The empty tragedy of climate suicide PR in a New York park

Pursuit of an untruth ultimately creates a vacuum.

Prominent Lawyer in Fight for Gay Rights Dies After Setting Himself on Fire in Prospect Park

Jeffrey C. Mays, NY Times

 Perhaps there was some other cause, or mental health issue and the man would have taken his life somehow, someway and left a different note. But if we take him at his word, this was a desperate end. He was chasing the impossible wisp — planetary climate control through CO2. Destined to fail, overwhelmed with the futility, he apparently saw his life as worth more dead than alive, perhaps as some inspirational saint.

Alas, true saints may sacrifice themselves for a greater cause, but they don’t issue press releases. They don’t pick the time and place.

There is a desperately hollow emptiness about trying to inspire people through suicide PR. It’s not like you want children to grow up to copy you. (The danger is — some might).

Mr. Buckel left a note in a shopping cart not far from his body and also emailed it to several news media outlets, including The New York Times.

“Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather,” he wrote in the email sent to The Times. “Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

In his note, which was received by The Times at 5:55 a.m., Mr. Buckel discussed the difficulty of improving the world even for those who make vigorous efforts to do so.

Privilege, he said, was derived from the suffering of others.

“Many who drive their own lives to help others often realize that they do not change what causes the need for their help,” Mr. Buckel wrote, adding that donating to organizations was not enough.

Noting that he was privileged with “good health to the final moment,” Mr. Buckel said he wanted his death to lead to increased action. “Honorable purpose in life invites honorable purpose in death,” he wrote.

There is no honor in choosing unnecessary death, as a kind of global billboard, only tragedy.

The one sided blind media chant painted a quandry —  the science was settled and obvious yet most of the world didn’t care, wouldn’t act, were selfish or stupid. That’s not much of a world to live for.

It is all so pointless. If wall-to-wall catastrophe reporting didn’t persuade the crowd, why would a suicide? “We’re all gonna drown, who cares? A guy killed himself with fossil fuels — time to give up the SUV and catch a train?”

It’s an empty philosophy…

h/t Scott of the Pacific, Pat.

 

9.6 out of 10 based on 67 ratings

198 comments to The empty tragedy of climate suicide PR in a New York park

  • #
    Yonniestone

    You may not agree with another persons world views at all but to have them so distraught with life they are driven commit such a final act is tragic and sad.

    If anyone is feeling or thinking their life isn’t worth anything please talk to someone who can help.

    Lifeline-13 11 14.
    Beyondblue-1300224636.

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    • #
      King Geo

      If only Mr Buckel had studied some geology units during his Law Degree, then in all likelihood he would not have taken his own life believing all that “CAGW Crap!!!” I wonder how many other lives this myth has claimed?

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      • #
        John R

        No idea how many others but here’s three more and one almost, sad…
        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Baby-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html
        Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their daughter and her toddler brother before killing themselves.

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        • #
          peter

          Dr Helen Caldicott, the Australian anti-nuclear campaigner [snip] has been a famous environmental activist for decades. Your sad story of the man, woman and two children committing suicide over global warming reminds me of the long history of activist insanity.

          35 years ago, after hearing a doomsday speech in England (Caldicott was a dramatic speaker)about the imminent end to life on Earth (sound familiar) due to a nuclear holocaust, a family of 2 adults and 2 children (children involuntary) committed suicide. Caldicott has never shown any responsibility, guilt or remorse over that tragic event.

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  • #

    I’d be wary of believing (or denying) any of this.

    May have happened as described, but a report of a charred corpse and some reportage by the NYT would not be near enough evidence for me that the event had even occurred. A park user seeing police standing by something burning not even worth reporting. A suicide note (handwritten?) and also emailed definitely not enough evidence of motive.

    As late as a year ago I would have read something like this and more or less gone along. Not any more.

    What motive am I implying for fakery? None. Would authorities and the NYT have participated in fakery if it was required? Yes. In a heartbeat. A New York heartbeat.

    Lastly, let me repeat that this event may have occurred as described. You know what they say about stopped clocks. It’s just not worth reacting without having far greater certainty than we are ever likely to be given.

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    • #
      WXcycles

      Pass the cheesy-poofs.

      /munch

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    • #
      Tom O

      I hear your message in this. It is difficult to determine truth from fake anymore. I am willing, too, to accept this as an event. I doubt that it was done for the stated reasons. There has to have been a lot more in driving his dying than driving his living.

      Either way, there are thousands of people that commit suicide every year, some for similar reasons as stated, some because like him, they see no value in their lives and living, for themselves. He obviously determined that his “contribution in life” was insignificant and fooled himself into believing that his contribution in death would be different. In truth, it won’t even come close to what he could have contributed by living.

      May his soul find peace from the hell he perceived in life.

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      • #

        It’s interesting that the MSM haven’t run with this at all. If it were a serious organised hoax CNN would be all over it with heartbroken friends shrieking political messages at Trump, interviewers/interviewees trying to tear up for cameras (but occasionally breaking into giggles), Go-Fund-Me pages, a named foundation springing up with impossible speed…

        Look, we know there was likely a body and it may have been that of the person named. Where it was incinerated and how death actually occurred remain unknown – unless one trusts the NY authorities and NYT to tell the full truth, which I don’t.

        If it really happened as described it was the result of extreme mental/emotional infirmity, not any set of beliefs. The guy should rest in peace, end of story. We who are climate skeps need to be careful of making any kind of joke or loose comment on the event, because one political use which could be made of the tragedy is to point to the callousness of so-called deniers.

        I’m still not believing or denying the story, but if this person really did end his life in this physically painful way his mental pain leading up to the act was too extreme for me to comprehend. RIP, and end of story.

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        • #
          Ian Hilliar

          You are not worried about copycat suicides, are you? Perhaps Bob brown and Richard Di Natale could hold hands while self immolating?

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “It’s just not worth reacting”

      So true. !!

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  • #
    Mary E

    USA – National hotline – 1-800-273-8255

    https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

    They have TTY, Facebook, Twitter and on-line chat as well. En Espanol ademas.

    This man sounds like he was very depressed – he had something to link his depression to, and the overwhelming amount disinformation in the media about how godawful the state of the planet is now and will be probably made him even more depressed. I mean, if I truly thought there would be no good tomorrow ever again, I might consider taking something that would let me go peacefully, in sleep – but never, not in a million years, would I consider setting myself on fire. Shudder.

    Of course the doom criers in the media won’t see this as their fault, not in any way, just as the hell-fire and damnation preachers they increasingly resemble don’t see the harm in telling people they were born to burn, in sin, forever.

    I hope the poor man is at peace now. And I hope anyone else who might be considering this sort of act think twice – once about the people who will be left to pick up the pieces, and again about just how painful most suicides are.

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    • #
      Clint

      *Higher rates of major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and substance use or dependence in lesbian and gay youth.
      *Higher rates of recurrent major depression among gay men.
      *Higher rates of anxiety, mood and substance use disorders, and suicidal thoughts among people ages 15 to 54 with same-sex partners.
      *Higher use of mental health services in men and women reporting same-sex partners.

      New data on lesbian, gay and bisexual mental health.
      Several large population-based public health studies are discussed in the November American Psychologist (Vol. 56, No. 11) by Susan Cochran, PhD, an epidemiologist in the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health

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      • #
        peter

        Clint, you appear just a little homophobic in your post. Most of those “higher rates…” could be put down to discrimination or homophobic abuse, don’t you think?

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        • #
          Clint

          Oh come now, only ‘a little, peter? How disappointing. You do yourself a disservice.

          In your enthusiasm to bandy about ‘appearance’ and ‘phobia’ you failed to notice there was no comment on my post, only the citation and published commentary of the American Psychological Association.

          You still couldn’t help or restrain yourself.

          It must be liberating to see the World so clearly through the crystal lens of ‘phobia’ or its appearance. History is packed with the corpses of consequence.

          You may not be aware that scientific studies must be able to withstand many criticisms, including those that suggest by critical analysis, extant flaws in their methodology and by extension, in the results that arise. The question one attempts to answer is whether there may be reason to suggest that the findings may have been influenced by chance, bias or confounding?

          Sometime subject to flaws (leaving aside qualitative research) is the discipline of epidemiology, and the research conducted by epidemiologists, such as Dr Susan Cochrane. Epidemiology has often been accused of being the domain of policy-based evidence, of being inclined to bask in vacant associations, and of self-promotion through the metric of relative risk (as opposed to absolute risk).

          Given the findings of Dr Susan Cochrane’s study (2002), which was undertaken within the School of Public Health, there lies a foundational assertion (contrary to the literature of the time) that there may be a requirement for greater care and resources to be focused on a theoretically disadvantaged or more vulnerable group. Since 2002 a fair time has elapsed that provides a reasonable period in which to corroborate or refute the findings of her study.

          So, one unfortunately has to ask the obvious of you, peter.
          Why would you contest Cochrane’s findings as ‘phobic’ and ignore drawing attention to the possibility that there appears a need for enhanced care and awareness in an identified vulnerable community, made as early as 2002, and more particularly since such findings were repeated elsewhere, and are now accepted today?

          Sexual Orientation and Estimates of Adult Substance Use and Mental Health: Results from the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health

          Why does the LGBT community face higher risk for substance abuse and addiction?
          The Buzz 2017—The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse’s online conversation about addiction and substance use.

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          • #
            peter

            Jesus, you didn’t comment on your 1st post Clint but sure made up for it on your 2nd. I was pointing out that discrimination confounders were probably the driver of those higher rates. I used to have a boss who was a world class epidemiologist. The experience put me off epidemiology for life. Have a nice day and take your medication. 🙂

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              This is a very complex area and I have no doubt that in the past, in Australia, people suffering with gender irregularities were given a hard time because of it.

              What would have made things harder was not knowing why they were that way.

              We are now in a position to explain, pretty much, how these gender variations are created but in terms of gifting this insight to those affected, we are still in the dark ages.

              Certainly I have never heard of a public outline of the causation of gender irregularities being given and I suspect that so called “gay” people know little more than the man in the street.

              The Gay Rights movement can take little credit here as they have simply increased tensions and mistrust in the community.

              Many societies have been able to live with gender dysphoria and accept it as part of a varied population that is normal.

              By contrast English speaking societies seem to have created a bigger mess and more conflicting interaction than was the case before the do gooders got started.

              Within each of the two main sexes there is a range of maleness and femaleness, if I can use those terms. That is the normal spectrum.

              Gender problems basically could be seen as a mismatched brain and body problem.

              Male and female brains are different and function differently so if you have a basically male brain in a body configured as female there are going to be issues. There is also the male body with a female brain.

              A disturbing thing for those affected but I suspect that very few ever get to understand the physiology involved.

              The behaviour of the left in this matter has not helped and just created a war.

              That’s probably all they wanted anyhow.

              KK

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            • #
              peter

              KK, you may be confusing same sex attraction with gender irregularities which are more appropriate to transgender or transsexual people. Most gay people are quite happy with and not confused by their gender. I’ve met very attractive feminine women who not only are happy with their gender and are totally lesbian but resist any male showing sexual interest in them. Think about it?

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Peter,

                I think that you have misinterpreted what I wrote.

                Apart from that part of it I have no problem with what you have written.

                KK

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Sorry, I should have included the bit that’s most important, the cause.
                This was outlined in a previous post some time ago.

                The brain/body mismatch occurs as a result of irregularities or disturbances to growth in the womb.

                00

    • #
      Richard S Courtney

      MaryE:

      In your fine post you say,

      This man sounds like he was very depressed – he had something to link his depression to, and the overwhelming amount disinformation in the media about how godawful the state of the planet is now and will be probably made him even more depressed.

      Yes, and it is important to remember the nature and source of the disinformation.

      Global climate continues to fluctuate naturally as it always has.

      There has been a trend of global cooling for the 10 millennia since the end of last glaciation, but the cooling has been intermittent.

      Within that 10,000 year trend of global cooling there have been shorter periods of warming which formed the Minoan, Roman, Medieval and present warm periods. The peak of each of these warm periods was cooler than its predecessor. And there were cool periods between these warm periods with the Little Ice Age (LIA) being the most recent of them.

      There has been a short period of intermittent warming from the LIA for about 300 years.

      The most recent century of the warming from the LIA had warming to the 1940s, then cooling to about 1970, then warming to about 2000, and little warming since.

      Charlatans claimed the global cooling from about 1940 was climate change caused by human activities emitting SO2 from industrial activity.

      That claim could not be sustained when the natural variation of global climate had been causing global warming for the decade to 1980, so the same charlatans and their associates morphed their claim.

      Charlatans claimed the global warming from about 1970 was climate change caused by human activities emitting CO2 from industrial activity.

      Global climate will continue to fluctuate naturally as it always has.
      The charlatans are making a living from the climate change scare so it can be anticipated that they will again change their tune to sustain the scare as global climate continues to fluctuate as it always has.

      Richard

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  • #
    • #
      Graham Richards

      Another Socialist policy goes up in smoke!

      172

    • #
      MudCrab

      If you follow the link you will find a picture of some guy with a 3rd Panzer Div symbol painted on his face.

      The wording on his sign is somewhat interesting.

      “Fight Climate Change Poverty, Injustice & Suffering”.

      Do you think he really intended this as a call to arms for all those currently unable to afford to power their own homes?

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        The Third Panzer symbol is an upside down Y with two vertical strips, yellow.

        His is definitely the Peace symbol, Green.

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          The only problem with that linkage Greg is that green is not peaceful.

          Green is fascist. Green is socialist. Fascist socialism. International fascist socialism dressed up as environmentalism.

          People who know them well, know that. The rest are just useful idiots.

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          • #
            Richard S Courtney

            Sceptical Sam:

            I am very, very sceptical of anything written by some person or bot that does not know fascism and socialism are at opposite ends of the political spectrum so are mutually incompatible.

            The subject under discussion is the sad case of once-famous lawyer whose delusions induced his suicide. Your political delusions are not pertinent.

            Richard

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            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Richard

              Please reread your history.

              National Socialism (Nazi Party) was a fascist socialist party.

              They were socialists. They were fascists.

              No bot here. Just somebody who knows their history.

              They might be Left and Right ends of your particular political spectrum; however,The reality is different.

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              • #
                Richard S Courtney

                Sceptical Sam:

                A ‘rule of thumb’ is that any country, organisation or internet troll that puts Democratic, or Socialist or sceptical in its title is not what it claims to be.

                Only fascists pretend they are not the far right but everybody else knows they are. And your trolling this thread with your far right assertions fails to smokescreen the sad facts of the deluded lawyers’s suicide.

                Richard

                19

              • #
                Graeme No.3

                Richard S. Courtney:

                NAZI in english means Nationalist SOCIALIST Workers Party. With a name like that you would understand the reaction of observers in the early thirties who thought they were Bosheviks. I thought that the idea that they were right wing originated with Stalin, who was fighting Trotsky and followers as “Left Wing Deviationists” so the NAZIs had to become “Right Wing Deviationists”.

                As for classification I suggest you use the casualty rule.
                Mao tse-tung 80 million
                Stalin 11 million (+5 million in deliberate famines)
                Hitler 12 million
                Pol Pot 2 million (limited by the size of population available)

                Pavelic (Croatia) 600,000 to 1 million.
                Franco 100,000
                The various repulsive military types in Argentina 35,000
                Pinochet et al in Chile 7,500 (although the left claims 30,000, but the first figure was from the subsequent Court of Inquiry)
                Repulsive military types in Greece (no reliable figures but considerably less than 7,500)
                Mussolini ? possibly 4000 but less likely before the German order in 1944/5.

                The Left is usually deadlier than the Right

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            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Perhaps this might help you understand it a little better rather than just accepting the simplistic notions of the ignorant.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_fascism

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              • #
                The Deplorable Vlad the Impaler

                Hi Sam,

                First, I’m with you 110%. I agree that ‘fascism’ is, or should be, considered something ‘left-wing’. As shown by the comments here, there remains some confusion.

                The 1930’s “Fascists” (where ever they were) were vehemently anti-Communist, and since Communism, or Marxist-Socialist was (and is) left-wing or totalitarian, the “opposite” of left-wing must be “right-wing”, hence the association of ‘fascism’ with ‘right-wing’.

                Second, due to this confusion, which continues to perpetuate itself, I’ve stopped calling various political/economic systems by any of their classical names (capitalist, communist, socialist, fascist, etc). To me, one is either a totalitarian (government controls everything and everyone; the economy is command-and-control) or one is not. The level of confusion, the lack of understanding of history, the amount of historical revisionism taking place, have, for all practical purposes, invalidated any of the terms which you and I had a solid understanding of. The present-day “green” or “environmentalist” system is completely totalitarian, regardless of how they achieve their goal or succeed in imposing their will upon society. Reference Alexander Tyler (previous thread).

                Once upon a time, I had a young (<20 years old) person scream at me that I was/am a Fascist; what was most interesting was that when I calmly asked this person to define Fascism, the response, haltingly, was "Capitalist". When I asked for elaboration, this individual was unable to explain further, the implications of what Fascism was or is, having been indoctrinated that anyone who is not "socialist" is a "fascist". When I suggested that this person needed to investigate further what fascism actually is, I was angrily advised that this person already knew everything they needed to know about it (h/t to MudCrab and his dissertation on the mindset of totalitarian personality).

                Keep up the good fight; I'll do what I can, but at my age, I'm limited in my opportunities to teach young people about the way things are, and were.

                Vlad

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              • #
                CC Reader

                Sam, I had the opportunity of going through the Panama Canal with a German U-Boat sailor. Being a sub sailor myself, I made a comment about all the sunken ships on the bottom. He related a story about his boat sinking three US ships in the area. Besides sharing “boat” stories, I asked him how the German people ended up putting Hitler in power. His response was that there was only two choices: Communists and Socialists so he chose the latter. Just goes to show that Communism has destroyed the world many times and many ways ;-D

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            • #
              David Smith

              Richard,
              I thought you were better than the “everyone who disagrees with me is a bot” brigade.

              While I’m here: Communism (socialism) has killed far more than the nazis ever did. Socialism sucks.

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              • #
                Richard S Courtney

                Sam and Vlad,

                You right-wing youngsters probably think you are achieving something by posting far-right propaganda from your rooms in your parents’ homes while hiding behind the cowards screen of anonymity. And you are free to promote your far-right propaganda because fascists have nothing to lose but the reputation they have earned.

                We who are old enough to have felt affects of World War 2 know why Churchill was correct to say “We will never surrender” to the fascist terror that blitzed my family’s home, and we still won’t succumb to fascist propaganda.

                Richard

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              • #
                Richard S Courtney

                David Smith,

                You are right that Sceptical Sam and Vlad the Impaler may not be bots. But they probably are, and if they are not then they are anonymous internet trolls posting the fascist Big Lie that socialism and fascism are the same thing.

                And you are just as wrong when you claim communism and socialism are the same thing. They are not.

                Richard

                09

              • #
                Annie

                Richard S Courtney. I have at times agreed with your posts but I find it very strange that you should suddenly come into this thread and start accusing some of our long-standing commenters of being bots, or, by implication, juvenile id10ts. I think an apology to Sam and Vlad would be in order.
                Annie.

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              • #
                The Deplorable Vlad the Impaler

                I find myself at a bit of a loss. It would appear that Mr. Courtney did not read the post where I explained the confusion about the various forms of totalitarian government, the same error he makes in thinking that one is the diametric opposite of the other.

                For the sake of argument, I will accept that I am a “right-winger“. As such, my belief is in small, non-meddling government, allowing the citizenry to be the best that they can be, and not interfering in the market. I do not support the idea that the government should do anything other than that which is specified in the constituting document. If the government needs to expand into some additional area, there is a mechanism in place to amend that constituting document, and it should be at the impetus (and to the benefit of) the vast majority of the population (say, nominally, over 97%).

                Any form of totalitarianism is command-and-control of the means of production; it does not matter if it might be labeled “left-wing” or “right-wing”. It is unacceptable. As far as I’m concerned, the distinction is without a difference, hence the terms approach meaninglessness.

                For Mr. Courtney’s information, my last surviving parent passed away just before the election of William Jefferson Clinton, and she was a ripe old age. And, I am a real person; the “moniker” is courtesy of one Harry TwinOtter, or as I refer to him, “Dr. DeHavilland”. After I skewered him in an exchange, he attempted to insult me by labeling me as “Vlad the Impaler”. I was honored by his attempted ad hom, and so I adopted it. Jo and her mods know who I am, where I live, and the number of years I’ve been posting here.

                I appreciate you efforts, Annie, but I do not see Mr. Courtney putting on his ‘big girl’ panties, and making any effort at disavowing his comments towards Mr. Skeptical Sam, or any one else.

                And, fer gosh sakes, we don’t even know WHAT Mr. Sam is skeptical of!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

                My regards to all,

                Vlad

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              • #
                Mark D.

                Y’all should know that Richard once admitted (here) to being a Socialist but in a “old school” version. (paraphrasing to save me endless hours searching for the quote.)

                I suppose we could cut him slack for resenting being called fascist. However I won’t cut him slack for calling regular commenters trolls, bots, etc.

                I notice that he makes no attempt at clarifying WHY fascism and socialism might be at opposite poles. Or for that matter admit that socialism and communism are a bifurcation at the left end of the spectrum.

                Annie,in this case the real troll is plainly evident.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Richard S Smith seems to have a left wing bent.

                Witness the attempt at creating a divisive situation.

                Please do not feed the troll.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Sorry…meant “Richard S Courtney”….

                Need more coffee….

                20

              • #
                Roy Hogue

                Richard Courtney,

                You used to do better than point fingers at everyone with whom you have a disagreement and assume they’re bots or trolls.

                You’re a sharp intelligent guy and I always respected you, socialist or not. And you know I disagree with socialism but still respected you. It does you no favors to go on as you’ve been doing here. Your anger — over exactly what I’m not sure — has gotten the better of you. And it hurts your reputation, something that once damaged is very hard to repair.

                If you disagree with someone, even me, state the reason and it can be debated. But the way you’re going about it forecloses debate and makes you look foolish.

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Right. Well that was interesting and very insightful. Richard Courtney has obviously not read the material provided. He’d rather adopt the age old warmist playbook of personal attack – ad hominem attack. A sure sign that he knows he’s wrong but can’t accept it.

          Nevertheless, he has provided a clue to the mechanism to better deal with the strategies adopted by the untruthful and authoritarian warmists.

          The majority of them are socialist – socialism dressed up as environmentalism – and authoritarian. Enviro-fascists. The balance are subsidy miners and rent-seekers.

          While the sceptics have time and again demonstrated why the alarmists’/warmists’ hypothesis on CAGW has failed; that the Null hypothesis prevails, it is not the facts that will win the argument.

          In the end, it seems the final outcome will be dependent on emotion.

          The warmists will only continue to maintain their position while-ever they can mask their real nature – that of fascism.

          Young people who are being brainwashed through the education systems, by the media and through other propaganda channels will quickly turn away once they appreciate that the warmist/alarmist position is a fascist one.

          That’s why we see massive push-back from the likes of Richard Courtney when that truth is pointed out. He’s senses the danger to his position. He knows fascism is an emotional lever that the enviro-fascists have to deny.

          Hence, not only do the alarmists/warmists reject the scientific findings that flow from the proper application of the scientific method, but also they reject that the history of fascism runs across all political extremes. Including environmental politics – which is essentially enviro-fascist in nature.

          That’s the emotional lever that they need to be confronted with. On all occasions.

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        Clint

        Do you think he really intended this as a call to arms for all those currently unable to afford to power their own homes?

        The power impoverished lower SE group are more likely to have damp unhealthy homes and to suffer illness and ‘excess’ death (as seen in the recent UK winter).
        This argument is used by public health doctors, epidemiologists, government and council analysts to promote and justify ever greater subsidies, further socialist wealth redistribution and drastic action on ‘climate change’.

        The Looters know only ideology. Knowledge of the scientific method or the logic of economics is unfailingly suspended by belief and or by ideology. Cognitive dissonance remains one of humanities greatest strengths and weaknesses.

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    el gordo

    Its a pity the NY Times failed to mention the extra 40,000 people who died needlessly from climate change in Britain last month.

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      sophocles

      Yes, it is a pity. The first Climate Change death.

      Christina Fugueres: 1.

      Britain is very good at industrial death. After all, it was one of the Allies in that major brouhaha in 1939-1945. It has had a lot of practice on its own citizens since 1066 although some of those deaths are, more properly, from the bacterium Yrsinia Pestis.

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      Hivemind

      More accurately from mock climate change policies. They couldn’t afford to heat their own homes anymore.

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      Clint

      Silence is Golden Green. I haven’t seen it reported anywhere in the MSM and anyone I happen to mention it to, including my aged folks in the UK have absolutely no idea.

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    TdeF

    Those people who say the world is warming, when it isn’t. The people who fiddle the temperature data. The concocted stories about polar bears. The ones who know it is a lie will sleep a little less easy. There are consequences. Then if you have no conscience, it hardly matters.

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      el gordo

      A lot of people are unconvinced by the urgency of climate change, thinking its a doddle.

      http://www.people-press.org/2018/01/25/economic-issues-decline-among-publics-policy-priorities/012518_2/

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        Tdef

        When you have heard about catastrophic global warming all your life and you are buried in snow in April, you would think there are more pressing problems.

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        TdeF

        I also note that care about the poor and needy is a much higher priority than Climate Change. Not in Australia, at least not among our political classes. The big money is in wind. AGL says so.

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          TdeF

          We, the electricity buying public, are handing $6Billion a year to others so they can buy windmills and solar panels. That is why our electricity prices have doubled. It is doing nothing for CO2 levels, so a complete waste.

          However would someone explain why Hepburn Wind is still receiving our cash handouts when they own their windmill? (ten years early and for which we paid). Why are we giving three quarters of a million dollars a year to people because they own a windmill?

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            TdeF

            That’s on top of what they earn from selling ‘free’ electricity from our windmill.

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            Sceptical Sam

            omeone explain why Hepburn Wind is still receiving our cash handouts when they own their windmill

            That’s rhetorical, right?

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              TdeF

              No. I would like to know why they get perhaps a million dollars a year for nothing. They are selling wind power. What is the logic behind handing people huge amounts of money?

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                TdeF

                This is on top of what they earn for selling their wind powered electricity for record prices.

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                TdeF

                How does this river of cash reduce CO2? They do not produce any more electricity. In fact less than in 2016. We are not paying for anything. This is absolutely wrong. Of course it explains why we are paying the world’s highest electricity prices but we are making people rich for no reason I can fathom while ripping off the poor, people who don’t earn enough to pay tax.

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    “The danger is — some might”. (Children copying.] Good point. Those who work on the front line with young people who are at risk know all about this. A couple of people have asked me to help with children who are suffering from the brainwashing they have received regarding climate that is part of the common curriculum. The deprogramming is reasonably straightforward, but the hard bit is making sure they have the dissimulation skills they will need to protect themselves from all the 10/10ers out there.

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    Robdel

    Well he died for his beliefs. Those who inculcated such beliefs are the ones responsible for his death.

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      Graeme No.3

      Or perhaps despair as he saw the increasing rejection of his beliefs? This last winter must have turned public opinion in much of the northern hemisphere against the idea of GlobalWarming©.

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      WXcycles

      We are responsible for the slop we imbibe, which includes silly baseless ideas, and their associated delusions. Everyone is individually responsible for sorting wheat from chaff. If you don’t, you’re too lazy, too gulible, what results is ultimately all of your own doing. Yes, the greenies are propaganda-peddling vermin, they got a foot in the door, but this guy had a choice, and he chose to be stupid, and to act stupid. He had a long record of feeding his own madness, and also spread his radical bent ideas to others.

      He was one of the CAGW propagandists, not just a poor ‘victim’ of them.

      You reap what you sew.

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    Colin Henderson

    Hopefully his immolation didn’t leave a “carbon footprint”

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    robert rosicka

    Why are the left so radical?

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      yarpos

      Its all they have to work with, emotions (especially fear), feelings, chanting , yelling. Sometimes it all gets away from them.

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      Sceptical Sam

      They suffered Oxygen deficiency at birth. Blame their obstetricians.

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    David Maddison

    I hope he had the foresight to purchase some carbon offset credits to compensate for the CO2 emissions from his immolation.

    Seriously though, could even the most insane warmist do this? More than likely there were other issues in his life driving him to suicide but he used “the environment” as his public excuse.

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    Ross

    Surely people who have a belief system like this have some form of mental disturbance. There is overwhelming evidence that the last 2 centuries have seen huge strides in the living standards of humanity and improvements in environmental pollution. The only thing preventing this benefit being extended to the rest of humanity still wallowing in dark ages living standards is the conscious decisions made by ideologues to deny reliable electricity and its associated benefits to those not fortunate to reside in modern societies.

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    toorightmate

    Totally and absolutely off topic, BUT
    Queensland’s debt is about to pass $80billion.
    Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what the debt might be without coal?
    The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.

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      WXcycles

      I don’t believe that figure at all, it was getting up towards $80 billion during Anna Blight’s second term, so it’s much higher now, they just hid it off-book with accounting figments. It’ll be close to $100 billion now.

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      Klem

      The public is gradually awakening to the fact that all currencies today are fiat now, they aren’t backed by anything. In other words, it doesn’t matter if the debt is $80 billion or $800 billion, the government simply pays the debt with currency created out of thin air. Money is hardly even made of paper anymore, our currencies are made of digital ones and zeros now. They don’t actually exist.

      Paying debts with non existent money, what could go wrong?

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        toorightmate

        Klem,
        The bloke who introduced this practice to the world was none other than Oh Bummer – the great money printer.

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    manalive

    Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather. Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves …

    Apparently this gentleman, a lawyer, was under the mistaken belief that CO2 at ~0.04% of the atmosphere everywhere was air “pollution”, a delusion fostered by politicians like Obama and our own Julia Gillard.

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      manalive

      Also lawyers.

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      Hasbeen

      “Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result”

      A lawyer & he couldn’t read the statistics showing an increasing life span for the worlds population. Some people will believe what they want to believe, regardless of evidence.

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        Kinky Keith

        The air in our city is now much cleaner than it was when I was a kid because of vastly improved technology in coal combustion when producing electricity.

        A sad and pointless death.

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        toorightmate

        Has been,
        He may well have been a nice guy, but don’t kick him in the guts by reminding everyone that he was a lawyer.

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      Tim Hammond

      I think he meant PMs rather than CO2. That though is also junk science.

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      CC Reader

      “Mr. Buckel left a note in a shopping cart not far from his body “. The homeless use a shopping cart to carry their earthly possessions. It is a sad thing to be as hopeless and ALONE as he was.

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    Dave in the States

    Very sad. The real tragedy was not the final act, but the delusion that brought him to it.

    He’s not the first casualty. What about the poor and the elderly that try to get through a winter with out heat because green policies have priced them out? What about the millions who might have been lifted out of general poverty and fuel poverty but green policies have consigned them to continue to struggle on? What about the millions with higher education degrees that worry about CAGW and operate needlessly under the burden of carbon foot print guilt? What about the millions that paid thousands for an education and got indoctrinated and are used as blind pawns for a political agenda instead?

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      Dave in the States

      And what about those who have had their lives and careers destroyed because they dared stand up for truth and reason, academic freedom, and civil dialog on the issue? Or about those who have been and are being punished by the process for disagreeing with the orthodoxy of the academy and administrative state?

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  • #

    I blame the partisan media. Chasing fairy stories and avoiding the truth.

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      PeterS

      Also our elected politicians and big businesses. They are all in it together because they have been successfully infiltrated by leftists who have just one goal; the downfall of Western society. You might think that’s a contradiction wrt big business but they are in it up to the eye balls because they have leaders who are just as short-sighted as the political leaders, more so in some cases. The business leaders would get the shock of their lives if they knew what will happen to them in the end. In time they will.

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      robert rosicka

      Good point Tom about the media just look at what the ABC produce for the cause and you realise they not only have no shame but truth means nothing when it comes to their ideology.

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    Don A

    Also sort of off topic … I today became aware of this Shell report from 1988. It is remarkable prescient but fails in two respects. The figures for CO2 forcing are out of date and too high according to latest estimates, and in 4.1.3 gives away the perhaps primary reason for the report. Shell has had an unfortunate experience with coal, getting into the industry and then being excluded by coal interests.
    Shell is primarily a gas company and coal is a direct competitor, and therefore a report like this will tend to restrict coal in favour of gas. An interesting read non the less.
    http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4411090-Document3.html#document/p4/a415539

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    Roy Hogue

    Tragedy though this may be I’m not moved to be sympathetic about his death. The climate madness has gone on for so long I can no longer remember when I first heard of global warming.

    I’ve been sitting here asking myself,

    How can someone come to believe so strongly in a cause supported by no evidence that it looks like a highly public and terrible death will do any good?

    And I can find only one answer. He became a zealot who could see nothing else and finally something broke and he did this horrible thing.

    We’ll never know. I hope no one follows his tragic and useless example.

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      Roy Hogue

      “I wish he hadn’t done it,” said [Adam] Aronson, who worked with Buckel at Lambda Legal from 2001 to 2006. And so do we all. And I might add, “So what?” He did it.

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        OriginalSteve

        Whats concerning me is the recent public extreme behaviour by left wing zealot types.

        Firstly youtube HQ being shot up by an animal rights advocate.

        Now this.

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    gnome

    Darwin award nominee of the year.

    Works o so many levels.

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    PeterS

    There is a pattern in all this that Jordan Peterson highlighted very clearly. It’s to do with freedom and responsibility, not equality alone. In fact equality alone is a fast way to destroy a civilisation, which is what the leftists are now pushing. The suicide in question can be viewed as a microcosm of what will happen to Western civilisation if things continue as they are.

    In the broader context he warns of the worst of history repeating itself if the West does not wake up to itself. Part of this is the rush by many businesses like Qantas letting the far left 5th column into their fold. Peterson makes that point and that they will regret it in the end. That’s the message he made when he was over here in Australia for a visit not long ago. The whole interview is worth digesting and it has many lessons and explanations. The context regarding his remark about Qantas starts at 49:30 but I stress it is worthwhile to watch all of it. It explains why we are in the mess we are in and why it will get much worse if we ignore history yet again.
    Australia’s John Anderson & Dr. Jordan B Peterson: In Conversation

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    el gordo

    Breaking Nooze

    ‘I got this notice in email from NASA about a surprise asteroid that gave us only one day of warning passing halfway between the Earth and the moon. It was the largest known asteroid to ever pass that close to Earth in observational history.’

    Anthony Watts

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      PeterS

      Must be all that CO2 clouding their telescopes.

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      TdeF

      That’s terrifying. 90,000km away from a ball 26,000km across. A 1:4 chance of hitting us. That would produce a little Climate Change. More windmills.

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    Lance

    Sane people mourn such an unnecessary death. A contemporaneous observation.

    Stalin, 1947, said “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” A political statement.

    Thoughtful people might ask why some person might choose death over life. A philosophical question.

    Hucksters on every side of the environmental issue will bandy about such a happenstance in favor of their beliefs.
    A political propaganda statement.

    Desperation is not a justification for irreversible action unless it is based upon absolute, irrefutable, fact and truth.

    Mr. Buckel’s choices were emotionally and ideologically self-directed.

    It is factual, provable, repeatable, testable and falsifiable, proofs of reality that constitute scientific fact.
    Mr Buckel’s actions were not based upon scientific facts, rather upon emotion and beliefs.

    It might be worthy to take his actions as a charge upon All to seek out factually based, provable, Truths.

    I mourn his passing and look forward to critical thinking skills that might well have prevented this event.

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    pat

    Mr. Buckel was an adult. may he rest in peace.

    however, what concerns me is the indoctrination of children with nightmare CAGW scenarios, etc.
    what damage is this doing long-term?
    time will tell:

    loads of relevant links here:

    Climate Lessons Blog: A blog sharing information about materials presented to children on climate, highlighting those intended to frighten or mislead, and those which seek to inform and inspire rather than to recruit, even the very young, for an ill-founded political campaign around the threat of CAGW. A campaign which is irresponsible, destructive, divisive, and degrading.
    https://climatelessons.blogspot.com.au/p/climate-anxiety-reports-of-frightened.html

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    MudCrab

    I read about this last night and hence have had a bit of time to think about it.

    None of my responses really seem to involve a lot of sympathy. Originally I wanted to call him an idiot for doing something so pointlessly stupid, and then selfish for willingly causing the people who would now be forced to deal with his body emotional distress.

    Then I thought about this act some more and could only think about the sort of emotional bullying and manipulation you often find in the non physical domestic abuse type relationships. The sort of people who threaten self harm as manipulative guilt trips as a form of control over others.

    Not sure. Maybe I am overthinking the situation, but I still do not feel sympathy towards him.

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    Kaiser Derden

    he couldn’t have any children to inspire … and I think his prior advocacy gives a clear picture of a depressed mental state … choosing a biologically unnatural life does that to people …

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    pat

    followup to my comment re concern for CAGW indoctrination of children. a recent piece of CAGW propaganda from Yale:

    11 Apr: Yale Program on Climate Change Communications: Americans Support Teaching Children about Global Warming
    By Abigail Cheskis, Jennifer Marlon, Xinran Wang and Anthony Leiserowitz
    Americans overwhelmingly support teaching our children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming – in all 50 states and 3,000+ counties across the nation, including Republican and Democratic strongholds.

    Despite this strong public support for climate education, there have been recent debates in several states about whether to include climate change in science education standards. These debates, fed by campaigns like the libertarian Heartland Institute’s recent mailing of lesson plans dismissing the scientific consensus that global warming is happening (LINK) to teachers across the nation, indicate that classrooms are the latest battleground over climate change science…

    MAP
    Question text: “Should schools teach our children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming?” Map shows combined responses of “Somewhat agree” and “Strongly agree” based on the statistical model described in Howe et al., 2015. Total sample (n=6001) includes data from January 2010 (n=1001); March 2016 (n=1204); November 2016 (n=1226); June 2017 (n=1266); and October 2017 (n=1304)…

    The fact that climate change is happening and human-caused is not a matter of scientific debate (LINK): many studies have examined climate scientists’ conclusions about global warming and have found scientific agreement similar to the level of consensus that smoking causes cancer (LINK)(i.e., above 95%)…

    MAP
    Many teachers, however, need training and support to implement climate change science standards in their classrooms. Recent research published in Science found that many teachers are themselves not certain about climate change. For example, only 30% of middle school and 45% of high school science teachers understand the extent of the scientific consensus. Furthermore, of the educators who do teach climate change, many suggest the cause is ambiguous or uncertain to their students, while 30% actually incorrectly teach that global warming is naturally caused. Correcting the misperception about the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and human-caused is a key educational challenge for both teachers and students…

    If you’d like to know more about how these maps were created, please see our methodology (LINK).
    http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/americans-support-teaching-children-global-warming/

    Leiserowitz is well-known, but a few excerpts re the other authors:

    Abigail Cheskis: She has also worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Head of Communications and Media Relations, the National Park Service, and George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication.

    Jennifer Marlon: Jennifer holds a PhD and MS in Geography from the University of Oregon, and a BS from the University at Albany, State University of New York

    Xinran Wang: Originally from China, she joined YPCCC in 2017 and is excited to take a quantitative approach to understand environmental communications and opinions. She incorporates predictive modeling, data mining, visualization and mapping to provide statistical input for the ongoing studies. Xinran holds an M.A. in Quantitative Method in Social Sciences from Columbia University, and a B.S. in Math from University of California, Los Angeles

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      TdeF

      Really, based on an expert study of opinions, Global Warming is real? Now that’s a new science, opinion research as a way of discovering absolute scientific truth. I suppose John Cook started it. The technique is to find a way to exclude all those who disagree with the desired position and you get consensus. Easy.

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  • #
    pat

    what a joke:

    ***RECENT efforts to politicize the reality of climate change by CAGW sceptics!

    13 Apr: Science Alert: Most Americans Want Their Kids to Learn About Climate Change, But Some States Aren’t Listening
    Evidence over ignorance.
    by CARLY CASSELLA, SCIENCE AS FACT
    Despite ***recent efforts to politicize the reality of climate change, a new study has found that across all 50 states, in both Republican and Democratic strongholds, people largely agree that climate science is a necessary subject…

    The report suggests organizations like the Heartland Institute, which has been mailing climate denial lesson plans to teachers across the nation, have been feeding these debates…

    Obviously, until teachers are brought up to speed with the latest climate facts, Americans will not be getting what they want: a science education that mirrors reality.
    The study was published by the YPCCC.
    https://www.sciencealert.com/most-americans-climate-education-schools-states-not-listening

    LinkedIn: Carly Cassella: My work has been published in The Huffington Post, Science Alert, Australian Geographic, Science As Fact and Farrago Magazine. I have a BSc in Neuroscience from the University of Melbourne, Ormond College.

    founder of Science Alert is Chris Cassella. don’t know if they are related.

    the worst exloitaton of children:

    13 Apr: Phys.org: AFP: October trial set for US kids’ climate change lawsuit
    A trial date has been set for October 29 in the case of nearly two dozen US youths suing the US government for failing to protect public resources by burning fossil fuels.
    The case, Juliana v. United States, will be heard before US District Court Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon, said a statement on Thursday from Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit group supporting the plaintiffs who range in age from 10 to 20.

    The lawsuit was first filed in 2015, during the administration of former president Barack Obama but it goes to trial under President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the global Paris Agreement on climate change and has defended coal-fired power plants…

    ***The plaintiffs include the granddaughter of renowned climate scientist James Hansen, formerly of NASA…

    They argue that the government, “through its affirmative actions in creating a national energy system that causes climate change, has violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, and has failed to protect essential public trust resources.”
    According to Julia Olson, executive director of Our Children’s Trust, the legal team is planning a series of expert depositions by late summer “so that the court can make the best informed decision in this crucial constitutional case.”
    The judge set the trial date despite attempts by the Trump administration for extra time to find rebuttal experts.
    “By setting a trial date of October 29, 2018 the court clearly recognizes the urgency of the climate crisis,” said Phil Gregory, co-lead counsel for the youth plaintiffs.

    “On October 29th climate science will finally have its day in court and the plaintiffs will be ready.”

    The youths say they want science-based action by the US government to stabilize the climate system and return atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to below 350 parts per million—they are already over 400 ppm—by the year 2100.

    To do so, the plaintiffs want the government to cut the use of fossil fuels, which spew greenhouse gases, warm the atmosphere and contribute to rising seas and climate change.
    https://phys.org/news/2018-04-october-trial-kids-climate-lawsuit.html

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      Dave in the States

      Most AGW believers I find can’t articulate the IPCC’s hypothesis. Actually, they should be taught the hypothesis-and what a hypothesis is and what a theory is. At least then it would be possible to have a rational conversation and debate on the topic. As it is now that is impossible, and confirmation bias of AGW based on mostly irrelevant information (such as hurricanes) is almost automatic.

      And none of this “co2 acts as blanket” or the “Earth is having a fever” nonsense, especially to younger children. Children before 14 years of age usually do not understand abstract concepts and do not think abstractly, so the hypothesis should only be taught beginning in high school. Teaching Scaring younger children that the planet is facing an apocalypse or that polar bears are going to become extinct is not only irresponsible, but is a form of child abuse.

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    pat

    13 Apr: TheRebel: Meet Canada’s most powerful anti-oil lobbyists: Your children’s teachers
    by Ezra Levant
    Every teacher’s kit in Canada, whether officially coming from the leftist universities, or coming right in from environmentalist lobby groups into our schools, is anti-oil, anti-industry, anti-energy.
    Go to any zoo, aquarium or museum of nature in this country — it’s a propaganda exercise. When I was a kid I used to love reading every little plaque explaining things: Facts, history. Now it’s politics — the politics of blaming and scolding and fear, instilling fear into kids that we are making things extinct by driving our cars.

    I say this because I see in the news that the University of Alberta is going to award an honorary degree, a leadership award — to David Suzuki.
    That’s who the U of A thinks reflects its values:
    People like Suzuki, who hate Alberta, its industry and people.

    Today I also saw a little story in the Edmonton Journal, about Samuel Kemble, who works in the oil patch in Edmonton.
    His daughter had a speaking role in the school play, so he wanted to be there.
    Here’s some of what he wrote on social media:

    “The school had Trickster Theatre (through a program funded by the Alberta provincial government) work with the kids to develop mini-play themes and content.
    “In the play the kids sabotaged a factory in the name of climate change and then went on to save Alberta from its “evil oil industry” and “greedy oil barons”.
    “Exactly what I want my daughter to be taught… to be an uninformed eco-terrorist.”…
    https://www.therebel.media/ezra_levant_show_april_13_2018

    followup:

    15 Apr: TheRebel: Anti-oil teachers indoctrinate Alberta children
    by Ezra Levant
    VIDEO: 2mins12secs
    On Friday’s show, I reported on a father in Edmonton who reported on a play at his grade 4 daughter’s elementary school about children sabotaging a factory in the name of “climate change” and saving Alberta from “greedy oil barons”.
    The play was organized by a Trickster Theatre through a program funded by the Rachel Notley’s NDP government, meaning blue collar Albertans and “greedy oil barons” were forced to fund this propaganda…
    WATCH my video to read the statement by father and to see how Trickster Theatre and the school board responded to his concerns.
    https://www.therebel.media/anti_oil_actors_indoctrinate_alberta_children

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      pat

      Levant says “Go to any zoo, aquarium or museum of nature in this country (Canada) — it’s a propaganda exercise.”
      no different in the US:

      10 Apr: WNPR Public Radio Connecticut: How The New England Aquarium Seeks To Urge Visitors To Act On Climate Change
      By Benjamin Swasey; WBUR’s Bob Shaffer contributed reporting.
      (This report comes from the New England News Collaborative, eight public media companies coming together to tell the story of a changing region, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting)
      The irony was hard to miss.
      The Aquarium MBTA station was closed due to flooding, and the aquarium itself, nearby on Boston’s Central Wharf, was closed out of caution for its visitors.
      The early March nor’easter and near-record high tides pushed floodwaters into the state’s low-lying coastal areas — in Boston, and in places like Quincy and Scituate — raising questions about the region’s climate preparedness, and offering a vivid glimpse of the havoc higher sea levels and more severe storms are likely to bring.

      Meanwhile, inside the New England Aquarium (NEAQ) itself, climate change is a central aspect of the programming. In recent years, the aquarium has increased its focus on climate change education, using research-tested language to speak directly about the issue. And it urges visitors to take up the cause of emissions reductions.

      The focus was evident on a recent weekday morning, as children and their parents ringed the top of the NEAQ’s giant ocean tank. They gathered to hear a talk from Lindsay Jordan, a senior visitor education specialist…

      A massive 90-year-old green sea turtle named Myrtle floated to the surface and Jordan soon pivoted to climate change, citing an alarming trend: Sea turtles’ sex, she said, is determined by temperature, and with warmer sand around the eggs, the vast majority in Florida are hatching as female.
      “The good news is, we know exactly what’s causing this,” Jordan told visitors. “It’s things and choices we make every single day. Most of the energy that we consume in this country is produced by burning fossil fuels like coal and oil and gas.”
      Burning fuels creates carbon dioxide, which creates, she put it, “a blanket that traps our Earth’s heat.” Jordan said it’s a “simple mechanism” with the simple solution of limiting the burning of fossil fuels. VIDEO

      Then Jordan pushed the message more explicitly, encouraging those in attendance to seek out community-wide efforts at fossil fuel reduction and to “use your power as citizens to vote for people and for policies that support renewable energy.”

      The audience may not have been rapt — many children especially were clearly focused on the marine life down below — but, Jordan said, “if [visitors] can leave here and continue thinking about the issue, then we’re on the right track.”…

      Community Goals, Not Individual Actions
      The NEAQ’s climate education efforts stretch back about a decade, when it joined with fellow institutions — like zoos and museums — to form a network of informal science educators.

      ***Boosted by millions in federal grant money, the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI) is now working in 170 institutions in 38 states (and developing a more diversified funding model).

      NNOCCI’s goal is to train educators who will increase public discourse about climate change, and to do it in a way that’s solutions-oriented and civic-minded…

      NNOCCI-trained educators pay particular attention to certain communication strategies (LINK), though, as The New York Times has reported, some institutions may be more subtle or cautious in their messaging…

      The growing education effort at local institutions is occurring as the term “climate change” is being stripped from some federal government planning documents…
      Poll after poll reveal a wide partisan split on concern about climate change — and research has shown that people often follow their partisan leaders’ viewpoints on certain issues.

      In addition, Spitzer says visitors to aquariums and zoos are often predisposed to learn about climate change. Jordan says that in her eight years at the NEAQ — in liberal Boston, of course — she can recall only a few times in which people have come up to her wanting to debate the issue.

      So the audience may be somewhat self-selecting. But Spitzer and Jordan point to survey data, from 2010, showing that museums, zoos and aquariums are among the most trusted sources of information about global warming. And Spitzer says about 60 percent of the U.S. population attends museums, zoos and aquariums.
      “We look at it and say, ‘Hey, if we can influence 60 percent of the population, that’s pretty darn good,'” he said…

      There’s also teacher training, an exhibit on the wall of the aquarium’s first floor and hands-on educational activities. In one, kids have to identify what things emit carbon dioxide, and which things absorb them.
      And the NEAQ’s new CEO — named just last week — told WBUR she wants to expand the aquarium’s climate change research and awareness efforts…

      Several mothers at the aquarium with their kids that day said the inclusion of the climate change messaging was a pleasant surprise, but they admitted it’s a second-tier issue for them, as voters and citizens.
      http://wnpr.org/post/how-new-england-aquarium-seeks-urge-visitors-act-climate-change

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      WXcycles

      You can imagine the insanity they’ll be teaching them at University, in ten years time.

      But then again, they are responsible for what they think, and do, when they’ve killed someone’s Dad—for nothing at all.

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    Rick

    Contrary to some other commenters, I don’t see this as a tragedy, but rather as step in the right direction. The more of those deranged and single-minded bullies from the climate change religion who die young or at their own hands, the better.
    Good riddance, I say.

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    Rick

    Contrary to some other commenters, I don’t see this as a tragedy, but rather as step in the right direction. The more of those deranged and single-minded bullies from the climate change religion who die young or at their own hands, the better.
    Good riddance, I say.

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      yarpos

      Most are very well endowed with self love and self interest and would never go down that road. This guy had his own set of problems.

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    pat

    16 Apr: ScoopNZ: Greenpeace Press Release: Greenpeace trial witnesses confirmed
    Former President and NASA scientist confirmed as witnesses in Greenpeace trial
    A world authority on climate science has told the New Zealand Government they’re “planning to put the wrong people on trial” for an offshore oil exploration protest.

    Former NASA scientist, Dr James Hansen, has been confirmed as a key witness in a landmark trial following Greenpeace action against the world’s biggest oil exploration ship. The trial comes hot on the heels of New Zealand making international headlines on Thursday for leadership on climate change by banning all new offshore oil exploration.

    The case was launched by the previous National Government in April last year after Greenpeace New Zealand Executive Director Dr Russel Norman, and volunteer Sara Howell, swam in front of the Amazon Warrior 60 nautical miles at sea, forcing it to stop seismic blasting for the day.
    They took action to stop the ship from searching for oil and gas on behalf of Statoil, Chevron, and OMV…

    Hansen says burning fossil fuels has driven the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere “well into the danger zone”.
    “I understand that Russel Norman and Sara Howell were trying to draw attention to the increasingly dire consequences that business as usual imposes on their nation. Generally speaking, people should not need to swim in front of massive oil exploration [vessels]. But, with all due respect to the relevant authorities, I think they are planning to put the wrong people on trial,” he says.

    The President of Kiribati from 2003 to 2016, Anote Tong, has also been confirmed as a key witness for Greenpeace in the trial. Professor James Renwick, of Victoria University, is another witness.

    Greenpeace, Norman, and Howell, have been charged by the oil division of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), under the 2013 Amendment to the Crown Minerals Act known as the ‘Anadarko Amendment’. It’s the first time anyone in New Zealand has been charged under the controversial legislation introduced by the now National Party leader, Simon Bridges. The trial is set down for two weeks from April 30.

    Hansen says it’s never been more urgent to tackle climate change.
    “The special tragedy in this is that it is our children and their children who will suffer most,” he says.
    “Concerted action, if begun without further delay, still could mitigate the damage and arrest the rising seas. These facts, I believe, were long known to Statoil and Chevron, yet they persist in their truly criminal enterprise – seeking to tap every last reserve.
    “The deep waters off the Wairarapa Coast, as elsewhere, should be placed off limits as society weans itself nearly entirely off fossil fuels.”

    The Crown will be relying on evidence from private investigators, Thompson and Clark, during the trial. The spy agency has recently been at the centre of controversy after news broke that state insurer, Southern Response, had hired Thompson and Clark to spy on Christchurch residents over earthquake claims.

    Further Official Information Act requests revealed that government department, MBIE, also had a close relationship with the agency and received information from it while it was undertaking a significant surveillance operation on Greenpeace, paid for by oil companies including Statoil. The State Services Commission is now investigating.
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1804/S00166/greenpeace-trial-witnesses-confirmed.htm

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    “A man has a right to die however he wants to.” –Robert A. Heinlein, Time for the Stars.
    Then again… I recognize this particular version of guerrilla theater from other ideological confrontations–in Southeast Asia…

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    Mark M

    The case for reason

    So just how can one face his or her fears, but avoid the potential danger of cult-like groups?

    In a word: rationality.

    Sigmund Freud, in his 1927 text “The Future of an Illusion,” argued that religion was a mere mental trick constructed to comfort believers and help them overcome insecurities – even though their acceptance of dogma was irrational.

    His solution?

    Replace religion (or, in the present case, cults) with rational guides for living that deal with problems directly.

    Are you anxious about your appearance? Eat healthy and exercise regularly.

    Stressed about relationship problems? Talk directly to your partner in a clear and honest manner to arrive at mutually agreed-upon resolutions.

    https://theconversation.com/how-cult-leaders-like-charles-manson-exploit-a-basic-psychological-need-57101

    ~~~~

    In this case, if concerned about carbon (sic) products, don’t use them.

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    Dean

    Urges people to stop being so selfish, then commits possibly the ultimate in selfish acts.

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      Sceptical Sam

      Par for the course with the green enviro-fascists.

      Gore, Flannery, Pachauri, Cousins, Steffen, Hansen, Mann and all the rest of the hypocrites.

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    Lawrie

    Just proves what most of us already know; lawyers know absolutely nothing about science. That probably explains why a parliament full of lawyers continues with the global warming BS.

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    gbees

    Ironic that his last act is to pollute the area with carbon.

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    Amber

    Despite difference of opinion it is a sad tragic end
    for anyone .
    There is still a lot of good in this world but unfortunately
    the differences are swamping the boat more often than not .
    Sincere condolences to Mr. Buckel’s family and friends .

    The misinformation by news outlets and rent seekers doesn’t help .

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    Annie

    Sad as it is, essentially it boils down to moral blackmail.

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    Kratoklastes

    Far more likely explanation: long term use of prescription psychotropics.

    SJW types are over-represented in consumption of psychotropic cocktails.

    This is because they buy whole-heartedly into two tropes that have been pounded into the public consciousness (particularly in the US): first, the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory of mental illness; second, the notion that feeling even slightly sad about anything ever constitutes ‘depression’.

    One of the most common side-effects of long-term use of anti-depressants, anxiolytics and SSRIs, is suicidal ideation; couple that with akathisia-induced impulsivity (another common side effect) and you have a recipe for people offing themselves.

    I’ve said this before: read Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic”. It’s harrowing; it lays out the problems associated with the modenr widespread use of psychotropics, and – what’s worse – that these problems have been known about for three decades… and that pharmaceutical companies deliberately structure their studies to bias outcomes in favour of their drugs.

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    Interesting! One kills self, several others are born, smiling at momma who offers hugs and new dry diapers, Grinn! OTOH human\earthlings band together to worry and fret about anything\everything! Beth’s Mad Hatter comes to mind; “You must be mad, else you would not be here”! What if GOD carefully arranged such? 🙂
    All the best!-will-

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      Kinky Keith

      Yes.

      Life is confusing.

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      Mark D.

      I suppose that legalized abortion has spared us from a percentage of these kind of tragic suicides.

      Weird huh?

      Or is that irony..

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      Kinky Keith Apr16,18:22:42

      Yes.Life is confusing.

      Perhaps intentionally! Some actually claim to know; which only indicates IGNORANCE, (lack of careful observation).
      Mark D. Apr17,18:13:07

      I suppose that legalized abortion has spared us from a percentage of these kind of tragic suicides. Weird huh? Or is that irony..

      Why not clinical madness (insanity). I think, therefor I am! But why here\ now, rather than else where\when?
      All the best!-will-

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    Fox from Melbourne

    One does wonder with such a high suicide rate especially among teens just how many of are much loved children have already taken their own lives in some small part because of all this leftie green, the world is dying and its your fault propaganda. We’re killing the planet stuff their learning. Don’t these idiots know that the world is actually a rock? It’s not alive, just like the moon.
    Although my heart does feel for the family and friends of this man, I ask what about the children. The ones we have left and the ones we have already lost.

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      Kinky Keith

      Those Children, quite mysteriously, do not appear in any political agenda and are totally put out of sight by politicians.

      It is no wonder that children become lost and confused when all they hear and see about them is the ceaseless hunt to act out victimhood and demand government support.

      So negative.

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    ‘Wage, wage war against
    the lying and the fright.’
    Miracle and mystery of
    chemistry and life.

    ‘The story of a carbon atom.’
    https://www3.nd.edu/~skandel/CHEM10101/Main_Page_files/primo_levi_carbon_excerpt.pdf

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      beththeserf Apr16,18:19:05‘

      Wage, wage war against the lying and the fright.’Miracle and mystery of chemistry and life.‘The story of a carbon atom.’

      Indeed! we know not of lovely salacious carbon atom/s. With graphene two atoms thick imagine what goes on between da sheets. Knowledge is not, speculation is rampant! Yust imagine turnips wid graphene diapers. 🙂

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    RAH

    At least Jo made it clear in her headline as to the motivation. To read the headlines on this story from every news source I’ve seen in the US one would have thought the guy self-immolated protesting something to do with LGBT. Just like the NYT quoted: Prominent Lawyer in Fight for Gay Rights Dies After Setting Himself on Fire in Prospect Park.

    It is not a tragedy in my book. I’m just glad the guy did it in a way where there would be no guilt involved for others as a result of the method. I know two drivers that have struck and killed people in situations were it was officially determined to have been a suicide. Both were effected for life by the experience. So good on this guy for not laying his pain off on others in that way.

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    wert

    Sorry, the guy didn’t make it to the local news. What was his name again? Some loony lawyer who complained he got too little money to implement his dream?

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    pat

    NYT finds a Trump angle, with Pruitt thrown in for good measure:

    15 Apr: NYT: He Called Out Sick, Then Apologized for Leaving This World
    By Liz Robbins and Jan Ransom; Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Kerry Wills contributed reporting
    Domingo Morales was not initially concerned when he got a text message from his mentor, David S. Buckel, at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, calling out sick.
    Twenty-five minutes, later, Mr. Buckel sent him an email: “I apologize for leaving this world early and leaving you with some big challenges to tackle. But I have to at least try to make this planet a better place for having lived on it.”…
    Mr. Morales, 26, did not see the email until he finished work on Saturday, where, for five days a week for the last three years, Mr. Buckel was his patient teacher…

    ***His family and friends acknowledged that Mr. Buckel had become distraught recently over the national politics of climate change — “all that’s going on with the Trump administration and the rollback by Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency,” Mr. Kaelber (Buckel’s partner of nearly 34 years) said, referring to agency’s embattled administrator, Scott Pruitt…

    In retrospect, Mr. Morales said he knew Mr. Buckel had been upset as recently as February when he began discussing articles about the environment, for instance one about how 96 percent of human beings breathe polluted air and another about the Arctic Circle experiencing record breaking temperatures…READ ON
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/nyregion/david-buckel-brooklyn.html

    shameless, but no more so than New Yorker last year, with this lengthy ode to another “climate martyr”!?

    26 Jan 2017: New Yorker: The Tragic Death of Mark Baumer, a Prolific Poet and Environmental Activist for the Social-Media Age
    By Anna Heyward
    For his latest protest, begun in October, 2016, he set out walking across the country again, this time barefoot, from the East Coast to the West, to build awareness of climate change and water shortages, and to raise funds for a Providence-based environmental group. At about 1:15 P.M. last Saturday, Baumer was walking westward along the shoulder of Highway 90 in Walton County, Florida, when he was struck by an S.U.V. and killed. He was wearing a high-visibility vest at the time, and walking against the traffic, in accordance with safety conventions. (The Florida Highway Patrol has said that the driver will face charges.)…

    He wanted to go through Kentucky, but in Ohio the weather turned icy and walking barefoot became impossible, not because of the snow but because the calcium-chloride de-icing salts that were sprinkled on the concrete cut his feet. So he veered south, taking a bus to Florida to find a matching lateral point, and continued his walk…

    ***Since November 9th, many Americans have been searching for ways to incorporate political activism into their everyday lives, to get out of the echo chambers that keep them among only like-minded people. Baumer was an eccentric model for both, someone for whom activism was both a life style and a form of self-expression…

    Baumer had just completed his hundredth day on foot, on January 21st, when he broadcast his final video, from DeFuniak Springs, Florida. It is made in his slightly maniacal style of time-lapse collage, joining seconds-long clips of his day to form a three-minute video. He shoots the patch of Astro-Turf he had slept on the night before, yells commentary at two men playing golf on the other side of a railroad track.

    ***When it starts raining, he debates whether to keep walking, then pulls on a plastic hood, looks at the camera, and says, “We have a President who does not believe in climate change.” As his monologue continues, he passes a Trump supporter on the other side of the road, who yells at him. He finds a cassette on the road, passes an imitation Bel Air mansion in the middle of a field. The video cuts out unexpectedly just as he starts screaming, though it’s not clear at whom. It’s nighttime; his hair looks damp, and his high-visibility vest reflects right back into his phone’s camera. THE END
    https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-tragic-death-of-mark-baumer-a-prolific-poet-and-environmental-activist-for-the-social-media-age

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    Andrew McRae

    I’ve checked and I don’t think any of you linked to this story earlier last week…

    Historical weather records collected by NSW farmer to be used in new climate modelling
    Meticulous weather records taken by a NSW man between 1877 and 1922 have been digitised thanks to the efforts of people around the world, and will be used to help fill a gap in weather knowledge.
    The data was recorded by Algernon Henry Belfield on his farm, Eversleigh, near Armidale in northern NSW.

    Just one site doesn’t extend our understanding of climate. Also one has to wonder if this was a “well-sited” station.
    But still it is more pre-BOM data. Would still be interesting to compare the trends of 1880s with the Armidale of the 2000s.
    The original scans are here, but no idea where to get the digitised files.

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      TdeF

      It’s appalling that the BOM formed at Federation was entrusted with all the records of the States and to this day has done nothing to make them available. How can the BOM or the CSIRO have an opinion on Climate Change and the country is forced to use the records of s single farmer? This is also for 1/3 of the planet as only 2% of the world’ population live below that latitude.

      Why didn’t the 350 full time Climate Change scientists of the CSIRO take the time to examine these records? I suppose they were too busy investigating Climate Change.

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        el gordo

        BoM has an opinion and they are on song.

        ‘Dr Trewin and Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said this year’s autumn heatwave is consistent with climate change.

        “The influence of climate change is that it shifts beyond,” Dr Trewin said.

        “So that the types of events you might have seen once in 50 or 100 years in the climate of the mid 20th century, you might see once in 5 years or once in 10 years in what we have now.”

        – ABC

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        Here on the midcoast of NSW we’ve had the mother of all scorcher Aprils…in 1914. March of the following year, 1915, proved hotter than nearly all summer months in a hundred+ yr record. Not that March 1913 was any walk in the park, as it also topped most summer readings by mean max. Ah, those autumns of WW1…

        Fortunately, that was long before climate change (“climate change” being a very precise scientific term, of course, despite its resemblance to a plain English term with the nebulous meaning, “change of climate”).

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    Richard Ilfeld

    Martyrdom, if true, is another indication the cause has become a religion.
    War and religion are the only places we glorify death, elsewhere, though inevitable,
    it is lamented; the younger and/or more productive the greater the public tragedy.
    In the skeptics universe, we assume insanity, and don’t see the honor and meaning the
    true believers do. But even crazy people have friends and family. There is plenty of
    craziness in the climate world to argue about; I’m inclined to let this one pass, and simply
    fell saddened if any on the other side of the argument need to raise it for PR gain.
    I can wish, on a personal level, that this fellow had found redemption rather than extinction,
    for there is a basic humanity we all share. Good people can harbor bad ideas, and we’re not perfect ourselves.

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    pat

    16 Apr: Reuters: Storms unleash tornadoes in U.S. east, record snow in Midwest
    By Rich McKay; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Andrew Hay in Taos, N.M.; Editing by Adrian Croft and Peter Cooney
    ATLANTA – Deadly slow-moving storms generated record or near-record snowfall and low temperatures in the U.S. Midwest and tornadoes further east on Sunday, leaving airline travelers stranded and thousands without power.
    In Michigan, where snowfall was expected to reach 18 inches (46 cm) in some areas, about 310,000 homes and businesses were without power because of an ice storm, most of them in the southeast of the state.

    Large areas of Detroit were without power and customers were not expected to have it back on Sunday night, utility DTE Energy said. It was working to have 90 percent of outages restored by Tuesday, DTE spokeswoman Carly Getz said in a statement.
    The weight of ice on power lines, coupled with high winds, caused more than 1,000 power lines to fall in Detroit and Wayne County, DTE said.

    The worst of the snow was focused on the upper Great Lakes, with Green Bay, Wisconsin, seeing its second largest snowstorm ever after 23.2 inches (60 cm) fell as of Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
    For the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, the April monthly record for snowfall of 21.8 inches (55 cm) was surpassed on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.
    The storms stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest and were moving into the Northeast and New England.

    Record low temperatures for the date were expected in Oklahoma City on Monday at 30 degrees F (-1 C), and in Kansas City, Missouri, at 25 F (-4 C), Hurley said…
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/storms-unleash-tornadoes-u-east-record-snow-midwest-043449640–finance.html

    15 Apr: CBS Minnesota: Snowstorm Causes Sports Center Dome In Vadnais Heights To Collapse
    MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The weekend’s record-breaking snowstorm caused a sports dome in the north metro to collapse.
    The Vadnais Heights Sports Center dome collapsed Saturday night due to the weight of freezing rain and heavy, wet snow, according to a Facebook post by the North East United Soccer Club.
    Repairs to the center, which seats nearly 2,000 spectators, are expected to take months.

    The weekend snowstorm dumped nearly 15 inches at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, setting a record for the largest April snowstorm in the metro.
    http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/04/15/vadnais-heights-sports-center-dome-collapse/

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    Andrew

    All Greens are mentally ill. This is a dog-bites-man story.

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    Whalehunt Fun

    Dear Mr Buckle, You did a good thing. You made me laugh.

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    pat

    16 Apr: Miami Herald: Kids are suing Gov. Rick Scott to force Florida to take action on climate change
    By Alex Harris
    Florida Gov. Rick Scott doesn’t talk about climate change.
    He notoriously declared “I’m not a scientist” when asked his thoughts on humanity’s well-documented impact on the warming planet, banned the phrase in his administration (a charge he denies) and backed up President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord.

    On Monday, an unusual group intends to sue Scott for ignoring the climate threat: Kids.
    Seven young Florida residents — the youngest is 10, the oldest is 20, and one is a University of Miami marine science student— are the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to force a state extremely vulnerable to climate-driven sea rise to start work on a court-ordered, science-based “Climate Recovery Plan.”…

    The group is represented by Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based organization sponsoring similar suits from children around the country at the state and federal level. The original case, Juliana vs. United States, was filed in 2015 against the federal government and goes to trial in October.

    Delaney Reynolds, an 18-year-old who attends UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said she contacted the group when she heard about the case against the federal government and found the organization was already planning one against Florida. She agreed to join six other plaintiffs, including 10-year-old Levi Draheim.

    Even at a young age, Reynolds is a veteran of climate activism. She she started Sink or Swim, a climate education initiative, in 10th grade as a class project. She’s since made her name by helping draft South Miami’s initiative mandating solar panels on all new construction homes and serving as the only teen on the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Committee for Miami-Dade County.

    There is no dispute that Florida, particularly the low-lying southern tip, is at growing risk from climate change. Miami Beach, which has seen worsening seasonal flooding, has already spent $200 million to keep its streets dry. Those high tides aren’t going to get to smaller..
    It goes beyond seas-rise as well…READ ON
    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article208967284.html

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    pat

    aha…the elites are the CAGW sceptics:

    16 Apr: MIT Technology Review: How the science of persuasion could change the politics of climate change
    Conservatives have to make the case to conservatives, and a growing number of them are.
    by James Temple
    (I am the senior editor for energy at MIT Technology Review. I’m focused on renewable energy and the use of technology to combat climate change. Previously, I was a senior director at the Verge, deputy managing editor at Recode, and columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle)

    Jerry Taylor believes he can change the minds of conservative climate skeptics. After all, he helped plant the doubts for many in the first place.
    Taylor spent years as a professional climate denier at the Cato Institute, arguing against climate science, regulations, and treaties in op-eds, speeches, and media appearances. But his perspective slowly began to change around the turn of the century, driven by the arguments of several economists and legal scholars laying out the long-tail risks of global warming.

    Now he’s president of the Niskanen Center, a libertarian-leaning Washington, DC, think tank he founded in 2014. He and his colleagues there are trying to build support for the passage of an aggressive federal carbon tax, through discussions with Washington insiders, with a particular focus on Republican legislators and their staff.

    The Niskanen Center is part of a small but growing contingent of fiscal conservatives and corporate interests arguing for similar policies in the United States. They include party elders like former secretary of state George Shultz, energy giants like Exxon Mobil, and nearly two dozen college Republican groups. Taylor and others believe it’s conversations like these—with political elites, and focused on policies they can justify in conservative terms—that could eventually lead to real action on climate change…

    In fact, political predisposition is by far the most influential factor in determining a person’s “perceptions and attitudes about climate change,” noted Mullin and Patrick Egan, an associate professor of politics at New York University, in a 2017 analysis in the Annual Review of Political Science…
    Partisan divides emerge first among “elites,” including influential advocacy groups, high-profile commentators, and politicians, says Megan Mullin, an associate professor of environmental politics at Duke University…

    In many ways, the climate-change debate is ensnared in the culture wars that have consumed US politics over the last three decades.
    “Positions on climate change have become symbols of whose side you are on in a cultural conflict divorced from science,” Dan Kahan, a Yale professor of law and psychology who has closely studied this issue, has said…

    The real focus shouldn’t be on convincing the public, hitting people over the head again and again with the science and dangers of climate change.
    Instead, the goal should be to change the minds of the elites…

    Climate groups could seize on other areas of common interest with conservatives—some of which even the Trump administration has expressed support for, like advanced nuclear power and long-distance transmission lines…READ ON
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610719/how-the-science-of-persuasion-could-change-the-politics-of-climate-change/

    15 Apr: Globe&Mail: ‘We have to go to carbon-free electricity’: James Hansen on how world leaders can effectively take on climate change
    by Ivan Semeniuk
    Q: What course do you recommend?

    Hanson: We have to go to carbon-free electricity. That’s the fundamental requirement. If we could get all of our electricity carbon-free, we could solve the problem. And we probably can’t do that without the help of nuclear power…

    Q: Isn’t that a problem for the green movement?

    Hanson: That’s the other group I am critical of: environmental groups that are unrealistic. It’s created a fear of nuclear power to the point that it has become difficult for these groups to turn around and say we may have to look at that and see if we can’t make it safe…

    Q: What is your message to environmentalists?

    Hanson: We have to put a price on carbon in a simple way and if we did that it would give an honest chance to all the carbon-free alternatives. But I’m finding that the environmental groups don’t want to let that happen. They want to subsidize their favourites, which is solar panels and windmills. What that does is lock in gas because of the intermittency of renewables.

    Q: What is your reaction to the United States pulling out of the Paris climate agreement?

    Hanson: Paris is basically a fraud. It’s just wishful thinking. They’re trying to tell every country you should do the best you can but it has essentially no effect. I don’t think the U.S. pulling out has mattered much. It may be that the planet ends up depending on China. They have 300-million people living near sea level and that may cause them to take some action…ETC

    James Hansen speaks at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on Monday, April 16 at 7 p.m.
    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-we-have-to-go-to-carbon-free-electricity-james-hansen-on-how-world/

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      TdeF

      James Temple. Bachelor of Science, Journalism, Magazine Sequence , Ohio State 1993-97.
      Now what does that mean, a BSc in Journalism?

      Then nine years as a real estate reporter until he discovered technology reporting. Now he is an expert.

      There is nothing you cannot do with a Science degree in Journalism. Now “senior editor for energy at MIT Technology Review”, a magazine published by MIT. No idea about chemistry, science, energy. Should be able to find a cheap apartment for you.

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        TdeF

        As Tim Flannery and Michael Mann discovered, in the wonderful world of Climate Change, a Science degree makes you an expert in everything and there are such great jobs in Climate.

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    Richard Ilfeld

    “There is no dispute that Florida, particularly the low-lying southern tip, is at growing risk from climate change. Miami Beach, which has seen worsening seasonal flooding, has already spent $200 million to keep its streets dry. Those high tides aren’t going to get to smaller..”
    Well, if you build 3 or 4 feet above the mean high tide line, in an area where storm surges routinely top four to six, and far more in hurricanes, you might see some water now and then. Florida, like most of the country, is at growing risk from political malfeasance.
    The code says minimum 13 feet above mean sea level. Most of south Florida is grandfathered in or non-complying. Rise of 8″ in 60 years brings misery if you were already flooding before the rise, in a city carved out of a swamp.

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      RAH

      They were street fishing during King Tides in Miami back in the 1920’s! Fact is over half of Miami beach was built up by dredging back then.

      There is absolutely nothing unusual going on with the rate of SLR down there as far as the tide gauges in the vicinity show. And as a practical matter real estate values for properties on the water front are just as high as they ever have been. So the rich aren’t concerned.

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      TdeF

      So after a century of Global Warming there is still no problem except for King Tides and Storm surges. Our Australian ABC Science Guy predicted 100 metres in 100 years, so Florida should be entirely under water by now. In fact like everywhere else, there is no measureable difference. Also as Prof. Ian Plimer pointed out, the year of hurricane Katherine, the area around New Orleans had subsided a metre in a year, the greatest subsidence in the world. Still its easier to blame everything on carbon dioxide.

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        Another Ian

        TdeF

        Timeframe estimate here

        “Can Humans Melt the Antarctic Icecap?”

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/16/can-humans-melt-the-antarctic-icecap/

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          Another Ian,

          thanks so much for that link.

          The Maths involved is so far beyond the average person that they would just think of this article along the lines of ….. I bet he’s a right winger.

          I find it so utterly amazing that as soon as Maths is introduced to anything, literally everybody just turns off. They cannot understand it, and they will not even try to understand.

          If they cannot understand even the most basic Maths, I just shake my head when they say that they understand the Science.

          When mentioning Antarcrica, and how it’s sure to melt some time soon, as soon as I mention the fact that the average Summer temperature is still a long way below zero, I still get glazed looks.

          Again, thanks for the link.

          Tony.

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            TdeF

            -25C in summer, -50C in winter. Raise it 1C and nothing melts. Why do the calculation?

            On the other hand, the arctic ice is very sensitive. Amazingly the average temperature is 0C. +/-0.5C in year or group of years could see it grow massively or shrink rapidly, so the profiteers of doom just love it when it shrinks. Armageddon. In fact it would be a boon if and when it vanished, but the people who want the ice ages back would not like it.

            No such luck with Antarctica. It is utterly frozen, except around the edges. Worse, the Southern Hemisphere is much colder than the Northern, partly because it is mostly water. As for icebergs calving off, the size of say England, it hardly matters to the mass of antartica, averaging 3km thick of ice. Show me an iceberg 3km thick. This is just a frill around the thin edge of a huge continent the size of South America or two Australias.

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    Mary E

    Interesting bit of legal news – Looks like a judge had the temerity to read the complaint and the associated paperwork. Huh.

    “California cities suing ExxonMobil and four other big oil and gas companies have amended their complaint after a federal judge criticized them for portraying an internal memo by an industry association as revealing inside information about climate science that turned out to be merely a summation of findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

    https://legalnewsline.com/stories/511383378-climate-plaintiffs-amend-suit-after-judge-scolds-them-on-smoking-gun-memo-that-wasn-t

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      PeterS

      A problem that’s very easily fixed. The companies should stop selling fossil fuel to the state given they hate it so much. Let’s see how long they survive.

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    With temperatures hovering around freezing and snow falling again, something made me think of Robert Service and his tales of the North.
    “And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
    And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
    It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
    Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.””

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    TdeF

    A great article from Nick Cater in the Australian, about pessimism, even depression being taught in our schools by our politicians.

    A 20th anniversary

    “In July 1998 Clinton, then US president, warned that the world had just 535 days to deal with “one of the most complex management challenges in history”. Billions of computer chips could be infected by the Y2K bug. “This is not one of the summer movies where you can close your eyes during the scary parts,” Clinton lectured.

    So what happened? Did the planes fall out of the skies? Did the stock markets crash? Did nuclear missiles launch themselves? Did applicances fail to function?

    At least Y2K came and went. Not so Global Climate Change. In fact as someone with expertise in computing, I had debated the coming Y2K back in the 1970s. It was obvious enough. By the time we were close, it was a non event, but a lot of people made a lot of money updating computers. Like MMGWCC (Man Made Global Warming Climate Change) it was a gift which kept on giving. Until it happened. Then people congratulated themselves for being so careful!

    Now on the 30th anniversary of Global Warming, the immediate invention of the new IPCC, we have seen no Armageddon. Despite this poor soul who hopefully saw real irony in killing himself with fossil fuel as a protest against fossil fuel, the scare is dying slowly, kept alive by all the beneficiaries.

    You have to ask, if Global Warming was officially declared to be over (the BOM could make this statement, the CSIRO, NASA,..). How many people would lose their jobs? Millions? How much money is at stake, say in Australia’s river of cash called the RET?

    How much embarrassment would there be?

    So will the BOM, as honestly made up of real professional meteorologists declare Global Warming over? That would save their fellow Australians so much money and would really make a difference to the whole world.

    There really is something Australia can do, the BOM in particular. Declare Global Warming dead, man made or not. Politicians will credit their windmills and intervention, but everyone will know the truth.

    Then this man would have been a tragic sacrifice in a good cause. The truth.

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      el gordo

      ‘Declare Global Warming dead, man made or not.’

      Thirty years is officially recognised as climate, but temperatures still have to come down from the plateau before we can crow.

      There is a strong correlation between the warming of last century and under sea geothermal flux.

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        TdeF

        So how much is the Global Warming in 30 years? How much of it in the last 20 years. Do we really have to wait ten years to officially declare that the temperature has not changed in 30 years. This is killing us now. This poor man is just one of huge numbers of victims of a problem which does not exist.

        As for correlations, why bother? Has the temperature changed in the last 20 years? That is the question, not the explanation.

        If the BOM could state that the world temperature had not changed in the last 20 years, the whole thing would stop, worldwide. We have that sort of power. Australia may be small in population, but huge in area and the biggest land mass other than antarctica South of the Tropic of Capricorn at 22.5. Only 2% of people live in the bottom third of the world. So we have the data on which the history of global warming is based. If we declare, the rest of the world has to follow.

        This is a real opportunity for world fame for the BOM. To declare the danger over. To take credit for our careful measurement and science. Even to declare just for Australia.

        However it would mean whoever announced it would never get a job with the IPCC, the UN Political body whose whole existence requires man made Global Warming.

        By the way, without “man made”, CO2 is irrelevant as we do not control it, which should be obvious by now.

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          TdeF

          Remember also that the problem was not just slight warming. That is simply not a problem and never was. The problem was ‘runaway, tipping point, catastrophic global warming’. The logic in 1988 was, +0.5C in ten years, to +5.0C in 100 years.

          They have kept lowering the target without admitting that the warming has stopped.
          0.5C per decade. So +1.0 1998, +1.5 2008, +2.0 2018. Didn’t happen, did it?

          Now they argue about which year is warmer, by 0.001C. The story is that the warmth is unprecedented, hottest decade in a century, anything to avoid the elephant in the room that nothing much has changed for 20 years.

          We need the BOM to say so. 500 qualified meteorologists who have total access to the data for the last 30 years, in Australia alone.

          Imagine if the BOM announced we in Australia had no global warming. They would be sued by the windmill industry. Malcolm Turnbull might get a little shaky at the knees. Plus AGL.

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            el gordo

            I still maintain that we have to come up with a different scientific paradigm and be able to explain it simply to the masses, otherwise the stench of BoM will continue to linger until the Klimatariat retire.

            They won’t get the pleasure, because global cooling has already begun.

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              TdeF

              I disagree. I could talk science all day but if there is no global warming, what exactly needs explanation? Science is not the problem. Hysteria is the problem.

              The world is spending a million million dollars a year on nothing. What has this to do with science? People are suffering. We are suffering. This man set fire to himself. there is no warming, there is no problem.

              I do not involve myself in this out of academic interest. This needs to end now.

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                el gordo

                ‘Hysteria is the problem.’

                Millions of people have been throughly brainwashed and AGW is inculcated throughout the school system, its mass delusion.

                The madness will end only when the ABC gives us equal time, but in the meantime we need to get a grip on the mechanisms involved in climate change so that our Blue Team can articulate reality.

                The Klimatariat at BoM are digging in and with a compliant media they can do no wrong.

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              You are right, el Gordo it is established that the only way to win an argument is not to just prove the other person wrong but you need to come up with your own explanation, preferably with its own physics because you need to say that established physics is wrong in order to claim the other side wrong.

              Take your pick. There are hundred of claimed paradigms out there just waiting for someone to champion them. Try that Principia journal for a start – there are dozens there and all mutually exclusive. Then there is Force X, Y and Z.

              I’m going for time cube though. I can say whatever I want and just point people to that page for proof http://timecube.2enp.com/

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            The earth has been chugging along quite normally, as far as normalcy can be, in line with the Holocene and Eemian etc warming interludes as determined by centuries of geology, dendrology, speleology, oceanography, archaeology and human record. The greatest warmth and change was much earlier in our epoch, starting some eleven or twelve thousand years back. Nothing is a big deal, the most likely problems remain short-term climate change from volcanism, long-term from reversion to normal ice age.

            The climate industry is another show like the arms industry with no choice but expand outrageously or die. So Big Green will play very rough and tell any lie. White elephants on an enormous scale, massive debt and subsidy, degraded traditional infrastructure, crony capitalism and carpetbagging posing as business, government corridors groaning with green lobbyists…the aftermath of all this will be like the aftermath of a war. Let’s just hope we don’t get two aftermaths at the same time.

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              el gordo

              We are at the end of a thirty year war of words and Australia wastes a billion dollars a year on a worthless cause and spends 10 billion dollars on arms.

              The only threat to security is our biggest trading partner.

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    pat

    the real Commonwealth Games begins!

    16 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Commonwealth heads meet in London amid claims of climate inequality
    The UK emits as much as 18 of its former colonies, a report finds, and, along with Australia and Canada, isn’t doing its fair share to cut carbon
    By Husna Rizvi
    Commonwealth heads of state will begin meeting today in London, amid concerns over the unequal effects of climate change and efforts to fight it.

    In its pre-meeting notes, the Commonwealth said that climate change would disproportionately impact poorer former British colonies. In fact, this year’s meeting was relocated to London from Vanuatu after the Pacific island’s infrastructure was badly damaged by Cyclone Pam in 2015…
    “The Commonwealth is well placed to take action,” the statement said. “Underlining our on-going commitment to tackling climate change, protecting the environment and increasing the resilience of our members.”

    But a report from Christian Aid, released on Monday, finds the Commonwealth’s richest members – Australia, Canada and the UK – were not doing enough to tackle the threat, while poorer countries were overachieving on their emissions cuts…

    “We have provided over $1.7bn of climate finance to Commonwealth countries since 2010. This is a key issue for the Commonwealth, particularly for those small island states that are vulnerable to increasing severe weather events and rising sea levels,” (a UK government spokesperson) said…

    Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid’s international climate lead and author of the report, said that there was not only inequality in how climate change is impacting citizens of the Commonwealth, but also in how governments are responding.
    “The majority of poorer countries are the first and worst hit by climate change, but they’re contributing the least to carbon emissions,” Adow told Climate Home News…

    Adow welcomed the initiative but said wealthy countries must do more than simply join the coalition and genuinely deliver an alternative energies financial and technological support package.
    “The Commonwealth prides itself as collectively providing solidarity – it must actually show that it is delivering that solidarity to communities on the frontline and the energy poor,” said Adow…

    The results showed the UK, Canada and Australia were in a mitigation deficit whilst poorer countries like Bangladesh, Kenya and Zambia were in credit. Small island states vulnerable to sea level rise like Kiribati, Vanuatu and Tuvalu were also more than doing their fair share, the report found…

    The report argues that rich countries should achieve some of the cuts required of them by exporting clean energy technology to countries with energy poverty problems. Under Christian Aid’s analysis, the UK alone could almost eradicate energy poverty in the Commonwealth – which requires around 2,050 terawatt hours of renewable energy…
    Monday night will also see the Queen host CHOGM delegates for the launch of a reforestation project across Commonwealth countries in the hope of lessening the impact of climate change…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/04/16/commonwealth-heads-meet-london-amid-claims-climate-inequality/

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    pat

    16 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Africa holds EU climate agenda ransom
    As a tough year of talks begins, the EU is searching for allies in a fight with China over the rules of the Paris Agreement, but Africa’s help will come at a cost
    By Karl Mathiesen
    As Europe tries to bend the world to its view of how the Paris climate deal should work, it will need the world’s poorest continent. But Africa plans to make it hurt.

    Negotiators will meet in Bonn at the end of this month to begin the most important year in climate talks since the 2015 deal. In December, countries are due to agree a set of governing rules for the Paris Agreement and those who left the French capital unsatisfied – particularly from the developing world – aren’t going to let the moment pass.

    The EU, along with the US, Canada, Australia and others, are readying themselves for a messy end-of-year fight at the major annual talks, to be held in the Polish city of Katowice. They want all countries bound to the same rules for counting their carbon emissions and reporting their efforts to reduce them. China, backed by Iran, India and a coterie of other emerging economies, wants a dividing line between the rules that govern rich and poor…
    “We are even receiving messages that specific rules for reporting of finance could be a precondition for brokering a deal in Katowice,” said ( European Commission’s director general for Climate Action Raffaele Mauro) Petriccione…

    The new chair of the African group of negotiators, Egypt’s Mohamed Nasr, did not respond to requests for comment. Seyni Nafo, a Malian who headed up the Africa group last year, was incandescent at talks in Bonn in November when Climate Home News bumped into him on a golf cart ride across the venue. “We have done everything we could” to support the European agenda, he said. It was during that meeting that he delivered the ultimatum.
    “Such a blunt approach is not acceptable to the EU,” said Petriccione. “But the EU needs to be ready to consider what margins we have on this issue of finance.”

    ***One of the issues Africa is pushing hardest is the predictability of finance flows. The promise that brought Africa into the Paris deal was a pledge that by 2020, $100 billion would be flowing to developing countries every year to help them cope with climate change.
    Nervous of bad faith, African countries want to nail down those commitments, demanding rich countries report their intended finance flows ahead of time. This creates issues for donors, whose budget cycles may not fit with the long-term disclosures sought by the poor…

    The EU and its allies responded to Nafo’s demands by suggesting more time be given to the issue at the 30 April – 10 May interim talks in Bonn. But the Africa group is not likely to give ground so early in the year. They know the critical moment is at the COP24 climate summit in Katowice, the deadline for agreeing a rulebook for the Paris Agreement.

    One European negotiator said there was “some constructive room” for the two sides to come together. He felt some African demands were being driven by poor communication of what donor countries were already doing. Petriccione suggested EU member states should think about replenishing global climate funds, arguing the effect on negotiating positions “would be disproportionate to the relatively small funds that would be needed”.

    Jo Tyndall, a New Zealand government diplomat who is leading UN discussions on the rulebook, said the negotiations were “on track for conclusion at COP24 this year, but in order to do that, the pace needs to pick up substantially and significantly from now”.
    A senior African negotiator told CHN the year would be “fraught”. Another observer said that two major features of the rulebook, the committee that will promote compliance and the rules that govern transparent reporting, had not been discussed, even at a basic level, since 2015 in Paris – Tyndall said this was inaccurate. The UN’s climate agency is scrambling: an extra meeting has been scheduled for Bangkok in September.

    A European Commission spokesperson told CHN by email a rulebook that binds all countries to universal rules was (her emphasis) “the number one deliverable for COP24”…

    In October, a report from the UN’s climate science panel will highlight differences in suffering and economic cost between the Paris deal’s two targets – limiting warming to 1.5C and 2C. Draft copies (BROKEN LINK) of the report highlight the near-impossibility of staying below the lower goal…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/04/16/africa-holds-eu-climate-agenda-ransom/

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    AndyG55

    Who cares!

    None of the AGW stall-warts give a darn about the people dying in third world countries because of the lack of adequate energy supplies for water, electricity etc due to World Bank non-support.

    The amount of money totally WASTED on the AGW farce could have done a huge amount of good in those countries.

    China has thankfully picked up the ball.

    How pathetic the EU, World bank etc look on the humanitarian front.

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      el gordo

      ‘China has thankfully picked up the ball.’

      Its a new form of capitalism which aims to pull people out of poverty and depravation, creating new markets for goods and services.

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    TdeF

    A comment on the weather in temperate Southern parts of Australia.

    We are enjoying my favorite time in any temperate country, the slow slide into winter, what the Americans call an Indian summer. Delightful. However the doomsayers require autumn and winter to appear instantly on the day the clock turns. To make things worse, in bureaucratic Australia, the seasons are changed on the 1st of the month, even though the equinox and winter and summer solstices appear on the 22nd, 3 weeks later.

    In the US, summer is coming slowly. Punxsutawny Phil knows all about it. It varies.

    What is really annoying are the usual suspects claiming that we are suffering Climate Change when I remember when everyone celebrated warm days. The coming of spring in Europe and the US is a magic time too, but it happens much faster when it comes, perhaps 3 days from deep snow to dead grass. The sine curve of temperature is twice as high and so the spring and fall are much shorter than in Australia.

    I even know people who really miss spring and autumn in the tropics. No Climate Change people there.

    Everything though is flavoured by Climate Change. The propagandists now claim every storm, every bushfire is a result of Climate Change. It is really annoying, taking the joy out of the weather because they make their living from promoting doom.

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    It’s said that May is nice nearly everywhere in the world. For me, autumn in NSW is the wine of the year. Calm much of the time, sappy, with warm days and cool nights. A glory.

    This autumn has been on the warm side, prompting the common enemy of mankind, the new hostis humani generis, to publish maps of Australia in hot red. The media, as always, are full of trickery and malice. Autumn is still kind.

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    pat

    17 Apr: AP: Snow records toppled in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin
    Records fell as an April snowstorm blanketed the Upper Midwest.
    The National Weather Service says the 14.9 inches (37.8 centimeters) at Minneapolis airport from Friday through Sunday set a record for the largest April snowstorm ever there. It’s also the snowiest April on record in the Twin Cities. And it’s the snowiest start to a calendar year there, with 70.3 inches (178.6 centimeters) since Jan. 1.
    In South Dakota, Sioux Falls set records for a single day in April at 13.7 inches (34.8 centimeters) Saturday and a record April total of 24.9 inches (63.2 centimeters). Huron and Mitchell set two-day record totals for April of 15.5 (39.4 centimeters) and 16.2 inches (41.1 centimeters) respectively.
    In Wisconsin, the storm ranks as the all-time second largest snowstorm in Green Bay at 23.5 inches (59.7 centimeters) and a record April total of more than 35 inches (89 centimeters) there
    ALMOST ENTIRELY CAGW MOCKING COMMENTS – 92 AT TIME OF POSTING
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/snow-records-toppled-south-dakota-minnesota-wisconsin-153358508.html

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    pat

    16 Apr: Youtube: 4mins45secs: Report reveals how tech giants censor conservative speech
    Have online media companies declared war on the conservative movement? Media Research Center (MRC) founder Brent Bozell explains findings on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’
    Executive Summary (Full Special Report can be found here.) (LINK)…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ek2UeIa40k

    50-page report linked here:

    16 Apr: MRC Newsbusters: CENSORED! How Online Media Companies Are Suppressing Conservative Speech
    By Ashley Rae Goldenberg and Dan Gainor
    https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/ashley-rae-goldenberg/2018/04/16/censored-how-online-media-companies-are-suppressing

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    16 Apr: UK Times: Emily Gosden: Green policy to force up price cap on electricity
    Annual household electricity bills could rise by almost £200, or a third, by 2025 because of increasing wholesale prices and green subsidies, leading analysts have warned.

    The upward pressure will force the government to increase its energy price cap repeatedly, according to the findings by Aurora Energy Research. This will leave ministers, who condemned leading suppliers last week for increasing energy bills, with the “politically awkward” reality of their own policies forcing up the level of their cap.

    British Gas, the biggest supplier, was condemned by the government for its “unjustified” decision to increase its own standard tariff for four million households by an average of at least £60. EDF also raised bills, with both suppliers blaming policy costs.
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/green-policy-will-force-up-price-cap-on-electricity-phc6qkljk

    16 Apr: Daily Mail: Burning green pellets is ‘filthier than using coal’…and British consumers are subsidising the use of pellets in pursuit of Government green policies
    •The idea is that power produced from ‘biomass’ is cleaner than using coal
    •But research suggests wood pellets actually create more carbon emissions
    •On top of that, British consumers are subsidising the use of these pellets
    By Sean Poulter Consumer Affairs Editor
    The race to adopt green energy has led to the use of materials that are dirtier, costlier and require the felling of hardwood forests in America, it is claimed…
    Estimates suggest the policy adds up to £700million a year to bills. Details of the felling of one US hardwood forest in Virginia – home to a wide variety of wildlife – has been uncovered by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme…READ ALL

    Dispatches: The True Cost of Green Energy is on tonight at 8pm on Channel 4.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5619215/Burning-green-pellets-filthier-using-coal.html

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    pat

    14 Apr: Reuters: Europe’s carmakers not disputing CO2 fines but want more help
    by Jason Hovet, Michael Kahn
    Europe’s carmakers are not looking to challenge fines if they fail to meet the European Union’s 2020 CO2 emissions goals, but want governments to do more to help them hit targets, the head of the main industry lobby group said.

    The decline of diesel, long used to boost efficiency, and the slow pace of investment in electric car networks is hampering efforts to meet the EU goals, European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) Secretary General Erik Jonnaert said…

    EU rules in effect from 2020-21 will force new cars to average 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer, with carmakers facing hundreds of millions of euros in potential fines for non-compliance. The current EU-mandated average is 130 g/km.

    Peugeot maker PSA Group’s chief executive Carlos Tavares, who chairs ACEA, has called for the EU penalties to be suspended until governments roll out adequate electric car charging networks, saying last month he planned to raise the proposal at a meeting of Brussels-based ACEA on March 7.

    Jonnaert, whose group represents 15 global vehicle makers with plants in Europe, told Reuters on the sidelines of an automotive conference in Prague that the 2020 targets were challenging, but the car sector was committed to meeting them.
    “What we are questioning in this is there are no targets for countries,” he said. “We are asked to meet targets but the countries are not.” …

    Jonnaert said EU governments needed to help the industry by creating incentives for consumers to use electric cars in addition to building up the network to power them.
    He also underlined a warning from PSA’s Tavares that a Chinese buyer could to step in with its own electric vehicle technology if European companies were crippled by fines.
    “It is not just a phantom idea,” Jonnaert said, noting the auto industry employs 12.6 million workers in Europe.

    There is rising concern about foreign influence over European manufacturers, jobs and technology, which have escalated since China’s Geely snapped up 10 percent of Germany’s Daimler in February.
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-autos/europes-carmakers-not-disputing-co2-fines-but-want-more-help-idUSKBN1HK2GJ?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

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    pat

    16 Apr: CBS Minnesota: Greater Minnesota Towns Deal With Snow Cleanup
    By Bill Hudson
    “You don’t anticipate seeing this in April,” said Public Works Director Tony Voigt.
    Instead of tuning up lawn mowers and filling potholes, city crews are spending their hours carving into mountains of snow.

    There is so much snow piled along city streets that crews are having a tough time finding places to put it.
    “There’s just a lot of extra cleanup. We’re moving snow piles and you start running out of places to put the snow, that’s the course of work today,” Voigt said.

    Anywhere from 16 to 20 inches of snow was common from west central Minnesota to the north metro.
    That explains why store owners in Maple Plain were on avalanche patrol — knocking drifts off overhead canopies.

    At Wine and Spirits store, “The customer comes out the door and it falls, snow on the head. It means more trouble. Don’t want customer to have trouble,” Michelle Lee said…

    John Ferril’s best friend is suddenly his 1960s vintage Bolens tractor and snow blower.
    “It’s a winter wonderland,” Ferril said.
    He can call it that, but most probably have another name for this April surprise…
    http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/04/16/norwood-young-america-digging-out-historic-snow/

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    pat

    14 Apr: Reuters: U.N. shipping agency reaches deal to cut CO2 emissions
    by Jonathan Saul, Nina Chestney; Additional reporting by Julia Fioretti in Brussels
    The compromise plan, which will cut emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared with 2008 levels, fell short of more ambitious targets…
    Delegates said opposition from some countries – including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Panama – had limited what could be achieved at the IMO session this week in London…

    “The IMO should and could have gone a lot further,” said Bill Hemmings, shipping director with green campaigners Transport & Environment…
    Greenpeace International political adviser Veronica Frank said the plan was “far from perfect but the direction is now clear – a phase-out of carbon emissions”…
    A final IMO plan is not expected until 2023.

    According to the text produced by the IMO working group submitted to member states, the initial strategy would not be legally binding for member states…
    It also said its final strategy should be subject to a review in 2028…
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-imo-emissions/u-n-shipping-agency-reaches-deal-to-cut-co2-emissions-idUKKBN1HK20F

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    robert rosicka

    Remember all the downsides and environmental costs of electric cars ? Well it seems the ABC has just discovered them .

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-17/electric-cars-no-silver-bullet/9667516

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    Miso Alkalaj

    This case is an indication that extreme environmentalist’s beliefs are a form of mental illness classified as delusional disorder. This is the definition from WebMD (https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder#1):

    “Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness called a “psychosis” in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, unshakable beliefs in something untrue or not based on reality.”

    Such disorders can be induced by indoctrination. So why do we have “Exxon knew!” law suits but no “Environmentalism kills!” court cases?

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    Hot under the collar

    The delusion of ‘climate change’ – hyped by leaders of the ‘climate change’ religion unfortunately, ultimately leads to this;
    https://www.bizarrepedia.com/jonestown-mass-suicide/

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    Bartender UK

    Silly man.

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