Friday 13 November 2015

Edward Lucas on the claims that the Ukraine crisis was NATO´s and EU´s fault

A number of foreign-policy expterts have blamed NATO and the EU for the crisis in Ukraine. Edward Lucas looks at how the predictions made by political scientist John Mearsheimer and others have fared:
The Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault. That has been the contention of a slew of foreign-policy experts, notably the distinguished political scientist John Mearsheimer, who wrote a much-quoted piece in Foreign Affairs in August last year called “The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin.”
For those who missed it, Mearsheimer blamed the crisis in Ukraine on NATO enlargement, saying that Russia had adamantly opposed it (which is not true); that it breached undertakings given to the Soviet Union (also false); and that Putin feared that the “coup” against Yanukovych was a prelude to a NATO base in Crimea (also untrue).
Mearsheimer also argued that the EU had been “marching eastward” and therefore provoking Russia and that the West was recklessly promoting democracy with the aim of turning Ukraine into a “Western stronghold on Russia’s doorstep.”
The counter-arguments to this are well known. The biggest is that they remove from Ukrainians and others any say in their own future. They are just counters in a board game played by others. As Mearsheimer argues, might is right and countries Ukraine’s position just have to get used to it.
That is both inaccurate and morally dubious (given how much the countries of the “bloodlands” have suffered in the past century). It is right to say that Russia, not the West, gets to decide what constitutes a threat to Russia. We can’t help it if Russia’s ex-KGB regime is afflicted by paranoia. But if Russia’s threat-perception becomes the paramount and unchallenged factor in regional security, we are in effect assenting to a new Yalta.
Read the entire article here

Thursday 12 November 2015

Finally something to celebrate at the Paris COP 21: "Global warming has been good to Champagne makers"

A few thousand bottles of vintage champagne are ready for the COP 21 delegates in Paris.
The famous Maxim´s will be one of the main venues for these much appreciated "side events" ...


As Paris gets ready to welcome the 50,000 or so delegates to the megalomaniac COP 21 climate jamboree, due to begin on November 30, there is finally some good news to report.

When US President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the likes arrive in the beginning of the meeting for a photo opportunity (the French idea is to have heads of state present only in the beginning of the conference in order to make statements) they can wholeheartedly enjoy the champagne offered by their host, President Hollande, knowing that global warming has been good to this noble wine:

As France prepares to host world leaders for talks on how to slow global warming next month, producers of the northeastern French region's famous sparkling wine have seen only benefits from rising temperatures so far.
The 1.2 degrees centigrade increase in temperatures in the region over the past 30 years has reduced frost damage. It has also added one degree in the level of alcohol and reduced acidity, making it easier to comply with strict production rules, according to champagne makers group CIVC.
"The Champagne region and Germany are among the northerly vineyards which have managed to develop thanks to warmer weather," Jean-Marc Touzard, coordinator of a program on wine and climate change at French research institute INRA.
"Even if I feel very concerned by climate change, I have to say that for the moment it has had only positive effects for Champagne," Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, president of the group that bears his family's name, told Reuters at the company's Reims headquarters.

Sunday 8 November 2015

Obama: "Large part of this Earth" could become uninhabitable 25 years from now!



US President Barack Obama thinks that "large parts of this Earth" will become uninhabitable in "our lifetimes" if global warming is not reduced. The average life expectancy in the US is about 79 years ( 78.8 in 2012), which, considering that Obama was born in 1961, means that large parts of the Earth would be uninhabitable as soon as 2040.

We all know that there has been no global warming for almost nineteen years now. This means that there has to be a hell of a lot of warming during the next 25 years to make "large parts of this Earth" uninhabitable by 2040! Does Obama really believe in this rubbish? I do not think so, but he surely thinks that this kind of scaremongering makes him popular among greenies and other "progressive" global warming believers.