Killer Volcano Destroys Hawaii! (Or: "Why the Volcano in My Backyard Caused Me to Question Everything")

[I originally wrote most of this in early 2019, but it's been sitting in my drafts folder since then, so I'm just going to publish it.]

Today, I'm going to depart completely from the market and write a "bonus article" about something that's been kicking around in the back of my head for a while, which is:  My firsthand observations about the media coverage of the 2018 eruption of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii.

As most readers already know, I live in Hawaii.  Accordingly, I had a unique, ongoing and firsthand perspective on the 2018 eruption (which destroyed about half of a subdivision known as Leilani Estates) -- this unique firsthand perspective allowed me to knowledgably compare what was actually happening against how it was being reported by the national news media.

I assure you, I did not start off with that comparison as my intention.  I started off, like most other residents of Hawaii, in complete awe of the power of nature.  (In my family's case, we lived far enough away that we were extremely unlikely to be impacted directly.)  Point is, "How is the media covering this?" was not even on my mind, initially.  However, shortly after the media arrived, I began getting panicked phone calls, texts, and emails from friends and family on the mainland -- sometimes several times per day -- that always went something like this:

"OMG, I just saw the news!  ARE YOU GUYS OKAY???  HOW ARE THE KIDS???  WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE?!?"

To people on the mainland with no common frame of reference, such reactions probably seemed completely justified.  As I will outline, though, they made very little sense to those of us living here -- meaning: Such reactions made little sense to those of us who had a NON-MEDIA-INSPIRED perspective on the event.

(Above is a photo that I personally shot from ground zero, only a couple weeks after the eruption began.  This is lava shooting roughly 150 feet into the air, out of a fissure that was maybe half

a mile off from where I had parked.  This photo has been reprinted with my own permission,

though I may later decide to sue myself anyway, because I can't have people stealing my work.)

Anyway, after receiving many panicked phone calls and text messages, I began to piece together that the media was not exactly reporting the event in what we might traditionally call an "accurate" manner.

Pretty far from it.

The unreliability of our "news" media does, of course, have much broader implications, especially in our modern media-driven world -- but for now, let's just stick to talking about the volcano.

To understand the outrageous reporting I'm about to discuss, it's first necessary to understand what was actually going on here.

And to understand that, the first thing that's required is an understanding of how large the island of Hawaii actually is.  Hawaii consists of five huge volcanoes (one is dormant (last erupted 4500+ years ago), one is extinct, three are considered active, but one of those hasn't erupted in 220 years) joined together.  Two of these are literally the largest mountains in the world (Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa) -- larger than Everest when measured all the way down to the sea floor -- and they rise more than 13,000 feet above the sea.

So for perspective, let's begin with a to-scale map of the island and lava flow, which I originally drew to calm my relatives, but then also sent to the USGS through their Twitter feed.  (USGS Volcanoes then retweeted my map to all their followers, which was kinda fun.)

As you can see on that map, the actual lava flow -- all that incredibly impressive destruction that you probably saw on TV -- was confined to a tiny little section of the island, about 1% of our land.  The island of Hawaii is more than 4000 square miles of land mass (just this one island is roughly the size of the state of Connecticut), so from most of island, you couldn't see anything at all.  In fact, from most of the island, if you didn't already know an eruption was occurring, you would NEVER have known without turning on the TV.

For example, here's what the eruption looked like at the end of May 2018 (when it was in full force) from Pohoiki Bay, which is literally only a couple miles away from Leilani Estates:

See it?  Me neither.

Here's what it looked like from MOST of the island:

See it there?  It's over to your left, off the frame, behind the 13,000 foot mountain (which doesn't even fit in the frame).  You could see nothing, in other words, even if you were looking.

Anyway, point is, for those of us outside the immediate eruption zone, it was basically as if nothing was happening at all.  But you'd never know that from watching CNN, et al.  At one point a CNN reporter said, and I quote: "Lava just running all throughout the island!"  I wish I could find that clip now, but I burst out laughing and called my wife into the room, so I remember it clearly.  Needless to say, hyperbole such as that understandably alarmed our relatives.

If you want to watch some of the archived footage, below is a link to one of the silly coverage examples.  A few quotes, followed by my commentary:  

CNN:  "...and spewing lava... that's what MANY PEOPLE ON THAT ISLAND HAVE BEEN ENDURING." -- "Many" people is ridiculous hyperbole.  As I just outlined, it was basically one housing development.  Most of the island was completely unaffected.  "Many" people on the island were not "enduring" anything.

CNN:  "And MANY having only MINUTES to escape the lava from the Kilauea volcano.  People are now being told to RATION THEIR WATER even." -- There's that "many" again.  Also:  Nobody was told to ration water, except possibly the small handful of people who had to evacuate their homes.  We never heard anything about water rationing.

CNN:  "IF THEY DO REMAIN ON THE ISLAND."  -- as if remaining on the island were dangerous!  This is the type of commentary that subconsciously paints a picture of an entire island devastated by the eruption.  Who dares to remain?!?

CNN:  [cuts to correspondent]:  "As if it's not enough to not know where one of these fissures, where the lava is spewing forth out of the Earth, where they're going to pop up..."  -- Actually, we knew exactly where:  Leilani Estates, which is on the literal rift of Kilauea (rifts are the only places fissures form) in Lava Zone 1 (the most dangerous zone).  And pretty much nowhere else.

And that's just the first 41 seconds of coverage!

I'm not going to do this for every errant news report, because it would probably turn this into a 50,000 page article.  Suffice to say that this was typical of the type of misleading coverage (in fact, the video I included was literally the very first video I pulled up on a search just now, so I didn't have to look far to find examples!) the mainstream media produced repeatedly.

Anyway, this was all very eye-opening for me.  I realized, "Hey, if they're getting so many basic facts wrong on this, what else are they getting wrong where I would never know any better?  Probably a lot of things."

I think many people have had a similar experience... yet many go back to trusting the news anyway.  The question is: Why?  Why forget the lesson?  Why play pretend?  Do we secretly realize that the news is "for entertainment purposes only," but want to be outraged and upset as if it were real, to keep ourselves amused?  I don't know the deeper psychological motivation behind "defending" the news as if it were "mostly" accurate.  I suspect those who defend it don't know why they do it, either.  Desire to fit in with the perceived dominant culture, maybe?  Fear of being labeled a "conspiracy theorist"?  Lack of faith in one's own critical thinking skills?  Or perhaps it's just simple misplaced trust.  Who knows.  All I know is that too many people treat the news as if it were gospel, and it simply isn't.

"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uniformed.  If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."  -- (commonly attributed to) Mark Twain (but unknown)

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.  Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.  The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.  I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."

-- Thomas Jefferson

 Michael Crichton once talked about the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect:

There's a profound truth about the news business in this brief clip from the movie The Shipping News:

So if you want to know why I don't trust the news anymore, it's simply because I've experienced their magnificent errors and hyperbolic inaccuracies firsthand, and it would be foolhardy to put the blinders back on.

Now, here's the most interesting part in all this:  Remember the panicked relatives I mentioned earlier?  Well.  After talking to them and reassuring them that the news was making things seem much worse than they actually were, most of our relatives calmed down.  But not all of them.  A few of them refused to accept our firsthand accounts because, by God, they had seen it on CNN, so it must be true!  Surely we were just trying to be reassuring, and we were no doubt dodging lava bombs even as we spoke.

And that, my friends, is the absolute power of mainstream media misinformation.  And it should terrify all of us.  Because (mis)information shapes opinions, opinions shape votes, and votes shape America's future.  When the mainstream media falls, and it has fallen, America either wakes up -- or eventually falls with it.

Trade safe.

ollowers)tzelLogic/status/1003661945424080896Mi)

SPX Update: [Title Goes Here -- remember to change this to an actual title before publication!]

Last update suggested that some backing and filling might be in order, and that's what we've had since, with SPX running sideways since Wednesday's update:

I mentioned on the chart above that it's not entirely impossible for this to be a completed wave -- IF, and only if, the mess near the low was a running triangle.  That's probably an underdog, so we're presuming the trend remains up for now, but it's worth at least knowing the possibility is there.  Blue "bull: iv" could have completed at 4551 SPX, or may become more complex and head toward the lower label on the chart above.  Other than that, not much to add.  Trade safe.

SPX and the Index Formerly Known as INDU

I was going to say that there hasn't been much change since last update, but then I checked my StockCharts chartbook and was shocked to learn that INDU apparently ceased to exist yesterday.  This changes everything:

The long-term monthly chart for INDU looks equally grim:

So I'm not sure what to make of that.  I can only presume this means a planet-killing asteroid struck the Earth and I'm stuck in some sort of weird limbo where I still have to do updates for all eternity, possibly as punishment for that time in seventh grade when I forgot to return some library books.

Oddly, SPX seems to have made it into Limbo with me:

And continues to look bullish as long as the breakout sticks (maybe this is part of my punishment?):

In conclusion, INDU no longer exists, so I wouldn't worry too much about that particular index.  Again, barring some type of complex correction showing up out of nowhere, SPX continues to look like bears will be stuck in limbo with me for a while.  Trade safe.

SPX Update

No real change from last update, except to note that it's possible SPX completed blue iii of 3 at the most recent all-time high (which would still mean it's inside of the larger blue 3):

Bigger picture, if the current breakout sticks, then the upper blue line may come into play:

On another note, my friend Lee Adler posted an amusing piece on Friday... some quotes:

"US stock prices are rising again today, thanks to strong fundamental economic growth driven by free market capitalism. The rising tide of unfettered economic growth with no central bank interference means that stock prices should rise every day. And they do. What a world! All members of society will be rich, as the free market distributes wealth to all segments of society equally. Today is no exception. As you can see from this 2 hour bar chart, the market is now lifting off from a massive base. That base followed the terrible, and completely unnecessary September Bear Market of Blessed Memory. According to the rules of Modern Technical Analysis (aka MTA- change at 63rd Street for the Q line), all patterns are bullish, and the Measured Move Target (MMT, as derived) of 4680… Or 4860, I forget. Besides WTF difference does it make."

 "Modern Technical Analysis -- all patterns are bullish" cracked me up.  Apparently this market is frustrating more than one analyst right now.

In any case, in conclusion, no real change from Friday's update, with the addition of some more potential upside zones... in line with Modern Technical Analysis.  Trade safe.

Is There a Climate "Crisis"? Part II: A Look at the Hard Evidence; Extreme Weather

[In Part I of this series, we examined the scientific literature and learned that the Arctic today is 2-4 C colder than it was a mere 6-12,000 years ago.]

To reiterate briefly from Part I:

"change" ≠ "crisis"

These are two very different words, with very different meanings.

"Change" means "to make or become different." 

"Crisis" means "a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger."

A few years back, all we heard was how there was a "consensus" on climate "change." But then politicians and the media gradually began to conflate the term "change" with the term "crisis," often by adding in their own commentary to "97% of scientists agree..." They would say things like, "97% of scientists agree the Earth is warming up and that if we don't do something immediate and drastic, then we're all going to perish in flames! Everyone RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

97% of scientists agreed to no such thing; but this verbal bait-and-switch has been done by politicians and media to the point that few seem to question it anymore.

Thus, [if one actually cares about what science has to say, anyway] it is extremely important to clarify that there is no consensus on a climate "crisis." There is a consensus on climate "change" (though one can strongly debate the methodology of the surveys used to determine that "consensus," and further debate whether consensus has any value in science in the first place -- but for sake of argument, let's grant that point for now anyway, because it's irrelevant), but it bears repeating that there is no consensus that this climate "change" represents any sort of "existential crisis" for the planet.

The idea that there's a "crisis" is held by a small minority of scientists, but, as this piece will show, that view is not shared by mainstream science.  

Please read that again if needed.  I'm not going to be citing "deniers" or fringe papers, I'm going to be citing mainstream organizations that are held to be the gold standard by even the most dyed-in-the-wool climate change believers.

If one accepts mainstream consensus science (which I am not necessarily condoning, mind you -- "consensus" is the business of politics, not science -- but that's a whole 'nother discussion), one will quickly see that climate "crisis" is a fringe position -- meaning: If one invokes consensus (thus implying that they accept mainstream science), then one must logically reject the idea that there's a crisis.

However, because the general public listens to the media more than they read scientific literature, many have accepted this fringe claim without question. So let's examine the claim, again using only mainstream science:

Claim:  Extreme weather events (such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, etc.) have increased; this is due to man-made climate change, which is caused by CO2 emissions

Made by:  Politicians, media, activists

Rejected by:  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), most other mainstream scientists, and The Actual Hard Data

As we'll see in a moment, there is effectively zero basis for this claim.  This lie has been repeated so often that it "seems credible" to the point that it's become akin to an urban myth that "everyone knows" -- but we'll quickly see that mainstream science rejects this superstition.

The IPCC has done not one, but two "Special Report[s] on Extreme Weather," (in 2012 and 2018) to examine precisely this exact issue, so we'll start there.  

Before we get into that, though, it bears mention that many consider the IPCC to be too heavily biased toward blaming man/CO2 for climate change.  They have repeatedly pushed out scientists who dissent from the view that CO2 is a primary driver of climate.  Further, the IPCC's mandate is to find manmade climate change and to ignore natural explanations -- which leads to "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome.  I consider them to be an alarmist organization, so when the IPCC says, "Nope, we're not seeing it," even given their heavy biases and incentive to find it... well, things don't get much stronger than that.

The full Reports (everything in blue is a live link -- some people in the comments seem to be missing this) are long reads (hundreds of pages each), which is why almost no one seems to know what's in them, so let's summarize via some screenshots of the summary highlights.

1. Floods

Here's what the IPCC says about global flood trends:  No sign that floods are increasing:

The U.S. National Climate Assessment (which examined only the USA) says there's a mixture of local increases and decreases, concluding that "approaches have not established a significant connection of increased riverine flooding to human-induced climate change":

2.  Drought

Here again, the IPCC sees no trend of increase in global droughts.  They even call out their own prior warnings as being "overstated."

This agrees with other mainstream scientific literature.  As one example:  Recently, we've been hearing a lot about California's drought -- few people realize that, to cite the paper below: 

"[S]ignificant drought conditions that were common prior to 1900 have not been experienced by the present population."

In other words, California isn't undergoing modern "climate change" as a result of your SUV -- it's merely reverting to its natural historic trends.

And both of these likewise agree with a study by Nature from a few years back.  Droughts appear to be decreasing, not increasing.

On this topic, let's take a brief moment to appreciate yet another failed negative climate prediction -- this one is from 33 years ago, and still going strong and dead wrong.  (If you saw this headline tomorrow, would it worry you?  You may be starting to realize why it shouldn't.)

3.  Hurricanes/cyclones

Here's what the IPCC says about hurricanes:  There has been a slight decrease in hurricane landfall numbers over the past century:

The IPCC's conclusion agrees with NOAA, who recently completed the largest hurricane study to date.  NOAA also finds no trend of increase -- to the contrary, they also find a slight negative trend since 1900:

The political nature of climate "science" is one the the reasons I take screenshots, such as the one above.  That study (as shown) was just done a year or so back, but they've already revised it (revised August 9 2021), and I'm not sure where the original is.  The new one still concludes:

Therefore, we conclude that it is premature to conclude with high confidence that increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities have had a detectable impact on Atlantic basin hurricane activity

So the conclusion is still the same -- no impact on hurricanes -- because the hard data is what it is, and the numbers simply aren't there (i.e.- there's been no actual increase in storms).  Nothing can make those missing storms appear, so what they do in the new report is couch those non-frightening bottom line conclusions with additional scary-sounding language warning about how awful it might get if the CO2 hypothesis ever starts working, since apparently 100+ years of data while CO2 rose steadily hasn't already proven the point that if hurricanes haven't increased yet, they're not likely to.  At least, not due to CO2, anyway.

According to World Bank, Big Climate is an $89 trillion (with a T) business, so there are plenty of vested interests with major monetary incentive to keep the public in a state of fear.  Hard to compete against that with simple hard data and mainstream science that no one reads.

Anyway, both of these newer reports continue to agree with the IPCC's findings from 2012:

These hurricane studies are pretty conclusive, with very little ambivalence.  If you've been getting your "science" from politicians and media, then I imagine it comes as a shock to learn the that mainstream scientific community does not support what you have been led to believe -- so your first reaction may be to look for ways to reject this "new" information and thus preserve those old beliefs ("cognitive dissonance").  I recommend giving this "new" data a little time to sink in.  

(And then reasoning out the inexorable conclusion:  It is a mistake to trust politicians and media simply because they invoke the mantle of "science."  Snake-oil salesmen of the 1800s likewise claimed that their false cures "followed the science."  It's one of the oldest con games in the book.  The media's take on climate change is more superstition than science, and politicians use the resulting public ignorance to their advantage, as we'll see in a moment.)

4.  Tornadoes

Strong tornadoes, likewise, are decreasing, not increasing:

To summarize:  The actual, mainstream science on all this is abundantly clear:  There is no link between "climate change" and extreme weather.  None whatsoever.  Next time someone in "authority" tries to tell you there is, you will be inoculated against the manipulations of such climate charlatans.

"When you get two record rainfalls in a week, that's not coincidence." "Global warming is upon us, and it's going to get worse and worse and worse unless we do something about it." "Woe is us if we don't recognize these changes are due to climate change." -- Senator Chuck Schumer

“The past few days of Hurricane Ida and the wildfires in the west and the unprecedented flash floods in New York and New Jersey is yet another reminder that these extreme storms and the climate crisis are here."  "This isn't about politics." -- President Joe Biden

As the data plainly reveals:  Politics seems to be exactly what this is about.  Get people scared, then use their fear to generate public support for policies the public would not otherwise support if they were not being placed under duress.

Sadly, this unfettered manipulation by our politicians is not harmless.  It comes with real human cost:

Wouldn't it be better to tell our kids the truth: That there is no climate "crisis"?  Have we become so desperate in our pursuit of power that we've lost our humanity?

Oh, and those earlier quotes reminded me... let's talk about wildfires, too, since that's another anti-science stance the alarmists have taken, and it keeps getting repeated to the point that many people think it's true.  It is not.  

5.  Wildfires

This first graph comes from the USDA (and is the most recent I can find from that particular agency).  It shows that wildfires declined substantially while CO2 rose:

The continuation of that data (from the National Interagency Fire Center) is similar.  Wildfires have decreased, not increased:

Data on Amazon wildfires comes from the LA Times.  Correlation is not causation, but when there's not even a correlation, you have no case whatsoever.

Linking wildfires to climate change is, again, anti-science superstitious nonsense with no data to support it.

So you can follow the science, or you can follow the politicians/media.  But you cannot follow both, because they contradict each other.

Last point, because this is more anti-science propaganda I hear repeated ad infinitum:  

6.  Heat waves

Surely heat waves have been getting worse!  After all, the theory is that CO2 causes the atmosphere to retain more heat (again, this is the actual theory underpinning "climate change"), so heat waves must be getting worse.  Right?  Remember this summer?  RIGHT?

Well, not according to the EPA.  While heat waves will always be a part of life on planet Earth, in recent decades, heat waves have decreased significantly.  Despite the fact that CO2 has been rising steadily. 

Now, the funny thing about the chart above is that it's no longer on the EPA website (that I can find, anyway; glad I screenshotted it a few months ago) -- they recently changed their new graphs so that they begin in 1960!  Look at the full chart, and see if you can figure out why they'd make that change.  Below is what happens when you leave off the "inconvenient data":  You create a false impression that heat waves are increasing over time. 

Are they removing long-term data to serve "science"?  Or politics?

Misleading graphs aside, to reiterate one last time:  There is no correlation between "climate change" and extreme weather.  And there isn't a single shred of evidence to even modestly support such claims.  

All the alarmists have is the same thing they had back in 1988:  Unsubstantiated speculation that "bUt wEatheR is gOinG to gEt wOrSe!!!111!!!"  Speculation isn't science, and climate speculation has been dead wrong for 50 years running, while the hard evidence is clear.  The data continues to refute the speculation.

The bottom line is that the IPCC, NOAA, et al, have concluded that there's been no increase in extreme weather at all, so there's zero basis for claiming an increase, and that much less of a

basis for claiming that this nonexistent increase is "due to man-made climate change"!  

Thus, the entire push to blame extreme weather on "climate change" is complete nonsense.

Mankind has always believed it can control the weather via dancing, human sacrifice, or by other means.  I assume this is why this superstition was easy to revive:  It's hard-wired into us to think weather is some kind of "punishment for our sins."  In this case, our sin is merely finding ways to survive a harsh planet in some degree of safety.  We clearly do not believe we deserve even that small grace, so now we're trying to undo it.

Which brings us to the final point:  Climate-related deaths have plummeted over the past 100 years:

(above graph from Dr. Bjorn Lomborg)

This massive reduction in climate death is due to the safety that cheap and reliable energy provides for people.  Taking that away in favor of unreliable sources such as wind and solar won't "save" people, it will harm them.  (Just as wind and solar absolutely devastate the natural environment, which I may cover in a future piece).  Isn't the goal to "save" the planet?  What does that even mean if it excludes saving your fellow humans?

Join me in saving the planet: Reject climate superstition and propaganda, and follow the science instead.  The choice is now yours.

SPX and COMPQ: Back to the Drawing Board

Been a while since I had to eat crow, so I had forgotten how bitter it tastes, and for the first time in a long time, I feel that old bearish urge to complain about the disconnect between the market and the real economy, about Fed funny money, and about, well, just general late-stage-republic nonsense. 

But I'm always preaching about how the market is what it is, so I'll attempt to refrain from all that and simply say that the bear count I was leaning into has officially been kicked out with the new all-time high, so the preferred count was a bust this time around.

It turns out that those long-term trend lines, which we talked about a few times, were apparently all the market was aiming for.

COMPQ:

Same thing with the chart we previously looked at for TRAN.  Obviously, were the market to return back to that line anytime soon and sustain a breakdown, then maybe bears would be back in business.

Near-term, there's some temptation to try to count this as a triangle, due to the overlapping mess in the middle, but it would need to be a running triangle if it were to be a triangle at all, and running triangle is one of the patterns I try to avoid using unless absolutely necessary.

In conclusion, bulls have killed the bear 1-2 count, but bears do still have the option for a more complex flat.  If this is the most bullish count (blue), then bears will have to wait on the back burner for at least a little while.  Bigger picture, presuming this breakout sticks, we are again going to be back to wondering if the market gets its extended fifth wave after all.  Trade safe.

SPX and TRAN: Real Estate Running Thin

Since last update, the market has continued its rally relentlessly, which means the ending diagonal possibility is off the table.  While not all the bear options are off the table yet, bears are beginning to run low on real estate.

Bigger picture, the long-term trend lines we looked at a while back have all continued to hold.

In conclusion, bears have been absent since the Fed minutes were released, leading to a relentless rally that could very well be a developing impulse wave, if bears don't show up again soon.  It seems the disconnect between the stock market and the real-world has already reached all-time highs, but we'll see if the all-time-high price point in SPX is able to stall this, or not, before determining if we have to eat crow.  Trade safe.