Warmist believes in funny money

The guy excerpted below has fallen for the old Douglas credit fallacy.  "Social Creditors" did quite well in Canada for a while, particularly in B.C., if I remember rightly. And aside from their misunderstanding of the financial system, I think they were fairly conservative.  So it is amusing that the enthusiastic young Warmist below has rediscovered it and got it published in the Guardian.  It made my day to read it anyway.

The thing he knows nothing about is the velocity of circulation but I am not going to try to give a lesson in Economics 101 in this post.  Most amusing of all is that the "new idea" he has in the final paragraph below is exactly what happens now.  I am pretty sure that the Guardian will be embarrassed into deleting this article soon so check it out

The writer below is Jason Hickel, a young professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, which has been Left-leaning for just about the whole of its existence.  They do however have a distinguished record in economics so will certainly be embarrassed by the ignorance below emanating from their hallowed halls

What is it about Warmism that fries the brains of even quite smart people?


How can we redesign the global economy to bring it in line with the principles of ecology? The most obvious answer is to stop using GDP to measure economic progress and replace it with a more thoughtful measure – one that accounts for the ecological and social impact of economic activity. Prominent economists like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz have been calling for such changes for years and it’s time we listened.

But replacing GDP is only a first step. While it might help refocus economic policies on what really matters, it doesn’t address the main driver of growth: debt. Debt is the reason the economy has to grow in the first place. Because debt always comes with interest, it grows exponentially – so if a person, a business, or a country wants to pay down debt over the long term, they have to grow enough to at least match the growth of their debt. Without growth, debt piles up and eventually triggers an economic crisis.

One way to relieve the pressure for endless growth might be to cancel some of the debt – a kind of debt jubilee. But this would only provide a short-term fix; it wouldn’t get to the real root of the problem: that the global economic system runs on money that is itself debt.

This might sound a bit odd, but it’s quite simple. When you walk into a bank to take out a loan, you assume that the bank is lending you money it has in reserve – money that it stores somewhere in a vault, for example, collected from other people’s deposits. But that’s not how it works. Banks only hold reserves worth about 10% of the money they lend out. In other words, banks lend out 10 times more money than they actually have. This is known as fractional reserve banking.

So where does all that additional money come from? Banks create it out of thin air when they make loans – they loan it into existence. This accounts for about 90% of the money circulating in our economy right now. It’s not created by the government, as most people assume: it is created by commercial banks in the form of loans. In other words, almost every dollar that passes through our hands represents somebody’s debt. And every dollar of debt has to be paid back with interest. Because our money system is based on debt, it has a growth imperative baked into it. In other words, our money system is heating up the planet.

Once we realise this, the solution comes into view: we need banks to keep a bigger fraction of reserves behind the loans they make. This would go a long way toward diminishing the amount of debt sloshing around in our economy, helping reduce the pressure for economic growth.

But there’s an even more exciting solution we might consider. We could abolish debt-based currency altogether and invent a new money system completely free of intrinsic debt. Instead of letting commercial banks create money by lending it into existence, we could have the state create the money and then spend it into existence. New money would get pumped into the real economy instead of just going straight into financial speculation where it inflates huge asset bubbles that only benefit the mega-rich.

SOURCE




Warmist muscle-head confuses CO2 with carbon monoxide

In a new online video, actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once again threatened climate skeptics with death.

Schwarzenegger made the carbon monoxide threat to political leaders who want to stop the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide.
Schwarzenegger declared in the video: “Some politicians even want to shut down the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon. I would like to strap their mouth to the exhaust pipe of a truck, turn on the engine and let’s see how long it would take them to tap out.”

Schwarzenegger also threatened death to skeptics in 2013:

Arnold Schwarzenegger on global warming ‘deniers’: ‘Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!’

SOURCE




Roundup the corrupt fear mongers

Deceit and collusion drive campaigns to ban a vital, popular, safe, affordable herbicide

Paul Driessen

Do we really need more collusion, corruption and deceit in the service of renegade regulators, organic food interests, anti-chemical activists, and policies that carry harmful or even lethal consequences?

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is one of the most widely used herbicides on Earth. Numerous farmers use it in conjunction with Roundup-Ready seeds, to grow crops that thrive in fields sprayed to eliminate weeds – while also being insect-resistant and drought-tolerant, thanks to other traits built into their DNA. Such crops significantly reduce the need to spray pesticides and irrigate fields.

They also permit no-till farming, which eliminates mechanical weeding, thereby greatly reducing erosion and enabling soils to retain their stores of carbon, carbon dioxide and other nutrients.

Glyphosate is also better, safer and less expensive than “organic” alternatives. On a volume basis, it is much less toxic than salt or vinegar, which are often combined for homemade weed killers. Farmers also have to use far more salt-vinegar concoctions and apply them more often than they would glyphosate, and even then the S-V mix is not nearly as effective. Industrial-strength organic herbicides also exist.

However, when ultra-green Sonoma County, California tried one of these “natural alternatives” to glyphosate, the “organic” product cost 17 times more than Monsanto’s oft-vilified chemical to cover the same acreage. Moreover, sprayers had to use hazmat suits and respirators when applying the natural chemical mix, because it irritated eyes and nasal passages. Glyphosate/ Roundup requires no protective gear. The “organic” mixture is also toxic to bees and other beneficial insects; Roundup is not.

These hard realities force many organic farms to rely on mechanized or hand weeding. But tractors crush closely planted crops, and even full-sized hoes don’t offer enough control to avoid damaging sensitive plants. That means poorly paid migrant farm workers must bend over all day, using short-handled hoes. So California banned the little hoes, and then banned “unnecessary hand weeding” since it also causes serious to permanent back problems – but exempted organic farms from the ban.

With people having safely eaten trillions of servings containing one or more GMO ingredients, and hundreds of scientific organizations having determined that genetically modified foods are perfectly safe, radical anti-technology groups like Greenpeace have increasingly focused on glyphosate as their substitute villain. They’ve also enlisted a number of regulatory agencies, by helping to get anti-chemical activists in their ranks and launching high-pressure campaigns to secure desired agency decisions.

Among them is the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization (WHO) bureau headquartered in France. IARC simply reviews existing research and classifies chemicals as definitely, probably, possibly or not likely to cause cancer in humans at extremely high doses. It does not conduct its own studies or determine which exposure levels do not actually pose cancer risks.

Considering that coffee, alcohol, salted fish, and many nutritious fruits and vegetables are carcinogenic in high doses, this is not a very useful approach. In fact, since 1965, IARC has reviewed over 900 chemicals and concluded that only one is “probably not carcinogenic to humans.”

All too often, IARC uses its classifications to justify chemical bans, without considering other factors. As a 2016 Toxicology and Pharmacology journal paper by ten US and EU toxicology and cancer experts demonstrates, this methodology is outmoded, unworkable and likely to reach erroneous conclusions. Even worse, IARC is now controlled by anti-chemical activists who have multiple conflicts of interest and often collude with other activists in regulatory agencies and extreme environmentalist groups.

What is really needed, these experts emphasize, is “risk assessment,” which requires evaluating human exposure to a chemical in terms of its avenue (topical, inhalation or ingestion) and the duration, frequency and magnitude of exposure, to assess maximum safe doses. Evaluations must also determine whether substances that cause cancer in animals also do so in humans. For instance, statins and many other pharmaceuticals are carcinogenic for animals, but safe for humans. Only after all this is done can proper risk management and mitigation measures be developed. However, IARC does none of this.

The IARC hazard-identification method can lead to crazy results. For instance, it puts processed meat in the same “definitely carcinogenic” category as poisonous mustard gas. The paper’s authors ask: Should we treat processed meats the same way we do mustard gas: reduce exposure to zero? Or should we treat mustard gas the way we handle red or processed meat: as part of a healthy lifestyle, in moderation?

Addressing these and other considerations, the European Food Safety Authority recently concluded that glyphosate “is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.” IARC labeled glyphosate “a probable human carcinogen” and vigorously lobbied Brussels officials for a ban, threatening its approval in the EU.

This unprecedented political activism raises serious questions about collusion, dishonesty and lack of transparency at the IARC, US Environmental Protection Agency and NIH’s National Institutes of Environmental Health, which is led by anti-chemical activist Linda Birnbaum. University of Illinois emeritus professor Bruce Chassy, risk evaluation blogger David Zaruk, the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee, the Reuters News Agency and others have documented all of this, and more:

IARC cherry-picked both the studies it relied on, and data from within those studies, to support conclusions sought by activists like former NIEH staffer Chris Portier. He drove the IARC review process, influenced who would be on its evaluation panels, and campaigned across Europe for a ban – while receiving paychecks from the anti-pesticide pressure group Environmental Defense Fund. IARC hid those connections and failed to disclose similar conflicts of interest by other review panel members.

Now IARC is refusing to release data and documents used in reaching its conclusions and advising panelists not to disclose materials requested under FOIA. It claims IARC is the “sole owner” of all such materials, even though they were developed using US and EU tax money, and peer review by independent outside experts is essential for ensuring honest, accurate, scientific decisions that serve the public interest.

Meanwhile, IARC insists that its practices are “widely respected for their scientific rigor, standardized and transparent process and freedom from conflicts of interest.” You cannot make this stuff up.

Meanwhile, EPA has again delayed its final decision on glyphosate safety, removed a supportive memo from its website, and given contradictory and deceptive testimony on the issue to Congress. House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, demanding explanations and corrections.

One question involves the relationship between EPA and Chris Portier’s brother Ken, who was recently added to EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel on glyphosate. The two served on multiple NIEH and EPA panels and meetings, without disclosing their relationship, even when Ken reviewed Chris’s work.

The National Institutes of Health has given tens of millions of dollars to IARC. And yet, when the House Oversight Committee questioned its officials about glyphosate decisions and ties to EPA, NIH agreed to appear only if any hearing was off limits to the press and public. What are the agencies trying to hide?

Worst of all, this war on GMO food and glyphosate has lethal consequences. As former UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has noted, Vitamin A Deficiency causes 500,000 children to go blind and half of them to die every year. VAD also causes nutritionally acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which results in another two million children dying annually from diseases they would otherwise survive. Nutrient-fortified “Golden Rice” could prevent VAD – but Greenpeace and other radicals oppose its use.

That means their 15-years-long war on Golden Rice alone has killed 30 million children. Tens of millions more have died because the same extremist groups oppose DDT, other pesticides and fossil fuels. They are more worried about far-fetched risks from glyphosate and GMO foods than about this death toll. That is outrageous. This eco-manslaughter, this crime against humanity, can no longer be tolerated.

We need to use Roundup on the corruption, collusion, cronyism and callous disregard for human lives.

Via email





Corruption in academe

Most scientists have personalities that are not conducive to being the rock in the current. They just want to do their research and be left alone. Furthermore, PhD's are much like military officers. They rise in the ranks by going along to get along. Show me an officer who told his superiors they were wrong - and proved it - and I will show you a career junior officer. Show me an academic going for his doctorate who tells his professors their theories are all wrong and has a dissertation clearly demonstrating it - and I will show you someone who will have to be in love with a masters degree.

This pattern repeats over and over again. During the years Stalin was slaughtering his people in the Soviet Union with his insane agricultural policies one scientist became his favorite, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.

Lysenko believed that “amassing of evidence was substituted for casual proof as the means demonstrating the “correctness” of the underlying hypotheses” and those who failed to conform to the tenets of the new biology could be silenced or suppressed as enemies of the truth. It also did not concern him if his followers “manipulated” somewhat their data or their experimental results, since minor falsifications could still support the ideological cause, which represented a higher level of truth than the precise reporting of facts”, and for almost 30 years some of the finest minds in Russian biology either “became infected with....[the] madness” or “converted” to it. Many if not most scientists in America are now converts to the insanity because the holy grail of science is no longer truth but grant money.

In Russia, “scientists, who were skeptical, were threatened with loss of their working and publishing opportunities if they did not conform to these views. As a result they were forced to adjust the direction of their research or to contribute some kind of work which was in accord with the Stalinist ideology.” Some got around this by publishing entirely in Latin …of which the commissars were ignorant. Some refused to bend to the madness of the new biological ideology at all, and were permanently silenced.

We don't send people to gulags or execute them out of hand for having differing scientific views but those who don't accept the "consensus" have been silenced or suppressed as enemies of the truth, and have been threatened with loss of their working and publishing opportunities if they did not conform to the acceptable politically correct standards of "the higher truth".

The left still demands total obedience and obeisance no matter how insane their positions may be. Stalin and his favorite scientists caused millions to starve to death, and no one dared complain! One New York Times reporter, Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for lying about Stalin's atrocities claiming no one was starving Russia.

Yes, the media is part and parcel of this outrage, and have been since they were infiltrated and infested with communists and Stalinist agents starting in the 20's. And yes - I might as well really tick someone off - Joe McCarthy was right! Also, McCarthy didn't go after Hollywood! That was done by the House on Un-American Activities Committee - and that was run by the Democrats. And we also know along with government and Hollywood, these agents infested the unions, academia, newspapers and radio.

Well, it's time honest scientists organized, stood up on their hind legs and started suing these misfits of academia, science, sanity and reality, otherwise they may find out this nation will become a scientific gulag.

The Soviet Union and their viperous agents may be gone, but these misfits in academia are the offspring of vipers, and they're just as deadly in their desires and intentions as was Stalin was to destroy the United States, one institution at a time.

SOURCE




Businesses Try Not to Sweat New Global Climate Change Rule

The air conditioning and refrigeration industries are accustomed to change.

Indeed, manufacturers had been bracing for an international climate regulation targeting them, and representatives of the industries even had a seat at the negotiating table.

Global leaders last month celebrated completion of a deal to phase down worldwide emissions of chemical coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, used in air conditioners and refrigerators. Manufacturers already investing in new solutions were hopeful consumers would not experience significant cost increases.

“We are manufacturers trying to deal with realities of making these things work,” said Kevin Messner, senior vice president of policy and government relations at the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.

In interviews with The Daily Signal, representatives of sectors in the appliance industry described the challenges and opportunities ahead in complying with the terms of a new global climate deal that Secretary of State John Kerry called “the single most important step” taken so far to limit climate change.

On Oct. 15, in Kigali, Rwanda, more than 170 countries, including the U.S., China, and India, agreed to limit the use of HFCs. They account for a small percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but are considered more powerful than carbon dioxide.

The phasedown would begin in 2019, with the goal of a global reduction of 80 percent in the use of HFCs by 2047.

The agreement came in the form of an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty ratified during the Reagan administration and designed to protect the Earth’s ozone layer.

This means the deal is legally binding, unlike a higher-profile international climate change accord approved in Paris last year. That agreement targeted carbon emissions and required only voluntary pledges from countries to comply.

While the HFC deal has received little criticism from business interests or Republicans in Congress, at least one leading skeptic of climate change says the agreement should require Senate approval. The State Department is reviewing whether the HFC amendment requires approval as a treaty.

“Should the Obama administration proceed to formalize acceptance of the latest amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the Senate must be involved,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told The Daily Signal in a written statement, adding:

The Montreal Protocol has been formally amended four times since it entered into force with each one going through the advice and consent process in the Senate. Despite the message from the Obama administration, the limitations of Senate-granted authority to the Montreal Protocol have not changed.

‘Writing on the Wall’

In response to the original Montreal Protocol, which phased out use of chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone-depleting coolants known as CFCs, manufacturers transitioned to a replacement chemical: HFCs.

While HFCs are healthier for the ozone layer, many scientists say they, like CFCs, are a strong agent that produces climate change.

In anticipation of the regulations, companies collectively have spent billions of dollars researching a replacement for HFCs and redesigning manufacturing equipment.

“It’s not normal for industries to ask to be regulated,” said Frances Dietz, vice president of public affairs at the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a major industry group. Dietz added:

But if you look at it from a business perspective, predictability is very important. Even if it’s something you’d rather not have to do, at least if I know what’s coming I can prepare for it. We saw the writing on the wall and set ourselves up, so we were not surprised. It’s an interesting story that everybody is on the same page.

Sergio Chayet, director of a master’s program in supply chain management at Washington University in St. Louis, says suppliers such as Chemours, Honeywell, Arkema, and Daikin have invested in research and development on what they call HFOs, or hydrofluoroolefins. An alternative to HFCs, they quickly degrade in the atmosphere, limiting how much heat they trap.

These suppliers have been actively securing patents and building production facilities in the U.S., China, and Japan, some of which already are operational.

Making a Change

Some alternatives to HFCs are in use. For example, a coolant called HFO-1234yf is becoming the standard chemical used to air-condition new cars in the U.S. and European Union.

But other alternatives have not been approved in the U.S.

Critics of HFO-1234yf question its safety and cost. The New York Times reports the alternative coolant is at least 10 times more expensive than the one it replaces.

Costs are higher, Chayet said, because the HFO industry is highly concentrated and protected by patents, giving the limited participants pricing power.

But, he said, HFOs require little up-front capital investment because the cooling process is similar to that of HFCs. That is, it’s relatively easy to retrofit manufacturing equipment to produce the new coolant.

HFOs also are considered flammable, although not as much so as hydrocarbon, another potential alternative coolant.

Nick Richards, a spokesman for General Motors Co., told The Daily Signal that the Detroit-based company has produced more than a million light-duty vehicles globally with the new refrigerant, HFO-1234yf, since 2013.

Richards referred to HFO-1234yf as the “most highly tested refrigerant ever to be developed,” and said prices for the coolant have reduced “significantly” in the past few years.

“The refrigerant remains a cost-effective way to meet environmental standards around the globe,” Richards said. “Vehicle hardware changes required to use the new refrigerant do not add any significant cost to the overall product.”

‘Design to Reality’

Some industry groups question whether alternative coolants can be proved safe and effective in the timeline required by regulations.

Before the international agreement, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule phasing out HFCs in new appliances sold in the U.S., such as refrigerators, by 2021.

Messner, of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, said that meeting the 2021 deadline—instead of the 2024 date proposed by the industry—will cost an additional $230 million.

“Engineers don’t like uncertainty, and that’s where we are right now,” Messner said. “Everyone is assuming the safety standards will change [allowing widespread use of new coolants] and that could happen in a year, in 10 years, or it could never happen. That’s nice for everyone to assume, but as engineers, we need to design to reality.”

Industry groups say most large companies acknowledge the short-term costs of the transition away from HFCs, but are confident the regulations won’t impose a significant burden on the industry—or consumers.

Consumer prices for appliances eventually may rise as much as 2 percent, a figure in line with previous coolant phasedowns, according to Kevin Fay, executive director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, an industry group that represents chemical companies and appliance makers. Fay told The Daily Signal:

All things considered, would we like to be spending resources on other issues? Absolutely, but at the same time, in terms of addressing energy efficiency and getting products out there providing health and safety to the customer, the agreement allows that process to move forward in something of a smoother fashion.

Developing countries with hotter temperatures, meanwhile, could feel more of an impact.

In one, India, millions of people are on the verge of being able to afford their first air conditioner, cooled by HFCs.

Under the deal, India and other hotter countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan have a more lenient timetable to reduce HFC levels.

“For developing countries, the increased costs due to patents could end up making refrigeration and air conditioning unaffordable for many entry-level consumers,” Chayet said.

SOURCE

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