Interesting read by Engdahl

Acting on an initiative from the Biden Administration, by November 2022, conveniently at the onset of the next flu season in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization, barring a miracle, will impose an unprecedented top-down control over the national health regulations and measures of the entire planet.
In what amounts to a stealth coup d’etat, WHO will get draconian new powers to override national sovereignty in 194 UN member countries, and to dictate their health measures with force of international law. It is sometimes referred to as the WHO Pandemic Treaty but it is far more. Worse, most of the WHO budget comes from private vaccine-tied foundations like the Gates Foundation or from Big Pharma, a massive conflict of interest.

WHO Stealth Coup to Dictate Global Health Agenda of Gates, Big Pharma

Posted by: Down South | May 22 2022 13:21 utc | 3

Posted on Ukraine here by mistake, B. Please feel free to delete this as I’ve reposted it on today’s Ukraine comments thread.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 22 2022 13:49 utc | 5

In the meantime: More than a million households more than 60 days behind in utility bills in New York – insideclimatenews.org

More than a million households are 60 days in arrears on their energy bills, with an average of $1,427.71 in debt, and shut-offs are increasing.
…
In March, New York’s utility debt surpassed $2.1 billion and it is still mounting, an upward trend utilities are seeing in every part of the state. According to WE ACT for Environmental Justice, an organization whose mission is to combat environmental racism and build healthy communities for people of color, 13 percent of all residential households—about 1,137,000 in total—are 60 days in arrears on their utility bills, with an average of $1,427.71 in debt. The debt level is even higher for Con Ed customers, averaging about $2,085 per residential household/customer.

13 percent!
And New York is only the 8th most expensive electricity in the US – behind Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire as well as Hawaii and Alaska.

Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 13:57 utc | 7

@Down South #5
Bat shit crazy analysis.
In particular, how exactly is the WHO going to enforce its diktats to sovereign nations?
How many divisions does the WHO have, to paraphrase Stalin?

Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 14:14 utc | 9

Thank you, b, as always. I’m reading through the first set of links, and this quote from Peter Lee’s China Threat Report is just too beautiful not to post at the earliest:
“ Backsliding by allies is, of course, a continual headache for the United States in encouraging/cajoling/armtwisting its liberal democratic associates to stick with the high cost/low reward strategy of pissing off China so that Indo Pacific Command can enjoy its dickswinging bliss in the Western Pacific for another decade.”
I also wanted to add to the conversation about grains for fuels with a Canadian example. This involves a refinery (yes Canada still has a handful of them) on the west coast, Vancouver area, owned by Calgary-based energy corporation Parkland Corporation.
https://www.producer.com/news/b-c-funds-renewable-diesel-project/
“… the project is to build a new renewable diesel facility on the same property capable of producing 6,300 barrels per day. That is an annual capacity of 400 million litres of renewable diesel.
Parkland’s co-processing plant uses from five to 20 percent bio-feedstock, while the renewable diesel facility will be 100 percent bio-feedstock.
The bio-feedstocks used in the production processes will be canola oil, tallow and used cooking oil.“

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | May 22 2022 14:21 utc | 11

@10 I must admit I have paid very little attention to the SoS except his MIA.

Posted by: thecelticwithinme | May 22 2022 14:47 utc | 13

@6 c1ue:
That post is very helpful, because it helps to scale the problem we’re facing.
The problem with your otherwise excellent analysis is that:
a. You have (finally) had to acknowledge that climate is changing , but now resort to “but it’s not from humans”. OK, then why is it happening? Have you offered up an alternative source for the prodigious amount of energy required to heat ocean and atmosphere and to melt perfectly enormous ice-caps (I’m sure you know what heat of fusion is, what it takes to melt ice). Did I miss your explanation?
b. Pay little or no (again, did I miss it?) attention to the obvious design flaws (colossal energy leaks) in our (the world’s) current economic subsystems e.g. ag, energy generation and transmission, transport, manufacturing, in addition to massive once-and-done resource leakage from virtually every production-consumption process in place today. For someone with your background, plugging leaks that big would seem an obvious first-look. Not happening.
c. It seems like the only solution you’re proposing is either “do nothing” or … if memory serves, expand nukes, and the build-nukes option suffers from a similar set of constraints that the build-renewables option does
d. As others have pointed out – and you continue to deny or (in my opinion) obfuscate-deflect – the rate of disruption caused by climate change is accelerating beyond the current rate of adaptation of our economic support systems. Given the gigantic inertia of our installed economic infrastructure, we are already overtaken by events. Something big is going give way.
It’s valuable to point out the deficiencies in current solution-proposals. That helps direct effort more fruitfully. However, objections are not solutions, as you well know.
Notably missing in your solution-set are changes in consumption, or design changes in economic processes to wring out energy leaks, or resource-leaks. Why is that?
You seem to have a blind-spot for some types of solution.
Here’s an example: the other day we debated the utility of using variable-rate renewable energy to synthesize a stock-piled fuel which can be used by fuel cells (on-demand) to produce electricity which would be used to smooth peaks-and-valleys renewable electricity production.
You struggled, and in my opinion failed to discount that option on either economic or technical grounds, try though you did.
And then, maybe one day later, you publish an excellent post identifying the massive amount of wasted energy which renewables suffer from …. because they don’t have … here it is – the ability to stockpile that energy and smooth out the peaks and valleys.
How come you’re smart enough to run the numbers, you understand the concepts, but you can’t connect certain fairly-obvious dots? And whole swaths of the solution-space get no look at all. It’s curious.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 15:00 utc | 15

“In particular, how exactly is the WHO going to enforce its diktats to sovereign nations?
How many divisions does the WHO have, to paraphrase Stalin?”
Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 14:14 utc | 9
Additionally, Russia has announced plans to leave WHO, WTO and other Western dominated international organizations. Many others will follow suit as the world breaks into opposing camps.

Posted by: Pagan | May 22 2022 15:06 utc | 17

How come you’re smart enough to run the numbers, you understand the concepts, but you can’t connect certain fairly-obvious dots? And whole swaths of the solution-space get no look at all. It’s curious.
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 15:00 utc | 15
I think geophysics is more difficult than geopolitics-slash-economics. The latter is mainly a “soft-science” — a pseudoscience, in which anything goes, while the former is implacably fused to the data, from which it is not allowed to stray very far. I think a fundamentally different standard of truth applies in physical science. I’ve never found an effective means of communicating with people who take no interest in evidence-based, non-fungible standards of truth. Willful physical ignorance is too tough a shell to crack.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 22 2022 15:17 utc | 19

sorry, my bad on 18 (Ukraine)

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 22 2022 15:25 utc | 21

The Dreizin Report is now at YouTube
The Dreizin Report

Posted by: Tyrus | May 22 2022 15:47 utc | 23

Back to food. Huge gasohol program increases food prices and makes a larger impact on the global food balance than the entire cropland of Ukraine, perhaps by factor of 2?
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 22 2022 12:27 utc | 1
I stored this segment of your comment in order to give personal input that the gasohol program in the US uses up GM corn/maize that I personally(and many others) do not wish to eat. Most US producers of same, if not organic, are happily spraying their crops and beneficial insects more heavily than they would be able to do with un-GM corn/maise — so the cars and trucks are welcome to it, though the earth sadly is not. So we can factor that in with other nastinesses our non-renewable energy uses are gifting the planet.

Posted by: juliania | May 22 2022 16:09 utc | 25

@Down South #22
The differences between various national responses to COVID and the WHO are enormous and varied. For that matter, the WHO itself has been flip floppy over COVID over numerous points.
To draw the parallel between the above and supposed WHO control over sovereign government policies, health or otherwise, is – as I already said – batshit crazy.

Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 16:13 utc | 27

Good news in OilPrice
Oil Price Outlook Remains Bullish As Europe Prepares Russian Embargo
but clouds on the horizon
Failure To Implement Russian Oil Ban Could Send Oil Crashing To $65

Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 22 2022 16:35 utc | 29

…humans never used predominantly trees to fuel industrial activities.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | May 22 2022 16:26 utc | 28
You are probably correct. But you forget that trees have been used for practically everything else. Construction and transport (boats) alone were probably most responsible for many barren hillsides in Europe.

Posted by: Pagan | May 22 2022 16:40 utc | 31

This is probably important: Yu Yongding saying China’s overseas assets and liability structure needs to be adjusted – whatchinareads.com

Yu Yongding mentioned that for a long time, China has accumulated over trillion in reserves through its current account surplus and capital account surplus, exceeding the requirement of foreign exchange reserve adequacy ratio.
　　However, the rate of return on foreign exchange reserves is extremely low, and the proportion of foreign exchange reserves in overseas assets is too high; a large part of foreign exchange reserves are “borrowed” rather than “earned”, so the financing cost of part of the foreign reserves is very high.
　　Because of this, he said, China has negative investment returns despite having trillion in net assets abroad. This is in stark contrast to the United States.
…
In Yu’s view, eight types of policies can be considered to adjust the flow of overseas assets, including
1) expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate domestic demand to drive imports;
2) abolishing as soon as possible the export tax rebate policy implemented in the past to encourage exports;
3) increasing imports of bulk commodities and strategic materials;
4) buying fewer U.S. Treasuries and importing more U.S. products;
5) maintaining a trade deficit for a specific period;
6) implementing a floating exchange rate policy;
7) increasing forms of overseas investment;
8) and playing to China’s advantages in infrastructure investment, but beware of the debt trap, etc.

Note that Pozsar’s BWIII thesis is only 1 of the 8 options…

Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 16:45 utc | 33

Towards some policy change in France ?
As mentioned in previous thread, there may be some significant trend in France as to Ukraine :
– Macron talked about a need for négociation
– his new minister for foreign affairs is a former collaborator of Chirac when he refused to take part to the war to Irak.
Indeed, Catherine Colonna – unless she dramatically U-turnef- is from the traditional French Gaullist stance of Europe from Atlantic to Ural, certainly not aligned on the US neocon team she h’ew of when speaker for Chirac

Posted by: Daniel | May 22 2022 16:48 utc | 35

A tale of two high speed rail development systems:
California High Speed Rail standoff – calmatters.org

The $105 billion bullet train project — for which $10.3 billion has been spent so far — would be the largest single investment in state history, the most ambitious civil works effort in the nation and now a symbol to many experts of how not to build a railroad, all of which define the stakes in the current impasse.
The feud has festered for 16 months, since Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the Legislature for a $4.2 billion appropriation in early 2021. The request has triggered a standoff with Assembly Democrats, who have steadfastly refused to hand over the last remaining funds from a 2008 bond measure for high-speed rail.

vs.
China National Railroad announces

California Democrats are locked in one of the most consequential disputes in modern state history over the future of the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed rail project after a decade of troubled construction.
…
From January to April, a total of 157.46 billion yuan in fixed assets was invested in railways across the country, a year-on-year increase of 0.6%, and 581 kilometers of new lines have been opened, including 358 kilometers of high-speed rail.

Note the above California high speed rail that is now projected to cost $105 billion for a 274 kilometer high speed rail that goes between Merced (population 84000) to Bakersfield (population 380000) – that isn’t expected to be completed until 2031?
vs.
358 km of high speed rail in China for $23.5 billion with another 223 km of regular rail thrown in for bonus – all already completed.
I’d bet money at 10:1 odds that the above China completed rail projects started later than the 2009 start date for the above CA project.

Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 17:00 utc | 37

@Tom_Pfotzer #38
You said

1) humans = climate change: maybe, but clearly not mostly. CO2: extremely unclear.
OK. Then what’s the “mostly” if it’s not humans?

I would believe land use changes: urbanization, clearing of forests and grasslands for farmland and houses, that kind of thing. But sadly “climate science” is such junk that the signal to noise ratio is in the single digits.
You said

2. “is climate change a net negative”. c1ue: Very much debatable. Assumes “pre-fossil fuels” was original state which is utter bullshit. We don’t cut trees down anymore for fuel because we can burn fossil fuels, for example. Another example is that CO2 increases in atmosphere (whatever the source) are visibly greening the planet including increasing the inputs into the ecosystem: C3 plants have gained something like 25% output efficiency worldwide.
Tom: Is it greening up U.S. west coast? When the drying effect moves east into Montana, N. and S. Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska (likely extension of current patterns) is that going to be beneficial? I’m just citing one example. Please offer a counter-example where increased C3 plant offsets that damage? Give me a break with the 25% output efficiency re: increased CO2 levels. Please offer up a citation. Plants are not CO2-bound; they are water and nutrient bound (limiting growth factor).

Argue with NASA’s satellites; it isn’t my job to educate you on such basics.
You said

3) “can we reverse the damage”. c1ue: No. Period.
Tom: Of course we can. We can start with plugging the biggest leaks, and gradually work our way thru the punch-list of items that need to be addressed. What’s missing is a clear definition of the problem, a stratified list of solutions, and clear incentives to implement the solutions. The main obstruction is the that “no” attitude.

We *can* in the theoretical sense: if a magical entity with infinite power forced the majority of humanity to do what you and the doom-mongers want humanity to do, maybe. But this magical entity doesn’t exist and the vast majority of humanity doesn’t want to suffer immediate standard of living losses. So: not gonna happen.
You said

Nor is your “damning with faint praise” the least bit useful.
Tom: Of course it’s useful. It says “this guy gets part of it, let’s give him credit for that”, while also saying “but he is missing big parts of the story”. It’s quite useful to draw that distinction.
I note that you didn’t revisit the renewable-to-fuel subject, and my guess is it’s because you were wrong to start with, and then you totally demolished your own argument by admitting that a big chunk of renewable energy is dumped. “Dumped” means “no cost to use” as input for the peak-and-valley smoothing mechanism I described. Own goal.
That doesn’t add to your credibility, c1ue.

I’ve revisited the renewable thing numerous times: the reality is that alternative energy is garbage beyond maybe 10% to 15% of base load.
I just finished a review of electricity curtailments: it is astounding. Between California, Texas, China, Germany and the UK – over 40 million megawatt hours of electricity is thrown away EVERY SINGLE YEAR. And the China/Germany/UK data is from 2015 or 2016 – thus curtailments there are 99.9% likely to be much higher. Curtailments aren’t free – it literally costs money to throw electricity away, but these costs are somehow ignored when calculating supposed cheaper alternative energy. Nor are the costs of backup – either imported electricity or peaker fossil fuel plants – counted.
So no, can’t say I have avoided addressing a damn thing.
You said:

c1ue: The reality is that the populations everywhere are not bought into the notion of suffering enormous standard of living decreases in order to stop or reverse climate change.
Tom: We’re in agreement on that. The question then becomes “are enough of us smart enough to change course before we crash into the wall”.

So you think. I disagree and so do most people. As such, perhaps your “smart”ness does not mean what you think it means.
You said:

c1ue: Up until now, the passage of “climate friendly” laws are largely due to lack of impact on standards of living, but this situation is no longer true as the commodity supercycle bites hard.
Tom: Supercycle my ass. Price rise trims demand, and there’s a hell of a lot of waste in the current demand. Plenty of room for consumption-reduction.

Nice of you to bring neoliberal economics into the picture. Sadly, the real world is quite different. As I’ve noted numerous times since late last year: the money being invested into new fossil fuel sources, new mines, new anything pretty much is way, way below historical precedents. In this real world, you have to spend money to get things unlike unicorn fairy dust alternative energy world. So no, can’t say that the price rises will trim demand because energy and commodities are CORE TO EXISTENCE, unlike diversity policies and so forth.

c1ue: The main reason I don’t worry about it too much is because I have always believed that while people will choose a worse life for themselves if they have personal hope and hope for their children, they will NOT choose a worse life for themselves AND their children today even if in theory life can be better for the children in the far future.
Tom: My assessment is “the reason you don’t worry about it” is because you are not going to feel the full force of the effects your behavior is causing. And the effects aren’t “far future”; they are “now present”.
Furthermore the ability to identify and respond in the present to future threats is one of the fundamental reasons our species currently exists. And yet, some of us have turned off that valuable trait.

Your assessment is that you think trying to guilt trip me is going to effect change even when I utterly disagree with your factual basis, your premises, your prognosis etc.
What is really ironic is that I am actually pretty damn green.
I don’t even own a car.
I take public transportation more than probably 3/4s of MoA people and possibly including you.
I don’t have an Amazon Prime account and get a delivery every month or so.
I cook and eat 90%+ of my food, and that from raw ingredients.
I am not, however, wedded to an ideology – and a wrong one at that.

Posted by: c1ue | May 22 2022 17:17 utc | 39

Let’s recap a US cash crop [GRAPHIC, 1982-2018]
S&P Global | US EPA proposes cuts to 2020 biofuel mandate, with plans to raise blending in 2022 Dec 2021
REUTERS | Exclusive: Biden weighing cuts to 2022 ethanol blending mandate proposal Jan 2022
S&P Global | EPA proposes binding June 3 deadline to finalize new biofuel blending mandates Feb 2022

The US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to commit to a June 3 deadline for finalizing biofuel blending requirements for 2021 and 2022 to settle litigation over its delay in setting annual mandates for the Renewable Fuel Standard program.
[…]
Economic injury
Ethanol group Growth Energy filed a complaint Feb. 8 with the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that the EPA failed to perform its duties tied to the RFS program (Growth Energy v. Regan, et al, 1:22-cv-00347)….

So. The feds rescued the “farmers’ market” AND saved millions of bushels of “grains” from a fate worst than debasement of the dollar–export to staving widows and orphans worldwide.
Biden will ease restrictions on higher-ethanol fuel as inflation hits a 40-year high April 2022

his administration will temporarily allow E15 gasoline — gasoline that uses a 15% ethanol blend that is usually banned from sale from June to September — to be sold this summer, a measure intended to help ease gas prices.
[…]
In contrast to E10, which makes up the bulk of gasoline sold in the United States, the sale of E15 is typically banned during the summer under the Clean Air Act because of air pollution concerns.
[…]
In 2019, President Donald Trump allowed E15 to be sold year-round in what was seen at the time as a bid to increase his political standing with farmers after his trade war with China hurt U.S. farmers. It was a move that a federal court overruled after the fact, saying EPA exceeded its authority, and the Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal earlier this year. Calls for Biden to follow Trump’s lead came from a number of farm-state lawmakers, including Iowa Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst.
[…]
And although industry groups have touted alleged emissions benefits of biofuels like ethanol, a [2019] report from the Government Accountability Office noted “limited effect, if any, on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Posted by: sln2002 | May 22 2022 17:46 utc | 41

@39 c1ue.
I followed the “nasa satellite” link you posted. There was no mention of your claimed 25% increase in “output efficiency” for plants due to CO2 increase. The article does state that plants are doing better given the increasing CO2 levels. No surprise there; CO2 is an input to photosynthesis.
The article goes on to state:

While rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the air can be beneficial for plants, it is also the chief culprit of climate change. The gas, which traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere, has been increasing since the industrial age due to the burning of oil, gas, coal and wood for energy and is continuing to reach concentrations not seen in at least 500,000 years. The impacts of climate change include global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice as well as more severe weather events.
The beneficial impacts of carbon dioxide on plants may also be limited, said co-author Dr. Philippe Ciais, associate director of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Gif-suv-Yvette, France. “Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”

You forgot to mention that part of the article, c1ue.
c1ue: ” the vast majority of humanity doesn’t want to suffer immediate standard of living losses” [from implementing so-called “green” policies].
Tom: Please detail for me the std of living reduction that accompanies the renewable-to-fuel-to-electricity plan I set out. Just for example. And then electric cars. Internet. Telework. Increased fuel efficiency in ICEs. Migrating to plant protein .vs. animal. Solar panels. Windmills. Insulation. High-efficiency HVAC gear. LED lights. Tell me about all the horror those innovations and economic adaptations have wreaked on our std of living.
c1ue: I just finished a review of electricity curtailments: it is astounding. Between California, Texas, China, Germany and the UK – over 40 million megawatt hours of electricity is thrown away EVERY SINGLE YEAR. And the China/Germany/UK data is from 2015 or 2016 – thus curtailments there are 99.9% likely to be much higher. Curtailments aren’t free – it literally costs money to throw electricity away, but these costs are somehow ignored when calculating supposed cheaper alternative energy. Nor are the costs of backup – either imported electricity or peaker fossil fuel plants – counted.
Tom: It simply beggars belief that you can set out this paragraph above and then say “it’s a stupid idea to capture and use the energy we’re currently throwing away”.
c1ue: (in response to Tom’s assertion that price rise curtails demand): Nice of you to bring neoliberal economics into the picture. Sadly, the real world is quite different.
Tom: supply and demand interactions are not new, or neoliberal. Please name for me that economic school of thought that rejects the dynamic of price impact on supply and demand. Sorry, c1ue, real world, price affects demand. Even for short-run “inelastic demand”, if supply is constrained long enough, substitutions happen. Always. Please identify an exception.
c1ue: What is really ironic is that I am actually pretty damn green.
I don’t even own a car.
I take public transportation more than probably 3/4s of MoA people and possibly including you.
I don’t have an Amazon Prime account and get a delivery every month or so.
I cook and eat 90%+ of my food, and that from raw ingredients.
Tom: Keep up the good work. No snark.
c1ue: I am not, however, wedded to an ideology – and a wrong one at that.
Tom: Which ideology are you ascribing to me?
Every one of the behavioral changes I’ve advocated deliver real-world right-now economic benefits, in addition to enhancing my (and your) longer-term security and maybe survival potential. Some of them even help re-distribute wealth-creation capacity into middle-class, which is sorely needed.
Show me where the “ideology” is, please, and name the ideology.
by the way, I am richly enjoying this exchange, c1ue. I hope that doesn’t rankle too much.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 18:55 utc | 43

The entire west is controlled by a few people you don’t know All Western governments are in their pockets. Then comes the the Pentagon, MIC, Media and all the rest of corporations. You are led to think that you have a democracy, but instead you have a revolving door.
Davos takes it’s orders from the silent few, and Blinken and the rest are just servants taking orders. There is specking order in this scheme and the US presidents issue dicktaks to the Europe.
We are now faced with Russia and China trying to carve a different path for this world.
Climate change came from the West and it is quite clear that they have/will exhaust their supply of much needed fuels and minerals. Hence the renewed push to subjugate Africa and other countries, once again.
This world used to be covered in ice and then it warmed. Is what we are going through a natural phenomenon? I don’t know, but I will find out.
Please think about the potential of the Russian military, and read about what they went through. Climate change pales in comparison to what we might go through.

Posted by: Karl luck | May 22 2022 19:43 utc | 45

@44: pretzelattack
And thanks for that note.
c1ue’s a damned smart person, probably smarter than I am. He does a very good job of demolishing bullshit, and there’s plenty of that around.
(s)he’s useful.
The only reason I get into it with him/her is because the stakes are so high. Screwing this one up is gonna hurt. The other part is that biz-analyst types (c1ue has a lot of that background, as he/she demonstrates often) tend to do what I call “incremental-think” as contrasted with “imagination”. Biz analyst types are not generally known for the big breakthroughs. They evaluate the world, to use their words “as it currently is”. But incrementalism almost never delivers out the Big changes that power humanity. The big payoffs, in both business and in life, spring from the ability to see “what might be” and then to be able to do the block-and-tackling to get there.
That’s what made Edison such a keystone individual. I’d say he had more impact on American society than just about anybody. Electric motors. Light bulb. Phonograph. Movies. That’s some major shit, and he did a lot of the imagining, and a lot of the perspiring.
Einstein, one of my all-time fav people said:
“Imagination is more vital than knowledge”.
“you can’t solve a problem with the same sort of thinking that created it in the first place” (incrementalism .vs. imagination)
“The only thing more infinite than space … is human stupidity”.
And this incremental/analytical bent (.vs. imagination or synthesis) may be what’s keeping us (society) in the box we’re in.
And that’s the main reason I joust with c1ue on green-related matters. Our economies – world-wide – are tottering on the edge of obsolescence – the environment is changing way, way faster than the underlying econ sub-system designs are, and that’s why all these econ dislocations are occurring: low adaptation speed. Speed of env. change > speed of adaption spells trouble for any species.
Plus, as I said before, it’s fun.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 19:49 utc | 47

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 19:49 utc | 47
he does a good job of demolishing some bullshit, like empire lies about Ukraine and Russia. on the subject of global warming, he catapults bullshit.

Posted by: pretzelattack | May 22 2022 19:57 utc | 49

In a previous non-Ukulele thread, I linked an excellent summary of the drought in Western USA, by climate scientist Imtiaz Rangwala: “Studies suggest the Southwest’s ongoing 20-year drought is the most severe in at least 1,200 years, based on how dry the soils are.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/20/grim-2022-drought-outlook-for-western-us/
I can confidently assert nobody alive has known a worse drought, where I live, based on the fairly solid assumption none of us is 1,200 years old.
Marine and air currents are fundamentally of a piece — the ocean is slower, heavier, absorbs 90% of GHG’s, and basically drives the global weather system. When fire-weather comes to California, I look offshore to the North Pacific Blob — our more or less permanent marine heatwave. This nullschool tool (nothing to do with Aleph) might be a well-kept secret among climate geeks. Here’s a very pretty nullschool picture of our Blob:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-120,37,2500
This is current conditions, but the tool can convey you backwards and forwards in time, for those interested in goofing off. If you’re looking at it this weekend, you see a massive energetic whorl burnishing our California coast.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 22 2022 20:55 utc | 51

@51 Aleph_Null:
Can you please interpret that nullschool animation? I assume that the energy-continuum (blue-yellows-red) legend and color-assignments to the flows means “amount of energy in the air column, principally heat, partly kinetic (wind). ” Is that right? And what are the rest of the legend dimensions, like height (data-sample elevation in the air column?), overlay, and projection?
And the stationary pivot-point is the “blob” in the N. Pacific,? And that pivot-point, presumably, is where the “blob” is picking up heat from the ocean (warm water) and conveying it to the W. coast of CA?. Sort of like a hurricane, only it’s stationary, and it’s (maybe?) not seasonal, because it seems to be too early for hurricanes in either ocean.
Those are just my guesses. Please tell us what that animation is telling you.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 21:22 utc | 53

B still shilling covid. Yawn.
Just as the Russia-West hostilities represent cold war v2.0, except the sides have inverted, so to, in my years-long thinking of the covid response, have our governments revealed themselves as the plague, itself, and not a force to save it from its effects.
Oh, inverted world.
Like Camus’ The Plague, but in reverse, we, the human beings in the story, do not band together to challenge the totalitarian effect of the disease, but we yield at all junctures to our globalist government that seeks its continued existence to keep us in submission.
We are doing the opposite of the protagonist physician from the Plague…we do not welcome the other in the face of danger, but we fear him and hide ourselves away from him like cowards. And we ask the government to save us.
How despicable we are in the west. Utterly spineless and startled by own shadow. There will be no Jungian overcoming and sublation of this shadow, either. It continues to consume us.
But if not for Putin and Russia, and for the American Conservative who is the one force pushing back on these terrible overlords, we would be irretrievably lost.
I beseech you, b. Please find your way back to reason on this front.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 22 2022 22:26 utc | 55

One more nullschool view of Blob weather data, this one in Ocean mode, focusing on SSTA (Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly), which is +3.2C out there:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-130.00,37.00,2500

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 22 2022 22:49 utc | 57

Patroklos @12
Thanks for the Australian election sitrep. I felt a similar sense of relief in 2017 when the NZ Labour Party managed to return to power after 12 years National Party rule (mostly under the odious John Key, who earned the nickname ‘The Smiling Assassin’ during his time as a currency speculator at Merrill Lynch). Despite her background as a staffer in a Blairite ‘red tape-cutting’ department and affiliation to the notorious WEF Young Leaders Forum the new Labour PM came in with a decent program to battle rampant homelessness and finally bring in an Australian style ‘award’ system of industry-wide minimum pay and conditions.
Although the half-dozen cars full of homeless people who typically parked on my road to sleep each night disappeared pretty quickly as they were moved into emergency housing in motels, covid put paid to pretty much everything else. A coalition agreement with the right-populist NZ First party tempered any attempts to return to a more independent foreign policy, as its leader Winston Peters inherited an abject subservience to our ‘traditional allies’ from his mentor Rob Muldoon, the anti-neoliberal National Party PM of the 70s & 80s (neither managed to realise that alliance with USUK was incompatible with resistance to neoliberalism).
Labour won a 2nd term in 2020 with the 1st absolute majority since the introduction of proportional representation on the back of their covid response (although NZ was painted as an authoritarian nightmare under covid restrictions, NZrs outside Auckland lived almost entirely restriction-free from early 2020 til late 2021), but the atmosphere is now febrile with arrival of covid and sanctions-drivin inflation on top of each other. The MSM has returned to its default ass-kissing of the National Party under its new leader, a ScoMo-style corporate stooge who is a member of a secretive Christian cult open only to multimillionaires. Labour is likely be turfed out after only a couple of 3 year terms with virtually no major achievements for the working class.
Hopefully the Australian experience is more positive but the Labour Parties of the Anglosphere seem to be a lost cause, changing from working class parties reaching out to the urban middle class on the basis of basic human values to an urban middle class party reaching out to the working class on the basis of benign neglect (as opposed to visceral hatred from the Nats).

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | May 22 2022 23:06 utc | 59

Karlof often reduces the differences between western and eastern thought to zero-sum vs win-win. I notice that there is often a similar dynamic at play with respect to the way individuals see the environment, climate change etc. Tom and c1ue! You both seem to favour a win-win relationship with nature and I can barely follow what you’re even arguing about.
Divide and conquer is the only strategy the ruling class has ever needed.
(Also, holy fucking shit, how I have never heard of Bruniquel Cave! Amazing! Thanks psychohistorian.)

Posted by: Rae | May 22 2022 23:24 utc | 61

NemesisCalling | May 22 2022 22:26 utc | 55
dear B, please ignore the Brontosaurus brains

Posted by: rjb1.5 | May 22 2022 23:32 utc | 63

I think that the Bruniquel Cave, checking in at 176,000 years ago, more fits the oldest claim for human temple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 22 2022 18:24 utc | 42
***
I hadn’t heard of Bruniquel Cave till this, thank you! Especially awed hearing how it predates homo sapiens, and by so much.

Posted by: Vintage Red | May 22 2022 23:45 utc | 65

Down South | May 22 2022 13:21 utc | 3
lots of people are being unmasked by the virus. it’s like a black hole in which what we see is pure projection. certainly true of Engdahl, though i’m sure he’s convinced himself how big global health is both hoarding vaccines and pushing a vaccine scam on the world, at the exact same time. oh the hobgoblins of little minds. just imagine how much more powerful Big Pharma would be if Sinovac could be imported around the world!
this is not per se directed to you, DS, but it’s funny how ivermectin just slipped off everybody’s radar, ESPECIALLY the numerous commentators who touted that bullshit for two straight years.
what the coronavirus is revealing is just how much people do not care how their actions affect themselves or anyone around them. the microscopic droplets of their words are infectious toxins against which one really needs a hazmat suit.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | May 22 2022 23:53 utc | 67

Welcome to the European Drought Observatory! (lagging indicators)
and
NIDIS Drought.gov (illustrated weekly!)
Then, try to act surprised.

Posted by: sln2002 | May 23 2022 0:50 utc | 69

kw/area not kwh. It is power flux. and the (per area) refers to the infintesimal area perpendicular to the arrow, not to an earth surface area.

Posted by: Platero | May 23 2022 1:17 utc | 71

@70 Platero: Thanks!
My typo (KwH) I meant Kw per meter squared, but wrote kwH.
But you’re saying this number is energy flux (level or amount of energy) moving thru some medium, e.g. the air, at a point in space (perpendicular to the colored lines). And that energy is heat, and has no kinetic component (e.g. wind-speed).
Did I get that right this time?

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 23 2022 1:56 utc | 73

@72: Note to myself, for the benefit of anyone else interested in understanding those two models Aleph_Null posted above.
Upon further review, that first model shows wind power density, e.g. how much force would be exerted upon a flat area 1 x 1 meter placed perpendicular to the wind-direction. This figure is commonly used to calculate how much energy a windmill could extract from a given windspeed. This model is not showing heat at all; it’s showing force of wind only.
And the second model shows water temp anomaly – e.g. how different the water temp is .vs. what it “ought” to be.
So, the two diagrams together tell a story about unusually warm water stationed in the N. Pacific which is generating some amount of wind that is cycling in a great loop, one side of which is adjacent to CA.
This model offers controls to show relative humidity. As Aleph_Null mentioned, the surface level RH along the CA coast is in single digits… 9 percent. Central valley – the big agricultural production area, is about 15%.
That’s really dry. By contrast, where I live on the East / Mid-Atlantic, the RH is about 70%, about normal for this time of year. Comfortable.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 23 2022 2:24 utc | 75

OK, so obviously this monkey-shit virus is the next scam. But it doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous, amirite ?
So we gotta make sure we stay on top of it.
I was also thinking about, hesitating to mention it, but because of the upcoming grain shortage…. the US has something called “wheat rust” or something, that is a bio-agent that attacks crops… Something to keep in mind.

Posted by: Featherless | May 23 2022 2:41 utc | 77

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | May 22 2022 23:06 utc | 59
Thanks for your input. I had felt the NZ political situation had been doing better as far as the covid measures until, that is, the vaccines were introduced. Trust in government had seemed warranted; the handling of the shooter in Christchurch was competent; some independent thinking on the part of government internationally…and then it all fell apart. It was bad enough here in the US, but the lemminglike rush over what I still feel was the grand canyon of all medical catastrophes (when they had been doing so well early on with China-like policies) simply confounded me. And now Russiaphobia. At least here in the US something like normalcy is creeping into our virus perceptions, while the connection between both germ warfare and regime change is looking to be less like the elephant in the room and more like the picture of Dorian Grey.
I do hope Australia will be well served by its new leadership. Bravo to its citizens for turfing out the old. Now if they and my native land could only turf out the neos… friends, this is not the US that helped save us during WW2; this is something else, not even the US it was when I myself joined it. Break free if you can!

Posted by: juliania | May 23 2022 3:55 utc | 79

@ tom.. did you see the post i directed to you @ 30? i thought it was relevant..

Posted by: james | May 23 2022 4:54 utc | 81

I am already fascinated by the monkeypox rabbit that just appeared out of the hat. It landed in 10 countries in 10 days and no organic pandemic can possibly arise in this way – teleportation rather than travel. Yet here it is.
What fascinates me most is how the conversations will go. Consider…

* The WHO will get true sovereign authority to its pandemic diktats, yet the matter of who will obey or rebel remains to be seen.
* We have 300 US biowarfare labs around the world, and a potentially superb infrastructure to plant a virus in 10 countries in 10 days.
* The coronavirus timeline as we now review it shows that the virus had an ability to arise in multiple locations in short sequences that cannot be explained by air travel: it still takes time for a disease to spread, and that time was leap-frogged by Covid.
* And the monkeypox can be obviated by the old vaccine for smallpox, but we stopped giving that shot 4 decades ago because smallpox was declared eradicated, and while the old vaccine still exists and is “85% effective”, it is out of patent and won’t be pushed by any profit-oriented enterprise.
* Meanwhile, a new vaccine for “smallpox/monkeypox” was developed and patented in 2019 – for a disease that was dead four decades ago and showed no sign of reappearing.
* The US government has already bought 13 million doses of the new vaccine (so I believe – I’m not checking sources during this particular diatribe).
* And one year ago a pandemic seminar was held by key players, gaming specifically an outbreak of “monkeypox” a year later, in mid-May, 2022.
* And there are a few more factors – Whitney has a piece at Unz that covers this – but this is not that discussion. Rather it’s a meta question asking frankly if we can even have that discussion here.

The fishiness, the phoniness, the sheer brazen stupefaction of mounting this campaign so soon and so unbelievably speaks greatly to the hubris and incompetence of the ruling classes. But here it comes, and they will push for every mile they can get from every inch we give them.
The WHO issue – happening right now, by the way – is simply another aspect that is larger than life and more in one’s face than one could imagine, even after the abuses of the past two years.
~~
So, the conversation. Will we be allowed to discuss this monkey piss that they are definitely taking? Can we discuss the Russian discoveries that are uncovering the US biolabs and their nefarious activities? Can we begin to trace the delivery mechanisms and nodes for biowar against selected parts of the world?
Can we discuss treatments for monkeypox (that have already been detailed in a thread here thanks to librul), not to mention the existing vaccine (for a disease that is very hard to catch and generally clears up after a while)?
Can we, in short, discuss here – and anywhere and everywhere in the western world – how we as a global population seem to be under a biological terror that may not be natural and organic, but which may at the very least have had a gain of function?
Or will the boot stamping on the face forever that came down during Covid continue to choke our discussion with this monkey business in front of our faces right now?
I guess we shall see…

Posted by: Grieved | May 23 2022 5:53 utc | 83

@83 lex talionis | May 23 2022 6:03 utc
This is serendipitous – greetings! I now have the book you recommended – it was only available as a Kindle during the time you were enthusing over it. I had to wait for the paperback. Very, very well written – I’ve just started it and have a ways to go yet.
I don’t mention the title or the author because when I tried to do that recently the Typepad filter threw my comment to moderation.
But yes, I agree it’s a great book, and thank you for it.
~~
ps…I don’t agree that we’re necessarily screwed. Rather like the pox, the tyrannical oppression has to break you out into suppurations for one to begin to take action.
They are making this cartoonishly obvious, enough so that it may increase the already significant pool of people who don’t buy the lie. There may be a large push back.

Posted by: Grieved | May 23 2022 6:16 utc | 85

Testing a book author: Kees van der Pijl
(and if this goes through, I don’t know what blocked my endorsement of it a few weeks ago)

Posted by: Grieved | May 23 2022 6:18 utc | 87

Still clearing the coffee outta my nose at the clueless one’s latest outrageous bullshit that “there are more trees in amerika than there were 100 years ago”
Yeah right and “there have been n million jobs created since I won” another deceit, since the ‘jobs’ are in the gig economy, zero hours contract and one person needs to hold down at least 4 or 5 of them to keep the heating on. Of course the spindly Fuchsia I’ve stuck in the back paddock is equal to 1 kauri cos clueless says so.
Even the linked article asks “Quantity over quality?” and says:

The average age of forests in the United States is younger than it was before European settlement. The greatest diversity is found in the oldest forests, so there may be more forest now, but because it is so young, it is home for fewer animals, plants, insects and other organisms than a fully developed, mature forest ecosystem. It also means that protecting old growth forests is imperative.

Every week this site is subjected to reams of the past days’ assiduously ‘curated’, cherry picked nonsense which attempts to buttress the clueless one’s entirely subjective and self-serving take on our world, those gullible enough will continue their unquestioning acceptance, others able to push past sophomoric twaddle, and think for themselves, will not.
Bring back the Brazilian!

Posted by: Debsisdead | May 23 2022 9:27 utc | 89

@ Bruised Northerner
I finally got the scoop on the helicopter crash in Gander last month:
They were practicing some low altitude maneuver when the pilots seat latch disengaged. They couldn’t manipulate the pedals a crucial time and shit happened.
I got this from a pregnant woman at a bar so it has to be true lol
2 weeks ago about 2squadrons of A10’s came through with external fuel tanks. Guess where they were headed?

Posted by: PleaseBeleafMe | May 23 2022 11:15 utc | 91

German defense spending just disappears among other ridiculous sleight of hands.
John Mark Dougan – I talk with Thomas Roper about Azov and German Corruption

Thomas Roper is one of the most intelligent geopolitical experts I’ve ever met, and he’s been battling corruption in Germany for years now. We talk about Azov and other topics you will like in this short conversation. Thomas can be found at anti-spiegel.ru – you can use Google Chrome to translate his writings into English.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 23 2022 11:57 utc | 93

The other part is that biz-analyst types (c1ue has a lot of that background, as he/she demonstrates often) tend to do what I call “incremental-think” as contrasted with “imagination”.
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 22 2022 19:49 utc | 47
That’s a very diplomatic way of saying that his thinking is trapped in a box, and he’s inviting us to join him.
It’s the biz-analyst types who have been indispensable in bringing us to this point of crisis. Bottom line thinking inevitably takes you to the bottom.
And his posts move way beyond skepticism to clever obfuscation. We don’t need bad faith players in dealing with this topic.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | May 23 2022 12:46 utc | 95

The older I get, the more I think that few people understood America and Americans better than John Waters.
As Peggy Gravel said in his film Desperate Living:
“Look at these disgusting trees stealing my oxygen! I can’t stand this scenery another minute! All natural forests should be turned into housing developments! I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don’t we taxpayers have a voice anymore?”
That was 1977; Reagan’s notorious comment about trees causing more pollution than automobiles came four years later.

Posted by: malenkov | May 23 2022 13:06 utc | 97

@Tom Pfotzer #47
You said:

You forgot to mention that part of the article, c1ue.

That’s why I try to post sources. But GIGO – it should surprise no one that the gigantic US federal government gravy train doesn’t induce climate change derangement syndrome.
You said:

c1ue: ” the vast majority of humanity doesn’t want to suffer immediate standard of living losses” [from implementing so-called “green” policies].
Tom: Please detail for me the std of living reduction that accompanies the renewable-to-fuel-to-electricity plan I set out. Just for example. And then electric cars. Internet. Telework. Increased fuel efficiency in ICEs. Migrating to plant protein .vs. animal. Solar panels. Windmills. Insulation. High-efficiency HVAC gear. LED lights. Tell me about all the horror those innovations and economic adaptations have wreaked on our std of living.

I’ve already detailed that the metals, mineral and electricity need to change road transport from ICE to EV or hybrid is enormous. The climate benefit, when this is all taken into account, is dubious at best and the possibility of it happening is even more dubious given the enormous material amounts in question (way over world reserves).
I also like how you insert a few things that work, with the things that don’t work. We were talking about alternative energy in particular.
Insulation is insulation – it has been used for hundreds of years so is irrelevant. Telework has been clearly demonstrated to be useless for real world work: diversity consultants can do it but people who actually produce things cannot. etc etc.
As for standard of living reduction: there is a 100% correlation between high utility bill prices and percentage of alternative energy. Highest priced electricity in Europe: Denmark. Highest priced electricity in the lower 48 continental US (Alaska and Hawaii are special cases) in cents per kWh:

Connecticut 19.13
Rhode Island 18.54
Massachusetts 18.19
California 18
New Hampshire 16.63
Vermont 16.33

Note US overall: 10.59 cents per kWh
Now, are the above states “green” or “fossil fuel”?

c1ue: I just finished a review of electricity curtailments: it is astounding. Between California, Texas, China, Germany and the UK – over 40 million megawatt hours of electricity is thrown away EVERY SINGLE YEAR. And the China/Germany/UK data is from 2015 or 2016 – thus curtailments there are 99.9% likely to be much higher. Curtailments aren’t free – it literally costs money to throw electricity away, but these costs are somehow ignored when calculating supposed cheaper alternative energy. Nor are the costs of backup – either imported electricity or peaker fossil fuel plants – counted.
Tom: It simply beggars belief that you can set out this paragraph above and then say “it’s a stupid idea to capture and use the energy we’re currently throwing away”.

It beggars belief that you cannot understand how difficult it is to economically make use of intermittent electricity. In fact, what I am working on is precisely how to make lemons out of this giant shitpot of lemonade.

c1ue: (in response to Tom’s assertion that price rise curtails demand): Nice of you to bring neoliberal economics into the picture. Sadly, the real world is quite different.
Tom: supply and demand interactions are not new, or neoliberal. Please name for me that economic school of thought that rejects the dynamic of price impact on supply and demand. Sorry, c1ue, real world, price affects demand. Even for short-run “inelastic demand”, if supply is constrained long enough, substitutions happen. Always. Please identify an exception.

Economists who understand something of the real world, understand that supply and demand do not magically rise just because one side exceeds the other.
The real world has business cycles because the future is unpredictable and capital investments into growth always eventually overshoot actual demand growth.
The neoliberals assume “the free market” will provide when in reality, there are almost infinite confounding factors ranging from monopoly/monopsony/oligopoly to underinvestment to lag.
The recent European attempt to wean itself off Russian natural gas is just the latest example of reality trumping von der Crazy/Habeckian idiocy.
Other examples: Is the number of miles driven by the US affected by the price of gasoline? Look at the historical data: the answer is “not much”: Federal Reserve data of miles driven in US, historical
Do you see the impact of the Oil Embargo? It is barely detectable…
You said:

Tom: Keep up the good work. No snark.

I do it because I live in one of the 2 cities in the US where going carless is possible, without enormous lifestyle disruption. But I recognize that this is an exceptional situation. Furthermore, I do this despite having the economic resources to not do so: I owned 2-8 series Audis up until I decided to try going carless after one was vandalized to the point of being totaled in 2016. On the food side: I have a job where I get paid more than enough that I can spend the extra time riding public transport, processing and cooking food, and I enjoy it on top of being a cheap bastard.
The difference here is that I am voluntarily doing this – I am not forcing anyone else to do so either via outright legal coercion or social pressure.

c1ue: I am not, however, wedded to an ideology – and a wrong one at that.
Tom: Which ideology are you ascribing to me?

Technotopian nonsense combined with climate doom-mongering.

Every one of the behavioral changes I’ve advocated deliver real-world right-now economic benefits, in addition to enhancing my (and your) longer-term security and maybe survival potential. Some of them even help re-distribute wealth-creation capacity into middle-class, which is sorely needed.
Show me where the “ideology” is, please, and name the ideology.

The nonsense technologies don’t matter – insulation is right up there with the German admonition to turn thermostats to 15C, wear warm clothes and don’t shower more than once a week.
The technologies that are mattering: alternative energy.
Unless you are truly off grid and relying 100% on alternative energy electricity production (and all that it entails), you are not actually benefiting from alt-e adoption. You are free-riding on the generation and transmission grid via installation, feed-in and grid maintenance cost avoidance subsidies.
The reality is that solar PV and wind are many multiples of cost per kWh generated even just looking at install costs – LCOE cleverly avoids that by:
1) Using ridiculously optimistic capacity factors for solar PV and wind, including
2) Assumption that all solar PV and wind are optimally placed and with the most expensive/highest yielding technology
3) Assumption that the load balancing, duck curve and curtailment costs are zero
4) Assumption that backup costs are zero
So no, can’t say that I either ascribe to the ideology or the notion that the alt-e technology is superior in any way.
Nor are the curves promising: the real problem with alt-e is storage and the possibility of a solution for that is very low because of the energy density issue combined with the sheer enormity of utility-scale energy flows.

Posted by: c1ue | May 23 2022 14:36 utc | 99