Demystifying the Climate Change Debate

By Wayne Hall

President Obama, just a few weeks before leaving office and handing over to his despised (by leftists, ecologists, liberals) successor Donald Trump, made a much publicized gesture of banning drilling for new oil and gas reserves in US waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.  His presidency thus ended on a   grandiloquent note comparable to the way it had started, when he made equally widely publicized (and in practice totally ignored, by himself) gestures of nuclear disarmament. Left-wing supporters of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) typically criticize this kind of hypocrisy, and indeed the related hypocrisy of “greenwash”, but how many of them appreciate how truly deep the hypocrisy goes?

Does it make any difference to the credibility of established climate policy whether the threat it is supposed to be confronting  is the threat of global warming or the threat of a new ice age?

Forty years ago it was the new ice age and not global warming that was at the focus of official (and media) concern.

The “New York Times” of July 18 1970 reported that “The United States and the Soviet Union are mounting large-scale investigations to determine why the Arctic climate is becoming more frigid, why parts of the Arctic sea ice have recently become ominously thicker and whether the extent of that ice cover contributes to the onset of ice ages.” Every major climate organization at that time endorsed the theory of global cooling, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The CIA was also issuing statements along similar lines.

A 1973 newspaper report tells us that “a group of scientists meeting under the auspices of the National Science Foundation have again come up with a warning that the world may be nearing the end of the present inter-glacial period and that the Arctic ice sheet has begun what may prove to be another relentless advance over northern North America and Europe. The 46 scientists who gathered at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, for a symposium on “The End of the Present Interglacial” agreed that there is evidence of an ominous world-wide cooling of temperatures in the past two decades.”

A 1974 report by oceanographer and paleontologist James D. Hays revealed that “the suspicion that winters are simply getting colder is no longer merely a suspicion among climatologists. Over the last 30 years permanent snow on Baffin Island has expanded. Pack ice around Iceland in the winter  is increasing and becoming a serious hazard to navigation. Warmth-loving armadillos that migrated northwards into the Midwest in the first half of this century are now retreating southward toward Texas and Oklahoma. Russian crop failures are on the increase.”

“The Canberra Times” of November 1974 reported:“A new ice age could grip the world within the lifetime of present generations. (…) A major (BBC) television documentary shows that international scientists have changed their minds about the speed with which the world’s “weather machine” can change gear. ‘The threat of a new ice age  must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind,’ says science writer Nigel Calder. (…) “Latest studies show that ice ages are much more frequent than scientists once thought – and the next one seems to be overdue. According to one theory, “Toronto, Leningrad and Glasgow ought by now to have disappeared under thick ice sheets.”

Mainstream climate change sceptics interpret retrospective data of this kind as evidence of the perennial fraudulence and/or naivety of “global warming/climate change alarmists”, but another interpretation is possible, and it has been put   forward by researcher Dylan Jones: “A constellation of evidence points towards the reality of an ongoing, clandestine, climate modification campaign, originating, at the very least, from the 1970’s, of unprecedented proportions and the utmost audacity and arrogance. Its overarching aim is to convert the Arctic ice into a meltwater, opening it up for its vast resources of oil, gas and minerals and to alter the global climate to one more favourable to the northern temperate zones and less favourable to equatorial and semi-tropical zones. The scientific establishment up to 1975 seemed also to have been concerned that the earth was entering a long-term Ice age. This may have been a genuine concern but may also have been a means of drumming up support.”

In other words the idea that the Arctic was becoming colder (too cold) could have been designed to buttress the idea that it needed a climate modification programme to warm it up.

But there were other ways also to persuade politicians of the necessity for climate modification, other possible approaches and other arguments, and they were duly enlisted.  Dr. Edward Teller invited the US Senate’s Preparedness Subcommittee to “imagine, a world … where the  (Soviets) can change the rainfall over Russia … and influence the rainfall in our country in an adverse manner.”

Dr. Henry G. Houghton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shuddered “to think of the consequences of prior Russian discovery of a feasible method of weather control. …  Unless we remain ahead of Russia in meteorology research the prospects for international agreements on weather control will be poor indeed. An unfavorable modification of our climate in the guise of a peaceful effort to improve Russia’s climate could seriously weaken our economy and ability to resist.”

A number of specific projects have been proposed to alleviate the harsh Russian climate with attendant benefits to agriculture, navigation, and resource exploitation. These include removal of the Arctic pack ice, damming of the Bering Straits, and diversion of Siberian rivers. These programs clearly might affect the climate of other parts of the world, including the United States and its allies. Even marginal changes in temperature and rainfall could drastically damage agriculture, shipping, and indeed the entire economy.  Military operations would also be impacted if the boundaries of pack ice, the ice-free seasons of naval bases, the frequency of obscuring clouds, etc. were altered.  Thus climatic changes are clearly potentially grave threats to national security, and have consequent implications for military planning.

The long and short of the story is that industrialists, scientists and others with vested interests in such projects have been looking for ways to warm the Arctic for well over  100 years, beginning in 1877 when Harvard geologist Nathaniel Shaler proposed diverting warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean.

In 1962 MIT meteorologist, Harry Wexler proposed 3 schemes for increasing the temperature of the Earth by 1.7°C.

(1) Detonate 10 hydrogen bombs in the Arctic Ocean to send ice crystals into the polar atmosphere

(2)  Destroy the ozone layer by using aircraft to spray chlorine or bromine into the stratosphere .

(3) Launch dust particles into equatorial orbit to diffuse light to heat to warm the polar regions.

Wexler’s ideas began to gain traction in the 1970s, at which time nobody “important” was calling him a lunatic.  But following his untimely death in the same year the problem of how to warm the planet underwent a reversal.  It was now presented as absolutely imperative that ways be found to cool the planet and keep the atmosphere from warming.  Bear in mind that the stated goal of the COP21 Climate Change conference in Paris in 2015 was to limit average global temperature rises to 2°C. This would be compatible with Wexler’s 1962 proposals for bringing about a temperature rise of 1.7°C.

CONDENSATION TRAILS

One of the proposed climate modification methods was deployment of aircraft condensation trails.

A juxtaposition of extracts from the following two documentaries casts a light on the ambiguous, indeed contradictory, nature of official statements on the effects of aircraft condensation trails on global temperatures, and on the practical projects extrapolated from those effects.

(From the European Commission)

Air traffic  has risen sharply in recent years and the impact of aviation on climate change is causing increasing concern. ‘Emissions are rising by four to five percent year on year, and that is what  we are seeing right now. And if year on year you have four to five percent growth in emissions, that means in fifteen years a doubling.’ For the European Commission it’s urgent to act, since aviation, unlike other means of transport, is not taxed on fuel, so there is little incentive for it to cut its CO² emissions. ‘We cannot continue to be successful in one sector and to neutralize that positive result by developments in other sectors, and aviation is one of the most striking examples.’ The European Commissioner for the Environment wants to see aviation take on its share of the effort to combat climate change. The Commission is therefore proposing to include air transport in the CO²  emissions trading scheme the European Union has pioneered as a means of meeting the Kyoto protocol objectives. ‘In order to tackle this problem in the most cost-efficient way we need to include aviation emissions in our highly successful emissions trading scheme.’ The European Commission sees the emissions trading scheme as the most cost-effective way to control aviation emissions, less expensive than a tax on fuel, for instance. Being in the scheme will push the aviation sector into a new way of thinking that gives as much attention to its environmental performance as to its economic efficiency. Bringing the aviation sector into Europe’s emissions trading scheme is expected to lead to big savings in CO^2. emissions from aircraft. By 2020 these savings could be 180 million tons annually, twice the level of greenhouse gases Austria emits each year. With this measure, Europe is taking another vital step towards preventing another global climate disaster.

(And from the BBC)

As aircraft plough through the upper atmosphere, above 26,000 feet, they often leave white, bright trails behind them. These long white tails, called ‘contrails’, are caused by the water and soot from the aircraft’s jet engines. As the hot water and dirt comes out of the engine it hits the air, where it’s about minus forty degrees. It’s an explosive reaction. Natural cirrus cloud sits at about 26,000 feet and reflects some of the sun’s rays back into space, having a cooling effect on the earth beneath. When a condensation trail disperses, it turns into a form of cirrus called ‘contrail cirrus’. More reflective than natural cirrus, it can spread over an area as big as sixty thousand miles (sic!). Now more and more scientists have suggested that this contrail cirrus is affecting the temperature of the planet. After the 911 attacks in New York in 2001, they were given an opportunity to check this theory. Aircraft across the United States were grounded for three whole days. So that’s no contrails for three days. After all the data was analysed there was an increase in temperature. A very slight increase, but an increase all the same. That suggests that contrails cool the planet.

The doctrine that increased carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet became “official” for media consumption in 1966 when Gordon MacDonald – Chairman of the new ICAS (Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science) Select Panel on Weather and Climate Modification stated:  “Carbon dioxide placed in the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution has produced an increase in the average temperature of the lower atmosphere of a few tenths of a degree Fahrenheit.”

If man-made clouds resulting from aircraft emissions contribute  to global warming as alleged by the European Commission, is it possible that heating of the atmosphere could be part of an overall scenario for 1) creation or exacerbation of ‘global warming’ 2) subsequent presentation of a ‘solution’ to global warming? According to Dane Wigington of “Geoengineering Watch” aircraft emissions can have the effect both of local cooling and overall warming. Although Dane wishes it to be understood that he has never portrayed climate engineering as an effective or acceptable mitigation for Earth’s life support systems, the local cooling idea fits in with the scenarios of geoengineers. And, as Dylan Jones interestingly points out: “The stated goal of the recent (2015) Climate Change conference in Paris of limiting average global temperature rises to 2°C would seem to be in harmony with Wexler’s proposals to bring about temperature rises of 1.7°C. Perhaps this is the point where official geoengineering future proposals to cool the planet will be brought into play in order to maintain this optimal figure for Arctic Modification and Catastrophe Capitalism.”

The confusion over global warming is perpetuated by the encouragement of a bipolar dispute over the extent to which it is  (a) a reality and (b) anthropogenic. Again to quote Dylan Jones: “Both the proponents of anthropogenic global warming and skeptics are funded and controlled in their upper echelons by the same source. Both sides are kept in perpetual conflict and ignorance of this inconvenient truth. Big Oil and the Climate Mafia are one and the same. When they call each other liars they are just being honest. The aim is to impede the public awareness of a warming world and its true causes for as long as possible, transferring the guilt and the cost onto the unsuspecting masses whilst profiting from the consequences of a melting Arctic and worldwide crisis. As catastrophe and carbon taxation looms large, it’s important to recognize that as always, the costs of taxes levied on corporations are passed onto the poor. Wealth is de-distributed up the pyramid.”

Economic analysts who have not involved themselves in the climate debate have made passing remarks that, given the corresponding will, could be elaborated into comprehensive, and politically powerful, critiques and interventions. Yanis Varoufakis for instance, in his “Erratic Marxist” article said: “The best example of neoliberal crassness is the debate on how to deal with climate change. Neoliberals have rushed in to argue that, if anything is to be done, it must take the form of creating a quasi-market for “bads” (e.g. an emissions trading scheme), since only markets “know” how to price goods and bads appropriately.”

Among the “six pillars” in the programme of Varoufakis’ citizens’ organization DiEM25, item 5 “Green Investment” proposes: “Channeling large-scale investment funding to green energy and sustainable practices, securing Europe’s technological sovereignty”.

Is opposition to “neoliberal crassness” a strong enough motivation to enable DiEM25 to overrule the (very real) resistance of the Climate Mafia (including the majority of ecologists not normally identified as mafiosi)  to the ideas put forward in the present article? Does DiEM25 at least have the ability unequivocally to oppose emissions trading?

Could J. Marvin Herndon’s conclusion that coal fly ash from coal-burning power stations is a prime ingredient being used in clandestine climate modification programmes be utilized to reinforce the positions of opponents of fossil fuel use for energy generation? So far ecologists (apart from in Cyprus) have proved no more willing than mainstream climate skeptics to examine (or tolerate) Dr. Herndon’s findings.

Leftists, ecologists and liberals face the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency with extreme hostility, portraying the new Republican president (plausibly) as a man under the control of oil and coal lobbies with zero concern for the environmental devastation those lobbies now seem about to perpetuate and accelerate. But the fact remains that the first uncensored public analysis since Trump’s election of some of the factors touched on in this article was hosted by an organization situated squarely in the pro-Trump climate-change-skeptic camp. I am referring to Jim Lee’s paper “Geoengineering, Weather Modification and Weaponizing Nature”, delivered on December 3^rd 2016 at Freedom Force International’s 3^rd Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Jim Lee claims to have won over the high-profile climate change skeptic “Lord” Christopher Monckton to his own positions. But Christopher Monckton portrays anthropogenic climate change as an ideological fabrication of the IPCC? Is he likely now to adopt Jim Lee’s position that global warming is an actually existing result, partially or totally, of climate modification? I don’t think so.

To give the last word to Dylan Jones: “Man’s folly would certainly seem to take the form of a blind trust in untrustworthy world leaders, corrupted and compromised by the corporate power structure and its overarching banking oligarchy, together forming a single, psychopathic syndicate.

Does the nature of this folly lie in a blithe disregard towards the crime against the planet carried out by unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, pollution of the atmosphere and water supplies, decimating of forests, and the countless other sins that Big Oil, and implicitly, humanity itself, is guilty of?

Or, does it lie in an ignorance of a stolen march towards the final consolidation of a tyrannical, planetary police state, carried out by the Climate Mafia? One in which a global carbon tax, levied on humanity for its supposed role in anthropogenic global warming (AGM), would form a cornerstone.

The followers of each camp, AGW proponents on one side and skeptics on the other, perpetually rail against one another.

Whoever holds the monopoly on truth holds the monopoly on deceit. What has been achieved finally is  the ultimate confidence trick, managing to corral concerned people from all over the world into two camps and turn them against each other.”