Laughable scaremongering

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Oct 23

RE: “Earth likely to hit climate threshold by early 2029, new study suggests.” AP story by Seth Borenstein.  The Hamilton Spectator 31 Oct 23.

In the spirit of Halloween, the Spectator published another scaremongering piece on the weather by AP’s resident climate ghoul, Seth Borenstein.  There’s the usual end-of-the-world nonsense, now threatened to arrive in 2029.  The authors Borenstein reports on are named, “The Study.” (The names of “the 6 goombas” are listed below.)

But there are problems: nobody really knows what the global average temperature was in 1850; so, what “pre-industrial” actually is, is unknown.  The figure 1.5℃ above this unknown was just picked out of the air; there’s no scientific or historical basis for it.  The earth was much warmer than now in the past.  No one has said why this climate is the best possible when life flourished in warmer climates. (What’s the big diff between 13.8℃ and 15.3℃.  The IPCC thinks it’s 16℃ currently.  The fearmonging rise is lost in the error of estimation!)

What you won’t hear AP report is that it is a hard, scientific calculation that a doubling of CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm will result in an increase of global temperature of 0.72℃; that’s all, less than a degree.  You won’t see observed that where there’s a trough, there will be pigs; and if you pay scientists good money to find a popular disaster ahead, they will report what you want.

An enormous, pre-planned publicity campaign was organized for the release of this paper.

Dr. John Clauser, the 2022 Nobel Laurate in Physics, said it concisely, “there is no climate crisis, and climate change does not cause extreme weather events.”

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Authors: Robin D. Lamboll, Zebedee R.J. Nicholls, Christopher J. Smith, Jama S. Kikstra, Edward Byers, and Joeri Rogeli.  (the 6 goombas) Perhaps their mothers have heard of them; perhaps not.  Their paper was evidently the subject of a massive pre-planned publicity campaign, and is all over the international, English language, MSM. This is a political campaign, not a serious scientific work.

The right to an education?

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Oct 23

RE: Canada must prioritize female education.  Op-ed by Mavalow christelle Kalhoule, who is some worthy that supports children’s education in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Mali.

A person schooled in Aristotelian philosophy can often get a good laugh at progressives explaining the philosophy behind their beliefs.  The author expresses the belief that “[f]undamentally, education is a human right.”  If that were true, then that would excuse residential schools, for all the government of Canada was doing was enforcing the rights of aboriginal children to be educated in accordance with Western standards.

No, equal treatment under law is the right the author is searching for.  In most countries, schooling (something distinct from education) is an obligation that society enforces on its young.  In Ontario, that obligation ends at 16 years of age; and nobody has a right to attend university or community college.

The author writes about countries and societies that may not be able afford to educate all its young, and may prioritize the education of males over females for reasons of expediency.  That sucks, and that’s where Canada may be able to help.

But other societies limit the education of females to keep them down.  We know which societies those are, and their presence in West Africa is coming to dominate through the usual methods.  In those societies, Canada has to recognize the political implications of assisting with the education of females.  It’s not a simple matter of charity, as the author seems to imply.

Canada already prioritizes, even over-prioritizes, the education of women; helping other societies can be complicated.

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A week of debunking

Getting tired of it

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Oct 23

RE: for Sustainability and Equity. Planet’s livability being threatened.  Op-ed by Kim Perrotta, Executive Director for the Canadian Health Association

People are getting tired of hearing nonsensical forecasts of “climate chaos” and like end-of-the-world threats, and of Canadians need to shape up or the end will come.  These warnings come and go, and nothing happens; and the prophets of doom never seem to pay a price for being wrong.

The hard science is that a doubling of CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm will result in an increase in global temperature of 0.72℃.  This is barely detectable by the best instrumentation; and is less than the scaremongering 1.5 degree increase over a temperature never stated.  But a threat to livability is obviously wrong: higher CO2 and warmer temperatures are better for plant life, and plant life is the basis for all other life on earth, and promotes biodiversity, not lessens it.

Climate craziness is a kind of religious fanaticism for some (and therefore heretics are to be burnt at the stake) or a nihilistic political goal of discredited Marxism.

The belief that Canadians have to pull up their socks to save the planet is nonsense in the face of China, India, and Russia which laugh at this Western fetish over CO2.  If that wasn’t enough, this year’s forest fires put triple Canada’s annual output of CO2 into the atmosphere, so Canada has already lost the race to 2050.

People are tired cries of “wolf!” and of being hectored over things they can’t control.

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 Good sense on wildfire management

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Oct 23

RE: Canada needs to think about it handles wildfires.  OP-ed by Murray Wilson.  The Hamilton Spectator 23 Oct 23.

Good observations and good sense on forest management by Murray Wilson.  He observes that the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere by Canada’s wildfires this summer was triple the country’s annual output of CO2 from all other sources, making a mockery of pretensions of Canadians saving the planet by reducing our own output.

He also observes that our forests are aging and deteriorating, factors which increase the likelihood of wildfires, especially when combined with the drought conditions experienced across Canada this summer.  This means that climate change was not “the cause” of the forest fires, despite the self-interested claims of the scaremongers. It was old, dense forests, drought, and in most cases, arson, which were the culprits.

He pokes the sentimental environmentalists in the eye a third time with his solution: reducing the age and density of our forests through comprehensive management plans - like those that cover Algonquin Park!  Hard-headed realism is necessary to tackle the growing problem of forest fires in Canada.

A well thought-out piece that explodes a lot of myths, and probably a few heads as well.

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 Denialism Hoax

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Oct 23

RE: Research aims to debunk ‘mass grave hoax’ theory. Op-ed by Sean Carlton and Reid Gerbrandt.  Carlton is an assistant professor of history and aboriginal studies at the University of Manitoba; Gerbrandt is a Masters student of sociology and criminology at the University of Manitoba.  The Hamilton Spectator 21 Oct 23.

Our two ‘mass grave hoax’ debunkers describe themselves as ‘settler researchers.’  Why don’t they make honest men of themselves and go back to where they came from if being a ‘settler’ is bad, as they evidently believe?

They are also clever in their insults.  From the very beginning of the discovery of mass burials near residential schools the presentation has always been very careful to observe that these apparent burials were, in fact, radar anomalies regularly arranged as a graveyard would be.  The emotional impact the media obtained was that these were a large number of burials, mass or otherwise.  No doubt was allowed to be entertained.

It’s the international media that’s been observing that, so-far and years on, no bodies at all have been excavated, and that the radar anomalies have so far proven negative for burials.  The Canadian media have been quite silent on these facts, which spawns conspiracy theories.

It’s not denialism of a ‘mass grave hoax’ at all; but the hoax so-far lies in that no burials at all have been found, despite previous claims; and Canada has been pulled through an emotional knot-hole over this allegedly established cruelty done to aboriginal children.  It’s the lack of reporting by Canadian media that’s given rise to hoax theories; and it’s international media that doing all the reporting.

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 The Hard Science of it

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Oct 23

RE: “We must get our priorities on climate change straight.” Op-ed by Wayne Poole.  The Hamilton Spectator 20 Oct 23.

Speaking of the madness of crowds, we are treated to another of Poole’s laments on climate, and how we just aren’t doing enough!

The hard science of it is that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, from 400 to 800 ppm, will result in an increase of 0.72℃ in global temperature.  This is hardly detectable, and nothing to worry about, or spend trillions trying vainly to prevent.

Professor Emeritus of Physics William Happer in a recent presentation attempted to account for this madness over climate in the face of the real science of it.  One of his reasons was stupidity, and he quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer on that subject as follows:

“Against stupidity we have no defence.  Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use.  Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved – indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them; and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions.  So the fool, distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied.  In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive.  For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one.”

Reading Poole’s protest brought this to mind.

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 Debby Downer

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Oct 23

RE: “Lack of climate action frustrating.”  Op-ed by Dave Carson.  The Hamilton Spectator 17 Oct 23.

 

Dave Carson was certainly being a Debby Downer over his expression of frustration over a lack of climate action in Canada.  I have some good news and some bad news for him.

The good news is that serious scientists who’ve studied climate since the early 1980s maintain that the effect of doubling CO2 in the atmosphere, from 400 to 800 ppm, will result at best of increase of 0.71℃ in global temperature.  This is nothing to worry about, and the extra CO2 will only benefit plant life.

The bad news is that his belief that Canada can, by her own heroic efforts, halt CO2 induced “climate change” is arrant nonsense; and continued action in this belief by central Canadians could cost them their country.  Alberta is not going to be put out of business by misguided do-gooders, no matter how sincerely they believe they are on the side of the angels.

Alberta will not remain in Confederation if central Canadians attempt to suppress Alberta’s oil & gas sector, agriculture sector, or cattle ranching sector, or try to force this province to rely on Chinese wind and solar for electric power.

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How Will Happer computes temperature increase

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Oct 23

On the Tom Nelson podcast #158, guest Professor Will Happer explained (between 21:20 and 42:00) how he determines that a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ will produce only a 0.71℃ increase in global temperature.  I will try to present below concisely how he does it.

Dr. Happer, with co-author Dr. W. van Wijngaarden, released what I call the “Will & Bill” paper[1] in which they report their solutions to the “equation of transfer” to produce the Schwarzschild curve of the earth’s infra-red emission spectra as seen from space.  The equation of transfer was originally developed by astrophysicists to determine the radiation from the center of stars, and the solution of it for all relevant frequencies produces the Schwarzschild curve.  The Will & Bill computations reproduce with uncanny accuracy the actual IR spectrum of the earth observed from satellites, and therefore their solutions to the equation of transfer to produce the earth’s Schwarzschild curve can be deemed reliable.

The earth’s surface is at a average temperature of 288K (15℃), which means that if the earth were a perfect blackbody radiator, the radiation distribution function would follow the Planck curve, with the area under the curve being 394 Wm^-2.  The Planck curve is to the Schwarzschild curve as the ideal is to the actual.  Because of the absorption of some of this infra-red radiation in the atmosphere, notably by water vapor, ozone, and CO₂, only 277 Wm^-2 actually reaches space.  The area under the actual (Schwarzschild) curve Will & Bill computed to be 277 Wm^-2.  It is here that Will Happer introduces the Stefan-Boltzmann equation:

            F = ƐσT⁴;

where F will stand as the forcing power in Wm^-2, Ɛ is the emissivity, σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.67 x 10^-8 Wm^-2 K^-4), and T is absolute temperature in degrees Kelvin.

Ɛ is the emissivity of the earth conceived as a blackbody radiator, and Happer computes it and ΔƐ as follows:

            Ɛ = (277/394) = 0.70

If the CO₂ content of the atmosphere were doubled from 400 to 800 ppm, then the area under the resulting Schwarzschild curve is reduced from 277 to 274 Wm^-2; hence, ΔƐ/Ɛ is computed to be:

            ΔƐ/Ɛ = [(274-277)/394](394/277) = -3/277 = -0.01

To maintain equilibrium, the heat radiated to space by the earth must equal the incoming radiation from the sun.  Hence, the F in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation above could stand for either the incoming solar flux, or the flux radiated from the earth back into space, as they must be the same value.  Since F of the sun is certainly constant for our purposes, Happer makes a first-order differentiation of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation as follows:

            ΔF_s = 0 = ΔƐσT⁴ + 4ƐσT³ΔT;

Rearranging:

            ΔT = - (ΔƐ/4Ɛ)T;

Substituting the values:

            ΔT = (0.01/4) (288) = 0.72K = 0.72℃

The result of reducing the flux to space by 3 Wm^-2 is to increase temperature by 0.72℃ to compensate.

Given the accuracy and robustness of the Will & Bill computations, this is a figure that can be relied on, for the only way the earth can shed heat is by radiation to space and that process is subject to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.

On a personal note, the equation of transfer wasn’t pulled out of a hat for the purpose of climate science; it was developed much earlier and for completely different purposes.  That fact, combined with the uncanny results in the Will & Bill paper, convinces me of the correctness of Happer’s forecast.

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[1] W.A. van Wijngaarden, W. Happer, “”Dependence of the Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases” June 8, 2020.

There is no Greenhouse Effect, Part 3

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Oct 23

Chemists are steeped in the Beer-Lambert Law (some would say stewed!) because it is the basis for analytical spectroscopy, of which there is a lot these days.  My first job out of university was as an analytical chemist for a large steelmaker, and one of my tasks was to measure the Zn content of wastewater.  For this we used a Varian AA6 atomic absorption spectrophotometer.  The calibration range was from 0 to 7 ppm Zn; 8 ppm deviated noticeably to the right of the straight absorption line from 0 to 7; and by 9 ppm the absorption line from 8 was so flat the instrument could not reliably detect differences in concentration; they were lost in the noise.

When I saw the presentation of the Will & Bill paper[1] at the Heartland 2021 conference, and saw that there was no change in the CO2 absorption peak from about 50 and certainly from 100 ppm to 800, I recognized the complete flattening of the absorption curve.  Quantitatively measurable absorption much beyond 100 ppm is going to be unreliable and lost in signal noise.  In my view, the IR absorption by CO2 is maxxed out by 100 ppm; and line broadening absorption is of no significance.  Whatever there might be is, for practical purposes, lost in noise, and isn’t that just what we’re seeing when actually trying to measure global temperatures and emission spectra from space?

Getting back to Beer-Lambert, my calculation in Part 1 of this series showed that 99.4% of radiation at 667 cm^-1 is absorbed within 10 m of the ground, and that all of this is thermalized (within the limits of Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution).  Adding more CO₂ just shortens the distance in which complete absorption occurs.

Other examples of the mis-education of chemists are the beliefs that there has to be a difference in temperature for heat to flow, and that heat flows from the higher to the lower temperature: Fourier’s Law, or some such.  On this basis, the illustration in the IPCC heat balance[2] of 398 W/m² flowing into the atmosphere means the warm ground is heating the cool air above it; but that 342 W/m² flowing from the air into the ground would mean the ground was colder than the air, contradicting the assumption of the 398.  Now, I’ll accept that net 56 is what the ground puts into the air, but then what to make of the rest?  You get 80+82+21+56 = 239 put into the troposphere from all sources, which is precisely what is radiated to space; and 82+21+56 = 159, the GHE number as determined by Howard Hayden, Ph.D.; and 159 + 0.7 = 160, the amount of heat absorbed by the ground from the sun’s rays. The figures are suggestive, and the role of CO₂, if any, is obvious nowhere. (All IR absorption is found in the 80 and the 56.)

A net heat flow of 56 from the ground into the atmosphere would mean that if the atmosphere is at 288K, then the ground must be 299K.

Pardon me if I continue to think out loud.

The IPCC model is a steady-state, meaning the heat equation boils down to the Laplace equation.

If adding CO₂ to the lower atmosphere results in a higher temperature, then that would seem to violate the law of conservation of energy: where is this extra energy to heat the lower atmosphere going to come from?  Is the ground going to start pumping more than 56 into the lower atmosphere, and if so, where is that energy going to come from within the model?  The ground receives 160 from the sun’s rays, and puts it all back into the troposphere 82+21+56 = 159 (within model error of 0.7.) It’s all accounted for, already.

If you conceived the troposphere as an insulator, Fourier’s Law in 1-D would have the near ground level at 288K and 230K (159 W/m2 radiative power) at the other side of the insulating wall, that being the top of the troposphere.

What you put in at one end, you have to take out at the other in a steady state, and 398 is too much; but, if you take the lower troposphere as that needing to lose heat, then there’s your 239: (82+80+21+56), with the ground effectively at 299K, not 288K; the satellites couldn’t tell the difference.  And you still don’t have to make theories about greenhouse effects.  What greenhouse effect there is, is that absorption of IR and thermalization within the first 10 m of the ground, an effect already maxxed out; the effects of line broadening are lost in noise.  Any more energy put into the lower troposphere by the ground would appear to violate the law of conservation of energy. (There’s also IR absorption and thermalization within the inbound 80.)

Does CO₂ content play a role in the “insulation” constant of the troposphere?  Well, no.  Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution effects matter in the upper atmosphere, not in the lower, where the excited state would be thermally quenched before radiation, and the thermal diffusivity of CO₂ isn’t that different from other atmospheric gases, never mind the insignificant concentration.

What if other IR active molecules were added to the atmosphere, such as CFCs?  Assuming their only effect is IR absorption and subsequent thermalization, this heat appearance would be deducted from the atmospheric window incorporated into the 239.  If it meant that, effectively, more heat is being put into in the lower atmosphere by the ground, then, as we have seen, that appears to violate conservation of energy; besides, that 239 total would have to be made up elsewhere, by processes neglected in the model.

A higher temperature; and higher difference in temperature between the lower and upper troposphere would mean an off-setting faster rate of heat transport to the upper atmosphere, an example of Le Chatelier’s Principle. (whom the chemists claim as one of their own.)

If a climate model claims that the temperature in the lower troposphere is going to rise by so many degrees by 2100, you have to ask how?  It can’t be just more CO₂, or CO₂ and water vapor and more IR absorption and thermalization.  If the sun heats the atmosphere directly by more than 80, then there’s that much less than 160 striking the ground; and if the ground is cooler and the atmosphere warmer, then the heat transfer from the ground to the air is less than 56.  Putting more water vapor into the air means less energy for sensitive heat, and/or cools the ground (taking away from the 56).  Line broadening, I claim, is of no significance and lost in noise (aside from requiring the conservation of energy be violated somewhere).  And if you heat the lower troposphere somehow, that will warm the upper troposphere by convection eventually, raising the rate at which Maxwell-Boltzmann effects convert that heat into IR radiation to space, another example of Le Chatelier’s Principle.

It seems that all the models require more heating by closing the atmospheric window, (by thermalization of IR not mentioned in the IPCC budget) in violation of conservation of energy.  Recall the ground is receiving 160 from the sun, and putting into the troposphere 82+21+56+0.7 = 160, accounting for all the surface receives, and must put back.

The upshot is that theories of CO₂ induced greenhouse effects are unnecessary, and, frankly, invisible, in the IPCC heat flow diagram, once you get rid of the unphysical 342 going from a cooler air into the warmer ground.  They would seem in violation of the conservation of energy also.  The lower troposphere has 239 from all sources to get rid of, and that’s what leaves to space; a computed GHE forcing number of 159 appears at the top of the troposphere as well as being that which strikes the ground, and a near ground level temperature of 288 is sustainable if the ground is effectively 299K. Where IR absorption plays a role in the model is in the sun heating the air directly i.e. the 80, and in the 56, which is completely absorbed within a few meters of the ground emitting it.  (I can already hear Willie Soon saying “I told you so!)

If you want to heat the earth, you have to make the albedo smaller.

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Let me acknowledge that the inspiration for this article came from an on-line back-and-forth with Howard Hayden, Ph.D.  I am responsible for all the content of the piece.  Dr. Hayden also provided me with the IPCC AR6 energy budget, which I will attach to the tweet announcing publication of this piece on my blog.

For reference, the IPCC AR6 energy flow goes more or less as follows:

All values are are in Wm^-2

340 incoming from the sun

100 reflect back into space (albedo)

80 absorbed by the atmosphere incoming

160 absorbed by the surface of the earth

82 used by the earth’s surface to evaporate water

21 sensible heat from the earth’s surface

56 net radiated from earth’s surface (the difference between 398 up and 342 down)

239 thermal outgoing to space, of which an indeterminate amount is through a thermal window

 

0.7 imbalance

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[1] W.A. van Wijngaarden, W. Happer “Dependence of the Earth’s Thermal Radiation on the Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases.” June 8, 2020.

[2] IPCC AR6 Radiation Budget.

The Maxwell Boltzmann Distribution Effect

How carbon dioxide cools the atmosphere

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Oct 23

Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics are used in Statistical Thermodynamics.  The Maxwell-Boltzmann partition equation that we shall use is as follows:

N_i = N[exp – (ΔE/kT)] = N[exp – (hυ/kT)];

where N is the total number of molecules; Ni is the number of molecules in state i; ΔE is the difference in energy between the ground state and excited state i; h is Planck’s Constant, υ is the frequency, k is the Boltzmann constant, and T is absolute temperature in degrees Kelvin.  N_i/N is the ratio of the number of molecules in excited state i over the total number of molecules..

This equation shows the partition into ground and excited states for the temperatures relevant to the earth’s atmosphere.  Excitation arises from thermal collisions, and the one excited state of CO₂ is all that’s relevant to the problem at hand.

We obtain υ for the transition of a CO₂ molecule from the ground state to the vibrationally excited state represented by the absorption at 667 cm^-1 from the universal wave equation:

c = υƛ; 

where c is the velocity of light, υ the frequency, and ƛ the wavelength

Rearranging and substituting:

υ= c/ƛ = (3 x 10⁸ ms^-1/15 x 10^-6 m) = 2 x 10¹³ s^-1

Substituting into the Maxwell-Boltzmann equation:

N_i = N{exp – [(6.626 x 10^-34 x 2 x 10¹³)/(1.38 x 10^-23 x T)]}

N_i = N[exp – (960/T)]

For properly normalized results, we have to sum over the two states: the ground and excited state.  Since the ground state is deemed to have ΔE = 0, the exponential of that value gives 1.

Stated precisely, the normalized results for our two state system is given by:

            N_i/N = [exp –(960/T)]/[1 + exp –(960/T)]

Hence, the proportion of the excited state (N_i/N) at various temperatures are as follows:

T = 220K: 1.25 %

T = 288K: 3.45 %

T = 303K: 4.04 %

The values hold good at any pressure; at atmospheric pressure, this state is thermally quenched before emission.[1]  At low pressures, say, at 0.02 Torr, which obtains at 250,000’ altitude, radiation becomes the dominant[2] means by which an excited CO₂ molecule returns to the ground state; and in the upper atmosphere, this radiation can be emitted to space.

The effect of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is the basis for the 220K curve in the blackbody radiation of the earth, as seen from outer space.  The CO₂ of the lower atmosphere completely absorbs all the radiation at 15 microns (667 cm^-1); but that in the upper atmosphere emits radiation at that frequency to space.  One can observe a spike in the middle of the big absorption peak at 667 cm^-1 that arises from the emission at high altitudes.  Emission of radiation to space is ultimately how the earth cools itself from solar radiation received during the day.

Because the proportion of CO₂ in the upper atmosphere is nearly the same as in the lower atmosphere, an increase in atmospheric CO₂ would eventually increase the amount of emission by CO₂ in the upper atmosphere to space, cooling the upper atmosphere more efficiently.  A cooler upper atmosphere would speed up the cooling of the lower atmosphere; hence, any warming from the increase of CO₂ (which I deny as a violation of the law of conservation of energy[3]) would be off-set by a faster rate of heat transport from the lower to the upper atmosphere.  And if the cooling effect in the upper atmosphere occasioned by a higher concentration of CO₂ was all there was, then increasing CO₂ would cool the atmosphere faster, and this does not violate the law of conservation of energy.

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[1] See 17 September 2023 entry “Carbon Dioxide Saturation and Global Warming.”

[2] See 28 September 2023 entry “There is no greenhouse effect, Part 1”

[3] See “There is no greenhouse effect, Part 3” to be published.

Hamilton School Board chooses reconciliation over education.

 

No wonder!

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Oct 23

RE: Majority of public school students score below previous year on EQAO. By contrast most Catholic board pupils surpassed provincial average. By Kate McCullough 14 Oct 23.

RE: School Board commits to Truth and Reconciliation.  New strategic direction reflects broad input, education director says. By Richard Leitner 16 Oct 23.

You look at these two headlines, and you wonder why public school students in Hamilton are doing so poorly?  The Public Board has taken its eyes off the ball, and instead of improving educational outcomes, they’re chasing fashionable chimera of no benefit to the students they’re responsible for educating.  It’s reconciliation over education.

Of course the senior directors "stood up and applauded the unanimous acceptance" of the (echoes of the Soviet Union) Five Year Plan: it’s their plan!  They want “Growing Together:” precisely what aboriginals don’t want.  First Nations want to maintain a separate identity; they don’t want to be submerged in Canada.  They don’t want us to “grow together;” they want to remain separate and distinct.

The education planners hired no fewer than three consulting firms; and the only groups they didn’t consult with were aboriginal groups. There’s no report of an agreement to the effect that ‘if we do this, you be reconciled.’ And if there’s no agreement saying if ‘we do this, every aboriginal in Canada be reconciled to someone, something, somehow,’ then without such an agreement, why bother?

Why mess up student education with progressive nonsense if there’s no benefit somewhere to someone at the other end?

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REPOST

Hamas in Gaza: Who are the puppet masters?

Serious Means for Serious Ends

Vincent J. Curtis                                                                       23 July 2014

 

War is a serious means for attaining serious ends.  The waves of rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel are certainly serious means, but what serious end is in view for Hamas?

Territorial gain cannot be the goal, certainly not the immediate goal of the acts of war committed by Hamas against Israel.  For the foreseeable future, Hamas and the Palestinian people they govern will be confined to the Gaza strip, a well-defined piece of territory.  Israel would gain no respite should territory be ceded to Hamas as a gesture, and Hamas lacks the military power to seize and hold Israeli territory.  Gain of territory cannot be the serious end in view. 

The sheer inconveniencing of Israeli citizens and Israeli commerce, while it may be occurring, is not a serious goal because it cannot be maintained.  It is not a step towards something higher.  Israeli retaliation against Gaza makes that goal not a paying proposition in the interim.

The declared goal of Hamas is the complete destruction of the Israeli state, and these rocket attacks will not achieve that.  Israel is not going to surrender to Hamas because of these attacks.  Indeed, the success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system is making Hamas’s barrages look feeble.  On the other hand, serious destruction is being meted out by Israel against Gaza.  Air attacks, artillery, and now a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel provoked by the Hamas rocket offensive is proving what an illusion it was to believe that Israel would surrender to a rocket barrage.

What goals could possibly be aimed at by Hamas, since neither the surrender of Israel, the gain of territory, retaliation, nor the relief of other pressures by Israel is in the offing?

Several goals come to mind.  The first is that Hamas is proving its worth to its supporters and paymasters.  Israel is hated by many other countries in the Middle East; the destruction of Israel is the declared national goal of Iran, for example.  Hamas did not build the missiles it is firing into Israel.  The missiles Hamas is launching into Israel had to be supplied by someone, and manufactured somewhere other than Gaza.

A missile capable of reaching Tel Aviv from Gaza takes up a lot of space.  Thousands of rockets somehow had to be transported by sea and delivered to Gaza through an efficient Israeli naval blockade.  This fact suggests that the missiles were delivered through Egypt and moved past the border controls between Egypt and Gaza.  These missiles would not have been delivered to Gaza at such cost and risk unless it was understood that Hamas would launch them against Israel.  Thus Hamas is acting as an agent to the state which supplied them the missiles.  It is doing what is expected of it.

 

The benefit to the state which supplied Hamas the missiles is that it gets to see Israel harassed at no physical cost to itself.  It is the Gazans who suffer Israel’s wrath, not Iran for example.

Hamas also is enforcing its control over the Palestinians of Gaza.  The goal that Israel must be destroyed is resisted at the cost of one’s life in Gaza.  Hamas will tolerate no dissent, on this point above all.  The Palestinians of Gaza have been dragooned into a war with Israel.  They are obliged to use their women and children as human shields protecting Hamas’s missile storage sites, an act contrary to the Geneva Conventions.  Being able to show civilian casualties to the world and offering these as examples of Israeli brutality is another goal of Hamas in this campaign.

Who would be convinced by such a thing?  The scenes of destruction and the sight of wounded children have certainly raised emotions all around the world.  Emotions would most likely be raised favorably for Hamas among those who are already convinced of the evil of Israel.

Thus Hamas by this rocket offensive against Israel is proving its worth as an agent and client of its supporters.  It is demonstrating its power over the Palestinians of Gaza by dragooning them into the war with Israel.

But Gaza and its Palestinian population clearly are things to be used by Hamas.  The destruction of Gaza and the creation of misery for its population are useful to Hamas since it can justify repression of dissent as a necessary war emergency.

Hamas governs Gaza, but to the benefit of itself not to the benefit of the people of Gaza.

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The Iceni Tribe

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Oct 23

RE: Sinforia Ancaster presents ‘Land Acknowledgement’ concert.  By Leonard Turnevicius.  The Hamilton Spectator 12 Oct 23.

It was awfully kind of SA music direct Jeffery Pollock to assign Ancaster to nations other than Canada.  This is what he seemed to say in “composers who come from nations on which the AMAC land sits.”  ‘Land sitting on nations’ is a rather awkward formulation, but it somehow forms the basis for holding a “Land Acknowledgement recognition concert” to acknowledge that Ancaster is illicitly squatting on Indian land.

Apparently, 357 Wilson St. E., Ancaster, and, by implication, all of Ancaster, is Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee land, (whoever they are); that’s the working theory.  This is rather like saying that East Anglia, England, is Iceni land because that was the indigenous Celtic tribe in occupation when the Romans arrived.

Actually, the Ancaster area was found to be in the possession of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and whatever title they were deemed to have had to it was purchased from them by the descendants of the Iceni in 1792, as part of the Land between the Lakes acquisition.  Land tenure was a foreign concept to the local indigenous, and it would be doubly impossible for 357 Wilson St. E. to be Asishinaabeg or Haudenosaunee land: first, because it was Mississauga; and, second, no individual from any local indigenous tribe can be said to have owned that parcel then, or now.  It’s Iceni, and licitly so..

Rather than give their part of illicit Ancaster back, they’re going to sing for reconciliation; but there’s no incentive on the Indian side to reconcile.

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For shame!

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Oct 23

RE: It’s time for oil & gas to get real about Net Zero. Op-ed by Catherine McKenna The Hamilton Spectator 11 Oct 23.

The latest tactic among the most extreme of the climate crazies is to shame Big Oil, and to demand that they stop doing their shameful things.  Catherine McKenna, Canada’s own climate Barbie and former federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, is one of those extreme climate crazies.  (She is CEO of Climate Solutions and Chair of the UN Secretary General’s expert group on Net Zero emissions.)  In her column she demands that Suncor “get real” on net zero.

Oil companies have a fiducial responsibility to their shareholders, which include many pension plans, to make a profit and to pay a dividend.  They have something approaching a moral responsibility to supply product to an oil-thirsty world.  The modern world cannot function without oil: wind mills need lubricating oil, electrical transformers need dielectric oil, hydraulic systems need hydraulic oil, and even the wheel bearings on a Tesla need lubricating grease.  You can’t just stop oil unless your plan is to demolish the modern world.

I don’t give McKenna credit for thinking that far ahead.  She can’t see that Net Zero means nothing if China, India, and Russia utterly ignore it, as they are ignoring this white, liberal fetish and guilt trip.  Canada is responsible for 1.6 percent of world CO2 emissions, and if Canada disappear tomorrow it would have no effect on world climates in the year 2100.

Net Zero is the prescription the beautiful people have to remedy their guilt feelings, which they believe other people should be having.  Net Zero won’t hurt the wealthy, but it will eviscerate the middle class.

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It’s never been about science

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Oct 23

RE: Denying science for fortune and fame. Opinion piece by Jay Robb, Communications Manager for McMaster University Faculty of Science.  The Hamilton Spectator 7 Oct 23

Since the Rio 92 conference, which was headed by Canada’s Maurice Strong, climate science has never been about science; it’s always been about finding a justification to humble the Western world by crippling its economic success.  That’s why the operative word in IPCC is Intergovernmental and that the lead chapter in every IPCC report is Advice for Policy Makers.  When Michael Mann produced the hockey-stick graph in 1998, it was like manna from heaven, the smoking gun, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that justified crippling Western electric power generation and transportation fleets.

It turned out that Mann’s hockey stick was fool’s gold, and Steve McIntyre was the one who pointed that out.  The hockey stick was brandish around the world by the IPCC.  However, nobody previous to McIntyre had checked Mann’s work, not even for computational errors, and McIntyre, who knows a lot about statistical analysis, thought he spotted fraud; and he asked Mann for his raw data so that he could replicate the hockey stick himself.  It took a long while, but he got it, and asked economist Ross McKittrick to confirm his findings.  They found mathematical errors and statistical folly.  Together, McIntyre and McKittrick wrote a paper that demolished the scientific validity of the hockey stick, and their claims were upheld upon review by the US National Academy of Sciences.  For that, they’ve never been forgiven by the hockey-stickers, for without the hockey stick, they’ve no cause at all.

No climate “denier” denies the earth has a climate; in fact the earth has many climates.  What is denied is that CO₂ is a weather control knob.  What’s also denied is a strong connection between CO₂ and global warming; these two theories are busts, and it’s unscientific to uphold them, as Jay Robb does.

This malicious review condemns two Canadians as being climate deniers simply for fame and fortune, the late Dr. Tim Ball and Mr. Steve McIntyre on account of their effective attacks on the work of one Dr. Michael Mann, who was awarded his Ph.D. for the hockey stick paper.  Attacking Mann’s work is an attack on science, according to Robb.  Mann sued Ball, and lost the case, but, to my knowledge, never paid Ball before his death the legal fees he was assessed in losing the case.

In the Tom Nelson podcast #30 featuring Dr. Ross McKittrick, McKittrick goes through in detail the analysis of Mann’s work; the whole story is an appalling indictment of the state of climate “science,” which remains mostly valid today.  The whole discipline is corrupted from top to bottom, driven entirely by a political agenda, and rife with professional incompetence.  The professional incompetence and corruption was complained about by UAH Professor John Christy before a congressional committee in 2010. (There’s a presently a movement among retired physics professors to declare climate “science” as not a sub-discipline of physics.)

The climate “crisis” is driven, in part, by money.  Billions in research grants have been wasted in phoney or worthless climate research, and on modelling with expensive supercomputers.  In return for their grant money, the job of the researchers is to justify the Marxist idea that the economic success of the Western countries needs to be humbled, by making everything more expensive, particularly electrical power generation.

The search for fame and fortune is all by the climate crazies, those who claim the climate change is responsible for the rise in cases of dandruff.  It especially low for someone allegedly involved in science to lack the fineness of thought to understand the objections to the hockey-stick “science.”  But that’s it, isn’t it?  It’s been about politics from the start, and the use of the cancel weapon became routine, and first exposed in the climategate email scandal that involved Mann and Phil Jones.

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Heard it before

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Oct 23

RE: The impact of climate change on Ontarians. Spectator editorial 2 Oct 23.

The first question that arises from this provocative title is, ‘what climate change’?  The global average temperature now is the same as it was in 1999.  Then we read that it’s another one of those reports speculating about the future, like those speculations that forecasted the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free by 2014, and that lower Manhattan would be flooded due to rising sea levels by 2018; that  The Maldives and Tuvalu would be submerged by now.  Yeah, those kinds of reports.

These forecasts are based on climate modelling, the ones that have greatly overestimated global warming.  We have two decades of history with these models, and their lack of conformance to actual measured temperature data is noteworthy.  They can’t tell what the weather will be next month, but they can tell us what the weather will be in 75 years?  Really?  And what exactly makes the climate of today the absolutely optimum one, that there can be none better?  What is the ideal amount of rainfall, drought, and temperature for all Ontario?

The plan to spend money on hardening infrastructure is one I’ve recommended for years.  Don’t waste money on useless things like windmills, solar panels, and rainbows.  Even if the CO2-is-a-weather-knob theory is true, because of China and India, there’s nothing heroic Ontario can do about it.

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