XR stage die-in at Barclays Bank

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The Extinction Rebellion (XR) loonies need to be arrested and charged for willful business disruption to a Nottingham branch of Barclays Bank. While XR has claimed no business was affected and no property destroyed their supporters have no place being inside. It is like sitting in a popular restaurant and not ordering. It is an inconvenience. If CM was a bank, there would seem to be a huge amount of business to be done with legitimate businesses by standing up to these petulant fools.

Once again they prove that behaving like children is the hallmark of the movement. CM sincerely hope their grandchildren see these pictures and question their grandparents’ actions as deeply embarrassing. Do the XR crew honestly believe rational debate can take place when its followers behave like lemmings?

The group should be sent the bill for the wasted police resources and unnecessary court costs created by their civil disobedience.

TeePee vs Toupee?

More and more it looks as though Elizabeth Warren will become the Democratic nominee for the 2020 election.

As you can see she has taken over Biden on a national and Iowa level according to this Predict It poll. Poor old Bernie Sanders is floundering.

Trump’s #1 job is to keep the home economy and financial markets from tanking. It’s still a tough assignment from here. The sooner the Dems have one face for the campaign the less embarrassment to be caused by Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris or Joaquin Castro.

Warren’s platform is essentially based on free everything. Sadly she doesn’t have the speaking qualities of Hillary Clinton. She is more genuine but always seems to be wooden.

The debates will undoubtedly focus on things personal rather than what truly matters. Reality TV at its finest, no doubt.

If Warren wins 2020, China will use the pretext of a softy in the White House to get busy doing what they please.

Okjökull lost glacier title in 2014. UN admits not due to climate change. Media knows better.

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The Okjökull glacier used to stretch six square miles (15 square kilometres). Now environmentalists have dedicated a plaque to mourn its death. Sadly, it has been in the morgue (lost its title as a glacier) since 2014. Why weren’t the plaque makers firing up the molten brass to fill the die-cast 5 years prior? All about the narrative, not the science behind glaciers. CM understands why Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir might want to virtue signal in this way but why did it require UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to burn fossil fuels and fly all the way to morally preen? This is so typical of the obsession to misrepresent reality.

According to the UN Chronicle, “The sudden surging of glaciers is not related to climatic fluctuations, and surges can take place even at times when glaciers retreat. This is the usual behaviour of some glaciers and can not be evidence of an impending surge… unfortunately, direct observations of a change in the movement of a glacier at the onset of a surge are still very rare, and the causes for surges are not yet clear…It should be emphasized that the problem of climate change is extremely difficult to understand, and it has still not been possible to know what factors in the past decades — natural or anthropogenic — have caused the warming. There are still many uncertainties in solving this problem. IPCC estimates are rather wide in their range of accuracy and, therefore, cannot predict with confidence…at least not in the coming decades and centuries.“

In Greenland, the Jakobshavn glacier around 2012 had been retreating about 1.8 miles and thinning nearly 130 ft per annum. In the past two years, according to a study in Monday’s Nature Geoscience, it started growing by the same amount. “A natural cyclical cooling of North Atlantic waters likely caused the glacier to reverse course“, said study lead author Ala Khazendar, a NASA glaciologist on the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project. Khazendar and colleagues say “this coincides with a flip of the North Atlantic Oscillation — a natural and temporary cooling and warming of parts of the ocean that is like a distant cousin to El Nino in the Pacific.”

Approximately 11% of  Iceland’s total area of roughly 100,000 km2 is covered by glaciers. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier mass in Europe. It covers an area of roughly 8,000 km2, and is 950-1000 m where it is thickest. Its mean thickness is a little less than 500 m, and the total ice volume of Vatnajökull is probably in the order of 3,300 km3.

Glaciers on Iceland had their maximum Little Ice Age extension over 1890-1920. Glacier variations in Iceland since 1930 showed a clear response to variations in climate during the period: Most non-surging glaciers retreated strongly during the early half of the monitoring period, following the warm climate between 1930 and 1940. A cooling climate after 1940 led to a slowing of the retreat and many glaciers started to advance around 1970. Warming climate since 1985 led to an increased number of retreating glaciers. The estimated coverage loss per year is about 0.2% overall, which amounts to 20-30 km2 becoming ice-free every year. If the present trend continues, most glaciers on Iceland will have melted away within 500 years.

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Major surging glaciers of Vatnajökull. Figure source: Björnsson et al. (2003)

A surge-type glacier experiences a dramatic increase in flow rate, which can be 10-100 times greater than normal flow rates. The velocities of surge-type glaciers can exceed 100 m/day. About 26 Icelandic glaciers are known to surge.  Glacier variations in Iceland have been recorded systematically since the 1930s.

One of the best known surging glaciers in Iceland is Brúarjökull which has had major surges in 1810, 1890 and 1963/64.  During the 1890 surge, the ice margin advanced about 10 km over a period of few months. Subsequent to the surge, the ice front became largely stagnant and the glacier retreated until it surged again in 1963-1964.

So while the mainstream media has got the desired effect of whipping up hysteria of receding glaciers caused by human-created CO2 based global warming, there is little effort to reference their own sources, such as the alarmist UN. How ironic it is that the UN doesn’t have any confidence in why these things happen yet the media seemingly does as long as it fits a narrative.

The plaque says 415ppm of C02. That’s right. CO2 is 0.0415% of the atmosphere. CM hopes his grandkids look at me one day and say, “why couldn’t people do simple mathematical fractions?“

Violence against men – the facts

The ghost returns. What a surprise that former PM Malcolm Turnbull has decided to comment on the Alan Jones/Jacinda Ardern saga. Does Turnbull honestly believe that Jones telling the NZ PM to mind her own business on climate change really part of “where all violence against women begins“? “Violent abuse“? Seriously?

By that logic, have all of the men that Jones has shredded on his radio program enabled violence against men? Where were you then Mr Turnbull?

Let’s explore the research. According to a UK study,

“Male victims  (39%) are over three times as likely than women (12%) not to tell anyone about the partner abuse they are suffering from. Only 10% of male victims will tell the police (26% women), only 23% will tell a person in an official position (43% women) and only 11% (23% women) will tell a health professional.

The number of women convicted of perpetrating domestic abuse has increased sevenfold since 2004/05. From 806 in 2004/05 to 5,641 in 2015/16…In 2015, 119,000 men reported to English and Welsh police forces stating they were a victim of domestic abuse. 22% of all victims who report to the police are male. In 2012, 73,524 men did…

Men don’t leave abusive relationships for various reasons – the top reasons being: concern about the children (89%), marriage for life (81%), love (71%), the fear of never seeing their children again (68%), a belief she will change (56%), not enough money(53%), nowhere to go (52%), embarrassment (52%), not wanting to take kids away from their mother (46%), threats that she will kill herself (28%) and fears she will kill him (24%). 

Of those that suffered from partner abuse in 2012/13, 29% of men and 23% of women suffered a physical injury, a higher proportion of men suffering severe bruising or bleeding (6%) and internal injuries or broken bones/teeth (2%) than women (4% and 1% respectively). 30% of men who suffer from partner abuse have emotional and mental problems (47% women). Only 27% of men sought medical advice whilst 73% of women did.

The percentage of gay or bi-sexual men (6.2%) who suffered partner abuse in 2008/09 is nearly double the number for heterosexual men (3.3%). Lesbian women (12.4%) as a percentage also suffered far more partner abuse compared to heterosexual women (4.3%).

The US National Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Survey (NIPSVS) conducted in 2010 showed that 25 million men had claimed they were victims of some form of sexual violence by an intimate partner or acquaintance. Heather Jo Flores wrote in The Independent with respect to disrespecting women, 

“Men, it’s not our job to keep reminding you. Remind each other, and stop abusing. It’s as simple as that. Until men speak out against men who abuse, this will never stop. How about y’all post “I ignored it and I won’t anymore” instead? Because #hearyou doesn’t cut it. Just hearing us doesn’t cut it. Taking action, speaking out, and showing zero tolerance for abuse is the only way through. Silence enables. Be the change..So why do men need to have multiple victims come forward before anybody says a damn thing”

Flores went on to say, “Yes, I know men get abused too. Once in a lifetime, maybe a handful of times, in extreme situations. And they get abused by men, mostly. Just like us…I write this to ask: why are we still demanding that women out themselves as survivors, again and again and again, rather than demanding that men out themselves as abusers? Violence against women is a daily reality,.”

In the 12 month period conducted in the NIPSVS survey, 6.46mn women and 6.1mn men were victims of sexual violence by their partner, an acquaintance or stranger. 4.74mn women were victims of physical violence by men and 5.365mn men were victims of physical violence by women. Hardly a handful of times, nor at the hands of men.

1.555mn men claimed their intimate female partner hit them with fists or a hard object vs 1.289m women claiming the reverse. 3.13mn men were slapped by their women vs 1.85mn in the reverse. Awful stats on any measure. Still, it puts paid the notion that men are generally victims of other men once a blue moon. When it came to psychological intimidation around 20.5mn men were victims of it vs 16.5mn women.

The NIPSVS survey was conducted again in 2011 and revealed much the same trends.

By the logic, if men must out other men as abusers, perhaps female abusers should do likewise and male survivors should speak out just as women do. #believeallmen?

Perhaps Mr Turnbull might reflect on this research and work out that making such irrelevant remarks do absolutely nothing for anyone other than highlight yet again why his own party turfed him.

Heaven forbid toxic masculinity took out a knife-wielding murderer in the Sydney CBD. Wouldn’t it be convenient if the perpetrator had said he had been motivated by listening to the Alan Jones Morning Show on 2GB?

Most people get that violence against anyone shouldn’t be tolerated but trying to sound “woke” on Twitter hasn’t fooled anyone.

XR don’t even believe their own BS

Interesting to see that the Extinction Rebellion (XR) don’t even believe their own prophecies. How interesting to claim 12 years to save the planet and then just strike it out with 12 months. Why not 12 weeks, days or hours? If indeed it is 12 months, why waste time to organize a rally in October? Why waste time? Surely yesterday makes more sense if we must panic.

The chap on the stands was talking about the wish for 10,000 arrests in the hopes presumably of overwhelming police resources and forcing a negotiation.

CM was caught in an interesting conversation with XR followers who were demanding CM was blocked from the forum. CM merely engaged with data and despite mentioning China was 29.3% of CO2 emissions the response was their emissions per capita were lower. While true, what an irrelevant argument to give a free pass to the Chinese when they emit c.30% and rising of the very gas XR are fretting about and demanding we remediate ASAP.

Another XR follower demanded CO2 look at his FB page to justify his command of climate change. Littered with pictures of Greta Thunberg and articles from The Guardian. In any event one post caught CM’s eye – one that CM went back to the XR followers who demanded CM was blocked to explain they should probably look in the mirror.

XR doesn’t rule over anyone but they certainly don’t allow criticism.

Flotsam and Jet Some

This is the downside of virtue signaling. 16yo pigtailed activist Greta Thunberg’s misguided altruism will unfortunately lead to more carbon emissions than had she flown by commercial jet. Her solar powered sailing boat might have made her feel warm and fuzzy inside but there is a catch that probably hasn’t been mentioned.

According to a spokeswoman for Team Malizia, “We added the trip to New York City at very short notice, and as a result two people need to fly over to the U.S. in order to bring the boat back…The world has not yet found a way to make it possible to cross an ocean without a carbon footprint.”

Presumably two of the other crew members will fly home. So that’s the equivalent of two return flights where Thunberg would have only costed only one.

The irony. In order to save the planet, she has inadvertently bumped the very footprint she tried to avoid (although technically the scheduled flights were going anyway). To think she missed out on gourmet airline meals served on plastic trays and reruns of David Attenborough’s Climate Change:The Facts on a loop. Even better she wouldn’t need to poop in a bucket.

What a joke.

63m gun repossessions?

Kamala Harris’ brilliance knows no bounds. She intends to repossess guns from “racists”. If we use the strict definition from the Democrats, all 63mn Trump voters will lose their guns.