Climate change causes natural disasters?

 

Natural Disaster Nonsense

Vincent J. Curtis

29 July 24

RE: Canada’s premiers face escalating climate change-related disasters. CP story by Lyndsay Armstrong

“”…many of them remained consumed by climate-related disasters that have only escalated since they returned home,” claims the story.  Actually, climate-related disasters can’t possibly escalate since natural disasters aren’t due to climate. Or to climate “change” for that matter.

What is climate “change,” after all? Change is a process: the actualization of a potential.  In climate change, you start with one climate and end with another climate; and all the intermediates are climates also. So, climate change affects only climate; and climate does not cause weather events: even places with desert climate experience torrential rainstorms from time to time.

It is positing a false cause to say that climate or climate change causes weather events, period, or natural disasters. However many disastrous hurricanes pass over Florida, hurricanes are not the climate of Florida, nor is the climate of Florida the cause of Atlantic hurricanes.

Claiming helplessness on the basis of “climate change” or of it “escalating natural disasters” should not fool people.  The premiers, and the rest of us, have to dig in and deal with what nature has in store for us, and enough of the blaming and the deflecting of blame.

Climate change is a false narrative to justify political control and actions that harm the economy.

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Running out of food?

Vincent J. Curtis

24 July 24, 2024

RE: Vanishing farmland should set off alarm bells. Op-ed by Tim O’Hare. The Hamilton Spectator. (O’Hare is a municipal councillor for the city of Thorold)

No one nowadays grows all his own food. Even farmers specialize.  A farmer who grows corn, or apples, doesn’t raise and butcher his own beef cattle, get his butter and milk from his own cows.  Everyone gets their food the same way, with money at a market.  So, what, then, does it mean for Ontario to run out of farmland?

The fear of running out of food harkens back to Malthusianism, the old fear that humans were overpopulating the earth.  That fear of running out of farmland has been used to halt “urban sprawl”. Great Britain did outgrow its capacity to feed itself, but even through the blockades of two world wars, the combination of markets and money kept Britons fed.

Where is the food to feed Ontario’s burgeoning population to come from?  Author Tim O’Hare thinks it will have to come from the U.S., or Mexico, or China.  Neglect that Ontario already does get food from the U.S. and Mexico, but much comes from the rest of Canada, which includes Alberta, Quebec, PEI, and British Columbia. Special foods and wines come from France and Italy.

The magic of markets and money will ensure Ontario never runs short of food. Just don’t run short of money by screwing up Ontario’s economy with irrational fears, like the fears of urban sprawl and “climate change” and development.

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The gravy train is over

Vincent J. Curtis

21 July 24

RE: Funding cuts threaten investigations into missing children from former Mohawk Institute. Story by Kate McCullough. The Hamilton Spectator 20 July 24.

The complaints that the Federal government gravy train is grinding to a halt reek of cynicism.  How much does it cost, and how long does it take, to run ground penetrating radar over 750 acres?

When the story of murdered Indian children exploded in 2021, the Federal government allocated $30 million to aid in the searches.  The Mohawks demanded, and apparently received, $10 million of that allotment.  That offer expired after three years, in March 2024. What happened to it?  If you paid 15 researchers $100,000 a year for three years, that would account for less than half the money.

So far, nothing tangible has been found, anywhere. The Mohawk Institute was a day school; kids went home at might; and over 150 years, 15,000 thousand kids attended the school.  Only 56 are unaccounted for.  Surely, stories and the names of kids who died or disappeared mysteriously would persist among their classmates; and their parents would certainly know something was amiss. These alleged crimes went undetected, and unsuspected, for decades?  And there’s no recollection of a place on the grounds where kids were allegedly buried? And there’s no obvious place where they might have been?

To date, no bodies have been found anywhere, not even in Kamloops. This whole murdered kids story was invented; and it has been used to milk the white man of his money, and to impute the guilt of genocide, first cultural and then actual.

The funding is being cut because even official Ottawa is catching on. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

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How can you be ready for a flood?

Vincent J. Curtis

18 July 24

RE: Is Toronto prepared for the next flood? CP story. The Hamilton Spectator 18 July 24.

Nonsense abounds in this CP story which follows up on the historic flooding that occurred in Toronto on Tuesday, July 16^th.  The first bit of nonsense is in ‘being prepared for a flood.’  One can be prepared for the next torrential downpour of the magnitude of Tuesday, but flooding means, quite plainly, that one was not prepared, for preparation would have prevented flooding.

The more subtle and commonplace nonsense was uttered by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who said that more extreme weather events will occur due to climate change.  Climate does not cause weather, for if it did then climate would be as changeable as the weather.  But we maintain that climate is something stable, and that if it changes, it does so over a protracted period of time.  We say of a place that it has a certain climate on account of the characteristic weather of the place.  But even deserts experience torrential rainstorms from time to time, which is why they have washes and wadis.

The last storms of this magnitude that occurred in Toronto were Hurricane Hazel of 1954, and other storms in 2005 and 2013.  Freak storms do not foretell a new climate, which is what climate change produces: a new climate.  To conclude that Toronto’s has a new climate, it would require over a decade of experience.

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But they were refugees!

Vincent J. Curtis

16 July 24

RE: Canada apologizes after labelling Lakota and Dakota as refugees. CP story. The Hamilton Spectator 16 July 24.

Since history is no longer taught in school, the arrant nonsense of Canada apologizing for “labelling” the Sioux Indians and followers of Sitting Bull as refugees escapes notice.  They were indeed refugees, from the United States military, as the story does admit.

After the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull and his followers sought refuge in Canada, and the protection of the North West Mounted Police, from the wrath of the United States military.  Sitting Bull remained in Canada from 1877 to 1881; he and his followers receiving some supplies from the government of Canada, which was faced with the prickly diplomatic problem created by their presence in Canada’s sparsely populated west, and the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States.

Ultimately, Sitting Bull and some of his followers were persuaded to return to American territory, but many stayed. Strictly speaking, the remainder weren’t in fact aboriginal to the territory they occupied, which is in modern-day Saskatchewan.  They simply found space in Canada’s ample North-West. Being refugees from America is why these Sioux were treated as refugees by the Dominion government; and their returning to the U.S. was Canada’s preferred option.  The U.S. had ceased its war on their plains Indians.

Many Sioux (or Lakota, Dakota) didn’t return, but by the terms of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, not being found “in possession,” they weren’t entitled to treatment as aboriginals in Canada by Canada.  Nevertheless, Canadian policy, though ad hoc, was generous to the Sioux refugees from America; but they weren’t entitled to a treaty, since it was they who moved into and occupied space in Canada, not Europeans who moved into territory they were in possession of; nor were they entitled to a reserve, for the same reason and by the policy that they return to the U.S.

The apology is racism writ large.

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Big Oil, Big Government

Vincent J. Curtis

10 July 24

RE: Climate Change aids record heat waves. CP story by Jordan Omstead. The Hamilton Spectator 10 July 24.

It is commonplace to dismiss climate skeptics as being in the pay of Big Oil. But what if one’s career, and even employment, depended upon the whimsy of a climate-nutter like Minister of Climate Change Steven Guilbeault?  Do you think the scientist who said that the attribution of particular weather events to anthropogenic climate change needed to be weighed carefully, or that the available evidence did not support such a conclusion, would find continued employment under this Minister? You’d be a fool to believe so, and Guilbeault’s employees aren’t so foolish as to cross the boss on his favor prejudice.  That prejudice being that carbon dioxide causes bad weather.

Hence, it comes as no surprise that Climate Change Canada issues a “first-of-its-kind” analysis which concludes (surprise!) that the recent Eastern heat wave was made more intense by human induced climate change. Now, the west of North America was far cooler than average, and in the overall, North America was actually 0.5ºC cooler than average, but you don’t hear that inconvenient fact reported.  Students of Aristotle will observe that even if one can say that weather was caused by a new climate that the old one changed into, that the new climate is the product of human action is a separate problem altogether.

There’s no science in the conclusion that Canadians are probably to blame for the recent heat wave in Eastern Canada, but that’s what Minister Guilbeault wants put out as the message.

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Naked and Afraid: The defence policy update

Vincent J. Curtis

24 May 24

Naked and Afraid, Canada’s defense policy update, is a catalogue of irresolute, empty promises for a future government to fulfill, and is fraught with pollyannish conviction.  Naked and Afraid is the 2024 update to the 2017 Defense Policy paper, Weak, Anxious, and Distracted; and, despite being the successor to a seven-year-old document, N&A projects a vision of spending over a twenty-year period. It boldly declares timidity: its forecasted expenditures will bring Canada’s defense spending to a colossal 1.79 percent of GDP by 2029-30, short of the 2023 commitment to 2.0 percent.

Prime Minister Trudeau received an extraordinary letter, dated May 23^rd, signed by 23 United States Senators, calling attention to that shortfall, and asking for a more ambitious program from him at the NATO conference in July.

Canada will be relying upon polar bears to do much of the CAF’s dirty work.  The expenditures are remarkably deficient in fighting teeth: $18.4 billion over 20 years is allocated to acquire new “tactical helicopters”.  Problem is, the detailed wording doesn’t distinguish between an AH-64E Apache tactical helicopter and a CH-147F tactical lift helicopter. There’s $2.7 Billion over 20 years allocated to acquire long-range missile capability, which could mean a Lockheed-Martin HIMARS rocket artillery battery (passim). There’s mention of, but no money associated with, acquiring a ground-based air defense system for critical infrastructure; and one reads Saab’s MSHORAD missile system between the lines. There is only mention of “exploring options” to acquire long-range air- and sea-launched missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles fitting this description.

Otherwise, there’s $9.0 Billion over 20 years for updates to existing equipment to preserve deployability.  There’s mention of, but no monetary commitment towards, upgrading or replacing the “main battle tanks” and the LAVs.  After 20 years, one would think replacement was unavoidable, but the hesitancy to make a commitment is palpable.

All this is rather strange when the main threat to Canada, supposed by the paper, is in the far North.  To move a battle group around the High Arctic would require about 100 tac lift helos, but that’s not foreseen in the paper.

To deal with threats to the far North, there’s money for surveillance and infrastructure, and a mention of, but no money allocated to, some mythical conventionally powered sub with under-ice capability. There’s $1.4 Billion over 20 years to acquire maritime sensors to monitor the maritime approaches to the Arctic and North. There’s $222 million over 20 years (where do they get these precise numbers?) for a new satellite ground station in the Arctic. There $307 million over 20 years for airborne early warning aircraft, which could mean either a Boeing P-8 Poseidon or a couple of Saab’s GlobalEyes (passim).  There’s $5.5 Billion over 20 years to acquire satellite communications capability. And there’s reference to “exploring options” to acquire a suite of surveillance and strike drones.

There’s stuff in Naked and Afraid that should be routine defence expenditures: replenishing ammunition stocks that were given to Ukraine. manufacturing our own artillery shells, training, housing, health- and child-care, and upgrading domestic infrastructure.

Significantly, there’s no specific mention of the Type 26 frigate; there’s only money set aside to refit the existing fleet of Halifax class frigates.

In EdC Vol 30-12 and 31-2, I sketched what threats to Canada’s sovereignty in the far North would look like, and what’s required to meet them. Meeting them requires an all of government approach, including skeptical reviews of foreign investment. The RCN and the RCAF have to be able to put platoon-plus sized units at threatened locations in Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, and be able to support them both logistically and tactically.  A Gripen E operating off an austere runway in Resolute Bay will be better than a daintier F-35 out of Bagotville, but that’s water under the bridge.

Naked and Afraid seems to be a grab-bag of pet and harmless expenditures without a strategic vision.  Just like the Indo-Pacific Strategy.

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