THAT DRATTED GLOBAL WARMING IS NOW FREEZING RUSSIA

Vitaly has tried being drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, even assaulting a friend — anything to get inside a Moscow police cell. Any other week, the 42-year-old vagrant would do anything to avoid the city’s notorious police. But with a cold front from Siberia pushing temperatures towards -40C – their lowest in more than half a century — getting arrested has become a matter of life or death. “At least it’s warm in a cell,” he said. “In this weather, if you can’t find a warm place to sleep, you die.”

On Monday two people froze to death and 14 were taken to hospital with hypothermia in the capital as temperatures plunged from zero to -28C. Russians are no strangers to harsh weather, but the cold snap has come as a shock after a series of relatively mild winters. The meteorological service told The Times that in the next few days it expected to register some of the coldest temperatures in the capital since 1940, when it hit -42C. The coldest temperature recorded in Russia was -71C (-96F) in the northern region of Yakutia in the 1950s.

Moscow authorities responded by ordering police to suspend their usual practice of turfing the homeless out of stairwells, metro stops and railway stations. Health officials also warned the elderly and infirm to stay at home and those with heart conditions to pause in their doorways to adjust to the cold before going outside.

But it is not just the homeless, old and sick who are at risk from the cold front that has wrought havoc across eastern and central Russia. Many Muscovites fear that the Siberian freeze will cut off their supplies of electricity and hot water, which is still pumped in massive pipes from Soviet-era heating stations....

Nestor Serebryannikov, the former head of the Moscow municipal power utility, said the cuts were unprecedented. “The capital for the first time has come up against a situation where, due to the cold, its demands for energy may well exceed supplies,” he said.... There were also heating problems in the western Siberian province of Tomsk when temperatures fell to -53C, the lowest in a century. So extreme is the cold that authorities in Moscow and St Petersburg have had to supply buses with special “Arctic” diesel fuel. Traffic policemen have also been issued with traditional Russian felt boots.

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HOW COME MARS HAS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT?

An email from Louis Hissink (fgserv7747@fastmail.com.au):

NASA estimates Mars has ~2.5 x 10^16 Kg of atmosphere, of which 95% is CO2, so using very rough figures we have 0.95 x 2.5 x 10^16 Kg which equals ~2.375 x 10^16 Kg CO2. Earth's atmosphere has a mass of 5.3 x 10^18 kg of which 0.032% is CO2. This works out as 0.00032 x 5.3 x 10^18 kgs, which equals ~ 0.17 x 10^16 Kg CO2. Mars has from these figures approximately 14 times more CO2 by mass in its atmosphere than the earth, but it has no Greenhouse effect. Mars has a surface temperature of - 55 deg C. Say if we doubled the CO2 on earth - 0.34 x 10^ Kg CO2 then Mars still has more CO2 by mass in its atmosphere, 7 times as much. Arrant nonsense or our understanding of greenhouse gas theory is somewhat incomplete?

Update

A reader writes:

"It is my impression that Mars has a greenhouse gas effect that increases the average surface temperature by about 2 C. (There is some variation in this temperature increase because at times of the Martian Year it gets so cold that a lot of the carbon dioxide solidifies, removing it from the atmosphere.). The 2 C temperature increase on Mars is fairly consistent with the contribution of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse effect on Earth. The greenhouse effect raises the average surface temperature of Earth by 60 F (33 C). About 95% of that effect is due to water vapor in the atmosphere. About 2.5-3% is due to carbon dioxide. If we do a simplistic first cut attempt to determine the contribution of carbon dioxide by multiplying 33C by 0.025 we get about 0.8 C. That is fairly consistent with the effect on Mars. (Thermal radiation is a function of absolute temperature raised to the fourth power, so considering it to be a linear function is a bit simplistic.)"




AVOIDING CLIMATE 'CONTROL'

By WOLFGANG KASPER. Mr. Kasper is emeritus professor of economics of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a contributor to "Carrots, Sticks and Climate Change" (IPN, 2005)

Just six months old, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate already has encountered venomous hostility from those who have spent the past 15 years lobbying for the Kyoto Protocol's "climate control" mandate.

The partnership among Australia, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and India -- whose first summit is today in Sydney -- has infuriated activists and some bureaucrats. They insist, without conclusive scientific evidence, that so-called "greenhouse gases" are causing global warming and can only be curbed through compulsory emissions cuts.

Climate control is based on politically mandated quotas, the threat of penalties and other coercive means -- a system which resembles Soviet-style central planning. The United Nations' most recent climate meeting in Montreal demonstrated -- if any further proof was needed -- the inherent futility of this approach. It is clear that Kyoto-style emissions planning comes with grave dangers for the citizens of the poor countries. Indian Environment Minister Andimuthu Raja told the BBC that economic growth and the elimination of poverty must take precedence over mitigating the effects of climate change.

So, how does the approach of the Asia-Pacific Partnership differ from Kyoto's approach to "climate control"? First, the partnership is not based on the idea that energy use must be cut, whatever the consequences for human welfare. It acknowledges that economic progress is desirable and requires growing energy use. It is the only way for China, India and other poor countries to achieve a cleaner environment and higher standards of environmental protection. Citizens of poor countries have as much right to aspire to higher living standards, better education and longer, healthier lives as citizens of the affluent West do. Efforts by EU and U.N. climate bureaucrats to stop energy-driven growth in the backward parts of the world economy are simply unacceptable.

Second, the Kyoto Protocol begins by assuming that curbs on emissions are the only way forward. By contrast, the Asia-Pacific Partnership recognizes the need to investigate more innovative approaches based on the use of new technologies. Finding these will require protracted effort, massive funding and international cooperation -- all with the involvement of private industry. More technologically advanced countries can help emerging industrial economies to implement more efficient, cleaner technologies. Much can be achieved by voluntary cooperation, whereas the Kyoto protagonists imply that coercion is necessary for innovation.

History and economic theory have demonstrated that the only way of tackling any issue effectively is by respecting individual freedom of choice, decentralized knowledge search and individual aspirations to a better life. By now, the history of free societies inspires confidence that human creativity can be mobilized to facilitate adaptation and mitigation of undesirable climate change.

Market economies enable the coordination of change within complex systems of human interaction. They create voluntary, flexible and diverse responses to change, because they rely on decentralized, spontaneous effort by entrepreneurs who take ideas and test them in rivalry with competitors.

Markets are not just superior at delivering improved consumer goods and services. In the past two centuries, market economies have provided the know how for ever-improving environmental care. The hope for profit rewards induces entrepreneurs to deploy new technologies which provide better, more efficient, less costly products and processes that help us overcome scarcities and bottlenecks. In this way, we constantly adjust our behavior to changing circumstances. This engenders a virtuous cycle: Prosperity drives technological change, which leads to cleaner development, less waste and fewer environmental hazards. The rich countries have greatly improved environmental standards since the industrial revolution. Most poor countries have yet to make this important transition.

The underlying view of the Asia-Pacific Partnership is that there is no silver-bullet formula for tackling climate change. In contrast to Kyoto's arrogance, the humility of the partnership seems attractive and realistic. It is foolhardy to set quantitative plan targets before one even knows what countless, diverse innovations and adjustments will be required and what knowledge search and testing is possible under conditions of self-responsible decision making.

Innovation and economic growth must never be taken for granted. Powering future economic progress through cleaner energy sources will require the careful cultivation of the institutions and political rules that favor enterprise, reward entrepreneurs who find useful solutions, and leave room for diverse aspirations. Major challenges also require a good portion of can-do spirit, of the sort that has underpinned the sustained economic rise of America and Australia and that is now spreading in Asia. By contrast, the deep pessimism about the future displayed by Europe's eco-socialists and the U.N.'s technocratic planners seems uninspiring and defeatist.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership promises a more constructive, forward-looking and humane approach. And one that might just enable more people in poor countries to attain wealthier, healthier and cleaner lives.

Asian Wall Street Journal, 11 January 2006




NESSIE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN NUTTY BRITAIN ...

Senior government officials debated how best to protect the Loch Ness monster from poachers. Newly-released files show that during the 1980s the government was in turmoil about how to deal with the monster should it ever surface. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the secretary of state for Scotland spent time contemplating whether Nessie should be protected.

Records released through the Freedom of Information Act show discussions about Nessie at the Scottish Office began in 1985. British officials reacted after the Swedish government was looking for advice on what to do about the country's mythical creature, the Storsjo monster. A letter was sent from the British embassy in Stockholm to the under-secretary at the Scottish Office. It began: "I am sorry to bother you with an inquiry which will no doubt be greeted at first glance with gales of laughter."

The letter sparked a flurry of memos between government departments. JB Barty, a rural group civil servant, wrote: "The protection of this putative denizen of the deep deserves serious consideration." JF Buckle, an official at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, wrote: "Unfortunately, Nessie is not a salmon and would not appear to qualify as a freshwater fish under the Salmon and Fisheries Protection (Scotland) Act 1951."

The Swedish Nessie equivalent did enjoy specific legal protection from 1986, but it was revoked two months ago. It was decided Nessie should be protected under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, rather than specialised legislation. This made it an offence to snare, shoot or blow it up.

The Herald, 9 January 2006

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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