Wednesday 30 December 2015

Climate v. Weather – Tim Veater

Climate v. Weather – Tim Veater.

Most people will recognise the distinction between climate and weather. The
former is “the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a
long period.” The latter is “the state of the atmosphere at a particular place
and time as regards heat, cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc”

In this regard the former is likely to be more consistent than the latter and
tends to be roughly categorised on the basis of global location in relation to
land and sea mass, along lines first suggested by German climatologist Rudolf
Geiger in 1884. Five categories of climate – Tropical/megathermal,
Dry (arid and semiarid),
Temperate/mesothermal, Continental/microthermal
Polar and Alpine – remain pretty much accepted by meteorologists.

Those who assiduously follow Paul Simons’ weather column in the Times, will know
that extreme weather is not a new phenomenon and that gales, lightening strikes,
heavy rain, floods, high and low temperatures and other extreme weather
conditions have been a feature of this island since records began. Indeed over
centuries significant changes in climate have also occurred, with mini-ice ages
thrown into the mix.

We are told that the average world temperature is rising as a function of total
CO2. This is hotly debated by some although it is surely beyond dispute that the
impact of the human race on the global environment, has never been greater in
the whole of the earth’s long history. In the scheme of things, how this
compares with natural processes such as forest fires or eruptions of volcanoes
is a moot point, and small consolation on the Somerset Levels or elsewhere.

Despite the dispute over the extent and nature of the human contribution to
climate change and extreme weather conditions as currently being experienced
around the world, there is little doubt that given these conditions, human
activity can and does play a part in either exacerbating or mitigating their
consequences. In the attached article by George Monbiot, he makes the case for
upland trees to reduce water run-off down stream. Few would argue with his
reasoning. Another aspect much discussed but little implemented, is the effect
of development, particularly in flood plains. Only a few miles from me another
application by a national retail chain has been submitted for just such, with
every chance of approval by a short-sighted and weakened planning process.
Government actually encourages it.

The failure to maintain dykes, drains, hedges and ditches has also been referred
to. There is no doubt that every surfaced road, every commercial and housing
development, results in more and immediate run-off. If the development is in the
flood plain there is a two-fold effect of not only rendering it vulnerable to
flooding but also removing one of natures ways of soaking up excess water.

However there has also been another subtle and hardly recognised cause, that has
largely gone unchallenged and uncontrolled by government, namely the economic,
social and technological changes that have been introduced to British farming
and land management. This has resulted in disastrous consequences for wild-life
and ecology generally. Such has been the power of the farming lobby and the
influence of the Common Agricultural Policy, traditional farming and its
principles of land husbandry has been decimated. It has become the province, a
sub-division even, of the oil industry and other multi-nationals, directly and
indirectly.

There is fuel for the vast fleet of machinery and processes. There is oil
derived fertilizers and pesticides on which modern agriculture now depends. The
very seeds are becoming private property. We know the story. No part of the
country is unaffected. Hedges removed, nature sprayed to death, soil quality
ignored and down graded, small independent farmers going out of business in
droves, epidemic disease in farm animals. Yet government has refused to address
the the underlying, fundamental issues in the face of corporate pressures.

So getting back to flooding, I am surrounded by ploughed fields where every time
it rains, soil-laden water rushes down lanes and across fields into streams. I
have been here for over thirty years so I can compare and state with certainty
the run-off has never been so bad, the floods so deep. This is not a local
isolated incident. It is replicated right across the country indeed the
“developed” world!

I can also state that in all that time, I do not know of one tree planted by a
farmer or agricultural company. If any trees do attempt to grow in hedges, they
are by and large, chopped down mercilessly by mechanical “trimmers”. Trees I
suppose, are seen as competitors for sunshine and water, and as a result large
swathes of the country have been turned into sterilized prairies.

Prince Charles has been derided for years on his views on nature and
agriculture. (He is apparently writing a book on the subject as we speak) I am
not so sure there are so many laughing at him now. A flooded house is a sure way
of concentrating the mind of the occupier, and hopefully of the government. What
is needed is not warm words but action, action along the lines of a fundamental
rethink of our approach to nature. It could do worse than start by requiring all
owners of land over a certain acreage, to plant a given proportion of broad-leaf
trees, every year, into the foreseeable future. END.
ADDENDUM - CLIMATE MODIFICATION (30.12.2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQLVg5LdWvk
There are also those that point to active experimental interference with natural weather systems by seeding clouds with CO2, aluminium particles and other physical methods including radio waves, laser beams and such - the so called 'HAARP' standing for 'High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program' - as a possible explanation for extreme weather.
To the uninitiated or uninformed, this may appear more like science fiction than fact, but sadly this is not the case. The science and experimentation is all too real. The only outstanding question is what precisely is being done, it being shrouded in secrecy, and whether it has had practical weather implications?
In fact, the research and literature dates back to the second world war, which had been a major driver of it, the purpose being to use natural systems to provide military advantage. A similar objective propels the experimentation today. We are all aware how important weather was to the D-Day Landings and many other confrontations in history. 
The theoretical prize therefore is the ability to control weather in battlefield conditions or even to be able to use it as a weapon itself but these are not the only objectives of the research that takes in control of the ionosphere, cable-free transfer of energy and even the mental control of populations! 
Certainly experiments were carried out off the coast of New Zealand in the 1940's to test the possibility of using under-water explosions to effect tsunami-type consequences on the enemy, and the science of precipitation by seeding clouds from about the same period. The latter is now reasonably well understood and is practiced far more commonly that is widely appreciated. Needless to say the potential power of thermonuclear devices makes tsunami creation more achievable. Some even think this has happened already!
'In 1994 the American Air Force revealed its 'Spacecast 2020' master plan which includes weather control. Scientists have experimented with weather control since the 1940's, but Spacecast 2020 noted that "using environmental modification techniques to destroy, damage or injure another state are prohibited." Having said that, the Air Force claimed that advances in technology "compels a reexamination of this sensitive and potentially risky topic."' (See below)
It should be noted that literally billions of American tax-payer dollars have gone into this activity, effectively out of sight and beyond the control of even the elected Congress. 
Many claim that there has been an active programme of seeding the atmosphere with various substances from aircraft for many years to modify the weather. This is in fact beyond dispute. Companies even advertise their facilities for doing so as here: http://www.weathermodification.com/cloud-seeding-aerial.php. 
The BIG questions are: 
  • who is behind and in control of this, and for what purpose? 
  • where is it being done and with what?
  • whether this is having the practical consequences that we see in abnormal weather patterns and events such as the warm December and excessive rainfall here in Britain - flood, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, El Niño etc. elsewhere - is caused or influenced by these activities or not?
These questions are not theoretical but intensely practical, globally and locally, as those who have suffered in the Lake District and York (to name but two affected areas) will attest. The public has a fundamental right to know what is going on. Unfortunately government says it doesn't.
As with many other areas of public policy, there appears to be a disjoint between the elite few and the majority, as typified by the Chairman of the Environment Agency sunning himself in the Caribbean, as others struggled to cope.
Another anomaly that should be noted, particularly with the recent much trumpeted 'success' of the Paris Climate Conference is that, whilst all attention is directed towards a reduction in global CO2 production (to deny the phenomenon has almost become a modern heresy) comparatively little is mention is made about these purposeful human interferences, that most certainly DO have weather consequences. 
The cynical amongst us might suspect that is the very intention!

http://www.globalresearch.ca/haarp-secret-weapon-used-for-weather-modification-electromagnetic-warfare/20407
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program
http://www.haarp.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather

Tuesday 29 December 2015

Why WWIII Is On The Horizon — Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/12/28/why-wwiii-is-on-the-horizon-paul-craig-roberts/

Why WWIII Is On The Horizon
Paul Craig Roberts
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave birth to a dangerous American ideology called 'neo-conservatism'. The Soviet Union had served as a constraint on US unilateral action. With the removal of this constraint on Washington, neoconservatives declared their agenda of US world hegemony. America was now the “sole superpower,” the “unipower,” that could act without restraint anywhere in the world.
The Washington Post neoconservative journalist Charles Krauthammer summed up the “new reality” as follows:
“We have overwhelming global power. We are history’s designated custodians of the international system. When the Soviet Union fell, something new was born, something utterly new–a unipolar world dominated by a single superpower unchecked by any rival and with decisive reach in every corner of the globe. This is a staggering new development in history, not seen since the fall of Rome. Even Rome was no model for what America is today.”
The staggering unipolar power that history has given to Washington has to be protected at all costs. In 1992 top Pentagon official Under-secretary Paul Wolfowitz penned the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which became the basis for Washington’s foreign policy.
The Wolfowitz Doctrine states that the “first objective” of American foreign and military policy is “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat [to US unilateral action] on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.” (A “hostile power” is a country sufficiently strong to have a foreign policy independent from Washington’s.)
The unilateral assertion of American power begin in earnest during the Clinton regime with the interventions in Yugoslavia, Serbia, Kosovo, and the no-fly zone imposed on Iraq. In 1997 the neoconservatives penned their “Project for a New American Century.” In 1998, three years prior to 9/11, the neoconservatives sent a letter to President Clinton calling for regime change in Iraq and “the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.” Neoconservatives set out their program for removing seven governments in five years. http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years-iraq-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166
The events of September 11, 2001, are regarded by informed people as “the new Pearl harbor” that the neoconservatives said was necessary in order to begin their wars of conquest in the Middle East. Paul O’Neil, President George W. Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, has stated publicly that the agenda of President Bush’s first meeting with his cabinet was the invasion of Iraq. This invasion was planned prior to 9/11. Since 9/11 Washington has destroyed in whole or part eight countries and now confronts Russia both in Syria and Ukraine.
Russia cannot allow a jihadist Caliphate to be established in an area comprising Syria/Iraq, because it would be a base for exporting destabilization into Muslim parts of the Russian Federation. Henry Kissinger himself has stated this fact, and it is clear enough to any person with a brain. However, the power-crazed fanatical neoconservatives, who have controlled the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes, are so absorbed in their own hubris and arrogance that they are prepared to push Russia to the point of having their Turkish puppet shoot down a Russian airplane and to overthrow the democratically-elected government in Ukraine that was on good terms with Russia, substituting in its place an American puppet government.
With this background, we can understand that the dangerous situation facing the world is the product of the neo-conservative’s arrogant policy of US world hegemony. The failures of judgment and the dangers in the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts are themselves the consequences of the neoconservative ideology.
To perpetuate American hegemony, the neoconservatives threw away the guarantees that Washington gave Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch to the East. The neoconservatives pulled the US out of the ABM Treaty, which specified that neither the US nor Russia would develop and deploy anti-ballistic missiles. The neoconservatives re-wrote US war doctrine and elevated nuclear weapons from their role as a retaliatory force to a pre-emptive first strike force. The neoconservatives began putting ABM bases on Russia’s borders, claiming that the bases were for the purpose of protecting Europe from non-existent Iranian nuclear ICBMs.
Russia and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, have been demonized by neoconservatives and their puppets in the US government and media. For example, Hillary Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, declared Putin to be “the new Hitler.” A former CIA official called for Putin’s assassination. Presidential candidates in both parties are competing in terms of who can be the most aggressive toward Russia and the most insulting toward Russia’s president.
The effect has been to destroy the trust between nuclear powers. The Russian government has learned that Washington does not respect Washington’s own laws, much less international law, and that Washington cannot be trusted to keep any agreement. This lack of trust, together with the aggression toward Russia spewing from Washington and the presstitute media and echoing in the idiotic European capitals, has established the ground for nuclear war. As NATO (essentially the US) has no prospect of defeating Russia in conventional war, much less defeating an alliance of Russia and China, war will be nuclear.
To avoid war, Putin is non-provocative and low-key in his responses to Western provocations. Putin’s responsible behavior, however, is misinterpreted by neo-conservatives as a sign of weakness and fear. The neoconservatives tell President Obama to keep the pressure on Russia, and Russia will give in. However, Putin has made it clear that Russia will not give in. Putin has sent this message on many occasions. For example, on September 28, 2015, at the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, Putin said that Russia can no longer tolerate the state of affairs in the world. Two days later Putin took command of the war against ISIS in Syria.
The European governments, especially Germany and the UK, are complicit in the move toward nuclear war. These two American vassal states enable Washington’s reckless aggression toward Russia by repeating Washington’s propaganda and supporting Washington’s sanctions and interventions against other countries. As long as Europe remains nothing but an extension of Washington, the prospect of Armageddon will continue to rise.
At this point in time, nuclear war can only be avoided in two ways. One way is for Russia and China to surrender and accept Washington’s hegemony. The other way is for an independent leader in Germany, the UK, or France to rise to office and withdraw from NATO. That would begin a stampede to leave NATO, which is Washington’s prime tool for causing conflict with Russia and, thereby, is the most dangerous force on earth to every European country and to the entire world. If NATO continues to exist, NATO together with the neoconservative ideology of American hegemony will make nuclear war inevitable.
 
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the WestHow America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.