There’s a blackout within the mainstream media in Germany. If one googles “Kältewelle USA” (cold wave USA), a common term used by Germans to describe a spell of cold weather, only 6 sites are offered for the last 24 hours!
One example is from the German online FOCUS magazine. It presents 2 blurbs at its news ticker. it writes:
20.44: The so-called Super Bowl will take place this coming Sunday in the US state of New Jersey. A report in the newspaper ‘New York Times’ wrote that it could be the coldest Super Bowl of all time – because for the first time it will take place at an especially northern region of the country.
20.30: The USA is also struggling with a new cold wave. At the east coast and in the midwest many schools and highways have been closed. As the National Weather Service predicted, the Arctic weather front could reach all the way into the normally warm southern states, bringing near freezing temperatures. In Chicago temperatures could drop to minus 20° Celsius.”
But that’s about it when it comes to news from Germany on the US cold wave. Unfortunately for European climate activists, the Super Bowl will certainly bring vivid photos of the bitter cold that’s gripping the US to millions of viewers in Europe, thus potentially making it the Inconvenient Super Bowl.
63 people die of “unusual cold” in Thailand – coldest in 30 years!
Meanwhile not only is cold gripping North America and Eastern Europe, but it has also plunged all the way down into Thailand. The German-language Farang.com reports of a brutal winter taking place in the normally tropical Asian region this year. It writes:
In Bangkok the temperature dropped to 15.6°C. Authorities reported on Thursday a new cold record and are speaking of an unusually cold winter in Thailand. It hasn’t been this cold in Bangkok since 1983, said Songkram Aksorn of the weather authority.”
The Farang.com also writes of 63 deaths due to cold over the last three months.
This cold spell is the longest in a decade, said Khun Songkram. Also the rice harvest has been impacted sei, exporters said.”
Cooling leads to more protests
But not everyone minds the cold weather. Farang.com adds:
The organizers of street protests against the government have been satisfied: The weather was good for demonstrations. Thais like the cooler weather“, said Akanat Promphan, a leader of the government protesters.”
Perhaps German media could be interested in the price of natural gas during the cold spells to show that fracking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Normally wholesale gas is $4-5 per million BTU (stupid unit and worse abbreviation – MMBTU) during low demand periods, but in the previous cold wave, gas in the New York City spot market spiked to $120, breaking the old record of $88.
Of course, the problem is not fracking, but increased demand outstripping pipeline capacity.
I got my gas bill yesterday. Not too bad, they’re charging me $10 per million BTU, 50% more than last January.
From http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0122/Winter-storm-Janus-Natural-gas-prices-soar-in-Northeast-video
Prices surged on the spot market with natural gas in New York up 785 percent to a record $120.75 per million Btu Wednesday. New England prices were up 204 percent Wednesday to $56.25.
In the short term, customers in the Northeast can expect higher monthly bills on account of staying in more and turning up the heat. In the longer term, the day-to-day costs of continued spikes in demand and strain on pipeline infrastructure are likely to trickle down to consumers.
Do a Google search for |natural gas futures new england| for much, much more.
There have been reports about the Northeast’s high price of gas out here. No woodstove out in NH where you are?
It’s also called PROFITEERING!
-11 F (-24 C) in suburban Detroit this morning. More than a foot (30cm) of snow on the ground. I haven’t seen the lawn for over two months.
Wish I could say the same about my lawn! 🙂
It seems that it is not so much the keeping of something secret that makes censorship effective as is the lack of constant, repetitious and wide-spread media coverage pertaining to the thing that is being censored.
In other words, it is the combination of secrecy and the absence of promotion of the censored information that makes censorship effective.
For censorship to be very effective, the secrecy need not be absolute, but the lack of widespread, all-pervasive coverage is absolutely essential.
15.6 C in Bangkok, it was also 15,8 C in Manila just three days ago, very cold for tropical cities. Colder temp in Manila was 15.1 C recorded in Feb 1987 then 1988. The warming fanatics here are somehow silenced by these cold mornings.
Weather for the Superbowl will be standard fare – mostly cloudy and above freezing. Lots of football fans like so-called ‘snowball’ games but even that won’t happen.
The great leader’s speech tonight at 9 pm is another matter – cold! Unfortunately it will be held inside.