Norway to raise defence spending by a whopping 21 percent

Pmsl , classy that is mate .

Humans already have altered the climate of the earth at the fastest rate we have been able to identify. Yes the single cell organisms which changed carbon dioxide into sequestered carbon and oxygen made a bigger change but over many millions of years. The changes we have made have been done in under 250 years with by far the the biggest part over the last 70 years, ie within one persons life time.

Science doesn’t work like that. As more data is collected it either degrades or enhances the reliability of the theory. The evidence collected by thousands of research groups all point in the same direction that humans have altered the climate, not just the air but also the sea and other masses of water or ice.

On the other hand no one has been able to detect changes to the earths orbit which are unexpected and could explain the changes seen

I find it telling that the majority of self declared experts on here spouting off about climate change are not addressing nor replying to this post (nor your other below post), but are simply creating their own arguments to which they are then replying.

Just to add to the above, a lot of UK research science is funded by grant money. If people with vested interests are providing that grant money, it is going to skew the things that scientists look at. This is the case for a lot of climate change items. As you say, it is a vastly complex subject, and you cannot really draw accurate conclusions from just focusing on one element of it.

Furthermore, it has come to light over the past few years there is in fact a degree of censorship regarding what is included in the main scientific journals, which again can provide a further blocker to items that go against or provide an alternative viewpoint to mainstream narratives.

We know pretty well how quickly our planet has changed temperature in the past we also now how the numbers of species changed in that timeframe as well as the atmospheric composition.

as I stated in all previous episodes of cooling or warming it generally takes a geological age for temperature to shift significantly. If we take one example of catastrophic change and warming period the ever famous Permian – Triassic mass extinction event. Basically the eruption of the Siberian traps..linked in with other environmental feedback loops to pushed a huge amount of methane and co2 gas into the occeans and atmosphere..this killed about 80% of life on the planet..the change in temperature was a 5-9 degree increase in temperature over 2 million years….yes 5 degrees over 2 millions years killed most of the life on the planet and changed the occean chemistry as well as the composition of the very air itself.

Being conservative we have already seen a 1 degree up shift in 100 years…the big problem with this is that all the over drivers of climate change indicated it should have actually dropped a bit..only Co2 and methane can explain the rise. If you exclude all the planetary mechanics that sees shifts in climate now and then..you should never ever see a 1 degree rise in 100 years driven by co2 and methane and we have no documented evidence of it ever happing before..even when super volcanos have erupted.

If you’re an idiot you can bet against the scientific consensus and hope you don’t kill your species. personally I’m a professional assessor of catastrophes, I’ve had three main careers and I’m qualified in 3 things 1) environmental science 2) emergency care and healthcare as well as managing public health in crisis 3) managing complex and potentially catastrophic risks to life and limb in complex systems and management of disasters when it all goes wrong and people ignored my risk assessments or we got a black swan…so basically I have spent most of my working career and academic life studying the science around how our environment works, how human systems can manage disaster as well as studying how human systems can manage risk and what risks it can manage..i I’m telling you straight all my knowledge of almost 40 years is telling me humanity is heading for a catastrophe it cannot manage.

and if your in doubt the vast majority of the scientific community knew this was happening by the early to mid 1980s..I was taught this as an undergraduate in the 1980s. The scientific community knew that there was such power in the energy lobbies and a need for energy that without overwhelming evidence they would not move forward…even though that overwhelming evidence had been collected by the late 1990s ( when I moved from environmental science to healthcare and emergency care) the energy industry simply used the same tactics the tobacco industry had used. they paid a small number of people to cast doubt and do so over and over again, and even though for every 1 paid scientist there were hundreds producing good peer review research that showed the impact human caused global warming and the almost inevitable outcome, the small number of people saying over and over there was doubt stuck and even today people like yourself are fooled into the dialog..and the reason this is so powerful and what the smoking lobby realised is every paper ever produced has a level of error and a level of uncertainty and scientists and risk managers will never ever say for 100% certainty your going to die horribly..because they cannot, even when they know it’s almost inevitable it will happen.

.in my work I alway have to say something has a level of uncertainty even though when I say to a company it’s a “likely” risk that you will kill xx number of people, what I mean is it’s at least 50/50 and your an idiot if you don’t plan for it to occur and try to prevent it as xx number of people to die if it does”…in the case of a 4-6% rise in temperature billions will die and we will be lucky to keep human civilisation together.

Because of what I do.I’ve read risk assessments on this you have probably never seen and I remember one statement very clearly ( it was a European Union risk assessment that was removed from circulation) and it stated of a 4+ degree rise…it is unlikely the international communities efforts would be adequate to mitigate against catastrophic harm in affected areas and these areas would be unlikely to continue to support large scale human populations ( the areas being Africa, India, Middle East, china and South Asia, Australia and parts of north and South America). As a manager of risk in complex and large systems, that is the sort of bland statement I have written in risk assessments. So I know what they meant when they wrote that and simply put the European Union thinks that if we go above 4 degrees a huge part of the human population dies.

the very last little thing I will leave you with is crop yields, something I studied a lot as an environmental scientist…at preset 850 million people have inadequate food supplies and are malnourished and at constant risk of starvation . We are looking at the population growing rate of almost 1% per year peaking at 10.5 billion people in 2080..that means even to stand still we need to increase crop yield by 1% a year…up to around a 20% increase. But in the 11% most climate effected areas crop yields have dropped 70% since 1982…on average across the globe crop modelling predicts for every 1 degree rise in global temperature we will loss 10% of the worlds food production. Infact the most up to date model suggest that we will loss 25.7% of our worlds food production by 2080 even with what we are doing now…so we have amost a billion people suffering malnutrition today and a global population rising by 1% a year..with predicted increase of 3 billion, we will drop per food production by a quarter because with modelled loss of over a quarter of the worlds food production within 65 years…what do you think is going to happen…

I as a risk manager will give you an assessment

Evidenced by per reviewed crop modelling, there is a likely risk of catastrophic loss of food production within a 60 year timeframe, the worlds systems and governments will be unlikely be able to mitigate loss of food production and support the nutritional needs of the world’s population. Due to both an increased population estimated to hit a peak of 10.5 billon and modelled reduction’s in crop yields there is a likely risk that by 2080 there will be 5-6 billion individuals with inadequate food supplies to maintain adequate nutritional input required for sustainable biological function.This core resource crisis will likely lead to a breakdown of the international order and a likely requirement for individual populations to gain control of the 3.5% of the worlds surface area not affected by crop yield reduction. Leading to a likely risk of destruction of human civilisation 5 ( likely) x5 ( catastrophic)= total risk score 25 ( please input on your corporate, national and extra national risk register).

MAYTE y hve pteea lof dte here, wfi abi a bad thing, Ere fool sdrdagul 9 hi gilluwro) tgg todge Wntof glob

Klonkie I think you win the most typos per line award in the history of the world 😂🤣

Mate – I’m so embarrassed!

Klonkie,

Thought at first that you were making a statement in either the Irish Gaelic or Welsh language. 🤔😳😉😁

Bore Da USAF, hold on there, I’m Welsh and I do not spell that bad, I Hope. Welsh and ex-Royal Signals what a combo, all we needed was a code talker section and we’re off.

Maybe Batco. Remember that one ?

My bad Ron, so sorry!

Good chuckle.

I’m very embarrassed! Ironically I have a Welsh lineage back to my great grand parents! 😬

H Jonathan- please ignore my post – littered with typos, apologies!

If your body feels warmer it can be due to several reasons, turned up heating, putting on a coat, doing more exercise.

If all you have is a record of temp then you don’t know which caused the temp rise.

However if you are getting warmer year by year and you notice that you put on an extra tee shirt each year then you know it’s due to the build up of tee shirts. The temp may go up more one year due to exercise or even go down because the heating was off.

It’s even more obvious when you can record the heating temp and see it’s constant and monitor exercise and find it doesn’t change much.

This is why global warming and other changes to our climate are beyond scientific doubt.

👍

Yup, the Flat Earthers are out in force today.

unfortunately the energy producers ( who had by the end of the 1970s some pretty good evidence they were going to end humanity and possibly all life on earth through catastrophic warming) knew a couple of things about selling destruction…all you have to do is cast doubt and for that you don’t even need any evidence your correct..you just have to keep saying the other side cannot be 100% sure. And even if the other side has massive amounts of evidence..actual scientific methods mean you will never say you are 100% sure..so even though it was all over the peer review sciences journals in the 1980s ( when I did my environmental science degree) no traction could be gained…even now as we are a witnessing the changes in real time as our ocean temperatures rise..it just takes a couple of paid jokers to shout..”but they are not 100% sure” and ( metaphorically ) everyone jumps in front of the speeding train and goes “yippy party on the tracks”..”they are not 100% sure the speeding train will run us all over”..”we are sure it will have to stop” because ..”we are superior human beings and physics will bend to our wills”..even though any serious person will tell them they are 99.99% sure that the train cannot stop and they are all going to die…it was the same with smoking, the same with sugar, the peer reviewed evidence is irrelevant because a meaningful proportion of the population have not a bit of ability to actually measure the risks from the evidence base and then picture what catastrophic harm means or that it does actually happen to people like them and they can and will actually die horribly if that evidence based risk is actualised..I cannot tell you the number of conversations I have had with very clever people, who simply could not accept that catastrophic risks do actually occur and become actualised, then when it happens look at me and ask how would I then clean up the mess..it seems to be a human blank spot.

It’s not man made tho. There are just as many scientists say it’s a con as there is endorse it , how many different names do you post under ? I count 4 so far and you seem to be an experts on all subjects

It literally is man made tho.

Oh and since you seem to struggle with counting, that would explain why you have difficulty understanding science.

I post under 1 name.

3 or 4 accounts each a subject matter expert . In other words , googled 🤣

Not at all shocked that the climate change denier sees conspiracies everywhere.

1 account my guy. But please, do enlighten us, who else do you think I post as?

I have heard a lot of climate scientists say it’s true and only a handful say it’s false, and all the latter seem to have connections to the fossil fuel industry. It doesn’t seem like 50/50 to me, more like 99/01 in favour of anthropogenic change. However that doesn’t matter as we all now agree that climate change is happening.

I want my local Fire Brigade to try to put out fires and not wait for the results of a lengthy arson investigation while the house burns down.

Boomers with access to iPhones are a dangerous breed.

Maybe they should stick to talking about defence issues rather than climate science. It’s clearly far out of their depth.

No there is not, that’s is so utterly wrong, there are a very few who cast some doubts, the vast and overwhelming scientific consensus supports it..just actually go and read the respected peer reviewed science journals and not some random view on line..I’ve a degree on the subject and kept up with the evidence base since the mid 1980s so I know the scientific consensus that is held by the supermajority of scientists…the issue is that vast and wealthy interests take a few paid scientists and present them (using vast resources ) as having the same weight as the supermajority. Because the supermajority only publish in the peer journals that the public don’t read and the very few who are paid advertised across the globe…because to the public 10 research teams saying it 1000 times each across vast amounts of media and across decades where they can read it and see it is far more powerful a message that 10,000 research teams all publishing their findings in a peer reviewed journal that only scientists and students read.

the very same thing happened with smoking for the scientific consensus reached by 1953 was that smoking was profoundly dangerous. The tobacco industry tried a devastating new tactic..essentially a campaign to erode, condemn via confusion as it could not actually destroy the scientific consensus..but it could make it so the public did not understand what the consensus was.

I have put some quotes below on how the tobacco industry developed they way forward for removing the public discourse from the actual scientific consensus to “doubt “….no matter what the evidence base stated ( the oil industry basically took this strategy and are still using it).

the paper is “ inventing conflicts of interest, a history of tobacco industry tactics”. By Dr A M Brandt. You can also find many papers on how the oils industry took this methodology and that is why you think there is not a scientific consensus and I as someone who has studied the subject at degree level and have followed the evidence and consensus for 40 + years knows for fact the supermajority of scientists and evidence is that human influences global warming is as real as the chair you are sitting on and is going to kill billions of people.

“It ( the tobacco industry) moved aggressively into a new domain, the production of scientific knowledge, not for purposes of research and development but, rather, to undo what was now known: that cigarette smoking caused lethal disease. If science had historically been dedicated to the making of new facts, the industry campaign now sought to develop specific strategies to “unmake” a scientific fact”

“The goal was to disrupt the normative processes of knowledge production in medicine, science, and public health. In the conduct of this public relations campaign, the tobacco industry would markedly alter the historical trajectory of industry–science relationships”

“they should declare the positive value of scientific skepticism of science itself. Knowledge, Hill understood, was hard won and uncertain, and there would always be skeptics. What better strategy than to identify, solicit, support, and amplify the views of skeptics of the causal relationship between smoking and disease? Moreover, the liberal disbursement of tobacco industry research funding to academic scientists could draw new skeptics into the fold. The goal, according to Hill, would be to build and broadcast a major scientific controversy. The public must get the message that the issue of the health effects of smoking remains an open question. Doubt, uncertainty, and the truism that there is more to know would become the industry’s collective new mantra.”

By the late 1970s the evidence was there about man made climate change..infact it was the oil industry’s own Science divisions that provide it, by the mid/late 1980s when I started studying for my environmental science degree it was essentially the scientific consensus…the oil industry in one of the most cynical moves in history ( knowning full well they we’re likely destroying the future of humanity) adopted the strategy of the tobacco industry hook line and sinker..infact they actually hired the people who ran the tobacco industry anti science campaigns.

“The public in both the UK and other European nations are hugely underestimating the extent of the scientific consensus on climate change, according to a new study.
The UK public’s average estimate is that 65% of climate scientists have concluded human-caused climate change is happening – far lower than the reality of 99.9%, as revealed in previous academic research.1 “
source kings college London 2022.

Yes because as a species we are so very good at dealing with catastrophic issues before they happen..instead of pretending they don’t exist and they trying to bury all the bodies after….by 1953 we knew for a scientific fact ( we had scientific consensus) that smoking was going to kill huge numbers of our population and cause a massive health crisis..instead of doing the clever thing and banning or limiting tobacco, the tobacco industry managed to subdue the scientific consensus for a few generations and as such killed around 100 million people in the 20c alone and now smoking still kills 8 million people a year…governments go it right on that one…your living in cloud cockoo land if you think industry and government will act now just because a few billion people will die in and around the 2080s as our food production collapses.

🤣🤣🤣

Got an actual point to make?

What does Google say ?

So no.

What “lack of threat”?
They share a border with Russia!

Frank, do you really need me to go through a history of NATO-Russian relations since the Cold War?

Suffice to say, Norway has been under exactly zero threat of a defensive War with Russia until the 2010’s, and even after that, only by virtue of a NATO article 5 situation.

Granted, manpower is a definite constraint for the Norwegians, but $1+T should still underwrite the purchase of a reasonable amount of cutting edge weaponry. 😉 Would guesstimate that the Norwegian homeland defence plan consists of blocking/delaying actions to impede the Orcs until NATO reinforcements arrive. 🤔😳

Finland situation is very different, long border to Russia. When the Cold War ended, Finland continued with their conscription system, while Norway modernized military toward. UK-US model, with more professional soldiers. I think we should continue on that path, BUT we do have conscription, 30% do it, while in Finland 100% do it. The reserve numbers are wrong, after I did my military service, I could be mobilized until the age of 45. Norway is planning for 3 Brigades and make 50% do conscript service, long term this means we get 50% of the Finnish conscript reserve.

Our Cold War homeland defense strategy was very different from the Finnish one. The problem with northern Norway is logistics, no railway, few roads, massive mountain plateau in Arctic. It’s basically not possible to supply a front line down where Brigade Nord is located, unless having air superiority, supply from sea not possible either, Norwegian air force and navy might even be able to do the job alone.

I am not worried, Soviet Union was a much scarier neighbor than Russia is, going against the NATO air force in high north, is another ball game than what goes on in Ukraine.

General Patrick sanders and many others would disagree with you buddy

Pre-1939 the UK did NOT always spend around 2% of GDP. You can look at multiple datasets and none of them show that. Around 1930/31, the UK spent around 1.5% to 2.5%, the low point of 20th century spending. By 1934 it had risen to between 2.7% to 3.5%. By 1938 it was around 4.5% to 8%. Even by the most pessimistic datasets, in only 8 years of the 20th century did the spending drop as low as 2% or lower, in the late 1900s and early 1930s.

For a significant proportion of the latter half of the 19th century that spend was even lower than the early 1930s, primarily because corporate spend (such as the East India Company) and foreign spend on British-run local troops made up a substantial amount that doesn’t appear in the pessimistic datasets.

You’re making it up.

Except its known they have been building up stocks of essential war materials for 5 years to withstand a blockade; sort of thing we should be doing.

Yes, the main point was the “so many people do not realize that China is essentially operating on a war footing.” For the people that are aware, our governments (and much of the other western worlds) response to them is absolutely bemusing. It seems to be, put you head in the sand and not complain as long as we are making money. Even if the window to make money is getting smaller and smaller due to China essentially not “needing us” anymore.

I see our comments regarding the dubious nature of scientific research have disappeared. Speaking of funding bias etc

yes, during covid a certain person on this site was heavily pro v, but in a disingeneous way. Their stance was a “trust the science and the msm” which sounded reasonable, until it was combined with removing any and all comments that were questioning or not supportive of the v roll out.
You’ll also note that there is no recent article on the chagos.

I had noticed.

don’t get me wrong, im not some sort of nutty crank. Am just very aware of the political bias of certain people on this site, but also very appreciative that that the site exists.
I just have a wide eyes open sort of viewpoint, and post things expecting them to be removed if they touch on certain topics.
It is a shame, as if balanced and sensible views are posted they should be allowed to remain but it is what it is.

“Unbiased and current.” Sadly no mention of protecting freedom of speech. It is the controversial and unpopular speech that needs protecting most. The lonely voice in the wilderness raising the alarm. Sir Winston during the early 1930s comes to mind.

You don’t have to be here.

Very true. However I choose to be.

George, you denigrate the work of myself and my team, don’t you think it may be best moving on?

No one is removing your comments.

It’s okay, you can use my name.

Also, could it be that I haven’t written on it because I don’t know much about it? My god man, contribute one of you have a view.

Fair enough George. I appreciate your rebuttal, I had drawn a conclusion I thought was logical but has turned out to be incorrect wrt a chagos post.

I have had some comments removed (it may be due to them being replies to header comments that were removed, so were removed by proxy), but its something I’m not overly precious about and its not the be all and end all, I don’t really want to get into debating it here as my opinion is evidence based upon what I have previously seen. If I stop seeing it in future my opinion will change, but I can’t stress enough, that its not something I am overly bothered about.

Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate this site and the work you guys do very much. I do not want that to get missed. This site is unique in terms of the amount and frequency of the content it provides and to be honest I appreciate it greatly.

I suppose I am so used to it being so up to date that the lack of a chagos item stood out like a sore thumb (from which I drew the wrong conclusion).

Delving deeper, assessing each “axis of evil” threat. I still place Iran and islamisation in general, second for sound reasons. But this forum frowns upon contributors expressing opinions that go against the woke agenda. So what more can I say?
How about Iranian nuclear weapons, huge investments destroying Israel and ushering in the 13th imam. Centre for the Study of Political Islam/International

To be honest George as I said each is different and offers a different level of risk balances of harm vs likelihood…for pure potential harm in reality Russia still tops the field simply because Russia can potentially end humanity, it has enough nuclear warheads to essentially stop food production for well over a decade..but the likelihood of that happening is lower..where as Iran and its sponsored extremists are a lot more likely occurrence ( infact we know they are a constantly actualised risk ) but the level of harm they do is far far less the the total destruction of humanity. China is capable of triggering mad, but I don’t think it’s something they would ever do ( Russia could use nuclear weapons first, china would not) but they are now likely ( and I use that as a specific risk management term) to cause a conventional world war and are definitely already attacking politically.

But in reality I honestly think each nation will spark of the other..if you look at previous world wars, the post revolutionary wars/Napoleonic wars, WW1 and WW2 they all suffered the same model of global contagion..not as massive homogenous power blocks as we would have seen if the USSR and NATO had go to war..but with losely aligned nations following the flows of alliances and simply taking advantage of the power dynamics ( as Italy did in WW2)..because of this Russia, Iran, North Korea and China are not really separate risks..because once china goes to war with the U.S., Iran will take advantage in its region, Russia and its satellites will start snaffling European nations and North Korea will U.S. the fact the US is in a war of destruction to finish its own war of unification…You will then even possibly see contagion into Africa and even a low chance of it moving into South America….so they are not really separate risks..it’s all one.

Thank you for your very well presented arguments Jonathan. Assessing potential harm vs likelihood is a clear method of risk assessment. Indeed, I further agree that it is difficult to predict the actions of others. Especially those who do not share our western Judaeo-Christian morality and ethics. That in a nutshell is my primary point and main concern when it comes to guessing likelihood.

In my humble opinion our Russian european cousins share considerably more in common with us than either the CCP Chinese or theocratic Iranians and islamists ever can. Moreover, I firmly believe that our shared values with the Russian people were the reasons why nuclear deterrence and MAD worked for so long. 70 years of communism did not alter the nature of the Russian people with whom we share so much. Likelihood is the lowest of all.

I ask that you contrast the above with the very different insular nature of the Chinese people. Their culture/societal norms and long term patience are very different to those of the west. Communism has in later years strengthened their character and not changed it. (Just my considered opinion.) The CCP are far more likely to achieve their stated aim of global hegemony by means other than all out nuclear war. This is backed up by observing their covert activities and conventional military growth. In addition to growth in all types of WMDs. The global impact of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 lab release has not gone unnoticed by the PLA. Any lethal widespread attack using any WMD would rightly elicit an overwhelming nuclear response by the West.

As for the Iranian theocracy and fundamental islamists in general. Their culture and moral standards are as antagonistic to our own, as it is possible to be. Look no further than suicide bombing and martyrdom tendencies. An in depth study of islam and sharia, can be eye opening. Especially when one accepts the Ayatollahs stated aims. To usher in the age of the thirteenth Imam, via Armageddon and the assentation to paradise of the Shiites. Use of a small number of nuclear weapons delivered to certain locations globally to spark WWIII, becomes a very likely option. Global hegemony is not their aim. Again just my opinion and that of many others.

I wonder how long this reply will remain active.

I think with Iran, it is possible to creat the events for the government to be overthrown it’s profoundly unpopular with almost all of its population essentially hating it. It’s a classic example of if a small group of people are brutal enough they can hold the many in thrall, but with external support they could be removed..personally I think the west and the Middle Eastern monarchies should do unto Iran as it’s doing unto others and hammer it with massive levels of political warfare operations…

I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, nuclear weapons are easily operated by the few brutal Shiite fundamentalists. Capable of being deployed by many different methods. Shipping container and truck being the most worrying.

Mainly because he has no discernible ideas and no discernible policies? If he has he hasn’t made much effort to communicate them.

I thought the last lot were awful.

These clowns are worse – how is that possible?

Not worse. I’d take vague ideas over a trainwreck any day

Kier was the one telling everyone how bad the last lot were even when they were trying to tell us Ukraine was about to be invaded. Apparantly Boris having some birthday cake was worse than an invasion. Perhaps the British people will start taking a bit more notice of policy and ignore the character assasinations in future.

Jim, that makes me feel secure because ? It’s the funking idiots of this world that cause world wars and kill untold millions…infact the more he fucks it up the more likely we are to have a world war.

Hi Klonkie, not defence spending, the 7% is Harding itself for war, which is a wider set of expenditure than just defence..at present china is spending money like water on the following domains to prepare for war that go beyond defence

1) Harding of economy..it’s probably expending around 2% of GDP on Harding its industrial infrastructure and economy to be war ready.
2) internal security..china is mad on this..I think it has around 1.5million internal security personnel and more advanced monitoring per person than any other nation on earth ( it knows when are where it’s population moves about). This is probably close to 2% as well.
3) political warfare, it’s got two key agencies that are there to attack its enemies via political and none kinetic warfare, they have around 3 million personal.
4) the final bit is the traditional defences budget..which is 2% of gdp.

thanks for the detailed reply- that make much sense.