There’s a fair amount of evidence that the U.S. (or let’s say ‘elements within the U.S. foreign policy establishment’) actually wanted Russia to invade Ukraine because they thought it was in America’s strategic interests.
Since the Maidan uprising in late 2013, the U.S. has taken an intense interest in Ukraine, and many of the decisions it has made seem almost designed to provoke Russia. This is not to say they definitely were – which is a matter for debate – only that it’s hard to explain why else the U.S. would have made them.
American officials publicly backed the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ in 2014, which saw the replacement of Ukraine’s pro-Russian government with one made up of pro-Western nationalists. They even helped the Maidan ‘revolutionaries’ behind the scenes, though to exactly what extent is not clear.
When you think about it, this is extremely provocative. Imagine if Chinese officials travelled to Canada, and publicly backed a protest movement seeking to replace Canada’s government with a pro-Chinese one. Americans would be outraged.
After Ukraine’s president was toppled, the U.S. had significant sway over the new regime. As the most powerful Western country, it could have said, ‘We will not recognise your government unless you do X, Y and Z.’ Despite this, the U.S. allowed almost a quarter of cabinet positions to go to the far-right Svoboda party – a party the EU had previously denounced as “racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic”.
Svoboda is not merely far-right, but specifically anti-Russian: the party’s leader once railed against the “Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine”. How hard would it have been for the U.S. to say, ‘We will recognise your government so long as no cabinet positions go to the far-right’? But they made no such demand. In fact, U.S. politicians were pictured smiling and shaking hands with Svoboda’s leader – a man who, in any other context, they would have surely decried.
In the following years, the U.S. spent billions of dollars training and equipping Ukraine’s armed forces. (Note that Obama initially opposed arming Ukraine, since doing so could “draw a more forceful response from Moscow”.) The U.S. also began incorporating Ukraine into NATO – something it had a long-known was an absolute red line for Putin. Meanwhile, U.S. senators travelled there to give pep talks to Ukrainian soldiers.
One detail is particularly hard to explain unless you take a cynical perspective. Earlier this year, Zelensky told CNN, “I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO … And the response was very clear: you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly the doors will remain open.” If the U.S. had no intention of letting Ukraine into NATO, why would it want Russia to think the opposite?
In the months leading up to Russia’s invasion, the U.S. even encouraged Ukraine to crack down on the pro-Russian opposition. According to Zelensky’s former national security adviser, the decision to shut down three pro-Russian TV stations was “conceived as a welcome gift to the Biden Administration” and was “calculated to fit in with the U.S. agenda”.
One obvious motivation for U.S. policy was to “see Russia weakened”, in the words of words of Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. By getting Russia bogged down in a protracted conflict, the U.S. hoped to deplete Russia’s economic resources and perhaps even foment regime change. But was there another reason?
Yes, says journalist Mike Whitney: to sabotage Nord Stream 2. (This was the second pipeline built to transport gas from Russia to Germany. Originally conceived in 2011, construction did not begin until 2018, and was completed in September of 2021.) Here’s the basic argument:
In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power.
This is certainly a provocative theory, but is it true? I’m not aware of any direct evidence, so for the time being it should be regarded with appropriate scepticism. However, there is circumstantial evidence, and the theory is sufficiently plausible to be worth discussing.
It’s no secret that the U.S. strongly opposed Nord Stream 2 (which has been dead in the water since February 22nd, when Germany pulled the plug after Russia’s recognition of the two breakaway regions).
In April 2017, five European energy companies reached a deal with Gazprom concerning how the pipeline would be financed. Two months later, the U.S. slapped sanctions on Russia in an effort to thwart the project. This prompted sharp rebukes from European leaders, with the German Foreign Minister stating, “Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America.”
Despite delays and higher costs, the project continued. Then in January 2019, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany wrote “threatening letters” to several German companies involved in the pipeline’s construction, warning that they would face sanctions if they continued work on the project. This “very unusual” move was met with “incomprehension” in the German foreign office.
By July of 2021, U.S. officials had “given up on blocking the pipeline’s completion” and were “scrambling to contain the damage”. Under a deal signed by Washington and Berlin, the project would go ahead unless Russia attempts to “use energy as a weapon or commit further aggressive acts against Ukraine”.
Over the past five years, U.S. officials have given two main reasons for their opposition to Nord Stream 2: that it would threaten European energy security by increasing the continent’s dependence on Russia; and that it would harm Ukraine by depriving that country of billions in transit fees.
Yet it’s widely recognised the U.S. also had self-interested motives. “By reducing access to Russian gas,” writes historian Sophie Marineau, “it hoped to increase its own exports of liquefied natural gas”. America produces vast quantities of gas through fracking, but has been unable to compete with Russia due to the cost of shipping gas across the Atlantic.
Two months before Russia formally recognised the two breakaway regions, the U.S. still had its sights on Nord Stream 2. As the Financial Times noted on December 8th, “The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany was top of the list when US officials brainstormed potential sanctions that western countries could threaten against Russia.”
Warnings of the pipeline’s demise ramped up as Russia’s invasion day approached. On January 27th, Victoria Nuland stated, “I want to be clear with you today: if Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”. (This is the same Victoria Nuland who said “Fuck the EU” in the famous leaked phone call from 2014.) Then on February 7th, Biden stated, “If Russia invades … there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
As I said, all the evidence (of which I’m aware) supporting the ‘Nord Stream 2 theory’ is circumstantial. So the theory is far from proven. But if true, it would suggest the U.S. has achieved an important tactical victory, as commentators like Niccolo Soldo have been arguing.
Since Russia’s invasion, not only has Nord Stream 2 been suspended (and the company funding it gone bankrupt), but there has been a surge in U.S. natural gas exports to Europe. What’s more, NATO is stronger than ever, and may soon welcome both Sweden and Finland – granting the U.S. unprecedented access to the Baltic Sea. Meanwhile, nations like Germany have promised to spend more money on defence, some of which will undoubtedly end up in the coffers of U.S. defence contractors.
Of course, the suspension of Nord Stream 2 and Russia’s counter-sanctions aren’t a ‘win’ for everyone: Europe may now face permanently higher energy prices. As the Belgian Prime Minister recently stated, “The next five to ten winters are going to be difficult”.
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Nice piece Chris. Joe Bastardi has also been on this theme recently in his weekly Weather Bell video.
Shhh. Say it quietly, but there might be another variable in all this climate stuff. I’ve noticed it the other day, but none of the scientists seems to. Its a large round thing in the sky. I dont think its very close to us, but it is hot, really hot, It appears each morning, moves across the sky getting warmer and warmer, until it goes below the horizon, when it gets colder, much colder. The other day it went from -5c overnight to +15c in the day, 20 degrees, in a few hours. I was reading something, in the restricted section of course, that it can go as high as 50c. in a few hours.
All this 0.1c by 2050. Its nonsense, obviously. Anyway. Mum’s the word. Don’t want to lose our funding now do we…?
There is another variable which seems to have increased significantly over recent decades and is responsible for all the anthropogenic warming – it is called green funding.
And propaganda, rendering homo sapiens, homo stupidus. The matrix is very good at control and brainwashing.
To the tune of coming trillions!
Whooo you cad! Why didn’t you tell the rest of us about this? Does Antonio Guterres know about it? Please advise him of it,.. it may stop him from being a monumental twathead!
I can’t imagine any force, natural or supernatural, that could achieve that
You do realise that that is an out-of-control fusion reactor, don’t you? It should be banned.
If Billy Gates had his way it would be
Remove the B and the G, you get “ill ates” which is the name of his new insect protein company.
He absolutely would. CO2 is currently 420PPM – one of the lowest points in the Earth’s history but Bill Gates and his batshit mates want to ‘scrub’ it from our atmosphere. Nobody seems to have pointed out to him that if it drops below 250PPM everything on the planet dies. Including Gates.
It’s a bit like saying that my living room isn’t so much being heated by the roaring wood-burning stove, as it is from the CO2 I’m exhaling from my mouth!
Earth sits in relatively close proximity to the sun WITHIN the heliosphere (the sun’s atmosphere). Along with geothermal energy, it is one of the two original sources of all the earth’s heat. You could fit about 1.3 million earths within the sun, and it accounts for roughly 99% of the mass of the solar system. It’s like a grain of sand a metre or so away from a giant bonfire… But of course solar activity can have nothing at all do with climate change – it’s all our fault, obviously!
Thank you for an excellent article, a touch of common sense amongst so much shrieking and hysteria. Who would have thought that a chain of active volcano’s in antarctica, would not cause some warming of those waters.
There’s only one (1) thing causing a major, emergency-power requiring event, to which there is only one (1) solution? Which solution, by pure coincidence (of course), can only be provided by multi-billionaires and their acolyte politician buddies who force taxpayers to pay billions in tax money straight into the multi-billionaires pockets? And the multi-billionaires will then turn out to have nothing by way of solution and will then gaslight the entire world saying they and their whore politician buddies never, ever violated any laws, constitutions, fundamental rights, never thieved off the taxpayer and only ever meant to help mankind and it was just ever such bad luck that it failed and they got miserably rich?
Just because the vaxx was not the solution to the “pandemic”, surely does not mean that eradicating all cows and cars on earth is not the solution to “climate change”?
I’d say even Hollywood hacks would think this script is too worn and incredible now, but looking at all the dimbulbs and their EVs and vegan obsession, I guess not. Not being a scientist, maybe I’m just not capable of seeing how cow farts will cause the world to wither and die.
A group of oceanographers led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego identified in total 19,325 new volcanoes, or seamounts, to add to the existing known total of 24,643.
To be clear seamounts are mostly extinct volcanoes and these are only new in the sense that they are newly discovered. They haven’t suddenly popped up! Nor has oceanographers’ estimate of the total number of sea mounts changed (it is about 100,000 depending on how you define them). All that has happened is that a lot more have been identified. Perhaps it is not surprising that the main stream media have made little of this research.
I should add that the referenced paper did not “Uncover the Role of Undersea Volcanoes in Climate Change”. All it did was map sea mounts. In fact there is no mention of climate in the paper at all!
Chris Morrison’s article made it very clear that these are discoveries of existing seamounts and I don’t think anyone would imagine that they’ve suddenly popped up.
And also his article doesn’t claim that the referenced paper explicitly uncovers ‘the role of undersea volcanoes in climate change’. The headline may suggest it, but I suspect that the Daily Sceptic’s clickbait headlines are not written by the writers of the articles.
The headline may suggest it, but I suspect that the Daily Sceptic’s clickbait headlines are not written by the writers of the articles.
Whoever wrote it, the headline is false and should be corrected.
I thought false headlines were a stock in trade of global warming orthodoxy.
And I feel I should remind you that the undersea volcanoes are likely to be in all stages of their lives. I understand that the continents are still subject to movement of tectonic plates and fresh volcanoes arise as a consequence of that, to put it simply for you, molten rock and associated gases ooze out wherever the plates separate or come together. The rock oozing out tends to be quite hot and the gases both carbon and sulphur oxides.
I remind you that putting hot rocks in a pot is one traditional way of cooking.
See your point, both sides of the science should be considered
Especially as we have knowledge of only 5% of the worlds seabed! (We are more knowledgeable about the surface of the moon!)
Just reading Michael Palin’s book on the first Antarctic expedition, Erebus. Once they breached the pack ice they soon found a couple of volcanoes – Mt Erebus and Mt Terror on Ross Island.
Back in the seventies people like Stephen Schneider were concerned about global cooling. Today these people have forgotten all about global cooling are now on the global warming gravy train. OfCourse the solution to both these crises was———More Government. mmmm. These people come from the “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste” department of government. But it is still the case that a beautiful hypothesis is easily slain by an ugly fact, and when it comes to climate change there are tons of ugly facts flying around. Not that you would know it because BBC and the rest of the bought and paid for media keep them swept firmly under the carpet ———–SSSSHHHHHH.
How on earth do we have the Arrogance to believe we control anything when we’ve only been on the planet for the last 30 seconds of a 24 hour clock?
We are not the owners of this ball! just temporary custodians!
Life will do what it wants, it doesn’t need a verdict from us!
We should be at nature’s feet in humble thankfulness, not spitting in its eye!
Where’s Greta? Obviously learned that all she spake was put in her mouth by others! Hence the quietness when having to speak for herself. A lot has changed since her future being “stolen”! Nothing has changed, and there lies her dumbness! Proof? Pudding? Strangley, the sea hasn’t engulfed her house since she was 15!
She has single handedly done more damage the the world than any human in history! I hope in her “stolen future” she is proud of that fact!
“…runs the risk of opening discussion about the natural forces surrounding the constantly changing climate”
Please, please please… there are multiple climates on earth, not one. As well as the six major climate zones as defined by the large atmospheric cells, driven by the rotation of the earth and the mass of the atmosphere, there are multiple climates within geographic regions, for example Ethiopia has 14 climates which range from Hot Desert to Humid Subtropical to Subpolar Oceanic.
Climate is defined as “the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.” Therefore how would anyone characterize the Earth’s climate (singular)? In addition many people will live on the boundaries between all these climates and will experience change because there is considerable turbulence within the atmosphere and oceans. So far the various tree lines around the world are exactly where they were 200 or more years ago. Russia has not observed the tree line moving north and trees are not moving up mountain ranges. In addition, the six main climate zones mark out, or determine where the rain forests and deserts are and I cannot see how a small increase in the proportion of a trace gas is going to upset any of the convergence zones.
Spot on.
fake climate scientists ignore Undersea Volcanoes
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Great article. I’d like to know how much CO2 these new volcanos are emitting each year of the 97% natural portion and frame it against the £3 trillion (or 43 million nurses) we’re spending in an apparent ‘fight’ with the UK’s anthropogenic 0.00001% portion. Does anyone know what the annual overall volcanic contribution to CO2 is?
volcanic emissions account for less than 1% of CO2 inputs. Human activities account for about 3% but that 3% is responsible for almost all the increase over the last two centuries. Prior to that CO2 levels had hardly changed for thousands of years. CO2 inputs (including volcanoes) had been in balance with outputs.
There are lots of places where heat from the earth’s inner layers escapes. These include volcanoes on earth and under the sea, and smaller vents around which a selection of organisms is able to tolerate high heat. The activity of all these varies. We know that major eruptions on land can spill enough stuff (dust and gas) to cause global cooling. We know that underwater eruptions cause sea warming which will affect ocean currents, as will changes in the topography of the ocean floor. None of this is man made and man cannot alter it.
Other causes of localised climate change include deforestation and river diversion. These are man made but may produce profound change that by the butterfly effect causes more distant change. Thus Himalayan deforestation causes a failure of water holdback and contributes to flooding in the Pakistan plains.
Given all of this what is needed is a careful analysis of how much each contributes to climate change, and what each actually does temperature-wise, up or down. I suspect that global emissions are a minute percentage.
Yet another great piece, Chris.
Just a reminder that Prof. Ian Plimer’s brilliant book “Heaven and Earth”, way back in 2009, pointed out how many undersea volcanos were known then, and pointed out that this number was without doubt grossly underestimated.(Only a brief mention in a very thorough discussion of Climate, but picked on by the GangGreen zealots even then.)
For this, he got Hedge Fund fraudster Jeremy Grantham’s Imperial College Climate Rottweiler, Bob Ward, to run one of his bogus attacks on Plimer in the Times and George Monbiot to ‘interview’ Plimer on Aussie TV.
“What a rude young man!” as Plimer pointed out when the Moonbat spewed out his lies but refused to engage in any discussion.
Fortunately, His dopey Majesty Charles III’s wise old dad had read the book and arranged to discuss the implications face to face with Plimer and Nigel Lawson.
I’d bet anything, that Charles never even bothered to pick it up.
“Carbon dioxide is well mixed in the atmosphere so it is a valid scientific question to ask why it only warns the surface in this one patch?”
A very good question.
When I was fourteen, I asked my geography teacher a very similar question about The Hole in The Ozone Layer ™ – why it was only over Antarctica.
I also asked him when The Hole first appeared.
No, I never did get any answers from him.
When I was fourteen, I asked my geography teacher a very similar question about The Hole in The Ozone Layer ™ – why it was only over Antarctica.
I also asked him when The Hole first appeared.
I am sorry that your geography teacher was so ill informed – but of course I don’t know when you were 14. Nowadays the answers to both questions are available on the internet. The second question is easily answered. The hole was predicted in theory from the 1970s but first observed by the British Antarctic Survey in 1985.
The answer to the first question is more complicated.
The ozone hole over Antarctica is formed by a slew of unique atmospheric conditions over the continent that combine to create an ideal environment for ozone destruction.
As spring comes to Antarctica, the PSC’s melt in the stratosphere and release all of the halogenated compounds that were previously absorbed to the cloud. In the antarctic summer, high energy photons are able to photolyze the halogenated compounds, freeing halogen radicals that then catalytically destroy O3. Because Antarctica is constantly surrounded by a polar vortex, radical halogens are not able to be diluted over the entire globe. The ozone hole develops as result of this process.