THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR January 28, 2020 at 10:56 am
Paul Plante says :
J sounds like many of us older people here in America who are still mired in HOLOCENE era thinking, where facts once did matter, who are foolish enough to think that facts still do matter, when they clearly don’t, as in little Greta, “THE SCIENCE AUTHORITY,” telling the Davos crowd of rich dudes, “No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world, because that world, in case you haven’t noticed, is currently on fire,” when the world is hardly on fire, and in fact, where I am it is snowing and the only fire in sight is that which I have going in my stove to keep me warm and to keep my water from freezing.
So even though it really is a blatantly false statement that the world is on fire, when it isn’t on fire at all, just the most fire-prone place in the world right now is living up to its well-established reputation as the most fire-prone place in the world by being on fire, because Greta said the world is on fire, well, it is, and we people who think it isn’t because we look out our window and see snow, will just have to adjust our thinking to see the world as Greta sees it, because she has true vision and we don’t, being adults, as we can see from the little girl’s stirring speech at Davos on January 21, 2020, to wit:
I wonder: What will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing a climate chaos that you knowingly brought upon them?
That it seemed so bad for the economy that we decided to resign the idea of securing future living conditions without even trying?
Our house is still on fire.
Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.
end quotes
That is why nobody is waiting around for a bunch of stuffy old geologists to get around to finally realizing “our house is still burning, ” because the inaction of the geologists in proclaiming the “AGE OF THE ANTHROPOCENE” is fueling the flames by the hour, which takes us back to the Cape Charles Mirror archives on the subject of “contrived science,” where again the word “contrived” is taken to mean “having an unnatural or false appearance or quality: artificial, labored, as in a contrived plot,” such as the AP NEWS article entitled “‘We’re all in big trouble’: Climate panel sees a dire future” by the hysteria mongerer Seth Borenstein on September 25, 2019, which screamed out at us that the IPCC, which is a political lash-up prostituting science to create HYSTERIA in the public at large to make them “tractable” and therefore, easy to manipulate with falsehoods, warned that if steps aren’t taken to reduce emissions and slow global warming, seas will rise 3 feet by the end of the century, with many fewer fish, less snow and ice, stronger and wetter hurricanes and other, nastier weather systems, and focus in on a phrase the IPCC uses to scare us with, that being “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” which is yet more bull****, especially that word “anthropogenic,” a totally-contrived political term, as we can clearly see by going to an article in the Brit publication The Guardian entitled “The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a new phase of planetary history? – Human activity has transformed the Earth – but scientists are divided about whether this is really a turning point in geological history” by Nicola Davison on 10 Jun 2019, to wit:
It was February 2000 and the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen was sitting in a meeting room in Cuernavaca, Mexico, stewing quietly.
Five years earlier, Crutzen and two colleagues had been awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry for proving that the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet light, was thinning at the poles because of rising concentrations of industrial gas.
Now he was attending a meeting of scientists who studied the planet’s oceans, land surfaces and atmosphere.
As the scientists presented their findings, most of which described dramatic planetary changes, Crutzen shifted in his seat.
“You could see he was getting agitated.”
“He wasn’t happy,” Will Steffen, a chemist who organised the meeting, told me recently.
What finally tipped Crutzen over the edge was a presentation by a group of scientists that focused on the Holocene, the geological epoch that began around 11,700 years ago and continues to the present day.
After Crutzen heard the word Holocene for the umpteenth time, he lost it.
“He stopped everybody and said: ‘Stop saying the Holocene!’”
“‘We’re not in the Holocene any more,’” Steffen recalled.
end quotes
Now, speaking as an engineer, here, which is a totally different breed of cat from a “scientist,” such as this Crutzen dude who heard the word Holocene for the umpteenth time and flipped out and lost it, yelling at the people around him to “Stop saying the Holocene,” I would say the dude sounds like a dangerous lunatic who might be better off being institutionalized somewhere safe, but at the same time, and this is based on experience with the trade, there is absolutely nothing which prevents a dangerous lunatic from being a scientist, so there it is, which takes us back to The Guardian, as follows:
But then Crutzen stalled.
The outburst had not been premeditated, but now all eyes were on him.
So he blurted out a name for a new epoch.
A combination of anthropos, the Greek for “human”, and “-cene”, the suffix used in names of geological epochs, “Anthropocene” at least sounded academic.
end quotes
So the term the IPCC uses is an un-scientific, political term pulled from straight out of the *** of someone who might well be unhinged, but that does serve as any kind of bar to the IPCC using the bull**** term to scare people with, since that is how the IPCC needs people – frightened out of their wits and unable to see the SCAM going on here, which is a big money transfer scheme in the guise of “fighting global warming,” which takes us back to The Guardian for more of that story, as follows:
A few months after the meeting, Crutzen and an American biologist, Eugene Stoermer, expanded on the idea in an article on the “Anthropocene”.
We were entering an entirely new phase of planetary history, they argued, in which human beings had become the driving force.
And without a major catastrophe, such as an asteroid impact or nuclear war, humankind would remain a major geological force for many millennia.
end quotes
Now, keep in mind that those assertions aren’t based on any “science,” or “scientific findings;” to the contrary, they are based solely on the emotional “feelings” of someone who may well not be all there, which takes us again back to The Guardian:
The article appeared on page 17 of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme’s newsletter.
At this point it did not seem likely the term would ever travel beyond the abstruse literature produced by institutions preoccupied with things like the nitrogen cycle.
But the concept took flight.
Environmental scientists latched on to what they saw as a useful catch-all term for the changes to the natural world – retreating sea ice, accelerating species extinction, bleached coral reefs – that they were already attributing to human activity.
Academic articles began to appear with “Anthropocene” in the title, followed by entire journals dedicated to the topic.
Soon the idea jumped to the humanities, then newspapers and magazines, and then to the arts, becoming a subject of photography, poetry, opera and a song by Nick Cave.
“The proliferation of this concept can mainly be traced back to the fact that, under the guise of scientific neutrality, it conveys a message of almost unparalleled moral-political urgency,” wrote the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk.
end quotes
And seriously, people, if you were pulling off the SCAM OF THE CENTURY, which is what this IPCC global climate crisis crowd is doing, and you needed people petrified with fear and unable to think straight while you are fleecing them, why would you go for less than a message of almost unparalleled moral-political urgency?
Getting back to the genesis of this horse**** term “anhropogenic,” The Guardian continues as follows:
There was just one place where the Anthropocene seemed not to be catching on: among the geologists who actually define these terms.
To many geologists, accustomed to working with rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old, the notion that a species that has been around for the blink of an eye was now a genuine geological force seemed absurd.
Few would deny we are in a period of climatic turmoil, but many feel that, compared with some of the truly apocalyptic events of the deep past – such as the period, 252m years ago, when temperatures rose 10C and 96% of marine species died – the change so far has not been especially severe.
end quotes
As I have said elsewhere, compared to the climatic “hands” the earth has dealt people at various times in its long, history (humans have in fact been on earth since before 2000 when millennials think the world was created just for them), we really have it being fairly benign, but hey, that is just me.
Getting back to the genesis of the political term “anthropogenic”:
At a meeting of the Geological Society of London, in 2006, a stratigrapher named Jan Zalasiewicz argued that it was time to look at the concept seriously.
With a mounting sense of apprehension, Zalasiewicz agreed to take on the task.
He knew the undertaking would not only be difficult but divisive, risking the ire of colleagues who felt that all the chatter around the Anthropocene had more to do with politics and media hype than actual science.
“All the things the Anthropocene implies that are beyond geology, particularly the social-political stuff, is new terrain for many geologists,” Zalasiewicz told me.
“To have this word used by climate commissions and environmental organisations is unfamiliar and may feel dangerous.”
end quotes
And the use of the term has everything to do with politics and media hype, and absolutely nothing whatever to do with science, and yes, it is indeed quite dangerous for these politicians on this IPCC to be turning people’s heads inside out with contrived pseudo-science to scare them and render them unable to think or question, which are basic citizenship requirements for any democracy to be able to function properly as opposed to being a despotism or tyranny, which this IPCC will be if only it can trick and fool us American citizens to come on board and surrender our collective futures to them to manage, which is the “social-political stuff” that the IPCC really is all about – redistribution of wealth, by them, which takes us back to The Guardian, once again, for more, as follows:
One of the loudest critics of the Anthropocene is Stanley Finney, who as the secretary-general of the IUGS, the body that ratifies changes to the timescale, is perhaps the most powerful stratigrapher in the world.
When Finney first came across the term “Anthropocene”, in a paper written by Zalasiewicz in 2008, he thought little of it.
As the Anthropocene working group gained momentum, he grew concerned that the ICS was being pressured into issuing a statement that at its heart had little to do with advancing stratigraphy, and more to do with politics.
end quotes
It has everything to do with politics, which is driving this train, and nothing to do with “science,” at all, to wit:
Academics both inside and outside geology have noted the Anthropocene’s political implications.
In “After Nature,” the law professor Jedediah Purdy writes that using the term “Anthropocene” to describe a wide array of human-caused geological and ecological change is “an effort to meld them into a single situation, gathered under a single name”.
To Purdy, the Anthropocene is an attempt to do what the concept of “the environment” did in the 1960s and 70s.
It is pragmatic, a way to name the problem – and thus begin the process of solving it.
Yet if a term becomes too broad, its meaning can become unhelpfully vague.
“There is an impulse to want to put things in capital letters, in formal definitions, just to make them look like they’re nicely organised so you can put them on a shelf and they’ll behave,” said Bill Ruddiman, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.
A seasoned geologist, Ruddiman has written papers arguing against the stratigraphic definition of the Anthropocene on the grounds that any single start-date would be meaningless since humans have been gradually shaping the planet for at least 50,000 years.
“What the working group is trying to say is everything pre-1950 is pre-Anthropocene, and that’s just absurd,” he told me.
end quotes
And I believe that absurd is a very accurate scientific term for this CHARADE going on here, which takes us back to the narrative, to wit:
Ruddiman’s arguments have found wide support, even from a handful of members of the working group.
Then, in late April, the group decided to hold a vote that would settle, once and for all, the matter of the start-date.
Working group members had one month to cast their votes; a supermajority of at least 60% would be needed for the vote to be binding.
The results, announced on 21 May, were unequivocal.
Twenty-nine members of the group, representing 88%, voted for the start of the Anthropocene to be in the mid-20th century.
end quotes
And that is how the term “anthropogenic” as used by the IPCC, the Democrats in this country and Greta Thunberg, came into existence, people – it was pulled straight from the *** of one scientist who might not have been mentally stable, and made mainstream by the HYSTERIA-MONGERING media!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-223903
ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR January 29, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Paul Plante says :
And to put J’s mind to rest here, when I speak of us being in the ANTHROPOCENE, the AGE of ABSURDITY and IRRATIONALITY and INSANITY, I speak of it not in geological terms, even though the term “Anthropocene” itself came from the mouth of a possibly-deranged geologist at a meeting of fellow geologists, but in terms related to Western Civilization, or in this case, the decline of western civilization into benighted ignorance and hysteria and aberrated thinking, where the ANTHROPOCENE is the end of the AGE OF REASON, not the Holocene.
According to basic high school Western Civilization texts, the Age of Reason began in the 18th century in England and France, and it was a period characterized by a prevailing belief in the use of reason.
According to the high school history site “All About History,” the Age of Reason was an eighteenth-century movement which followed hard after the mysticism, religion, and superstition of the Middle Ages.
The Age of Reason represented a genesis in the way man viewed himself, the pursuit of knowledge, and the universe.
In this time period, man’s previously held concepts of conduct and thought could now be challenged verbally and in written form; fears of being labeled a heretic or being burned at the stake were done away with.
end quotes
My OPINION as expressed in here based on a long study that began when I was a combat infantryman in VEET NAM, that 4th rate “raggedy-ass” country that Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson thought he could subdue at the point of a bayonet, is that the AGE OF REASON came to a definitive end in 2005, if not actually earlier, when Sonia Sotomayer, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled that it was for the good of society-at-large that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping,” which is not something I am making up, at all.
If that is not a benchmark to denote the end of the Age of Reason, and the beginning of the Age of Hysteria and Insanity we are now in, nothing is or can be.
Getting back to what used to be high school history, we have:
The Age of Reason included the shorter time period described as the Age of Enlightenment; during this time great changes occurred in scientific thought and exploration.
With the end of that Age, we are now back to DOGMA, defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true as in because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the world is now on fire, and even though the land being flooded is really sinking or subsiding, as may well be the case with Cape Charles, as it is for Norfolk and a goodly portion of the east coast of the United States, it really is flooding because of sea level rise.
And if like myself, you are a remnant of society left over from the Age of Reason who disputes that HORSE****, then you are labeled a heretic, or what is even worse, a (God forbid) Republican!
As to the Age of Reason, German philosopher, Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment this way:
“Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority.”
“Minority is the incapacity of using one’s understanding without the direction of another.”
end quotes
And from out of that, we are now right back into that where we are all now endowed with the incapacity of using our understanding without the direction of Greta Thunberg, who I would not be surprised to see reviving the old Baader-Meinhoff gang and the Red Army Faction (“RAF”) with her at its head, and the IPCC, which is now not only the source of all scientific knowledge concerning the earth’s climate, which is high school level earth science, but the KEEPER of that knowledge, as well, which makes them into another church and another sort of mind-stifling religion.
“This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”
Getting back to the Age of Reason, which I will say ended for certain in December of 2005 with the Sotomayor decision mentioned above, although its decline began perhaps back in the 1970s, we have:
Reason, philosophically, is defined as the ability to form and operate upon concepts in abstraction, narrowing information to its bare content, without emotion.
end quotes
And with the end of the Age of Reason, emotion is now what governs!
As little Greta, the poster child for the AGE OF UNREASON, HYSTERIA AND INSANITY said to the big wigs assembled in Davos on January 21, 2020:
“One year ago, I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire.”
“I said I wanted you to panic.”
end quotes
As for me, I don’t do “panic” because some scared little girl incapable of rational thought tells me I too have to be irrational, because so many other people are, and so, like many others before me, I too have become a heretic, because I do not accept as truth the DOGMA spouted by little Greta and the IPCC, or CHURCH OF SCIENCE.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-224447
Paul Plante says :
And to put J’s mind to rest here, when I speak of us being in the ANTHROPOCENE, the AGE of ABSURDITY and IRRATIONALITY and INSANITY, I speak of it not in geological terms, even though the term “Anthropocene” itself came from the mouth of a possibly-deranged geologist at a meeting of fellow geologists, but in terms related to Western Civilization, or in this case, the decline of western civilization into benighted ignorance and hysteria and aberrated thinking, where the ANTHROPOCENE is the end of the AGE OF REASON, not the Holocene.
According to basic high school Western Civilization texts, the Age of Reason began in the 18th century in England and France, and it was a period characterized by a prevailing belief in the use of reason.
According to the high school history site “All About History,” the Age of Reason was an eighteenth-century movement which followed hard after the mysticism, religion, and superstition of the Middle Ages.
The Age of Reason represented a genesis in the way man viewed himself, the pursuit of knowledge, and the universe.
In this time period, man’s previously held concepts of conduct and thought could now be challenged verbally and in written form; fears of being labeled a heretic or being burned at the stake were done away with.
end quotes
My OPINION as expressed in here based on a long study that began when I was a combat infantryman in VEET NAM, that 4th rate “raggedy-ass” country that Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson thought he could subdue at the point of a bayonet, is that the AGE OF REASON came to a definitive end in 2005, if not actually earlier, when Sonia Sotomayer, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled that it was for the good of society-at-large that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping,” which is not something I am making up, at all.
If that is not a benchmark to denote the end of the Age of Reason, and the beginning of the Age of Hysteria and Insanity we are now in, nothing is or can be.
Getting back to what used to be high school history, we have:
The Age of Reason included the shorter time period described as the Age of Enlightenment; during this time great changes occurred in scientific thought and exploration.
With the end of that Age, we are now back to DOGMA, defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true as in because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the world is now on fire, and even though the land being flooded is really sinking or subsiding, as may well be the case with Cape Charles, as it is for Norfolk and a goodly portion of the east coast of the United States, it really is flooding because of sea level rise.
And if like myself, you are a remnant of society left over from the Age of Reason who disputes that HORSE****, then you are labeled a heretic, or what is even worse, a (God forbid) Republican!
As to the Age of Reason, German philosopher, Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment this way:
“Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority.”
“Minority is the incapacity of using one’s understanding without the direction of another.”
end quotes
And from out of that, we are now right back into that where we are all now endowed with the incapacity of using our understanding without the direction of Greta Thunberg, who I would not be surprised to see reviving the old Baader-Meinhoff gang and the Red Army Faction (“RAF”) with her at its head, and the IPCC, which is now not only the source of all scientific knowledge concerning the earth’s climate, which is high school level earth science, but the KEEPER of that knowledge, as well, which makes them into another church and another sort of mind-stifling religion.
“This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”
Getting back to the Age of Reason, which I will say ended for certain in December of 2005 with the Sotomayor decision mentioned above, although its decline began perhaps back in the 1970s, we have:
Reason, philosophically, is defined as the ability to form and operate upon concepts in abstraction, narrowing information to its bare content, without emotion.
end quotes
And with the end of the Age of Reason, emotion is now what governs!
As little Greta, the poster child for the AGE OF UNREASON, HYSTERIA AND INSANITY said to the big wigs assembled in Davos on January 21, 2020:
“One year ago, I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire.”
“I said I wanted you to panic.”
end quotes
As for me, I don’t do “panic” because some scared little girl incapable of rational thought tells me I too have to be irrational, because so many other people are, and so, like many others before me, I too have become a heretic, because I do not accept as truth the DOGMA spouted by little Greta and the IPCC, or CHURCH OF SCIENCE.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-224447
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR January 31, 2020 at 7:32 pm
Paul Plante says :
By way of review here, as we comment on the demise of the Age of Reason, which the New York Times editorial staff would likely say we are better off without, reason not being all it was cracked up to be in the first place, afterall, and reason doesn’t sell newspapers, either, as well as hype and hysteria does, and the onset of what is variously known as the Age of Un-Reason, or Age of Insanity, or Age of the Totally Absurd as the top contenders to date, according to an on-line learning site on the History of Western Civilization, in the section entitled “The Age of Enlightenment,” we have this historical background to the Age of Reason whose end has been established as December 2005 when Sonia Sotomayor, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, ruled that it was for the good of society-at-large that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping,” to wit:
The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Enlightenment, was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century.
end quotes
Now, to me, an engineer licensed by the state to protect and safeguard life, health and property, that comment about the WORLD OF IDEAS is important to this discussion on several levels, starting with the fact that the “science” I was taught on my way to becoming an associate level public health engineer is both rooted in these enlightenment ideas, as well as grounded in them in terms of public health protection, and the “scientific method,” as well.
According to that Western Civ learning site, science as I knew it came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.
It brought political modernization to the West.
And out of that came the United States of America in 1776, at least by the old history of the United States of America in vogue in the previous millennia which is what I learned as an older American born in a completely different millennium than the one which came into existence in the year 2000, as we can clearly see in the 54 page Decision and Order of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, Eugene Division in KELSEY CASCADIA ROSE JULIANA, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants, Aiken, Judge, Case No. 6:15-cv-01517-TC, decided November 2016, to wit:
Plaintiffs allege that over the 263 years between 1751 and 2014, the United States produced more than twenty-five percent of global C02 emissions. First Am. Compl. para.151.
end quotes
In this Age of Un-Reason, or Age of Insanity, or Age of the Bizarre, facts have become malleable, so that it is not necessarily necessary anymore for the United States of America to have began its political existence on 4 July 1776; if 1751 fits the argument or narrative better, or sounds more symmetric or poetic, then certainly use 1751, and we’ll all understand, since none of us can really prove that 1776 is any better a date than 1751.
Getting back to the Age of Enlightenment, which met its end from the pen of Sonia Sotomayor in December 2005, we have as follows concerning the scientific method, to wit:
A body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge that apply empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
It has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting of systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
end quotes
And if not earlier, the scientific method met its demise on 17 January 2020 when the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it dead on arrival, and began the era of science by judicial decree, which science by judicial decree need not even come close to the rigor demanded by the scientific method, nor need it be scientifically valid, for it is now whatever a federal judge decides it is going to be, based on God alone knows what factors, which takes us back to the Age of Enlightenment, as follows:
Centered on the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, this movement advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
end quotes
The December 2005 Sotomayor decision in question is a text book example of intolerance, which is one of the characteristics of this new age which differentiates this age from the preceding Age of Reason.
Getting back to the history lesson:
The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy.
end quotes
And now we have religious orthodoxy with respect to the earth from the pen of a federal judge, and the CHURCH OF SCIENCE, otherwise known by its initials of IPCC.
Staying with the history:
The core ideas advocated by modern democracies, including the civil society, human and civil rights, and separation of powers, are the product of the Enlightenment.
Furthermore, the sciences and academic disciplines (including social sciences and the humanities) as we know them today, based on empirical methods, are also rooted in the Age of Enlightenment.
There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, with the beginning of the 18th century (1701) or the middle of the 17th century (1650) often considered starting points.
French historians usually place the period between 1715 and 1789, from the beginning of the reign of Louis XV until the French Revolution.
In the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment traces its origins to Descartes’ Discourse on Method, published in 1637.
In France, many cite the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica in 1687.
Some historians and philosophers have argued that the beginning of the Enlightenment is when Descartes shifted the epistemological basis from external authority to internal certainty by his cogito ergo sum (1637).
The prime example of reference works that systematized scientific knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment were universal encyclopedias rather than technical dictionaries.
It was the goal of universal encyclopedias to record all human knowledge in a comprehensive reference work.
The most well-known of these works is Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.
The work, which began publication in 1751, was composed of thirty-five volumes and over 71,000 separate entries.
A great number of the entries were dedicated to describing the sciences and crafts in detail, and provided intellectuals across Europe with a high-quality survey of human knowledge.
In the mid-18th century, Europe witnessed an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity that challenged traditional doctrines and dogmas.
The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation.
The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution.
Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought.
Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.
The Enlightenment has also long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.
end quotes
And now we are sliding back into benighted ignorance, with doctrine and dogma on the rise as we enter the ANTHROPOCENE era, or the Age of the Totally Absurd.
Age of Reason, it was nice knowing you – RIP!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-225396
Paul Plante says :
By way of review here, as we comment on the demise of the Age of Reason, which the New York Times editorial staff would likely say we are better off without, reason not being all it was cracked up to be in the first place, afterall, and reason doesn’t sell newspapers, either, as well as hype and hysteria does, and the onset of what is variously known as the Age of Un-Reason, or Age of Insanity, or Age of the Totally Absurd as the top contenders to date, according to an on-line learning site on the History of Western Civilization, in the section entitled “The Age of Enlightenment,” we have this historical background to the Age of Reason whose end has been established as December 2005 when Sonia Sotomayor, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, ruled that it was for the good of society-at-large that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping,” to wit:
The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Enlightenment, was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century.
end quotes
Now, to me, an engineer licensed by the state to protect and safeguard life, health and property, that comment about the WORLD OF IDEAS is important to this discussion on several levels, starting with the fact that the “science” I was taught on my way to becoming an associate level public health engineer is both rooted in these enlightenment ideas, as well as grounded in them in terms of public health protection, and the “scientific method,” as well.
According to that Western Civ learning site, science as I knew it came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.
It brought political modernization to the West.
And out of that came the United States of America in 1776, at least by the old history of the United States of America in vogue in the previous millennia which is what I learned as an older American born in a completely different millennium than the one which came into existence in the year 2000, as we can clearly see in the 54 page Decision and Order of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, Eugene Division in KELSEY CASCADIA ROSE JULIANA, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants, Aiken, Judge, Case No. 6:15-cv-01517-TC, decided November 2016, to wit:
Plaintiffs allege that over the 263 years between 1751 and 2014, the United States produced more than twenty-five percent of global C02 emissions. First Am. Compl. para.151.
end quotes
In this Age of Un-Reason, or Age of Insanity, or Age of the Bizarre, facts have become malleable, so that it is not necessarily necessary anymore for the United States of America to have began its political existence on 4 July 1776; if 1751 fits the argument or narrative better, or sounds more symmetric or poetic, then certainly use 1751, and we’ll all understand, since none of us can really prove that 1776 is any better a date than 1751.
Getting back to the Age of Enlightenment, which met its end from the pen of Sonia Sotomayor in December 2005, we have as follows concerning the scientific method, to wit:
A body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge that apply empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
It has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting of systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
end quotes
And if not earlier, the scientific method met its demise on 17 January 2020 when the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it dead on arrival, and began the era of science by judicial decree, which science by judicial decree need not even come close to the rigor demanded by the scientific method, nor need it be scientifically valid, for it is now whatever a federal judge decides it is going to be, based on God alone knows what factors, which takes us back to the Age of Enlightenment, as follows:
Centered on the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, this movement advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
end quotes
The December 2005 Sotomayor decision in question is a text book example of intolerance, which is one of the characteristics of this new age which differentiates this age from the preceding Age of Reason.
Getting back to the history lesson:
The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy.
end quotes
And now we have religious orthodoxy with respect to the earth from the pen of a federal judge, and the CHURCH OF SCIENCE, otherwise known by its initials of IPCC.
Staying with the history:
The core ideas advocated by modern democracies, including the civil society, human and civil rights, and separation of powers, are the product of the Enlightenment.
Furthermore, the sciences and academic disciplines (including social sciences and the humanities) as we know them today, based on empirical methods, are also rooted in the Age of Enlightenment.
There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, with the beginning of the 18th century (1701) or the middle of the 17th century (1650) often considered starting points.
French historians usually place the period between 1715 and 1789, from the beginning of the reign of Louis XV until the French Revolution.
In the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment traces its origins to Descartes’ Discourse on Method, published in 1637.
In France, many cite the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica in 1687.
Some historians and philosophers have argued that the beginning of the Enlightenment is when Descartes shifted the epistemological basis from external authority to internal certainty by his cogito ergo sum (1637).
The prime example of reference works that systematized scientific knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment were universal encyclopedias rather than technical dictionaries.
It was the goal of universal encyclopedias to record all human knowledge in a comprehensive reference work.
The most well-known of these works is Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.
The work, which began publication in 1751, was composed of thirty-five volumes and over 71,000 separate entries.
A great number of the entries were dedicated to describing the sciences and crafts in detail, and provided intellectuals across Europe with a high-quality survey of human knowledge.
In the mid-18th century, Europe witnessed an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity that challenged traditional doctrines and dogmas.
The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation.
The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution.
Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought.
Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.
The Enlightenment has also long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.
end quotes
And now we are sliding back into benighted ignorance, with doctrine and dogma on the rise as we enter the ANTHROPOCENE era, or the Age of the Totally Absurd.
Age of Reason, it was nice knowing you – RIP!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-225396
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE GUARDIAN
"Claims Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 were false, says UN scientist"
• IPCC report said ice would vanish 'perhaps sooner'
• Panel head apologises for unsubstantiated assertion
Fred Pearce
Wed 20 Jan 2010 17.44 EST First published on Wed 20 Jan 2010 17.44 EST
One paragraph, buried in 3,000 pages of reports and published almost three years ago, has humbled the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Facing global outcry, Rajendra Pachauri backed down and apologised today for a disputed IPCC claim that there was a very high chance the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.
The assertion, now discredited, was included in the most recent IPCC report assessing climate change science, published in 2007.
Those reports are widely credited with convincing the world that human activity was causing global warming.
But Pachauri admitted in an IPCC statement (pdf) that in this case "the clear and well-established standards of evidence required by the IPCC procedures were not applied properly", and "poorly substantiated estimates" of the speed of glacier melting had made it into print.
He had stridently defended the report in recent months.
Furthermore, the Guardian has discovered the claim was questioned by the Japanese government before publication, and by other scientists.
Pachauri's statement is a reprimand for some IPCC scientists involved.
It is also bound to encourage critics of the panel to redouble efforts to undermine its scientific reputation.
However, many scientists say evidence for man-made climate change remains compelling and note that the 2035 claim did not appear in the more widely read "summary for policymakers".
The offending paragraph, in the panel's fourth assessment report on the impacts of climate change, said: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high."
In IPCC terminology a "very high" likelihood has a specific meaning: more than a 90% chance of coming true.
The report's only quoted source for the claim was a 2005 campaigning report from the environment group WWF.
In turn, the WWF report's only source was remarks made in 1999 by a leading Indian glaciologist, Syed Hasnain, then vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, to journalists at two magazines, New Scientist in London, and Down to Earth in New Delhi.
Hasnain had never submitted the suggestion of such an early demise to a scientific journal because, he said last week, it had always been "speculative".
How this made it to the august pages of the IPCC report remains unclear.
But the IPCC text is almost identical to that in the Down to Earth article in April 1999.
WWF said today it regretted "any confusion caused" and would amend its report.
The panel is yet to make a similar commitment.
Hasnain is currently employed as a senior fellow at an Indian research institute, the The Energy and Resources Institute, whose director is Pachauri.
Glaciologists who spoke to the Guardian say Himalayan glaciers contain so much ice it will be 300 years before it vanishes.
The affair raises serious questions about the rigour of the IPCC's process of sifting and assessing the thousands of research findings it includes in its reports.
It also raises questions about the competence of Pachauri, who angrily defended the report's conclusions about Himalayan glaciers after they were called "alarmist" last autumn by India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh.
Pachauri accused Ramesh of relying on "voodoo science", called the minister "extremely arrogant" and said Ramesh's claims were "not peer reviewed".
It is now clear that it was the panel's claims that were not reviewed.
The author of the part of the panel's report, another Indian glaciologist, Murari Lal, last week defended inclusion of 2035, saying "the error if any lies with Dr Hasnain's assertion".
Pachauri's statement repudiates that position.
He said he "regrets the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance".
One person who has not spoken is the co-chairman of the impacts assessment report, Martin Parry, who was unavailable for comment.
But his successor, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California, said it was a powerful reminder of "carefully applying the well-established IPCC principles to every statement in every paragraph".
"Glaciergate" has brought into the open splits between authors of the four different IPCC reports, produced every five or so years.
However, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE, said: "We should be cautious about making sweeping statements about the IPCC based on a single error."
• This article was amended on Wednesday 27 January 2010. We referred incorrectly to the Tata Energy Research Institute. The organisation that formerly had that name has been The Energy and Resources Institute since 2003. This has been corrected.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... false-ipcc
"Claims Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 were false, says UN scientist"
• IPCC report said ice would vanish 'perhaps sooner'
• Panel head apologises for unsubstantiated assertion
Fred Pearce
Wed 20 Jan 2010 17.44 EST First published on Wed 20 Jan 2010 17.44 EST
One paragraph, buried in 3,000 pages of reports and published almost three years ago, has humbled the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Facing global outcry, Rajendra Pachauri backed down and apologised today for a disputed IPCC claim that there was a very high chance the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.
The assertion, now discredited, was included in the most recent IPCC report assessing climate change science, published in 2007.
Those reports are widely credited with convincing the world that human activity was causing global warming.
But Pachauri admitted in an IPCC statement (pdf) that in this case "the clear and well-established standards of evidence required by the IPCC procedures were not applied properly", and "poorly substantiated estimates" of the speed of glacier melting had made it into print.
He had stridently defended the report in recent months.
Furthermore, the Guardian has discovered the claim was questioned by the Japanese government before publication, and by other scientists.
Pachauri's statement is a reprimand for some IPCC scientists involved.
It is also bound to encourage critics of the panel to redouble efforts to undermine its scientific reputation.
However, many scientists say evidence for man-made climate change remains compelling and note that the 2035 claim did not appear in the more widely read "summary for policymakers".
The offending paragraph, in the panel's fourth assessment report on the impacts of climate change, said: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high."
In IPCC terminology a "very high" likelihood has a specific meaning: more than a 90% chance of coming true.
The report's only quoted source for the claim was a 2005 campaigning report from the environment group WWF.
In turn, the WWF report's only source was remarks made in 1999 by a leading Indian glaciologist, Syed Hasnain, then vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, to journalists at two magazines, New Scientist in London, and Down to Earth in New Delhi.
Hasnain had never submitted the suggestion of such an early demise to a scientific journal because, he said last week, it had always been "speculative".
How this made it to the august pages of the IPCC report remains unclear.
But the IPCC text is almost identical to that in the Down to Earth article in April 1999.
WWF said today it regretted "any confusion caused" and would amend its report.
The panel is yet to make a similar commitment.
Hasnain is currently employed as a senior fellow at an Indian research institute, the The Energy and Resources Institute, whose director is Pachauri.
Glaciologists who spoke to the Guardian say Himalayan glaciers contain so much ice it will be 300 years before it vanishes.
The affair raises serious questions about the rigour of the IPCC's process of sifting and assessing the thousands of research findings it includes in its reports.
It also raises questions about the competence of Pachauri, who angrily defended the report's conclusions about Himalayan glaciers after they were called "alarmist" last autumn by India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh.
Pachauri accused Ramesh of relying on "voodoo science", called the minister "extremely arrogant" and said Ramesh's claims were "not peer reviewed".
It is now clear that it was the panel's claims that were not reviewed.
The author of the part of the panel's report, another Indian glaciologist, Murari Lal, last week defended inclusion of 2035, saying "the error if any lies with Dr Hasnain's assertion".
Pachauri's statement repudiates that position.
He said he "regrets the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance".
One person who has not spoken is the co-chairman of the impacts assessment report, Martin Parry, who was unavailable for comment.
But his successor, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California, said it was a powerful reminder of "carefully applying the well-established IPCC principles to every statement in every paragraph".
"Glaciergate" has brought into the open splits between authors of the four different IPCC reports, produced every five or so years.
However, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE, said: "We should be cautious about making sweeping statements about the IPCC based on a single error."
• This article was amended on Wednesday 27 January 2010. We referred incorrectly to the Tata Energy Research Institute. The organisation that formerly had that name has been The Energy and Resources Institute since 2003. This has been corrected.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... false-ipcc
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE TELEGRAPH
"Himalayan glaciers are melting, says IPCC research - The Himalayan glaciers are melting after all, according to new research released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
10:31AM GMT 04 Dec 2011
The research was released in an effort to draw a line under the embarrassing mistakes made about the effects of global warming on the region in the past.
The IPCC were forced to apologise for claiming that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
The 2009 scandal, known as ‘Himalayagate’ led to criticism of the IPCC, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to warn governments around the world about the effects of climate change.
In an effort to move on from the embarrassing episode, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, has now announced that the latest statistics show the glaciers are melting, according to the limited amount of science available.
The reports, presented at the UN climate change talks in Durban were brought together by the the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
One three year study, funded by Sweden, found that of 10 glaciers measured in the region all are shrinking, with a marked acceleration in loss of ice between 2002 and 2005.
Another study found a reduction in snow cover over the region in the last decade.
However the studies also say more research needs to be done as only 10 of the 54,000 glaciers in the region have been studied regularly.
The melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas could have a devastating effect on both animals and people.
Some 1.3 billion rely on water flowing from the mountains, which could dry up if the glaciers melt.
Dr Pachauri, who weathered much of the criticism over ‘Himalayagate’, said the reports show the impact climate change could have on mountainous regions.
“These reports provide a new baseline and location-specific information for understanding climate change in one of the most vulnerable ecosytems in the world,” he said.
“They substantially deepen our understanding of this region – and of all mountain systems – while also pointing to the knowledge gaps yet to be filled and actions that must be taken to deal with the challenge of climate change globally and to minimise the risks from impacts locally.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/ ... earch.html
"Himalayan glaciers are melting, says IPCC research - The Himalayan glaciers are melting after all, according to new research released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
10:31AM GMT 04 Dec 2011
The research was released in an effort to draw a line under the embarrassing mistakes made about the effects of global warming on the region in the past.
The IPCC were forced to apologise for claiming that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
The 2009 scandal, known as ‘Himalayagate’ led to criticism of the IPCC, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to warn governments around the world about the effects of climate change.
In an effort to move on from the embarrassing episode, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, has now announced that the latest statistics show the glaciers are melting, according to the limited amount of science available.
The reports, presented at the UN climate change talks in Durban were brought together by the the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
One three year study, funded by Sweden, found that of 10 glaciers measured in the region all are shrinking, with a marked acceleration in loss of ice between 2002 and 2005.
Another study found a reduction in snow cover over the region in the last decade.
However the studies also say more research needs to be done as only 10 of the 54,000 glaciers in the region have been studied regularly.
The melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas could have a devastating effect on both animals and people.
Some 1.3 billion rely on water flowing from the mountains, which could dry up if the glaciers melt.
Dr Pachauri, who weathered much of the criticism over ‘Himalayagate’, said the reports show the impact climate change could have on mountainous regions.
“These reports provide a new baseline and location-specific information for understanding climate change in one of the most vulnerable ecosytems in the world,” he said.
“They substantially deepen our understanding of this region – and of all mountain systems – while also pointing to the knowledge gaps yet to be filled and actions that must be taken to deal with the challenge of climate change globally and to minimise the risks from impacts locally.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/ ... earch.html
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR February 1, 2020 at 6:46 pm
Paul Plante says :
LOGICAL PREMISE 1: The AGE OF REASON in the United States of America is unequivocally and officially dead as of December 2005 when now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, ruled that it was for the good of society-at-large that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping.”
LOGICAL PREMISE 2: The AGE of UN-REASON, or ANTHROPOCENE, a Greek word which translates roughly as AGE of ABSURDITY, came into being definitively in December of 2005, when society-at-large in America accepted without question the ruling of now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, that it was for their own good that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping.”
LOGICAL PREMISE 3: The premise that the AGE of Reason is dead in the United States of America is a thought that follows logically from the observation of H.L. Mencken that the entire aim of politics is to keep the populace in a state of alarm by menacing it with imaginary hobgoblins as little Greta Thunberg did just recently in Davos, where little Greta told not only the Davos crowd of rich dudes but the candid world, as well, that “No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world, because that world, in case you haven’t noticed, is currently on fire.”
LOGICAL PREMISE 4: Stark proof that we have departed the Age of Reason and advanced firmly into the depths of the ANTHROPOCENE, or AGE of the TOTAL BIZARRE can readily be found in the unchallenged statement of little Greta Thunberg in Davos that the world is on fire, when it is not on fire at all, and where I am, it snowed this morning.
LOGICAL PREMISE 5: Further stark proof and conclusive evidence that we have long since departed the AGE of REASON and entered into the AGE of UN-REASON, or ANTHROPOCENE, is the sad fact that all of this had to be explained to J in the first place, because he or she was unable to reason through the Mencken quote above and follow it to its logical conclusion that we are no longer in a world of rationality, when a scared little Girl like little Greta Thunberg tells people to feel panic because she is scared, and then people blindly follow her commands without thinking or questioning or reasoning their way through the sheer absurdity of what little Greta is saying when she tells them to be afraid because the world is on fire, when outside there is snow on the ground.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-225623
Paul Plante says :
LOGICAL PREMISE 1: The AGE OF REASON in the United States of America is unequivocally and officially dead as of December 2005 when now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, ruled that it was for the good of society-at-large that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping.”
LOGICAL PREMISE 2: The AGE of UN-REASON, or ANTHROPOCENE, a Greek word which translates roughly as AGE of ABSURDITY, came into being definitively in December of 2005, when society-at-large in America accepted without question the ruling of now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer, then an appeals court judge on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, that it was for their own good that a professional engineer who would not lie to them or deceive them with “scientific falsehoods” should be declared “mentally ill and dangerous” by the State of New York and consigned to a gulag (state mental hospital) for drug-induced “mind wiping.”
LOGICAL PREMISE 3: The premise that the AGE of Reason is dead in the United States of America is a thought that follows logically from the observation of H.L. Mencken that the entire aim of politics is to keep the populace in a state of alarm by menacing it with imaginary hobgoblins as little Greta Thunberg did just recently in Davos, where little Greta told not only the Davos crowd of rich dudes but the candid world, as well, that “No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world, because that world, in case you haven’t noticed, is currently on fire.”
LOGICAL PREMISE 4: Stark proof that we have departed the Age of Reason and advanced firmly into the depths of the ANTHROPOCENE, or AGE of the TOTAL BIZARRE can readily be found in the unchallenged statement of little Greta Thunberg in Davos that the world is on fire, when it is not on fire at all, and where I am, it snowed this morning.
LOGICAL PREMISE 5: Further stark proof and conclusive evidence that we have long since departed the AGE of REASON and entered into the AGE of UN-REASON, or ANTHROPOCENE, is the sad fact that all of this had to be explained to J in the first place, because he or she was unable to reason through the Mencken quote above and follow it to its logical conclusion that we are no longer in a world of rationality, when a scared little Girl like little Greta Thunberg tells people to feel panic because she is scared, and then people blindly follow her commands without thinking or questioning or reasoning their way through the sheer absurdity of what little Greta is saying when she tells them to be afraid because the world is on fire, when outside there is snow on the ground.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-225623
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
MARKETWATCH
"Opinion: ‘Sea-level rise won’t affect my house’: Even flood maps don’t sway most Florida coastal residents"
By Risa Palm and Toby W. Bolsen
Published: Feb 7, 2020 4:47 p.m. ET
Advertisers understand that providing consumers with the facts will not sell products.
To get people to stop and pay attention, successful advertising delivers information simply and with an emotional hook so that consumers notice and, hopefully, make a purchase.
Climate communication scientists use these same principles of messaging – visual, local and dramatic – to provide facts that will get the public’s attention.
Such messaging is intended to help people understand risk as it relates to them, and perhaps, change their behavior as a result.
As social scientists studying the effectiveness of climate change communication strategies, we became curious about a particular message we found online.
Some houses advertised for sale in South Florida were accompanied by banner ads with messages such as “Flooding hurts home value."
"Know more before you buy."
"Find out for free now.”
The ads were sponsored by the First Street Foundation through their website FloodIQ.com.
The nonprofit foundation provides detailed aerial photos of present and future flooding as a consequence of rising sea level.
My colleague and I decided to survey residents of coastal South Florida to better understand how information affected their attitudes and opinions.
Did these messages developed by a nonprofit organization change the perceptions of coastal residents who live in low-lying areas about the threat of coastal flooding as a result of sea level rise?
Many studies of climate change communication and response have been based on national surveys or more local reviews of counties and states susceptible to a range of coastal flooding.
We focused our survey on a single region and a population at greatest risk: those who live in ZIP codes along the South Florida coast where the probability of flooding in local neighborhoods is extremely high.
With permission of the First Street Foundation to reproduce their maps that represent what flooding in the future might look like, we developed a survey to understand the effectiveness of tailored messages.
How would this messaging impact residents’ beliefs about climate change and sea level rise?
We also asked if residents believed their communities and homes were at risk.
We surveyed more than 1,000 residents living in 166 ZIP codes in South Florida between October and December of 2018.
All those surveyed were at risk from either the direct or indirect effects of flooding to their homes, including a decrease in property values as coastal property is perceived as a less desirable destination.
We sampled residents of seven metropolitan areas including Tampa-Saint Petersburg-Clearwater, Fort Myers, Key West, Miami-Dade County, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, and Vero Beach.
Half the sample received a map of their own city, rendered at a scale so that their city block was visible.
The maps illustrated what could happen just 15 years from now at the present rate of sea level rise if there were a Category 3 hurricane accompanied by storm surge flooding.
Does visual information make a difference?
The study was intended to assess how residents might perceive the vulnerability of their property and their communities to severe storms.
We asked residents about their political affiliation and their support for policies such as zoning laws, gasoline taxes and other measures to address climate change.
Surprisingly, we found that those who had viewed the maps were, on average, less likely to say they believed that climate change was taking place than those who had not seen the maps.
Further, those who saw the maps were less likely than those survey respondents who had not seen the maps to believe that climate change was responsible for the increased intensity of storms.
Respondents who classified themselves as Republicans had the strongest negative responses to the maps.
Those who saw the maps were no more likely to believe that climate change exists, that climate change increases the severity of storms or that sea level is rising and related to climate change.
Even more dramatically, exposure to the scientific map did not influence beliefs that their own homes were susceptible to flooding or that sea level rise would reduce local property values.
Consistent with national surveys, party identification was the strongest predictor of general perceptions of climate change and sea-level rise.
However, the majority of homeowners denied that there was risk to their property values, regardless of political affiliation.
What does it take to change minds?
We believe that the motivation of our respondents, their underlying beliefs when forming an opinion, is important when reflecting on these survey results.
Specifically, people often process information or learn in a way that protects their existing beliefs or their partisan leanings.
In the case of our respondents’ general beliefs about climate change and its connection to sea-level rise, those who belonged to the Republican Party may have dismissed the maps either because they challenged their party’s stance on the issue or because they did not view the information as credible given their prior views.
In the case of our respondents’ views about the future effects of sea-level rise on property values, all of the homeowners we surveyed, regardless of their partisanship, may have been motivated by their personal financial interests to reject the notion that sea-level rise would reduce their own property values.
It is important to emphasize that targeted information about climate change may lead to unintended effects.
While accurate and easily absorbed information is important, it will take a much more nuanced approach to change the way people understand information.
As advertisers well know, it takes more than facts to sell any product.
Risa Palm is a professor of Urban Studies and Public Health at Georgia State University. Toby W. Bolsen is associate professor of American politics in the political science department at Georgia State. This commentary was first published on The Conversation.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sea-l ... latestnews
"Opinion: ‘Sea-level rise won’t affect my house’: Even flood maps don’t sway most Florida coastal residents"
By Risa Palm and Toby W. Bolsen
Published: Feb 7, 2020 4:47 p.m. ET
Advertisers understand that providing consumers with the facts will not sell products.
To get people to stop and pay attention, successful advertising delivers information simply and with an emotional hook so that consumers notice and, hopefully, make a purchase.
Climate communication scientists use these same principles of messaging – visual, local and dramatic – to provide facts that will get the public’s attention.
Such messaging is intended to help people understand risk as it relates to them, and perhaps, change their behavior as a result.
As social scientists studying the effectiveness of climate change communication strategies, we became curious about a particular message we found online.
Some houses advertised for sale in South Florida were accompanied by banner ads with messages such as “Flooding hurts home value."
"Know more before you buy."
"Find out for free now.”
The ads were sponsored by the First Street Foundation through their website FloodIQ.com.
The nonprofit foundation provides detailed aerial photos of present and future flooding as a consequence of rising sea level.
My colleague and I decided to survey residents of coastal South Florida to better understand how information affected their attitudes and opinions.
Did these messages developed by a nonprofit organization change the perceptions of coastal residents who live in low-lying areas about the threat of coastal flooding as a result of sea level rise?
Many studies of climate change communication and response have been based on national surveys or more local reviews of counties and states susceptible to a range of coastal flooding.
We focused our survey on a single region and a population at greatest risk: those who live in ZIP codes along the South Florida coast where the probability of flooding in local neighborhoods is extremely high.
With permission of the First Street Foundation to reproduce their maps that represent what flooding in the future might look like, we developed a survey to understand the effectiveness of tailored messages.
How would this messaging impact residents’ beliefs about climate change and sea level rise?
We also asked if residents believed their communities and homes were at risk.
We surveyed more than 1,000 residents living in 166 ZIP codes in South Florida between October and December of 2018.
All those surveyed were at risk from either the direct or indirect effects of flooding to their homes, including a decrease in property values as coastal property is perceived as a less desirable destination.
We sampled residents of seven metropolitan areas including Tampa-Saint Petersburg-Clearwater, Fort Myers, Key West, Miami-Dade County, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, and Vero Beach.
Half the sample received a map of their own city, rendered at a scale so that their city block was visible.
The maps illustrated what could happen just 15 years from now at the present rate of sea level rise if there were a Category 3 hurricane accompanied by storm surge flooding.
Does visual information make a difference?
The study was intended to assess how residents might perceive the vulnerability of their property and their communities to severe storms.
We asked residents about their political affiliation and their support for policies such as zoning laws, gasoline taxes and other measures to address climate change.
Surprisingly, we found that those who had viewed the maps were, on average, less likely to say they believed that climate change was taking place than those who had not seen the maps.
Further, those who saw the maps were less likely than those survey respondents who had not seen the maps to believe that climate change was responsible for the increased intensity of storms.
Respondents who classified themselves as Republicans had the strongest negative responses to the maps.
Those who saw the maps were no more likely to believe that climate change exists, that climate change increases the severity of storms or that sea level is rising and related to climate change.
Even more dramatically, exposure to the scientific map did not influence beliefs that their own homes were susceptible to flooding or that sea level rise would reduce local property values.
Consistent with national surveys, party identification was the strongest predictor of general perceptions of climate change and sea-level rise.
However, the majority of homeowners denied that there was risk to their property values, regardless of political affiliation.
What does it take to change minds?
We believe that the motivation of our respondents, their underlying beliefs when forming an opinion, is important when reflecting on these survey results.
Specifically, people often process information or learn in a way that protects their existing beliefs or their partisan leanings.
In the case of our respondents’ general beliefs about climate change and its connection to sea-level rise, those who belonged to the Republican Party may have dismissed the maps either because they challenged their party’s stance on the issue or because they did not view the information as credible given their prior views.
In the case of our respondents’ views about the future effects of sea-level rise on property values, all of the homeowners we surveyed, regardless of their partisanship, may have been motivated by their personal financial interests to reject the notion that sea-level rise would reduce their own property values.
It is important to emphasize that targeted information about climate change may lead to unintended effects.
While accurate and easily absorbed information is important, it will take a much more nuanced approach to change the way people understand information.
As advertisers well know, it takes more than facts to sell any product.
Risa Palm is a professor of Urban Studies and Public Health at Georgia State University. Toby W. Bolsen is associate professor of American politics in the political science department at Georgia State. This commentary was first published on The Conversation.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sea-l ... latestnews
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
"Speaker: Nuclear power deserves a look - Hansen, pioneer in climate study, tells Kingston audience that political solutions needed"FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
KELSEY CASCADIA ROSE JULIANA; XIUHTEZCATL TONATIUH M., through his Guardian Tamara RoskeMartinez; ALEXANDER LOZNAK; JACOB LEBEL; ZEALAND B., through his Guardian Kimberly Pash-Bell; AVERY M., through her Guardian Holly McRae; SAHARA V., through her Guardian Toa Aguilar; KIRAN ISAAC OOMMEN; TIA MARIE HATTON; ISAAC V., through his Guardian Pamela Vergun; MIKO V., through her Guardian Pamel Vergun; HAZEL V., through her Guardian Margo Van Ummerson; SOPHIE K., through her Guardian Dr. James Hansen; JAIME B., through her Guardian Jamescita Peshlakai; JOURNEY Z., through his Guardian Erika Schneider; VICTORIA B., through her Guardian Daisy Calderon; NATHANIEL B., through his Guardian Sharon Baring; AJI P., through his Guardian Helaina Piper; LEVI D., through his Guardian Leigh-Ann Draheim; JAYDEN F., through her Guardian Cherri Foytlin; NICHOLAS V., through his Guardian Marie Venner; EARTH GUARDIANS, a nonprofit organization; FUTURE GENERATIONS, through their Guardian Dr. James Hansen, Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; MARY B. NEUMAYR, in her capacity as Chairman of Council on Environmental Quality; MICK MULVANEY, in his official capacity as Director of the Office of Management and the Budget; KELVIN K. DROEGEMEIR, in his official capacity as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; DAN BROUILLETTE, in his official capacity as Secretary of Energy; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; DAVID L. BERNHARDT, in his official capacity as Secretary of Interior; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; ELAINE L. CHAO, in her official capacity as Secretary of Transportation; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; SONNY PERDUE, in his official capacity as Secretary of Agriculture; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE; WILBUR ROSS, in his official capacity as Secretary of Commerce; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; MARK T. ESPER, in his official capacity as Secretary of Defense; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE; MICHAEL R. POMPEO, in his official capacity as Secretary of State; ANDREW WHEELER, in his official capacity as Administrator of the EPA; OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; DONALD J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States, Defendants-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon Ann L. Aiken, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 4, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Filed January 17, 2020
Before: Mary H. Murguia and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges, and Josephine L. Staton,* District Judge.
Opinion by Judge Hurwitz; Dissent by Judge Staton
* The Honorable Josephine L. Staton, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, sitting by designation.
STATON, District Judge, dissenting:
In these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response — yet presses ahead toward calamity.
It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses.
Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation.
Footnote 3: My asteroid analogy would therefore be more accurate if I posited a scenario in which the government itself accelerated the asteroid towards the earth before shutting down our defenses.
By Rick Karlin, Albany, New York Times Union
Updated 10:19 pm EST, Thursday, February 6, 2020
KINGSTON -- James Hansen is one of the founders of the modern climate activist movement.
The former NASA physicist raised warnings about global warming as early as the 1980s and created headlines more than a decade ago when he exposed the Bush Administration’s efforts to stifle discussion by federal scientists.
So it may have been something of a surprise to the roughly 300 people who filled the Kingston High School auditorium on Thursday when Hansen all but endorsed nuclear power as one of several ways to tackle the climate crisis.
He also stressed that fossil fuel use won’t be ending in the near-term, given the copious power needs of the world economy.
“You can make solar free and it still is not going to replace fossil fuels,” said Hansen.
As for nuclear power, Hansen believes the next generation of modular plants that are being explored offers much promise.
These smaller generators could be assembled in factories and transported to various sites.
“The U.S. is where it should happen,” Hansen said of such developments.
Hansen’s talk kicked off a three-day Youth Empowerment and Sustainability Summit at the Ashokan Center, a Catskills-based organization that works on sustainability as well as outdoor education issues.
The summit is bringing together middle and high school students from 22 schools for an immersion course in climate literacy.
The students will work with experts in climatology and biodiversity to creating action plans to bring to their hometowns, developing problem solving and design skills in the process.
Hansen ran NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies until his retirement in 2013.
He now runs the Earth Institute at Columbia University, which focuses on sustainability.
Hansen’s thoughts on nuclear and fossil fuels don’t change his belief that the human race needs to stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere.
Heating of the planet is undeniable, he said, but he takes a decidedly global view and one that is fully cognizant of the political obstacles to tackling global warming.
China, for instance, is the world’s largest user of renewables, he said.
But it is also the world’s largest coal burner.
India, where the population may in a few years surpass China’s, is also a tremendous coal burner.
As these large nations push to modernize and raise living standards, they’ll need any variety of energy needs going forward, said Hansen.
While part of a youth summit, the bulk of Thursday’s audience was comprised of Baby Boomers and during a question-and- answer period some pushed him on the nuclear power issue.
What about sources like solar and wind power, along with batteries? asked one person.
That’s fine, said Hansen who has solar panels at his home.
But the subsidies for those power sources have been tremendous.
Those subsidies over the last three years, he said, have outstripped the subsidies given to nuclear power over five decades.
And when it comes to the link between politics, economics and the push for green energy, Hansen blasted both Republicans and Democrats.
Overall, he said Republicans pander to climate change deniers and they don’t follow conservative principles.
But Democrats give into rigid ideology and they want to spend climate money on social programs.
“Both sides fail young people,” he said.
Hansen has called for a carbon tax, which he termed a fee, that would be rebated to the public, thus stimulating the economy while discouraging fossil fuel use.
The tax would be based on the societal costs of fossil fuels, like as pollution, lung disease and global warming.
Some elder Reagan-era Republicans have also supported the concept.
But this is the Trump Era and Hansen believes the clearest path toward tackling global warming might come from a third political party, which could run on the phrase “Make America America Again.”
Among the principles: ranked voting, and giving the parties more power in choosing national candidates, which could presumably bring in more centrist, realistic leaders.
He would also want a “Nature’s Corridor,” or untrammeled pathway from the North to the South of the U.S. that would allow for wildlife to freely migrate as various species respond to climate change before it is fully controlled.
Overall, he sees the need for a body politic that is pragmatic and science-based as the way to really tackle global warming.
“Most people are not at either political extreme but they vote against the extreme they most dislike,” said Hansen.
rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarllinTU
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article ... ion&stn=nf
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
MARKETWATCH
"EU unveils new climate law — Greta Thunberg calls it ‘surrender’"
By Associated Press
Published: Mar 4, 2020 10:56 a.m. ET
BRUSSELS (AP) — Amid fierce criticism from environmental activists, the European Commission unveiled plans Wednesday for its first ever climate law, which will act as the basis of the European Union’s aim to make the 27-country bloc climate neutral by 2050.
Under its Green Deal agenda, the EU’s executive arm wants to legislate to make its ambition of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero by mid-century irreversible, and legally-binding for all member states.
“This climate law will set in stone Europe’s position as a climate leader on the global stage,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
To establish the 2050 goal, the European Commission is proposing a mechanism for regularly raising the EU’s emissions reduction target over the next three decades.
However, there is no plan to increase the bloc’s overall emissions goal for 2030.
This particular point has been criticized by climate activists, who claim that delaying the upgraded 2030 target is detrimental to the bloc’s credibility in the fight against climate change.
The commission only said it would present a “responsible” plan by September on how to raise its current 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gases by 40% from 1990 levels to “at least 50% and towards 55%.”
Environmental group Greenpeace voiced concerns that EU governments will “find it extremely difficult to agree a new target” before the next round of U.N climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
A dozen of member states have also expressed their concern and have asked the commission to come up with a 2030 target “as soon as possible and by June 2020 at the latest in order to advance discussions in a timely manner.”
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, who attended Wednesday’s climate discussions with EU commissioners, dismissed the proposed law.
In an open letter, 34 youth climate activists, including Thunberg, stressed that instead of setting long-term goals, the EU should focus on emissions of carbon dioxide right now if the world is to meet the commitments made five years ago at the Paris climate summit.
“Net zero emissions by 2050 for the EU equals surrender."
"It means giving up,” she said in an open letter published on Tuesday.
“We don’t just need goals for just 2030 or 2050."
"We, above all, need them for 2020 and every following month and year to come.”
Thunberg and her colleagues in the youth climate movement have been pressing governments to focus on so-called CO2 budgets — the amount of CO2 that can be emitted to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and ideally no more than 1.5 C by the end of the century.
But scientists say countries will miss both of those goals by a wide margin unless drastic steps are taken to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions this year.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said Wednesday that Europe had “the warmest January on record, about 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest January in 2007, and 3.1 C warmer than the average January in the period 1981-2010."
"Average temperatures were especially high over large parts of northeastern Europe, in some areas more than 6 C above the 1981-2010 January average.”
Greenpeace also insists a 55% reduction target for 2030 is insufficient in limiting global heating to 2 C.
Environmental group WWF is recommending a cut of at least 65% and is urging the EU to ban subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuels industries as well as setting up an independent scientific body to supervise the EU’s climate change plans.
Green members of the European Parliament accused von der Leyen of giving up her claim to lead in the global climate debate.
“In the face of Greta, she is breaking her promise to present ambitious climate targets for 2030,” Green lawmaker Michael Bloss said.
To set a common trajectory and impose revised targets to member states every five years from 2023, the commission is planning to adopt legally binding legislation that can enter into force if the European Parliament and European Council, the EU body that represents governments, have no objections.
That mechanism could spark concerns among fossil fuel-dependent EU nations, which need to rejig their economies to reach the 2050 target agreed last year by all EU members except Poland.
To finance the climate transition, the EU plans to dedicate a quarter of its budget to tackling climate change and to work to mobilize 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) in investment over the next 10 years.
The financial plan includes a mechanism designed to help the regions that would be most disrupted economically by the transition to cleaner industries.
Von der Leyen added that the commission started working on devising a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” aimed at avoiding a situation where EU countries reduce emissions as part of their ambition to make the continent carbon neutral by 2050, but at the same time import CO2 imbedded in goods.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been promoting the idea of a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders for countries that did not sign up to the 2015 Paris agreement and do not regulate CO2 emissions as strictly as the EU does.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/eu-un ... latestnews
"EU unveils new climate law — Greta Thunberg calls it ‘surrender’"
By Associated Press
Published: Mar 4, 2020 10:56 a.m. ET
BRUSSELS (AP) — Amid fierce criticism from environmental activists, the European Commission unveiled plans Wednesday for its first ever climate law, which will act as the basis of the European Union’s aim to make the 27-country bloc climate neutral by 2050.
Under its Green Deal agenda, the EU’s executive arm wants to legislate to make its ambition of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero by mid-century irreversible, and legally-binding for all member states.
“This climate law will set in stone Europe’s position as a climate leader on the global stage,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
To establish the 2050 goal, the European Commission is proposing a mechanism for regularly raising the EU’s emissions reduction target over the next three decades.
However, there is no plan to increase the bloc’s overall emissions goal for 2030.
This particular point has been criticized by climate activists, who claim that delaying the upgraded 2030 target is detrimental to the bloc’s credibility in the fight against climate change.
The commission only said it would present a “responsible” plan by September on how to raise its current 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gases by 40% from 1990 levels to “at least 50% and towards 55%.”
Environmental group Greenpeace voiced concerns that EU governments will “find it extremely difficult to agree a new target” before the next round of U.N climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
A dozen of member states have also expressed their concern and have asked the commission to come up with a 2030 target “as soon as possible and by June 2020 at the latest in order to advance discussions in a timely manner.”
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, who attended Wednesday’s climate discussions with EU commissioners, dismissed the proposed law.
In an open letter, 34 youth climate activists, including Thunberg, stressed that instead of setting long-term goals, the EU should focus on emissions of carbon dioxide right now if the world is to meet the commitments made five years ago at the Paris climate summit.
“Net zero emissions by 2050 for the EU equals surrender."
"It means giving up,” she said in an open letter published on Tuesday.
“We don’t just need goals for just 2030 or 2050."
"We, above all, need them for 2020 and every following month and year to come.”
Thunberg and her colleagues in the youth climate movement have been pressing governments to focus on so-called CO2 budgets — the amount of CO2 that can be emitted to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and ideally no more than 1.5 C by the end of the century.
But scientists say countries will miss both of those goals by a wide margin unless drastic steps are taken to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions this year.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said Wednesday that Europe had “the warmest January on record, about 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest January in 2007, and 3.1 C warmer than the average January in the period 1981-2010."
"Average temperatures were especially high over large parts of northeastern Europe, in some areas more than 6 C above the 1981-2010 January average.”
Greenpeace also insists a 55% reduction target for 2030 is insufficient in limiting global heating to 2 C.
Environmental group WWF is recommending a cut of at least 65% and is urging the EU to ban subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuels industries as well as setting up an independent scientific body to supervise the EU’s climate change plans.
Green members of the European Parliament accused von der Leyen of giving up her claim to lead in the global climate debate.
“In the face of Greta, she is breaking her promise to present ambitious climate targets for 2030,” Green lawmaker Michael Bloss said.
To set a common trajectory and impose revised targets to member states every five years from 2023, the commission is planning to adopt legally binding legislation that can enter into force if the European Parliament and European Council, the EU body that represents governments, have no objections.
That mechanism could spark concerns among fossil fuel-dependent EU nations, which need to rejig their economies to reach the 2050 target agreed last year by all EU members except Poland.
To finance the climate transition, the EU plans to dedicate a quarter of its budget to tackling climate change and to work to mobilize 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) in investment over the next 10 years.
The financial plan includes a mechanism designed to help the regions that would be most disrupted economically by the transition to cleaner industries.
Von der Leyen added that the commission started working on devising a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” aimed at avoiding a situation where EU countries reduce emissions as part of their ambition to make the continent carbon neutral by 2050, but at the same time import CO2 imbedded in goods.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been promoting the idea of a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders for countries that did not sign up to the 2015 Paris agreement and do not regulate CO2 emissions as strictly as the EU does.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/eu-un ... latestnews