RECYCLING BLUES IN LONDON

So what was the all-consuming subject of dinner party conversation in London boroughs like Harrow or Islington this summer? Apparently, it was rubbish. And more specifically, maggots. As recycling was made compulsory in these boroughs, former keen beans found their enthusiasm rot with `smells, maggots, missed collections and chaos.' "Disgruntled" of Pinner writes that the `council introduced compulsory recycling months ago and it was a shambles. they couldn't cope with the amount of stuff in the green boxes - bin men just left any overflow in the streets. Streets became refuse-strewn and Pinner incredibly smelly.'

Charlotte Ross, of Islington, who had been a committed voluntary recycler (even after watching a BBC documentary which revealed that the council was shipping her carefully sorted recyclables `to be dumped in Indonesia') found her zeal evaporated in the hot weather: `No matter how often we emptied and cleaned our brown compost bins, they seemed to attract a plague of flies. Each time I opened the bin a cloud of tiny insects flew out to circle the fruit bowl or fridge. Imagine my horror when I opened the outdoor bin to find a slimy mass of maggots and grey bugs.'

But is such outrage provoking a rebellion in suburban London? Harrow is the latest council to institute a scheme of compulsory recycling. In the St. Ann's shopping centre, with its vast, clean floors and bright blue branding signs, and chain stores like Boots, Shoe Zone and Primark, there's the bustle of lunch and a crowd swelled by the torrential downpour outdoors. Are these residents good recyclers? ....

Quite a few people to whom I mention recycling refuse to talk. But in some, enthusiasm for recycling verges on evangelism. A World Vision salesman asks me: `How can people throw away cans? Damn! No one thinks about these things. Well I do. But I'm an environmental scientist.'

In the shopping arcades of Harrow, the consensus seems to be that recycling is a `good' thing and we should all get on with it, regardless of whether it's ultimately of any use. So it is left to the press spokesperson for Harrow Council to fill me in on the details of Harrovian disgruntlement. Residents, she explains, are `creatures of habit'. When the new system of collections on alternate weeks for recycling and landfill collection were first introduced over the summer, `Bins were overflowing, as a lot of people thought "oh sod it" and just carried on regardless.' This had put `more pressure on our refuse collectors. There was one case where a refuse collector was attacked. but we can't connect it, as police haven't managed to find the person responsible'.

At the minute, the spokesperson explains, the Council is holding back on issuing fines. `We're encouraging them', she says. If there are things in the bin which are `wrong' then the council officers `leave the offending item in the box' to `show' them. They will look at other measures `further down the line, if it's not taken up voluntarily'.

Harrow council have ordered 36,000 new bins with computer chips - which can be used to identify a bin with a particular household - because it was cheaper to buy bins with chips than without. Using the chips, there is the potential to charge households according to how much waste they dispose of. But Harrow council do not have the technology to use the chips and, at present, have no plans to. When I ask how much these bins cost, it turns out that the computer system is `down' and a figure cannot be retrieved.

A figure which is certain, however, is the fine imposed on the council for one batch of contaminated organic waste. If a load of organic waste is contaminated with something as trivial as a polystyrene cup, the council will be fined œ600. The council are thus under pressure to educate people never to do such a thing. Educational campaigns, leaflets, editorial adverts, posters, council magazines have all been distributed to every home. `Are they made of recycled materials?' I ask. `I don't know,' the press officer replies, `but they're recyclable'.

Therein lies the rub. For people living in a modern and developed country, picking through your rubbish seems like a step backwards. As Disgruntled of Pinner notes, no-one seems to be pointing out `the backwardness of scrabbling round in our kitchens wrapping up bits of newspaper versus the historical advances of municipal refuse collection'. Composting food and leaves, or recycling paper and card, is not saving precious resources. Yet, the argument that recycling must be a Good Thing is rarely challenged. Where recycling makes economic sense - particularly in relation to commercial and industrial waste - it already happens. Imposing recycling from above with a big stick for those who fail to comply only illustrates that there is no clamour for it, or financial logic behind it.

If there is no demand for the products of recycling, the whole process is not only tiresome, costly and unhygienic but pointless, too. Recycling is an empty ritual designed to make us feel better about ourselves - and with the increasing levels of compulsion, we are going to feel good whether we like it or not.

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SCOTLAND GOES FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

Unusually

Scotland's major airports have put themselves on a collision course with environmentalists after finalising a 25-year expansion plan that could double the number of flights. Revealing its final masterplan for Glasgow airport, the owner, BAA, confirmed that it was preparing for 24 million passengers to use the airport by 2030, on top of 26 million at Edinburgh. Currently, both airports deal with about nine million passengers each. The number of flights at the two airports could double by then to a maximum 436,000 - or the equivalent of 50 an hour, every hour of the day.

Green groups warned that the growth was unsustainable and could contribute serious environmental damage. But business leaders said the developments were essential to the country's economic performance. Aviation emissions are recorded at a UK, rather than Scottish level. The government has estimated they were responsible for 6 per cent of Britain's contribution to climate change in 2004, compared with 24 per cent for road transport. But the inter-governmental panel on climate change forecasts global air transport emissions will grow from 2.5-3 per cent to 5-6 per cent of all emissions by 2030. The documents reflect this expected extra demand, with the airport operator, BAA Scotland, planning to pour in o600 million to expand.

The final version of the Glasgow document, published yesterday, includes plans to create a single huge passenger security-check and bag-search area. And just to confirm the trend, National Air Traffic Services, which runs Britain's air-traffic control, yesterday announced a new record, of handling 7,864 flights on Friday, 1 September. Flights handled by its Scottish centre, at Prestwick, have increased by 2.5 per cent this year to nearly 466,000 so far.

Alex Barr, the managing director of Glasgow airport, said: "We are proud of the role the airport plays, promoting the wider region and Scotland to the world. But as we look to the future, we must also consider the legacy we leave future generations. Glasgow airport will grow in a responsible and sustainable manner, with due consideration for our neighbours and the environment."

Steven Purcell, the leader of Glasgow City Council, said: "Glasgow airport plays a vital role not only in the Glasgow economy, but across the entire country. This new investment will ensure this continues in the years ahead." Lesley Sawers, chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, said: "This major investment shows the confidence that the BAA has in Scotland, and it is essential for the continuing growth of Glasgow's economy."

But the Green Party said such an approach was disastrous. It claimed the Executive's route-development fund was making things worse, while also failing to boost the economy. Patrick Harvie, a Glasgow Green MSP, said: "This proposed expansion completely ignores sustainability and will cost the taxpayer dearly in years to come."

An Executive spokesman said: "The route-development fund has brought an increased number of business travellers and tourists to Scotland, benefiting our economy, and given Scottish businesses vital links with Europe and wider international markets." ....

BAA, which operates the three main London airports, as well as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, agrees with big airlines that the European Union's carbon trading scheme is the best way for the industry to address its impact on global warming. It said the scheme was the "most economically efficient and environmentally effective way of addressing emissions from aircraft". Emissions trading allows airlines to "buy" some of the carbon reductions achieved by companies in industries with a greater practical potential for cutting their carbon dioxide output, such as power generation, oil refining or steel making. Some airlines are going one step further by researching cleaner fuels. Sir Richard Branson has announced plans to power his Virgin Atlantic fleet on plant waste by opening refineries to produce cellulosic ethanol, which he has described as being "100 per cent environmentally-friendly".

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RUSH LIMBAUGH COMMENTS ON: "Nuremberg-Style Trials" for Global Warming Skeptics?

RUSH: All right, the anniversary of the earliest snowfall in Chicago is September 25th, and this is October the 12th. September 25th, 1928 (and also 1942) is the earliest fall snow, even though it's just flurries with a little trace in Chicago. None of them resulted in any accumulation. According to Tom Skilling, WGN-TV, chief meteorologist, "They created quite a public stir at the time. "September 25th in '28 was a raw day, the high-low temperatures were 50 and 39. It was even worse in 1942. It was 46 and 30 degrees high and low." It caused a big public stir, and it's causing a big public stir today, too, and of course it's "Climate change! Massive climate change!"

Speaking of "massive climate change," ladies and gentlemen, I don't know how many of you people saw this, but I know that I am probably going to be target number... Well, I'm going to be in the top ten. "Nuremberg-Style Trials Proposed for Global Warming Skeptics -- A US-based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore and PBS newsman Bill Moyers have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to, is now advocating 'Nuremberg-style war crimes trials' for skeptics of human-caused catastrophic global warming. The name of the magazine is Grist, Grist magazine. The staff writer, David Roberts, called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the 'bastards' who were members of what he termed the 'global warming-denial industry.'

"Roberts wrote in the online publication September 19th this year, 'When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards, some sort of climate Nuremberg.'" I wonder if anybody's going to ask Gore and Moyers about this. Now, "The global warming-denial industry" has got some people upset because that's Holocaust terminology, and Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, said, "The phrase 'climate change denier' is meant to be evocative of the phrase 'holocaust denier.' Pielke wrote on October 9," a couple of days ago, three days ago, this year, "'Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as one fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system.'"

"The article: 'Global Warming: the Chilling Effect on Free Speech' last week in Spiked Online addresses this new-found penchant by environmentalists, wackos, and some media members to charge skeptics of human-caused catastrophic global warming with crimes against humanity and urged Nuremberg-style prosecution of them." Now, before you just react and say, "Oh, man are these people funny or what?" These are liberals. I have often on this program in the past referred to liberals as Stalinists. Just yesterday I had some guy call me and argue with me when I said that liberals are opposed to liberty.

"No, they are not. You explain that!" And I cited countless examples. Here's another one: Nuremberg-style trials for global warming, manmade global warming "deniers." Now, this is who liberals are. They don't want to hear a viewpoint other than what they believe. These are not conservatives doing this. These are not moderates. These people are liberals.

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NOTE: Marvellous what a bit of publicity does. The "leafy green" writer criticized above has now backed down. He now says: "There are people and institutions knowingly disseminating falsehoods and distortions about global warming. They deserve to be held publicly accountable. As to what shape that accountability would take, my analogy to the Nuremberg trials was woefully inappropriate -- nay, stupid. I retract it wholeheartedly."




Australian Leftists mimic the Royal Society

(Britain's Royal Society attracted widespread condemnation for writing to Exxon and asking them to stop funding Greenhouse skeptics)

Religious bigots are dangerous in politics. Just see what federal Labor frontbenchers Kelvin Thomson and Anthony Albanese will do in the name of their green faith. Thomson, the human services spokesman, has written to business chiefs declaring "global warming is happening, it is man-made, and it is not good for us." But, he sighs, "propaganda and misinformation" is being spread by "sceptics."

"I am writing to ask if your company has donated any money to the Institute of Public Affairs . . . or any other body which spreads misinformation or undermines the scientific consensus concerning global warming . . . If so, I request that your company cease such financial support."

This bid to shut down debate is scary enough in a likely minister in any Labor government. But it's worse when you see what Albanese, Labor's environment spokesman, considers to be the truth about global warming. This week he claimed Tuvalu, a Pacific island, "is expected to become uninhabitable within 10 years because of rising sea levels". In fact, our South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project has found the seas there have risen just 4.3mm a year recently, and a much longer record kept by the University of Hawaii shows an even smaller rise -- just 0.9mm a year. The project's report concludes: "Hence, even with 22 years of data the trend cannot be established without sizeable uncertainties."

No doubt this fact "undermines the scientific consensus concerning global warming". So what would Labor do to a scientist who says such a thing, or a business that publishes it?

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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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