Look out! Global COOLING is coming!

The late unlamented Climate Barbie, the no-longer-relevant Mark Carney, Saint Greta Thunberg and Al Gore [who he? Ed.] have been telling us for years now that the world is in imminent danger of burning to a crisp, if not today, then tomorrow. 

They say that "global warming" is all the fault of us "peoplekind". If we'd only buy Teslas and use solar/wind power to heating/cool our houses and workspaces, ecological disaster could be averted (they say), if only for a little while. And we have to kill all our cattle, too, because their farts are a major part of the greenhouse gases which are trapping heat and setting off wildfires yada yada yada. 

Où sont les neiges d'antan? I don't entirely dismiss the notion of climate change. I haven't suffered through many winters yet like that of 1963, shown in the picture. Of course I live farther south now. But my car and I are smaller now, so even if there's less snow, the effect is still the same. 

For me, there's little difference between winters then and winters now. If the world warms up and there's less snow, that will be fine with me. But it might get colder again. Global warming and global cooling has been the cycle of nature ever since God created this planet Earth.

My corner of the forest was once covered in ice. Before that, it was under a vast inland sea. And before the sea, or maybe after (who knows?) there were tropical forests in which roamed prehistoric reptiles and mammals, just like in Jurassic Park.

I don't believe there's going to be any spectacular, catastropic climate change any time soon... if ever! Wildfires may be ranging in the west, but just yesterday I heard on the rangdidio that, here, this July is the coolest in ten years. [The wettest too! Ed.] So depending on where you live, in all kind of evens out. "Global warming" (or cooling) is a sweeping overgeneralization.

Who knows? The weather might well take a turn for the colder. We might once again see a return to "real old-fashioned winter", like that shown in this snap which I took in 1978. 

That's not just my opinion, but that of climate scientist Dr. Willie Soon. According to Breitbart News, Dr Soon thinks we should pay closer attention to the sun's activity, which suggests several decades of global cooling rather than warming. 

Dr Soon, a Malaysian astrophysicist and aerospace engineer, told Alex Newman of the New American, that "what we predict is that the next 20-30 years will be cold. It will be cold, so it will be a very interesting thing for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change] to confront.

"The sun is in a 'weakened state'," says the good doctor "and far less active than during the 1980s and 1990s." This weakened state, he said, should last "until around 2050. The whole climate system is powered 99.1 percent by the sun’s energy."

Therefore, Dr Soon concludes, global cooling is a far greater source of concern than global warming. "We will have a lot more problems were the planet to cool rather than warm." Humanity [not "peoplekind"? Ed.] can solve a lot of problems including overheating, but the problems of a "little ice age" like that of the 1700s are much harder to solve," he said. "If you want to face a serious problem, worry about an ice age; never worry about global warming!"

FROZEN! What global warming looks like

One of Walt's agents sent along this nice photo of Niagara Falls -- the Canadian Falls part, actually -- where they've been having a real, old-fashioned winter. None of that global warming or climate change BS for the hardy folks who venture out to see the beauty of the falls, which, by the way, is not frozen. The falls are still falling, underneath the crusts of ice.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. In villages north and south of Niagara Falls, famous groundhogs will come out of their burrows -- voluntarily or otherwise -- to predict how much more of this global warming we'll have to endure. In Pennsylvania, Al Gore will explain to the media any cold signals given by Punxatawney Phil. In Ontario, Canuck Environment Minister "Climate Barbie" McKenna will interpret the actions of the new Wiarton Willie. The old one died last summer... of the heat, no doubt.

Dambisa Moyo advocates end to foreign aid, makes Bill Gates angry

On Tuesday Walt reviewed Dead Aid, by Dr. Dambisa Moyo, an African economist. As noted, her book is a well-written, compelling argument for an end to foreign aid, which she says is a waste of money and actually works against the goals of development and poverty reduction. Here's a four-paragraph summary, taken from the final chapter.

What if, one by one, African countries each received a phone call...telling them that in exactly five years the aid taps would be shut off -- permanently?

What do you think Africans would do if aid were stopped, simply carry on as usual? Too many African countries have already hit rock bottom -- ungoverned, poverty-stricken, and lagging further and further behind the rest of the world each day; there is nowhere further down to go.

Isn't it more likely that in a world freed of aid, economic life for the majority of Africans might actualy improve, that corruption would fall, entrepreneurs would rise, and Africa's growth engine would start chugging? This is the most probably outcome -- that whewre the real chance exists to make a better life for themselves, their children and Africa's future generations, Africans would grab it and go.

Aid came from the West (and continues to do so), and it's up to the West to take it back. Why have people in the West not demanded that something be done? It is, after all, their money being poured down the drain.

Predictably, writing such politically incorrect heresy brought Dr. Moyo a lot of flak from "progressive thinkers" and aid advocates such as Jeffrey Sachs and Bill Gates. [Not to mention Al Gore and Jimmy Carter? Ed.] It will be noted that all of those named are rich American white guys -- the sort of Western liberals whose feelings of guilt are assuaged by persuading governments to throw their money -- and ours! -- down the toilets of the Third World.

Dambisa Moyo, on the other hand, is an African woman. (See picture.) Click here to read "Dambisa Moyo counter-attacks Bill Gates’ critique of her work as ‘evil’". Then read Dead Aid and figure out for yourself whose approach to helping Africa makes more sense.

Conrad Black on a dismal decade

Agent 6 passes along a lengthy column by Conrad Black, which appeared in the so-called National Post just before Christmas. Conrad Black used to own the Post. Possibly he owes the present owners some money as a result of the financial dealings which have landed him in a Florida country club [prison, surely. ed.] Maybe he's working off the debt at so much per word.

Be that as it may, his dismal view of a dismal decade is still worth reading. He inveighs against the dismal campaign against global warming [also so-called, ed.], the dismal Copenhagen conference, the utterly dismal Al Gore and the dismal and "untrammeled vulgarity of public taste". I agree entirely and recommend the article for the cold nights when a little attack of biliousness will help to warm you.

On the subject of global warming [yes, yes...get on with it, ed.] I pass on a comment from Rex Murphy, whose book Canada and Other Matters of Opinion I reviewed this morning.

"Of all the causes that are out there, none is so sentimental, so saturated with vague, emotive attitudinizing, fed on soft science and ripe with moral grandstanding, as global warming.

"Global warming, precisely because it is so grand and nebulous, precisely because it is that perfect storm of scientism and moralism, because it is so susceptible to demagoguery (however fashionably packaged and presented), is an almost unstoppable cause.

"Hands up, those of you who are against 'saving the world'."