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Gruß EUKLID

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-->Das hier mailte ich am: February 02, 2004 5:52 PM
(Subject: Pentagon's Weather Nightmare CLIMATE COLLAPSE radically & fast)

Zuerst kam in der Mail eine Einschätzung von Mark Hazlewood, dann der brisante Fortune-Artikel. In eckigen Klammern zitierte Hazlewood in seinem Kommentar wichtige Ausschnitte aus dem Fortune-Artikel.
Hazlewood ist einer der prominentesten Verfechter der Planet-X-Thesen.
Gruß
RK


Pentagon's Weather Nightmare CLIMATE COLLAPSE radically & fast

Mother of all national security issues may hit home sooner and
harder than we ever imagined.

The 1st tier scientists that consult the Pentagon are fully aware of
what the main cause of global warming is, namely the Sun's increased
output from the interaction with passing and approaching extra-solar-
objects. They know what is approaching and have their expected when.
Consequently they've decided to give us a warning of what is
expected with the words and terminology that are allowed given the
censorship of the core data, namely Planet X.


Pay attention to their slightly veiled warnings when they state:

[It may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. Abrupt
climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. How
close the system is to a critical threshold; suddenly it flips over.
Over the past decade, data have accumulated suggesting that the
plausibility of abrupt climate change is higher than most of the
scientific community, and perhaps all of the political community,
are prepared to accept. The data shows that a number of dramatic
shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking
speed—in some cases. A few years ago such changes seemed signs of
possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem portents
of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we're history.]

They're giving us hints that they know catatrophism is real from
past ecological evidence, serious, and expected soon again.-mh

[The prospect has become so real the Pentagon's strategic planners
are grappling with it. The threat that has riveted their attention.]

They are and have been for decades working out what to do given the
seriousness of the reality they know we face-mh

[Scientists aren't sure what caused the warming that triggered such
collapses in the remote past. (Clearly it wasn't humans and their
factories.) But the data from Arctic ice and other sources suggest
the atmospheric changes that preceded earlier collapses were
dismayingly similar to today's global warming.]

Frankly I'm rather surprised and pleased that they clearly state in
parenthesis here that they know these rapid climate collapses from
the past are not human related. It's nice to see a little honestly
on this issue. Yet later on in the article they back peddle and
contradict themselves by saying we are the cause of current so-
called global warming. They know there is only one trigger for rapid
climate collapse, one force that is no on earth that has the energy
to do it, namely extra-solar-objects (passing or impacting). But,
they aren't allowed to mention it, only warn of what is expected-mh

[The need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies—thereby
upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.]

This is how the military or Pentagon has always approached the
issue. They've been working for decades to position themselves to
survive the aftertimes. Who will win out or be on top after the
earth changes is their concern not saving humanity.

How much clearer can these people be in saying what they know is
coming soon and is expected to be very serious. You know full well
their hands are tied as to naming the trigger.

Mark H


[http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,582584-
1,00.html]

Fortune Magazine Feb. 9, 2004 Issue

CLIMATE COLLAPSE
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the
mother of all national security issues.
By David Stipp


Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's
face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did
about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the
seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we
ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the
Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming,
rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be
pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests
the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can
lurch from one state to another in less than a decade—like a canoe
that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists
don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But
abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future.
If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies—
thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.

Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause
cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher
winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause
massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to
ashes. Picture last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing.
Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as
Pakistan or Russia—it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become
interested in abrupt climate change.

Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it a
decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in
ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of
dramatic shifts in average temperature took place in the past with
shocking speed—in some cases, just a few years.

The case for angst was buttressed by a theory regarded as the most
likely explanation for the abrupt changes. The eastern U.S. and
northern Europe, it seems, are warmed by a huge Atlantic Ocean
current that flows north from the tropics—that's why Britain, at
Labrador's latitude, is relatively temperate. Pumping out warm,
moist air, this"great conveyor" current gets cooler and denser as
it moves north. That causes the current to sink in the North
Atlantic, where it heads south again in the ocean depths. The
sinking process draws more water from the south, keeping the roughly
circular current on the go.

But when the climate warms, according to the theory, fresh water
from melting Arctic glaciers flows into the North Atlantic, lowering
the current's salinity—and its density and tendency to sink. A
warmer climate also increases rainfall and runoff into the current,
further lowering its saltiness. As a result, the conveyor loses its
main motive force and can rapidly collapse, turning off the huge
heat pump and altering the climate over much of the Northern
Hemisphere.

Scientists aren't sure what caused the warming that triggered such
collapses in the remote past. (Clearly it wasn't humans and their
factories.) But the data from Arctic ice and other sources suggest
the atmospheric changes that preceded earlier collapses were
dismayingly similar to today's global warming. As the Ice Age began
drawing to a close about 13,000 years ago, for example, temperatures
in Greenland rose to levels near those of recent decades. Then they
abruptly plunged as the conveyor apparently shut down, ushering in
the"Younger Dryas" period, a 1,300-year reversion to ice-age
conditions. (A dryas is an Arctic flower that flourished in Europe
at the time.)

Though Mother Nature caused past abrupt climate changes, the one
that may be shaping up today probably has more to do with us. In
2001 an international panel of climate experts concluded that there
is increasingly strong evidence that most of the global warming
observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities—
mainly the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which
release heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Indicators of the warming
include shrinking Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly
earlier springs at northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes
seemed signs of possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today
they seem portents of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait
until we're history.

Accordingly, the spotlight in climate research is shifting from
gradual to rapid change. In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences
issued a report concluding that human activities could trigger
abrupt change. Last year the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, included a session at which Robert Gagosian, director
of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, urged
policymakers to consider the implications of possible abrupt climate
change within two decades.

Such jeremiads are beginning to reverberate more widely. Billionaire
Gary Comer, founder of Lands' End, has adopted abrupt climate change
as a philanthropic cause. Hollywood has also discovered the issue—
next summer 20th Century Fox is expected to release The Day After
Tomorrow, a big-budget disaster movie starring Dennis Quaid as a
scientist trying to save the world from an ice age precipitated by
global warming.

Fox's flick will doubtless be apocalyptically edifying. But what
would abrupt climate change really be like?

Scientists generally refuse to say much about that, citing a data
deficit. But recently, renowned Department of Defense planner Andrew
Marshall sponsored a groundbreaking effort to come to grips with the
question. A Pentagon legend, Marshall, 82, is known as the Defense
Department's"Yoda"—a balding, bespectacled sage whose
pronouncements on looming risks have long had an outsized influence
on defense policy. Since 1973 he has headed a secretive think tank
whose role is to envision future threats to national security. The
Department of Defense's push on ballistic-missile defense is known
as his brainchild. Three years ago Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
picked him to lead a sweeping review on military"transformation,"
the shift toward nimble forces and smart weapons.

When scientists' work on abrupt climate change popped onto his radar
screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter Schwartz,
to write a report on the national-security implications of the
threat. Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group
and has since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to
DreamWorks—he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven
Spielberg's film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug
Randall at the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, a scenario-
planning think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate
experts and pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy
away from—at least in public.

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that
the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn't pretend to
be a forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario
to help planners think about coping strategies. Here is an abridged
version:

A total shutdown of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill
like the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the
coast of Portugal. Or the conveyor might only temporarily slow down,
potentially causing an era like the"Little Ice Age," a time of hard
winters, violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850. That
period's weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was mild
compared with the Younger Dryas.

For planning purposes, it makes sense to focus on a midrange case of
abrupt change. A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the
Northern Hemisphere that suddenly came on 8,200 years ago fits the
bill—its severity fell between that of the Younger Dryas and the
Little Ice Age. The event is thought to have been triggered by a
conveyor collapse after a time of rising temperatures not unlike
today's global warming. Suppose it recurred, beginning in 2010. Here
are some of the things that might happen by 2020:

At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather
variation—allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a"blip" of little
importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with
uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something
drastic is happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to
five degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia
and up to six degrees in parts of Europe. (By comparison, the
average temperature over the North Atlantic during the last ice age
was ten to 15 degrees lower than it is today.) Massive droughts have
begun in key agricultural regions. The average annual rainfall has
dropped by nearly 30% in northern Europe, and its climate has become
more like Siberia's.

Violent storms are increasingly common as the conveyor becomes
wobbly on its way to collapse. A particularly severe storm causes
the ocean to break through levees in the Netherlands, making coastal
cities such as the Hague unlivable. In California the delta island
levees in the Sacramento River area are breached, disrupting the
aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.

Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states,
along with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now,
causing widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better
positioned to cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse
growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That
has a downside, though: It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and
fosters bellicose finger-pointing at America.

Turning inward, the U.S. effectively seeks to build a fortress
around itself to preserve resources. Borders are strengthened to
hold back starving immigrants from Mexico, South America, and the
Caribbean islands—waves of boat people pose especially grim
problems. Tension between the U.S. and Mexico rises as the U.S.
reneges on a 1944 treaty that guarantees water flow from the
Colorado River into Mexico. America is forced to meet its rising
energy demand with options that are costly both economically and
politically, including nuclear power and onerous Middle Eastern
contracts. Yet it survives without catastrophic losses.

Europe, hardest hit by its temperature drop, struggles to deal with
immigrants from Scandinavia seeking warmer climes to the south.
Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries
in Africa and elsewhere. But Western Europe's wealth helps buffer it
from catastrophe.

Australia's size and resources help it cope, as does its location—
the conveyor shutdown mainly affects the Northern Hemisphere. Japan
has fewer resources but is able to draw on its social cohesion to
cope—its government is able to induce population-wide behavior
changes to conserve resources.

China's huge population and food demand make it particularly
vulnerable. It is hit by increasingly unpredictable monsoon rains,
which cause devastating floods in drought-denuded areas. Other parts
of Asia and East Africa are similarly stressed. Much of Bangladesh
becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which
contaminates inland water supplies. Countries whose diversity
already produces conflict, such as India and Indonesia, are hard-
pressed to maintain internal order while coping with the unfolding
changes.

As the decade progresses, pressures to act become irresistible—
history shows that whenever humans have faced a choice between
starving or raiding, they raid. Imagine Eastern European countries,
struggling to feed their populations, invading Russia—which is
weakened by a population that is already in decline—for access to
its minerals and energy supplies. Or picture Japan eyeing nearby
Russian oil and gas reserves to power desalination plants and energy-
intensive farming. Envision nuclear-armed Pakistan, India, and China
skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers,
and arable land. Or Spain and Portugal fighting over fishing rights—
fisheries are disrupted around the world as water temperatures
change, causing fish to migrate to new habitats.

Growing tensions engender novel alliances. Canada joins fortress
America in a North American bloc. (Alternatively, Canada may seek to
keep its abundant hydropower for itself, straining its ties with the
energy-hungry U.S.) North and South Korea align to create a
technically savvy, nuclear-armed entity. Europe forms a truly
unified bloc to curb its immigration problems and protect against
aggressors. Russia, threatened by impoverished neighbors in dire
straits, may join the European bloc.

Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Oil supplies are stretched
thin as climate cooling drives up demand. Many countries seek to
shore up their energy supplies with nuclear energy, accelerating
nuclear proliferation. 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.

The changes relentlessly hammer the world's"carrying capacity"—the
natural resources, social organizations, and economic networks that
support the population. Technological progress and market forces,
which have long helped boost Earth's carrying capacity, can do
little to offset the crisis—it is too widespread and unfolds too
fast.

As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern
reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water,
and energy supplies. As Harvard archeologist Steven LeBlanc has
noted, wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries
ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25% of a population's adult
males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may
again come to define human life.

Over the past decade, data have accumulated suggesting that the
plausibility of abrupt climate change is higher than most of the
scientific community, and perhaps all of the political community,
are prepared to accept. In light of such findings, we should be
asking when abrupt change will happen, what the impacts will be, and
how we can prepare—not whether it will really happen. In fact, the
climate record suggests that abrupt change is inevitable at some
point, regardless of human activity. Among other things, we should:

• Speed research on the forces that can trigger abrupt climate
change, how it unfolds, and how we'll know it's occurring.

• Sponsor studies on the scenarios that might play out, including
ecological, social, economic, and political fallout on key food-
producing regions.

• Identify"no regrets" strategies to ensure reliable access to food
and water and to ensure our national security.

• Form teams to prepare responses to possible massive migration, and
food and water shortages.

• Explore ways to offset abrupt cooling—today it appears easier to
warm than to cool the climate via human activities, so there may
be"geo-engineering" options available to prevent a catastrophic
temperature drop.

In sum, the risk of abrupt climate change remains uncertain, and it
is quite possibly small. But given its dire consequences, it should
be elevated beyond a scientific debate. Action now matters, because
we may be able to reduce its likelihood of happening, and we can
certainly be better prepared if it does. It is time to recognize it
as a national security concern.

The Pentagon's reaction to this sobering report isn't known—in
keeping with his reputation for reticence, Andy Marshall declined to
be interviewed. But the fact that he's concerned may signal a sea
change in the debate about global warming. At least some federal
thought leaders may be starting to perceive climate change less as a
political annoyance and more as an issue demanding action.

If so, the case for acting now to address climate change, long a
hard sell in Washington, may be gaining influential support, if only
behind the scenes. Policymakers may even be emboldened to take steps
such as tightening fuel-economy standards for new passenger
vehicles, a measure that would simultaneously lower emissions of
greenhouse gases, reduce America's perilous reliance on OPEC oil,
cut its trade deficit, and put money in consumers' pockets. Oh, yes—
and give the Pentagon's fretful Yoda a little less to worry about.

-->Wenn die Jungs dort ca. 50% der weltweiten Militärausgaben verbraten, wieso heisst das Dingens denn überhaupt noch Verteidigungsministerium












Hidden defense costs add up to double trouble

By David R. Francis

To measure actual spending by the United States on defense, take the federal budget number for the Pentagon and double it.
That's the"rule of thumb" advocated by economic historian Robert Higgs.

Early this month, President Bush requested $401.7 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) for fiscal 2005. So doubling that would make total defense/security spending close to $800 billion out of a total federal budget of $2.4 trillion.

In his budget message, Mr. Bush repeatedly notes the"war on terror" in referring to defense, though most of those outlays have little to do with that, according to Mr. Higgs, editor of the Independent Institute's quarterly review.

Like other defense analysts, he adds to the Pentagon cost number the nuclear-weapons activities of the Department of Energy, including cleanup of radiation-contaminated sites. Bush wants Energy Department scientists to develop nuclear"bunker busters" and other new weapons. Energy's total defense spending: at least $18.5 billion, reckons Higgs.

An oft-noted omission from the DoD's 2005 budget is the extra costs for activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. For fiscal 2004, a supplemental appropriation last November provided $58.8 billion for that purpose. The Defense Department hasn't yet put a number on 2005 costs, arguing before Congress that it was unknown.

"They wanted to avoid sticker shock prior to the election," says Christopher Hellman, an analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

But the White House's Office of Management and Budget indicates the 2005 cost would be about $50 billion. Monthly defense expenditures in the two nations - the"burn rate" - are running between $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion per month.

There are more hidden defense costs. Higgs includes some $4 billion in"foreign military financing" plus other foreign aid made with defense goals, rather than economic development, in mind. For example, the US offered Turkey $6 billion to defray the cost of an Iraq war if American troops were allowed to pass through the nation - a deal the Turkish parliament rejected.

Higgs estimates the State Department and international assistance programs"arguably related" to defense add at least $17.6 billion to defense costs.

Other defense-related costs include care of veterans - hospitals, nursing homes, disability payments, pensions, etc. The Bush budget calls for $67.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2005.
[Mein lieber Scholli, das ist das dreifache von dem was die Bundeswehr zur Verfügung stehen hat]

Another cost Higgs sees as a matter of defense is the Department of Homeland Security. Bush wants $31 billion allocated here next year.

The largest item noted by Higgs is interest on the national debt related to defense spending. Higgs calculates that the proportional amount for every year from 1916 - when the debt was nearly zero - through 2002 comes to 81 percent of the total debt held by the public. The interest charges he attributes to defense came to $138.7 billion in 2002.
[Weltmacht waren die USA erst seit WK I, womit wir wieder bei Dottotes Theorie der immer weitergehenden Zedierung bzw. Verschuldung zur Machterhaltung gelangt wären]

With many numbers still unavailable, Higgs hasn't finished his calculations for fiscal 2004. But doubling the DoD budget request won't overstate the truth by much, he says.

[In dieser Rechnung fehlen allerdings noch der CIA mit einem Budget von gut 20 Mrd. Dollar sowie ein gutes Dutzend weiterer Geheimdienste]

The unwillingness of the Bush administration to ask Congress for extra money for Iraq will have"real consequences," says Winslow Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Center for Defense Information. To cover additional costs, DoD will"raid" its operations and maintenance accounts. He says that will mean less training for troops and poorer maintenance of military equipment.

Some troops in Iraq lack sufficient body armor and equipment needed to storm buildings, says Mr. Hellman. Soldiers have also reportedly asked families to buy expensive night-vision goggles for them.

Mr. Wheeler terms the Higgs numbers"a legitimate exercise to calculate all conceivable costs of national security."

Other defense analysts don't go along entirely with Higgs's accounting methods. Yet they do agree that the true cost of defense is many billions more than the DoD budget. It's"far in excess of what is formally acknowledged," says Loren Thompson, an analyst at the conservative Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.

The US is"last of the big-time spenders" on defense in the world, notes a table from Hellman's Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

<font color=#FF0000>At the moment, Petter Stålenheim at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute figures the US will account for between 45 and 50 percent of the world's military spending in 2003. The US boosted spending by 6 percent last year; </font>Britain raised defense spending 1 percent; France 1.8 percent, and Russia 14 percent, says Mr. Stålenheim. Germany cut spending a little. Italy fell 8 percent. The Bush budget for 2005 calls for a 7 percent hike in DoD spending.

Right now, Wheeler says, <font color="#FF0000">the defense budget is"gigantic... compared to any potential foe."</font>

Though US defense costs are high, Democrats are not likely to push for cuts in an election year when polls indicate the public perceives Republicans as stronger than Democrats on defense issues.

Critics charge that defense spending includes too many wasteful"cold war legacy" programs. Here, says Mr. Thompson, critics tend to agree with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He has been pushing for"transformation" of defense spending by closing unneeded bases and shutting down weapons programs unsuited to today's wars or threats.

With huge budget deficits, the nation can't afford such out-of-date weapons systems and programs, Hellman says.
<ul> ~ Quelle</ul>