Climate Change is making us mental — fear of “storms” undoing evolution!

These days people are practically getting post traumatic climate disorder after bouts of extreme weather. More pointlessly, some are getting pre-traumatic stress from events that haven’t even happened.

Makes you wonder how humanity survived the ice ages every time a storm hit — no fire department, no Hurricane-Relief funds, no phones, no food stores, no doctors. Electricity out for 90,000 years.

Americans’ Mental Health is Latest Victim of Changing Climate (Op-Ed)

For months after Hurricane Sandy sent nearly six feet of water surging into her home in Long Beach, N.Y. — an oceanfront city along Long Island’ s south shore — retired art teacher Marcia Bard Isman woke up many mornings feeling anxious and nauseated. She had headaches, and inexplicable bouts of sadness. She found herself crying for no apparent reason.

“I would feel really sad, and that’s just not me,” she said. “I felt like the joy was out of my life. I still haven’t recaptured it.”

What Isman is experiencing is one of the little-recognized consequences of climate change, the mental anguish experienced by survivors in the aftermath of extreme and sometimes violent weather and other natural disasters. The emotional toll of global warming is expected to become a national — and potentially global — crisis that many mental health experts warn could prove far more serious than its physical and environmental effects.

There goes evolution…

It’s hard to get more over the top that Lise Van Susteren a forensic psychiatrist and one of the report’s authors:

“We are undoing millions of years of evolution, and the situation is a catastrophe,” she said. “Climate activists on the front lines are desperate to convey this to the public, but are told to be wary of paralyzing people with fear. Compounding the issue is that people often generally are not ‘good’ at knowing they are anxious, or, if they do, often don’t know why.

So humans survived in drippy caves through ice-age winters, super volcanoes, asteroid strikes, without antibiotics, and to top it off, a sea-level rise, not of 20cm but of 125 meters.  For 99% of human evolution their children regularly died horrible deaths from diarrhea, septicemia and pneumonia. Genghis Khan came and went. The Black Plague raged. But now we’re falling apart because of fear of bad storms that might hit our 3 bedroom air-conditioned homes?

There is some real pain in this story, and real deaths, and far be it from me to belittle that. What I mock is the idea that these storms never happened before, that we are sure they are getting worse, and that we could prevent all the natural disasters in the world by putting up windmills, paying more tax and stressing about our carbon footprint.

I note that globally hurricanes are no worse than they were 30 years ago. All that CO2, and nothing much to show for it?

Graph of Global Hurricane Frequency since 1976 from Policlimate

I’m not suggesting that a major catastrophe is not awful and can’t wreak havoc on a persons life. But let’s get a grip. Even the IPCC doesn’t have much confidence it can predict extreme event trends. Articles like this are milking a baseless panic, making things worse.

The alarmists are the ones causing alarm

Even the shrinks admit that:

And the psychological damage is not only over what is happening now, but what is likely going to happen in the future.

“This kind of anticipatory anxiety is especially crippling and is increasingly being seen among climate activists — in some cases rising to the level of a kind of ‘pre-traumatic’ stress disorder,” she added.

So climate activists are working themselves into a state. For their own health they need an emergency course in Aristotelian logic.

“Because of the magnitude of the problem, and the fact that our leaders are not responding commensurate with the threat, feelings of vulnerability are repressed and cause unseen psychological damage,” she added.

So there’s the real culprit. A bunch of alarmists have whipped up a fear campaign where the only solution is to savage our economy and lifestyle. Not surprisingly, most politicians and voters don’t think it’s worth the price, so the 30% of the population that believes the witchdoctors are suffering from genuine fear and cognitive dissonance.

Spare us. The answer is not to trash the economy, but to stop the fear campaign and get back to real concerns. The way to reduce the damage from ghastly natural events is to do better science, stop the name-calling, and cancel the government committees that can’t list the observations to support their claims. We need to actually figure out the climate. Then we need to stop people building in flood zones, stop filling up dams as cyclical rain returns, and start getting practical.

Full raving story here.

 Thanks to Marc Morano of Climate Depot

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123 comments to Climate Change is making us mental — fear of “storms” undoing evolution!

  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    The recent round of Winter gales in the UK has led to an orgy of fear-mongering by both the BBC and the Met O. Severe Weather warnings are dramatised out of all proportion and the BBC feeds gloatingly upon the travails of people affected by the flooding. Little or no mention that the ecoloon policy of failing to dredge rivers and flood channels for the last 20 year or so have increased the flooding damage – thats all due to climate change. Thing is, I remember the early 50’s (just) when we had very similar weather. It’s not unusual, just hasn’t happened for some time. I note that the north and east of Australia is in for a soaking over the next week or so. Gaia knows what heights of hysteria your Aunty will reach if another tree is lost to storm damage.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      I remember someone else about your age wrong a song.

      “Five Feet High And Rising”

      My mama always taught me that good things come from adversity if we put our faith in the Lord.
      We couldn’t see much good in the flood waters when they
      were causing us to have to leave home,
      But when the water went down, we found that it had washed a load of rich black bottom dirt across our land. The following year we had the best cotton crop we’d ever had.

      I remember hearing:

      How high’s the water, mama?
      Two feet high and risin’
      How high’s the water, papa?
      Two feet high and risin’

      We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
      That’s the only thing we got left that’ll float
      It’s already over all the wheat and the oats,
      Two feet high and risin’

      How high’s the water, mama?
      Three feet high and risin’
      How high’s the water, papa?
      Three feet high and risin’

      Well, the hives are gone,
      I’ve lost my bees
      The chickens are sleepin’
      In the willow trees
      Cow’s in water up past her knees,
      Three feet high and risin’

      How high’s the water, mama?
      Four feet high and risin’
      How high’s the water, papa?
      Four feet high and risin’

      Hey, come look through the window pane,
      The bus is comin’, gonna take us to the train
      Looks like we’ll be blessed with a little more rain,
      4 feet high and risin’

      How high’s the water, mama?
      Five feet high and risin’
      How high’s the water, papa?
      Five feet high and risin’

      Well, the rails are washed out north of town
      We gotta head for higher ground
      We can’t come back till the water comes down,
      Five feet high and risin’

      Well, it’s five feet high and risin’

      50

    • #
      Geoff Sherrington

      Kevin,
      Trees being lost.

      Lest people think you exaggerate, a short story.
      Years ago, we discovered gold at what is now the beautiful Lake Cowal gold mine. The gold anomaly in exploration times extended under this shallow lake, which dries for years on end and has old fences running through it. In wet times the greenies love it for the birdlife and so all other properties become hyped to preserve it from untold ravages.
      We wanted to get approval to mine from Canberra. We had written a report about vegetation to be removed and River Red Gum was mentioned.
      Two guys came from Canberra by air and out free corporate SUVs and we took them from Parkes to the shores of Lake Cowal. “So, what about the River Red Gum problem?” one of them asked. “Here it is”, we said, pointing to the lone tree to be affected.
      “You mean there is only one tree involved? We came here to see one tree?”
      “Yes, that is what the report said and that is what you can see on the aerial photos we supplied.”
      ………………
      People talk about impediments to progress in Australia.
      Other people talk about the capacity of green thinking to generate new jobs. Ho ho. Some job.
      All that time & money wasted for one tree.
      It demonstrates how demons in the mind affect normal judgement. (Many of those old fence posts came from River Red Gums, BTW, in a time before the automatic whinge.)
      These guys barely read the report. They automatically assumed that mining was bad for the environment including the River Red Gum and they had to stop it. They were on a mission of salvation.
      Sick.
      Sick in the head.

      90

  • #
    Rick Bradford

    All the Alarmists belong to a single industry — the Clever Words industry.

    This includes TV, film, radio, PR, marketing, advocacy of various kinds, advertising, print journalism and the rest.

    Not a single one of them has ever done anything productive, where objective measures such as Success or Failure come into play.

    Capitalism: if you can’t join it, beat it.

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    • #
      mc

      All the Alarmists belong to a single industry — the Clever Words industry.

      With all the alarmists screaming that extreme global weirding is occurring, it’s no wonder people are going mental.

      The Clever Words Division of the Global Weirding Industrial Complex?

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    • #
      Steve

      Not being a psychologist, but it occurs to me that if you didnt have access to the science ( unlike realists like ourselves, who do …) and the bulk of the population has been brutalized & traumatized by the truly evil MSM who berate and hound gullible people, well eventually something has to snap.

      People are basically pushed into in a form of depression, but our message needs to be that there is hope. People wont listen to logic if their brains are stressed to the max. Our message needs to be relief is in sight.

      I dont use the word cruel very much – I reserve it for people who truly are bad. But I am ready to label *anyone* who loads presure and guilt on people until it finally snaps their mind as cruel, if not actually evil.

      It occurs to me that the Climate Change meme is a form of being mentally tortured. Its a “sin” that no one can ever atone for, nor get away from. The CAGW priests shout “sinner” at people and follow them around with placards decrying their “badness”. They turn ont he tv and they get shouted at. The govt shouts at them. Gullible relatives presure them.

      I laughed out loud – I saw a van driven by a Gen Y who had written on its side ( parpahrasing ) “lack of action on climate change by tony abbott is not in our name”. Wow – they have captured the minds of youth. But these guys clearly believed the nonsense.

      Its no different in many ways of sticking someone in a shipping container and playing heavy metal music loud for 24 hours a day for a week.

      30

  • #
    Dave N

    With all the alarmists screaming that extreme global weirding is occurring, it’s no wonder people are going mental.

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  • #
    Speedy

    Evening all.

    But weren’t we supposed to be scared of Global WARMING? Now it’s Global Climate CHANGE or just DISRUPTION.

    In all cases, the message is the same – BE AFRAID.

    I wonder why they would want us that way?

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    • #
      crakar24

      Coz there are no commies under yer beds anymore Speedy, we live in a state of fear (M Crichton), fear is a major weapon used to control people. Just look at the world post ALCIADA. We are constantly told the terrorists are gunna gitcha if you dont allow your freedoms to be taken away and if you complain you are accused of hiding something.

      AGW is no different the source of the fear is different but the fear itself is the same.

      So this is how it works,

      All those that honestly believe 19 Saudis with box knives stole planes etc now live is a state of fear.

      All those that dont still live in a state of fear that the whole in the ozone is gunna kill em

      All those that are left will live in a state of fear due to climageddon.

      (note there are many reasons why some one would live in a state of fear i just hit the high points)

      All those that are left are singled out as deniers/towel head lovers/whatever the fear they reject is.

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  • #
    Fox from Melbourne

    A very good point Jo but I would go even further and point out that the Green Alarmist Agenda is a very real risk to the Mental Heath and well being of our teenage Sons and Daughters. Being a teenager is hard enough without every Alarmist and their Dog trying to make you more depressed and as suicidal as possibly. Isn’t hard enough for them these days without the world is coming to a end and that their murdering the world and future and all that stuff. Or Greenpeace I think it was counting the Carbon Footprint of the family pets and tell them how their Cat, Dog and Goldfish are murdering the Planet. No wonder the teenage suicide rate is so high. Vote Green for the Environment and so your kids can kill themselves. How want’s to join a class action suit against the Alarmists for all the Mental pain, harm and injury they have inflicted on us? Hopefully their Lawyers will shut them up. We can only hope for our Children’s sake.

    My condolences and heart felt apology’s to any and everyone who is offended and up set by my post who has lost a love one from suicide. I’m only trying to help stop the Alarmist helping to push more at risk people over the edge, and for their family’s and friend’s from going though the pain and suffering that you are.

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    • #
      Steve

      I reckon the best way to counter all this nonsense is as follows:

      (1) Explain the science to them – its hard to lie to someone whne they know th efacts

      (2) Explain that there is a conspiracy ( in the true sense of the word ) to try and turn society on its head to create world wide socialism, with CAGW as the trojan horse to do it.

      (3) Explain that people ( including govts ) will lie to anyone at times to control them and for their own ends. E.g. Gulf of Tonkin incident

      (4) Explain that fear is a powerful weapon – it can drive people insane.

      (5) Explain the MSM seems to support the CAGW message.

      [Point 5 edited by request of Steve. – jo]

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  • #
    Sean

    Perhaps the fears are real and the power to control ones fate in the face of mother natures onslots are real. Consider the following:
    The flooding from storm surge on the New York – New Jersey shore has been known for a long time but while plans were floated, no action was taken. Blaming climate change makes potential local victims even more powerless.
    Brisbane was flooded a couple of years ago because the dams were left full in the face of record rainfall in the watershed above the city. The operators had forgotten the dams are for both water storage and flood control. Is it irrational to fear a plane crash if the pilot does not properly respond in an emergency?
    California is in the midst of a major drought. It’s population doubled but the water storage capacity stayed the same. A couple of years ago, Environmentalists also cut water from agriculture in the midst of 35% unemployment in farm communities to run more water into the rivers to enhance the population of small darters. When your livelihood and a great deal of precious water in a desert region can so cavalierly be discharged without regard to human impacts, it is quite rational to fear the weather.
    At some point in time folks will realize that riding a bus being driven by eco-jihadists carries tremendous risks and it’s time to change drivers.

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  • #
    Carbon500

    A book I’m fond of is the late Robin Stirling’s ‘The Weather of Britain’ ISBN 1-900357-06-02. He was a professional meteorologist.
    Chapter 6 is entitled ‘Some Days Bring Deluges’. Here he describes a disastrous flood at Louth, Lincolnshire in 1920, and serious flooding in the city of Norwich in 1912. He mentions a tablet set into a wall which records the high water mark for severe floods of the past. The highest prior to the flood described was in 1614, but the 1912 flood went 15 inches higher. He tells us that ‘much damage was done to roads and bridges throughout the county’.
    He also comments that ‘it must not be thought strange that so many new records were broken in the early years of the 20th century: records cannot be broken until there are records in existence to break’.
    The documentation of UK floods in the past goes on for several pages – in
    1897,1917,1924,1929,1930,1931,1937 for example and continuing right up to recent times.
    Once again, proper historical information and data puts everything into its true perspective. I recommend his book to anyone, especially those concerned by the warming scare.
    As an aside, whatever happened to America’s frontier spirit?

    240

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      An interesting factoid:

      In the hills, above Fukushima, there are a number of ancient and weathered standing stones, similar to European grave stones.

      On a few of them, the old Japanese characters can be made out and read.

      They all mark the high-water level of previous tsunami, and give details of the damage done, and the number of lives lost, with an instruction for people to not build below that point.

      Those who ignore history, are condemned to repeat it.

      20

  • #
    Mindert Eiting

    If this is a consequence of climate change and because the climate always changes, why then don’t seven billion people have similar complaints? Two cynical hypotheses: the problems of our art teacher have nothing to do with climate issues. She has discovered a fake rationalisation for her existing mental problems and the psychiatrists ran away with it because this kind of crap can be published today almost without review.

    210

    • #
      llew Jones

      That is a reasonable proposition. One cannot help but notice that a goodly proportion of the alarmists that visit this site appear to be stark raving bonkers.

      It seems apart from some form of medical intervention that education, as Jo so kindly provided in this post, may be a vital part of their rehabilitation.

      230

  • #

    When you build an enormous city near sea level in a notorious hurricane belt, there are dangers you just have to live with. Sandy was huge in area and tragically came in on the wrong tide to a town with the wrong mayor, but it was not even a category hurricane at landfall. Eastern states people who patronise those who choose to live or have to live in Tornado Alley need to consider the nature of their own region. If most people forgot the disasters of 1635 and 1821, how could all have forgotten those of 1938 and 1944? Even Canada wasn’t safe from Hurricane Carol in 1954.

    The Long Island Express in 1938 was a category 5. What possible reason could there be to assume it can’t happen again? How many of the people pointing the finger at AGW are trying to distract from the fact that they dumped rubble in the mouth of the Hudson, narrowing it by 700 feet, to make more Battery Park real estate?

    Here in Oz there are climate alarmists who are successfully scaring people – most often those with some education – with the belief that severe and region-wide drought is somehow new to the Australian landscape. You’d have to abolish our entire history, except for maybe a few years in the mid-1970s, to sell that whopper. Hell, you’d have to abolish the first few years of settlement, and the horror El Ninos and monsoon failures which coincided with the Skull Famine in India.

    An impossible sell, you might think. But sell fear and you’ll find customers.

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    • #

      If people like Dorothea Mckellar knew, then it’s only the insulated and gullible folk who could think otherwise.

      Where are the history teachers?

      Australia’s written history is a short one. With many facets. If people of today, are ignorant of the hardships that were faced by those who lived before they were born, then they can have little courage to confront similar hardships in their own lives.

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      • #
        James

        Unfortunately Australia’s history is taught in schools that have succumbed to a socialist teaching agenda.

        240

        • #
          Angry

          Exactly James !
          I saw the BS that my niece was taught at our local high school and fumed !
          Brainwashing with lies about how peaceful muslims are.
          Brainwashing with lies about global warming.
          Brainwashing with lies about how Australia was “invaded”.
          Brainwashing with lies about how good the UN and free trade is.
          Geography was virtually non existent. Not even taught the major countries of the world and their capital cities
          etc etc…
          This is what the communist ussr used to do to young gullible minds !!!!!!!!
          No wonder the place is buggered !

          10

      • #

        I referred Lord Monckton to Dorothea Mackellar’s poem. He loved it.

        However I did not know of the poem “Said Hanrahan” by John O’Brien, the pen name of priest Patrick Hartigan. It is very funny and goes to the heart of doomsaying. It ends with predictions of bushfires and “We’ll all be rooned,” said Flannery, “Before the year is out.”

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      • #
        DT

        Where are they? Rewriting history for young people.

        20

      • #
    • #
      The Griss

      Here is a link that gives a pretty good run-down on Australia’s drought history.

      http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/droughthistory.html

      Its a long read !

      70

  • #
    CheshireRed

    Alarmists attempts to promote weather into ‘climate catastrophe’ is clearly due to the lack of warming these past 16-odd years. They have nothing else to bang on about. By God The Pause is causing untold angst!

    A question: Is there now ANY key climate change metric that is falling in favour of the theory? To even be considered as identifiable as ‘human-caused’ there needs to be a trend outside the established normal range of natural variation. Well? Where is it?

    A far as current observed evidence is concerned, I’d suggest there is, literally, not one single metric falling in favour of the theory.

    Temperatures, polar sea ice extent, sea level rise rates, climate sensitivity, the hotspot, hurricanes & storms, ocean temps, and so it goes on. Seriously, WHERE is the catastrophe actually occurring?

    Even the future is looking just fine as hysterical model after model fails dismally to reflect reality.

    The only thing alarmists can even lay claim to is a so called
    ‘consensus’, which is obviously nada to do with evidence-based science.

    Maybe it’s time to run a truly-coruscating up-to-date point-by-point challenge to alarmist agw theory versus actual reality.

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    • #
      Debbie

      Seriously, WHERE is the catastrophe actually occurring?

      Excellent question!

      For some peculiar reason a lot of these people have somehow decided that they either:
      a) Own the climate/weather and are in charge of defending it or
      b) They own the means to PRODUCE the future climate/weather.

      As we go further down the track it is becoming clear that they are neither in charge of it or able to control it.
      In fact the climate/weather doesn’t really care at all what people think of it.

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      • #
        Gos

        Debbie,the catastrophe is occurring in their own minds.
        There is no enemy so great than the one we create in our own minds!

        Why are people frightened to walk through a cemetery at night?

        40

    • #
      Winston

      By God The Pause is causing untold angst

      You would think it would give them “pause”….to rethink their hypothesis.

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    • #
      The Griss

      “By God The Pause is causing untold angst!’

      And it will be real popcorn time as the global temps start to dip..

      Suddenly the Sun will be a factor 😉

      And watch them scurrying for new grants to try to buy their way out of their hoax.

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      • #
        Manfred

        However things unfold, and were temperatures to tumble, then after the required ‘adjustments’ became impossible to continue to manufacture, we’d have been saved by the bell, or some variable(s) that masked CAGW.

        There is quite literally nowhere to go with the meme. It is utterly impossible to recant because it is a belief. It will smply remain in place, and be mitigated by solar diminuition, aerosols, cloudfeedback etc.

        Surprisingly, there are still folk who believe in phrenology.

        20

  • #
    bullocky


    “……. Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble……”

    70

  • #
    JLC

    So climate activists are working themselves into hysterics therefore everybody else must also be hysterical? I think this is what pop psychologists call “projection”.

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    • #
      Turtle of WA

      Good point. One may interpret the work of Lewandowski in this way. He suffers from the mental illness described above – an irrational fear of climate change – and projects it on to skeptics.

      170

  • #
    Mark D.

    Oh yes, I have anxiety over man-imagined climate change but not because of extreme weather events. No I have anxiety over EXTREME POLITICS and EXTREME POLITICIANS.

    This includes the EXTREME United Nations……UN fund them all!

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  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    People have run out of money, governments are in MASSIVE debt and the US Federal Reserve(private bank) is playing currency games to slap anyone NOT conforming with THEIR currency policies have generated a currency crisis.
    So, government grants are being cut and funds for these organizations is collapsing.
    Desperation is going to bring even MORE scare tactics for their funding survival.

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    • #
      Dave

      Joe,

      As you said, desperation has set in to the CAGW camp.

      This recognition of making us mental IS the new scam.
      Watch as many government and private Green Parasites start defrauding the system claiming mental stress, abuse etc from the skeptics. These liars are going to be the next drain on the money jar.

      The climate scientists, the GAIA believers, your scams are criminal.

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  • #
    john

    Speaking of ‘alarmist behavior”, this is something that needs to be watched closely.

    UPDATE 1-MEPS TO VOTE THIS WEEK ON FAST-TRACK CO2 BACKLOADING

    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3919409

    LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – A proposal to fast-track efforts to prop up EU carbon prices will go to the European Parliament for a vote this week – earlier than expected – should lawmakers lodge any objections in parliament, a source at the office of the chair of the legislature’s Conference of Committee Chairs (CoCC) said.

    50

  • #
    Mike M

    As James Kilpatrick would likely have said:

    “But Shana… they PAID their carbon taxes! They thought they knew what they were buying when they paid indulgences for the sin of keeping their SUV’s but here they are worried about climate anyway. So what did they really get for those indulgences Shana? I think they should demand their money back!”

    80

  • #
    Tim

    “This kind of anticipatory anxiety is especially crippling and is increasingly being seen among climate activists — in some cases rising to the level of a kind of ‘pre-traumatic’ stress disorder,” she added.

    This is exactly the response required. It can lead to fear that translates into anger toward the dastardly perpetrators of scepticism. Those infected by the ‘religion’ may then resort to aggression and violence, as exemplified in many countries.

    Clever marketing.

    00

  • #

    There’s a simple remedy for all this that would immediately relieve all this anxiety.

    Just shut down all the power plants which emit CO2, because those plants contribute just over 40% of all those CO2 emissions, coal fired power and Natural Gas fired power.

    Not just here in Australia, around 90% of all power generation, but in the U.S. 70% of all power.

    Then shut down all of Europe’s power also, then China, and then India, and then, on and on and on.

    These people know that is the major source of CO2 emissions, so doing that would immediately solve the problem.

    Just shut it all down.

    The immediate relief would be palpable in all these people who are so fretful over all this.

    If you seriously think that will ever happen, or that any politician anywhere will ever allow that to happen, then I have shares in Bridge you might like to buy from me.

    All they have is a scare campaign.

    The resolution, what I have written above, is something that will never even be contemplated.

    It will NEVER happen.

    Tony.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      If you seriously think that will ever happen, or that any politician anywhere will ever allow that to happen, then I have shares in Bridge you might like to buy from me.

      Tony,

      I’ll see your bridge shares and raise the bid to a hundred thousand shares in my bridge — a magnificent structure of considerable architectural fame and beauty; over 100 years old and still going strong. You can collect all the tolls once you own it.

      I’m sure you won’t be able to resist. 😉

      Oops! I forgot to mention that climate change may soon have it all under water. But that’s just a small problem — unless you actually worry about climate change.

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    • #

      Some power generators in Germany have applied for shutdowns because they cannot operate in an environment that favours intermittent, preferred renewable supply. The German government’s response seems to be to draft legislation prohibiting the withdrawal of registered generators from the market.

      Former (left-wing SPD) Chancellor Schroeder is warning the current government (via his soon-to-be-published biography) that high energy prices will not produce a gradual de-industrialisation of Germany, but a sudden one. Schroeder has far more “industry experience” than Merkel, etc.; having sat on the (supervisory?) board of Volkswagen for a long time, representing the State (Lower Saxony) shareholder in the company.

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    • #
      Carbon500

      Ah..but Tony..(excuse me while I wring my hands)..don’t you see..it’s the carbon that’s already up there that’s the problem. We’ve shut down all those nasty polluting power stations, but we’ve got to scrub the sky back down to 280ppm or less. It’s the only way we’ll survive. We need a government grant to look into how to do it…..

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    • #
      The Griss

      It won’t happen, because they want to bleed the populace with unwarranted taxes.

      They can see a nice little earner is these taxes, just as many have found a nice little earner in collecting subsidies for renewables etc.

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      • #
        Steve

        Ah but why dont they just shut most of the coal power stations down and then let the pollies stand in front of the power stations to explain to the public who now cant live in the 20th century – why they did it. Clearly, as its just the *obvious* thing to do to save the mythical Gaia, the public would have fully sympathy…..

        I’d expect pollies heads on spikes within 24 hours…..

        10

        • #
          The Griss

          It may not be that long before that happens.. South Australia will be the first to suffer a massive long black-out or brown-out. I’m guessing with a couple of years.

          Even NSW is teetering.. another couple of % of ‘alternative’ non-deliverables, and a fire in the wrong place could take out the system due to instability. Taking out circuit breakers basically everywhere.

          Think of it as one big long ripple travelling up and down the coast.

          Then re-synchronising the supply would take a few days.. wouldn’t that be fun, intermittent browns and blacks, pockets of availability all out of sync.

          When that happens, let the governments explain to a collapsed economy and disrupted society just how good renewables were.

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      Mike M

      “If you seriously think that will ever happen, or that any politician anywhere will ever allow that to happen…”

      But they WILL! The issue is how slowly they do it per their “boiled frog” approach to pushing energy prices higher. The higher the energy prices – the poorer we become – the more dependent on government we become – the more POWER they have over us. Permanent ruling class power is ultimately the only thing they care about.

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        Steve

        I think people need to be prepared for nasty stuff if wehat you suggest does eventuate. For the record – I abhor violence and do not in any way endorse or condone it.

        What I can see happening is the assault of power company officials. If people are frustrated and angry, it will only take one of the power comapany execs to be kidnapped and ransomed off to make a very loud point and serve notice.

        When people are backed into a corner by a snarling attack dog they will have two choices – get bitten, or come out swinging….at that point we will have a society in crisis and how “fortunate” every police force now is more like a military outfit than a police force.

        Possibly interesting days ahead.

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    Sonny

    Jo,

    I think you are being far too apologetic here.
    Linking supposed climate change events to mental health issues is an absolute sick and pathetic joke and the lying bastards pushing this crap are sub-human.

    The real mental health crisis is suffered by those who realise its all a con job, yet are powerless to stop a multi decadal scam from continuing to rob them of their livelihoods and undermine their democratic freedoms. The real victims are children who are presented horror fiction as if it were true. What about the mental health effects of knowing that the media (everything you thought you knew) was subject to total control from political forces. What about the mental health effects of watching the scientific method utterly hijacked and destroyed by political organisations. What about the mental health effects of being ridiculed, ostracised, threatened, being called “deniers”, and “headless chicken” by some of the most powerful people in the works?

    It is not weather or climate which are causing mental health issues, it’s the lying thieving bastards pretending the weather and climate is out to kill us and that it’s all our fault.

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      Steve

      But in our house, I make sure our child hears that climate change is a fairy story like the tooth fairy.

      I make no apologies in claiming my childrens’ minds for truth, rather that letting the CAGW psyops masters try and hijack her life.

      No quarter will be given.

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    Roy Hogue

    For months after Hurricane Sandy sent nearly six feet of water surging into her home in Long Beach, N.Y. — an oceanfront city along Long Island’ s south shore — retired art teacher Marcia Bard Isman woke up many mornings feeling anxious and nauseated. She had headaches, and inexplicable bouts of sadness. She found herself crying for no apparent reason.

    “I would feel really sad, and that’s just not me,” she said. “I felt like the joy was out of my life. I still haven’t recaptured it.”

    What she’s going through are the very well known consequences of a traumatic event. Climate change had nothing to do with it and hasn’t managed to change human nature one bit, even though the warmists might like to convince us to the contrary. If you’ve been through a traumatic event you’ll understand exactly what I’m saying. Another fraud on the public.

    There are basically two types of people about climate change:

    1. Those who worry about it even if it doesn’t cause them any trouble — they are hopeless.

    2. Those to whom it’s become rather ho-hum and they don’t worry about it or they recognized it right away and never worried about it — they may or may not have their act all together but they’re not suffering because of climate change. And they know it!

    I’ll grant you that some may move from one group to the other — you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make him drink. But there’s nothing else to say about this new nonsense assertion. It is simply another dying gasp of the global warming fraud.

    They do wander farther and farther afield with time, don’t they? Shame on them! 🙁

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      Roy Hogue

      “We are undoing millions of years of evolution, and the situation is a catastrophe,” she said. “Climate activists on the front lines are desperate to convey this to the public, but are told to be wary of paralyzing people with fear. Compounding the issue is that people often generally are not ‘good’ at knowing they are anxious, or, if they do, often don’t know why.

      The solution to this is simple — send all the alarmists to Siberia or Barrow, Alaska, where they’ll really have something to worry about. Even Wyoming here in the lower 48 would do nicely in the winter. Undoing millions of years of evolution? Or are they just making a mountain out of the proverbial mole hill?

      The catastrophe is all in their heads. Let them suffer with it and leave me alone.

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        PhilJourdan

        The McKibben solution. He searched so long to find his own victimization.

        Life has become too easy for some. They need to feel threatened to soothe their guilt feelings about doing nothing and living well.

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          Roy Hogue

          You are, unfortunately, correct for a whole lot of people.

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            Roy Hogue

            But then there’s this: at some point along the way we began to teach victim-hood to larger and larger groups of people. It’s just as easy to feel guilty about being successful as it is to feel victimized by [put your favorite here]. And if your favorite choice is climate change then there’s no difference at all.

            Sometimes I wonder what will be written on humanity’s tombstone.

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    tonyM

    “For their own health they need an emergency course in Aristotelian logic.”

    For our health they need a lobotomy.

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    Doug Proctor

    “… so the 30% of the population that believes the witchdoctors are suffering from genuine fear and cognitive dissonance.”

    The eco-activist David Suzuki has said that he and his wife sometimes hold each other at night and weep of the state of the Earth. And then there is Bill McKibben ….

    An interesting point being made here. If the activists are working themselves up into a “pre-traumatic” state, then their over-the-top rantings are understandable and, to the benefit of all, headed towards a crisis: there is a limit to self-induced fear. They will pop, either have a public meltdown that demonstrates their psychological disconnect, or will abandon the entire fight in depressed despair.

    Actually, Suzuki may already have come to that point. He has said that the environmental movement has failed. At 77, he seems ready to abandon the planet to those unworthy of the Garden he so passionately wanted (for himself, anyway). Good for him. Turn against your former supporters as pikers undeserving of a clean litter box.

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    Spetzer86

    I’m shocked that nobody has pointed out that the graph Jo provides clearly indicates that in 90 years the number of major hurricanes will surpass the total number of hurricanes! It’s right there in the regression lines and nobody is worried about that??!!

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      The Griss

      chuckle. well noted.. are you a climate scientist, perhaps..

      .. wonder who gave you a red for that. I gave a green.

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      Manfred

      Nice one! Can we explain it in the following way?
      Regression models for prediction are often useful even when the assumptions are moderately violated, although they may not perform optimally.”

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    Hot under the collar

    “Climate Change is making us mental”

    Maybe ‘Desmogblog’ and ‘SkepticalScience’ can use that as a new name for their blogs? : )

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    Kaboom

    I agree that there’s a degree of mental health issues related to climate change but I submit that it is mostly limited to those who are the most alarmist about it as the lack of significant warming is in no relation to the anxieties expressed.

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  • #

    Perhaps Lise Van Susteren can help Tim Yeo come to terms with his deselection!

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    Yonniestone

    Unfortunately there will always be those that seek to profit from peoples fear of the apparent unknown.
    I find it amazing that some people will allow themselves to be manipulated into such a state of apprehension without looking into the idea that their fear may be completely unfounded, but it’s used in the same way that people can accept they have to live like the dark ages to save the planet and everyone on it.
    Sometimes you just can’t win. 🙁

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    PeterS

    It’s pretty clear that some global warming/climate change alarmists are mentally sick. The rest are pure con artists out there to make money. The reason is simple. The go around trying to scare everyone to death with evidence that in most cases at least destroys their arguments. The state of the mentally sick ones is very similar to the colloquial definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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    Manfred

    Oh dear, oh dear. Let’s place Dr Lise Van Susteren in context shall we? According to the Wikipedia entry she has a blog at the Huffington Post.

    “In September 2006, Vice President Al Gore trained Van Susteren at The Climate Project to educate the public about global warming.

    “She was named to the Board of Directors of The Climate Project in 2009. Van Susteren speaks frequently to civic, educational, religious, labor, and environmental groups about the impacts of climate change, particularly the health impacts, in the Washington, DC area, nationally, and abroad. In 2009, she organized the first conference to focus on the psychological impacts of climate change. She co-authored “The Psychological Effects of Climate Change” published by the National Wildlife Federation.”

    She performs precisely as expected. There is no surprise that she vigorously stirrs the climate pot with her agenda ladle. The twin motivations of her profession and her activtism are perfectly matched. She creates the need and provides the fix. Wonderful.

    For those that are sometimes heard to argue that natural selection has largely done its dash and humanity now controls the outcomes…think again. The increasing numbers of psychologically compromised individuals, immobilised by fear, unable to participate, economically reduced… you know, the one’s that get transfixed in the middle of the night by oncoming car headlights, or in paleo-days by the stampeding hairy mammoth and sabre toothed tigers, the ones alluded to in this post by Jo, think of the grand service you’re selflessly providing for the rest of us in the heaving gene pool.

    Like the Darwin Awards you are to be saluted. It is because of you our gene pool grows ever more robust. Now, we need an award for this particular variation…..for our forensic psychiatrist and climate activist – anyone for
    The Gore Award‘ ?

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      Roy Hogue

      The Huffington Post explains a lot. Association with that gutter publication makes one immediately suspect. There’s no real interest in the facts at the Huff Po.

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    James

    Bring back the 60’s when all we worried about at school was the imminent threat of nuclear war and how to tie-dye tee shirts.

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      Roy Hogue

      Never mind the 60s. How about the 50s? There’s so much in common between then and now. Only the names have changed really.

      In case no one remembers: When you see the flash of the bomb, duck and cover. Too bad that when you see it — and if you see it — it’s already too late for you.

      Yes, those were the carefree days of nuclear hysteria, movies like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, and robots named Gort, not to mention WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953? version) that scared me half to death when that Martian spacecraft started to slowly unscrew and the heat ray began to emerge. George Pal was wonderful for suspense, far better than anyone else, even Hitchcock. My heart was pounding. How did we survive it?

      I think in the end we just went on with life and coped with the problems that came along as best we could. And a funny thing happened along the way. No one dropped an atomic bomb.

      And here we are today. And we’re still going in spite of all the bogymen. Makes you want to adopt Alfred E. Newman’s philosophy, doesn’t it?

      What, me worry?

      😉

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        PhilJourdan

        The 50s were a time for SciFi movies! Some (like Plan B – but that was 60s) were bad, but others skimped on the special effects (non-existent back in those days), and went to plot! I have yet to see the remake of Patricia Neal’s masterpiece, and I never will! (I fell in love with her as a kid).

        Star Wars was ok. And the special effects were great. But just not the same. Those in the 50s made you stop and think. Sometimes for the better, sometimes in fear. But always searching for more answers.

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    Eliza Doodle

    I don’t know what directed me to this site. Maybe a link from this site or something I clicked by accident.
    Anyway it’s a film showing how easy it can be for a ‘leader’ with the right confidence and whatever motivation to get a herd to follow them.
    Obviously put together by some libertarian think-tank, but illustrative nonetheless.

    The Wave: 1981 film that shows students trading their individualism for collectivism
    (Subtitled in Norwegian too)

    (Apologies if I was unconsciously following a link from a recent post here – of which can can only plead, no recollection).

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    john robertson

    There is a class of citizens, who fear everything, their terror is such that they obsess over controlling very imagined threat.
    You know them by their most common manifestation, the Do-Gooder.
    Inept on every personal front, they are relentless in their invasion of others lives.
    Ever aiming to manage your life, business and leisure, to protect you from possible harm.
    Ever ready to spend unlimited amounts of other peoples money to mitigate imagined problems.

    Look at the classic CAGW promoter/overpopulation zealot/progressive politician.
    They run the same old scam, year after year.
    As old as language;”Look storm comes”.
    “Give me your goods, I will make storm spare you”
    A little chanting, rattle shaking and untold BS, the scammer is richer, the sucker is poorer.

    It is time for the cycle to move on,the phase of peak stupid will change into retribution, human nature is.
    A tax on all do-gooders is necessary for civilization to survive.

    We used to use mockery, derision and exile to disciple the worst loons.
    They created Political Correctness to prevent the proper use of these tools.
    Now it is a “Hate Crime” to call a dangerous delusional moron, a dangerous delusional moron.
    The nuts are running the funny farm.
    No one is accountable within the endless ranks of our Kleptocracies.
    None can be fired.
    History? Mathematics? Reading Comprehension?
    All bad, might hurt a morons feelings.

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      Mike M

      Great find!

      “We know an ingenious theorist who would fain persuade us that a cycle of six hundred unfavorable years has just reached its termination, and that English agriculturists, who left off making wine about A.D. 1250 because their grapes ceased to ripen, will soon be making it again, and continue to do so for an equivalent number of centuries. ”

      My very first musings over AGW several years ago pointed me toward that same history – as it did with this author over 140 years ago – as it likely did with so many of my brethren here. I recall telling others, “BUT … the English were growing grapes in England, Germans were growing figs in Germany and the Vikings were growing crops in Greenland back in the MWP.

      The alarmists reacted at such claims with vigorous condemnation even way back then. My fuzzy memory of that were things like, “The MWP was local” (yeah, for hundreds of years!), “They still grow grapes in England” (right, how many acres are planted now versus back then?)

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    bullocky


    Marlene Cimons;
    ” …..into her home in Long Beach, N.Y. — an oceanfront city along Long Island’ s south shore — retired art teacher Marcia Bard Isman woke up many mornings feeling anxious and…….”

    Here, Cimons gives a snap-shot of her readership.

    I’m reminded of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (leader of the Orange People) who intoned (not verbatim) – . . .’There are so many people looking after the poor, please leave me alone to look after the rich’

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      Parma John

      Yes, this is the same chronically worried Marcia C Isman who will sell you a plastic bottle with a filter cartridge on line for 54 bucks! For that small price you get to show off your outrage against another terrifying, world threatening phenomenon: people multinational corporations selling water (gasp). http://water.thewellnessconnectiononline.com/

      Marcia is a poster child for over-the-top environmental lunacy, straight from the comfort of her beachside bungalow in downtown Angst Central. I think she needs to get out of New York more often.

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    Leo Morgan

    Global Warming alarm causes mental illness?

    Somebody’s confused cause and effect.

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    Streetcred

    Psychotic alarmists ? I’m waiting until they get positively suicidal … then out with the popcorn to observe the CAGW lemmings.

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    John

    Memo to all sufferers of PTCD, climate activists, Christine Milne, Tim Flannery, global warming fear mongerers, the ABC and all other prophets of doom that have regular nightmares that the end is nigh – using the words of the late and great Michael Crichton:

    The future of the earth: Is this the end of the world? Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Floods, What is happening to our planet? Is this the end of the world?

    NO! We live on an active planet – earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half a year, or 3 every minute, a Richter 5 every 6 hours, a major quake every 3 weeks, there’s a quake the size of Pakistan every 8 months, at any moment on our planet there are 11 lightning strikes every second, there are 1500 electrical storms on the planet at any moment, a tornado touches down every 6 hrs, a tidal wave crosses the Pacific every 3 months, there are 90 hurricanes a year, one every 4 days, its constant, is this the end of the world?

    No, this IS the world!

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    Peter Miller

    This kind of anticipatory anxiety is especially crippling and is increasingly being seen among climate activists — in some cases rising to the level of a kind of ‘pre-traumatic’ stress disorder

    Question: Why on Earth should anyone care? If it wasn’t on climate fantasies, these people would find some other non-problem to generate their ‘stress disorders.’

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    LevelGaze

    “This kind of anticipatory anxiety is especially crippling and is increasingly being seen among climate activists —”

    GOOD!!!!

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    handjive

    Sunderbans:
    “A number of environmental threats including that of climate change and man-animal conflict are driving villagers in Sunderbans islands towards madness and even suicide.
    Putting stress on the mental health of the villagers, the ill-effects of abject poverty and deprivation in the remote islands of the UNESCO World Heritage site are compounded by acute struggle against ecological hazards, experts say.”
    .
    Without a copy/paste of whole article, perhaps a telling quote is this: “An absence of mental health clinics in the region is aggravating the problem as people opt for ‘ojhas’ to ward off evil spirits whenever anyone reports falling mental health.”
    But that is a cul-de-sac for another day.

    Today, we are talking about mental health issues related to Global Warming.

    And, examples of the cognitive state required to ‘believe in Global Warming’ is the people who wish for climate catastrophe:
    .
    BANGALORE: J Srinivasan, professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, goes through his work days secretly hoping for a global major climate crisis.
    As a leading climate change scientist in India, he knows that the country and the world are inching towards disaster.

    The Guardian, August 15 2013:
    Are you Ready to Embrace the Apocalypse
    “I’ve been thinking a lot about the future lately.
    Facing up to the slow collapse of our planet is hard, but thinking apocalyptically could help us prepare for the crises to come.”
    .
    There was a climate gate email as well ‘wishing for a crisis’ which someone might have archived.
    . . . .

    The mentally disturbed people you used to see standing on street corners proclaiming the end of the world are now in government and in charge.
    Don’t be afraid to speak up!

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      handjive

      Not to forget this shining relevant example of the cognitive state of Dot Earth’s Andy Revkin:

      “With the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy’s coastal assault here, The New York Times and other media have run a batch of helpful articles tracking how coastal communities are, and are not, responding to the lessons from the extraordinary surge raised by that storm — a 1-in-700-year event, by some calculations.

      With sea levels rising for centuries to come, amplifying the impact of any coastal storm, you’d think we’d wise up. But, as I wrote in 2007, sea level rise is “a disaster epic in slo-mo.” (There’s more here on New York City’s response.)”

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    bobl

    ANU is now claiming http://news.anu.edu.au/2014/02/03/waves-costly-for-fish/ that average wave energy is increasing due to climate change.

    However the average wave energy is about 36 kW per square meter of ocean surface so how much difference could 0.6W of energy imbalance make. 0.002% that’s how much. Let’s scale that back (360 times) to say 100 watts per square meter that you could easilly extract using a home built wave generator, and recalculate, our 0.6W imbalance could cause a whole 0.8% increase in average wave energy. Ooh, I’m shaking in my boots.

    Of course climate science as usual ignores the inconvenient fact that effects take energy, if average wave energy is increased by this piddling amount, where is the energy to heat the atmosphere, melt the ice, and cause superstorms and floods – gone, gone, gone, into the kinetic energy of waves, and eventually expended in a vain attempt to slow the rotation of the planet – naughty ocean.

    Yet another violation of energy conservation in climate anti-science. Any ANU graduates want to take on the PVC over this rubbish.

    Jo, is there a story in this?

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    Debbie

    “Spare us. The answer is not to trash the economy, but to stop the fear campaign and get back to real concerns. The way to reduce the damage from ghastly natural events is to do better science, stop the name-calling, and cancel the government committees that can’t list the observations to support their claims. We need to actually figure out the climate. Then we need to stop people building in flood zones, stop filling up dams as cyclical rain returns, and start getting practical.”

    Well said Jo,
    Wringing hands and pretending that someone or something has the power to control the future weather is nonsense. Of course we need to re focus on practical solutions.
    This article here points out why that is the best option and probably has always been the best option.
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/new-qld-homes-inevitable-in-flood-areas/story-fni0xqi4-1226818209617

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    pat

    let’s unpack this article person by person.

    Manfred –

    note also from Van Susteren’s Wikipedia page:

    “She has worked as a consultant to the Central Intelligence Agency conducting psychological assessments of world leaders”

    also mentioned on Wikipedia: Lisa Van Susteren is the sister of Fox’s Greta Van Susteren. Lisa was unsuccessful when she ran as a Democrat for a U. S. Senate seat in Maryland in 2006.

    note the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report is said to have “emphasized that certain populations would be more at risk than others” …
    “especially America’s 70 million children.”

    surely children wouldn’t have any experience of CLIMATE other than the CLIMATE they’ve experienced to date, which they’d perceive as normal, so how is it they’d be psychologically damaged?

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      Mike M

      Most US kids don’t even experience any kind of climate at all these days because they stay indoors staring either at their computer screens or busily texting each other on their cell phones. To them – ANY kind of outdoor climate different than 72 degrees F and dry is extreme and kinda “scary”.

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    pat

    the author of the article is Marlene Cimons.

    on the Charlie Chickens’ thread, i linked to the following article by Cimons, saying this is a reminder of how the CAGW mind game is played:

    July 2013: LiveScience: U.S. Military Prepares for Global Unrest Amid Climate Fears (Op-Ed)
    by Marlene Cimons of Climate Nexus
    http://www.livescience.com/38167-national-security-impact-of-warming-climate.html

    all that needs to be said about Cimons can be expressed in a single word – “Maryland”:

    LinkedIn: Marlene Cimons
    writer National Science Foundation
    Government Agency; 1001-5000 employees; Government Administration industry
    September 2009 – Present (4 years 6 months) …
    adjunct professor University of Maryland
    January 2002 – Present (12 years 2 months
    http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marlene-cimons/6/796/16a

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    pat

    Cimons’ main victim, retired art teacher Marcia Bard Isman, Long Island, NY, is from Hurricane Sandy support group started by psychotherapist, Dr. Laurie Nadel.

    Zoominfo: Marcia Isman, Great Neck (Long Island), NY.
    Previously an art teacher in the Lawrence-Cedarhurst public schools, for 30 years, Marcia is now teaching people how to be healthy and financially independent. A Nikken Independent Certified Wellness Home Consultant, she is part of a team that is pioneering the introduction of unusual, high impact product technologies that simplify managing one’s well-being (sleep, environment, nutrition and fitness). She empowers people to take better care of themselves and their families by creating “Wellness Homes”. …
    http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Marcia-Isman/466867712

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    pat

    now to the COGNITIVE psychotherapist, Laurie Nadel. (keep in mind Nadel is the equivalent of an ambulance-chaser):

    Laurie Nadel, Psychotherapist
    Therapeutic Specialties
    Dr. Nadel has extensive experience in helping individuals whose lives have been shattered by such catastrophic events as 9/11; Hurricane Sandy…
    From 2003-2005, she ran a program at South Nassau Communities’ Hospital’s WTC Family Center for teenagers and young adults who lost a parent in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center…
    http://www.laurienadel.com/

    Huffington Post Profile: Laurie Nadel
    Laurie Nadel, Ph.D. has a dual career in psychology and journalism. She spent 20 years as a journalist for major news organizations, including CBS News and The New York Times…
    Unlocking Your Ultimate Mind Power (ASJA Press, 2007), she has appeared on Oprah and Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory.
    Her play Solar Katrina–three characters in search of a producer– is the story of a newspaper editor who is struggling to survive in New York City a year after a devastating solar storm wiped out all forms of digital communications, television, and most electricity…
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-nadel/

    personally, i consider this kind of intervention at sporting events unethical. why would parents even allow it?

    2011: Huffington Post: Laurie Nadel: Baseball, Hope and the Children of 9/11
    We were standing in the press box at Yankee Stadium where my brother Eric was calling the game for the Texas Rangers…
    We rejoined his brothers, a cousin, and about seven other teenage boys whose fathers had been killed in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Thanks to the New York Yankees’ community relations director Rocky Halsey and Kevin Dart in special sales, we had great seats and special permission to escort two boys at a time into the press box during the game. It was a steamy night in May 2003 and I was coated with Bronx sweat and fumes from taking the boys up and down until the seventh inning stretch. A young man whose father happened to be at a meeting in the World Trade Center that day unfolded the American flag that had covered his dad’s coffin. Without exchanging a word, four boys joined him in holding up the flag while everyone sang “God Bless America.”…
    No one was more surprised than I to discover that the keys to healing for these 30-plus adolescents and young adults would be found at Yankee and Shea Stadiums…
    But as I spent three baseball seasons, from 2003 to 2005, with the teens and young adults of 9/11, I began to wonder if there might be something magical in the nature of baseball that was allowing these young people who were emotionally closed off to open up to each other as friends who shared a tragedy…
    On our bus rides from Rockville Centre to the stadiums, where the kids came to be welcomed by New York Yankees manager Joe Torre and New York Mets manager Omar Minaya, I began to see how 9/11 and baseball were inextricably linked. One of the biggest losses that these young people felt keenly was not being able to go to the ballpark with their dads…
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-nadel/baseball-hope-and-the-chi_b_953075.html

    2009: CoastToCoast: George Noory: Precognition & Dreams
    Appearing during the first three hours, author, researcher and psychotherapist Dr. Laurie Nadel discussed precognitive dreams, and how many people had dreams and visions before 9-11. The dreaming mind can pick up impressions and images of events that haven’t happened yet, or people who haven’t come into your life yet, she said…
    A few months before 9-11, many people reported reoccurring dreams about planes, birds, towers, and people falling out of buildings; this was a kind of a “intensification in the collective subconscious” and people’s ability to perceive these symbols, she said…
    Interestingly, Nadel noted that dreams about strange and unusual cloud formations are currently being reported. The clouds are described as dark, low to the horizon, completely different than patterns we typically see, and ominous in nature. She speculated that it may have something to do with the shifting of polar energies or geographical changes…
    http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/09/03

    any comment, Lewandowsky!

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    pat

    finally: what a weather wimp:

    4 Feb: New York Mag: Joe Coscarelli: Constant Snow Just Really Annoying at This Point
    “The snowstorm situation is reaaally getting a little too common,” said Mayor De Blasio this morning, announcing the imminent arrival of yet another snowstorm, following yesterday’s, and the one before that, and the one before that. “I think I did three rounds of shoveling and three rounds of salting yesterday,” he added. “This is really getting obnoxious.”…
    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/snow-coming-nyc-again-yes-again-again.html

    you gotta love the rhetoric:

    Bill De Blasio: A Framework for a Sustainable City
    Climate change, a fast-changing economy, and new pressures to preserve our environment combine to make urban sustainability an urgent priority. At the same time, sustainability offers tremendous opportunities to improve public health and our environment, deliver real savings and efficiency for tax- payers, and open new doors to good-paying jobs particularly for low-income New Yorkers.
    New York City is uniquely positioned to become the most sustainable big city in the world.
    http://www.billdeblasio.com/issues/sustainability-environment

    De Blasio should talk to Nadel, who has been less pessimistic in the past:

    CoastToCoast: Dr. Laurie Nadel
    Dr. Laurie Nadel has been conducting research into psychic phenomena since the mid-1970s when she began to have direct experience of the paranormal…
    Laurie Nadel has doctorates in cognitive psychology and clinical hypnotherapy…
    The Happiness Gene
    In the last hour, researcher Dr. Laurie Nadel and author James D. Baird talked about the “happiness gene.” The new science of epigenetics suggests that people can use their minds to turn on and off certain genes, said Baird. “There is a biological basis for us to be happy,” and our environment and thoughts affect our genes, Nadel outlined…
    http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/nadel-dr-laurie/6918

    message to CAGW zealots, adapt or die. the public ain’t buying the argument that we need to spend trillions of dollars in the name of CAGW, so that you can feel better…psychologically speaking!

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    Alice Thermopolis

    And the psychological damage is not only over what is happening now, but what is likely going to happen in the future.

    “This kind of anticipatory anxiety is especially crippling and is increasingly being seen among climate activists — in some cases rising to the level of a kind of ‘pre-traumatic’ stress disorder,” she added.

    Physicians (and priests) in the Orient have a tonic guaranteed to cure such bouts of nervous dyspepsia and other related types of anxiety, whatever their cause.

    It is avaialble OTC as a tonic or pill. Just ask for some: “Inshallah”.

    Headless Chicken Denier MD

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    The Griss

    The major anxiety is that one of these kooks is going to do something like spray massive amounts of sulphur into the upper atmosphere,

    just as we are heading into a cooler period. !

    These guys are criminals of the top order and may actually do something very silly like this.. just because they can !

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    pat

    love this bit: “That some are planning to get rich from the warming world only underscores the reality of climate change”:

    3 Feb: Time: McKenzie Funk: The Big Business of Global Warming
    Corporations are betting on climate change — and primed for a big payday when things really heat up
    (McKenzie Funk writes for Harper’s, Outside, National Geographic and Rolling Stone, and is the author of Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming (The Penguin Press, 2014).)
    The pharmaceutical giant Bayer has made a remarkable — and lucrative — discovery. Allergies are on the rise…
    Bayer mentions this in its annual response to the watchdog CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, which surveys the greenhouse-gas emissions of the world’s largest corporations…
    One of Bayer’s latest products is “a new generation of mosquito net,” the LifeNet. It also has two advanced bug sprays in the pipeline. These will be lucrative because mosquitoes and the disease they carry are expected to thrive in a warmer world, leaving another 40 million to 60 million people at risk of malaria in Africa alone. “In light of an expected climate-change-related increase of malaria incidents in further regions of the world (e.g., Northern Europe), we expect a growing demand for Bayer mosquito nets,” the company writes…
    Bayer is not alone in seeing opportunities in a hotter planet. In Australia’s climate-stressed bread belt, the Murray-Darling basin, and its analog in the American West, the Colorado River basin, hedge funds have bought up millions of gallons worth of water rights. Other funds, convinced that commodity prices can only keep rising, are part of a new scramble for Africa in which as many as 100,000 sq. mi. of farmland — an area larger than the U.K. — have been leased or purchased by foreign investors…
    In the Netherlands, the stock of the seawall-building company Arcadis jumped by 6% the moment New York City — a potential client — was struck by Hurricane Sandy…
    That some are planning to get rich from the warming world only underscores the reality of climate change: its impacts, though mostly bad for most people in most places, are deeply uneven…
    This unevenness suggests that self-interest, however rational, may never be enough to jump-start real climate action in the wealthy countries where it’s most needed. It’s hard to scare people into cutting emissions if they’re not actually all that scared…
    http://ideas.time.com/2014/02/03/the-big-business-of-global-warming/

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    Hey, way off topic I know, but I wonder if this might indicate anything.

    The operators are going to close a power plant in Queensland, at the Swanbank plant near Ipswich.

    Once a large scale multi unit plant, Swanbank now has only the one unit.

    Swanbank B had 4 units first commissioned in 1971 and closed, one unit at a time over four years, the last in mid 2012, after 41 years of operation.

    The still operational plant is the highly efficient CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) which has a 385MW generator, driven by an Alstom GT26 Gas turbine engine. This unit was commissioned in 2002, and in 2011, it actually set a record, constantly running at maxrevs, providing its full power for 254 days continuously, a world record for this type of gas turbine, not bad really for a turbine specifically designed to run in this application, as ordinary gas turbines are designed to run for just two to four hours tops a day.

    These types of CCGT plants are actually the coming thing across the U.S. where old (ancient really at 50 plus years) coal fired plants are being replaced by these CCGT, effecively lowering CO2 emissions. With CCGT, the turbine drives one generator via a shaft. The exhaust stream from the turbine then drives a second smaller turbine/generator unit, providing extra power from the one original fuel source, the Natural gas itself. Because they are CCGT, they can be used to supply power to cover the Base Load 24/7/365 requirement, effectively a good fit to replace coal fired power, if that really has to be done.

    So, this plant, still only just a little over 11 years old is being shut down, one of the more efficient natural gas fired plants in operation, not only here in Australia, but in the World.

    And the reason it’s being shut down.

    The operators say it is more lucrative to sell the natural gas into the gas market than it is to operate the plant to generate electricity.

    Now that’s at a time when retail electricity has never been more expensive.

    At the rate of NG consumption typical for this type of turbine, that means an impost for the CO2 Tax of around $30 Million a year. (and hey, could there be a hint in there somewhere as to the closure)

    Bean counters have decided that it would be cheaper to sell the gas into the market than use it to generate electricity from a plant barely 11 years old, and one of the more efficient plants for its type.

    Now, hark back to what our friend Memoryvault said about Natural Gas fired plants in Australia, and that there was very (very) little natural gas for domestic consumption,as most of it is for export sale.

    So, not only are they demonising coal fired plants because of their high CO2 emissions, here we have a plant, Natural Gas fired, with only around 40% of the emissions of an equivalent sized coal fired unit, closing down because it’s cheaper to sell the gas into the market than it is to generate electricity.

    This plant generates the same power to deliver to the grid that you would get from 500 average sized wind towers, and this Swanbank plant delivered its power 24/7/365 ….. on tap, not on the sporadic basis of wind power.

    The lunatics are now running the asylum.

    The scary part here is that 2 major plants in NSW, Bayswater one of them had 2 proposals, one for USC coal fired and the second for CCGT, which became the preferred option for the former Government, and this worrying story would now put the kibosh on that even, so effectively, Bayswater will probably just end up being run into the ground, unreplaced.

    That’s more scary than any Climate Change induced anxiety.

    Tony.

    POST SCRIPT: By the way, has anybody heard from our friend Memoryvault recently?

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      Yonniestone

      Yes where is Memoryvault?, I hope all’s good.
      BTW what happened to ACE? haven’t seen him for ages.

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        The Griss

        I think MV got annoyed at being constantly in moderation, or something like that.

        I do hope he still reads, it would be nice to have him back.

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        Len

        Memory Vault is a West Aussie who lives in Bribie Island in QLD. I was wondering if the smokes had got him. It would be good to read his interesting comments once again.

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          Len

          I rang Memory Vault and he said he thinks the moderators are too biased.
          MV says he will not comment again. Hopefully he will be back, sooner I hope.

          [Yes, he is certainly missed. I have emailed him, but had no reply. It was an unfortunate colourful exchange in Jan between MV and someone who was pushing the bounds of reason and manners. The other party is no longer welcome to comment here. The fault is mine for letting the latter bore us with his unending repetitive fallacies for far too long. The mods had the impossible job of trying to keep things civil. As it happens, colorful words are picked up by the auto-filter. Once the conversation goes technicolor the threads degenerate too fast. If the big-oil cheque came I could pay those helpful moderators. – Jo ]

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      The Griss

      TonyinOZ..
      How long do you reckon before we have the first major black or brown out in NSW, Vic or Qld?

      Things must be starting to get close to “tipping point ” 😉

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        Those three States are the least worrying.

        South Australia is a slight worry, and notice I only said slight and I’ll explain that later.

        Most importantly, grid controllers will do all in their power to keep the power on, and woebetide the first brown out or rolling blackouts, because you can bet Politicians will tell them ….. at any cost, keep the power on, as shown in South Australia. They closed down Playford and now Northern is only operating one unit. They shut even that one unit down, and had the monster problem when wind failed, and very quietly brought it back on line. Playford was ancient, literally, and Northern is not much better. Successive SA State Governments of every persuasion failed to build any new power plants, instead of Wind which skyrocketed in SA. Then the wind failed. Costs spiked, not for a few hours not for a day or so, but for many days on end, almost a Month. Northern’s one unit came back on line to alleviate the problem somewhat, but power costs were still very high, and still are.

        SA has the (phew, saved) interlink with Victoria, so they sucked up all they can from Victoria, which defeated the purpose of a green SA, because all that Victorian power was brown coal power. Smaller units are running longer than the usual average 2 or 3 hours, mainly because wind is so variable, and power just has to be there, so those smaller units, horrendously more expensive when run for longer than those two or three hours will spike the power cost in SA, but you can bet London to a brick that the Labor Government has that edict in place with the grid controllers ….. at any cost, because if the power does fail, that will reflect (very very) badly on the SA reliance on Wind.

        Meanwhile when Victoria has problems they can suck power from Tasmania, (virtually all of Hydro) via Basslink.

        So Victoria supplies SA, and Tas supplies Victoria. That sale of Interstate power costs a fortune, so it’s Peter, the money they get from SA paying Paul, the money they then give Tasmania.

        Brown coal power in Victoria is problematic, because of the age of the plants, and again, State Governments refusing to build new plants, so when they begin to fail, then Victoria will be in trouble.

        Qld should be OK, as with NSW, because they (NSW) have those monster coal fired plants, which will also cover some Qld consumption as well.

        But, a qualifying but, grid controllers will do everything (at any cost, remember) to keep power on.

        State Governments in every State have been at fault here for not building the power infrastructure needed to cover an expanding consumption, and now plants are being run down because power is needed more than the maintenance of those units is needed. NSW has had plans to upgrade 2 of their monsters to USC, but waffling will now see them (if they ever do go ahead) costing perhaps double what they would have had they gone ahead when first mooted.

        Anecdote time here, and after all, I can go OT because there’s a new Thread up here.

        I was ‘living out’ in the early 70’s when I was at Williamtown with the Air Force. We lived at Mayfield East, and this was at the time when the power plant building was going ahead in a big way, but until those plants came on line, there were rolling blackouts across the State for weeks on end, and people remember that. There’s more to be lost now, as houses are more power consumption oriented, and losses would be horrendous now, at that Residential level, always the first to be cut from the grid. People now are also more militant and would just not stand for it at all.

        Anyway, during that time, the huge American burger franchise Burger King started moving into Australia. They opened up a brand new restaurant just up the road a bit, the first of the Burger King’s to open up here in Oz I think. Huge it was, and people absolutely flocked to it in their droves. Always totally packed and anything up to a half hour wait, just to get to the counter, with half a dozen or so operators behind the counter, every night for almost a Month or 6 weeks, non stop, packed every night.

        Then the power cuts kicked in and being in a residential area they shut down. Everyone naturally thought it was the power cuts, but even during periods when power was on, they remained closed. No one could figure it out. Even when the power came back on full time, they remained closed. Again, everyone was really puzzled, because here was probably one of the most profitable burger joints in Newcastle.

        Then, after around three months, they opened up again, only this time as a Hungry Jacks store, so everyone thought that was the problem, money related and a new mob just took advantage of a nice new modern outlet.

        Took years to find out why it happened.

        Burger King was indeed the monster burger joint, and they were indeed moving into Australia.

        However. some small time guy in Adelaide owned a small burger joint called Burger King. He already had the Australian patent on that name, so after legal action, he won, and that’s how Burger King became Hungry Jacks here in Oz, one of three names on the list for Australian head franchisee Jack Cowin to select, and he picked Hungry Jack, adding the letter s on the end, in a twist to his own name.

        So, while we all thought it was the power blackouts that sent the burger joint off the air, it was an entirely different thing altogether.

        With respect to power blackouts though, keep in mind that phrase ….. at any cost, and thank the grid controllers who will do everything in their power to keep the power on. The CO2 Tax doesn’t help, because those small plants budget a couple of hours a day spread over the year, and now they’re being asked to run for around ten to fifteen hours a day for days on end. That extra CO2 cost has to be made up, plus the fine for over emissions at 1.5 times the base CO2 cost, plus loss of emission for next year, hence their costs are now horrendously expensive. You only have to look at the AEMO power cost site to see how SA is paying way way over the odds for power, at any cost, and that needs to be recovered, hence costs will rise.

        There are no (real) power plants in planning and with power having increased over the years, and don’t believe the hype about consumption falling, because that fall is absolutely tiny, considering the years it has been rising. So, existing power plants now aging and less efficient are being asked to do more.

        Grid controllers are the magicians here, and thanks to them power remains on. When it dies fail, it will be pretty big and the bovine excrement will come into violent contact with the rotating air circulating machine then, and you can can bet it won’t be politicians getting the blame.

        Tony.

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          The Griss

          Just so you know, the guy I talk to about this, is a grid inspector.

          He is worried, very worried about the stability of the system and the effect a large surge and its accompanying wave/ripple effect would have on the NSW/Qld network.

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    Andy Oz

    One solution to climate insanity – get outside more!
    “Everything that conduced to physical health conduced to mental health, and the climate favoured outdoor life. The almost perpetual sunshine of Australia probably militated against insanity.”
    Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 1889
    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/62108772

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    Geoff Sherrington

    To remind you that nothing much is new, here is the hyperlinked list of 880 things caused by global warming.
    It needs updating. However by March 2012, a couple of years ago,it already had 4 references to “mental”.
    http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

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    Roy Hogue

    I remember reading something like this in the past.

    Fear moderated by your intellect is a good thing.

    Fear not moderated by the intellect acts irrationally and isn’t even close to a good thing.

    I’ve probably not remembered it exactly and I’ve lost track of where I read it.

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    JCR

    Jo

    What do you mean by this phrase?

    “stop filling up dams as cyclical rain returns”

    I can understand not overfilling the dams. Part of the problems we had in the 2011 Brisbane floods was apparently that the dam engineers didn’t open the floodgates soon enough at Wivenhoe Dam. But wouldn’t we want to keep the dams topped up as much as possible, precisely because the rains ARE cyclical?

    Not a criticism -just seeking clarification.

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    Retired Dave

    Well I have posted in a few places in the last 12 months that I think (and what do I know??) that some cAGW proponents will have mental health problems in the coming years.

    Some warmists (for want of a better word) are already sliding into an exit strategy, some will move across to the next big thing, but some will not let go and for them the eventual realization will be very difficult. Since AGW is a religion, not a science, for many the shock of the fall of their hard held beliefs will be a desperate time, in much the same way as was true for some Christians when Evolution became accepted in the 19th century.

    Sceptics (skeptics) will be persuaded by the real world data, whichever way that goes. I believe it is called doing science.

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    john

    Main Stream media has been ignoring the facts. This has been an ongoing problem not only at Massachusetts based South Coast today, but the Boston Globe as well. Here is an article done by my counterpart that appeared at:

    http://dailybail.com/home/deval-patrick-paul-gaynor-crony-capitalism-at-first-wind.html

    Now this is what South Coast Today has decided. I have added who is on the board of that paper after the article. (H/T Gail Combs).

    Massachusetts Newspaper closes mind: will no longer print skeptical AGW opinions

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/06/newspaper-closes-mind-will-no-longer-will-print-skeptical-agw-opinions/

    Our View: There is no debate on climate change

    The “debate” over the reality and cause of climate change stopped being scientific long ago. Today, the “debate” is nothing more than a distraction that serves a political purpose for those who would stand to lose the most by policies that would curtail the release of carbon from its restful, stable location below the surface of the earth, in the form of fossil fuels, into our environment.

    One hundred percent of the current and former UMass Dartmouth scientists participating in an editorial board meeting at The Standard-Times on Tuesday agree both that climate change is occurring and that human activity — particularly the combustion of fossil fuels — has a significant impact on it.

    The point was made in the meeting that it is not typical that scientists would agree so broadly. There’s a reason for that: Theories aren’t agreed upon in the scientific community, but facts are.

    Theories are debated. Facts are facts.

    ——————-

    Okay, here are some FACTS:

    The Board of Directors (Which I was looking for to start with) is HERE

    These guys are no light weights! (What is it with bankers as news board of directors?)

    Quoted from various pages within the site:

    Wesley R. Edens
    Co-Founder, Principal and Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors
    Mr. Edens was formerly a partner and managing director of Lehman Brothers.

    Peter L. Briger, Jr.
    Principal and Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors
    Prior to joining Fortress in March 2002, Mr. Briger spent fifteen years at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he became a partner in 1996.
    San Francisco

    Randal A. Nardone
    Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Principal and Director
    New York
    Before joining UBS in 1997, Mr. Nardone was a principal of BlackRock Financial Management, Inc

    Michael E. Novogratz
    Principal and Director
    New York
    Mr. Novogratz joined Fortress in 2002 after spending 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was elected partner in 1998. Mr. Novogratz serves as a member of the New York Federal Reserve’s Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets.

    Dr. Richard N. Haass
    Director
    Prior to his current position, Dr. Haass was director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell on a broad range of foreign policy concerns, and acted as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and the lead U.S. government official in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Haass was special assistant to President George Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. Previously, he served in various posts in the United States Departments of State and Defense.

    George W. Wellde, Jr.
    Director
    Mr. Wellde joined Goldman Sachs in 1979, became a partner in 1992 and a managing director in 1996. In addition, he was branch manager of the Goldman Sachs Tokyo office and head of its Fixed Income Division from 1994 to 1999. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Mr. Wellde worked for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington from 1976 to 1979.

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