Hack, Now Ex-Bellingcat, Gets Climategate Timezones Backwards
By Stephen McIntyre | Climate Audit | Jul 4, 2019
Bellingcat’s Iggy Ostanin, [update: who Eliot Higgins says is now ex-Bellingcat ] recently claimed to have discovered that the nomenclature of Climategate-1 emails was based on Unix timestamps and that the nomenclature proved that Russians hacked CRU from timezone +05:00. Amidst much uninformed hyperventilating. Ostanin’s assertions were swiftly retweeted by Andy Revkin, Roger Harrabin, Ken Rice and many others. However, his claims are backwards – or perhaps, in true Mannian style, upside down.
The connection of CG email nomenclature to Unix timestamps was observed as early as Dec 7, 2009 (see WUWT commenter crosspatch here)m who similarly noticed discrepancies between nomenclature and email times, but concluded that they showed that hacker used a computer set to Eastern North American time (-05:00 Standard).
I pointed the error out on Twitter with technical analysis. I also linked Ostanin to the original WUWT comment making similar point.
Ostanin responded by claiming that my (correct) replication of CG1 nomenclature was “needlessly complicated” and doubled down with his incorrect assertion that “time seen in hacked email headers is 5 hours behind – to the second – of the time in the decoded email file names”:
Ostanin challenged everyone “to try to see for themselves” – pointing to a internet utility:
After I re-iterated my technical criticism, Iggy stated that he wasn’t “sure if either of [me or Charles Wood] ever came across a Kremlin narrative they didn’t endorse”. Then, in true Mannian (and Eliot Higgins) style, Ostanin blocked me on Twitter.
While it’s a bit absurd to waste time on this trivia, Iggy’s falsehoods remain in circulation. He hasn’t conceded anything. Nor have Revkin, Harrabin, Rice or other re-tweeters conceded that Iggy’s analysis was nonsensical.
In my tweets, I observed that Iggy’s analysis was based on an email sent from GMT timezone and that the 5-hour difference between nomenclature and email time only held for emails from that time zone. What any competent analyst (and we may safely exclude Iggy from that category) would have done is to compare email timestamp to nomenclature across multiple timezones and Daylight/Standard times. I’ve done so in the table below.
Nomenclature for GMT timezone emails in winter are 5 hours ahead, but only 4 hours ahead in summer. This should have caused Iggy to pause. Nomenclature for emails sent from Eastern timezone exactly matched the email time – both in Standard (winter) and Daylight (summer) time. Nomenclature for emails sent from Mountain time (two hours behind Eastern) were – 2 hours in both winter and summer.
Ironically, the very first email in the Climategate dossier was sent from Iggy’s Ekaterinaburg (+05:00). But instead of the nomenclature exactly matching the email time, the nomenclature was 10 hours ahead.
In other words, Ostanin got everything pretty much backwards and upside down. It’s about as bad a bit of analysis as it is possible to imagine. And, instead of simply conceding that he’d made a mistake (which is easy enough to do), Ostanin got belligerent and shut his ears. Unfortunately, Ostanin’s falsehoods are now in circulation and, like Mann’s, will probably fester forever.
Cuomo Announces Sweeping Series of Economic Development Partnerships Between New York and Israel
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Press Release, July 1, 2019
As a Result of Solidarity Trip Last Week,
Partnerships to Focus on UAV/Drones, Transportation, Energy, Cybersecurity, Financial Technology and Health Care Technology and Research
17 Israeli Entities Will Work with Six New York State Agencies and Other Partners to Bolster Innovation and Economic Ties Between the Two States
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a wide ranging series of economic development partnerships between New York State and Israel that are the result of the Governor’s recent trip to Israel. The administration and several major New York health care institutions have signed a series of agreements with Israeli entities in the UAV/drones, transportation, energy, cybersecurity, financial technology and health care industries.
“Our economy is stronger than it’s ever been and our message during this trip was simple: New York is open for business,” Governor Cuomo said. “On our solidarity trip, we focused on key areas that present real opportunities for collaboration with Israeli companies because when Israeli startups choose New York, there is tremendous potential for growth for both economies. I am confident the initiatives announced today will build on the current partnerships that exist between businesses in New York and Israel, and bring our people even closer together.”
“We have worked to ensure New York maintains a strong relationship with Israel, and these latest initiatives will further our shared economic progress,” said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. “The collaboration between our agencies will foster innovative ideas to grow key segments of our economy, ensuring an even brighter future for the people of New York and Israel.”
These announcements build on the agreement signed last week between Empire State Development and the Israel Innovation Authority for a $2 million partnership that will further strengthen economic development ties between New York and Israel. The agreement includes cooperation on the co-development and commercialization of innovative solutions in the fields of cybersecurity, supply chain, smart cities, energy, unmanned aerial vehicles, life sciences and other areas. As part of the agreement, New York and Israel will establish a Smart Cities Innovation Partnership, a new initiative that will share innovative technologies, research, talent and business resources between cities in New York and Israel. The Governor also announced that New York’s Hot Spot and Incubator programs will now implement a new focus on Israeli companies who want to invest in the Empire State.
Among the many strides and agreements made during this week’s trip, the Governor is announcing several collaborations for economic development in the following sectors:
Three Israeli Companies Locating at Unmanned Aircraft Center of Excellence in the Mohawk Valley
New York-Israel Partnership to create UAS Center of Excellence: Empire State Development will provide a $250,000 planning grant to establish a new Unmanned Aerial Systems Research and Testing Center of Excellence in New York State. It will be led by the NUAIR Alliance, an organizational partner of CenterState CEO. The organizations are strategically aligned in their efforts to build public and private partnerships to advance leading edge UAS and UAS traffic management technologies, and create a hub for the industry that will attract investments and business development. New York and Israeli companies will use the new Center of Excellence to focus on advancing technologies, which will bring Israeli technology and R&D to the New York drone market and open Israeli’s markets to New York State UAS companies. Three Israeli tenant companies – Vorpal, Flytrex and CivDrone – have already committed to working with NUAIR and utilizing this new Center of Excellence. This week, the parachute system equipped on Flytrex’s package delivery drones was validated as compliant with industry standards for parachutes, after testing completed by NUAIR at the New York UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York.
UAS Company Civdrone to Host Demonstration Day as Part of Further New York State Expansion: Civdrone’s success in the GENIUS NY program has stimulated investment interest that will allow the company to expand even further in New York State than previously planned. Civdrone CEO Tom Yeshurun will tour the state to select an appropriate construction site to stage a demonstration day for contractors and civil engineering firms, as one of the most important applications envisioned for the Civdrone UAS product is to assist in coordinating physical construction with its blueprint design. The Demonstration Day will take place in mid-August. Civdrone develops fast, reliable and autonomous marking solutions on enterprise drones for the construction industry. Digitalizing and automating land surveying services increases productivity and shortens construction time while lowering costs.
Cornell Tech to Lead Effort to Modernize MTA Technology
Future of Mobility Conference with Cornell Tech and the MTA: Cornell Tech, a joint academic venture between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the MTA will bring national and international thought leaders from academia, business, government and technology to explore solutions to the most vexing challenges facing transportation in New York City. By advancing the spirit of collegiality and cooperation generated over just a few hours in Israel to two full days of discussion about new technologies and methods for modernizing the MTA’s century-old infrastructure, the conference will move the transit innovation discussion to the next level. Globalizing the conversation on topics both cutting edge and conventional will allow the MTA to expand its network of partnerships and deliver a better service to New Yorkers.
Five Israeli Energy Companies Entering New York State
The new relationships outlined below support New York’s state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the most aggressive climate program in the nation, which is driving the state to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.
New York-Israel $2.5 Million Energy Innovation Challenge: The New York Power Authority is partnering with the Israel Smart Energy Association to launch a $2.5 million competition among innovative Israeli firms with expertise in energy efficiency and clean energy generation to support next-generation electric vehicle technologies, electric grid reliability, energy storage and demand flexibility technologies. The challenge will allow NYPA and ISEA to identify several innovative companies and give winners the opportunity to work with large utilities to help create significant advances in grid reliability, storage, sustainability and affordability, all of which benefit ratepayers, utilities and the environment.
Israel-Based Zero Energy Solutions, a Clean Energy Company, Will Open an Office in New York State: Israeli clean energy company Zero Energy Solutions will open an office in New York State with the support of a $400,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Last year, NYSERDA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Israel Innovation Authority to help identify Israeli energy companies that could help New York meet its energy and climate goals. Zero Energy Solutions creates automation technologies that enable commercial buildings to reduce energy use by an estimated minimum of 25 percent, thereby reducing energy costs.
NYPA Partners with Israeli Cyber Security and Grid Management Companies to Test and Demonstrate their Innovative Solutions in New York: NYPA will partner with Israeli firms CY-OT and SIGASEC Ltd as cybersecurity is a major issue for utilities throughout the world. Agreements in this area help position New York as a leader in this critical area. NYPA also will partner with Israeli grid sensor firms EGM and Vocal Zoom. Grid sensors systems enable utilities such as NYPA to take full advantage of emerging digital technologies.
NYPA Partners with the Israeli Electric Corporation: Mostly state owned, and the largest supplier of electricity in Israel, the Israel Electric Corporation will partner with NYPA, the largest state-owned public utility in the U.S., to conduct joint research in the areas of physical and cyber security, as well as in other areas of common interest, such as grid modernization, energy storage and electric vehicles. This joint research effort positions New York State as a leader in the essential areas cutting-edge energy innovation and cybersecurity.
Partnerships with Leading Israeli Life Sciences Innovators
New York Genome Center Partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to fight ALS: The New York Genome Center and Technion will collaborate to complete the genetic mapping of all 600 ALS patients in Israel, including both Arabs and Jews, the first time such multi-ethnic mapping of Israeli ALS patients will occur. The resulting data will be compared to over 3,000 ALS genome sequences in the NYGC’s global ALS Consortium. Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel Laureate 2004, advisors to the Israel ALS Association, have worked with Dr. Hemali Phatnani, Director of the NYGC Center for Genomics of Neurodegenerative Disease and Dr. Tom Maniatis, NYGC’s Scientific Director and CEO, to establish this new research collaboration. This collaboration joins an Israel-wide program of IsrALS aimed at enrolling all of Israel’s ALS patients in the NYGC’s ALS Consortium.
Roswell Park Partnership with Maccabi Healthcare and the University of Haifa: Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center will be entering into two MOUs: one partnering with Maccabi Healthcare Services and the other with University of Haifa. Both MOUs will center around developing new approaches to better treat, detect and prevent cancer.
Northwell Health Hosting Israeli Health Companies: One of New York’s largest private employers and largest health systems, Northwell Health is renewing its MOU with the Israel Innovation Authority and will be hosting Israeli digital health companies in New York in September. The companies will work with Northwell on a series of innovations, including wearable sensors and other health assessment and tracking devices, as well as pharmaceutical therapeutics and clinical trials.
Partnership with Ben-Gurion University in Israel to Promote Growth in Cyber Security Industry
SUNY Expands New York-Israeli Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Partnership: The of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at SUNY Albany is the first standalone college dedicated to the topics of emergency preparedness, homeland security and cybersecurity. The college will be partnering with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel to promote international dialogue and growth in cyber security research, education and industry. The institutions will join together for a two-week exchange summit on cyber security, research and industry, as well as explore a dual degree program.
Israeli Securities Agree to Collaborate on Financial Innovating
Agreement between New York and Israeli on Financial Technology (FinTech) Cooperation: The New York State Department of Financial Services and Israel’s financial regulators, the Capital Markets Insurance and Savings Authority, the Israel Securities Authority, and the Bank of Israel, have signed an MOU to make it easier for FinTech innovators from each market to enter the other, promoting New York and Israel as innovation hubs for financial services technology. Israel has over 750 FinTech companies fueled in part by a deep talent pool of cyber experts produced through military training. Through this MOU New York and Israel will: refer FinTech innovators to each other, which can improve speed to market; exchange information about regulatory and policy issues; ensure that innovators in each other’s jurisdiction receive equivalent levels of support; share expertise, and coordinate training sessions.
Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Howard Zemsky said, “New York’s robust economic development partnerships with Israel will be further strengthened today through initiatives as diverse as drone technology and cancer treatment, and build on our mutual strengths to advance the state’s innovation economy.”
DFS Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell said, “The New York State Department of Financial Services is pleased to partner with our Israeli friends and regulatory counterparts through this agreement and to work together to ensure that unnecessary barriers to FinTech development are removed and necessary consumer protections are in place to support current and future innovation. The well-established relationship between New York and Israel will be amplified and expanded through this agreement, which will ease the ability of entrepreneurs and innovators to work in both countries.”
Alicia Barton, President and CEO, NYSERDA, said, “Governor Cuomo’s nation-leading investments in emerging clean technologies is enabling innovative, forward-thinking companies such as Zero Energy Solutions to expand their operations and bring their products into the New York marketplace. Helping clean energy companies scale-up is vital to growing our green economy and combatting climate change, which is not only a New York priority, but a global issue, and we are proud to partner with Israel on this effort.”
Gil C. Quinones, NYPA president and CEO said, “Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, the Power Authority’s partnerships with Israeli firms in the energy industry have been invaluable during NYPA’s digital transformation and we expect that these new agreements will yield far-reaching benefits as well. These new New York-Israel partnerships are a natural extension of our previous collaborations and will allow New York and Israel—two of the world’s leading technology hubs—to generate greater innovation and yield considerable lasting benefits for both parties and for utilities around the world. These innovations will help us both deliver against our bold goals for a resilient, safe, renewable and affordable energy system that enables us to address the challenges of climate change today.”
Ron Brachman, Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, said, “We are very excited to take part in this initiative to explore new ways to harness emerging technology to tackle the biggest challenges facing New York State, the State of Israel, and the world today. Thanks to the leadership and vision of Governor Cuomo, this innovative collaboration builds on the terrific partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.”
Dr. Tom Maniatis, NYGC’s Scientific Director and CEO said, “This collaboration aims to advance the understanding of the genetic basis of ALS, and ultimately to lead to the development of new treatments. As we move forward, we hope to raise awareness of ALS and attract additional philanthropic resources to fund this important research.”
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said, “This is a unique project. Mapping every ALS patient in Israel will provide invaluable data to better understand the causes of this devastating disease. Israel will be the only country in the world where every single ALS patient will be studied. So far 81 patients were mapped and we do hope to attract additional philanthropic resources to complete this ambitious project. We are grateful to Governor Cuomo who initiated the Technion-NYGC collaboration that has led to this important project.”
Iftach Cohen, CEO, Zero Energy Solutions said, “We are very excited that the NYSERDA award is enabling us to open our North American office in New York City. We look forwarding to introducing our first learning Climate Intelligence platform, a smart plug and play energy optimization solution for commercial real estate properties, to the U.S. market. Our innovative technology will support New York State’s recently passed landmark climate legislation and help the state achieve it energy goals.”
Supervisor of Banks, Hedva Ber, said, “Promoting technological advancement and innovation in our banking system is one of the strategic goals of the Bank of Israel. I thank my colleagues and the partners from New York for this cooperation, which will support our ability to be in the frontier of technology while making sure risks of all types are managed according to best international practices.”
Head of Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Authority, Moshe Bareket, said, “As in-charge regulator of non-bank FinTech operations in Israel, the Capital Market Insurance and Savings Authority is welcoming cooperation and joint work with other global and local regulators. I am sure that we will have fruitful and constructive exchanges on FinTech with our New York colleagues which will be mutually beneficial.”
Chairwoman of Israel Security Authority, Anat Guetta, said, “We understand that FinTech technologies can promote investor welfare, and to do so we need to identify and analyze what would be the potential value for the investors. The financial and the technological worlds operate almost without borders. Global integration is an important element of supervision and this agreement, together with other global activities of the ISA, is an important part of this integration.”
Major General (Res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal, Israeli Electric Corporation Chairman of the Board of Directors said, “I am extremely honored and proud to execute this MOU between IEC and NYPA. IEC, Israel’s largest critical infrastructure corporation, has developed top notch knowhow and processes as well as vast physical and cyber security experience, due to exposure to vast number of attacks from all over the world. I am sure this MOU will significantly contribute to the cooperation and partnership between IEC and NYPA, will improve our defense capabilities and will provide the basis to achieve progress in areas that are of vital interest to the two companies, and to the state of Israel and the United States.”
Elad Shaviv, CEO of the Israeli Smart Energy Association said, “We are excited to cooperate with NYPA to support the transformation of the energy sector. The New York-Israel Innovation Challenge, brings enormous benefit in bridging the challenging gap between innovative solutions and commercial usage, and will benefit both New York and Israel in building a healthier and safer environment while creating jobs and sector leadership.”
Amir Cohen, CEO of EGM said, “NYPA and EGM are collaborating on a demonstration project to smartly and efficiently monitor NYPA overhead transmission line systems based on smart sensors, optimized big data based forecasting and analytics technology developed by EGM. EGM’s analytics system processes the collected big-data and delivers real-time, meaningful useful information to inform the grid’s operation, maintenance and management. The NYPA-EGM project aims to modernize the grid by increasing grid resiliency capabilities, maximizing asset utilization, and improving security systems both for the grid and customers.”
Tal Bakish, CEO of VocalZoom said, “The Industrial IoT is only as good as the sensors that monitor machines. Unfortunately, most IIoT sensors are built on technology that makes predictive maintenance solutions expensive and unreliable for a number of important use cases. This project will field test new VocalZoom sensors with the goal of making power transformer monitoring more accurate and efficient. By improving NYPA’s monitoring capabilities, the project supports Governor Cuomo’s strategy to build a more resilient energy system.”
CEO and founder of Cybergym is Ofir Hason said, “CyberGym is honored to partner with NYPA, a key player in NY energy market. The mutual cooperation will assist CyberGym in expanding its foothold in NY, while significantly improving the cyber security level of the local power companies. We believe that the recently signed MoU will result a long term work plan and a more secured life, without investing in additional security products.”
Candace S. Johnson, PhD, President and CEO, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, said, “I’d like to thank Governor Cuomo for inviting Roswell Park to participate in trips like this. Each time we’ve walked away with relationships and partnerships patients across the world benefit from. In Maccabi Healthcare Services and Haifa University’s Tauber Center, we found teams that are just as passionate as we are about strategically applying our expertise and resources to make a difference for cancer patients and drive the science that will help us to not only control but prevent cancer.”
Michael Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health said, “For the past two years, Northwell Health has been collaborating with the Israel Innovation Authority on the development, validation and implementation of medical innovations that advance patient care. We look forward to furthering our collaboration with numerous Israeli start-up companies that are pursuing unique digital health solutions that promise to improve quality and better serve our patients. We thank the Governor for recognizing the possibilities that exist in health care and numerous other industries with these innovative Israeli companies.”
Ben Gurion University’s VP for Global Engagement Prof. Limor Aharonson-Daniel said, “We look forward to the expansion of the Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Partnership with SUNY Albany. BGU greatly appreciates and values the support of Governor Cuomo who conceived the CEHC in Albany in 2015, approved the connection with the BGU PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research in 2017, and is now seeking to further expand the partnership.”
Robert P. Griffin, Founding Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at UAlbany, said, “The Governor’s vision of a SUNY college dedicated to training those who will keep our families and communities safe knows no boundaries. The opportunity to share, work and learn with our friends and colleagues in Israel and at Ben Gurion University reflects UAlbany’s values and strategic mission in New York and around the world. I remain honored to be part of this vision, mission, and partnership.”
Himalayan Glaciers–The Story The BBC Refuse To Tell You
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | June 30, 2019
Images from Cold War spy satellites have revealed the dramatic extent of ice loss in the Himalayan glaciers.
Scientists compared photographs taken by a US reconnaissance programme with recent spacecraft observations and found that melting in the region has doubled over the last 40 years.
The study shows that since 2000, glaciers heights have been shrinking by an average of 0.5m per year.
The researchers say that climate change is the main cause.
“From this study, we really see the clearest picture yet of how Himalayan glaciers have changed,” Joshua Maurer, from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, told BBC News.
As usual the BBC fail to explain the wider picture.
Glaciers worldwide have been retreating since the mid 19thC, which marked the ending of the Little Ice Age. The Himalayas are no exception.
This is what the first IPCC Report had to say in 1990:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar1/wg1/
Note the comment about the period 1920 to 1960.
They add this chart:
And comment:
And:
In other words, glacier melt may in large part be due to natural phenomenon, rather than man-made.
The rate of recession since the 19thC has not always been constant, as the IPCC noted:
Wood (1988) found that from 1960 to 1980 the number of retreating glaciers decreased. This may be related to the relatively cool period in the Northern Hemisphere over much of this time (Figure 7 10)
In other words, the fact that the rate of retreat seems to have speeded up in the Himalayas in recent years is of little significance, at least for such a short period of time.
Moreover recent studies have found that many glaciers in the Himalayas have actually started growing again in recent years:
Contrary to the UN’s report that the Himalayan glaciers would melt within a quarter of a century, a new study by researchers at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found out that the Himalayan glaciers are advancing rather than retreating.
Researchers studied 286 glaciers in six areas between the Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistan border till Bhutan.
The report published in the journal Nature Geoscience found that the key factor affecting the advance or retreat of the Himalayan glaciers is the amount of debris— rocks and mud— strewn on their surface and not the general nature of climate change.
The report states that glaciers surrounded by high mountains and covered with more than two centimetres of debris are protected from melting.
Debris-covered glaciers are common in the rugged central Himalayas, but they are almost absent in subdued landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau, where retreat rates are higher.
In contrast, more than 50 percent of observed glaciers in the Karakoram range spanning the borders between Pakistan, India and China region in the north-western Himalayas are advancing or stable, states the report.
“Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability or global sea level,” the authors wrote in the journal.
Contrary to popular belief, researchers have also discovered that half of the ice flows in the Himalayas are actually growing rather than shrinking.
The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world’s highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.
The new study has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range in the north-western Himalayas are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts.
The real picture is much more complex than the BBC misleadingly portray.
Contrary to Global Warming Predictions, Great Lakes Water Levels Now at Record Highs
By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. | June 27, 2019
It is a truism that any observed change in nature will be blamed by some experts on global warming (aka “climate change”, “climate crisis”, “climate emergency”).
When the Great Lakes water levels were unusually low from approximately 2000 through 2012 or so, this was pointed to as evidence that global warming was causing the Great Lakes to dry up.
Take for example this 2012 article from National Geographic, which was accompanied by this startling photo:
The accompanying text called this the “lake bottom”, as if Lake Michigan (which averages 279 feet deep) had somehow dried up.
Then in a matter of two years, low lake levels were replaced with high lake levels. The cause (analysis here) was a combination of unusually high precipitation (contrary to global warming theory) and an unusually cold winter that caused the lakes to mostly freeze over, reducing evaporation.
Now, as of this month (June, 2019), ALL of the Great Lakes have reached record high levels.
Time To Change The Story
So, how shall global warming alarmists explain this observational defiance of their predictions?
Simple! They just invoke “climate weirding”, and claim that the climate emergency has caused water levels to become more erratic, to see-saw, to become more variable!
The trouble is that there is that there is no good evidence in the last 100 years that this is happening. This plot of the four major lake systems (Huron and Michigan are at the same level, connected at the Straits of Mackinac) shows no increased variability since levels have been accurately monitored (data from NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory):
This is just one more example of how unscientific many global warming claims have become. Both weather and climate are nonlinear dynamical systems, capable of producing changes without any ‘forcing’ from increasing CO2 or the Sun. Change is normal.
What is abnormal is blaming every change in nature we don’t like on human activities. That’s what happened in medieval times, when witches were blamed for storms, droughts, etc.
One would hope we progressed beyond that mentality.
Scientists map huge undersea fresh-water aquifer off US Northeast
Scientists have mapped a huge aquifer off the US Northeast (hatched area). Solid yellow or white lines with triangles show ship tracks. Dotted white line near shore shows edge of the glacial ice sheet that melted about 15,000 years ago. Further out, dark blue, the continental shelf drops off into the Atlantic abyss. Credit: Gustafson et al., Scientific Reports, 2019
Columbia University | Phys.org | June 21, 2019
In a new survey of the sub-seafloor off the U.S. Northeast coast, scientists have made a surprising discovery: a gigantic aquifer of relatively fresh water trapped in porous sediments lying below the salty ocean. It appears to be the largest such formation yet found in the world. The aquifer stretches from the shore at least from Massachusetts to New Jersey, extending more or less continuously out about 50 miles to the edge of the continental shelf. If found on the surface, it would create a lake covering some 15,000 square miles. The study suggests that such aquifers probably lie off many other coasts worldwide, and could provide desperately needed water for arid areas that are now in danger of running out.
The researchers employed innovative measurements of electromagnetic waves to map the water, which remained invisible to other technologies. “We knew there was fresh water down there in isolated places, but we did not know the extent or geometry,” said lead author Chloe Gustafson, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “It could turn out to be an important resource in other parts of the world.” The study appears this week in the journal Scientific Reports.
The first hints of the aquifer came in the 1970s, when companies drilled off the coastline for oil, but sometimes instead hit fresh water. Drill holes are just pinpricks in the seafloor, and scientists debated whether the water deposits were just isolated pockets or something bigger. Starting about 20 years ago, study coauthor Kerry Key, now a Lamont-Doherty geophysicist, helped oil companies develop techniques to use electromagnetic imaging of the sub-seafloor to look for oil. More recently, Key decided to see if some form of the technology could also be used also to find fresh-water deposits. In 2015, he and Rob L. Evans of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spent 10 days on the Lamont-Doherty research vessel Marcus G. Langseth making measurements off southern New Jersey and the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, where scattered drill holes had hit fresh-water-rich sediments.
They dropped receivers to the seafloor to measure electromagnetic fields below, and the degree to which natural disruptions such as solar winds and lightning strikes resonated through them. An apparatus towed behind the ship also emitted artificial electromagnetic pulses and recorded the same type of reactions from the subseafloor. Both methods work in a simple way: salt water is a better conductor of electromagnetic waves than fresh water, so the freshwater stood out as a band of low conductance. Analyses indicated that the deposits are not scattered; they are more or less continuous, starting at the shoreline and extending far out within the shallow continental shelf—in some cases, as far as 75 miles. For the most part, they begin at around 600 feet below the ocean floor, and bottom out at about 1,200 feet.
An electromagnetic receiver used in the study being deployed off the research vessel Marcus Langseth. Credit: Kerry Key
The consistency of the data from both study areas allowed to the researchers to infer with a high degree of confidence that fresh water sediments continuously span not just New Jersey and much of Massachusetts, but the intervening coasts of Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. They estimate that the region holds at least 670 cubic miles of fresh water. If future research shows the aquifer extends further north and south, it would rival the great Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies vital groundwater to eight Great Plains states, from South Dakota to Texas.
The water probably got under the seabed in one of two different ways, say the researchers. Some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, toward the end of the last glacial age, much of the world’s water was locked up in mile-deep ice; in North America, it extended through what is now northern New Jersey, Long Island and the New England coast. Sea levels were much lower, exposing much of what is now the underwater U.S. continental shelf. When the ice melted, sediments formed huge river deltas on top of the shelf, and fresh water got trapped there in scattered pockets. Later, sea levels rose. Up to now, the trapping of such “fossil” water has been the common explanation for any fresh water found under the ocean.
But the researchers say the new findings indicate that the aquifer is also being fed by modern subterranean runoff from the land. As water from rainfall and water bodies percolates through onshore sediments, it is likely pumped seaward by the rising and falling pressure of tides, said Key. He likened this to a person pressing up and down on a sponge to suck in water from the sponge’s sides. Also, the aquifer is generally freshest near the shore, and saltier the farther out you go, suggesting that it mixes gradually with ocean water over time. Terrestrial fresh water usually contains less than 1 part per thousand salt, and this is about the value found undersea near land. By the time the aquifer reaches its outer edges, it rises to 15 parts per thousand. (Typical seawater is 35 parts per thousand.)
If water from the outer parts of the aquifer were to be withdrawn, it would have to be desalinated for most uses, but the cost would be much less than processing seawater, said Key. “We probably don’t need to do that in this region, but if we can show there are large aquifers in other regions, that might potentially represent a resource” in places like southern California, Australia, the Mideast or Saharan Africa, he said. His group hopes to expand its surveys.
A National Narrative for Media on Climate Change
By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | June 22, 2019
Those of you who closely watch the media — newspapers, broadcast & streaming news, national magazines, national public radio — may have noticed that all the news about climate change is beginning to sound the same — regardless of outlet (there are a few sensible exceptions). This is no accident. In fact, it is an organized movement among American journalists.
I have written here before about the Editorial Narratives at the New York Times. Here’s the working definition I proposed for Editorial Narrative:
“Editorial Narrative: A mandated set of guidelines for the overriding storyline for any news item concerning a specified topic, including required statements, conclusions and intentional slanting towards a particular preferred viewpoint. A statement from the Editors of “How this topic is to be presented.”
In that essay, I quoted Michael Cieply when, in November 2016, he told the world about the NY Times’ Editorial Narratives:
“It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse [of that at the LA Times]. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?”
The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper’s daily Page One meeting: “We set the agenda for the country in that room.”
I don’t know how many readers took this bit of news seriously or how many readers realized the implications of the exposé. Personally, I was not surprised, as I had long suspected it. But the implications of this are quite disturbing. It means, in layman’s terms, that the news that you read has been pre-determined by the Editors and has little to do with actual events (real news) that happen in the real world. Those of you who have recently read Orwell’s 1984 will recognize some of the features of the Ministry of Truth (writ small at the NY Times’ “Page One meeting”). At the NY Times, the profession of journalism has been turned to the task of pushing the narratives of editors down the throats of the people. Newspeak is rampant.
While I found Cieply’s revelations unsettling, I find the following story truly frightening in its ability to threaten the very underpinnings of democracy.
The story starts earlier in the year with a conference planned and held at the behest of Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation (“along with partners such as The Guardian”). You can watch the conference online (YouTube). The outcome of that conference is a growing cabal of journalists and their editors: (in their own words):
“How does the media cover—or not cover—the biggest story of our time? Last fall, UN climate scientists announced that the world has 12 years to transform energy, agriculture, and other key industries if civilization is to avoid a catastrophe. We believe the news business must also transform.”
“The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation assembled some of the world’s top journalists, scientists, and climate experts to devise a new playbook for journalism that’s compatible with the 1.5-degree future that scientists say must be achieved. We also held a town hall meeting on the coverage of climate change and the launch of an unprecedented, coordinated effort to change the media conversation.”
source: https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/climate-crisis-media.php/
Journalists around the world are being contacted by email by CJR with a message that includes this appeal:
“Our ask of you is simple: commit to a week of focused climate coverage this September. We are organizing news outlets across the US and abroad—online and print, TV and audio, large and small—to run seven days of climate stories from September 16 through the climate summit UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hosts in New York September 23. The stories you run are up to you, though we can offer ideas and background information and connect outlets looking for content with content providers looking for outlets.
We’d be happy to schedule a phone call to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
What is their playbook? What’s the narrative they expect journalists to stick to?
It starts with this: “Transforming the media’s coverage of the climate crisis” and morphs into a “FAQ” titled “The media are complacent while the world burns” with these ideas and suggestions like these:
1. Climate is a crisis.
2. The Green New Deal is “a plan to mobilize the United States to stave off climate disaster and, in the process, create millions of green jobs.” and the GND has massive public support. [ NB: see Postscript at the end of this column. ]
3. Climate is the “biggest story of our time”.
4. Journalists should push the “… warning that humanity has a mere 12 years to radically slash greenhouse-gas emissions or face a calamitous future in which hundreds of millions of people worldwide would go hungry or homeless or worse.” and that “our civilization today faces the prospect of extinction”.
If this all sounds like a Climate Pragmatists Worst Nightmare, then you are starting to understand correctly. The CJR/Nation/Guardian cabal is working on a “handbook” to help news organizations “get the story right”. In other words, they are writing the Climate Journalism Narrative – a point for point list of what every climate story should say and how it should say it (and, remember folks, ”every story is a climate story”). They call on journalists to “Learn the science” suggesting that instead of actually reading anything containing the science of the climate, such as the real science sections of the IPCC AR5 report, they recommend that journalists read “Four recent books—McKibben’s Falter, Naomi Klein’s On Fire, David Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth, and Jeff Goodell’s The Water Will Come—are good places to start.” — all of which are extreme climate alarmist propaganda.
Covering Climate Now movement is organizing:
“A focused week of coverage
We’ll work to organize as much of the news media as possible—large and small, national and local—to commit to one week of focused coverage of climate change this September. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, is convening a summit in New York on September 23, where nations are urged to show how they will limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We propose a week of concentrated climate coverage in the lead-up to the UN summit, beginning September 16.” [source]
Don’t be fooled, they are not planning any real journalistic attempts to explain the complexity of the wicked problem called Earth’s Climate and the current controversies surrounding the issues involved. They are planning an intensive propaganda campaign across as many media outlets as they can convince (or shame) into signing on to participate.
I have laid out my position on the Climate Question here at WUWT ( here and here ). I encourage climate realists, especially those with a broader reach into mainstream media, to begin now to plan for their own counter-campaign to help neutralize the propaganda blitz envisioned by CJR/The Nation/The Guardian cabal for September 2019. We too are journalists, even if in just a small way. I for one will be following the Covering Climate Now propaganda campaign and will update the readership here with details from their promised propaganda ”handbook”.
The science is very plain on such issues as US wildfires, hurricanes (US and worldwide), US flooding, so-called heat waves and weather extremes. Opinion columns and essays in national newspapers and magazines (both print and online) and video commentary for broadcast and streamed news stations, laying out the simple truth, with graphs, numbers, and images, can and will help cut the ground from under the alarmist propaganda effort.
If we, the readers and contributors here, don’t make the effort to counteract this planned act of ideological sabotage of the American mind, who will?
# # # # #
POSTSCRIPT: One of the propaganda points that will be pushed by the Climate Journalists Cabal is: “Not only do most Americans care about climate change, but an overwhelming majority support a Green New Deal—81 percent of registered voters said so as of last December, according to Yale climate pollsters. Trump and Fox don’t like the Green New Deal? Fine. But journalists should report that the rest of America does.”
This is an example of how warped the journalism being promoted by the Covering Climate Now group is. It is true that a poll by “Yale climate pollsters” (in reality the activist department Yale Program on Climate Change Communication) found, in December 2018: “The survey results show overwhelming support for the Green New Deal, with 81% of registered voters saying they either “strongly support” (40%) or “somewhat support” (41%) this plan.” There’s the 81%.
What a great quotable quote!
The reality is a bit different. The pollsters asked this question:
“Some members of Congress are proposing a “Green New Deal” for the U.S. They say that a Green New Deal will produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. The Deal would generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within the next 10 years; upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings, and transportation infrastructure; increase energy efficiency; invest in green technology research and development; and provide training for jobs in the new green economy. How much do you support or oppose this idea?”
And got this result:
Now that looks pretty definitive, doesn’t it? But here’s the real deal…. the poll is taken in the first weeks of December 2018. The Green New Deal (in its current form) was announced the week following the November 2018 mid-term elections. So, less than 3 weeks after it is announced, put up on the web, taken down again, put up again (you remember the story), the climate advocacy group at Yale does a poll, preceded by a glowing recommendation of the GND, and then asks “How much to you support or oppose this idea?”
So, our Climate Journalist Cabal is not misrepresenting the poll… they are just misrepresenting the whole concept of public support for the GND.
The same poll also asked:
“How much, if anything, have you heard about a policy being proposed by some members of Congress called the Green New Deal?”
The resounding answer?
“Nothing at all”
The same poll, the same cohort (same people polled), a greater percentage than those purportedly “supporting” it had heard “nothing at all” about the GND.
For those that interpret polls, this means, bluntly, that the “supporters” were responding solely to the pollsters “introduction” about the GND — they really didn’t know anything at all about it.
What does the public really think about the seriousness of climate issues? The Pew poll of January 2019:
The Climate Journalist Cabal has already stated that it plans to use this near-total misrepresentation as part of its propaganda campaign. What they will do with other topics is not hard to imagine.
Extreme Politics: The Roger Pielke Jr. Story
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | June 10, 2019
Last week, an article by economist Ross McKitrick appeared in Canada’s National Post. Titled This scientist proved climate change isn’t causing extreme weather – so politicians attacked, it tells the story of Roger Pielke Jr., a professor in Boulder, Colorado who has been mercilessly persecuted for the unpardonable sin of telling the truth.
With Canada’s Prime Minister childishly insisting a national carbon tax will prevent wildfires, floods, and tornadoes, McKitrick sets us straight:
Globally there’s no clear evidence of trends and patterns in extreme events such as droughts, hurricanes and floods. Some regions experience more, some less…There’s no trend in U.S. hurricane landfall frequency or intensity. If anything, the past 50 years has been relatively quiet…Since 1965, more parts of the U.S. have seen a decrease in flooding than have seen an increase…There’s no trend in U.S. tornado damage (in fact, 2012 to 2017 was below average)…Cold snaps in the U.S. are down but, unexpectedly, so are heatwaves.
The bottom line is there’s no solid connection between climate change and the major indicators of extreme weather… [bold added]
Pielke once specialized in natural disasters and the damage they inflict. In 2006, Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, appeared. It incorrectly claimed global warming was responsible for Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New Orleans. This became the party line amongst US Democrats.
Having since switched his research focus to other matters, Pielke spoke publicly last year about being relentlessly smeared and slimed by ridiculously senior Democrats despite the fact that he himself has never once voted Republican.
A case in point is John Podesta. This man was President Bill Clinton’s last chief of staff. He was an advisor to President Barack Obama. More recently, he served as Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign manager. Podesta’s other project is the Center for American Progress (CAP), described as “the Democrat’s favorite think tank.”
Podesta is as partisan as they come, and CAP is a Democratic Party political machine. In Pielke’s words, between 2007 and 2015, “CAP wrote more than 161 articles critical of me, many spreading false and incorrect representations of my views. They averaged an article a week in 2008 and 2009.”
Overall, seven different CAP writers chose to ignore Pielke’s airtight scholarship. He needed to be muzzled for political reasons – for “questioning the link between climate change and extreme weather” and for allegedly providing “cover for climate deniers.”
In an internal 2014 e-mail (made public by WikiLeaks in 2016), CAP employee Judd Legum boasts that his part of that organization got Pielke fired as a contributor to FiveThirtyEight.com, a website affiliated with ABC News.
Pielke’s first and only article there was titled Disasters Cost More Than Ever – But Not Because of Climate Change. Studded with numerous links to source material, it points out that even the UN’s highly politicized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits there’s scant evidence of a spike in the frequency or intensity of floods, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes.
In other words, there’s nothing remotely radical or non-mainstream about Pielke’s position. But the blowback orchestrated by CAP and others was so vociferous, he was never published at FiveThirtyEight.com again. In this interview Pielke says he suggested leaving three months later, after the website had demonstrated “some reluctance in continuing to publish my work.”
Slide #38 in the presentation Pielke gave last year includes a third party advertisement that characterizes his departure as a “Victory for climate truth!” Rather than being an honest scholar, you see, he’s actually a “climate confusionist” who deserves to be destroyed.
Today, someone searching on Pielke’s name at FireThirtyEight.com is presented with a very short list. It includes an editorial by its founder and editor-in-chief about Pielke’s article. It also includes a response to Pielke’s article by Kerry Emanuel. But there’s no actual link to Pielke’s calm, sane piece itself.
Having kowtowed to bullies, FireThirtyEight.com now sticks to conventional fare – articles that discuss “climate change denialists” and “climate change deniers.”
The simple truth is so threatening to certain political operatives that Pielke’s persecution didn’t end there. In 2015, he was falsely accused of secretly taking money from an oil company and investigated by Congress. In that context, the president of the university that employs him was advised in writing that Obama’s White House science advisor believed Pielke to be guilty of “serious misstatements.”
Also in 2015, Paige St. John, a Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist, discovered that mentioning Pielke in an article was sufficient to ignite a campaign against her. Slide #22 contains a comment St. John sent to Pielke by e-mail:
You should come with a warning label: Quoting Roger Pielke will bring a hail storm down on your work from the London Guardian, Mother Jones and Media Matters.
Let that sink in. No one is off limits. Even journalists at the top of the heap are targeted and bullied. The climate mafia exists. Its enforcers are real. Their mantra is: thou shalt not set a toe out of line.
As Ross McKitrick ended his National Post article last week, so shall I: “Something has gotten scary and extreme, but it isn’t the weather.”
The Vaccine Debate — highlights in vaccine industry and medical research
By Richard Hugus | Aletho News | June 6, 2019
All states in the US mandate vaccines for school children, effectively taking away the right to education for families refusing vaccination. Different states allow one to three exemptions from mandatory vaccination on philosophical, religious or medical grounds. In 2015 the California legislature passed a bill (SB277) removing the philosophical or personal belief exemption. The religious exemption had already been removed. This left only the medical exemption, which is difficult to obtain. because doctors fear losing their medical licenses if they grant the exemption. The Maine state legislature recently followed suit, removing all religious or philosophical vaccine exemptions. Mandatory vaccination depends on the assumption that all recommended vaccines are safe for all children. As state laws are going in the direction of more and more coercion, this is a good time to ask if that assumption is valid.
Dr. Plotkin
In October 2017 the divorced parents of a two year old child brought a case before the Circuit Court of Oakland County Michigan to settle a disagreement as to whether their daughter should have to be vaccinated. The mother was against; the father was for. Dr. Stanley Plotkin, an MD with experience in vaccine research going back to the ’60s, stepped forward as an expert in favor of vaccination. He was questioned by counsel representing the plaintiff (the child’s mother) in a deposition which ended up doing more harm than good not only to the father’s case but to the whole idea that ethics are of any real importance to researchers and industry promoting vaccines.
In a three minute clip from the nine hour deposition, Dr. Plotkin admitted:
- That he had used orphans to study an experimental vaccine.
- That he had used mentally retarded children to study a rubella vaccine.
- That he had written a letter to the editor of “Ethics On Human Experimentation” in which he says “the question is whether we are to have experiments performed on fully functioning adults and on children who are potentially contributors to society or to perform initial studies on children and adults who are human in form but not in social potential.”
- That he had used babies of mothers in prison to study an experimental vaccine.
- That he had used individuals under colonial rule in the Belgian Congo in an experiment involving almost a million people to study an experimental vaccine.
Elsewhere in the deposition, Plotkin said that he had helped create a vaccine advocacy group called Voices For Vaccines. He claimed the group was independent, but admitted on questioning that it was funded by the vaccine industry. Plotkin is a good example of a doctor so immersed in the prevailing dogma about vaccines that he can’t imagine other perspectives, or his own conflicts of interest. Not to mention the criminality of experimenting on people unable to assert their right to informed consent.
Paul Offit
Paul Offit
One of Dr. Plotkin’s students was Dr. Paul Offit, a tireless vaccine industry shill and developer of a rotavirus vaccine which made him a fortune. In October 2018 Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote a letter to Paul Offit to challenge the claim in Offit’s books that medical experts are the only authorities on vaccine safety. Kennedy writes:
“Your book title and press releases suggest that, in contrast to “celebrities, politicians and activists,” you consider yourself to be eminently qualified to furnish health information in a truthful and unbiased manner. I would like to take this opportunity to inquire as to whether your own substantial financial entanglements with the $52 billion vaccine industry—conflicts you deliberately conceal from your allies in the mainstream media—should disqualify you from representing yourself as a neutral and trustworthy voice in this contentious debate. You have accepted tens of millions of dollars from vaccine companies for your work as the primary spokesman for the industry. You occupy a chair at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia endowed with a $1.5 million grant from Merck, and you were a co-developer, with Merck, of the RotaTeq rotavirus vaccine.
Indeed, your financial conflicts of interest with the vaccine industry since the early 2000s, during your tenure on a key Centers for Disease Control vaccine panel, were the subject of two federal investigations. While sitting on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), you voted to add a rotavirus vaccine to the CDC childhood vaccine schedule. You neglected to recuse yourself despite the fact that you had your own rotavirus vaccine patent in development. Six years later, thanks to the inclusion of rotavirus on the CDC schedule, you and your business partners were able to sell your patent for $186 million. This self-dealing transaction in which you effectively “voted yourself rich” was condemned by a 2003 congressional investigation and a 2008 investigation by the HHS Inspector General. Congressman Dan Burton described the “paradox” of the CDC “routinely allow[ing] scientists with blatant conflicts of interest to serve on influential advisory committees that make recommendations on new vaccines, as well as policy matters,” even though “these same scientists have financial ties, academic affiliations, and other vested interests in the products and companies for which they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight.” When ACIP added your vaccine (RotaTeq) to the childhood vaccine schedule in 2006, policy-makers of the time acknowledged that the vaccine was “one of the most expensive” and potentially lucrative ever added to the schedule. Critics of the decision wondered why we were mandating a ruinously expensive and shoddily tested vaccine for tens of millions of children to combat mild illness that accounts for only a few dozen deaths in the United States annually.
You routinely talk about RotaTeq’s achievements, but you have never publicly commented on the elevated rate of agonizingly painful and sometimes deadly intussusception observed in recipients of RotaTeq nor on the vaccine’s contamination with DNA fragments from two porcine circoviruses known to cause serious wasting disease in pigs. Scientists and public health experts suggest that your vaccine may be infecting millions of children each year with these viruses. Since the vaccine was never properly safety tested against inert placebos, we may never know the truth.”
The Spanish Flu
In a November 2018 article, Kevin Barry, former federal attorney and president of First Freedoms, looks back at the beginning of the pharmaceutical industry in the early 20th century as it was getting its start under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. US soldiers about to be sent into World War I in Europe provided medical researchers an opportunity for experimentation (in this case on fully functioning adults).
Between 1918 – 19, Barry reports, more soldiers died of a mysterious disease called “the Spanish flu” than from bullets. The Spanish flu, he says, killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide. But it was neither Spanish, nor a flu. According to Barry, it appears to have originated at a military base in Fort Riley, Kansas in 1918 where doctors were experimenting with a Rockefeller Institute bacterial meningitis vaccine, using US soldiers. The soldiers who survived were deployed to Europe where they spread a deadly bacterial pneumonia among themselves while the Rockefeller Institute also sent the “vaccine” directly to several countries in Europe, in the end causing the death of millions of people
Gulf War Syndrome
In January1991 The Unites States attacked Iraq in what was called the Persian Gulf War.
An estimated 43,000 US veterans of the war came down with a variety of strange and illnesses attributable to mandatory experimental vaccines and drugs administered without informed consent.
Cornelius Rhoads
In November 1931 a Harvard trained MD named Cornelius Rhoads conducted a cancer experiment in Puerto Rico under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations. Rhoads said in a letter:
“Porto Ricans are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere… They are even lower than the Italians. What the island needs is not public health work, but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the entire population… I have done my best to further the process of their extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more. All physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects.”
Rhoads should have been tried for murder, but instead found fame and fortune. He went on the establish biological warfare facilities for the US Army, made the cover of TIME magazine in 1949, and became the director of the famous Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Bill Gates
Art by David Dees
In 1999 Bill Gates launched The Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization. Dr. David Ayoub points out that The Global Alliance had membership and goals identical to those set out in US National Security Study Memorandum 200 presented to President Nixon by Rockefeller protegé Henry Kissinger in 1974. Memorandum 200 had an explicit goal of coercive population control in less developed countries.
In 2005 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded tetanus vaccinations for distribution by UNICEF in Africa. The vaccines were administered only to young women of child-bearing age. In 2014, doctors and Catholic clergy in Kenya had the vaccine independently tested and found that the vaccine contained an antigen called “human gonadotropin” which renders women infertile.
Bill Gates appeared in a 2010 TED talk in which he said: “The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps ten or fifteen percent.”
If vaccines and reproductive health services are meant to save lives, how would they be useful in reducing a population?
To all appearances, the Gates and Rockefeller foundations are working together to promote population control under the guise of vaccine philanthropy.
The Vioxx Scandal
Vioxx was not a vaccine but its marketing reveals a great deal about the ethics of Merck Pharmaceutical, a major player in the vaccine industry. Vioxx was the brand name for a popular painkiller introduced by Merck in 1999. The drug was taken off the market in 2004, more than four years after a clinical trial and plenty of evidence, known to Merck, showed that it caused serious cardiovascular problems. Merck’s response was to “discredit, neutralize, and destroy” doctors critical of Vioxx. One spokesman at the FDA, which was by no means innocent in this scandal, said that the drug had caused “more than 27,000 deaths and heart attacks.” Like other pharmaceutical corporations, Merck considered the payment of damages for these deaths to be the price of doing business.
SIV and SV40
Experimental live polio vaccines, including the Salk polio vaccine, contained a virus found in monkeys which, when given to humans, may have created the worldwide HIV epidemic and untold cases of cancer in children and adults. According to the National Vaccine Information Center,
“an article [was] published in the March 1992 issue of The Lancet in which attorney Walter Kyle provided evidence that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may have been created after simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) entered the human population when African green monkey kidney tissues infected with SIV were used to produce polio vaccines. The Kyle article pointed out that scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and within industry suspected as early as the 1950’s and knew, by the mid-1970’s, that polio vaccine had been contaminated with simian viruses and that at least one of these monkey viruses – SV-40 – was later found to cause leukemia and cancerous tumors in lab animals.”
According to an archived fact sheet put out by the Centers for Disease Control, “more than 98 million American received one or more doses of polio vaccine from 1955 to 1963 when a proportion of vaccine was contaminated with SV40; it has been estimated that 10-30 million Americans could have received an SV40 contaminated dose of vaccine.”
Thimerosal
Thimerosal was a mercury-containing component of a several vaccines — the MMR (for measles, mumps, and rubella), DTaP (for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis), and flu shots. According to Shane Ellison, “The People’s Chemist“,
“The last entity to fund a thimerosal study in the United States was Eli Lilly, back in 1929. They’re not even a health agency; they’re a pharmaceutical drug company. That hardly offers proof of safety and efficacy. And, their test churned out horrific results, showing that 100% of the kids jabbed with trace amounts of Merthiolate — the trade name for thimerosal — died from meningitis. How could that possibly be considered safe? Meanwhile, the Pharma-funded authors (using ghostwriting) still concluded that there was no causal association between mercury in vaccines and harm.(4) Future court documents revealed, “Upon closer inspection, however, it is apparent that Lilly Scientists, deliberately withheld facts and, in doing so manipulated and distorted their conclusions, leading to corruption of published scientific literature concerning thimerosal.”
Thimerosal was supposedly taken out of vaccines around 2003 but it still appears in flu shots given to children and adults. Cases of autism in children have been linked to thimerosal. Dr. David Ayoub gave a very informative talk on this on a 2005 lecture linked here.
Comparative levels of mercury are cited by the National Vaccine Information Center as follows:
-
-
- 0.5 parts per billion (ppb) mercury = Kills human neuroblastoma cells (Parran et al., Toxicol Sci 2005; 86: 132-140).
- 2 ppb mercury = U.S. EPA limit for drinking water.
- 20 ppb mercury = Neurite membrane structure destroyed (Leong et al., Neuroreport 2001; 12: 733-37).
- 200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste.
- 25,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in the Hepatitis B vaccine, administered at birth in the U.S., from 1990-2001.
- 50,000 ppb Mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose DTaP and Haemophilus B vaccine vials, administered 4 times each in the 1990’s to children at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age.
- 50,000 ppb Mercury = Current “preservative” level mercury in multi-dose flu (94% of supply), meningococcal and tetanus (7 and older) vaccines. This can be confirmed by simply analyzing the multi- dose vials.
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Conclusion
At best, the history of vaccines is an example of gross human ignorance acting through the field of medical science. This ignorance comes from a lack of humility in our interaction with nature; the belief that science has all the answers; the belief that man can act as God.
At worst, vaccines were used knowingly for the purposes of eugenics. This is another kind of hubris — the usurpation of power by the few over the many, by an elite which believes it is in a position to best guide humanity and which is arrogant enough to believe it can engineer the whole world according to its own interests.
It is also clear that for the sake of money and profit, the pharmaceutical industry has knowingly caused disease and death, especially among poor and disadvantaged people in the world. And they have tried to cover it up. It is hard to accept the adage that “vaccines save lives” when we have so many examples of vaccines actually destroying lives.
Does the state have the right to inject anything into the bodies of children against the wishes of the child’s parents? According to the UN’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, medical intervention must be accompanied by the “free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information.” What we are seeing today is an all-out war being waged by billion dollar pharmaceutical giants to bring more and more vaccines into a recommended schedule, and to make that schedule mandatory, while at the same time controlling the information parents need to protect their children. After so may lies and coverups, parents and doctors have very little reason to trust anything the pharmaceutical industry tells them.
Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its ‘Gone by 2020’ Signs
Glaciers Appear to be Growing, not Melting in Recent Years
By Roger I. Roots, J.D., Ph.D.,
Founder, Lysander Spooner University
May 30, 2019. St. Mary, Montana. Officials at Glacier National Park (GNP) have begun quietly removing and altering signs and government literature which told visitors that the Park’s glaciers were all expected to disappear by either 2020 or 2030.
In recent years the National Park Service prominently featured brochures, signs and films which boldly proclaimed that all glaciers at GNP were melting away rapidly. But now officials at GNP seem to be scrambling to hide or replace their previous hysterical claims while avoiding any notice to the public that the claims were inaccurate. Teams from Lysander Spooner University visiting the Park each September have noted that GNP’s most famous glaciers such as the Grinnell Glacier and the Jackson Glacier appear to have been growing—not shrinking—since about 2010. (The Jackson Glacier—easily seen from the Going-To-The-Sun Highway—may have grown as much as 25% or more over the past decade.)
The centerpiece of the visitor center at St. Mary near the east boundary is a large three-dimensional diorama showing lights going out as the glaciers disappear. Visitors press a button to see the diorama lit up like a Christmas tree in 1850, then showing fewer and fewer lights until the diorama goes completely dark. As recently as September 2018 the diorama displayed a sign saying GNP’s glaciers were expected to disappear completely by 2020.
Video of the diorama two years ago.
But at some point during this past winter (as the visitor center was closed to the public), workers replaced the diorama’s ‘gone by 2020’ engraving with a new sign indicating the glaciers will disappear in “future generations.”
Almost everywhere, the Park’s specific claims of impending glacier disappearance have been replaced with more nuanced messaging indicating that everyone agrees that the glaciers are melting. Some signs indicate that glacial melt is “accelerating.”
A common trick used by the National Park Service at GNP is to display old black-and-white photos of glaciers from bygone years (say, “1922”) next to photos of the same glaciers taken in more recent years showing the glaciers much diminished (say, “2006”). Anyone familiar with glaciers in the northern Rockies knows that glaciers tend to grow for nine months each winter and melt for three months each summer. Thus, such photo displays without precise calendar dates may be highly deceptive.
Last year the Park Service quietly removed its two large steel trash cans at the Many Glacier Hotel which depicted “before and after” engravings of the Grinnell Glacier in 1910 and 2009. The steel carvings indicated that the Glacier had shrunk significantly between the two dates. But a viral video published on Wattsupwiththat.com showed that the Grinnell Glacier appears to be slightly larger than in 2009.
The ‘gone by 2020’ claims were repeated in the New York Times, National Geographic, and other international news sources. But no mainstream news outlet has done any meaningful reporting regarding the apparent stabilization and recovery of the glaciers in GNP over the past decade. Even local Montana news sources such as The Missoulian, Billings Gazette and Bozeman Daily Chronicle have remained utterly silent regarding this story.
(Note that since September 2015 the author has offered to bet anyone $5,000 that GNP’s glaciers will still exist in 2030, in contradiction to the reported scientific consensus. To this day no one has taken me up on my offer. –R.R.)
Heat Wave Hysteria Coming Soon
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | June 5, 2019
US data beginning in 1985, shared by Bjorn Lomborg. Rising blue line: percentage of deaths attributable to the cold. Orange line: percentage attributable to heat.
In many parts of the world, we’ve just endured an extra snowy winter followed by a cool, delayed spring. But wait for it. When hotter weather arrives it will take no time at all for media outlets to start ‘educating’ us about heat waves and dangerous climate change.
In anticipation of those ‘news’ stories, here’s an inoculation: Cold weather kills far more people than does hot weather. If we truly care about weather-related suffering and sorrow, heat waves should be near the bottom of our priority list.
On his Facebook page, Bjorn Lomborg is calling our attention to a research paper published last year in Environment International. It contains marvelous news. In 7 out of 10 countries studied, heat-related deaths have decreased since 1985.
The researchers conclude that improved health care and infrastructure (aka increased access to air conditioning), have made us less likely to die from the heat. Normal, everyday upgrades are outpacing heat-related risks. As living standards improve, higher temperatures become less life threatening.
But the news isn’t so rosy on the other side of the ledger, where most deaths connected to extreme temperatures actually occur. Depending on the country and the time frame under discussion, the ratio of cold deaths to heat deaths varies. Since Table 3 of this study includes data for all 10 countries for the years 2000-2004, the numbers below are pulled from that column.
During this five-year period no deaths in Ireland were linked to heat, but 9.34% of all deaths were attributed to cold temperatures. (Compared to the 1980s, cold-related deaths in Ireland have fallen dramatically.)
The big picture is that for every person who dies during a heat wave, many more quietly perish from the cold at other times of the year. Here’s the ratio of cold deaths to heat deaths in the locales examined by this study:
Australia: 11:1
Brazil: 6:1
Canada: 13:1
Ireland: cold caused 9.34% of all deaths, heat caused 0%
Japan: 27:1
South Korea: 37:1
Spain: 4:1
Switzerland: 1.5: 1
UK: 28:1
USA: 25:1
When the next heat wave hits, don’t expect journalists and weather broadcasters to provide you with all the relevant facts. In their zeal to hype global warming, they will systematically misinform you. They will encourage you to believe things about weather-related deaths that are the opposite of the truth.
Deadly Japan Heatwave “Due To Global Warming”
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | May 30, 2019
Japan’s heatwave in July 2018 could not have happened without climate change.
That is the unequivocal conclusion of a report released last week, as the country battles yet another record-breaking heatwave.
The July 2018 heatwave, which killed 1,032 people, saw temperatures reach 41.1C, the highest temperature ever recorded in the country. Torrential rains also triggered landslides and the worst flooding in decades.
Penned by the Meteorological Society of Japan, the study is the first to establish that some aspects of the international heatwave could not have occurred in the absence of global warming. Scientists reached this conclusion by employing a technique known as event attribution (EA).
The relatively new method, lead author Yukkiko Imada told Climate Home News, sought to pin down the causality of climate change in the heatwave by simulating 18 climate scenarios with and without the current 1C global warming above pre-industrial levels.
They found a one in five chance of the heatwave occurring in the current climate, but almost no chance of in a climate unchanged by human activity.
This claim is utterly absurd and dishonest.
As Imada’s study makes abundantly clear, the cause of the heatwave was the coming of two powerful high pressure systems, known as a double-high.
Moreover, two seasonal high-pressure systems, namely the North Pacific subtropical high (NPSH) in the lower troposphere and Tibetan high in the upper troposphere often cause warm climate in Japan (Imada et al. 2014). This two-tiered high-pressure system (double-High) was also visible in July 2018.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/advpub/0/advpub_15A-002/_pdf/-char/ja
The paper goes on to say:
However, experts do not have any answers on whether the double-High in 2018 was extreme compared to other such historical events. It is even more difficult to determine the extent to which human-induced global warming contributed to this event….
Thus, the double-High condition appears to be natural variability and not affected by the human-induced climate change at this stage.
In other words, the heatwave would have occurred, regardless of global warming.
As is usually the case with these sort of attribution studies, what this one actually says is that this event was slightly hotter than would have been the case prior to 20thC warming.
It is funny that we never seem to hear about studies that explain how cold winters would have been even colder without AGW!
It is reckoned that 1032 died in the Japan heatwave, but it is certain that many more would have died in pre-industrial versions of that weather event, before the days of air conditioning.
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Because no animal reservoir has been found for SARS-CoV-2, it cannot properly be termed a zoonosis.* Should we call it a labnosis? And what does that mean?
By Meryl Nass, MD | July 12, 2021
After a year and a half of seeking but not finding SARS-2 in any wildlife anywhere (apart from domesticated or zoo animals that appear to have caught it from humans) is it time to say, yes, it didn’t just escape from a lab. It was created, built, assembled in a lab. Or many labs
Coronavirus scientists have been constructing new viruses out of bits and pieces of other viruses for a long time.
Why did they do it? … continue
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