Scarier than Global Warming: Capitalism vs. Climate

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein, Simon & Schuster.

“The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.” (Amazon.com)

“This is the best book about climate change in a very long time—in large part because it’s about much more. It sets the most important crisis in human history in the context of our other ongoing traumas, reminding us just how much the powers-that-be depend on the power of coal, gas and oil. And that in turn should give us hope, because it means the fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a livable one.” (Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and co-founder of 350.org)

“Journalist Klein is a resolute investigator into the dark side of unchecked capitalism. . . . This comprehensive, sure-to-be controversial inquiry, one of the most thorough, eloquent, and enlightening books yet on this urgent and overwhelming subject—alongside works by Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Diane Ackerman—provides the evidence and the reasoning we need to help us shift to a ‘worldview based on regeneration and renewal rather than domination and depletion.’” (Booklist (starred review))

Well, there you go. Saving the climate (from what?) will be easy. Who ARE these people? Bill McKibben is the founder and leader of a group called 350.org, whose crusade is to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million by volume (ppmv). That’s what it was in 1988, when Dr. James Hansen testified to a Senate subcommittee that anything higher would lead to catastrophic climate change. It’s presently 400 ppmv and going up with each new coal-fired generator China and India bring on line, about one per week. Klein is a board member of 350.org. Would you be surprised to learn she comes from a family of communists? Needless to say, she has no scientific training, but she almost completed a degree in journalism. Almost.

Many of us who recognize there is no scientific evidence for anthropogenic global warming (AGW), let alone catastrophic AGW (CAGW) have suspected it’s a club to attack capitalism and Western prosperity. Ms. Klein deserves credit – I suppose – for making this quite clear. Her previous books simply attacked capitalism, per se; this one seeks additional acolytes in the holy name of “saving the Earth.” Want more from Ms. Klein? Don’t buy the book; it has only one message, which you can read in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

So why has Ms. Klein written a new book, pouring the old wine of anti-Capitalism into the frayed wineskin of Environmentalism? The cynical suspect an attempt to capitalize (yes, pun intentional) on the UN’s Climate Summit (23 Sept) and the People’s Climate March on Sunday, 21 Sept.

The list of attendees is notable: Ban Ki-Moon, Barack Hussein Obama, John F. Kerry, Gina McCarthy, the President of Zimbabwe, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, and thousands of other morons.

The list of NON-attendees is even more notable: President of China Xi Jinping, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Japan Abe. Merkel, whose “green” country is building 28 new coal-fired electricity generators, has a new problem; Italy is forecast to go broke in two years, and France (with the EU’s only Socialist President) is soon to follow. Zimbabwe has already announced it will need $10 billion to wage the good fight against climate change. You should resist any cynical thought that Zimbabwe knows a sucker (see attendee list above) when it sees one; Zimbabwe’s request is a pittance in the “entirely affordable” effort. $4 trillion will do it easily.

The “climate change” fraud, and the money to keep it going, is a difficult line to walk. It has to always be “the last possible minute to save the planet.” If the fraudsters were to admit we have another twenty years to gradually reduce our greenhouse emissions, government might cut back on next-year’s financing. On the other hand, if it’s already too late, they might cut back the financing altogether. Can’t have that either. You’ll be surprised to hear the latest estimate from Lord Stern is that we still have 15 more years to get the problem under control. Whew! Glad to hear that!

I guess I should stop and assure you (and Dr. Swier) I am not making any of this up. Meanwhile, in the real world (not that of Ban Ki-Moon and Naomi Klein):

The extent of sea ice around Antarctica is at a new record high, 7.6 million sq miles or 20.0 million sq kilometers (according to ABC News, Australia). That’s three times the area of Australia, and twice the area of the contiguous USA. This is the third year in a row of a new record high.

We’re nearing the Solstice, Fall in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring in the Southern. Record high ice extent has more effect in the sunlit hemisphere (Spring, Summer) than in the dark (Fall, Winter), because it reflects sunlight, that would otherwise warm the ocean. One way to change Earth’s temperature is to change the albedo of the Earth. A change of Earth’s albedo caused by increasing or decreasing ice and snow cover meets that criterion. Incidentally, there are people suggesting spraying sulfuric aerosols into the stratosphere – in order to stop CAGW.

The interesting thing about increasing ice and snow is that this is one of the few positive feedbacks in the climate system. Increased albedo due to ice and snow causes a temperature decrease, leading to more ice and snow, causing a further temperature decrease, leading to more ice and snow, and so to a cascade of colder conditions. At some point, the process becomes a runaway. I wonder how close we are?

Well, as you see in the picture, the tip of the Palmer Peninsula, the northernmost point of Antarctica, is about 60 degrees South. It looks like the sea ice fills the 60 degree circle of latitude. It’s never done that before – that we know of.

And in the Northern Hemisphere, Arctic sea ice is back to normal, in spite of “forecasts” by Al Gore and many, many others that the Arctic would be ice free this Summer.

Perhaps the most worrisome event is the continuing outpouring of molten lava from Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland. Volcanologists are beginning to compare it to the 1783-1784 eruption of Laki, which killed 20,000 farm laborers in England in the Summer of 1783. How? The sulfurous fumes from Laki mixed with moisture in the lungs of outdoor workers, burning them with sulfuric acid. In all, it’s estimated Laki killed six million people globally, including one-fourth of the population of Iceland. It was followed by

the longest period of sub-zero temperatures in New England, the icing-over of Chesapeake Bay, and freezing of the Mississippi at New Orleans. The smell of sulfur is becoming apparent already in Norway.

But, as we all know, thanks to Naomi Klein and John Kerry, warming is the thing to worry about.