I'll bet that I have studied more university level science than you can imagine, including physics, quantum physical theories, chemistry and microbiology.

What is appalling about AGW alarmism is the manner in which it butchers science, how it resorts to reverse engineering and running the entire methodology of scientific investigation backwards.

Credible scientists,
Ask the question, "Are greenhouse gases heating the earth's atmosphere to dangerous levels? If so, is human activity the cause?"
Do the research: make observations, take measurements, collect data.
Construct a hypothesis,
Test with experiments,
Ask, is the procedure working? If not, troubleshoot the procedure, check all steps and set-up. If it is working, analyze results and draw a conclusion.
Ask, Does the conclusion align with the hypothesis? If yes, communicate the results. If no, communicate the results. Experimental data then becomes background research for a new project. Restate the question, or ask a new one, form a new hypothesis, and experiment again.

AGW alarmists,
Draw the conclusion. "Atmospheric greenhouse gases are increasing to dangerous levels."
Construct the hypothesis: Human activity is the cause.
Do the research: make observations, take measurements, run computer models, collect data.
Test with experiments,
Ask, are the procedures working? If not, manipulate the data, tamper with it, alter it, rewrite the computer modeling algorithms, redefine the observations, tinker with the measurements.
Continue to manipulate the procedures and the data until it proves the conclusion.
There is no better definition for "Junk science".

What is even more appalling, even abhorrent, about global warming alarmism are the scare tactics, the fear-mongering, the doomsday propaganda, the attribution of natural disasters to AGW, the results of which are causing neurotic, even psychotic, reactions to this unconscionable campaign. And, the most vulnerable to these excesses are the children and the young. This fear mongering is directly responsible for a rising rate of suicides.

But that isn't the whole of it, even the wealthy, men of means, are experiencing a crisis of fear.

Recently, professor Douglas Rushkoff was invited by high tech investment bankers to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech. He assumed the topic would be the future of technology. As he put it, "I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, Crispr. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig."

His audience was men from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. "After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own."

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less affected by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the Event?"

How tech's richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse

Boodhead, in case youare interested in what is really going on in regards to climate change and the implications, I saw this, thought of you, and decided to post it for your edification.

The Arctic is melting. Here’s why cooperation and diplomacy get so complicated.

A path remains after the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traversed the Northwest Passage through the Franklin Strait in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in July 2017. (AP)
By Kelly M. McFarland and Vanessa Lide
July 30 at 7:00 AM
Heat waves from Greece to Siberia — and fires north of the Arctic Circle — are the latest signs this summer that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. This once-inhospitable corner of the globe is becoming the next global commons as the polar ice cap melts.

This will have broad implications for the Arctic as well as non-Arctic nations, and for local and global ecosystems. But the changing environment, new sea lanes and potential new commercial opportunities also open up global security and diplomacy questions.

Here’s what’s happening. Scientists project that the Arctic Ocean will be largely open water during the summer months, a change that will occur within the next two decades. This means new polar routes and shorter maritime transit times than ever before, but also new potential areas of conflict.

The Arctic now sees shorter periods of crushingly cold weather and, in some areas, longer stretches of warmer weather. In mid-February 2018, temperatures at the world’s northernmost weather station were above freezing — some 45 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Meanwhile, the thickness of Arctic Ocean sea ice declined by more than 65 percent over the past 30 years, according to a 2017 Arctic Council report. And open water will absorb the sun’s glare, rather than reflect it. This will probably lead to warmer temperatures and further melting.

Here’s why these changes matter

To look at this issue in depth, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University convened a working group on the New Arctic and its geopolitical implications. ISD’s July 2018 report, “The New Arctic: Navigating the Realities, Possibilities, and Problems,” brings together analysis from experts on the Arctic, climate change, foreign policy and national security, as well as government and nongovernmental-organization policymakers.

The group concluded that three topics will be of particular importance in the coming years. These are by no means mutually exclusive.

1. Resource extraction. The Arctic has huge energy and mineral potential. The Eurasia Group estimates that “$100 billion could be invested in Arctic resource exploration and extraction over the next decade,” as the Arctic contains perhaps one-third of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 percent of its oil. The Arctic also has huge potential for renewable energy and rare earth minerals.

Exploration and extraction raise environmental red flags, including the need for comprehensive plans to address potential oil spills, but will also require enhanced search and rescue (SAR) capabilities. To some Arctic researchers, there are concerns about the Trump administration’s move to allow oil and gas exploration within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in particular, because of the threat to native species and the indigenous communities that depend on them.


2. Expanded sea lanes. Melting ice means new polar routes, shortened transit times and significant commercial advantages, which will prove attractive to trade-focused nations such as China. By one estimate, ships taking the polar route from Shanghai to Hamburg, instead of the traditional Indian Ocean route, could shave 2,800 nautical miles off the journey.

Russia, along with China, is keenly aware of the benefits of an increasingly navigable Arctic. What Moscow calls the Northern Sea Route (NSR) stretches across 3,000 miles and seven time zones and links the country’s vast Arctic resources. As these waters grow increasingly navigable, Russia will no doubt seek business and technical partners to develop the NSR infrastructure.

The anticipated rise in commercial shipping — and tourist cruises — raises other concerns, particularly for the United States. Many of these routes will pass through the Bering Strait, an environmentally sensitive marine area. And the region does not have the SAR or environmental remediation capabilities to cope with the anticipated uptick in maritime traffic.


3. National security and geopolitics. The new Arctic — and its potential — has spurred interest in the region from longtime and new players alike. To date, there has been significant cooperation on all sides through the consensus-based approach of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that has been leading this effort since 1996. The Arctic Council also has 13 non-Arctic nations as observers, as well as a number of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations.

What happens now, with a more open and accessible Arctic? Following the end of the Cold War, the United States withdrew much of its Arctic forces and capabilities, while Russia neglected much of its infrastructure. And in a twist of fate, Arctic melting is exposing a former Cold War U.S. ballistic missile testing site and the nuclear waste that goes with it, representing “an entirely new pathway of political dispute resulting from climate change.”

Over the past few years, Western allies have grown concerned about Russia’s renewed interest in the region and military expansion, including new Arctic airfields, deep-water ports and a fleet of icebreakers, in addition to a new Arctic command. Russia has a 40-to-2 advantage in icebreakers over the United States.

China, too, has a plan for the Arctic, as detailed in a January 2018 white paper linking the “Polar Silk Road” to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. There is clear Chinese interest in new and shorter shipping options, but Beijing has also invested in mining in Greenland and seeks to negotiate a free-trade agreement with Iceland, build more icebreakers and extend its fishing fleets, according to a Council on Foreign Relations study.

The Arctic is quickly developing into a complicated problem on multiple levels

For policymakers, these developments suggest that keeping the Arctic a conflict-free zone may become more important and perhaps more difficult. A more open Arctic means the eight Arctic nations — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States — will face regional issues such as coastal erosion, loss of traditional livelihoods and the need to monitor the environmental changes.


And there will be new challenges to manage increased shipping traffic and other commercial activities safely — as well as juggle the concerns and activities of the growing numbers of non-Arctic players who are fast becoming more interested in the new Arctic.

[Why do we need new rules on shipping emissions? Well, 90 percent of global trade depends on ships.]

The melting Arctic introduces a number of global concerns. How will the warmer polar temperatures change global weather patterns, for instance? Scientific research and collaboration among Arctic nations are on the rise, but the ongoing, drastic climatic change means this research will take on an even deeper importance, as policymakers discuss environmental resilience, mitigation or adaptation measures — both in the region and elsewhere in the world.

Kelly M. McFarland is director of programs and research at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and an adjunct professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Vanessa Lide is associate editor with the Monkey Cage, based at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. She also edits diplomacy cases for the Institute’s online Case Studies Library.



Here's what you wrote, Bonehead:

You say I confuse weather with climate yet you claim that there have been record highs in a few locations in the last few months. Who is confused?
If you say 97 percent of climate scientists agree you are not up-to-date with studies that show perhaps the opposite is true. To continue to base your case on lies or fallacies is more a sign of religious fervor than anything I have posted.
Repeating the falsehoods and rabid opinions as you do almost on a daily basis must have a reason and it is logical to assume that attracting followers is precisely what you are doing.

You can't help yourself, can you? Always the ad hominem attacks. You call me Bonehead I think I will call you Dickhead.

Sure some areas of the world are warming up, but there is always a good reason for it and it is not anthropogenic no matter how much you wail. Lots of things affect climate, and maybe there is a small amount of damage we do in addition to sun spots, variable orbits around the sun, volcanic activity and the rest, but it is the intent of the Believers to use it as an excuse to take my money that I cannot abide. Even the calculations of the pseudo scientists (the "97%") show that the total reduction in worldwide temperature by the end of the century will be only a few tenths of a degree less if everything is done as they wish. I doubt there will be any civilization or anyone who cares by then because if you have your way we will all be scrabbling in the dirt for worms to eat and living in caves as a result of the destruction of the world's economies. Algore the Hutt will be rich of course, but he will learn something important: You cannot eat gold.

So what that the Arctic is warming. It was going to warm no matter what I do or you do; it was due to warm as part of the natural cycle. I live in the Arctic and I see it but at the rate of warming I will see out my life without harm because of it unless you have your way and I am made financially destitute. All so Algore can get richer. No, thanks, I will not join in.

And hey, there are parts of the world that are cooling. The overall health of the planet does not support your doom mongering and Carbon Dioxide follows temperature rising; it does not cause it so take your carbon tax and stick it where the sun does not shine and the temperature remains a stable 98 degrees forever.

I disagree, when one has the studies and statistics show the environmental improvements from ceasing DDT"S or when 97% of environmental or climate research scientists are in agreement of the man-made negative impact is by far the more conclusive argument, and to stop being proactive on protecting our environment is to be foolish. Thanks to deregulating, we are now on the road of environmental destruction. Other countries are leading on this issue, where we are not only far behind, we are sabotaging the good efforts of other countries who do have a moral conscious.

You can't help yourself, can you? Always the ad hominem attacks. You call me Bonehead I think I will call you Dickhead.

Sure some areas of the world are warming up, but there is always a good reason for it and it is not anthropogenic no matter how much you wail. Lots of things affect climate, and maybe there is a small amount of damage we do in addition to sun spots, variable orbits around the sun, volcanic activity and the rest, but it is the intent of the Believers to use it as an excuse to take my money that I cannot abide. Even the calculations of the pseudo scientists (the "97%") show that the total reduction in worldwide temperature by the end of the century will be only a few tenths of a degree less if everything is done as they wish. I doubt there will be any civilization or anyone who cares by then because if you have your way we will all be scrabbling in the dirt for worms to eat and living in caves as a result of the destruction of the world's economies. Algore the Hutt will be rich of course, but he will learn something important: You cannot eat gold.

So what that the Arctic is warming. It was going to warm no matter what I do or you do; it was due to warm as part of the natural cycle. I live in the Arctic and I see it but at the rate of warming I will see out my life without harm because of it unless you have your way and I am made financially destitute. All so Algore can get richer. No, thanks, I will not join in.

And hey, there are parts of the world that are cooling. The overall health of the planet does not support your doom mongering and Carbon Dioxide follows temperature rising; it does not cause it so take your carbon tax and stick it where the sun does not shine and the temperature remains a stable 98 degrees forever.

Se you only care about your own ass you care not for those generations. It's just hurray for me I won't be around when when the fit hits the shan so screw my grand children or great great grans. We are burning in California the fire season used to be Sept and Oct but each t=year for the last 30 years it gets longer until lit is year round now. The winters are n longer cold enough to kill the Pine bettlev larva in winter so hords of beatles have killed over 20 million trees in the last 8 10 years and is providing fuel for the fires. Right no there are 16 major fires blazing in our forest and burned over 500 homes and a hundred million acres

I disagree, when one has the studies and statistics show the environmental improvements from ceasing DDT"S or when 97% of environmental or climate research scientists are in agreement of the man-made negative impact is by far the more conclusive argument, and to stop being proactive on protecting our environment is to be foolish. Thanks to deregulating, we are now on the road of environmental destruction. Other countries are leading on this issue, where we are not only far behind, we are sabotaging the good efforts of other countries who do have a moral conscious.

Hate to burst your bubble there, dick, but if your only defense is to retreat to ad hominem rather than effectively rebut credible challenges to your assertions, this then poses serious questions about the validity of your assertions.

There are two sides to every story, one side to every fact. The fact is that the global warming scare is dying, it has been essentially at a standstill for 19 years. Polls in the US and Europe reveal that more and more people are no longer convinced that global warming is a serious threat. People are getting fed up, the AGW scare tactics have completely overwhelmed the argument that AGW is actually occurring. When your selling point is to attribute every natural or man made disaster to AGW, everything from ebola epidemics to terrorism, without producing any convincing evidence that human activity is causing a greenhouse gas threat, it becomes impossible to believe the claim. People generally don't like to be threatened without some concrete evidence that a threat is real.

It goes without saying that eliminating energy production from fossil fuels would have serious consequences, particularly in underdeveloped nations where petroleum driven energy is critical to their well being, even survival. These countries simply do not have the economic power or technology to come up with "green, clean alternate energy" production, which has failed miserably to even come close to meeting energy demands in wealthy nations. And there are no proposals among the wealthy nations to allocate funds, material, technical and construction support to the underdeveloped countries for something that has failed to produce in their own.

Se you only care about your own ass you care not for those generations. It's just hurray for me I won't be around when when the fit hits the shan so screw my grand children or great great grans. We are burning in California the fire season used to be Sept and Oct but each t=year for the last 30 years it gets longer until lit is year round now. The winters are n longer cold enough to kill the Pine bettlev larva in winter so hords of beatles have killed over 20 million trees in the last 8 10 years and is providing fuel for the fires. Right no there are 16 major fires blazing in our forest and burned over 500 homes and a hundred million acres

I lived in California for many years and am aware of the fire dangers. I was born and brought up in Australia and saw fires there that were worse, I thought, than those in California but when I got to live here I saw that the forests were largely populated by gum trees! Incredible! Those trees are the reason for the huge and out of control fires in Aus and I could not believe that they had been introduced to the USA because they are so dangerous. They exude eucalyptus oils that in the hot climate form an explosive mixture around every tree and a fire will "crown" over at incredible speed, flashing flame up to a quarter of a mile away from the tree. I have driven at over 60 mph to escape such bushfires in Aus and was always frightened to see a fire in California because the locals had no knowledge of what was coming. Of course Dickhead will tell you it is global warming but he is wrong.

The forest floor is covered in trash, dead trees, bushes, grass and flammable detritus from the forest itself that is best burned off when it is small enough to be controllable, but the lefties (Democrats) decided not to allow this, instead everything was to be left where it fell just in case somebody made a few bucks off the forest. So now fires are much hotter and harder to control, resulting in huge devastation every year. Dickhead will tell you that also is due to global warming.

Along with this prohibition against cleaning out the deadwood, a total ban on the timber industry has also led to large areas of forest where there has been no felling and no removal of dead trees, which in case you don't know, when there is global warming (but apparently not at other times) will burn furiously.

Putting the fires out as quickly as possible also leads to a build up of flammable materials which would otherwise be burnt off when manageable. Better to allow the fire to do its job, and reduce the chance of an out-of-control fire the next year, but again the lefties won't permit that to happen so long as they can claim global warming is the culprit.

Of course there is also a case to be had for the bark beetles, and sure they are worse when it is warmer, but those trees, too, could be removed before they burn if the Greenies would allow it, reducing the chance of a bad fire. But if that happened, what would Dickhead have to complain about?

I am sorry for you, but hope you can see that it does not have to be this bad.