Heidi Peltier is a “senior researcher at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and director of programs for the Costs of War Project.” For all her skills as a researcher, however, she doesn’t appear to be aware that the Obama administration ended the war on terror in 2012. What’s more, the waste she decries in the war on terror is largely derived from the fact that it was wrongly conceived from the beginning, and wrongly executed all the way through.
In any case, she wants an end to Wilsonian messianic interventionism, and that would indeed be a good thing. But she wants the resources of the U.S. government to be devoted instead to fighting “climate change,” apparently unaware of the fact that such a fight will be just as empty and fruitless as the “war on terror,” if not even more so. It is, to say the least, unproven that human activity has caused climate change, and even more unproven that human activity can fix the climate. What’s more, the activities proposed are all being undertaken by the U.S. and Western Europe, while China ignores the problem and benefits economically from the West’s self-abnegation.
She says: “Climate-related disasters have killed more Americans from flooding and wildfires than the 2,996 people who died in the 9/11 attacks.” That may be, but again, there is no proof that this was the result of something human beings did. There have been floods and wildfires throughout history. Nor is it certain that ending the use of the internal combustion engine etc. will solve the problem.
“It’s time to shift from the ‘war on terror’ to a war on climate change,” by Heidi Peltier, Guardian, November 7, 2021:
Large government bureaucracies are often slow to adapt to changing realities, such as the catastrophic threats we face in a warming world. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is no exception. New research from Brown University’s Costs of War Project shows that the DHS has been overly focused on foreign and foreign-inspired terrorism, while violent attacks in the US have more often come from domestic sources. A combination of willful ignorance and institutional inertia caused the agency to miss the rise in white supremacy and domestic terrorism that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
The new data from Dr Erik Dahl, Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, show that just one of the 46 failed terror plots in the US from 2018 through 2020 was directed by a foreign organization. In contrast, 29 plots were planned or carried out by domestic groups. In 2019, DHS finally acknowledged the growing threat of targeted violence and domestic terrorism borne mainly of far-right ideology and white supremacy and issued its first strategy document identifying these threats.
While we know now that the threat of violent attacks from domestic sources outnumber those from foreign sources, a bigger source of insecurity still is that of climate change. On October 21, the DHS released its first-ever “Strategic Framework for Addressing Climate Change,” acknowledging the importance of climate as a source of disruption and threat to security. As the COP26 UN climate meetings start this week, it’s time for a recognition that climate change is in fact a more expensive, more deadly, and more real threat to lives and to the US economy than the threat of what we call terrorism.
The “War on Terror” – a phrase born in the George W Bush administration – needs to be retired both as an action and a concept. The word “terrorism” instills a sense of fear and gives carte blanche for the US government to intervene around the globe….
Instead of wasting trillions of dollars and millions of lives fighting a war on terror, the US should be mobilizing to combat climate change….
Climate-related disasters have killed more Americans from flooding and wildfires than the 2,996 people who died in the 9/11 attacks….
CogitoErgoSum says
How much would it increase the U.S. national debt if we gave Joe Biden a daily dose of Gas-X to help reduce the amount of the methane being released into the atmosphere?
CogitoErgoSum says
“Pull my finger.” – Joe Biden
CogitoErgoSum says
“Oh my god.” – Pope Francis but also attributed to the Duchess of Cornwall.
somehistory says
“She can’t stop talking about it,” according to one reporter.
CogitoErgoSum says
I only hope the Duchess was wearing a face mask to lessen the physical impact of the incident if not the emotional trauma it must have caused her.
somehistory says
She was rather close to him, and maskless. in the photo I saw. Terrible to imagine.
CogitoErgoSum says
Oh my god.
Barbara says
She has not stopped talking about Biden’s fart, her on going noise pollution. The fart came and went, it has since stopped.
Infidel says
Funny you should mention that. Just now, on Rob Schmitt Tonight, he reported (in his ‘News from the Left’ segment) that the Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla Parker Bowles, the wife of Prince Charles) couldn’t stop talking about Biden loudly farting while he was near her ?
Not sure if it was methane that he emitted ? ?
raja says
?
E T says
My son and his family live in Florida, South Florida. I remember in 1987 the professor of Environmental Ethics telling the class that by 2014, all of Florida would be under water. I thought he was nuts. I believe my son when he sends me pictures, they are not under water. If only I could go there and see with my own eyes, but I am now classed as unclean because I refuse the injection.
somehistory says
Florida is not underwater. There was a guy I knew who was always saying that Florida was going to break off from the land mass that is the U.S. and float away or sink. That didn’t have either.
DeSantis is signing a new law to override the “mandates” that biden through osha is trying to force people, or starve us all out of being able to work and earn a living.
gravenimage says
E T, they justy keep moving the date:
“Scientist warns much of Florida will be underwater within next few decades”
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-unravelling-of-iraq-part-of-florida-soon-to-be-under-water-vera-peters-m-d-bill-t-jones-1.3198914/scientist-warns-much-of-florida-will-be-underwater-within-next-few-decades-1.3198923
Infidel says
Algore predicted in his movie Earth in the lurch that Bangladesh and the eastern parts of India would drown by 2014, if I recall right. Would that it had, then all the muslim-on-Hindu violence we have been seeing for the last few years would have disappeared, since everyone would be busy seeking higher ground
tim gallagher says
Out here in Australia, I just visited a website “Michael Smith News” which I haven’t visited very often lately. Michael Smith is a conservative journalist out here. I have seen many video clips of Joe Biden seeming very confused and probably displaying signs of dementia, mostly on Sky News out here. I don’t know much about Nancy Pelosi, but, on Michael smith News there is a video clip titled “Nancy Pelosi in full (as a boot) flight”. It is extraordinary. She seems to be as demented as Joe Biden. She seems to be making no sense at all in this bizarre video clip. I thought that people here at Jihad watch would be interested in this video clip if they can find it. As I said, I know almost nothing about Pelosi but this video is alarming.
Wellington says
Pelosi, tim, regularly makes no sense. She often slurs her words and talks nonsense. I’m not sure if she is a dingbat, an alcoholic, both or something else. She is, however, most definitely a vicious person and rules with an iron fist. She also has virtually no ideas that are sound and good. Her policies are simply terrible. The sooner she is gone from American politics the better.
somehistory says
“We have to pass the law so we can find out what’s in it.”
That’s all I needed to know.
Wellington says
Yeah, somehistory, that in and of itself, kinda’ said it all. There is something seriously wrong with the woman but what that something is I’m not sure.
somehistory says
Wellington,
I do not know either, but I hope it doesn’t “catch on” and spread to the rest of us.
Infidel says
She’s competing w/ Que Mala for the worst cackle in the Dem leadership. Did you hear her on Friday, when she was talking to reporters? She was asked whether the defeats in the elections changed her priorities, she said no, and then croaked, ‘heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh’
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comments. Wellington, somehistory and Infidel. I just got back from playing my weekly round of golf so I just read the comments. It is definitely very alarming to watch this video of Pelosi. I didn’t realise until now that she is similar to Joe Biden in sounding so confused and making no sense. They both seem to be far gone in their mental decline. To have such people in positions of power is extremely troubling. We have had some really dumb politicians here in Australia over the years but none that seem to be afflicted by dementia like these two people.
Wellington says
Man-made climate change is the greatest environmental hysteria of all time and for which no hard scientific evidence exists, only such things as correlation studies, abstract hypotheticals and computer model projections, none of which constitute scientific evidence and each of which has a notorious track record for accuracy.
BUT, man-made climate change has been passed off as fact for so long that averring to the contrary will regularly result in one being dismissed by a multitude. For me, it serves as a classic example of how the general consensus is so very often dead wrong. For instance, that FDR’s New Deal got America out of the Depression. No it didn’t; it prolonged it and FDR was fortuitously bailed out by all the production necessary once America got into WWII.
gravenimage says
+1
Infidel says
The thing about climate change is that it’s not an easily predictable science. Yeah, there is science and math involved, but when you have some 40+ variables – be it temperature, water vapor, CO2, humidity, dust component, et al, there are so many scenarios from what might happen that it makes it difficult to predict beyond a 24 hour period.
It’s funny that the same people who scream ‘Trust the science’ on meteorology and vaccines are the ones who believe that people can voluntarily switch from male to female back to male over days, almost like changing clothes after a shower
somehistory says
It’s “their truth”….”my truth” is whatever I want it to be, according to those who say the “my truth” thingy. Except for some of us, who don’t get to have a truth, even the Real Truths…such as two genders and each is born as one or the other and wishing won’t make it different.
James Lincoln says
Wellington says,
“…the general consensus is so very often dead wrong. For instance, that FDR’s New Deal got America out of the Depression. No it didn’t; it prolonged it and FDR was fortuitously bailed out by all the production necessary once America got into WWII.”
Yes, my own father told me that years ago. It was American mass production – necessary for military support – that pulled the United States out of the Great Depression.
He never mentioned FDR’s New Deal as the reason.
Derek says
Why can’t these zombies realize that it is not a choice that one is exerting between the two issues that can render humankind extinct. Choosing between them is silly.
Walter Sieruk says
It isn’t so much fighting a “War on Terrorism” as it’s actually fighting Muslim terrorism and the ideology of Islamic terrorism, of which Muslim terrorism in based on.
Furthermore,,to be more clear, this senior researcher at the Watson Institute had not only misunderstood this this conflict and problem is, in a large part, a war on the ideology of jihad terrorism.
Heidi Peltier apparently has lost perspective, even assuming that she had the right view of the subject at the start, meaning that she had taken her “eye off the ball” by shifting focus away from what is all about, which post -9/11 clash is all about which the ideology and problem of Muslim terrorism is all about ,which is countering the violent, deadly and destructive type of terrorism which is based on Islam..
Phil Copson says
As Oscar Wilde never said: “Royal receptions are simply the Parker-Bowles in full retreat from the Farter-Bowels…..”
Christopher Watson says
This is a serious question. I am not a scientist or a technician. The country where I live has 32 million cars. So far it has 400,000 electric vehicles. These vehicles need to be re-charged. Every normal day there is a surge in demand in the early evening when millions of ordinary workers come home. They have supper; they take showers; they watch TV and they have cups of coffee. What will happen when a few million cars are suddenly added to the grid to re-charge. How will the power stations cope?
Infidel says
That’s precisely the point: solar or wind is not gonna support that extra load. Hydro could, and nuclear definitely would. In reality, the ‘green’ movement is one of watermelons: green on the outside, red in the inside, as Rush Limbaugh once described it (and here, red means communist, not Republican)
Air quality is what matters, and it’s pretty good in the West. Countries like China and India are where it needs to be improved
James Lincoln says
Infidel,
I agree with you on a nuclear power.
In the coming decades, there will be a huge demand for electricity – both reliable and clean.
somehistory says
https://www.gopusa.com/shadow-president-obama-speaks-for-us-on-climate-change/
“Shadow President? Obama Speaks For US On Climate Change
EFE News Services | Nov 9, 2021 “