The economy, the climate

I was just sent an op-ed by George Will (http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=George+Will%3a+The+limits+of+the+welfare+state&articleId=961c1569-624b-4231-967d-5b8184c80abd).  The 'economy' part of this was my reply.

Entitlements cannot continue past disposable revenue.  OK, they are not SUPPOSED to.  Only by borrowing money can they be continued artificially and there are limits to that. Unfortunately, we have blown through those limits.

To the best of my knowledge and with the caveat that I am not an economist, no country with a debt of over 90% of the GDP has ever pulled itself out.  Japan's D/GDP is about 275%.   They can never recover.  As of now, and I must project a bit because the government keeps cooking the books, the US D/GDP is 93-95%.  It will soon exceed 100% and cannot, by my math, ever decrease unless the government turns to a completely different direction.  Austerity does not promote economic growth as the world will soon see with Greece.

Further, since every nation owes a huge debt to every other nation, none of them can possibly pay each other.  Because of the way this debt is structured, the (examples..not actual numbers) ...the 100 billion that Italy owes Spain cannot be partially offset by the 60 billion that Spain owes Italy because all of that debt is paying interest on paper the respective governments sold. Canceling the debt would wipe out private investment and immediately bankrupt most of the world. The only alternative is to keep increasing it.  It's like pedaling a stationary bike faster.  You don't go anywhere but eventually you cannot maintain the pace.

I seriously do not believe that any government in the world, with the possible exceptions of China and Saudi Arabia, is actually in control of it's own economy.  China can drop the US into bankruptcy in an hour and western civilization would follow within a day.

At the moment, the only two extant superpowers are the US and China and we still share decisions. But the decisions the US is making around the world continue to shift toward parity with Chinese policies.  China now has the most advanced fighter design in the world.  The JXX fighter will come online within five years and easily eclipses the US F-35.  China recently put the second fastest supercomputer in the world online but it is not operating at full capacity.  If they kick it up it will leave Oak Ridge in the dust.  And China has grasped that safe nuclear energy is not only possible, but necessary.  The Chinese have the most modern nuclear facility in the world.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

 

  Americans are still scared of nuclear energy.

Houston, we have a problem.

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Now I need to dish about my favorite subject.  Global climate change. It is becoming hard to pretend nothing is happening. But first, a clarification.  "Global warming" is actually a misnomer in the early stages of CO2 imbalance.  It actually means milder winters, not increased heat during the summer.  Only after the reaction is out of control do serious (noticeable) perturbations become obvious.  I believe we are there.

Even if we discard anthropogenic causation, we cannot disregard our observations. The earth is getting warmer every year. 2010 is the hottest year on the record, 2009 before it.  The next ten have all occurred since 1990. Sure, I know all about the huge global climate hoax.  It is being perpetuated on everyone below median intelligence by every government and major scientific body in the world.  But the earth is still getting warmer. 

Let's start with the Journal Nature.  At nature.com

 you can search these publications: Nature, Scientific American, Nature News, Nature Geoscience and Nature Medicine.

Here is just one example:  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/full/nature09043.html

 

But wait!  There's more!

AAAS:  http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/02/aaas_climate_issue_getting_mor_1.html

 

NAS        :   http://dels-old.nas.edu/climatechange/publications.shtml

 

The Pentagon's report to GEORGE BUSH: http://www.climate.org/topics/PDF/clim_change_scenario.pdf

 

NOAA:        http://www.noaa.gov/climate.html

 

   and   http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100519_ocean.html

 

NASA:        http://climate.nasa.gov/

 

   and    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

 

NASA/JPL/CALTECH:  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-169

 

WMO:        http://www.wmo.int/pages/publications/meteoworld07/_archive/en/feb2007/ipcc.htm

 

EEA/IPCC:  http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/proof-of-climate-change-unequivocal

 

Other Countries:  June, 2009--In a joint statement, the science academies of the G8 countries, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, called on their leaders to "seize all opportunities" to address global climate change that "is happening even faster than previously estimated."  You will hear that again this summer in Canada from every participating science academy in the world. North Korea may not be there.

Even if everyone is wrong about the causes the temperature keeps getting warmer. A record 128.3°F was measured at the town of MohenjuDaro, Pakistan, on Wednesday May 26.  As I write this, temperatures in parts of India are 125F and both the flora and fauna are dying. How is that possible?  Well, in fact, it IS possible.  The earth used to be much warmer than it is now.    So whether the fluctuation is natural or not doesn't concern me because either way the outcome is the same. We are entering an extinction event. We will last longer than Atlantic Bluefin tuna.  They will be extinct within a couple of years. The human race may have 25 years left.

Assuming that we are simply at the beginning of the next natural Milankovitch warming cycle or, on a shorter scale, a Bond Event or a natural orbital perturbation or a solar max or for no discernible reason whatsoever, we can interpolate that the oceans will become net exporters of CO2 before 2040 just as the forests are now.

If we happen to be in one of the 'abrupt' climate changes, we can expect temperature increases within a few years to a few decades, depending on what is causing it, to increase right past the sweet spot at which humans can survive. I am talking thirty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit warmer.  We have an historical record of those sorts of temperatures.  And that assumes that the 20 BILLION tons of CO2 we are happily pumping into the atmosphere annually is not a factor.  That 7 billion people on earth is not a factor. That the fact the hydrological cycle is beginning to fluctuate is not a factor.  Because, in fact, they are no longer factors.

The tropics have encroached into sub-tropical zones by four degrees of longitude in the past ~25 years. The weather, never predictable in the past, was at least stable within recorded history.  Now it isn't.  Now EVERY flood is a 'hundred year' or 'thousand year' flood.  Now there are going to be hurricanes for which another level of intensity will have to be made. Category 6.  Now the once-predictable seasons of the year are changing.  Everywhere.

I just tried one last time to convince a friend.  He said he had already done his research and he isn't a sloth by any means.  So he has.  But somehow he and I get completely opposite results from the same data. I do not know anywhere on earth the weather is not changing drastically.  The question is simply "ARE WE EXPERIENCING UNUSUAL CLIMATE CHANGE?"  Since we are, and everyone knows it because it is happening everywhere, saying 'No' makes no sense. Even less sensible is the argument about whether humans caused it. Either way we go extinct.

Here is a good site to begin a serious investigation.  http://www.skepticalscience.com/

"And the times, they are a'changin".
-Bob Dylan

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"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- President Thomas Jefferson

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." - Cicero - 55 BC

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