Better Be Quick if You Want to Visit Holland

From the desk of Jos Verhulst on Mon, 2007-01-08 21:09

If any of our readers is considering a visit to the Netherlands in the near future they had better be quick. Very quick, because the country is going to be flooded over in the coming months. Three years ago, on February 22, 2004, The Observer (the Sunday edition of al-Guardian) published an article “Now the Pentagon tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us,” warning that in 2007 violent storms caused by global warming will smash the Dutch coastal barriers. The paper announced that in 2007 large parts of the Netherlands will become “uninhabitable” and that cities like The Hague, which contains the residences of the Dutch Queen, Parliament and Government, will be “abandoned.” Those of you who wish to visit the Mauritshuis Museum and see Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, hurry.

The Observer claimed to have read about the impending submergence of The Hague in a “secret report” which the Pentagon wrote for U.S. President George Bush. According to the report, global warming was a threat “greater than terrorism.”

“The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration,” The Observer wrote, and “will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.”

The article from The Observer was republished in a number of likeminded European papers, including the Brussels paper De Morgen, the Belgian equivalent of al-Guardian, in its issue of February 23, 2004. De Morgen even headlined on its front page that the evil Bush had ordered to hush up the report.

The Pentagon report allegedly also stated that by 2010 Europe will begin to witness a temperature drop which will turn Britain into Siberia. Access to water will become a major battleground in the Danube area while European countries will become virtual fortresses to prevent millions of migrants and boatpeople from entering after being forced off land drowned by sea-level rise. In other words: the migrants will be Dutch.

Next month (presumably to warn children in nearby Belgium about the impending catastrophe in the neighbouring Netherlands later this year) the Belgian Ministry of Education is giving a dvd of Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to every high school in the country.

@Fat Albert

Submitted by Vincep1974 on Tue, 2007-01-09 18:12.

Seems like you learned a good lesson in reading something carefully before jumping to conclusions.

Fair is fair

Submitted by marcfrans on Tue, 2007-01-09 18:07.

@ roughdoggo

 

I think that you make an interesting point about the need for authorities to plan for a number of possible scenarios.  But, at the same time, I do think that you have NOT dealt with Mr Lee's point or complaint, and that you are NOT treating the author (Verhulst) fairly. 

Presumably, the author "dredged up" old articles from a certain European press because we are now in 2007, and those sensationalists made ridiculous 'predictions' in 2004 about 2007.  In other words, the author wants to hold journalists accountable for their sensationalist reporting and other nonsense!  From his sarcastic title it should be obvious that he did not mean to comment on "the intent of Schwartz-Randall".  No, he meant to 'comment' on the bad political intentions of "al-Guardian, De Morgen..." and so many other well-poisoners and underminers of western civilisation.  

Time to buy a house boat

Submitted by Amsterdamsky on Tue, 2007-01-09 10:21.

Dutch are prepared!  Honestly I would rather look at water outside my front door than the massive piles of dog shit I wade through every time I leave my house in the morning.  There are planned communities of floating houses here already for just such an emergency.  I am sure we have already purchased salvage rights for the rest of europe for after the big flood.

Fat Albert

Submitted by roughdoggo on Tue, 2007-01-09 15:07.

With reply to Mr. Lee: Let's be direct. Jos Verhulst has not misrepresented his repetition of the Observer's reportage of 2004, but he has nowhere made it clear that it is misreportage. It rather seems that by showing the journalism to be foolish, he is tarring the implications of the Randall-Schwartz report with the same brush. Certainly, the first responses to his post seem to have interpreted this as his intent.
You imply somewhat oddly that my suggestion - namely, that the cause of climate change is immaterial with regard to any future strategic situation - is incorrect. Allow me to make my point again: regardless of causation, the end result, or final equlibrium system reached by the environment as a result of ongoing climatic processes that appear to be irreversible, will be the same. It won't matter, in other words, if George did it or Mother Nature. No use crying over spilt milk and pointing fingers. What's important is for the people running the world's countries to take into account any number of possible future scenarios - or situations, if you will - and plan accordingly to preserve the lives, property and well-being of their citizens. And that is what Schwartz-Randall, the military and others are doing; it's what they're paid for.
The Jos Verhulst post, with its dredging up of a sensationalist article three years old, without saying directly that it misrepresents the intent of Schwartz-Randall, somehow reminds me of that old Cosby routine Revenge, where our young hero stashes a snowball in his freezer to take reprisal in the summer. It all smacks of setting up a straw man.

@roughdoggo

Submitted by Frank Lee on Tue, 2007-01-09 05:33.

I'm glad you clarified what the original report was saying, but Jos Verhulst has not misrepresented the Observer's misuse of that report.  And you suggest that it's immaterial if the current warming is natural or man-made.  But the cause of the warming is very material:  if the warming has natural causes, then the extreme villification of Bush and the United States regarding global warming is complete bullsh*t and has further alienated Europe from America for no reason.

End-time

Submitted by Bob Doney on Tue, 2007-01-09 02:31.

The temperature outside here this evening (in southern England) is 13C. It's rained nearly every day for the last three months. There are still drought orders in force. We are not allowed to use hosepipes, though quite why we should want to with our gardens waterlogged or under water is beyond me. It's becoming increasingly difficult to disentangle what's crazy climate and what's crazy human behaviour.

Aiyeee, Gunga, it is Gore, the Great Shaitan

Submitted by roughdoggo on Tue, 2007-01-09 03:15.

What is remarkable about this post and the replies to it is the fact that the actual report in question, easily available on the internet, clearly states that the authors are presenting a scenario, not a prediction. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall make it clear that specific details of abrupt climate change cannot be predicted accurately. The aim of their scenario is to outline possible consequences of an apparent trend, a sort of what if exercise, to explore the effects such change might have for national security. Again, they plainly and explicitly do not aim at an accurate forecast. The entire report is more along the order of a war game than a prophecy, unlike what of some the readers of secondhand accounts of the Randall-Schwarz paper writing here seem to think, including the hash served up by the Observer. Why not take look instead, guys, at what actually has been written, instead of distorted versions by less-informed types who have a political axe to grind? And regardless of whether current climatic trends are man-made or of natural causation, the end result in strategic terms will be the same. Because you don't like the messenger doesn't mean the problem will go away.

How can I say this.

Submitted by longun45 on Tue, 2007-01-09 01:57.

Anybody who believes the snake oil salesman is doing a public service is a bigger fool than the idiot papers who print the garbage he spews. 

I refer you to node/1663

Of course it will not be printed for the public to read in the newspapers.

Leftist Nirvana

Submitted by Flanders Fields on Tue, 2007-01-09 01:21.

I would think that the left would be happy....think of all the seals, whales and polar bears which will be saved!  The world will cuddle together for warmth while Yusef sings a ballad before prayers to glorious Allah.  Al will be the center of attraction and the children of Belgium will love Medina.

Inhabitable???

Submitted by oiznop on Mon, 2007-01-08 21:53.

Don't you mean uninhabitable?...Alas, more gloom and doom from the envior leftist wackos....Remember, according to Al Gore, we have 9 years and 20 days before the world comes to an end due to Global Warming! Don't believe me? Hit the link below. And another thing. Heaven forbid that National Defense be a top priority!

www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/enviro_wackos/algore10yearstodoom.guest.html