CC3 -- Why I believe that a third option is needed for climate change

Thargor

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

That was me, not M.T,, so please get your facts straight. And I recall posting the actual evidence that Attenborough and his crew deliberately worried those animals in order to capture their miserable demise.

I dont remember that evidence, sounds like a career destroyer, got a source for that by any chance?

And they were seals, not penguins.

:P

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

Lol

This is a science forum, you're in the erong place for this kind of post

Hardly, since it is you that throws politics into all of your guff.

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Hardly, since it is you that throws politics into all of your guff.

Examples please

watlantic

We seem to be obsessed with 'our modern scientific world' ... and short term memory of just a very few generations, i.e. mainly ours. Nature knows better than sponsored 'science'. Example:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/storms-reveal-7-500-year-old-drowned-forest-on-north-galway-coastline-1.1715303
That was land only 7500 yrs ago. Up and down the tide goes, and if your toes get wet, don't blame the weather ;-)

...and I forgot to add: if the super-volcano Laacher See (VEI 7 and ranking nr. 12 in the world's most dangerous) in Germany's Rhineland-Palatinate should erupt which it did 12,900 years ago, throwing rocks and debris as far as Sweden, we can forget about ALL mod cons. Could happen sooner or later. Nobody knows. We know f*ck all, but pretend to know.

Oneiric 3

watlantic wrote: »

We seem to be obsessed with 'our modern scientific world' ... and short term memory of just a very few generations, i.e. mainly ours. Nature knows better than sponsored 'science'. Example:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/storms-reveal-7-500-year-old-drowned-forest-on-north-galway-coastline-1.1715303
That was land only 7500 yrs ago. Up and down the tide goes, and if your toes get wet, don't blame the weather ;-)

...and I forgot to add: if the super-volcano Laacher See (VEI 7 and ranking nr. 12 in the world's most dangerous) in Germany's Rhineland-Palatinate should erupt which it did 12,900 years ago, throwing rocks and debris as far as Sweden, we can forget about ALL mod cons. Could happen sooner or later. Nobody knows. We know f*ck all, but pretend to know.

Or Yellowstone Park. A few little rumbles have occurred around that general region over the last couple of months. Nothing to worry about but if and when that ever does go, we can forget about 'the biggest crisis ever to face mankind', because we'll be having something far more serious to deal with.

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Or Yellowstone Park. A few little rumbles have occurred around that general region over the last couple of months. Nothing to worry about but if and when that ever does go, we can forget about 'the biggest crisis ever to face mankind', because we'll be having something far more serious to deal with.

Ok, but given that these events are once in a 50 thousand year events (for the smaller ones, closer once in 750000 years for Jellystone) and humans can do absolutely nothing to prevent them or prepare for them, it is a completely different scenario than human caused climate change that is happening right now, and will have impacts directly related to actions we take now

It's blatant whataboutery of the order of "I shouldn't bother brusing my teeth, sure I could be struck by lightning and killed tomorrow"

M.T. Cranium

Akrasia wrote: »

Yes it is a giant coincidence. But some people see conspiracies everywhere they look. What a coincidence that the same people who think the evidence for climate change is being deliberately exaggerated also think that the current viral pandemic was a weaponised virus created by the chinese

Whats your opinion on 9/11 out of curiosity?

Most of the people holding a conspiracy theory view of 9/11 tend to be leftists in my limited experience. I see some cause for skepticism about a few parts of the official narrative. I have suspected since it happened that the last plane was shot down and the "let's roll" narrative was invented later. I wonder why a country with the sophisticated intelligence operations of the U.S., with one of their own in the guiding position of presidential minder, failed to see any signs of the attack and responded so slowly to it. But I don't go into the "faked collapse" portions of conspiracy theory. The most common of those is the later collapse of a secondary building, but I have seen convincing explanations to counter well-known theories about that.

As to the coronavirus release, there is something very dodgy about the whole chain of events leading up to its appearance, but even if no deliberate release is involved, there are questions about what happened and why such a virus might exist in the first place. As with all things that invite alternative viewpoints, I know what I don't know ... and that is quite a bit in these various areas. But as I've explained throughout the thread, I am not skeptical about global warming, I am trying to communicate that I think its future course is almost inevitable. I just happen to think that more of the cause lies in natural variability than AGW alone. But AGW exists as a significant entity too. The question is, what is the balance, what is the realistic chance of any solution, or should we be more concerned about mitigation of the nearly inevitable at this point?

On the virus question, there are people who know what happened, and we may hear from them at some future time. I don't find it remotely likely that there is no involvement whatsoever by the government of China but at what stage, release, cover-up, deliberate failures to warn or communicate in a timely way -- that remains to be determined.

Gaoth Laidir

More lies in the press yesterday. Deliberately no mention of the lack of ice loss over the past 13 years. The great unwashed will again be left with the impression that we're in a death spiral.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/climate-crisis-north-pole-soon-to-be-ice-free-in-summer-scientists-say/ar-BB12WNZF?ocid=spartanntp

Climate crisis: North pole 'soon to be ice free in summer', scientists say

The Arctic Ocean will likely be ice-free during summers before 2050, researchers say.
Amid rapid global warming – with average Arctic temperatures already 2C above what they were in the pre-industrial era – the extent of the sea ice is diminishing ever faster.
As the climate crisis worsens, scientists say it is now only the efficacy of protection measures which will determine for how many more years our planet will continue to have a northern ice cap year round.
A major new piece of research involving 21 leading institutes and using 40 different climate models has found that whatever action is taken, we are on course to see ice-free summers in the coming decades.
The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The scientists considered the future of Arctic sea-ice cover in scenarios with high future CO2 emissions and little climate protection – as expected, Arctic sea ice disappeared quickly in summer in these simulations.
But the study also found the Arctic summer sea ice also disappears “occasionally” if CO2 emissions are rapidly reduced.
Dirk Notz, who leads the sea-ice research group at University of Hamburg, said: “If we reduce global emissions rapidly and substantially, and thus keep global warming below 2C relative to preindustrial levels, Arctic sea ice will nevertheless likely disappear occasionally in summer even before 2050. This really surprised us.”
Currently, the North Pole is covered by sea ice year round. Each summer, the area of the sea ice cover decreases, in winter it grows again.

In response to ongoing global warming, the overall area of the Arctic Ocean covered by sea ice has rapidly been reduced over the past few decades. This substantially affects the Arctic ecosystem and climate. The sea-ice cover is a hunting ground and habitat for polar bears and seals, and keeps the Arctic cool by reflecting sunlight.
How often the Arctic will lose its sea-ice cover in the future critically depends on future CO2 emissions, the authors said.
If emissions are reduced rapidly, ice-free years will only occur occasionally. With higher emissions, the Arctic Ocean will become ice free most years.

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

Ok, but given that these events are once in a 50 thousand year events (for the smaller ones, closer once in 750000 years for Jellystone) and humans can do absolutely nothing to prevent them or prepare for them, it is a completely different scenario than human caused climate change that is happening right now, and will have impacts directly related to actions we take now

It's blatant whataboutery of the order of "I shouldn't bother brusing my teeth, sure I could be struck by lightning and killed tomorrow"

The chance of anyone being struck by lightning in Ireland is pretty slim to be honest, given that we are one of the least thundery countries on the planet.

Yes, an eruption at Yellowstone might not occur for another 1000 years, but at the same time, and just as easily, it could all go kaboom tomorrow. Either way, we must think of our great grandchildren, their great grandchildren and their great grandchildren too by making preparations now.

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

More lies in the press yesterday. Deliberately no mention of the lack of ice loss over the past 13 years. The great unwashed will again be left with the impression that we're in a death spiral.

Why did you pick the last 13 years as your baseline. Just out of curiosity, would there have been a significant decline if you had picked 14 years as your baseline?

You would never dream of cherry-picking data would you?

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

The chance of anyone being struck by lightning in Ireland is pretty slim to be honest, given that we are one of the least thundery countries on the planet.

Yes, an eruption at Yellowstone might not occur for another 1000 years, but at the same time, and just as easily, it could all go kaboom tomorrow. Either way, we must think of our great grandchildren, their great grandchildren and their great grandchildren too by making preparations now.

This is actually quite a useful post. It establishes your threshold of risk. If, on any given year, there is a 1 in 1000 chance of catastrophe, you think it is worth preparing adequately for it, even if that cost is huge and the actual chances of successful mitigation of said catastrophe are negligible at best?

in order to convince you of the need to act in climate change, I only need to establish that climate change could have civilization ending consequences within the next thousand years. This is a depressingly low bar to hurdle.

Up to now we’ve been focused on realistic consequences by 2100 or 2050 or other human timescales, which are pretty bad, but climate change doesn’t stop at 2100, it amplifies over time, the seas keep rising, the feedbacks get worse
Do you really want an analysis of the world at the year 3000 on a ‘business as usual scenario?

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

This is actually quite a useful post. It establishes your threshold of risk. If, on any given year, there is a 1 in 1000 chance of catastrophe, you think it is worth preparing adequately for it, even if that cost is huge and the actual chances of successful mitigation of said catastrophe are negligible at best?

in order to convince you of the need to act in climate change, I only need to establish that climate change could have civilization ending consequences within the next thousand years. This is a depressingly low bar to hurdle.

Up to now we’ve been focused on realistic consequences by 2100 or 2050 or other human timescales, which are pretty bad, but climate change doesn’t stop at 2100, it amplifies over time, the seas keep rising, the feedbacks get worse
Do you really want an analysis of the world at the year 3000 on a ‘business as usual scenario?

I take your points but these are points rooted in a certainty that does not exist. The end of civilisation as we know it could come from many sources within the next 1000, 100 or even 5 years, for example war, famine, some cataclysmic naturel disaster and so on and on. 'Civilisation', and particularly our familiar Western form of it, is really nothing more than a glossy veneer that can be easily destroyed in an instant.

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

I take your points but these are points rooted in a certainty that does not exist. The end of civilisation as we know it could come from many sources within the next 1000, 100 or even 5 years, for example war, famine, some cataclysmic naturel disaster and so on and on. 'Civilisation', and particularly our familiar Western form of it, is really nothing more than a glossy veneer that can be easily destroyed in an instant.

Do you really believe this? The same logic applies to your own personal existence, do you ever build anything? Why bother , it could collapse tomorrow. Do you exercise? Whats the point you could die of an aneurysm in the morning, do you educate yourself or learn new skills? Whats the point, you could get parkinsons or alzheimer's and those skills and learning could mock you

Do you have a family? Why? They could leave or die or both....

The end to your life could come out of the blue, in an instant beyond your own control, but that is not a good reason to not strive to better yourself, to look after yourself and your family and to try to live a good life with considereation for others, including the next generation who are cimpletely vulnerable to the actions taken by this generation

It is generally considered to be noble to devote your life to making the world a better place, it is less noble to just say F*ck it lets just take whatever we want because the worlds gonna end some day

I dont base my world view on certainty, i base it on evidence that is irrefutable.

The only way to refute the evidence for climate change is to deny it, to pretend that it has been fabricated or exaggerated. You can easily convince yourselves of this by granting yourself greater knowledge and expertise than all of the experts who you disagree with, while elevating contrarians to the level of propheric whistleblowers

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

Why did you pick the last 13 years as your baseline. Just out of curiosity, would there have been a significant decline if you had picked 14 years as your baseline?

You would never dream of cherry-picking data would you?

With all the talk of flattening curves, this is a good example. The last third of the satellite record has shown no loss of ice, and the trend is flat. It is significant, yet gets no airtime and is classed as cherrypicking. No, the sience is settled.

The "study" above is the umpteenth to warn us of ice-free summers. We should be almost going on September beach holidays to Ellesmere Island in Canada if the first of those studies are to be believed. 2008, 2014, 2018, 2020...goalposts shifting all the time. No, again, the science is settled.

M.T. Cranium

I live a lot closer to Yellowstone, not sure about the validity of the thousand year countdown to oblivion -- the supervolcano eruptions in the past have been over a highly irregular timetable of large variations in their intensity. There is nothing going on now to indicate any particular elevated risk. But I believe the chances of a major event are probably spread out over a longer time frame than 1,000 years, which is not to say they will be.

This is a volatile region and even a relatively minor volcanic event like Mt St Helens in 1980 caused significant ash fall in the region. Mount Rainier is thought to be the biggest real-time risk for catastrophe, although that would be limited to the Seattle-Tacoma area. That dormant volcano could have a major eruption melting all of its extensive glaciers and sending catastrophic mudflows and floods down several rivers that reach Puget Sound in populated areas. There would be perhaps one or two hours of warning plus whatever scientists could add on with pre-eruption notification.

Mount Baker near the U.S.-Canada border erupted several times before the modern settlement era, and there are signs that it sent a large enough flood downstream within the past two thousand years that the Nooksack River diverted through the Sumas plain into the Fraser River (these being two parallel rivers about thirty miles apart). That would be a mass casualty event in the modern context, not sure what impact it had on aboriginal communities at the time. The volcano had a violent enough eruption to dump pumice stones in the vicinity of a golf course where I used to visit, and that would be approximately 50 miles northwest straight-line.

Then there's Crater Lake in central Oregon which is the only remnant of Mount Mazama, formerly higher than most peaks in the Cascades, which totally blew apart around 7500 B.C., spreading massive amounts of ash east across the states downwind. Mount Hood near Portland seems to be a friendly giant by comparison to these others. There are a lot of minor volcanic vent sites scattered around central British Columbia but these seem to be less risky.

Nobody really has much of a clue what the future prospects are for Yellowstone. There is no real plan in the works -- if that went off at its maximum theoretical strength, there would be regional devastation on a totally unmanageable scale. Although you would think that being northwest of it might be a good thing, the problem would be that it would go on for many weeks and eventually all sorts of weather patterns (not to mention ones that it created) would spread the ash in all directions. I would imagine that large parts of the northern U.S. and adjacent southern Canada would be entirely uninhabitable and those who weren't able to flee the zone quickly would eventually die of starvation if not from the direct impacts. But you never know, the thing might go off at a lower intensity and restart the process with a relatively contained disaster that maybe just wiped out the park and Jackson Wyoming areas, maybe parts of Idaho and southern Montana. Nobody gives it much thought here, it's just part of the background, almost like that random asteroid strike that could do this or that.

---

On the arctic warming questions, my own research certainly shows an upward trend especially around 1998 to 2012, that seems to have slackened more recently, but it would take a tremendous further amount of warming to alter the arctic nature of the climate up there, the "warmed up" cold season mean temperatures are still below -30 C and the summers "warmed" to means closer to 8 C than 5 C. Basically the climate shift is that winters are a bit shorter now, what used to happen in early June now typically happens in mid to late May.

There are also unanswered questions about how milder temperatures will feed back into the annual snow-ice cycles, if for example they lead to heavier winter snowfalls in what is essentially a cold desert climate in some parts of the region.

I was watching a documentary about the ice fields on Devon Island, which have been somewhat reduced in recent decades. But it was stated that at some point after the peak of the glacial episode, a climate warmer than the present set in for several hundred years, as shown by fossil plants trapped in ice layers dated to just after that time. So the current ice levels in the Canadian arctic are not the lowest ever seen since the glacial era, and apparently nor is the sea ice minimum in recent years the greatest in that entire period. Atlantic whales had full access to Lancaster Sound at several times in the neolithic and were hunted by primitive ancestors of today's Inuit population. So ice extent has evidently been oscillating rather than steadily decreasing over the full length of time since the peak of what we call the Wisconsin glacial era. (in Europe I believe it has the name Wurm-Riss). Then there are the big oscillations of the Dryas period. I think those should at least point us to an understanding that climate in the arctic and subarctic have always been prone to wide swings over short time scales. Just because we've introduced a human signal to this complexity does not mean that the rest of the complexity has gone away. And since we only partly understand that complexity, we should be humble about projections. Once again, we don't really know all that much about the future of arctic climate. I am simply saying that a prudent approach would take into account the probability that it will warm up rather than cool off. That doesn't mean I know this to be true. But it's like a big football tournament, would you bet Germany might make the finals, or Paraguay?

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

Do you really believe this? The same logic applies to your own personal existence, do you ever build anything? Why bother , it could collapse tomorrow. Do you exercise? Whats the point you could die of an aneurysm in the morning, do you educate yourself or learn new skills? Whats the point, you could get parkinsons or alzheimer's and those skills and learning could mock you

Do you have a family? Why? They could leave or die or both....

The end to your life could come out of the blue, in an instant beyond your own control, but that is not a good reason to not strive to better yourself, to look after yourself and your family and to try to live a good life with considereation for others, including the next generation who are cimpletely vulnerable to the actions taken by this generation

It is generally considered to be noble to devote your life to making the world a better place, it is less noble to just say F*ck it lets just take whatever we want because the worlds gonna end some day

I dont base my world view on certainty, i base it on evidence that is irrefutable.

The only way to refute the evidence for climate change is to deny it, to pretend that it has been fabricated or exaggerated. You can easily convince yourselves of this by granting yourself greater knowledge and expertise than all of the experts who you disagree with, while elevating contrarians to the level of propheric whistleblowers

Bad analogies all round which does nothing but show your lack of understanding of what a society is, what it is founded upon and how it is all held together.

As for this quote of yours:

"The only way to refute the evidence for climate change is to deny it, to pretend that it has been fabricated or exaggerated"

Better known as 'false dichotomy'. Oldest political trick in the world.

M.T. Cranium

Anyways, isn't most of the disagreement about climate change related to its forecasts of temperature trends over the next 10-50 years? So how can there be irrefutable evidence of something that hasn't happened yet? A forecast is a forecast. I'm sure the IPCC put all the work they can into making their forecasts, but then two questions -- are the doomsayer predictions really quoting the IPCC forecasts or just making stuff up? And if they are quoting them, do they understand the concept of margin of error?

I have become skeptical of the IPCC forecasts mainly because I don't accept their analysis that all of the recent changes are AGW signals, so that logically means that if they were wrong about that, their projections would be wrong for the same reason. But it doesn't mean that their projections are wrong overall, just wrong in their logic. Quite possibly we get to similar outcomes by different processes. The difference, however, is one of potential for us to change that outcome.

Oneiric 3

Gave this documentary a watch yesterday evening, and while there is nothing unsurprising in the least contained within it, it is still absolutely shocking:

Narrator really exposes the so called 'green movement' and, as I have more than once alluded to myself on here, the capitalist class that controls it. And yes, that includes the curiously labelled ' Union of Concerned Scientists' and the so-called 'liberal' press.

Video also contains very disturbing footage of environmentally friendly animal cruelty. But yeah, neoliberals, you keep swallowing everything you are told by these soulless monsters, because you are the very useful idiots they depend on to keep their dream alive..

Who knows, maybe there will be another 'scientific paper' released soon to offer you some sort of reassurance for your deluded beliefs.

If there is some good news to come out of all of this, is that this doc has already gained over 2.5 million views since it was put up on youtube just 5 days ago.

So called "Green" energy isn't the solution in isolation, it is obvious that biofuels can rob agriculture of food producing lands to grow biofuels, it is different when the land is very poor that food crops are not viable
The main issue is as always, the "human footprint", that really needs a political solution that overrides the "money, money, money" infinite growth economic model that produces products for consumption and discardation.

As we are now proving in this COVID-19 induces economic coma, life goes on and can exist with less economic activity, Just that business & politicians just need to "re-jig" the hard coded growth only economic model to one that can support far fewer full time workers, where UBI is acceptable and the 0.001% do not hoover up most of the global capital.
They should recognise the work that automation actually archives as opposed to seeing it as free labour, which has displaced paid labour.

Won't affect climate change much, but it would make the world a far better place to live.

Oneiric 3

I agree in part with what you say their DolanBaker, but for me, there is no going back from what was exposed in that documentary. 'Biofuels', is, as the narrator himself said, just code for trees, and entire ecosystems are being wiped out because of vested capitalistic interests who prey on middle-class virtuousness. This is the same method that was promoted in no small measure by that 'EcoEye' Duncan fella, as were solar panels, which depend on vast amounts of fossil fuels and environmental destruction to produce.

The whole thing is a con; there is simply no other way to describe it.

Wanderer78

Deleted User wrote:

As we are now proving in this COVID-19 induces economic coma, life goes on and can exist with less economic activity, Just that business & politicians just need to "re-jig" the hard coded growth only economic model to one that can support far fewer full time workers, where UBI is acceptable and the 0.001% do not hoover up most of the global capital. They should recognise the work that automation actually archives as opposed to seeing it as free labour, which has displaced paid labour.

Oh put your feet up, our current coma situation is probably gonna go weird very very soon, particularly in our financial and banking sectors, one thing for sure, those sectors don't like defaults and none performing loans!

Wanderer78

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Oh put your feet up, our current coma situation is probably gonna go weird very very soon, particularly in our financial and banking sectors, one thing for sure, those sectors don't like defaults and none performing loans!

Yep! I have the popcorn on tap, waiting to see how this all pans out, the pump up & trickle down economic model is so screwed up by the disruption that anything could happen.

As for climate change, the human terraforming of the planet will continue to cause changes to local weather in most places, I do hope that people will wake up to the fact that (in some places) they now actually have clean air and will fight to keep it that way.

Wanderer78

Deleted User wrote:

Yep! I have the popcorn on tap, waiting to see how this all pans out, the pump up & trickle down economic model is so screwed up by the disruption that anything could happen.

Unfortunately I think things are gonna get a bit scary for a while

Deleted User wrote:

As for climate change, the human terraforming of the planet will continue to cause changes to local weather in most places, I do hope that people will wake up to the fact that (in some places) they now actually have clean air and will fight to keep it that way.

I think the majority of humans want major changes in relation to environmental matters, but as you said, our global economic processes and systems are so messed up now, we re all effectively trapped and virtually finding it impossible to change, but hopefully things change now

Oneiric 3

Looks like 'climate experts' have been rattled just a little by 'Planet of the Humans'.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down

Oneiric 3

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Looks like 'climate experts' have been rattled just a little by 'Planet of the Humans'.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down

Well, I do agree to the point that using "green energy" to maintain the infinite growth BAU model is doomed to failure without an extensive fossil fuel input.

It is important that we all see the "renewable energy" sector for what it is, warts and all.

Personally I hate the term "Renewable Energy", in most cases it is not! it is energy harvesting, wind, solar & tidal are classic forms of energy harvesting from the natural environment.

These forms of energy generation are not really "saving the planet from climate change" as is often touted, they're really trying to maintain BAU as much as possible by providing additional energy input to the system.

The way to improve the environment is to change BAU and way of living that needs less energy, simple as that.

Of course the real catastrophe coming down the line is not climate change, it's resource depletion, depletion of natural habitats & depletion of natural biodiversity,

One day in the not too distant future people will be sitting (& starving) in the Amazon savannah, wondering where it all went wrong, along with the other 10 or so billion people.

Climate change activists are a classic example of political distraction - look a cloud!

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Looks like there is some concern now that this virus may have been lab created. If this turns out to be the case, then this is not going to look well for your beloved scientists, is it? Over 150,000 deaths now and counting, and as for the W.H.O..

And you demand for 'global collectivism' is not going to work. I posted a link, a while back, which you may have missed, detailing that the climage change issue is only of concern to those in already affluent countries.

The intelligence organisations have confirmed that there is absolutely no evidence that this virus was created in a lab
zero
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/five-eyes-network-contradicts-theory-covid-19-leaked-from-lab
Are you going to apologise to the scientists who work in these labs who sequenced this virus and helped us to identify it and create the diagnostic text kits that are so essential if we have any hope of returning to normality without a massive death toll?

Danno

Akrasia wrote: »

The intelligence organisations have confirmed that there is absolutely no evidence that this virus was created in a lab
zero
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/five-eyes-network-contradicts-theory-covid-19-leaked-from-lab
Are you going to apologise to the scientists who work in these labs who sequenced this virus and helped us to identify it and create the diagnostic text kits that are so essential if we have any hope of returning to normality without a massive death toll?

Five Eyes have been in hot water in more than once for their spying operations against their own citizens, often sub-contracting out the work to each partner nation - in clear violation of civil liberty laws. Great bunch of lads.

The Five Eyes alliance is sort of an artifact of the post World War II era where the Anglophone countries are the major powers banded together to sort of co-operate and share the costs of intelligence gathering infrastructure. … The result of this was over decades and decades some sort of a supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries.

- Edward Snowden, former NSA Contractor.

Oneiric 3

"Political language..... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".

-George Orwell

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/09/08/the-lies-that-led-to-the-iraq-war-and-the-persistent-myth-of-intelligence-failure/

Never ceases to amaze me just how readily people will gobble up, without question, everything that self serving men in suits tell them to gobble up. Technocratic sycophants ripe for the taking.

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

"Political language..... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".

-George Orwell

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/09/08/the-lies-that-led-to-the-iraq-war-and-the-persistent-myth-of-intelligence-failure/

Never ceases to amaze me just how readily people will gobble up, without question, everything that self serving men in suits tell them to gobble up. Technocratic sycophants ripe for the taking.

Lol, you’re the one who brought up the ‘intelligence investigation’ into how It was ‘lab created’

M.T. Cranium

If we've learned one thing in the past generation, it's the unreliability of government intelligence services, at least, let's say the unreliability of what we are told they are reporting to governments. We may be told one set of lies for reasons known only to those telling the lies, while there may be another set of intel reports available to governments that we never hear about.

I don't trust any of it. Having met some people involved in national security and intel operations, my trust was even further eroded.

You probably heard of David Icke's theory about reptilian overlords. I met the chap a few years ago (in our national capital) and asked him if he just thought maybe that was a figurative description. He swears it's literal, but for me, it's more allegorical. Our ruling elites might as well be reptilian alien life forms. They aren't, it's our human nature to manifest this degree of deception and avoid the truth at all costs. I came away thinking maybe David Icke just couldn't accept that human nature is this bad, he needs to outsource the evil to some other life form, which just begs the question, how did they get to be so evil?

Frankly, I don't know who to believe about this virus and its origins but it sure was fishy to say the least that Chinese government scientists were working in a Canadian lab several years ago where something very similar was being studied, and then they got kicked out of Canada for violating the terms of their contractual arrangement, and some samples of various pathogens were shipped to Beijing against the wishes of the lab. Now these may all be facts that don't line up to the conclusion that COVID-19 was deliberately created or enhanced for bad purposes, but you can't blame anyone for being suspicious about it, given the nature of the government of China and the relationships of western nations with China (a mixture of fear, respect and entrapment).

Will we ever know the truth about this? Maybe not. Should we? Yes, this whole idea that ordinary people cannot know the big secrets of the world, that only "certain persons" can be trusted with that, is the biggest lie of all. We can't make intelligent decisions if we don't know facts, and the idea that we should just hand over trust to surrogates who will decide for us, is really just the feudal system reinvented.