The journalist Ross Gelbspan, who led the fight against what he called “climate denialism”, has passed away. Mr. Gelbspan who wrote for the Boston Globe and other mainstream outlets died of COPD (likely from smoking). He championed the idea that global warming results in the spread of disease and rising sea level. In 1995 he wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post:
We’re all familiar with future-horror stories about global warming – that in some distant era, the glaciers will melt, the oceans will rise and Florida will disappear beneath the waters. But a much more imminent – and deadly – threat from climate change is already upon us and could be felt in North America as early as this summer. Scientists call it a worldwide redistribution of disease ‘vectors’ – the animals, insects, microorganisms and plants that transmit disease to humans. To the layman, it means a global spread of infections.
Let’s examine our planet’s rising sea level first. A recent NASA satellite study found that:
The average global sea level rose by 0.11″ (0.27cm) from 2021 to 2022, according to a NASA analysis of satellite data. Since satellites began observing sea surface height in 1993 with the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission, the average global sea level has increased by 3.6″ (9.1cm), according to NASA’s Sea Level Change science team. The annual rate of rise – or how quickly sea level rise is happening – that researchers expect to see has also increased from 0.08″ (0.20cm) per year in 1993 to 0.17″ (0.44cm) per year in 2022. Based on the long-term satellite measurements, the projected rate of sea level rise will hit 0.26″ (0.66cm) per year by 2050.
That’s right, less than four inches over a 30-year interval, which is not enough to get anyone’s shoes and socks wet. Context matters!
Another NASA satellite study covering 25 years found that the rate of sea level increase was speeding up: “Global sea level rise is accelerating incrementally over time rather than increasing at a steady rate, as previously thought, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100.” Two feet instead of the 30+ feet by 2100 that climate change advocates have been predicting.
Finally, a third NASA satellite study uncovered the fact that roughly 50% of the sea level increase along the U.S. East Coast was due to subsidence and not increasing water levels. Ergo, the other two NASA satellite studies may have overestimated the real increase in sea level by as much as 100%. Perhaps, only a one foot increase in sea level by 2100.
Interestingly, James Hansen in a 2023 published paper repeated his prediction that a dramatic sea level rise remains in our planet’s future. But he made a similar forecast in 2007, stating that the Earth would see serious sea level increase within 10 years. Six years after his deadline we still have a quiescent water level in our planet’s oceans. Since 1988 Dr. Hansen has been only wrong. Perhaps in the distant future he may turn out to be correct, but so far he has been solely incorrect.
Turning to the idea of spreading infections, diseases, pandemics and plagues, which Mr. Gelbspan predicted would spread to North America as soon as the summer of 1995, this has not happened even after over 25 years have passed.
According to the World Atlas there were six deadly epidemics during the 20th century: HIV/AIDS that killed almost 40 million people worldwide and is still killing 2.5 million per year, the 1918 Spanish Flu that resulted in 50 to 100 million deaths, the 1950s Asian Flu which killed 70,000 Americans, the 1968 flu with one million demises worldwide, the 6th cholera outbreak at the turn of the 19th century to which 800,000 succumbed, and the 1974 smallpox outbreak in India with 15,000 deaths. There have been no recurrences during the 21st century except the 2020 Covid pandemic that had zero connection with climate change.
According to the CDC there have only been a total of 496 cases of plague (that is spread by fleas) in the U.S. (almost all were in the South West) over the past 20 years. As of 2019, Our World in Data reported that only 3.2% of worldwide deaths were attributable to malaria and other infectious diseases. And almost all of these illnesses occurred in the tropics.
The bottom line is that Gelbspan has so far been only wrong about everything.
Richard Burcik is the author of two short books, The DNA Lottery and Anatomy of a Lie.
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Isn’t “stakeholder democracy” something of an oxymoron? Seems like code for “experts who know best will decide”.
Stakeholders, unlike share holders, have invested nothing so have nothing to lose when things go tits-up.
The idea is that stakeholders, unlike share holders, are the one’s who’ll be directly affected by decisions and that’s why they should all get together to make such decisions in a way that’s sensible for all of them (or the best possible compromise which can be achieved). Share holders have no direct reason to care for the outcome of any particular decision, just for the indirect effect of share price changes.
Government… Budget Responsibility. Side-splitting laughter is heard around the parish.
Central economic planning and control aka fiscal policies = root of Socialism and Fascism. In the former the State owns the means of production, in the latter the State directs the means of production giving the appearance of private ownership in a free economy.
The technocratic aspects plants it in the Fascist economic model.
The Industrial Revolution occurred because there were no fiscal policies, had there been we would all still be working on the land, as soon we shall be as Net Zero progresses.
(The primary means of production is the Human Being.)
Off-T
Paula Jardine at TCW with her thoughts on the next Scamdemic.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/big-pharma-is-the-lottery-winner-in-the-great-bird-flu-myth/
“So which strain of bird flu do you have on your bingo card for the pandemic flu mark 2 public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) this coming winter? The UK government has just signed a pandemic preparedness deal with CSL-Seqirus, the vaccine company now running the old Chiron factory in Speke, to supply 100 million doses of an unidentified flu vaccine in the event of a pandemic. But I can see another switcheroo coming. My money is on an outbreak of H9N7, the other influenza strain in Moderna’s new mRNA-1018 vaccine.”
‘The mRNA technology allows us to be much more agile in developing vaccines; we can start creating a mRNA vaccine within hours of sequencing a new viral strain with pandemic potential,’ said Dr Hensley. ‘During previous influenza pandemics, like the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, vaccines were difficult to manufacture and did not become available until after the initial pandemic waves subsided.’
Read: Nobody needs this shit and pandemic waves have so-far always subsided without it. But thanks to mRNA technology, we’ll be to market quickly enough in future to avoid this!
Deborah Birx is also again making noises about “avoiding the mistakes made with COVID”, start mass testing of healthy people now and stop requiring symptoms for diagnosis in favour of using PCR test results instead. Deborah Birx would seem to be one of the mistakes made with COVID. After all, she admitted to tricking the Trump administations into principally endless lockdowns by lying about her true intentions.
Aren’t they just establishing a costing oversight which will simply state that every Labour plan will bankrupt the nation? Net Zero is going to bankrupt every Western Nation that wants to die by just aiming for it.
it would be simpler to go back to rotten boroughs and University MPs.
And back then MPs got no pay or expenses. Voluntary contributions from constituents defrayed some of their costs, and the size of contribution was linked to how well constituents thought their MP was serving their interests.
We should go back to that.
Can we have Budget Accountability instead.? That thing that if you don’t spend wisely, we have the means to fire you..?
Fire you and fine you, say, 50% of the cost to the public purse.
I am in favour of a fiscal lock.
A fiscal lock that doesn’t allow a government to spend more than it collects or better still one that puts a hard limit, like maximum 10% income tax.
But this isn’t a fiscal lock. It’s a shift of power from parliament to bureaucrats.
A fiscal locks takes the power away from everyone.
How about abolition of all taxation except limited taxes on land value and consumer sales.
Such tax to cover essential working of government and defence, public services returned to the private sector, no welfare, and borrowing limit of 5% of GDP only in times of stress.
Oh. I’m up for all that. I was just trying to be “realistic” to illustrate my point. But, yes, that would be even better.
You could argue that a fiscal lock is undemocratic, but then you could argue that a limited democracy, where certain rights cannot be removed by simple majority, is better than what we have.
This stakeholder¹ democracy resembles Mussolini’s corporatist state a lot, ie, it looks very much like a fascist core concept.
¹ Can we have steakholder democracy instead? Sounds like more fun, especially if there’s also some pintholding.
The Swamp is truly Septic !!
“Stakeholder democracy is different in that it views the electorate as only one voice in the lawmaking and governing process – and not necessarily the most important.”
Actually I think this understates it. It views the electorate as fully irrelevant. Voters only get a legitimate say if they are directly affected by a measure as a” stakeholder”.
“Stakeholder democracy” is nothing less than the complete repudiation of democracy. We are seeing our ancient democratic system being literally dismantled.
It is dismantling the Crown in Parliament, so allowing Parliament to evade responsibility.
Henry Ford – “you can have any colour car you want as long as its black.”
British Establishment – you can have any Government you want, as long as the policies don’t change.
At least you would have a car!
If there’s no possibility that policies can change, you wouldn’t be having a government, one that represented us.
“If the Fiscal Responsibility Bill passes, all future governments will have to request that the OBR prepares an analysis of any proposed fiscal measure”
This isn’t true, any future government can, if it chooses, repeal the Bill. No government is bound by the decisions of a previous one.
Successive governments have abdicated responsibility to unelected, unaccountable bodies. This is shameful and a disgrace, elected politicians should be responsible not quangos.
It is an interesting question , why economics is not a science.
Frederick Soddy, a Nobel Laureate chemist, pointed out that in science, wealth is positive and money is negative. Who knew ?