Market Oracle
Andrew McKillop
At its simplest and most basic, global warming theory (called "anthropogenic global warming" theory or AGWT) is as idiot-friendly as the official story of what happened on September 11, 2001 in the USA. Five airplanes were hijacked by dangerous Islamic fundamentalists by order of Afghanistan's Taliban or only with their friendly help. They flew around for rather a long time but America was so terrified no fighter planes were sent to bring down the hijacked planes. Two of the planes disappeared, but three were crashed into carefully chosen targets, not including nuclear power plants, oil refineries, pesticide factories, the White House or suchlike. Three immense tower blocks in New York then collapsed, one of them without being hit by an airplane and the Pentagon was slightly damaged, possibly not by an airplane. Afghanistan was then invaded in a colonial war rampage, by the USA and some other countries described as "democratic".
The same democratic countries were also very quick to "sign on" to AGWT, for a number of mostly unstated reasons, with their government-friendly media supplying the rationale: "fighting" global warming is as vital as fighting the Taliban, in fact more so because it is a threat to life on Earth while the Taliban are only rather strict about how female persons dress and have a tendency of sponsoring terrorism, in the same way as Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
Even today, some grown-up persons still claim to believe the 9 / 11 story, so why shouldn't they also believe in AGWT ?
THE FIGHT AGAINST PHLOGISTON
Those really great minds like Britain's James 'Gaia' Lovelock who most feverishly peddled the AGWT, for their personal profit, most certainly do not explain where their pet theory comes from, but anyone with enough time to waste reading 'Gaia" theory will quickly find the origin. Aristotle's spheres and the Magic Ether linking them help to explain AGWT. All the three "religions of the Book" draw on this, with their angels who flit between the spheres - but by the 17th century in Europe the "ether" had become a little bit more scientific and most important, able to be modified and corrupted, made less transparent and hostile to angel flight, by substances which humans produce when they burn combustible materials. Even more directly, we have the word "phlogiston": this is Aristotles' phlogistos which means "burning".
In the 17th century, the role and function of the Earth's atmospheric gases was unknown, making for a mix-and-mingle of myth, religion and science which we find very faithfully reflected in publications from the UN IPCC today, the panel of experts on supposed global warming supposedly caused by the emission of gases which are claimed to change the ether, or atmosphere.
17th century European scientists argued that all combustible substances, but especially fossil fuels contain phlogiston but are "dephlogisticated" when burned. Before combustion, these substances which burn in air are said to be rich in phlogiston. The 17th century proof of this, for scientists of the time like Becher and Stahl, was that combustion soon ceased in an enclosed space, which to them showed that air had the capacity to absorb only a definite amount of phlogiston. When air had become completely phlogisticated it would no longer serve to support combustion of any material, nor would a metal heated in it yield a calx. More sombre, phlogisticated air could not support life, which 17th century European scientists proved by placing mice in belljars filled with a mixture of CO2 and nitrogen oxides: the mice died.
Thus, phlogiston was described or imagined as basically the opposite of the role of oxygen in combustion. When Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772 he explained the results as due to the phlogiston theory: the residue of air left after burning, in fact a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, was "phlogisticated air", having taken up all of the phlogiston. However, by that time, the phlogiston theory was receiving serious opposition, to the extent that Joseph Priestley, the British chemist who discovered a range of gases including oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and nitrous oxide almost violently resisted the "oxygen theory" of scientists like Lavoisier.
Today, AGWT artists resist any idea that CO2 is not radically increasing global or regional or local temperature (they call them "global average temperatures"), in the same way 9 / 11 believers cling on to the Taliban Theory for explaining the sudden demolition of large buildings in New York in 2001.
Priestley resisted the oxygen theory of chemistry to the end of his life. For Priestley, phlogiston was more than just the active principle of fire—it was the active principle of life. His supposed "scientific theory" merged with his religious beliefs, the same way James 'Gaia' Lovelock explained so sincerely and fervently, for a moderate fee, that his Blue Gaia goddess was sullied and denigrated by CO2.
For Priestley, if phlogiston was the active principle of fire, heat, light, electricity, acids, chemical reactivity, and life itself, then it was probably also the active principle of the ether and its homologue in human beings, the spirit. This accorded well with his fundamentalist Unitarian belief in a single omnipresent active principle in the Universe. He believed that air saturated with phlogiston could be "revivified" (or dephlogisticated) by green plants in the presence of sunlight, but accumulations of phlogiston in the atmosphere - even small increases - would act to block out sunlight, saturate the air with phlogiston, and permit emanations of heat, from the strange, even diabolical center of the Earth, to increase temperatures and favour an even more rapid "phlogistication" of the atmosphere.
NOTHING MUCH NEW UNDER THE SUN
Read: greenhouse gas effect. CO2 and a rather large number of other sometimes very exotic gases, present in truly minute quantities on the atmosphere relative to the "huge" 0.038% that is CO2, are rapidly "phlogisticating" our planet and we must act, we were rantingly told by the charlatans and hucksters who profited from AGWT.
To be sure, Priestley was not exactly comparable with James 'Gaia' Lovelock: apart from being a scientist who had made real discoveries, he was also somewhat radical in his politics, and paid for it. He supported the American colonists in their revolution against the British and supported the French Revolution. He made enemies as a result of his political beliefs, and in 1791 his house and laboratory in Birmingham were attacked and burned to the ground by a mob. He later fled to the USA.
Today, or at least recently, disbelievers in the CO2 Phlogiston theory may be turfed out of their job, sacked from their scientific associations, or simply shunned by polite company - but as in previous ages, the child-minded, supertstitious, deceitful and lying defenders of, and profiteers from an entirely false theory - the AGWT - will be forced to retreat.
Why they were able to insinuate themselves in both the scientific and political establishment is a complex story, but almost certainly features the "primitive vigour" of the CO2 Phlogiston theory. Exactly like 9 / 11 the theory is idiot-friendly, very idiot-friendly. Even at the end of the 18th century, when Lavoisier's theory of oxygen became impossible to deny any longer, defenders of phlogiston were typified by the position of James Hutton, the British geologist. Despite lauding Lavoisier, or being obliged to do so, Hutton could say: "When coal burns, it produces two distinct effects; first, by the oxigenating of the gravitating carbonic substance, producing fixed air or carbonic acid in an elastic state. Secondly, in thus changing the nature of coal, there is produced a great quantity of light and heat". He then added that 'present chymnists': "must necessarily leave some natural appearances unexplained while they give a most accurate analysis without regard to the gravitating matter of bodies".
Hutton believed that light and especially sunlight, were 'transcending principles', directly linked with the Heavenly Spheres. Fossil fuels like coal are derived from vegetal materials produced by sunlight, he noted, but claimed that if they are burnt in excessive quantities will release too much phologiston - which can harm life itself.
In 2006, in an interview with the supposedly serious newspaper 'The Independent' (UK), James 'Gaia' Lovelock proclaimed that "billions will die before the end of the century from runaway global warming", produced by an accumulation of phlogiston. The extreme primtive nature of the "theory" behind global warming was still easily confused with imagining this absurd theory was full of vigour - but being idiot-friendly it was very well suited to a consumer public that rants and roars at football matches and slobbers in front of People Celebrities.
Opposing this primitive and degenerate theory was therefore a long haul process, but today is nearly complete.
Andrew McKillop
The same democratic countries were also very quick to "sign on" to AGWT, for a number of mostly unstated reasons, with their government-friendly media supplying the rationale: "fighting" global warming is as vital as fighting the Taliban, in fact more so because it is a threat to life on Earth while the Taliban are only rather strict about how female persons dress and have a tendency of sponsoring terrorism, in the same way as Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
Even today, some grown-up persons still claim to believe the 9 / 11 story, so why shouldn't they also believe in AGWT ?
THE FIGHT AGAINST PHLOGISTON
Those really great minds like Britain's James 'Gaia' Lovelock who most feverishly peddled the AGWT, for their personal profit, most certainly do not explain where their pet theory comes from, but anyone with enough time to waste reading 'Gaia" theory will quickly find the origin. Aristotle's spheres and the Magic Ether linking them help to explain AGWT. All the three "religions of the Book" draw on this, with their angels who flit between the spheres - but by the 17th century in Europe the "ether" had become a little bit more scientific and most important, able to be modified and corrupted, made less transparent and hostile to angel flight, by substances which humans produce when they burn combustible materials. Even more directly, we have the word "phlogiston": this is Aristotles' phlogistos which means "burning".
In the 17th century, the role and function of the Earth's atmospheric gases was unknown, making for a mix-and-mingle of myth, religion and science which we find very faithfully reflected in publications from the UN IPCC today, the panel of experts on supposed global warming supposedly caused by the emission of gases which are claimed to change the ether, or atmosphere.
17th century European scientists argued that all combustible substances, but especially fossil fuels contain phlogiston but are "dephlogisticated" when burned. Before combustion, these substances which burn in air are said to be rich in phlogiston. The 17th century proof of this, for scientists of the time like Becher and Stahl, was that combustion soon ceased in an enclosed space, which to them showed that air had the capacity to absorb only a definite amount of phlogiston. When air had become completely phlogisticated it would no longer serve to support combustion of any material, nor would a metal heated in it yield a calx. More sombre, phlogisticated air could not support life, which 17th century European scientists proved by placing mice in belljars filled with a mixture of CO2 and nitrogen oxides: the mice died.
Thus, phlogiston was described or imagined as basically the opposite of the role of oxygen in combustion. When Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772 he explained the results as due to the phlogiston theory: the residue of air left after burning, in fact a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, was "phlogisticated air", having taken up all of the phlogiston. However, by that time, the phlogiston theory was receiving serious opposition, to the extent that Joseph Priestley, the British chemist who discovered a range of gases including oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and nitrous oxide almost violently resisted the "oxygen theory" of scientists like Lavoisier.
Today, AGWT artists resist any idea that CO2 is not radically increasing global or regional or local temperature (they call them "global average temperatures"), in the same way 9 / 11 believers cling on to the Taliban Theory for explaining the sudden demolition of large buildings in New York in 2001.
Priestley resisted the oxygen theory of chemistry to the end of his life. For Priestley, phlogiston was more than just the active principle of fire—it was the active principle of life. His supposed "scientific theory" merged with his religious beliefs, the same way James 'Gaia' Lovelock explained so sincerely and fervently, for a moderate fee, that his Blue Gaia goddess was sullied and denigrated by CO2.
For Priestley, if phlogiston was the active principle of fire, heat, light, electricity, acids, chemical reactivity, and life itself, then it was probably also the active principle of the ether and its homologue in human beings, the spirit. This accorded well with his fundamentalist Unitarian belief in a single omnipresent active principle in the Universe. He believed that air saturated with phlogiston could be "revivified" (or dephlogisticated) by green plants in the presence of sunlight, but accumulations of phlogiston in the atmosphere - even small increases - would act to block out sunlight, saturate the air with phlogiston, and permit emanations of heat, from the strange, even diabolical center of the Earth, to increase temperatures and favour an even more rapid "phlogistication" of the atmosphere.
NOTHING MUCH NEW UNDER THE SUN
Read: greenhouse gas effect. CO2 and a rather large number of other sometimes very exotic gases, present in truly minute quantities on the atmosphere relative to the "huge" 0.038% that is CO2, are rapidly "phlogisticating" our planet and we must act, we were rantingly told by the charlatans and hucksters who profited from AGWT.
To be sure, Priestley was not exactly comparable with James 'Gaia' Lovelock: apart from being a scientist who had made real discoveries, he was also somewhat radical in his politics, and paid for it. He supported the American colonists in their revolution against the British and supported the French Revolution. He made enemies as a result of his political beliefs, and in 1791 his house and laboratory in Birmingham were attacked and burned to the ground by a mob. He later fled to the USA.
Today, or at least recently, disbelievers in the CO2 Phlogiston theory may be turfed out of their job, sacked from their scientific associations, or simply shunned by polite company - but as in previous ages, the child-minded, supertstitious, deceitful and lying defenders of, and profiteers from an entirely false theory - the AGWT - will be forced to retreat.
Why they were able to insinuate themselves in both the scientific and political establishment is a complex story, but almost certainly features the "primitive vigour" of the CO2 Phlogiston theory. Exactly like 9 / 11 the theory is idiot-friendly, very idiot-friendly. Even at the end of the 18th century, when Lavoisier's theory of oxygen became impossible to deny any longer, defenders of phlogiston were typified by the position of James Hutton, the British geologist. Despite lauding Lavoisier, or being obliged to do so, Hutton could say: "When coal burns, it produces two distinct effects; first, by the oxigenating of the gravitating carbonic substance, producing fixed air or carbonic acid in an elastic state. Secondly, in thus changing the nature of coal, there is produced a great quantity of light and heat". He then added that 'present chymnists': "must necessarily leave some natural appearances unexplained while they give a most accurate analysis without regard to the gravitating matter of bodies".
Hutton believed that light and especially sunlight, were 'transcending principles', directly linked with the Heavenly Spheres. Fossil fuels like coal are derived from vegetal materials produced by sunlight, he noted, but claimed that if they are burnt in excessive quantities will release too much phologiston - which can harm life itself.
In 2006, in an interview with the supposedly serious newspaper 'The Independent' (UK), James 'Gaia' Lovelock proclaimed that "billions will die before the end of the century from runaway global warming", produced by an accumulation of phlogiston. The extreme primtive nature of the "theory" behind global warming was still easily confused with imagining this absurd theory was full of vigour - but being idiot-friendly it was very well suited to a consumer public that rants and roars at football matches and slobbers in front of People Celebrities.
Opposing this primitive and degenerate theory was therefore a long haul process, but today is nearly complete.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment