Friday, November 30, 2012
Complete lunacy...
Panetta: US Will Battle Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for Years to Come
So long as US troops remain in Afghanistan, a costly insurgency will continue to be waged by militant groups
by John Glaser, November 29, 2012
Despite more than a decade of war and at least four years of the current administration’s strategies in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda militants continue to make in-roads in the war-torn country, according to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
“Although we clearly have had an impact on [al-Qaeda's] presence in Afghanistan, the fact is that they continue to show up,” Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon.
In response to this admitted failure of US military policy, the US is aiming to continue implementing all of the failed policies that have so far led to the disastrous quagmire in Afghanistan.
Despite claims from the Obama administration that the US would be ending the war and withdrawing in 2014, the State Department is now in talks with Kabul to set an agreement that will govern the presence of at least 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, perhaps until 2024.
Fighting a core group of al-Qaeda militants is “going to be the fundamental thrust of the (counter-terrorism) effort” beyond 2014, Panetta said, in order to prevent them from re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan.
But Afghanistan was always useless to al-Qaeda, except insofar as it drew America into a long and costly war, in an attempt to repeat the defeat of the Soviets. Geographical safe-havens are less and less useful for non-state actors to actually carry out attacks.
A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, estimated there were still only about 100 al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan. Why 100 al-Qaeda militants requires an ongoing occupation and nation-building project with over 10,000 troops is baffling to most.
So long as US troops remain in Afghanistan, a costly insurgency will continue to be waged by militant groups. Pulling out of the failed war, as well as the many other countries the US empire currently occupies, will do more to eliminate the relatively puny terrorist threat than any reduction in troops presence.
Link:
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/11/29/panetta-us-will-battle-al-qaeda-in-afghanistan-for-years-to-come/
So long as US troops remain in Afghanistan, a costly insurgency will continue to be waged by militant groups
by John Glaser, November 29, 2012
Despite more than a decade of war and at least four years of the current administration’s strategies in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda militants continue to make in-roads in the war-torn country, according to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
“Although we clearly have had an impact on [al-Qaeda's] presence in Afghanistan, the fact is that they continue to show up,” Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon.
In response to this admitted failure of US military policy, the US is aiming to continue implementing all of the failed policies that have so far led to the disastrous quagmire in Afghanistan.
Despite claims from the Obama administration that the US would be ending the war and withdrawing in 2014, the State Department is now in talks with Kabul to set an agreement that will govern the presence of at least 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, perhaps until 2024.
Fighting a core group of al-Qaeda militants is “going to be the fundamental thrust of the (counter-terrorism) effort” beyond 2014, Panetta said, in order to prevent them from re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan.
But Afghanistan was always useless to al-Qaeda, except insofar as it drew America into a long and costly war, in an attempt to repeat the defeat of the Soviets. Geographical safe-havens are less and less useful for non-state actors to actually carry out attacks.
A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, estimated there were still only about 100 al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan. Why 100 al-Qaeda militants requires an ongoing occupation and nation-building project with over 10,000 troops is baffling to most.
So long as US troops remain in Afghanistan, a costly insurgency will continue to be waged by militant groups. Pulling out of the failed war, as well as the many other countries the US empire currently occupies, will do more to eliminate the relatively puny terrorist threat than any reduction in troops presence.
Link:
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/11/29/panetta-us-will-battle-al-qaeda-in-afghanistan-for-years-to-come/
It's all about money and power and nothing to do with the enviornment...
We know President Obama is going to tax the rich, but I bet many didn’t think he would weasel in the carbon tax as quickly as he is going to now.
A Romney win would have been bullish for coal producers in the US – but Romney lost, and now so has coal, at least in the near term. The biggest winner from Obama? Natural gas.
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) is now supporting Obama in bringing a carbon tax to the US. Why would Exxon – and other big energy companies – join forces to bring on the carbon tax?
The answer is simple: profits.
Exxon has made significant purchases, buying unconventional North American gas companies. For example, it recently bought Canadian firm Celtic Exploration for over C$2.5 billion.
Let’s not forget that a couple of years back, Exxon bought out XTO Energy for over US$30 billion.
How much pull does Exxon have in Washington, DC? Exxon has one of the largest lobbying groups on Capitol Hill. And how ironic: Exxon is also one of the largest holdings for all of the US Congress members.
Exxon has always had clout in Washington and always will. Exxon is one of the former Rockefeller oil companies… one that has now positioned itself as one of the dominant unconventional North American companies.
Link:
http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/is-a-carbon-tax-a-done-deal-for-the-us-ask-exxon?xg_source=msg_mes_network
"The main theme of the movie is how clever, manipulative, conniving, scheming, lying, and underhanded Lincoln supposedly was in using his "political skills" to get the Thirteenth Amendment that legally ended slavery through the U.S. House of Representatives in the last months of his life. This entire story is what Lerone Bennett, Jr. the longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine and author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, calls a "pleasant fiction." It never happened."
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
"Armies of scholars, meticulously investigating every aspect of [Lincoln’s] life, have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry on his part."
~ Doris Kearns-Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, p. 207.
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . . I as much as any man am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white race."
~ Abraham Lincoln, First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Ottawa, Illinois, Sept. 18, 1858, in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln vol.3, pp. 145-146.
Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Lincoln, is said to be based on several chapters of the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns-Goodwin, who was a consultant to Spielberg. The main theme of the movie is how clever, manipulative, conniving, scheming, lying, and underhanded Lincoln supposedly was in using his "political skills" to get the Thirteenth Amendment that legally ended slavery through the U.S. House of Representatives in the last months of his life. This entire story is what Lerone Bennett, Jr. the longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine and author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, calls a "pleasant fiction." It never happened.
It never happened according to the foremost authority on Lincoln among mainstream Lincoln scholars, Harvard University Professor David H. Donald, the recipient of several Pulitzer prizes for his historical writings, including a biography of Lincoln. David Donald is the preeminent Lincoln scholar of our time who began writing award-winning books on the subject in the early 1960s. On page 545 of his magnus opus, Lincoln, Donald notes that Lincoln did discuss the Thirteenth Amendment with two members of Congress – James M. Ashley of Ohio and James S. Rollins of Missouri. But if he used "means of persuading congressmen to vote for the Thirteeth Amendment," the theme of the Spielberg movie, "his actions are not recorded. Conclusions about the President’s role rested on gossip . . ."
Moreover, there is not a shred of evidence that even one Democratic member of Congress changed his vote on the Thirteenth Amendment (which had previously been defeated) because of Lincoln’s actions. Donald documents that Lincoln was told that some New Jersey Democrats could possibly be persuaded to vote for the amendment "if he could persuade [Senator] Charles Sumner to drop a bill to regulate the Camden & Amboy [New Jersey] Railroad, but he declined to intervene" (emphasis added). "One New Jersey Democrat," writes David Donald, "well known as a lobbyist for the Camden & Amboy, who had voted against the amendment in July, did abstain in the final vote, but it cannot be proved that Lincoln influenced his change" (emphasis added). Thus, according to the foremost authority on Lincoln, there is no evidence at all that Lincoln influenced even a single vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, in complete contradiction of the writings of the confessed plagiarist Doris Kearns-Goodwin and Steven Spielberg’s movie (See my review of Goodwin’s book, entitled "A Plagiarist’s Contribution to Lincoln Idolatry").
Lincoln’s First Thirteenth Amendment Gambit
There is no evidence that Lincoln provided any significant assistance in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives in 1865, but there is evidence of his effectiveness in getting an earlier Thirteenth Amendment through the House and the Senate in 1861. This proposed amendment was known as the "Corwin Amendment," named after Ohio Republican Congressman Thomas Corwin. It had passed both the Republican-controlled House and the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration, and was sent to the states for ratification by Lincoln himself.
The Corwin Amendment would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. It read as follows:
"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State,, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."
"Person held to service" is how the Constitutional Convention referred to slaves, and "domestic institutions" referred to slavery. Lincoln announced to the world that he endorsed the Corwin Amendment in his first inaugural address:
"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution – which amendment, however, I have not seen – has passed Congress to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service . . . . [H]olding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable" (emphasis added).
Believing that slavery was already constitutional, Lincoln had "no objection" to enshrining it explicitly in the text of the U.S. Constitution on the day that he took office. He then sent a letter to the governor of each state transmitting the approved amendment for what he hoped would be ratification and noting that his predecessor, President James Buchanan, had also endorsed it.
Lincoln played a much larger role in getting this first Thirteenth Amendment through Congress than merely endorsing it in his first inaugural address and in his letter to the governors. Even Doris Kearns-Goodwin knows this! On page 296 of Team of Rivals she explained how it was Lincoln who, after being elected but before the inauguration, instructed New York Senator William Seward, who would become his secretary of state, to get the amendment through the U.S. Senate. He also instructed Seward to get a federal law passed that would repeal the personal liberty laws in some of the Northern states that were used by those states to nullify the federal Fugitive Slave Act, which Lincoln strongly supported. (The Fugitive Slave Act forced Northerners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to their owners).
As Goodwin writes: "He [Lincoln] instructed Seward to introduce these proposals in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield [Illinois]. The first resolved that ‘the Constitution should never be altered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states.’" The second proposal was that "All state personal liberty laws in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law be repealed."
So, go and see Spielberg’s Lincoln movie if you must, but keep in mind that it is just another left-wing Hollywood fantasy.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo245.html
"Perhaps the Journal should immediately send out couriers across the land to advise the many thousands of federal judges and federal prosecutors who obviously haven’t gotten the word yet. They’re still prosecuting terrorists and they’re still convicting them in the federal courts. They’ve been doing that for a long time."
Enemy-Combatant Nonsense at the Wall Street Journal
by Jacob G. Hornberger November 30, 2012
In an editorial this week entitled, “The Tea Party Goes to War,” the Wall Street Journal takes Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Max Baucus to task for proposing an amendment to the current defense authorization bill that would require the federal government to use the federal-court system established by the Constitution to prosecute accused terrorists.
The Journal says that accused terrorists are wartime enemy combatants and, therefore, should not be treated as criminal defendants, or, as the Journal puts it, as “common burglars.”
Perhaps the Journal should immediately send out couriers across the land to advise the many thousands of federal judges and federal prosecutors who obviously haven’t gotten the word yet. They’re still prosecuting terrorists and they’re still convicting them in the federal courts. They’ve been doing that for a long time.
In other words, the federal courts are, in fact, treating accused terrorists as “common burglars.” They are reading them their Miranda rights, which the Journal points out doesn’t need to be done with wartime enemy combatants. They’re also according them the rights of trial by jury, right to counsel, right to confront witnesses, and the other procedural rights and guarantees of due process and the Bill of Rights.
Why are the federal courts treating many accused terrorists as “common burglars”? Because terrorism is, in fact, a federal criminal offense. I wonder if the editorial writers at the Journal know that. Terrorism is, in fact, listed in the U.S. Code, which enumerates federal crimes.
Given that that’s the case, then why are those members of Congress trying to enact a measure that would require suspected terrorists to be treated as criminal defendants?
The reason is that after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush decreed that he and the Pentagon now wielded the authority to treat suspected terrorists in two alternative, optional ways — as either a criminal defendant or as an illegal enemy combatant.
Under that new post-9/11 order, some accused terrorists receive the criminal-defendant route. They are the lucky ones. They are accorded all the procedural protections of the Bill of Rights.
Other accused terrorists get the Pentagon route. They are the unlucky ones. They are subject to being incarcerated for life without trial, tortured, or executed, without the protections of due process or the Bill of Rights.
The decision as to which route a person receives is entirely up to the discretion of the president and the Pentagon. The decision is totally arbitrary. It is that type of arbitrary system, of course, that is the hallmark of tyrannical regimes.
The arbitrary nature of the system was perhaps best exemplified in the treatment of American citizen Jose Padilla. He started out in the federal-court system, was then transferred to the control of the Pentagon for three years, where he was brutally tortured in a military dungeon, and then transferred back to the federal-court system, where he was ultimately convicted as a criminal defendant and sentenced to serve time.
Hmm. I wonder if the Journal is calling for Padilla’s criminal conviction in federal court to be vacated so that he can be re-transferred to the control of the Pentagon as an enemy combatant. Indeed, I wonder if the Journal is advocating the same for all the terrorists who have been convicted in federal court since 9/11, including the Detroit terrorist bomber, the New York terrorist bomber, and 9/11 terrorist co-conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui.
Like many other conservatives, the Journal maintains that ever since 9/11, America is been at war against terrorism and that it’s never necessary to treat enemy combatants in war as criminal defendants.
Yet, 9/11 wasn’t the first terrorist attack on the United States or even on American soil. There were the attacks on the USS Cole, the U.S. embassies in East Africa, the U.S. troops in Lebanon, CIA officials outside Langley, and the World Trade Center in 1993. Indeed, Ronald Reagan declared war on terrorism back in the 1980s. Would the Journal say that we’ve been at war continuously since the 1980s and that the president and the Pentagon have wielded this extraordinary and arbitrary power all that time?
For that matter, we could even go back further than that, with respect to the war on drugs, which, in principle, is no different from the war on terrorism. Both involve federal crimes, and U.S. officials have declared war on both of them. I wonder if the Journal would say that under the war on drugs, the president and the Pentagon wield the authority to send accused drug offenders either into the federal-court system or into the clutches of the Pentagon as enemy combatants.
Finally, the Journal emphasizes the importance of going after unlawful enemy combatants — i.e., “anyone who takes up arms against the U.S., fails to wear a uniform and targets civilians.”
Oh? Does that include agents of the CIA? They don’t wear a uniform and they target civilians. I doubt the Journal would go that far. As everyone knows, conservatives have never been known for their consistency.
Link:
http://fff.org/2012/11/30/enemy-combatant-nonsense-at-the-wall-street-journal/
OOPS!!! I guess not all scientists believe in the global warming hoax....
Current scientific knowledge does not substantiate Ban Ki-Moon assertions on weather and climate, say 125-plus scientists
Policy actions that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely to influence future climate. Policies need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation to, all dangerous climatic events, however caused
Financial Post
Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations
First Avenue and East 44th Street, New York, New York, U.S.A.
November 29, 2012
Mr. Secretary-General:
On November 9 this year you told the General Assembly: “Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal … Our challenge remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”
On November 13 you said at Yale: “The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.”
The following day, in Al Gore’s “Dirty Weather” Webcast, you spoke of “more severe storms, harsher droughts, greater floods”, concluding: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.”
We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions.
The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years. During this period, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations rose by nearly 9% to now constitute 0.039% of the atmosphere. Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years. Whether, when and how atmospheric warming will resume is unknown. The science is unclear. Some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is also a distinct possibility.
The “even larger climate shocks” you have mentioned would be worse if the world cooled than if it warmed. Climate changes naturally all the time, sometimes dramatically. The hypothesis that our emissions of CO2 have caused, or will cause, dangerous warming is not supported by the evidence.
The incidence and severity of extreme weather has not increased. There is little evidence that dangerous weather-related events will occur more often in the future. The U.N.’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in its Special Report on Extreme Weather (2012) that there is “an absence of an attributable climate change signal” in trends in extreme weather losses to date. The funds currently dedicated to trying to stop extreme weather should therefore be diverted to strengthening our infrastructure so as to be able to withstand these inevitable, natural events, and to helping communities rebuild after natural catastrophes such as tropical storm Sandy.
There is no sound reason for the costly, restrictive public policy decisions proposed at the U.N. climate conference in Qatar. Rigorous analysis of unbiased observational data does not support the projections of future global warming predicted by computer models now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects.
The NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a discrepancy between observation and prediction. Sixteen years without warming have therefore now proven that the models are wrong by their creators’ own criterion.
Based upon these considerations, we ask that you desist from exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that human influences caused that storm. They did not. We also ask that you acknowledge that policy actions by the U.N., or by the signatory nations to the UNFCCC, that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely to exercise any significant influence on future climate. Climate policies therefore need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation to, all dangerous climatic events however caused.
Signed by:
Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Dr. Sci., mathematician and astrophysicist, Head of the Selenometria project on the Russian segment of the ISS, Head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
Bjarne Andresen, Dr. Scient., physicist, published and presents on the impossibility of a “global temperature”, Professor, Niels Bohr Institute (physics (thermodynamics) and chemistry), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
J. Scott Armstrong, PhD, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, focus on analyzing climate forecasts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant and former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
James R. Barrante, Ph.D. (chemistry, Harvard University), Emeritus Professor of Physical Chemistry, Southern Connecticut State University, focus on studying the greenhouse gas behavior of CO2, Cheshire, Connecticut, U.S.A.
Colin Barton, B.Sc., PhD (Earth Science, Birmingham, U.K.), FInstEng Aus Principal research scientist (ret.), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Joe Bastardi, BSc, (Meteorology, Pennsylvania State), meteorologist, State College, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Franco Battaglia, PhD (Chemical Physics), Professor of Physics and Environmental Chemistry, University of Modena, Italy
Richard Becherer, BS (Physics, Boston College), MS (Physics, University of Illinois), PhD (Optics, University of Rochester), former Member of the Technical Staff – MIT Lincoln Laboratory, former Adjunct Professor – University of Connecticut, Areas of Specialization: optical radiation physics, coauthor – standard reference book Optical Radiation Measurements: Radiometry, Millis, MA, U.S.A.
Edwin X. Berry, PhD (Atmospheric Physics, Nevada), MA (Physics, Dartmouth), BS (Engineering, Caltech), Certified Consulting Meteorologist, President, Climate Physics LLC, Bigfork, MT, U.S.A.
Ian Bock, BSc, PhD, DSc, Biological sciences (retired), Ringkobing, Denmark
Ahmed Boucenna, PhD, Professor of Physics (strong climate focus), Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Ferhat Abbas University, Setif, Algéria
Antonio Brambati, PhD, Emeritus Professor (sedimentology), Department of Geological, Environmental and Marine Sciences (DiSGAM), University of Trieste (specialization: climate change as determined by Antarctic marine sediments), Trieste, Italy
Stephen C. Brown, PhD (Environmental Science, State University of New York), District Agriculture Agent, Assistant Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Ground Penetrating Radar Glacier research, Palmer, Alaska, U.S.A.
Mark Lawrence Campbell, PhD (chemical physics; gas-phase kinetic research involving greenhouse gases (nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide)), Professor, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A.
Rudy Candler, PhD (Soil Chemistry, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)), former agricultural laboratory manager, School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, UAF, co-authored papers regarding humic substances and potential CO2 production in the Arctic due to decomposition, Union, Oregon, U.S.A.
Alan Carlin, B.S. (California Institute of Technology), PhD (economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), retired senior analyst and manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, former Chairman of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club (recipient of the Chapter’s Weldon Heald award for conservation work), U.S.A.
Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., Arctic Animal Behavioural Ecologist, wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Turner Valley, Alberta, Canada
Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
Uberto Crescenti, PhD, Full Professor of Applied Geology, Università G. d’Annunzio, Past President Società Geologica taliana, Chieti, Italy
Arthur Chadwick, PhD (Molecular Biology), Research Professor of Geology, Department of Biology and Geology, Southwestern Adventist University, Climate Specialties: dendrochronology (determination of past climate states by tree ring analysis), palynology (same but using pollen as a climate proxy), paleobotany and botany; Keene, Texas, U.S.A.
George V. Chilingar, PhD, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Engineering (CO2/temp. focused research), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor (isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology), Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Cornelia Codreanova, Diploma in Geography, Researcher (Areas of Specialization: formation of glacial lakes) at Liberec University, Czech Republic, Zwenkau, Germany
Michael Coffman, PhD (Ecosystems Analysis and Climate Influences, University of Idaho), CEO of Sovereignty International, President of Environmental Perspectives, Inc., Bangor, Maine, U.S.A.
Piers Corbyn, ARCS, MSc (Physics, Imperial College London)), FRAS, FRMetS, astrophysicist (Queen Mary College, London), consultant, founder WeatherAction long range weather and climate forecasters, American Thinker Climate Forecaster of The Year 2010, London, United Kingdom
Richard S. Courtney, PhD, energy and environmental consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, Falmouth, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Roger W. Cohen, B.S., M.S., PhD Physics, MIT and Rutgers University, Fellow, American Physical Society, initiated and managed for more than twenty years the only industrial basic research program in climate, Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Susan Crockford, PhD (Zoology/Evolutionary Biology/Archaeozoology), Adjunct Professor (Anthropology/Faculty of Graduate Studies), University of Victoria, Victoria, British Colombia, Canada
Walter Cunningham, B.S., M.S. (Physics – Institute of Geophysics And Planetary Sciences, UCLA), AMP – Harvard Graduate School of Business, Colonel (retired) U.S. Marine Corps, Apollo 7 Astronaut., Fellow – AAS, AIAA; Member AGU, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Joseph D’Aleo, BS, MS (Meteorology, University of Wisconsin), Doctoral Studies (NYU), CMM, AMS Fellow, Executive Director – ICECAP (International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project), College Professor Climatology/Meteorology, First Director of Meteorology The Weather Channel, Hudson, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Professor of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
James E. Dent; B.Sc., FCIWEM, C.Met, FRMetS, C.Env., Independent Consultant (hydrology & meteorology), Member of WMO OPACHE Group on Flood Warning, Hadleigh, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom
Willem de Lange, MSc (Hons), DPhil (Computer and Earth Sciences), Senior Lecturer in Earth and Ocean Sciences, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Silvia Duhau, Ph.D. (physics), Solar Terrestrial Physics, Buenos Aires University, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Geoff Duffy, DEng (Dr of Engineering), PhD (Chemical Engineering), BSc, ASTCDip. (first chemical engineer to be a Fellow of the Royal Society in NZ), FIChemE, wide experience in radiant heat transfer and drying, chemical equilibria, etc. Has reviewed, analysed, and written brief reports and papers on climate change, Auckland, New Zealand
Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington, University, Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A.
Ole Henrik Ellestad, former Research Director, applied chemistry SINTEF, Professor in physical chemistry, University of Oslo, Managing director Norsk Regnesentral and Director for Science and Technology, Norwegian Research Council, widely published in infrared spectroscopy, Oslo, Norway
Per Engene, MSc, Biologist, Co-author – The Climate, Science and Politics (2009), Bø i Telemark, Norway
Gordon Fulks, B.S., M.S., PhD (Physics, University of Chicago), cosmic radiation, solar wind, electromagnetic and geophysical phenomena, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
Katya Georgieva, MSc (meteorology), PhD (solar-terrestrial climate physics), Professor, Space Research and Technologies Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas, past director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey, U.S.A.
Ivar Giaever PhD, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1973, professor emeritus at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a professor-at-large at the University of Oslo, Applied BioPhysics, Troy, New York, U.S.A.
Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, ScAgr, Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, Tropical pasture research and land use management, Director científico de INTTAS, Loma Plata, Paraguay
Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adj Professor, Royal Institute of Technology (Mech, Eng.), Secretary General KTH International Climate Seminar 2006 and Climate analyst (NIPCC), Lidingö, Sweden
Laurence I. Gould, PhD, Professor of Physics, University of Hartford, Past Chair (2004), New England Section of the American Physical Society, West Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A.
Vincent Gray, PhD, New Zealand Climate Coalition, expert reviewer for the IPCC, author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of Climate Change 2001, Wellington, New Zealand
William M. Gray, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S.A.
Charles B. Hammons, PhD (Applied Mathematics), climate-related specialties: applied mathematics, modeling & simulation, software & systems engineering, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Management, University of Dallas; Assistant Professor, North Texas State University (Dr. Hammons found many serious flaws during a detailed study of the software, associated control files plus related email traffic of the Climate Research Unit temperature and other records and “adjustments” carried out in support of IPCC conclusions), Coyle, OK, U.S.A.
William Happer, PhD, Professor, Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A.
Hermann Harde, PhD, Professur f. Lasertechnik & Werkstoffkunde (specialized in molecular spectroscopy, development of gas sensors and CO2-climate sensitivity), Helmut-Schmidt-Universität, Universität der Bundeswehr Fakultät für Elektrotechnik, Hamburg, Germany
Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor (Physics), University of Connecticut, The Energy Advocate, Pueblo West, Colorado, U.S.A.
Ross Hays, Meteorologist, atmospheric scientist, NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (currently working at McMurdo Station, Antarctica), Palestine, Texas, U.S.A.
Martin Hovland, M.Sc. (meteorology, University of Bergen), PhD (Dr Philos, University of Tromsø), FGS, Emeritus Professor, Geophysics, Centre for Geobiology, University of Bergen, member of the expert panel: Environmental Protection and Safety Panel (EPSP) for the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and the Integrated ODP, Stavanger, Norway
Ole Humlum, PhD, Professor of Physical Geography, Department of Physical Geography, Institute of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.
Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.
Larry Irons, BS (Geology), MS (Geology), Sr. Geophysicist at Fairfield Nodal (specialization: paleoclimate), Lakewood, Colorado, U.S.A.
Terri Jackson, MSc (plasma physics), MPhil (energy economics), Director, Independent Climate Research Group, Northern Ireland and London (Founder of the energy/climate group at the Institute of Physics, London), United Kingdom
Albert F. Jacobs, Geol.Drs., P. Geol., Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hans Jelbring, PhD Climatology, Stockholm University, MSc Electronic engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, BSc Meteorology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Bill Kappel, B.S. (Physical Science-Geology), B.S. (Meteorology), Storm Analysis, Climatology, Operation Forecasting, Vice President/Senior Meteorologist, Applied Weather Associates, LLC, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, U.S.A.
Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Extraordinary Research Associate; Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Tartu Observatory, Toravere, Estonia
Leonid F. Khilyuk, PhD, Science Secretary, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor of Engineering (CO2/temp. focused research), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
William Kininmonth MSc, MAdmin, former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization’s Commission for Climatology, Kew, Victoria, Australia
Gerhard Kramm, Dr. rer. nat. (Theoretical Meteorology), Research Associate Professor, Geophysical Institute, Associate Faculty, College of Natural Science and Mathematics, University of Alaska Fairbanks, (climate specialties: Atmospheric energetics, physics of the atmospheric boundary layer, physical climatology – seeinteresting paper by Kramm et al), Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
Leif Kullman, PhD (Physical geography, plant ecology, landscape ecology), Professor, Physical geography, Department of Ecology and Environmental science, Umeå University, Areas of Specialization: Paleoclimate (Holocene to the present), glaciology, vegetation history, impact of modern climate on the living landscape, Umeå, Sweden
Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, Independent economist, author specialised in climate issues, IPCC expert reviewer, author of Man-Made Global Warming: Unravelling a Dogma and climate science-related Blog, The Netherlands
Rune Berg-Edland Larsen, PhD (Geology, Geochemistry), Professor, Dep. Geology and Geoengineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
C. (Kees) le Pair, PhD (Physics Leiden, Low Temperature Physics), former director of the Netherlands Research Organization FOM (fundamental physics) and subsequently founder and director of The Netherlands Technology Foundation STW. Served the Dutch Government many years as member of its General Energy Council and of the National Defense Research Council. Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences Honorary Medal and honorary doctorate in all technical sciences of the Delft University of technology, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands
Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, past President – Friends of Science, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Jay Lehr, B.Eng. (Princeton), PhD (environmental science and ground water hydrology), Science Director, The Heartland Institute, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Bryan Leyland, M.Sc., FIEE, FIMechE, FIPENZ, MRSNZ, consulting engineer (power), Energy Issues Advisor – International Climate Science Coalition, Auckland, New Zealand
Edward Liebsch, B.A. (Earth Science, St. Cloud State University); M.S. (Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University), former Associate Scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; former Adjunct Professor of Meteorology, St. Cloud State University, Environmental Consultant/Air Quality Scientist (Areas of Specialization: micrometeorology, greenhouse gas emissions), Maple Grove, Minnesota, U.S.A.
William Lindqvist, PhD (Applied Geology), Independent Geologic Consultant, Areas of Specialization: Climate Variation in the recent geologic past, Tiburon, California, U.S.A.
Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, Prof. Dr. , PhD (Physics), retired from university of appl. sciences HTW, Saarbrücken (Germany), atmospheric temperature research, speaker of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Heidelberg, Germany
Anthony R. Lupo, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, U.S.A.
Oliver Manuel, BS, MS, PhD, Post-Doc (Space Physics), Associate - Climate & Solar Science Institute, Emeritus Professor, College of Arts & Sciences University of Missouri-Rolla, previously Research Scientist (US Geological Survey) and NASA Principal Investigator for Apollo, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, U.S.A.
Francis Massen, professeur-docteur en physique (PhD equivalent, Universities of Nancy (France) and Liège (Belgium), Manager of the Meteorological Station of the Lycée Classique de Diekirch, specialising in the measurement of solar radiation and atmospheric gases. Collaborator to the WOUDC (World Ozone and UV Radiation Data Center), Diekirch, Luxembourg
Henri Masson, Prof. dr. ir., Emeritus Professor University of Antwerp (Energy & Environment Technology Management), Visiting professor Maastricht School of Management, specialist in dynamical (chaotic) complex system analysis, Antwerp, Belgium.
Ferenc Mark Miskolczi, PhD, atmospheric physicist, formerly of NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, U.S.A.
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Expert reviewer, IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Quantification of Climate Sensitivity, Carie, Rannoch, Scotland
Nils-Axel Mörner, PhD (Sea Level Changes and Climate), Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
John Nicol, PhD (Physics, James Cook University), Chairman – Australian climate Science Coalition, Brisbane, Australia
Ingemar Nordin, PhD, professor in philosophy of science (including a focus on “Climate research, philosophical and sociological aspects of a politicised research area”), Linköpings University, Sweden.
David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Cliff Ollier, D.Sc., Professor Emeritus (School of Earth and Environment – see hisCopenhagen Climate Challenge sea level article here), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, W.A., Australia
Oleg M. Pokrovsky, BS, MS, PhD (mathematics and atmospheric physics – St. Petersburg State University, 1970), Dr. in Phys. and Math Sciences (1985), Professor in Geophysics (1995), principal scientist, Main Geophysical Observatory (RosHydroMet), Note: Dr. Pokrovsky analyzed long climates and concludes that anthropogenic CO2 impact is not the main contributor in climate change,St. Petersburg, Russia.
Daniel Joseph Pounder, BS (Meteorology, University of Oklahoma), MS (Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Meteorological/Oceanographic Data Analyst for the National Data Buoy Center, formerly Meteorologist, WILL AM/FM/TV, Urbana, U.S.A.
Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology (Sedimentology), University of Saskatchewan (see Professor Pratt’s article for a summary of his views), Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Professore-emeritus isotope-geophysics and planetary geology, Utrecht University, past director ZWO/NOW Institute of Isotope Geophysical Research, Past-President Royal Netherlands Society of Geology and Mining, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Oleg Raspopov, Doctor of Science and Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Professor – Geophysics, Senior Scientist, St. Petersburg Filial (Branch) of N.V.Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowaves Propagation of RAS (climate specialty: climate in the past, particularly the influence of solar variability), Editor-in-Chief of journal “Geomagnetism and Aeronomy” (published by Russian Academy of Sciences), St. Petersburg, Russia
Curt G. Rose, BA, MA (University of Western Ontario), MA, PhD (Clark University), Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Studies and Geography, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
S. Jeevananda Reddy, M.Sc. (Geophysics), Post Graduate Diploma (Applied Statistics, Andhra University), PhD (Agricultural Meteorology, Australian University, Canberra), Formerly Chief Technical Advisor—United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) & Expert-Food and Agriculture Organization (UN), Convener - Forum for a Sustainable Environment, author of 500 scientific articles and several books – here is one: “Climate Change – Myths & Realities“, Hyderabad, India
Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, former member of the board of management of the Netherlands Organization Applied Research TNO, Leiden, The Netherlands
Rob Scagel, MSc (forest microclimate specialist), Principal Consultant – Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Chris Schoneveld, MSc (Structural Geology), PhD (Geology), retired exploration geologist and geophysicist, Australia and France
Tom V. Segalstad, PhD (Geology/Geochemistry), Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, former IPCC expert reviewer, former Head of the Geological Museum, and former head of the Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden (UO), Oslo, Norway
John Shade, BS (Physics), MS (Atmospheric Physics), MS (Applied Statistics), Industrial Statistics Consultant, GDP, Dunfermline, Scotland, United Kingdom
Thomas P. Sheahen, B.S., PhD (Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), specialist in renewable energy, research and publication (applied optics) in modeling and measurement of absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric CO2, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2005-2009); Argonne National Laboratory (1988-1992); Bell Telephone labs (1966-73), National Bureau of Standards (1975-83), Oakland, Maryland, U.S.A.
S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Environmental Sciences), University of Virginia, former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service, Science and Environmental Policy Project, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.
Frans W. Sluijter, Prof. dr ir, Emeritus Professor of theoretical physics, Technical University Eindhoven, Chairman—Skepsis Foundation, former vice-president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, former President of the Division on Plasma Physics of the European Physical Society and former bureau member of the Scientific Committee on Sun-Terrestrial Physics, Euvelwegen, the Netherlands
Jan-Erik Solheim, MSc (Astrophysics), Professor, Institute of Physics, University of Tromsø, Norway (1971-2002), Professor (emeritus), Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Norway (1965-1970, 2002- present), climate specialties: sun and periodic climate variations, scientific paper by Professor Solheim “Solen varsler et kaldere tiår“, Baerum, Norway
H. Leighton Steward, Master of Science (Geology), Areas of Specialization: paleoclimates and empirical evidence that indicates CO2 is not a significant driver of climate change, Chairman, PlantsNeedCO2.org and CO2IsGreen.org, Chairman of the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man (geology, archeology & anthropology) at SMU in Dallas, Texas, Boerne, TX, U.S.A.
Arlin B. Super, PhD (Meteorology – University of Wisconsin at Madison), former Professor of Meteorology at Montana State University, retired Research Meteorologist, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Saint Cloud, Minnesota, U.S.A.
Edward (Ted) R. Swart, D.Sc. (physical chemistry, University of Pretoria), M.Sc. and Ph.D. (math/computer science, University of Witwatersrand). Formerly Director of the Gulbenkian Centre, Dean of the Faculty of Science, Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science, University of Rhodesia and past President of the Rhodesia Scientific Association. Set up the first radiocarbon dating laboratory in Africa. Most recently, Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo and Chair of Computing and Information Science and Acting Dean at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, now retired in Kelowna British Columbia, Canada
George H. Taylor, B.A. (Mathematics, U.C. Santa Barbara), M.S. (Meteorology, University of Utah), Certified Consulting Meteorologist, Applied Climate Services, LLC, Former State Climatologist (Oregon), President, American Association of State Climatologists (1998-2000), Corvallis, Oregon, U.S.A.
J. E. Tilsley, P.Eng., BA Geol, Acadia University, 53 years of climate and paleoclimate studies related to development of economic mineral deposits, Aurora, Ontario, Canada
Göran Tullberg, Civilingenjör i Kemi (equivalent to Masters of Chemical Engineering), Co-author – The Climate, Science and Politics (2009) (see here for a review), formerly instructor of Organic Chemistry (specialization in “Climate chemistry”), Environmental Control and Environmental Protection Engineering at University in Växjö; Falsterbo, Sweden
Brian Gregory Valentine, PhD, Adjunct professor of engineering (aero and fluid dynamics specialization) at the University of Maryland, Technical manager at US Department of Energy, for large-scale modeling of atmospheric pollution, Technical referee for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science programs in climate and atmospheric modeling conducted at American Universities and National Labs, Washington, DC, U.S.A.
Bas van Geel, PhD, paleo-climatologist, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Research Group Paleoecology and Landscape Ecology, Faculty of Science, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD (Utrecht University), geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, Nelson, New Zealand
A.J. (Tom) van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geologyspecialism: Glacial Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, former President of the European Association of Science Editors Poznan, Poland
Fritz Vahrenholt, B.S. (chemistry), PhD (chemistry), Prof. Dr., Professor of Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Former Senator for environmental affairs of the State of Hamburg, former CEO of REpower Systems AG (wind turbines), Author of the book Die kalte Sonne: warum die Klimakatastrophe nicht stattfindet(The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Crisis Isn’t Happening”, Hamburg, Germany
Michael G. Vershovsky, Ph.D. in meteorology (macrometeorology, long-term forecasts, climatology), Senior Researcher, Russian State Hydrometeorological University, works with, as he writes, “Atmospheric Centers of Action (cyclones and anticyclones, such as Icelandic depression, the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone, etc.). Changes in key parameters of these centers strongly indicate that the global temperature is influenced by these natural factors (not exclusively but nevertheless)”, St. Petersburg, Russia
Gösta Walin, PhD and Docent (theoretical Physics, University of Stockholm), Professor Emeritus in oceanografi, Earth Science Center, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden
Anthony Watts, ItWorks/IntelliWeather, Founder, surfacestations.org, Watts Up With That, Chico, California, U.S.A.
Carl Otto Weiss, Direktor und Professor at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Visiting Professor at University of Copenhagen, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Coauthor of ”Multiperiodic Climate Dynamics: Spectral Analysis of…“, Braunschweig, Germany
Forese-Carlo Wezel, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Stratigraphy (global and Mediterranean geology, mass biotic extinctions and paleoclimatology), University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy
Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
David E. Wojick, PhD, PE, energy and environmental consultant, Technical Advisory Board member – Climate Science Coalition of America, Star Tannery, Virginia, U.S.A.
George T. Wolff, Ph.D., Principal Atmospheric Scientist, Air Improvement Resource, Inc., Novi, Michigan, U.S.A.
Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller –NASA (Ret) ARC, GSFC, Hdq. - Meteorologist, Ogunquit, ME, U.S.A.
Bob Zybach, PhD (Environmental Sciences, Oregon State University), climate-related carbon sequestration research, MAIS, B.S., Director, Environmental Sciences Institute Peer review Institute, Cottage Grove, Oregon, U.S.A.
Milap Chand Sharma, PhD, Associate Professor of Glacial Geomorphology, Centre fort the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Valentin A. Dergachev, PhD, Professor and Head of the Cosmic Ray Laboratory at Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Vijay Kumar Raina, Ex-Deputy Director General, Geological Survey of India, Ex-Chairman Project Advisory and Monitoring Committee on Himalayan glacier, DST, Govt. of India and currently Member Expert Committee on Climate Change Programme, Dept. of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, author of 2010 MoEF Discussion Paper, “Himalayan Glaciers – State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change”, the first comprehensive study on the region. Winner of the Indian Antarctica Award, Chandigarh, India
Scott Chesner, B.S. (Meteorology, Penn State University), KETK Chief Meteorologist, KETK TV, previously Meteorologist with Accu Weather, Tyler, Texas, U.S.A
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-plus-scientists.html
Policy actions that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely to influence future climate. Policies need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation to, all dangerous climatic events, however caused
Financial Post
Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations
First Avenue and East 44th Street, New York, New York, U.S.A.
November 29, 2012
Mr. Secretary-General:
On November 9 this year you told the General Assembly: “Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal … Our challenge remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”
On November 13 you said at Yale: “The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.”
The following day, in Al Gore’s “Dirty Weather” Webcast, you spoke of “more severe storms, harsher droughts, greater floods”, concluding: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.”
We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions.
The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years. During this period, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations rose by nearly 9% to now constitute 0.039% of the atmosphere. Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years. Whether, when and how atmospheric warming will resume is unknown. The science is unclear. Some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is also a distinct possibility.
The “even larger climate shocks” you have mentioned would be worse if the world cooled than if it warmed. Climate changes naturally all the time, sometimes dramatically. The hypothesis that our emissions of CO2 have caused, or will cause, dangerous warming is not supported by the evidence.
The incidence and severity of extreme weather has not increased. There is little evidence that dangerous weather-related events will occur more often in the future. The U.N.’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in its Special Report on Extreme Weather (2012) that there is “an absence of an attributable climate change signal” in trends in extreme weather losses to date. The funds currently dedicated to trying to stop extreme weather should therefore be diverted to strengthening our infrastructure so as to be able to withstand these inevitable, natural events, and to helping communities rebuild after natural catastrophes such as tropical storm Sandy.
There is no sound reason for the costly, restrictive public policy decisions proposed at the U.N. climate conference in Qatar. Rigorous analysis of unbiased observational data does not support the projections of future global warming predicted by computer models now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects.
The NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a discrepancy between observation and prediction. Sixteen years without warming have therefore now proven that the models are wrong by their creators’ own criterion.
Based upon these considerations, we ask that you desist from exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that human influences caused that storm. They did not. We also ask that you acknowledge that policy actions by the U.N., or by the signatory nations to the UNFCCC, that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely to exercise any significant influence on future climate. Climate policies therefore need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation to, all dangerous climatic events however caused.
Signed by:
Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Dr. Sci., mathematician and astrophysicist, Head of the Selenometria project on the Russian segment of the ISS, Head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
Bjarne Andresen, Dr. Scient., physicist, published and presents on the impossibility of a “global temperature”, Professor, Niels Bohr Institute (physics (thermodynamics) and chemistry), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
J. Scott Armstrong, PhD, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, focus on analyzing climate forecasts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant and former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
James R. Barrante, Ph.D. (chemistry, Harvard University), Emeritus Professor of Physical Chemistry, Southern Connecticut State University, focus on studying the greenhouse gas behavior of CO2, Cheshire, Connecticut, U.S.A.
Colin Barton, B.Sc., PhD (Earth Science, Birmingham, U.K.), FInstEng Aus Principal research scientist (ret.), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Joe Bastardi, BSc, (Meteorology, Pennsylvania State), meteorologist, State College, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Franco Battaglia, PhD (Chemical Physics), Professor of Physics and Environmental Chemistry, University of Modena, Italy
Richard Becherer, BS (Physics, Boston College), MS (Physics, University of Illinois), PhD (Optics, University of Rochester), former Member of the Technical Staff – MIT Lincoln Laboratory, former Adjunct Professor – University of Connecticut, Areas of Specialization: optical radiation physics, coauthor – standard reference book Optical Radiation Measurements: Radiometry, Millis, MA, U.S.A.
Edwin X. Berry, PhD (Atmospheric Physics, Nevada), MA (Physics, Dartmouth), BS (Engineering, Caltech), Certified Consulting Meteorologist, President, Climate Physics LLC, Bigfork, MT, U.S.A.
Ian Bock, BSc, PhD, DSc, Biological sciences (retired), Ringkobing, Denmark
Ahmed Boucenna, PhD, Professor of Physics (strong climate focus), Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Ferhat Abbas University, Setif, Algéria
Antonio Brambati, PhD, Emeritus Professor (sedimentology), Department of Geological, Environmental and Marine Sciences (DiSGAM), University of Trieste (specialization: climate change as determined by Antarctic marine sediments), Trieste, Italy
Stephen C. Brown, PhD (Environmental Science, State University of New York), District Agriculture Agent, Assistant Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Ground Penetrating Radar Glacier research, Palmer, Alaska, U.S.A.
Mark Lawrence Campbell, PhD (chemical physics; gas-phase kinetic research involving greenhouse gases (nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide)), Professor, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A.
Rudy Candler, PhD (Soil Chemistry, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)), former agricultural laboratory manager, School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, UAF, co-authored papers regarding humic substances and potential CO2 production in the Arctic due to decomposition, Union, Oregon, U.S.A.
Alan Carlin, B.S. (California Institute of Technology), PhD (economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), retired senior analyst and manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, former Chairman of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club (recipient of the Chapter’s Weldon Heald award for conservation work), U.S.A.
Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., Arctic Animal Behavioural Ecologist, wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Turner Valley, Alberta, Canada
Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
Uberto Crescenti, PhD, Full Professor of Applied Geology, Università G. d’Annunzio, Past President Società Geologica taliana, Chieti, Italy
Arthur Chadwick, PhD (Molecular Biology), Research Professor of Geology, Department of Biology and Geology, Southwestern Adventist University, Climate Specialties: dendrochronology (determination of past climate states by tree ring analysis), palynology (same but using pollen as a climate proxy), paleobotany and botany; Keene, Texas, U.S.A.
George V. Chilingar, PhD, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Engineering (CO2/temp. focused research), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor (isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology), Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Cornelia Codreanova, Diploma in Geography, Researcher (Areas of Specialization: formation of glacial lakes) at Liberec University, Czech Republic, Zwenkau, Germany
Michael Coffman, PhD (Ecosystems Analysis and Climate Influences, University of Idaho), CEO of Sovereignty International, President of Environmental Perspectives, Inc., Bangor, Maine, U.S.A.
Piers Corbyn, ARCS, MSc (Physics, Imperial College London)), FRAS, FRMetS, astrophysicist (Queen Mary College, London), consultant, founder WeatherAction long range weather and climate forecasters, American Thinker Climate Forecaster of The Year 2010, London, United Kingdom
Richard S. Courtney, PhD, energy and environmental consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, Falmouth, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Roger W. Cohen, B.S., M.S., PhD Physics, MIT and Rutgers University, Fellow, American Physical Society, initiated and managed for more than twenty years the only industrial basic research program in climate, Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Susan Crockford, PhD (Zoology/Evolutionary Biology/Archaeozoology), Adjunct Professor (Anthropology/Faculty of Graduate Studies), University of Victoria, Victoria, British Colombia, Canada
Walter Cunningham, B.S., M.S. (Physics – Institute of Geophysics And Planetary Sciences, UCLA), AMP – Harvard Graduate School of Business, Colonel (retired) U.S. Marine Corps, Apollo 7 Astronaut., Fellow – AAS, AIAA; Member AGU, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Joseph D’Aleo, BS, MS (Meteorology, University of Wisconsin), Doctoral Studies (NYU), CMM, AMS Fellow, Executive Director – ICECAP (International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project), College Professor Climatology/Meteorology, First Director of Meteorology The Weather Channel, Hudson, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Professor of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
James E. Dent; B.Sc., FCIWEM, C.Met, FRMetS, C.Env., Independent Consultant (hydrology & meteorology), Member of WMO OPACHE Group on Flood Warning, Hadleigh, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom
Willem de Lange, MSc (Hons), DPhil (Computer and Earth Sciences), Senior Lecturer in Earth and Ocean Sciences, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Silvia Duhau, Ph.D. (physics), Solar Terrestrial Physics, Buenos Aires University, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Geoff Duffy, DEng (Dr of Engineering), PhD (Chemical Engineering), BSc, ASTCDip. (first chemical engineer to be a Fellow of the Royal Society in NZ), FIChemE, wide experience in radiant heat transfer and drying, chemical equilibria, etc. Has reviewed, analysed, and written brief reports and papers on climate change, Auckland, New Zealand
Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington, University, Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A.
Ole Henrik Ellestad, former Research Director, applied chemistry SINTEF, Professor in physical chemistry, University of Oslo, Managing director Norsk Regnesentral and Director for Science and Technology, Norwegian Research Council, widely published in infrared spectroscopy, Oslo, Norway
Per Engene, MSc, Biologist, Co-author – The Climate, Science and Politics (2009), Bø i Telemark, Norway
Gordon Fulks, B.S., M.S., PhD (Physics, University of Chicago), cosmic radiation, solar wind, electromagnetic and geophysical phenomena, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
Katya Georgieva, MSc (meteorology), PhD (solar-terrestrial climate physics), Professor, Space Research and Technologies Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas, past director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey, U.S.A.
Ivar Giaever PhD, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1973, professor emeritus at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a professor-at-large at the University of Oslo, Applied BioPhysics, Troy, New York, U.S.A.
Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, ScAgr, Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, Tropical pasture research and land use management, Director científico de INTTAS, Loma Plata, Paraguay
Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adj Professor, Royal Institute of Technology (Mech, Eng.), Secretary General KTH International Climate Seminar 2006 and Climate analyst (NIPCC), Lidingö, Sweden
Laurence I. Gould, PhD, Professor of Physics, University of Hartford, Past Chair (2004), New England Section of the American Physical Society, West Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A.
Vincent Gray, PhD, New Zealand Climate Coalition, expert reviewer for the IPCC, author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of Climate Change 2001, Wellington, New Zealand
William M. Gray, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S.A.
Charles B. Hammons, PhD (Applied Mathematics), climate-related specialties: applied mathematics, modeling & simulation, software & systems engineering, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Management, University of Dallas; Assistant Professor, North Texas State University (Dr. Hammons found many serious flaws during a detailed study of the software, associated control files plus related email traffic of the Climate Research Unit temperature and other records and “adjustments” carried out in support of IPCC conclusions), Coyle, OK, U.S.A.
William Happer, PhD, Professor, Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A.
Hermann Harde, PhD, Professur f. Lasertechnik & Werkstoffkunde (specialized in molecular spectroscopy, development of gas sensors and CO2-climate sensitivity), Helmut-Schmidt-Universität, Universität der Bundeswehr Fakultät für Elektrotechnik, Hamburg, Germany
Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor (Physics), University of Connecticut, The Energy Advocate, Pueblo West, Colorado, U.S.A.
Ross Hays, Meteorologist, atmospheric scientist, NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (currently working at McMurdo Station, Antarctica), Palestine, Texas, U.S.A.
Martin Hovland, M.Sc. (meteorology, University of Bergen), PhD (Dr Philos, University of Tromsø), FGS, Emeritus Professor, Geophysics, Centre for Geobiology, University of Bergen, member of the expert panel: Environmental Protection and Safety Panel (EPSP) for the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and the Integrated ODP, Stavanger, Norway
Ole Humlum, PhD, Professor of Physical Geography, Department of Physical Geography, Institute of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.
Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.
Larry Irons, BS (Geology), MS (Geology), Sr. Geophysicist at Fairfield Nodal (specialization: paleoclimate), Lakewood, Colorado, U.S.A.
Terri Jackson, MSc (plasma physics), MPhil (energy economics), Director, Independent Climate Research Group, Northern Ireland and London (Founder of the energy/climate group at the Institute of Physics, London), United Kingdom
Albert F. Jacobs, Geol.Drs., P. Geol., Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hans Jelbring, PhD Climatology, Stockholm University, MSc Electronic engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, BSc Meteorology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Bill Kappel, B.S. (Physical Science-Geology), B.S. (Meteorology), Storm Analysis, Climatology, Operation Forecasting, Vice President/Senior Meteorologist, Applied Weather Associates, LLC, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, U.S.A.
Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Extraordinary Research Associate; Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Tartu Observatory, Toravere, Estonia
Leonid F. Khilyuk, PhD, Science Secretary, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor of Engineering (CO2/temp. focused research), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
William Kininmonth MSc, MAdmin, former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization’s Commission for Climatology, Kew, Victoria, Australia
Gerhard Kramm, Dr. rer. nat. (Theoretical Meteorology), Research Associate Professor, Geophysical Institute, Associate Faculty, College of Natural Science and Mathematics, University of Alaska Fairbanks, (climate specialties: Atmospheric energetics, physics of the atmospheric boundary layer, physical climatology – seeinteresting paper by Kramm et al), Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
Leif Kullman, PhD (Physical geography, plant ecology, landscape ecology), Professor, Physical geography, Department of Ecology and Environmental science, Umeå University, Areas of Specialization: Paleoclimate (Holocene to the present), glaciology, vegetation history, impact of modern climate on the living landscape, Umeå, Sweden
Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, Independent economist, author specialised in climate issues, IPCC expert reviewer, author of Man-Made Global Warming: Unravelling a Dogma and climate science-related Blog, The Netherlands
Rune Berg-Edland Larsen, PhD (Geology, Geochemistry), Professor, Dep. Geology and Geoengineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
C. (Kees) le Pair, PhD (Physics Leiden, Low Temperature Physics), former director of the Netherlands Research Organization FOM (fundamental physics) and subsequently founder and director of The Netherlands Technology Foundation STW. Served the Dutch Government many years as member of its General Energy Council and of the National Defense Research Council. Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences Honorary Medal and honorary doctorate in all technical sciences of the Delft University of technology, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands
Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, past President – Friends of Science, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Jay Lehr, B.Eng. (Princeton), PhD (environmental science and ground water hydrology), Science Director, The Heartland Institute, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Bryan Leyland, M.Sc., FIEE, FIMechE, FIPENZ, MRSNZ, consulting engineer (power), Energy Issues Advisor – International Climate Science Coalition, Auckland, New Zealand
Edward Liebsch, B.A. (Earth Science, St. Cloud State University); M.S. (Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University), former Associate Scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; former Adjunct Professor of Meteorology, St. Cloud State University, Environmental Consultant/Air Quality Scientist (Areas of Specialization: micrometeorology, greenhouse gas emissions), Maple Grove, Minnesota, U.S.A.
William Lindqvist, PhD (Applied Geology), Independent Geologic Consultant, Areas of Specialization: Climate Variation in the recent geologic past, Tiburon, California, U.S.A.
Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, Prof. Dr. , PhD (Physics), retired from university of appl. sciences HTW, Saarbrücken (Germany), atmospheric temperature research, speaker of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Heidelberg, Germany
Anthony R. Lupo, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, U.S.A.
Oliver Manuel, BS, MS, PhD, Post-Doc (Space Physics), Associate - Climate & Solar Science Institute, Emeritus Professor, College of Arts & Sciences University of Missouri-Rolla, previously Research Scientist (US Geological Survey) and NASA Principal Investigator for Apollo, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, U.S.A.
Francis Massen, professeur-docteur en physique (PhD equivalent, Universities of Nancy (France) and Liège (Belgium), Manager of the Meteorological Station of the Lycée Classique de Diekirch, specialising in the measurement of solar radiation and atmospheric gases. Collaborator to the WOUDC (World Ozone and UV Radiation Data Center), Diekirch, Luxembourg
Henri Masson, Prof. dr. ir., Emeritus Professor University of Antwerp (Energy & Environment Technology Management), Visiting professor Maastricht School of Management, specialist in dynamical (chaotic) complex system analysis, Antwerp, Belgium.
Ferenc Mark Miskolczi, PhD, atmospheric physicist, formerly of NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, U.S.A.
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Expert reviewer, IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Quantification of Climate Sensitivity, Carie, Rannoch, Scotland
Nils-Axel Mörner, PhD (Sea Level Changes and Climate), Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
John Nicol, PhD (Physics, James Cook University), Chairman – Australian climate Science Coalition, Brisbane, Australia
Ingemar Nordin, PhD, professor in philosophy of science (including a focus on “Climate research, philosophical and sociological aspects of a politicised research area”), Linköpings University, Sweden.
David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Cliff Ollier, D.Sc., Professor Emeritus (School of Earth and Environment – see hisCopenhagen Climate Challenge sea level article here), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, W.A., Australia
Oleg M. Pokrovsky, BS, MS, PhD (mathematics and atmospheric physics – St. Petersburg State University, 1970), Dr. in Phys. and Math Sciences (1985), Professor in Geophysics (1995), principal scientist, Main Geophysical Observatory (RosHydroMet), Note: Dr. Pokrovsky analyzed long climates and concludes that anthropogenic CO2 impact is not the main contributor in climate change,St. Petersburg, Russia.
Daniel Joseph Pounder, BS (Meteorology, University of Oklahoma), MS (Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Meteorological/Oceanographic Data Analyst for the National Data Buoy Center, formerly Meteorologist, WILL AM/FM/TV, Urbana, U.S.A.
Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology (Sedimentology), University of Saskatchewan (see Professor Pratt’s article for a summary of his views), Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Professore-emeritus isotope-geophysics and planetary geology, Utrecht University, past director ZWO/NOW Institute of Isotope Geophysical Research, Past-President Royal Netherlands Society of Geology and Mining, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Oleg Raspopov, Doctor of Science and Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Professor – Geophysics, Senior Scientist, St. Petersburg Filial (Branch) of N.V.Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowaves Propagation of RAS (climate specialty: climate in the past, particularly the influence of solar variability), Editor-in-Chief of journal “Geomagnetism and Aeronomy” (published by Russian Academy of Sciences), St. Petersburg, Russia
Curt G. Rose, BA, MA (University of Western Ontario), MA, PhD (Clark University), Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Studies and Geography, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
S. Jeevananda Reddy, M.Sc. (Geophysics), Post Graduate Diploma (Applied Statistics, Andhra University), PhD (Agricultural Meteorology, Australian University, Canberra), Formerly Chief Technical Advisor—United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) & Expert-Food and Agriculture Organization (UN), Convener - Forum for a Sustainable Environment, author of 500 scientific articles and several books – here is one: “Climate Change – Myths & Realities“, Hyderabad, India
Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, former member of the board of management of the Netherlands Organization Applied Research TNO, Leiden, The Netherlands
Rob Scagel, MSc (forest microclimate specialist), Principal Consultant – Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Chris Schoneveld, MSc (Structural Geology), PhD (Geology), retired exploration geologist and geophysicist, Australia and France
Tom V. Segalstad, PhD (Geology/Geochemistry), Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, former IPCC expert reviewer, former Head of the Geological Museum, and former head of the Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden (UO), Oslo, Norway
John Shade, BS (Physics), MS (Atmospheric Physics), MS (Applied Statistics), Industrial Statistics Consultant, GDP, Dunfermline, Scotland, United Kingdom
Thomas P. Sheahen, B.S., PhD (Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), specialist in renewable energy, research and publication (applied optics) in modeling and measurement of absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric CO2, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2005-2009); Argonne National Laboratory (1988-1992); Bell Telephone labs (1966-73), National Bureau of Standards (1975-83), Oakland, Maryland, U.S.A.
S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Environmental Sciences), University of Virginia, former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service, Science and Environmental Policy Project, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.
Frans W. Sluijter, Prof. dr ir, Emeritus Professor of theoretical physics, Technical University Eindhoven, Chairman—Skepsis Foundation, former vice-president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, former President of the Division on Plasma Physics of the European Physical Society and former bureau member of the Scientific Committee on Sun-Terrestrial Physics, Euvelwegen, the Netherlands
Jan-Erik Solheim, MSc (Astrophysics), Professor, Institute of Physics, University of Tromsø, Norway (1971-2002), Professor (emeritus), Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Norway (1965-1970, 2002- present), climate specialties: sun and periodic climate variations, scientific paper by Professor Solheim “Solen varsler et kaldere tiår“, Baerum, Norway
H. Leighton Steward, Master of Science (Geology), Areas of Specialization: paleoclimates and empirical evidence that indicates CO2 is not a significant driver of climate change, Chairman, PlantsNeedCO2.org and CO2IsGreen.org, Chairman of the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man (geology, archeology & anthropology) at SMU in Dallas, Texas, Boerne, TX, U.S.A.
Arlin B. Super, PhD (Meteorology – University of Wisconsin at Madison), former Professor of Meteorology at Montana State University, retired Research Meteorologist, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Saint Cloud, Minnesota, U.S.A.
Edward (Ted) R. Swart, D.Sc. (physical chemistry, University of Pretoria), M.Sc. and Ph.D. (math/computer science, University of Witwatersrand). Formerly Director of the Gulbenkian Centre, Dean of the Faculty of Science, Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science, University of Rhodesia and past President of the Rhodesia Scientific Association. Set up the first radiocarbon dating laboratory in Africa. Most recently, Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo and Chair of Computing and Information Science and Acting Dean at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, now retired in Kelowna British Columbia, Canada
George H. Taylor, B.A. (Mathematics, U.C. Santa Barbara), M.S. (Meteorology, University of Utah), Certified Consulting Meteorologist, Applied Climate Services, LLC, Former State Climatologist (Oregon), President, American Association of State Climatologists (1998-2000), Corvallis, Oregon, U.S.A.
J. E. Tilsley, P.Eng., BA Geol, Acadia University, 53 years of climate and paleoclimate studies related to development of economic mineral deposits, Aurora, Ontario, Canada
Göran Tullberg, Civilingenjör i Kemi (equivalent to Masters of Chemical Engineering), Co-author – The Climate, Science and Politics (2009) (see here for a review), formerly instructor of Organic Chemistry (specialization in “Climate chemistry”), Environmental Control and Environmental Protection Engineering at University in Växjö; Falsterbo, Sweden
Brian Gregory Valentine, PhD, Adjunct professor of engineering (aero and fluid dynamics specialization) at the University of Maryland, Technical manager at US Department of Energy, for large-scale modeling of atmospheric pollution, Technical referee for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science programs in climate and atmospheric modeling conducted at American Universities and National Labs, Washington, DC, U.S.A.
Bas van Geel, PhD, paleo-climatologist, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Research Group Paleoecology and Landscape Ecology, Faculty of Science, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD (Utrecht University), geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, Nelson, New Zealand
A.J. (Tom) van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geologyspecialism: Glacial Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, former President of the European Association of Science Editors Poznan, Poland
Fritz Vahrenholt, B.S. (chemistry), PhD (chemistry), Prof. Dr., Professor of Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Former Senator for environmental affairs of the State of Hamburg, former CEO of REpower Systems AG (wind turbines), Author of the book Die kalte Sonne: warum die Klimakatastrophe nicht stattfindet(The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Crisis Isn’t Happening”, Hamburg, Germany
Michael G. Vershovsky, Ph.D. in meteorology (macrometeorology, long-term forecasts, climatology), Senior Researcher, Russian State Hydrometeorological University, works with, as he writes, “Atmospheric Centers of Action (cyclones and anticyclones, such as Icelandic depression, the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone, etc.). Changes in key parameters of these centers strongly indicate that the global temperature is influenced by these natural factors (not exclusively but nevertheless)”, St. Petersburg, Russia
Gösta Walin, PhD and Docent (theoretical Physics, University of Stockholm), Professor Emeritus in oceanografi, Earth Science Center, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden
Anthony Watts, ItWorks/IntelliWeather, Founder, surfacestations.org, Watts Up With That, Chico, California, U.S.A.
Carl Otto Weiss, Direktor und Professor at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Visiting Professor at University of Copenhagen, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Coauthor of ”Multiperiodic Climate Dynamics: Spectral Analysis of…“, Braunschweig, Germany
Forese-Carlo Wezel, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Stratigraphy (global and Mediterranean geology, mass biotic extinctions and paleoclimatology), University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy
Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
David E. Wojick, PhD, PE, energy and environmental consultant, Technical Advisory Board member – Climate Science Coalition of America, Star Tannery, Virginia, U.S.A.
George T. Wolff, Ph.D., Principal Atmospheric Scientist, Air Improvement Resource, Inc., Novi, Michigan, U.S.A.
Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller –NASA (Ret) ARC, GSFC, Hdq. - Meteorologist, Ogunquit, ME, U.S.A.
Bob Zybach, PhD (Environmental Sciences, Oregon State University), climate-related carbon sequestration research, MAIS, B.S., Director, Environmental Sciences Institute Peer review Institute, Cottage Grove, Oregon, U.S.A.
Milap Chand Sharma, PhD, Associate Professor of Glacial Geomorphology, Centre fort the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Valentin A. Dergachev, PhD, Professor and Head of the Cosmic Ray Laboratory at Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Vijay Kumar Raina, Ex-Deputy Director General, Geological Survey of India, Ex-Chairman Project Advisory and Monitoring Committee on Himalayan glacier, DST, Govt. of India and currently Member Expert Committee on Climate Change Programme, Dept. of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, author of 2010 MoEF Discussion Paper, “Himalayan Glaciers – State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change”, the first comprehensive study on the region. Winner of the Indian Antarctica Award, Chandigarh, India
Scott Chesner, B.S. (Meteorology, Penn State University), KETK Chief Meteorologist, KETK TV, previously Meteorologist with Accu Weather, Tyler, Texas, U.S.A
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-plus-scientists.html
"Barack Obama is getting ready to take a 20 day vacation to Hawaii. When was the last time you got to take a 20 day vacation? And most of our "leaders" have no idea what it is like to struggle from month to month on a paycheck. Overall, more than half of the members of Congress are millionaires. We are led by wealthy men who are serving the interests of other wealthy men."
By Michael Snyder
The United States is clearly in an advanced state of decline. Many people around the world (and even inside America) rejoice at this, but not me. I mourn for the country that I was born in and that I still love. Yes, the United States has never been perfect, but the Republic that our Founding Fathers started truly has been a light to the rest of the world in a lot of ways over the centuries. Unfortunately, our foundations are badly rotting and our nation is collapsing all around us. Many Americans like to think that the United States is greater today than it has ever been before, but the truth is that America is like a patient that has stage 4 cancer that has spread to almost every area of the body. Our nation is being destroyed in thousands of different ways, and more distressing news emerges with each passing day. This article will mainly focus on the economic decline of America, but much could also be said about our social, political, moral and spiritual decline as well. We are simply not the same country that we used to be. Americans are proud, selfish, greedy, arrogant, ungrateful, treacherous and completely addicted to entertainment and pleasure. Our country is literally falling apart all around us, but most Americans are so plugged into entertainment that they can't even be bothered to notice what is happening. Most Americans seem to assume that we will always have endless prosperity just because of who we are, but unfortunately that simply is not true. We inherited the greatest economic machine the world has ever seen and we have wrecked it, and now a very painful day of reckoning is approaching. But most people will not understand until it is too late.
The following are 34 signs that America is in decline...
#1 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001. That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011. That is not just a decline - that is a freefall. Just check out the chart in this article.
#2 According to The Economist, the United States was the best place in the world to be born into back in 1988. Today, the United States is only tied for 16th place.
#3 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#4 According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders, half of them plan to reduce capital expenditures in coming months.
#5 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.
#6 America once had the greatest manufacturing cities on the face of the earth. Now many of our formerly great manufacturing cities have degenerated into festering hellholes. For example, the city of Detroit is on the verge of financial collapse, and one state lawmaker is now saying that "dissolving Detroit" should be looked at as an option.
#7 In 2007, the unemployment rate for the 20 to 29 age bracket was about 6.5 percent. Today, the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.
#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#9 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.
#10 Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#11 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
#12 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 28 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#13 Incredibly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001. During 2010, manufacturing facilities were shutting down at the rate of 23 per day. How can anyone say that "things are getting better" when our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted?
#14 Back in early 2005, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was less than 2 dollars a gallon. During 2012, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has been $3.63.
#15 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
#16 As I have written about previously, 61 percent of all Americans were "middle income" back in 1971 according to the Pew Research Center. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are "middle income".
#17 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
#18 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children living in the United States is about 22 percent.
#19 Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
#20 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#21 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
#22 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.
#23 According to one survey, 29 percent of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are still living with their parents.
#24 Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple. Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.
#25 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government. Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.
#26 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.
#27 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 47.1 million Americans are on food stamps.
#28 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#29 As I wrote about the other day, according to one calculation the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of "Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming."
#30 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
#31 In 2001, the U.S. national debt was less than 6 trillion dollars. Today, it is over 16 trillion dollars and it is increasing by more than 100 million dollars every single hour.
#32 The U.S. national debt is now more than 23 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.
#33 According to a PBS report from earlier this year, U.S. households that make $13,000 or less per year spend 9 percent of their incomes on lottery tickets. Could that possibly be accurate? Are people really that foolish?
#34 As the U.S. economy has declined, the American people have been downing more antidepressants and other prescription drugs than ever before. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.
So what are our "leaders" doing about all of this?
Not much.
They just continue to insist that everything is "just fine".
Sadly, the truth is that they live in a world that is very different from most of the rest of us.
Barack Obama is getting ready to take a 20 day vacation to Hawaii.
When was the last time you got to take a 20 day vacation?
And most of our "leaders" have no idea what it is like to struggle from month to month on a paycheck.
Overall, more than half of the members of Congress are millionaires. We are led by wealthy men who are serving the interests of other wealthy men.
But the problem with our system is not limited to the president and the members of Congress. The truth is that the political system in America has become a colossal beast that just continues to grow no matter who is in power. The political establishment of both parties is totally dependent on this beast, and they will continue to feed it and serve it because it has been very good to them. The following is from an outstanding article by Steve McCann...
The Republican and Democratic political establishments are made up of the following:
1) many current and nearly all retired national office holders whose livelihood and narcissistic demands depends upon fealty to Party and access to government largesse;
2) the majority of the media elite, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York whose proximity to power and access is vital to their continued standard of living;
3) academia, numerous think-tanks, so-called non-government organizations, and lobbyists who fasten onto those in the administration and Congress for employment, grants, favorable legislation and ego-gratification;
4) the reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party; and
5) the crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence .
Do you think that there is any chance that this insidious system will be uprooted any time soon?
Of course not.
We will continue on the same path that we are on right now and America will continue to decline.
Many will rejoice as America falls, but I will not.
I will mourn for a mighty Republic that has fallen and for a dream that has been lost.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/34-signs-that-america-is-in-decline
"The indefinite detention section of the NDAA must be repealed entirely. Anything short of that is treason."
2013 NDAA Expands Power of Military to Detain Citizens
Kurt Nimmo
In response to widespread outrage over the National Defense Authorization Act passed last year, Congress is said to be working on a more Constitution friendly version of the legislation. The latest version was overwhelmingly approved by the House Armed Services Committee on May 8 and introduced the following week.
“This year, through the incorporation of the Right to Habeas Corpus Act, the bill makes clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that every American will have his day in court,” a press release issued by the Armed Services Committee states.
Is the NDAA 2013 an improvement over the previous version? At first glance, it would seem so. Consider the following clause included in the bill:
Nothing in the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force] or the 2012 NDAA shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution for any person who is lawfully in the United States when detained pursuant to the AUMF and who is otherwise entitled to the availability of such writ or such rights.
However, according to Bruce Afran, a lawyer for a group of journalists and activists suing the government over the NDAA 2012, this is merely smoke and mirrors.
Because there are no established rules allowing a citizen to exercise the right to a civilian trial, as guaranteed by the Constitution (specifically, the Sixth Amendment), detained citizens have no way to gain access to lawyers, family or a civilian court after they are detained by the military.
“The biggest thing about the [2012] NDAA was that you weren’t getting a trial … Nothing in here says that you’ll make it to an Article III court so it literally does nothing,” Dan Johnson, founder of People Against the NDAA, told Business Insider on Thursday. “It’s a bunch of words, basically.”
“The new statute actually states that persons lawfully in the U.S. can be detained under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force [AUMF]. The original (the statute we are fighting in court) never went that far,” Afran explained. “Therefore, under the guise of supposedly adding protection to Americans, the new statute actually expands the AUMF to civilians in the U.S.”
Although Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is being portrayed as a savior by offering up language that would “affirm the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution and limit the indefinite detention of Americans,” more than a few observers of his co-sponsored amendment to the NDAA say the effort does not go far enough.
On Thursday evening, the “Senate voted on Amendment No. 3018 to the National Defense Authorization Act sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and co-sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul, which protects the rights prescribed to Americans in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution with regard to indefinite detention and the right to a trial by jury,” Paul’s Senate web page explainds.
“Senator Paul’s amendment – for all the good that it does – doesn’t go far enough. Read the text of the proposal again. There is not one word of repeal or abolition or revocation of the indefinite detention of Americans from the NDAA,” writes Joe Wolverton for the New American.
A previous attempt to placate critics of the NDAA resulted in the Gohmert Amendment (House Amendment 1126) stating that the NDAA will not “deny the writ of habeas corpus or deny any Constitutional rights for persons detained in the United States under the AUMF who are entitled to such rights.”
“This amendment, like the one offered by Senator Paul last week, displays an indefensible use of vague language that would make it vulnerable to challenge in any court in any state in the Union, but somehow adds to its appeal among the Republicans in Congress,” Wolverton comments.
A handful of efforts to make the NDAA constitutionally friendly are little more than a public relations gimmick to silence critics. The NDAA is essential if the government is going to silence critics and disappear activists and other enemies of the establishment.
The bottom line, Bruce Afran said, is that the latest iteration of the NDAA “is still unconstitutional because it allows citizens or persons in the U.S. to be held in military custody, a position that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held is unconstitutional.”
The indefinite detention section of the NDAA must be repealed entirely. Anything short of that is treason.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/2013-ndaa-expands-power-of-military-to-detain-citizens.html
Kurt Nimmo
In response to widespread outrage over the National Defense Authorization Act passed last year, Congress is said to be working on a more Constitution friendly version of the legislation. The latest version was overwhelmingly approved by the House Armed Services Committee on May 8 and introduced the following week.
“This year, through the incorporation of the Right to Habeas Corpus Act, the bill makes clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that every American will have his day in court,” a press release issued by the Armed Services Committee states.
Is the NDAA 2013 an improvement over the previous version? At first glance, it would seem so. Consider the following clause included in the bill:
Nothing in the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force] or the 2012 NDAA shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution for any person who is lawfully in the United States when detained pursuant to the AUMF and who is otherwise entitled to the availability of such writ or such rights.
However, according to Bruce Afran, a lawyer for a group of journalists and activists suing the government over the NDAA 2012, this is merely smoke and mirrors.
Because there are no established rules allowing a citizen to exercise the right to a civilian trial, as guaranteed by the Constitution (specifically, the Sixth Amendment), detained citizens have no way to gain access to lawyers, family or a civilian court after they are detained by the military.
“The biggest thing about the [2012] NDAA was that you weren’t getting a trial … Nothing in here says that you’ll make it to an Article III court so it literally does nothing,” Dan Johnson, founder of People Against the NDAA, told Business Insider on Thursday. “It’s a bunch of words, basically.”
“The new statute actually states that persons lawfully in the U.S. can be detained under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force [AUMF]. The original (the statute we are fighting in court) never went that far,” Afran explained. “Therefore, under the guise of supposedly adding protection to Americans, the new statute actually expands the AUMF to civilians in the U.S.”
Although Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is being portrayed as a savior by offering up language that would “affirm the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution and limit the indefinite detention of Americans,” more than a few observers of his co-sponsored amendment to the NDAA say the effort does not go far enough.
On Thursday evening, the “Senate voted on Amendment No. 3018 to the National Defense Authorization Act sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and co-sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul, which protects the rights prescribed to Americans in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution with regard to indefinite detention and the right to a trial by jury,” Paul’s Senate web page explainds.
“Senator Paul’s amendment – for all the good that it does – doesn’t go far enough. Read the text of the proposal again. There is not one word of repeal or abolition or revocation of the indefinite detention of Americans from the NDAA,” writes Joe Wolverton for the New American.
A previous attempt to placate critics of the NDAA resulted in the Gohmert Amendment (House Amendment 1126) stating that the NDAA will not “deny the writ of habeas corpus or deny any Constitutional rights for persons detained in the United States under the AUMF who are entitled to such rights.”
“This amendment, like the one offered by Senator Paul last week, displays an indefensible use of vague language that would make it vulnerable to challenge in any court in any state in the Union, but somehow adds to its appeal among the Republicans in Congress,” Wolverton comments.
A handful of efforts to make the NDAA constitutionally friendly are little more than a public relations gimmick to silence critics. The NDAA is essential if the government is going to silence critics and disappear activists and other enemies of the establishment.
The bottom line, Bruce Afran said, is that the latest iteration of the NDAA “is still unconstitutional because it allows citizens or persons in the U.S. to be held in military custody, a position that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held is unconstitutional.”
The indefinite detention section of the NDAA must be repealed entirely. Anything short of that is treason.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/2013-ndaa-expands-power-of-military-to-detain-citizens.html
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Enough to kill you???
Every mouthful of McDonalds meal contains a handful of chemicals that raise ‘bad’ cholesterol levels, increase diabetes risk, lower immunity, and damage DNA. In fact fast food contains so many harmful ingredients that I wouldn’t even feed it to a pet because it would be cruel.
When you go to the fast-food drive-through, you are:
paying to harm your own health;
your children’s health;
reducing your quality of life because the toxicity of eating synthetic chemicals will trigger illness;
put more money into the hands of the medical insurance companies.
Still lovin’ it?
Heard it before? Well despite the illusion of a gradual switch to a healthier menu containing salads and smoothies, McDonald’s line-up still contains nasty health-eroding chemicals: trans-fats, high levels of sugar, artificial sweeteners, petro-chemicals, and high-fructose corn syrup. The kids meals and salads also contain frightening ingredients and high levels of sugar.
Having perused their menus and nutritional information for their meals, it’s incredible what synthetic chemicals they add to salads, chicken meals, burgers, and even to their drinks. Did you know that many of their foods and drinks contain tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a chemical preservative that is so deadly that just five grams is fatal? One gram of TBHQ can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse.
McDonald’s foods still contain trans-fats, in addition to a whole host of synthetic chemicals to produce a taste which they deliberately engineer to be addictive, so you spend more money with them according to investigations by Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation.
Trans Fat Lie
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided that a food can contain trans-fats and that the amount doesn’t have to be listed on the ingredient or nutrition list, providing the amount is not more than half a gram. Many burgers, shakes, and breakfast meals contain trans-fats. The problems with these oils is that they induce free radical damage in the body, which leads to artery damage, DNA damage, and oxidation of cholesterol, a.k.a. ‘bad cholesterol’. You are getting this with every mouthful.
Almost all foods on McDonald’s menu contain hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, that are also harmful to the body because they damage your tissues and raise your ‘bad’ cholesterol. Did you know that if a food manufacturer’s food contains less than 0.5g of trans-fats then it doesn’t have to legally list trans-fats on the label?
Here is just one example of what McDonalds put in their foods. The unhealthful ingredients in McDonalds’ Chicken nuggets (straight from the McDonalds’ web site) include:
sodium phosphates;
bleached wheat flour (nutrients removed);
food starch-modified (likely genetically-modified);
dextrose (sugar);
partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil with mono-and diglycerides, (trans fats);
Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil) (trans fats);
TBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, a petroleium dervived product;
Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent (a form of silicone used in cosmetics, and Silly Putty).
Look for yourself
Download this nutritional information chart. It’s a long PDF document of all their menu items. Find the foods you buy in the left column, and see how much trans-fats, and sugars are in them. THEN, visit McDonald’s web site, select the foods you eat, click on the nutrition link, and scroll down to the ingredients list. If you can’t pronounce any of the ingredients and don’t know what they are then is it wise to eat them? This is a choice only you can make, but give your kids a choice too.
Pay now and later
I’m not just picking on McDonald’s here. Visit the web sites of KFC, Wendy’s, and the other companies. Their foods contain the same harmful chemicals that age you and leave your wallet and body feeling empty inside within an hour of finishing the meal. Does this make sense from a financial standpoint? What about from a health perspective? If you buy fast food, you’ll pay now (with your money) and also later (with your health).
Why do I say that feeding fast food to a carnivorous pet would be cruel? Humans have a choice about what to eat, even if the choice is sometimes limited by finances, location, or time availability. When it comes to their food, pets rely on us making the best choice for them and trust that the food we put down for them is safe. If they don’t like it, they’d leave it. The sweetness, aroma, and fat content however make fast food as appealing to pets as it would to humans, and feeding them food containing toxic ingredients would be cruel in my view.
Link:
http://www.endalldisease.com/mcdonalds-fast-food-toxic-ingredients-include-putty-and-cosmetic-petrochemicals/
"The U.S. national debt comes out to about $16 trillion today. That's something. But it's nothing compared to the extra $87 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions...."
Is Our Debt Burden Really $100 Trillion?
By Derek Thompson
The problem with budgeting 75 years into the future is that you end up with a lot of numbers that are much more meaningful to actuaries than to other living people
Wanna scare somebody about America's debt on the eve of the Fiscal Cliff? I mean, really scare somebody? Here's a trick. Don't talk about the debt. Talk about "unfunded liabilities."
The U.S. national debt comes out to about $16 trillion today. That's something. But it's nothing compared to the extra $87 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions. Here's how that works. If you add up all of the U.S. government's promises to pay retirement and health care benefits for the next 75 years and subtract the projected tax revenue dedicated to those programs over the next 75 years, there is a gap. A $87 trillion gap -- in addition to a $16 billion hole.
"Why haven't Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs?" Chris Box and Bill Archer ask in the Wall Street Journal. The authors blame the U.S. government for using shoddy accounting and for misleading the American public on their finances. In fact, the most misleading thing about that $87 trillion is the way the figure is often used in the media.
(1) That's not our debt. Our $16 trillion in debt and our $87 trillion in "unfunded liabilities" represent two very different ideas: real past promises and projected future promises. Real past promises are, well, very real. We have to pay back our debt. Failing to do it would be an illegal and disastrous default. Unfunded liabilities are future promises, and, since they're not as real, we can change them whenever we want without destroying ourselves. For example, raising the taxable income ceiling and slowing the growth of benefits could reduce the Social Security gap to zero tomorrow.
And that's if there is a Social Security "gap" to begin with. Technically, it's not legal for Social Security to have "unfunded liabilities" since it can only pay as many benefits as it receives in earmarked taxes. Both it and Medicare hospital insurance are prohibited from spending money they haven't collected from specific revenue dedicated to their programs (i.e.: payroll taxes). It is impossible for either to technically be "unfunded", since they cannot legally outspend their funding.
(2) 75-year projections are scarier than they are informative. Seventy-five-year projections always sound gargantuan because, well, they're calculated over three-quarters of a century, which is an awfully long time to count anything. But here's the flip side: In 75 years, our economy will be massive. Growing slowly at a 2% annual average, our GDP would be $66 trillion in today's dollars in 2087. That's an incomprehensibly big number, too. Once you run out any number over 75 years, the mind starts to boggle. That's good for scaring people with mind-boggling numbers, but it's not so good for informing. When Republicans say unfunded liabilities come out to $520,000 per U.S. household, they're taking a figure from 2087 and dividing it over a 2012 population to exaggerate. Scary, to be sure, but not very informative.
(3) Projections can change fast. An unfunded liability is a projection, and projections shift all the time for two big reasons: (1) Circumstances change and (2) laws change. Let's take circumstances first: The shortfall in Medicare and Social Security is exquisitely sensitive to just about every demographic trend you can imagine, including longevity, immigration, income growth, and birth rates. Furthermore, it assumes that seven decades of innovation will do nothing to change the rate of health care inflation, which is a brave assumption. We know next to nothing about how medical inflation will change after this decade. The fact that actuaries pretend to know the future doesn't make them oracles. It just makes them dutiful actuaries.
Now, about our laws. Strictly speaking, the U.S. doesn't have an entitlement problem, or even a Medicare problem. Rather, we have a health care cost problem -- medical insurance and hospital costs and so on are getting expensive faster than our ability to pay for them. Medicare and Medicaid are part of this big expensive system. If we cut these programs without changing the system, we won't be "saving" money, so much as shifting costs to old folks, who will be forced to pay much more for their health care, or else see much worse coverage.
What can we do? We can get quantitative, and we can get creative. Getting quantitative means finding the fairest ways to raise revenue and cut benefits to close the foreseeable Medicare gap. Getting creative means firing a quiver of ideas at the health care inflation monster, like exchanges and advisory boards and innovation centers and laws nudging insurers to pay for health outcomes rather than gratuitous services.
Closing this liability gap -- whether it's $87 trillion or $8 trillion -- will require patience. The bad news is that none of these measures to fix our real problem (health care costs) will be easy, few of them will be initially popular, and most of them might not work. The good news is we have 75 years.
Link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/is-our-debt-burden-really-100-trillion/265644/
By Derek Thompson
The problem with budgeting 75 years into the future is that you end up with a lot of numbers that are much more meaningful to actuaries than to other living people
Wanna scare somebody about America's debt on the eve of the Fiscal Cliff? I mean, really scare somebody? Here's a trick. Don't talk about the debt. Talk about "unfunded liabilities."
The U.S. national debt comes out to about $16 trillion today. That's something. But it's nothing compared to the extra $87 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions. Here's how that works. If you add up all of the U.S. government's promises to pay retirement and health care benefits for the next 75 years and subtract the projected tax revenue dedicated to those programs over the next 75 years, there is a gap. A $87 trillion gap -- in addition to a $16 billion hole.
"Why haven't Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs?" Chris Box and Bill Archer ask in the Wall Street Journal. The authors blame the U.S. government for using shoddy accounting and for misleading the American public on their finances. In fact, the most misleading thing about that $87 trillion is the way the figure is often used in the media.
(1) That's not our debt. Our $16 trillion in debt and our $87 trillion in "unfunded liabilities" represent two very different ideas: real past promises and projected future promises. Real past promises are, well, very real. We have to pay back our debt. Failing to do it would be an illegal and disastrous default. Unfunded liabilities are future promises, and, since they're not as real, we can change them whenever we want without destroying ourselves. For example, raising the taxable income ceiling and slowing the growth of benefits could reduce the Social Security gap to zero tomorrow.
And that's if there is a Social Security "gap" to begin with. Technically, it's not legal for Social Security to have "unfunded liabilities" since it can only pay as many benefits as it receives in earmarked taxes. Both it and Medicare hospital insurance are prohibited from spending money they haven't collected from specific revenue dedicated to their programs (i.e.: payroll taxes). It is impossible for either to technically be "unfunded", since they cannot legally outspend their funding.
(2) 75-year projections are scarier than they are informative. Seventy-five-year projections always sound gargantuan because, well, they're calculated over three-quarters of a century, which is an awfully long time to count anything. But here's the flip side: In 75 years, our economy will be massive. Growing slowly at a 2% annual average, our GDP would be $66 trillion in today's dollars in 2087. That's an incomprehensibly big number, too. Once you run out any number over 75 years, the mind starts to boggle. That's good for scaring people with mind-boggling numbers, but it's not so good for informing. When Republicans say unfunded liabilities come out to $520,000 per U.S. household, they're taking a figure from 2087 and dividing it over a 2012 population to exaggerate. Scary, to be sure, but not very informative.
(3) Projections can change fast. An unfunded liability is a projection, and projections shift all the time for two big reasons: (1) Circumstances change and (2) laws change. Let's take circumstances first: The shortfall in Medicare and Social Security is exquisitely sensitive to just about every demographic trend you can imagine, including longevity, immigration, income growth, and birth rates. Furthermore, it assumes that seven decades of innovation will do nothing to change the rate of health care inflation, which is a brave assumption. We know next to nothing about how medical inflation will change after this decade. The fact that actuaries pretend to know the future doesn't make them oracles. It just makes them dutiful actuaries.
Now, about our laws. Strictly speaking, the U.S. doesn't have an entitlement problem, or even a Medicare problem. Rather, we have a health care cost problem -- medical insurance and hospital costs and so on are getting expensive faster than our ability to pay for them. Medicare and Medicaid are part of this big expensive system. If we cut these programs without changing the system, we won't be "saving" money, so much as shifting costs to old folks, who will be forced to pay much more for their health care, or else see much worse coverage.
What can we do? We can get quantitative, and we can get creative. Getting quantitative means finding the fairest ways to raise revenue and cut benefits to close the foreseeable Medicare gap. Getting creative means firing a quiver of ideas at the health care inflation monster, like exchanges and advisory boards and innovation centers and laws nudging insurers to pay for health outcomes rather than gratuitous services.
Closing this liability gap -- whether it's $87 trillion or $8 trillion -- will require patience. The bad news is that none of these measures to fix our real problem (health care costs) will be easy, few of them will be initially popular, and most of them might not work. The good news is we have 75 years.
Link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/is-our-debt-burden-really-100-trillion/265644/
Foreknowledge of WTC7 collapse...
Written by Dennis McMahon, J.D., L.L.M.
WTC Building 7, also known as the Salomon Brothers Building or WTC 7, was a 47–story skyscraper that was part of the World Trade Center complex. Built in 1984, Building 7 would have been the tallest high-–rise in thirty–three of our United States. Building 7 housed several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and the NYC Office of Emergency Management’s Emergency Operations Center, more commonly known as “Giuliani’s Bunker,” along with several major financial institutions.
Building 7, which was 100 yards from the Twin Towers, was not hit by an airplane on September 11, 2001, and suffered only minimal damage from debris falling from the North Tower. Several fires began burning on a few floors, and the entire building completely collapsed – almost into its own footprint – at 5:20 p.m. Numerous eyewitnesses, including members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and other first responders, and multiple news sources, made statements that indicate that there was foreknowledge that WTC 7 was going to come down, despite the fact that no skyscraper in history had ever completely collapsed due to fire. (Much of this evidence of foreknowledge is detailed on the website of the Remember Building 7 campaign and other related sites.)
Where foreknowledge of an extremely unusual event is demonstrated, the possibility must be considered that the foreknowledge derived directly or indirectly from those who had inside information about, and/or control over, the event itself. Thus, if foreknowledge of the collapse of Building 7 can be shown, this would be a strong indication that Building 7 was subjected to controlled demolition, and that advance warning of Building 7’s demise derived ultimately from those who intended to bring the building down. Thus, foreknowledge of the collapse of Building 7 is not only consistent with, but supportive of, the controlled demolition hypothesis.
Certainty of impending collapse
To worry that a damaged building might collapse in some fashion is one thing. But to be certain that it will collapse is another. A detailed study of the FDNY accounts by 9/11 researcher Graeme MacQueen shows that more than half of those who received warnings of WTC 7’s collapse (where a degree of certainty can be determined from the reports) were certain or were told with certainty that Building 7 was coming down. (The figures calculate to 31 out of 58. See MacQueen’s report “Waiting for Seven…” at page 4.)
Early FDNY announcements of collapse
If someone were observing the fires in WTC 7 and able to determine, in the last few moments of the building’s existence, that a peculiar set of circumstances was beginning to threaten the building, that would be one thing. But to receive warnings of the building’s collapse well before this set of circumstances arose raises suspicion. Yet, a detailed study of the FDNY reports shows that of the thirty-three cases where the time of warning can be determined, in ten cases warnings were received two or more hours in advance, and in six cases warnings were apparently received four or more hours in advance. (See MacQueen’s “Waiting for Seven…” at page 4.) In other words, the warnings came long before the unique set of circumstances had allegedly come together to cause the building’s collapse.
Precise warnings of collapse
If the collapse warnings were derived from vague worries and concerns, as claimed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the warnings would not have been precise. A complete collapse, such as happened to WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7 on 9/11, was unknown – unless the building was being brought down by controlled demolition. That is why FDNY member James McGlynn could say on 9/11, in reference to one of the Towers, “Any time I’ve heard of a collapse, it was never an entire building like this turned out to be.” (See MacQueen’s “Waiting for Seven‚” at page 21.) Nevertheless, somehow, many people knew in advance that WTC 7 would suffer an unprecedented collapse. Which begs the question, “How did they know?” Consider the following exchange from the FDNY oral histories:
Q. “Were you there when building 7 came down in the afternoon?”
A: “Yes”
Q. “You were still there?”
A. “Yes, so basically they measured out how far the building was going to come, so we knew exactly where we could stand.”
Q. “So they just put you in a safe area, safe enough for when that building came down?“
A. “Five blocks. Five blocks away. We still could see. Exactly right on point, the cloud stopped right there.”(See MacQueen’s “Waiting for Seven…” at page 8.)
Building 7’s collapse reported in advance by CNN and the BBC
In this BBC video, correspondent Jane Standley reports that Building 7 has collapsed; meanwhile (at the 1:17 mark), a fully intact Building 7 can actually be seen — still standing — behind her. Who fed this information to Standley? Apparently, someone who had inside information about, and/or control over, the event itself, released that information to the media prematurely.
In another news clip, while Building 7 is seen standing fully erect and showing no signs of impending trauma, CNN’s Aaron Brown gives the following report: “We are getting information now that one of the other buildings, Building 7, in the World Trade Center complex, is on fire and has either collapsed or is collapsing…” Who is he “getting information” from? Again, it appears to be from someone who had inside information about, and/or control over, the event itself, and who released that information to the media prematurely. Only such an individual could have expected Building 7 to come down.
In sum, both CNN and BBC did not merely report that WTC 7 was damaged or that it might collapse. Instead, they prematurely announced the actual collapse of Building 7. No satisfactory explanation has been given about these premature announcements, which were obviously based on data fed to the announcers, apparently by an unknown person or persons who had inside information about, and/or control over, the event itself, and who bungled matters by releasing that information to the media prematurely....
Full article with video here:
http://ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/682-how-did-they-know-examining-the-foreknowledge-of-building-7s-destruction.html
Of course they did...
Judicial Watch lawsuit reveals evidence Bush, Obama operated shady deals with terrorists
Steve Watson
Documents obtained by accountability group Judicial Watch have confirmed that US-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, said to be the former leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was arrested and held in Yemen at the behest of the U.S. Embassy before being released again.
The documents also reveal that the terrorist chief, who previously dined with top brass at the Pentagon, was officially invited to the US embassy in Yemen on March 24, 2011, just six months before his supposed assassination by US drone strike.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. State Department for materials pertaining to al-Awlaqi’s activities and his death in Yemen last year.
On its website, the watchdog group notes that the heavily redacted documents it obtained include two “Privacy Act Release Forms” issued by the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen. Both documents were signed by al-Awlaqi. One was dated November 14, 2006, and the other July 2, 2007. Judicial watch notes that this confirms the al qaeda terrorist was under official detention for a period of at least eight months.
The documents corroborate reports that suggested al-Awlaqi had indeed been arrested around that time in connection with an al-Qaeda plot to kidnap a U.S. government official. However, press at the time indicated he had been arrested in August 2006 and released in December 2007, without facing trial following lobbying by senior members of his tribe.
The newly uncovered documents do not indicate how long al-Awlaqi was detained or why he was released. According to previous reports, he was interviewed around September 2007 by two FBI agents with regard to the 9/11 attacks and other subjects.
Regarding the invitation to the US embassy in Yemen in March 2011, the new documents reveal that the embassy was asked, by the State Department to issue a communication to al-Awlaqi, requesting him to “appear in person” to pick up an important letter. In reality, the letter was a revocation of his US passport. However, the embassy was ordered not to relay this information until al-Awlaqi arrived.
“The Department?s [sic] action is based upon a determination by the Secretary that Mr. al-Aulaqi [sic] activities abroad are causing and/or likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States.” the documents state.
Speaking on Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the embassy did indeed reach out to al-Awlaqi, but that he did not reply to the invitation, and did not appear in person at any point.
Politico posits that the attempt to invite al-Awlaqi to the embassy could have been part of an effort to provide some form of due process to U.S. citizens targeted for the use of deadly force.
Nuland said that officials planned to offer al-Awlaqi a “one-way passport back to the United States” to face undefined criminal charges, and refused to say whether the cleric would have been killed on sight, when asked by an AP reporter.
“I’m not going to entertain the notion that we would be calling him to the embassy for that purpose,” Nuland said.
The new documents also confirm another previously reported incident involving al-Awlaqi in October 2002 when he was detained at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on a warrant for passport fraud, a felony that can be punished with up to 10 years in jail.
The documents state that the FBI ordered al-Awlaqi’s release, even though the arrest warrant was still active at the time of his detention. al-Awlaqi flew to Washington, DC and eventually returned to Yemen. When previously reported earlier this year, this information led many, including former FBI agents, to suggest that the FBI was either tracking the cleric for intelligence or was actively working with him.
“These documents provide further evidence that the federal government, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, has been operating a ‘catch and release’ program for terrorists,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton commented on the newly released materials.
“The idea of inviting al-Awlaqi – a known terrorist – to our embassy in Yemen in order to revoke his passport is beyond belief.” Fitton added.
Certainly these revelations will add to the already voluminous evidence that the US cleric was operating as an intelligence asset.
At the time he was invited to the embassy, al-Awlaqi had been officially linked with almost every major contrived terror plot, from directing the underwear bomber - who was allowed to board the plane by order of the US State Department aided by a well-dressed man who got Abdulmutallab on the airliner despite the fact that he was on a terror watchlist and had no passport – to advising Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Authorities have engaged in a cover-up of what happened at Fort Hood after they ordered Private Lance Aviles to delete cell phone footage of the attack.
Awlaqi’s alleged role in the Toronto and Fort Dix, New Jersey, terror plots, also raises questions, given that both were later revealed as contrived by the FBI.
Lawyers in a case relating to the much vaunted 2007 terror plot to attack Fort Dix and kill “as many soldiers as possible” concluded that FBI informants were the key figures behind the operation and that the accused, six foreign-born Muslims, were merely bungling patsies.
Similarly, the “Toronto 18″ terrorists turned out to be “a bunch of incompetent guys who were primarily misled by a delusional megalomaniac”. The explosive fertilizer material the terrorist cell apparently planned to use was in fact purchased by an informant working for the RCMP who had radicalized the group.
Awlaqi was also said to be the spiritual leader of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, a fact that didn’t seem to concern Pentagon top brass who invited him to dine with them just months after the September 11 attacks despite the fact that he had personally colluded with the very hijackers who were alleged to have slammed Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
The US Special Operations Command’s Able Danger program identified the hijackers and their accomplices long before 9/11, and would undoubtedly have also picked up Awlaqi.
It is inconceivable that top Department of Defense officials were unaware that Al-Awlaqi was interviewed at least four times by the FBI in the first eight days after the Sept. 11 attacks because of his ties to the three hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour.
Nevertheless, not only did he dine with the military’s finest, he was given a glowing report by the Defense Department for his role as the featured guest speaker on “Islam and Middle Eastern Politics and Culture.”
These revelations were unveiled in internal Department of Defense emails obtained under the freedom of information act.
Al-Awlaqi’s videos were routinely released by the IntelCenter, which as we have documented is nothing more than a Pentagon front group that has been caught red-handed releasing fake Al-Qaeda videos to bolster support for the geopolitical agenda of the US government.
Researcher Webster Tarpley has documented, Awlaqi is “an intelligence agency operative and patsy-minder” and “one of the premier terror impresarios of the age operating under Islamic fundamentalist cover” whose job it is to “motivate and encourage groups of mentally impaired and suggestible young dupes who were entrapped into “terrorist plots” by busy FBI and Canadian RCMP agents during recent years.”
In March of 2012, Lt.Col. Anthony Shaffer, who worked on the Able Danger program, told Alex Jones that al-Awlaqi worked as a triple agent and an FBI asset well before 9/11.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-documents-al-qaedas-pentagon-dinner-guest-was-part-of-%E2%80%98catch-and-release%E2%80%99-program.html
" We are still in the "economic fantasy land" phase where we are enjoying a massively inflated standard of living constructed on a mountain of borrowed fiat currency. Our economy is being held up by trillions of borrowed dollars, and all of that money makes the U.S. economy appear to be far more prosperous than it actually should be."
Mike Snyder
The fiscal cliff is coming! Run for the hills! There have been endless stories in the mainstream media about the "fiscal cliff" that our country is facing if the Democrats and the Republicans can't come to some sort of an agreement. If there is no agreement, taxes will go up and government spending will be reduced by a very small amount. And yes, that would likely push the U.S. economy into another recession, although there are many that would argue that we are already in a recession right now. In any event, there is a tremendous amount of distress out there about the fact that something might interrupt the debt-fueled prosperity that we have all been enjoying. You can almost hear them now: "No! Please don't cut government spending! Please don't raise taxes! Please keep stealing more than 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day so that we can continue this economic illusion that feels so very good." The American people want the government to give everything to everybody, but they definitely do not want to pay for it. They want a big government that showers them with government checks and government benefits, but they don't want to cough up the ridiculous amount of money that it would take to fund such a government. So we just keep ripping off our kids and our grandkids. What we are doing to future generations is not just immoral, it is criminal. If they get the chance, someday they will look back and curse us for destroying their futures and destroying their country. So why do we continue to do this to them? Because we are greedy and selfish and we are absolutely desperate to maintain the massively overinflated standard of living that we have been enjoying. We have lived way above our means for so long that we don't even know what "normal" is supposed to be anymore.
But nobody can spend far more money than they bring in forever. At some point an adjustment comes, and our adjustment is going to be exceedingly painful.
Right now, the overwhelming consensus in the United States seems to be that we should put off any economic pain for as long as possible. The American people don't want significant cuts to government spending and they don't want taxes to be raised to pay for the spending that we are already doing.
But if the Republicans and the Democrats don't agree to a deal soon, we are going to see taxes raised substantially and government spending cut by a little bit. A recent CBS News article did a good job of describing exactly what this "fiscal cliff" that we are facing actually is...
There are two parts to the so-called fiscal cliff. The first is the scheduled expiration of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush, the payroll tax holiday enacted under President Obama, and a host of other tax breaks. The second is $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs that are looming due to a 2011 deal that resulted from House Republicans' reluctance to raise the debt limit.
Now, it's true that if lawmakers fail to work out any sort of deal, there will be severe long-term consequences for the economy: According to the Tax Policy Center, going off the "cliff" would affect 88 percent of U.S. taxpayers, with their taxes rising by an average of $3,500 a year. Many economists, as well as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, say the combination of spending cuts and tax hikes that are set to take effect would tip the economy into a new recession.
Please keep in mind that the "$1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts" is not for a single year. When you break it down, the cuts to spending would be somewhere around 100 billion dollars a year. And a lot of those "cuts" are actually spending increases that would be cancelled. So those spending cuts would not really put much of a dent in our yearly budget deficits at all.
The tax increases would be more significant. Middle class families would be paying thousands of dollars more per year in taxes. These tax increases would raise some more revenue for the federal government, but they would also do significant damage to the economy in the short-term.
Do you know what they call a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases over in Europe?
They call it "austerity".
Nations like Greece and Spain have tried this. They cut spending and raised taxes in an attempt to reduce government budget deficits. What happens is that the spending cuts and the tax increases cause a significant economic slowdown and this causes tax revenues to come in much lower than projected. So then more spending cuts and tax hikes are necessary in order to try to get closer to balancing the budget. But then tax revenues fall even more.
In the end, both Greece and Spain still have large budget deficits and yet the economies of both nations are suffering through depression-like conditions. The unemployment rate in both nations is now over 25 percent. Just check out this chart right here to see how nightmarish austerity has been for the economies of both Greece and Spain.
So that is why everybody is freaking out about the fiscal cliff. They don't want to go down the same road of austerity. They want to keep living in an economic fantasy land where we can borrow our way to "prosperity".
But it is all a lie. The lines at the Apple stores, the crazed consumers on Black Friday, the restaurants teeming full with people and the government that thinks that it can take care of everyone from the cradle to the grave and yet keep taxes low. It is all a giant lie.
And no, please do not think that I am in favor of raising taxes. I most definitely am not. I believe that the government brings in more than enough money already.
Personally, I believe that we could have a system that completely eliminates income taxes and that funds the government through tariffs and various other forms of taxation. It was good enough for the Founding Fathers and it should be good enough for us. But that is a subject for another article.
Our current system has allowed us to live way beyond our means for an extended period of time, but it is only a matter of time until it all comes crashing down.
In fact, the game is already over. We have already destroyed the future. At this point it is only a matter of how long we can keep kicking the can down the road and putting off the pain.
Sadly, what we have done on a national level is simply a reflection of our "buy now, pay later" society. We have become a nation that is constantly willing to sacrifice the future in order to make the present more pleasant.
Just check out this video. We have become addicted to a prosperity that we cannot possibly pay for. But as long as someone will keep lending us the money we will continue to enjoy it.
As I have mentioned previously, the government has spent about 11 dollars for every 7 dollars of revenue that it has actually brought in while Barack Obama has been president.
We print, borrow and spend without giving any thought to what we are doing to the future of this country. We are shredding confidence in our currency and we are wrecking the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen.
And all of our politicians and all of our "leaders" prance about as if they are the smartest generation of Americans ever, and they think that they are an "example" for the rest of the world, but if our Founding Fathers were around today they would be absolutely horrified about what they have done to the country that they built.
If you think that the economy is bad now, you just wait.
We are still in the "economic fantasy land" phase where we are enjoying a massively inflated standard of living constructed on a mountain of borrowed fiat currency. Our economy is being held up by trillions of borrowed dollars, and all of that money makes the U.S. economy appear to be far more prosperous than it actually should be.
When we have to start living closer to what our real standard of living should be things are going to get really bad.
Most Americans simply don't understand that if the federal government went to a balanced budget tomorrow it would instantly plunge the U.S. economy into a depression.
Just look at Greece and Spain. The same thing is going to happen to us one way or another.
So enjoy this false prosperity while you still can. This is about as good as things are going to get, and from here on out it is downhill for America.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/all-of-this-whining-about-the-fiscal-cliff-is-pathetic
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