Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
August 09, 2023

World Bank Group Goes Woke

The World Bank Group is a global institution controlled by the U.S. government. It is supposed to lend low interest money to developing countries in need.

Last year the position of its president became controversial. David Malpass, a former Treasury official, was perceived as being ambiguous about the cause of climate change. In February he threw the towel:

The president of the World Bank will step down from his post in June, leaving the organisation almost a year before his term was due to end.

David Malpass announced his decision on social media, without providing a specific reason for his departure.

The pick of former US President Donald Trump, he has been criticised as a climate-change denier.

Last year, the White House rebuked him after he said he did not know if fossil fuels were driving climate change.

He later apologised for the remarks.

In June one Ajay Banga, a former CEO of Mastercard, was installed as the new president. He had worked as an outside adviser for the Obama administration and later for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Under Banga the World Bank Group has gone woke:

World Bank halts new lending to Uganda over anti-LGBTQ law

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank said on Tuesday it would halt new lending to the Ugandan government after concluding that its anti-LGBTQ law, which has been condemned by many countries and the United Nations, contradicts the bank's values.

In response, the East African country dismissed the move as unjust and hypocritical.

A World Bank team traveled to Uganda immediately after the law was enacted in May and determined that additional measures were needed to ensure projects were being implemented in line with the bank's environmental and social standards.

"No new public financing to Uganda will be presented to our Board of Executive Directors until the efficacy of the additional measures has been tested," the bank said in a statement, adding that such measures were now under discussion with Ugandan authorities.

"Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act fundamentally contradicts the World Bank Group's values. We believe our vision to eradicate poverty on a livable planet can only succeed if it includes everyone irrespective of race, gender, or sexuality," the bank said.
...

On May 2 the Ugandan Anti-Homosexualty Act passed its third reading in parliament by a vote of 348 to 1. On May 29 it became law. Ajay Banta started his World Bank presidency on June 2.

Uganda's society is, like many others, against the 'unnatural' differentiation of gender and sexuality.

The World Bank Group has a page about values but those are designed for the World Bank workforce and its interaction with other people:

For the diverse workforce of the World Bank Group, integrity, ethical behavior, and adherence to corporate values are core to the success of our mission to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.    

The World Banks mission, according to its website, consists of just two targets:

To end extreme poverty: By reducing the share of the global population that lives in extreme poverty to 3 percent.

To promote shared prosperity: By increasing the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of people in every country.

I find nothing about the bank being supposed to push for controversial 'values' that only a few western societies halfheartedly support.

Will World Bank loans to Kuwait, Pakistan, Kenia or the Vatican now only come with vague value mandates attached to them?

How is that supposed to help the World Bank's to fulfill its core mission?

This stinks of a very specific intervention in the World Bank mission by some woke Democrats.

As the Ugandan government correctly points out:

Uganda's state minister for foreign affairs, Okello Oryem accused the bank of hypocrisy, saying they were lending to countries in the Middle East and Asia that have the same or harsher laws on homosexuality.

"There are many Middle East countries who do not tolerate homosexuals, they actually hang and execute homosexuals, in the United States of America many states have passed laws that are either against or restrict activities of homosexuality ... so why pick on Uganda?" he said.

"The World Bank has been put under pressure by the usual imperialists."

Posted by b on August 9, 2023 at 15:11 UTC | Permalink

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It is supposed to lend low interest money to developing countries in need.

These countries seem to be "developing" since I was a young boy (a few decades ago). Any idea why the sinister World Bank and IMF didn't suppress the rise of competitors like Taiwan, Japan, Korea or China?

Posted by: Soothsayer | Aug 9 2023 15:18 utc | 1

All this WOKE shit pisses me off. Also the "man made" climate change bullshit. Yes, the climate is changing; I've seen the melting glaciers in Switzerland, but how can 0.038% of the earths atmosphere be causing this? Yes, Carbon Dioxide accounts for just 0.038% of the atmosphere. It's some kind of mega scam. A great deal of money is being made, and wasted. I'm waiting to hear the REAL reason for this bullshit.

Posted by: Dave Pollard | Aug 9 2023 15:22 utc | 2

a good rule of thumb is to presume the actual mission of any ngo is differs from its stated mission.

Ergo, the world bank exists to impoverish (most of) the world .

The rule applies nicely to the Federal Reserve.

Posted by: timothy murray | Aug 9 2023 15:24 utc | 3

Posted by: Dave Pollard | Aug 9 2023 15:22 utc | 2

how can a very very small nuclear bomb blow up a much larger city? it's a plot by evil physicists right? fact of the matter is, no matter who the president of the World Bank is, it's an institution used to maintain US control and influence in the world, no more, no less. whether it is a fossil fuel shill or a WOKE shill, the mssion remains the same.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 9 2023 15:28 utc | 4

That's probably good for Uganda in the long term. The "World" Bank is basically a mafia loan shark operation just like the IMF.

Isn't it interesting how Uganda, under literally the same government headed by the same man, was a western darling just a few short years ago when it was doing Warshington's bidding in Rwanda and then the Congo?

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Aug 9 2023 15:29 utc | 5

thanks b...

i agree with the other posts - world bank - imf, and etc. etc. - tools of the usa and friends to keep others down.. this added excuse is just another lame excuse...

Posted by: james | Aug 9 2023 15:30 utc | 6

Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act fundamentally contradicts the World Bank Group's values [prosperity and extreme poverty), condemned by many countries, even the UN, etc. GEE! Keep them down, dependent, and poor?
https://www.rt.com/africa/581045-nuland-regime-change-niger/

Posted by: snake | Aug 9 2023 15:30 utc | 7

per: Posted by: Dave Pollard | Aug 9 2023 15:22 utc | 2

= = =
0.038% of CO² in atmosphere?
In my schools I have heard that it is much mooore than that.
Let me see now . . . .

Posted by: LogosApplied | Aug 9 2023 15:32 utc | 8

Good for the world bank. And death to religious reactionaries everywhere. Freedom for LGBT people is not something people should compromise on.

I will part with a snippet from my own holy book, the Principia Discordia:


Onward Christian Soldiers,
Onward Buddhist Priests.
Onward, Fruits of Islam,
Fight till youre decesed.
Fight your little battles,
Join in thickest fray;
For the Greater Glory,
of Dis-cord-i-a.
Yah, yah, yah,
Yah, yah, yah, yah.
Blfffffffffft!

Posted by: fnord | Aug 9 2023 15:32 utc | 9

While I'm on that topic, Uganda was one of two countries, the other being Iran, which announced that they were ready to rush troops to defend Moscow if necessary during the Prigoputsch.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Aug 9 2023 15:33 utc | 10

https://t.me/s/mig41

Meanwhile, in a non LGBTQ direction, there is a claim that Russia has improved on childbirth and life expectancy. Good if true.

Posted by: Eighthman | Aug 9 2023 15:49 utc | 11

One day I feel good about that 7/11 guy who whooped the thief and took a morally right position.
Next day you see this news by the Worldbank which is headed by Ajay Banga.
Incidentally both are from Sikh community. A bipolar religion it has become../sarc

Posted by: KD | Aug 9 2023 15:59 utc | 12

carbon dioxide absorbs outgoing infrared radiation emitted from earth's surface, stopping it from escaping out to space. over time the feedback loop of heating based on this relatively 'small' amount of carbon grows logarithmically.
something like the slow drip of plugged sink seems very slow until eventually the water reaches the edge and pours over. not great analogy but the point is that a small amount of carbon has outsized influence. hard to argue with physics of carbon atom🤷

Posted by: TGL | Aug 9 2023 16:03 utc | 13

@ Dave Pollard | Aug 9 2023 15:22 utc | 2

Illogical thinking does nothing but exacerbate the problem. Perhaps an analogy would help you, I can type slowly:
If your dog has a couple dozen fleas, it will irritate him maybe but not cause health issues.
If your dog has 7 billion fleas, he will die, regardless of how big he is.
The planet is trying to eradicate the virus known as humans.

Posted by: hedlykarok | Aug 9 2023 16:06 utc | 14

Would it make sense for Uganda to refinance Uganda's debt with World Bank and IMF with a loan from China?
China could Uganda's debt with World Bank and IMF with US Treasury bonds. This would be a way for China to get rid of US Treasury bonds, annd obtain increased trade with Africa in return.

Posted by: Passerby | Aug 9 2023 16:07 utc | 15

Hmm, Bernard in support of a far away witch hunt. Should I be puzzled?

Hmm, ok? Ah well yes, we should go back to the year of the foundation of the Deutsche Reich/German Empire when homosexuality was criminalized again in 1871 and maybe bring back the spice the Nazis added.

Posted by: Moon | Aug 9 2023 16:07 utc | 16

@ Dave Pollard | Aug 9 2023 15:22 utc | 2

I'm afraid Dave that the science explaining the current changes in climate, as well as what will happen if we don't act quickly, and decisively, are irrefutable. It's a direct threat to humanity as we know it, and needs to be addressed with extreme seriousness, regardless of anyone's political beliefs.
Increased CO2 is only one of a number of causes of climate variation ( others positive and negative include albedo, airborn particles, solar tilt..etc ) but, right now, despite being such a small percentage of the atmosphere, it is CO2's greenhouse affect that is the major driver of change.
The science behind how greenhouse gases work is well understood. A hundred years ago, there were less than 300 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere, now it's over 410ppm. The last time levels were this high there was no ice in the Northern hemisphere.
Runaway climate change has happened before, about 50 million years ago with a CO2 PPM over 1000. At that time all ice on earth was gone and sea levels were an estimated 75 meters higher than today.
This is all well explained in Dr James Hansen's book "Storms of my grandchildren ".

Posted by: Ascot2 | Aug 9 2023 16:08 utc | 17

Sorry correction: Bernhard not Bernard.

Posted by: Moon | Aug 9 2023 16:08 utc | 18

Good for the world bank. And death to religious reactionaries everywhere. Freedom for LGBT people is not something people should compromise on.

I will part with a snippet from my own holy book, the Principia Discordia:


Onward Christian Soldiers,
Onward Buddhist Priests.
Onward, Fruits of Islam,
Fight till youre decesed.
Fight your little battles,
Join in thickest fray;
For the Greater Glory,
of Dis-cord-i-a.
Yah, yah, yah,
Yah, yah, yah, yah.
Blfffffffffft!
Posted by: fnord | Aug 9 2023 15:32 utc | 9

Fnord, nobody here hates gays. However, your little identity has largely been created by and is obviously being manipulated by US imperialism to advance it's murderous effort to regain control of the world.

Think about what your saying. Uganda's poor who have nothing to do with the law should now suffer an even more extreme form of poverty because of the actions of a government they certainly have no control over.

Why? To teach the elite in Uganda that they must do what they are told by US imperialism while striking a false progressive pose.

The fundamental issue is class, not sexual preference, race, gender or any other identity banner imperialism waves while crushing the working class and poor of every nation including its own.

Wake up.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Aug 9 2023 16:10 utc | 19

Posted by: Moon | Aug 9 2023 16:07 utc | 22

LOL you think the US is trying to prevent a witch hunt? protect the innocent? suuuuuurrrreeeee it is.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 9 2023 16:10 utc | 20

@ Moon | Aug 9 2023 16:07 utc | 22

it think this is more about getting a supposedly international organization to enforce a western set of values on everyone.. that is what i believe is the cruz of the issue here... some will be fine with it - others won't..

Posted by: james | Aug 9 2023 16:12 utc | 21

it - i

Posted by: james | Aug 9 2023 16:13 utc | 22

Considering what's known about the damage caused by the World Bank, it would be best for that institution to evaporate. A 2005 book available at The Archive, Imperial nature : the World Bank and struggles for social justice in the age of globalization, says this in it's jacket blurb:

"The book sheds new light on the World Bank's role in increasing global inequalities and considers why it has become the central target for anti-globalization movements worldwide."

Michael Hudson disses the World Bank every chance he gets as have many other prominent Global South activists. That nations are still lured into taking dollarized loans from IMF or WB is a crime. And as we see from trolls, the aim of the Outlaw US Empire is to try and tar China with its own crimes.

As for the issue Uganda just legislated about, I republished an essay related to the issue arguing few understand the Nature of the issue, "The New Tool to Divide and Rule", which allows the masses to be manipulated against their interest.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 9 2023 16:15 utc | 23

Man Made Climate Change is a Myth

Where I live, near Toronto on Lake Ontario, 500 MM years ago it was a tropical climate with 400% more C02 in the air than today.

Where I live 20,000 years ago there was one and and half miles of ice above my house.

In 1000 AD Eric the Red and his Viking thralls colonized Greenland where they grew barley and fished. In the 14th century there was a 'mini ice" age such that the Vikings couldn't grow barley and they abandoned Greenland.

All of these events occurred before the advent of 'fossil fuels ' (which is a misnomer as oil is biotic-created continuously in the earth's core-Rockefeller started/financed the fossil fuels theory to make his oil empire be considered more valuable).

The earth is coming out of an ice age and so temperatures will go up; then in 20,000 or so years a new ice age will appear and temps will go down -nothing at all to do with the human race.

Posted by: canuck | Aug 9 2023 16:17 utc | 24

If you believe in the Western Liberal idea of universal human rights, as rights that all people in your homeland are born with and which are inalienable gifts of God, then it is natural to believe that all of the people in every other nation deserve the same rights and there must receive them. It becomes a moral imperative to bring all the other nations into the fold of your own Enlightened view.

And national sovereignty cannot be allowed to get in the way of this progressive mission! So, forward ever the Humanitarian Empire! Together we will create a Global State, united in the worship of Individual Rights and Social Justice! (And, conveniently, this crusade does not get in the way of economic pillage or debt peonage or ruining the land, or any other awkward consequence of global capitalism.)

Welcome to the Brave New World of Wokeness!

/s

Posted by: Clever Dog | Aug 9 2023 16:19 utc | 25

https://t.me/s/mig41
Meanwhile, in a non LGBTQ direction, there is a claim that Russia has improved on childbirth and life expectancy. Good if true.
Posted by: Eighthman | Aug 9 2023 15:49 utc | 15

That article strikes me as too over the top, too perfect, to be taken as true on the face of it. Otherwise Russia went through an extremely difficult period in the 1990's and almost became a failed state. If the comparison of wellbeing dates back to that period it must surely be doing better now because it was doing so badly back then.

Posted by: Jmaas | Aug 9 2023 16:23 utc | 26

The following courtesy of Jeffrey St Clair at Counterpunch.org:

+ Writing in Nature about their new research on the impending collapse of the Gulf Stream, Danish scientists Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen warn: “We estimate a collapse of the AMOC [Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation] to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future emissions.” Under the Ditlevens’ scenario, the current, which transports water around the Atlantic basin and plays a key role in regulating everything from the rate of sea level rise on the East Coast to Europe’s average temperatures, is already beginning to slow and will likely stop entirely sometime 2025 and 2095. The change would probably be irreversible and is like to trigger increased storms, flooding and dramatic sea level rise. The socioeconomic consequences (not to mention the disastrous impacts on marine life) would be catastrophic for tens of millions of people.

+ The ocean temperature in Manatee Bay, near Key Largo, reached 101.1F on Monday, the hottest sea surface temperature ever recorded on Earth.

+ The news may be even worse up north off the east coast of Canada, where hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean experienced sea surface temperatures more than 5°C (9°F) above normal and some areas approaching 10°C (18°F) above normal. Thermal stress from this marine heatwave is certain to have major impacts on marine life in the Northwest Atlantic.

+ The Florida Keys contain the third largest coral reef system in the world and the only one in the continental US. With the extreme ocean temperatures this summer, all of these reefs are at risk of dying out. Many already have. Scott Atwell from The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary: “We’ve never seen anything like this. Some are not even bleaching, they are going straight to dead.” “We are surprised by the pace. It is unprecedented what we have seen. We’ve never seen anything like this. Some are not even bleaching, they are going straight to dead.”

+ The brutal heat waves pressing down on Europe are eviscerating the continent’s cereal crops. Southern Europe grain yields are likely to be 60% lower than last year and 9.5% lower than the 5-year average.

Posted by: hedlykarok | Aug 9 2023 16:24 utc | 27

Man Made Climate Change is a Myth...

The major greenhouse gas is not CO2 BUT H20 owing to cloud cover. Currently water vapor in the atmosphere is at least ten times more important than carbon dioxide. The inability to account for the amount and distribution of cloud cover is a major difficulty with any climate model. There is no good way of predicting it. If indeed there is global warming, the major problem is not so much this melodramatic stuff the bring up, but a simple change in the weather pattern. Because human infrastructure is set up be benefit from the current weather pattern, a change in weather on a climate level would most likely damage us humans more than the 'planet' generally.

Posted by: Jmaas | Aug 9 2023 16:32 utc | 28

@ karlof1 et. al.
The evaporation of the World Bank would be just wonderful. They only fund very large expenditure projects which clearly cannot be implemented using local resources.

Time to kiss it goodbye.

The PPM CO2 discussion is tiring.

How many SUV’s did it take to create the Western NY Fingerlakes by the receding glacier, 10,000 years ago? That was not ver long ago.

Posted by: acco hengst | Aug 9 2023 16:39 utc | 29

if there's one thing the senior barflies buzzing around here can attest to, it's the landmine level of crazy the phrase that "climate change" triggers on any blog, here no different.

From the delusional physical state ascribed by one poor dolt positing the infinite logarithmic feedback loop of the magic molecule, to the 'were all gonna die, atone for your CO2 sins' nutter, who , without reflection on the fact that they're typing away on a device nearly entirely composed of items directly related to oil, to the clothes they're sat in their Mom's basement in, to the source of the electric charge in their grossly subsidised transportation; these are simply psuedo-religious fanatics and are dangerous to to rest of us.

Their quality of life and extended life expectancy these days DIRECTLY related to fossil fuels.

Lordy.

Posted by: AleaJactaEst | Aug 9 2023 16:41 utc | 30

Posted by: canuck | Aug 9 2023 16:17 utc | 30

Because of the tilt of the sun, the earth should be coming out of it's warm period, and heading towards a glacial one. These changes happen over thousands of years.
Because of increased CO2 levels caused by mankind, earth is continuing to warm, triggering further warming feedback mechanisms, like loss of ice along with its cooling reflection of the sun's heat.
We can't shrug it off because this time it's all happening, from a geological point of view, unbelievably fast.
Concern over climate change is not "woke" in how that term is used these days. Not taking action, or demanding that our politicians take action, is a betrayal of the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Posted by: Ascot2 | Aug 9 2023 16:43 utc | 31

In the United States fascists use 'woke' as a euphemism for the rights of women, minorities, homosexuals, and the disabled, which they want to overturn and install a society of patriarchal and ethnic superiority. Democratic liberals also use 'woke' as an excuse to dominate other patriarchal societies through financial manipulation and/or occupation ostensibly to force them to adopt civil rights, and this hypocrisy reveals the use of such ambiguous language is adopted as a bipartisan manipulation of American society. Many of America's most hysterical opponents of 'wokeism,' like the Reverend Ted Haggard, turn out to be victims of their own superegos, which afflicts many human beings who have been subjected to patriarchal virtues.

Posted by: Wilikins | Aug 9 2023 16:45 utc | 32

I don't understand why LGBT rights ticks people off. No one asking you to become gay.
Also climate change is pretty well accepted. Why is caring for the environment bad?
Posted by: Peter Dahu | Aug 9 2023 16:29 utc | 29

The reason it "ticks people off" is because it is being used to make general social policy based on a peculiar and extreme sensitivity to the wants of a small minority. And nobody ever bothers to poll the minority to find out what they really think. It is always antidotal, and thus the messenger is actually the message. The person who agrees with the reporters agenda is the one we hear from.

Why is caring for the environment bad? Well hell, because it is a political agenda that uses concern over the environment for cover, even if the agenda has little to do with the environment or is damaging.

Clarity comes when it is realized that our current society almost never tells the truth about much of anything.

Posted by: Jmaas | Aug 9 2023 16:47 utc | 33

Posted by: AleaJactaEst | Aug 9 2023 16:41 utc | 30

the quality of our lives is directly diminishing due to the fossil fuel corporations and the rest of the military propaganda complex they play such a vital role in. life expectancy in the US is diminishing, and it's mostly due to the oligarchs we have been saddled with since birth. fossil fuel companies, defense contractor companies, pharmaceutical companies, banks, the whole edifice. they all have their shills, too.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 9 2023 16:47 utc | 34

Hey b! A bunch of barfleas just came into the bar pissing all over your floor about the World Bank and "wokeness".

Such disrespect is what is being paid for by dying empire or delivered by petulant children.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 9 2023 16:49 utc | 35

Moon @16

Perhaps people would be less irritated with you faggots if you stopped grooming children.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 16:51 utc | 36

Cue everyone in here whining about how they're not allowed to execute gay people in the streets. Die angry about it, dont care, besides, they will shoot back and you will deserve it.

Posted by: Domerts | Aug 9 2023 16:52 utc | 37

Posted by: Ascot2 | Aug 9 2023 16:08 utc | 23

I think that I am among the very, very few who know that the increase of CO2 is leading to a warmer atmosphere AND at the same time are happy with it. It will put Miami under water, it could transform parts of the yankeeland an Europe into a desert, and it will open to agriculture northern Siberia. Why it will happen? Because all fossil fuels which can be extracted will be extracted and will be used. They are necessary for agriculture, for air transport and to wage war. The only possibility to make a stop to that future is... a nuclear world war.

By the way, during the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic, the land-masses represented 18% of the surface of the planet. Today: 29%.

Posted by: libegafra | Aug 9 2023 16:59 utc | 38

one woke world govt with cbdc added in soon if we can't stop it.

it's scary.

what's next, you don't get money bc you won't allow kids to mutilate their bodies take dangerous medicines? (supporter of lbgtq for a long time, but...)

i'm glad brics does not set political requirements on their loans, but sometimes i wish they would.

Posted by: polarbear4 | Aug 9 2023 16:59 utc | 39

I continue to believe that when you have Western society that is based on barbaric patriarchy, "gender" and deviance from "normal" social discussion continues to focus on those from one side of the curtain but not the other.

Why is it we never talk about the social perfidy brought to us by barbaric patriarchy?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 9 2023 17:01 utc | 40

Domerts: project much?

Posted by: nwwoods | Aug 9 2023 17:01 utc | 41

Cue the faggots whining about how they don't have the right to groom children and cannot do gay buttsex in front of elementary school classes.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 17:01 utc | 42

I suggest those who deny anthropogenic climate change submit their theses to peer reviewed scientific journals, then watch as they are all rejected. We don't need amateur "scientists" spouting their unfounded theories. All of the denial myths that have been made (including those written here) are refuted with thorough references to relevant research at https://skepticalscience.com/

Posted by: norecovery | Aug 9 2023 17:02 utc | 43

@ Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Aug 9 2023 16:10 utc | 25

your little identity has largely been created by and is obviously being manipulated by US imperialism to advance it's murderous effort to regain control of the world.

These homophobic laws are themselves the product of the cultural export of evangelical, fundamentalist, christianity from the United States to Africa. Predominantly white missionaries preaching reactionary and anti-scientific social doctrines, convincing people that they will spend eternity being tortured if they don't believe and behave accordingly, have majorly contributed to homophobia in the region. And that ideology has been in power in the 21st century from 2001-2009, then again from 2017-2021, and likely enough to return in 2025. The former secretary of state, CIA man Mike Pompeo, installed by Donald Trump, is a believer in such an ideology. Trump himself gestures to it often enough. Are human rights discourses often weaponized to make the public more in favor of US interventions which are rooted in the Machiavellian "national interest"? Sure. But why does that translate for so many people into "these countries actually have the sovereign right to execute homosexuals"?

I attribute this to the stealthy takeover of anti-imperialist discourse by Birchite/paleocon ideologues, who often align on cultural values with reactionary tinpot despots more than they align with the cosmpolitan and effete DC power elite, and eschew the notion that members of the United Nations have a duty to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Uganda's poor who have nothing to do with the law should now suffer an even more extreme form of poverty because of the actions of a government they certainly have no control over.

The World Bank has always been accused of holding back the development of countries in order to keep trade unequal and to enable superprofits to be extracted by imperialist capital. If the World Bank stops lending to Uganda, according to many anti-imperialists, that should be a good thing, because it will provoke the development of national industry.

The fact that class is a primary contradiction does not mean that oppression based on other factors is not a concern. Class and race in America are as comparably intertwined as class and caste are in India. The abolition of caste and class are not contradictory causes, but synergistic ones. The synergy in the fight for collective liberation is what led Huey Newton to say that the word "punk" (more of a slur back then for homosexuals than it is today, at least among white people) should be removed from the vocabulary of Black Panther Party members.

Wrt waking up, I've been woke up ;)

Posted by: fnord | Aug 9 2023 17:06 utc | 44

Posted by: canuck | Aug 9 2023 16:17 utc | 24

500 millions years ago, it was Cambrian and there was no life on lands. Further, there was no lake Ontario. And the Laurentian land mass was between the tropics.

Education helps.

Posted by: libegafra | Aug 9 2023 17:10 utc | 45

The World Bank seems to fayvorize development of of genderism that's unnatural to those who want to maintain our excitsence to continue thru' dial procreation and not be extinquished thru men copulating with only men ad females with feminine partners.
I'd like to know whether many in World Bank leadership fuck some same-sex partners and not their wives -- and what's their wives' doings?
I have no qib against homosexuals, but I sometimes ask them; "Who will pay for your old age maintenance?" (My home is Scandinavia , where age pensions are provided thru taxes paid by the youngsters still in wage-earning age
. Of course, as long as old age pension payment (and sickness insurance) is no paid in gold to become stored, the same holds true all over our World.
Shame on those who believe that trans-genderiem, lespian autroars or homosexuality are radically new alternatives for modern life. Just read Gibbon's work on the decline and fall o fall og´f the (Western) roman Empire and get the sweet smell of those times -- and to us around the North Atlanis sinking empier alike.

Posted by: Tollef Ås/秋涛乐/טלפ וש | Aug 9 2023 17:14 utc | 46

Uganda's state minister for foreign affairs, Okello Oryem accused the bank of hypocrisy, saying they were lending to countries in the Middle East and Asia that have the same or harsher laws on homosexuality.

I think that says it all: Though, I wonder if the World bank actually services countries in the Middle East?

Posted by: Ed | Aug 9 2023 17:14 utc | 47

This has almost nothing to do with homosexuality or personal freedom. As the Ugandan Minister quoted above explains the World Bank will lend money to countries with much more extreme laws on homosexuality than those in Uganda, which appear to be modeled on those current in the UK and USA until fairly recently- the past fifty years at most.

What the World Bank is practising is 'thin end of the wedge' politics. They are telling Uganda that to qualify for loans they must follow any instructions that they receive from the US Embassy. And if they choose to defy such instructions "international organisations" (aka Imperialist agencies) will punish them.

But this is the fin de siecle: Uganda may be surprised by the quick reaction from DC but it will have known that something like it was coming. And will be prepared. The obvious response is to suspend any payments to the Bank and to apply to BRICS for an emergency loan.

The US has staked all its African marbles on its ability to mobilise enough military force- mostly from its bribed and paid for allies such as Kagame and the new Nigerian President- cast diplomacy aside and bully the continent. It probably thinks that Africans will be as mesmerised by the sight of Black Generals in the Pentagon as Washington is. In the meantime the US just nudged another old friend closer to Niger, Algeria and the heirs of Ghadaffi's mantle.

The Empire has a Death Wish.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 9 2023 17:17 utc | 48

Last year, the White House rebuked him after he said he did not know if fossil fuels were driving climate change.
Well hydrocarbons are not "fossil" and the climate is changing like it always did. Ignore the power hungry psychos.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 17:17 utc | 49

@LogosApplied | Aug 9 2023 15:32 utc | 8

0.038% of CO² in atmosphere?
In my schools I have heard that it is much mooore than that.
Let me see now . . . .
It's a trace gas, 400 parts per million (ppm). You are welcome.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 17:21 utc | 50

0.038% of CO² in atmosphere?
In my schools I have heard that it is much mooore than that.
Let me see now . . . .

Posted by: LogosApplied | Aug 9 2023 15:32 utc | 8

Yeah, don't know the exact, accepted current concentration and it varies seasonally, but it is "much mooore"...about 0.041%. Obviously the end of the world is right around the corner.


Posted by: Phil R | Aug 9 2023 17:22 utc | 51

@Ascot2 | Aug 9 2023 16:08 utc | 17

We are inundated by escalation trolls these days.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 17:23 utc | 52

Posted by: canuck | Aug 9 2023 16:17 utc | 24

Man Made Climate Change is a Myth ...

All of these events occurred before the advent of 'fossil fuels.'... The earth is coming out of an ice age and so temperatures will go up; then in 20,000 or so years a new ice age will appear and temps will go down - nothing at all to do with the human race.

================================

Well said. Unless and until climate 'science' can accurately distinguish between natural long and short term variations versus whatever we contribute (no doubt some but probably far less than in our hubris we imagine), I don't see how any reasonable person can buy into either the hysteria or any one-size-fits-all global solutions proffered (like universal carbon credits or sun-blocking interventions a la Bill Gates).

I don't care how 'settled' the 'science' is unless and until there are several widely discussed peer reviewed papers showing they can clearly distinguish between natural and anthropogenic climate-effecting inputs. As far as I know there hasn't been a single such paper. Given it's a sine qua non for the entire field its absence makes the whole notion of 'climate science' extremely fishy.

...................................

The IMF in pushing the woke agenda is doing what the entire Big Corporate sector in the West is now doing. Can some wise soul here explain WHY they are doing it? This is a big topic but rarely discussed.

I love the way b keeps finding these clear, particular examples....

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 9 2023 17:29 utc | 53

hey pretzelhead @ 34

If its that bad for you, nobody's stopping you checking out Mate.

Posted by: AleaJactaEst | Aug 9 2023 17:30 utc | 54

The following courtesy of Jeffrey St Clair at Counterpunch.org:

+ Writing in Nature about their new research on the impending collapse of the Gulf Stream, Danish scientists Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen warn: “We estimate a collapse of the AMOC [Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation] to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future emissions.” Under the Ditlevens’ scenario, the current, which transports water around the Atlantic basin and plays a key role in regulating everything from the rate of sea level rise on the East Coast to Europe’s average temperatures, is already beginning to slow and will likely stop entirely sometime 2025 and 2095.

Posted by: hedlykarok | Aug 9 2023 16:24 utc | 27

The Gulf stream and/or AMOC is not collapsing and is not going to collapse...not by 2025, not by 2095 and not by3095. The rest is irrelevant apocalyptic hogwash.

If someone told your fortune based on a crystal ball, tarot cards or pig entrails you would laugh at them and call them con artists. But give someone a computer and a computer model and the end of the world is right around the corner.

Posted by: Phil R | Aug 9 2023 17:34 utc | 55

Maybe the new president of world bank Mr Ajay banga is gay?

Posted by: Virgile | Aug 9 2023 17:35 utc | 56

@canuck | Aug 9 2023 16:17 utc | 24

In 1000 AD Eric the Red and his Viking thralls colonized Greenland where they grew barley and fished. In the 14th century there was a 'mini ice" age such that the Vikings couldn't grow barley and they abandoned Greenland.
Correct. Eirik Raude ('Eric the Red') lived at Brattalid ('steep incline') in Greenland. His son Leif Eiriksson ('Son of Eirik') travelled to The Boston area ('Vinland') in the year 1000 and stayed there for a year before returning to Greenland (a ship off course had reported seeing land in the west years before). His brother Torstein used the same ship and travelled much further south, but was killed by locals near Savannah, Georgia. The church books tells the story about the Vikings having to leave Greenland around 1400 because of the deteriorating climate. Most likely, they moved south/west and assimilated with the locals in North America.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 17:39 utc | 57

How many SUV’s did it take to create the Western NY Fingerlakes by the receding glacier, 10,000 years ago? That was not ver long ago.

Posted by: acco hengst | Aug 9 2023 16:39 utc | 29

Don't forget that Cape Cod and Long Island are glacial moraines. Maybe Massachusetts and New York want their glaciers back.

Posted by: Phil R | Aug 9 2023 17:39 utc | 58

Norwegian @49

The mass of carbon in all life on Earth is just a small fraction of the mass of the free oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. Oxygen is highly reactive, so without some mechanism to free the oxygen from being bound with other elements, all free oxygen in a planet's atmosphere will eventually become non-free (bound with carbon, iron, silicon, what have you). This characteristic of oxygen figures highly in astronomers' search for extraterrestrial life since if they find an exoplanet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere they figure they have found life.

So for a planet to have an oxygen-rich atmosphere, living organisms must have consumed some elements and excreted the oxygen those elements were bound to. In the case of Earth it is theorized that was carbon from carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere that was consumed and used by the organisms (plants) to construct their bodies. But if we look at currently existing life on Earth, there isn't enough to account for the free oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. That suggests previous millions of generations of plants must have somehow sequestered the carbon in their bodies away from the atmosphere to prevent it from oxidizing into carbon dioxide again. This in turn suggests various geological processes buried those plants, preventing them from oxidizing and leading to the accumulation of free oxygen in the atmosphere. Those buried plants would be the "fossil" carbon that fossil fuels are presumably comprised of.

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting there must be some other process at work on Earth (and only Earth) that frees oxygen from other elements. What is that process?

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 17:41 utc | 59

Posted by: Ascot2 | Aug 9 2023 16:43 utc
Because of the tilt of the sun, the earth should be coming out of it's warm period, and heading towards a glacial one. These changes happen over thousands of years.
Because of increased CO2 levels caused by mankind, earth is continuing to warm, triggering further warming feedback mechanisms, like loss of ice along with its cooling reflection of the sun's heat.

No, the tilt of the sun has nothing to do with it...

Sorry but very few of the alarmists have really done their homework to look into the details of the theory they are so fervently supporting. They do not really understand how the process that they so much fear works. Why that?

How does CO2 warm the atmosphere? No, it does not trap infrared radiation.

The CO2 molecule resonates to the 14 um wavelength. That's all. This corresponds (if I correctly remember) to the radiation of a body with -65°C (minus sixty something). It will absorb it and reflect it into a random direction.
This radiation band is so full that even with only 420 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere (ppm=parts per million) the radiation goes less then one hundred meters or so. So it needs to bounce again and again until it gets out, or changes the wavelength losing some energy.
What is the difference if the radiation goes sixty meters or fifty meters now when there is more CO2? How much heat transfer does go lost in the overall? Will there be any difference? How much? The heat transfer in the atmosphere goes mostly through convection, not radiation.

Only variations of the heat transfer inside this narrow infrared band are influenced by CO2. Water vapor has a much wider area of influence, and incidentally it also comes over this band too.

How has the influence of CO2 been calculated for climate models?

The 'scientists' have made a very rough approximation of the temperature that a black body would have if it would receive the average of the sun's radiation (night and day and inclination average) on a flat disc about the surface of the whole globe and compared that to the calculated average temperature of the earth.
Then assumed the greenhouse gases are 'guilty' for the extra warming, dismissing completely the oceans (!!!).
From this interesting 'scientific calculation' they get a 'greenhouse value' attributed to CO2, considering it is about one quarter to that of water, or maybe half...

Then they said, this is equal to 3.5 W/m2 back-radiation from inside the atmosphere to the Earth, which is physically wrong to calculate like this. Then they run simple weather models with added heating of 3.5 W/m2 and multiply that three to five fold through 'feedbacks'.
Even with these values there is no 'boiling' scenario.

These weather models have no proper heat transfer calculations what would be absolutely necessary for a proper climate simulation. They do not even calculate the lapse rate in the atmosphere, because they are not able to. They simply add that extra heating at the top.

Posted by: norecovery | Aug 9 2023 17:02 utc |43

I suggest those who deny anthropogenic climate change submit their theses to peer reviewed scientific journals,

Appeal to authority. Information value=NULL.
That site you link is no scientific journal, just the site of an alarmist that does not allow for proper dialogue.

If you really want to learn something go to Wattsupwiththat.com, the best climate site which allows for proper dialogue, this is vital if you speak science. Censoring contrarian voices lead to stagnation.

Posted by: LP | Aug 9 2023 17:42 utc | 60

The obvious response is to suspend any payments to the Bank and to apply to BRICS for an emergency loan. ...
The Empire has a Death Wish.
Posted by: bevin | Aug 9 2023 17:17 utc | 48

China could use its US Treasury Bonds to pay all debt to the World Bank, effectively shutting down the institution.

Posted by: Passerby | Aug 9 2023 17:46 utc | 61

@acco hengst | Aug 9 2023 16:39 utc | 29

How many SUV’s did it take to create the Western NY Fingerlakes by the receding glacier, 10,000 years ago? That was not ver long ago.
Randall Carlson explains that story in all details. It was 12800 years ago after the comet fragment hit the Laurentide Ice sheet causing a mega flood (read about it in the Bible) followed by 1000+ years of deep freeze known as the Younger Dryas, when temperatures dropped 15C and caused the extinction of the North American megafauna.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 17:48 utc | 62

I concur. Definitely working from a Langley basement.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Aug 9 2023 15:59 utc | 17

I’m subscribed to several telegram channels related to China and since about a month or so there are more and more anti-China trolls cropping up. Once one is blocked, another one will take over in less than 24 hours. Looks like a coordinated troll action… I guess we will see more of that in the coming months :-/

Posted by: Zet | Aug 9 2023 17:50 utc | 63

@Ascot2 | Aug 9 2023 16:43 utc | 31

Because of the tilt of the sun, the earth should be coming out of it's warm period, and heading towards a glacial one.
Nonsense, it is the precession of the Earth's axis and the modulation of the Earth orbit eccentricity, caused by gravitational interaction with solar system objects such as Jupiter and Saturn primarily, causing varying degree of solar radiation received in Earths polar regions. These are known as the Milankovitch cycles after the Serbian astronomer.

Because of increased CO2 levels caused by mankind, earth is continuing to warm
This is a myth motivated by politics and not backed up by observation. Temperature is an intensity and growing cities have reached measurements stations, the urban heat island effect is orders of magnitude larger than the measurement precision. And so it goes.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 18:00 utc | 64

“Will World Bank loans to Kuwait, Pakistan, Kenia or the Vatican now only come with vague value mandates attached to them?” ~b

I find this to be an odd grouping b. The Vatican or Kuwait needing a loan from World Bank? The latter is awash in oil money, while the former is brimming with stolen and money that the priests give up to join the club of paedophiles.
I know, Pope Frank recently said some gobbledygook about being all inclusive and all, but needing a loan? Ah, the ‘values.’ I get it.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Aug 9 2023 18:01 utc | 65


Posted by: hedlykarok | Aug 9 2023 16:24 utc | 27

+ The ocean temperature in Manatee Bay, near Key Largo, reached 101.1F on Monday, the hottest sea surface temperature ever recorded on Earth.

If one looks at the long term climate, the Earth had two type of climate, a) with a lot of ice (ice ages), or b) completely ice free.
This was not depending on the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

We are still in an ice age, with a lot of ice, even if this part of the ice age is warmer in an interglacial, it is still much colder then when it was without ice.
There have been crocodile in the arctice sea not so long ago and a million of years ago tropical forests in Greenland. The climate was always changing.

Posted by: LP | Aug 9 2023 18:02 utc | 66

Every loanshark has a bagman.

The bagman's boss is a bad man.

Posted by: too scents | Aug 9 2023 18:05 utc | 67

" remind me of a country in the region the Chinese have invaded. just like the US? hardly.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 9 2023 15:40 utc | 11 "


Vietnam, 1979.

Posted by: Shocked | Aug 9 2023 18:12 utc | 68

the point is that a small amount of carbon has outsized influence. hard to argue with physics of carbon atom🤷
Posted by: TGL | Aug 9 2023 16:03 utc | 13

Look up Hunga Tonga 2022 eruption. Also large "hot spots" inexplicably appearing in oceans around the world in 2023. Also rapidly melting antarctic ice during record cold air temps last winter.

The short version is there is good evidence emerging that undersea volcanic & tectonic activity is warming the ocean, which is warming the air.

Water vapor is the most warming of the atmosphere, then CO, CO2 is 3rd. Tonga shot massive amounts of steam into the *stratosphere*, could raise temps globally by 1.5C & is expected to affect temps (& rainfall) for the next 5 years.

Posted by: Mary | Aug 9 2023 18:13 utc | 69

Wrt waking up, I've been woke up ;)

Posted by: fnord | Aug 9 2023 17:06 utc | 44

I'll give you that fnord. You're totally woke.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Aug 9 2023 18:16 utc | 70

Fad words often have inverted meanings. Think "Cool!" or "Wicked!" as examples.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 18:19 utc | 71

What should our stand point be on river polution as the couse of fish changing sex ?

Posted by: Mark2 | Aug 9 2023 18:19 utc | 72

@William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 17:41 utc | 59

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting there must be some other process at work on Earth (and only Earth) that frees oxygen from other elements. What is that process?

Hydrocarbons are made of Hydrogen and Carbon :-D

First, present day atmosphere is starved of CO2. That is why you can buy CO2 generators to put in actual greenhouses (made of glass) to enhance plant growth. The stupid idea of reducing CO2 would cause death if it was possible (it isn't). The miniscule increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is an effect, not a cause. Increased solar radiation in the last century has released CO2 from the oceans much like your beer goes flat on a wam summer day.

Hydrocarbons can be created from living organisms no doubt, but any claim that it is the only way is ridiculous. Combine Hydrogen, Carbon + high pressure and temperature and voila you get Hydrocarbons. All of this exists in abundance in the Earths crust. Guess why the Russians have so much of it.... they have not fallen for the 'fossil fuel' Orwellian word games.

Saturn's Moon Titan has a dense (~1 Atm) atmosphere of Hydrocarbons, otherwise known as Methane. It also has large Methane lakes. Those who persist in claiming hydrocarbons are 'fossil' and made from organic matter will have to explain what kind of organic matter created the lakes of Titan.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 18:20 utc | 73

Cue the faggots whining about how they don't have the right to groom children and cannot do gay buttsex in front of elementary school classes.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 17:01 utc | 42
---------------------------------------------------------------
Come Gruff (now I know where the name came from), that comment is uncalled for. There is a difference between Pedophiles and Homosexuals; you assume too much. Fnord @19, says "nobody here hates gays," he also assumes too much. There is a problem with the term "woke" because it includes anything that far right Nazis doesn't agree with.

I support science and the relationship between burning fossil fuels (among other things) and climate change. That does not make me a homosexual or a pedophile, the first one I do not understand as a lifestyle and the second one is criminal and abhorrent to me (a person can change their identity, but not their sex as far as I am concerned) and I will wager that most people who read, or post MoA feel the same way.

I support civil rights for minorities and the working class, and I detest US imperialism and capitalist exploitation; does that make me "woke?" Your answer will tell me a lot about Mr. Gruff.

Posted by: Ed | Aug 9 2023 18:21 utc | 74

Mark2 @72

What you're saying is that if you soak some fish in benzene and methylmercury, they become woke?

That makes sense, actually...

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 18:23 utc | 75

The World Bank has already cut off funding as per https://observer.ug/news/headlines/78780-world-bank-cuts-off-all-funding-to-uganda-over-anti-homosexuality-law

Posted by: Max | Aug 9 2023 18:29 utc | 76

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Aug 9 2023 16:10 utc | 19

Right on. This liberal poster "fnord" masquerading as a ;eftist is a perfect example of identity politics being used to kneecap the left by exhausting its energies and political capital in anything else but what affects the vast majority of the population on the globe.

Notice jow the poster praises the World Bank for its "progressive" values without even wondering why this institution, about as woke as the poster, will not hesitate to support reactionary regimes that serve the interests of the Anglo-American empire. I mean, Ukraine is now the global center for the adoration of Nazism, but the poster "fnord" isn't perturbed in the least about the support that the hideous, fascistic Maidanist regime receives from the forces of "progress" in the west.

And how about Glenn Greenwald? That is a Jewish homosexual until recently married to a Brazilin politician, and yet, he is subjected to an endless torrent of vitriolic attacks by the liberal vermin. Why? Because he is against the empire and its practices. Poster "fnord", a splendid representative of this anti-human bunch goes along obviously.

And how the open support for the LGBTQAAA+++XYZ movement by the horrific fascistic three-letter agency, NATO and the War Industry? No doubt, poster "fnord" approves and gives credit to the CIA, the murderous Atlanticist alliance and of course, the ultra-prog Lockheed Martin for their "progressive" stance.

On the other hand, said poster deceitfully makes the clearly harsh legislation by Uganda a matter of religion. Well, I must have missed the elevation of the LGBTQAAA+++XYZ movement into a religious cult in any socialist country. I mean, it is a fantastic coincidence that the Nicaraguan fascist minions of Washington have combined their forces with representatives of this movement to bring down the Sandinista government which doesn't apporve Pride parades. Priorities, right?

I guess, Che Guevara may have been harsh on the issue of homosexuality. But by now, any people that miss the grossly hypocritical and manipulative use of identity politics to advance the interests of the Anglo-American empire and neoliberal, corporate capitalism are either terminally brainwashed conservatives (convinced there hasd been a communist takeover) or slime liberals, however they label themselves, eager to hide their utterly reactionary nature behind pseudo-progressive values.

Posted by: Constantine | Aug 9 2023 18:33 utc | 77

Norwegian @73: "Hydrocarbons are made of Hydrogen and Carbon :-D"

Of course, because in an oxygen-rich environment they would just be carbon dioxide and water.

"Saturn's Moon Titan has a dense (~1 Atm) atmosphere of Hydrocarbons..."

Precisely. But Titan has practically no free oxygen in its atmosphere.

My question was not about where hydrocarbons came from, but where the oxygen came from. Earth has ludicrous amounts of free oxygen in its atmosphere, so much so that things regularly combine with that oxygen rapidly and violently (catch fire and burn). The theory that buried carbon (hydrocarbons) is carbon formerly in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide that has been sequestered by prehistoric plants explains Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere. I am just looking for an alternate explanation that doesn't lead to fossil carbon deposits underground from (formerly) living organisms.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 18:35 utc | 78

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 18:00 utc | 64
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Norwegian, you seem to have an answer for everything! Are you a scientist? If so, then you must realize that your views are in the minority?

This is the prevailing view of the majority of the Climate science community:

As reported in Nature, using novel sensors to measure methane in meltwater runoff in real time, they observed that methane was continuously exported from beneath the ice. They calculated that at least six tons of methane was transported to their measuring site from this portion of the Ice Sheet alone, roughly the equivalent of the methane released by up to 100 cows.

Professor Jemma Wadham, Director of Bristol's Cabot Institute for the Environment, who led the investigation, said: "A key finding is that much of the methane produced beneath the ice likely escapes the Greenland Ice Sheet in large, fast flowing rivers before it can be oxidized to CO2, a typical fate for methane gas which normally reduces its greenhouse warming potency."

Methane gas (CH4) is the third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after water vapors and carbon dioxide (CO2). Although, present in lower concentrations than CO2, methane is approximately 20-28 times more potent. Therefore, smaller quantities have the potential to cause disproportionate impacts on atmospheric temperatures. Most of the Earth's methane is produced by microorganisms that convert organic matter to CH4 in the absence of oxygen, mostly in wetlands and on agricultural land, for instance in the stomachs of cows and rice paddies. The remainder comes from fossil fuels like natural gas.

While some methane had been detected previously in Greenland ice cores and in an Antarctic Subglacial Lake, this is the first time that meltwaters produced in spring and summer in large ice sheet catchments have been reported to continuously flush out methane from the ice sheet bed to the atmosphere.

Lead author, Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said: "What is also striking is the fact that we've found unequivocal evidence of a widespread subglacial microbial system. Whilst we knew that methane-producing microbes likely were important in subglacial environments, how important and widespread they truly were was debatable. Now we clearly see that active microorganisms, living under kilometers of ice, are not only surviving, but impacting other parts of the Earth system. This subglacial methane is essentially a biomarker for life in these isolated habitats."

Most studies on Arctic methane sources focus on permafrost, because these frozen soils tend to hold large reserves of organic carbon that could be converted to methane when they thaw due to climate warming. This latest study shows that ice sheet beds, which hold large reserves of carbon, liquid water, microorganisms, and very little oxygen – the ideal conditions for creating methane gas – are also atmospheric methane sources.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-ice-sheets-tons-methane-atmosphere.html

In other words, capitalism is parasitical to life on Planet Earth.

Posted by: Ed | Aug 9 2023 18:46 utc | 79

@ Posted by: Constantine | Aug 9 2023 18:33 utc | 77

There's more wrong assumptions about what I believe in there than I have the energy to address. I'm glad my comment could get the wheels in your head spinning like that though.

I will say this: Che Guevara died before he could make amends for the missteps made in the early period of the revolution towards homosexuals. Fidel, however, lived to regret the mistreatment of LGBT Cubans and not only did he make amends, but Cuba today has the most progressive family laws in the world. LGBT and Black liberation are not diversions but necessary demands of the revolutionary movement in the US to avoid the kind of missteps revolutionaries have made before. Right-tailing by scuttling those demands is not going to win people over to left-wing causes. It will cripple the left and contribute to the weakening of personal freedom and the legal reification of these categories of identity. This is in fact precisely what we are saying with assaults on transgender individuals: the state legally proscribing the boundaries of gendered expression and identification against the natural, real, movement of everyday people.

Posted by: fnord | Aug 9 2023 18:48 utc | 80

@Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 18:20 utc | 73
Experts do not claim that CH4 only comes from fossile matter.
And peakoil seems to be already behind us anyway.

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Aug 9 2023 18:50 utc | 81

@William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 18:35 utc | 78

My question was not about where hydrocarbons came from, but where the oxygen came from.

I don't know, but Earth has a lot of water (H2O) as we all know. This water probably came from very small and sometimes larger comet fragments. Such material is raining down on us to this day. After 4 billion years it adds up. We happen to live the right distance from the Sun for it not to disappear and for us to exist and see it at the same time (what a coincidence). Then you need some way to split H2O into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The Sun has probably a lot to do with it, directly or indirectly via the photosynthesis.

Just some ideas.

But Hydrocarbons are not 'fossil', that is for sure and is my main point.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 18:51 utc | 82

Oxygen is made from plants (photosynthesis) no plants no oxygen, end off story. Kill the plants and were all dead.
But when a time comes when each new born baby is given an oxygen mask and left to crawl round the carpet draging an oxagen bottle. People will still be denying its a problem or man made.

Posted by: Mark2 | Aug 9 2023 18:53 utc | 83

Error ...By plant not from plant

Posted by: Mark2 | Aug 9 2023 18:55 utc | 84

All this WOKE shit pisses me off. Also the "man made" climate change bullshit. Yes, the climate is changing; I've seen the melting glaciers in Switzerland, but how can 0.038% of the earths atmosphere be causing this? Yes, Carbon Dioxide accounts for just 0.038% of the atmosphere. It's some kind of mega scam. A great deal of money is being made, and wasted. I'm waiting to hear the REAL reason for this bullshit.

Posted by: Dave Pollard | Aug 9 2023 15:22 utc | 2

You're not alone. IMO, this so-called climate change movement is largely about geopolitics. They're using the 'Trust the Science' excuse to hide the geopolitical angle. It also have a nice way of sowing division among the populace.

Posted by: Ian2 | Aug 9 2023 18:57 utc | 85

I just — LOVE — how climate and climate science can disrupt any discussion in any thread. Kudos to divide and concur folks. The noise to substance ratio is off the charts.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Aug 9 2023 19:01 utc | 86

@Ed | Aug 9 2023 18:46 utc | 79

Mr. Norwegian, you seem to have an answer for everything! Are you a scientist? If so, then you must realize that your views are in the minority?
Science is not determined by counting raised hands. 100 Authors against Einstein. “Why 100? If I were wrong, one would have been enough. [In response to the book "Hundred Authors Against Einstein"]”
― Albert Einstein


Science progresses from observation, formulating hypotheses and trying to falsify them by further testing or observation.

The Key to Science


Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 19:01 utc | 87

I would like to point out that East Texas has had a high temperature of 100 degrees and above (average is 102 and as high as 105) for more than the last 30, and almost NO rain. Our yards are turning brown no matter how much we water, and air conditioners (mine including mine) are failing like mad. Air conditioner repair companies cannot keep up with the demand (we had to wait 5 days for service and the cost was outrageous).

Is this just a single occurrence? The world has been breaking high temperature records almost every year for the last ten years. You don't need a science degree to know that something is wrong.

Posted by: Ed | Aug 9 2023 19:01 utc | 88

William gruff @ 75
No you said that.

Posted by: Mark2 | Aug 9 2023 19:01 utc | 89

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 18:35 utc | 78

I am just looking for an alternate explanation that doesn't lead to fossil carbon deposits underground from (formerly) living organisms.

=================================

Very much enjoying this scientific back and forth without devolving into rancor and name-calling. Unusual and refreshing. Also over my pay grade science-wise. That said, in response to your query above:

I don't see anywhere that there might not be several different ways that hydrocarbons might come about so perhaps it is not necessary to come down hard on a single source explanation.

As a non-scientist I feel the same way about this debate as the Darwinian controversies, namely that from a simple POV the fossil record should have provided many intermediate examples (a fish halfway between a fish and a mammal to over simplify) but it hasn't. Last time I checked it has yet to find one. Without more evidence of intermediates the theory remains unproven.

Similarly we should be able to find zones with 'intermediate' fossil fuels, ie with more only partially transformed fossils, no? Or does it just suddenly happen all at once? Do they even know how it happens or is it just a guess based on deduction/induction?

How many more centuries will Darwinianists wait? As many lifetimes, probably, as those insisting that climate change is caused by Man for a way of measuring it precisely, which has not yet be found, at all.

Meanwhile - in both cases - many interesting, valuable and practical things get overlooked whilst people argue forever about how many material angels can fit on the head of a metaphysical pin.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 9 2023 19:03 utc | 90

@Ed | Aug 9 2023 19:01 utc | 88

Turn it around and point to the cold temperature events and the 'experts' will tell you you don't know weather from climate. Btw, our summer is cold this year.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 19:05 utc | 91

Posted by: Jmaas | Aug 9 2023 16:32 utc | 28
«If indeed there is global warming»

Careful with words: the claims now are no longer about "global warming", which is quite debatable, but about "climate change", which is undeniable because it has been going on in a big way for several billion years.

The "climate change" claim then gets transformed into "carbon footprint" stories and therefore into calls to consume less oil and meat, voluntarily, to keep oil and meat prices low despite a massive increase in demand for both by the chinese population. I think that's the main point, also for the World Bank.

Posted by: Blissex | Aug 9 2023 19:06 utc | 92

Chris Hedges in 2018 laid out in an excellent piece how US African Americans were of much worse under Obama as a result of the 2008 crisis than before and that Obama´s economic´s department increased this state.

Think it was this one:

"The Con of Diversity - Diversity in the hands of the white power elites—political and corporate—is an advertising gimmick"

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/09/con-diversity

Hedges:

"(...)
The plague of diversity lies at the core of our political dysfunction. The Democratic Party embraces it. Donald Trump's Republican Party repudiates it. But as a policy it is a diversion. Diversity has done little to ameliorate the suffering of the black underclass. Most blacks are worse off than when King marched in Selma. African-Americans have lost over half of their wealth since the financial collapse of 2008 because of falling homeownership rates and job loss. They have the highest rate of poverty at 27.4 percent, followed by Hispanics at 26.6 percent and whites at 9.9 percent. And 45.8 percent of black children under 6 live in poverty, compared with 14.5 percent of white children in that age group. Forty percent of the nation's homeless are African-Americans although blacks make up only 13 percent of our population. African-Americans are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites.
(...)"

Obama, the worthless symbol of new black emancipation, had nothing to do with brutal everyday reality, but was expertly abused to cover up latter by diversion, as Hedges points out already in his title.

By design the Uganda incident correponds with this detachment of private/capitalist interest and universal principles first demonstrated by the term "Humanitarian Intervention" introduced 1999 with Kosovo.

Basically a PR trick of enormous proportions and possibly far-reaching consequences if this will go on.
Because right now it happens on all domestic and international levels.

As if it were the new magic trick they try to devise for any problem they wanna get fixed.

If Evgeny Morozov was warning the public of the era of digital authoritarianism 15 years ago this is it.
It might not look as expected but the demise of freedom never does come in ugly clothes.

Posted by: AG | Aug 9 2023 19:06 utc | 93

@ Scorpion | Aug 9 2023 17:29 utc | 53

quote : "The IMF in pushing the woke agenda is doing what the entire Big Corporate sector in the West is now doing. Can some wise soul here explain WHY they are doing it?"

i too am interested in others theories and ideas about this..

Posted by: james | Aug 9 2023 19:07 utc | 94

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 9 2023 19:01 utc | 87
----------------------------------------------------------
I agree with your statement that: "Science is not determined by counting raised hands." But you didn't answer my question: Are you a scientist, and if so; what your field of study is? Spare me the Albert Einstein quotes.

Posted by: Ed | Aug 9 2023 19:08 utc | 95

Ed @74: "...a homosexual or a pedophile, the first one I do not understand as a lifestyle and the second one is criminal and abhorrent to me..."

My comment was aping a previous comment (37) from an extremely melodramatic fellow (typical characteristic of fags) asserting that everyone who doesn't worship queers instead wants to execute them on the street. My comment was a little over-the-top, but not nearly so much as the one it ridiculed. I'm not a drama queen, after all, even if sometimes I try to fake it online. For instance, there are no provisions for execution of fags in the new Uganda law, whether that be summary executions on the street or the normal "legal" kind that courts can sentence someone to. For fags to immediately equate any disapproval of their faggotry with murder and executions and genocide is just the sort of gay melodrama that provokes normal and healthy people to feel like punching them in the mouths sometimes. Of course, normal healthy people don't punch fags in the mouth because they have developed some impulse control; something you cannot say about fags. If fags get the impulse to be gay drama queens then nothing can stop the melodrama.

With that said, I fully support treating fags with the same compassion and sympathy one would show anyone with a crippling disability. I would never support executing someone simply because they are missing a leg or they are blind. Likewise for people whose narcissism is so intense as to be disabling.

"I support civil rights for minorities and the working class, and I detest US imperialism and capitalist exploitation; does that make me "woke?" "

No, the "woke" don't actually care about those things. Their claims otherwise are just empty virtue signalling.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2023 19:11 utc | 96

The World Bank and the IMF are neo colonial institutions to maintain or increase control over countries through debt bondage. John Perkins, once a member of that loathsome immoral business, describes it in detail in his book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".

Kenya has ever more reason to turn to alternatives supported by China. A lot less strings attached and totally free from that LGBTQ+ religion some tiny amount of people are so desperately forcing onto us. Ajay Banga is doing the world a favor is seems.

Posted by: xor | Aug 9 2023 19:12 utc | 97

The Chinese are about to become the biggest threat to humanity if they are not stopped.

Posted by: Alexandre Patriarca | Aug 9 2023 15:30 utc | 7

Oh Alex, Oh Alex, you go too far. As the Gruffian pointed out, the Europeans ain't been no Angels in regard to over fishing either. An aside, don't the Norwegians still have a Whaling industry?

Why I remember the talk that came too late to save the Atlantic Cod fishing industry, or stop the European factory ships cruising the waters off the coast of Canada, raping the seas of all they could take. The pictures taken by people from the coastal communities of these giant ships which were destroying their means to earn a living, a lifestyle if you will, that had existed for very many generations.

Was this rape of northern North American fish stocks justified to feed Borrel's EU Garden?

The Cod stocks were decimated and they have never returned, nor has the lifestyle and the independence it once afforded to a simple, hard working and decent class of people who braved the perils of the Sea, most often in small boats. Then the Euros and their Peta mates came after the last vestige of their independence, the Seal hunt. For sure it was cruel, and I didn't like it either, but what makes these Euros think they have the right to preach? Remember, some of them, now a Nato member still hunt whales. For profit.

That said Alex, I was reading something earlier about China's BYD likely to take over a huge plant in Brazil abandoned by Ford. In addition China intends to build a commuter railway and a very large bridge to make the area around the plant work more efficiently. 10,000 plus jobs are estimated to be accrued.

Reminds me of a recent comment from an African leader. He said 'When China comes we get an airport, when America comes, we get a lecture'. Food for thought mate.

That said, I never was a fan of globalism as I believe it interferes with the natural order of things and runs over people's ability to make the most of what their own country has to offer and to establish continuity so investing isn't what Warren Buffet recently called the US stock markets, "A Gambling Parlour". The Oracle from Omaha who reportedly still lives in the same bungalow he's been in for decades, does know a thing or two.

One last thought Alex, Population of the EU according to the World Bank: 447,956,050.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=EU

Population of China: 1,425,671,352

Maybe one should look at China's current economic approach as an equalizing force, a force against a behemoth that has become nothing like what it claims to be, or it's founding fathers stated it should aspire to be.

Organized criminal syndicates aren't exclusive to the United States of America Alex, but their's have been the most successful in our times,so far, due to recruiting the best manipulators from around the world to their camp. Thus the conundrum.

There is much to think about Alex, more questions than answers.

Posted by: bubbles | Aug 9 2023 19:13 utc | 98

NGOs are a byproduct of a completely irrational and corrupt paradigm that includes corporate liability protection, "representative" politics, and leaders starting wars they do not have to fight.

And, of course, printing money out of thin air.

More wasted time, energy, and human potential.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Aug 9 2023 19:16 utc | 99

The sad thing is that the World Bank is fine with the corrupt Ugandan regime stealing money brazenly from the national treasury and diverting national assets into private holdings. It would be nice to sanction Uganda's government for looting the nation rather than sanctioning the country for a law that is very popular with the people of the country.

Posted by: Steve | Aug 9 2023 19:18 utc | 100

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