Net Assessment, Convenient Leaks, and Climate Histeria
perspective of history is a harsh judge - let's have fun
The American defense industry and the vast schools of rent seeking remora that follow it are as frustrating, corrupt, and self-hobbled as they are critically important to the nation’s survival. The fact is that many in the constellation of entities in the former generally lacks understanding or appreciation of the latter. Money, power, prestige; that is what they seek, not a secure nation. As in all human endeavors, our military-industrial complex is infused with these desires as much as any.
The struggle is to have mechanisms and leaders in place to control that negative side of human nature. Never perfect, but like weeds in the yard, the goal is to put in a strong and consistent effort to stop them from taking over. If you do that, good actors and those who understand the role of national defense will have the space to prosper in their constructive work.
Bad actors with agendas who are having trouble getting traction elsewhere discovered long ago that there are a couple of aspects of the military in the USA that are highly attractive in their pursuit of money, power and prestige; 1) the uniformed military mostly do what they are told to do, and 2) (though recent polling has shown significant decline) the military has a lot of built up good will and a solid reputation with the American people. It also has a lot of money you can skim off to promote X, whatever X may be; you can add that as a 3rd.
If you ever wonder why such things as CRT, race essentialism and various other cultural-Marxist socio-political agendas seem to show up in uniform, that is why.
One of the rising religions today is of course the climate cult. We’ve seen them show up inside DOD’s budget before. The comical “Great Green Fleet” during the Obama Administration with the absurd pronouncements from everyone from uniformed 2-Star Admirals to the Deputy Defense Secretary. Empowered by Executive Orders, members of the climate cult - or their hired guns - they took off and ran with it. You can follow the links above to see what I wrote at the time.
As the same team is back in charge now, we should look at where it all started almost two decades ago - during a (R) administration.
Outlining the spark in DOD’s dive in to the climate cult comes today via Max Borders (@socialevol ono twitter ) at AIER. You should read him picking apart the “leak” that dates back to the Bush43 administration - but I’ll just pull from his start;
In 2003, someone leaked a “secret” Pentagon report warning of the dire consequences of climate change.
“Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,” it reads. “Once again, warfare would define human life.”
I can’t find the full report anywhere (if you know where it is, please put the link in comments), and part of me thinks this was just one of many possible scenarios in a larger report. The usual “Best Case COA,” “Most Likely COA,” or “Most Dangerous COA” format - this being “Most Dangerous COA.”
It was leaked from Andrew Marshall’s Office of Net Assessment. Their reports are “for internal use only” and without seeing the full context of the “leaked” report and its author, I’m not sure how it should be looked at, but that didn’t matter to the people who leaked it.
ONA has a well-deserved reputation for excellence and though not perfect in seeing future trends, they were better than most and it was staffed with some of the best minds our nation could produce.
Somewhere in the DC Beltway someone decided that there was something with the exceptional brand of ONA that would be a useful tool to pursue the agenda of their cult. All else be damned – is must be used. Into the mouth of Vaal it went.
Let’s enjoy the schadenfreude of how incredibly wrong they were two decades ago, relish in the breathless fools who believed it, and let it gird our loins to push back today against the same swivel-eyed loons standing on street corners screaming that the end is neigh unless we give them more power.
From 22 FEB 2004 in The Guardian, BEHOLD!
These are some of the key findings of the 2004 report commissioned by Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall.
· Future wars will be fought over the issue of survival rather than religion, ideology or national honour.
· By 2007 violent storms smash coastal barriers rendering large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable. Cities like The Hague are abandoned. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento river area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.
· Between 2010 and 2020 Europe is hardest hit by climatic change with an average annual temperature drop of 6F. Climate in Britain becomes colder and drier as weather patterns begin to resemble Siberia.
· Deaths from war and famine run into the millions until the planet’s population is reduced by such an extent the Earth can cope.
· Riots and internal conflict tear apart India, South Africa and Indonesia.
· Access to water becomes a major battleground. The Nile, Danube and Amazon are all mentioned as being high risk.
· A ‘significant drop’ in the planet’s ability to sustain its present population will become apparent over the next 20 years.
· Rich areas like the US and Europe would become ‘virtual fortresses’ to prevent millions of migrants from entering after being forced from land drowned by sea-level rise or no longer able to grow crops. Waves of boatpeople pose significant problems.
· Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt and North Korea. Israel, China, India and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.
· By 2010 the US and Europe will experience a third more days with peak temperatures above 90F. Climate becomes an ‘economic nuisance’ as storms, droughts and hot spells create havoc for farmers.
· More than 400m people in subtropical regions at grave risk.
· Europe will face huge internal struggles as it copes with massive numbers of migrants washing up on its shores. Immigrants from Scandinavia seek warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa.
· Mega-droughts affect the world’s major breadbaskets, including America’s Midwest, where strong winds bring soil loss.
· China’s huge population and food demand make it particularly vulnerable. Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates the inland water supplies.
Let me look out the window here in April of 2023; we’re good.
What about the rest of the world? Here’s a running live-cam compellation of over 140 locations across the globe. Give it a look.
Just as the sun always rises and falls, and there are always lunar and solar eclipses – there will always be climate change. Just as the Mayans ripping the hearts out of living men, women, and children to make the sun come back had questionable impact on natural events, are we really sure all the sacrifices the cult of the climate is asking will significantly impact the climate as much as it will impact the standard of living of our species?
Of course, there is climate change. There has always been climate change, there always will be. Today’s climate is no more “normal” than when the beach was another hundred miles east of where I am today, or when the sea level was 100 feet above my head. The key is what percentage of that change humans are responsible for. That we don’t know.
The real, actionable, and measurable issues should be pollution of water and air, and the consumption rates of economically and sustainably extractable hydrocarbon energy sources - and their alternatives.
What we do not need is to distract finite leader time, budget money, and institutional reputation on something like “climate change.”
Not in the military’s lane; the climate cult is not its circus; the people in drum circles wafting patchouli oil fumes to passerbys are not its monkeys.
UPDATE:
Thanks to Sicinnus in comments, we have a link to the report here.
From the intro, we can see that as I thought above, this was a “Worst Case COA” situation, i.e. “…the scenario is extreme…”
The people who started this ball rolling knew they were pushing an extreme as an expected. Those who sent billions of dollars down this rat hole knew that too.
Of course … of course.
I had someone from DC come and spout that shite at a meeting. I do not play in climate silliness. I ask them to start putting up the math, and show me the feedback loops between the biology, the heat balance, the clouds, the oceanographic mixing, fresh water lenses, stratification, heat transport of the Western Boundary Currents (Kuroshio, Gulf Stream, EACdude), etc. Most of these policy flim flam artists have no idea how to mathify. Someone needs to tell them to sit down and hush up. They are stealing from the American people, redistributing money and laundering money. Eco-terror (as in fomenting terror by promising Mother Gaia's demise) is an industry.
ONA and Andy Marshall were inseparable. When he left / retired / was forced / aged out (was pushing 90 IIRC) they became borderline irrelevant and primarily a vehicle for the transfer of money to contractors. The climate change industry has a number of layers: true believers, who are convinced that it is all mankind's fault with a close to the surface subtext of reducing human presence on earth. Sincere, but mostly fall in the category of "useful idiots" (Stalin or Lenin?). The technocratic layer is populated by "experts" who by and large know better, but see advantage in extolling the virtues of fighting climate change (grant money, peer presteige, social credit score, and sadly, military promotion). The top layer is comprised of high level multinational businesses and state actors who use the bottom two to support whatever goals they have. Used to consider the TV show "The Blacklist" a hoot because it was so absurd (Spader is fantastic). Now I find myself wondering if it's a lot closer to reality that I ever knew. OBTW, colder weather kill way more people than warm weather by several orders of magnitude. Europe can be thankful for the warmest winter in memory keeping the ongoing conflict from having an even bigger impact than it did.