Yesterday, I wrote this:
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Yesterday’s flooding in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces was among the worst in recent memory. Lots of pictures and narratives were posted in the web like facebook. Here are some pictures in our place in Makati. Luckily, the flood in our street was only above the knee, while in other areas and cities, the flood would submerge a bungalow or even 2-storey houses.
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Then some friends started posting, “because of global warming/climate change”, “mother nature getting back at us”, “Sign the Copenhagen Deal”, etc.
I countered with those friends’ postings, I argued that this is global cooling. If they read the Sun-climate link theory, they will realize that the Earth is approaching a Dalton Minimum type of global cooling -- for at least 2 decades.
Since last year, even in previous years, there was little proof that there is "global warming" happening in the Philippines and other parts of the planet. Last year, strong, early typhoon “Cosme” (a local name) dumped huge amount of rainfall in northwestern Luzon and killed several people due to flash flood. That was in May. The next month, June 2008, typhoon “Frank” dumped heavy rains for around 10 days straight in Panay island (with 4 provinces), Sorsogon, etc. and it caused the sinking of a big ship, “MV Princess of the Stars” which killed around 1,000 passengers and crew.
This year, there was practically no summer in the “summer” months of March-April-May. My friend who is in the business of manufacturing and selling umbrellas told me that she made big money since April this year due to the early start of the rainy season. Another proof: the rice farmers that I talked to last week in northern Luzon complained that with too much rains, their rice was growing well but after harvest, they cannot dry it because the Sun would hardly show up. When newly harvested rice is not dried the next few days, the moisture content would cause the unhusked rice to blacken and this will adversely affect the quality and taste of their rice. The selling price therefore, will be low.
The heavy rains and flooding that happened yesterday was somehow, not too "surprising". These days, especially this month, we seldom see the Sun. There are always dark clouds almost everyday. Sometimes it's sunny in the morning, then would become dark by 2 or 3pm because of the thick clouds. Clouds, not smog. And even if our drainage are as big as jeepneys, there would stil be flooding because of the huge amount of rainfall.
This climate alarmism is really a jerk. The UN and many governments, including the Philippine government, are warning the people and spending billions of pesos preparing for drought and hotter days, when we should prepare for the opposite -- too much rains and flood. And in temperate countries, long and severe winter. They create new carbon taxes, created big international bureaucracies like the UN FCCC and IPCC, they have plenty of international climate meetings in many countries and cities, instituted ecological central planning via the Kyoto Protocol and soon, Copenhagen Protocol/Agreement. Lie if they must, but they should continue scaring the public of global warming, which they later euphemistically called “climate change”.
The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) proponents like the UN, many governments, Greenpeace, WWF, etc. if they are honest, should simply say, "We believe AGW is a valid explanation for current climate change. However, we recognize that there are many other scientists and groups who believe that the Sun, cosmic rays, volcanoes, water vapor, etc. are the main drivers of climate change. We continue the debate." But they don't and never said that. They say, "There is overwhelming evidence, there is already a consensus; debate is over. CO2 is evil.” And they would quickly add, “So you taxpayers should shoulder all those new carbon taxes, carbon cap and trade, subsidies for renewable energy, etc.”
About having clean air, clean water, clean environment, Yes we should pursue those, as end by themselves and not say, "to save the planet" because the planet is never in danger. Not now, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Unless a huge asteroid will lose its GPS track and go towards the earth :-)
If interested, I have written/presented 2 papers on climate alarmism.
1. Global cooling vs. global money and power, May 28, 2009, 23 pages incl annexes,
http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/mg_20090528.pdf
2. Global cooling reality vs. global warming politics, April 22, 2009, 24 pages incl. annexes,
http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/mg_20090422.pdf
Three central themes are discussed by those paper:
a) This climate change is not global warming. This is global cooling.
b) This is not anthropogenic (man-made). This is nature-caused, mainly the Sun, the galactic cosmic rays from the universe, volcanoes and geologic de-gassing, etc. And
c) carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant. It is a useful gas.
Here also, is a comprehensive report,
http://www.climatechangereconsidered.org/.
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As the Philippines is reeling from the disaster caused by typhoon “Ondoy” hundreds of climate bureaucrats led by the UN FCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change) are meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, since yesterday (September 28) up to October 9. The climate bureaucrats and negotiators are planning more ecological central planning, to be signed hopefully in Copenhagen this coming December. The current Kyoto Protocol is not enough for them, they want a post-Kyoto Agreement or Protocol to fight global warming which they now euphemistically call “climate change”.
The goal of ecological central planning is very clear: more environmental regulations and prohibitions, more carbon taxes collection, more energy rationing, more and bigger climate bureaucracies at the national and international levels.
The environmental planners will determine what kind of power plants we can put up and cannot put up. What kind of light bulbs to be used and which ones should not be used. How much carbon taxes to be slapped against “non-renewable” energy and how much subsidies to be given out to “renewable” energy sources.
They keep scaring us the public that unless we listen to them, we are doomed to extinction. And for these environmental socialists, the Sun and its magnetic field, the cosmic rays from outside the universe, “biosols” and volcanic aerosols, do not exist or do not affect the Earth’s climate, that only CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the main cause of global warming. Why? Because they cannot regulate solar magnetic field, they cannot regulate galactic cosmic rays, they cannot regulate volcanic aerosols. There's no money and political power for governments and the UN there. Whereas demonizing and regulating CO2 gives them lots of political and ecological power.
The environmental planners have made the global warming hypothesis a dogma. Even if both global temperature data (specially satellite data like UAH & RSS) and actual realities (like sustained rains in "summer" months, this heavy flooding) point to cooling, governments still collect huge tax money to sustain those national and international bureaucracies, their expensive frequent international meetings and agreements. There is a lot of coercion, lying and rent-seeking involved.
Meanwhile, more than 100 people have been confirmed to have died, 106 as of 8am update by the National Disaster Coordinating Council or NDCC). There are reports that if we account for the missing, the death toll could reach 700.
Some people, especially here in facebook, asked, “How come there were no (or not enough) standby rubber boats or amphibious boats in areas considered as "hot spots" for flooding? Billions of pesos poured into government agencies concerned with disaster recovery/relief and yet we don't have enough rub...ber boats.”
I replied to that post, I said that the government and its politicians have already spent the money preparing for global warming. They created new climate bureaucracies like the Presidential Adviser on climate change. Such Adviser (former Sen. Heherson Alvarez (and staff?) I think is travelling every 2 months abroad to attend meetings by the UN FCCC, other events organized by other governments. Since there will be drought, they constructed a number of dams (big and small), bought airplanes and chemicals for cloud seeding. Since there will be more hot days, perhaps they bought more powerful air-conditioners in their offices, more SUVs. Since CO2 is evil, they gave away big subsidies of taxpayers’ money to solar and wind farms, other “renewable” energy sources.
But if they can only be more honest, if they will only look up the sky more often, they will realize that the problem is not from rising ocean many years from now. Rather, the problem is the thick rainclouds that are always in the sky, almost everyday, with or without a typhoon. The Sun would hardly show up as those clouds block the sunlight. Consequently, there is general cooling, and lots of rainfall. And why is this so?
Because the Sun is not dead yet. Its magnetic field has become weak lately, less sunspots appear on its surface, its irradiance (or brightness) is slightly reduced, there is weaker solar wind. Solar scientists call it the “deep solar minimum” of this century. What is the implication?
Weak solar wind to push away lots of galactic cosmic rays (from exploding stars) to reach the Earth’s atmosphere. Such cosmic rays help catalyze the formation of aerosols, which are the nuclei of seed formation. So more cosmic rays, more aerosols, more low-lying clouds, less sunlight to reach the Earth’s surface, more rainclouds to fall anytime, global cooling.
There are many other natural factors that also contribute to more cloud formation. Geologic de-gassing and release of volcanic aerosols, release of gases from plants and trees that form “biosols” (aerosols from biological sources). Although their contribution is lesser compared to solar factors.
None of these natural factors are ever considered by the UN and those government leaders who are planning ecological central planning. So even with global cooling happening, they still insist that the world should prepare for global warming, meltic ice and snow, and rising ocean.
It's important that the public will realize the unholy desire and plans of the environmental central planners. They should not waste of our tax money. They should NOT:
a. create new climate bureaucracies, or retain existing ones
b. enact new carbon taxes
c. subsidize solar and wind farms from our tax money
d. over-tax coal and oil power plants
e. impose ecological protectionism
f. others.
Instead, governments should:
a. reduce if not abolish income taxes, let us keep our monthly or yearly income and allow us to build stronger houses against more heavy rains, against colder weather in the coming years and decades.
b. strengthen river banks, dredge heavily silted rivers and creeks, make them deeper again, so they won’t swell easily in anticipation of more heavy rains and more flash floods. There are dozens of consumption-based taxes and transaction taxes (VAT, excise tax, travel tax, doc stamp tax, franchise tax, etc.) where government can still collect big revenues.
c. build higher roads, cover up cracked and potholed road with a new layer of new roads on top, instead of removing the old layer and build a new road on the same elevation.
d. others.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) is the monopoly weather forecasting body in this country. Among its catastrophic forecasts were those of super-typhoons “Ondoy” (international name “Ketsana”) and “Pepeng” (“Parma”) last year, and typhoon “Basyang” (“Conson”) middle of this month.
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