AN EARLY NAMAZU POST ON CLIMATE CHANGE

For those of us who lived through Katrina, we feel for the people of the Philippines. Some of us who are older also remember Camille, Betsy, and Audry. Camille et al were a long time before the current debate on "climate change". Camille especially came at a time that followed some unusually cold winters that engulfed the nation including the normally near tropical Gulf Coast. There was talk of climate change back then, namely many academics were convinced that a new ice age was forming. The skeptics who were largely ignored or subjected to ridicule took a more Namazu like stance...."climates change, that's what they do", "...present trends don't necessarily predict long term major changes." Given the recent violent storms such as Hurricane sandy and Typhoon Hiyan we are again hearing from the "believers" that violent climate change is upon us.  Maybe we haven't seen storms like Katrina, Sandy, and Hiyan very frequently, indeed if you are a twenty or thirty something probably never before in your life time. If your ate 65 you've seen this before. If you are 3,000 years old like the great Namazu you have a whole different perspective. The Great catfish first articulated his unique view in December of 2012. We thought in the light of recent events the calming voice of the Catfish needed to be heard on the planet again:

12/6/2012 Namazu on Kyoto

           NAMAZU ON KYOTO and SECRETARY GENERAL BAN KI MOON 

THE GREAT NAMAZU; DEAN OF THE NAMAZU SCHOOL  OF CLIMATOLOGY

 Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon addressed climate change at the International Climate Change Talks in Qatar yesterday. These most recent talks were held in anticipation of a UN attempt to forge an international agreement on climate change by 2015. Given the abject total and complete ignorance exhibited by Mr Moon in his speech and in his sidebar comments to the media; such an international agreement or even an extension of the earlier Kyoto Agreement, has a snowball's chance in hell of survival. Mr. Moon in his address charged that the responsibility for climate change is solely that of "Rich Countries. He stated" that since the "Rich countries", his common code word for the United States, Canada, and the Nations of the European Union,were discharging carbon before we knew the environmental harm it could cause; it was "only fair and reasonable that the developed world should bear most of the responsibility in fighting the gradual warming of the planet." I may only be a giant catfish but I know addle brained drivel when I hear it. Its addle brained drivel because it is not fact based, utterly fails to address the issue, and simply promotes the propaganda line of China. The United States did not sign the Kyoto Accords for good reason, despite the vehement protests of all of the tree huggers in the United States and finger pointing by all of the Third World. Now Canada, New Zealand, and Japan don;t want any part of it when it expires nor any part of anything that looks like it for 2015. If Mr. Moon had any command of the real facts he would know why his speech went over like a lead balloon with the countries he most wants to sign up for, and take responsibility for the goals of the proposed 2015 pact.


 First, the United States passed clean air and water acts in the 1970s long before anyone articulated any thoughts about carbon emission caused climate change. The United States started cleaning up its' act long before Kyoto without any demands from the international community. The United States and Europe were scrubbing automotive emissions long before Kyoto. China passed the United States in industrial carbon emissions quite some time ago and China's emissions increased by 14% last year. By Contrast the United States , a non Kyoto nation reduced its emissions again in 2012 by another 2%. If Europe agreed  to China's demands and reverted to bicycles and shut down all of their industry achieving zero emissions over night, that would reduce the world's carbon emissions based on the 2012 reports by approximately 15% at most. That is what the entire European Union accounts for on the global carbon emissions count. As Mr. Moon was speaking the figures for  China this year indicate a 14% increase in their carbon foot print. India, another nation exempt from any reduction requirements under the Kyoto protocols also had a double digit increase in emissions.

 Canada our neighbor to the north who did sign the Kyoto Protocols and was bound to reduce emissions actually had a 4% increase. Of all the countries on the planet only the United States and some of the EU nations, most notably Germany reduced emissions. The United States and a number of EU nations have been reducing their carbon and other emissions in air and water steadily since 1970.   As the failed Kyoto agreement fades into the sunset the real polluters are still staring at the United States and blaming their own folly on one of the few nations actually doing anything.

To say that the "developed world" polluted the planet before we knew the effects of these emissions is pointless and not very factual. Trees, vegetation, and the oceans plant plankton are constantly fixing, consuming or converting many of these carbon gases to oxygen. They are definitely over loaded at the moment, but that doesn't mean that all of the industrial pollutants of the century are cumulatively in the atmosphere. The problem is of more recent vintage and the mass of the problem is created now by China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and other "developing nations" that now know perfectly well what these gases do to the atmosphere Yet these unrepentant miscreants insist on their right to not only not reduce their emissions, but to increase them and charge the lesser contributors the bill for the damage they are causing in the global commons.


 Into this situation jumps Mr. Moon and throws the full considerable weight of his office behind this position of total lunacy. The United States was right to stay out of any international climate change abatement plan that amounts to a unilateral demand on the lowest contributors to the pollution of the commons to take full responsibility for the problem while the biggest polluters continue to increase emissions. This is why at the Namazu School of Climatology we just aren't interested in addressing carbon emissions caused climate change. Its a global problem that the real responsible parties refuse to address. So since America can't fix the problem we feel it is time to address self defense issues on the effects of climate change. Its time to discuss coastal building codes, food security , disaster recovery, and economics in the light of climate change from any cause. Since America is the only nation on the planet addressing the issue like an adult, then the planet will fail at any effort to stave off the actual climate change if one is coming.


So lets just accept that if carbon emissions are changing our climate America is already doing what it can and it will be completely ineffective because the rest of the world is increasing their pollution levels while pointing a finger tat America. So lets get on with our national effort to mitigate the damages we can't avoid.

 As for you Mr. Moon, you are not helping out, you are part of the problem. Kindly bite my tail fin, you pea brained biped.

Sincerely,
Namazu

Editors note: The views of Mr. Namazu Giantcatfish  are solely his own and do not necessarily represent the views of the owners or management of this station. To our regular readers, this is not the "block buster" that we mentioned yesterday that we expect from Namazu shortly. This came over the hydrophone FAX in the predawn hours. Obviously Namazu was watching some cable news coverage again and caught wind of Mr. Moon's remarks and felt compelled to respond. Please continue to watch this space and pass the word to your friends that Namazu has another block buster in the works as a follow on to the post election stunner "NAMAZU FULLY LOADED , THE FUTURE OF AMERICA". For those of you keeping score, so far in a journalistic career spanning about a month, Namazu has called the Secretary General of the UN a "pea brained biped", told both Al Gore and Rush Limbeaugh that they "don't know Jack",  found the equipment approval process of the U.S. Coast Guard inept, and had a kind word for Kevin Costner's oil pollution invention. Congratulations Mr. Costner, the catfish likes you. If we consider that he also likes MS Oh Land the blond bombshell singer with whom he shared an album cover, that makes a grand total of two humans so far that we know he approves of.