Over the past week or so, the United Nations, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian UK, and every eco-activist publication on the planet have been telling us that there's gonna be a hot time in the old desert tonight (or at least over the next few decades). But the overheated report posted in The New Republic online was by far the most hilariously readable of them all. True hyperthermia.
To start with, all the reports, including that of The New Republic, cite the recent findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, one of the junk science arms of the United Nations. The scientists are a panel of climate change enthusiasts dependent on UN grants which require them to find at least one international climate disaster per week. Most have been certified as experts by Al Gore. The other advisory group is the Institute for Sustainable Development, which merely adopted the findings of the UN Panel, but that allows the eco-hysterics in the press to pretend that they are actually citing two separate sources.
Thus speaks The New Republic: "Does the world really need more headaches in the Middle East? No, of course not, but rising global temperatures are likely to create a few more regardless." Now you know that The New Republic is a high-tone intellectual magazine, because it refers to the specific area of concern as "The Levant." I haven't seen "The Levant" in print since I read an article written some time in the 1920's. I think it was about the date palm crisis.
The reports all refer to "climate change," the all-new and improved junk science previously known as "global warming." I think that's fair to say, since the reports address only future increases in temperature. No polar bears are expected to show up in The Levant. Anyway, "The Levant is currently on pace to get hotter and drier in the next four decades and climate change [aka global warming] threatens to 'reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth, and lead to large-scale population movement' in the area'."
That is about as definitive as the reports get. From there on it's all weasel-words, rampant speculation, and "fears" of impending oasis-shrinkage. The New Republic says that "it's hard to say if the 2008 drought [in northeast Syria] was caused by man-made global warming--what we do know is that climate change will make severe droughts far more likely." In other words, we don't think the 2008 drought can be proven in any legitimate scientific way to be a result of man-made causes, but if it was, then this guess leads us to another guess--that if it gets hotter, things will be even worse, maybe. I've gotten better predictive science than that from a parlor-toy 8 Ball.
"Even moderate temperature increases could shrink the Euphrates River 30 percent and the Jordan River 80 percent by the end of the century." Yes, and more severe increases would cause even higher shrinkage, but where's the science, the evidence, the proof? Then we move on from total speculation to a sneaky declarative statement: "Even Israel, which is better-equipped to cope than its neighbors, won't escape unscathed." Translation: If our original pure speculation based on not much proof of any kind turns out to be true, then it is absolutely certain that even Israel will be effected.
"Israel's agricultural revenues alone are likely to plunge 10 percent by 2050 as a result of climate change." So if the 2008 drought, which may or may not have been caused by human activity, is a possible forerunner of future climate change, then the possible shrinkage of rivers which might or might not happen, and the heating up of The Levant, which may or may not be occurring will likely cause revenue losses in Israel.
And finally, the denouement : "Little mystery why military experts increasingly consider climate change a pressing national-security threat." Built on all that hardcore evidence and scientific proof of The Levant heating up, who can blame the press for reaching that conclusion? Those Jihadist terrorists can be reasoned with and brought to the peace table, but we had better get the military ready to exert its finest efforts in The Levant to handle global warming.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
FLASH: It's Hot In The Middle East Deserts
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16 comments:
First of all, I thought your article was going to be about menopause in the Middle East. I saw the title as "HOT FLASH in the Middle East Deserts". Huh??
It's good to know that the UN expects Israel to be around in 50 years. That's a step in the right direction!
Nice job bringing logical deconstruction to this fraudulent little NYR article Lawhawk!
At some point, we need to delve into the "climate change" issue in depth to dispel the massive number of myths and outright falsehood being foisted upon us as fact (e.g. the much discredited hockeystick graph that Al Gore bases his religious teaching upon), because these liars and frauds are ruining a worthy cause and are threatening to do great harm for no benefit other than their own personal satisfaction.
There some great groups of scientists who have torn apart all of this garbage and we should bring it all together in a series of articles.
Bev: You devil. You must have read my evil mind. I almost entitled it "Hot Flash in The Levant" but I didn't want anybody to think I claim expertise in women's medicine, or women in general, for that matter. If the reports are true, and if the polar bears don't go extinct, and if the Martians don't invade, then it is a certainty that Israel will still exist. It will just be a lot hotter, drier, and poorer. LOL
Andrew: As you know, the hockey stick graph is ginned-up globaloney, and the junk scientists are a bunch of hockey pucks. And when the Martians do invade, at least we'll find out what kind of SUVs they're driving. Then we'll know what causes the Martian global warming which exactly parallels the warming on earth. Martian-made global warming is a serious problem we must address immediately.
Wait you mean it's warm in the Negev? I wish I would have had The New Republic break that story before I signed up to go on walkabout through it! And yes, it is hot, damned hot but that's why it's called...a desert.
I also got a chuckle out of the use of "the Levant" were they channeling the spirit of T.E. Lawrence when they were writing it?
Now in typical liberal fashion they tremble in their Birkenstocks over the damage that a hypothetical human caused global warming scenario will have on the region, but completely ignore the actual non-warming manmade causes for problems there. Now I'm not just talking about terrorism, I'm talking about on productivity and climate.
For example, Israel took the Golan from Syria in '67 for two strategic reasons, firstly to stop the Syrians from shelling Israel but as importantly because the Syrians were building dams to control the watershed from the Golan into the Galilee. Now that may be ancient history to them, and history they probably wouldn't care about even if they knew about it, but who are the people that tend to support giving the Golan back to Syria, hmm, who is it again? Oh yeah liberals! If the Syrians did it before, they'll do it again. Wonder what sort of junk science they'd come up with to explain the loss of thousands of acres of prime farmland to dustbowls if that happened? Because you know they wouldn't blame the Syrians they'd have to come up with some graph blaming it on radical climate shift or something.
The same thing happened recently in Gaza. Reporters were aghast at the lack of fresh water, while the Israelis "are building swimming pools at resorts!" Obviously implying that Israel is stealing all the water. What really happened was in 2005 when Gush Katif was evacuated, the Palestinians went on a vandalism spree that put the Vandals themselves to shame, they tore up all the irrigation piping. Why? Because it was evil Israeli pipes of course. Then they used those same pipes to build rocket bodies for Kassams out of. But did the press in the West report on that? Nope, they just talked about how Israel wasn't sharing the watery pie with Gaza.
But those sort of facts don't fit in with a kneejerk liberal world view that man is the cause of any and all climatic changes. And to be fair in those 2 cases they are, or were, caused by man but it was through infrastructure mismanagement, not causing the Earth to heat up a couple of degrees.
The biggest environmental concern along the Israeli-Jordanian border isn't the Jordan River actually, it's the Dead Sea which is dropping in levels due to irrigation runoff north of it on the Jordan. There's a joint plan between Jordan and Israel to build a canal from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea that would have a desalinization plant, fresh water to be used for irrigation and the heavily salted byproduct water pumped back into the Dead Sea to raise its levels back up. Hey cooperation that would preserve a natural wonder, a win-win right? Wrong, environmental groups are against it because the proposed canal could disrupt the ecosystem along it. In other words it could endanger some rare scorpion or vulture breeds. Have to love their logic eh?
Sorry for the multiple tangents but the environment in "the Levant" is shaped by human causes, just not the ones that the global warming folks are pegging them on. It's building dams, tearing up pipes, and blocking canals that are doing it.
Captain: The use of the word "drought" by The New Republic was no accident. You figured out their strategy, you bad person, you. Most people would automatically assume that droughts are caused solely by heat--which is exactly what the anthropomorphic global warming enthusiasts would want everybody to believe. Much of the lack of water in The Levant is a result of man's actions, not the heat alone. But that kind of man-made disaster doesn't fit the agenda. Carbon emissions from all things American is the problem. Destruction of entire watering systems by Palestinian primitives couldn't possibly be related to a water shortage.
Get with the program, Captain, or people might also figure out that the predicted shortage of water in Israel would be human-caused, just not by the Israeli humans or your Cadillac Escalade.
Lawhawk, I know. I'm a bad, bad man. But you can't pin the Caddy thing on me, I never much cared for them since they were pretty much a staple of my grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles. After spending the first 16 years of my life making fun of these tiny people in their huge cars calling down to Scotty in the engine room for more power, well I just could never bear to drive one myself.
The paradox with how many in the media report on these things is they miss one salient point, Israel is a very pro-environmental country. Not the crazy Al Gore kind, but more of the Teddy Roosevelt sort. They know they have limited land, some of which should be preserved in a natural state but much of which needs to be used to provide for their needs. This often doesn't get reported, or taken into account even if known, so like in The New Republic piece Israel gets lumped in regionally with places like Syria and Jordan where much less is made of doing things in a non-polluting fashion. The Jordanians are getting better about realizing that they can't just keep messing up their land, mainly due to irrigation issues; but Syria is a lost cause, and Lebanon is quickly turning into East Germany when it comes to land usage as well. But of course that would have nothing to do with Hezbollah running the place either, perish the thought, it's all because people in Nebraska have their thermostats set to 65 in January.
Captain: Andrew and I, and now you have paid homage to genuine environmentalists like Teddy Roosevelt. Good stewardship of the earth is not the crazy idea that the eco-freaks have turned it into. Looking out for our fellow human beings is a theological/moral mandate. Human beings are a throwaway line for eco-freaks. It's up to people like us to make sure that the relationships between the human and environmental imperatives are kept in harmony. To the eco-freaks, the potential danger to one polar bear far outweighs the real needs of thousands of American families.
You never struck me as the Escalade type. I was just trying to make a point about SUVs. My younger daughter has a husband and six kids. An SUV or a large crossover is not an option for her. Now, I'm picturing them in a train of Obamamobiles, roped together, snaking down the highway, dodging dangerous large objects like jackrabbits and coyotes (she lives in a fairly rural area). Living in San Francisco, I could make do with a medium size go-cart. My son lives in Berkeley, so he drives a Prius (what else?) or takes the Google Shuttle to work, while his wife takes public transportation to her nearby job in Albany. But when they have to travel together with her two daughters from a prior marriage, along with their three large dogs, they use the giant Toyota Land Cruiser that they keep hidden in the garage. My older daughter has a husband, two boys and one big dog, so he takes his car to work, and she drives a medium size Honda SUV.
That makes me the only genuinely eco-friendly member in the entire family. And that's only because I have no choice. I'd be driving a sixteen-cylinder Porsche if I could.
Well I've had Jeeps for over 10 years now, but I don't consider them SUVs either, they're Jeeps. I took one on a 5,000 mile round cross country trip once and calculated that I got 33 MPG average on it, so as far as I'm concerned it wasn't an evil vehicle as far as the Earth is concerned. My fiance and I also both have, umm, well not so Earth friendly German cars would be the most delicate way to put it I guess. But hey you have to have some fun sometimes right?
As for the environmentalism thing, the left has it comepletly wrong when they make the blanket statement that conservatives don't care about the environment. We do, in fact I'd hazard to guess that many conservatives spend much more time in nature than your average liberal Earth First-er does. Hell I can walk for 10 minutes and be in woods that look the same now as when William Penn first spied them.
The difference between the Environmentalists, as they're commonly understood, and people like us is that we understand that preserving the environment is important but also care about humanity and what nature does for people as well. To your hardcore Green person, the lives of owls are more important than the lives, let alone livlihood, of human beings and that's just wrong. I'm all for not polluting, and keeping as much natural beauty as we can, but not at the expense of people or their pockets. Plus I've been convinced for years that "Environmentalists" love Mother Earth but hate people. You can see that for yourself at much of their propaganda, and misplaced glee when evil companies are forced out of business for trying to keep up with more and more insane regulatory standards. Most of which were brought about more for political reasons than any real concern for actual naturalist reasons.
Teddy Roosevelt had many flaws, but I've always respected his bringing naturalism into the national conscience. On the other hand people like Al Gore wrap themselves in the Green banner purely for political (and in many cases financial) gain, without caring how they are damaging people at the expense of some abstract Walden Pond ideal of how the world should look. In fact Global Warming has gone from a political agenda, to a quasi-religion in my opinion, which is even more worrisome.
Captain: Eco-worship has indeed become a zealous secular religion. They will brook no opposition in their places of worship, nor will they tolerate disrespect for their god.
Their great guru, Al Gore, will benefit in huge dollars from the cap and trade scam. Meanwhile, he will continue to live in a house the size of Rhode Island, and emit his own personal greenhouse gas. He is one of the largest frauds in all of history (literally and figuratively).
I have always wondered why, no one ever points out all the possible benefits of Global warming/cooling/change. Mass population shifts? New road building, infrastructure, new homes and all the accutriments for new homes. Talk about stimulus! Jobs and more jobs. How much more agriculture would we have in Siberia and Canada? More tractors and agribusiness. How about Bikini and sun screen manufacturers? I know I sound like a capitalist pig, but that is only because.....I am. Oh and just tell your Real Estate agent new beach front property just opened up in Tennessee and watch how fast she opens a new office there.
StlDan,
Walter Williams, years ago, wrote an article in which he said that a 5 degree rise in temperature would nearly double the amount of usable farmland.
The problem is that the "environmentalists" aren't worried about the planet, they want to stop industry.
You guys hit on a good point. The more land that meets climate and soil conditions for cultivation, the better things are for everyone. More food allows for more industry, infrastructure and population centers. You'd get that from a higher temperature.
Now where it causes conniptions on the left is they claim that higher temperatures will hit already marginal resource areas harder. This is true, but honestly there are many marginal areas where the political situation, and civil war, causes more of the problem than the environment ever will. Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. could not only be self-sufficient if they'd knocked off the civil wars, but with the proper management of the environment could have become literal breadbaskets for all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
But the constant warfare, and even more disturbing to me because something could be done about it, the lack of modern methods of agriculture and land management make that impossible. Remember the same people who complain about Israel turning sections of desert into farmland, are the same sort of people who feel that you shouldn't "tamper with indigenous methods" because that makes you an "imperialist." Call me crazy but I think allowing whole populations to live on the brink of starvation just to allow yourself to revel in an inner belief of the nobility of the primitive ways, is criminal. The UN is one of the primary causes of this, if anyone ever doubted their squishy morality when it comes to preserving life over strange notions one just has to examine the DDT ban and what that really did to help out the poor suffering Third World.
I honestly think a lot of liberals think that wandering nomadic tribes are more "noble" than the rest of us because they commune with nature. Something that many authors in the late 1800s have a lot to answer for in my opinion, because that sort of belief system has become one of the core notions in the while Environmentalist movement. If we could all just be like them the world would be so much better off...
In theory, maybe. But if they ever studied the actual practices of the Pre-Colombian period in South America or the pre-Colonization era in North America then they might change their tune. Then again probably not.
Of course the most salient thing these people miss is if you can't grow crops, you can't survive as a species. End of story, full stop. If bringing a tractor to the Ubangi tribe allows them to feed all their people, I'm all for it; but to the caring Environmentalists, well that could destroy their traditional lifestyle. If I was a Ubangi, well I'd wanna eat.
StlDan: Climate change hysteria is a scam to keep bureaucrats and junk scientists in business while the Algores profit from destroying American industry and fleecing us peasants. An increase in temperature (not a sure thing by any means) could produce more net good than ill. But good news doesn't keep fakirs in overpaid jobs. Personally, I live a couple hundred feet up a San Francisco hill, but I'd love to have warm, beachfront property. Maybe if I just wait.
Captain: I've been fighting the "myth of the noble savage" my entire life. Primitive peoples are primitive, not noble. They may be very fine human beings, but I don't want to live in a cave, get my food with a bow and arrow, and watch my kids and grandkids die of preventable diseases. The noble Hutus and Tutsis murdered each other in unfathomable numbers with machetes and spears in Rwanda and Burundi. Where's the nobility in that?
Lawhawk, that's the thing the "myth of the noble savage" is exactly that, a myth. But it's become so ingrained in some segments of society's worldview that they take it as fact. The Hutus and Tutsis are an excellent example of precisely why it's a myth.
I've seen two major mental blocks I guess you could call it. On one hand you have the whole "noble savage" thing, and on the other the notion that people in the past were stupider than they are today simply because they lacked the technology that we have. Those are opposite poles that I've seen often, especially when I had to take sociology classes in college, and neither one is accurate to my mind.
People are people, the people of 3000 years ago had the same basic human needs, and the same capacity for invention as they do now. We just happen to have a base of precursor knowledge that they didn't. As a student of history I'm sure you know that aside from cultural differences, very little has changed with human nature for good or ill since we first started walking upright and made tools out of sticks. Which means that "noble savages" can be anything but, and "ignorant Dark Agers" could also be anything but. I'd put the Venerable Bede or the authors of the Babylonian Talmud up against most modern professors of philosophy, sociology, rhetoric or theology any day of the week, and the "ignorant pre-Modern folk" would most likely clean their proverbial clocks.
Captain: What you say is so true. It's hard for today's new illiterate to have a sense of historical perspective when he has no sense or knowledge of history on which to build that perspective.
The arrogance of the multi-culti politically correct "education" establishment is a major part of that problem. They don't even know what they don't know.
Great thinkers and movers-and-shakers have always understood what you said in your comment. A little humility and sense of proportion marked them all, unlike today's purveyors of "great truths." When praised for his brilliant works, Isaac Newton responded with "If I have been able to see farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
Lawhawk, the education system of today, and even when I went to college some 15 years or so ago, is a mess. It's more about indoctrination than education, and the "free exchange of ideas" only works if the ideas are the approved ones.
One of the side effects of this lack of knowledge about history is that history has become a target for revisionism at every level. Not only do they muddle with "intent" even if someone at the time actually wrote,"Now here is why we're doing this..." but they try to shoehorn everything into a modern frame of reference.
I could go on for pages on this, but I'll spare you. The point being that history is the field of study that should always be open to interpretation. But there is a point where no matter what your interpretation is you can't change the facts. As Disraeli said, and said well, people are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own set of facts.
Today that seems to be lost in much of academia, something especially troubling when it comes to the study of history which is based upon facts. Things happened, people recorded them, make of it what you will but you can't (or at least shouldn't attempt to) change the facts.
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