This latest conceptual aid from the Church of Climatology is simply hilarious. The motivation for its creation is described as follows:
For the average person, climate change is an abstract concept, an intangible truth, based on complex scientific data that is notoriously difficult to visualise.
Note the religious phraseology of "intangible truth". Like God, climate change is impossible for "the average person" to comprehend and really comprehension is not even necessary. Belief is sufficient. Something simple to meditate upon will strengthen this belief and so:
Climate scientist Ed Hawkins is trying to change this. He's been developing unique ways to make climate change easier for the general public to imagine. And his newest project has got to be one of the most beautiful and powerful climate change visuals we've ever seen.
Note that Ed Hawkins has the moniker "climate scientist" to remind us that he is a member of the clergy in the Church of Climatology. Here is Ed's creation:
Ed, I used to think man-made global warming was a politically motivated myth until I saw this graphic. Now I realise how wrong I was. Even children in kindergarten can understand this. Sometimes a cynical, skeptical, adult brain can blind one to the truth. Now I see.
As the effusive article reporting on Ed's creation says: This Has Got to Be One of The Most Beautiful And Powerful Climate Change Visuals We've Ever Seen. Chillingly, the observation is added that We are headed into the red. I'm not arguing with the data that was used to produce the graphic, I assume it's accurate. What is annoying is the evangelical tone employed by the zealots of the Church of Climatology. There's no objective science at work here. Those who disagree with the central tenet of the Church, namely that humans are responsible for a warming planet, are branded "climate deniers". They are on a par with "Holocaust deniers". The only ones qualified to make comment on matters of climatology are the climate scientists, the high priests of the Church.
Climate scientists who hesitate to commit to the Church or who question it's basic tenet are quickly ostracised by their peers. Professional obscurity is assured and even job loss is a possibility. There are no funds for research that does not affirm the truth of man-made global warming. Ed Hawkins, with his pretty pictures, is carving out a name for himself amongst his peers, as well as attracting widespread coverage in the mainstream media. Who can blame him. More of his silly little graphs can be found at http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2018/warming-stripes/.
According to USA Today, "Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming". The May 17, 2018 article goes on to state that:
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts. It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month. Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. "We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt.
Despite a constant stream of such articles in the MSM, there are those to beg to differ with the prediction that our world will continue to warm. Some say that the Earth is entering a cooling phase and their claims are based on the behaviour of the Sun. They say that the Sun in entering what is termed a Grand Solar Minimum and that this will have a profound and chilling effect on global temperatures.
Who will be proved right? This 16 July 2015 article on Skeptical Science maintains that "no, the sun isn't going to save us from global warming" and goes on to say that:
Recently there’s been a flood of media stories claiming that the sun may be headed towards a quiet phase (a possibility), which could send the Earth into a “deep freeze” (a virtual impossibility). These stories appear to have originated in the biased conservative media (like the Daily Mail and Telegraph) and seeped into other media outlets (like CNN). Some media outlets, like the Washington Post, did a good job researching the story and discovering its flaws before publishing.
The stories stemmed from a presentation at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales by mathematician Valentina Zharkova. Her research (not yet published) suggests the sun could be headed for a quiet phase like the one that coincided with a period known as the “Little Ice Age,” but doesn’t say anything about how this solar minimum would impact the Earth’s climate
Some of the fault for raising this zombie myth from the dead lies with the Royal Astronomical Society’s press release, which mentioned the previous mini ice age without making it clear that it was solar activity but not the Earth’s climate that was the subject of the study. Some of the fault lies with Zharkova, who made comments ‘skeptical’ of human-caused global warming that were not supported by her research.
And much of the fault lies with media outlets like the Daily Mail and Telegraph, which ran rather sensationalist stories about an impending mini ice age apparently without consulting a single climate scientist. It’s not a coincidence that the media outlets that didn’t contact climate scientists spread this myth, while the media outlets that did contact climate scientists debunked it.
Clearly, the MSM has not presented a united front in blocking the dissemination of these alternative views and the guilty parties are identified. The notion that the Sun could affect global temperatures is dismissed as a "zombie myth" and instead the claim in made that "research has clearly shown, it’s carbon dioxide that’s the temperature’s main control knob". This is an article of faith amongst "climate scientists" and is not open to rational debate.
I've just downloaded a book by John L. Casey called "Dark Winter" described as follows:
Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. In Dark Winter, author John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, NASA headquarters consultant, and space shuttle engineer tells the truth about ominous changes taking place in the climate and the Sun. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in the discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next thirty years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.
I'll try to ignore his White House and NASA connections and set about reading the book. I've watched an interview he gave on YouTube about his views and he was certainly presented a good argument in support of his claims. The video appears on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, uploaded 1 Jan 2018:
Valentina Zharkova is mentioned in this interview. According to Casey, we are now entering this cooling period but he doesn't believe we are entering a mini-ice-age of the sort that is associated with the so-called Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. Rather, he is of the opinion that we are entering a so-called Dalton Minimum of the sort that is associated with the late 18th and early 19th century cooling phase. He has published a more recent book called Upheaval in which he focuses on the increased volcanic activity associated with these cooling phases.
In the following 15 Jan 2018 interview with Zharkova on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, she states the cold period should only last 30 years and will not be as severe or as long as the Maunder Minimum (that lasted for about 60 years):
She is confident in her predications about the coming cold snap and urges governments to prepare for what is about to happen, rather than clinging to the myth that man-made CO2 emissions will continue to warm the planet.
I read an interesting article on the BBC website about ECT today, proving that there is occasionally a worthwhile story to be found. The article gives a good account of the early history of the treatment and then looks at reasons for the decline in its popularity. The observation is made that:
ECT was indiscriminately used on people it would never help. In 1946, two psychiatrists from Siena, Italy wrote, “Today there is no mental illness where [ECT] has not been tried.” This included homosexuality, which the first three volumes Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (published between the 1950s and 1980s) categorised as a form of mental illness. Such widespread use – often without the patient’s consent – was a way to control uncontrollable patients. After a session, patients were in a dazed, sleepy, and therefore more manageable, state. It was custodial, not curative.
Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest helped reinforce the image of ECT as a brutal and primitive therapeutic tool. The the use of ECT declined after the 1960's:
This was partly due to the rise in prescription drugs – though these were often less effective in severe depression – and partly due to the bad press ECT received in books, films, and the mass media. In the 1970s, historians David Healy and Edward Shorter write in their book Shock Therapy, a growing anti-psychiatry movement spearheaded by the Church of Scientology claimed that ECT ‘destroys minds’.
Clearly there is far more money to be made from a person on antidepressant or antipsychotic medication than from that same person receiving intermittent electric shocks, often at intervals of several months. The former needs to:
purchase the medication on a regular basis (often for the remainder of the person's life)
visit a doctor or psychiatrist to obtain the script for the medication
be tested regularly by pathologists to monitor drug levels in the person's bloodstream
sometimes take additional medication to counter the side-effects of the medication
This is tremendously lucrative to the medical industry (doctors, psychiatrists, pathologists) and the pharmaceutical industry (lifetime dependance) and any person presenting at the local medical centre with symptoms of depression is perceived as having a flashing neon dollar sign above their head. Compare this to the returns to be made from ECT and it's clear why the treatment was targeted and disparaged.
However, as the article observes:
Interest in ECT is returning. According to a recent report, a growing number of people are deciding to undergo the treatment. Between 2015 and 2016 in the UK, 22,600 sessions of ECT were performed, an 11% increase over the previous year. And ECT has been joined by more selective forms of electric therapy such as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), both of which are growing in support and popularity in the treatment of depression, Parkinson’s disease, and other mental disorders.
The medical and pharmaceutical industries are not interested in a cure for depression and psychosis, just as they are not interested in a cure for cancer. There is too much money to be made in the treatment and absolutely no money to be made in the wake of a cure.
