Obama's Global Warming Turns To Swarming

By: Andrew_McKillop

WE NEED TO ACT
President Obama's June 25 speech at Georgetown University announcing his climate-energy action plan was rich in national and religious symbols. He told the listeners how in 1968 the American astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar orbit. Obama said: “They described what they saw, and they read Scripture from the Book of Genesis to the rest of us back here”.

Obama said global warming is so massive that “the question is not whether we need to act”. For him, the need to act is critical and urgent, so pressing that he will act. He will apply new taxes on brown energy, and according to his political critics and opponents, destroy 190 000 more jobs in “the smokestack industries”, than his action plan will create as green and sustainable jobs to 2017. Obama peppered his somewhat rambling 6000-word speech at Georgetown University with copious Biblical turns of phrase, images and sayings. He was stern. He said there was no doubt possible on “the science”. The time for any possible doubt ended long ago. He thundered: “The overwhelming judgment of science -- of chemistry and physics and millions of measurements -- has put all that to rest. Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest. They've acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it”.

Obama did not say this means 97% of climate scientists employed by his government and 100% of the persons paid by the now heavily-criticized IPCC of “professor” Rajendra Pachauri. Outside of that band of converts and the pure-minded, plenty of rational doubt exists, firstly, as to whether there is any global warming, and secondly, if there is warming, if human beings are responsible for it. Obama had no time for that talk. He was adamant about “the science of the climate”. Not long after this warm-up for the crowd, Obama moved on to what makes him really proud. He said he was proud that his Administration is doing all that it can to speed the development of the nation's large shale gas and shale oil resources – making the USA energy independent by increasing the country's total energy supply. The well known Obama supporters, 'Artists Against Fracking' are however adamant in criticizing fracking, calling it “concentration camp technology”.

Obama was also proud to announce that as of today, the USA has two new nuclear reactors under construction, to run on fuel from not-exactly carbon free uranium mines leaving toxic pollution behind for decades or centuries. Obama told the Georgetown crowd how he saw, and astronauts see the Earth from space. Its stunning blue oceans, white cloud and green forests – although he didn't mention the CO2 emitting “concentration camps” producing US shale energy. Obama told the crowd that all the nice things are under threat. There was no time left for talk. He said: “So today, for the sake of our children, and the health and safety of all Americans, I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants”. Only by taxing coal-fired power to extinction, setting high “social carbon costs” for electric toasters and microwave ovens, setting fantastic fuel economy standards for cars, developing shale energy, building nuclear power plants, and running a crusade for the renewables can “we” save the planet. Only more energy can prevent the harm done by using too much energy. What's logic got to do with it?

SWARMING TO THE WARMING
Swarming or Schwarmerei was a concept defined by theologians in the 1500's, during the Reformation in Germany and was especially linked with Luther's rival and arch-enemy, Thomas Müntzer (1489-1525). Muntzer was the chief ideologist of the 16th-century uprisings and peasants’ wars in Germany which in total killed hundreds of thousands of persons.

Muntzer was so skilled in moving the crowds and working them to a pitch of hysteria that he was contemptuously called “the swarmer' by Luther. The basic concept is the German word Schwarm (swarm in English), as in a swarm of bees, but the German historical use of the word meant hysteria, excess, and bloodlust. The theologians used the term Schwärmerei to describe excessive religious sentiment or belief on the part of individuals or groups worked up by Muntzer and his followers.

Muntzer was assassinated at an early age but his propaganda method – which firstly promised Heaven on Earth – impressed both Friedrich Engels, the father of Communist theory, and Nazi chief ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. They both deferred to Müntzer even though they were atheists and he was not, because they saw how effective Muntzer's techniques were in what is now called mass propaganda. From Muntzer, they inherited the idea of one key basic for manipulating and moving crowd opinion. This is to create the image of a miniature paradise, but with limited access, right here and now. Only the most enthusiastic and the purest will be get entry. Those who oppose the concept must be swept aside, and killed if necessary.

Martin Luther said that Muntzer's rabble rousing was the work of the Devil. He defined the term Schwarmerei for a murky combination of instant and lying utopia, enthusiasm pushed to mass hysteria, and fanaticism concerning all real or imagined threat. The Communists' self-declared goal was to create a Worker’s and Peasants’ Paradise. The Nazis tried to establish an idyllic reservation on Earth for one particular tribe, the Aryans. Both of these schemes were irrational and lethal.

The Austrian Nazi intelligence officer, Gunther Schwab, who ultimately reported to Rosenberg, had even in the 1930s toyed with the theory of Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, later called the “greenhouse gas theory”. Arrhenius from 1896, using concepts and measurements of the American astronomer Pierpoint Langley concerning of the solar energy absorbtion behavior of gases in the atmosphere, developed his theory to the point that by 1908 he could suggest that human CO2 emissions might cause about a 3 to 5 degC warming of the planet in a long and highly variable timeframe – perhaps 1000 years. For Arrenhius, this was a blessing because it might fend off, but not prevent the coming Ice Age and reduce the loss of human life global cooling would surely cause.

Schwab (1904-2006) did not develop his version of the theory for Nazi utilisation, but in 1958, following his action as a propagandist during the 1939-45 war, wrote a “climate  fiction” novel built on Goethe's Faustian religious play, titled "Dance with the Devil." The book sold millions. It said the Ice Caps would melt and oceans would rise, and nearly all major cities would be swamped due to industrial carbon effluents, especially CO2, warming the climate. Schwab was to a large extent an “unreformed Nazi”, not ashamed of his belief in the superiority of the Aryan race. His book notably played the theme that Aryan industry, like the Aryan race was superior to any other. Its industrial emissions of carbon effluent were no threat to the planet's climate – the threat was due to inferior races developing their own carbon-spewing industries, leading to mass extinction of the human race. The Aryan industrial paradise was therefore restricted-access-only. Its opponents had to be destroyed.

WHATS LOGIC GOT TO DO WITH IT?
The German concept of Schärmerei, when translated to English means a lot more than simple “enthusiasm”. It means “fanaticism” in English. During the Reformation, Muntzer's zealots, called the Schwärmer were individuals who said that the Holy Ghost spoke to them directly, telling them which words to use from the written Word of Holy Scripture. They were pitiless with the enemies of their Paradise on Earth. In French we say they had “la science infuse”.

Obama's speech to the carefully-screened Georgetown University audience surely did not cause mass hysteria. Popular outrage at global warming, excuse the pun, has considerably cooled despite the USA's very hot summer, followed by a cold winter, in 2012-13 but it is clear Obama believes his Climate Crusade has mass appeal and political staying power. In his speech, he underlined the progress made in using less energy in the US – while he championed all imaginable, all possible ways to produce more energy, as long as the adjectives “clean” or “cleaner” can be applied. Shale gas being cleaner than coal, nuclear power being cleaner than gas, while the renewables are cleaner even than nuclear power.

American exports of cheap coal, to be sure, must be aided if only to help trim the trade deficit. Rather logically this American coal, overseas, in the inferior industries or inferior countries that use it, will emit the deadly toxic climate changing gas CO2.

Obama was careful to tone down his references to international, bilateral or global action to cut global warming – following so many failed UN conferences on the subject – only occasionally saying that “countries like China and Germany are going all-in in the race for clean energy”, then adding that he believes “Americans build things better than anybody else”. “I want America to win that race, but we can't win it if we're not in it”.

He proudly said America was going to “double again” the amount of renewable energy it produces. Along with the Pentagon, all American Federal agencies will obtain 20% of their energy from renewables by 2020, he said. Making sure not to give a price tag to this effort, Obama only talked about the “billions of dollars of savings” that forced energy conservation was going to produce, along with the billions of dollars of clean energy investment American businesses would make outside the USA, around the world in developing and emerging economies.

Knowing the Democrats no longer have the power to pass the laws he wants, Obama many times called for “the bipartisan spirit”, which he claims is needed to ensure “energy security for America”. Knowing that Republican criticism of “anything Obama” is rife, he moved to deflect arguments that his climate plan is what the top Republican in the House of Representatives, House Speaker John Boehner calls "absolutely crazy". Obama said: “one thing I want to make sure everybody understands -- this does not mean that we’re going to suddenly stop producing fossil fuels. Our economy wouldn’t run very well if it did......But when the doomsayers trot out the old warnings that these ambitions will somehow hurt our energy supply, just remind them that America produce(s) more oil than we have in 15 years”.

Likewise China or Germany, Japan, Korea and other major industrial powers are most surely and certainly going to “blend-in the renewables”. Obama's related claim that “we can’t just drill our way out of the energy and climate challenge that we face. That’s not possible”, is however only a claim. The rate at which renewables can be blended-in with fossil energy is not something that even President Barack Obama can judge from high and afar – shown by backtracking no more than 5 or 7 years and setting the question when, rather than if, world oil and natural gas supplies will run out.

Figuring nowhere in Obama's speech because it concerns the real world, drilling down the subsidies paid to force start the growth of renewable energy output shows that breakevens exist, beyond which the moving frontier of global energy transition  becomes a lot more complex than Scripture. Both Germany and China are wrestling with their troubled renewable energy industries – both of which are well ahead of the USA in output and annual new installations. The focus on CO2 emissions reduction has already given way to more basic economic and financial, technological and industrial criteria in setting the pace of transition.

Attempts at “monetizing carbon”, which Obama's administration has done by the backdoor using decree-type “social carbon” taxes, notably for household appliances have been a failure, worldwide.

Without mentioning the troubled word “shale”, Obama hailed the explosive growth of shale-based gas production by the USA. He said: “The bottom line is natural gas is creating jobs. It's lowering many families' heat and power bills. And it's the transition fuel that can power our economy with less carbon pollution even as our businesses work to develop and then deploy more of the technology required for the even cleaner energy economy of the future”. Nowhere did he mention any Federal plan to shift transportation to using gas – that would have been too easy, too cost-effective! Obama intends soldiering along with all-electric and electric hybrid cars, despite the excrutiatingly slow, easily understood resistance, rather than reticence of average citizens to high-price gimmicks! Electric cars, we can say, are only for the Schwarmer.

THE HARD TRUTH
For Obama the hard truth is the same as Gunther Schwab's hard truth.  Non-Americans go on using carbon-based fuels to power their industries, like Americans. This creates the almost-Biblical spectre of carbon effluent insidiously building in the atmosphere. Obama said: “The hard truth is carbon pollution has built up in our atmosphere for decades now. And even if we Americans do our part, the planet will slowly keep warming for some time to come. The seas will slowly keep rising and storms will get more severe, based on the science”.

Obama's homely analogy was “tapping the brakes of a car before you come to a complete stop and then can shift into reverse. It's going to take time for carbon emissions to stabilize”. A cliff-hanger transition with the cruel seas, gorged with ice melt, waiting to strike at any moment. What he calls “the science”, even if we take the IPCC's sometimes-admittedly distorted “science” of global warming, suggest that sea levels will go on rising at their long-term average rate of 0.7 millimetres per year - obviously a terrifying rate for Hollywood and Obama scriptwriters.

The good news for Obama, although he would likely be the last person to treat it as good news, is that global cooling has at least as much chance – 50 against 50 – of triggering. Anytime. Global warming phases, for the last 1200 years, have always been shorter and smaller than global cooling phases. This was “BTW” the reason Svante Arrhenius, the inventor of “the science”, was so happy to believe in his own theory that human CO2 emissions could warm the planet and delay – not stop – the onset of the next multi-century period of global cooling and its inevitable death and suffering.

At the start of his Georgetown speech Obama said the 1968 astronauts “took a photo that would change the way we see and think about our world”. Global warming hysteria since about the year 2000  has certainly changed the way “we” see energy transition – what I see is the robust return of a troubling mindset that firstly served Germany, and then Europe very badly for centuries. Schwärmerei translates literally into “swarming”, and global warming advocacy mixes and mingles this murky combination of utopian mass enthusiasm and fanaticism. It says that Man should give God a helping hand by establishing Elysian paradisiac entities here on earth in anticipation of His ultimate paradise – converted in elite-speak to the slogan of “sustainable low carbon development”.

Being an elite concept it has pure contempt for average persons – the chaff and the dross, the losers from a forced transition to the earthly paradise predicated by the mentally deranged.

Obama's almost Biblical asides in his speech, made this clear. He painted a picture of the race against global warming Armageddon and the Great Flood. He said: “what we’ve learned from Hurricane Sandy and other disasters is that we’ve got to build smarter, more resilient infrastructure that can protect our homes and businesses, and withstand more powerful storms. That means stronger seawalls, natural barriers, hardened power grids, hardened water systems, hardened fuel supplies”.

To be sure, the inferior nations and societies, non-Americans that is, are not yet converted to God's truth of Global Warming. As Obama also said: “Though America's carbon pollution fell last year, global carbon pollution rose to a record high. That’s a problem. Developing countries are using more and more energy, and tens of millions of people entering a global middle class naturally want to buy cars and air-conditioners of their own, just like us”'. Generously therefore, Obama conceded that: “Can't blame them for that.....when you have conversations with poor countries, they'll say, well, you went through these stages of development -- why can't we?”.

In fact, when global warming hysteria has run its course, and its junkscience claims are seen for what they are, Obama will have left the White House after his second and last term in office. The damage he will have been able to cause is surely less than Muntzer's Scwarmer were able to cause, but we must ask why a second-term American president has to peddle Nazi propaganda to keep himself “relevant”.

By Andrew McKillop

Contact: xtran9@gmail.com

Former chief policy analyst, Division A Policy, DG XVII Energy, European Commission. Andrew McKillop Biographic Highlights

Co-author 'The Doomsday Machine', Palgrave Macmillan USA, 2012

Andrew McKillop has more than 30 years experience in the energy, economic and finance domains. Trained at London UK’s University College, he has had specially long experience of energy policy, project administration and the development and financing of alternate energy. This included his role of in-house Expert on Policy and Programming at the DG XVII-Energy of the European Commission, Director of Information of the OAPEC technology transfer subsidiary, AREC and researcher for UN agencies including the ILO.

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