planet ignore his change of heart?..."

Oil sands - following the money

Lawrence Solomon:

... Big Philanthropy is the greatest environmental advocacy effort in history, of which the controversies involving Northern Gateway pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipleline, and the Tar Sands form a small part. ...

... no issue holds a candle to the #1 priority for the U.S. funders: global warming.

... If we don’t act boldly in the next decade to prevent carbon lock-in, we could lose the fight against global warming,” explains Design to Win, a major report commissioned by six funders, including the $7-billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (the Hewlett of the Hewlett-Packard Corp.), the $6-billion David and Lucile Packard Foundation (the Packard of the Hewlett-Packard corporation), the $1.6-billion Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (heiress to the American Tobacco Co. fortune), and the $900-million Joyce Foundation (lumber).

... When Americans tell us what is good for us, we rightly take the source of the advice into consideration. We should do no less when the advice comes from Canadians in the pay of Americans.

Vivian Krause: Oil sands money trail

... The thinking behind the U.S. funding of the campaign against Canadian oil is explained in a 2007 strategy paper titled Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming...

... As I see it, the campaign against Canadian oil, put on steroids by U.S. foundations, has created a negative foil, a background of bad press and fear ...

Insurance industry hyping global warming

It was front page news last Thursday:

... Canadians renewing their home insurance are likely to find their premiums have risen sharply from last year, and the Insurance Bureau of Canada says the main culprit is climate change.

... Henry Blumenthal, the chief underwriter for TD insurance, left no doubt he is a firm believer in global warming. “Not only do we believe, it’s a proven fact,” he said in an interview, adding premiums for his customers are rising 10% to 15% because of the issue. “It’s the number one headache issue the property and casualty industry is facing.” ...

“Headache” my arse, unless that’s insurance-speak for “excuse to jack up rates”. Only a complete naif could believe such hype from an industry that stands to gain billion$ from it.  On Saturday Lawrence Solomon nailed it:

... home insurance premiums — and the insurance industry’s profits — depend largely on the industry’s skill in making two types of investments: in the stock market and in marketing that scares the bejesus out of its customers.

... The insurance industry wants more money to cover its poor stock picks. And more money again to cover future global warming risks. With the government’s blessing, insurers will now jack up your home insurance premiums by 10% to 15% in the coming year.

... The insurance industry earned every dollar that it makes from global warming — its sharp-eyed marketers spotted the potential before anyone else. In 1973, Munich Re, one of the world’s largest insurers, warned that rising temperatures could result in receding glaciers and polar caps, shrinking lakes, and rising ocean temperatures, with carbon dioxide as the culprit.

... Canadian insurers like TD Insurance claim “it’s a proven fact” that climate change is driving rate increases. This is true, not because the science justifies rate increases but because government regulators and many in the public accept the claim as valid. The actual facts, from those not associated with the IPCC, say quite the opposite, and emphatically so.

... Last year, the American Meteorological Society published a peer-reviewed study that investigated insurance claims from extreme weather events. ... The conclusion: “The studies show no trends in losses … that could be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Therefore it can be concluded that anthropogenic climate change so far has not had a significant impact on losses from natural disasters.” ...

Thank you, Larry! Now, if only the insurance regulators read FP Comment and weren't in bed with insurers.

Message to PM Harper: "Defend the oilsands! Dammit!"

Lawrence Solomon:

Prime Minister Harper, it’s time to stand up for Alberta and for Canada. You and your government are allowing Canada’s oil sands to be tarred as an evil at home and abroad when they should, in fact, be seen as one of our greatest assets.

Two years ago, when Newfoundland and Canada were being vilified over another emotive issue — our seal hunt — you took our case to Europe during European Union trade talks. ...

... If a leader does speak up — as happened when Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, told Czechs that global warming is a fraud — public opinion will swing in his favour. Only 11% of Czechs now buy the global warming theory.

Mr. Harper, we didn’t hire you to duck as Canada’s reputation is trashed. We elected you to stand up for Canada.

Even in the highly unlikely event there were significant AGW, Mr. Solomon's appeal to PM Harper to defend the oil sands is still correct. There is no viable alternative to fossil fuels available and won't be for decades. Until then Canada's oil sands are an environmentally and ethically sound source of oil.

Email the Prime Minister.

Settling science

Results for CERN's CLOUD experiment have just been published.  Lawrence Solomon reports and reviews the backstory:

... The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research...

... The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory credence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials. [ie. the all too predictable "official" denial and efforts to suppress contrary evidence].

Lots more at WUWT.

See also [via FOS]:
GWPF Science News; physicsworld.com; Naturenews;  Paper abstract;  RealClimate blog post.

Radiation hysteria based on flawed assumptions

Lawrence Solomon wants everyone to "turn down the dial" on Chernobyl-style Fukushima radiation fears:

Next to Chernobyl, the Fukushima accident is the worst nuclear power calamity in history. To minimize damage in Fukushima’s aftermath, the Japanese — and all of us — need first learn the lessons of Chernobyl, whose casualties number[ing] in the hundreds of thousands ... came not from the radiation it spewed but from fear of radiation.

... Should scientists assume that there’s a threshold dose, below which radiation is held to be harmless? Or is it more prudent to assume that any dose of radiation could be harmful?

... The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation acknowledged its puzzlement in a 1958 report: “There may or may not be a threshold dose,” it wrote, explaining: “Linearity has been assumed primarily for purposes of simplicity.”

... “There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality or in non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure,” the UN reported after examining the actual mortality and morbidity statistics.

... One example involves 34,000 Swedes downwind of Chernobyl whose thyroids absorbed large doses of radioactive iodine-131. Instead of being afflicted with excess thyroid cancers, as would have been expected, they experienced a 38% decline. Another example: Epidemiological studies in Russia demonstrated that the population of the most contaminated region near Chernobyl contracted fewer cancers than Russia’s general population.

It seems there is growing evidence that low/moderate levels of radiation exposure have beneficial health/mortality effects. But it'll take a lot of effort over a long time to overcome the biases fostered by the media and others who prefer alarmism based on junk science and the flawed logic of the "precautionary principle".  Other examples of this include the Bispenol-A (Rubber Ducky) scare (and ban) and the absolute  nonsense of "no safe level" of second-hand smoke promoted by every government and cancer society on the planet.