running hot and cold

Ever since I read The Coming Global Superstorm (published in 2001) some years ago, I've been interested in the idea of the current global warming trend actually leading to a new ice age. As counterintuitive as that sounds, the science behind it is sound and it is, as presented in the Superstorm book, pretty frightening.

The basic idea is that a warming climate melts the earth's ice packs (the North Pole, the Greenland ice sheet, Antarctic ice sheets, glaciers, etc) and so floods the north polar Atlantic ocean with fresh water which slows and then stops the thermohaline circulation (current pulling warm gulf waters to north polar waters). This removes a climate barrier that allows cold arctic air to fall south and smash into warmer air and produce really big storms. If this keeps up, the colliding air can produce a monster storm that covers the whole of the northern hemisphere (superstorm). If this occurs in the winter and the storm drops enough precipitation to freeze into vast ice sheets, and if it is enough to not melt over the following summer, then the ice will reflect sunlight back into space and so cool the earth and encourage the formation of more ice over the winter (a feedback loop). And so you have an ice age that lasts for a hundred thousand years or so.

That's the simplified version of the scenario. There are many other variables involved (like the activity of the sun at the time of the superstorm, the amount of methane hydrates released, etc) but in recent years, scientists have verified the warming-before-ice-age process from ice cores, though the superstorm part is controversial.

This process, that I call the superstorm scenario, is the foundation for the setting of my coming Dentville novels. It is also the premise for the 2004 move, The Day After Tomorrow .

Now, with all that in mind, I was interested to see an article this week on the Geoengineering Watch website that asked the question: "Are The Climate Engineers Attempting To Shut Down The Gulf Stream?" The article stemmed from a study published by a number of climate scientists in Nature Climate Change where they report on a substantial weakening of the Gulf Stream (the thermohaline circulation) across the twentieth century, and say that its weakening since 1975 is unprecedented. See also the writeup on the report on Whitley Strieber's website (he wrote the original Superstorm book with Art Bell) here .

The Geoengineering Watch article notes that the climate manipulation process that has been ongoing over the US for years, could very well be mimicking (or exacerbating) the processes that create the superstorm scenario. In the article's words:

The incredibly anomalous cold zone in the Eastern US which extends into the North Atlantic is completely engineered and thus completely unnatural. In recent years precipitation has been consistently robbed from the Western US and pumped in to the Eastern US to help fuel the engineered cool-downs there. This constant flow of precipitation along with the unprecedented flow of meltwater from Greenland is reducing the salinity and thus the density of the surface waters in this critical area of the North Atlantic which are normally very saline and dense in this region.

Why would the geoengineers want to bring on an ice age? The article suggests:

Could this be their final attempt to slow the catastrophic thawing of methane on the seabed of the Arctic (which is a risk to all life on Earth) by cutting off the flow of warm ocean currents to that region?

If this sounds crazy to you, I would suggest that the world is largely run by crazies that would not hesitate to sacrifice the well-being of billions if it would keep the earth habitable for themselves. Check out the links I've provided and do your own research.

Beyond that, here are some of the week's happenings against the backdrop of the War of the Damned :


Weather/Climate: A Global Research article reports that the horrendous California drought has left the state with only about a year's worth of water in its reservoir reserves. The state's only contingency plan, according to a JPL scientist, is "praying for rain." But it seems that while the geoengineers like to play God, they are not so moved by prayer, at least not the prayers of the thirsty masses. They are more likely to keep up the drought and so promote the privatization of water supplies for the profit of Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, etc.


Ukraine: The US House of Reps passed a resolution urging President Obama to send offensive weaponry to the Ukraine army. This is something that Obama has been threatening to do (though not fast enough for many US congressional hawks), and that the European Union leaders (especially Germany and France) want him NOT to do. It seems that, while the EU leadership is fine with ethnic cleansing in Donbass, they would prefer it not happen at the expense of getting nuked themselves. This has been a growing sticking point between Washington and the EU and it seems to have finally prompted Obama to back off on the saber-rattling. In a significant move this week, he backed the Ukrainian junta President (Poroshenko) over the hand-picked (by the US) Prime Minister (Yatsenyuk) in a dispute over heavy-handed tactics in some political maneuverings. Obama, in essence, gave Poroshenko permission to be rid of Yatsenyuk. He also put his plans for sending weapons to Ukraine on hold. It seems that, for now, Obama is willing to forgo war with Russia to preserve the US alliance with the EU.

Greece:  Greece remains under pressure from the EU Troika to continue implementing austerity policies in order to continue to receive loan money. Greece requires that money in order to avoid default. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been making the round of summits and meetings with EU leaders and all have warned him to commit to austerity (in the face of Syriza's mandate to abandon austerity). In spite of being forced to balance servicing EU loans and providing for the country's needs:

...the Tsipras government passed a “humanitarian bill” in the Greek parliament, at a cost of just €200 million. The bill provides free electricity and food stamps to some families in dire poverty. Under constant pressure from its creditors, Syriza had already drastically scaled down the humanitarian program from a still inadequate €1.8 billion euros.

The European Commission saw the Greek parliament's support for this bill as a "declaration of war." Even so, senior Syriza leaders have said they will consider approaching Russia as an alternative source of funding. This apparently prompted a visit to Athens from the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Vitoria Nuland. Ms Nuland, you may recall, was instrumental in facilitating the US coup that overthrew the Ukrainian elected government and installed a puppet regime. See here . Watch out, Greece! The b---h is back!

Otherwise:  Dimitri Orlov posted a blog entry where he provides a fascinating overview of the evolution of a feudal hierarchy to a capitalistic hierarchy to an anarchistic (after collapse) hierarchy. I've always found Dimitri's observations of current events, and their historical precedents, to be right on.