New England is bracing for its third snowstorm in three weekends

New England is bracing for its third snowstorm global warming event in three weekends today, "putting crews to work sanding roads and trimming trees ahead of the snow, sleet and freezing rain", the news agency Reuters reports:

The storm blanketed states from Minnesota to Ohio earlier this week, dumping more than a foot (30.5 cm) of snow in Kansas on Thursday, forcing airports to cancel hundreds of flights and leaving motorists stranded on highways.

The storm was expected to pelt New England's coastal areas from northern Connecticut to southern Maine with a mix of snow and rain starting late on Friday, National Weather Service meteorologist John Foley said.

A winter storm watch forecasting heavy, wet snow was posted for Saturday afternoon through Sunday evening in southern New Hampshire, northern Rhode Island and much of Massachusetts, including the Boston metropolitan area.

The Weather Channel forecast that southern parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and northern and central Massachusetts could see snowfalls of 6 inches or more over the weekend. From 2 to 5 inches of snow may fall in Boston, and the storm will likely dump rains from New York City to Philadelphia, it said.

A few days ago, the same Weather Channel reported that "Cold Snaps, Global Warming Go Hand-in-Hand":

Frigid temperatures like these are sometimes used to refute the idea that the planet as a whole is getting warmer with each passing year. That's just not so, say NASA scientists, who point out that even on a warming planet, bitterly cold temperatures and harsh winter weather will still be possible and even commonplace.

One of the reasons they can coexist is a phenomenon known as Arctic Oscillation, a phrase used to describe the interaction of the jet stream and Arctic air during the winter. It can cause unseasonably cold air masses to sweep over what are normally temperate latitudes, NASA reports, making for unusually cold and severe winter weather across many parts of the U.S.

This bitterly cold air even can make it too cold to snow across regions of the country that normally see double-digit snowfall amounts each year, the Guardian newspaper of London reported last week. Because colder air has a lower capacity for holding water than warmer air, it can be more difficult for snow to form when temperatures reach the teens and single digits.

Yes, even if we were facing a new ice age (which we may, by the way), NASA and its obedient servants - like the Weather Channel - would keep on telling us that it is all consistent with its global warming theory.

And of course we all remember when warmists a few years ago told us that "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past".

Australian academics: Democracy should be replaced by 'elite warrior leadership' in order to fight global warming

The world is full of envirofundamentalist doomsday prophets, who paint a grim picture of what is ahead for humanity. Few are however as candid as the two Australians, professor emeritus of medicine David Shearman and philosopher and ecologist Joseph Wayne Smith, who openly attack the liberal democratic system, which they think should be replaced by an authoritarian "elite warrior leadership". 

This is what the two "warriors" have to say in the foreword of their book 'The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy':

We have known about these impending problems for several decades. 
Each year the certainty of the science has increased, yet we have failed to act 
appropriately to the threat. We have analyzed the reasons for this indolence. 
This understanding will lead you to ask yourself if Western civilization can 
survive in its present state of prosperity, health, and well-being, or will it 
soon suffer the fate of all previous civilizations—to become a mere page in 
history?
We will demand from you the reader, far more than your comprehension 
of the consequences of climate change and the workings of democracy. You 
will need to examine the limits of your introspection and the motivation 
bestowed upon you by biology and culture. The questions to be asked are 
difficult. You have a commitment to your children, but are you committed 
to the well-being of future generations and those you may never see, such as your great-grandchildren? If so are you prepared to change your lifestyle 
now? Are you prepared to see society and its governance change if this is a 
necessary solution? -

Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate that the inherent failures of 
democracy that have lead to the environmental crisis also operate in many 
other spheres of society. They are inherent to the operation of democracy. 
Furthermore, we come to share Plato’s conclusion that democracy is inherently contradictory and leads naturally to authoritarianism.
In chapters 8 and 9 we argue that authoritarianism is the natural state of 
humanity, and it may be better to choose our elites rather than have them 
imposed. Indeed Plato, on seeing the sequelae of democracy’s birth, observed that it is better that the just and wise should rule unwillingly, rather 
than those who actually want power should have it. We analyze authoritarian structures and their operation ranging from the medical intensive care 
unit and the Roman Catholic Church to corporatism with the conclusion 
that the crisis is best countered by developing authoritarian government 
using some of the fabric of these existing structures. The education and 
values of the new “elite warrior leadership” who will battle for the future 
of the earth is described.

(bolded by NNoN)

PS

The authors do not - at least not in the foreword - say, what will happen to the global warming    'deniers' in their brave new world. However, the Gulags of Stalin and Mao should serve as good models ...

German President Gauck says Europe's citizens "feel powerless, helpless" and "ignored" - but then calls for "more Europe"

German President Joachim Gauck today began the "most important speech of his term in office thus far" in a promising way:

When it comes to the European Union, many in Germany and around the 27-member club think first and foremost of mind-numbing bureaucracy in Brussels and the never-ending crisis facing the Continent's common currency. Citizens feel powerless, helpless and oftentimes ignored.

But soon it was evident that this was only empty rhetorics:

Gauck, though, quickly moved on from the laundry list of complaints that are often directed at Brussels and from the fears felt by those countries in crisis. In the rest of the speech, he delivered an eloquent and passionate defense of the European idea.

"We can travel from the Neman (River) to the Atlantic and from Finland to Sicily without at any point having to dig out a passport," he said. "We can use one and the same currency across much of Europe, and we buy Spanish shoes and Czech cars without paying extra customs charges…. In a very positive way, more Europe has become part of our everyday lives."

Of course it may be nice to travel without having to "dig out a passport", but I do not think that I am the only one who would be more than happy to show the document if the benefit would be to get rid of the EUSSR type Brussels bureacracy. And I would be even more happy to visit a currency exchange office - if that would mean a chance to get rid of the never ending crisis machine called the euro!  

One would think that people like Gauck, and Angela Merkel, who come from the former East Germany, should understand what a huge undemocratic bureaucracy means. However, for some strange reason they seem to be blinded by empty rhetorics about a "common European identity", which has never existed, and will never exist. 

Australian professor: "This whole thing about climate change being responsible for an increase in extreme weather, or natural disasters, is just a fiction really"

"The worlds leading green journalists on climate" at  the Guardian's "Environment blog" are ridiculing people who think that recent climate events in Australia are not a sign of global warming:

Australia had its biggest and longest heatwave on record in January creating perfect conditions for hundreds of bushfires. For seven days straight, the average maximum temperature across the country topped 39C.

Then there were the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, which killed more than 170 people. The 2011 Queensland floods caused $5bn of damage after an area the size of France and Germany was declared a disaster zone.

Of course these extreme events, like others being shared around the world of late, had absolutely nothing whatsoever, not even in the slightest, how very dare you even contemplate it, to do with man-made climate change. 

But like my grandpa used to say, he who laughs last, laughs longest:

Professor John McAneney, the director of Risk Frontiers, an independent research group funded mostly by the insurance industry, says that based on a database of natural hazard events in Australia, including some dating back to 1803, "there has been no increase in the frequency of natural hazard events since 1950".

But what of the spiralling insurance claims in the wake of hailstorms, floods, cyclones (think Yasi at $1.4 billion) and bushfires ($4 billion for Victoria's Black Saturday firestorms)?

"What we can see very clearly is that when this dataset … is corrected for the increases in numbers of buildings at risk and their value, no long term trend remains," Professor McAneney said.

''It is indisputable that the rising toll of natural disasters is due to more people and assets at risk."

He said US hurricane modelling to identify a signal climate change is contributing to storm strength suggests it could be a while before the data is definitive. Averaging 18 different climate models, "it's going to take 260 years", he said.

"This whole thing about climate change being responsible for an increase in extreme weather, or natural disasters, is just a fiction really."

Read the entire article here

Hollywood "eco-luminaries" fighting global warming, sponsored by H & M

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Global Green, "an organization dedicated to fighting climate change", has organized its Annual Pre-Oscar Party at Avalon Hollywood. 

According to the paper "celebrities and eco-luminaries" arrived at the party in Chevy Volt electric vehicles, sponsored by the Swedish cheap fashion company H & M. 

H & M  gives us some more information in its press release: 

Last night, Sophia Bush, Emmy Rossum , Orlando Bloom , Miranda Kerr and Helen Hunt were among the guests who joined H&M and Global Green USA to celebrate their partnership and the kickoff of H&M's global garment recycling program at Global Green's 10th annual Pre-Oscar party.  H&M, as a proud sponsor of the event, featured an exclusive H&M Conscious* lounge which highlighted H&M's key sustainability initiatives including their fashionable Conscious clothing collections.  An ivory organic cotton three-piece suit from H&M's Spring 2013 Conscious Exclusive collection was worn by Sophia Bush on the green carpet. 

Here is what "the proud sponsor" chose not to tell the Hollywood "eco-luminaries":

H&M has come under fire after a Swedish broadcast claims the high-street retailer isn’t doing enough to prevent sweatshop-like conditions at a subcontractor’s factory in Cambodia. The television documentary, aired by TV4′s Kalla Fakta (“Cold Facts”) program on Wednesday night, alleges that Cambodian workers producing clothing for the company are paid so little they have to borrow money to buy food. -

The minimum wage for Cambodian garment workers is $61 per month—or 25 percent of what constitutes a living wage in the country, according to the Clean Clothes Campaign, a Netherlands-based labor alliance dedicated to improving working conditions in the global garment industry. The group blames chronic malnutrition, coupled with close quarters, for the near-epidemic of mass faintings occurring across factories in the region.

“Low wages come at a high cost,” says Jeroen Merk, a research coordinator at the Clean Clothes Campaign. “Last year, over 2,400 workers passed out in Cambodian factories due to malnutrition as a direct consequence of low salaries. But H&M, one of Cambodia’s main buyers, continues to refuse to pay a living wage to its workers. This is unacceptable.”

After reading this, one can only hope that the "Conscious Exclusive collection" suit worn by by Sophia Bush was not made in Cambodia, by workers who passed out due to malnutrition! 

As to the "global garment recycling program", one has to hope that H & M does not use the same procedure which they applied in New York a couple of years ago:

On 6 January 2010, it was reported that unsold clothing and other items in one New York City store are cut up before being discarded, presumably to prevent resale or use

PS

The Hollywood Reporter also interviewed Oscar-nominated actress Helen Hunt, who was on the Pre-Oscar Party host committee, about what she has been doing in order to fight global warming:

THR: How can Hollywood help?

Hunt: We can help shine the light on both the climate science and the solutions, including through events like this. I also think we can all take action ourselves where ever possible. I spent last Saturday with my daughter doing a beach clean up with Heal the Bay

The euro recession hits the heart of France: A deep decline in champagne shipments

The euro recession is beginning to hit the heart of the French economy. Last year worldwide shipments of champagne fell by 14 million bottles. The European Union has seen the greatest drop, with a fall of 7,1%, from 82,3 million bottles in 2011 to 76,4 million in 2012. 

Domestic market France has also endured declines, with over 10m fewer bottles ordered by French retailers and restaurants in the last year, representing a 5.6% decrease to 171.4m bottles.

No wonder that many financial experts now beliece that France may be the next major EU crisis country.

UNESCO awards peace prize to François Hollande for launching a war

Hollande gets UNESCO peace prize for launching a war.

The United Nations cultural agency (UNESCO) has today announced that French president François Hollande will receive its 2013 peace prize "for his valuable contribution to peace and stability in Africa" (read: for unilaterally launching a war in Mali at a time his popularity in France hit an all-time low). 

The Jury was chaired by former Marxist President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano. 

This must be the first time a peace prize is awarded for launching a war. The decision is another reason why the U.S. (and why not also other countries) should withdraw from UNESCO.