The FT's Edward Luce: 'Muricans Need To Focus on the REAL Terrorists: Q Anon

"As awful and dangerous as Trump undeniably is, there may be something worse ahead for Republicans. That thing is called QAnon, the online phenomenon that has declared war on an international conspiracy of elitist pedophiles and cannibals, which, of course, doesn’t exist."  - Joe Conason, 'How A New Racist, Extremist Cult Is Eating A Debilitated GOP Alive'

The warning from the Financial Times' columnist  Edward Luce (Sept. 10,  'QAnon Cult Shows America Should Fear Enemy Within')  ought to be taken 1,000 times more seriously today than any mindrot blabber about "Islamic terrorists".   The reason, as Mr. Luce shows, is that QAnon and the Right's batshit crazy conspiracy hatchers are the real threat to our Republic - along with Trump the Traitor.   As Luce writes (ibid.):

"Mention terrorism and most Americans will instantly think of Islamist extremists.  In reality, America should nowadays be far more worried about far-right threats. Two-thirds of its terrorist incidents last year were carried out by homegrown extremists from the far-right. That rose to 90 per cent in the first five months of this year. Many of these were inspired directly or implicitly by QAnon, the extremist cult that is often downplayed as a fringe conspiracy group."

Luce is absolutely spot on correct. Worse, we have now beheld - as I noted in my Aug. 20 post-  at least one major media (CBS)  correspondent (Nancy Cordes)  comparing the real and serious JFK assassination conspiracy to the batshit nuts  QAnon claptrap.  

Cordes spouted:

"The QAnon conspiracy theories -  as nutty as they sound -  are not even that new.  Some of the theories resemble the plot of Oliver Stone's movie 'JFK' thirty years ago."

Adding that:

"polling finds that five to ten percent of Americans actually believe this stuff. That President Trump is this secret crusader working to take down a cannibalistic cabal within government"

But as I observed, Stone made no reference   to any "cannibalistic" cabal or conspiracy, i.e. which accuses one party of worshipping Satan,  eating babies and committing sex acts on children - as the loopy QAnon nuts believe.  So where is Cordes and her prof getting this baloney?   Clearly, she's just pulled it out of her ass like Trump has the conspiracy codswallop he peddles. 

Where I differ with Luce is when he writes:

"That label (fringe conspiracy group) should be kept for UFO spotters and people who think the British royal family killed Diana, Princess of Wales. As the FBI has concluded, QAnon bears all the ingredients of a “domestic terror threat”. 

Ok, hold strain!   I am a "UFO spotter", and make no apologies (or excuses)  for being one. This is given the object I observed (with about 50 others in 1962, in the parking lot of a Miami Gardens shopping center), was as real as a heart attack.  The full description of the event can be found in one of my first blog posts:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2007/12/perspective-on.html

The orange object - the size of the full Moon - darted overhead, hovered,  darted again then vanished within seconds.  No man-made craft could have imitated that velocity and at the relatively low altitude (est. 1,500 ft.) it was observed.  Indeed, Carl Sagan - we now know, See e.g.

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=76926

is also in this company.  Further, we know scientific investigation of so-called UFOs is feasible, i.e.

Is Scientific UFO Inquiry Possible? - Brane Space

So, Luce here chose a bad analogy.  Worse, he made the error of mistaking a bogus conspiracy ideation for a real conspiracy (i.e. not a fringe threat) just because the bogus version itself poses a real threat.   But a conspiracy claim can be pure twaddle  and still be a genuine domestic threat, especially if backed up by a horde of crazies who need ECT.

The perfect treatment for most QAnon conspiracy spreaders would be ECT, as Dr. Pat Bannister used to order for paranoid schizophrenics in the 1970s.

Leaving aside Luce's unfortunate miscues and false analogies, he is spot on  when he writes:

 "QAnon has the sympathy of senior U.S. figures, including, implicitly, that of Donald Trump. Whether the president knows much about the group’s bizarre cult theology is beside the point. He retweets them and welcomes their support. 

Luce's point regarding QAnon's crazies "having the sympathies of senior U.S. figures" is no exaggeration.  Indeed, we learned only yesterday (Denver Post, p. 6A) that "Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from Donald Trump's campaign are slated to attend a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who express support for the main QAnon conspiracy theory."

Actually, main  QAnon "ideation" as I keep saying. Which would be that (ibid.):

"Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and its deep state which involves satanism, cannibalism and child sex trafficking."

No, you cannot make this B.S. up.  The top officials of our government are actually in neck deep to monumental conspiracy horse shit and a mind virus that could well bring this country down if it spreads much further.

The great danger to the U.S. will come if Mr. Trump loses in November as opinion polls indicate is likely. In QAnon theology, that will be the equivalent of the infidels occupying the Holy Land. QAnon’s world view is literally predicated on Mr Trump as their only hope of defeating the satanic forces that control America’s deep state. Many Americans do not take the threat seriously. This is despite the fact that QAnon-inspired gunmen have carried out or attempted several recent attacks."

But there is no danger if we are aware of this, and what these crackpots might do if the Dotard loses. So we then have National Guard troops as well as SWAT teams ready across all 50 states, and we order them to act as they would be trained to do in response to any terrorist outbursts.  You break the law with violence, you pay the price.   What we cannot do is allow ourselves to be intimidated by QAnon or any other domestic, Reich extremist terrorists.   In particular Luce's words below are apt and need to be taken seriously:

"Americans are used to screening out white perpetrators as lone wolves or people with mental health problems. They should listen more closely to the FBI, which says QAnon has the crucial markers of a terrorist group. QAnon thinks we are in a Manichean fight between the forces of dark and light. ...  QAnon claims that George Soros, the Rothschilds and other well-worn Jewish culprits are behind the plot. "

Adding:

"That one wraps itself in Islam and the other Christianity is beside the point. Nor are technological differences salient. Al-Qaeda exploited the early internet. QAnon is the spawn of social media and the dark web. What binds them is a violently apocalyptic world view."

These are critical insights that Luce has offered, and even more remarkable given how he blew it in regard to the "UFO spotters" balderdash and QAnon being a "real" conspiracy because its believers pose a threat.    Indeed, QAnon, as my Psych post doc (now tenure track) niece Shayl observes is "composed of sociopaths who have too little going on in their lives so discharge their skewed energies by investing in irrational beliefs that provoke violent reactions."

But left unsaid is how many "normal' citizens are still lured into the nutso loop of QAnon by investing or attending to seemingly ordinary coalitions or organizations. As Luce informs us:

"Barely a day goes by in the U.S. when groups of parents do not hold a “#SaveOurChildren” protest. Some are witless recruits to what sounds like an obvious cause. Others believe that “dark hats” in Washington protect a subterranean cabal that literally snatches children off the streets."

Luce (above) is referring to how this past year QAnon's minons, in an effort to grab some kind of normalcy, tried to co-opt the group.  This led to a temporary blocking of the hashtag on Facebook.  What thinking Americans need to process here is that all the most pathological mind virus-seeded belief systems seek to harness legitimate cover for themselves, to dupe the unwary into becoming unwitting allies.   Hence, it is essential to always have one's "spidey" radar up and working. That includes having that radar full on when one enters a social media domain. As Luce writes (ibid.):

"Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube bear huge responsibility for directing users towards such derangement. It took until June — almost three years after QAnon emerged — for Facebook to start taking down the group’s posts. "

Which is an absolute travesty and shows the extent to which Facebook -  in its lax approach to "free speech" -   bears enormous responsibility for helping to spread this mind virus. But it is also wise to know WHO are the most virulent spreaders of this pathogen of the mind. Mr. Luce takes pains to point out one,  Marjorie Taylor  Greene,  who  "describes Mr Trump as a righteous sword against evil."

In effect, Greene confers on the orange maggot pestilence fouling the White House and the nation a preternatural nobility or sanctity.  Presumably against the "left wing hordes" and "deep state"  these cranks believe are poised to take over the country under Biden.   This leads Luce to arrive at his somber conclusion:

"Common sense suggests the biggest terrorist threat would thus come in the aftermath of his defeat, which would trigger QAnon thoughts of apocalypse. The group’s theories existed before the arrival of “Q”, an anonymous poster who claims to be inside the deep state. Its first attack came a month after Mr Trump was elected when a man named Edgar Welch broke into a Washington pizza parlour with a semi-automatic weapon. He believed the parlour was run by Hillary Clinton and kept child sex slaves in its basement. “The intel on this wasn’t 100 per cent,” Welch later admitted in what ought to be the motto of our age."

Indeed.  And in the wake of a Biden landslide, now being predicted by more and more pundits, we need to have ready the full array of lawful authorities and state military deployments (e.g. National Guard) if need be.

This is to deal with any sore loser QAnon types who believe Trump's (rightful) clobbering represents some nefarious plot to destroy the nation.  In fact, it will be Biden and the 'good guys' who deliver a return to normality, decency, honesty and civility - totally absent during the past 4 years of Trump's malevolent reign. 

See Also:

How a New Extremist Racist Cult Is Eating a Debilitated GOP Alive

by Joe Conason |

And:

Conservatives and the Right

The Making of a Right-Wing Armed Insurgency: Homegrown Terrorists, Armed, Dangerous and Confronting Social Justice Demonstrators

by Bill Berkowitz | September 11, 2020 - 5:57am | permalink

AND:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel

The Real Problem Behind The Pentagon's UFO Files: 'Cloak & Dagger' Secrecy- Disinfo

What's the real problem behind constant misinterpretations and lack of transparency to do with the Pentagon's UFO files?  In a nutshell, the Pentagon's duplicity and disinformation, i.e. claiming it "disbanded" a once covert program to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena - then in the next breath "renaming it and tucking it inside the Office of Naval Intelligence". (Sunday Denver Post, August 2, p. 8a):

Oddly, while Pentagon officials will not discuss the program -  which remains unclassified, but deals with classified matters -  it emerged last month in a Senate intelligence report.   This referenced the "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force" (UAPTF). According to the Senate report, the task force (ibid.):

"Was to standardize collection and reporting on sighting of unexplained aerial vehicles and report at least some of its findings to the public every six months."

To jog memories, in 2017 the NY Times disclosed the existence of a predecessor unit called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.  DoD officials insisted at the time that the unit - and its $22 million in annual funding- had "lapsed after 2012".   Again, this was disinformation.  As the Post account notes (ibid.):

"People working with the program said it was still in operation in 2017 and beyond, statements later confirmed by the Defense Department."

The program actually began in 2007 under the Defense Intelligence Agency and was placed within the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, which remains responsible for its oversight.  However, its "actual coordination with the intelligence community will be carried out by the Office of Naval Intelligence, as described in the Senate budget bill."


Let's pause and recall back in 2017 the Pentagon  released images shown on major news networks (ABC, CBS) of peculiar aerial craft. Therein one beheld  footage of a craft actually rotating in space as it moved at high speed and exclamations heard from a pilot in a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet.  While a NY Times account described it as an "aircraft" let's be clear this was no  conventional aircraft  in terms of aerodynamic  performance.   Indeed, my Jayne's Encyclopedia of Aircraft shows no such object which can perform rotations while moving at high speed.  In terms of physics, we are talking about an object able to undergo linear as well as angular velocity changes simultaneously.

This is also a huge reason the likes of Sen. Marco Rubio is a certified moron for trying to claim - in the latest Pentagon UFO iteration - that the "actual reasons" for these aerial manifestations are "likely more boring" than people believe. I.e. they are likely just the (technologically superior)  craft of a foreign nation.   Right!  And did he know this lame excuse has been around in one form or other since the 1952 Washington, D.C. mass sightings?  Does he really believe if those were just "enemy air craft" the U.S. Air Force would allow them to penetrate our air space for decades with impunity?  

Despite that, Rubio actually told a CBS affiliate in Miami this month that he was "primarily concerned about reports of unidentified craft over U.S. military bases".  Adding, "it's in the government's interest to find out who is responsible."

He then (ibid.) "expressed concerns that China or Russia had made some technological leap that allows them to conduct this sort of activity".  This was based on his remarkable observation that said craft "exhibited technologies not in the U.S arsenal."

As I said, a certified moron. 

The Navy pilots in the earlier reported incidents could actually be heard trying to understand what they were seeing. “I have no idea what I saw....it accelerated like nothing I've ever seen" said one, the other adding: "There’s a whole fleet of them,”. Defense officials declined to release the location and date of the incident but we know it occurred in 2004.

 I watched the clip multiple times and it was clear the event disclosed a real object,  not a mirage, and not any kind of prosaic or known phenomenon (e.g. ball lighting). As a former investigator for the National Investigating Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) I often had occasion to conduct investigations of claimed "UFOs" seen in Barbados. In fact, I did a detailed investigation of one particular object - visible to a Founder member of the Barbados Astronomical Society-  which I concluded was  Kugelblitz or ball lighting. This was published in  an issue of The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1980  see e.g.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1980JRASC..74..168S

Let me note here, as reported in the Post piece,  Luis Elizondo,  a former director of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.(AATIP), resigned in October, 2017.  This was after ten years with the program. He also "confirmed the new task force evolved from the advanced aerospace program."    According to Elizondo (ibid.):

"It no longer has to hide in the shadows. It will have a new transparency."

Well, let us hope it does and minus all the "cloak and dagger" disinfo and other baloney. Including distracting bollocks spouted by Rubio.  This is particularly important given Elizondo "is among a small group of government officials and scientists with security clearance who say they are convinced that objects of undetermined origin have crashed on Earth with materials retrieved for study."

Recall it was solar physicist Peter Sturrock  who documented in his superb monograph (The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence)  all the ways serious examination of such materials is feasible and the approaches needed, e.g.

Search Results

Web results

Is Scientific UFO Inquiry Possible? - Brane Space

And here is where we need the input of astrophysicists and other physicists involved in the UAPTF program, much more than political mouthpieces, posturing imbeciles and know nothings.   This is to assess whether such materials actually are of unknown origin, i.e. not terrestrial.

For example, as the Post article points out the astrophysicists involved (often as consultants) "aren't being paid sufficient attention". One such person is Eric W. Davis who has worked as a subcontractor and then consultant for the Pentagon UFO program since 2007.  He has come out publicly and stated (ibid.):

"In some cases examination of recovered materials had so far failed to determine their source"

This led him to conclude:  "We couldn't make it ourselves."

In other words, the recovered material was literally out of this world.

What about "hard evidence"?  Again, you can blame the lack of transparency of the program. As we read:

"The constraints on discussing classified aspects of programs have put those who have studied UFOs in the position of stating their views without presenting any hard evidence."

Translation: The hard evidence, likely actual parts of the craft, exist but are placed under a classified umbrella so no one can reference them without violating national security laws. What are the powers-that -be afraid of? Probably what a Brookings Institution report from the 1960s already warned about, i.e. that humans may not be able to confront the truth of an actual extraterrestrial civilization and such awareness may cause human civilization itself to "collapse".   We may firmly insist we can "handle the truth" but our devoted, benevolent, patriarchal authorities firmly believe we cannot.  So they will protect our little brains from learning other more advanced life forms exist - not of this world. Obviously, our congress critters are given the benefit of the doubt given that as recently as March, astrophysicist Eric Davis "delivered classified briefings about retrievals from off -world vehicles not made on this Earth."

All of this brings up Dr. J.  Allen Hynek's revelation (some years ago)  on how the "in public" UFO skeptic Carl Sagan had admitted to him that he really did accept the validity of UFOs but "couldn't admit it in front of colleagues."  See e.g.

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=76926

Why would the Pentagon or DoD be interested in such objects at all?  Obviously, any serious department of defense would be remiss not to - if strange unidentified objects had been on record invading a nation's airspace-- and by military pilots.

The irony is that by continuing to hide critical aspects of the phenomenon from the public, the military and national security state may actually be undermining the effort to learn more about it. Not to mention possibly putting our infrastructure at risk.  

Readers can access one of the UFO  file videos here: https://youtu.be/Ce6ZevfbIK0

See also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-harvards-top-astronomer-avi-loeb-is.html

Alas, It May Be Too Late To Hit The "Snooze Button" On The Climate Alarm

As the coronavirus rages on and preys upon our collective stupidity, e.g.

• The latest ‘COVID party’ had 700 attendees and took New Jersey police 5 hours to break up 

We're informed by Walter Russell Mead (WSJ,  July 27, p. A13) that :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/snooze-the-climate-alarms-11595889568

 A new study on "global demographics" -   see:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext

Shows we can figuratively hit snooze on the climate alarm because future forecasts of population growth are being "scaled back."   This is because of declining fertility rates. As we know, unchecked population growth is the primary driver of global warming- climate change.  The more people, the more fossil fuels consumed and the greater the carbon emissions,  and the more intense global warming. 

But Mead commits other oversights as when he writes (ibid.):

"More literacy and better access to information about contraception are - along with urbanization- associated with declining fertility rates as women gain better control of their reproductive lives."

The problem is that women's control of their reproductive lives is not entirely in their hands anywhere.  Just look at the U.S. and how the Trump bunch has essentially  wrecked any chance for poor and minority women to get access to affordable  birth control via the ACA. Add on the incipient religious objections (i.e. from Roman Catholics who also control a large part of the African population)  and you see formidable barriers to contraception.

Mead argues that given "the impact of these forces" we can expect to see Earth's human population peak at 9.7 billion by 2064 and then "decrease to 8.8 billion by 2100."  This as opposed to previous forecasts (e.g. by the U.N.)  of up to 12.7 billion by 2100.

However, Mead  and the UWa researchers overlook several factors:

1) Humans have multiplied their impact on  CO2 emissions and climate forcing related to the greenhouse effect beyond simple fossil fuel use.  The burning of the Amazon rain forest alone - now reaching catastrophic proportions - is a prime example,  with monstrous fires spewing gigatons of carbon into the air, e.g.


This along with other massive fires may well offset  all the projected lowered population emissions up to at least 2060.  (Assuming Bolsonaro doesn't act soon to control the burning.)

2) CO2 accumulates because each molecule remains in the atmosphere for up to 100 years on average.  Thus, earlier depositions remain even as new burdens are added yearly. The CO2 -driven warming we’re now experiencing is not the result of just one year – but  100 years’ previous accumulation. The process may be described something like a series with terms being added, viz: to describe the CO2 content now in the atmosphere, we must initiate the series with n= 1 (for 1920), viz.

CO2( 2020) =   x  ₁  + x  ₂ +  x  ₃ +   x  ₄ +.............+  x  _{1 00} 

E.g. terminating at the last term 100 years later. Here each ‘x’ denotes the CO2 burden added for each year in succession.
Thus, the CO2 effect for a given year is not just for that year, but rather inclusive of the cumulative additions for all the years - starting up to 100 years before.

Bottom line: Even if humans suddenly decreased their CO2 emissions to zero via decreased populations in multiple nations  the effect on the future greenhouse effect will be minuscule.   That's because all those CO2 emissions from earlier years still have to  have 'their say'.   Is there a way to eliminate those earlier emissions from the atmosphere?  No one has a clue, but they sure don't factor that inability into their rosy projections based on lower fertility assumptions.

Meanwhile, Africans  continue to burn wood from their own forests at a rate, using the material for fuel.  People and more people everywhere, too many for sure, gobbling resources at a rate as if there were no tomorrow. How will ample contraception and ancillary education get to these Africans when conservative U.S.  policies already limit birth control access - and the RC Church holds sway over too many African women.

Mead also pins his lessened climate alarm hopes on "more efficient agriculture" continuing to spread across the world.  But that hinges on  available water - fresh water sources- and they are running low. Of course, this was predicted back in a 'State of the World' report from 2000, which estimated that 1.8 billion would face water scarcity by 2025.   The report even forecast "water wars" if the matter wasn't resolved or in some way addressed in an equitable manner.

More recently we learned , 

'We Can't Waste a Drop.' India Is Running Out of Water. - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-cant-waste-a-drop-india-is-running-out-of-water-11566224878

"Water crises are unfolding all across India, a product of population growth, modernization, climate change, mismanagement - and the breakdown of traditional systems of distributing resources."

More worrisome:

"Nearly all of India's biggest cities ...are rapidly depleting their groundwater reserves, and 40 percent of India's people could lack drinking water by the end of the next decade."

Mead's assumptions are also tempered by this graph appearing in the WSJ (July 10, p. B4):

Focus should be on current policies  which forecast a rise of 2.8- 3.2 C by 2100. But which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also regards as lowballed.  Consider the effect of the lockdowns.  When two thirds of the global population was under lockdown in early April "carbon emissions were down 17 % compared with average daily emissions last year."  (WSJ, ibid.)

Quite a drop, no?  But bear in mind that lockdown drop was only significant with respect to the previous year's emissions.  It doesn't say anything of the 99 years' emissions preceding and  btw, which are still in the atmosphere!  Meanwhile (ibid.):

"The United Nations Environment Program says global emissions need to fall 7.6 % a year until 2030 to be on track to meet the Paris goals"

The piece goes on to assert the target is set to be met this year "with the International Energy Agency forecasting carbon emissions to fall 8 % to 30.6 gigatons"

But let's be clear that's only one year's target met.  And that's with the "benefit" of a near global lockdown reducing the emissions.  But seriously, does anyone believe the equivalent of a pandemic-style lockdown would be accepted every year until 2030 to meet the Paris goal?    That is, not going beyond 2 C?   Newsflash: with current policies (see graph) we are already on track to hit at least 2.8 C by 2100.  And btw, please check the graph for current policies' projections in relation to the Paris 2C goal.

Also,  what about the 30- 33 gT from each of the previous 20 years?  And the 20-25 gT from each of the 40 odd years before that?  And the 20 gT from each year up to 100 - before that?   Did all those previously discharged  CO2 gigatons just magically disappear? No, they are still there in the atmosphere and wreaking havoc!

In a way, it's somewhat analogous to a homeowner who's been given a year's moratorium in paying his mortgage.  He would normally pay $1,500 a month, but because of a respite the mortgage debt has just been building up - so by the end of the 12 month grace period the homeowner will have to come up with $18,000.  A "jumbo" loan payment for sure. But using a similar reckoning to the IEA (in the case of gigatons of carbon emissions "saved") , he thinks he only  has to cough up one month's  payment of $1,500 at the end. 

More realistically in terms of CO2, we will need to cut global emissions by 50 % a year each year through 2080 to even have a chance to avoid the runaway greenhouse effect by 2100.  That is, factoring in all the cumulative emissions,  including the 30.6 gT still to be added for this year.  In addition to all the gigatons  that have been pent up in the atmosphere for the past 100 years.  And that is just to prevent the temperature going beyond 3.2 C by 2100.  Forget hitting the 2 C limit, that carbon limit 'horse' has already left the barn so to speak.

Bear in mind the CO2 concentration currently  in the atmosphere (415 ppm)  hasn't been seen in 12 million years. This condition  is rapidly pushing the climate back to its state in the Eocene Epoch, over 33 million years ago, when no ice existed on either pole.  Now, with no ice likely at all in 10 years or less (at least for the N. pole) we will be faced with further positive feedback driving us toward the runaway greenhouse scenario.  

This was well explicated by Carl Sagan in one of his essays, 'Ambush : The Warming of the World', in his book:  'Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Beginning of the Millennium':

"Melting of ice caps (already occurring) results in diminished albedo (reflection of solar radiation back into space), and a darker Earth surface - with more infrared radiation absorbed - reinforcing the tendency while enhancing the melting effect, leading to further darkening of the surface, reduced albedo and more melting."

The ugly truth?  NO amount of population decrease or fertility drop at this point is going to bring back that Arctic ice. Nor will it prevent sea levels from rising.  With that vast, reflecting ice surface gone, humans will have to figure out an alternative means of raising the albedo at the poles.  Basically, to avert such feedbacks would require perhaps the most monumental  engineering  effort  in the history of mankind -  dwarfing anything seen  hitherto. It would have to be mounted to reflect as much sunlight away from the Earth's poles as the melting ice sheets are dissipating now.

In the words of Harvard climate scientist James  Anderson:

 "Can we lose 75-80 percent of permanent ice and recover? The answer is no." 

But never mind.  The pie-eyed Pollyannas like Mead  (and others in the WSJ's op-ed stable) will keep churning out happy froth for the hoi polloi to embrace, so they don't have to think the more serious thoughts.   After all, who wants to get into the weeds on such a depressing topic when we already have a Covid 19 pandemic to confront?

Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Accelerates- Are We On The Cusp Of The Runaway Greenhouse Effect?

Graphic showing the process by which the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting.


Dog- sledding near Chena Hot Springs, AK in March, 2005. We were unable to go as far as we would have liked because the much higher temperatures had melted the surface ice.


The news that last Wednesday saw record high temperatures in Greenland,  40 degrees above normal, and a record melt event  over the Greenland Ice Sheet triggered more cause for concern among climate scientists.  According to Zachary Labe, a climate researcher at the University of California -Irvine (quoted in The Washington Post):

"It's another series of extreme events  consistent with the long term trend of a warming, changing Arctic..

Meanwhile, Marco Tedesco - an ice researcher at Columbia University, quoted in the same article, noted it's "been extremely warm in east and central Greenland, adding:

"This has triggered widespread melting that has reached about 45 percent of the ice sheet"

In addition, Jennifer Francis  - a leading researcher studying the connections between Arctic change and mid-latitude weather - has noted the relation of Arctic changes to deformation in the jet stream.  She also was one of those who had indicated that such changes could well have played a role in the extreme jet stream patterns that in recent months have wreaked havoc.  That includes spawning tornado swarms and record flooding in the central U.S. during the last two weeks in May. The analogy here has been made to "a refrigerator door left open" - with intensified warming displacing the normally cold air that remains in the Arctic.

 In her words, referencing last week's record Greenland melt:

"The jet stream this week was one of the craziest I've ever seen!...We can't say yet that the Arctic warming is causing this particular pattern, but it is certainly consistent with that."

This is serious and has grave repercussions continued local (e.g. mid-latitude) weather disruptions as well as sea level rise.  The most critical connection is to the clear change in planetary albedo (the reflecting surface).

Here on Earth we are faced with a positive albedo feedback mechanism playing a major role - driving us toward the runaway. This concept was well explicated by Sagan in one of his essays, 'Ambush : The Warming of the World', in his book:  'Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Beginning of the Millennium':

"Melting of ice caps (already occurring) results in diminished albedo (reflection of solar radiation back into space), and a darker Earth surface - with more infrared radiation absorbed - reinforcing the tendency while enhancing the melting effect, leading to further darkening of the surface, reduced albedo and more melting."

This mode of positive feedback is what we're faced with in the melting of the Arctic, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/04/bad-news-record-summer-melt-in.html

Adding to the urgency of facing the issue, Harvard climate scientist (professor of atmospheric chemistry) James Anderson has warned in a recent FORBES interview that we may have only "five years left to save ourselves from climate change".    

This is given the CO2 concentration currently  in the atmosphere (415 ppm)  hasn't been seen in 12 million years. This condition  is rapidly pushing the climate back to its state in the Eocene Epoch, over 33 million years ago, when no ice existed on either pole. Prof. Anderson, best known for  establishing   chloroflourocarbons were damaging the Ozone layer noted pointedly: 

"We have exquisite information about what that state is, because we have a paleo record going back millions of years, when the earth had no ice at either pole. There was almost no temperature difference between the equator and the pole,"

Adding:

"The ocean was running almost 10ºC warmer all the way to the bottom than it is today, and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would have meant that storm systems would be violent in the extreme, because water vapor, which is an exponential function of water temperature, is the gasoline that fuels the frequency and intensity of storm systems."

Reinforcing that scenario Harvard's  Anderson acknowledges:

 "Can we lose 75-80 percent of permanent ice and recover? The answer is no." 

In other words, with that vast, reflecting ice surface gone, humans will have to figure out an alternative means of raising the albedo..  Basically, to avert such feedbacks would require perhaps the most monumental  engineering  effort  in the history of mankind -  dwarfing anything seen  hitherto. It would have to be mounted to reflect as much sunlight away from the Earth's poles as the melting ice sheets are now..   But here's the rub: short of launching into space twenty or so vast reflectors of 20 square kilometers surface each - likely at a cost of $2 trillion per reflector (conservative estimate) - that isn't going to happen.  

At the same time as intensifying warmth has accelerated melting in the Arctic and plausibly disrupted the jet stream leading to tornado swarms and flooding in the U.S. , heat waves have scorched India. (New Delhi recently topped 123 degrees F.)  But how many in the U. S. knew about India's travails at the same time flooding and tornadoes savaged the central U.S.?

One problem with educating the global citizenry on the existential crisis of greenhouse warming, is that information tends to be localized.   Hence, a  resident of New Delhi may have no clue of the tumultuous havoc wrought in the U.S. with massive flooding, hundreds of tornadoes and what not. Similarly, the typical U.S. resident may have no clue of the rising, infernal temperatures in Delhi lately, reaching a record 118.4 degrees on June 10   As one VOX media piece put it:  "Caucus voters in flood-ravaged Iowa, can see climate disruption simply by looking out the window."

This information disconnect means too many are unaware of global warming as a global phenomenon.  Even worse, the Trump cabal - "graduated" from climate change deniers to planet destroyers - is now determined to actively interfere in research by federal scientists.  As The New York Times reports , those scientists who prepared the National Climate Assessment will now be instructed not to include the worst-case scenarios of climate change in their reports, so the full extent of potential impacts will be hidden from readers. They will also be asked to project their model results through 2040 instead of the end of the century, masking some of the most dire effects of climate change.

Compounding that, the Trump criminal enterprise is reportedly setting up a “review panel” to publicly scrutinize the conclusions of the National Climate Assessment

Blogger John Atcheson-   much like Harvard's Anderson - put the current crisis in stark perspective when he observed:

"Most of the climate-related estimates you hear in the news and from the IPCC have built in assumptions that we humans will take necessary actions to mitigate the worst of the climate crisis. There’s no evidence that making such assumptions is a prudent thing to do. We’ve known about this unfolding tragedy for three decades now, yet we’ve been steadily increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses we release. In fact, in 2018 we set a record for the most CO₂ ever emitted, and for the single largest increase in emissions year-to-year. Meanwhile, in May of this year, atmospheric CO₂ levels reached 415 parts per million, a level higher than it’s been for more than 3 million years – literally before the dawn of human existence.

The second reason the climate crisis is likely far more dire than most people have been led to believe is that the IPCC, most of the scientific community, and the media present mid-range scenarios for temperature increases, not worst-case forecasts, and usually they don’t include potentially dangerous feedbacks.." 

Let's be clear all of the techno-baloney "solutions" advanced  thus far in order to dodge the necessary revolution in our economic system (based on radical consumption and waste), e.g..

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/11/dont-trust-economists-with-climate.html

 - are essentially refined balderdash and baloney.

  Hence fixes like tinkering with the amount of sunlight that strikes the Earth by injecting sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere (to increase cloud cover)   is like trying to douse a kitchen fire with a cup of water. It simply can't work given the scale of the problem.   

The 'good'  news, despite the fact that warming conditions are likely being understated, e.g.

Climate report understates threat

Is that we are not yet at the cusp of the runaway Greenhouse effect.  The late Carl Sagan estimated this sub-threshold to occur near a CO2 concentration of 500 ppm.  We are currently at 415 ppm but the rate now seems to be increasing at 2.5 ppm/ yr compared to the previous 2.0 ppm/yr.   Doing the math this means we'd not arrive at the cusp concentration for another 30 years - assuming of course the rate of increasing concentration stays the same. Similarly, we'd reach the actual runaway (taken as 600 ppm) 40 years later, at around 2089-90.   That means our grandchildren will be the ones having to deal with what can only be regarded as catastrophic climatic conditions.

What about the accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet? We can perhaps take some mild comfort from the perspective of Mike MacFerrin - a glaciologist at the University of Colorado.  He has suggested in one recent tweet that it may be too early to panic and the observations of rapid melting thus far in 2019 have merely been "anomalous variations."  

Well, we have to hope he's correct.  Ultimately, when all is said and done, John Atcheson is correct and nations have blithely allowed CO2 emissions to increase over 3 or more decades taking us to the brink of climate apocalypse.  Much of this is a result of gov't retrenchment of regulations - say when administrations change in the U.S. (or elsewhere). And not too put too much of a fine point on it but the Trumpies now have rolled back coal plant rules. ('EPA Rescinds Obama Power Plant Rules', WSJ today, p. A4).  As another WSJ columnist (James Mackintosh) noted, nothing will change so long as it remains more profitable to extract oil, gas or coal and burn them.  

That leaves humans with a Hobson's choice decision: Enjoy more comfort today using more fossil fuels, e.g. for a/c, heating, plane trips, car trips etc. and toss the planet into the dustbin for future generations. OR shape up, cut back on consumption, allow carbon taxes and at least provide a chance (albeit slim) of leaving their progeny with a halfway livable world.

See also:

Environmental Policy | Healthcare Policy

The Climate Crisis Is Also a Health Emergency

And:

Economics 101 and Ecological Collapse

And:

Life Changes At The Cusp Of The Runaway Greenhouse - Brane Space