Climate Conversation Group

An artistic impression of the Earth’s magnetic field, showing how it’s deflected by the solar wind. Notice how large the protective field is compared with the size of the Earth. Imagine how vulnerable we would be if anything happened to the magnetic shield—such as, for example, through “clumping” of the ferric content of the Earth’s crust by mankind’s destructive iron mining in the selfish attempt to build a civilization. Is that scary enough for you?

The next hobgoblin

The mining of iron-ore alters the planet’s magnetic field and results in an increased incidence of cancers, plus assorted pandemics, due to increased penetration of cosmic rays, mainly of solar origin. Furthermore, the unbridled “mass-shifting‟ of iron from Nature‟s uniform distribution within the Earth‟s crust toward concentrated artificial “lumpy‟ distribution when it is used to construct buildings, bridges and other structures and products of mankind‟s evil inventiveness, causes the planet’s magnetic field to become “unbalanced” and dangerously diminish in strength.

It will ultimately reach a tipping point whereby a total magnetic field collapse or reversal will occur unless we desist from mining and halt the spread of civilization. The Earth will become uninhabitable and all life forms will expire.

This is called “Ferric Mass-Shifting” or FMS.

The beauty of FMS is that it has all the necessary ingredients of a latter-day Apocalypse and it can be blamed on mankind. It is of a global nature, but it is also the result of so-called “Western greed” and hence can be put down to the spread of capitalism and Western technology. It has the necessary “tipping point” that can be used to frighten the scientifically-illiterate masses with unavoidable doom unless they “STOP RAPING THE PLANET OF IRON!” and look to the distant past as a guide to how they should live.

Our ancient ancestors obviously happier

That is, they must hark back to our unruly ancestors who lived in caves and were closer to Nature in joy and happiness and who obviously lived long comfortable lives in peace and harmony while scratching in the dirt for a bite to eat. Furthermore, this hobgoblin is tailor-made for anti-capitalist socialist zealots who despise industrial progress, large corporations and anything that smacks of freedom of choice.

It also has the promise of generating “research” grants for compliant rent-seeking scientists to “prove” the problem exists, requiring urgent wide-spread government intervention (overseen by the UN) by way of taxing all citizens who own, use or have access to iron in all its forms including all alloys of steel.

The only problem is that it requires the uncritical public to believe it, as they did AGW. However, with the help of the above-mentioned scientists and new “Ferric Research Units” (FRUs) from selected Universities, the scientific data can be easily manipulated in order to make it appear legitimate. Hence convincing the public should be easy.

To this end, I believe the University of East Anglia should be given the opportunity to establish the very first FRU and start the ball rolling. Their experience should prove invaluable. Furthermore, FMS lends itself to the media’s insatiable appetite for disaster stories, so they will help spread the message without having to be persuaded, just as with AGW.

Notice to all governments

Since it is now clear the wheels have fallen off the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) bandwagon, with dwindling numbers of people genuinely believing in it, the need for a replacement hobgoblin is now urgent. I remind the power-hungry that Henry Louis Mencken alluded to this political expedient when he wrote:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

I respectfully propose the above-mentioned scare to frighten the masses. It does not matter of course that this scare is complete nonsense like AGW, because the point is to frighten the masses and then tax them for living a normal life.

FMS invented by Joe Fone of Christchurch, New Zealand