Fires within the Arctic Circle

All these news are alarming: ‘Sweden Wildfire: Blistering heatwave sparks fires within Arctic Circle as Europe boils’.
‘Two major forest fires raged out of control Monday on either side of Athens, killing at least 50 people, burning houses, prompting thousands of residents to flee and turning the sky over Athens a hazy orange from the smoke.’
‘At least 44 people have died across Japan as extreme heat waves continue to grip the east-Asia nation.’
‘Sweden faces “extreme” risk of even more wildfires’.
‘Denmark, southern Norway and northern Finland are experiencing extreme heat.’
Aircraft and helicopters were battling the forest fires near Athens.
‘Intense heat wave to build up across western Europe’.
‘Sweden heatwave: hottest July in (at least) 260 years’.
The further a reader goes through the news coming from Japan in the east to Sweden in the west the more concern creeps in:
What’s happening?
Is it the Arctic Circle? Is there any error in the reports?
Are the numbers of dead 44 in Japan and 50 in Greece? Is the info correct?
Media reports are almost unbelievable as none of these are coming from the ‘cursed’ south, the hemisphere that fails to provide its citizens with adequate arrangements for a safe life. Two of the countries in the cited news — Sweden and Japan — stand on a strong technological-industrial base, and spend a lot of money behind arms.
All the news cited say:
‘Wildfires are raging in Sweden gripped by the worst drought in 74 years. The fires have broken out across a wide range of territory north-west of the capital of Stockholm as the hot, dry summer continued to stir up the flames. A number of communities have been evacuated and tens of thousands of people have been warned to keep windows and vents closed to prevent smoke inhalation. Rail services have been disrupted.’
‘The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency has called the recent fires the country’s most serious wildfire situation of modern times.’
‘The severity has caused the government to appeal for help from other countries. Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway and Poland have responded by sending water-spreading helicopters and planes, and emergency personnel. Carl XVI Gustaf, king of Sweden, in a statement said he was “worried” about the fires raging in 59 locations in Sweden.’
‘Sweden is experiencing an unprecedented drought and soaring temperatures which have reached the highest figures in more than a century. Other than a negligible 13 millimetres of rain in mid-June the country has not seen any rain since May. Farmers are struggling to feed their animals. The heat also arrived early.’
‘The lack of rain in Sweden is now so bad that the government is even considering state assistance for farmers struggling with the conditions.’
‘Dangerous heat will threaten millions of people across Europe this week with no lasting relief in sight.’
‘A heat wave is building up from Spain to Scandinavia.’
‘Locations that may have their highest temperatures of the year this week include Madrid, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Stockholm.’
Japan
ACCORDING to CNN, out of the 44 that have died since July 9, 11 lives were claimed on Saturday alone, with temperature remaining around the 38 degree Celsius mark in central Tokyo.
‘The temperature rose past 41 degrees Celsius in Kumagaya, the highest ever recorded temperature in Japan. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the temperatures recorded have been around 12 degrees higher than the average temperatures.’
Greece
‘GREECE is seeking assistance from the European Union to battle forest fires.’
‘A state of emergency has been declared in the eastern and western parts of greater Athens as fires raged through pine forests and seaside towns on either side of the Greek capital.’
‘The blaze has created such thick smoke that the main highways between the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland have been shut down.’
The real curse
CLIMATE crisis deniers will confidently claim: these are (1) mere accidents; (2) these are exceptional incidents due to weather pattern; and (3) these should not be cited as examples of anomaly in the climate system.
But, shall not the citizens in the countries experiencing unusual incidents in the nature search for answers to the fires within the Arctic Circles and sudden surge of death due to increased temperatures? Citizens in the ‘cursed’ South are concerned as they are experiencing unusual pattern in the nature, and their coping capacity is almost non-existent.
This reality is pushing many to search for the origin of the crisis in climate.
A few years ago, Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University, and John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, discussed the issue in an essay — ‘What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism’.
They write:
‘For those concerned with the fate of the earth, the time has come to face facts: not simply the dire reality of climate change but also the pressing need for social-system change.’
To them, knowledge is essential for survival: ‘Knowledge of the nature and limits of capitalism, and the means of transcending it, has therefore become a matter of survival.’
On climate change, they write:
‘Climate change does not occur in a gradual, linear way, but is non-linear, with all sorts of amplifying feedbacks and tipping points. There are already clear indications of accelerating problems that lie ahead.’
Fred and Foster raised the issue of living standard:
‘[T]here are biospheric limits, and that the planet cannot support the close to 7 billion people already alive (nor, of course, the 9 billion projected for mid-century) at what is known as a Western, ‘middle class’ standard of living. […]
‘A global social system organized on the basis of “enough is little” is bound eventually to destroy all around it and itself as well.’
They raised the issue of economic system:
‘[M]ost of the critical environmental problems we have are either caused, or made much worse, by the workings of our economic system. Even such issues as population growth and technology are best viewed in terms of their relation to the socioeconomic organization of society. Environmental problems are not a result of human ignorance or innate greed. They do not arise because managers of individual large corporations or developers are morally deficient. Instead, we must look to the fundamental workings of the economic (and political/social) system for explanations. It is precisely the fact that ecological destruction is built into the inner nature and logic of our present system of production that makes it so difficult to solve.’
On solutions, they wrote:
‘“[S]olutions” proposed for environmental devastation, which would allow the current system of production and distribution to proceed unabated, are not real solutions. In fact, such “solutions” will make things worse because they give the false impression that the problems are on their way to being overcome when the reality is quite different. The overwhelming environmental problems facing the world and its people will not be effectively dealt with until we institute another way for humans to interact with nature — altering the way we make decisions on what and how much to produce. Our most necessary, most rational goals require that we take into account fulfilling basic human needs, and creating just and sustainable conditions on behalf of present and future generations (which also means being concerned about the preservation of other species).’
They concluded by proposing a system:
‘If there is to be any hope of significantly improving the conditions of the vast number of the world’s inhabitants — many of whom are living hopelessly under the most severe conditions — while also preserving the earth as a liveable planet, we need a system that constantly asks: “What about the people?” instead of “How much money can I make?” This is necessary, not only for humans, but for all the other species that share the planet with us and whose fortunes are intimately tied to ours.’
Current developments in the areas of temperatures and wildfires lead us to consider the ideas presented by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster. The countries — Sweden and Japan — stand on capitalist system. Greece is another case — a capitalist country, a victim of capitalist plunder, a country whose population has been burdened with the load of capitalist anomalies, debt, bankers’ dictation and austerity. Sweden and Japan are part of the world imperialist system while Greece is entangled in the system. The three countries’ present situation shows their level of preparedness to face the climate crisis. With so much resource in their command, Japan and Sweden are failing to cope with the crisis. This is the system’s — capitalism’s — failure.
A closer look will find:
The amount of profit and the amount of money spent for research on weapons system development are larger than amount of money spent for research to face climate crisis.
Profit enriches a few while climate crisis affects all — millions and millions of people.
This situation leads to the question: Isn’t it the time to question the governing system — capitalism?

Doha Climate Crisis Talks Will Find Critical Clash Of Interests

Conflicts of interests will dominate the upcoming Doha climate crisis meet while the common interest of the humanity will be pushed aside as big capitals are calculating potential gains and possible losses in the emerging climate crisis market. But, the planet’s climate health is turning worse while conflicting capitals are fighting each other.

In its recent report, the World Meteorological Organization said: The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached a record high – 390.9 parts per million in 2011, “which is a 40 percent increase over levels in 1750, the period humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest”. Levels of other heat-trapping gases including methane, nitrous oxide have also jumped to record altitude. The amount of excess heat prevented from escaping into outer space was 30 percent higher in 2011 than it was in 1990.

Plants and oceans’ capacity to absorb the excess CO2, said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, “will not necessarily continue in the future” as these natural sinks have been saturated.

Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided, the World Bank’s recently released report, said: All nations will suffer the effects of a world 4C hotter, but it is the poorest countries that will be hit hardest by food scarcity, rising ocean levels, cyclones and droughts. Without significant emissions reductions, the planet’s average temperature could climb by 4C by as early as 2060.

Most vulnerable cities in developing nations including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, the Philippines, Venezuela and Vietnam have been identified in the WB report

Almost immediately before the release of these two reports, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report said in November: This planet’s temperature will increase by 6C within 88 years, which is triple the goal of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. Although global carbon intensity is down, energy-related carbon emissions grew by 3 percent from 2010 to 2011.

According to the report, the US carbon intensity and energy-related emissions fell while these reductions were matched or exceeded by a number of industrialized countries including France, the UK, Germany and Italy and they were offset by rising emissions in a number of countries including China, Australia, Turkey, Argentina and India.

Leo Johnson, partner of the PwC, writes in the report’s introduction: “It’s time to plan for a warmer world. Even doubling our current rate of decarburization would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees (Celsius) of warming by the end of the century.”

To meet the Copenhagen Accord’s target, Johnson writes, decarburization by 5.1 percent annually is an imperative. In 2011, the world reduced its carbon intensity by 0.7 percent. “[N]ot once since World War II has the world achieved that rate of decarburization but the task now confronting us is to achieve it for 39 consecutive years.”

Countries have already started facing impact of the climate crisis. Randy Astaiza reported in Business Insider (“11 Islands That Will Completely Disappear When Sea Levels Rise”, Oct. 11, 2012):

Kiribati is negotiating with Fiji to buy up to 5,000 acres of land to relocate its population as that’s their last resort, “as the tides have reached […] homes and villages” of the Kiribati people. Most of its population has already moved to one island, Tarawam, after the rest of their land disappeared in the ocean. A sea level rise of just three feet would submerge the Maldives, the world’s lowest-lying country. Seychelles, the Torres Strait Islands and Palau are facing the absolute uncertainty in the face of ocean’s rising water. Palau’s “coasts are being eroded, its local farmlands tainted by seawater, and its valuable reefs threatened.” The UN declared the approximately 100 residents of Tegua, part of the Torres Strait Islands, the first climate change refugees in 2005. The island of Vanikoro is sinking along with rising sea levels. Micronesia is being eroded away by the sea waters. High tides inundate the Carteret Islands, destroy its crops, wells, and homes. The highest point of the Tuvalu is less than five meters above sea level, but most of it is less than a meter above. Total population of these island-countries is hundreds of thousands.

In 2009, an Andhra University scientists’ research finding published in the Journal of Geophysical Research said Indian summer monsoon rains have been decreasing steadily over the past three decades, a trend not seen in the 19th century.

The monsoon impacts agriculture and water supply, and on these depend the lives of more than a billion South Asian people.

Bangladesh with worsening floods, storms and sea surges is looking at a grim future in terms of climate crisis. Countries in other continents are also facing the same gloomy future.

Assessments and predictions on global sea level bear bleak message. The rise, according to the EPA, is eight inches since 1870; the National Academy of Sciences’ 2009 predictions suggest that by 2100, the level could rise between 16 inches and 56 inches, depending how the world responds to changing climate.

This, obviously a very little description, global climate crisis reality stands as a background of the two-week 2012 UN Climate Change Conference – COP 18 (18th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change)/CMP 8 (8th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol), which will kick off on November 26 in Doha.

The conference has to search for a legally binding international framework for carbon emission cuts beyond 2012 as the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period will reach to its demise within a few weeks. Financing for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is also in the conference agenda. Six countries will compete to be the host the GCF: Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland, South Korea and Switzerland.

After the Copenhagen COP failure in 2009 and the deal in Durban COP 17 the climate negotiation process made small achievement: the GCF with $100 billion a year to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries to cope with climate crisis.

The climate crisis diplomacy begins at this point. Economies have respective interests, which get reflected in the climate diplomacy. A number of the climate diplomacy actors are powerful.

A number of countries, fewer than the number in the original 1997 Protocol, prefer a Second Kyoto Protocol ready to roll on January 1, 2013 while another group’s choice is non-participation in the process. Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Russia probably will not sign up to the Second phase. Probably, the Second Kyoto Protocol will only find the EU countries, Australia, Norway and Switzerland to sign.

Extension of the Kyoto protocol is probably Brazil’s priority while a number of countries prefer bigger emission cuts.

The US signed the Kyoto Protocol but never ratified it. The US’ argument is: The Protocol didn’t impose any binding commitments on big emerging economies including China, India and Brazil. The Chinese line of reasoning is: China is a developing country; so it shouldn’t face the same requirements of emission reduction as the Western countries face. The Western countries have polluted the atmosphere for centuries, says the Chinese contention.

It should not be hoped that the US-China debate will be resolved in Doha.

Funding of the GCF is an area of debate. The European Council’s choice is private sector and market mechanism. The choice stands on a foundation of economic interests. But, market doesn’t favor the poor and the weak, and market doesn’t follow democratic principles.

Along with these interest-positions, powerful climate crisis is creating changes in areas including perceptions and politics in a number of major economies that are influential in climate diplomacy. Parts of a number of economies or sections of capitals are finding new “horizon” for reaping profit.

Current series of extreme weather trajectory is changing public perception in the US. A recent poll by Rasmussen found: 68% of Americans perceive climate change as a “serious problem”. In July, a poll by the Washington Post found 60% of the Americans surveyed perceived climate change was real. Some ultra-conservative politicians are also now concerned with the crisis.

In the US, in terms of climate sensitivity, it’s a big shift. In a Rasmussen poll in 2009, only 46% of Americans perceived climate change was a serious issue. In 2010, Gallup found 48% of Americans perceived the seriousness of global warming was exaggerated.

Two major hurricanes within 14 months including the superstorm Sandy, the recent extreme weather, record high temperatures are pushing the US people connect the changing weather and the climate crisis. This year, 2012, is the warmest year on record in the US, the warmest spring on record, the third-hottest summer on record, and July was the hottest month since weather records began in 1895. About 60 percent of the contiguous US faced drought conditions.

Obama was explicit on the climate crisis issue after his reelection. In his victory speech, in his first press conference since winning reelection, he mentioned the “destructive power of a warming planet”. “Climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children's future”, said Obama. He said: “I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions.” The US president said: “[W]e’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

These statements are different from the utterances of his predecessors. But, sometimes, wishes turn solo. Uncertain politicalscape makes many journeys impossible.

Big businesses with relationships to potential climate crisis market are super-active in the US: the catastrophe-modeling, catastrophe risk companies, insurance industry, reinsurers, designing and construction industry, neo-fuel industry, and many others. A section of them has already got involved while another is getting prepared to get involved in the emerging climate crisis market. Companies are planning to invest billions of dollars to construct carbon capture and storage (CCS) mechanism, and infrastructure. Concepts are being floated to build safer nuke power plants.

As an asynchronous reality, the climate crisis deniers’ camp is still strong. Millions of dollars were spent by oil and gas lobby (OGL) to promote oil, gas, and coal interests. Fossil fuel-friendly campaigns were launched. Political maneuvering is there. Lobbyists know the art of making bubbles, painting rosy pictures and propagating fabricated threats.

A section in the fuel-conservative camp has not liked Obama’s reelection. To the section, the reelection is synonymous to “the empowerment of government over the liberty of the individual and free markets” and “a profound rejection of the benefits of free enterprise”.

A highly profitable industry gets big amount of subsidies. Its anger with scientific findings on climate crisis, and political support to the fact of the crisis is not without reason. The profit margin, the industry apprehends, may get squeezed. So, there is the free-market US think tank the Heartland Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity concerned with market’s liberty.

Market competition is pushing down coal industry in a number of countries. Its competitor is natural gas.

In the UK, nuclear, wind, wave and tidal energy industries – more than 1,000 companies – have made an unprecedented joint appeal to ministers not to abandon their commitment to combat climate change. They want a legally binding decarburization target for electricity generation. But the government lacks uniform position on the issue, a reflection of conflicting interests.

Similar conflicts of interests, essentially conflict of competing capitals, are overwhelming economy and politics in countries. At the same time, states, as a single state or as a group, represent conflicting interests also. Climate crisis diplomacy reflects these conflicting interests while people’s interest is thrown out from agenda.

A glimpse of history helps in these moments of inaction.

Droughts brought collapse of the Classic Maya civilization over centuries. The Maya people’s agriculture got disrupted, big cities gradually crumbled down, people abandoned cities, instability and political collapse followed. Research by Douglas Kennett, environmental anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, found the agonizing fact. (D.J. Kennett et al, “Development and disintegration of Maya political systems in response to climate change”, Science, Vol. 338, November 9, 2012, p. 788, doi:10.1126/science.1226299)

However, part of mainstream is now concerned with the climate crisis. The crisis will not only ultimately hurt drive for profit, but endanger profit’s cherished status quo also.

“We will never end poverty if we don’t tackle climate change. It is one of the single biggest challenges to social justice today”, the WB chief told reporters on a recent conference call. The statement tells the urgency.

But, capitals have not yet resolved own conflicts. So, the crisis remains unattended by its sections, remains on bargaining table.

Now, it’s universally accepted, other than a few deniers, climate crisis is a planetary crisis, a human crisis. Now, there are at least 25 million climate refugees. More than 1 billion people, most of them are poor, live in low-lying coastal areas. The planet is facing climate catastrophe. To the people, climate crisis is not a hoax. To avoid irreversible damage to humanity, the present pattern of economy – the maximization of profit – has to be changed as essential steps are not taken simply to maximize profit.

Climate Crisis: All The Bad News, From The Southern Ocean To The US To Food To Kiribati

After the news of drought in the US the climate crisis is continuing with all the bad news from around the world, from the Southern Ocean to food to Kiribati. At the same time, a climate crisis skeptic scientist now admits: he was wrong. The developments in the realm of science are pushing back capital from its climate crisis denial gamble as capital is taking toll from the entire Earth.

Scientists now know the way huge quantity of carbon is sucked and locked deep into the Southern Ocean. This knowledge puts them in “a much better situation” to identify impact of climate crisis. Citing a study by British and Australian scientists, news agencies report the latest finding. The Southern Ocean study has been published in the Nature Geoscience journal. (“Scientists unlock ocean CO2 secrets key to climate: study”, Reuters and “Scientists find CO2-sucking funnels in Southern Ocean”, AFP)

Oceans absorb carbon dioxide emissions – about a quarter of the CO2 on Earth – and the oceans thus curb the pace of climate crisis. However, scientists are now worried that global warming could disrupt this natural process by changing wind patterns and ocean currents. “Climate change will definitely interact with this process and modulate it”, Matear of Australia’s state-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation told Reuters.

The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica is the largest of ocean carbon sinks s its share of “consumption” is about 40% of mankind’s CO2 absorbed by the seas. Its “in take” is equivalent of 1.5 billion tones of CO2 a year, which is more than Japan’s annual GHG emissions. At a depth of about 1,000 meters carbon can be locked away for hundreds to thousands of years. But till the study, scientists were not sure the way CO2 gets there after dissolving into surface waters.

The scientists, according to the news agency reports, found that a combination of winds, currents and eddies – big whirlpool-like phenomena about 100 kilometers in diameter on average – work together to create carbon-sucking funnels that create conditions for carbon to be drawn down deep into the ocean to be locked in. A few of these funnels, at different locations and not uniformly distributed, are 1,000 km wide. In the Southern Ocean there are five such funnels. The wind is the main force that pool down surface water deep into the ocean while eddies counterbalance a different effect of strong winds that of releasing stored carbon by violent mixing of the sea. As part of a natural cycle these currents in areas also send back carbon to the atmosphere.

The findings put scientists to further vital questions. One of the scientists involved with the study put the questions: The finding “does seem to be good news, but the thing is what will be the impact of climate change on eddies? Will they stop, will they intensify? We have no idea.”

Assumptions being made, according to the agency reports, are as climate crisis is affecting the nature and changing ocean currents, intensifying winds or stark temperature spikes would effect the Southern Ocean eddies.

Then, the US-drought-news is annoying.

Scientists have made a dismal forecast, Beverly Law writes citing Nature Geoscience, for the coming century: The chronic drought conditions that hit the western US in the 2000-2004 period, the strongest in 800 years, will become normal conditions. As withering vegetation released CO2 into the atmosphere and was also unable to store carbon as it would if it were healthy the 2000-2004 drought period reduced carbon storage by an average of 51% across the western US, Canada, and Mexico. The vegetation in North America normally is able to absorb about 30% of the carbon emitted across the region.

Science Daily said: Areas in the US west, already dry, are to turn drier with more extreme periods causing damage to ecosystem to be followed by climate-induced mortality of forests. Areas of forest may turn into shrublands or grasslands. Extreme drought will adversely affect water availability and vegetation, and will make serious impact on carbon sequestration.

News on food follows the drought-report.

Increasing grain prices have again put the world’s poorest people at risk. The price jump could have long-term detrimental impact for years.

A severe drought, as a Reuters report said, in the US Midwest has cut projected grain yields dramatically. Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are experiencing dry conditions while Europe has already gone through an excessive wet weather and India has seen a below average start to the monsoon. These have created worries over world crop yield. Wheat prices have jumped more than 50% and corn prices more than 45% since mid-June. Prices for soybeans also have increased almost 30% over the past two months and nearly 60% since the end of last year.

Citing Marc Sadler, head of agriculture risk management at the World Bank, the Reuters report said the situation is “more complicated” than in 2008. With increased planting in 2009, the increased rice and wheat prices fell sharply at that period.

The WB on July 30, 2012 said: The bank is monitoring the situation closely so it can help governments. “We cannot allow short-term food-price spikes to have damaging long-term consequences for the world’s most poor and vulnerable”, Jim Yong Kim, the bank president, said in a statement. He spoke of measures including school feeding programs, conditional cash transfers, and food-for-work programs. As medium- to long-term measures, Kim said: “[T]he world needs strong and stable policies and sustained investments in agriculture in poor countries.”

However, the WB officials stressed there is no indication of any major grain shortages resulting from the reduced harvests this year. The bank is keeping its hopes on lower prices for oil, fertilizer and shipping than in 2008, which, they hope, will ease the cost of importing food and planting next year’s crop.

The bank’s planned support will include policy advice, increased agriculture and agriculture-related investment, fast-track financing, risk management products and work with the UN and private voluntary groups.

But, the WB president probably has missed the power-play capital engaged in speculation is going to make in the food market, the plunder lumpen lackeys of world capital is going to make in the crisis ridden respective home markets, the hostile role private capital is going to play with food speculation, the wars and civil wars capital has instigated in countries is going to play in the scarcity-market. And, there is politics of private capital that shape state policies all the time. Moreover, private capital, its parts competing with each other, doesn’t allow stable policy and proper implementation of the policies. However, it sounds nice as there is a virtual admission: Intervention, school feeding and FFW programs, is needed; everything can’t be left away to private capital all the time.

News from a geographically tiny land is also annoying:

A number of ground water sources in Kiribati, the low-lying country of 32 coral atolls over 1.35 million square miles of the Pacific and struggling climate crisis and sea level rise, has got contaminated. Around 100,000 inhabitants of Kiribati are facing water shortage problem, which is creating poor hygiene and sanitation, and this in turn is increasing child mortality rate. Citing Catarina de Albuquerque, UN special rapporteur on the right to water and sanitation, AFP reported. (“Child deaths soar in Kiribati due to lack of water”, July 26, 2012)

The UN envoy noted that rising sea levels had contaminated some sources of ground water.

In a statement issued during a trip to the island-country, Catarina said: The child mortality rate in Kiribati is the highest in the Pacific. The international community, particularly the countries most responsible for climate change, has obligation to help Kiribati address its water issues.

Along with these news of annoyance there is news of confession:

Richard Muller, climate crisis skeptic physicist, writes in the New York Times: “Call me a converted skeptic... humans are almost entirely the cause.” He continued: “My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project... Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.” He writes: “These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change […] that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming.”

Muller co-founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project three years ago to debunk global warming findings. There was $150,000 grant from the arch-reactionary Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation for his work.

It’s now clear that money power is losing ground to scientific facts. The money capital spent over the last decades for denying climate crisis is enormous. The pool of scientists and lobbyist it engaged in the corridors of political power is unimaginable. The brain it engaged for designing propaganda material and mind-manipulating tools is beyond imagination. Resources to fight poverty, lack of safe water, diseases like AIDS, cancer, etc. often appeared peanut compared to resources and intellectual energy capital engaged to deny climate crisis. But, now, capital is losing ground to scientific facts. It’s failing to make science totally subservient. It shows limitations of capital’s destructive and conspiratorial power.

Questions like how, what, when, why, who, where to the incidents mentioned above will lead any inquisitive mind to the answer: Capitalism at the root of all these (mis)incidents and (mis)developments. For example, how has the Southern Ocean gone disturbed? What are the reasons that created the disturbance? When it began? Why the activities that have created the disturbance were initiated and who initiated? Similarly, the same questions can be put forth in cases of the US-drought, the precarious condition of the Kiribati people, the current world food market. And, the vital question should be raised: Is there any connection between the incidents spread over a wide area of the world, from the southern corner to the north? A careful, well-informed mind will find the answer: Capitalism.

Developments in the areas of climate crisis and science show capital has:

1. Disturbed and distorted every sphere and every corner of the world taking all living entity in the entire planet to the brink of extinction.
2. Tied all corners of the world with the bondage of crisis, one affecting, influencing, aggravating the others, and thus has created a complex web of crises.
3. Made adverse impact, which is the cause of all sorts of instability in areas ranging from ocean floor to food to politics. Even, capital can’t secure its class rule, which is gradually getting rejected by the peoples, losing acceptability, facing questions and mistrust, which in turn takes away all sorts of logic and rationale for the system.
4. No single technical, mechanical, isolated approach can save the planet from the threat of extinction the planet is facing.

Facts from broader life and facts related to capital’s character will gradually unfold before the eyes of peoples in all lands. People in all lands are learning from their experiences in daily life.

Weather Of Wrath And Climate Crisis Deniers

It’s not that the weather is out of its joint. It’s behaving in its normal pattern. In a period of crisis, apparently erratic pattern is the normal. This crisis-normal pattern signifies the crisis. Usual-normal or expected-normal weather pattern would have nullified the climate crisis claim. But the “wise” climate crisis deniers can claim that the weather is wishing the globe in an erratic, abnormal way, which is just occasional.

There are rare moments in the world history, when major world players simultaneously, in the same week, in the same day, experienced bad weather. The recent weeks and days have found them having similar weather-experience in the US, UK and Russia.

In Krasnodar, southern Russia, a recent heavy flooding caused by torrential rains has brought a death toll of more than 100. Many residents climbed trees and roofs. This type of flood is unusual in memorable history in the region.

Muddy water flowed through streets and homes in the town of Krimsk. At some places in the town, the flood water rose to rooftops. Boats plied through the town streets. One report said of seven meters of water in a town. In Novorossiisk, a major Black Sea port, the severe weather compelled to suspend loading of oil on to tankers.

Recent flood brought by torrential rain has created havoc in many parts of the UK. The flood has brought death. The Yealm burst its banks. Homes are flooded. A number of homes had 1-2 meters water inside. The country has been alerted with more than 200 flood warnings by its environment agency. Now, there are flooded homes, road closures and badly disrupted public transport system. Farmers have been advised to move livestock from low-lying fields and ensure that animals had access to food and shelter.

Parts of the US, from the western Rockies to the Midwest and eastern part, experienced heat wave, sweltering temperatures and monstrous thunderstorms in recent weeks. There is loss of life. Temperatures reached record level in more than 4,500 locations including Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Lansing hit 103°, the hottest day in Michigan’s capital city since record keeping began in 1863. The O’Hare International Airport also experienced 103° on July 6, 2012.

The country has already experienced Colorado wildfires and hurricane within the last few weeks. Storms knocked out power in Michigan, West Virginia, Maryland, and other areas. Millions passed days without electricity.

These weather-incidents are creating questions among people about the statements climate crisis deniers and “scientists” in their pay roll forcefully and shrewdly propagate.

Jane Lubchenco, head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on July 6 told a university forum in Canberra that the experience of recent extreme weather has convinced many Americans previously unconvinced or unconcerned with the impact of man-made climate change.

“People’s perceptions in the United States at least are in many cases beginning to change as they experience something first-hand that they at least think is directly attributable to climate change,” Jane said. Climate change used to be a “nebulous concept”, removed from everyday life, she said. As an example of people’s attention to the science behind the storms she cited “skyrocketing” demand for NOAA’s data from individuals and groups across the US.

It seems climate crisis deniers and their reliable “scientists” are loosing ground in the area of public trust in a country significant in climate crisis negotiations.

Despite the fact the deniers may argue for a short while. But they will be denied of soundness of their arguments as they confront, if they like to, the fact of frequency of extreme weather in a short span of recent time. The “wise” deniers argue: Conclusion on climate can’t be reached on the basis of one or two erratic events. But they miss the aspects of frequency, intensity and time span, and historical records.

Climate crisis deniers, however, don’t restrain. To assert claims of denying the climate crisis deniers have powerful organs.

The Wall Street Journal climate denial episode is now well known to many. The famous WSJ published an opinion piece signed by 16 “scientists” with flawed and misleading arguments about climate science with the following headline: “No Need to Panic About Global Warming”. The “scientists” tried to argue that “there’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy”.

But the WSJ “upholding” the principle of democracy and fairness refused to publish a scientifically accurate essay by 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences on the realities of climate crisis. The NAS is the preeminent independent scientific organizations in the US and members of the Academy are among the most respected in the world in their respective areas of knowledge and work. However, Science, one of the most important journals on scientific issues in the US, later published the NAS members’ essay.

But, the episode of denying freedom of expression exposed the deniers’ position. They even tried to deny, actually suppress, scientific fact. It is an old practice by the forces of status quo and decay since science started its journey for the welfare of humanity.

The climate crisis deniers’ also get exposed as “stories”, actually scandals involving innocent-looking “scientists”, of funding to climate denial “endeavors” come to light. It’s actually funding denial-“science” game, which is quite old. The funds come from powerful interests signifying the extent of interest in denying the climate crisis.

On May 30, 2012, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report that found 28 “leading” US companies that publicly express concern about climate change but provide support to think tanks and groups engaged with the work of denying the climate crisis issue.

Obviously, these donors provide support to the denial-“science” behind public eye, a non-transparent practice but usual for capital. This fact exposes corporate hypocrisy, lie, and practice: pronounce what consumers like to listen and do what you consider as your interest.

Half, 14, of the UCS examined companies misrepresented climate crisis in their public communications. Many more contributed to the spread of misinformation about the climate crisis in ways that included political contributions, trade group memberships, and think tank funding. These companies, the report found, utilized their financial resources to oppose climate policy. Lobbying expenditures for energy sector companies increased by 92% from 2007 to 2009, the period climate change bills were actively debated in the US congress.

According to the report, the worst offenders were ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, DTE energy, General Electric Company, and Caterpillar Inc. Peabody Energy Corporation was ranked the most obstructionist of these companies. The company spent more than $33m to lobby its interest. Caterpillar spent more than $16m on lobbying. Valero Energy Corporation donated more than $4 million to the Yes on Prop 23, a campaign that sought to undermine California’s climate change law, but voters rejected it.

There is bigger money behind climate crisis-denial “science”. According to the Green Peace, the billionaire US oilmen David Koch and his brother Charles have funneled $61.48 million to climate-denial misinformation and disinformation groups working to obstruct policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming. The Koch brothers funneled another $4.38 million into the climate crisis denial venture.

Americans for Prosperity ($5.7 million since 1997), the Heritage Foundation ($2.7 million), the Cato Institute ($1.2 million), and the Manhattan Institute ($1.2 million) were the top recipients of Koch money.

All of these are prestigious institutes in the realm of knowledge. Their observations carry more weight of credibility than many governments in poor countries. Their advocacy influences life of millions of poor around the world although millions of poor don’t know names of these organizations and are not aware of these institutes’ connections, power and influence.

The Koch brothers have billions of dollars from their ownership and control of Koch Industries, an oil corporation that is the second largest privately-held company in the US.
Kansas-based Koch Industries is a conglomerate dominated by petroleum and chemical interests with approximately $100 billion in annual sales and having operations in about 60 countries. The Koch brothers’ money is funneled through one of three “charitable” foundations they have set up: the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation; the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation; and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation. David Koch, one of the owners of this power, once claimed that “global warming could be good for the planet”. It’s not possible for the farmers and fishers, the people, facing uncertain future caused by rising temperature and sea level to perceive David’s perception of “good”.

While two persons deal with billions of dollars the rest millions count cents and a meal a day. A bad catch of fish, a bad yield of crop in a season demolishes survival opportunity of many. To a poor child of school going age, who helps his father in fishing or farming, education and sports are not the issue. The issue is a favorable weather for fishing, crop not damaged by insects, a better earning, a better food, a sleep not disturbed by an angry sea. The two worlds, of the rich and of the poor, are completely opposite.

But the deniers don’t refrain. The Green Peace reports Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial, 2011 and Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine tell about the deniers, their misdoings in the area of climate crisis. In March 2010, Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, another Greenpeace report, told of an “initiative”. Their funding is so big, activities are so wide and involvement/meddling are so deep that the information in these reports may appear a small fragment to a reader concerned with the climate crisis.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund has a similar report: The Koch Brothers: What You Need to Know about the Financiers of the Radical Right. The Center for Public Integrity has another report: Koch’s Web of Influence. Audio recordings from inside the Koch’s 2011 secret strategy meeting available at BradBlog with additional reporting by Mother Jones present more facts.

This profit entity owned by the Koch brothers, two of the top 10 richest people in the US, is an ally of ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other donors that support organizations and individuals – a section of scientists, media men, politicians – opposing energy and climate policy that take into account the issue of climate crisis. Their propagandists also come from poor countries, from countries being affected by the rising seas.

From 2005 to 2008, ExxonMobil spent US$8.9 million, while the Koch Industries controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the climate crisis denial “science”.

But facts can’t be suppressed.

The Koch brothers funded a research that concluded the planet is warming. The Charles G. Koch Foundation provided $150,000 to the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study in 2011, which was embraced by the denial machine until it redundantly re-confirmed that there in the world temperature is increasingly. Neither of the brothers explained the way the BEST study they funded contradicts their denial of climate crisis. Greenpeace activists asked David Koch the question. But there was no explanation.

This climate crisis denial, the “game” of money, does not only expose a section of capital’s role in climate crisis. It does also tell the old truth experienced by science and knowledge over ages: Suppress fact in the interest of status quo even if that act of suppression hurts the common people. Thus interest of status quo stands against the interest of the common people and against science, and there resurfaces the old contradiction between capital and science.