COMMENT: Dear Martin,

You might find this interesting.

Today the Taal volcano in Luzon, Philippines, erupted in a violent way sending an ash plume as high as 16 km (55.000 ft).

The last time this volcano erupted was in 1977. This is 43 years ago which equals to 5*8.6.

The low solar activity seems to be stirring up things quite a bit.

Best regards,

SG

REPLY: Taal has a long history, and I believe this is the 34th record eruption since the 16th century. I also believe that so far these eruptions are generally VEI 5 or less. Currently, there are warnings that this may be a precursor to a larger eruption.

Taal is very close to Manilla. It is on an island that settlement is forbidden because it has been very active.

The current record-holder remains 2008 when the sun was blank for 268 days making the 2008-2009 solar minimum the deepest since 1913. There have been studies, besides our own correlation models, which have shown that during Solar Minimum, which is a normal part of the 11-year sunspot cycle, there is an increase in volcanic activity. The Dalton Minimum produced the 1816 event known as the Year Without a Summer.

Harvard University explained that the “Maunder Minimum (about 1645-1715) … was responsible for at least 70 years of abnormally cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere.” There appears to be an increase in volcanic activity during these Solar Minimum events. Indeed, at Taal, there were eruptions that took place in 1572, 1591, 1605, 1611, 1634, 1635, 1641, and 1645. There was a gap again until 1707, 1709 followed by 1715, 1716. 1729, 1731, 1749, and 1754 with a gap until and the Dalton Minimum began with 1790, 1825, and 1842. There were subsequent eruptions, some minor, during 1873, 1874, 1885, 1903, 1904, 1911, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1976 and 1977.

Here, there were eruptions at Taal in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 with a gap until 2019 and now 2020 as we are headed back into a Solar Minimum which NASA warns will be the lowest in 200 years. It at least appears that we should expect an increase in earthquakes and volcanic activity going into the next ECM cycle.

This is the crisis with the Climate Change activists for they are blocking any other research for fear that it will reveal there is a natural cycle unfolding, not human-driven

QUESTION: Does your computer show that the major trend is down toward cooling and in the process were are getting these wild swings from new record golds to one day wonders of hot?

Thank you

‘DK

ANSWER: Yes, the broader trend is cooling thanks to the solar minimum. But there are also wild swings from new record lows to a single day of record high temperatures. This is similar to what was taking place during the 1930s. There was the dust bowl with drought and heat in the summer, and the winters were still the coldest on record which we have not yet reached on a sustained basis. It is just nonsense to claim that the violent swings from cold to heat are caused by us driving cars around when that pattern has taken place throughout history.

Storms are also not an indication of CO2 levels as they are claiming. There was the famous Spanish Treasure Ship fleet where all 11 ships were sunk in the Hurricane of 1715. The list of the worst storms from the 19th century forward is 1804, 1806, 1821, 1900, 1903, 1938, 1944, 1955, 1960, 1999, 2011, and 2012. The worst hurricane was 1900 insofar if the measurement is the number of people dead which reached 12,000 in Galveston, Texas.

The 1938 New England Hurricane pictured here was far worse than anything we have seen in my lifetime. Computer models rooted in cyclical analysis with a long database simply reveal that there is really nothing new in weather that we have not seen before.

The bottom line is rather clear. The broader trend is moving colder. That does not mean that there will be days where the temperature will swing abruptly to a record high. We are looking at sustained trends, not a single day that makes a record low or high. It is sustained trends, not just the volatility.

QUESTION: Marty, I just read that in the Dutch so-called climate Justice case the supreme court has upheld the original 2015 ruling, legally requiring the government to reduce emissions by 25%. This appears to be the first successful such case, and it might be a precedent for the others.

What about the separation of powers if the judicial power is used as a political tool to force the hand of the executive power? Wasn’t it rather meant to be a check and balance?

Thanks for what you do.
KR

ANSWER: The judges in the Supreme Court of Netherlands have made one of the worst decisions possible. In hindsight, the ruling will be the straw that broke the back of the European economy. The judges made their decision based solely on the international human rights law. This absurd ruling fails to consider that even if the Netherlands outlawed cars, manufacture, heating of homes, and the production of electricity from anything but wind or hydroelectric, it will not change the climate of the entire planet. The only outcome is to destroy the economy of the Netherlands.

There was no proof presented which established beyond reasonable doubt that there is any connection between CO2 and climate change. Nevertheless, on the 20th of December 2019,  the Dutch Supreme Court upheld the previous decisions in the Urgenda Climate Case, which held that the Dutch government has obligations to urgently and significantly reduce emissions in line with its human rights obligations.

The judges ruled against the Dutch government, which was the first in the world in which citizens established that their government has a legal duty to prevent dangerous climate change. The ruling was based on the fact that the government has established a policy claiming it would target a reduction by 2020 from 1990 levels. The court ruled the government must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). The ruling required the government to immediately take more effective action on climate change, and in the short time span, may seriously disrupt the entire European economy.

The United Nations rejoiced in slapping down the Netherlands government as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also published a news release about the decision in which she notes that “the decision confirms that the Government of the Netherlands and, by implication, other governments have binding legal obligations, based on international human rights law, to undertake strong reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.”

The question whether the court has abandoned the separation of powers and is engaging in dictatorial powers is an interesting one. The court alluded to a very serious breach of democratic powers of government in confining the judicial role in cases of alleged state negligence. What if someone killed a member of your family. Is the state negligent because it failed to protect your family? The issue of protecting citizens raises the question of whether there is a duty imposed upon government and how can they achieve that protection if it exists.

The court looked at this issue and WRONGLY entered something which can lead to the collapse of the rule of law. Where the issues can be spliced and a minimum standard of protection can be reduced to quantifiable terms such as a percentage reduction. The court viewed it can dive into this question by separating the directive of ordering a reduction in CO2 from HOW that reduction is to be achieved. The court created a fictional Chinese Wall where the HOW is a policy issue not to be decided by courts. This raises the appearance that it is permissible for the courts to establish that standard but not the policy. In doing so, the court WRONGLY assumes it will remain within the correct confines of their judicial role, protecting rights rather than creating policy.

The court was well aware that it was crossing the line separating the judiciary from the legislative. Under a sub-heading entitled, “The Separation of Powers,” the court explained why the decision did not qualify as something beyond its constitutional powers. Under Dutch law, there is no true and complete separation of state powers. Instead, the Dutch system is not a democratic system which most people do not realize. As the court explained, in the Netherlands the judiciary has a “balance” of power rather than a separation of power within the constitution. They argue citizens require legal protection from the state, and created that with the power of adjudicating over those disputes.

The court reasons that the judiciary has “democratic legitimacy,” yet it is not democratically elected. Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by royal decree, chosen from a list of three, advised by the House of Representatives on the advice of the court itself. The justices are, like every other judge in the Netherlands, appointed for life, until they retire at their own will or after reaching the age of 70. Therefore, despite its reasoning, it is outside any democratic process.

Then the court reasoned it cannot refuse to decide matters within its jurisdiction simply because there may be political ramifications. Interestingly, the fact that the multiplicity of the very nature of the debate over climate change was disregarded by the court and was never fully addressed. The court simply said it did “not have a clear picture of the magnitude and meaning of … [all] consequences,” and there was a need for some restraint in what the court should order.

What is clear is that the judges WANTED to rule most likely because they believe in climate change being humanly induced. There is no other explanation for delivering such an unbalanced decision that has the risk of destroying the economy of Netherlands for it cannot order the climate change be reversed solely upon the actions taken in the Netherlands.

The court rooted its decision, claiming that the state was in breach of its duty of care to Dutch society by failing to take sufficient mitigation measures to prevent dangerous climate change. That argument can be applied to any citizen who is harmed even by being raped by a refugee or robbed on the street at gun point. Granted, up until 2010, the government had a national target for reducing emissions by 30% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. The government continually ascribed to make reductions of 25-40% by 2020. The reductions were only 17%, which was used as evidence showing that the government had previously agreed to this 25%-40% reduction. Therefore, the case DID NOT settle the question that climate change was actually caused by humans.

The government did not even try to argue that the scientific consensus had changed or that climate change was not proven to be caused by CO2. They government’s argument was  or that the original target was economically impossible. Indeed, a reduction of 25% by the end of 2020 will destroy the economy and cause unemployment to rise. That argument did not matter to the judges. Therefore, they did engage in a usurpation of dictatorial power.

Therefore, this decision in the Netherlands is not likely to prevail in most other jurisdictions. There is certainly no basis for this to be even made in the United States. This merely appears to be another nail in the coffin of the dying European economy.

COMMENT: So it seems that Greta Thunberg was not a true believer in climate change, but that her parents got her involved in the movement so as to help with her Aspergers and severe depression. Unbelievable–no wonder she seemed so unstable during her speeches.

MHB

REPLY: It has been well known that Greta Thunberg had severe depression issues. Her parents supported her activism as “medicine” for her depression. The Telegraph has revealed that this child has been really abused and exploited by Greenpeace’s Jennifer Morgan and Al Gore. Her father, Svante Thunberg, publicly acknowledges that he and his wife were “not climate activists” but made radical green changes to their lives as they saw the impact it had on their daughter’s mental health.

It is a real shame that this child has been exposed internationally. As the climate change agenda is exposed for the abuse that has taken place for a long time, Greta will suddenly be exposed to declining attention. What sort of  depression withdraw will she go through then? Such things can be dramatic and often lead to suicide in some situations. The exploitation of Greta should be a serious offense

COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, the data used by the climate change movement only dates back to 1850. Here in Switzerland, they state that the Alps Glacier peaked with Tambora in 1815 and has been retreating ever since. If the last Little Ice Age ended in 1850, the climate should have been warming naturally from that period. It is indeed getting colder with each year since 2015 as you have warned. It seems as though independently they confirm your forecast yet strangely claim there is global warming due to humans. One only has to scratch the surface to see these claims do not add up.

PN

REPLY: The current glacier retreat in the Alps, which is due to an instrumentally documented temperature increase, constitutes the
most recent phase of a retreat period that started after the last Little Ice Age maximum around 1855. Since that date, about half of
the Alps’ glacier area has been lost. This is by no means due to humans. It grew during the Little Ice Age and it indeed reached its peak during 1815/1816, which was “The Year Without a Summer” due to the volcanic eruption of Tambora that created a volcanic winter.

You cannot analyze all glaciers with the same criteria. Steep smaller glaciers change length more quickly (whether in advance or retreat) subsequent to climate forcing than large and relatively flat glaciers do. Consequently, the Great Aletsch, which is the Alps’ largest glacier, has continuously retreated since its last Little Ice Age maximum about 1850. However, other Alpine glaciers (Gepatschferner, Lower  Grindelwald, and Suldenferner) have re-advanced two or three times during the same period, especially around 1920 and 1980.

Anyone who looks closely at the data from glaciers will see the stark differences affect comparisons of the length change history of different glaciers. Short but strong mass gains during the volcanic “Year Without a Summer” in 1816 have also greatly resulted in dynamic reactions with fast and very rapid advances that a few Alpine glaciers have undergone. One example is the Suldenferner in very short time periods of just a year or two.

It is obvious that very specific topographical situations allow for such sensitive reactions to massive snow/ice mass gains which are dependent upon the dimensions of individual glaciers (1). Comparisons of the Holocene length-change history of Alpine glaciers are
usually based on the relative extents of the same glacier observed for the past 150 years. Therefore, the shape of a retreating glacier’s tongue, as they call it, can differ greatly from that of an advancing glacier and influence the interpretation of a glacier tongue’s relative position.

It is interesting to see how poorly the analysis has been put forth with the claims of shrinking glaciers attributed all to humans. They ignore the fact that not all glaciers are the same and begin with the assumption that the peak of the Little Ice Age in 1850 should be the norm. That is no different than trying to claim the stock market ONLY advances based upon looking at the data only since 2009. They clearly have a hidden agenda and pretend to be putting forth scientific proof which is skewed and manipulated.