Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment - 4

Massey Fossil Fuel CEO Indicted

In this series we finger Oil-Qaeda as a camouflaged terrorist group that does more damage to the world than any other terrorist group.

They are a pathogenic viral infection of industrial civilization.

They get by with it by infiltrating the blood-stream of host victims and fooling the immune system of civilization.

They are like most pathogens in certain respects, yet on the edges they are not too big to jail, so some of civilization's antigens within its immune system are still active, and will strike at the smaller, less-well-connected pathogens:

Count One

(Conspiracy to Wilfully Violate Mandatory Mine Safety and Health Standards)

86. The Grand Jury re-alleges Paragraphs I through 85 as if fully incorporated herein.

87. Throughout the Indictment Period, BLANKENSHIP, together with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together with each other for BLANKENSHIP and Massey, as operators of UBB, to willfully violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards at UBB, in violation of Title 30, United States Code, Section 820(d), and Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. The conspiracy alleged in Count One of this Indictment is referred to herein as the "Mine Act Conspiracy."
...

Count Two

(Conspiracy to Defraud the United States)

98. The Grand Jury re-alleges Paragraphs 1 through 97 as if fully incorporated herein.

99. Throughout the Indictment Period, at or near Montcoal, West Virginia, within the Southern District of West Virginia, and elsewhere within and without the Southern District of West Virginia, BLANKENSHIP, together with others known and unknown, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together with each other to defraud the United States and an agency thereof, to wit, to hamper, hinder, impair, impede, and obstruct, by trickery, deceit, and dishonest means, the lawful and legitimate functions of DOL and its agency, MSHA, in the administration and enforcement of mine safety and health laws at UBB ... In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.
...

Count Three

105. The Grand Jury re-alleges Paragraphs 1 through 104 as if fully incorporated herein.

106. On or around April 8, 2010, in the Southern District of West Virginia, BLANKENSHIP, aided and abetted by others known and unknown, knowingly and willfully made and caused to be made materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations; and knowingly and willfully made and used, and caused to be made and used, a false writing and document knowing the same to contain materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and entries, in a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the Government of the United States, to wit, by filing and causing to be filed with the SEC a document containing statements, entries, and representations including the following: "[w]e [Massey] do not condone any violation of MSHA regulations" and [w]e [Massey] strive to be in compliance with all regulations at all times," which statements BLANKENSHIP then and there well knew were false, fictitious and fraudulent. In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section l00l(aX2) and (3), and Section 2.
...

Count Four

107. The Grand Jury re-alleges Paragraphs 1 through 106 as if fully incorporated herein.

108. From on or around April 7,2070, through on or around April 9,2010, BLANKENSHIP, aided and abetted by others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, did directly and indirectly, by means and instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and by means of the mails and of the facilities of national securities exchanges, did make and cause to be made untrue statements of material fact, and did omit to state, and cause to be omitted to state, material facts necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, did engage in acts and practices and courses of business which operated and would operate as frauds and deceits upon persons, all in connection with the sale and purchase of securities, to wit, Massey Class A Common Stock, in that BLANKENSHIP, aided and abetted by others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, did directly and indirectly, make and cause to be made the statements, "[w]e [Massey] do not condone any violation of MSHA regulations," and "[w]e [Massey] do not condone any violation of Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) regulations," and "[w]e [Massey] strive to be in compliance with all regulations at all times," in a filing made with the SEC by means of interstate wire transmission, and in a press release distributed by means of interstate wire transmissions and companies engaged in the business of distributing press releases by means of interstate wire transmissions. In violation of Title 15, United States Code, Section 78ff; Title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 240.10b-5; and Title 18 United States Code, Section 2.

(UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA CHARLESTON GRAND JURY 2014 NOVEMBER 12, 2014 SESSION, PDF). When this series began, the characteristics and the deceitful ways of these social pathogens were pointed out:

Just like those running asbestos, lead paint, and tobacco companies who knowingly continued to do harm for profit ... energy executives ... are the business equivalents of terrorists.

In fact, for years they’ve funded a massive campaign to deny the reality

Toxic bridge to everywhere

of climate change ... we should think of them as oil-Qaeda
...
More than 100 million people will die ... by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments said on Wednesday.
...
It calculated that five million deaths occur each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive economies, and that toll would likely rise to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil fuel use continue.
...
"A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade," the report said.

(Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment). The pathogen being prosecuted is not the most virulent of the strain, but one has to begin somewhere.

These same charges can be brought against those conspiring to cover up and hide the truth of global warming induced climate change and other fossil fuel pollution that is murdering millions annually.

However, those prosecutions will be much more difficult because of the psychopathology and virulence of those pathogens:

Other untaxed corporations funded by Oil-Qaeda appear to be non-political --as they divide the country with hostile anti-Americanism (ALEC Lies To Cover Up Lies).

Even The Supreme Politicians come out of the closet without fear of oversight or reprisals (Supreme Court neoCons Are Robed Politicians).

As disaster approaches (IPCC Latest Report) a suicidal cry rings out from the dark halls of congress for more of the same (Congress On Keystone XL Pipeline).

(A Decline Of The American Republic - 4). At his time, it does not look good for civilization because the infection has metastasised throughout the system.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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The pathogens are embedded ...

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A Decline Of The American Republic - 4

Plateau Glacier, AK (1961, 2003)

In this series it has been pointed out that large empires go down in stages and phases.

Not totally unlike a glacier retreating into oblivion as it melts into obscurity.

At some point the glacier can even appear to be advancing because of what is perceived to be increasing ice flow.

But, actually the "advance" is caused by a river of melt water flowing underneath the ice.

That sub-surface flowing water lubricates the ice above it, and makes it slide forward in what appears to be a growing glacier ... then, suddenly reality strikes, an abundance of icebergs may appear too, but upon closer observation, reality clearly is there, and we find that the glacier is actually going in reverse.

Finally, the only memory of that empire is on its "gravestone" ... the history books:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History,  by Arnold J. Toynbee). Likewise, the U.S. empire appears to be advancing into the middle east:

"By one estimate, the United States has spent $10 trillion protecting Persian Gulf oil supplies over the past four decades."

(The Bases of War in the Middle East). Actually, they are protecting Oil-Qaeda (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment) a.k.a. the private empire (MOMCOM: The Private Parts) in the epigovernment (Epigovernment: The New Model).

Yes, Oil-Qaeda is subsidized by a socialized military propaganda-protection program (MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen) which the propagandists call "foreign policy" or even more delusional expressions:

And in all this, the U.S. ... lost the moral high-ground as well. The president himself unleashed brutal torture across all theaters of war – effectively ending any moral authority the US has in international human rights.

These are difficult truths to handle. They reveal that so many brave men and women died for nothing. And so we have to construct myths or bury facts to ensure that we maintain face. But these myths and amnesia have a consequence: they only serve to encourage Washington to make exactly the same mistakes again. To protect its own self-regard, Washington’s elite is prepared to send young Americans to fight in a war they cannot win and indeed have already lost. You see the blinding myopia elsewhere: Washington’s refusal to release the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture merely proves that it cannot face the fact that some of the elite are war criminals tout simple, and that these horrific war crimes have changed America’s role in the world.

(What Washington Refuses To Admit, emphasis added). Other untaxed corporations funded by Oil-Qaeda appear to be non-political --as they divide the country with hostile anti-Americanism (ALEC Lies To Cover Up Lies).

Even The Supreme Politicians come out of the closet without fear of oversight or reprisals (Supreme Court neoCons Are Robed Politicians).

As disaster approaches (IPCC Latest Report) a suicidal cry rings out from the dark halls of congress for more of the same (Congress On Keystone XL Pipeline).

The previous post in this series is here.

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On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses - 12

Mathabiotical evolution & replication (e.g. crystal)

Possessive evolutionists have declared that evolution is theirs and theirs alone ("The hypothesis put forth to explain the origins of the Universe, our solar system, and our planet is called the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory IS NOT EVOLUTION! (The theory of evolution deals with living organisms, once they have come into existance" [sic] - Origins of Life; Wayback Machine Copy)).

Au contraire to those of you who fear abiotic evolution.

The far greater portion of total evolution that has taken place in the universe (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 27) has been abiotic evolution, so, shame on you for your want of ability to conceive of the big picture concerning the bulk of evolution.

Preferring to cling to the baby-blanket of the neophytic biotic evolution is an intellectual tantrum, rather than a valid argument (The Uncertain Gene).

"Majoring in the minors," as it were, is not comprehensive, it is reductio ad absurdum, unwisely mixing clingy notions with teleological, defective nomenclature (The Uncertain Gene - 2).

The Latin people who invented the word ēvolvō (before the car existed) knew what they were talking about:

evolve ... From Latin ēvolvere, present active infinitive of ēvolvō (“unroll, unfold”), from ē (“out of”), short form of ex, + volvō (“roll”).
To move in regular procession through a system ... To change, transform, develop.  

(Dictionary, emphasis added; cf. evolutus). Don't be afraid to explore abiotic evolution, because otherwise you will miss the big picture.

Thinking exercise: "Abiotic synthesis -- the preparation of a compound, often of biological relevance, without the use of biological agents such as enzymes or nucleic acids ..."; so remember that the recoil from abiotic evolution is a hangover from a darker age of science:

The word organic is historical, dating to the 1st century. For many centuries, Western alchemists believed in vitalism.
...
Vitalism survived for a while even after the rise of modern atomic theory and the replacement of the Aristotelian elements by those we know today.
...
Even though vitalism has been discredited, scientific nomenclature retains the distinction between organic and inorganic compounds. The modern meaning of organic compound is any compound that contains a significant amount of carbon—even though many of the organic compounds known today have no connection to any substance found in living organisms.

There is no single "official" definition of an organic compound. Some textbooks define an organic compound as one that contains one or more C-H bonds. Others include C-C bonds in the definition. Others state that if a molecule contains carbon―it is organic.

Even the broader definition of "carbon-containing molecules" requires the exclusion of carbon-containing alloys (including steel), a relatively small number of carbon-containing compounds such as metal carbonates and carbonyls, simple oxides of carbon and cyanides, as well as the allotropes of carbon and simple carbon halides and sulfides, which are usually considered inorganic.

(Wikipedia, "organic compound"). The "evolution only pertains to organic life forms" meme is tethered to obsolete science such as the belief that DNA is alive, is biotic, rather than it being an abiotic, non-living, molecule (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 37).

BTW, we landed on a comet today (Did Abiotic Intelligence Precede Biotic Intelligence?).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Comet Landing In Progress

From European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany

Rosetta background (Wikipedia)

Rosetta Blog

Twitter: #CometLanding

The lander has left the mother-ship
and is descending toward the comet.

Waiting for it to contact the mother-ship ...

It is a few minutes late ...

Lander has contacted the mother-ship ...

Signal & communication is good ...

The landing phase is under way ...

About 4 more hours until landing takes place ...
(~9:30 AM CST; ~10:30 EST)
....
about an hour from touchdown ...
....
just minutes until touchdown
the lander is oriented properly ...

Photo of descending lander taken by orbiter

....
minutes to touchdown ...
....
tension building ...
....

Lander takes snapshot just before landing

....
TOUCHDOWN ANNOUNCED !
(@ about 10:03 AM CST; 11:03 AM EST)
....
  Analysing conditions ...
...
lander has attached itself to the comet ...
...
SUCCESS !
UPDATE: the lander rose from the surface several times, so it has not yet locked down and may have moved from the intended landing area. (BBC coverage here)

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The exploded planet hypothesis (EPH) is sure to be revisited as the comet is studied further (eg. Exploded Planet Hypothesis, 2; cf. this, this, and this).

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Sounds from the comet:

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Everybody's Got A Holder Heart - 3

"Some bankers are too big to fail or jail"

This series began in 2009 with a post about the intervention of A.G. Holder on behalf of a criminal politician who had been convicted by a jury.

He dropped the case in an unusual manner ... keeping the appellate courts out of it (Everybody's Got A Holder Heart, 2).

Keeping the courts out of it has been his mantra on everything (Follow The Immunity, 2, 3).

"Immunity" of various sorts ("too big to ...") has been protecting everyone from those who committed war crimes to the banks who intentionally committed history's greatest financial and banking fraud on the American public (Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

Matt Taibi is on the case with new revelations from a competent whistle blower:

She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn't take it anymore.

"It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street," she says. "I thought, 'I can't sit by any longer.'"
...
Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations.

Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she's kept her mouth shut since then. "My closest family and friends don't know what I've been living with," she says. "Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview."

Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it's not exactly news that the country's biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That's why the more important part of Fleischmann's story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.

She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. "Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way," Fleischmann says.

This past year she watched as Holder's Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges – only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called "statements of facts," which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts.
...
In today's America, someone like Fleischmann – an honest person caught for a little while in the wrong place at the wrong time – has to be willing to live through an epic ordeal just to get to the point of being able to open her mouth and tell a truth or two. And when she finally gets there, she still has to risk everything to take that last step. "The assumption they make is that I won't blow up my life to do it," Fleischmann says. "But they're wrong about that."

Good for her, and great for her that it's finally out. But the big-picture ending still stings. She hopes otherwise, but the likely final verdict is a Pyrrhic victory.

(The $9 Billion Witness, emphasis added). What is being revealed over a span of two administrations during these past 14 years is an epigovernment (Epigovernment: The New Model, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

It is a secret layer of control by criminal minds which our chief propagandists once bragged about out in the open:

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty [now 320] million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
...
It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice.

(Epigovernment: The New Model, quoting from "Propaganda" by Bernays). The game plan now, since criminal minds are known to have taken over the epigovernment, is to cover it all up, hang on for dear life, and "hopium" for the best.

The previous post in this series is here.

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Everybody's Got A Holder Heart - 3

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Oilandia: A Coast Along the Gulf of Oil-Qaeda - 2

Oilandia 2.0

"Never change a winning game but always change a losing game" is a mantra of game bangers.

That seems reasonable in theory.

However, it has oft been observed that a problem arises, for those who have not arrived on planet Earth yet (You Are Here), when it comes to defining what is "a winning game" and what is "a losing game."

Oil-Qaeda (MOMCOM's team) has been warned for years that fossil fuels are not a winning game, yet they now root for the death juice louder than ever.

They "won" the recent election, then vowed surreptitiously to bring in The Keystone Pipeline,  privatize destroy Social Security, privatize destroy health care insurance, and destroy the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) --in a "bipartisan fashion" of course.

That is why many folks believe that they think the game being played on Earth is "Pact Man does Mass Murder & Suicide" (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, 2, 3, 4, 5).

And it is being played, they surmise, for kicks and grins ("There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke" - All Along The Watchtower, Bob Dylan).

It must be something they learned (The Peak Of The Oil Wars, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) from MOMCOM, which somehow got wired into their cultural circuitry (Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala) somewhere along the way.

One activist mentioned that there are two ways toward the current demise of human civilization:

I’ve kept to domestic issues, but there are two dangerous developments in the international arena, which are a kind of shadow that hangs over everything we’ve discussed. There are, for the first time in human history, real threats to the decent survival of the species.

One has been hanging around since 1945. It’s kind of a miracle that we’ve escaped it. That’s the threat of nuclear war and nuclear weapons. Though it isn’t being much discussed, that threat is, in fact, being escalated by the policies of this administration and its allies. And something has to be done about that or we’re in real trouble.

The other, of course, is environmental catastrophe. Practically every country in the world is taking at least halting steps towards trying to do something about it. The United States is also taking steps, mainly to accelerate the threat. It is the only major country that is not only not doing something constructive to protect the environment, it’s not even climbing on the train. In some ways, it’s pulling it backwards.

And this is connected to a huge propaganda system, proudly and openly declared by the business world, to try to convince people that climate change is just a liberal hoax. “Why pay attention to these scientists?”

We’re really regressing back to the dark ages. It’s not a joke. And if that’s happening in the most powerful, richest country in history, then this catastrophe isn’t going to be averted -- and in a generation or two, everything else we’re talking about won’t matter. Something has to be done about it very soon in a dedicated, sustained way.

(Later Than We Think?, emphasis added). The nuclear-toy game has been in the cognitive arsenal of the ignoratti for a long time.

Since at least when Saint Ayn Rand (Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy, 2, 3, 4) first descended to Earth from on high:

How did this [nuclear war advocacy] all start? From Rand's own papers and journals, we learn that when she accepted the assignment from Wallis she said she'd only do it if she could express her own political and philosophical views, which might clash with the studio's. She then interviewed many of the leading figures in the Bomb's development, including Oppenheimer.

Many years later she revealed that the character Robert Stadler in Atlas Shrugged was based on Oppenheimer. The papers also show that after MGM bought out Wallis, Rand was then free to work full-time on Atlas Shrugged.

She also wrote for Wallis an amazing and quite lengthy memo, An Analysis of the Proper Approach to a Picture on the Atomic Bomb.

Rand's memo opens with the astounding claim that it was not the bomb itself, a mere "inanimate" object, but a bad movie about it that could turn out to be the "greatest moral crime in the history of civilization." After all, whether the Bomb is used again depends on the "thinking of men," and movies were now the most influential elements in all of society. So she aimed for an "immortal

Poof the Magic Dragon

achievement" that would prevent the result of "millions of charred bodies -- those of our children."

The real danger was posed by the world's decline into "Statism" at the expense of "free enterprise." And "Statism leads to war." Now, with the atomic bomb in the world and Statism on the march our days were literally numbered -- unless the "trend" to Statism was "reversed." Because: "An atomic bomb is safe only in a free society."

But does that mean Rand hated the Bomb? Hardly. In fact, she extols its [nuclear weaponry] creation as "an eloquent example of, argument for and tribute to free enterprise." As evidence she cites the fact that despite its massive state power, Germany could not create the weapon but the United States did.

(Ayn Rand's ... Glorifying the Atomic Bomb, emphasis added). The right-wing followers of Saint Ayn Rand are planning for one hell of  a holy nuclear war:

In an article published by Op-Ed News, Eric Zuesse supports my reports of indications that Washington is preparing for a nuclear first strike against Russia.

US war doctrine has been changed. US nuclear weapons are no longer restricted to a retaliatory force, but have been elevated to the role of preemptive nuclear attack. Washington pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia and is developing and deploying an ABM shield. Washington is demonizing Russia and Russia’s President with shameless lies and propaganda, thus preparing the populations of the US and its client states for war with Russia.

Washington has been convinced by neoconservatives that Russian strategic nuclear forces are in run down and unprepared condition and are sitting ducks for attack. This false belief is based on out-of-date information, a decade old, such as the argument presented in “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy” by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press in the April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization of American elites.

Regardless of the condition of Russian nuclear forces, the success of Washington’s first strike and degree of protection provided by Washington’s ABM shield against retaliation, the article I posted by Steven Starr, “The Lethality of Nuclear Weapons,” makes clear that nuclear war has no winners. Everyone dies.

(Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 2). The politicians are having a difficult time with the struggle to come up with a bi-partisan agreement as to which method of mass murder-suicide of this society should be used.

Both sides are so testy.

The pundits of McTell News are all aTwitter about a bi-partisan compromise agreement ("The Nukem First Act of 2015") to accomplish that number one priority.

Meanwhile, the previous post in this series is here.

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Saint Ayn Rand's kid Slim:

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Ode to Ayn Rand:

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On The Origin of Tornadoes - 5

Bell Curve Projection (not to scale)

The U.S. has experienced about 75% of the world's tornadoes in recent decades (US Tornadoes) and for some portion of time before that (On The Origin of Tornadoes - 3).

The other ~25% of the world's tornadoes take place in a handful of countries in general: Canada, Mexico, Europe, Bangladesh, Australia, Argentina, and South Africa (ibid, "US Tornadoes").

We have seen abrupt climate change in action over the past several years in the U.S. with regard to the number of tornadoes:

The data (number of tornadoes each year per decade):

1950-1959: 206, 261, 246, 443, 570, 606, 518, 868, 576, 614
1960-1969: 619, 721, 667, 476, 719, 918, 593, 939, 668, 617
1970-1979: 671, 904, 747, 1115, 974, 924, 848, 861, 802, 865
1980-1989: 876, 786, 1066, 939, 925, 704, 779, 662, 704, 872
1990-1999: 1151, 1144, 1312, 1186, 1094, 1253, 1181, 1154, 1440, 1364
2000-2009: 1079, 1232, 957, 1415, 1842, 1267, 1142, 1117, 1739, 1182
[2010-2014: 1315, 1777, 957, ~940, ~500]

The averages for each decade above total to:

1950-1959: 491
1960-1969: 694
1970-1979: 871
1980-1989: 831
1990-1999: 1228
2000-2009: 1297
[2010-2014: 1098]

(Source: NOAA database). The total tornadoes recorded in the NOAA tornado database is 58,169 during 1950-2012, and when divided by 62 years (1950-2012) it calculates out to an annual average of 938 tornadoes per year during that span of time.

(On The Origin of Tornadoes - 3, [updated]). The data show that a peak of 1,777 tornadoes was reached in 2011, then an abrupt drop in numbers took place.

The count went down to ~957 tornadoes in 2012, ~940 in 2013, and on target for about 500 confirmed in 2014.

This series is about the origin of tornadoes, not just spinning winds inside thunder storms.

We contemplate the larger picture, the climate dynamics and geological features that cause ~75% of the world's tornadoes to happen in the U.S. as well as the fact that only about ~25% of the Earth's tornadoes happen in other countries, a handful of other countries at that.

The abrupt climate change event we address today has had an abrupt impact on the number of tornadoes.

That is because, in the larger picture, it has had and is having an impact upon the Arctic polar vortex:

A mechanism to explain how the behavior of the stratosphere may affect tropospheric weather patterns has been proposed by scientists at the

Normal polar vortex

University of Illinois. If correct, the idea could be included in models to better understand the climate system and predict the weather.

“Recent observations have suggested that the strength of the stratospheric polar vortex influences circulation in the troposphere,” said Walter Robinson, a UI professor of atmospheric sciences. “We believe there is a weak forcing in the stratosphere, directed downward, that is pinging the lower atmosphere, stimulating modes of variability that are already there.”

The polar vortex is a wintertime feature of the stratosphere. Consisting of winds spinning counterclockwise above the pole, the vortex varies

At (d) a piece breaks away

in strength on long time scales because of interactions with planetary waves global-scale disturbances that rise from the troposphere. “The polar vortex acts like a big flywheel,” Robinson said. “When it weakens, it tends to stay weakened for a while.”

Other researchers have noted a statistical correlation between periods when the polar vortex is weak and outbreaks of severe cold in many Northern Hemisphere cities.

“When the vortex is strong, the westerlies descend all the way to Earth's surface,” Robinson said. “This carries more air warmed by the ocean onto the land. When the vortex is weak, that's when the really deep cold occurs."

(Polar Vortex, Wayback Machine, emphasis added; cf. Science of Polar Vortex; Polar vortex 1853: The Living Age, Vol. 39 p. 430; 1971 Paper: Polar Vortex; Polar Vortex; Polar Vortex Can Break Up).

These surges of cold pieces of the vortex breaking off and flowing south as a large circulation --a large cold air mass --is forced by ongoing polar sea and air warming and the consequent polar ice melt.

The oceans and air at the poles are warming at a faster rate than they are at the lower latitudes of the globe.

Warming which eventually forces some of the cold away from the poles to the south, and thus destabilizes the polar vortex.

That warming melts ice and weakens the polar vortex which is spinning like a flywheel, and parts of the flywheel can fly off and flow south when conditions converge to make it so.

The usual U.S. tornado wind generating patterns are disrupted by the cooler or colder air masses, so fewer situations occur that typically generate tornadoes:

Under normal climate conditions, cold air is confined to the Arctic by the polar vortex winds, which circle counter-clockwise around the North Pole. As sea ice coverage decreases, the Arctic warms, high pressure builds, and the polar vortex weakens, sending cold air spilling southward into the mid-latitudes, bringing record cold and fierce snowstorms. At the same time, warm air will flow into the Arctic to replace the cold air spilling south, which drives more sea ice loss.

(Wunderground, emphasis added). A feedback loop develops which then accelerates the process of the ongoing disintegration of the polar vortex.

This cold air impact removes certain conditions in the unique U.S. birthplace, the tornado-favorable birthing environment:

"The reason the heart of the North American continent bears the brunt of these most powerful of twisters lies with its unique topography. Only in North America does a solid land mass stretch from the sub-tropics to the arctic with no mountain barriers to inhibit the mixture of air masses originating from these two regions."

(On The Origin of Tornadoes - 2, quoting Wunderground). Hence, lately we see lower tornado counts as the vortex degenerates and its pieces flow south to chill out the unique tornado birthing areas.

Add to that, on today's occasion, a typhoon (Nuri) remnant that has travelled past Japan on up into Alaska, and is now having an impact on jet streams and the polar vortex.

That is also forcing sections of the vortex to break away as a cold air mass that moves to the south (How the Polar Vortex is Affecting the American South).

Soon enough, when all the Arctic ice melts, and the Arctic Ocean warms enough, the polar vortex will eventually totally disintegrate.

The tornado count is likely to rebound significantly and severely then, as the impediments to tornado formation eventually subside (cf. IPCC Latest Report).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.