The Crisis Report - 20
It's not "crazy" to think that people who have privileged access to information will generally not tell you everything they know.
So.
I am in the process of writing my analysis of Biden’s, Putin’s, and Xi’s performances over the last few days. A LOT is happening in the world. Things are not getting better. In fact the global situation seems to be deteriorating at an accelerating rate.
Conspicuously absent from the conversation is the worsening CLIMATE CRISIS.
Lately, the only person talking about the CLIMATE CRISIS is UN Secretary General Guterres. He has been giving “barn-burner” speeches on the worsening climate situation since last September. Here’s what he said at COP27.
We’re on a ‘highway to climate hell,’ UN chief Guterres says, calling for a global phase-out of coal CNBC 110722
Here’s what he was talking about last week. Instead of talking about Ukraine.
UN chief: Rising seas risk ‘death sentence’ for some nations AP 021423
Mr. Guterres warned the Security Council that, under any temperature rise scenario, countries from Bangladesh to China, India and the Netherlands will all be at risk.
Mega-cities on every continent will face serious impacts, including Lagos, Bangkok, Mumbai, Shanghai, London, Buenos Aires and New York.
The danger is especially acute for some 900 million people living in coastal zones at low elevations –one out of every ten people on earth.
Sea level rise poses ‘unthinkable’ risks for the planet, Security Council hears UN 021423
UN chief says rising seas a ‘death sentence’ for some countries Aljazeera 021523
UN secretary general warns that low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear under rising sea levels.
UN secretary-general warns of impact of sea level rise, could cause 'mass exodus' of populations ABC News 021523
Since 1993, the rate at which sea levels are rising has doubled.
Rising seas risk climate migration on ‘biblical scale,’ says U.N. chief WAPO 021523
UN Security Council holds first-ever debate on sea level rise from climate change FOXWeather.com 021523
Officials from the United Nations and other international organizations convened to discuss the legal, economic and social impacts of climate change.
The FOX reporting on this is really interesting. Here are selections from the article.
Here’s what Secretary General Guterres ACTUALLY STATED.
He cited information from WMO reports showing the acceleration of global average sea level rise.
“Global average sea levels have risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in the last 3,000 years. The global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than at any time in the past 11,000 years, » he said.
"Meanwhile, the WMO tells us that even if global heating is miraculously limited to 1.5 degrees, there will still be a sizeable sea level rise,” said Mr Guterres.
The rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993. It has risen by nearly 10 mm since January 2020 to a new record high in 2022, according to WMO’s provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report.
The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago.
Mr. Guterres warned the Security Council that, under any temperature rise scenario, countries from Bangladesh to China, India and the Netherlands will all be at risk. Mega-cities on every continent will face serious impacts. The danger is especially acute for some 900 million people living in coastal zones at low elevations –one out of every ten people on earth.
Here’s how FOXWeather reported that.
Guterras (they misspell his name) cited the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which stated that global average sea levels have risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in the last 3,000 years.
According to the WMO, the rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993, with a 10 millimeter (0.4 inch) increase since January 2020 to a new record high in 2022.
"Although this is still measured in terms of millimetres per year, it adds up to half to 1 meter (1.6 to 3.1 feet) per century and that is a long-term and major threat to many millions of coastal dwellers and low-lying states," the WMO said.
Here’s what NOAA stated last February.
U.S. coastline to see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 NOAA 021522
Report projects a century of sea level rise in 30 years.
Here’s a study from Greenland last year that indicates it may cause 2-3 feet of sea level rise by 2050.
The Greenland glaciers are 5,000 feet thick on average, about one mile. Water, falling through the glacier for that mile picks up speed. Speed plus friction makes heat. Falling water also has kinetic energy. That energy also becomes heat. The study found that.
“The ice sheet covering Greenland is melting rapidly at its base and is injecting far more water and ice into the ocean than previously understood, which could have serious ramifications for global sea level rise.
“Unprecedented” rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the ice sheet, caused by huge quantities of meltwater falling down from the surface, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As the meltwater falls, its gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which ultimately warms the water as it pools at the base of the ice sheet. In that process, the study found that the Greenland ice sheet produces more energy than the world’s 10 largest hydroelectric dams combined.
“However, the heat generated by the falling water is not used to generate electricity. Instead, it melts the ice” stated Poul Christoffersen, a Cambridge University senior scientist who took part in the study.
WHERE YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION MATTERS. A LOT.
So, before I talk about what I saw and heard from Biden, Putin, Xi and everyone else these last few days. Here’s a reminder of what the Secretary General said last September and what I wrote about it on Medium.
I am curious to hear what you think.
The Secretary General of the United Nations gave an astonishing speech this week.
It’s worth considering what he said and, what he didn’t say.
Richard Crim - September 25, 2022
Let me ask you a question. How honest do you think governments are in what they tell you?
I don’t mean that in the conspiracy theorist “the moon landings were faked”, “aliens are in area 51”, everything “they” tell you is a lie way. I mean in the “real world adult” way.
You know they do not tell us everything. We all understand about secrets and the need for them. We accept that our governments and our leaders aren’t going to be completely honest and direct with us.
That’s the real world.
So, before we consider what the Secretary General said this week. Let’s consider some examples of things our government has told, or not told, us in the past. This will give us context as analysts for judging both, what Secretary General Guterres said,and what he didn’t say but implied. Here’s example one.
1976 — Carter and Climate Change
See this memorandum. It was written in 1976 for then President Carter. Do you remember any of these issues being discussed publicly between 1976 and 1980?
Carter had to decide what we were going to do for energy in the decades to come.
We had just had a massive “oil shock” when OPEC had flexed its growing power and showed us how dependent we had become on them. Punishing us for our support of Israel in the Arab-Israeli Wars, they had caused fuel prices to soar and Americans to have to stand in line for gas.
There was a theory that this rapid increase in the CO2 levels could affect the world climate and cause dangerous global warming.
How much warming?
Unknown.
How rapid would any warming be?
Unknown.
What effects would this warming cause?
Uncertain, that was dependent on the degree and speed of any warming. Both of which were unknown.
What would you do and how honest would you be with “the people” about the choices you were making for them?
It’s obvious that Carter acted on this information. Remember the “Age of Malaise”, the hated “double nickle” speed limit, and the solar water heating panels on the White House roof.
Carter tried to strike a balance between continuing fossil fuel use while transitioning towards renewables. In conjunction with a cultural shift away from a culture of consumption to one of sustainability.
However, Carter never spoke out about the CO2 levels. He never said anything about how “the potential impact on the environment of a climatic fluctuation of such rapidity could be catastrophic”.
He tried to get Americans to “do the right thing” but he never told them why. He was not honest about about the information informing his policy choices.
2020 — Two BIG LIES told for different reasons. Fauci and Pence
So, in early days of the pandemic I obsessed over understanding Covid. I read everything I could get my hands on and I watched the Coronavirus Task Force briefings every day.
I took detailed notes each briefing. Here’s an example, This is Going to be Bad Ep 02 — The Coronavirus Task Force Discourages Testing: The Testing Situation must be Worse than We Thought. Which means I saw firsthand two lies told to the American public.
One was told by Fauci and one was told by Pence. They were told for different reasons but both were lies and both had consequences.
Fauci’s Lie
March 8 2020 on 60 Minutes.
Fauci stated, “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.”
This was a straight up lie and he knew it.
An absence of evidence of masks’ effectiveness, and hunches about how the virus spread. Might have justified warning the public that masks were no silver bullet. Or that their voluntary use should not be seen as a substitute for social distancing.
Given masks were an extremely low‐cost means of potentially mitigating risk for individuals. The risk‐to‐benefit ratio was clearly favoring permissive guidance on their use.
“The science,” never justified Fauci telling people specifically not to wear masks, rather than remaining neutral.
So, why did he do it?
He did it because he knew there was a massive supply shortage of PPE equipment.
Including masks. He told a lie to the public so that people wouldn’t go out and buy up all the masks available.
He did this to dissuade people from wearing masks because that would have exacerbated mask shortages. Leaving healthcare workers without access to crucial personal protective equipment.
He did it to protect the healthcare system.
In the event of a disaster like a pandemic “preserving the continuity of service” of the healthcare system becomes more important than saving regular people.
You and I, we are expendable. The doctors and nurses that are the core of the healthcare system are not. If they all get infected and die in the first wave of a pandemic, everyone is completely fucked.
Doctors and nurses take years, even decades to replace. In the cold logic of triage their lives are worth more than the lives of regular citizens.
Fauci lied in order to improve the PPE supply situation for the healthcare workers. Protecting them was the right thing to do. It’s actually in policy manuals to do that.
You cannot lose all your doctors and nurses in the first wave of a pandemic. If you do, healthcare will rapidly disintegrate and catastrophically collapse.
Fauci did the right thing, but he did it in a coldly cynical way. He lied because he assumed that if he told people the whole truth, they would panic and do they wrong thing.
Pence’s Lie
March 21 2020, it’s 1:25 PM and I’m in shock at what I’m hearing from the mouth of VP Pence. He’s saying, “if you don’t have symptoms, you don’t need to be tested”.
This is stunning. What’s worse, the healthcare professionals are backing him up.
This was a straight up lie and they knew it.
“If you don’t have symptoms you don’t need to be tested” was a complete lie. Particularly for people who had been exposed to an infected person. You could be infected and spread disease even if you didn’t have overt symptoms. Even if you didn’t know you were sick.
The Vo results from Italy conclusively showed that there were “asymptomatic carriers” of the virus. They knew people could get infected and yet have NO SYMPTOMS. They knew that if people don’t know they’re sick, they will keep passing the virus around.
The only way to detect these cases was to aggressively test people who had been exposed to the virus. Even if they didn’t feel sick.
Pence saying this, and being supported by the Healthcare professionals, was when they gave up on containment of the virus. They knew that asymptomatic carriers would be out in public spreading the virus but they couldn’t do anything about it because our testing situation was so bad.
They allocated testing to healthcare workers to try and control the spread of the virus through the healthcare system. The rest of us were told, “if we have symptoms, assume that we have it, and self-quarantine”.
Which was a two-fold statement. It said, “we can’t test you” and, “we are still not ready to face the fallout of having to declare a national lock-down”. They were desperate for people to self-quarantine during Trump’s voluntary 15 Day Slowdown self-isolation program.
So, instead of telling us the truth and asking us to deal with the situation. Pence lied to “the people” rather than admit the massive failure of the early testing program caused by a lack of supplies.
2022 — Biden and Taiwan
The giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC) accounts for more than 90% of global output of these chips, according to industry estimates.
A war game and study by a think tank (Center for a New American Security) in January of 2022 highlighted how dependent the world is on Taiwan’s semiconductor foundries. The study concluded that,
The United States is more dependent on Taiwan’s high-end microchips than it was on Middle Eastern oil in decades past.
If we lose Taiwan, we are crippled as a superpower.
Now do you understand why Pelosi went to Taiwan. Why Biden says we will defend Taiwan, “no matter what the cost”.
We sent a 100%, no bullshit, absolutely clear message to China. “Cross this line and this will become a shooting war.” China considered our message and decided it didn’t want to go there right now.
They have backed off and we passed a 52 Billion dollar CHIPS ACT to boost US manufacturing of computer chips from 2% of our needs to 10% of demand over the next 5–10 years.
Is anyone saying this publicly? No.
Biden, Pelosi, and Xi are talking about everything but the chip fabrication manufacturing facilities in Taiwan. Yet those chip foundries are probably the most important manufacturing facilities on the planet.
If Taiwan gets bombed and the chip foundries get damaged. Global production of products containing computer chips will be curtailed for at least 3 years and as much as 10. If Taiwan gets knocked out, production of electronic devices globally will grind to a halt for years.
That’s what’s at stake, but no one is saying that truth out loud. They are hoping you don’t notice that part. Biden isn’t lying but he isn’t telling the whole truth either. He is only telling you what he thinks you need to know.
Political figures never tell you everything. They always tell you what they think you need to know. Never the whole story.
Now, this week — Secretary General Guterres addresses the Leaders of the World.
Secretary-General’s address to the General Assembly by António Guterres
You can view the full text of the speech at the link above. I urge you to do so. This is an astonishing speech.
Because you don’t give a speech like this normally. This is a speech that is far to revealing about what’s really being said behind closed doors.
A speech like this can end your career. Make you look like a “Doomer”. Make you look “crazy”, “radical”, “deranged”. You don’t hear political figures make speeches like this very often.
The fact that he made this speech is a data point indicating the Climate Crisis is much worse than people understand. Just like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine indicates that the Climate Crisis has started. Or China’s hoarding 50% of the global grain reserves so that it can feed itself for 18 months in the event of catastrophic global agricultural failures.
All of them seem to be acting on the understanding that the situation is much worse than is apparent at this time. All of them are acting as if that state isn’t going to last much longer.
What’s changed so suddenly that he would make this impassioned plea to the world leaders. Now, today? That’s the part he glosses over. The part he hints at with his warnings but never comes right out and says. Yet that’s the most important thing you should want to know.
Because, what Guterres isn’t saying out loud is that Dr. James Hansen is right. Warming has accelerated to 0.36C/decade since 2015. This means 2C more of warming by 2070 at the latest.
What Guterres isn’t saying is that we fundamentally misunderstood the Earth’s Climate System from the very beginning. We didn’t know in the 50’s that we were living in an exceptionally cold period.
We didn’t know this is the coldest the planet has been in the last 300 million years. We didn’t know that planetary CO2 levels have only been this low TWICE in the last 500 million years.
We didn’t have the Ice Cores telling us that over the last 3 million years the level of atmospheric CO2 has only fluctuated between 180ppm and 280ppm. Or that this 100ppm fluctuation in CO2 levels caused 6C of global temperature change.
The difference between the New York of today and New York under a mile of ice.
We didn’t know that the CO2 level was so low. And we didn’t understand that Global Warming is “front loaded”. The biggest surge of warming happens at the beginning.
When CO2 levels are the lowest.
A change in atmospheric CO2 levels from 180ppm to 280ppm raised the Global Mean Temperature roughly 6.0C.
In the paleoclimate record, going from 280ppm-400ppm raises the GMT another 4C.
We are now at 420ppm.
What Guterres isn’t saying out loud is that we are going to get 4C of warming by 2070. That there was NEVER any safe amount of CO2 we could dump into the atmosphere. That this is our LAST CHANCE to mobilize and try and save our civilization.
His audience, the world leaders. They know this. They are starting to get scared, they are starting to understand just how much the fossil fuel interests have fucked us all.
They are still trying to deny it’s happening. This speech was Guterres trying to get them to accept the truth and act on it.
But Guterres stopped short of telling us all how bad it really is.
He didn’t tell us all that the world is rapidly going to get hotter and hotter for the next 60 years. Or that global agricultural outputs are about to have multi-focal production failures. So that as many as 1.5 billion people might starve in the next five-six years.
He wasn’t that honest. He still isn’t saying everything.
But, when do they ever tell us everything?
–————————————————————
My next article will get back to the “Crisis of the Anthroposphere” in reaction to the CLIMATE CRISIS. All of the signal is pointing to MASSIVE HEAT this Summer and global famines involving hundreds of millions.
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
-rc
022123
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I don’t write “every day”, but when I do write, it will be analysis that you won’t find anywhere else that isn’t classified or behind a paywall. If you want informed analysis you are going to pay for an “expert’s” time. I’m retired, you are getting a bargain.
Processing this is hard, but still, thanks for your analysis. So the wise thing should be to start prepping right?
Anyway, keep up the good work. Now that most people believe the climate is changing due to fossil fuel usage - and the instability should concern us - even among serious people like ourselves, there’s a wide range of perspectives about where we are and how we should deal with the present and the near-future.