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Revolutionary War General John Stark, one of my ancestors, certainly thought there were “still loyalists around the War of 1812.”On July 31, 1809, Stark wrote to those who had invited him to attend a commemoration of the 32nd anniversary of the Battle of Bennington, fought August 16, 1777, a Patriot victory that Stark commanded in his capacity of a New Hampshire militia general (not as a Continental Army officer). Stark declined to attend, due to being 81 years old and infirmity making travel difficult, but appended to his letter a toast to be given: “Live free or die - death is not the worst of evils.” In 1945, the State of New Hampshire adopted the first part as the state “motto.”In the body of the letter, Stark noted that there were Loyalists during the Revolution, and asserted there were Loyalists still - although he does not use the term “Loyalist.” Here, in part, is what Stark wrote in July 1809:“You well know, gentlemen, that at the time of the event you celebrate [Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777], there was a powerful British faction in the country (called tories), a material part of the force we contended with. This faction was rankling in our councils, until it laid the foundation for the subversion of our liberties; but, by having good sentinels at our outposts, we were apprised of the danger. … These are my orders now, and will be my last orders to all my volunteers, to look to their sentries; for there is a dangerous British party in the country, lurking in their hiding places, more dangerous than all our foreign enemies ….”To understand what Stark meant by identifying “a dangerous British party in the country,” we need to examine the issue of labeling of movements and causes and principles.We are all familiar with the “labeling game” as a part of persuading masses of people. On abortion, one set of labels is “pro-choice” versus “anti-choice;” but another set of labels is “pro-abortion” versus “anti-abortion.” On immigration, one label is “undocumented immigrant” while the opposite is “illegal immigrant.”The labeling game forces people to declare which side of the issue they are on, even before they can begin to discuss the issue.On the issue we are examining, “loyalist” is the term most favorable to those who opposed the American Revolution; “tory” is the term least favorable to them.“Loyalist” implies that the person was motivated by the emotion of loyalty, and not by selfish economic or social-status considerations. Loyalty is considered generally by the public to be an admirable emotion to have; the worst that can be said about it is that a person who feels and acts on the emotion of loyalty is mistaken about the moral worth of the person or institution to whom loyalty is felt, and acted upon. A person who feels loyalty will often act in ways that are against that person’s own self-interest.“Tory,” by contrast, implied that the person was motivated solely by personal greed - that the person obtained economic benefits and status by being associated with Britain and its Royalty, ministers, and nobles.In Britain itself, personal advancement in government office, receipt of gifts of money and of estates, were self-interested reasons to support the Crown - in addition to benefiting from Britain’s military domination of ocean-trading.In America, even in the colonial years prior to the Revolution, there was not “on offer” to any Americans any holding of high government office inside Britain, nor any offer of gifts of money and of estates. Britain never established inside America an hereditary nobility.Never, from the very beginning of the first colonies in the early 1600s, and through the subsequent some 160 years, was any American summoned by any king to any palace in Britain, there to be invested in an impressive and honorable ceremony with the title and symbols of a duke, of a marquess, of an earl, of a viscount, or of a baron.Never was any American summoned over the ocean to be enrolled in any Royal or Noble order, such as the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle, or the Order of the Bath.There were a very few Americans - perhaps it is more accurate to say, persons in America - who claimed such a title, but always by descent from an ancestor in Britain. An excellent and important example is George Washington’s own mentor and supporter in youth, Thomas Fairfax, born in England in 1693. He was heir to the fifth Lord Fairfax, Baron Cameron, who died in 1719. Thomas Fairfax thus became Baron Cameron and 6th Lord Fairfax at the age of 26, while still living in Britain. He inherited Leeds Castle in Kent, and much other land, and also, American lands in Virginia, granted in 1664 and 1681 by King Charles II to his grandfather, in the region along the Potomac River known as the “Northern Neck.”Fairfax did not enter his American lands for another 16 years, until 1735, when Fairfax was 42. He loved the rustic lifestyle and decided to settle there, but he first returned to Britain for another 7 years, nailing-down his title and borders to American lands in the Privy Council, so that there could be no disputes about his lands. At age 49, he settled permanently in America in 1742. According to the Mount Vernon website, Fairfax was “the only English titled nobleman ever to reside permanently in the American colonies.” Fairfax never married and would never have children.In 1748, 55-year-old Fairfax hired 16-year-old George Washington to survey his Northern Neck lands. Fairfax’s resident estate agent was one of his own cousins, and Washington and a son of that cousin (of Washington’s own generation) hit it off well.Mount Vernon’s website tells us that Washington from ages 16 to 26 “was a frequent visitor to Greenway Court [Fairfax’s mansion]. … Washington's friendship with and sponsorship by Lord Fairfax was instrumental in the young man's rise to political and social prominence. The two frequently went fox hunting …. Fairfax supported Washington's successful bid for election to the House of Burgesses in 1758 …. The Lord also tried unsuccessfully to get Washington a seat on the Governor's Council in the early 1770s. Lord Fairfax, a Loyalist at heart for personal, ideological and monetary reasons, managed to avoid expropriation of his lands by the Patriot Virginia government, possibly because of Washington’s protection. By the time the Americans achieved independence, the baron was in his eighties and was careful to express no open opposition to the Revolution or its leader. … The bachelor baron of the Northern Neck died December 7, 1781 at Greenway Court, having lived to see the achievement of American independence made possible by his young protégé, George Washington.”Washington saw and admired the aristocratic life-style - but knew that as an American, he would never be part of it. He would always be a servant to them, never an equal to them.Britain’s oversight in not creating such a social class inside America is a fundamental reason why there was so little sentiment inside America to remain attached to the Crown.It is also a fundamental reason why the Americans so easily adopted the principle in the Declaration of Independence that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ….” By denying any American the elevation-in-status that noble titles mean, all the white men who wrote the Declaration were equal to each other, in terms of status and dignity, and none had ever had the opportunity to rise above any other. By refusing to consider raising even the most wealthy, the most intelligent, the best-educated, and the most articulate Americans, the most prominent and successful Americans, above any other Americans, the British ensured that even the most superior Americans - in terms of intellect, drive, and productivity - would proclaim the equality of all men. Because that equality is exactly what the British nobles and kings had taught these leading Americans to be true. They were all equal - but intolerably, all equally below the higher British classes, that no American had any chance of rising into.Thus, in America, the only economic incentive to support the Crown was in ocean-merchants and in the industries that benefited from having their goods sent over and sold over the oceans.In a study I researched in 2016 and 2017, and offered to the Social Science Research Network, which posted it online in September 2017, I examined in great detail the sentiments of the colonists in the period before July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence from King George III.In summary, that research shows that the founding of all of the colonies founded before 1763 was along the lines of today’s British Commonwealth. Each colony had its own elected legislature, which had a direct personal relationship to the Crown, without any interceding law-making role by the Parliament of England, by the Parliament of Scotland, or by the later (in 1707) combined Parliament of Great Britain.And thus, emotionally, in each colony, the people felt the same feeling of allegiance and loyalty to the King or Queen, that today’s Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders feel today.But in 1760, George III became king, at age 22. He was the grandson of his predecessor, George II, and great-grandson of George I, who were both basically Germans. His descent was almost 100% German - his mother Augusta was 100% German, from Gotha; his father Frederick was almost 100% German, born in Hanover, who didn’t enter Britain until he was 21; his grandmother Caroline was 100% German, from Ansbach; his other grandmother Magdalena was 100% German, from Anhalt-Zerbst; his other grandfather Frederick was 100% German, Duke of Saxe-Gotha.Young George, age 22, wanted to be accepted in Britain as British. On November 18, 1760, in his speech to Parliament on obtaining the Crown, George said “Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain.”The Parliament of Great Britain took advantage of George’s powerful emotional desire to be considered British, by passing and obtaining George’s consent to its very first law under his reign: the Civil List Act of 1760. By this Act - which each king and queen has also done since then, making it appear to be an ancient element of the Crown’s relationship to Parliament, but which in fact was a new innovation with George III - the king dedicated almost his entire independent income to Parliament, in return for Parliament making an annual fixed-sum payment of 800,000 pounds back to the king.The deal placed the king entirely in the hands of the Parliament of Great Britain for his living expenses and his other extensive “civil list” expenses.From the outset, the deal was a money-loser for King George III. In the last year of King George II, his independent income, now transferred to Parliament, had been 877,000 pounds - thus making a profit to Parliament of some 77,000 pounds. And the 800,000 pounds was too small to support the king’s expenses. During the 1760s, King George III was able to cover the net loss by drawing-down the surplus that his grandfather King George II had accumulated in the kingly coffers. By the end of the 1760s, the coffers were empty, and King George III had to ask Parliament for a supplementary payment.George III thus had to agree to any measures that the Parliament of Great Britain chose to pursue, to increase its income.At the time George III ascended to the throne, Britain was embroiled in a world-war with France, known as the Seven Years War. In January 1762, Spain joined the war on the side of France, against Britain. In 1763, Britain won this war; and in the peace negotiations, Britain gave France a choice: France could keep either Canada, or several rich sugar-islands in the Caribbean, excluding Grenada, which Britain had captured from France.France chose the islands and abandoned Canada. Spain, also a loser, agreed to give up its claims comprising today’s Florida and regions that are now part of Georgia.On October 7, 1763, King George III proclaimed the establishment of four new colonies: from France, Quebec (the name chosen for French lands in Canada) and the island of Grenada; from Spain, East Florida (basically the largest part of today’s Florida) and West Florida (basically today’s Florida panhandle).The other former Spanish lands, the King attached to the colony of Georgia.Today’s New Brunswick had always been, in British eyes, Nova Scotia land illegally occupied by France, and thus, this land went unmentioned in the Proclamation, since it was already considered part of Nova Scotia. The Proclamation also added today’s Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton and some other smaller islands. Other lands were attached to the existing colony of Newfoundland.Throughout this October 1763 Proclamation - nine times, actually - King George III states that he is acting “with the advice of our Privy Council” or “our said Privy Council.” Not once does the King mention the Parliament of Great Britain.Moreover, he states - by advice of the Privy Council and not mentioning Parliament - that in each new colony there shall be a governor appointed by the king, and a colony Council, and that in each colony the governors”“shall, with the Advice and Consent of the Members of our Council [meaning the colony council], summon and call General Assemblies within the said Governments respectively, in such Manner and Form as is used and directed in those Colonies and Provinces in America which are under our immediate Government: And We have also given Power to the said Governors, with the consent of our Said Councils, and the Representatives of the People so to be summoned as aforesaid, to make, constitute, and ordain Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances for the Public Peace, Welfare, and good Government of our said Colonies, and of the People and Inhabitants thereof, as near as may be agreeable to the Laws of England, and under such Regulations and Restrictions as are used in other Colonies ….”The King makes no mention of Parliament having any law-making role in any of the new colonies; and the King says that this is consistent with the “Manner and Form as is used and directed in those Colonies and Provinces in America which are under our immediate Government.” There were eight such colonies in what would become the United States, in which the governor and council were appointed by the King - including Virginia. Two (well, three) were under “proprietors,” wealthy British landowners: Maryland and Pennsylvania, which included Delaware. Two had elected governors and councils, Connecticut and Rhode Island; and Massachusetts had an elected Council.The experienced bureaucrats who drafted the October 7, 1763 Proclamation were just following the long-established precedent of establishing colonial governments in America - which never included any place for any power of Parliament. In 1755, during the reign of King George II, shortly prior to the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756, prominent lawyer William Murray, later to become Justice Lord Mansfield, considered where lay the power to make laws in a settled colony (Nova Scotia) prior to the convening of the first elected representative legislature of that colony.The future Lord Mansfield ruled that “Till there can be an Assembly, his Majesty has ordered the government of the infant colony, to be pursuant to his commission and instruction, and such further directions as he should give, under his sign manual or order in Council.” Here, the King by “his sign manual or by order in Council” has the power to make laws until the colonial government has fully formed - and there is no mention of the Parliament of Great Britain having any power or role at all in making laws in the colony.Then, on March 22, 1765, Parliament adopted and King George III approved the “Stamp Act,” which required that colonial legal transactions, real estate title documents, court orders and decisions, newspapers, and many other categories of documents could be written only upon paper that had been pre-printed with a tax-paid stamp, and imported from Britain. This was a tax on the internal governmental and economic transactions everywhere in every colony.Benjamin Franklin in London, and leading Americans in America, had opposed the law on policy grounds, but when Parliament adopted it anyway, some, including Franklin, and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia - future patriot leaders - promptly tried to take personal advantage of it, by getting friends or relatives appointed to be Stamp Act administrators inside America.But the Stamp Act provoked an unexpected and vociferous opposition inside America - so vehement that Franklin, Richard Henry Lee, and others immediately reversed course, condemned the Stamp Act, and tried to cover-up any evidence that indicated that they had thought to benefit from it.The Prime Minister who had led the Stamp Act into law fell, and was replaced on July 10, 1765, by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham - the same man who, when again Prime Minister in March 1782, would initiate the effort to end the Revolutionary War by accepting American independence (the subject of one of my Quora answers yesterday). The switch to Rockingham in July was not due to Stamp Act protests, since news of these did not reach Britain until October 1765.Rockingham, assisted by Edmund Burke, promoted sentiment inside Britain for repeal of the Stamp Act. On February 13, 1766, Parliament held hearings, and invited Benjamin Franklin to speak. Franklin declared that if the Stamp Act were not repealed, the result would be “A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection.”This is a statement of the loss of the sentiment of loyalty - which is the subject of this question.Parliament on February 21, 1766 repealed the Stamp Act, to which King George III gave Royal assent on March 18, 1766.However, simultaneously with this, Parliament enacted and King George III adopted The Declaratory Act, which stated:“That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the King's majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever, And be it further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings, in any of the said colonies or plantations, whereby the power and authority of the parliament of Great Britain, to make laws and statutes as aforesaid, is denied, or drawn into question, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.”Here are the statutes in the original printing, available on google books:My study on SSRN traces the process by which the colonists became convinced that King George III would enforce this despite all their arguments and evidence, expressed in the various petitions etc. of the first Continental Congress in 1774, and of the second Continental Congress in 1775.Throughout this period, the Americans declared and felt loyalty to the king - but opposition to the Parliament.Parliament’s program would reduce all Americans to second-class status, stripped of self-government through their own elected assemblies, which had been a core element of government from the founding of all the colonies through the Proclamation of October 1763.On 4 February 1775, in North Carolina at New Bern, Royal Deputy Auditor and Secretary Archibald Neilson wrote to future US Supreme Court Associate Justice James Iredell, then deputy customs collector at Edenton.Neilson, a close associate of Royal Governor Josiah Martin, urged submission to Parliament, and warned Iredell that he was becoming known in the Governor’s circle as a partisan of the resistance:“[After complaining about New England resistance to Parliament] Good God! is there not a political wisdom as necessary in the conduct of public life as prudence is in private manners? Because it may not be consistent with the general combination of government to permit us that latitude which the few or even say the many think we should enjoy, shall we therefore reject the essential advantages we reap from such combination? So long as America is in the situation of colonies of Great Britain she to be sure will not enjoy all the advantages which may and will be enjoyed by her in a different and future situation; but such considerations I apprehend to be disjoined from the present case. And that if Americans cannot have the first lot of political freedom and happiness, it notwithstanding would be foolish to reject the second and next best. And that because they cannot possibly have all they claim – that cannot militate against their taking what political necessity may allow and political prudence may prompt them for a period to bear with.… N.B. Be careful. People here talk of you being very warm.”North Carolina Royal Deputy Auditor and Secretary Archibald Neilson expressly wrote, on February 4, 1775, to a future U.S. Supreme Court Justice, that under the British position, Americans would be denied “that latitude which the few or even say the many think we should enjoy,” that Americans “will not enjoy all the advantages which may and will be enjoyed by her in a different and future situation,” that “Americans cannot have the first lot of political freedom and happiness,” but rather, are being offered by Britain “the second and next best,” and Neilson urges that Americans should settle for “what political necessity may allow and political prudence may prompt them for a period to bear with.”Is it any wonder that the Americans went into resistance, even armed resistance, against being forced down into this humiliating status? This was not “the deal” when any of the colonies were founded; it was not “the deal” offered by any of the kings or queens before George III. Nobody would have emigrated from Britain to America to populate and develop any American lands, had this been “the deal” offered to them at the time.At the same time in early 1775 as Neilson in North Carolina wrote Iredell, John Adams in Massachusetts got into a “debate of published essays” over precisely this point. In accordance with the custom of the times, both his adversary and he used pseudonyms: Adams adopted “Novanglus,” meaning “New Englander.”In his seventh “Novanglus” essay, published March 6, 1775, Adams expressly advocated for the constitutional position that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have today. Adams maintained that this status is what the American colonies had always had, until Parliament’s power-seeking effort began in 1765.And John Adams expressed his loyalty to King George III in exactly the terms that Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders today express their loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II, while simultaneously insisting that the Parliament of the United Kingdom has no lawmaking power over any of them:“If it follows from thence, that he appears king of Massachusetts, king of Rhode-Island, king of Connecticut, &c. this is no absurdity at all. He will appear in that light, and does appear so, whether parliament has authority over us or not. He is king of Ireland, I suppose, although parliament is allowed to have authority there. As to giving him those titles, I have no objection at all: I wish he would be graciously pleased to assume them.”King George III refused “to assume them,” but instead fully and vigorously backed Parliament - he did, after all, “glory in the name of Britain” and he was totally financially dependent on Parliament.It took a long time - until July 4, 1776 - before the emotional sentiment of loyalty was extinguished in the hearts of many Americans, as to comprise the overwhelming majority of educated people in all thirteen colonies.There were, however, loyalists after the Declaration. Their experience during the war - at the hands of the British - did-away with sentiments of loyalty. We will take some time here, demarked by the vertical lines, to show this.We take as an example the “First Battalion of Maryland Loyalists,” composed mostly of men from the Maryland “eastern shore” (meaning the east coast of Chesapeake Bay) formed when the British held Philadelphia, in Philadelphia, in October 1777. The British also organized a unit of Pennsylvania Loyalists in Philadelphia at the same time.Did the Marylanders fight to protect their own lands and families in Maryland? Did the Pennsylvanians fight to protect their own lands and families in Pennsylvania? They thought that they would; but they did not.In June 1778, British forces abandoned Philadelphia and marched to New York. The Marylanders and Pennsylvanians remained in New York for a year.Then on June 21, 1779, the King of Spain declared war on the King of Britain - without making any alliance with the Americans. Spain was merely taking advantage of Britain’s preoccupation with the American war.A few months later, in October 1779, the ministers and generals of the King shipped the Maryland and Pennsylvania Loyalist fighters off to West Florida, then a British possession, to defend the King’s colony of West Florida, at Pensacola (on what is now the Gulf Coast “panhandle” of Florida) from attack by the King’s new enemy, the Spanish.These American Loyalists - who had enlisted to defend their homes and families from the Patriots - found themselves taken away from their homeland entirely, treated as tools of the Crown.On the sail south, the ships put-into Jamaica for water and food, and while there, many of the Marylanders contracted smallpox. The Maryland and Pennsylvania Loyalist troops arrived at Pensacola before the Spanish, and went into garrison duty at Fort George.Then a large Spanish force assembled, and in March 1781 besieged the Maryland and Pennsylvania Loyalists, and other British forces, defending Fort George. The Marylanders fought well, at one point executing a bayonet charge, but the defenders were greatly outnumbered, and the British surrendered on May 10, 1781.The Spanish took the surviving Maryland and Pennsylvania Loyalists captive, and sent them to prison in Cuba. In July 1781 they were “paroled,” which meant released on promise not to fight, and sent to New York. While “on parole” confined to New York, the British lost the Siege of Yorktown. Finally, in July 1782, they were legally “exchanged,” which meant that now they could fight.By then, however, the war was effectively over. Peace treaty negotiations were already underway in Paris.By the end of the war, out of the original 300 men, only some 100 enlisted troops remained alive; most of the 200 dead died of smallpox.The 200 lost their lives due to the actions of the British King sending them to fight the Spanish King in far-off Pensacola - not due to any post-war hostility of Patriots against Loyalists.In September 1783, the last 100, with their families, took ship for Nova Scotia, but the ship struck a reef off the Canadian coast and sank, killing 50 more men and many members of their families. The unit, now down to just 50 men, formally disbanded in October 1783, six years after forming in Philadelphia; the last 50 received land grants along the north shore of the St. John River.In 2009, Ph.D. candidate Stuart Salmon at the University of Stirling, in Scotland, (Dr. Salmon earned his Ph.D. in 2010 and is now a professor at Stirling) authored a thesis, “The Loyalist Regiments of the American Revolutionary War 1775-1783” that is a treasure-trove of directly-on-point information. You can read the thesis on the Stirling site at https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/2514/4/The-Loyalist-Regiments-of-the-American-Revolution-Final.pdf. Dr. Salmon discusses recruiting in detail at pages 78 to 85.At page 83 Dr. Salmon shows us the recruiting poster the British used to raise the Pennsylvania Loyalist unit in Philadelphia in October 1777 (the Maryland poster was probably the same) which tells us something important about why the British did so poorly in raising Loyalist sentiment:This poster is representative of recruiting notices used by the British throughout the colonies and throughout the war, as can be seen on the website Revolutionary War Loyalist history and genealogy. Just go to the search page and search “recruiting notice” to see 25 different notices, in text; Dr. Salmon gives us this in the original:“All Intrepid Able-Bodied HEROS who are willing to serve His Majesty King George the Third, in defence of their country, laws, and constitution, against the arbitrary usurpations of a tyrannical Congress, have now not only an opportunity of manifesting their spirit, by assisting in reducing to Obedience their too-long-deluded countrymen, but also of acquiring the polite accomplishments of a Soldier, by serving only two years, or during the present Rebellion in America.“Such spirited Fellows, who are willing to engage, will be rewarded at the end of the war, besides their laurels [“laurels” meaning: the glories won in battle], with 50 acres of land, where every gallant Hero may retire, and enjoy his bottle and lass [“lass” meaning: his girl or wife].“Each volunteer will receive, as a bounty, five dollars, besides arms, cloathing and accoutrements, and every other requisite proper to accommodate a Gentleman Soldier, by applying to Lieutenant Colonel Allen, or at Captain Kearny’s rendezvous, at Patrick Tonry’s, three doors above Market-street, in Second-street.”Everything we need to understand the fundamental British error – fundamental defect in conception, really – is shown by this recruiting poster.Look at the inducements the British offered: cash, and 50 acres of land, on which the soldier can retire to enjoy drink and sex.This is an inducement to men without families, to men without land, to men without jobs.It is the psychology of recruiting natural inside the island of Great Britain, because in Britain, troops were raised not to defend their own homes, but to fight for the King – usually overseas. The men who signed up did so because for the most part they had very little else in their lives – no family to support and live with, no land of their own, no good job.But in America, the Loyalist men, just like the Patriot men, were men who already had families – they were men who already had land.To raise an army of Loyalists, the British would have had to make an argument that Royal rule would be better for their families, better for their businesses and for the productivity of their farms, than a change to Patriot self-government.The British professional military officers never understood that to raise an army of Loyalists, the recruiting approach – the reasons for fighting – required an appeal to men whose psychology was profoundly different than that of men in Britain who responded to recruiting appeals.We see this very clearly in a letter sent April 12, 1783, at the end of the war, by Lt. Colonel James Chalmers, one of the original officers of the Maryland Loyalists, after their odyssey from Philadelphia to New York to Pensacola to Havana and back to New York. Chalmers had arrived in America at age 33 in 1760, with a large amount of capital earned in the West Indies, which he used to buy thousands of acres of plantation lands on the Maryland Eastern Shore. He established a family. In 1776, he wrote and published (under a pen-name, as customary at the time, “Candidus”) a Loyalist rebuttal titled Plain Truth to Tom Paine’s widely popular Patriot Common Sense.In 1783, with the war winding down, the British were planning the “downsizing” of the army; and the hope of Loyalist “provincial” regiments like the Maryland regiment, originally raised as “during the present rebellion” only, was to be transferred into the permanent service by being put on “the American Establishment” (for service in America, in Canada) or on “the British Establishment” – which would guarantee a military career, and thus long-term financial security, for each soldier in the unit who wanted to remain in.Chalmers had just heard that the Maryland Loyalists would not be put onto either “the American Establishment” or “the British Establishment,” but would be disbanded merely with grants of land in Canada, but no steady pay. And thus Chalmers wrote to London, to the highest British politician he had met, George Johnstone, who had been Royal Governor of West Florida in the mid-1760s, and also a Royal Navy officer and Member of Parliament. His letter is on-line at Maryland Loyalists, Chalmers to Johnstone:“Perhaps, Sir, You may remember that I had the honor to be presented to you at Philadelphia, through General GREY; that you were pleased to say he had informed you, that, I had better performed my compact with Government than any other Provincial Officer ….“May I be permitted, Sir, to observe, that from Philadelphia we marched nearly four hundred men, chiefly natives of Maryland; that the officers were respectable by their connections and property; that we embarked for Florida, from which period until the surrender of the [Florida] Colony, we lost several officers, and one hundred and seventy men, by the small-pox received at Jamaica, as well as by extraordinary fatigue &ca on the works near Pensacola. …“In justice to ourselves, we have therefore, sir, transmitted a memorial to the King, which we hope, Sir Robert EDEN [note: the last Royal Governor of Maryland, a Briton given a rare American-named title, as 1st Baronet, of Maryland] will present: now, sir, from your generous patriotism and humane attention to the unhappy American Loyalists, we would hope that you would not be displeased to afford some degree of countenance to our memorial.”Chalmers clearly states that he and others in the Maryland Loyalists staked property on the contest, and renounced domestic felicity.Although the Maryland regiment as a whole was not put on “the American Establishment” or “the British Establishment,” individual officers received the offer.One such was a Major of the Maryland regiment, Walter Dulany, Jr. Dulany was of an old and prominent Maryland family, with 20,000 acres of plantation land. The portions inherited by the three Dulany brothers who fought for the King as Loyalists, and also the land of their uncle, Daniel Dulany II, a strong Loyalist though (at age 55 in 1776) to old to fight, was confiscated by the patriot authorities due to Dulany and his brothers being Loyalists in arms. Other Dulany land, the family house and grounds in Annapolis, are now the site of the United States Naval Academy (purchased by the federal government in 1808). The family had other wealth, however, that enabled many family members to relocate to London during the war – and, as it turned out, after.Thus Major Walter Dulany, Jr., received an individual offer to join the British Establishment and remain in the King’s army service long-term. In response, on March 29, 1783, Dulany wrote the British Commander in Chief, Sir Guy Carleton (we find it on-line at Maryland Loyalists, Dulany's Explanation):“Whilst I take this opportunity to offer your Excellency my most sincere thanks, for the flattering prospect of being put upon the British Establishment, candour, a very great anxiety to preserve the good opinion of your Excellency, and a desire to avoid the appearance of future inconsistency, render it necessary, that I should be explicit, with respect to the situation in which I stand.“My duty as a subject, the happiness which America enjoyed under the British Government, and the miseries to which she would be reduced by an independancy, were the motives that induced me to join the British Army; nor are there any dangers, or difficulties, that I would not cheerfully undergo, to effect a happy restoration.“But, at the same time, that I acted, with the greatest zeal, against my rebellious countrymen, I never forgot that I was an American.“If therefore, sir, Independence should be granted, and the war still continued, I should deem it extremely improper to remain in a situation, obliging me to act either directly or indirectly against America.“If, after this declaration, I can be received by your Excellency, upon the footing offered me by Colonel THOMPSON, I shall think myself highly honored, it being the first wish of my heart ever to serve in the British Army, whilst I can with consistency.”Here in Dulany’s letter we see the motives of an American, thinking about the well-being of America: he fought as a Loyalist not primarily because of his “duty as a subject,” but because of two American-focused reasons, one based on the past, and one a conjecture about the future.The “past” reason was “the happiness which America enjoyed under the British Government.”The future projection was “the miseries to which she would be reduced by an independency.”As Dulany emphasizes, “I never forgot that I was an American.”But to the British, it was proof of a divided and thus inadequate character, to feel “I was an American.” The only morally permitted feeling was “I am a subject of the King.” The brusque British rejection of Major Dulany’s concerns is appended to the letter. Dated April 11, 1783, in the name of the Commander in Chief, Sir Guy Carleton, is this:“If Independance is granted and the war continued, he cannot serve directly or indirectly against America.“The King can have no occasion for the Service of such Officers, as will not serve against his Enemies.”We get a very personal, first-hand view of Walter Dulany’s personal ties, via wartime letters sent to him by his family and friends in Maryland, on google books in the 1895 book One Hundred Years Ago, or The Life and Times of The Rev. Walter Dulany Addison, compiled from Dulany family papers by Elizabeth Murray, Rev. Addison’s granddaughter (pages 42 to 77; regrettably the letters are not in date order).These are the letters Walter Dulany was receiving and reading from his family in Maryland – living under Patriot government (Maryland was never invaded by British forces) which meant Dulany could not leave British lines to see them – telling him of his sisters and their husbands and their children, his own nephews and nieces, a couple of hundred miles south of him in Maryland, during his service and at the very moment the ambitious future Baron of Dorchester was scorning him because “the King can have no occasion for the Service of such Officers, as will not serve against his Enemies.”Dulany was concerned that someday, the King might decide that “his Enemies” included Dulany’s own brothers-in-law and his own nephews, and order Dulany to kill them. Dulany, like every other Loyalist America, would have absolutely no vote, no representation, in Parliament, no “say” at all in the government that might decide to declare his own close relations “Enemies” of the King. These letters make vivid to us the position Loyalist Americans were in, a position that the British showed no comprehension of. We look at excepts of three during the war: the first in 1781 before Yorktown, the next two from 1783, the time Dulany wrote to Carleton:[August 27, 1781, from his sister Rebecca “Becky” (Dulany) Hanson, wife of Patriot Maryland (Charles County) militia Captain Thomas Hanson; and mentioning his sister Mary “Molly” (Dulany) Fitzhugh, wife of George Lee Mason Fitzhugh; and mentioning his unmarried sister “Kitty”] (pages 57-58):“I believe that I can begin with nothing that will give you more pleasure than to tell you that we are all well & as happy as the times – and being separated from so many of our dearest ones – will admit of. Mr. & Mrs. Fitzhugh [sister Molly] have been the greatest part of the summer and are still with us. Their three children (with my youngest little Nan Hanson) have been inoculated for the small pox, which they all got over very happily.“I know you will be happy to hear that my dear boys have an exceeding good tutor at home and are very good and anxious to be clever fellows. They are constantly talking of you. …“Your old friend Carr & his lady are well and have three very fine children. Col. Addison is well and Mrs. Addison recovering from a very bad state of health. They have had two children since you left us. Indeed, my dear Walter, the neighborhood is entirely ruined by the vast number of children that have sprung up among us. There are no less than twenty-two children just in the families of your acquaintances here: and my Watty the eldest. I tell you this, that if at any time you should feel a more than common inclination to be amongst us, only fancy you have ten or a dozen children hanging about you and thank your stars you are a hundred miles off. …”[April 23, 1783, one month after Dulany wrote Carleton to say he would not fight Americans after independence, from his mother, Mary Dulany, mentioning his unmarried sister “Kitty”] (pages 67-68):“My dear Wat: … Thursday our races begin and Kitty has just gone off in a superb Phaeton & four [horses] with a very flaming beaux to the ground. I don’t know his name. Yesterday was his first appearance with our infinity of French Beaux all of whom are very gallant. …“To-morrow we celebrate Peace. I hear there is to be a grand dinner on Squire Carroll’s Point, a whole ox to be roasted & I can’t tell how many sheep and calves besides a world of other things. Liquor in proportion. The whole to conclude with illuminations & squibs &c. I had liked to have forgot to mention the Ball which I think had better be postponed. I am horribly afraid our gentlemen will have lighter heads than heels. I think to keep myself snug at home & pray no mischief may happen & for Kitt’s safe return from the Ball. …“The shoes &c [you sent] came very opportunely for Kitty, just two days before our gaiety commences. They are very pretty. You must accept her thanks through me, as she I entirely taken up at present & will be for several days. Be pleased to accept my thanks for the very pretty handkerchief. I’ll wear it and think of you.“I am my dear Wat your affection Mother M. Dulany”[August 7, 1783, four days before Carleton issued his curt dismissal of Dulany’s statement that he would not fight Americans after independence, from his mother, mentioning his sister Mary “Molly” (Dulany) Fitzhugh, and his unmarried sister “Kitty”] (pages 65-66):“My dear Watty: … [A]s [your sister] Molly was not prepared for employing me so soon as I expected in the business for which I came – not to be idle – we made use of the interim in marrying up Kitty.“This affair has been long in agitation & I thought it entirely at an end: however as he was the man of her choice (for indeed she has had many offers) & as his prospects must have much mended I consented to it freely & earnestly recommend him to your regard as a Brother. From a pretty long acquaintance I have reason to believe he is possessed of an excellent heart which with me is the Summum Bonum. … [Note: he is Dr. Horatio Sharpe Belt, M.D.]“I am happy to tell you [your sister] Becky’s three boys are put to a worthy clergyman very capable of improving them. … Your anxiety about them discovers you to be my own dear Wat still; notwithstanding the dissipated life you necessarily must have led, it has not had any of the ill effects which might have been feared. … Will is a fine rustical boy, & your namesake everyone says as like you as he can stare & the sweetest prattler I ever knew. Oh, how I long to have you partake of our domestic felicity.“With the most fervent prayers for your felicity here & hereafter & a happy meeting somewhere, dear Watt, your affectionate Mother.”Major Walter Dulany, instead of going to Canada with the ragged few remaining men who had enlisted in the Maryland Loyalists unit, went in 1783 to London to join family members there. He was part of society there, and married an Annapolis lady (the young widow of his half-uncle Lloyd) in London.In a letter from London on August 8, 1784, after the peace, to his sister Mary (Molly) Fitzhugh, he explained his sentiments (pages 69-70):“Though I have seen little of this place [London in 1784] I venture to pass one opinion upon it, that it must be of all others the most delightful for an unconnected man in easy circumstances. [Note: by “unconnected” he means a man with no family ties to persons elsewhere. “Connections” in his time was a word meaning family relationships, not political or business ties as it does today.] There is nothing one can wish or want that is not to be had for money, nor as far as I can see, any-thing without it.“Could I have spent one year or two here in a suitable way I should have been pleased with it, but for permanently settling, no country can be so agreeable to me, as that where the chief of my connections lay. When a man is gay – general acquaintances are pleasant to him, but it is in the conversation of his intimate friends that are dear to him alone, that any solid satisfaction is to be found. When a man has been buffeting about in the world and had an opportunity of observing the characters of mankind, he does not so easily give up his heart to every agreeable person he meets with, without which there is little pleasure in society. …“My best love to Mr. Fitzhugh [Mary’s husband & Walter’s brother-in-law] and my dear little nephews & nieces & compliments to all friends and acquaintances. My dear sister your most truly affectionate Walter Dulany”Dulany returned after a few years to Maryland, and rejoined his large family, still living the life of a gentleman. Aside from the loss of land, he remained well-off, and did not suffer reprisals back in America.These letters show us the bonds of family and affection that were far more important to American Loyalists than the British leadership ever comprehended or took thought of how to respect. These are the ties that Sir Guy Carleton was so blind to when he dismissed Dulany’s concerns with the curt and thoughtless phrase that “the King can have no occasion for the Service of such Officers, as will not serve against his Enemies.”Historians, researchers, and commentators who regularly denounce the Patriots for poor treatment of Loyalists ought to take a good hard look at the British treatment of Loyalists. By 1784, no sane American would ever be a Loyalist - due to the way the British treated them.Thus, there were no “emotional” Loyalists in America by the time of the War of 1812 - which is the time this question focuses on.But there was some basis for General Stark’s assertion in 1809 that there was “a dangerous British party in the country” at that time. These were the economic and self-interest-driven “loyalists” who made wealth by the operation of the Royal Navy and the British Empire.There was nothing especially offensive or unreasonable in their position - but John Stark was not one of them and did not understand them. Although he was a superb natural soldier and a magnetic leader of men, he was a farmer-frontiersman, and in youth an indian-country explorer and trapper, who never received any formal education.A great many Americans opposed the War of 1812, and yet ought not be called loyalists or tories. The main trigger for the war was the British practice of “impressing” American sailors who had valid (under American law) claims to no longer be British subjects, but to be American citizens free of any obligation of loyalty to the British Crown.America and Great Britain were in a political disagreement over citizenship versus subjectship, and the Napoleonic Wars pressed Britain to the utmost to maintain the Royal Navy. Britain could not ignore the issue; Britain needed every sailor it could get.Thomas Jefferson had finessed the issue, basically by acquiescing to the British and not going to war. So too did Jefferson’s successor, James Madison, in his first Presidential term. But the continuing British practice at last drove Madison to act. In a close vote, he persuaded Congress to declare war.One of my ancestors, Joseph Pearson, was in Congress, representing North Carolina, at the time; he voted against the war. His future father-in-law, a prominent Washington physician, Dr. Charles Worthington, another of my ancestors, also openly and vehemently opposed the war. However, yet another ancestor, Navy Master and Commander Daniel Todd Patterson, later a Captain and a Commodore, fought and won fame in the war, in the Battle of New Orleans in December 1814-January 1815.The war disrupted transatlantic ocean commerce - damaging the economy of New England. With the abdication of Napoleon in April 1814, Britain was free to turn its navy in full against the United States. In July 1814, British forces occupied some coastal areas in Maine. In August 1814, the British landed forces and captured Washington briefly, burning most federal government buildings (which my ancestors Charles Worthington and his daughter Catherine saw; Dr. Worthington gave treatment to wounded British officers in his home at 3425 Prospect Street. Congress was adjourned at the time, so Pearson was not there.) In mid-September, the British bombarded Fort McHenry outside Baltimore, but were unable to take the city.Almost all American trans-ocean trade ceased. The Royal Navy established an effective blockade.In December 1814, in Hartford, Connecticut, a convention of dissatisfied “federalists” met to discuss several proposed constitutional amendments which, they thought, would correct defects that had led to the present disastrous situation.Although often labeled as a budding secessionist movement, the sentiment was not so much for secession by the New England states, as expulsion of the newly-admitted Western states, and for trying to make a separate peace with Britain - which in a way would be as damaging to the federal government as secession would have been.This 1814 group was a development of what Stark in 1809 had called “a dangerous British party in the country” and called “tories.” Stark’s characterization wasn’t really accurate, but it appears to have given some credence to the proposition that there were “loyalists” in the United States at the War of 1812.The American victory at New Orleans, followed by the arrival in America of the news of a peace-treaty (actually signed by negotiators before the New Orleans battle) removed American concerns over the fighting; and with Napoleon deposed (true, he made a miraculous 100-days comeback beginning in March 1815, but was defeated at Waterloo in June 1815) there was no longer any need for the British to impress American sailors into a rapidly-shrinking Royal Navy.Stark would live another 7 years after the end of the war, dying in 1822 at the age of 93, the longest-lived and last to die of the Revolutionary War generals. He may have kept-up his claims that even after the war there was “a dangerous British party in the country,” but if he did, it was not a claim to be taken seriously.

I could be convinced that on 9/11 19 Arabs directed by a guy in a cave in Afghanistan successfully outwitted the greatest military and intelligence establishment the world has ever seen--but it seems to me that the government has made almost no effort to convince. That is why I call for the reopening of the investigations in a less hysterical socio-intellectual environment than we had in the years after 9/11.The al Qaeda plot to fly hijacked airliners into landmark US buildings including the Pentagon and the WTC had been known to US authorities since the capture of Abdul Hakim Murad in 1995. There were warnings about the 2001 plot from 12 foreign countries. The UK and Germany warned of the use of hijacked commercial aircraft as flying bombs. 4 FBI offices warned--three of the warnings involved pilots. The CIA warned in May and July--and in August a CIA briefer flew out to Crawford, Texas to brief President Bush on the famous "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" memo.The idea that hijackers would be able to bumble around the skies for 100 minutes in 600 mph aircraft and NORAD"s 1800-mph F-15's would allow them to do so is so absurd it's a lunatic plan. The only way the hijackers could hope to succeed was to hijack the planes simultaneously and immediately after takeoff--so that in 10 minutes the attack would be accomplished. So either the plan was inept, or its execution was inept, or both. And yet, miraculously, it still succeeded.As of 2004, 49% of New York City residents were willing to tell pollsters that they believed that elements of the government knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance, and consciously allowed them to happen.So even if Osama bin Laden really recruited 19 suicidal Muslims to do the deed, where does the true responsibility lie? With the mad dog who savaged a child--or with the Animal Control officer who knew all about the dog but chose to spend the afternoon playing golf? And what do we know about Osama? The USA refused to allow a trial back when Taleban proposed it in 2001, and their alleged murder of Osama a few years ago precluded a trial. How do we know that what we're told about him is true? Most of what the 9/11 Commission tells us about al Qaeda was based on CIA transcripts of alleged testimony of alleged suspects allagedly extracted under torture. The 9/11 Commission made no effort to observe the alleged interrogations, and the CIA destroyed the video tapes that allegedly documented them. And then former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds claims that Osama was in the employ of the USA right up to the day of 9/11.And then there are the mysteries of the towers--and how two 2-engine aircraft aircraft brought down 3 skyscrapers when the towers were designed to survive a hit from a 4-engine airliner flying at 600 mph, and the ensuing fires as well. Most structural engineers were surprised when the towers fell, says NOVA. The investigating agency, NIST, claims that they did not analyze the collapses. How can they explain the collapses without analyzing them? By cutting off their report at the moment of collapse initiation, they dodged the ten essential mysteries of the collapses. The government has made no effort to truly convince us that the planes brought down the towers. They simply gave us a 10,000-page snow job.My, what a lengthy preamble I wrote! Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!Now, for the question: To know the reasons for 9/11, you have to know who did it, and historians without political agendas will need to sift through all the evidence to decide that. We have insufficient information. We still have 28 pages redacted from a Congressional Report! There are so many possible structures to the responsibility.1. Maybe Osama independently recruited 19 Muslim hijackers and convinced them to embark on a plan that had no realistic hope of succeeding (and they got lucky).2. Maybe US Intelligence learned of option 1 and, wanting increased budgets, they decided to make sure the hijackers for lucky.3. Maybe Osama was a CIA operative employed to recruit 19 Muslim pilots and hijackers for a CIA operation, and the botched military response was an intel op4. Maybe Osama was a CIA operative employed to recruit 19 patsies for a CIA operationand the entire hijacking-botched military response was an intel op5. Maybe Osama was a CIA operative employed to write provocative letters and no more, and the entire hijacking-botched military response was an intel opOK, that's another preamble. As Dr. Robert Bowman so wisely said, "The truth about 9/11 is that we don't know the truth about 9/11--and we should!"IMHO, if it was Option 1, 2, or 3, 9/11 was done by Muslim fanatics (with no hope of succeeding) because they objected to actions the USA had taken such as having troops on the Saudi Peninsula and Clinton's economic sanctions that killed 500,000 Iraqi children. In case 2 and 3 elements of US intelligence facilitated the success of the attacks in order to motivate acceptance of a military-intelligence-surveillance buildup in the USA and to intimidate the media. In case 4 and 5 additional steps would be taken to ensure the success of the attacks.Finally, as to Bush, the motivation for 9/11 would have been:1. To enable two expensive wars that greatly benefited his war-profiteer buddies2. To intimidate the media so they would unwilling to question him3. To raise his public approval rate from 55% to 90%4. To do away with questions about his brother's subversion of the 2000 Florida elections and the Supreme Court's decision to stop counting the votes5. To ease the imposition of the National Security State (which Obama has continued)6. To ease the imposition of the doctrine of the Unitary Executive (which Obama has continued and even expanded)7. To make rights-sensitive Americans into "Good Germans" tolerant of dungeons and torture (as long as it doesn't happen to them and their friends)Finally, there is one HUGE benefit from 9/11 to the Bushcist gang that has not been properly acknowledged. The high-finance types in Bush's circle were surely aware of scandals that were soon to erupt about ENRON, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, and Merrill Lynch. The Securities and Exchange Commission occupied a floor and half of World Trade Center Building 7. It was on these floors that the most severe fires broke out on 9/11, and it is these floors where the collapse of the building is alleged to have initiated. (The four floors immediately above were, according to the FEMA report, vacant--but this fact seems to impress few people as much as it impresses me.) The destruction of thousands of pending case files was surely very disruptive to the SEC investigations pending on these scandals.If not for the 9/11 disaster and the war in Afghanistan, these scandals would have been huge news in 2002. We might have seen TIME Magazine cover stories, and media questioning "Is Capitalism Inherently Dishonest?" As it happened, the scandals had little effect on a shell-shocked population. Seeing people jump out of 100-story windows makes the collapse of ENRON and its employee pensions seem a trivial and venal concern.

“Environmentalism is a noble cause. It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths.” Camille Pagliapolicies often result in unintended consequences where some political fad causes more harm than good. This is very true of environmental regulation and management. For example, arresting controlled burn of under brush in Australia and California because of protests about the smoke has a much worse consequence when wild fires become so much more intense and dangerous because of the fuel load of the abandoned under brush.Government action of Paris Accord is too tepid to matter to the any warming but if continued will cause untold harm for no benefit to the environment as there is no climate crisis and CO2 is very beneficial for plants and at best a very minor GHG and worse causes cooling as much as warming. We need more CO2 for a healthy environment not less.Switching our energy from fossil fuels to wind and solar is wrong and very costly killing more from heat poverty from high cost electricity than lives lost from road accidents. Also the attack on coal powered energy has no effect on the climate while denying grid electricity benefits to millions in underdeveloped countries.Refusing to do adequate controlled burns in desert forests like Australia and California because of environmental protests about the smoke.[My intent in posting an answer is to provide references and studies that show leading scientists find no climate crisis from CO2. Also to expose the debacle of wind and solar as alternatives to fossil fuels. Also to show studies of the causes of wild fires today and in the past proving that it is “ridiculously inadequate controlled burn of the under bush” not climate change that pushes the fires out of control.]ReferencesThe public are badly mislead thinking wind and solar are the way forward and better than coal and nuclear.In reality wind and solar failing miserable as alternatives to fossil fuels globally. Indeed solar has 0% of world consumption by 2014 notwithstanding huge subsidies. THE KEY PROBLEM IS INTERMITTENCY CAUSING FULL DUPLICATION AND EXPENSE OF RUNNING FOSSIL FUEL BACK UP.HYDRO AND NUCLEAR ARE THE MOST PROMISING ALTERNATIVES TO OIL AND GAS.https://seekingalpha.com/article/3254825-global-energy-trends-bp-statistical-review-2015The hypothesis of a climate crisis from increased but minute amounts of CO2 is false according to these studies and leading scientists.There is no significant man-made Global Warming underway and the science on which the computer projections of weather chaos are based is badly flawed.John Coleman QuotesBelieve it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming... it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. Climate change - it happens, with or without our help.Roy SpencerCamille PagliaAmerican criticDescriptionCamille Anna Paglia is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. WikipediaJust wondering what your thoughts are on the global warming issue. Have you seen the Al Gore movie? Any thoughts on the current debate on climate science?Many thanks,AprilVancouverOh, great, here comes the hornet's nest!As a native of upstate New York, whose dramatic landscape was carved by the receding North American glacier 10,000 years ago, I have been contemplating the principle of climate change since I was a child. Niagara Falls, as well as the even bigger dry escarpment of Clark Reservation near Syracuse, is a memento left by the glacier. So is nearby Green Lakes State Park, with its mysteriously deep glacial pools. When I was 10, I lived with my family at the foot of a drumlin -- a long, undulating hill of moraine formed by eddies of the ancient glacier melt.Geology and meteorology are fields that have always interested me and that I might well have entered, had I not been more attracted to art and culture. (My geology professor in college, in fact, asked me to consider geology as a career.) To conflate vast time frames with volatile daily change is a sublime exercise, bordering on the metaphysical.However, I am a skeptic about what is currently called global warming. I have been highly suspicious for years about the political agenda that has slowly accrued around this issue. As a lapsed Catholic, I detest dogma in any area. Too many of my fellow Democrats seem peculiarly credulous at the moment, as if, having ground down organized religion into nonjudgmental, feel-good therapy, they are hungry for visions of apocalypse. From my perspective, virtually all of the major claims about global warming and its causes still remain to be proved.Climate change, keyed to solar cycles, is built into Earth's system. Cooling and warming will go on forever. Slowly rising sea levels will at some point doubtless flood lower Manhattan and seaside houses everywhere from Cape Cod to Florida -- as happened to Native American encampments on those very shores. Human habitation is always fragile and provisional. People will migrate for the hills, as they have always done.Who is impious enough to believe that Earth's contours are permanent? Our eyes are simply too slow to see the shift of tectonic plates that has raised the Himalayas and is dangling Los Angeles over an unstable fault. I began "Sexual Personae" (parodying the New Testament): "In the beginning was nature." And nature will survive us all. Man is too weak to permanently affect nature, which includes infinitely more than this tiny globe.I voted for Ralph Nader for president in the 2000 election because I feel that the United States needs a strong Green Party. However, when I tried to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on cable TV recently, I wasn't able to get past the first 10 minutes. I was snorting with disgust at its manipulations and distortions and laughing at Gore's lugubrious sentimentality, which was painfully revelatory of his indecisive, self-thwarting character. When Gore told a congressional hearing last month that there is a universal consensus among scientists about global warming -- which is blatantly untrue -- he forfeited his own credibility.Environmentalism is a noble cause. It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths. Every industrialized society needs heightened consciousness about its past, present and future effects on the biosphere. Though I am a libertarian, I am a strong supporter of vigilant scrutiny and regulation of industry by local, state and federal agencies. But there must be a balance with the equally vital need for economic development, especially in the Third World.Real inconvenient truthsWhat if we are in the beginning of a new Little Ice Age epoch making any concern about the climate getting too hot terrible folly?Brutal record cold winters with massive snowfall contradict the alarmism predictions of what winter should be like if warming is a reality.NewsNewfoundland Snowpocalypse Day Five: Trading Smokes for PepsiOur four key resources now are pop, cigarettes, beer, and chips. Control the corner stores, control the Island.By Drew BrownJan 21 2020, 10:45amA SOLDIER FROM THE 4TH ARTILLERY REGIMENT BASED AT CFB GAGETOWN CLEARS SNOW AT A RESIDENCE IN ST. JOHN’S ON MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ANDREW VAUGHANGentle reader, please forgive these shaky hands; the shoveling has broken my arms. It has been five days since St. John’s first declared a state of emergency after a monster blizzard gusting up to 170 km/h dumped more than six feet of snow on the city in a day. Civilization has ground to a halt under snow drifts 12 feet deep. Snowmobiles blast through uncleared city streets and Holloway Street has been turned into the island’s sickest ski jump. We shiver under the spectre of martial law as Canadian troops patrol the roads with fearsome plastic scoops in search of seniors who need aid. Snowbanks rise like towering mountains from the city sidewalks.http://HTTPS://WWW.VICE.COM/EN_CA/ARTICLE/DYG7VV/NEWFOUNDLAND-SNOWPOCALYPSE-DAY-FIVE-TRADING-SMOKES-FOR-PEPSIDr. Tim Ball: The Evidence Proves That CO2 Is Not A Greenhouse GasSeptember 14, 2018 Pam Barker ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT, Tyranny 0Tim Ball: The Evidence Proves That CO2 Is Not A Greenhouse GasDR. TIM BALL“The CO2 error is the root of the biggest scam in the history of the world, and has already bilked nations and citizens out of trillions of dollars, while greatly enriching the perpetrators. In the end, their goal is global Technocracy (aka Sustainable Development), which grabs and sequesters all the resources of the world into a collective trust to be managed by them. ⁃ Technocracy News EditorThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim of human-caused global warming (AGW) is built on the assumption that an increase in atmospheric CO2 causes an increase in global temperature. The IPCC claim is what science calls a theory, a hypothesis, or in simple English, a speculation. Every theory is based on a set of assumptions. The standard scientific method is to challenge the theory by trying to disprove it. Karl Popper wrote about this approach in a 1963 article, Science as Falsification. Douglas Yates said, “No scientific theory achieves public acceptance until it has been thoroughly discredited.”Thomas Huxley made a similar observation.“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”In other words, all scientists must be skeptics, which makes a mockery out of the charge that those who questioned AGW, were global warming skeptics. Michael Shermer provides a likely explanation for the effectiveness of the charge.“Scientists are skeptics. It’s unfortunate that the word ‘skeptic’ has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it’s just thoughtful inquiry.”The scientific method was not used with the AGW theory. In fact, the exact opposite occurred, they tried to prove the theory. It is a treadmill guaranteed to make you misread, misrepresent, misuse and selectively choose data and evidence. This is precisely what the IPCC did and continued to do.A theory is used to produce results. The results are not wrong, they are only as right as the assumptions on which they are based. For example, Einstein used his theory of relativity to produce the most famous formula in the world: e = mc2. You cannot prove it wrong mathematically because it is the end product of the assumptions he made. To test it and disprove it, you challenge one or all of the assumptions. One of these is represented by the letter “c” in the formula, which assumes nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Scientists challenging the theory are looking for something moving faster than the speed of light.The most important assumption behind the AGW theory is that an increase in global atmospheric CO2 will cause an increase in the average annual global temperature. The problem is that in every record of temperature and CO2, the temperature changes first. Think about what I am saying. The basic assumption on which the entire theory that human activity is causing global warming or climate change is wrong. The questions are, how did the false assumption develop and persist?The answer is the IPCC needed the assumption as the basis for their claim that humans were causing catastrophic global warming for a political agenda. They did what all academics do and found a person who gave historical precedence to their theory. In this case, it was the work of Svante Arrhenius. The problem is, he didn’t say what they claim. Anthony Watts’ 2009 article identified many of the difficulties with relying on Arrhenius. The Friends of Science added confirmation when they translated a more obscure 1906 Arrhenius work. They wrote,Much discussion took place over the following years between colleagues, with one of the main points being the similar effect of water vapour in the atmosphere which was part of the total figure. Some rejected any effect of CO2 at all. There was no effective way to determine this split precisely, but in 1906 Arrhenius amended his view of how increased carbon dioxide would affect climate.The issue of Arrhenius mistaking a water vapor effect for a CO2 effect is not new. What is new is that the growing level of empirical evidence of the warming effect of CO2, known as climate sensitivity, is zero. This means Arrhenius’ colleagues who “rejected any effect of CO2 at all” are correct. In short, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.The IPCC through the definition of climate change given them by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) were able to predetermine their results.a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.This allowed them to only examine human causes, thus eliminating almost all other variables of climate and climate change. You cannot identify the human portion if you don’t know or understand natural, that is without human, climate or climate change. IPCC acknowledged this in 2007 as people started to ask questions about the narrowness of their work. They offered the one that many people thought they were using and should have been using. Deceptively, it only appeared as a footnote in the 2007 Summary for Policymakers (SPM), so it was aimed at the politicians. It said,“Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. This usage differs from that in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where climate change refers to a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”Few at the time challenged the IPCC assumption that an increase in CO2 caused an increase in global temperature. The IPCC claimed it was true because, when they increased CO2 in their computer models, the result was a temperature increase. Of course, the computer was programmed for that to happen. These computer models are the only place in the world where a CO2 increase precedes and causes a temperature change. This probably explains why their predictions are always wrong.An example of how the definition allowed the IPCC to focus on CO2 is to consider the major greenhouse gases by name and percentage of the total. They are water vapour (H20) 95%, carbon dioxide (CO2) 4%, and methane (CH4) 0.036%. The IPCC was able to overlook water vapor (95%) by admitting humans produce some, but the amount is insignificant relative to the total atmospheric volume of water vapour. The human portion of the CO2 in the atmosphere is approximately 3.4% of the total CO2 (Figure 1). To put that in perspective, approximately a 2% variation in water vapour completely overwhelms the human portion of CO2. This is entirely possible because water vapour is the most variable gas in the atmosphere, from region to region and over time.Figure 1In 1999, after two IPCC Reports were produced in 1990 and 1995 assuming a CO2 increase caused a temperature increase, the first significant long term Antarctic ice core record appeared. Petit, Raynaud, and Lorius were presented as the best representation of levels of temperature, CO2, and deuterium over 420,000 years. It appeared the temperature and CO2 were rising and falling in concert, so the IPCC and others assumed this proved that CO2 was causing temperature variation. I recall Lorius warning against rushing to judgment and saying there was no indication of such a connection.Euan Mearns noted in his robust assessment that the authors believed that temperature increase preceded CO2 increase:In their seminal paper on the Vostok Ice Core, Petit et al (1999) [1] note that CO2 lags temperature during the onset of glaciations by several thousand years but offer no explanation. They also observe that CH4 and CO2 are not perfectly aligned with each other but offer no explanation. The significance of these observations are therefore ignored. At the onset of glaciations temperature drops to glacial values before CO2 begins to fall suggesting that CO2 has little influence on temperature modulation at these times.Lorius reconfirmed his position in a 2007 article.“our [East Antarctica, Dome C] ice core shows no indication that greenhouse gases have played a key role in such a coupling [with radiative forcing]”Despite this, those promoting the IPCC claims ignored the empirical evidence. They managed to ignore the facts and have done so to this day. Joanne Nova explains part of the reason they were able to fool the majority in her article, “The 800 year lag in CO2 after temperature – graphed.” when she wrote confirming the Lorius concern.“It’s impossible to see a lag of centuries on a graph that covers half a million years, so I have regraphed the data from the original sources…”Nova concluded after expanding and more closely examining the data that,The bottom line is that rising temperatures cause carbon levels to rise. Carbon may still influence temperatures, but these ice cores are neutral on that. If both factors caused each other to rise significantly, positive feedback would become exponential. We’d see a runaway greenhouse effect. It hasn’t happened. Some other factor is more important than carbon dioxide, or carbon’s role is minor.Al Gore knew the ice core data showed temperature changing first. In his propaganda movie, An Inconvenient Truth, he separated the graph of temperature and CO2 enough to make a comparison of the two graphs more difficult. He then distracted with Hollywood histrionics by riding up on a forklift to the distorted 20th century reading.Thomas Huxley said,“The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a lovely hypothesis by an ugly fact.”The most recent ugly fact was that after 1998, CO2 levels continued to increase but global temperatures stopped increasing. Other ugly facts included the return of cold, snowy winters creating a PR problem by 2004. Cartoons appeared (Figure 2.)Figure 2The people controlling the AGW deception were aware of what was happening. Emails from 2004 leaked from the University of East Anglia revealed the concern. Nick at the Minns/Tyndall Centre that handled publicity for the climate story said,“In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media.”Swedish climate expert on the IPCC Bo Kjellen replied,“I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.”The disconnect between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperatures continued after 1998. The level of deliberate blindness of what became known as the “pause” or the hiatus became ridiculous (Figure 3).Figure 3“The assumption that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature was incorrectly claimed in the original science by Arrhenius. He mistakenly attributed the warming caused by water vapour (H2O) to CO2. All the evidence since confirms the error. This means CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. There is a greenhouse effect, and it is due to the water vapour. The entire claim that CO and especially human CO2 is absolutely wrong, yet these so-called scientists convinced the world to waste trillions on reducing CO2. If you want to talk about collusion, consider the cartoon in Figure 4.Figure 4″************Original articleDr. Tim Ball: The Evidence Proves That CO2 Is Not A Greenhouse Gas | Europe ReloadedSo-called renewables comprised just over 11% of U.S. energy consumption in 2017. Of the renewable sources, hydro, geothermal, and biomass aren’t going to grow enough to achieve any of the Green New Deal’s goals.Rep.-elect Ocasio-Cortez must be counting on wind and solar to power her plan. Together they supply just 3% of total energy consumed.If we confine the discussion to power generation, wind and solar comprise just 7.6% of the 4 trillion kilowatt-hour total. (Source: What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?)Renewable energy’s dreadful costs and awful electricityUnreliable capacity and excessively high costs make renewable energy nothing more than a ‘green’ idealogue’s dream12 DECEMBER 2018 - 13:55 ANDREW KENNYWind turbines are not the way to go, says Andrew Kenny, just ask Germany. Picture: THINKSTOCKSA is stumbling towards energy disaster. On top of Eskom’s failures comes the calamitous Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2018, a plan for ruinously expensive electricity. (The IRP 2018, drawn up by the department of energy, plans SA’s electricity supply.) The IRP is mad, based not on the real world but on a fantasy world of computer models.The IRP’s “least-cost option” is in fact the most expensive option possible, which has seen electricity costs soaring wherever it has been tried. This is a combination of wind, solar and imported gas. It was drawn up by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and supported by the IRP. It is a recipe for calamity.It seems strange that SA should forsake its own huge resources of reliable energy and depend on foreign sources. Worse is its reliance on unreliable solar and wind.South Australia actually did implement something like the CSIR’s “least-cost option”. It closed coal stations, built wind turbines and some solar plants, and supplemented them with natural gas, which Australia, unlike SA, has in abundance. The result was soaring electricity prices, reaching, at one point in July 2016, the astonishing figure of A$14,000/MWh (R140/kWh). Eskom’s average selling price is R0.89/kWh. The “least-cost solution” resulted momentarily in an electricity price more than 150 times Eskom’s. It would be worse here because we don’t have much gas.The renewable energy companies and the greens seem to have captured the department of energy (quite legally, quite differently from Gupta capture)It also caused two total blackouts for South Australia. In panic it ordered the world’s biggest battery from Elon Musk. Jaws dropped when people discovered how expensive it was and how inadequate (with 0.5% of the storage capacity of our Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme).The IRP and CSIR refuse to recognise the essential cost that makes renewables so expensive. Here is the key equation: cost of renewable electricity equals price paid by the system operator plus system costs.The system costs are the costs the grid operator, Eskom in our case, has to bear to accommodate the appalling fluctuations of wind and solar power so as to meet demand at all times. The renewable companies refuse to reveal their production figures but I have graphs of total renewable production since 2013, the beginning of renewable energy independent power producers (IPPS) procurement programme. The graphs are terrible, with violent, unpredictable ups and downs.In March 2018, power output varied from 3,000MW to 47MW. To stop this dreadful electricity shutting down the whole grid, Eskom must have back-up generators ramping up and down to match the renewables; it must have machines on “spinning reserve” (running below optimum power), and extra transmission lines. These cause system costs, which can be very expensive. The renewable companies don’t pay for them; Eskom does, and passes them on the South African public.NonsenseThe system costs, ignored by the IRP and CSIR, are one of the reasons their models are nonsense. They explain an apparent paradox. Week by week we hear that the prices of solar and wind electricity are coming down; but week by week we see electricity consumers around the world paying more as solar and wind are added to the grid. Denmark, with the world’s highest fraction of wind electricity, has just about the most expensive electricity in Europe. Germany, since it adopted the absurd Energiewende (phasing out nuclear and replacing it with wind and solar) has seen electricity costs soaring.The answer lies in the green desire for conquest. Nuclear power, as you can see driving past Koeberg, works in harmony with nature. The greens don’t like that. They want to conquer and dominate natureThe renewable energy IPP procurement programme, hailed by renewable companies as a huge success, has forced on SA its most expensive electricity ever — and its worst. Eskom’s last annual report, for the year ending 31 March 2018, revealed it was forced to pay 222c/kWh for the programme’s electricity compared with its selling price of 89c/kWh. But the system costs make it even more expensive.We get an idea how much more from the one renewable technology that does provide honest electricity and covers its own system costs. This is concentrated solar power (CSP) with storage, where sunshine heats up a working fluid, which is stored in tanks and used for making electricity for short periods when required. The latest such plants charge about 500c/kWh at peak times. So the best solar technology, with an award-winning project, in perhaps the world’s best solar sites, produces electricity at more than 10 times the cost of Koeberg and about five times the cost of new nuclear.Carbon dioxide realityAfter the procurement programme proved a failure, Lynne Brown, then public enterprises minister, ordered Eskom to sign up for a further 27 renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs), each lasting 20 years. Malusi Gigaba, then finance minister, endorsed her.Nuclear reduces carbon dioxide emissions; renewables don’t. The Energiewende has turned Germany into the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in Europe, because wind and solar, being so unreliable, had to be supplemented with fossil fuels, especially coal.Two reasons drive renewables: money and ideology. Renewable energy companies make a fortune when they persuade governments to force their utilities to buy their awful electricity.But why do the green ideologues love wind and solar? Not because of free energy, which is actually very expensive. Tides, waves, solar, wind and dissolved uranium in the sea can all provide free energy but, except for the uranium, it is always very costly to convert it into usable power. (Uranium from the sea would be naturally be replenished but it is cheaper to buy it from a commercial mine.)I think the answer lies in the green desire for conquest. Nuclear power, as you can see driving past Koeberg, works in harmony with nature. The greens don’t like that. They want to conquer and dominate nature. They love the idea of thousands of gigantic wind turbines and immense solar arrays dominating the landscape like new totems of command. Wind and solar rely entirely on coercion by the state, which the greens also love (in a free market nobody would buy wind or solar grid electricity).SA NEEDS TO DIVERSIFY ENERGY SOURCES TO DELIVERSA is not taking advantage of the clear lead the country has in solar and wind resources.OPINION 2 months agoThe renewable energy companies and the greens seem to have captured the department of energy (quite legally, quite differently from Gupta capture). If they get their way, the rest of us are going to suffer.Since 1994, Eskom has been wrecked by bad management, destructive ideology and corruption. Because it didn’t build stations timeously, the existing stations have been run into the ground and are failing. Its once excellent coal supply has been crippled. There is massive over-staffing and Eskom is plunging into debt. Seasonable rains threaten another fiasco to match January 2008, which shut down our gold mines.The last thing Eskom needs now is to be burdened by useless, very expensive renewable electricity. Recently, the parliamentary portfolio committee on energy, after listening to submissions on IRP 2018, recommended that coal and nuclear should remain in our energy mix. Perhaps a ray of hope for sanity.• Kenny is a professional engineer with degrees in physics, mathematics and mechanical engineering.Let’s look at the current picture, according to the Energy Information Administration.GREEN MADNESS: THE LIGHTS ARE GOING OUT IN NEW YORK CITYGov Andrew Cuomo’s green obsession is making the Russian roulette blackout game ever more dangerous.Since the five-hour blackout that hit Manhattan on Saturday night, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly attacked Con Ed, the utility that provides electricity and gas to customers in the New York area. He has threatened to strip the utility of its operating license and said the city was playing “Russian roulette” with electricity reliability.That’s pretty rich. Over the past few years, Cuomo has repeatedly made political decisions that have reduced the reliability of New York’s energy infrastructure. Cuomo telling Con Ed that it needs to improve its reliability is like an arsonist telling the fire department to buy more pumper trucks.The most obvious example of the reliability risks facing New York City is the looming closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant, a move that Cuomo began pushing for back in 2011.Next April, one of the two operating reactors at the facility will be shuttered. The other reactor is slated for shutdown in 2021. While the premature closure of the 2,069-megawatt facility may please Cuomo’s friends at Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the New York Independent System Operator, the agency that manages the state’s electric grid, has repeatedly warned about the threat to reliability.Indian Point provides about a quarter of the electricity consumed in the city. Further, it helps assure the stability of the grid. The electric grid runs on narrow tolerances of voltage, which is akin to water pressure in a pipeline. The grid must be continually tuned so that electricity production and electricity usage match and voltage on the grid stays at near-constant levels. If voltage fluctuates too much, blackouts can occur.In 2011, NYISO said that “under stress conditions, the voltage performance on the system without the Indian Point plant would be degraded.”In 2016, the agency reiterated its concerns, saying, “Retaining all existing nuclear generators is critical to the state’s carbon emission reduction requirements as well as maintaining electric system reliability.” That same year, two analysts—one from General Electric and another from consulting firm ICF—provided a presentation to the system operator that discussed a reliability standard known as “loss of load expectation,” or LOLE, an event in which electricity demand exceeds available generation.The reliability standard for grid operators in the U.S. allows for a LOLE of one day every 10 years, or 0.1 days per year. By 2030, the GE-ICF presentation estimated that closing Indian Point will result in the doubling of LOLE in the New York City area to 0.2 days per year.In addition to the premature closure of Indian Point, New York has been blocking new natural-gas pipelines that would help provide cleaner and cheaper energy supplies into the state and into New England. As I show in a recent report for Manhattan Institute, the governor’s appointees at the Department of Environmental Conservation have repeatedly refused to grant permits for new pipelines at the same time the grid has become more reliant on gas-fired generators.Since 2004 gas-fired electricity production in the state has nearly doubled and it will jump again after the closure of Indian Point. In response to Cuomo’s pipeline blockade, the region’s biggest utilities, Con Ed and National Grid, have said they will quit providing new gas connections in their service areas in and around New York City. That, in turn, forces some consumers to continue relying on heating oil, which is more expensive and more polluting.Finally, Cuomo has agreed to implement the Climate and Community Protection Act, which mandates that 70% of electricity consumed in the state come from renewables by 2030 and 100% from carbon-free sources by 2040. Forcing the electric grid to rely more heavily on intermittent sources such as solar and wind will put yet more stress on the grid, particularly during extreme weather.In short, Cuomo is pushing for the biggest changes in New York’s electric grid since Thomas Edison launched the Electric Age on Pearl Street in 1882, and he’s doing so without any understanding of how those changes may affect reliability.Green Madness: The Lights Are Going Out In New York City - The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)No, wild fires are not the result of climate change, far from it. They are natural and research finds the fires are mostly caused by human action EITHER DELIBERATE OR ACCIDENTAL and by “ridiculously inadequate controlled burns.” An excellent reference for this view and analysis of this issue eighty years ago is in the Stretton Royal Commission Report after the horrific loss of life from the 1939 Black Friday bush fire starting in Victoria.After the horrific Black Friday bush fire of 1939 killing many more than 2019 Australia wild fires the government commissioned the Stretton Royal Commission to look into causes and how to prevent future severe bush fires. In CHAPTER II the Commission concluded:“Immediate Causes.—Almost all fires are caused by man.”The 36 page report is available free here and full of useful evidence relevant to the fires of 2019.ref. http://www.voltscommissar.net/docs/Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdfI urge you to read the whole report in pdf for free here -http://www.voltscommissar.net/docs/Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdf (http://www.voltscommissar.net/docs/Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdf)“CHAPTER IIImmediate Causes.—Almost all fires are caused by man. The experience of the past shows that the persons who caused the 1939 fires are to be found among the following classes which are set forth in a descending scale offrequency of responsibility for fire;the manner in and reason for which they cause fireis shortly indicated:—(i) Settlers.—Burning off for growth, clearing or protection.Graziers.—Burning to promote grass growth.Miners and Prospectors.—Clearing to facilitate operations.(ii) Sportsmen.—Neglect of camp¬fires, billy fires.Tourists.—Lighted matches for smoking.Campers.Burning, to facilitate passage through the bush.(iii) Forest Workers.Misuse of fire used for mill operations and for domestic purposes.(iv) Persons using roads.—Neglect of billyfires ; lighted matches; and burning obstructing logs on roadway.(v) Road and Railway Work Gangs.—Billy and camp fires ; careless burning off on railway property.(vi) Locomotives.Defective spark arresters.(vii) Lightning.— Infrequent, as generally followed by rain.Of these classes settlers, miners and graziers are the most prolific fireCausing agents. The percentage of fires caused by them far exceeds that of anyother class. Their firing is generally deliberate. All other firing is, generally, due to carelessness.“Immediate Causes.—Almost all fires are caused by man.”http://www.voltscommissar.net/docs/Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdfThe report also strongly criticizes the government for “ridiculously inadequate controlled burn.” Sadly the same problems identified by the Royal Commission exist today and are worse with increasing populations, in particular the mismanagement of the land. This key failure of using controlled burns accounts for a lot of the severity of the fires loaded with underbrush. The Aborigines knew this helped and they regularly burned the grass with fire sticks.The Australian Aborigines used control burn going back thousands of years.The Australian soil is enhanced with grass fires from time immemorial and in fact Aborigines have used fire sticks for this purpose. Sometimes controlled burns get out of control.Aboriginal burn practices again used on countryA recent burn conducted at a bush reserve near Wedderburn held significance beyond being a land management tool.Members of the Dja Dja Wurrung community applied the burning practices of their ancestors to Bush Heritage Australia’s Nardoo Hills Reserve, a parcel of land set aside for bush regeneration and conservation.“Our fire management practice, which we call Djandak Wii, is an obligation we have to the land, and we love to see the greater biodiversity it brings, and the gradual return to health it brings to country,” Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Rodney Carter said.Arson, mischief and recklessness: 87 per cent of fires are man-madeBy Paul ReadNovember 18, 2019 — 12.00amBUSHFIRESThere are, on average, 62,000 fires in Australia every year. Only a very small number strike far from populated areas and satellite studies tell us that lightning is responsible for only 13 per cent. Not so the current fires threatening to engulf Queensland and NSW. There were no lightning strikes on most of the days when the fires first started in September. Although there have been since, these fires – joining up to create a new form of mega-fire – are almost all man-made.About 40 per cent of fires are deliberately lit ... The Hillville fire that destroyed homes last week.CREDIT:NICK MOIRA 2015 satellite analysis of 113,000 fires from 1997-2009 confirmed what we had known for some time – 40 per cent of fires are deliberately lit, another 47 per cent accidental. This generally matches previous data published a decade earlier that about half of all fires were suspected or deliberate arson, and 37 per cent accidental. Combined, they reach the same conclusion: 87 per cent are man-made.Arson, mischief and recklessness: 87 per cent of fires are man-madeAustralian wild fires are not relevant to climate change, but they are part of short term and long term environmental issues. From time immemorial fires have had a very beneficial effect on the Australia and pre European Aborigines engaged in burning grass and the under brush.The Australian Aborigines used control burn going back thousands of years.The Australian soil is enhanced with grass fires from time immemorial and in fact Aborigines have used fire sticks for this purpose. Sometimes controlled burns get out of control.Aboriginal burn practices again used on countryA recent burn conducted at a bush reserve near Wedderburn held significance beyond being a land management tool.Members of the Dja Dja Wurrung community applied the burning practices of their ancestors to Bush Heritage Australia’s Nardoo Hills Reserve, a parcel of land set aside for bush regeneration and conservation.“Our fire management practice, which we call Djandak Wii, is an obligation we have to the land, and we love to see the greater biodiversity it brings, and the gradual return to health it brings to country,” Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Rodney Carter said.Wild fires spewing smoke and aerosols have a dimming effect on the sun and reduce local temperatures. The fires certainly do not make the climate warmer you will see that for yourself after a large volcanic eruption. I witnessed the immediate cooling effect from the Mount St Helens eruption while living in Victoria.The science of aerosols is proven by observation unlike the alarmism pseudo science demonizing CO2 minute gas as pollution when the evidence is contrary as CO2 has a largely beneficial role for plants and life on the earth.The smoke from California’s deadliest fire is so thick that it’s blotting out the sun and lowering surface temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius), according to the U.S. National Weather Service.