‘CAPITALISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE’ – Claim: ‘Capitalism is accelerating the global climate change consequences’

The sole ideology of the capitalism, with focusing on the profits instead on the sustainable development is responsible for the biggest part of the continuation of the devastating rise of the CO2 levels, which will have far reaching impacts on the whole world. The privatization of the public sector, deregulation of the private sector with lowering the taxes on profits for private companies and organizations are done at the expense of public spending and have the logic which is incompatible with the sustainability and needed actions to tackle global climate issues. What is worse, the World Trade Organization – WTO makes it possible to act against almost all international and national climate actions which were taken to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Private companies are making money and are not paying for the environmental damage done in the process and are serving only the interest of the few .

Naomi KleinThe book gives good examples of the impacts of the capitalism and free trade on the environment and climate. It is focused on presenting the ideology of capitalism, which is based on spending, materialism, debt and causes with the trade pollution to which no one takes responsibility for. The trade and environment are regarded as two separated things, but they have mutual effect and should be regarded as such. The importance of the trade over the environment is seen from various different global trade agreements. Further on, the emissions caused because of the products produced in developing countries and used in West has been six times greater from emission savings of all industrialized countries. The overall emissions are increasing because the companies are moving their production in parts of the world with less strict environmental rules. It is concerning that despite greater public awareness about the climate change consequences the emissions are still increasing with continuation of the use of unsustainable resources. The developed world is blaming developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and others and gives a blind eye on the fact that their private companies under free trade are causing the most environmental damage.…

Claim: Climate change is spreading Lyme disease

Nymphs questing through the forest. The phrase conjures up images of a scene from Game of Thrones. But encountering a real nymph on its quest offers a potentially harmful brush with climate change.

Immature deer ticks are called questing nymphs. They now inhabit a wide swath of North American forests, but they didn’t always. During early summer, their quest is for blood. The season now starts earlier and lasts longer than it did in the past, which is good for the ticks. But it’s bad for humans, because these ticks carry the bacteria, viruses, and parasites that cause Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, deer tick encephalitis, and babesiosis.

I have collected thousands of nymphs as part of my dissertation research on the invasion of Lyme disease across North America. I’ve witnessed along the way that where these ticks thrive has been heavily influenced by humans.…

Archaeology suggests no direct link between climate change and early human innovation

Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites suggest climate may not have been directly linked to cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in southern Africa, according to a study published July 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Patrick Roberts from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues.

The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change amongst early humans in southern Africa, and change has been postulated as a primary driver for the appearance of technological and cultural innovations such as bone tools, ochre production, and personal ornamentation. While some researchers suggest that climate instability may have directly inspired technological advances, others postulate that environmental stability may have provided a stable setting that allowed for experimentation. However, the disconnection of palaeoenvironmental records from archaeological sites makes it difficult to test these alternatives.

The authors of this study carried out analyses of animal remains, shellfish taxa and the stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements in ostrich eggshell, from two , Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter, spanning 98,000 to 73,000 years ago and 72,000 to 59,000 years ago, respectively, to acquire data regarding possible palaeoenvironmental conditions in southern Africa at the time. For instance, ostrich eggshell carbon and oxygen stable isotope levels may reflect vegetation and water consumption, which in turn vary with rainfall seasonality and amount in this region.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-07-archaeology-link-climate-early-human.html#jCp

NATO to consider climate change impact and military build-up in Arctic seas

As global warming opens up new shipping lanes and access to valuable resources, countries are firming up their military presence in the Arctic.

The increasing militarization of the north means Arctic affairs and climate change are both likely to land on the agenda at NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland on July 8 and 9th, according to political observers.

Ahead of the summit American conservatives are urging the U.S. to get the Arctic on NATO’s agenda and arrive at an agreed strategy for the region.

“Economic, oil and gas, and shipping opportunities are increasing in the region—as are Russian military capabilities,” policy analysts Luke Coffey and Daniel Kochis wrote in a mid-June brief for the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

“Although the Arctic region has been an area of low conflict among the Arctic powers, NATO should consider the implications of Russia’s recent aggressive military behavior,” the analysts noted.

The sabre-rattling is not limited to the United States.

Ahead of the summit, “Canada has been asked to participate and lead a defensive NATO military deployment in the Baltic Sea region in efforts to establish a credible deterrence against potential military offensives by the Putin regime,” noted documentary filmmaker Marcus Kolga in an op-edpiece in the Toronto Star.…

Analysis: ‘The Link between Extreme Environmentalism and Hard-Core Racism’

By Jeffrey A. Tucker

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

In my reading and writing on the history of eugenics (here, here, and here), I’ve begun to discern a common trait between the people called environmentalists and racists from a century ago.

They share a common outlook that is illiberal to its core. They imagine that a wise and powerful state can better plan a future for both nature and man. Both groups were panicked about unplanned progress, assuming it could only resort in degeneration, mongrelization, and destruction. They dreamed of a future in which they and not the unwashed masses would be in charge of how resources are used and how the human race propagates itself.

Madison Grant Saves the Trees and the White Race

Thanks to Mother Jones, my suspicions have been confirmed. An essay that pleads with the progressive movement to deal forthrightly with its own grim history of racism discusses the life and work of Madison Grant (1865-1937). This bushy-lipped aristocrat was the hero of the environmentalists in the Progressive Era. He saved the redwoods of California from logging. He was the guru behind the creation of national parks. He undertook the most aggressive efforts ever to preserve species from extinction. He was handsome, urbane, ridiculously well educated and well connected, and “the greatest conservationist who ever lived.”

Also, Grant wrote the book that Adolf Hitler described as “my Bible.” The book is the 1916 The Passing of the Great Race. A bestseller for many years, on the coffee tables in all the fashionable houses, it is quite possibly the crudest, crankiest, and most bloodthirsty racialist tract ever written; and there’s a lot of competition for that title. He championed segregation, exclusion, sterilization, immigration restrictions, a welfare state (to keep women from working), a high bar for professional employment (minimum wages), and aggressive central planning.…

Amazing Climate UNCHANGE …Global Sea Ice Over Past 38 Years Remains Virtually Level

By Kenneth Richard

Everyone knows that climate change is normal occurs naturally, at times rapidly, and that there is really nothing we can do about it. Amazingly, with some climate aspects, there has not been any change in about 40 years.

According to NSIDC sea ice trend data, from 1979 to 2006, the sea ice losses for the Arctic (purple trend line in graph below) were effectively counterbalanced by the sea ice gains in the Antarctic (green trend line), producing a conspicuously flat trend line in global sea ice.

Ken_seaice_1

Global sea ice has remained unchanged over the past 38 years, as measured by satellite. Source: woodfortrees.com here.

From 2006 to 2016, global sea ice trends have also been remarkably stable despite a massive increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions during this period. In fact, the sea ice gains in Antarctica have perhaps modestly superseded the losses in the Arctic, resulting in a very slight increasing overall trend in global-scale sea ice during the last 10 years:

Ken_seaice_2

Overall trend surprisingly shows slight increase. Source. woodfortrees.com here.

In 1979, global atmospheric CO2 was measured at 337 ppm. In 2016, global atmospheric CO2 has exceeded 400 ppm.

For both hemispheres combined, then, the addition of about 65 ppm of atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1979 has apparently had no overall effect on global-scale sea ice trends.

 

– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2016/07/04/amazing-climate-unchange-global-sea-ice-over-past-38-years-remains-virtually-level/#sthash.6tp7y5Mj.dpuf…

Analysis: ‘The Real Reason Why US Farmers Are Sceptical Of Climate Change’

But has it not occurred to these geniuses that maybe, just maybe, these farmers actually understand their climate and its history much better than they do? Or that climatic patterns change all the time?

Let’s check out what NOAA have to say about the climate of the Corn Belt (and bear in mind that these graphs are based on their already heavily doctored data).

 

First, annual temperatures.

As we can see, temperatures have risen since the 1970s, but only back to the level of the 1940s.

 

multigrtaph

 

When we look at summer temperatures, we find that they were much higher back in the 1930s.

 

multigraph

 

Meanwhile, rainfall has been increasing in recent decades, and the long and severe droughts, regularly seen in the past, have become much less common. If this is due to climate change, I am sure farmers will be more than happy about it.

 

multigrraph

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/261/0/tavg/3/8/1895-2016?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000

 

Snotty little academics like Arbuckle and Prokopy actually do themselves a great disservice by ignoring the accumulated knowledge and experience of the farmers who actually till this land.

Many will be aware, and certainly those whose families have farmed there for generations, that climate on the Great Plains runs in cycles, of which the period since 1910 only offers a small window.

The belief that “the rain follows the plough” actually stems from an unusually wet period on the plains in the 1880s, which was then followed by drought in the 1890s, and then another wetter period in the early 20thC. (There is a full analysis of this period here.)

It may, just may, be that global warming has improved rainfall levels in the Mid West. However, to assume that is just as dangerous, and naive, as believing that rain follows the plough.

In any event, whatever impact man is having, it is evident to anybody with a passing knowledge of the climatic history of the Corn Belt that it is small compared to the great natural changes that always take place.

 …

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Global Warming Causing Shark Attacks!

Cosmopolitan Magazine warns that 2016 will be a big year for shark attacks around the world and global warming is to blame.

In a Cosmo essay shared with EsquireMagazine, Sarah Rense writes that last year saw “a record number of shark attacks” with a total of 98 attacks and six deaths. In comparison, she says, ten years ago there were only 58 attacks. Moreover, experts have predicted that 2016 will be “a big shark attack year,” she writes.

Her foregone conclusion? The cause “is largely climate change.”

Oddly, Ms. Rense does not examine statistics on numbers of swimmers, or on seal migration patterns (which account for killer sharks’ primary food source) or even a year-by-year analysis of shark attacks going back beyond ten years to see whether the trend holds up over time. Instead, she employs the single, unremarkable statistic of 98 incidents of shark attacks in 2015 to insist that global warming must be the culprit.

Rense does, of course, throw in a dollop of pseudo-science, citing a “recent study” according to which warmer oceans are pushing sharks 20 miles further up the coast each decade. This slow northerly push means that sharks are crossing paths with more humans and “reaching New York and New Jersey beaches, where fewer people will be expecting them,” Rense writes.

If Rense’s theory holds and “global warming” is truly to blame, then the extra shark attacks should fall within that 20-mile swath of beach where sharks are allegedly venturing for the first time.

Unfortunately for Rense—and Cosmopolitan—this simply isn’t the case. There was only one shark attack in New York and none in New Jersey since the year 2000. The most serious shark incidents in New Jersey history occurred exactly a century ago, in 1916, when a series of shark attacks between July 1 and 12 left four people dead and one injured.

In 2015, by contrast, the greatest increase in attacks actually occurred in North Carolina and Florida, regular haunts for sharks having nothing to do with climate change.

Of the eight U.S. counties with more than 15 shark attacks since the year 2000, four are in Florida (accounting for a whopping total of 273 attacks), two in Hawaii and the other two in South Carolina.

According to a report from the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, the most likely explanation for the greater …